wrinkled hand and holding it between her soft palms. "How glad papa must
be to know it! It almost seems like having him again. Must you go?
Good-night."
And, innocently, as if to her father, she held up her face for a kiss.
The professor turned red, turned pale, hesitated, faltered, and then
kissed her reverently on her forehead,--or, if the truth must be told,
on her soft, frizzled hair, which, according to the fashion of the day,
hung almost over her eyes.
Two evenings in the week after this were devoted to arithmetic. The
professor was firm--as a rule; but when her joyous "Oh, I see _exactly_
how it's done, now!" followed his patient reiteration of rules and
explanations, how could he help rewarding himself by a glance at the
glowing face? how could he keep his eyes permanently fixed upon that
stony-hearted slate?
So it went on through the winter and spring, till it was nearing the
time for the summer vacation. The professor knew only too well that
Rosamond had been invited to spend it with some distant
cousins,--distant in both senses of the word,--and that on her return
she would be swallowed up by the academy and would brighten the dingy
boarding-house no more. How could he bear it? His arid, silent life had
never had a song in it before. Must the song die out in silence?
When the last evening came, and when, realizing the long separation
before them, she once more held up her face for a kiss, with trembling
lips and blue eyes swimming in tears, as she told him how she should
miss him, how she did not see what she should do without him, his
hardly-won firmness was as chaff before the wind. He implored her to
marry him; he told her of the beautiful home he would make for her.
"For I am rich, Rosamond," he said hurriedly, before, in her surprise,
she could speak. "I have not cared for money, and I believe I have a
great deal. You shall do what you will with it, and with me. We will
travel: you shall see the Old World, with all its wonders. And I will
shield you: you shall never know a trouble or a care that I can take on
myself; for--I love you."
Then, as she remained silent, too much astonished to speak, he said
beseechingly,--
"You _do_ love me a little? You could not come to me as you do, with all
your little cares and perplexities, if you did not: could you?"
"But I came just so to papa," she said, finding voice at last; and her
childish face grew perplexed and troubled.
The professor had no answer for that. He hid his face in his hands. In a
moment her arms were about his neck, her kisses were falling on his
hands.
"You have been so good to me," she cried, "and I am making you unhappy,
ungrateful wretch that I am! Of course I love you; of course I will
marry you. Take away your hands and look at me--Paul!"
Ah, well! they tell in fairy-stories of the fountain of youth, and even
amid the briers of this work-a-day world it is found sometimes, I think,
by the divining-rod of Love. But many students gnashed their teeth, and,
as we have said, Miss Christina Eldridge alone, of all the dear five
hundred, said, "What possessed _him_?"
II.
The summer vacation was over, and students, more or less reluctantly,
had returned to college and academy. The professor came back in a
brand-new and very becoming suit of clothes; his hair and beard had been
trimmed by a fashionable barber, and his old-fashioned high "stock"
exchanged for a modern scarf, in the centre of which gleamed a modern
scarf-pin. He ran lightly up the steps of the academy and inquired for
Miss May. Courtesy, as his uneasy conscience told him, dictated an
inquiry for Miss Eldridge also, but he compounded with conscience: he
would ask to see her after he had seen Rosamond.
"Why, how very nice you look! You are really handsome!" And the
dignified professor was turned about, as if he had been a graven image,
by two soft little hands, which he caught in his own, and--so forth.
She was very sure now that she loved him, as in a certain sense she did.
But she would not consent to an immediate marriage, nor to the building
of a miniature palace for her reception. She owed it to Miss Eldridge,
she said, to fulfil her engagement and not to go away just as she was
beginning to be really useful. And as for a house, would it not be
pleasanter to live in lodgings and be free to come and go as they would?
So his wishes, as usual, were deferred to hers. The long fall evenings
began, and he brought, at her request, carefully-selected "improving"
books, to be interrupted, as he read, by earnest questions, such as,--
"_Would_ you embroider this linen dress with its own color or a
contrasting one, if you were me?"
Spring came again, and the professor, looking ten years younger than he
had looked a year ago, brought to his "rose of all the world" a bunch of
the first May roses.
"Oh, the lovely, lovely things!" she exclaimed delightedly. "You shall
have two kisses for them, Paul. Where _did_ they come from, so early in
May?"
