"You may depend upon me," says Rodney, lifting his hat, and respecting the elder man's care for the well-being of his beloved, even in the midst of his own immediate danger. Then, in another moment, Maxwell has turned his horse's head, and is soon out of sight.
The whole scene is at an end. A life has been saved. And they two, Mona and Geoffrey, are once more alone beneath the "earnest stars."
"Take me down," says Mona, wearily, turning to her lover, as the last faint ring of the horse's feet dies out on the breeze.
"You are tired," says he, tenderly.
"A little, now it is all over. Yet I must make great haste homeward. Uncle Brian will be uneasy about me if he discovers my absence, though he knew I was going to the Bay. Come, we must hurry."
So in silence, but hand in hand, they move back through the dewy meads, meeting no one until they reach the little wooden gate that leads to her home.
Here they behold the faithful Biddy, craning her long neck up and down the road, and filled with wildest anxiety.
"Oh, may I niver agin see the light," cries this excitable damsel, rushing out to Mona, "if I iver hoped to lay eyes on yer face again! Where were ye at all, darlin'? An' I breakin' me heart wid fear for ye. Did ye know Tim Ryan was out to-night? When I heerd tell of that from that boy of the Cantys', I thought I'd have dhropped. 'Tis no good he's up to. Come in, asthore: you must be near kilt with the cowld."
"No; I am quite warm," says Mona, in a low, sad tone.
"'Tis I've bin prayin' for ye," says Biddy, taking her mistress's hand and kissing it fondly. "On me bended knees I was with the blessid beads for the last two hours. An' shure I've had me reward, now I see ye safe home agin. But indeed, Miss Mona, 'tis a sore time I've had uv it."
"And Uncle Brian?" asks Mona, fearfully.
"Oh, I got the ould man to bed hours ago; for I knew if he stayed up that he'd get mortial wearin', an' be the death of us if he knew ye were out so late. An' truth to say, Miss Mona," changing her tone from one of extreme joy and thankfulness to another of the deepest censure, "'twas the world an' all of bad behavior to be galavantin' out at this hour."
"The night was so lovely,—so mild," says Mona, faintly, concealment in any form being new to her, and very foreign to her truthful nature; "and I knew Mickey would tell you it was all right."
"An' what brought him home, the murdherin' scamp," says Miss Bridget, with more vehemence than politeness, "instid of stayin' wid ye to see ye came to no harm?"
"He had to see the mare made up, and the pigs fed," says Mona.
"Is that what he towld ye? Oh, the blaggard!" says Bridget. "An' nary sign did he do since his return, but sit be the fire an' smoke his dhudheen. Oh, be the powers of Moll Kelly, but I'll pay him out for his lies? He's soakin' it now, anyhow, as I sint him up to the top of the hill agin, to see what had become of ye."
"Bridget," says Mona, "will you go in and get me a cup of tea before I go to bed? I am tired."
"I will, darlin', shurely," says Bridget, who adores the ground she walks on; and then, turning, she leaves her. Mona lays her hand on Geoffrey's arm.
"Promise me you will not go back to Coolnagurtheen to-night?" she says, earnestly. "At the inn, down in the village, they will give you a bed."
"But, my dearest, why? There is not the slightest danger now, and my horse is a good one, and I sha'n't be any time getting——"
"I won't hear of it!" says Mona, interrupting him vehemently. "You would have to go upthat roadagain," with a strong shudder. "I shall not go indoors until you give me your honor you will stay in the village to-night."
Seeing the poor child's terrible fear and anxiety, and that she is completely overwrought, he gives way, and lets her have the desired promise.
"Now, that is good of you," she says, gratefully, and then, as he stoops to kiss her, she throws her arms around his neck and bursts into tears.
"You are worn out, my love, my sweetheart," says Geoffrey, very tenderly, speaking to her as though she is in years the child that, in her soul, she truly is. "Come, Mona, you will not cry on this night of all others that has made me yours and you mine! If this thought made you as happy as it makes me, youcouldnot cry. Now lift your head, and let me look at you. There! you have given yourself to me, darling, and there is a good life, I trust, before us; so let us dwell on that, and forget all minor evils. Together we can defy trouble!"
"Yes, that is a thought to dry all tears," she says, very sweetly, checking her sobs and raising her face, on which is dawning an adorable smile. Then, sighing heavily,—a sigh of utter exhaustion,—"You have done me good," she says. "I shall sleep now; and you my dearest, will be safe. Good-night until to-morrow!"
"How many hours there are in the night that we never count!" says Geoffrey, impatiently. "Good-night, Mona! To-morrow's dawn I shall call my dearest friend."
Time, with lovers, "flies with swallows' wings;" they neither feel nor heed it as it passes, so all too full of haste the moments seem. They are to them replete with love and happiness and sweet content. To-day is an accomplished joy, and to-morrow will dawn for no other purpose but to bring them together. So they think and so they believe.
Rodney has interviewed the old man, her uncle; has told him of his great and lasting love for this pearl among women; has described in a very few words, and without bombast, his admiration for Mona; and Brian Scully (though with sufficient national pride to suppress all undue delight at the young man's proposal) has given a hearty consent to their union, and is in reality flattered and pleased beyond measure at this match for "his girl." For, no matter how the Irish may rebel against landlordism and aristocracy in general, deep down in their hearts lies rooted an undying fealty to old blood.
