Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 129.djvu/92

Rh on her, she saw the trap which had been laid, and she added in some confusion, "or any other country too."

"Italy, for example?"

"Oh yes, I should think it would be delightful to travel in Italy; I do long to see Rome." Little Lucy was trembling with excitement and nervousness combined, and hardly knew what she was saying.

Here a shabby idea possessed Yorke. He saw his power over the poor girl, but still played with her feelings. So he went on: "Was your last visitor from Italy, or going there?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I suppose you have had visitors staying in the house before now, and that then perhaps some other country had the preference over the land of my adoption."

"How can you be so cruel!" she replied, turning her face away indignantly, and then, after a moment's struggle between distress and pride, bursting into tears, stopping short as she did so to cover her face.

"Miss Peevor — Lucy — my dearest Lucy!" cried Yorke, also stopping, and then, after a moment's hesitation, encircling her waist with one arm, while with the other he sought to detach her hands, and make her look up at him. "Lucy, my love, don't cry. I have behaved like a brute; but you will show your forgiveness by looking up at me with your sweet eyes."

Lucy did as she was bid, thereby no doubt deserving the reprobation of every right-thinking young lady; she looked up, smiling through her tears, and Yorke, strengthening the embrace of his engaged arm, and holding her two little struggling hands in one of his, imprinted a kiss on her pretty little mouth. He no longer thought about the cold.

Just then they were interrupted. The children, unnoticed by them, had run back to where they were standing, and were looking up in consternation.

"Why are you crying, Lucy?" said Minnie, almost ready to cry herself from sympathy.

"'Oocie trying 'cause it so told," said Lottie by way of explanation, catching hold of her elder sister's dress with her disengaged hand, while holding her little hoop with the other.

"Yes, dear," said Lucy, stooping down to kiss her little sister, by way of hiding her confusion, "it's very cold, isn't it? let us take a run together;" and holding Lottie by the hand she pressed forward by way of hiding her confusion; while Yorke, giving a hand to little Minnie, and pushing on to keep his place beside her, could see that her face, as she looked downwards with averted glance, expressed mingled confusion and happiness.

A few steps made in silence brought them to the foot of the hill and with an abrupt turn in the road the river came suddenly open to view, running at their feet. The road here branched right and left to Shoalbrook and Castleroyal. No longer the clear placid stream which, shaded by leafy banks, yielded a constant summer delight to denizen of town and country for miles around; yet still the leafless bushes and trees glowing rich red under the winter sun, sparkling with frosty spiracles, and set off by the deep blue background tints, formed a scene full of beauty of its own kind.

On their right, a short distance down the stream, separated from the bank by the towing-path and a little garden, was a wayside inn. A place, no doubt, of much resort in summer; but now the arbour in front was bare and naked; the little tables and forms on each side of the garden-path were tenantless; and except that a column of smoke rose from the chimney into the still air, the house itself looked to be empty.

On the left the road to Castleroyal receded somewhat from the river, the space between the two being occupied as garden-grounds, the houses standing in which, secluded in summer, could now be distinguished through the leafless branches, some small, some large, till the view was bounded by a bend in the river, just where the spire of a country church appeared amidst a grove of venerable elms.

The children began throwing bits of stick into the water, watching them float down the stream.

"That is our boat-house," said Lucy at last, by way of breaking the awkward silence, "on the other side. Papa had it put there to be out of the way of the towing-path."

"It looks a big place to keep a boat in," replied her companion, glad for the moment to pursue indifferent subjects. Must he tell Lucy at once what a mere remnant of a heart he had to offer her? Somehow the fraction seemed just then a good deal larger than he had been accustomed to deem it.

"There are several boats kept there," she rejoined; "the big boat, and the little boat, and Fred's wherry, and Cathy's and my canoes — it is such fun canoing, but