Molly Bawn Part 18

"Rome?"

"Yes, twice. The governor was fond of sending us abroad between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five,--to enlarge our minds, he said; to get rid of us, he meant."

"Are there many of you?"

"An awful lot. I would be ashamed to say how many. Ours was indeed a 'numerous father.'"

"He isn't dead?" asks Molly, in a low tone befitting the occasion in case he should be.

"Oh no: he is alive and kicking," replies Mr. Luttrell, with more force than elegance. "And I hope he will keep on so for years to come. He is about the best friend I have, or am likely to have."

"I hope he won't keep up the kicking part of it," says Molly, with a delicious laugh that ripples through the air and shows her utter enjoyment of her own wit. Not to laugh when Molly laughs, is impossible; so Luttrell joins her, and they both make merry over his vulgarity. In all the world, what is there sweeter than the happy, penetrating, satisfying laughter of unhurt youth?

"Lucky you, to have seen so much already," says Molly, presently, with an envious sigh; "and yet," with a view to self-support, "what good has it done you? Not one atom. After all your traveling you can do nothing greater than fall absurdly in love with a village maiden. Will your father call that enlarging your mind?"

"I hope so," concealing his misgivings on the point. "But why put it so badly? Instead of village maiden, say the loveliest girl I ever met."

"What!" cries Molly, the most nave delight and satisfaction animating her tone; "after going through France, Germany, Italy, and India, you can honestly say I am the loveliest woman you ever met?"

"You put it too mildly," says Luttrell, raising himself on his elbow to gaze with admiration at the charming face above him, "I can say more.

You are ten thousand times the loveliest woman I ever met."

Molly smiles, nay, more, she fairly dimples. Try as she will and does, she cannot conceal the pleasure it gives her to hear her praises sung.

"Why, then I am a 'belle,' a 'toast,'" she says, endeavoring unsuccessfully to see her image in the little basin of water that has gathered at the foot of the rocks; "while you," turning to run five white fingers over his hair caressingly, and then all down his face, "you are the most delightful person I ever met. It is so easy to believe what you tell one, and so pleasant. I have half a mind to--kiss you!"

"Don't stop there: have a whole mind," says Luttrell, eagerly. "Kiss me at once, before the fancy evaporates."

"No," holding him back with one lazy finger (he is easy to be repulsed), "on second thought I will reserve my caress. Some other time, when you are good,--perhaps. By the bye, Ted, did you really mean you would take me to Vienna?"

"Yes, if you would care to go there."

"Care? that is not the question. It will cost a great deal of money to get there, won't it? Shall we be able to afford it?"

"No doubt the governor will stand to me, and give a check for the occasion," says Luttrell, warming to the subject. "Anyhow, you shall go, if you wish it."

"Wait until your father hears you have wedded a pauper, and then you will see what a check you will get," says Miss Ma.s.sereene, with a contemptible attempt at a joke.

"A pun!" says Luttrell, springing to his feet with a groan; "that means a pinch. So prepare."

"I forbid you," cries she, inwardly quaking, and, rising hurriedly, stands well away from him, with her petticoats caught together in one hand ready for flight. "I won't allow you. Don't attempt to touch me."

"It is the law of the land," declares he, advancing on her, while she as steadily retreats.

"Dear Teddy, good Teddy," cries she, "spare me this time, and I will never do it again--no, not though it should tremble forever on the tip of my tongue. As you are strong, be merciful. Do forgive me this once."

"Impossible."

"Then I defy you," retorts Miss Ma.s.sereene, who, having manoeuvred until she has placed a good distance between herself and the foe, now turns, and flies through the trees, making very successful running for the open beyond. Not until they are within full view of the house does he manage to come up with her. And then the presence of John sunning himself on the hall-door step, surrounded by his family, effectually prevents her ever obtaining that richly-deserved punishment.

CHAPTER IX.

"After long years."