To his mother, however, he has sent no word of Mona, knowing only too well how the news of his approaching marriage with this "outer barbarian" (as she will certainly deem his darling) will be received. It is not cowardice that holds his pen, as, were all the world to kneel at his feet and implore him or bribe him to renounce his love, all such pleading and bribing would be in vain. It is that, knowing argument to be useless, he puts off the evil hour that may bring pain to his mother to the last moment.
When she knows Mona she will love her,—who could help it? so he argues; and for this reason he keeps silence until such time as, his marriage being afait accompli, hopeless expostulation will be of no avail, and will, therefore, be suppressed.
Meanwhile, the hours go by "laden with golden grain." Every day makes Mona dearer and more dear, her sweet and guileless nature being one calculated to create, with growing knowledge, an increasing admiration and tenderness. Indeed, each happy afternoon spent with her serves but to forge another link in the chain that binds him to her.
To-day is "so cool, so calm, so bright," that Geoffrey's heart grows glad within him as he walks along the road that leads to the farm, his gun upon his shoulder, his trusty dog at his heels.
All through the air the smell of heather, sweet and fragrant, reigns. Far down, miles away, the waves rush inland, glinting and glistening in the sunlight.
"Blue roll the waters, blue the skySpreads like an ocean hung on high."
"Blue roll the waters, blue the skySpreads like an ocean hung on high."
The birds, as though once more led by the balmy mildness of the day into the belief that summer has not yet forsaken them, are singing in the topmost branches of the trees, from which, with every passing breeze, the leaves fall lightly.
From the cabins pale wreaths of smoke rise slowly, scarce stirred by the passing wind. Going by one of these small tenements, before which the inevitable pig is wallowing in an unsavory pool, a voice comes to him, fresh and joyous, and plainly full of pleasure, that thrills through his whole being. It is to him what no other voice ever has been, or ever can be again. It is Mona's voice!
Again she calls to him from within.
"Is it you?" she says. "Come in here, Geoffrey. I want you."
How sweet it is to be wanted by those we love! Geoffrey, lowering his gun, stoops and enters the lowly cabin (which, to say the truth, is rather uninviting than otherwise) with more alacrity than he would show if asked to enter the queen's palace. Yet what is a palace but the abode of a sovereign? and for the time being, at least, Rodney's sovereign is in possession of this humble dwelling. So it becomes sacred, and almost desirable, in his eyes.
She is sitting before a spinning-wheel, and is deftly drawing the wool through her fingers; brown little fingers they are, but none the less dear in his sight.
"I'm here," she cries, in the glad happy tones that have been ringing their changes in his heart all day.
An old crone is sitting over a turf fire that glows and burns dimly in its subdued fashion. Hanging over it is a three-legged pot, in which boil the "praties" for the "boys'" dinners, who will be coming home presently from their work.
"What luck to find you here," says Geoffrey, stooping over the industrious spinner, and (after the slightest hesitation) kissing her fondly in spite of the presence of the old woman, who is regarding them with silent curiosity, largely mingled with admiration. The ancient dame sees plainly nothing strange in this embrace of Geoffrey's but rather something sweet and to be approved. She smiles amiably, and nods her old head, and mumbles some quaint Irish phrase about love and courtship and happy youth, as though the very sight of these handsome lovers fills her withered breast with glad recollections of bygone days, when she, too, had her "man" and her golden hopes. For deep down in the hearts of all the sons and daughters of Ireland, whether they be young or old, is a spice of romance living and inextinguishable.
Rising, the old dame takes a chair, dusts it, and presents it to the stranger, with a courtesy and a wish that he will make himself welcome. Then she goes back again to the chimney-corner, and taking up the bellows, blows the fire beneath the potatoes, turning her back in this manner upon the young people with a natural delicacy worthy of better birth and better education.
Mona, who has blushed rosy red at his kiss, is now beaming on her lover, and has drawn back her skirts to admit of his coming a little closer to her. He is not slow to avail himself of this invitation, and is now sitting with his arm thrown across the back of the wooden chair that holds Mona, and with eyes full of heartfelt gladness fixed upon her.
"You look like Marguerite. A very lovely Marguerite," says Geoffrey, idly, gazing at her rather dreamily.
"Except that my hair is rolled up, and is too dark, isn't it? I have read about her, and I once saw a picture of Marguerite in the Gallery in Dublin, and it was very beautiful. I remember it brought tears to my eyes, and Aunt Anastasia said I was too fanciful to be happy. Her story is a very sad one, isn't it?"
"Very. And you are not a bit like her, after all," says Geoffrey, with sudden compunction, "because you are going to be as happy as the days are long, if I can make you so."
"One must not hope for perfect happiness on this earth," says Mona, gravely; "but at least I know," with a soft and trusting glance at him, "I shall be happier than most people."
"What a darling you are!" says Rodney, in a low tone; and then something else follows, that, had she seen it, would have caused the weatherbeaten old person at the fire another thrill of tender recollection.
"What are you doing?" asks Geoffrey, presently, when they have returned to everyday life.
"I am spinning flax for Betty, because she has rheumatism in her poor shoulder, and can do nothing, and this much flax must be finished by a certain time. I have nearly got through my portion now," says Mona; "and then we can go home."
"When I bring you to my home," says Geoffrey, "I shall have you painted just in that gown, and with a spinning-wheel before you; and it shall be hung in the gallery among the other—very inferior—beauties."
"Where?" says Mona, looking up quickly.
