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CHAPTER XIX.

"Lock you, how she cometh, trilling
Out her gay heart's bird-like bliss!
Merry as a May-morn thrilling
With the dew and sunshine's kiss.

* * * * * * *

Ruddy gossips of her beauty
Are her twin cheeks ; and her mouth,
In its ripe warmth, smileth fruity
As a garden of the south."
--GERALD MASSEY.

TO Georgie the life at the vicarage is quite supportable,--is, indeed, balm to her wounded spirit. Mrs. Redmond may, of course, chop and change as readily as the east wind, and, in fact, may sit in any quarter, being somewhat erratic in her humors; but they are short-lived; and, if faintly trying, she is at least kindly and tender at heart.

As for the vicar, he is--as Miss Georgie tells him, even without a blush--"simply adorable;" and the children are sweet good-natured little souls, true-hearted and ear-nest, to whom the loss of an empire would be as dross in comparison with the gain of a friend.

They are young!

To Dorian Branscombe, Miss Broughton is "a thing of beauty, and a joy forever; her loveliness increases" each moment, rendering her more dear. Perhaps he himself hardly knows how dear she is to his heart, though day after day he haunts the vicarage, persecuting the vicar with parochial business of an outside sort. It ought, indeed, to be "had in remembrance," the amount of charity this young man expended upon the poor during all this early part of the year.

Then there is always Sunday, when he sits opposite to her in the old church, watching her pretty mischievous little face meditatively throughout the service, and listening to her perfect voice as it rises, clear and full of pathos, in anthem and in hymn.

The spring has come at last, though tardy and slow in its approach. Now--

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Winter is almost forgotten. The snow and frost and ice are as a dream that was told. No one heeds them now, or thinks of them, or feels aught about them, save a sudden chill that such things might have been.

To-day is beautiful beyond compare. The sun is high in the heavens; the birds are twittering and preening their soft feathers in the yellow light that Phœbus flings broad-cast upon the loving earth. The flowers are waking slowly into life, and stud the mossy woods with colorings distinct though faint:

Primroses, too, are all alive, and sit staring at the heavens with their soft eyes, as though in their hearts they feel they are earth's stars. Each subtle green is widening, growing. All nature has arisen from its long slumber, and " beauty walks in bravest dress."

Coming up the road, Dorian meets Georgie Broughton, walking with quick steps, and in evident haste, towards the vicarage. She is lilting some merry little song of her own fancy, and has her hat pushed well back from her forehead, so that all her sunny hair can be seen. It is a lovely hat,--inexpensive, perhaps, but lovely, nevertheless, in that it is becoming to the last degree. It is a great big hat, like a coal-scuttle,--as scuttles used to be,--and gives her all the appearance of being the original of one of Kate Greenaway's charming impersonations.

"Good-morning," says Dorian, though, in truth, he hardly takes to heart the full beauty of the fair morning that has been sent, so rapt he is in joy at the very sight of her. "Going back to the vicarage now?"

"Yes." She is smiling sweetly at him,--the little, kind, indifferent smile that comes so readily to her red lips.

"Well, so am I," says Dorian, turning to accompany her.

Miss Broughton glances at him demurely.

"You can't want to go to the vicarage again?" she says, lifting her brows.

"How do you know I have been there at all to-day?" says Dorian.

"Oh, because you are always there, aren't you?" says | | 145 Georgie, shrugging her shoulders, and biting a little flower she has been holding, into two clean halves.

"As you know so much, perhaps you also know why I am always there," says Branscombe, who is half amused, half offended, by her wilfulness.

"No, I don't," replies she, easily, turning her eyes, for the first time, full upon his. "Tell me."

She is quite calm, quite composed; there is even the very faintest touch of malice beneath her long lashes. Dorian colors perceptibly. Is she coquette, or unthinking, or merely mischievous?

"No, not now," he says, slowly. "I hardly think you would care to hear. Some day, if I may. What a very charming hat you have on to-day!"

She smiles again,--what true woman can resist a compliment?--and blushes faintly, but very sweetly, until all her face is like a pale "rosebud brightly blowing."

