“I am quite ashamed of myself, fainting away like a weak woman. I will promise not to do so again, doctor.”
Doctor Barnes quickly made him as easy as possible, and left him to the widow’s care, promising2 to call again that evening to see how he fared, and also to send word to the livery stable about the horse and trap.
Leola felt she had no further excuse for staying, although, somehow, she could not bear to go.
She went into the room to say farewell, and he entreated3 her to stay, in a weak voice, reinforced by pleading eyes.
She smiled, and shook her head.
“It is better I should go now, for the doctor says you must have absolute rest and quiet to-day, and I am a sad chatterbox, but I will come to-morrow and bring you some flowers,” she promised.
She pressed his hand in mute farewell, and the contact thrilled her with rapturous emotion, for even with his pallor and his bandaged head he appeared to her a king among men—a veritable Prince Charming.
A great change had come to her heart since she rode out so blithely4 that morning, and the words of her simple song were coming true:
“A honey-comb and a honey-flower.
And the bee shall have his hour.”
She forgot all about her errand to town, and, remounting Rex, went for a long ride, miles away, to a beautiful Blue Sulphur Spring, where she lingered for hours upon the green lawn, dreaming over and over the startling event of the day, and gazing anon into the sparkling depths of the water, as if she might read in its pellucid5 depths the secret of her future.
And she recalled, with a sudden thrill, the gypsy who had told her fortune last year, saying:
“You will have a handsome, blue-eyed husband, and you will adore each other; but beware of jealousy6, or it will part you forever.”
Leola had laughed at the gypsy then, but now she recalled her prophecy with a prophetic thrill.
“A handsome, blue-eyed husband! He has blue eyes!” she said—which showed that her thoughts already reached forward to the unknown future.
“Our feelings and our thoughts
Tend ever on and rest not in the present.”
When she returned home she had temporarily forgotten all about her little tiff7 with Wizard Hermann that morning, and as she saw him nowhere about, it did not occur to her mind. She avoided every one, which was not hard to do, the household consisting of only five members—her guardian8 and self, her former governess, who now combined teaching and housekeeping by way of economy, a fat black cook, and a man of all work, a misshapen, dwarfish9 creature of tremendous strength.
The day and night seemed interminably long to Leola, who lay awake many hours through pure joy of this blissful something that had come so suddenly into the placid10 current of her young life. Heaven forefend her from ever knowing the wakefulness of sorrow!
Bright and early the next morning she was out in the old-fashioned garden, gathering11 roses, dewy sweet and lovely, and it was not difficult to coax12 black Betsy for a bit of early breakfast before the others appeared.
Then, because she did not want to seem too anxious, Leola walked the two miles to Widow Gray’s cottage.
[Pg 8]
When Wizard Hermann asked at breakfast after the truant13, Betsy, who was bringing in the toast, answered that “young miss” had gone to carry some flowers to a sick friend.
“Humph!” was his careless rejoinder, little dreaming that the sick friend was a charming young man who had already carried Leola’s heart by storm.
Meanwhile the young girl went blithely on her way, glad at heart with a strange, new emotion, yet not realizing why the world seemed so much sweeter than yesterday, the flowers fairer, the skies brighter, and all nature attuned14 to a diviner melody. Even her own rare beauty had gained another indefinable charm from the vibrations15 of love, pulsing joyfully16 through all her frame. She knew that she was drawn17 by invisible cords to the handsome stranger, but she imputed18 it to keen interest in one she had saved from death.
Widow Gray welcomed her with beaming smiles.
“Oh, Miss Mead19, such a rapid improvement you never saw in your life! Why, after he had rested all day and night, he was like another man, and the doctor let him dress this morning and lie on the lounge in his room. He says he has no internal trouble at all, and need only stay in a few days till his head gets well. Wasn’t he lucky? for the doctor says the tumble might have killed him, and that it was a miracle it didn’t. But, laws, he’s as right as a trivet, and has taken a poached egg and bit of toast this morning. What sweet, sweet flowers! Come right in, do, and see him; he’s expecting you.”
How his blue eyes beamed as she entered with the flowers! Leola would never forget that look to her dying day.
“You are come at last!” he cried, happily. “I have been hoping and watching for you more than an hour! I should have been in a fever of impatience20 if you had stayed away much longer!”
“And yet it is quite early. See, the dew is not yet dry on the roses I brought you,” smiled Leola, as she drew a chair close to his side.
“Are you not glad I escaped with so slight injury?” he exclaimed, joyously21. “And only to think that I owe my life to you! How can I repay you but by devoting it to your service?”
This was very rapid love-making, indeed. Leola, with her very limited experience that way, felt it was so, yet somehow she could not chide22 him. Her heart beat very fast, her cheeks flamed crimson23, and when she tried to look away from him she could not help his gaze from holding hers in a long look into her soul that was trying to hide from him beneath her dark, curling lashes24. In that moment of pure rapture25 Sir Cupid transfixed both their hearts with his cunning arrow. They were no more strangers; they seemed to have known each other in some past incarnation.
