Hildegarde's Harvest Part 4

They listened, and heard a clear, sweet voice discoursing calmly:

"I have three pillows to my head, though I am not ill. I wish that other boy was here, that was in bed, and made songs about himself, and said it was the Land of Counterpane. He was the Giant great and still, that sits upon the pillow-hill, and I am that kind of giant too. Now I play he is here, and he sits up against that pillow, and I sit up against this. And I say, 'How can you say all the things that come in your mind? I can have the things in my mind, too, but they will not have rhyme-tails to them. How do you make the rhyme-tails?'

"And then he says,--I call him Louis, for that is the prettiest part of his name,--Louis says, 'It has to be a part of you. I think of things in short lines, and after every line I look for the rhyme-tail, and I see it hanging somewhere. But perhaps your Colonel can help you about that,'

Louis says.

"But I say, 'No! my Colonel cannot help me about that. My Colonel is good, and I love him with love that grows like a tree, but he cannot make rhymes. Now, if my Beloved were here, she might be able to help me; but she is far away, and the high walls shut her out from me. The walls are very high here, Louis, and my Colonel has gone away now, and I don't know how soon he will come back; so don't you leave me, Louis, for I am alone in a sandy waste, and there are no quails. But manna would be nasty, I think.'"

At this point the listeners could bear no more. Hilda ran into the room, and had Hugh in her arms, and was laughing and crying and cooing over him all at once. The Colonel followed, very red in the face, blowing his nose and clearing his throat portentously.

"Why, darling," Hilda was saying between the kisses, "darling Boy, did you want me? and did you think your Colonel would leave you for more than a few little minutes? Of course he would not! And where do you suppose I came from, Boy, when I heard you say you wanted me? Do you think I came down the chimney?"

Hugh gravely inspected her spotless attire; the blue serge showed no wrinkle, no speck of dust.

"I should say _not_ the chimney!" he announced, "But from some strange where you must have come, Beloved, if it was a place where you heard me talking when I was not there. Was it the up-stairs of the Land of Counterpane?" he added, his eyes lighting up with their whimsical look.

"Was it the Counterpane Garret? Then it must have been over the top of the bed that you came from, and you seemed to come in at the door. Did Louis tell you to come?"

"Louis?" said the Colonel. "What does the boy mean? Stuff and nonsense!

I met your Beloved in the street, ran into her, and thought she was a post; and then I brought her along, and here she is; and what do you think about breakfast, Young Sir?"

Young Sir thought very well of breakfast, but he could not think of eating it without his two friends looking on; so Hildegarde waited in the parlour, chatting merrily with the Colonel till Young Sir's toilet was completed, and then breakfast was brought, and Hugh ate, and the others watched him; and Hildegarde found that she was quite hungry enough to eat Black Hamburg grapes, even if it was only two hours since breakfast, and altogether they were very merry.

"And what shall we do now?" asked the Colonel, when the pleasant meal was over. "The Metropolitan, eh? The boy must see pictures, Hilda, hey?

'The eye that ne'er on beauty dwells,' h'm! ha! folderol! I forget the rest, but the principle remains the same. Never seen any pictures except those at home, and the few in Was.h.i.+ngton. Chiefly rubbish there, I observe. What do you say, Miss Braeside? Will you give Roseholme the honour of your company as far as the Metropolitan?"

"Why not?" thought Hildegarde. "Hobson said positively that Aunt Emily would not see me before lunch, and there is no one else that I need go to see quite so very immediately."

"Yes, I will go with pleasure!" she said. So off they started, the cheerfullest three in New York that morning. Busy men, hurrying down-town to their business, turned to look back at them, and felt the load of care lightened a little just by the knowledge that there were three people who had no care, and were going to enjoy themselves somewhere. Hugh walked in the middle, holding a hand of each friend, chattering away, and looking up from one to the other with clear, joyful looks that made the whole street brighter. The Colonel was in high feather; flouris.h.i.+ng his stick, he strode along, pointing out the various objects of interest on the way. He paused before a mercer's window, filled with s.h.i.+mmering silks and satins.

"Now here," he said, "is frippery of a superior description; frippery enough to delight the hearts of a dozen women."

"Possibly of two dozen, dear sir," put in Hildegarde; "consider the number of yards in all those s.h.i.+ning folds."

"Hum! ha! precisely!" said the Colonel. "Now, Hildegarde, you have some taste in dress, I believe; you appear to me to be a well-dressed young woman. Now, I say, what seems to you the handsomest gown in all this folderol, hey? the handsomest, mind you?"

"'Said the Kangaroo to the Duck, this requires a little reflection!'"

