“Self-sacrificing?” I wondered, feeling my way.
“Why, she made herself odious—simply odious—in Cecilia’s eyes, so Cecilia would feel furious at having Almington like her.” Sometimes Felicia is anything but lucid.
“Like whom?” I naturally wanted to know.
“Like Lydia,” replied my wife, impatiently. “A girl can stand anything but having a man she likes fall in love with a woman she doesn’t. It’s queer,” she said, suspiciously, “clever as you are sometimes, how dense you are others. Did you understand——”
But at this late date I wasn’t going to have my laurels snatched from me. So I hastened to assure her. “Of course,” I said, loftily, “I understood Mrs. Massingbyrd intended to interfere!”
AUTUMN
SCARLET her cloak, her lips all scarlet too,
Her cloudy hair as golden as the leaves
Of the sun-mellowed hickories, her voice
The rich, low whispers of the brooks that please
By hinting Autumn mysteries, her eyes
Witch-lights of laughter and of mad surprise.
Oh, gypsy prodigal, who gives and gives,
Till penury in winter strips you bare,
Cover me with the splendor of your locks,
Let your eyes challenge me from dull despair—
Wake me and sting me till I, too, shall sweep
Round in the revels that your whirlwinds keep.