Poetry -- 20th century -- Periodicals; Short stories -- Periodicals
“It’s her specialty,” he responded. “Everybody, you know, has a
specialty. But won’t you be seated?” With a gesture he indicated the
log, and Jane, frankly delighted with her adventure, seated herself.
“Have they?” she queried, helping herself to another sandwich. “Now, I
wonder what mine is?”
The man regarded her with interest. “If you have just fallen from the
sky----” he began.
“No, it was a motor car,” interrupted Jane. “That is, I didn’t fall
from it, but something happened to a bolt. The chauffeur is working at
it down the road a bit. I didn’t stay to examine it, for I always get
a smudge on my nose when I look at the works of a motor car. Perhaps
that’s my specialty--getting smudges on my nose.” She looked at the man
and smiled. “It isn’t a very useful one, is it?”
“There are practical specialties and ornamental specialties,” he
observed, “and it’s----”
“Oh, well, you know getting a smudge on one’s nose is neither
ornamental nor practical,” broke in Jane, with a laugh. Then, changing
the subject quickly: “It’s awfully good of you to feed the hungry.”
“Pray let me give drink to the thirsty, too,” he said. Picking up a
small silver cup, he walked over to a brook that purled behind them,
rinsed it out and, coming back, filled it from the bottle of wine that
rested against the log.
Jane drank it gratefully. “I never in my life had a more delicious
meal,” she said, quite truthfully. Then she looked at him
inquisitively. “Do you live some place around here, or did your car
break down, too?” she asked.
“I’m not so lucky as to own a car. I’m stopping for a time at
Rosemount--the village, you know.”
“Oh, then, perhaps you know the Willoughbys,” said Jane. “The
Willoughbys, of Willoughby Hall.”
“Do they live in an ugly mass of architecture on a hill, and does the
lady look like a grenadier and the man like a drummer boy in his first
engagement?”
Jane threw back her head and laughed. “That’s Aunt Susan and Uncle
Jacob to a T,” she exclaimed. The man flushed with embarrassment.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “Of course I had no idea they were
relatives of yours.”
“You haven’t offended me,” Jane hastened to assure him. “I know they’re
impossible, though Uncle Jacob really means well. I’m on my way down
there now.”
“For a visit?” queried the man, who was staring at her in an impersonal
sort of way that rather piqued her.
“Not if I know myself, and I flatter myself I do,” she responded,
decidedly. “No, I’m going down to give them--Aunt Susan particularly--a
piece of my mind.”
“Lucky Aunt Susan!” commented the man, still regarding her with that
air of detached interest.
“You say that because you’ve never had a piece of my mind,” observed
Jane, darkly. “Because I’m desperately poor----”
“Poor!” exclaimed the man, disbelievingly, as his eye took in the
details of her exceedingly smart get-up.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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