University of Virginia Library

45. CHAPTER XLV.
HOURS IN THE OCTOBER WOODS.

In a week Redbud was going about again: slowly, it is true,
and taking care not to fatigue herself, but still she was no longer
confined to the house.

She rose one morning, and came down with a face full of happy
expectation.

That day had been appointed for a holiday in the woods, and
Fanny, Verty and Ralph were coming. Soon they came.

Ralph was resplendent in a new suit of silk, which he had
procured after numerous directions from our friend Mr. O'Brallaghan;
Verty resembled the young forest emperor, which it was
his wont to resemble, at least in costume;—and Fanny was clad
in the finest and most coquettish little dress conceivable. After
mature deliberation, we are inclined to believe that her conquest
of Ralph was on this day completed and perfected:—the conduct
of that gentleman for some days afterwards having been very
suspicious. We need only say, that he sat at his window, gazing
moonward—wrote sonnets in a very melancholy strain, and lost
much of his ardor and vivacity. These symptoms are sufficient
for a diagnosis when one is familiar with the disease, and they
were exhibited by Mr. Ralph, on the occasion mentioned. But
we anticipate.

The gay party went out in the grove, and wandering about in
the brilliant October sunlight, gathered primroses and other
autumn flowers, which, making into bunches, they topped with

fine slender, palm-like golden rods:—and so, passing on, came to
the old glen behind, and just beneath the acclivity which made
the western horizon of Apple Orchard.

“Look what a lovely tulip tree!” said Fanny, laughing,
“and here is the old lime-kiln—look!”

Ralph smiled.

“I am looking,”—he said.

“You are not!”

“You—at you.”

“I asked you to look at the old klin—”

“I prefer your charming face, my heart's treasure.”

Redbud laughed, and turning her white, tender face, to the
dreamy, Verty said:

“Are they not affectionate, Verty?”

Verty smiled.

“I like that,” he said.

“So do I—but Mr. Ralph is so—”

“What, Miss Redbud?” said Ralph, laughing, “eh?”

“Oh, I did'nt know—”

“I heard you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, at least I did. I don't see why I should not be affectionate
to Fanny—”

“Humph!” from Fanny.

“She is my dearest cousin—is Miss Fanny Temple; and we
have been in love with each other for the last twenty years, more
or less!”

Fanny burst into laughter.

“Twenty years!” she cried.

“Well?” said Ralph.

“I'm only seventeen, sir.”

“Seventeen?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Seventeen—three from seventeen,” said Ralph, thoughtfully

calculating on his fingers, “ah! yes! you are right—you have
been in love with me but fourteen years. Yes! yes! you have
reason to say, as you did, that it was not twenty years—quite.”

After which speech, which was delivered in an innocent tone,
Mr. Ralph scratched his chin.

Fanny stood for a moment horrified at the meaning given to
her exclamation—then colored—then cried “Humph!”—then
burst into laughter. The party joined in it.

“Well, well,” said the bright girl, whose dancing eyes were
full of pleasure, “don't let us get to flirting to-day.”

“Flirting?” said Ralph.

“Yes.”

“I never flirt.”

“No, never!”

“There, you are getting ironical—you fly off from—”

“The subject, I suppose—like that flying squirrel yonder—
look!”

Indeed, a mottled little animal, of the description mentioned,
had darted from the tulip toward a large oak, and falling as he
flew—which we believe characterizes the flight of this squirrel—
had lit upon the oak near the root, and run rapidly up the
trunk.

“Did you ever!” cried Fanny.

“I don't recollect,” said Ralph.

“Why how can he fly?”

“Wings,” suggested Verty,

“But they are so small, and he's so heavy.”

“He starts high up,” said Verty, “and makes a strong jump
when he flies. That's the way he does.”

“How curious,” said Redbud.

“Yes,” cried Fanny, “and see! there's a striped ground
squirrel, and listen to that crow,—caw! caw!”

With which Fanny twists her lips into astonishing shapes,

and imitates the crow in a manner which the youngest of living
crows would have laughed to scorn.

Redbud gathered some beautiful flowers, and with the assistance
of Verty made a little wreath, which she tied with a
ribbon. Stealing behind Fanny, she placed this on her head.

“Oh, me?” cried Miss Fanny.

“Yes, for you,” said Ralph.

“From Redbud? Oh! thank you. But I'll make you one.
Come, sir,”—to Ralph,—“help me.”

“To get flowers?”

“Yes.”

“Willingly.”

“There is a bunch of primroses.”

“Shall I get it?” said Ralph.

“Yes, sir.”

“I think you had better,” said Ralph.

“Well, sir!”

“Now, Fanny—don't get angry—I will—”

“No, you shan't!”

“Indeed I will!”

The result of this contention, as to who should gather the
primroses, was, that Fanny and Ralph, stooping at the same
moment, struck their faces together, and cried out—the young
lady at least.

Fanny blushed very much as she rose—Ralph was triumphant.

“I've got them, however, sir,” she said, holding the flowers.

“And I had a disagreeable accident,” said Ralph, laughing,
and pretending to rub his head.

“Disagrecable, sir!” cried Fanny, without reflecting.

“Yes!” said Ralph—“why not?”

Fanny found herself involved again in an awkward explanation—the
fact being, that Ralph's lips had, by pure accident,
of course, touched her brow.

It would, therefore, have only complicated matters for Fanny
to have explained why the accident ought not to be “disagreeable,”
as Ralph declared it to be. The general reply, however,
which we have endeavored, on various occasions, to represent by
the word “Humph!” issued from the young girl's lips; and
busying herself with the wreath, she passed on, followed by the
laughing company.

From the forest, they went to the mossy glen, as we may call
it, though that was not its name; and Verty enlivened the company
with a description of a flock of young partridges which had
there started up once, and running between his feet, disappeared
before his very eyes. Redbud, too, recollected the nice cherries
they had eaten from the trees—as nice as the oxhearts near the
house—in the Spring; and Fanny did too, and told some very
amusing stories of beaux being compelled to climb and throw
down boughs laden with their red bunches.

In this pleasant way they strolled along the brook which stole
by in sun and shadow, over mossy rocks, and under bulrushes,
where the minnows haunted—which brook, tradition (and the
maps) call to-day by the name of one member of that party; and
so, passing over the slip of meadow, where Verty declared the
hares were accustomed to gambol by moonlight, once more came
again toward the locust-grove of “dear old Apple Orchard,”—(Fanny's
phrase,)—and entered in again, and threw down their treasures
of bright flowers and bird's-nests—for they had taken some
old ones from the trees—and laughed, sang, and were happy.

“Why! what a day!” cried Ralph; “if we only had a kite
now!”

“A kite!” cried Fanny.

“Yes.”

“An elegant college gentleman—”

“Oh—suspend the college gentleman, if I may use the paraphrase,”
said Mr. Ralph; “why can't you permit a man to re
turn again, my heart's delight, to his far youth.”

“Far youth.”

“Ages ago—but in spite of that, I tell you I want to see a
fine kite sailing up there.”

“Make it, then!”

“By Jove! I will, if Miss Redbud will supply—”

“The materials? Certainly, in one moment, Mr. Ralph,”
said Redbud, smiling softly; “how nice it will be!”

“Twine, scissors, paper,” said Ralph; “we'll have it done
immediately.”

Redbud went, and soon returned with the materials; and the
whole laughing party began to work upon the kite.

Such was their dispatch, that, in an hour it was ready, taken
to the meadow, and there, with the united assistance of gentlemen
and ladies, launched into the sky.