"From the south side of the wall of an old garden which I used to weed
when I was a boy."
"Will you take me there? Is it near here?" she asked eagerly.
"I will take you there," he answered, "some day; but it is not near
here: it is more than a hundred miles away."
"And you sent all that way for them just for me? How good, how kind you
are! There, I will take two of the half-blown ones for my hat, and two
for my neck, and one for your button-hole--oh, yes, you shall! Hold
still till I pin it. Now just see how nice you look! And the rest I will
put in this glass, and then Miss Christina can enjoy them too; she's so
kind, and I can't do anything for her. Oh, that makes me think! I have
to go across the river this afternoon to hunt up a dress-maker she told
me about, a delightfully cheap and good one, and she said you would know
if there were any way of crossing anywhere near ---- Street, the bridge
is so far from where I want to go. Is there?"
"Yes," he replied, "there's a rather uncertain way: an old fellow who
owns a boat lives close by there, and if he's at home he will be only
too glad to row you over for a few cents. It would not make your walk
much longer to go round that way first and see. I have often crossed in
his boat, and I like to talk with him: he's an original character."
"Oh, that is charming!" she said delightedly. "Can't you come too? You
can sit and talk with him while I'm talking to the dress-maker."
"I wish I could," he answered, "but I promised to meet the president in
the college library at four, and--bless me! it only wants ten minutes of
it now. Try to get back by sunset, dear: the evenings are chilly yet."
"Yes, I will; I'm going right away," she said, with the deference to his
least wish which so often gave him a heartache. "You'll be in this
evening? Of course you will. Thank you so very, very much for the
roses."
She watched him go down the steps, waving her hand to him as she closed
the door, and then, with the roses still in her hat and at her throat,
walked toward the river-bank, whispering a gay little song to herself.
It was such a bright day! she was so glad "the winter was over and
gone!" how good and kind everybody was! how grateful she ought to be!
III.
"I wish," said Mr. Symington bitterly, "that I could find a commodious
desert island containing a first-class college and not a single girl. I
would have the island fortified, and death by slow torture inflicted
upon any woman who managed--as some of them would, in spite of all
precautions--to effect a landing."
"But the married girls are so stupid, my dear boy," ejaculated his
room-mate, Mr. Fielding. "You must admit that, if one must have either,
the single ones are decidedly preferable, or at least the young single
ones."
"Don't try to be funny," said Symington savagely: "you only succeed in
being weak. I have"--and he pulled out a note-book and glared at its
contents--"an engagement to take two to a concert this evening, other
two to a tennis-match on Saturday, and another one out rowing this
afternoon. And it's time for me to go now."
"It strikes me _you've_ been pretty middling weak," commented Fielding.
"Either that, or you're yarning tremendously about its being a bore: you
can take your choice."
"I leave it with you," said Symington wearily. "That Glover girl is
probably cooling her heels on the bank, and I must go."
"Alas, my brother! it is long since one of those Glover girls captured
me!"
The victim was a little late for his engagement, but no indignant Glover
girl lay in wait for him. The bank, green with the first soft grass of
spring, was deserted. Had she come and gone? He arranged himself
comfortably in the boat and began to sing, the balmy air and the
surroundings suggesting his song,--
Oh, hoi-ye-ho, ho-ye-ho, who's for the ferry?
and went through the first verse, beginning softly, but unconsciously
raising his voice as he went on, until, as he came to the second, he was
singing very audibly indeed, and Rosamond, standing on the bank, looking
uncertainly about her for the old boatman, was in time to hear,
She'd a rose in her bonnet, and, oh, she looked sweet
As the little pink flower that grows in the wheat,
With her cheeks like a rose and her lips like a cherry,--
"And sure and you're welcome to Twickenham town."
The curious feeling which makes one aware of being looked at caused him
to turn and look up as he finished the verse, and he longed for the
self-possession of his room-mate as he vainly struggled to think of
something to say which should not be utterly inane. He felt himself
blushing, but he was well aware that a blush on his sunburned face was
not so charmingly becoming as it was to the vision on the bank. It was
she who spoke at last, with the ghost of a smile accompanying her
speech.
