'You promised to be a sister to him, I think,' remarked Abinger. 'Ah, Nell, it is not a safe plan that. How many brothers have you now?'
Dick held up his hand for Mary's banjo, and, settling himself comfortably in a corner, twanged and sang, while the lanterns caught myriads of flies, and the bats came and went.
When Cœlebs was a bolder blade,
And ladies fair were coy,
His search was for a wife, he said,
The time I was a boy.
But Cœlebs now has slothful grown
(I learn this from her mother),
Instead of making her his own,
He asks to be her brother.
Last night I saw her smooth his brow,
He bent his head and kissed her;
They understand each other now,
She's going to be his sister.
Some say he really does propose,
And means to gain or lose all,
And that the new arrangement goes,
To soften her refusal.
He talks so wild of broken hearts,
Of futures that she'll mar,
He says on Tuesday he departs
For Cork or Zanzibar.
His death he places at her door,
Yet says he won't resent it;
Ah, well, he talked that way before,
And very seldom meant it.
Engagements now are curious things,
'A kind of understandin','
Although they do not run to rings,
They're good to keep your hand in.
No rivals now, Tom, Dick, and Hal,
They all love one another,
For she's a sister to them all,
And every one's her brother.
In former days when men proposed,
And ladies said them No,
The laws that courtesy imposed
Made lovers pack and go.
But now that they may brothers be,
So changed the way of men is,
That, having kissed, the swain and she
Resume their game at tennis.
Ah, Nelly Meredith, you may
Be wiser than your mother,
But she knew what to do when they
Proposed to be her brother.
Of these relations best have none,
They'll only you encumber;
Of wives a man may have but one,
Of sisters any number.
Dick disappeared into the kitchen with Mrs. Meredith to show her how they make a salad at the Wigwam, and Nell and her father went a-fishing from a bedroom window. The night was so silent now that Rob and Mary seemed to have it to themselves. A canoe in a blaze of coloured light drifted past without a sound. The grass on the bank parted, and water-rats peeped out. All at once Mary had nothing to say, and Rob shook on his stool. The moon was out looking at them.
'Oh,' Mary cried, as something dipped suddenly in the water near them.