Part 8 (2/2)

”Well, le's play. I can stay half a hour. Le's tag.”

”I can't play,” rejoined Murray, caution restraining his natural desires. ”I'm being good.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: I can't play ... I'm being good]

”Oh, my!” shrilled the girl child derisively. ”Can't you be good tagging? Come on.”

”No; because you might--_I_ might get no-fairing, and then Sheelah'd come out and say I was bad. Le's sit here and talk; it's safer to.

What's a lark, Daisy? I was going to ask Sheelah.”

”A--lark? Why, it's a bird, of course!”

”I don't mean the bird kind, but the kind you have when your mother puts you--when something splendid happens. That kind, I mean.”

Daisy pondered. Her acquaintance with larks was limited, unless it meant--

”Do you mean a good time?” she asked. ”We have larks over to my house when we go to bed--”

”That's it! That's the kind!” shouted delighted Murray. ”I'm going to have one when I go to bed. Do you have _reg'lar_ ones, Daisy?” with a secret little hope that she didn't. ”_I'm_ going to have a reg'lar one.”

”Huh!--chase all 'round the room an' turn somersaults an' be highway robberers? An' take the hair-pins out o' your mother's hair an'

_hide_ in it--what?”

Murray gasped a little at the picture of that kind of a lark. It was difficult to imagine himself chasing 'round the room or being a highwayman; and as for somersaults--he glanced uneasily over his shoulder, as if Sheelah might be looking and read ”somersaults”

through the back of his head. For once he had almost turned one and Sheelah had found him in the middle of it and said pointed things. In Sheelah's code of etiquette there were no somersaults in the ”s”

column.

”It's a reg'lar lark to hide in your mother's hair,” was going on the girl child's voice. ”Yes, sir, that's the reg'larest kind!”

Murray gasped again, harder. For that kind took away his breath altogether and made him feel a little dizzy, as if he were--were _doing it now_--hiding in his mother's hair! It was soft, beautiful, gold-colored hair, and there was a great deal of it--oh, plenty to hide in! He shut his eyes and felt it all about him and soft against his face, and smelled the faint fragrance of it. The dizziness was sweet.

Yes, that must be the reg'larest kind of a lark, but Murray did not deceive himself, once the dream was over. He knew _that_ kind was not waiting for him at the end of this long day. But a lark was waiting, anyway--a plain lark. It might have been the bird kind in his little heart now, singing for joy at the prospect.

Impatience seized upon Murray. He wanted this little neighbor's half-hour to be up, so that he could go in and watch the clock. He wanted Sheelah to come out here, for that would mean it was ten o'clock; she always came at ten. He wanted it to be noon, to be afternoon, to be _night!_ The most beautiful time in his rather monotonous little life was down there at the foot of the day, and he was creeping towards it on the lagging hours. He was like a little traveller on a dreary plain, with the first ecstatic glimpse of a hill ahead.

Murray in his childish way had been in love a long time, but he had never got very near his dear lady. He had watched her a little way off and wondered at the gracious beauty of her, and loved her eyes and her lips and her soft, gold-colored hair. He had never--oh, never--been near enough to be unlaced and unb.u.t.toned and put to bed by the lady that he loved. She had come in sometimes in a wondrous dress to say good night, but often, stopping at the mirror on the way across to him, she had seen a beautiful vision and forgotten to say it. And Murray had not wondered, for he had seen the vision, too.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Murray had ... seen the vision, too]

”Your mamma's gone away, hasn't she? I saw her.”

Daisy was still there! Murray pulled himself out of his dreaming, to be polite.

”Yes; but she's coming back to-night. She promised.”

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