Her hat was pushed a little back. There was a fringe of red-brown hair with a peculiar glint, softened by the summer heat into rings. A low, broad forehead, a straight line of bronze brown, shading off in a delicate curve and fineness at the temple. But her eyes were like the gems in brown quartz, that have a prisoned gleam of sunshine in them, visible only in certain lights. Ordinarily they were rather dull; at times full of obstinate repression. Now they were illuminated with the sunrise glow. A small Irish nose, that had an amusing fashion of wrinkling up, and over which went a tiny procession of freckles. A wide mouth, redeemed by a beautifully curved upper lip, and a rather square chin that destroyed the oval.
“Hillo!” as if coming out of a dream. “See here, I’d like to sketch you—would you mind?”
He had dreamed over a picture he was to paint of that enchanted spot, a picture of happy youth and love and hope, “In Wild-Rose Time.” But the dream was dead, the inspiration ended. He could never paint that picture, and yet so much of his best efforts had gone to the making of it! What if he arose from the ruin, and put this child in it, with her marvellous eyes, her ignorant, innocent trust, her apron full of wild roses, emerging from the shadowy hollow, and one branch caught in her hair, half crowning her.
For why should a man wreck his life on the shallows and quicksands of a woman’s love? Two days ago he had said he could not paint again in years, if ever, that all his genius had been the soft glamour of a woman’s smile. And here was a fresh inspiration.
Dil stared, yet the happy light did not go out of her face as she tried to grasp the mystery.
“Yes; would you mind my sketching you for a picture?”
There were not many people around. Saturday afternoons they went off on excursions. A few drowsy old fellows of the better class, two women resting and reading, waiting for some one perhaps, others sauntering.
“Oh, if you’d make a picture of Bess! She’s so much prittier, an’ her hair’s like gold. Oh, do!” and Dil’s breath came with an entreating gasp, while her face was beseeching love.
“Yes; I’ll make a picture of Bess too, if you can stay long enough,” he answered good humoredly.
“We can stay till dark, ’f we like. Summer nights ain’t never lonesome. An’ Sat’day’s full of folks.”