Boy of My Heart

by Marie Connor Leighton

"I've got to go down to-morrow, but you could stop in London till Friday, couldn't you? You see, Edward's going to bring his sister up to town on Friday and I should like you to meet her. I dare say I could get up again for a few hours and we might have a little tea-party somewhere—perhaps at the Criterion."

He spoke quite lightly, as if my refusal would not matter in the very least. But I looked at his sad, deep eyes and at the grace of his figure in its new khaki, and I did not refuse.

"Very well," I agreed. "I will stay over until Friday. I am really quite curious to see this Vera Brennan who is so utterly unlike all other girls."

"That's good of you. It's settled, then. I'll manage to come up."

And so it came about that a quarter-past four on the next Friday afternoon found me in the vestibule of the Criterion, looking at the moving throngs of men, nearly all in khaki, and of women who were already for the most part in black. And I wondered again, as I have wondered all my life, why these so-called bright scenes are sadder far than any funeral, and why black does succeed in looking pathetic on the young, whereas it only looks dismal on the old.

It is only a mild sympathy that stirs in one when one sees a very old woman in widow's crape. One feels that the fitness of things is not outraged. But when one sees a young widow—oh, then, one knows that there is a story of romance and horror and anguish lurking behind the black, and first a pang of pity goes through one's heart, and then a flood of tenderness rises in one's soul for the girl who could only just have gained her womanhood's best joys when she lost them.

Little Yeogh Wough, who had been shopping for himself, was by this time crossing the floor towards me, his face aglow, his step strong, his whole air vital and electric. At the same moment little Miss Torry, whom I had notified of our intention to be here, appeared like a small whirlwind and grasped first my hand and then the Boy's, as if she meant to wrench them from our wrists and carry them away with her as trophies.

"Oh, you dear boy! Let me look at you. What a size you are! And how the khaki does suit you! And what a lovely shade of khaki it is—a greeny shade! Some people do have such horrid, mustardy things. Oh, dear me! I wish there weren't so many people here, so that I could get a better look at you. I shall hug you in a minute before everybody—and then, what will people say? And your moustache, too! Why, it's quite golden! and I always did expect it to come out black and make you look like a conspirator."

She was so very tiny and the boy was, in comparison, so very big that it was amusing to see them together. But there was a great softness in his eyes as he looked at her, for he had had Miss Torry guiding him in the way he should go for nearly thirteen years of his life, and every scolding she'd given him, and every extra extravagance she had denied him when he had been at school had endeared her to him unutterably.

And then there entered the girl whom I had come to meet—the girl to whom he had sent letters that had taken hours to write, and a parcel containing one book which had required a whole morning for its making-up and addressing.