“Then, once for all, I will not. I know this is one of your sulky moods, and I tell you frankly I’ll not put up with them any more.”
“No, no, Baby, not so; out of spirits if you will, but not out of temper.”
“The distinction is much too fine for me, if there be any. But there now, do be a good fellow; come up with us—come up with me!”
As she said this she placed her arm within mine. I thought, too,—perhaps it was but a thought,—she pressed me gently. I know she blushed and turned away her head to hide it.
“I don’t pretend to be proof to your entreaty, Cousin Baby,” said I, with half-affected gallantry, putting her fingers to my lips.
“There, how can you be so foolish; look at William yonder; I am sure he must have seen you!” But William, God bless him! was bird’s-nesting or butterfly-hunting or daisy-picking or something of that kind.
O ye young brothers, who, sufficiently old to be deemed companions and chaperons, but yet young enough to be regarded as having neither eyes nor ears, what mischief have ye to answer for; what a long reckoning of tender speeches, of soft looks, of pressed hands, lies at your door! What an incentive to flirtation is the wily imp who turns ever and anon from his careless gambols to throw his laughter-loving eyes upon you, calling up the mantling blush to both your cheeks! He seems to chronicle the hours of your dalliance, making your secrets known unto each other. We have gone through our share of flirtation in this life: match-making mothers, prying aunts, choleric uncles, benevolent and open-hearted fathers, we understand to the life, and care no more for such man-traps than a Melton man, well mounted on his strong-boned thorough-bred, does for a four-barred ox-fence that lies before him. Like him, we take them flying; never relaxing the slapping stride of our loose gallop, we go straight ahead, never turning aside, except for a laugh at those who flounder in the swamps we sneer at. But we confess honestly, we fear the little, brother, the small urchin who, with nankeen trousers and three rows of buttons, performs the part of Cupid. He strikes real terror into our heart; he it is who, with a cunning wink or sly smile, seems to confirm the soft nonsense we are weaving; by some slight gesture he seems to check off the long reckoning of our attentions, bringing us every moment nearer to the time when the score must be settled and the debt paid. He it is who, by a memory delightfully oblivious of his task and his table-book, is tenacious to the life of what you said to Fanny; how you put your head under Lucy’s bonnet; he can imitate to perfection the way you kneeled upon the grass; and the wretch has learned to smack his lips like a gourmand, that he, may convey another stage of your proceeding.
Oh, for infant schools for everything under the age of ten! Oh, for factories for the children of the rich! The age of prying curiosity is from four-and-a-half to nine, and Fonché himself might get a lesson in police from an urchin in his alphabet.
I contrived soon, however, to forget the presence of even the little brother. The night was falling; Baby appeared getting fatigued with her walk, for she leaned somewhat more heavily upon my arm, and I—I cannot tell wherefore—fell into that train of thinking aloud, which somehow, upon a summer’s eve, with a fair girl beside one, is the very nearest thing to love-making.
“There, Charley, don’t now—ah, don’t! Do let go my hand; they are coming down the avenue.”