Rings on her fingers and ribbon of rose,
She shall have rainbows wherever she goes.”
“That’s even better than having music wherever you go,” answered Georgina, whirling around on her toes. Then she stopped in a listening attitude, hearing the postman.
When she came back from the front door with only a magazine her disappointment was keen, butl she said bravely:
“Of course, I _knew_ there couldn’t be a letter from Barby this soon. She couldn’t get there till last night--but just for a minute I couldn’t help hoping--but I didn’t mind it half so much, Uncle Darcy, when I looked at the postman through the prism. Even his whiskers were blue and red and yellow.”
That afternoon a little boat went dipping up and down across the waves. It was _The Betsey_, with Uncle Darcy pulling at the oars and Georgina as passenger. Lifting the prism which still hung from her neck by the pink ribbon, she looked out upon what seemed to be an enchanted harbor. It was filled with a fleet of rainbows. Every sail was outlined with one, every mast edged with lines of red and gold and blue. Even the gray wharves were tinged with magical color, and the water itself, to her reverent thought, suggested the “sea of glass mingled with fire,” which is pictured as one of the glories of the New Jerusalem.
“Isn’t it _wonderful,_ Uncle Darcy?” she asked in a hushed, awed tone. “It’s just like a miracle the way this bit of glass changes the whole world. Isn’t it?”
Before he could answer, a shrill whistle sounded near at hand. They were passing the boathouse on the beach below the Green Stairs. Looking up they saw Richard, hanging out of the open doors of the loft, waving to them. Georgina stood up in the boat and beckoned, but he shook his head, pointing backward with his thumb into the studio, and disconsolately lately shrugged his shoulders.
“He wants to go _so_ bad!” exclaimed Georgina. “Seems as if his father’s a mighty slow painter. Maybe if you’d ask him the way you did before, Uncle Darcy, he’d let Richard off this one more time--being my birthday, you know.”
She looked at him with the bewitching smile which he usually found impossible to resist, but this time he shook his head.
“No, I don’t want him along to-day. I’ve brought you out here to show you something and have a little talk with you alone. Maybe I ought to wait till you’re older before I say what I want to say, but at my time of life I’m liable to slip off without much warning, and I don’t want to go till I’ve said it to you.”