Love Me Little, Love Me Long | Page 2

his imaginative expressions, his romantic projects of frugal love; how her harsh papa had warned Adonis off the premises; how Adonis went without a word (as pale as death, love), and soon after, in his despair, flung himself--to an ugly heiress; and how this disappointment had darkened her whole life, and so on.
Perhaps, if Adonis had stood before her now, rolling his eyes, and his phrases hot from the annuals, the flourishing matron might have sent him to the servants' hall with a wave of her white and jeweled hand. But the melody disarms this sort of brutal criticism--a woman's voice relating love's young dream; and then the picture--a matron still handsome pouring into a lovely virgin's ear the last thing she ought; the young beauty's eyes mimicking sympathy; the ripe beauty's soft, delicious accents--purr! purr! purr!
Crash overhead! a window smashed aie! aie! clatter! clatter! screams of infantine rage and feminine remonstrance, feet pattering, and a general hullabaloo, cut the soft recital in two. The ladies clasped hands, like guilty things surprised.
Lucy sprang to her feet; the oppressed one sank slowly and gracefully back, inch by inch, on the ottoman, with a sigh of ostentatious resignation, and gazed, martyr-like, on the chandelier.
"Will you not go up to the nursery?" cried Lucy, in a flutter.
"No, dear," replied the other, faintly, but as cool as a marble slab; "you go; cast some of your oil upon those ever-troubled waters and then come back and let us try once more."
Miss Fountain heard but half this sentence; she was already gliding up the stairs. She opened the nursery door, and there stood in the middle of the room "Original Sin." Its name after the flesh was Master Reginald. It was half-past six, had been baptized in church, after which every child becomes, according to polemic divines of the day, "a little soul of Christian fire" until it goes to a public school. And there it straddled, two scarlet cheeks puffed out with rage, soft flaxen hair streaming, cerulean eyes glowing, the poker grasped in two chubby fists. It had poked a window in vague ire, and now threatened two females with extinction if they riled it any more.
The two grown-up women were discovered, erect, but flat, in distant corners, avoiding the bayonet and trusting to their artillery.
"Wicked boy!" "Naughty boy!" (grape.) "Little ruffian!" etc.
And hints as to the ultimate destination of so. sanguinary a soul (round shot).
"Ah! here's miss. Oh, miss, we are so glad you are come up; don't go anigh him, miss; he is a tiger."
Miss Fountain smiled, and went gracefully on one knee beside him. This brought her angelic face level with the fallen cherub's. "What is the matter, dear?" asked she, in a tone of soft pity.
The tiger was not prepared for this: he dropped his poker and flung his little arm round his cousin's neck.
"I love YOU. Oh! oh! oh!"
"Yes, dear; then tell me, now--what is the matter? What have you been doing?"
"Noth--noth--nothing--it's th--them been na--a--agging me!"
"Nagging you?" and she smiled at the word and a tiger's horror of it.
"Who has been nagging you, love?"
"Th--those--bit--bit--it." The word was unfortunately lost in a sob. It was followed by red faces and two simultaneous yells of remonstrance and objurgation.
"I must ask you to be silent a minute," said Miss Fountain, quietly. "Reginald, what do you mean by--by--nagging?"
Reginald explained. "By nagging he meant--why--nagging."
"Well, then, what had they been doing to him?"
No; poor Reginald was not analytical, dialectical and critical, like certain pedanticules who figure in story as children. He was a terrible infant, not a horrible one.
"They won't fight and they won't make it up, and they keep nagging," was all could be got out of him.
"Come with me, dear," said Lucy, gravely.
"Yes," assented the tiger, softly, and went out awestruck, holding her hand, and paddling three steps to each of her serpentine glides.
Seated in her own room, tiger at knee, she tried topics of admonition. During these his eyes wandered about the room in search of matter more amusing, so she was obliged to bring up her reserve.
"And no young lady will ever marry you."
"I don't want them to, cousin; I wouldn't let them; you will marry me, because you promised."
"Did I?"
"Why, you know you did--upon your honor; and no lady or gentleman ever breaks their word when they say that; you told me so yourself," added he of the inconvenient memory.
"Ah! but there is another rule that I forgot to tell you."
"What is that?"
"That no lady ever marries a gentleman who has a violent temper."
"Oh, don't they?"
"No; they would be afraid. If you had a wife, and took up the poker, she would faint away, and die--perhaps!"
"Oh, dear!"
"I should."
"But, cousin, you would not want the poker taken to you; you never nag."
"Perhaps that is because we are not married yet."
"What,