Down World by Rebecca Phelps (best new books to read .txt) 📕

and crown it with new glory by sitting for a moment in its unpretentious shade. If your brother comes down, as I hope he will, next week, I shall beg him to come and write a poem here. The place is fitter for a poet than a prosy vagabond like me.”

“It is very hard that you should be a—a wanderer, I mean,” Dolly answered, looking at him with a sweet thrill of pity; “you have done nothing to deserve it. How unfairly fortune has always treated you!”

“Fortune could make me a thousand times more than the just compensation even now, if she would. Such a glorious return for all my bitter losses and outcast condition, that I should—but it is useless to think of such things, in my low state. The fates have been hard with me, but never shall they boast that they drove me from my pure sense of honour. Oh yes, it is damp. But let me cure it thus.”

For Dolly, growing anxious about his meaning, yet ready to think about another proposal, was desirous to sit down on the sweet ledge of grass, yet uneasy about her pale blue sarsenet, and uncertain that she had not seen something of a little sea-snail (living in a yellow house, dadoed with red), whom to crush would be a cruel act to her dainty fabric. But if he was there, he was sat upon unavenged; for Carne, pulling off his light buff cloak, flung it on the seat; after which the young lady could scarcely be rude enough not to sit.

“Oh, I am so sorry now! Perhaps it will be spoiled,” she said; “for you say that the fates are against you always. And I am sure that they always combine against me, when I wear anything of that colour.”

“I am going the wrong way to work,” thought Carne. “What a little vixen it is; but what a beauty!” For his love for her was chiefly a man's admiration. And bodily she looked worthy now of all that could be done in that way, with the light flowing in through the budded arch and flashing upon the sweet flush of her cheeks. Carne gazed at her without a word or thought, simply admiring, as he never had admired anything, except himself, till now. Then she felt all the meaning of his gaze, and turned away.

“But you must look at me and tell me something,” he said, in a low voice, and taking both her hands; “you shall tell me what my fate must be. Whether you can ever come to love me, as I have loved you, long and long.”

“You have no right to speak to me like that,” she answered, still avoiding his eyes, and striving to show proper anger; “no gentleman would think of taking advantage of a lady so.”

“I care not what is right or wrong. Look up, and tell me that you hate me. Dolly, I suppose you do.”

“Then you are quite wrong”—she gave him one bright glance of contradiction; “no. I have always been so sorry for you, and for all your troubles. You must not ask me to say more.”

“But I must; I must. That is the very thing that I must do. Only say that you love me, Dolly. Dolly darling, tell me that. Or let your lovely eyes say it for you.”

“My lovely eyes must not tell stories”—they were gazing softly at him now—“and I don't think I can say it—yet.”

“But you will—you shall!” he exclaimed, with passion growing as he drew her near; “you shall not slip from me, you shall not stir, until you have answered me one question—is there anybody else, my Dolly?”

“You frighten me. You forget who I am. Of course there are a great many else, as you call it; and I am not to be called, for a moment, YOUR DOLLY.”

“No, not for a moment, but forever.” Carne was accustomed to the ways of girls, and read all their words by the light of their eyes. “Your little heart begins to know who loves it better than all the world put together. And for that reason I will leave you now. Farewell, my darling; I conquer myself, for the sake of what is worth a thousand of it.”

Dolly was in very sad confusion, and scarcely knew what she might do next—that is to say, if he still went on. Pleasant conceit and bright coquetry ill supply the place of honest pride and gentle self-respect, such as Faith was blest with. Carne might have kissed Dolly a hundred times, without much resistance, for his stronger will had mastered hers; but she would have hated him afterwards. He did not kiss her once; and she almost wished that he had offered one—one little tribute of affection (as the Valentines express it)—as soon as he was gone, and the crisis of not knowing what to do was past. “I should have let him—I believe I should,” she reflected, sagely recovering herself; “but how glad I ought to be that he didn't! And I do hope he won't come back again. The next time I meet him, I shall sink into the earth.”

For her hat had fallen off, and her hair was out of order, and she saw two crinkles near the buckle of her waist; and she had not so much as a looking-glass to be sure that she looked nice again. With a heavy sigh for all these woes, she gathered a flossy bud of willow, and fixed it on her breast-knot, to defy the world; and then, without heed of the sea, sun, or sands, went home with short breath, and quick blushes, and some wonder; for no man's arm, except her father's, had ever been round her waist till now.