My Lady Caprice | Page 7

began to run. Immediately Lisbeth began running, too. I threw away my creel and sprinted for all I was worth. I had earned some small fame at this sort of thing in my university days, yet I arrived at the tree with only a very few yards to spare. Throwing myself upon my knees, I commenced a feverish search, and presently - more by good fortune than any thing else - my random fingers encountered a soft, silken bundle. When Lisbeth came up, flushed and panting, I held them in my hands.
"Give them to me!" she cried.
"I'm sorry - "
"Please," she begged.
"I'm very sorry - "
"Mr. Brent." said Lisbeth, drawing her self up, "I'll trouble you for my - them."
"Pardon me, Lisbeth," I answered, "but if I remember anything of the law of 'treasure-trove' one of these should go to the Crown, and one belongs to me.
Lisbeth grew quite angry - one of her few bad traits.
"You will give them up at once - immediately?
"On the contrary," I said very gently, "seeing the Crown can have no use for one, I shall keep them both to dream over when the nights are long and lonely."
Lisbeth actually stamped her foot at me, and I tucked "them" into my pocket.
"How did you know they - they were here?" she inquired after a pause.
"I was directed to a tree with 'stickie-out' branches," I answered.
"Oh, that Imp!" she exclaimed, and stamped her foot again.
"Do you know, I've grown quite attached to that nephew of mine already?" I said.
"He's not a nephew of yours," cried Lisbeth quite hotly.
"Not legally, perhaps; that is where you might be of such assistance to us Lisbeth. A boy with only an aunt here and there is unbalanced, so to speak; be requires the stronger influence of an uncle. Not," I continued hastily, "that I would depreciate aunts - by the way, he has but one, I believe?" Lisbeth nodded coldly.
"Of course," I nodded; "and very lucky in that one - extremely fortunate. Now, years ago, when I was a boy, I had three, and all of them blanks, so to speak. I mean none of them ever read to me out of the history book, or helped me to sail boats, or paddled and lost their - No, mine used to lecture me about my hair and nails, I remember, and glare at me over the big tea urn until I choked into my teacup. A truly desolate childhood mine. I had no big-fisted uncle to thump me persuasively when I needed it; had fortune granted me one I might have been a very different man, Lisbeth. You behold in me a horrible example of what one may become whose boyhood has been denuded of uncles."
"If you will be so very obliging as to return my - my property."
"My dear Lisbeth," I sighed, "be reasonable; suppose we talk of something else;" and I attempted, though quite vainly, to direct her attention to the glories of the sunset.
A fallen tree lay near by, upon which Lisbeth seated herself with a certain determined set of her little, round chin that I knew well.
"And how long do you intend keeping me here?" she asked in a resigned tone.
"Always, if I had my way."
"Really?" she said, and whole volumes could never describe all the scorn she managed to put into that single word. "You see," she continued, "after what Aunt Agatha wrote and told me - "
"Lisbeth," I broke in, "if you'll only - "
"I naturally supposed - "
"If you'll only let me explain - "
"That you would abide by the promise you made her and wait - "
"Until you knew your own heart," I put in. "The question is, how long will it take you? Probably, if you would allow me to teach you - "
"Your presence here now stamps you as - as horribly deceitful!"
"Undoubtedly," I nodded; "but you see when I was foolish enough to give that promise your very excellent Aunt made no reference to her intentions regarding a certain Mr. Selwyn."
"Oh!" exclaimed Lisbeth. And feeling that I had made a point, I continued with redoubled ardour:
"She gave me to understand that she merely wished you to have time to know your own heart in the matter!" Now, as I said before, how long will it take you to find out, Lisbeth?"
She sat chin in hand staring straight before her, and her black brows were still drawn together in a frown!" But I watched her mouth - just where the scarlet underlip curved up to meet its fellow.
Lisbeth's mouth is a trifle wide, perhaps, and rather full-lipped, and somewhere at one corner - I can never be quite certain of its exact location, because its appearance is, as a rule, so very meteoric - but somewhere there is a