A Fair Mystery: The Story of a Coquette. Charlotte M. Brame
says you are a poet!" cried Doris. "Are you?"
"I wish I could say 'I am.' Time will prove me. I have the poet's longing. Shall I ever reach the poet's utterance?"
"Why, I think you have it now," said Doris, sweetly.
"It is because you inspire me, perhaps. As I came toward you, I wondered whether you were Tennyson's 'Dora' or 'The Gardener's Daughter.'"
"Oh, neither! I am very different! They were content with trees and flowers, and humble ways. Was it not Dora who 'dwelt unmarried till her death?' I shall not do that. I shall marry and fly from the country-side. I can live among people in the city."
"What! cannot you live the truest life where wind, and rain, and water-fall, and birds make music? the flowers mark the sweet procession of seasons – all is calm, and security, and innocence."
"Tell me," said Doris, bending forward, glee in her sapphire eyes, her small hand thrilling him as she touched his arm; "tell me, poet, are you content? Do you not long for fame? To sway your fellows, to be rich, to make money?"
"Oh, money is the lowest of all objects. What is money to love?" demanded Earle.
"Money, just as metal, may be a low object, but money as money, as getting what we want most, is a high object. Think of what it can buy. Think of gorgeous pictures lighting your walls with beauty, of flashing jewels and gleaming marbles, of many-fountained gardens, of homes fit to live in, not stuffy little farm-houses, with windows under the eaves. Tell me, are you content? Will you live and die a farmer? Is not this money a thing worth winning to lay at the feet of love? Will you not spread the wings of your soul for a wider life? Have you not ambition?"
"Yes!" cried Earle; "I have ambition."
The dimpling smile showed the shining pearly line of little teeth; the soft fingers of the little hand touched his hand as she withdrew them; and, leaning back against her oak tree, she laughed joyously:
"I have found a fellow-sinner."
"Ambition can be noble, rather than evil, and to aspire is not to sin. Who could help being ambitious, with you as the apostle of ambition? You enforce with your beauty each word that you utter!"
"You think me beautiful?" said Circe, in sweetest wonderment, as if she had not studied dress, look, pose, gesture, minutely to enhance her wonderful and rich endowments of nature.
"Words cannot tell how fair. A verse keeps singing through my brain; it is this:
"'And she, my Doris, whose lap incloses
Wild summer roses of sweet perfume,
The while I sued her, smiled and hearkened,
Till daylight darkened from glow to gloom.'"
Ah, this was something like, thought Doris, to be wooed and flattered in poetry. She dropped her dainty lids, the rose pink deepened in her cheeks, and she gave a slow, sweet sigh.
"Did you make that poetry?"
"No: but would I could make immortal verses, for your sake," said Earle. "The world should hear of you."
The world! Oh, rare delight! Had she not dreamed of driving men mad for love, of making poets sing, and artists paint her charms? And these conquests were begun.
She looked up archly. She knew when to check the tides of enthusiasm and adoration, that they might grow stronger for the repression.
"Away with poetry, my singer, here comes prose."
Over the field toward them strode honest Mark Brace, looking for his neophyte in rural toils. Mark's round face was crimson with heat and exertion, but a broad smile responded to the pretty picture these two young lovers made under the tree. He cried, heartily:
"A deal you are learning this morning, Master Earle. Will you put off your lessons in wheat-stacking till next year? Lindenholm farm, at this rate, will be a model farm to the county when the madam turns it over to you."
"I was not in working humor," said Earle.
"Work won't wait for humors," quoth Mark. "And for you, my pretty miss, I don't doubt your sister is making butter and your mother cooking dinner, while you are playing shepherdess under a tree."
"Do I look as if I could work?" laughed Doris, springing to her feet and extending a wee rose-leaf hand. "I am only for ornament, not use. But I will leave Mr. Moray, for 'evil communications corrupt good manners,' and I have made him lazy. Good-bye, poet. 'Blessings brighten as they take their flight;' so I expect to look more and more charming as I depart homeward."
The minx knew that she had done enough that day to turn Earle Moray's head, and it would be well to let the effect deepen in absence. She danced off homeward, and Earle whispered under his breath:
"Against her ankles as she trod,
The lucky buttercups did nod;
I leaned upon the gate to see —
The sweet thing looked, but did not speak —
A dimple came in either cheek,
And all my heart was gone from me!"
Mark Brace looked after his Fairy Changeling in dire perplexity. To him work, honest labor – winning bread from the soil, was noble and happy; in all the words of Doris rang some delicate undertone of irony and scorn, of what he most esteemed. Fair, fair, indeed, but was it not selfish of her to let those whom she deemed her blood, work, and she stay idle? Yes, there was the hundred pounds, and she was not really their blood, but of some idle never-toiling strain.
More and more his hands were bound concerning the beauty, as she grew up in his care. He wished he could explain her to Moray, but he could not. Honor held him to silence. He could warn. He spoke suddenly, laying a hand on the lad's arm.
"Earle, I like you vastly. You are honest, good, a gentleman. I should be sorry indeed to see you giving your time, and mind, and setting your heart on that pretty, idle lass of mine."
"Sorry, Mark? Why sorry? She is sweet and lovely!"
"If it were Mattie, now," said honest Mark, speaking, not as a father or match-maker, but as a man. "Well and good. I'd not say a word. A man's heart may rest in Mattie – Heaven bless her! But Doris is of quite a different strain. In her there is no rest. One could never find rest in her. Never – never."
Earle tried to smile, but the words struck home, and were fixed in his heart beside the thought of Doris.
Meanwhile Doris danced off home, and framed her lovely countenance in the vines about the kitchen window.
"And what have you been doing?" asked Patty, reprovingly.
"Turning Earle Moray's head," responded Doris, promptly.
Mattie started and paled a little.
"He thinks I'm lovely!" cried Doris, with a laugh.
"So you may be, but no thanks to you," said Patty, "and if you set yourself to head-turning, mark my words, child, there will some terrible evil overtake you both."
CHAPTER XI
THE FOSTER-SISTERS
Summer day glided silently after summer day, and at Brackenside Farm Earle Moray was re-telling for himself the story of Eden – the love of one man for one woman, to him the only woman in the world. Alas, that his had not been a more guileless Eve! The love-making was patent to every one, and the family at the farm wondered where it would end. Mark Brace was truly sorry that Earle had set his heart on the lovely, fantastic Doris; and yet, honest man, he did not wonder that any young fellow should be beguiled by so fair a face, and he could not but be heartily amused at the queenly airs with which the farm foundling, believing herself a tenant-farmer's child, received the homage of Earle Moray, poet and gentleman, owner of the little estate of Lindenholm.
Good Patty Brace was, on her part, greatly perplexed. With woman's keen intuition in love, she perceived the intense sincerity of Earle's passion for Doris, and saw as well that Doris was entirely without heart for him. The girl admired him, loved his flattery, desired