Airy Fairy Lilian Part 12

the fond gay birds are warbling their tenderest strains. "Along the gra.s.s sweet airs are blown," and all the myriad flowers, the "little wildings" of the forest, "earth's cultureless buds," are expanding and glowing, and exhaling the perfumed life that their mother, Nature, has given them.

Chetwoode is looking its best and brightest, and Sir Guy might well be proud of his possessions; but no thought of them enters his mind just now, which is filled to overflowing with the image of this petulant, pretty, saucy, lovable ward, that fate has thrown into his path.

"Yes, it is a lovely place!" says Lilian, after a pause spent in admiration. She has been looking around her, and has fallen into honest though silent raptures over all the undulating parks and uplands that stretch before her, far as the eye can see. "Lovely!--So," with a sigh, "was my old home."

"Yes. I think quite as lovely as this."

"What!" turning to him with a start, while the rich, warm, eager flush of youth springs to her cheeks and mantles there, "you have been there?

You have seen the Park?"

"Yes, very often, though not for years past. I spent many a day there when I was younger. I thought you knew it."

"No, indeed. It makes me glad to think some one here can remember its beauties with me. But you cannot know it all as I do: you never saw my own particular bit of wood?"--with earnest questioning, as though seeking to deny the hope that strongly exists. "It lies behind the orchard, and one can get to it by pa.s.sing through a little gate in the wall, that leads into the very centre of it. There at first, in the heart of the trees one sees a tangled ma.s.s with giant branches overhanging it, and straggling blackberry bushes protecting it with their angry arms, and just inside, the coolest, greenest, freshest bit of gra.s.s in all the world,--my fairy nook I used to call it. But you--of course you never saw it."

"It has a huge horse-chestnut at its head, and a silver fir at its feet."

"Yes,--yes!"

"I know it well," says Chetwoode, smiling at her eagerness. "It was your mother's favorite spot. You know she and my mother were fast friends, and she was very fond of me. When first she was married, before you were born, I was constantly at the Park, and afterward too. She used to read in the spot you name, and I--I was a delicate little fellow at that time, obliged to lie a good deal, and I used to read there beside her with my head in her lap, by the hour together."

"Why, you know more about my mother than I do," says Lilian, with some faint envy in her tones.

"Yes,"--hastily, having already learned how little a thing can cause an outbreak, when one party is bent on war,--"but you must not blame me for that. I could not help it."

"No,"--regretfully,--"I suppose not. Before I was born, you say. How old that seems to make you!"

"Why?"--laughing. "Because I was able to read eighteen years ago? I was only nine, or perhaps ten, then."

"I never could do my sums," says Lilian: "I only know it sounds as though you were the Ancient Mariner or Methuselah, or anybody in the last stage of decay."

"And yet I am not so very old, Lilian. I am not yet thirty."

"Well, that's old enough. When I am thirty I shall take to caps with borders, and spectacles, and long black mittens, like nurse. Ha, ha!"

laughs Lilian, delighted at the portrait of herself she has drawn, "shan't I look nice then?"

"I dare say you will," says Guy, quite seriously. "But I would advise you to put off the wearing of them for a while longer. I don't think thirty old. I am not quite that."

"A month or two don't signify,"--provokingly; "and as you have had apparently a very good life I don't think it manly of you to fret because you are drawing to the close of it. Some people would call it mean. There, never mind your age: tell me something more about my mother. Did you love her?"

"One could not help loving her, she was so gentle, so thoroughly kind-hearted."

"Ah! what a pity it is I don't resemble her!" says Lilian, with a suspiciously deep sigh, accepting the reproach, and shaking her head mournfully. "Was she like that picture at home in the drawing-room? I hope not. It is very lovely, but it lacks expression, and has no tenderness about it."

"Then the artist must have done her great injustice. She was all tenderness both in face and disposition as I remember her, and children are very correct in their impressions. She was extremely beautiful. You are very like her."

"Am I, Sir Guy? Oh, thank you. I didn't hope for so much praise. Then in one thing at least I do resemble my mother. Am I more beautiful or less so?"

"That is quite a matter of opinion."

"And what is yours?" saucily.

"What can it matter to you?" he says, quickly, almost angrily. "Besides, I dare say you know it."

"I don't, indeed. Never mind, I shall find out for myself. I am so glad"--amiably--"you knew my mother, and the dear Park! It sounds horrible, does it not, but the Park is even more dear to me than--than her memory."

"You can scarcely call it a 'memory'; she died when you were so young,--hardly old enough to have an idea. I recollect you so well, a little toddling thing of two."

"The plot thickens. You knew _me_ also? And pray, Sir Guardian, what was I like?"

"You had blue eyes, and a fair skin, a very imperious will, and the yellowest hair I ever saw."

"A graphic description! It would be madness on the part of any one to steal me, as I should infallibly be discovered by it. Well, I have not altered much. I have still my eyes and my hair, and my will, only perhaps rather more of the latter. Go on: you are very unusually interesting to-day: I had no idea you possessed such a fund of information. Were you very fond of me?"

"Very," says Chetwoode, laughing in spite of himself. "I was your slave, as long as I was with you. Your lightest wish was my law. I used even----"

A pause.

"Yes, do go on: I am all attention. 'I used even----'"

"I was going to say I used to carry you about in my arms, and kiss you into good humor when you were angry, which was pretty often," replies Guy, with a rather forced laugh, and a decided accession of color; "but I feared such a very grown-up young lady as you might be offended."

"Not in the least,"--with a gay, perfectly unembarra.s.sed enjoyment at his confusion. "I never heard anything so amusing. Fancy you being my nurse once on a time. I feel immensely flattered when I think such an austere individual actually condescended to hold me in his arms and kiss me into good humor. It is more than I have any right to expect. I am positively overwhelmed. By the bye, had your remedy the desired effect?

Did I subdue my naughty pa.s.sion under your treatment?"

"As far as I can recollect, yes," rather stiffly. n.o.body likes being laughed at.

"How odd!" says Miss Chesney.

"Not very," retorts he: "at that time _you_ were very fond of _me_."

"That is even odder," says Miss Chesney, who takes an insane delight in teasing him. "What a pity it is you cannot invent some plan for reducing me to order now!"

"There are some tasks too great for a mere mortal to undertake," replies Sir Guy, calmly.

Miss Chesney, not being just then prepared with a crus.h.i.+ng retort, wisely refrains from speech altogether, although it is by a superhuman effort she does so. Presently, however, lest he should think her overpowered by the irony of his remark, she says, quite pleasantly:

"Did Cyril ever see me before I came here?"

"No." Then abruptly, "Do you like Cyril?"

"Oh, immensely! He suits me wonderfully, he is so utterly devoid of dignity, and all that. One need not mind what one says to Cyril; in his worst mood he could not terrify. Whereas his brother----" with a little malicious gleam from under her long, heavy lashes.

"Well, what of his brother?"

"Nay, Sir Guy, the month we agreed on has not yet expired," says Lilian.

"I cannot tell you what I think of you yet. Still, you cannot imagine how dreadfully afraid I am of you at times."

"If I believed you, it would cause me great regret," says her guardian, rather hurt. "I am afraid, Lilian, your father acted unwisely when he chose Chetwoode as a home for you."