Love Me Little, Love Me Long | Page 2

point."
Miss Fountain's face promptly wreathed itself into an expectant smile.
She abandoned her hand and her ear, and leaned her graceful person
toward her aunt, while that lady murmured to her in low and thrilling
tones--his eyes, his long hair, 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!