A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill

								

to-night. There's rain in those clouds; I ought to be starting this
minute.”
But his haste was evidently not imperative, for he followed Miss Lady
through the narrow winding paths, between a tangle of shrubs and vines,
into the old-fashioned flower garden. The spiraea was just putting out
its long, feathery plumes of white, and the lilacs nodded white and
purple in the breeze.
“Here's the first wild rose!” cried Miss Lady, darting to a corner of
the old stone wall; “the idea of its daring to come out so soon!”
He took the frail little blossom and smiled at it half quizzically:
“It's funny,” he said awkwardly, “your giving me this. You know, it's
what you made me think of, the first time I saw you,--a wild rose.
Didn't she, Mike?”
Mike, who had been dreaming all afternoon on the porch, had gotten up
reluctantly as they passed and followed them. He had a slow, lopsided
gait, and his tongue dangled from the side of his mouth. It was
evidently a sacrifice for him to accompany them, but duty was duty.
“You angel dog! Come here to your Missus!” commanded Miss Lady, as she
and Donald dropped down in the old barrel-stave hammock, that had swung
beneath the lilacs since the Colonel was a boy.
But Mike ambled past her, and after snuggling up to Don with a great
show of intimacy lay down at his feet.
“I'm glad somebody loves me,” Donald said.
“It's your riding boots, Mike likes. He never had a chance to taste tan
shoe polish before!”
“What do you like me for?”
“Me? Who said I did?”
“Don't you?”
“Oh, yes, I like tan boots, too. Why didn't you tell me my hair had
tumbled down again?”
“Because you are so beautiful, with it like that, Miss Lady--”
“Now, Don, if you begin again I shall go straight in the house. What did
you mean by saying you had gotten what was worst for you, and you had
made the worst of it?”
“Oh, the way I've been brought up. You see my sister took me when I was
a baby, and I guess I was an awful nuisance to her. She liked to travel,
and kept it up a good while even after Margery was born. I grew up in
hotels and on steamers and trains, going to school wherever we
happened to be staying long enough; sometimes in France, sometimes in
Switzerland, sometimes in America. I remember one Christmas when I was
about six, we were in a hotel in Paris. My nurse put me to bed early so
she could go out with her sweetheart, and told me there wasn't any Santa
Claus, so I wouldn't stay awake watching for him. I hate that woman to
this day! I can remember the big, lonesome room, and the red curtains,
and the crystal chandelier and the way I cried because there wasn't any
Santa Claus, and because I didn't have a sweetheart!”
“Poor little chap! It was a mother you wanted.”
“Perhaps. Sister was good to me. But she didn't understand me; she never
has. She has always given me too much of everything, advice included.”