“With pleasure—in fact I hoped you would ask me,” responded the Major frankly; “I’m sick of club food.”
Boy from his lifted position on the Major’s shoulder had been quietly surveying everything in the room. He now pointed to a copy of Burne-Jones’s “Golden Stair.”
“Pitty ladies,” he remarked.
“Yes,” agreed Major Desmond, “very pitty! All so good and sweet and lovely, aren’t they, Boy? Each one sweeter, gooder, lovelier as they come,—and all so full of pleasant thoughts that they have almost grown alike. One ideal of goodness taking many forms!”
He spoke to himself now and not to Boy—and his eyes rested musingly on Miss Letty. She was just setting a large vase of roses on the grand piano. She looked from his distance a very gentle, fragile lady—dainty and elegant too—almost young.
“Kiss-Letty wiz ze roses,” observed Boy.
“Just so!” agreed the Major, “and that is where she always is, Boy! Roses mean everything that is good and sweet and wholesome, and I should not wonder if ‘Kiss-Letty’ was not something of a rose itself in her way!”
“Oh, Dick!” expostulated Miss Letty, “how can you talk such nonsense to the child! What flattery to an old woman like me!”
“Boy doesn’t know whether I’m talking nonsense or the utmost wisdom,” responded the Major undauntedly. “And as I have often told you, you will never be old to me, Letty. You are the best friend I ever had, and if friends are not the roses of life, I should like to know what flowers they do represent! And what I have said before, I say again, that I’m ready to marry you to-morrow if you’ll have me.”
“Oh, dear me!” sighed Miss Leslie, with a little tremulous laugh. “Just think! Saying such a thing before Boy!”