were never young,” said Rose, with a silvery peal of laughter, turning to go back to the lawn. “See what tricks imagination plays! You would not like to spend an evening there, though the lights are so pretty outside.”
“Imagination will play many a trick with me before I forget it,” said young Wodehouse in subdued tones. Rose’s heart fluttered a little—a very little—with the softest preliminary sensations of mingled happiness and alarm. She did not understand the flutter, but somehow felt it right to fly from it, tripping back to the serenity of society on the lawn. As for the young man, he had a great longing to say something more, but a feeling which was mingled of reverence for her youth and dread of frightening her by a premature declaration kept him silent.
He followed her into the hum of friendly talk, and then across the lawn to the house, where the neighbors streamed in for tea. The bright lights in the rectory drawing-room dazzled them both—the windows were wide open; crowds of moths were flickering in and out, dashing themselves, poor suicides, against the circle of light; and all the charmed dimness grew more magical as the sky deepened into night, and the moon rose higher and began to throw long shadows across the lawn. “On such a night” lovers once prattled in Shakespeare’s sweetest vein. All that they said, and a great deal more, came into young Wodehouse’s charmed heart and stole it away. He heard himself saying the words, and wondered how it was that he himself was so entirely happy and sad, and thought how he might perhaps soon say them to himself as his ship rustled through the water, and the moonlight slept broad and level and uninterrupted by any poetry of shadows upon the sea. To think of that filled his heart with a soft, unspeakable pang; and yet the very pain had a sweetness in it, and sense of exaltation. “There are the lights still,” he said, standing over her where she had seated herself near the window. “I shall always remember them, though you will not allow of any romance”—
“Romance! oh no,” said Rose lightly; “only two old people. We have not any romance here.”
Mr. Incledon, who had been watching his opportunity so long, now came forward with a cup of tea. Poor Edward was too much abstracted in his thoughts and in her, and with the confusion of a little crisis of sentiment, to think of the usual attentions of society which he owed to her. He started and blushed when he saw how negligent he had been, and almost stumbled over her chair in his anxiety to retrieve his carelessness. “My dear Wodehouse, Miss Damerel cannot drink more than one cup of tea at a time,” said the elder suitor, with that air of indulgent pity for his vagaries which so irritates a young man; and he mounted guard over Rose for the rest of the evening. The good neighbors began to go home when they had taken their tea, and the rector and his daughter went with them to the gate, when there was a soft babble and commotion of good nights, and every two people repeated to each other, “What a lovely moon!” and “What a glorious night!” As for poor Wodehouse, in his climax of youth and love, his very heart was melted within him. Twice he turned back, murmuring to his mother some inarticulate explanation that he had forgotten something—that he wanted to speak to the rector—and twice went back to her solemnly saying it did not matter. “No, no,” he said to himself, “he must not be premature.”
Rose took another turn round the lawn with her father before they went in. Mrs. Damerel was visible inside, sending the tray away, putting stray books in their places, and stray bits of work in the work-basket, before the bell should ring for prayers. Mr. Damerel looked in as he passed with an indulgent smile.
“She calleth her maidens about her,” he said, “though it is not to spin, Rose, but to pray. Somehow it enhances the luxury of our stroll to see your mother there, putting everything in order with that careful and troubled face—eh, child, don’t you think with me?”
“But does it enhance her luxury to have us walking and talking while she has everything to lay by?” said Rose with an uncomfortable sense that her own work and several books which she had left about were among those which her mother was putting away.
“Ah, you have found out that there are two sides to a question,” said her father, patting her on the cheek, with his gentle habitual smile; but he gave no answer to her question; and then the maids became visible, trooping in, in their white caps and aprons, and the rector with a sigh and a last look at the midnight and the dim, dewy landscape, went in to domesticity and duty, which he did not like so well.
Rose went to her room that night with a thrill of all her gentle being which she could not explain. She looked out from her window among the honeysuckles, and was so disappointed as almost to cry when she found the lights out, and the little cottage on Ankermead lost in the darkness. She could have cried, and yet but for that fanciful trouble, how happy the child was! Everything embraced her—the clinging tendrils of the honeysuckle, so laden with dew and sweetness; the shadows of the trees, which held out their arms to her; the soft, caressing moon which touched her face and surrounded it with a pale glory. Nothing but good and happiness was around, behind, before her, and a trembling of happiness to come, even sweeter than anything she had ever known, whispered over her in soft, indefinite murmurs, like the summer air in the petals of a flower. She opened her bosom to it, with a delicious half-consciousness fresh as any rose that lets its leaves be touched by the sweet south. This Rose in June expanded, grew richer, and of a more damask rosiness, but could not tell why.
CHAPTER IV
Mrs. Damerel thought it her duty, a few nights after this, to speak to her husband of Rose’s suitors. “Mr. Incledon has spoken so plainly to me that I cannot mistake him,” she said; “and in case you should not have noticed it yourself, Herbert”—
“I notice it!” he said, with a smile; “what chance is there that I should notice it? So my Rose in June is woman enough to have lovers of her own!”
“I was married before I was Rose’s age,” said Mrs. Damerel.
“So you were, Martha. I had forgotten the progress of time, and that summer, once attained, is a long step towards autumn. Well, if it must be, it must be. Incledon is not a bad fellow, as men go.”
“But, I think—there is another, Herbert.”
“Another!” said the rector, leaning back in his chair with gentle laughter. “Why, this is too good; and who may he be—the No. 2?”
“It is young Wodehouse, the sailor”—
“The widow’s son on the Green! Come now, Martha, once for all this is absurd,” said Mr. Damerel, suddenly rousing himself up. “This is out of the question: I say nothing against Incledon; but if you have been so foolishly romantic as to encourage a beggar like young Wodehouse”—
“I have not encouraged him. I disapprove of it as much as you can do,” said Mrs. Damerel, with a flush on her cheek; “but whether Rose will agree with us I dare not say.”
“Oh, Rose!” said her husband, dropping into his easy tone; “Rose is a child; she will follow whatever lead is given to her. I am not afraid of Rose. You must speak to her, and show her which way you intend her mind to go; be very plain and unequivocal; an unawakened mind always should be treated in the plainest and most distinct way.”
“But, Herbert—you have more influence than I have ever had over her. Rose is more your companion than mine. I am not sure that it is the best thing for her, so far as practical life is concerned”—
“My dear,” said Mr. Damerel, benignly, “Rose has nothing to do with practical life. You women are always excessive, even in your virtues. I do not mean to throw any doubt upon your qualities as the most excellent of wives; but you have not the discrimination to perceive that duties that suit you admirably would be quite out of place in her. It is a matter of natural fitness. The practical is adapted to forty, but not to nineteen. Let the child