"This old hat?" she says, with a small attempt at scorn and a very well got-up belief that she has misunderstood him: "why, it has seen the rise and fall of many generations. You can't mean this hat?"

"Yes, I do. To me it is the most beautiful hat in the world, no matter how many happy generations have been permitted to gaze upon it. It is yours!"

"Oh, yes; I bought it in the dark ages," says Miss Broughton, disdaining to notice the insinuation, and treating his last remark as a leading question. "I am glad you like it."

"Are you? I like something else, too: I mean your voice."

"It is too minor,--too discontented, my aunt used to say."

"Your aunt seems to have said a good deal in her time. She reminds me of Butler's talker: `Her tongue is always in motion, though very seldom to the purpose;' and again, 'She is a walking pillory, and punishes more ears than a dozen standing ones.' But I wasn't talking exactly of your everyday voice: I meant your singing: it is quite perfect."

"Two compliments in five minutes!" says Miss Georgie, calmly. Then, changing her tone with dazzling, because unexpected, haste, she says, "Nothing pleases me so much | | 146 as having my singing praised. Do you know," with hesitation,--"I suppose--I am afraid it is very great vanity on my part, but I love my own voice. It is like a friend to me,--the thing I love best on earth."

"Are you always going to love it best on earth?"

"Ah! Well, that, perhaps, was an exaggeration. I love Clarissa. I am happier with her than with any one else. You"--meditatively--"love her too?"

"Yes, very much indeed. But I know somebody else with whom I am even happier."

"Well, that is the girl you are going to marry, I suppose," says Georgia, easily,--so easily that Dorian feels a touch of disappointment, that is almost pain, fall on his heart. "But as for Clarissa,"--in a puzzled tone,--"I cannot understand her. She is going to marry a man utterly unsuited to her. I met him at the ball the other night, and"--thoughtlessly--"I don't like him."

"Poor Horace!" says Dorian, rather taken aback. Then she remembers, and is in an instant covered with shame and confusion.

"I beg your pardon," she says, hurriedly. "I quite forgot. It never occurred to me he was your brother,--never, really. You believe me, don't you? And don't think me rude. I am not"--plaintively--"naturally rude, and--and, after all,"--with an upward glance full of honest liking,--"he is not a bit like you!"

"If you don't like him, I am glad you think he isn't," says Dorian; "but Horace is a very good fellow all through, and I fancy you are a little unjust to him."

"Oh, not unjust," says Georgie, softly. "I have not accused him of any failing; it is only that something in my heart says to me, `Don't like him.'"

"Does something in your heart ever say to you, `Like some one'?"

"Very often." She is (to confess the honest truth) just a little bit coquette at heart, so that when she says this she lifts her exquisite eyes (that always seem half full of tears) to his for as long as it would take him to know they had been there, and then lowers them. "I shall have to hurry," she says; "it is my hour for Amy's music-lesson."

"Do you like teaching?" asks he, idly, more for the sake | | 147 of hearing her plaintive voice again, than from any great desire to know.

"Like it?" She stops short on the pretty woodland path, and confronts him curiously: "Now, do you think I could like it? I don't, then! I perfectly hate it! The perpetual over and over again, the knowledge that to-morrow will always be as to-day, the feeling that one can't get away from it, is maddening. And then there are the mistakes, and the false notes, and everything. What a question to ask me! Did any one ever like it, I wonder!"

There is some passion, and a great deal of petulance, in her tone; and her lovely flower-like face flushes warmly, and there is something besides in her expression that is reproachful. Dorian begins to hate himself. How could he have asked her such a senseless question? He hesitates, hardly knowing what to say to her, so deep is his sympathy; and so, before he has time to decide on any course, she speaks again.

"It is so monotonous," she says, wearily. "One goes to bed only to get up again; and one gets up with no expectation of change except to go to bed again."

"'One dem'd horrid grind,'" quotes Mr. Branscombe, in a low tone. He is filled with honest pity for her. Instinctively he puts out his hand, and takes one of hers, and presses it ever so gently. "Poor child!" he says, from his heart. To him, with her baby face, and her odd impulsive manner, that changes and varies with every thought, she is merely a child.

