Page:Cuthbert Bede--Little Mr Bouncer and Tales of College Life.djvu/283

Rh might vouchsafe to recognise my existence, but she passed on to the hotel, and "made no sign."

Later in the day we were out, far away on the cliffs, when, at an angle in the narrow path, we suddenly came upon Amy, walking with her father and mother. Of course she saw us, and—she smiled! smiled—there was no mistaking that agreeable fact!—but the paternities put on the similitudes of Dragons guarding a priceless treasure, and they hustled her past us, and got out of sight as rapidly as possible.

Three days passed in this (to me) most unsatisfactory manner. Amy bathed in the mornings, and walked out in the afternoons, but was always under strict surveillance. And the same mysterious dragon-ship was maintained over her in-doors—so Mrs. Rummell informed me: none, except her parents, had interchanged a word with her since she had been in the house. But hers were eyes which had a dumb language of their own, far more expressive than even the words of some people's lips; and, when we met her in our walks, those pleading eyes seemed to say to us "I am persecuted and helpless; oh! be my friends!" And her sad, touching look of melancholy would so work on my excited feelings that I many times asked Trap if I should be justified in laying violent hands upon the Dragons, and delivering the unfortunate Amy from their thraldom. But my sage attendant would not commit himself to an opinion on this delicate subject.

Of course, while my mind was in this excited state, it was impossible to settle down to hard reading. I tried to do so one morning, and opened my Thucydides; but I could see nothing in the Greek characters but "Amy, Amy;" and her calm face and deep blue eyes swam