A pretty autograph, indeed! The snow fell steadily and I tramped on over the joint signature of the girl and the rabbit. Near the lake they parted company, the rabbit leading off at a tangent, on a line parallel with the lake, while his pursuer’s steps pointed toward the boat-house.
There was, so far as I knew, only one student of adventurous blood at St. Agatha’s, and I was not in the least surprised to see, on the little sheltered balcony of the boat-house, the red tam-o’-shanter. She wore, too, the covert coat I remembered from the day I saw her first from the wall. Her back was toward me as I drew near; her hands were thrust into her pockets. She was evidently enjoying the soft mingling of the snow with the still, blue waters of the lake, and a girl and a snow-storm are, if you ask my opinion, a pretty combination. The fact of a girl’s facing a winter storm argues mightily in her favor,—testifies, if you will allow me, to a serene and dauntless spirit, for one thing, and a sound constitution, for another.
I ran up the steps, my cap in one hand, her overshoe in the other. She drew back a trifle, just enough to bring my conscience to its knees.
“I didn’t mean to listen that day. I just happened to be on the wall and it was a thoroughly underbred trick—my twitting you about it—and I should have told you before if I’d known how to see you—”
“May I trouble you for that shoe?” she said with a great deal of dignity.
They taught that cold disdain of man, I supposed, as a required study at St. Agatha’s.
“Oh, certainly! Won’t you allow me?”
“Thank you, no!”
I was relieved, to tell the truth, for I had been out of the world for most of that period in which a youngster perfects himself in such graces as the putting on of a girl’s overshoes. She took the damp bit of rubber—a wet overshoe, even if small and hallowed by associations, isn’t pretty—as Venus might have received a soft-shell crab from the hand of a fresh young merman. I was between her and the steps to which her eyes turned longingly.
“Of course, if you won’t accept my apology I can’t do anything about it; but I hope you understand that I’m sincere and humble, and anxious to be forgiven.”