Page:Orange Grove.djvu/109

 "While Merilinda sat there enjoying the scene, Mr. Melrose walked round the other side of the hedge opposite to where she was sitting, when catching a glimpse of her he was entranced by her extraordinary beauty. Her neck looked like alabaster and her"her—" [sic]

"You don't mean to say she sat there with her neck bare at that time o' year do ye. If consumptions had been as common in them days as they be now, she'd a' catched her death o' cold dressed as warm as could be, settin' there so long that time o' year in the moonshine."

"I'll alter that, but then in a story there must be some play of the fancy."

"I suspect that ain't all fancy. I 'spose you've heard about Mr. Claremont and his wife first meetin' in a wood the first time they ever see each other."

"No indeed! they did? I should like to know all about it, do tell me. How did you know?"

"Yes, I knew that would be what you'd like, but then I promised never to tell of it. You see my cousin used to live here, and one time when she was goin' by that piece of woods out there she see 'em walkin' arm in arm, and heard him say, 'there's no place on earth seems to me like this wood 'cause here I first saw you.' He didn't say anything about any hedge, I guess that had been pulled down afore his time, nor about any seats; I guess they stood up. I don't believe they had any such moonshiny courtin' as you tell about. Now that's just what I like, lovers and moonshine, one is just as fickle as the other."

"Do you call moonshine fickle?"

"Yes, if you should agree to walk out with your