"But I like stories, genuine love-stories, with a smack of adventure and lots of incidents," he earnestly exclaimed. "What's the interest in all this long-drawn, tedious nonsense about a common-place American young woman's reasons for refusing an English nobleman, or about why a European patrician of doubtful morals could not condescend to marry a good, free, sweet American girl?"
Miss Crabb smiled and shook her head.
"But the critics have decided against you, and what are you going to do about it? I, too, like stories, and so, I think, does almost every body, but they are out of fashion. All the thrifty writers go in for the analytical novel now. It don't make much difference what your characters do, so that you are able to dissect their motives for so doing."
She sighed regretfully as she ended, as if the subject had awakened sad memories.
"Well, if I were a critic," said he, with a light laugh, "I'd give your story a genuine indorsement of authority."
"No, you wouldn't," she responded. "You re a man and you'd do as the rest. You'd say: Poor girl, she'd better be washing dishes or teaching school."
Boardman laughed.
Beresford saw the mistletoe spray in Mrs. Ransom's hat, and, not dreaming of any one else than herself having put it there, asked where she had got it.
"Mr. Reynolds brought it from somewhere in his rambles this morning," she said. She took off her hat and plucked out the sprig, but after hesitating a moment, put it back again.
Beresford received the blow bravely, and, like the true gentleman that he was, accepted the situation without apparent embarrassment. Love at first sight is a fruit of warm climates, and passionate souls seize it rapturously; but love, even under a Southern sky, sometimes turns to ashes before the swiftest lips may reach it.