"Nay"—Brother Copas set down his half-filled glass, took the hand and gently wiped it with the sleeve of his frayed gown; and so held it, smoothing it while he spoke, as though the tear had hurt it—"it is we who are repaying you. Shall I tell you what I told the Master? 'Master,' I said, 'all we Brethren, ever since I can remember, have been wearing gowns as more or less conscious humbugs. Christ taught that poverty was noble, and such a gospel might be accepted by the East. It might persevere along the Mediterranean coast, and survive what St. Paul did to Christianity to make Christianity popular. It might reach Italy and flame up in a crazed good soul like the soul of St. Francis. It might creep along as a pious opinion, and even reach England, to be acknowledged on a king's or a rowdy's death-bed—and Alberic de Blanchminster,' said I, '(saving your presence, sir) was a rowdy robber who, being afraid when it came to dying, caught at the Christian precept he has most neglected, as being therefore in all probability the decentest. But no Englishman, not being on his death-bed, ever believed it: and we knew better—until this child came along and taught us. The Brethren's livery has always been popular enough in the streets of Merchester: but she—she taught us (God bless her) that it can be honoured for its own sake; that it is noble and, best of all, that its noblesse oblige'… Ah, little maid, you do not guess your strength!"
Corona understood very little of all this. But she understood that Uncle Copas loved her, and was uttering these whimsies to cover up the love he revealed. She did better than answer him in words: she nestled to his shoulder, rubbing her cheek softly against the threadbare gown.
"When is your birthday, little one?"
"I don't know," Corona confessed. "Mother never would tell me. She would get angry about birthdays, and say she never took any truck with them.… But, of course, everyone ought to have a birthday, of sorts, and so I call this my real one. But I never told you that—did I?"
"I heard you say once that you left a little girl behind you somewhere in the States, but that you only came to yourself the day you reached England."
"Yes; and I do feel sorry for that other little girl sometimes!"
"You need not. She'll grow up to be an American woman: and the American woman, as everybody knows, has all the fun of the fair. … To-day is your birthday, then; and see! I have brought along a bottle of claret, to drink your health. It isn't—as the Irish butler said—the best claret, but it's the best we've got. Your good health, Miss Corona, and many happy returns!"
"Which," responded Corona, lifting her cupful of milk, "I looks towards you and I likewise bows.… Would you, by the way, very much object if I fetched Timothy out of the basket? He gets so few pleasures."
For the rest of the meal, by the clear-running river, they talked sheer delightful nonsense.… When (as Brother Copas expressed it) they had "put from themselves the desire of meat and drink," he lit a pipe and smoked tranquilly, still now and again, however, sipping absent-mindedly at his thin claret.
"But you are not to drink more than half a bottle," Corona commanded. "The rest we must carry home for supper."