The Little Brown Jug at KildareNicholson, Meredith
General
The Little Brown Jug at Kildare
Nicholson, Meredith
Fathers and daughters -- Fiction; Governors -- Fiction; Humorous stories; North Carolina -- Fiction; South Carolina -- Fiction
Just what he, on the other hand, may mean to her; just what form of
deification he evokes in her, he can never know; for the women who write
of such matters have never been those who are sincere or worth heeding,
and they never will be, so long as woman's heart remains what it has
been from the beginning--far-hidden, and filled with incommunicable
secret beliefs and longings, and tremulous with fears that are beyond
man's power to understand.
Griswold had missed the white rose that he had begun to associate with
Barbara, and he grew suddenly daring and spoke of it.
"You haven't your rose to-day."
"Oh, I'm beyond the source of supply! I have a young friend, a girl, who
makes her living as a florist--not a purely commercial enterprise, for
she experiments and develops new varieties, and is quite wonderful; and
that white rose is her own creation--it is becoming well known. She
named it for me, and she sends me at least one every day--she says it's
my royalty--if that's what you lawyers call that sort of thing."
"We lawyers rarely have anything so interesting as that to apply the
word to! So that rose is the Barbara?" and it gave him a feeling of
recklessness to find himself speaking her name aloud. "There are large
conservatories on the estate, over there somewhere; I might risk the
scarlet fever by attacking the gardener and demanding a Barbara for
you."
"I'm afraid my little flower hasn't attained to the grandeur of
Ardsley," she laughed. "But pray, where are we?"
They had reached the highroad much sooner than Griswold had expected,
and he checked his horse abruptly, remembering that he was _persona non
grata_ on this soil.
"We must go back; I mustn't be seen here. The workmen are scattered all
about the place, and they all know me."
"Oh, just a little farther! I want to see the towers of the castle!"
If she had asked him to jump into the sea he would not have hesitated;
and he was so happy at being with her that his heart sang defiance to
Ardmore and the splendors of Ardsley.
They were riding now toward the red bungalow, where he had often
sprawled on the broad benches and chaffed with Ardmore for hours at a
time. Tea was served here sometimes when there were guests at the house;
and Griswold wondered just who were included in the party that his
quondam friend was entertaining, and how Mrs. Atchison was progressing
in her efforts to effect a match between Daisy Waters and her brother.
The drives were nearly all open to the public, so that by the letter of
the law he was no intruder; but beyond the bungalow he must not go.
Sobered by the thought of his breach with Ardmore, he resolved not to
pass the bungalow whose red roof was now in sight.
"It's like a fairy place, and I feel that there can be no end to it,"
Barbara was saying. "But it isn't kind to urge you in. We certainly are
doing nothing to find Appleweight, and it must be nearly noon."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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