"Possess me!" I answered. "Well, I hardly know; but this I know. Ever since my prig of a brother has come home from Oxford with his affected smile and flattering ways, Ruth has had no ears or eyes for any one else."
"Still I fail to understand you," she said.
"I do not doubt," I replied, savagely, "that I am too ignorant a clown to make my meaning clear. Were Wilfred speaking, you would understand him. He would put his thoughts in such poetic language, and speak in such cooing tones, that little Ruth would be made to think as he thought, and feel as he felt; but I—I am nobody."
"Roger," she said, "you are not kind, you are not speaking like my big brother."
"No, I cannot," I said, "I do not feel that I am your brother. What kind feeling have you towards me? Not a jot. It is Wilfred, Wilfred, ever Wilfred."
She walked on by my side in silence, I feeling that I had been a brute, a savage. What right had I to speak so roughly, and thus to annoy her? I looked down at her face, and I saw that her eyes were filled with tears and her lips trembled. For a moment my jealousy and anger were gone.
"Forgive me, sister Ruth," I said, "I ought not to speak so. Try and forget what I have said. See, we are in Honeysuckle-lane, and here is some."
I picked a sprig of honeysuckle as I spoke and gave it to her, which she received kindly. This emboldened me. Perhaps after all I was not so hateful to her.
I have not a very poetical nature; but I think the scene by which we were surrounded aroused what little I had. The birds were finding their way to the hedgerows to seek rest for the night, ever and anon giving a faint chirp of content. The beetles went humming heedlessly by, the bees laden with honey returned to their hives, and all nature seemed to be at peace. The honeysuckle and the hedge flowers that grew in wild confusion perfumed the lane in which we walked; the nuts hung in thick clusters on the fences, blackberries everywhere abounded. One by one the stars came out of their obscurity until the heavens became glorious; and as we walked on, the evening became more still. The harvesters reached their homes, and we no longer heard the sound of their voices. The night wind served only to make delicious music as it played with the leaves on the trees and hedges or coquetted with the golden corn. Now and then we could hear the sea murmur its old, old song. To me it told of peace, and calm, and beauty.
And I was alone with the maiden whom I loved more dearly than my life.