"Oh! at home, you know," says Mr. Rodney, quickly, discovering his mistake. For the moment he had forgotten his former declaration of poverty, or, at least, his consenting silence, when she had asked him about it.
"In the National Gallery, do you mean?" asks Mona, with a pretty, puzzled frown on her brow. "Oh, no, Geoffrey; I shouldn't like that at all. To be stared at by everybody,—it wouldn't be nice, would it?"
Rodney laughs, in an inward fashion, biting his lip and looking down.
"Very well; you sha'n't be put there," he says. "But nevertheless you must be prepared for the fact that you will undoubtedly be stared at by the common herd, whether you are in the National Gallery or out of it."
"But why?" says Mona, trying to read his face. "Am I so different from other people?"
"Very different," says Rodney.
"That is what I am afraid of always," says Mona, a little wistfully.
"Don't be afraid. It is quite the correct thing to be eccentric nowadays. One is nowhere if not bizarre," says Rodney, laughing; "so I dare say you will find yourself the very height of fashion."
"Now I think you are making fun of me," says Mona, smiling sweetly; and, lifting her hand, she pinches his ear lightly, and very softly, lest she should hurt him.
Here the old woman at the fire, who has been getting up and down from her three-legged stool during the past few minutes, and sniffing at the pot in an anxious manner, gives way to a loud sigh of relief. Lifting the pot from its crook, she lays it on the earthen floor.
Then she strains the water from it, and looks with admiration upon its steaming contents. "The murphies" (as, I fear, she calls the potatoes) are done to a turn.
"Maybe," says Betty Corcoran, turning in a genial fashion to Mona and Geoffrey, "ye'd ate a pratie, would ye, now? They're raal nice an' floury. Ye must be hungry, Miss Mona, afther all the work ye've gone through; an' if you an' your gintleman would condescind to the like of my dinner, 'tis ready for ye, an' welcome ye are to it. Do, now!" heartily. "The praties is gran' this year,—praises be for all mercies. Amen."
"Theydolook nice," says Mona, "and Iamhungry. If we won't be a great trouble to you, Betty," with graceful Hesitation, "I think we should like some."
"Arrah! throuble is it?" says Betty, scornfully. "Tisn't throuble I'm thinkin' of anyway, when you're by."
"Will you have something to eat Geoffrey?" says Mona.
"Thank you," says Geoffrey, "but——"
"Yes, do, alannah!" says the old lady, standing with one hand upon her hips and the other holding tightly a prodigious "Champion." "'Twill set ye up afther yer walk."
"Then, thank you, Mrs. Corcoran, Iwillhave a potato," says Rodney, gratefully, honest hunger and the knowledge that it will please Mona to be friendly with "her people," as she calls them, urging him on. "I'm as hungry as I can be," he says.
"So ye are, bless ye both!" says old Betty, much delighted, and forthwith, going to her dresser, takes down two plates, and two knives and forks, of pattern unknown and of the purest pot-metal, after which she once more returns to the revered potatoes.
Geoffrey, who would be at any moment as polite to a dairymaid as to a duchess, follows her, and, much to her discomfort,—though she is too civil to say so,—helps her to lay the table. He even insists on filling a dish with the potatoes, and having severely burned his fingers, and having nobly suppressed all appearance of pain,—beyond the dropping of two or three of the esculent roots upon the ground,—brings them in triumph to the spot where Mona is sitting.
"It might be that ye'd take a dhrop of new milk, too," says Betty, "on hospitable thoughts intent," placing before her visitors a little jug of milk she has all day been keeping apart, poor soul! for her own delectation.
Not knowing this, Mona and Geoffrey (whose flask is empty) accept the proffered milk, and make merry over their impromptu feast, while in the background, the old woman smiles upon them and utters little kindly sentences.
Ten minutes later, having bidden their hostess a hearty farewell, they step out into the open air and walk towards the farm.
"You have never told me how many people are in your house?" says Mona, presently. "Tell me now. I know about your mother, and," shyly, "about Nicholas; but is there any one else?"
"Well, Jack is home by this time, I suppose,—that's my second brother; at least he was expected yesterday; and Violet Mansergh is very often there; and as a rule, you know, there is always somebody; and that's all."
The description is graphic, certainly.
"Is—is Violet Mansergh a pretty girl?" asks Mona, grasping instinctively at the fact that any one called Violet Mansergh may be a possible rival.
"Pretty? No. But she dresses very swagger, and always looks nice, and is generally correct all through," replies Mr. Rodney, easily.
"I know," says Mona, sadly.
"She's the girl my mother wanted me to marry, you know," goes on Rodney, unobservant, as men always are, of the small signals of distress hung out by his companion.
"Oh, indeed!" says Mona; and then, with downcast eyes, "but Idon'tknow, because you never told me before."
"I thought I did," says Geoffrey, waking slowly to a sense of the situation.
"Well, you didn't," says Mona. "Are you engaged to her?"
"If I was, how could I ask you to marry me?" returns he, in a tone so hurt that she grows abashed.
"I hope she isn't in love with you," she says, slowly.
"You may bet anything you like on that," says Geoffrey, cheerfully. "She cares for me just about as much as I care for her,—which means exactly nothing."
"I am very glad," says Mona, in a low tone.
"Why, Mona?"
"Because I could not bear to think any one was made unhappy by me. It would seem as though some evil eye was resting on our love," says Mona, raising her thoughtful, earnest eyes to his. "It must be a sad thing when our happiness causes the misery of others."
