We were parted for ever!
Chapter Twelve.
On The River.
We left behind the painted buoy
That tosses at the harbour mouth;
And madly danced our heart with joy,
As fast we fleeted to the south.
How fresh was every sight and sound
On open main, on winding shore!
We knew the merry world was round,
And we might sail for evermore.
“Frank, what do you mean by behaving so unkindly to Minnie Clyde?” was the opening salutation of little Miss Pimpernell to me, the same evening, when I called round again at the vicarage, like Telemachus, in search of consolation.
I was so utterly miserable and disheartened at the conviction that everything was over between Min and myself—at the sudden collapse of all my eager hopes and ardent longings—that I felt I must speak to somebody and unbosom myself; or else I should go out of my senses.
“I behave unkindly to Miss Clyde!” I exclaimed, in astonishment at her thus addressing me, before I could get out a word as to why I had come to see her—“I—I—I—don’t know what you mean, Miss Pimpernell?”
“You know, or ought to know very well, Frank, without my telling you,” she rejoined; and there was a grave tone in her voice, for which I could not account.