'Oh stay, the Clayton said; and yield
A withered rose, or weed of field.
Indignant glared her bright brown eye,
And with a frown she made reply,
You botherer.'"
Ted, in another moment—"
"You have the heart of a barbarian, Garth; the softer passion is unknown to you—the 'pills and paradise' of a man's existence. Look at me, like Etna half consumed, a mighty ruin—all thy work, oh woman! Ah, as the soothing bard, the glorious Will of immortal memory, once wrote—
'He never told his love; no, never;
No more did she, but did you ever'—
She gave him one long glance, and then"—but Ted never finished his ridiculous effusion, for in another moment Garth had pinned him in his powerful grasp, and stretched him prone and struggling on the floor. "And there shall you lie until you have promised not to spout any more nonsense," was the inexorable mandate of his tyrant.
"Floored by fate, and crushed by the gigantic hoof of destiny, I submit. 'More kicks than half-pence,' quoth he, under the healing (heeling) process; but what boots such trifles to the stalwart heart of a young Briton. Alas, thy sole is open and clear to me, my brother, and the footprint of ignoble passion is stamped upon it."
"Pax, pax," groaned Garth.
"Oh, leave him alone, you are only making him worse," laughed Queenie; "if he sees nobody heeds his nonsense he will soon leave off."
"I feel like the gladiator, butchered to make a Clayton holiday; my breast-bone is staved in by the barbarian. 'Dying, we salute thee, Caesar.' Well, it is of 'no consequence,' as Toots remarks."
"There, get up and behave yourself," interrupted Garth, with a final kick; "and now, to get rid of this foolish fellow, I vote that some of us take a turn in the plane-tree walk. Come, Miss Marriott, you and Cathy put on your hats." But Cathy, who was in a curious mood to-night, and had done nothing but sigh and interlace her fingers restlessly in the twilight, muttered something about Miss Cosie and the Vicarage, and vanished from the room; and so it came to pass that Queenie found herself gravely pacing up and down the plane-tree walk by Garth's side.