There was despair next day when it was known that he had come away even lavisher in praise of Miss Caroline than Aunt Delia had become; that he refused with a gentle but unbreakable stubbornness, a thing he was known to be cursed with latently, ever again to approach the lady with a concealed purpose or with aught in his heart but a warm and flagrant esteem.
So much for the public's knowledge; and doubtless the public in every case knows all that it ought to know. But these are the facts as they came to my privileged ears, and to what, I believe, are gifts of interpretation not below the average.
When Clem brought the chair for the minister, Miss Caroline gave him a brief, low-toned order, which he hurried away to execute. Within ten minutes, and before Miss Caroline had finished telling how altogether beautiful she found Arcady of the Little Country, Clem returned, bearing breast-high a napkin-covered tray, from which towered twin pillars of glass, topped with fragrant leafage and pierced each by a yellow straw. This tray he placed upon the table beside the poems of Lord Byron, and the minister permitted himself an oblique look thereat, even though this involved deserting the eyes of his agreeable hostess. The ice in the glasses tinkled a brief phrase of music, the tops burgeoned with a luxuriant summer green, and the straws were of a sweetly pastoral suggestiveness. The fragrance moved one to the heart of some spice-scented dell where a brooklet purled down a pebbled course. The ensemble was indeed overwhelming in its message of a refreshment joyous, satisfying, timely, and of a consummate innocence.
"The day is warm," said Miss Caroline, receiving one of the glasses from her servant, and with a bright look at her guest.
"It is intensely warm, and quite unusually so for this time of year," said the minister, absently taking the other glass now proffered him.
"We shall combat it," said Miss Caroline with some vivacity. She delicately applied her lips to the straw, and a slight depression appeared in each of her acceptable cheeks.
"A cooling beverage at this hour is most grateful," said the minister, rejoicing in the icy feel of the glass, and falling hopefully to his own straw.
"Clem makes them perfectly," said Miss Caroline.
"What do you call them?" asked the minister. He had relinquished his straw, and his kind face shone with a pleased surprise.
"Why, mint juleps," replied Miss Caroline, glancing quickly up.