English fiction -- 19th century; Tailors -- Fiction
'Ah, Mr. Parsley, you lend your countenance to the game, then?'
The curate observed that sound Churchmen unanimously supported the game.
'Bravo!' cried Rose. 'How I like to hear you talk like that, Mr.
Parsley. I didn't think you had so much sense. You and I will have a
game together--single wicket. We must play for something--what shall it
be?'
'Oh--for nothing,' the curate vacuously remarked.
'That's for love, you rogue!' exclaimed the Squire. 'Come, come, none o'
that, sir--ha! ha!'
'Oh, very well; we'll play for love,' said Rose.
'And I'll hold the stakes, my dear--eh?'
'You dear old naughty Squire!--what do you mean?'
Rose laughed. But she had all the men surrounding her, and Mrs. Shorne
talked of departing.
Why did not Evan bravely march away? Why, he asked himself, had he come
on this cricket-field to be made thus miserable? What right had such as
he to look on Rose? Consider, however, the young man's excuses. He
could not possibly imagine that a damsel who rode one day to a match,
would return on the following day to see it finished: or absolutely know
that unseen damsel to be Rose Jocelyn. And if he waited, it was only to
hear her sweet voice once again, and go for ever. As far as he could
fathom his hopes, they were that Rose would not see him: but the hopes of
youth are deep.
Just then a toddling small rustic stopped in front of Evan, and set up a
howl for his 'fayther.' Evan lifted him high to look over people's heads,
and discover his wandering parent. The urchin, when he had settled to
his novel position, surveyed the field, and shouting, 'Fayther, fayther !
here I bes on top of a gentleman! made lusty signs, which attracted not
his father alone. Rose sang out, 'Who can lend me a penny?' Instantly
the curate and the squire had a race in their pockets. The curate was
first, but Rose favoured the squire, took his money with a nod and a
smile, and rode at the little lad, to whom she was saying: 'Here, bonny
boy, this will buy you--'
She stopped and coloured.
'Evan!'
The child descended rapidly to the ground.
A bow and a few murmured words replied to her.
'Isn't this just like you, my dear Evan? Shouldn't I know that whenever
I met you, you would be doing something kind? How did you come here?
You were on your way to Beckley!'
'To London,' said Evan.
'To London! and not coming over to see me--us?'
Here the little fellow's father intervened to claim his offspring, and
thank the lady and the gentleman: and, with his penny firmly grasped, he
who had brought the lady and the gentleman together, was borne off a
wealthy human creature.
Before much further could be said between them, the Countess de Saldar
drove up.
'My dearest Rose!' and 'My dear Countess!' and 'Not Louisa, then?' and,
'I am very glad to see you!' without attempting the endearing ' Louisa'-
passed.
The Countess de Saldar then admitted the presence of her brother.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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