"'Twain't much story, Miss Aura," put in the old gardener, "but 'twas
how as this. Rector he bin preechin' of the roarin', rushin' wynd, an'
as he coombed down the chauntrey steps, as might be the Pope o' Rome
with that there brass platter, it let loose quite suddint. A wynd,
indeed, a rushin' and roarin', an' heavenly notes all a-dyin' away to
twanks like the last Trump. Folks were greatly put about, even passon
himself didn't know what to make on't till Griffiths Morgan, as sleeps
on the beller's 'andle through being accustomed to it as a lad, said
he was woke and bid blow by the Archangel Gabriel. Whereupon passon
give it 'im for sleepin', and says as he must a' laid on the notes
somehow; but I says, says I, that nothin' but true miracle 'ud ever
make the broken-wynded old orgin' give out sech a rare 'ollerin'."
"But there's no such thing as a miracle, Adam," declared the girl, and
the next moment was on her knees peering into an aster patch. "Why,
there it is," she cried, "Oh! Adam, how could you?"
Adam stooped over the border in simulated astonishment.
"Why, drat my garters" (this was his most extreme form of words). "So
be it. Well, miss, 'tis true miracle how that pr'anniel stuff comes
up, libel or no. 'Tis the Lord's doings, as don't call 'em by name,
see you."
"But Adam did," said Ned, relieved as the necessity for confessing
that he was not the Archangel Gabriel vanished before this change of
venue.
"What Adam?" asked Aura. "Oh! I suppose you mean the one in the Bible,
only grandfather doesn't believe in it, you know. It couldn't, anyhow,
be this one," she continued, her eyes shining with laughter once more
as they moved across the lawn, leaving Adam shaking his head over the
Ourisia coccinea, "for when he digs my borders he begins by collecting
all the tallies into a heap; then he puts them back again at regular
intervals in a row. It's very funny, you know, but terribly confusing.
Each spring I have to rack my brains to think what each dear thing
means as it peeps up. Of course, that is interesting in itself,
but"--here her eyes grew clearer, lighter as she looked up for
sympathy--"it is rather sad to make mistakes. I don't like dreaming a
campanula is white when it is blue, blue when it is white."
"I think one is as beautiful as the other," laughed Ted.
"Yes!"--then her eyes sought Ned's--"but it is hard, always, to lose
what one has learnt to expect."
He smiled back at her but said nothing.
So as they strolled over the grass, she, every now and again giving
them a glimpse of the secluded busy life she led (for she and her
grandfather never went into the village except, perhaps, to judge at
some competition concert) the bell rang, and crossing to the verandah
they found Mr. Sylvanus Smith less crippled as the day went on, but
urbane and talkative as ever, while Martha, with her little bob
curtsey, was waiting to take off the covers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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