"Lola," and the little hand on his coat sleeve is surreptitiously pressed as they turn the corner of a quiet street not leading to the paternal mansion, "how can I thank my angel for the unspeakable happiness of this meeting? The bright sun would have been shrouded in darkness to me if you had broken my heart by disappointing me. A thousand, thousand thanks for your visit to—my Aunt Myrick's."
She caught the roguish twinkle in his merry blue eye, and the joyous laugh that rang out on the air could not have offended Miss Myrick herself, had she heard the conversation.
"What pretty speeches," Lola tossed her head mockingly; "did you learn them from Miss Angelina Stubbs?" and another laugh spoke of the lightness of heart which finds food for laughter and gladness in all harmless things.
"I told her the other day when she joked me about my advancing bachelorhood" (they were slowly ascending one of the hills overlooking the bay, and it is impossible to talk fast at such a time, even for a young man six feet tall, with black moustache and corresponding hair, and a beautiful young lady leaning on his arm) "that I should have to wait—till my uncle from the Indies came home; and what do you think she said?"
They had come to a little nook high up, where the great bustling city was almost hidden from sight, and the bay seemed stretching out at their very feet; the houses below them concealed by the brow of the hill. To the right, afar off, were peaceful homesteads and gardens filled with shrubs and trees; and whatever might have been harsh or unromantic in the view, was toned down by the distance and the softening lights of the mild winter's sun.
"Well," asked Lola, seating herself on a little ledge of rock where Charlie had spread his handkerchief.
"She intimated, with becomingly downcast eyes, that I might find a fortune within my grasp any time I chose it. 'Oh, yes,' said I, 'Miss Angelina, but then, you know, it's always a venture. And besides, I have made a vow never to dabble in stocks.' She gave me rather a blank look at first, but thought she wouldn't stop to explain."
Lola could only reach him with her parasol, and the blow she struck him could not have been very severe, for they both laughed heartily the next moment.
"But I have really heard from my uncle in India—it was a letter sent to my poor mother—only I did not want to tell Aunt Myrick; she never likes to hear the name mentioned."
"Tell me about that story," said Lola, her woman's interest in a woman's heart-story aroused; "you once said that she had been disappointed."