Mavis of Green Hill Part 4

I felt somewhat ashamed, and tried to make amends.

"Please read _The Lyric Hour_, Doctor," I urged, in my prettiest party voice. "You will find it really worth while."

The creature is, after all, occasionally understanding. He smiled forgivingly at me and held out his hand for the book. But I hadn't meant that.

"Oh!" I said, hastily. "Not my copy!"

"As precious as all that?" he asked, putting his rejected hand in his pocket.

This I ignored.

"Tell Mr. John Denton to send you out a copy," I suggested. "He sent us this one."

"The devil he did!"

I looked my surprise, and my visitor laughed. He has a very nice laugh, considering.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Carroll. I am apt to be a trifle--," he paused, and considered me narrowly, "eh--jumpy. And I didn't know my Uncle John went in for ethereal chaps."

Ethereal! The word, on those lips, was an insult! I glared at him, rather conscious that I must look like a sick kitten.

Father came in, providentially.

"How is she, Doctor?" he asked. Which was absurd, as I had rea.s.sured him concerning my welfare not two hours earlier.

"Rather sc.r.a.ppy--lots of fight left," answered our guest, rising.

I was speechless.

"I think," said Doctor Denton, "we shall have to get her out of doors."

Father and I stared at him.

"Why not?" he continued, looking from one of us to the other. "We'll commence by building her up a bit, and trying ma.s.sage for those unused muscles. Then a little later it should be quite easy to carry her comfortably downstairs and settle her on a cot under the trees for a little while each day."

"McAllister--" began father, doubtfully.

"Oh, I'll talk with him," cut in Doctor Denton cheerfully. "He will be back next week," he added, turning deliberately to me.

I looked grateful.

"How perfectly splendid!" I said, with a ring of real enthusiasm in my voice. "I've missed him so much!"

Father looked mildly surprised at so much fervor, and I am sure the creature concealed a smile.

As he departed with father to "talk things over," Doctor Denton turned at the door.

"Less poetry, Miss Carroll," he admonished, parentally.

"That's what I tell her," said father, surrendering to the foe. "The child reads too much. It makes her fanciful and--"

"Doesn't take her mind off herself," suggested the doctor, nastily. I wonder, Diary, what he meant?

"We'll take away her books," he went on, "and give her sunshine and fresh air and green trees, in their place."

Against my will I admitted it would be glorious--the outdoors part of the program.

"You see," he turned to father, "doctors are rather like gardeners. I, for one, am interested in roses."

"Roses?" echoed my parent, who seemed to pa.s.s from one stage of astonishment to the other as the morning progressed.

"Roses!" repeated Doctor Denton, firmly. "There's a particularly pretty white one that I am anxious to cultivate. I believe with care and sunlight it could be urged to bloom quite deep pink--permanently."

He looked at me as he said this last. Then, with a polite "Good morning, Miss Carroll!" he left the room.

I hate him!

But Diary, wouldn't it be altogether wonderful if we could be taken out-of-doors together?

I wonder what that doctor person did with the flower he stole from my vase?

GREEN HILL July 3

Diary, I dreamed a horrid dream last night. I dreamed that I stood with Richard Warren on some high wooded place--in my dreams, Diary, I can always stand--with my hands close in his. I couldn't see his face, but I knew him, somehow, and his voice was in my ears, just saying my name, over and over. "_Mavis! Mavis!_" But as the mist cleared before my eyes, someone said far off, "Ethereal!" and laughed. And as I looked, I saw, not Richard Warren, Poet and Dreamer of Dreams, but William Denton, Surgeon and Scoffer. It all sounds so foolish, Diary, written down, but it was really quite dreadful. Sarah, who must have heard me call out, for in my dream I wrenched my hands away and screamed, appeared at my bedside, like a familiar ghost. How I welcomed her, innumerable tightly plaited braids, and all! Breathe it not in Gath, but in this unpleasant fashion does Sarah achieve her crinkled morning coiffure! She tucked me in, secured a flapping shade, forced a potion of hot milk down my unwilling throat, and left me. So, finally, I slept again, to dream no more.

This morning a note came to me from Mr. Denton. So nice a man to have so wretched a relation!

NEW YORK CITY July 2d

My dear little Mavis:

Your good father is so poor a correspondent that I have struck his name from my letter-list. But you are always considerate of a lonely old man. Therefore I write to inform him, through you, that I am leaving this asphalt wilderness presently, for the White Mountains. Perhaps when my vacation there draws to a close, I may drop down to see you before returning to the 'demnition'

grind. I shall look forward to a pleasant visit with you, and a quarrelsome time with your father, to whom, despite his neglect of me, I beg to be remembered.

I am sending you some books and some exotic fruit, hoping to tempt your literary and physical palates, respectively.

My nephew writes me that he has seen you. I envy him! But I am more than sorry, my dear, that your first encounter should have taken place under such unfortunate circ.u.mstances. I shall be grateful to you for any kindness you care to show him, for he has not had a very happy, albeit successful, career, and he is far from his Western home and his people.

Remember me to your elderly and amiable handmaiden, whose beaten biscuit I recall with such felicity.

Write me now and then, Mavis, and if I can in any way be of service to you, you have but to command me.

Faithfully and affectionately your friend, JOHN DENTON

P.S. How did you like _The Lyric Hour_?

This afternoon the fruit and books arrived. Quant.i.ties of both. Sammy Simpson, Jr., who adds the arduous duties of expressman to those of milk purveyor, staggered upstairs under the burden of them. Into this very room, with his own hands, ably chaperoned by Sarah, he brought them. We had a little conversation. It ran something like this.