Airy Fairy Lilian. Duchess

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СКАЧАТЬ adjured, Guy climbs, and, gaining the top, stoops to give her the help desired; she lays her hand in his, and soon he draws her in triumph to his side.

      "Now to get down," he says, laughing. "Wait." He jumps lightly into the next field, and, turning, holds out his arms to her. "You must not risk your neck the second time," he says. "When I saw you give that tremendous leap a minute ago, my blood froze in my veins. Such terrible exertion was never meant for – a fairy!"

      "Am I so very small?" says Lilian. "Well, take me down, then."

      She leans toward him, and gently, reverentially he takes her in his arms and places her on the ground beside him. With such a slight burden to lift he feels himself almost a Hercules. The whole act does not occupy half a minute, and already he wishes vaguely it did not take so very short a time to bring a pretty woman from a wall to the earth beneath. In some vague manner he understands that for him the situation had its charm.

      Miss Chesney is thoroughly unembarrassed.

      "There is something in having a young guardian, after all," she says, casting upon him a glance half shy half merry, wholly sweet. She lays a faint emphasis upon the "young."

      "You have had doubts on the subject, then?"

      "Serious doubts. But I see there is truth in the old saying that 'there are few things so bad but that they might have been worse.'"

      "Do you mean to tell me that I am 'something bad'?"

      "No" – laughing; "how I wish I could! It is your superiority frightens me. I hear I must look on you as something superlatively good."

      "How shocking! And in what way am I supposed to excel my brethren?"

      "In every way," with a good deal of malice: "I have been bred in the belief that you are a rara avis, a model, a – "

      "Your teachers have done me a great injury. I shudder when I contemplate the bitter awakening you must have when you come to know me better."

      "I hope so. I dare say" – naively – "I could learn to like you very well, if you proved on acquaintance a little less immaculate than I have been led to believe you."

      "I shall instantly throw over my pronounced taste for the Christian virtues, and take steadily to vice," says Guy, with decision: "will that satisfy your ladyship?"

      "Perhaps you put it a little too strongly," says Lilian, demurely. "By the bye" – irrelevantly, – "what business took you from home yesterday?"

      "I have to beg your pardon for that, – my absence, I mean; but I could not help it. And it was scarcely business kept me absent," confesses Chetwoode, who, if he is anything, is strictly honest, "rather a promise to dine and sleep at some friends of ours, the Bellairs, who live a few miles from us."

      "Then it wasn't really that bugbear, business? I begin to revive," says Miss Chesney.

      "No; nothing half so healthy. I wish I had some more legitimate excuse to offer for my seeming want of courtesy than the fact of my having to attend a prosy dinner; but I haven't. I feel I deserve a censure, yet I hope you won't administer one when I tell you I found a very severe punishment in the dinner itself."

      "I forgive you," says Lilian, with deep pity.

      "It was a long-standing engagement, and, though I knew what lay before me, I found I could not elude it any longer. I hate long engagements; don't you?"

      "Cordially. But I should never dream of entering on one."

      "I did, unfortunately."

      "Then don't do it again."

      "I won't. Never. I finally make up my mind. At least, most certainly not for the days you may be expected."

      "I fear I'm a fixture," – ruefully: "you won't have to expect me again."

      "Don't say you fear it: I hope you will be happy here."

      "I hope so, too, and I think it. I like your brother Cyril very much, and your mother is a darling."

      "And what am I?"

      "Ask me that question a month hence."

      "Shall I tell you what I think of you?"

      "If you wish," says Lilian, indifferently, though in truth she is dying of curiosity.

      "Well, then, from the very first moment my eyes fell upon you, I thought to myself: She is without exception the most – After all, though, I think I too shall reserve my opinion for a month or so."

      "You are right," – suppressing valiantly all outward symptoms of disappointment: "your ideas then will be more formed. Are you fond of riding, Sir Guy?"

      "Very. Are you?"

      "Oh! am I not? I could ride from morning till night."

      "You are enthusiastic."

      "Yes," – with a saucy smile, – "that is one of my many virtues. I think one should be thoroughly in earnest about everything one undertakes. Do you like dancing?"

      "Rather. It entirely depends upon whom one may be dancing with. There are some people" – with a short but steady glance at her – "that I feel positive I could dance with forever without knowing fatigue, or what is worse, ennui. There are others – " an expressive pause. "I have felt," says Sir Guy, with visible depression, "on certain occasions, as though I could commit an open assault on the band because it would insist on playing its waltz from start to finish, instead of stopping after the first two bars and thereby giving me a chance of escape."

      "Poor 'others'! I see you can be unkind when you choose."

      "But that is seldom, and only when driven to desperation. Are you fond of dancing? But of course you are: I need scarcely have asked. No doubt you could dance as well as ride from morning until night."

      "You wrong me slightly. As a rule, I prefer dancing from night until morning. You skate?"

      "Beautifully!" with ecstatic fervor; "I never saw any one who could skate as well."

      "No? You shan't be long so. Prepare for a downfall to your pride. I can skate better than any one in the world."

      Here they both laugh, and, turning, let their eyes meet. Instinctively they draw closer to each other, and a very kindly feeling springs into being.

      "They maligned you," says Lilian, softly raising her lovely face, and gazing at him attentively, with a rather dangerous amount of ingenuousness. "I begin to fancy you are not so very terrific as they said. I dare say we shall be quite good friends after all."

      "I wish I was as sure of most things as I am of my own feeling on that point," says Guy, with considerable warmth, holding out his hand.

      She slips her cool, slim fingers into his, and smiles frankly. There they lie like little snow-flakes on his broad palm, and as he gazes on them a great and most natural desire to kiss them presents itself to his mind.

      "I think we ought to ratify our vow of good-fellowship," says he, artfully, looking at her as though to gain permission for the theft, and seeing no rebuff in her friendly eyes, stoops and steals a little sweetness from the white hand he holds.

      They СКАЧАТЬ