The pride
Of the day—my Swan—that a first fleck's fall
On her wonder of white must unswan, undo!
The Worst of It.
It was evening when Percivale left Edge Willoughby, and walked slowly down the terrace, accompanied by dear little Miss Fanny, who had undertaken to show him the stile leading to the foot-path which was the nearest way to the quarries.
Jackie, the chough, was strutting along the gravel in much self-importance, his body all sideways, his bright eye fixed on the stranger, and uttering his unmusical cry of, "Jack-ee! Jack-ee!"
The young man paused, bent down, and caressed the bird, spite of the formidable-looking orange beak.
"What a queer old chap!" he said.
"Yes, he is quite a pet. Elsa is very fond of him," said Miss Fanny, seizing as eagerly as he had done on any topic of conversation which was not too heavily charged with emotion to be possible.
Of the terrible issues so near at hand neither dared to speak. As if nothing more unusual than an afternoon call had transpired, Percivale asked of Jacky's age and extraction, learned that he was a Cornishman by birth, and of eccentric disposition, and so travelled safely along the wide gravel-walk, on one side of which the garden rose abruptly up, whilst on the other it sloped as suddenly down, losing itself in a maze of chrysanthemums, gooseberry-bushes, potatoes, and scarlet-runners, till a tall thorn hedge intervened to separate the garden from the cornfield, where the "mows" lay scattered about in every direction, dispersed and driven by the tempest of last night.
So they gained the stile, and here Miss Fanny paused.