FullReads

“Thank you so much for coming today,” he said–as if I went to oblige him.

“I had a hard time to get Aunt Martha’s consent,” I declared frankly. “I wouldn’t have succeeded if Mrs. Saxby hadn’t taken my part.”

“Heaven bless Mrs. Saxby,” he remarked fervently. “But is there any known way of overcoming your aunt’s scruples? If so, I am ready to risk it.”

“There is none. Aunt Martha is very good and kind to me, but she will never stop trying to bring me up. The process will be going on when I am fifty. And she hates men! I don’t know what she would do if she saw me now.”

Mr. Shelmardine frowned and switched the unoffending daisies viciously with his cane.

“Then there is no hope of my seeing you openly and above-board?”

“Not at present,” I said faintly.

After a brief silence we began to talk of other things. He told me how he happened to see me first.

“I was curious to know who the people were who were always in the same place at the same time, so one day I took my telescope. I could see you plainly. You were reading and had your hat off. When I went back to the hotel I asked Mrs. Allardyce if she knew who the boarders at Fir Cottage were and she told me. I had heard Connie speak of you, and I determined to make your acquaintance.”

When we reached the lane I held out my hand for the hymnal.

“You mustn’t come any further, Mr. Shelmardine,” I said hurriedly. “Aunt–Aunt might see you.”

He took my hand and held it, looking at me seriously.

“Suppose I were to walk up to the cottage tomorrow and ask for you?”

I gasped. He looked so capable of doing anything he took it into his head to do.

“Oh, you wouldn’t,” I said piteously. “Aunt Martha would–you are not in earnest.”

“I suppose not,” he said regretfully. “Of course I would not do anything that would cause you unpleasantness. But this must not–shall not be our last meeting.”

“Aunt will not let me come to church again,” I said.

“Does she ever take a nap in the afternoon?” he queried.

I wriggled my parasol about in the dust uneasily.

“Sometimes.”

“I shall be at the old boat tomorrow afternoon at two-thirty,” he said.

I pulled my hand away.

“I couldn’t–you know I couldn’t,” I cried–and then I blushed to my ears.

“Are you sure you couldn’t?” bending a little nearer.

“Quite sure,” I murmured.

He surrendered my hymnal at last.

“Will you give me a rose?”

I unpinned the whole cluster and handed it to him. He lifted it until it touched his lips. As for me, I scuttled up the lane in the most undignified fashion. At the turn I looked back. He was still standing there with his hat off.

July Twenty-fourth.

On Monday afternoon I slipped away to the shore while Aunt Martha and Mrs. Saxby were taking their regular nap and I was supposed to be reading sermons in my room.

Mr. Shelmardine was leaning against the old boat, but he came swiftly across the sand to meet me.

“This is very kind of you,” he said.

“I ought not to have come,” I said repentantly. “But it is so lonely there–and one can’t be interested in sermons and memoirs all the time.”

Mr. Shelmardine laughed.

“Mr. and Mrs. Allardyce are on the other side of the boat. Will you come and meet them?”

How nice of him to bring them! I knew I should like Mrs. Allardyce, just because Aunt Martha didn’t. We had a delightful stroll. I never thought of the time until Mr. Shelmardine said it was four o’clock.

“Oh, is it so late as that?” I cried. “I must go at once.”

“I’m sorry we have kept you so long,” remarked Mr. Shelmardine in a tone of concern. “If she should be awake, what will the consequences be?”

“Too terrible to think of,” I answered seriously. “I’m sorry, Mr. Shelmardine, but you mustn’t come any further.”