Page:Watch and Ward (Boston, Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1878).djvu/52

Rh Roger. "They will be as little read as if they were in the fire. I don't know how it is. They seemed to be very amusing when I wrote them: they are as stale as an old newspaper now. I can't write: that 's the amount of it. I am a very stupid fellow, Nora; you might as well know it first as last."

Nora's school had been of the punctilious Episcopal order, and she had learned there the pretty custom of decorating the house at Christmas-tide with garlands and crowns of evergreen and holly. She had spent the day in decking out the chimney-piece, and now, seated on a stool under the mantel-shelf, she twisted the last little wreath which was to complete her design. A great still snow-storm was falling without, and seemed to be blocking them in from the world. She bit off the thread with which she had been binding her twigs, held out her garland to admire its effect, and then, "I don't believe you are stupid, Roger," she said; "and if I did, I should not much care."

"Is that philosophy, or indifference?" said the young man.

"I don't know that it 's either; it 's because I know you are so good."

"That is what they say about all stupid people."

Nora added another twig to her wreath and bound it up. "I am sure," she said at last, "that when people are as good as you are, they cannot be stupid. I should like some one to tell me you are stupid. I know, Roger; I know!"

The young man began to feel a little uneasy; it was no part of his plan that her good-will should spend itself