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Page 54
"Yes!" he said. "She is sympathetic, and unselfish,--remarkably
so, it seems to me; and--and she takes an interest in things,--I
mean real things, such, as girls usually care nothing about."
"Perigees, for example," said his sister-in-law.
"Well," said Roger, laughing, "yes, I suppose I do mean perigees,
and that kind of thing. They are not in your line, Miranda, I
know."
"Oh, but I respect them!" said Mrs. Merryweather. "There is
nothing I respect more highly than a perigee, unless it be an
apogee, which always sounds like the beginning of an incantation.
So Hilda likes them, does she?"
"Of course," said Roger, slowly, skipping stones over the pond
with thoughtful accuracy; "she has never studied any of these
things, but she has really an astonishing aptitude for them. And
her hand is so steady, and she has such a true eye."
"Was that why you kept her sitting on a rock, waving a towel, for
three mortal hours, yesterday morning?" asked his sister-in-law,
dryly.
Roger turned scarlet.
"Was it so long?" he said. "I didn't know--I never noticed. I--was
taking observations, you know, and she seemed so--did she say she
was tired? Was I a brute? Of course I was!"
"Don't go off at a tangent, or whatever you call the thing!" said
Mrs. Merryweather. "She said she had had a most delightful
morning, and that waving a towel had been her favourite amusement
from baby-hood."
Roger looked wistfully at his sister-in-law. They were genuinely
fond of each other, but they spoke different languages, and he
sometimes found it difficult to follow her turns of speech. He was
silent for a few minutes, absorbed in calculating the curves of
his stones, which really skimmed in an astonishing manner.
"I suppose," he said, presently, watching a particularly
adventurous pebble, "I suppose, Miranda, that I must seem--well--
quite an old fellow, to such a young creature as that?"
Mrs. Merryweather had a quizzical reply on the tip of her tongue,
but glancing at Roger's face, thought better of it, and merely
said, "My dear boy, don't be absurd!"
"I don't mean to be absurd," said Roger, sitting upright, and
forgetting his pebbles. "But--well, I am a kind of grandfather to
all the children, you know, and she would naturally--eh? regard me
in the same light. That--a--that seems perfectly reasonable,
doesn't it?"
Mrs. Merryweather made no reply. Roger followed the direction of
her eyes, and saw Hildegarde and Gerald coming up from the wharf.
Hildegarde had been drying her hair after the daily swim, and it
hung in long locks over her shoulders; the tall boy was bending
over her, pleading earnestly for something.
"Just a little bit!" he said, as they came within hearing. "Oh, I
say, Miss Hilda, just a scrap. You have such lots, you never would
miss it. Just a little lock of hair!"
Roger Merryweather's face grew very grave. He did not move, but
his grasp tightened on the pebble in his hand.
"What do you want of it?" said downright Hilda, laughing and
tossing her tawny mane. Mrs. Merryweather listened for the
faintest shade of coquetry in the girl's tone, found none, and
listened on, well content.
"What do I want of it?" cried Gerald. "What a question!--
"O Hilda, fair beyond compare!
I'll make a garland of thy hair,
Shall twine my heart forevermair,
Until the day I dee!"
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