“Crossed strawberries indeed! now, Martin,” – Mrs. Lovejoy never could be brought to understand cross-breeding; – “they’ll do something worse than cross your strawberries, unless you keep a little sharper look-out. They’ll cross your plans, Master Martin Lovejoy, and it’s bad luck for any one who does that.”
“I don’t understand you, wife, any more than you understand the strawberries. How could they cross them at this time of year?”
“Why, don’t you see that this gay young Lorraine is falling over head and ears in love with our darling Mabel?”
“Whew! That would be a sad affair,” the Grower answered carelessly: “I like the young fellow, and should be sorry to have him so disappointed. For of course he never could have our Mab, unless he made up his mind to turn grower. Shorne says that he is a born salesman; perhaps he is also a born grower.”
“Now, husband, why do you vex me so? You know as well as I do that he is the only son of a baronet, belonging, as Gregory says, to one of the proudest families in England; though he doesn’t show much pride himself, that’s certain. Is it likely they would let him have Mabel?”
“Is it likely that we would let Mabel have him? But this is all nonsense, wife; you are always discovering such mare’s-nests. Tush! why, I didn’t fall in love with you till we fell off a horse three times together.”
“I know that, of course. But that was because they wanted us to do it. The very thing is that it happens at once when everybody’s face is against it. However, you’ve had your warning, Martin, and you only laugh at it. You have nobody but yourself to thank, if it goes against your plots and plans. For my own part, I should be well pleased if Mabel were really fond of him, and if the great people came round in the end, as sooner or later they always do. There are very few families in the kingdom that need be ashamed of my daughter, I think. And he is a most highly accomplished young man. He said last night immediately after prayer-time that I might try for an hour, and he would be most happy to listen to me, but I never, never could persuade him that I was over forty years old. Therefore, husband, see to it yourself. Things may take their own course for me.”
“Trust me, trust me, good wife,” said Martin; “I can see, as far as most folk can. What stupes boys and girls are, to be sure, to go rushing about after watery fruit, and leave such wine as this here Madeira. Have another glass, my dear good creature, to cheer you up after your prophecies.”
Meanwhile, in the large old-fashioned garden, which lay at the east end of the house, further up the course of the brook, any one sitting among the currant-bushes might have judged which of the two was right, the unromantic franklin, or his more ambitious but sensible wife. Gregory and Phyllis were sitting quietly in a fine old arbour, having a steady little flirt of their own, and attending to nothing in the world besides. Phyllis was often of a pensive cast, and she never looked better than in this mood, when she felt the deepest need of sympathy. This she was receiving now, and pretending of course not to care for it; her fingers played with moss and bark, the fruits of the earth were below her contempt, and she looked too divine for anybody.
On the other hand, the rarest work and the most tantalizing tricks were going on, at a proper distance, between young Mabel and Hilary. They had straggled off into the strawberry-beds, where nobody could see them; and there they seemed likely to spend some hours if nobody should come after them. The plants were of the true Carolina, otherwise called the “old scarlet pine,” which among all our countless new sorts finds no superior, perhaps no equal; although it is now quite out of vogue, because it fruits so shyly.
What says our chief authority?1 “Fruit medium-sized, ovate, even, and regular, and with a glossy neck, skin deep red, flesh pale red, very firm and solid, with a fine sprightly and very rich pine flavour.” What lovelier fruit could a youth desire to place between little pearly teeth, reserving the right to have a bite, if any of the very firm flesh should be left? What fruit more suggestive of elegant compliments could a maid open her lips to receive, with a dimple in each mantled cheek – lips more bright than the skin of the fruit, cheeks by no means of a pale red now, although very firm and solid – and as for the sprightly flavour of the whole, it may be imagined, if you please, but is not to be ascertained as yet?
“Now, I must pick a few for you, Mr. Lorraine. You are really giving me all you find. And they are so scarce – no, thank you; I can get up very nicely by myself. And there can’t be any brier in my hair. You really do imagine things. Where on earth could it have come from? Well, if you are sure, of course you may remove it. Now I verily believe you put it there. Well, perhaps I am wronging you. It was an unfair thing to say, I confess. Now wait a moment, while I run to get a little cabbage-leaf!”
“A cabbage leaf! Now you are too bad. I won’t taste so much as the tip of a strawberry out of anything but one. How did you eat your strawberries, pray?”
“With my mouth, of course. But explain your meaning. You won’t eat what I pick for you out of what?”
“Out of anything else in the world except your own little beautiful palm.”
“Now, how very absurd you are! Why, my hands are quite hot.”
“Let me feel them and judge for myself. Now the other, if you please. Oh, how lovely and cool they are! How could you tell me such a story, Mabel, beautiful Mabel?”
“I am not at all beautiful, and I won’t be called so. And I know not what they may do in London. But I really think, considering – at least when one comes to consider that – ”
“To consider what? You make me tremble, you do look so ferocious. Ah, I thought you couldn’t do it long. Inconsiderate creature, what is it I am to consider?”
“You cannot consider! Well, then, remember. Remember, it is not twenty-four hours since you saw me for the very first time; and surely it is not right and proper that you should begin to call me ‘Mabel,’ as if you had known me all your life!”
“I must have known you all my life. And I mean to know you all the rest of my life, and a great deal more than that – ”
“It may be because you are Gregory’s friend you are allowed to do things. But what would you think of me, Mr. Lorraine, if I were to call you ‘Hilary’ – a thing I should never even dream of?”
“I should think that you were the very kindest darling, and I should ask you to breathe it quite into my ear – ‘Hilary, Hilary!’ – just like that; and then I should answer just like this, ‘Mabel, Mabel, sweetest Mabel, how I love you, Mabel!’ and then what would you say, if you please?”
“I should have to ask my mother,” said the maiden, “what I ought to say. But luckily the whole of this is in your imagination. Mr. Lorraine, you have lost your strawberries by your imagination.”
“What do I care for strawberries?” Hilary cried, as the quick girl wisely beat a swift retreat from him. “You never can enter into my feelings, or you never would run away like that. And I can’t run after you, you know, because of Phyllis and Gregory. There she goes, and she won’t come back. What a fool I was to be in such a hurry! But what could I do to help it? I never know where I am when she turns those deep rich eyes upon me. She never will show them again, I suppose, but keep the black lashes over them. And I was getting on so well – and here are the stalks of the strawberries!”
Of every strawberry she had eaten from his daring fingers he had kept the stalk and calyx, breathed on by her freshly fragrant breath, and slyly laid them in his pocket; and now he fell to at kissing them. Then he lay down in the Carolinas, where her skirt had moved the leaves; and to him, weary with strong heat, and a rush of new emotions, comfort came in the form of sleep. And when he awoke, in his open palm most delicately laid he found a little shell-shaped cabbage-leaf piled with the fruit of the glossy neck.
CHAPTER XVI.
OH, SWEETER THAN THE BERRY!
These