“EDWARD LED THE RACE HOME AT A SPEED WHICH ONE OF BALLANTYNE’S
HEROES MIGHT HAVE EQUALLED BUT NEVER SURPASSED”
The crisis was past, and Edward was saved! . . . And yet . . . sunt lachrymæ rerum . . . to me watching the cigar-stump alternately pale and glow against the dark background of laurel, a vision of a tip-tilted nose, of a small head poised scornfully, seemed to hover on the gathering gloom—seemed to grow and fade and grow again, like the grin of the Cheshire cat—pathetically, reproachfully even; and the charms of the baker’s wife slipped from my memory like snow-wreaths in thaw. After all, Sabina was nowise to blame: why should the child be punished? To-morrow I would give them the slip, and stroll round by her garden promiscuous-like, at a time when the farmer was safe in the rick-yard. If nothing came of it, there was no harm done; and if on the contrary. . . !
THE BURGLARS
IT was much too fine a night to think of going to bed at once, and so, although the witching hour of nine P.M. had struck, Edward and I were still leaning out of the open window in our nightshirts, watching the play of the cedar-branch shadows on the moonlit lawn, and planning schemes of fresh devilry for the sunshiny morrow. From below, strains of the jocund piano declared that the Olympians were enjoying themselves in their listless impotent way; for the new curate had been bidden to dinner that night, and was at the moment unclerically proclaiming to all the world that he feared no foe. His discordant vociferations doubtless started a train of thought in Edward’s mind, for he presently remarked, à propos of nothing whatever that had been said before, ‘I believe the new curate’s rather gone on Aunt Maria.’
I scouted the notion; ‘Why, she’s quite old,’ I said. (She must have seen some five-and-twenty summers.)
‘Of course she is,’ replied Edward scornfully. ‘It’s not her, it’s her money he’s after, you bet!’