Meg, of Valencia Part 2

Mrs. Malloy withdrew her hand and said simply, "Pardon me. I no doubt seemed intrusive."

"_You_ intrusive! oh, dear Mrs. Malloy, you _couldn't_ be intrusive!

Why, if you should tell me my hair was red, I would not be offended.

And that's what I wouldn't take from anyone else," she added under her breath.

"Well, I won't be so rude, nor so untruthful. It is beautiful auburn, a color I've always liked."

"Of course," Meg admitted reluctantly, "it isn't exactly the color one could wear red with,-not but what I would if I wanted to."

Mrs. Malloy threw her head back and laughed, and her laugh was as pleasant as it was rare.

Meg looked at her in a pleased manner. Then Mrs. Malloy said: "What a s.p.u.n.ky little girl you are! It's regular red-headed s.p.u.n.k, though of course your hair is not red. My dear, it's a blessing you are so independent, having no one to do your fighting for you."

The wistful look came back into Meg's eyes as she answered: "It has never seemed just right that I didn't have a father, or mother, or even a big brother to take care of me. Sometimes,-" there was a little catch in her voice,-"oh, dear Mrs. Malloy, sometimes I feel as if there were no fight left in me!"

"You poor little thing!" exclaimed Mrs. Malloy, reaching out for her hand, "this is really yourself that I see now,-a little tame canary made wild because it has no one to shield it, and must look out for itself!"

Meg looked at her adoringly.

"You are the first person I have ever known who has seemed to understand me, and somehow, I feel that my mother was like you. You won't laugh at me or tell any one if I tell you something?" she asked anxiously.

"You may count on my silence and sympathy, dear."

"When I was a little girl, my princ.i.p.al amus.e.m.e.nt was to 'pretend'

things. I would pretend I was a princess, or something else equally improbable. One day, I wanted some one else to play with me so badly, that I told Aunt Amelia about it."

"Yes?" queried Mrs. Malloy softly, as she paused.

"Oh, she slapped me, told me I was nothing but an ugly, red-headed little object of charity, and not to go imagining any more nonsense."

Mrs. Malloy bit her lip to keep back the disparaging words which longed for utterance. Instead, she stroked the hand she held, and Meg continued:

"Since then I have played my little games by myself. Sometimes I go up to the attic, where I have a trunk containing mother's things. I put on her dress and ap.r.o.n, and take a piece of crochet work in my hands,-the one she was making when she was taken sick,-and then I pretend that I am she, and that I am there, too,-you understand?"

Mrs. Malloy nodded. "And then I talk as I know she would talk to me if she were here. I give myself lectures for my frivolity, and good advice,-and,-and,-oh, I say the tender little things that I know she would say, and that no one ever does--" She stopped, and began to sob quietly.

Mrs. Malloy drew her up beside her, so that the little red head rested on her shoulder. There were unshed tears in her eyes, which had looked out bravely and hopefully upon a world that had little enough to offer her, and she felt, in this moment, that a very strong bond was between this girl, almost a stranger, and herself.

CHAPTER IV.

"Ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears."

Meg was leaning back in delicious idleness on the cool, shaded porch of her aunt's house, with her hands loosely clasped above her head, and her eyes dreamily fixed on the treetops.

Robert Malloy was reading aloud from a book of verse. His voice, rising and falling musically, harmonized with the summer sounds, the hum of the insects, and chirping of the birds that came fearlessly close, to bathe in the whirling spray of the garden hose.

After he had read a while he closed the book, and said, "Tell me a story."

"A really, truly one?" she asked, bringing her eyes on a level with his.

"Yes; tell me about yourself."

"All right. Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess, and she was as good as she was beautiful; never cross, never impatient, always serene, gentle, and loving. She lived with her cruel stepmother-"

"Wasn't there a prince?" he queried anxiously.

"Not any real one," was the severe retort, "just a few little imitation ones. But she had a taste above paste jewels, so she determined-"

At this moment the air was pierced by a shrill cry from the road, followed by l.u.s.ty weeping.

Meg was half-way to the gate before Robert started, and when he reached there he found her exclaiming pityingly over a small, ragged, and decidedly dirty boy, who was sitting in the dust of the road nursing an injured toe.

"How did it happen?" she was asking as Robert came up and leaned against the fence.

The hurt, slight in itself, a.s.sumed new importance in the eyes of the boy, and he answered proudly, between the sniffles into which his sobs had subsided, "I was running fast, an' I never seen that piece of broken bottle, an' I stepped right on it, an' cut my toe, an' it hurts just awful."

"I know it does, you poor, dear thing," was Meg's sympathetic rejoinder; "come right in the yard with me, where it's cool, and I'll fix it all right."

The boy began to strut after her, but meeting Robert's broad smile, bethought himself of his affliction, so changed the strut into a limp, and followed her in.

He looked a trifle dubious over the water when she took the injured member in her soft hands to bathe it, but submitted like a martyr.

After Meg had washed the wound free from dirt she looked up at Robert, who was watching the proceedings with amused eyes, and imperiously demanded his handkerchief.

He elevated his brows, as he handed it to her, and, addressing the boy, remarked, "The heroines one reads about always tear their own handkerchiefs into strips."

"Yessir," responded the boy, scarcely knowing what was expected of him.

"Do you remember what Chesterfield says about just such a case as this?" Meg asked the boy, ignoring Robert.

"No'm. Who's he? The doctor?" And alarm became visibly written under the grime of his countenance.

"Never mind," Meg said rea.s.suringly to him, and went on neatly binding the toe. When it was finished, she darted into the house and came out carrying an apple and a huge piece of cake, which she immediately bestowed upon her new protege.

He accepted them graciously, as he had her ministrations, and was about to edge off when her eye was attracted to a sling-shot protruding from his coat pocket. She pulled it out and threw it as far as she could, then turned to the amazed boy with flashing eyes. "You horrid, bad, ugly boy! You were chasing a poor little bird when you stepped on that bottle! I'm glad you got hurt, and I hope the next time you will cut your toe completely off!"

She emphasized her words with a little shake, which sent him scuttling down the yard and out of the gate without a backward glance.

After he had disappeared, Meg stood, red and mortified, realizing that Robert must despise her for her outburst of temper, and wishing that at least she had been more dignified in her expression of disapproval. She became uneasy at the long silence, and finally ventured to raise her eyes to his, prepared for the scorn and contempt she knew would be in his glance.

Instead, his eyes were dancing with enjoyment, and when he met her look, he laughed outright. Then he said deliberately, "I think I know you well enough now to call you Margie."

CHAPTER V.