Two Gentlemen of Verona.
There was no mistaking the situation. At one of the red-legged tables sat Fred, his arms spread out before him, his face hidden in his arms; while Lucy, with a troubled face, stood near, struggling between her genuine compunction and an irrepressible desire to laugh.
It was Sunday morning; the rest of the household were at church, and the two young people had had the studio to themselves without fear of disturbance; a circumstance of which the unfortunate Fred had hastened to avail himself, thereby rushing on his fate.
They had now reached that stage of the proceedings when the rejected suitor, finding entreaty of no avail, has recourse to manifestations of despair and reproach.
"You shouldn't have encouraged a fellow all these years," came hoarsely from between the arms and face of the prostrate swain.
"'All these years!' how can you be so silly, Fred?" cried Lucy, with some asperity. "Why, I shall be accused next of encouraging little Jack Oakley, because I bowled his hoop round Regent's Park for him last week."
Lucy did not mean to be unkind; but the really unexpected avowal from her old playmate had made her nervous; a refusal to treat it seriously seemed to her the best course to pursue. But her last words, as might have been supposed, were too much for poor Fred. Up he sprang, "a wounded thing with a rancorous cry"—
"There is another fellow!"
Back started Lucy, as if she had been shot. The hot blood surged up into her face, the tears rose to her eyes.