THE ROSE OF GLENGARY.
Redbud rose, smiling, and with the gentle simplicity of one child to
another, said:
"Oh! you ought not to have said that about cousin Lavinia,
Verty--ought you?"
Verty looked guilty.
"I don't think I ought," he said.
"You know she is very sensitive about this."
"Anan?" Verty said, smiling.
Redbud looked gently at the young man, and replied:
"I mean, she does not like any one to speak of it?"
"Why?" said Verty.
"Because--because--engaged people are so funny!"
And Redbud's silver laughter followed the words.
"Are they?" Verty said.
"Yes, indeed."
Verty nodded.
"Next time I will be more thoughtful," he said; "but I think I ought
to have answered honestly."
Redbud shook her curls with a charming little expression of affected
displeasure.
"Oh, no! no!"
"Not answer?"
"Certainly not, sir--fie! in the cause of ladies!"
Verty laughed.
"I understand," he said, "you are thinking of the books about the
knights--the old Froissart, yonder, in four volumes. But you know
there were'nt any courts in those days, and knights were not obliged
to answer."
Redbud, training up a drooping vine, replied, laughing:
"Oh, no--I was only jesting. Don't mind my nonsense. Look at that
pretty morning-glory."
Verty looked at Redbud, as if she were the object in question.
"You will hurt your hand," he said,--"those thorns on the briar are so
sharp; take care!"
And Verty grasped the vine, and, no doubt, accidentally, Redbud's hand
with it.
"Now I have it," he said; and suddenly seeing the double meaning of
his words, the young man added, with a blush and a smile, "it is all I
want in the world."
"What? the--oh!"
And Miss Redbud, suddenly aware of Mr. Verty's meaning, finds her
voice rather unsafe, and her cheeks covered with blushes. But with
the tact of a grown woman, she applies herself to the defeat of her
knight; and, turning away, says, as easily as possible:
"Oh, yes--the thorn; it is a pretty vine; take care, or it will hurt
your hand."
Verty feels astounded at his own boldness, but says, with his dreamy
Indian smile:
"Oh, no, I don't want the thorn--the rose!--the rose!"
Redbud understands that this is only a paraphrase--after the Indian
fashion--for her own name, and blushes again.
"We--were--speaking of cousin Lavinia," she says, hesitatingly.
Verty sighs.
"Yes," he returns.
Redbud smiles.
"And I was scolding you for replying to papa's question," she adds.
Verty sighs again, and says:
"I believe you were right; I don't think I could have told them what
we were talking about."
"Why?" asks the young girl.
"We were talking about you," says Verty, gazing at Redbud tenderly;
"and you will think me very foolish," adds Verty, with a tremor in
his voice; "but I was asking Mr. Roundjacket if he thought you
could--love--me--O, Redbud--"
Verty is interrupted by the appearance of Miss Lavinia.
Redbud turns away, blushing, and overwhelmed with confusion.
Miss Lavinia comes to the young man, and holds out her hand.
"I did not mean to hurt your feelings, just now, Verty," she says,
"pardon me if I made you feel badly. I was somewhat nettled, I
believe."
And having achieved this speech, Miss Lavinia stiffens again into
imposing dignity, sails away into the house, and disappears, leaving
Verty overwhelmed with surprise.
He feels a hand laid upon his arm;--a blushing face looks frankly and
kindly into his own.
"Don't let us talk any more in that way, Verty, please," says the
young girl, with the most beautiful frankness and ingenuousness; "we
are friends and playmates, you know; and we ought not to act toward
each other as if we were grown gentleman and lady. Please do not; it
will make us feel badly, I am sure. I am only Redbud, you know, and
you are Verty, my friend and playmate. Shall I sing you one of our old
songs?"
The soft, pure voice sounded in his ears like some fine melody of
olden poets--her frank, kind eyes, as she looked at him, soothed and
quieted him. Again, she was the little laughing star of his childhood,
as when they wandered about over the fields--little children--that
period so recent, yet which seemed so far away, because the opening
heart lives long in a brief space of time. Again, she was to him
little Redbud, he to her was the boy-playmate Verty. She had done all
by a word--a look; a kind, frank smile, a single glance of confiding
eyes. He loved her more than ever--yes, a thousand times more
strongly, and was calm.
He followed her to the harpsichord, and watched her in every movement,
with quiet happiness; he seemed to be under the influence of a charm.
"I think I will try and sing the 'Rose of Glengary,'" she said,
smiling; "you know, Verty, it is one of the old songs you loved so
much, and it will make us think of old times--in childhood, you know;
though that is not such old, _old_ time--at least for me," added
Redbud, with a smile, more soft and confiding than before. "Shall I
sing it? Well, give me the book--the brown-backed one."
The old volume--such as we find to-day in ancient country-houses--was
opened, and Redbud commenced singing. The girl sang the sweet ditty
with much expression; and her kind, touching voice filled the old
homestead with a tender melody, such as the autumn time would utter,
could its spirit become vocal. The clear, tender carol made the place
fairy-land for Verty long years afterwards, and always he seemed to
hear her singing when he visited the room. Redbud sang afterwards more
than one of those old ditties--"Jock o' Hazeldean," and "Flowers of
the Forest," and many others--ditties which, for us to-day, seem like
so many utterances of the fine old days in the far past.
For, who does not hear them floating above those sweet fields of the
olden time--those bright Hesperian gardens, where, for us at least,
the fruits are all golden, and the airs all happy?
Beautiful, sad ditties of the brilliant past! not he who writes would
have you lost from memory, for all the modern world of music. Kind
madrigals! which have an aroma of the former day in all your cadences
and dear old fashioned trills--from whose dim ghosts now, in the faded
volumes stored away in garrets and on upper shelves, we gather what
you were in the old immemorial years! Soft melodies of another age,
that sound still in the present with such moving sweetness, one
heart at least knows what a golden treasure you clasp, and listens
thankfully when you deign to issue out from silence; for he finds in
you alone--in your gracious cadences, your gay or stately voices--what
he seeks; the life, and joy, and splendor of the antique day sacred to
love and memory!
And Verty felt the nameless charm of the good old songs, warbled by
the young girl's sympathetic voice; and more than once his wild-wood
nature stirred within him, and his eyes grew moist. And when she
ceased, and the soft carol went away to the realm of silence, and was
heard no more, the young man was a child again; and Redbud's hand was
in his own, and all his heart was still.
The girl rose, with a smile, and said that they had had quite enough
of the harpsichord and singing--the day was too beautiful to spend
within doors. And so she ran gaily to the door, and as she reached it,
uttered a gay exclamation. Ralph and Fanny were seen approaching from
the gate.