“What’s that?”
“Oh, oh, oh!” cried the delighted girl, dancing about so that nobody could get more than a glance at her burden of lovely blossoms, until she finally dropped in a little heap at her mother’s feet and placed the basket on the drawing she had laid upon her mother’s knee. “Such a handy table your lap makes, Motherkin!” she often remarked; but the truth was that everything must be shared with this sympathizing woman or it lost in value.
“Isn’t it lovely, lovely?”
“Lovely, indeed! But it cannot possibly be meant for you, dear. Where did it come from? How did you get it?”
“Of course it is meant for me. It came from the store I visited in company with my old gentleman. And I took it out of a messenger boy’s hand. Oh! the beauties! the darlings! Now, Miss Isabelle Beckwith, don’t you wish you had not been so impatient? Maybe his royal highness—he must be that, at least, or he couldn’t afford such a gift—would have sent you one wee blossom all for yourself.”
“But I do not understand. I do not know that it is right for you to keep it, dear,” remarked Mrs. Beckwith, between the rapid exclamations which fell from the lips of all three young people.
“Now, Motherkin! Of course it’s right! It’s the very prettiest compliment I ever had in all my life. Don’t go for to spoil it with your proper notions, that’s a good Mother! But—see here! Here’s a billet-doux! or I’m a sinner!”
If Mr. Philipse Chidly Brook could have witnessed the delight with which his offering was received, and could have heard the running comments bestowed upon it, he would have been repaid a thousand times. For when his courtly little note, with its old-fashioned writing, was read aloud, even the careful mother had no further reproof for her adventure-loving Beatrice, not all whose chivalrous escapades ended as comfortably as this.
Fair, Kind, and Most Respected Miss,—Allow me to present you with this slight token of my gratitude; which I hope to express more fully when I call, this evening, to make my regards to your Mother and her family.
I have the honor to subscribe myself