Say and Seal Volume Ii Part 4

"What is Mr. Somers?"

"Mr. Somers--what are you?" said his wife.

"Ha!--I don't know, my dear," said Mr. Somers blandly. "I think I am--a--out of place."

"Then you're a moth," said the doctor. "That is out of place too, in most people's opinion. Miss Delaney, I beg your pardon--what are you?"

"Here are the two Miss Churchills, doctor," said Miss Essie--"hyacinth and laburnum."

"I am sure you have been sponsor, Miss Essie. Well this is my garden of flowers. Then of fellow insects I have a somewhat confused variety. Mr.

Stoutenburgh sings round his hearth in the shape of a black cricket.

Mr. Linden pa.s.ses unnoticed in the invisibility of a midge--nothing more dangerous. Mr. Somers does all the mischief he can in the way of devouring widows' houses. The two Messrs. De Staff" (two very spruce and moustachioed young gentlemen) "figure as wasp and snail--one would hardly think they belonged to the same family--but there is no accounting for these things. Mr. George Somers professes to have the taste of a bee--but luckily the garden belongs to the b.u.t.terfly."

"In other words, some one has put Dr. Harrison in a flutter," said Mrs.

Stoutenburgh.

"I haven't begun yet," said the doctor wheeling round to face her; "when I do, my first business will be to cut you up, Mrs. Stoutenburgh."

"Miss Faith," said Mr. Linden while the roll went on, "I have not forgotten your question,--they, and we, are going to play a French game called 'the b.u.t.terfly and the Flowers;' wherein I, a midge, am in humble attendance oh a sprig of mignonette. Whenever our b.u.t.terfly gardener chooses to speak the name of any flower or insect, that Flower or insect must reply: when he speaks of the gardener, you flowers must extend one hand in token of welcome, we insects draw back in dismay: if the gardener brings his watering-pot, or there falls a shower of rain, you must hold up your head for joy--I must kneel down for fear. If the sunshine is mentioned, we are free to rejoice together--standing up and making demonstrations. You may reply, Miss Faith, either in your own words or quotations, so that you mention some one of your companions; but if you fail to speak, or break any other rule, you must pay a forfeit first and redeem it afterwards."

"I may mention either insect or flower?" said Faith.

"Yes, just what you like."

"If everybody is ready," said the doctor, "I will begin by remarking that I find myself in an 'embarras de richesses'--so many sweets around me that I--a b.u.t.terfly--know not which to taste first; and such an array of enemies, hostile alike to the flowers and me, that I know not which to demolish first. I hope a demolishing rain will fall some of these days--ah! that is gratifying! behold my enemies shrinking already, while the flowers lift up their heads with pleasure and warm themselves in the rays of the sun. What is mignonette doing?"

There was a general outcry of laughter, for as the gentlemen had kneeled and bent their heads, and the flowers had risen to greet the sun,--Faith, in her amus.e.m.e.nt and preoccupation had sat still. She rose now, blushing a little at being called upon.

"Mignonette loves the sun without making any show for it. She has no face to lift up like the white lily."

"The white lily isn't sweet like lavender," said Miss Julia.

"And the lavender has more to do in the linen press than among b.u.t.terflies," said Mrs. Somers.

"It is good to know one's place," said the doctor. "But the b.u.t.terfly, seeking a safe resting place, flutters with unpoised flight, past the false poppy which flaunts its gay colours on the sight."

"And fixes its eyes on the distant gardener with his watering-pot,"

said Mrs. Stoutenburgh, stretching forth her hand, sibyl-like, towards the now prostrate doctor,--"whereat the mignonette rejoices."

"All the flowers rejoice," said the mignonette, "and the cricket jumps out of the way."

"Into the sunshine"--said Mr. Stoutenburgh, laughing;--"but the moth feels doubtful."

"The moth"--said Mr. Somers--"he--don't like the sunshine so well as the rain. He--ha--he wishes he was a midge there, to get under shelter."

"A midge _here_ he can't be," said Mr. Linden, dropping his voice for Faith's benefit,--"'Two suns hold not their courses in one sphere!'"--Then aloud--"Invisibility is a great thing--when you can make up your mind to it, but 'Althaea with the purple eye' looks on life differently."

"I look on it soberly," said Miss Essie.--

"'Flutter he, flutter he, high as he will, A b.u.t.terfly is but a b.u.t.terfly still.