Leola thought, thrillingly:
“Surely this is love that makes my heart beat so fast and my cheeks burn under his glance, that holds my own so that I cannot look away! He is my fate!”
The young stranger was saying to himself, quite as romantically:
“Before I saw this exquisite26 creature I was madly in love with her shadow, and now that we have met, my heart is in her keeping forever. I owe her my very life, and I will be her true knight—and swear eternal fealty27 to my liege lady!”
He reached out and caught her hand, saying, deeply and tenderly:
“Forgive me if I seem too hasty, but something urges me on to confess my love before some unknown fate comes between us. Leola, am I too hasty, or may I hope to win your heart?”
The lashes fell against her blushing cheeks as she murmured:
“I—I—how strange that you have learned to love me—like that—since only yesterday!”
“I loved you weeks before I ever met you,” was his startling reply; and as she cried out in wonder over that, he continued, fondly:
“A few weeks ago, in New York, a young lady loaned me some negatives to copy. She had made them with her camera while out in the mountains last summer, she said. Among these negatives were such charming views of a young girl, that I fell in love with the pictures as soon as I made them. I did not rest until I found out where the girl lived, her name, and, in short, all there was to learn about her. Then I took the train for West Virginia, and on arriving at Alderson I started out the same morning to find you, Leola; for, of course, you have guessed it was yourself! Directly my horse took fright; and only fancy my feelings when I saw you coming toward me on your white pony28, a perfect vision of youth and joy and beauty, and realized that a horrible death might thrust us apart in another fatal moment. You saved my life, and can you wonder I look upon you as my fate—the fairest fate that ever life gave to a man?”
“How strangely everything has come about! I thought I should have to get acquainted with you in a very proper way, and go through a ceremonious courtship before I proposed, but fate took it all out of my hands. Now, what have you to say to this, my dear girl? Will you let me hope to win your love?”
“It is yours already,” Leola confessed, with exquisite frankness; then, as he[Pg 9] rapturously kissed her trembling hand, she exclaimed, in wonder at herself:
“Oh, perhaps you think I am too lightly won when I do not even know your name!”
“That can be remedied very soon. Call me Ray Chester, an artist, who wishes he were richer for your sweet sake.”
“Then you are poor?” Leola questioned, gravely.
“Do you regret it?” he asked, sadly.
“I—I—don’t know. Cousin Jessie always advised me never to marry poor. It is Jessie Stirling, I mean. She loaned you the negatives, did she not?”
“Yes; but I am sorry she put such notions in your pretty head. Perhaps you will take back your promise, learning I am poor.”
“Oh, no, no, no! Never! I could not marry any one without love, but Jessie says she would take a fright if he had a million dollars. However, she has ‘hooked,’ so she says, a big fish, rich, and young, and handsome, too, and she wants, when she is married, for me to visit her so she can make a grand match for me.”
“I will save her the trouble,” said Ray Chester. “Love in a cottage will be our portion, my darling, but you are so lovely that I shall paint a picture of you that will perhaps make my fortune!”
Suddenly a shadow clouded her lovely eyes. She had remembered for the first time her guardian’s threat of yesterday.
“I shall never repent31. I believe you are my fate!” the girl exclaimed, earnestly, and to herself she thought:
“I will not tell him of my guardian’s foolish plans for wedding me to a rich man yet, for perhaps he will give it up after my frank refusal to obey him. No; I will not even think of it again; he cannot coerce33 me, for I will tell him I have already chosen my husband.”
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1
faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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entreated
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| 恳求，乞求( entreat的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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blithely
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| adv.欢乐地，快活地，无挂虑地 | |
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pellucid
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| adj.透明的，简单的 | |
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jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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tiff
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| n.小争吵，生气 | |
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8
guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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9
dwarfish
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| a.像侏儒的，矮小的 | |
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placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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coax
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| v.哄诱，劝诱，用诱哄得到，诱取 | |
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truant
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| n.懒惰鬼，旷课者；adj.偷懒的，旷课的，游荡的；v.偷懒，旷课 | |
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14
attuned
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| v.使协调( attune的过去式和过去分词 )；调音 | |
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15
vibrations
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| n.摆动( vibration的名词复数 )；震动；感受；（偏离平衡位置的）一次性往复振动 | |
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joyfully
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| adv. 喜悦地, 高兴地 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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18
imputed
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| v.把（错误等）归咎于( impute的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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19
mead
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| n.蜂蜜酒 | |
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impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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joyously
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| ad.快乐地, 高兴地 | |
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chide
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| v.叱责；谴责 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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24
lashes
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| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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25
rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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fealty
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| n.忠贞，忠节 | |
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pony
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| adj.小型的；n.小马 | |
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ardently
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| adv.热心地，热烈地 | |
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musingly
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| adv.沉思地，冥想地 | |
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31
repent
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| v.悔悟，悔改，忏悔，后悔 | |
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32
repenting
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| 对（自己的所为）感到懊悔或忏悔( repent的现在分词 ) | |
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33
coerce
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| v.强迫，压制 | |
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