She looks at him, and shakes her head.

"You must not think me unhappy," she says, hastily. "I am not that. I was twice as unhappy before I came here. Everybody now is so kind to me,--Clarissa, and the Redmonds, and"--with another glance from under the long lashes--"you, and Mr. Hastings."

"The curate?" says Dorian, in such a tone as compels Miss Broughton, on the instant, to believe that he and Mr. Hastings are at deadly feud.

"I thought you knew him," she says, with some hesitation.

"I have met him," returns he, "generally, I think, on tennis-grounds. He can run about a good deal, but it seems a pity to waste a good bat on him. He never hits | | 148 a ball by any chance, and as for serving--I don't think I swore for six months until the last time I met him."

"Why, what did he do?"

"More than I can recall in a hurry. For one thing, he drank more tea than any four people together that ever I knew."

"Was that all? I see no reason why any one should be ashamed of liking tea."

"Neither do I. On the contrary, one should be proud of it. It betrays such meekness, such simplicity, such contentment. I myself am not fond of tea,--a fact I deplore morning, noon, and night."

"It is a mere matter of education," says Georgie, laughing. "I used not to care for it, except at breakfast, and now I love it."

"Do you? I wish with all my heart I was good souchong," says Mr. Branscombe, at which she laughs again.

"One can't have all one's desires," she says. "Now, with me music is a passion; yet I have never heard any of the great singers of the age. Isn't that hard?"

"For you it must be, indeed. But how is it you haven't?"

"Because I have no time, no money, no--no anything."

"What a hesitation! Tell me what the `anything' stands for."

"Well, I meant no home,--that is, no husband, I suppose," says Georgie. She is quite unconcerned, and smiles at him very prettily as she says it. Of the fact that he is actually in love with her, she is totally unaware.

"That is a regret likely to be of short standing," he says, his eyes on hers. But her thoughts are far away, and she hardly heeds the warmth of his gaze or the evident meaning in his tone.

"I suppose if I did marry somebody he would take me to hear all the great people?" she says, a little doubtfully, looking at him as though for confirmation of her hope.

"I should think he would take you wherever you wanted to go, and to hear whatever you wished to hear," he says, slowly.

"What a charming picture you conjure up!" says Georgie, looking at him. "You encourage me. The very first rich man that asks me to marry him, I shall say `Yes' to."

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"You have made up your mind, then, to marry for money?" He is watching her closely, and his brow has contracted a good deal, and his lips show some pain.

"I have made up my mind to nothing. Perhaps I haven't one to make up,"--lightly. "But I hate teaching, and I hate being poor. That is all. But we were not talking of that. We were thinking of Mr. Hastings. At all events, you must confess he reads well, and that is something! Almost everybody reads badly."

"They do," says Branscombe, meekly. "I do. Unless in words of one syllable, I can't read at all. So the curate has the pull over me there. Indeed, I begin to feel myself nowhere beside the curate. He can read well, and drink tea well, and I can't do either."

"Why, here we are at the vicarage," says Georgie, in a tone of distinct surprise, that is flattering to the last degree. "I didn't think we were half so close to it. I am so glad I met you, because, do you know, the walk hasn't seemed nearly so long as usual. Well, good-by."

"May I have those violets?" says Branscombe, point-in to a little bunch of those fair comers of the spring that lies upon her breast.

"You may," she says, detaching them from her gown and giving them to him willingly, kindly, but without a particle of the tender confusion he would gladly have seen in her. "They are rather faded," she says, with some disappointment; "you could have picked yourself a sweeter bunch on your way home."

"I hardly think so."

"Well, good-by again," she says, turning up to him the most bewitching and delicious of small faces, "and be sure you put my poor flowers in water. They will live the longer for it."

"They shall live forever. A hundred years hence, were you to ask me where they were, I swear I should be able to show them."

"A very safe oath," says Miss Broughton; and then she gives him her hand, and parts from him, and runs all the way down the short avenue to the house, leaving him to turn and go on to Gowran.