"Do you think you know me well enough?" said Angelica, with a little gasp, which was really joy, in her breath.
Henry didn't answer; but their eyes met in a long, still look. In each heart behind the stillness was a storm of indescribable sweetness. Henry leaned forward, his face grown very pale, and impulsively took Angelica's hand,--
"I think, after all, I'd rather call you Angel," he said.
CHAPTER XXII
MIKE'S FIRST LAURELS
The gardens of Sidon had a curious habit of growing laurel-trees; laurels and rhododendrons were the only wear in shrubs. Rhododendrons one can understand. They are to the garden what mahogany is to the front parlour,--the bourgeoisie of the vegetable kingdom. But the laurel,--what use could they have for laurel in Sidon? Possibly they supplied it to the rest of the world,--market-gardeners, so to say, to the Temple of Fame; it could hardly be for home consumption. Well, at all events, it was a peculiarity fortunate for Esther's purpose, as one morning, soon after breakfast, she went about the garden cutting the glossiest branches of the distinguished tree. As she filled her arms with them, she recalled with a smile the different purpose for which, dragged at the heels of one of Henry's enthusiasms, she had gathered them several years before.
At that period Henry had been a mighty entomologist; and, as the late summer came on, he and all available sisters would set out, armed with butterfly-nets and other paraphernalia, just before twilight, to the nearest woodland, where they would proceed to daub the trees with an intoxicating preparation of honey and rum,--a temptation to which moths were declared in text-books to be incapable of resistance. Then, as night fell, Henry would light his bull's-eye, and cautiously visit the various snares. It was a sight worth seeing to come upon those little night-clubs of drunken and bewildered moths, hanging on to the sweetness with tragic gluttony,--an easy prey for Henry's eager fingers, which, as greedy of them as they of the honey, would seize and thrust them into the lethal chamber, in the form of a cigar-box loosely filled with bruised laurel leaves, which hung by a strap from his shoulder.
It was for such exciting employment that Esther had once gathered laurel leaves. And, once again, she remembered gathering them one Shakespeare's birthday, to crown a little bust in Henry's study. The sacred head had worn them proudly all day, and they all had a feeling that somehow Shakespeare must know about it, and appreciate the little offering; just as even to-day one might bring roses and myrtle, or the blood of a maiden dove to Venus, and expect her to smile upon our affairs of the heart.
But it was for a dearer purpose that Esther was gathering them this morning. That coming evening Mike was to utter his first stage-words in public. The laurel was to crown the occasion on which Mike was to make that memorable utterance: "That's a pie as is a pie, is that there pie!"