Part 15 (2/2)
”Nonsense! You have a pa.s.s in your pocket.”
”In spite of the pa.s.s, if your father had not happened to see me, I should have been arrested, and might have spent a day or two in the guardhouse before the case could have been explained.”
”No more argument, Allan,” said the persevering girl. ”Here is the house; you shall go in and look at mother, if you don't stop but a minute.
Besides, I want to see your photograph while you are present; for I am sure you don't look any more like the picture than the picture does like you.”
”Probably not,” replied Somers, as the resolute maiden dragged him into the house; where, without stopping to breathe, she presented him to her mother, with the astounding declaration, that he was Allan Garland.
Mrs. Raynes gave him a cordial Virginia welcome; and, while he was endeavoring to make himself as agreeable as possible to the old lady, Sue rushed up-stairs to procure the faithless photograph. She returned in a moment with the picture in her hand, and proceeded at once to inst.i.tute a comparison between the shadow and the substance.
”Now, stand up here, sir, and let me see,” said she, as she playfully whisked him round and scrutinized his features. ”I told you it did not look like you; and I am very sure now that it does not.”
”Let me see,” added Somers, extending his hand for the picture.
”Will you promise to give it back to me?”
”Certainly I will! You don't imagine I would be so mean as to confiscate it?”
”I should not care much if you did, now that I have found out it does not look any more like you than it does like me,” she answered, handing him the photograph.
”Where did you get this picture, Sue?”
”Where did I get it? Well, that is cool! Didn't you send it to me yourself?” And Sue began to exhibit some symptoms of amazement.
”I am very sure I never sent you this picture,” added Somers gravely.
”You did not?”
”Never.”
”Why, Allan Garland!”
”This is not my picture.”
”I shouldn't think it was.”
Thereupon Mr. Raynes began to laugh in the most immoderate manner; opening his mouth wide enough to take in a very small load of hay, and shaking his sides in the most extraordinary style.
”What are you laughing at, pa?” demanded Sue, blus.h.i.+ng up to the eyes, as though she already felt the force of some keenly satirical remark which was struggling for expression in the mouth of the farmer.
”To think you have been looking at that picture three times a day for a year, studying, gazing at it; kissing it, for aught I know; and then to find out that it is not Allan after all!” roared the Virginia farmer between the outbreaks of his mirth. ”I haven't done anything but groan since the war began, and it does me good to laugh. I haven't had a jolly time before since the battle of Bull Run, as the Yankees call it.”
”You are the most absurd pa in Virginia. I didn't look at it three times a day, I never studied it, and I'm sure I never kissed it. No wonder Allan wants to get away, when he finds what an absurd girl you make me out to be. You think I'm a fool, don't you, Allan?”
”I do not, by any means. I'm sure, if I had your picture, I shouldn't have been ashamed to look at it three times a day,” replied Somers, gallantly coming to the rescue of the maiden. ”But, really, my Virginia patriarch,” he added, using an expression which he had found in the correspondence in his pocket, ”I must tear myself away.”
”You seem to be glad enough to go,” pouted Sue.
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