The Gentleman from Indiana - Page 53/212

The village hummed with life before them. They walked through shimmering

airs, sweeter to breathe than nectar is to drink. She caught a butterfly,

basking on a jimson weed, and, before she let it go, held it out to him in

her hand. It was a white butterfly. He asked which was the butterfly.

"Bravo!" she said, tossing the captive craft above their heads and

watching the small sails catch the breeze; "And so you can make little

flatteries in the morning, too. It is another courtesy you should be

having from me, if it weren't for the dustiness of it. Wait till we come

to the board walk."

She had some big, pink roses at her waist. "In the meantime," he answered,

indicating these, "I know very well a lad that would be blithe to accept a

pretty token of any lady's high esteem."

"But you have one, already, a very beautiful one." She gave him a genial

up-and-down glance from head to foot, half quizzical, but so quick he

almost missed it. And then he was glad he had found the straw hat with the

youthful ribbon, and all his other festal vestures. "And a very becoming

flower a white rose is," she continued, "though I am a bold girl to be

blarneying with a young gentleman I met no longer ago than last night."

"But why shouldn't you blarney with a gentleman, when you began by saving

his life?"

"Or, rather, when the gentleman had the politeness to gallop about the

county with me tucked under his arm?" She stood still and laughed softly,

but consummately, and her eyes closed tight with the mirth of it. She had

taken one of the roses from her waist, and, as she stood, holding it by

the long stem, its petals lightly pressed her lips.

"You may have it--in exchange," she said. He bent down to her, and she

began to fasten the pink rose in place of the white one on his coat. She

did not ask him, directly or indirectly, who had put the white one there

for him, because she knew by the way it was pinned that he had done it

himself. "Who is it that ev'ry morning brings me these lovely flow'rs?"

she burlesqued, as he bent over her.

"'Mr. Wimby,'" he returned. "I will point him out to you. You must see

him, and, also, Mr. Bodeffer, the oldest inhabitant--and crossest."

"Will you present them to me?"