"Yet even were it so you would love me, Mona?"
"I shall always love you," says the girl, with sweet seriousness, "better than my life. But in that case I should always, too have a regret."
"There is no need for regret, darling," says he. "I am heart-whole, and I know no woman that loves me, or for whose affection I should ask, except yourself."
"I am indeed dear to you, I think," says Mona, softly and thankfully, growing a little pale through the intensity of her emotion.
"'Perdition catch my soul, but I do love thee,'" replies he, quite as softly.
Then she is pleased, and slips her hand into his, and goes along the quiet road, beside him with a heart in which high jubilee holds sway.
"Now tell me something else," she says, after a little bit. "Do all the women you know dress a great deal?"
"Some of them; not all. I know a considerable few who dress so little that they might as well leave it alone."
"Eh?" says Mona, innocently, and stares at him with an expression so full of bewilderment, being puzzled by his tone more than his words, that presently Mr. Rodney becomes conscious of a feeling akin to shame. Some remembrance of a line that speaks of "a soul as white as heaven" comes to him, and he makes haste to hide the real meaning of his words.
"I mean, some of them dress uncommon badly," he says, with much mendacity and more bad grammar.
"Now, do they?" says Mona. "I thought they always wore lovely clothes. In books they always do; but I was too young when with Aunt Anastasia in Dublin to go out. Somehow, what one imagines is sure to be wrong. I remember," laughing, "when I firmly believed the queen never was seen without her crown on her head."
"Well, it alwaysison her head," says Mr. Rodney, at which ridiculous joke they both laugh as gayly as though it were abon-motof the first water. That "life is thorny, and youth is vain" has not as yet occurred to either of these two. Nay, more, were you even to name this thought to them, they would rank it as flat blasphemy, and you a false prophet—love and laughter being, up to this, the burden of their song.
Yet after a moment or two the smile fades from Mona's mobile lip that ever looks as if, in the words of the old song, "some bee had stung it newly," and a pensive expression takes its place.
"I think I'd like to see myself in a regular evening gown," she say, wistfully.
"So should I," says Rodney, eagerly, but incorrectly; "at least, not myself, but you,—in something handsome, you know, open at the neck, and with your pretty arms bare, as they were the first day I saw you."
"How you remember that, now!" says Mona, with a heavenly smile, and a faint pressure of the fingers that still rest in his. "Yes, I should like to be sure before I marry you that—that—fashionable clothes would become me. But of course," regretfully, "you will understand I haven't a gown of that sort. I once sat in Lady Crighton's room while her maid dressed her for dinner: so I know all about it."
She sighs, then looks at the sky, and—sighs again.
"And do you know," she says, with charmingnaivete, not looking at him, but biting a blade of grass in a distractingly pretty and somewhat pensive fashion, "do you know her neck and arms are not a patch on mine?"
"You needn't tell me that. I'm positive they couldn't be named in the same day," says Geoffrey, enthusiastically, who never in his life saw Lady Crighton, or her neck or arms.
"No, they are not. Geoffrey, people look much better when they are beautifully dressed, don't they?"
"Well, on the principle that fine feathers make fine birds, I suppose they do," acknowledges Geoffrey, reluctantly.
At this she glances with scorn upon the quakerish and somewhat quaint gray gown in which she is clothed, and in which she is looking far sweeter than she knows, for in her face lie "love enshrined and sweet attractive grace."
"Yet, in spite of all the fine feathers, no one ever crept into my heart but my own Mona," says the young man, putting his hand beneath her chin, which is soft and rounded as a baby's, and turning her face to his. He hates to see the faint chagrin that lingers on it for a moment; for his is one of those tender natures that cannot bear to see the thing it loves endure the smallest torment.
"Some women in the great world overdo it," he goes on, "and choose things and colors utterly unsuited to their style. They are slaves to fashion. But
"'Mylove in her attire doth show her wit;It doth so well become her.'"
"'Mylove in her attire doth show her wit;It doth so well become her.'"
"Ah, how you flatter!" says Mona. Nevertheless, being a woman, and the flattery being directed to herself, she takes it kindly.
"No, you must not think that. To wear anything that becomes you must be the perfection of dressing. Why wear a Tam O'Shanter hat when one looks hideous in it? And then too much study spoils effect: you know what Herrick says:—
"'A careless shoe-string in whose tieI see a wild civility,Does more bewitch me than when artIs too precise in every part.'"
"'A careless shoe-string in whose tieI see a wild civility,Does more bewitch me than when artIs too precise in every part.'"
"How pretty that is! Yet I should like you to see me, if only for once, as you have seen others," says Mona.
"I should like it too. And it could be managed, couldn't it? I suppose I could get you a dress."
He says this quickly, yet fearfully. If she should take his proposal badly, what shall he do? He stares with flattering persistency upon a distant donkey that adorns a neighboring field, and calmly awaits fate. It is for once kind to him. Mona, it is quite evident, fails to see any impropriety in his speech.
"Could you?" she says hopefully. "How?"
Mr. Rodney, basely forsaking the donkey, returns to his mutton. "There must be a dressmaker in Dublin," he says, "and we could write to her. Don't you know one?"
"Idon't, but I know Lady Mary and Miss Blake always get their things from a woman called Manning."
"Then Manning it shall be," says Geoffrey, gayly. "I'll run up to Dublin, and if you give me your measure I'll bring a gown back to you."
