Sweethearts at Home

by S. R. Crockett

I went quickly home and excavated it from a general ruck of odd plates and cupless saucers. In triumph I carried it to the good mistress of New Erin Villa.

"Oh, Miss Sweetheart," she said, "I cannot—I cannot indeed——"

"Suppose that your—that 'Somebody' were to come along and see that épergne in my window—sure they might have in the police!"

Finally I satisfied Mrs. Donnan that though I had not asked special permission, it was only because there was no need, and that Somebody, if duly approached, would be the first of her customers, and the most helpful of her friends. I said so because I knew.

"It would look like all Dublin Castle and Sackville Street!" said Mrs. Donnan, visibly flinching as her own inner eye built up the green figs, and decorated the épergne with the leaves that had proved so useful early in the history of the world.

"Well," I answered, taking my leave, "Hugh John and I will be round about four to see if it is as fine as you say."

"It will be finer," cried Mrs. Donnan eagerly; "I have got another idea entirely since I set eyes on it."

But after all it was the deft hands of Elizabeth Fortinbras which decorated our long-condemned and dusty épergne. She polished it, she set it on foot again as good as new, mingling the tawny-red-bitten oak-leaves and acorns with the deep green figs, and making the thing a joy, if not for ever, at least for as long as it remained in Mrs. Donnan's window.

This, however, was not for long.

For Fuz—yes, the very old Fuz as ever was—coming home from a tramp with his eyes apparently mooning, but really registering everything as remorselessly as a calculating machine marshals figures, spied the green figs in Mrs. Donnan's window. Hardly in Edam was there any one else, at that date, who so much as knew what they were. He saw. He admired. There was a little dinner at our house that night to which just a couple of neighbors were coming. The idea of a surprise germinated in the mind of Fuz, and he came home the happy possessor of his own épergne, with the green and yellow leaves cinturing it round!