Forget me not, my love, my treasure!
My flower and heart are both for you.
He played and sang a sweet, simple and plaintive air. It touched Eve’s heart; always susceptible to music. Her lips repeated after the boy, ‘My flower and heart are both for you.’
She could not make up her mind what to do. While she hesitated, the opportunity of returning the ring was gone. Watt had disappeared into the bushes.
[CHAPTER XVIII.]
DISCOVERIES.
A beautiful summer evening. Eve from her window saw Jasper in the garden; he was trimming the flower-beds which had been neglected since Christopher Davy had been ill. The men were busy on the farm, too busy to be taken off for flower gardening. Barbara had said one day that it was a pity the beds were not put to rights; and now Jasper was attending to her wishes during her absence. Mr. Jordan was out. He had gone forth with his hammer, and there was no telling when he would return. Eve disliked being alone. She must talk to someone. She brushed her beautiful hair, looked in the glass, adjusted a scarf round her shoulders, and in a coquettish way tripped into the garden and began to pick the flowers, peeping at Jasper out of the corners of her eyes, to see if he were observing her. He, however, paid no attention to what she was doing. In a fit of impatience, she flung the auriculas and polyanthus she had picked on the path, and threw herself pouting into the nearest garden seat.
‘Mr. Jasper!’ she called; ‘are you so mightily busy that you cannot afford me a word?’