"Oh, no, don't," says Mona, earnestly. Then she stops short, and blushes a faint sweet crimson.
"But why?" demands he, dense as men will be at times. Then, as she refuses to enlighten his ignorance, slowly the truth dawns upon him.
"Do you mean that you would really miss me if I left you for only one day?" he asks, delightedly. "Mona, tell me the truth."
"Well, then, sure you know I would," confesses she, shyly but honestly. Whereupon rapture ensues that lasts for a full minute.
"Very well, then; I shan't leave you; but you shall have that dress all the same," he says. "How shall we arrange about it?"
"I can give you the size of my waist and my shoulders, and my length," says Mona, thoughtfully, yet with a touch of inspiration.
"And what color becomes you? Blue? that would suit your eyes, and it was blue you used to wear last month."
"Yes, blue looks very nice on me. Geoffrey, if Uncle Brian hears of this, will he be angry?"
"We needn't risk it. And it is no harm, darling, because you will soon be my wife, and then I shall give you everything. When the dress comes I'll send it up to you by my man, and you must manage the rest."
"I'll see about it. And, oh, Geoffrey, I do hope you will like me in it, and think me pretty," she says, anxiously, half fearful of this gown that is meant to transform a "beggar maid" into a queen fit for "King Cophetua." At least such is her reading of the part before her.
And so it is arranged. And that evening Geoffrey indites a letter to Mrs. Manning, Grafton Street, Dublin, that brings a smile to the lips of that cunning modiste.
In due course the wonderful gown arrives, and is made welcome at the farm, where Geoffrey too puts in an appearance about two hours later.
Mona is down at the gate waiting for him, evidently brimful of information.
"Well have you got it?" asks he, in a whisper. Mystery seems to encircle them and to make heavy the very air they breathe. In truth, I think it is the veil of secrecy that envelops their small intrigue that makes it so sweet to them. They might be children, so delighted are they with the success of their scheme.
"Yes, I have got it," also in a subdued whisper. "And, oh, Geoffrey, it is just too lovely! It's downright delicious; and satin, too! It must"—reproachfully—"have cost a great deal, and after all you told me about beingpoor! But," with a sudden change of tone, forgetting reproach and extravagance and everything, "it is exactly the color I love best, and what I have been dreaming of for years."
"Put it on you," says Geoffrey.
"What!now?" with some hesitation, yet plainly filled with an overwhelming desire to show herself to him without loss of time in the adorable gown. "If I should be seen! Well, never mind; I'll risk it. Go down to the little green glade in the wood, and I'll be with you before you can say Jack Robinson."
She disappears, and Geoffrey, obedient to orders, lounges off to the green glade, that now no longer owns rich coloring, but is strewn with leaves from the gaunt trees that stand in solemn order like grave sentries round it.
He might have invoked Jack Robinson a score of times had he so wished, he might even have gone for a very respectable walk, before his eyes are again gladdened by a sight of Mona. Minutes had given place to minutes many times, when, at length, a figure wrapped in a long cloak and with a light woollen shawl covering her head comes quickly towards him across the rustic bridge, and under the leafless trees to where he is standing.
Glancing round fearfully for a moment, as though desirous of making sure that no strange eyes are watching her movements, she lets the loose cloak fall to the ground, and, taking with careful haste the covering from her head, slips like Cinderella from her ordinary garments into all the glories of afetegown. She steps a little to one side, and, throwing up her head with a faint touch of coquetry that sits very sweetly on her, glances triumphantly at Geoffrey, as though fully conscious that she is looking exquisite as a dream.
The dress is composed of satin of that peculiarly pale blue that in some side-lights appears as white. It is opened at the throat, and has no sleeves to speak of. As though some kindly fairy had indeed been at her beck and call, and had watched with careful eyes the cutting of the robe, it fits to a charm. Upon her head a little mob-cap, a very marvel of blue satin and old lace, rests lovingly, making still softer the soft tender face beneath it.
There is a sparkle in Mona's eyes, a slight severing of her lips, that bespeak satisfaction and betray her full of very innocent appreciation of her own beauty. She stands well back, with her head held proudly up, and with her hands lightly clasped before her. Her attitude is full of unstudied grace.
Her eyes, as I tell you, are shining like twin stars. Her whole soul is possessed of this hope, that he for whom almost she lives must think her good to look at. And good indeed she is, and very perfect; for in her earnest face lies such inward godliness and sweet trust as make one feel the better for only a bare glance at her.
Geoffrey is quite dumb, and stands gazing at her surprised at the amazing change a stuff, a color, can make in so short a time. Beautiful she always is in his sight, but he wonders that until now it never occurred to him what a sensation she is likely to create in the London world. When at last he does give way to speech, driven to break his curious silence by something in her face, he says nothing of the gown, but only this.
"Oh, Mona, will you always love me as you do now?"
His tone is full of sadness and longing, and something akin to fear. He has been much in the world, and has seen many of its evil ways, and this is the result of his knowledge. As he gazes on and wonders at her marvellous beauty, for an instant (a most unworthy instant) he distrusts her. Yet surely never was more groundless doubt sustained, as one might know to look upon her eyes and mouth, for in the one lies honest love, and in the other firmness.
Her face changes. He has made no mention of the treasured gown, has said no little word of praise.
"I have disappointed you," she says, tremulously, tears rising quickly. "I am a failure! I am not like the others."
