Her gentle irruption found me standing2 almost on the spot where she had stood two evenings before and said good-bye to me. From this point a path led to the rear of the house, where within a light paling fence bloomed a garden. She gave us a blithe3 good-morning as she passed, descended4 the two or three side steps, and tripped toward the garden gate, a wee affair which she might have lifted off its hinges with one thumb. I saw her try its latch5 two or three times and then turn back discomfited6 because the loose frame had sagged7 a trifle and needed to be raised half an inch. I did not understand the helplessness of girls as well then as I do now; I ran and opened the gate; and when I shut it again she and I were alone inside.
She let me cut the flowers. "You know who's here?" she asked.
"Yes," I guilefully8 replied, "I came with him."
"I don't mean Lieutenant9 Ferry," she responded, "nor anybody you'd ever guess if you don't know; but you do, don't you?"
I said I knew and went on gathering10 sweet-pea blossoms.
"Did you ever see her?"
"Yes," I replied, stepping away for some roses, "I--saw her--by chance--for a moment--she was in the wagon11 she's got here--last --eh,--Thursday--morn'--" I came back trimming the roses, and as she reached for them and our glances met, she laughed and replied, with a roguish droop12 of the head--
"She told us about it. And you needn't look so disturbed; she only praised you."
Still I frowned. "How does it come that she's here, anyhow?"
"Why! she's got to be everywhere! She's a war-correspondent! She was at the front yesterday nearly the whole time, near enough to see some of the fighting, and to hear it all! she calls it 'only a skirmish'!"
"When did she get here?"
"About five in the morning. But we didn't see her then; she shut herself up and wrote and wrote and wrote! They say she runs the most daring risks! And they say she's so wise in finding out what the Yankees are going to do and why they're going to do it, that they'd be nearly as glad to catch her as to catch Lieutenant Ferry! Didn't you know? Ah, you knew!" She attempted a reproachful glance, but exhaled13 happiness like a fragrance14. I asked how she had heard these things.
"How did I hear them? Let me see. Oh, yes! from--from Harry15."
I flinched16 angrily. "From what?"
She looked into her basket and fingered its flowers. "That's what he asked me to call him."
I stiffened17 up as though I heard a thief picking the lock of my lawful18 treasure. She threw me, side wise, a bantering19 smile and then a more winsome20 glance, but I refused to see either. I burned with so many feelings at once that I could no more have told them than I could have raised a tune21. "Don't you like him?" she asked, and tried to be very arch.
"Like whom?"
"You know perfectly22 well," she replied.
"No, I do not like him. Do you?"
"Why,--yes,--I do. I--I thought everybody did." She averted23 her face and toyed with the sweet-pea vines. Suddenly she gulped24, faced me, blinked rapidly, and said "If I oughtn't to call him--that,--then I oughtn't to have called--" she dropped her eyes and bit her lip.
"That," I replied, "is a very different matter! At least I had hoped it was!"
Her rejoinder came in a low, grieved monotone: "Did you say had hoped?"
It was the sweetest question my ear had ever caught, and I asked her, I scarce know how, if I might still say "do hope".
"Why, I--I didn't know you ever did say it. I don't see that I have any right to forbid you saying things--to--to yourself."
So we played the game--oldest game on earth--and loveliest. Bungling25 moves we made, as you see, and sometimes did not know whose move it was. At length she admitted that this is a very unsafe world in which to be kind to soldiers. I told how fickle26 some of them were. She would not say she would--or wouldn't--make my case a permanent exception or a solitary27 one; yet with me she blissfully pooh-poohed the idea that our acquaintance was new, she being so wonderfully like my mother, and I being so wonderfully ditto, ditto. And when I burst into a blazing eulogy28 of my mother, my listener gave me kinder looks than I ever deserved of any woman alive. On my trying to reciprocate29, she asked me for more flowers and hurried back to our earlier theme.
"And really, you know, they say she's almost as truly a scout30 as Ned Fer'--as Lieutenant Ferry-Durand. She's from New Orleans, you know, and she's like us, half-Creole; but her other half is Highland31 Scotch--isn't that romantic! When she told us about it she laughed and said it explained some things in her which nothing else could excuse! Wasn't that funny!--oh, pshaw! it doesn't sound a bit funny as I tell it, but she said it in such a droll32 way! She was so full of fun and frolic that day! You can't conceive how full of them she is--sometimes; how soberly she can say the funniest things, and how funnily she can say the soberest things!"
