so send up in silence to the ear of Heaven, that prayer:
"God save Earle Moray!"
Earle looked at her.
"Mattie! What is on your mind? Do you want to say something to me?"
"No – yes – only – that you must remember that my sister is only a child, and takes nothing seriously. You will not mind any nonsense that she says."
"Surely she will speak as she looks, like an angel."
They drew near the elm. With what consummate art were the violet eyes drawn down from contemplation of their native skies to comprehension of earth's lower things! With what a sudden start at the abandon of her own position on the grass did Doris greet Mattie and the "gentleman-poet!" She saw the flush on his cheek, the ardent flame lighting his dark eyes. She said to herself:
"I shall have no trouble here; he is at my feet already. Thank fortune the man is handsome; and what an air he has! I shall not waste time on him, as it would be wasted on a clod-hopper. He will be good practice for better times."
"Ah," she said, as Earle asked permission to sit on the grass at her feet, "I don't know that you belong there. Are you a worker or an idler? Mattie is a worker; if you are industrious and good, you must go with her or my father. I am an idler; if you are naughty and idle, you belong with me."
"I am of still a third class – I am a dreamer. Here let me sit and dream of heaven."
Mattie turned away, fearful and sick of heart; the mischief was done.
"Dreaming is even better than idling," said Doris. "And here is a real land of dreams. See how the poppies bend, sleepy with sunshine; the sunshine is a flood of refined gold; the bees fly slowly, drunk with perfume; the butterflies drift up and down like beautiful, happy, aimless thoughts. Let us dream, and live to be happy."
"One could not do better," cried Earle. "Here shall be our lotus-land, and you are a fit genius for the place, Miss Brace."
"Now, at the very beginning, I must make a treaty with you. Are you coming here often?"
"I hope so."
"Then, unless I am to hate you on the spot, you must not call me Miss Brace. I detest the name! If there is one name above another that I hate, it is that name Brace! It is so common, so mean – a wretched monosyllable!"
"But you would grace any name!" cried Earle.
"I don't mean to grace that very long!" exclaimed Doris.
Earle opened his eyes in uncontrollable amazement.
"You don't know what it is to suffer from a wretched, short, commonplace name. Look at me, and consider that I am called, above all things, Doris Brace! Horrors! Now, your name is fairly good. Earle Moray. There is a savor of gentility, of blood, of breeding, about that. You can venture to rise with such a name. I can only rise by dropping mine, and that I mean to do."
Earle laughed. This was, after all, the pretty, captious nonsense of a little child.
"But Doris is a sweet name. It fits this sweet, home-like landscape. Doris, the lovely shepherdess, has been sung and painted for centuries."
"But I have no genius for woods or fields, and I am afraid of sheep. However, Miss Doris is better than – Miss Brace."
She reached for a poppy growing in the grass, and the book fell from her knee. Earle picked it up, and saw what it was.
"This!" he exclaimed, in genuine consternation.
Now, Doris absolutely lacked the moral sense that would make her ashamed of the book, or revolt at anything she found therein. But she had native wit, and she saw that she was on the point of instantly losing caste with Earle Moray on account of this literature.
"Eh? What kind is it?" she said, with enchanting simplicity. "I bought it on the train late yesterday, and since I came out here I have been too happy to read it. Isn't it a nice book?"
"I should say not," said Earle.
"How do you know, unless you have read it?"
"I know the author's reputation; and then, the title!"
"Dear me! And so I must not read it? – and my one-and-six-pence gone! Whenever I try to do particularly right, I do wrong. Unlucky, isn't it? Now the last word my French teacher said to me was, 'By all means keep up your French; you have such a beautiful accent.'"
Earle looked relieved. Here was an explanation of exquisite simplicity. There was no spot on this sweet, stainless lily.
Mattie came back.
"Doris, mother thinks you had better unpack your trunk. Your dresses will be rumpled lying in it so long."
"You unpack it, like a dear! I shall ruin my things taking them out; and then, I can't go in, it is so lovely out-of-doors."
"Did you not put the things in, to begin with?" asked Mattie.
"No, dear; one of the girls did. The girls loved to wait on me, Mattie!" This with sweet reproach.
"But mother thinks you are keeping Earle from work."
"Go away, Earle!" said Doris, giving him a dainty little push. "If you stay idle here, I am to be called in and set to work. After that stuffy old school this four years, I cannot stay indoors. Go, Mattie, and tell mother if she insists on my coming in, I shall appeal at once to my fairy godmother to turn me into a butterfly."
Mattie walked slowly away.
"That's all right," said Doris, with satisfaction. "They all end by letting me have my own way."
"And how does that work?"
"Well. Don't you suppose it is always a very nice way?"
"It must be, indeed," said Earle, heartily.
He thought to himself that so charming a form must shrine only the tenderest of hearts, the sweetest of souls, and her way must always be a good way.
The girl was infinitely more lovely than one could look for in the child of Mark and Patty Brace, the sister of gentle Mattie; but being the child of Mark and Patty, and sister of Mattie, she must be a sharer in their goodness, that sterling honesty, that generous unselfishness, that made these three everywhere beloved and respected, patterns of domestic and neighborly virtues.
Thus thinking, Earle sunned himself in the radiance of her smiles.
CHAPTER X
A WASTED WARNING
While Earle Moray watched Doris, and lost himself in delicious fancies of a soul fair as the body that shrined it, Doris, on her part, gazed on him with awakening interest. She had expected to see a young countryman, a rhymster who believed himself a poet, one with whom she could "flirt to pass away the time," and "to keep in practice" – not this gentleman in air and dress, with the cultivated musical voice, the noble face, the truthful, earnest eye.
Said Doris in her heart, "I did not know that little dairy-maid Mattie had such good taste;" and in proportion as the value of Mattie's love increased before her, so increased her joy in winning it away. Not that Doris had any malice
