Geraldine had it on her tongue's end that Alice would be difficult, for want of anything distinctive, but Felix and Edgar were both jotting something down, and Robina was before-hand with either- 'Scarlet pimpernel, tortoiseshell butterfly, budgerigar, marmoset.'
No one answered, for Felix had pushed a slip of paper over to Alice, on which she read-''Forget-me-not, ladybird, linnet, kitten.' I don't think I ever saw a linnet. Isn't it a little brown bird?'
'With a rich glow of red, and a beautiful song,' said Felix, smiling; and the red glowed redder on her cheek, as she said, laughing, 'Kitten for mischief, eh? For shame, Mr. Underwood!-What, another! Dear me, I shall not know myself!'
This had been slipped into her hand; and Cherry suspected that her exclamation had been a mistake of which she was conscious, as the colour deepened on her already blushing cheeks, and her eyes were cast down, while a demure smile played on her lips. The incautious exclamation had betrayed her, and the young ones clamoured to hear Edgar's view of her transmigration; but there was a little coy struggle of 'Oh no, she wouldn't, and she couldn't.'
'She smiled and blushed, and oft did say
Her pretty oath by yea or nay.'
And in the midst came the message that the maid was arrived to take her home; and this being a cross stiff personage, who might never be kept waiting, she had to hurry away; and had no sooner gone than Angela burst out with, 'Here it is! I've got it! Listen to it: 'Say, Lady-''
'Stay, Angela,' interrupted Felix. 'You have no business with that.'
'Not Edgar's fun!' she exclaimed. 'Why, where is he?'
'Surely he is not going home with her!' said Wilmet in some dismay.
'Oh, but it is such fun,' went on Angela, 'only I can't make it out. You read it, Lance.'
'Did she give it you?' said Felix.
'No, I whipped it up when she dropped it. There's something about Ratton in it.'
Felix quietly took the paper out of her hand, folded it, and put it into an envelope. 'You take it back to her the first thing to- morrow,' he said. 'Now go to bed.'
Angela durst not oppose that tone, so unusually serious and authoritative; but she contrived to prolong her good-nights, and the putting away of her goods, with a kind of half droll, half sullen resignation; and just as Wilmet was hurrying her off, Edgar returned. He always spoilt Angela a little, and she sprang to him with a kind of droll pout. 'You'll not be cross, Edgar. You'll let us hear Alice's transmigrations. Look! here's Felix bottled them up in an envelope, and won't let us peep at them! But you'll let me hear. You won't order me off to bed.'
Cherry fancied she saw a disconcerted look on his face when he saw the envelope held up to him; but if so, it instantly gave place to the mischievous entertainment of defeating a lesson on discretion.- 'The heads of the family must assert themselves sometimes, my dear, even about nothing,' he said consolingly.
'Indeed,' said Wilmet, bristling in defence of Felix, 'of course we knew it was nothing. It was only very ill- mannered and wrong of Angela to go prying into what was not meant to be shown.
'I'm sure,' said Edgar most ungratefully, 'it might be posted on the church door for what I care, except for its intrinsic vileness.'
'Oh, let's have it! let's have it!' burst out Lance and Robina, who had been burning with curiosity all the time.
'Don't let us have them murdered, whatever they are,' said Edgar, taking them into his own hand. 'Pity the sorrows of a poor wretch seduced into one of your horrid jeux d'esprit-a lady's excuse for fishing for compliments that sound more than they mean. Here goes, then:-
'Say, Lady, what existence past
Thine essence hath enfolded;
What humble antecedent cast
Thy present self hath moulded.
The hawthorn bush, with blossom white
Veiling her branches pricking;
The painted lady, fluttering light,
The rash pursuer tricking.
Grass paraquit, who loves to sit
In clustering rows and chat on;
Caressing, purring, traitor kit,
Fatal to Master Ratton.
There, ladies and gentlemen, I hope you are satisfied,' he concluded, letting his performance float into the fire; 'the metaphors, to say the least, are startling, but that is the fault of the game.'
'I don't enter into it all,' said Cherry.
'Not likely another of the grass paraquits would, my dear,' said Edgar.
'And it is exactly what Robin made her,' said Angela; 'both that and the butterfly; and Felix, the kitten. You didn't borrow of course. How funny!'
'But I didn't make her inconstant,' said Robin; 'that is not fair.'
'Not when you made her a butterfly, and the shepherd's weather-glass too!'
'I never thought of that, only their being both bright, dark, sparkling things; and Felix has the forget-me-not, by way of antidote.'
'I do not think such things are wise,' pronounced Wilmet.
'And, by the by, Edgar, it has always been the custom that nobody should walk home with Alice. Miss Pearson would not like it, and it would make a talk.'
Edgar laughed. 'Dear W. W., let it not trouble you! What it may lead to is a bugbear to you. You can't think how much younger and more agreeable you will be when you have learnt that there can be passages that lead to nothing.'
Geraldine went to bed uncomfortable and perplexed. Before she was dressed in the morning, Alice darted in. 'Cherry, I'm so vexed; I dropped that paper. Do you think it is here?'
'No; Angel picked it up, and Edgar read us the verses, and then threw them into the fire.'
'Burnt them!'
'Yes; he said the worst of such games was that they force one to pay compliments that may be taken to mean more than they do.'
Cherry spoke under a stern sense of virtue doing a service to Alice; and when the quick answer came, 'He didn't say that, I'm sure it was Wilmet,' she asseverated, 'Indeed he did. I don't confuse in that way. It is a very good warning not to dwell on what gentlemen may say in mere play.'
'Who told you I did?' said Alice sharply. 'You've no business to say such things!'
Happily there was an interruption. Cherry felt as if she had had a taste of the claws; but she feared she had been malicious, and she was penitent.
CHAPTER XV. WHAT IT LED TO
'Then out and spak the popinjay.'-Old Ballad.
Geraldine was hard at work on a drawing. Edgar's teaching had improved her so much that, under a sore longing to obtain some good studies, she had ventured to place in the shop one of her best imaginary groups, and to her surprise and delight, it had brought her in fifteen shillings, and an order for a companion.
Vistas of hope began to rise before her, only obscured by her consciousness of the want of knowledge and skill. It took some resolution not to attend exclusively to her art, and she was forced to make it a rule never to touch a pencil till the lessons of Bernard and Stella were both over for the day.
They were finished, the children in the garden, and Cherry was in that world of joy and something like inspiration known to spirits imbued with any of the constructive poetry of art, always endeavouring to fulfil an ideal, never indeed satisfying themselves, but never so at rest as in the effort.
Presently she was startled by a step on the stairs. Nothing short of the Fall of Delhi had ever been known to bring Felix upstairs in business hours; and he was especially bound to his work at present, since Mr. Froggatt was detained at home by a serious attack of rheumatism. She looked up amazed at the eager question, 'Is there a letter