"I beg your pardon," she said, "but I was told that I should probably
find an old man here who would row me across. Do you know where he's
gone?"
"He is--that is--I think--I believe he's gone to dinner," stammered this
usually inflexible advocate of truth.
And it did not occur to Rosamond to suggest that between four and five
in the afternoon was an unusual dinner-hour for a ferryman.
She looked very much disappointed, and turned as if to go.
"Won't you--may I--" eagerly stammered the youth, and added desperately,
"I'm here in his place," mentally explaining to an outraged conscience
that this was literally true, for was not his boat tied to a stake, and
must not that stake have been driven by the old man for _his_ boat? Dr.
Watts has told us that
Sinners who grow old in sin
Are hardened in their crimes,
and the hardening process must sometimes take place with fearful
rapidity, for when Rosamond, having guilelessly accepted the statement
and allowed the ferryman to help her to the broad cushioned seat in the
stern of the boat, asked innocently, "How much is it--for both ways, I
mean? for I want to come back, if you don't mind waiting a little," he
answered, with a look of becoming humility, "It is five cents, please."
"You mean for one way?" she inquired, as she fished a very small purse
up from the depths of her pocket.
And he, reflecting that two and a half cents for one way would have an
air of improbability about it, answered promptly, "Yes, if you please."
She opened her purse and introduced a thumb and finger, but she withdrew
them with a promptness and a look of horror upon her face which
suggested the presence of some noxious insect.
"You'll have to take me back, please," she said faintly. "I forgot to
put any money in my purse, and I've only just found it out."
"It is not of the least consequence," he began hurriedly, adding, in
business-like tones, "You can make it all right the next time, you know.
I suppose it will not be long before you cross again?"
"I don't know," she replied. "That depends upon whether or not I find--"
and then, remembering that the professor had gently cautioned her about
talking over her small affairs with any one but himself, she changed the
end of her sentence into "I have to. But I will bring you the money
to-morrow afternoon, if you will be here," she went on. "I am so ashamed
that I forgot it; and you're _very_ kind to trust me, when I'm such a
perfect stranger to you. Don't people ever cheat you?"
"Sometimes," replied the ferryman; "and I don't trust everybody. I go a
good deal by people's faces."
It did not seem to Rosamond that this remark required an answer, so she
sat silent, while his vigorous strokes sent the little boat swiftly
across the river, when he beached it, and, giving her his hand, helped
her to spring to dry ground. Then she said,--
"That's where I'm going,--that white house across the first street; and
I shall only be a few minutes."
"Don't hurry," he said, as she turned away. "I've nothing more to do
this evening after I take you back."
He really did forget for the moment the "other two" and the concert.
The blissful meditation which enwrapped him made the fifteen minutes of
her absence seem as five. She came down the bank, blushing and smiling.
"'And, oh, she looked sweet!'" mentally ejaculated the ferryman.
"Did I keep you long?" she said, as he helped her in. "I hurried as much
as I could. And if you, or the old man, will be here to-morrow at
half-past four, I should like to cross again: it saves me such a long
walk. And I'll be _sure_ to bring the money."
"You didn't keep me--that is, waiting--at all," he answered dreamily;
"and I'll be here at half-past four, sharp, to-morrow. You may depend on
me."
"Very well," she said contentedly, as she settled herself among the
cushions, which in her absence he had arranged for her greater comfort,
adding, "What a very nice boat you have! I don't see how you keep it so
neat and fresh, taking so many people across, and being out, as I
suppose you must be, in all sorts of weather."
"It's a new boat," he said hurriedly, "and you're my first passenger.
Would you mind telling me your name?--your first name I mean, of
course?"--for the horrible idea occurred to him that she might think he
was anxious about his fare. "I haven't named her yet, and I thought,
perhaps, _as_ you're my first fare, you'd let me name her after
you,--for luck, you know."
"Is that considered lucky?" she asked innocently, "If it is, of course
you may. My name is Rosamond; but it seems to me that's rather long for
a boat. Suppose you call her the Rose. Papa--my father, I mean--used to
call me that oftener than Rosamond, and--one or two other people do
yet."
"I don't think Rosamond would be too long," he said thoughtfully, "but
it shall be as you wish, of course. I will have 'Rose' painted on the
stern, and I can call her Rosamond to myself. May I have one of your
roses, just to--to remember it by, till I can see the painter?"
