Fantasy Football Challenge - Football Fanatics Library

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Fantasy Football Challenge presents
The Mettle of the Pasture

33 of 69

"Are you never going to love me a little, Marguerite?" "How can I tell?" "Don't torture me." "What am I doing?" "You are not doing anything, that's the trouble. The other night I was sure you loved me." "I didn't say so." "But you looked it." "Then I looked all wrong: I shall change my looks." "Will you name the day?" "What day?" "_The_ day." "I'll name them all: Monday, Tuesday--" "Ah, Lord--" "Barbee, I'm going to sing you a love song--an old, old, old love song. Did you ever hear one?" "I have been hearing mine for some time." "This goes back to grandmother's time. But it's the man's song: you ought to be singing it to me." "I shall continue to sing my own." Marguerite began to sing close to Barbee's ear: "I'll give to you a paper of pins, If that's the way that love begins, If you will marry me, me, me, If you will marry me." "Pins!" said Barbee; "why, that old-time minstrel must have been singing when pins were just invented. You can have--" Marguerite quieted him with a finger on his elbow: "I'll give to you a dress of red, Bound all around with golden thread, If you will marry me, me, me, If you will marry me." "How about a dress not simply bound with golden thread but made of it, made of nothing else! and then hung all over with golden ornaments and the heaviest golden utensils?" Marguerite sang on: "I'll give to you a coach and six, Every horse as black as pitch, If you will marry me, me, me, If you will marry me." "I'll make it two coaches and twelve white ponies." Marguerite sang on, this time very tenderly: "I'll give to you the key of my heart, That we may love and never part, If you will marry me, me, me, If you will marry me." "No man can give anything better," said Barbee, moving closer (as close as possible) and looking questioningly full into Marguerite's eyes. Marguerite glanced up and down the street. The moment was opportune, the disposition of the universe seemed kind. The big parasol slipped a little lower. "Marguerite. . . Please, Marguerite. . . _Marguerite_." The parasol was suddenly pulled down low and remained very still a moment: then a quiver ran round the fringe. It was still again, and there was another quiver. It swayed to and fro and round and round, and then stood very, very still indeed, and there was a violent quiver. Then Marguerite ran into the library as out of a sudden shower; and Barbee with long slow strides returned to his office. "Anna," said Professor Hardage, laying his book across his knee as they sat that afternoon in the shady side porch, "I saw Marguerite this morning and she sent her compliments. They were very pretty compliments. I sometimes wonder where Marguerite came from--out of what lands she has wandered." "Well, now that you have stopped reading," said Miss Anna, laying down her work and smoothing her brow (she never spoke to him until he did stop--perfect woman), "that Is what I have been waiting to talk to you about: do you wish to go with Harriet to Marguerite's ball?" "I most certainly do not wish to go with Harriet to Marguerite's ball," he said, laughing, "I am going with you." "Well, you most certainly are not going with me: I am going with Harriet." "Anna!" "If I do not, who will? Now what I want you to do is to pay Harriet some attention after I arrive with her. I shall take her into supper, because if you took her in, she would never get any. But suppose that after supper you strolled carelessly up to us--you know how men do--and asked her to take a turn with you." "What kind of a turn in Heaven's name?" "Well, suppose you took her out into the yard--to one of those little rustic seats of Marguerite's--and sat there with her for half an hour--in the darkest place you could possibly find. And I want you to try to hold her hand." "Why, Anna, what on earth--" "Now don't you suppose Harriet would let you do it," she said indignantly. "But what I want her to have is the pleasure of refusing: it would be such a triumph. It would make her happy for days: it might lengthen her life a little." "What effect do you suppose it would have on mine?" His face softened as he mused on the kind of woman his sister was. "Now don't you try to do anything else," she added severely. "I don't like your expression." He laughed outright: "What do you suppose I'd do?" "I don't suppose you'd do anything; but don't you do it!" Miss Anna's invitation to Harriet had been written some days before. She had sent down to the book-store for ten cents' worth of tinted note paper and to the drugstore for some of Harriet's favorite sachet powder. Then she put a few sheets of the paper in a dinner plate and sprinkled the powder over them and set the plate where the powder could perfume the paper but not the house. Miss Anna was averse to all odor-bearing things natural or artificial. The perfect triumph of her nose was to perceive absolutely nothing. The only trial to her in cooking was the fact that so often she could not make things taste good without making them smell good. In the course of time, bending over a sheet of this note paper, with an expression of high nasal disapproval. Miss Anna had written the following note: "A. Hardage, Esq., presents the compliments of the season to Miss Crane and begs the pleasure of her company to the ball. The aforesaid Hardage, on account of long intimacy with the specified Crane, hopes that she (Crane) will not object to riding alone at night in a one-horse rockaway with no side curtains. Crane to be hugged on the way if Hardage so desires--and Hardage certainly will desire. Hardage and Crane to dance at the ball together while their strength lasts." Having posted this letter, Miss Anna went off to her orphan and foundling asylum where she was virgin mother to the motherless, drawing the mantle of her spotless life around little waifs straying into the world from hidden paths of shame. X It was past one o'clock on the night of the ball. When dew and twilight had fallen on the green labyrinths of Marguerite's yard, the faintest, slenderest moon might have been seen bending over toward the spot out of drapery of violet cloud. It descended through the secluded windows of Marguerite's room and attended her while she dressed, weaving about her and leaving with

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