Only one love : $b or, Who was the heirGarvice, Charles
General
Only one love : $b or, Who was the heir
Garvice, Charles
Dime novels; English fiction
Beautiful! The word is hackneyed and worn out. Here was a face more
than beautiful, it was soulful. Like the still pool in the heart of a
wood, it mirrored the emotion of the heart as faithfully as a glass
would reflect the face. Like a glass--joy, sorrow, pleasure, mirth, were
reflected in the eloquent eyes and mobile lips.
Of concealment the face was entirely ignorant; no bird of the forest in
which she lived could be more frank, innocent of guile, and ignorant of
evil.
With her light summer cloak held round her graceful figure, she stood in
the doorway, a picture of grace and youthful beauty.
For a moment she stood silent, looking from the woodman to his wife
questioningly, then she came into the room and threw the hood back,
revealing a shapely head, shining, bronze-like, in the light of the
lamp.
"Did you send Dick for me, father?" she said, and her voice, like her
face, betokened a refinement uncommon in a woodman's daughter. "I was
not far off, only at the pool to hear the frogs' concert. Dick knows
where to find me now, he comes straight to the pond, though he hates
frogs' music; don't you, Dick?"
The dog rubbed his nose against her hand and wagged his tail, and the
girl took her seat at the table.
To match face and voice, her mien and movements were graceful, and she
handled the dinner-napkin like--a lady. It was just that, expressed in a
word. The girl was not only beautiful--but a lady, in appearance, in
tone, in bearing--and that, notwithstanding she wore a plain cotton gown
in a woodman's hut, and called the woodman "father."
"You did not come by your usual path, father," she said, turning from
the deerhound, who sat on his haunches and rested his nose in her lap,
quite content if her hand touched his head, say once during the meal.
"No, Una," he replied, and though he called her by her Christian name,
and without any prefix there was a subtle undertone in his voice and in
his manner of addressing her, which seemed to infer something like
respect. "No, I went astray."
"And you were late," she said. "Was anything the matter?" she added,
turning her eyes upon him, with, for the first time, an air of
interrogation.
"Matter? No," he said, raising himself and coming to the table. "What
should be? Yes, I came home by another path, and I don't think you must
come to meet me after dark, Una," he added, with affected carelessness.
"No?" she asked, looking from one to the other with a smile of surprise.
"Why not? Do you think I should get lost, or have you seen any wolves in
Warden Forest, father? I know every path from end to end, and wolves
have left merry England forever."
"Not quite," said Gideon, absently.
"Yes, quite," and she laughed. "What Saxon king was it who offered
fivepence for every wolf's head? We were reading about it the other
night, don't you remember?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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