|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 34
She was sometimes unwarrantably irritable with him now, but each little
fit of petulance was always followed by a disproportionate penitence
and remorse. At such times she hovered about him, eagerly anxious to
render him some of the small services which he found so sweet. But she
was paler and thinner than she had ever been, and Miss Christina
noticed, with a kindly anxiety which did her credit, that Rosamond ate
less and less.
May was gone. It was the first day of June,--and such a day! Trees and
shrubs were in that loveliest of all states,--that of a half-fulfilled
promise of loveliness. Rosamond felt the spell, and, in spite of all
that was in her heart, an unreasoning gladness took possession of her.
She danced down the path of the long garden behind the seminary and
danced back again, stopping to pick a handful of the first June roses.
It was early morning, and the professor stopped--as he often did--for a
moment's sight of her on his way from the dreary boarding-house to the
equally dreary college. She caught both his hands and held up her face
for a kiss. Then she fastened a rosebud in his button-hole.
"You are not to take that out until it withers, Paul," she said,
laughing and shaking a threatening finger at him. "Do you know what it
means,--a rosebud? I don't believe you do, for all your Greek. It means
'confession of love;' and I _do_ love you,--I do, I do."
"I know you do, my darling," he said gently; "and it shall stay
there--till it withers. But that will not be long. I stopped to tell you
that I cannot go with you this afternoon; but you must not disappoint
Mr. Symington. I met him just now, and told him I should be detained,
but that you would go."
"You had no right to say so without asking me first," she said sharply.
"I don't wish to go. I _won't_ go without you. There!"
He was silent, but his deep, kind eyes were fixed pityingly upon her
flushed, excited face.
She dropped it on his arm and burst into tears, and he stroked her hair
gently, as if she had been a little child and he a patient, loving
father. She raised her face presently, smiling, though her lips still
quivered.
"Do you really and truly wish me to go with--this afternoon?"
It seemed to him that for a full minute he could not speak, but in
reality the pause was so brief that she did not notice it.
"Yes," he said quietly, "I really and truly do. It would not be fair to
disappoint Mr. Symington, after making the engagement."
"And can't you possibly go, dear?" she asked entreatingly.
I think only one man was ever known to pull the cord which set in motion
a guillotine that took off his own head. But there is much unknown, as
well as unwritten, history.
"Not without neglecting some work which I ought to do to-day," he said.
"I think you care more for your work sometimes than you do for me."
There was a little quaver in her voice as she spoke. "And I wish you'd
stop behaving as if I were your daughter. I don't know what ails you
this morning; but if you go on this way I shall call you Professor Silex
all the time. How would you like that?"
A passionate exclamation rose to his lips, and died there. A spasm of
bitter pain made his face for a moment hard and stern. Then he smiled,
and said gently, "I should not like it at all, as you know very well.
But I must go now, or I shall be late for my class. Good-by, dear
child." And, parting her soft, curling hair, he pressed a fatherly kiss
upon her forehead.
She threw her arms about his neck, crying, "No!--on my lips." And,
pressing an eager kiss upon his mouth, she added, "There! that is a
sealing, a fresh sealing, of our engagement; and I wish--oh, how I
wish!--that we were to be married to-morrow--to-day!"
The professor gently disengaged himself from her clinging arms, saying,
still with a smile, "But I thought the wedding-gown was still to make?
Good-by. I will come early this evening and hear all about the enchanted
island."
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|