"'By cool Siloam's shady rill
The lily must decay;
The rose that blooms beneath the hill
Must shortly pass away.'"
The melancholy of this was interesting; at the same time it reminded her
that she was lonely. After repeating, "Must shortly pass away," her eyes
unexpectedly filled with tears.
"Now I am not going to cry," she said sternly, and by way of carrying out
this resolve she again closed her eyes tight. It was desperately hard
work, and she could not have told whether two minutes or ten had passed
when she was startled by an odd, guttural voice close to her asking,
"What is the matter, little girl?"
If the voice was strange, the figure she saw when she looked up was
stranger still. A gaunt old man in a suit of rusty black, with straggling
gray hair and beard, stood holding his hat in his hand, gazing at her with
eyes so bright they made her uneasy.
"Nothing," she answered, rising hastily.
But the visitor continued to stand there and smile at her, shaking his
head and repeating, "Mustn't cry."
"I am not crying," Rosalind insisted, glancing over her shoulder to make
sure of a way of escape.
With a long, thin finger this strange person now pointed toward the house,
saying something she understood to be an inquiry for Miss Herbert.
Miss Herbert was the housekeeper, and Rosalind knew she was at church; but
when she tried to explain, the old man shook his head, and taking from his
pocket a tablet with a pencil attached, he held it out to her, touching
his ear as he uttered the one word "Deaf."
Rosalind understood she was to write her answer, and somewhat flurried she
sat down on the edge of the bench and with much deliberation and in large
clear letters conveyed the information, "She is out."
The old man looked at the tablet and then at Rosalind, bowing and smiling
as if well pleased. "You'll tell her I'm going to the city to-morrow?" he
asked.
There was something very queer in the way he opened his mouth and used his
tongue, Rosalind thought, as she nodded emphatically, feeling that this
singular individual had her at an unfair advantage. At least she would
find out who he was, and so, as she still held the tablet, she wrote,
"What is your name?"
He laughed as if this were a joke, and searching in his pocket, produced a
card which he presented with a bow. On it was printed "C.J. Morgan,
Cabinet Work."
"What is your name?" he asked.
Rosalind hesitated. She was not sure it at all concerned this stranger to
know her name, but as he stood smiling and waiting, she did not know how
to refuse; so she bent over the tablet, her yellow braid falling over her
shoulder, as she wrote, "Rosalind Patterson Whittredge."
"Mr. Pat's daughter?" There was a twinkle in the old man's eye, and
surprise and delight in his voice.
Rosalind sprang up, her own eyes shining. "How stupid of me!" she cried.
"Why, you must be the magician, and you have a funny old shop, where
father used to play when he was little. Oh, I hope you will let me come to
see you!" Suddenly remembering the tablet, she looked at it despairingly.
She couldn't write half she wished to say.
Morgan, however, seemed to understand pretty clearly, to judge from the
way he laughed and asked if Mr. Pat was well.