Page:Cuthbert Bede--Verdant Green married and done for.djvu/38

30 perhaps she thought it best, under the circumstances, to say something that should have the resemblance of a veto—"but it is not necessary to hold me a prisoner."

"It's you that hold me a prisoner!" said Mr. Verdant Green, with a sudden burst of enthusiasm and blushes, and a great stress upon the pronouns.

"Now you are talking nonsense, and, if so, I must go!" said Miss Patty. And she also blushed; perhaps it was from the heat. But she removed Mr. Verdant Green's hand from her waist, and he was much too frightened to replace it.

"Oh! do stay a little!" gasped the young gentleman, with an awkward sensation of want of employment for his hands. "You said that secrets were told here. I don't want to talk nonsense; I don't indeed; but the truth. I've a secret to tell you. Should you like to hear it?"

"Oh yes!" laughed Miss Patty. "I like to hear secrets."

Now, how very absurd it was in Mr. Verdant Green wasting time in beating about the bush in this ridiculously timid way! Why could he not at once boldly secure his bird by a straightforward shot? She did not fly out of his range—did she? And yet, here he was making himself unnecessarily hot and uncomfortable, when he might, by taking it coolly, have been at his ease in a moment. What a foolish young man! Nay, he still further lost time and evaded his purpose, by saying once again to Miss Patty—instead of immediately replying to her observation—Pon my word, it's uncommonly hot! don't you think so?"

Upon which Miss Patty replied, with some little chagrin, "And was that your secret?" If she had lived in the Elizabethan era she could have adjured him with a "Marry, come up!" which would have brought him to the point without any further trouble; but living in a Victorian age, she could do no more than say what she did, and leave the rest of her meaning to the language of the eyes.

"Don't laugh at me!" urged the bashful and weak-minded young man; "don't laugh at me! If you only knew what I feel when you laugh at me, you'd"

"Cry, I dare say!" said Miss Patty, cutting him short with a merry smile, and (it must be confessed) a most wickedly-roguish expression about those bright flashing hazel eyes of hers. "Now, you haven't told me this wonderful secret!"

"Why," said Mr. Verdant Green, slowly and deliberately—feeling that his time was coming on, and cowardly anxious still