"You are the most beautiful woman I ever saw in all my life," returns Rodney, with some passion.
"Then you are really pleased? I am just what you want me to be? Oh! how you frightened me!" says the girl, laying her hand upon her heart with a pretty gesture of relief.
"Don't ask me to flatter you. You will get plenty to do that by and by," says Geoffrey, rather jealously, rather bitterly.
"'By and by' I shall be your wife," says Mona, archly, "and then my days for receiving flattery will be at an end. Sure you needn't grudge me a few pretty words now."
What a world is to be opened up to her! How severe the test to which she will be exposed! Does she really think the whole earth is peopled with beings pure and perfect as herself?
"Yes, that is true," he says, in a curious tone, in answer to her words, his eyes fixed moodily upon the ground. Then suddenly he lifts his head, and as his gaze meets hers some of the truth and sweetness that belong to her springs from her to him and restores him once again to his proper self.
He smiles, and, turning, kneels before her in mock humility that savors of very real homage. Taking her hand, he presses it to his lips.
"Will your majesty deign to confer some slight sign of favor upon a very devoted servant?"
His looks betray his wish. And Mona, stooping, very willingly bestows upon him one of the sweetest little kisses imaginable.
"I doubt your queen lacks dignity," she says, with a quick blush, when she has achieved her tender crime.
"My queen lacks nothing," says Geoffrey. Then, as he feels the rising wind that is soughing through the barren trees, he says, hurriedly, "My darling, you will catch cold. Put on your wraps again."
"Just in one moment," says the wilful beauty. "But I must first look at myself altogether. I have only seen myself in little bits up to this, my glass is so small."
Running over to the river that flows swiftly but serenely a few yards from her, she leans over the bank and gazes down lingeringly and with love into the dark depths beneath that cast up to her her own fair image.
The place she has chosen as her mirror is a still pool fringed with drooping grasses and trailing ferns that make yet more dark the sanded floor of the stream.
"Yes, Iampretty," she says, after a minute's pause, with a long-drawn sigh of deepest satisfaction. Then she glances at Geoffrey. "And for your sake I am glad of it Now, come here and stand beside me," she goes on, presently, holding out her hand backwards as though loath to lose sight of her own reflection. "Let me see howyoulook in the water."
So he takes her hand, and together they lean over the brink and survey themselves in Nature's glass. Lightly their faces sway to and fro as the running water rushes across the pool,—sway, but do not part; they are always together, as though in anticipation of that happy time when their lives shall be one. It seems like a good omen; and Mona, in whose breast rests a little of the superstition that lies innate in every Irish heart, turns to her lover and looks at him.
He, too, looks at her. The same thought fills them both. As they are together there in the water, so (pray they) "may we be together in life." This hope is sweet almost to solemnity.
The short daylight fades; the wind grows higher; the whole scene is curious, and very nearly fantastical. The pretty girl in her clinging satin gown, and her gleaming neck and arms, bare and soft and white, and the tiny lace-fringed cap that crowns her fairness. The gaunt trees branching overhead that are showering down upon her all their fading wealth of orange and crimson and russet-colored leaves, that serve to throw out the glories of her dress. The brown-green sward is beneath her, the river runs with noiseless mirth beside her, rushing with faint music over sand and pebble to the ocean far below. Standing before her is her lover, gazing at her with adoring eyes.
Yet all things in this passing world know an end. In one short moment the perfect picture is spoiled. A huge black dog, bursting through the underwood, flings himself lovingly upon Mona, threatening every moment to destroy her toilet.
"It is Mr. Moore's retriever!" cries Mona, hurriedly, in a startled tone. "I must run. Down, Fan! down! Oh, if he catches me here, in this dress, what will he think? Quick, Geoffrey, give me my shawl!"
She tucks up her dignified train in a most undignified haste, while Geoffrey covers up all the finery with the crimson shawl. The white cloud is once more thrown over the dainty cap; all the pretty coloring vanishes out of sight; and Mona, after one last lingering glance at Geoffrey, follows its example. She, too, flies across the rural bridge into the covert of her own small domain.
It is over; the curtain is down; the charming transformation-scene has reached its end, and the fairy-queen doffing her radiant robes, descends once more to the level of a paltry mortal.
"Oh! catch him!docatch him!" cries Mona, "Look, there he is again! Don't you see?" with growing excitement. "Over there, under that bush. Why on earth can't you see him? Ha! there he is again! Little wretch! Turn him back, Geoffrey; it is our last chance."
She has crossed the rustic bridge that leads into the Moore plantations, in hot pursuit of a young turkey that is evidently filled with a base determination to spend his Sunday out.
Geoffrey is rushing hither and thither, without his hat, and without his temper, in a vain endeavor to secure the rebel and reduce him to order. He is growing warm, and his breath is coming more quickly than is exactly desirable; but, being possessed with the desire to conquer or die, he still holds on. He races madly over the ground, crying "Shoo!" every now and then (whatever that may mean) in a desperate tone, as though impressed with the belief that this simple and apparently harmless expletive must cow the foe.
"Look at him, under that fern there!" exclaims Mona, in her clear treble, that has always something sweet and plaintive in it. "On your right—no!noton your left. Sure you know your right, don't you?" with a full, but unconscious, touch of scorn. "Hurry! hurry! or he will be gone again. Was there ever such a hateful bird! With his good food in the yard, and his warm house, and his mother crying for him! Ah! there you have him! No!—yes! no! He is gone again!"