"Why, yes, I suppose so." And she unfastened one of the two at her
throat, and handed it to him.
He placed it carefully in his pocket-book, which, as she observed with
some surprise, was of the finest Russia leather. Ferrying must be
profitable work, to provide the ferryman with such boats and
pocket-books.
There was a brief silence, and then she said, "You were singing as I
came down the bank. Would you mind singing again? It sounds so pretty on
the water."
He made no answer in words, but presently his voice arose, softly at
first, and then with passionate fervor, and this time his song was,
"Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast!"
"Thank you; that was beautiful," said Rosamond calmly, as he finished
and the boat grazed the bank at one and the same moment. "What a good
voice you have! And you must have taken lessons, to sing so correctly:
haven't you?"
"Yes,--a few," he answered, springing from the boat and drawing it up on
the bank. She rose to follow him, but stopped short, with a little
exclamation of dismay.
"Why, this isn't where we ought to have landed!" she exclaimed. "It's a
place a mile farther down the river."
He looked very much confused.
"I have made some stupid blunder," he stammered. "I owe you a thousand
apologies, but I was singing, and I suppose I passed the landing without
noticing it. I will not keep you long, though. I can row back in ten
minutes."
"I oughtn't to have asked you to sing when you were rowing," she said
remorsefully. "I'm so sorry you should have all that extra work."
"Oh, I don't mind that," he said, trying to speak coolly, "if the delay
won't incommode you."
"No," she said. "We shall be back before dark, and that will be time
enough. I _shouldn't_ like to have to walk home after dark."
Eager words rose to the ferryman's lips, but he wisely suppressed them,
bending to his oars till the little boat sprang through the water.
The sun dropped into the river, allowing the faintly-traced sickle of
the new moon to show, as the boat once more touched land,--at the right
place this time.
Rosamond tripped up the bank, with a friendly "Good-evening," and at the
top she met the professor. "Oh, how nice of you to come and meet me!"
she cried, slipping her hand through his arm. "It grows dark so quickly
after the sun goes down that I was beginning to be just a little
scared."
"I would have been here an hour ago," he said, "but the president kept
me. I called at Miss Eldridge's, thinking to find you returned, and
then, when she said you were still absent, I hurried down here, feeling
unaccountably disquieted. It was absurd, of course. But were you not
detained longer than you anticipated?"
"No, it wasn't absurd," she said, clasping her other hand over his arm
and giving it a little squeeze. The spring dusk had fallen around them
like a veil by this time, and they were still a little way from any
much-travelled street.
"It wasn't absurd _at all_," she repeated "there's nobody but you to
care whether I come in or go out, and I like you to be worried,--just a
little, I mean,--not enough to make you, really wretched. I've had the
funniest time! The old man wasn't there, and I was turning back, quite
disappointed, when a young man,--quite young, and very nice
looking,--who was singing in a foolish sort of way in a pretty little
boat tied to a stake, said he was there in the old boatman's place, and
asked me to go with him; and I went. At first I was puzzled, for he
looked like a gentleman in most respects, and I didn't think he could be
the son of the old man you told me about; but the longer I was with him
the more I saw that there was something queer about him. He was very
kind and polite, but had a sort of abrupt, startled manner, as if he
were afraid of something, and I came to the conclusion that he must be a
harmless insane person, and that they let him have the ferry because
there isn't anything else much that he could do. He had a most lovely
little boat, all cushioned at one end, and he rowed beautifully."
"But it was not safe," said the professor, in alarm. "If a man be ever
so slightly insane, there is no telling what form his insanity will
take: he might have imagined you to be inimical to him, and have thrown
you overboard." And Rosamond felt a nervous tremor through the arm upon
which she leaned. She laughed heartily.
"You'd not feel that way if you could see him, dear," she said. "He's
as gentle as a lamb, and a little sheepish into the bargain. And I
promised to let him row me over to-morrow afternoon at half-past four.
Indeed, there's no danger. The only really queer thing he did was to
carry me a mile down the river; and that was my fault, for I asked him
to sing again. He has a delightful voice, and he sang that song you like
so much,--'Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast!'--and while he was singing
he missed the landing. But he apologized, and rowed me back like
lightning: so it really didn't matter,--especially as you met me, like
the dear that you are."
