“I think so,” said Isolde, and she got up as she spoke.
“Then I will too,” said Philomène, “and of course you will come anyhow, because you have to,” she added in her serious, understanding way to the vicar. He laughed good-humouredly, and walked by her side, swinging his cane, and repeating half aloud as he went:
“The sun, above the mountain’s head,
A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.”
“Capital,” murmured the tall, gaunt vicar, “the very words for it, the only words for it! ‘His first sweet evening yellow’—what wouldn’t I give to have written that myself?”
CHAPTER XIII
IN WHICH GREAT GOOD FORTUNE BEFALLS THE HEROINE
Sweet William had been right when he foretold that Philomène would not see much of the fairy agent at the Cushats, for Isolde devoted herself whole-heartedly to the amusement of her godchild, and the days chased each other in their eagerness to turn into to-morrow, with its fresh succession of walks and talks and drives and picnics. Yet there were of necessity times when Philomène was left to amuse herself, and it was then that Speedwell and Spirea came skimming towards her through the air, or peeped up at her out of the flowers, or hopped down to her from the trees. It was not, however, till August that anything of importance befell.
Philomène was in the stable, feeding the white donkey with sugar, and begging him to talk to her if he could. “If Balaam’s donkey talked to him when he was unkind and stupid and hit it,” she reasoned persuasively, “I think the least you can do is to talk to me when I am giving you all this sugar. Of course if you really can’t, that is another thing, but I never feel sure of that these days. Oh, you there, Spirea?” The last exclamation was due to the sudden appearance of one of the twins between the donkey’s glossy ears.