And 'tis better for us to remain where we are, In the lowly valley of duty and care, Than lonely to soar to the heights above, Where there's nothing to do and nothing to love.'"

"I'll flutter no more! after that"--said the doctor. "I'll creep into the heart of the white lily and beg it to shelter me."

"It won't hide you from the sun nor from the rain," said the white lily,--"and I'd as lieve shelter a spider besides."

Faith forgot again that she must welcome the sun; but she was not the only one who had incurred forfeits. Nor the last one who should. For while that interesting member of society who called himself spider, made his reply, Mr. Linden's attention naturally wandered--or came back; and the lively dialogue which then ensued between Messrs. Snail, Wasp, Beetle, etc. failed to arouse him to the duties of a midge or the fear of the gardener: he forgot everything else in the pleasure of making Mignonette laugh. Standing half before her at last, in some animated bit of talk, more than one sunbeam and watering-pot had come and gone, unnoticed by both midge and mignonette,--a fact of which some other people took note, and smilingly marked down the forfeits.

"Mr. Linden"--said the voice of Miss Essie at his elbow--"do you know what the doctor is saying?--'The mother of mischief is no bigger than a midge's wing!' You'd better speak to him."

Mr. Linden turned, with a laughing, recollective glance--

"Who speaks slightingly of the midge?--let him have a dose of syrup of poppies!"

"I guess you can find balm," said Mrs. Stoutenburgh gaily.

"He shall have it if he wants it," said Miss Bezac--"that is if _I_'ve got it,--though I rather guess he's got it himself,--I'm sure I don't know what he hasn't got. And it don't strike me he looks as if he wanted it, either, if I _had_. But it's funny I should and not the doctor--though to be sure most things are,--and _he_'s gone to 'the b.u.t.terfly's ball and the gra.s.shopper's feast.'"

"The gra.s.shopper's feast being just now announced," said Mrs. Somers stepping forward, "I shall hope to set the flowers free from their natural enemies without more delay."

"I shall not confess to that!" said Mr. Linden under-tone. "But will you come, Miss Faith--the insects are all gone--

'Save the few that linger, even yet, Round the Alyssum's tuft and the Mignonette.'"

The midge's prompt action had perhaps disappointed several other people. Dr. Harrison at any rate contrived with Miss Essie to be the immediately preceding couple in the walk to the supper-room.

"I'm glad of some refreshment!" said the doctor; "b.u.t.terflies cannot live on the wing. Linden! have you been singing all the evening, in the character of a midge?"

"No," said Mr. Linden--"all the singing I have done has been in my own character."

"I am glad to hear it. By the way," said Dr. Harrison as they reached the supper-room and paired off from their respective charges,--"I am sorry to hear that Pattaqua.s.set has no hold on you, Linden."

"Indeed?" said Mr. Linden,--an "indeed" which might refer to the doctor's sorrow, or the supposed fact.

"Nay I know nothing about it!" said the doctor lightly as he attacked the supper-table--"but Miss Derrick tells me it is true that your heart is in another place."

"Dr. Harrison!" Mr. Linden said, with a momentary erectness of position. But he said no more; turning off then towards Faith with her oysters. And the gentle respect and quick attention with which she was served, Faith might feel, and take note of--yet not guess that its peculiar tone this night was warring, hand to hand, with the injustice done her name. The doctor had unwittingly betrayed at least one point of talk held over the Rhododendrons--furnished a clue he dreamed not of; and stirred a power of displeasure which perhaps he thought Mr.

Linden did not possess.

Faith did not indeed guess anything from the manner of the latter to her, although she felt it; she felt it as his own, kind and watchful and even affectionate; but like him, belonging to him, and therefore not telling upon the question. With a very humbled and self-chiding spirit, she was endeavouring to keep the face and manner which suited the place, above a deep sinking of heart which was almost overcoming.

Her success was like the balance of her mind--doubtful. Gentle her face was as ever; all the crosses of the evening had not brought an angle there; but it was shadowed beyond the fitness of things; and she was still and retiring so far as it was possible to be, shrinking into a very child's lowness of place.

Ladies were in the majority that night and the gentlemen were obliged to be constantly on the move. In one of the minutes when Faith was alone, Mrs. Stoutenburgh came up.

"Faith," she whispered, "have you been doing anything to vex my friend?"

Faith started a little, with a sort of shadow of pain crossing her face.