Judith Shakespeare Part 54

"'_Western wind_,'" she repeated, with that not over-sad complaint of injury, "'_when will you blow--when will you blow?_'"

"All in good time, sweetheart, all in good time," said he; and his hand lay kindly on her shoulder, as if she were one to whom some measure of gentle tending and cheering words were somewhat due. "And guess you now what they mean to do for you when the milder weather comes? I mean the lads at the school. Why, then, 'tis a secret league and compact--I doubt not that your cousin Willie may have been at the suggesting of it--but 'twas some of the bigger lads who came to me. And 'tis all arranged now, and all for the sake of you, dear heart. For when the milder weather comes, and the year begins to wake again, why, they are all of them to keep a sharp and eager eye here and there--in the lanes or in the woods--for the early peeping up of the primroses; and then 'tis to be a grand whole holiday that I am to get for them, as it appears; and all the school is to go forth to search the hedge-rows and the woods and the banks--all the country-side is to be searched and searched--and for what, think you? why, to bring you a s.p.a.cious basketful of the very first primroses of the spring! See you, now, what it is to be the general favorite. Nay, I swear to you, dear Judith, you are the sweetheart of all of them; and what a shame it is that I must take you away from them all!"

THE END.