The Mad Love Part 4

"That is what my uncle says; he is always asking me if I cannot make myself more like the girls of Rashleigh."

"I hope you never will," he cried, warmly.

"I do not know how," she said. "I must always be what G.o.d and nature made me."

"They made you fair enough," he whispered.

And then he owned to himself that she was not like other girls.

She drew back proudly, swiftly; no smile came to her lips, no laughing light to her eyes.

"Speak to me as you would to one in your own rank, my lord," she said, haughtily. "Though fate has made me a farmer's niece, nature made me----"

"A queen," he interrupted.

And she was satisfied with the acknowledgment. They sat down under one of the great oak-trees, a great carpet of bluebells under their feet.

Leone looked thoughtful; she gathered some sprays of bluebells and held them in her hands, her white fingers toying with the little flowers, then she spoke:

"I know," she said, "that no lady--for instance, in your own rank of life--would walk through this wood with you on a summer's afternoon."

A laugh came over his handsome, happy young face.

"I do not know. I am inclined to think the opposite."

"I do not understand what you would call etiquette; but I am quite sure you would never ask one."

"I am not sure. If I had met one in what you are pleased to call my rank of life last night by the mill-stream, looking as you looked, I am quite sure that I should ask her to walk with me and talk with me at any time."

"I should like to see your world," she said. "I know the world of the poor and the middle cla.s.s, but I do not know yours."

"You will know some day," he said, quietly. "Do not be angry with me if I tell you that in all my world I have never seen one like you. Do not be angry, I am not flattering you, I am saying just what I think."

"Why do you think that some day I may see your world?" she asked.

"Because with your face you are sure to marry well," he replied.

"I shall marry where I love," said Leone.

"And you may love where you will," he replied; "no man will ever resist you."

"I would rather you did not speak to me in that fashion," she said, gravely; and Lord Chandos found, that seated by this farmer's niece, in the wood full of bluebells, he was compelled to be more circ.u.mspect than if he were speaking to some countess-elect in a Mayfair drawing-room.

Leone, when she had set him quite straight in his place, as she called it; when she had taught him that he was to treat her with as much, if not more courtesy, than he bestowed on those of his own rank; Leone, when she had done all this, felt quite at home with him. She had never had an opportunity for exercising her natural talent for conversation; her uncle was quite incapable of following or understanding her; the girls who were her companions lost themselves in trying to follow her flights of fancy.

But now there was some one who understood her; talk as she would, he appreciated it; he knew her quotations; no matter how original her ideas were he understood and followed them; it was the first time she had ever had the opportunity of talking to an educated gentleman.

How she enjoyed it; his wit seemed waiting on hers, and seemed to catch fire from it; his eyes caught fire from hers. She described her simple life and its homely surroundings in words that burned.

It was in her simple, sweet, pathetic description of stolid Uncle Robert that she excelled herself; she painted his character with the most graphic touches.

"Do you know, Miss Noel," said Lord Chandos at last, "that you are a genius, that you have a talent truly marvelous: that you can describe a character or a place better than I have heard any one else?"

"No, I did not know anything about it," she said. "I am so accustomed to being looked upon as something not to be understood, admired, or imitated that I can hardly believe that I am clever. Uncle Robert is really a character; nowadays men and women are very much alike; but he stands out in bold relief, quite by himself, the slowest, the most stolid of men, yet with a great heart full of love."

It was so pleasant to talk to him and see his handsome young face full of admiration; to startle him by showing her talent, so pleasant that the whole of the summer afternoon had pa.s.sed before she thought of the time; and he was equally confused, for Dr. Hervey's dinner-hour was over. And yet they both agreed it was the most pleasant hour they had ever spent.

CHAPTER V.

THE RECONCILIATION.

It was, of course, the old story; there were one or two meetings by the mill-stream, a morning spent together in some distant hay-field, an afternoon in the woods, and then the mischief was done--they loved each other.

"Alas, how easily things go wrong-- A sigh too deep or a kiss too long; Then follows a mist and a weeping rain-- And life is never the same again."

It soon became not merely a habit but a necessity for them to meet every day. Farmer Noel understood perfectly well the art of tilling the ground, of sowing the crops, of making the earth productive, but he knew less than a child of the care and watchfulness his young niece required.

He contented himself by asking where she had been; he never seemed to imagine that she had had a companion. He saw her growing more and more beautiful, with new loveliness on her face, with new light in her eyes, with a thousand charms growing on her, but he never thought of love or danger--in fact, above the hay-making and the wheat, Farmer Noel did not think at all.

She had gone into the glowing heart of fairyland--all the old life was left far behind; she did not even seem to remember that she had been restless and discontented; that in her soul she had revolted fiercely against her fate; that she had disliked her life and longed for anything that would change it; all that was forgotten; the golden glamour of love had fallen over her, and everything was changed. He was young--this brave, generous, gallant lover of hers--only twenty, with a heart full of romance. He fairly worshiped the proud, beautiful girl who carried herself with the stately grace of a young queen. He had fallen in love after the fashion of his age--madly, recklessly, blindly--ready to go mad or to die for his love; after the fashion of his age and s.e.x he loved her all the more because of her half-cold reserve, her indomitable pride, her haughty rejection of all flattery.

Young girls do not always know the secret of their power; a little reserve goes further than the most loving words. Leone's pride attracted Lord Chandos quite as much as her beauty. The first little quarrel they had was an outburst of pride from her; they had been strolling through the sunniest part of Leigh Woods, and when it was time to part he bent down to kiss the warm, white hand. She drew it quickly from him.

"You would not have done that to one of your own cla.s.s," she cried; "why do you do it to me?"

"You are not really angry, Leone?" he cried in wonder.

She turned her beautiful face, colorless with indignation, to him.

"I am so far angry," she said, "that I shall not walk through the woods with you--never again."

She kept her word. For two whole days Lord Chandos wandered through the fields and the lanes, through the woods and by the river, yet he saw no sight of her. It was possible that she punished herself quite as much as she did him; but he must be taught that, were he twenty times an earl, he must never venture on even the least liberty with her; he must wait her permission before he kissed her hand.

The fourth day--he could bear it no longer--he rode past the farm twenty times and more; at length he was fortunate enough to see Farmer Noel, and throwing the reins on his horse's neck he got down and went up to him.

"Have you a dog to sell?" he asked. "Some one told me you had very fine dogs."

"I have good dogs, but none to sell," replied the farmer.

"I want a dog, and I would give a good price for a good one," he said.

"Will you let me see yours?"

"Yes, you can see them, but you cannot buy them," said Robert Noel; and the next scene was the handsome young lordling going round the farm, with the stalwart, stolid farmer.

He won the farmer's heart by his warm praises of the farm, the cattle, the dogs, and everything else he saw; still there was no Leone.

"I am very thirsty; should you think me very impertinent if I asked you for a gla.s.s of cider?" he said; and the farmer, flattered by the request, took him into the little parlor. He looked at his visitor in simple wonder.