If a member of the professor's class had used the figures of speech too
frequently employed by Rosamond, he would have received a dignified
rebuke for "hyperbolical and inelegant language;" but it never occurred
to the deluded man that anything but pearls of thought and diamonds of
speech could fall from those rosy lips.
"I prefer, however, that you should run no risk, however slight, my
Rose," said the professor, so gently that the words were more an
entreaty than a command.
"But I don't see how I can help it," she said, in dismayed tones, "for I
did such a dreadful thing that I shouldn't tell you of it if I hadn't
firmly made up my mind to tell you everything. I think
engaged--and--and--married people always ought to do that. I forgot to
take any money, and it was ten cents there and back, you know; and he
was so kind and polite about trusting me. I wanted him to take me back
as soon as I found it out, but he said he would trust me, that I could
bring it to him next time; and I promised to go to-morrow and pay him
for both trips at once: so, you see, I _must_."
"Very well," said the professor, after a moment's thought. "I do not
wish you to break your word, of course: so I will go with you. I can
have a little talk with this unfortunate young man while you are engaged
with your dress-maker, and perhaps his condition may be ameliorated. He
could surely engage in some more remunerative occupation than that which
he is at present pursuing; and there are institutions, you know, where
much light has been thrown upon darkened minds."
"How good, how kind you are!" she cried, her sweet eyes filling with
happy tears, unseen in the gathering darkness. "You're sure you've made
up your mind not to be disappointed when you find out just how foolish
and trifling I really am?" she asked timidly.
The professor's answer need not be recorded. It was satisfactory.
It is a curious thing that the "sixth sense," which draws our thoughts
to long-forgotten friends just before we hear from them, which leads our
eyes to meet other eyes fixed earnestly upon them, which enables people
to wake other people by staring at them, and does a variety of similar
things, admitted, but not accounted for, fails to warn the victims of
approaching fate. Serenely, blissfully, did Mr. Symington wend his way
to the bank on that golden afternoon. It had occurred to him to exchange
his faultless and too expensive boating-costume for a cheap jersey and
trousers; but he feared that this might excite suspicion: he had still
sense enough left to be aware that there had been no shadow of this in
the sweet blue eyes yesterday.
He had not sung
She'd a rose in her bonnet, and, oh, she looked sweet!
more than five hundred times since the previous evening: so, by way of
variety, he was humming it softly to himself as he approached the bank.
He was a little early, of course. She had not come yet. So he dusted the
cushions, and sponged up a few drops of water from the bottom of the
boat, and then sat down to wait. He was not kept waiting long. He heard
voices approaching, then a clear, soft laugh, and she was there;
but--oh, retribution!--with her, supporting her on his arm, was
Professor Silex! Wild thoughts of leaping into the river and
swimming--under water--to the opposite bank passed through the brain of
this victim of his own duplicity; but he checked himself sternly,--he
was proposing to himself to act the part of a coward, and before her, of
all the world. No, he would face the music, were it the "Rogue's March"
itself. And then a faint, a very faint hope sprang up in his heart: the
professor was noted for his absent-mindedness: perhaps there would be no
recognition. Vain delusion.
"Your boatman has not kept his appointment," said the professor,
advancing inexorably down the bank; "but I see a member of my class--an
unusually promising young man--with whom I wish to speak. Will you
excuse me for a moment?"
Rosamond turned her puzzled face from one to the other, finally
ejaculating, "Why, _that's_ the ferryman!"
"There is some mistake here," said the professor, unaware of the
sternness of his tones.
They had continued to advance as they spoke, and the ferryman could not
avoid hearing the last words. He sprang from the boat and up the bank
with the expression of a whole forlorn hope storming an impregnable
fortress, and spoke before the professor could ask a question.
"I beg your pardon, Professor Silex," he said; "there is no mistake.
Miss--this lady, who is, I imagine, Miss May" (the professor bowed
gravely), "was looking yesterday for the old man who acts as ferryman
here sometimes. He was absent, and, seeing that Miss May seemed
disturbed, I volunteered to take his place. It gave me great pleasure to
be of even that small amount of use."