efforts had not met with equal success, or that Edna had requested a
repetition of "Uncle Snow"? For all that, and in spite of it, he enjoyed
himself, and passed a delightful evening; one that he often recalled as
he smoked his corn-cob pipe and ruminated before the lonely
bivouac-fires during the tedious Peninsular campaign.
Mark was grievously disappointed though, when about taking his leave
that evening, to find Mrs. Applegate accompanying her niece to the door
to press on his acceptance a large bottle of picra. He was fain to
content himself with exchanging a lingering pressure of the hands and an
eloquent look with Edna. She found means, however, to give him a small
folded paper which of course contained, to his supreme delight, a tress
of her bonny blond hair. Any one witnessing his behavior as he went home
that night, stopping every moment to cover the precious keepsake with
kisses, and then as he crossed the bridge to the town, to fling a bottle
rather impatiently into the river, might reasonably have entertained
doubts as to his sanity.
And the sweet enchantress who had cast this spell? She was rather
startled when stopping at her father's room to bid him good-night, he
abruptly asked her what that young man had called for? Fortunately he
did not notice her deep color as she answered that he had merely come to
bid them good-by, and Aunt Susan had asked him to stay to tea.
"Ah! yes--going to the war, I see. Well, good-night, darling," was all
Mr. Heath remarked, and Edna was much relieved when she discovered her
father's curiosity extended no farther. But what a long serious
meditation she had after retiring to her room! How often she stopped and
reflected as she braided her hair for the night! She was now fairly in
love. This last step of Mark's had achieved her conquest. What young
lady with any kind of a heart could resist the fascination of a gallant
who was both a poet and soldier? And not only that, but who had the
finest black eyes and chiselled features conceivable? Even Ada Mumbie,
who had never condescended to notice him before, was now forced to admit
that he looked "splendid" in his uniform. Edna had read of Sidney, and
fancied Mark must be just such another individual as that model knight.
As for Fred Spooner, who wrote her such school-boy scrawls from Harvard,
what was there chivalrous about him? But Mark could only be compared to
one of those delightful mailed beaux of old who went ambling about the
world smiting every one who didn't instantly acknowledge that their own
particular lady-love was vastly superior to all other ladyloves in
existence; and she hadn't any doubt but that Mark was ready to enter the
lists at a moment's notice for such a purpose; and we may add that we do
not think she was much mistaken in her belief either. So she decided in
her mind that as soon as she was nineteen, and Mark became a general,
which would doubtless be contemporaneous events, they would be married.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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