It is raining, not only raining, but pouring. All the gracious sunshine of yesterday is obliterated, forgotten, while in its place the sullen raindrops dash themselves with suppressed fury against the window-panes. Huge drops they are, swollen with the hidden rage of many days, that fall, and burst heavily, and make the cas.e.m.e.nts tremble.

Outside, the flowers droop and hang their pretty heads in sad wonder at this undeserved Nemesis that has overtaken them. Along the sides of the graveled paths small rivulets run frightened. There is no song of birds in all the air. Only the young short gra.s.s uprears itself, and, drinking in with eager greediness the welcome but angry shower, refuses to bend its neck beneath the yoke.

"How I hate a wet day!" says Luttrell, moodily, for the twentieth time, staring blankly out of the deserted school-room window, where he and Molly have been yawning, moping for the last half-hour.

"Do you? I love it," replies she, out of a sheer spirit of contradiction; as, if there is one thing she utterly abhors it is the idea of rain.

"If I said I loved it, _you_ would say the reverse," says he, laughing, not feeling equal to the excitement of a quarrel.

"Without doubt," replies she, laughing too: so that a very successful opening is rashly neglected. "Surely it cannot keep on like this all day," she says, presently, in a dismal tone, betraying by her manner the falsity of her former admiration: "we shall have a dry winter if it continues much longer. Has any wise man yet discovered how much rain the clouds are capable of containing at one time? It would be such a blessing if they had: then we might know the worst, and make up our minds to it."

"Drop a line to the clerk of the weather office; he might make it his business to find out if you asked him."

"Is that a joke?" with languid disgust. "And you professed yourself indignant with me yesterday when I perpetrated a really superior one!

You ought to be ashamed of yourself. I would not condescend to anything so feeble."

"That reminds me I have never yet paid you off for that misdemeanor.

Now, when time is hanging so heavily on my hands, is a most favorable opportunity to pay the debt. I embrace it. And you too. So 'prepare for cavalry.'"

"A fig for all the hussars in Europe," cries Molly, with indomitable courage.

Meantime, Let.i.tia and John in the morning room--that in a grander house would have been designated a boudoir--are holding a hot discussion.

Lovat, the eldest son, being the handsomest and by far the most scampish of the children, is of course his mother's idol. His master, however, having written to say that up to this, in spite of all the trouble that has been taken with him, he has evinced a far greater disposition for cricket and punching his companions' heads than for his Greek and Latin, Lovat's father had given it as his opinion that Lovat deserves a right good flogging; while Lovat's mother maintains that all n.o.ble, high-spirited boys are "just like that," and asks Mr.

Ma.s.sereene, with the air of a Q. C., whether he never felt a distaste for the dead languages.

Mr. Ma.s.sereene replying that he never did, that he was always a model boy, and never anywhere but at the head of his cla.s.s, his wife instantly declares she doesn't believe a word of it, and most unfairly rakes up a dead-and-gone story, in which Mr. Ma.s.sereene figures as the princ.i.p.al feature, and is discovered during school hours on the top of a neighbor's apple-tree, with a long-suffering but irate usher at the foot of it, armed with his indignation and a birch rod.

"And for three mortal hours he stood there, while I sat up aloft grinning at him," says Mr. Ma.s.sereene, with (considering his years) a disgraceful appreciation of his past immoral conduct; "and when at last the gardener was induced to mount the tree and drag me ignominiously to the ground, I got such a flogging as made a chair for some time a.s.sume the character of a rack."

"And you deserved it, too," says Let.i.tia, with unwonted severity.

"I did, indeed, my dear," John confesses, heartily, "richly. I am glad to see that at last you begin to take a sensible view of the subject.

If I deserved a flogging because I once shirked my tasks, what does not Lovat deserve for a long course of such conduct?"

"He is not accused of stealing apples, at all events; and, besides, Lovat is quite different," says Let.i.tia, vaguely. Whereupon John tells her her heart is running away with her head, and that her partiality is so apparent that he must cease from further argument, and goes on with his reading.