"Your Heart's Desire!" Priscilla's eyes were misty as she repeated the words. Indeed, one large, full tear escaped the blue eyes and lay like a pitiful kiss on the fair page, where there was a broad, generous space for tears on either side of the lines.
"Hist! Father's coming!"
Then Priscilla stood up and a demon seemed to possess her.
"I'm not going to give it back to you! It's mine!" she cried shrilly.
Jerry-Jo made as if he were about to dash up the path and annihilate her, but she stayed him by holding the book aloft and calling:
"If you do I'll throw it in the Channel!" She looked equal to it, too, and Jerry-Jo swore one angry word and stopped short. Then the girl's mood changed. Quite gently and noiselessly she ran to Jerry-Jo and held the opened book toward him. His keen eye fell upon the tear-stain, but his coarser nature wrongly interpreted it.
"You imp!" he cried; "you spat upon it!"
But Priscilla shook her head. "No—it's a tear," she explained; "and, oh! Jerry-Jo, it is mine—listen!—you cannot take it away from me."
And standing there upon the rock she repeated the words of the poem, her rich voice rising and falling musically, and poor Jerry-Jo, hypnotized by that which he could not comprehend, listened open-mouthed.