"Yes, I wanted to contribute my share, and flowers seemed the most appropriate offering just for to-night."
"They 're lovely," said Rose, caressing the exquisite petals of a La France beauty. "Of course I 'll wear one--" she tucked one into her belt; "but why--why!--has n't anyone else roses?" She looked about inquiringly.
"No,--the roses were for their namesake," said Jack, quietly.
Rose laughed merrily,--a pleased, girlish laugh. "Then won't the giver of the roses call their namesake, 'Rose'?--for the sake of the roses?" she added mischievously.
Now Jack Sherrill had seen many girls--silly girls, flirty girls, sensible girls, charming girls, smart girls, nice girls, and horrid girls, and flattered himself he knew every species of the genus, but just this once he was puzzled. If Rose Blossom had been an arrant flirt, she could not have answered him more effectively; yet Jack had decided that she had too earnest a nature to descend to flirting. Somehow, that word could never be applied to Rose Blossom--"My Rose," he said to himself, and knew with a kind of a shock when he said it, that he was very far gone. But in the next breath, he had to confess to himself that he had "been very far gone" many a time in his twenty-one years, so perhaps it did not signify.
Indeed, in the next minute, he was sure it did not signify, for, before he could gather his wits sufficiently to reply to her, Rose had slipped away to the other side of the room, where she was busying herself in fastening one of Jack's roses into the buttonhole of Alan Ford's Tuxedo. In consequence of which, Jack turned his batteries upon Ruth Ford with such effect, that she declared afterwards to her mother he was one of the most fascinating young men--for Ruth was twenty-one!--she had ever met.
Mrs. Ford and Hazel and Mr. Ford had done their best to persuade Chi to remain with them for the tree. Even Rose urged--but in vain. True, the girls had insisted upon his taking one look, then he had begged off, saying, as he patted Hazel's hand that lay on his arm:
"Not to-night, Lady-bird. I don't feel to home in there. I 'll sit out here and hear the music, then I can beat time with my foot if I want to." He remained in the hall, just outside the living-room door, enjoying all he heard.
First there was a lovely piano duet, an Hungarian waltz by Brahms, Mrs. Ford and the grave, quiet son playing with such a perfect understanding of each other, as well as of the music, that it proved a delight to all present. Then there was a carol by all the children, Rose leading, and Mrs. Ford playing the accompaniment:
"'Cheery old Winter! merry old Winter!
Laugh, while with yule-wreath thy temples are bound;
Drain the spiced bowl now, cheer thy old soul now,
"Christmas waes hael!" pledge the holy toast round.
Broach butt and barrel, with dance and with carol
Crown we old Winter of revels the king;
And when he is weary of living so merry,
He 'll lie down and die on the green lap of Spring.
Cheery old Winter! merry old Winter!
He 'll lie down and die on the green lap of Spring!'"