Don't you like him? she asked, and tried to be very arch.
"You say she was so full of fun that day; what day?"
The young thing gaped33 at me, gasped34, and melted half to the ground: "O--oh--I've let it out!"
"Yes, you may as well go right on, now."
She straightened to her toes, covered her open mouth an instant, and then said "Yes, we knew her--at our house--in New Orleans--poor New Orleans! Your mother--oh, your splendid, lovely little mother is such a brave Confederate!"
"My mother brought her to your house?"
"Yes, oh, yes! and that's why it isn't wrong to tell you. Charlotte's been three times through the lines, to and from the city; once by way of Natchez and twice through Baton35 Rouge36. And oh, the things she's brought out to our poor boys in the hospitals!"
"Generals' uniforms, for example?"
"Oh, now you're real mean! No! what she's brought the most of is--guess! You'll never guess it in the world!"
"Hindoo grammars!--No? Well, then,--perfumery!"
"Ah, you! No, I'll tell you." She spoke37 prudently38; I had to bow my ear so close that it tingled39: "Dolls!"
My amazement40 was genuine. "For our sick soldiers!" I sighed.
Her eyes danced; she leaned away and nodded. Then she drew nearer than before: "Dolls!" she murmured again;--"and pincushions!--and emeries!--and 'rats'! you know, for ladies' hair--and chignon-cushions!"
"For our sick soldiers!"
"Yes!--stuffed with quinine!" She laughed in her handkerchief till the smell of the sweet-peas was lost in the odor of frangipani, and she staggered almost into my arms. But that sobered her. "And when we speak of the risk she runs of being sent to Ship Island she laughs and says, 'Life is strife41.' She says she'd like it long, but she's got to have it broad."
"Life is strife indeed to her," I said.
"Oh! do you know that too?--and another reason she gives for taking those awful risks is that 'it's the best use she can make of her silly streak'--as if she had any such thing!"
"Why did my mother bring her to you?"
"Oh! she had letters from uncle to aunt Martha! He thinks she's wonderful!"
"Does your father think so, too?"
"My father? no; but he's prejudiced! That's one of the things I can never understand--why nearly all the girls I know have such prejudiced fathers."
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1
veranda
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| n.走廊；阳台 | |
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2
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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3
blithe
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| adj.快乐的，无忧无虑的 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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latch
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| n.门闩，窗闩；弹簧锁 | |
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6
discomfited
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| v.使为难( discomfit的过去式和过去分词)；使狼狈；使挫折；挫败 | |
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7
sagged
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| 下垂的 | |
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guilefully
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| adj.狡诈的，诡计多端的 | |
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9
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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10
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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12
droop
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| v.低垂，下垂；凋萎，萎靡 | |
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13
exhaled
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| v.呼出，发散出( exhale的过去式和过去分词 )；吐出（肺中的空气、烟等），呼气 | |
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14
fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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15
harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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16
flinched
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| v.（因危险和痛苦）退缩，畏惧( flinch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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17
stiffened
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| 加强的 | |
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lawful
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| adj.法律许可的，守法的，合法的 | |
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19
bantering
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| adj.嘲弄的v.开玩笑，说笑，逗乐( banter的现在分词 )；（善意地）取笑，逗弄 | |
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winsome
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| n.迷人的，漂亮的 | |
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21
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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22
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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23
averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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24
gulped
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| v.狼吞虎咽地吃，吞咽( gulp的过去式和过去分词 )；大口地吸（气）；哽住 | |
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25
bungling
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| adj.笨拙的，粗劣的v.搞糟，完不成( bungle的现在分词 )；笨手笨脚地做；失败；完不成 | |
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fickle
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| adj.(爱情或友谊上)易变的，不坚定的 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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28
eulogy
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| n.颂词；颂扬 | |
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29
reciprocate
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| v.往复运动；互换；回报，酬答 | |
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30
scout
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| n.童子军，侦察员；v.侦察，搜索 | |
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31
highland
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| n.(pl.)高地，山地 | |
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32
droll
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| adj.古怪的，好笑的 | |
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33
gaped
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| v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的过去式和过去分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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34
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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35
baton
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| n.乐队用指挥杖 | |
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36
rouge
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| n.胭脂，口红唇膏；v.(在…上)擦口红 | |
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37
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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38
prudently
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| adv. 谨慎地，慎重地 | |
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39
tingled
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| v.有刺痛感( tingle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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40
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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41
strife
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| n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争 | |
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