第21章 CHAPTER IV(6)

I know a most delightful couple: they have been married nearly twenty years, and both will assure you that an angry word has never passed between them. He calls her his "Little One," although she must be quite six inches taller than himself, and is never tired of patting her hand or pinching her ear. They asked her once in the drawing-room--so the Little Mother tells me--her recipe for domestic bliss. She said the mistake most women made was taking men too seriously.

"They are just overgrown children, that's all they are, poor dears," she laughed.

There are two kinds of love: there is the love that kneels and looks upward, and the love that looks down and pats. For durability I am prepared to back the latter.

The architect had died out of young Bute; he was again a shy young man during our walk back to the cottage. My hand was on the latch when he stayed me.

"Isn't this the back-door again, sir?" he enquired.

It was the back-door; I had not noticed it.

"Hadn't we better go round to the front, sir, don't you think?" he said.

"It doesn't matter--" I began.

But he had disappeared. So I followed him, and we entered by the front. Robina was standing by the table, peeling potatoes.

"I have brought Mr. Bute back with me," I explained. "He is going to stop the night."

Robina said: "If ever I go to live in a cottage again it will have one door." She took her potatoes with her and went upstairs.

"I do hope she isn't put out," said young Bute.

"Don't worry yourself," I comforted him. "Of course she isn't put out. Besides, I don't care if she is. She's got to get used to being put out; it's part of the lesson of life."

I took him upstairs, meaning to show him his bedroom and take my own things out of it. The doors of the two bedrooms were opposite one another. I made a mistake and opened the wrong door. Robina, still peeling potatoes, was sitting on the bed.

I explained we had made a mistake. Robina said it was of no consequence whatever, and, taking the potatoes with her, went downstairs again. Looking out of the window, I saw her making towards the wood. She was taking the potatoes with her.

"I do wish we hadn't opened the door of the wrong room," groaned young Bute.

"What a worrying chap you are!" I said to him. "Look at the thing from the humorous point of view. It's funny when you come to think of it. Wherever the poor girl goes, trying to peel her potatoes in peace and quietness, we burst in upon her. What we ought to do now is to take a walk in the wood. It is a pretty wood. We might say we had come to pick wild flowers."

But I could not persuade him. He said he had letters to write, and, if I would allow him, would remain in his room till dinner was ready.

Dick and Veronica came in a little later. Dick had been to see Mr. St. Leonard to arrange about lessons in farming. He said he thought I should like the old man, who wasn't a bit like a farmer. He had brought Veronica back in one of her good moods, she having met there and fallen in love with a donkey. Dick confided to me that, without committing himself, he had hinted to Veronica that if she would remain good for quite a long while I might be induced to buy it for her. It was a sturdy little animal, and could be made useful.

Anyhow, it would give Veronica an object in life--something to strive for--which was just what she wanted. He is a thoughtful lad at times, is Dick.