“Want to go back over?” his father inquired tenderly.
Jerome shook his head. His visible flesh had a porcelain quality, like the unstained clearness of infancy. His hair glittered in the sun, and he had a long golden mustache, parting in the centre and trailing down his mouth corners below his chin. So strong and manly an ornament sorted strangely with perplexed blue eyes, that, in spite of a puzzling world, laughed with the delicious joy of life. Jerome’s head stood upon a column of slender body. His clothes, to which a few burrs were sticking, would have seemed too fine for his environment if they had not so exactly suited him.
“Lost his hat again!” bantered the father. “That’s the fifth straw hat I’ve bought him this summer.”
“If you will have some breakfast with me, Jerome,” said Lilian, “I will go to your house and eat dinner with you.”
“That’s a bargain, ain’t it, Babe?”
The Babe Jerome looked from one to the other, and smiled, and sat down. His gander, lifting and shaking both wings, quavered a remark and waddled to his feet.
“How white Billy is!” said the young lady, after the cook had brought fresh food and she had helped her guest.
“The’ ain’t a gray quill on Billy,” observed Mr. Marsh, his bearded lips relaxing with contentment.
“And his eyes are blue—blue as the sky! His bill, with such funny nostrils in it, is the purest coral. I didn’t know geese could be so beautiful. You pretty fellow! Will he hiss me?”
“No!” spoke Jerome forcibly, startling her as she stretched a timorous hand to brush Billy’s plumage. It had satin firmness. The gander squatted on his webs and observed in his own language that the caress was agreeable.