He finishes; but, to his amazement, and a good deal to his chagrin, on looking at Mona he finds she is wreathed in smiles,—nay, is in fact convulsed with silent laughter.
"What is amusing you?" asks he, a trifle stiffly.—To give way to recitation, and then find your listener in agonies of suppressed mirth, isn't exactly a situation one would hanker after.
"It was the last line," says Mona, in explanation, clearly ashamed of herself, yet unable wholly to subdue her merriment. "It reminded me so much of that speech about tea, that they always use at temperance meetings; they call it the beverage 'that cheers but not inebriates.' You said 'that warms but not illumines,' and it sounded exactly like it. Don't you see!"
He doesn't see.
"You aren't angry, are you?" says Mona, now really contrite. "I couldn't help it, and it was like it, you know."
"Angry? no!" he says, recovering himself, as he notices the penitence on the face upraised to his.
"And do say it is like it," says Mona, entreatingly.
"It is, the image of it," returns he, prepared to swear to anything she may propose And then he laughs too, which pleases her, as it proves he no longer bears in mind her evil deed; after which, feeling she still owes him something, she suddenly intimates to him that he may sit down on the grass close beside her. He seems to find no difficulty in swiftly following up this hint, and is soon seated as near to her as circumstances will allow.
But on this picture, the beauty of which is undeniable, Mickey (the barbarian) looks with disfavor.
"If he's goin' to squat there for the night,—an' I see ivery prospect of it," says Mickey to himself,—"what on airth's goin' to become of me?"