"He isn't!" says Geoffrey, panting "I have him at last!" Whereupon he emerges from a wilderness of ferns, drawing after him and holding up triumphantly to the light the wandering bird, that looks more dead than alive, with all its feathers drooping, and its breath coming in angry cries.
"Oh, you have him!" says Mona, with a beaming smile, that is not reciprocated by the captured turkey. "Hold him tight: you have no idea how artful he is. Sure I knew you'd get him, if any one could!"
There is admiration blended with relief in her tone, and Geoffrey begins to feel like a hero of Waterloo.
"Now carry him over the bridge and put him down there, and he must go home, whether he likes it or not," goes on Mona to her warrior, whereupon that renowned person, armed with the shrieking turkey, crosses the bridge. Having gained the other side, he places the angry bird on its mother earth, and with a final and almost tender "Shoo!" sends him scuttling along to the farmyard in the distance, where, no doubt, he is received either with open arms and kisses, or with a sounding "spank," as our American cousins would say, by his terrified mamma.
He finds Mona on his return sitting on a bank, laughing and trying to recover her breath.
"I hardly think this is Sunday work," she says, lightly; "but the poor little thing would have died if left out all night. Wasn't it well you saw him?"
"Most fortunate," says Rodney, with deep gravity. "I consider I have been the means of preventing a public calamity. Why, that bird might have haunted us later on."
"Fancy a turkey ghost," says Mona. "How ugly it would be. It would have all its feathers off, of course."
"Certainly not," says Geoffrey: "I blush for you. I never yet heard of a ghost that was not strictly decent. It would have had a winding sheet, of course. Come, let us go for a walk."
"To the old fort?" asks Mona, starting to her feet.
"Anywhere you like. I'm sure we deserve some compensation for the awful sermon that curate gave us this morning."
So they start, in a lazy, happy-go-lucky fashion, for their walk, conversing as they go, of themselves principally as all true lovers will.
But the fort, on this evening at least, is never reached Mona, coming to a stile, seats himself comfortably on the top of it, and looks with mild content around.
"Are you going no farther?" asks Rodney, hoping sincerely she will say "No." She does say it.
"It is so nice here," she says, with a soft sigh, and a dreamy smile, whereupon he too climbs and seats himself beside her. As they are now situated, there is about half a yard between them of passable wall crowned with green sods, across which they can hold sweet converse with the utmost affability. The evening is fine; the heavens promise to be fair; the earth beneath is calm and full of silence as becomes a Sabbath eve; yet, alas! Mona strikes a chord that presently flings harmony to the winds.
"Tell me about your mother," she says, folding her hands easily in her lap. "I mean,—what is she like? Is she cold, or proud, or stand-off?" There is keen anxiety in her tone.
"Eh?" says Geoffrey, rather taken back. "Cold" and "proud" he cannot deny, even to himself, are words that suit his mother rather more than otherwise.
"I mean," says Mona, flushing a vivid scarlet, "is she stern?"
"Oh, no," says Geoffrey, hastily, recovering himself just in time; "she's all right, you know, my mother; and you'll like her awfully when—when you know her, and when—when she knows you."
"Will that take her long?" asks Mona, somewhat wistfully, feeling, without understanding, some want in his voice.
"I don't see how it could take any one long," says Rodney.
"Ah! that is because you are a man, and because you love me," says this astute reader of humanity. "But women are so different. Suppose—suppose shenevergets to like me?"
"Well, even that awful misfortune might be survived. We can live in our own home 'at ease,' as the old song says, until she comes to her senses. By and by, do you know you have never asked me about your future home,—my own place, Leighton Hall? and yet it is rather well worth asking about, because, though small, it is one of the oldest and prettiest places in the county."
"Leighton Hall," repeats she, slowly, fixing upon him her dark eyes that are always so full of truth and honesty. "But you told me you were poor. That a third son——"
"Wasn't much!" interrupts Geoffrey, with an attempt at carelessness that rather falls through beneath the gaze of those searching eyes. "Well, no more he is, you know, as a rule, unless some kind relative comes to his assistance."
"But you told me no maiden aunt had ever come to your assistance," goes on Mona, remorselessly.
"In that I spoke the truth," says Mr. Rodney, with a shameless laugh, "because it was an uncle who left me some money."
"You have not been quite true with me," says Mona, in a curious way, never removing her gaze and never returning his smile. "Are you rich, then, if you are not poor?"
"I'm a long way off being rich," says the young man, who is palpably amused, in spite of a valiant effort to suppress all outward signs of enjoyment. "I'm awfully poor when compared with some fellows. I dare say I must come in for something when my other uncle dies, but at present I have only fifteen hundred pounds a year."
"Only!" says Mona. "Do you know, Mr. Moore has no more than that, and we think him very rich indeed! No, you have not been open with me: you should have told me. I haven't ever thought of you to myself as being a rich man. Now I shall have to begin and think of you a lover again in quite another light." She is evidently deeply aggrieved.
"But, my darling child, I can't help the fact that George Rodney left me the Hall," says Geoffrey, deprecatingly, reducing the space between them to a mere nothing, and slipping his arm round her waist. "And if I was a beggar on the face of the earth, I could not love you more than I do, nor could you, Ihope"—reproachfully—"love me better either."