Hildegarde quoted.

"Perhaps, on the whole, that splendid purple velvet; don't you think so, Colonel Ferrers?"

"Hum!" said the Colonel. "Ha! possibly; but--ha! hum! that--I may be wrong, Hildegarde--but that seems to me hardly suited to a young person, hey? More a gown for a dowager, it strikes me? I may be wrong, of course."

"Not in the least wrong, dear sir," said Hilda, laughing. "But you said nothing about a young person. You said 'the handsomest.'"

"Precisely," said the Colonel again. "And after all, a gown is a temporary thing, Hugh. Now, a bit of jewelry--but now, Hildegarde, I put it to you, if you were going to choose a gown for Elizabeth Beadle, for example; suppose Hugh and I were going to take a present home to Elizabeth Beadle; there's no better woman of her station in the mortal universe, sir, I don't care who the second may be. What do you think suitable, hey?"

"Oh, Guardian!" and "Oh, Colonel Ferrers!" cried Hugh and Hildegarde, in a breath. "How delightful!"

"I think Hugh ought to choose," said Hildegarde, with some self-denial; and she added to herself:

"If only he will not choose the blue and red plaid; though there is nothing she would like so well, to be sure!"

Hugh surveyed the s.h.i.+ning prospect with radiant eyes.

"I think you are the very kindest person in all the world!" he said. "I think--my mind is full of thoughts, but now I will make my choice."

He was silent, and the three stood absorbed, heedless of the constantly increasing crowd that surged and elbowed past them.

"My great-aunt is fond of bright colours," said the child, at last.

Hildegarde s.h.i.+vered.

"She would like best the red and blue plaid. _But_, people must not always have the things they like best. You remember the green apples, Guardian, and how they weren't half as good as the medicine was horrid."

"Most astonis.h.i.+ng boy in the habitable universe!" murmured the Colonel, under his breath. "Don't undertake to say what kind of boys there may be in Mars, you understand, but so far as this planet goes,--hey? Ha!

well, have you made your choice, Young Sir?"

Hugh pointed out a gray silk, with a pretty purple figure. "That is the very best thing for my great-aunt," he said.

"That will fill her with delirious rapture, and it will not put out the eyes of anybody. We shall all be happy with that silk."

So in they went to the shop, and Hugh bought the silk, and the Colonel paid for it, and then they all went off to the Metropolitan, and spent the rest of the morning in great joy.

CHAPTER V.

AT THE EXCHANGE.

"AND how have you spent the morning, my dear?" asked Mrs. Delansing.

They were sitting at the luncheon-table. Hildegarde could just see the tip of her aunt's cap above the old-fas.h.i.+oned epergne which occupied the centre of the table; but her tone sounded cheerful, and Hildegarde hastened to tell of her delightful morning. She had enjoyed herself so heartily that she made the recital with joyful eagerness, forgetting for the moment that she was not speaking to her mother, who always enjoyed her good times rather more than she did herself; but a sudden exclamation from Mrs. Delansing brought her to a sudden realisation of her position.

"What!" exclaimed the old lady, and at her tone the very ferns seemed to stiffen. "What are you telling me, Hildegarde? You have been spending the morning with--with a gentleman, and that gentleman--"

"Colonel Ferrers!" said Hildegarde, hastily, fearing that she had not been understood. "Surely you know Colonel Ferrers, Aunt Emily."

"I _do_ know Thomas Ferrers!" replied Mrs. Delansing, with awful severity; "but I do _not_ know why--I must add that I am at a loss to imagine _how_--my niece should have been careering about the streets of New York with Thomas Ferrers or any other young man."

Hildegarde was speechless for a moment; indeed, Mrs. Delansing only paused to draw breath, and then went on.

"That your mother holds many dangerous and levelling opinions I am aware; but that she could in any degree countenance anything so--so monstrous as this, I refuse to believe. I shall consider it my duty to write to her immediately, and inform her of what you have done."

Hildegarde was holding fast to the arms of her chair, and saying over and over to herself, "Never speak suddenly or sharply to an old person!" It was one of her mother's maxims, and she had never needed it before; but now it served to keep her still, though the indignant outcry had nearly forced itself from her lips. She remained silent until she was sure of her voice; then said quietly, "Aunt Emily, there is some mistake! Colonel Ferrers is over sixty years old; he was a dear friend of my father's, and--and I have already written to my mother."

Mrs. Delansing was silent; Hildegarde saw through the screen of leaves a movement, as if she put her hand to her brow. "Sixty years old!" she repeated. "Wild Tom Ferrers,--sixty years old! What does it mean?

Then--then how old am I?"