Mrs. Geoffrey. Duchess

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СКАЧАТЬ rendering it each moment sweeter and more desirable. "My precept to all who build is," says Cicero, "that the owner should be an ornament to the house, and not the house to the owner."

      Mona pours out the tea – which is excellent – and puts in the cream – which is a thing to dream of – with a liberal hand. She smiles at Geoffrey across the sugar-bowl, and chatters to him over the big bowl of flowers that lies in the centre of the table. Not a hothouse bouquet faultlessly arranged, by any means, but a great, tender, happy, straggling bunch of flowers that seem to have fallen into their places of their own accord, regardless of coloring, and fill the room with their perfume.

      His host going to the window when breakfast is at an end, Geoffrey follows him; and both look out upon the little garden before them that is so carefully and lovingly tended.

      "It is all her doing," says the old man, – "Mona's, I mean. She loves those flowers more than anything on earth, I think. Her mother was the same; but she wasn't half the lass that Mona is. Never a mornin' in the cowld winter but she goes out there to see if the frost hasn't killed some of 'em the night before."

      "There is hardly any taste so charming or so engrossing as that for flowers," says Geoffrey, making this trite little speech, that sounds like a copy-book, in his most engaging style. "My mother and cousin do a great deal of that sort of thing when at home."

      "Ay, it looks pretty and gives the child something to do." There is a regretful ring in his tone that induces Geoffrey to ask the next question.

      "Does she – does Miss Scully find country life unsatisfying? Has she not lived here always?"

      "Law, no, sir," says the old man, with a loud and hearty laugh. "I think if ye could see the counthry girls round here, an' compare 'em with my Mona, you'd see that for yerself. She's as fine as the queen to them. Her mother, you see, was the parson's daughter down here; tiptop she was, and purty as a fairy, but mighty delicate; looked as if a march wind would blow her into heaven. Dan – he was a brother of mine, an' a solicitor in Dublin. You've been there, belike?"

      "Yes; I stopped there for two or three days on my way down here. Well – and – your brother?" He cannot to himself explain the interest he feels in this story.

      "Dan? He was a fine man, surely; six feet in his stockin', he was, an' eyes like a woman's. He come down here an' met her, an' she married him. Nothing would stop her, though the parson was fit to be tied about it. An' of course he was no match for her, – father bein' only a bricklayer when he began life, – but still I will say Dan was a fine man, an' one to think about; an' no two ways in him, an' that soft about the heart. He worshipped the ground she walked on; an' four years after their marriage she told me herself she never had an ache in her heart since she married him. That was fine tellin', sir, wasn't it? Four years, mind ye. Why, when Mary was alive (my wife, sir) we had a shindy twice a week, reg'lar as clockwork. We wouldn't have known ourselves without it; but, however, that's nayther here nor there," says Mr. Scully, pulling himself up short. "An' I ask yer pardon, sir, for pushing private matters on ye like this."

      "But you have interested me," says Geoffrey, seating himself on the broad sill of the window, as though preparing for a long dissertation on matters still unknown. "Pray tell me how your brother and his lovely wife – who evidently was as wise and true as she was lovely – got on."

      Mr. Rodney's face being of that rare kind that is as tender as it is manly, and by right of its beauty demands confidence, the old man (who dearly loves his own voice) is encouraged to proceed.

      "They didn't get on for long," he says, mournfully, – and what voice is so full of melancholy as the Irish voice when it sinks into sadness? "When the little one – Mona – was barely five years old, they went to ground; Mount Jerome got them. Fever it was; and it carried 'em both off just while ye'd have time to look round ye. Poor souls, they went to the blessed land together. Perhaps the Holy Virgin knew they would have got on badly without each other anywhere."

      "And the child, – Miss Mona?" asks Geoffrey.

      "She went to live in Anthrim with her mother's sister. Later she got to Dublin, to her aunt there, – another of the parson's daughters, – who married the Provost in Thrinity; a proud sort he was, an' awful tiresome with his Greeks an' his Romans, an' not the height of yer thumb," says Mr. Scully, with ineffable contempt. "I went to Dublin one day about cattle, and called to see me niece; an' she took to me, bless her, an' I brought her down with me for change of air, for her cheeks were whiter than a fleece of wool, an' she has stayed ever since. Dear soul! I hope she'll stay forever. She is welcome."

      "She must be a great comfort to you," says Geoffrey from his heart.

      "She is that. More than I can say. An' keeps things together, too. She is clever like her father, an' he was on the fair way to make a fortune. Ay, I always say it, law is the thing that pays in Ireland. A good sound fight sets them up. But I'm keeping you, sir, and your gun is waitin' for ye. If you haven't had enough of me company by this," with another jolly laugh, "I'll take ye down to a field hard by, an' show ye where I saw a fine young covey only yesternight."

      "I – I should like to say good-by to Miss Mona, and thank her for all her goodness to me, before going," says the young man, rising somewhat slowly.

      "Nay, you can say all that on your way back, an' get a half-shot into the bargain," says old Scully, heartily. "You'll hardly beat the potheen I can give ye." He winks knowingly, pats Rodney kindly on the shoulder, and leads the way out of the house. Yet I think Geoffrey would willingly have bartered potheen, partridge, and a good deal more, for just one last glance at Mona's beautiful face before parting. Cheered, however, by the prospect that he may see her before night falls, he follows the farmer into the open air.

      CHAPTER III

      HOW GEOFFREY'S HEART IS CLAIMED BY CUPID AS A TARGET, AND HOW MONA STOOPS TO CONQUER

      It is ten days later. The air is growing brisker, the flowers bear no new buds. More leaves are falling on the woodland paths, and the trees are throwing out their last bright autumn tints of red and brown and richest orange, that tell all too plainly of the death that lies before them.

      Great cascades of water are rushing from the high hills, tumbling, hurrying, with their own melodious music, into the rocky basins that kind nature has built to receive them. The soothing voices of the air are growing louder, more full of strength; the branches of the elms bow down before them; the gentle wind, "a sweet and passionate wooer," kisses the blushing leaf with perhaps a fiercer warmth than it did a month agone.

      It is in the spring – so we have been told – that "a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love;" yet it is in the autumn that our young man takes to this pleasing if somewhat unsatisfactory amusement.

      Not that he himself is at all aware of the evil case into which he has fallen. He feels not the arrow in his heart, or the tender bands that slowly but surely are winding themselves around him, – steel bands, decked out and hidden by perfumed flowers. As yet he feels no pang; and, indeed, were any one to even hint at such a thing, he would have laughed aloud at the idea of his being what is commonly termed "in love."

      That he – who has known so many seasons, and passed through the practised hands of some of the prettiest women this world can afford, heart-whole, and without a scratch – should fall a victim to the innocent wiles of a little merry Irish girl of no family whatever, seems too improbable even of belief, however lovely beyond description this girl may be (and is), with her wistful, laughing, mischievous Irish eyes, and her mobile lips, and her disposition half angelic, half full of fire and natural coquetry.

      Beauty, according to Ovid, is "a favor bestowed by the gods;" Theophrastus says it is "a silent СКАЧАТЬ