The reproachful ring in his voice does its intended work. The soft heart throws out resentment, and once more gives shelter to gentle thoughts alone. She even consents to Rodney's laying his cheek against hers, and faintly returns the pressure of his hand.
"Yet I think you should have told me," she whispers, as a last fading censure. "Do you know you have made me very unhappy?"
"Oh, no, I haven't, now," says Rodney, reassuringly "You don't look a bit unhappy; you only look as sweet as an angel."
"You never saw an angel, so you can't say," says Mona, still sadly severe. "And Iamunhappy. How will your mother, Mrs. Rodney, like your marrying me, when you might marry so many other people,—that Miss Mansergh, for instance?"
"Oh, nonsense!" says Rodney, who is in high good humor and can see no rocks ahead. "When my mother sees you she will fall in love with you on the spot, as will everybody else. But look here, you know, you mustn't call her Mrs. Rodney!"
"Why?" says Mona. "I couldn't well call her any thing else until I know her."
"That isn't her name at all," says Geoffrey. "My father was a baronet, you know: she is Lady Rodney."
"What!" says Mona And then she grows quite pale, and, slipping off the stile, stands a few yards away from him.
"That puts an end to everything," she says, in a dreadful little voice that goes to his heart, "at once. I could never face any one with a title. What will she say when she hears you are going to marry a farmer's niece? It is shameful of you," says Mona, with as much indignation as if the young man opposite to her, who is making strenuous but vain efforts to speak, has just been convicted of some heinous crime. "It is disgraceful! I wonder at you! That is twice you have deceived me."
"If you would only hear me——"
"I have heard too much already. I won't listen to any more. 'Lady Rodney!' I dare say"—with awful meaning in her tone—"youhave got a titletoo!" Then, sternly, "Have you?"
"No, no indeed. I give you my honor, no," says Geoffrey, very earnestly, feeling that Fate has been more than kind to him in that she has denied him a handle to his name.
"You are sure?"—doubtfully.
"Utterly certain."
"And your brother?"
"Jack is only Mr. Rodney too."
"I don't mean him,"—severely: "I mean the brother you called 'Old Nick'—Old Nickindeed!" with suppressed anger.
"Oh, he is only called Sir Nicholas. Nobody thinks much of that. A baronet is really never of the slightest importance," says Geoffrey, anxiously, feeling exactly as if he were making an apology for his brother.
"That is not correct," says Mona. "We have a baronet here, Sir Owen O'Connor, and he is thought a great deal of. I know all about it. Even Lady Mary would have married him if he had asked her, though his hair is the color of an orange. Mr. Rodney,"—laying a dreadful stress upon the prefix to his name,—"go back to England and"—tragically—"forget me?"
"I shall do nothing of the kind," says Mr. Rodney, indignantly. "And if you address me in that way again I shall cut my throat."
"Much better do that"—gloomily—"than marry me Nothing comes of unequal marriages but worry, and despair, and misery, anddeath," says Mona, in a fearful tone, emphasizing each prophetic word with a dismal nod.
"You've been reading novels," says Rodney, contemptuously.
"No, I haven't," says Mona, indignantly.
"Then you are out of your mind," says Rodney.
"No, I am not. Anything but that; and to be rude"—slowly—"answers no purpose. But I have some common sense, I hope."
"I hate women with common sense. In plainer language it means no heart."
"Now you speak sensibly. The sooner you begin to hate me the better."
"A nice time to offer such advice as that," says Rodney, moodily. "But I shan't take it. Mona,"—seizing her hands and speaking more in passionate excitement than even in love,—"say at once you will keep your word and marry me."
"Nothing on earth shall bring me to say that," says Mona, solemnly. "Nothing!"
"Then don't," says Rodney, furiously, and flinging her hands from him, he turns and strides savagely down the hill, and is lost to sight round the corner.
But, though "lost to sight," to memory he is most unpleasantly "dear." Standing alone in the middle of the deserted field, Mona pulls to pieces, in a jerky, fretful fashion, a blade of grass she has been idly holding during the late warm discussion. She is honestly very much frightened at what she has done, but obstinately declines to acknowledge it even to her own heart. In a foolish but natural manner she tries to deceive herself into the belief that what has happened has been much to her own advantage, and it will be a strict wisdom to rejoice over it.
"Dear me," she says, throwing up her dainty head, and flinging, with a petulant gesture, the unoffending grass far from her, "what an escape I have had! How his mother would have hated me! Surely I should count it lucky that I discovered all about her in time. Because really it doesn't so very much matter; I dare say I shall manage to be quite perfectly happy here again, after a little bit, just as I have been all my life—before he came. And when he isgone"—she pauses, chokes back with stern determination a very heavy sigh, and then goes on hastily and with suspicious bitterness, "What a temper he has! Horrid! The way he flung away my hand, as if he detested me, and flounced down that hill, as if he hoped never to set eyes on me again! With no 'good-by,' or 'by your leave,' or 'with your leave,' or a word of farewell, or a backward glance, oranything! I do hope he has taken me at my word, and that he will go straight back, without seeing me again, to his own odious country."
She tells herself this lie without a blush, perhaps because she is so pale at the bare thought that her eyes may never again be gladdened by his presence, that the blood refuses to rise.
A bell tinkles softly in the distance. The early dusk is creeping up from behind the distant hills, that are purple with the soft and glowing heather. The roar of the rushing waves comes from the bay that lies behind those encircling hills, and falls like sound of saddest music on her ear. Now comes