The pretty suggestion of brogue, the frankness, so far removed from any aspect of boldness, interested him curiously.
“And had Patsey Muldoon been in the country?” he asked with interest.
“Oh, no. He was up to Gran’ Cent’l, an’ a lady who come on the train had thim. Patsey said she was beautiful and elegant, an’ she gev thim to him. An’ Jim Casey tried to get ’em, an’ they had a scrimmage; but Patsey ain’t no chump! An’ he brought thim down to Bess,” nodding to the pale little wraith. “Patsey’s so good to us! An’, oh, they was so lovely an’ sweet, with leaves like beautiful pink satin, and eyes that looked at you like humans,—prittier than most humans. An’ it was like a garden to us—a great bowlful. Wasn’t it, Bess?”
The child smiled, and raised her eyes in exaltation. Preternaturally bright they were, with the breathless look that betrays the ebbing shore of life, yet full of eager desire to remain. For there would have been no martyrdom equal to being separated from Dil.
“O mister!” she cried beseechingly, “couldn’t you tell us about them—how they live in their own homes? An’ how they get that soft, satiny color? Mammy brought us home a piece of ribbon once,—some one gev it to her,—an’ Dil made a bow for my cap. Last summer, wasn’t it, Dil? An’ the roses were just like that when we freshened them up. They was so lovely!”
He seated himself beside Dil. A curious impression came over him, and he was touched to the heart by the fondness and tender care of the roses. Was there some strange link—
“Was it Tuesday afternoon, did you say?” hesitating, with a sudden rush at his heart. “And a tall, slim girl with light hair?”
Dil shook her head with vague uncertainty. “Patsey said she was a stunner! An’ she went in a kerrige. She wasn’t no car folks.”
He laughed softly at this idea of superiority. “Of course you didn’t see her,” he commented reflectively, with a pleasant nod. How absurd to catch at such a straw. No, he couldn’t fancy her with a great bunch of wild roses in her slim hand, when she had so haughtily taken off his ring and dropped it at his feet.
“Oh, you wanted to know about wild roses when they were at home,” coming out of his dream. What a dainty conceit it was! And he could see the pretty rose nook now; yes, it was a summer parlor. “Well, they grow about country ways. I’ve found them in the woods, by the streams, by the roadsides, sometimes in great clumps. And where I have been staying,—in the village of Chester,—a long distance from here, they grew in abundance. At the edge of a wood there was a rose thicket. The great, tall ones that meet over your head, and the low-growing bushy ones. Why, you could gather them by the hundreds! Have you ever been to the country?” he asked suddenly.