“No, that I am not,” I replied, delighted at the turn things had taken; “but come, Lulie, let me show you what father gave me on my birthday.”
Sitting down together on the rug before the bright glowing fire, we took out of its box a little model of a house in separate pieces, and commenced to put it together. I sat and gazed at her, as she bent over the blocks, trying to make piece after piece fit; and she looked so beautiful, with one side of her face all red from the fire, and her clustering brown curls drooping so gracefully around it, that I could resist the inclination no longer, but leaned forward and kissed the glowing cheek.
“Oh stop!” she said, tossing her head without looking up; “you bother me so I can’t build the house at all.”
This was so much milder than I expected I tried another.
“Stop, I tell you,” she exclaimed, feigning to strike me with one of the blocks; “see, you’ve tumbled all the top of the house off.”
“I will stop,” I said, looking at her very earnestly, “if you will give me a kiss of your own accord.”
“Here, then,” she said, raising her head; and throwing back her curls she put up her rosy lips, and I kissed her. People say children know nothing about love, but there was a thrill of pleasure and a smack of romance in that kiss before the nursery fire, that none which have ever since touched my lips have possessed.
We amused ourselves in various ways till the servant brought in our dinner, spread the nursery table, and, as I gave Lulie my high chair, piled up books in another for me, to bring me up to a comfortable level with our meal, then left us to enjoy it. We chewed out praises, and smacked out lavish encomiums on the skill of the cook, as we eagerly applied ourselves to her dainties; and when Lulie had sipped the last trembling particle of blanc mange, and added the debris of the last grape to the goodly pile on her fruit plate, we got down, instead of rising, from our chairs, and went from the nursery to the dining room. The ladies had withdrawn some time since, and the gentlemen had almost finished their wine. The two young men, who had characterized dinners with old folks as devilish bores, had excused themselves, and gone back to the parlors.
Finding nothing to interest us in the dry, stale jokes or political fanfarronade of the dining room party, we ran off to the parlors, and took our station on each side of the door, to watch all within. The ladies were grouped round the fires or examining the pictures, while Mr. Cassell and Miss Ella, Mr. Berton and Miss Gertrude, were promenading slowly the whole length of the rooms. We thought this was a great sign of love, and watched them with great interest. As they approached our end of the room we could hear very well, but when their backs were turned their words were gradually lost; so that our ideas of the tenor of their conversation were somewhat disconnected. Mr. Berton, who seemed interested in what he was saying, and Miss Gertrude equally so, approached first.
“Yes, indeed,” he was saying, as they came into earshot, “we had a most charming time. The moonlight was as bright as day, and the Minnie scarcely rippled the water. The music, too, was better than usual, and we danced eight sets going down, besides the round dances. We missed you a great deal; everybody was inquiring for Miss Gertrude.”