Part 19 (1/2)

She is guiltless of gloves, and, being heated in the chase, has flung her hat upon the velvet sward beside her. Whereupon the ardent sun, availing of the chance, is making desperate love to her, and is kissing with all his might her priceless complexion. It is a sight to make a town-bred damsel weep aloud!

Miss Beauchamp, sailing majestically toward this foolish maiden, with her diaphanous skirts trailing behind her, a huge hat upon her carefully arranged braids, and an enormous garden umbrella over all, looks with surprise, largely mingled with contempt, upon the kneeling figure. She marks the soft beauty of the skin, the exquisite penciling of the eyebrows, the rich color on the laughing lips, and, marking, feels some faint anger at the reckless extravagance of the owner of these unpurchasable charms.

To one long aware of the many advantages to be derived from such precious unguents as creme d'Ispahan, velvetine, and Chinese rouge, is known also all the fear of detection arising from the daily use of them.

And to see another richly and freely endowed by Nature with all the most coveted tints, making light of the gift, seems to such a one a gross impertinence, a miserable want of grat.i.tude, too deep for comprehension.

Pausing near Lilian, with the over-fed Maltese panting and puffing beside her, Miss Beauchamp looks down upon her curiously, upon the rose-leaf face, the little soiled hands, the ruffled golden head, and calculates to a fraction the exact amount of mischief that may be done by the possession of so much youth and beauty.

The girl is far too pretty. There is really no knowing what irremediable harm she may not have done already.

”What a mess you are making of yourself!” says Florence, in a tone replete with lady-like disgust.

”I am, rather,” says Lilian, holding aloft the small hand, on which five dusty fingers disport themselves, while she regards them contemplatively; ”but I love it, gardening I mean. I would have made a small fortune at flower-shows, had I given my mind to it earlier: not a prize would have escaped me.”

”Every one with an acre of garden thinks that,” says Miss Beauchamp.

”Do they?” smiling up at the white G.o.ddess beside her. ”Well, perhaps so. 'Hope springs eternal in the human breast,' and a good thing, too.”

”Don't you think you will be likely to get a sunstroke?” remarks Florence, with indifferent concern.

”No; I am accustomed to go about without my hat,” answers Lilian: ”of course, as a rule, I wear it, but it always gives me a feeling of suffocation; and as for a veil, I simply couldn't bear one.”

Miss Beauchamp, glancing curiously at the peach-like complexion beneath her, wonders enviously how she does it, and then reflects with a certain sense of satisfaction that a very little more of this mad tampering with Nature's gifts will create such havoc as must call for the immediate aid of the inestimable Rimmel and his fellows.

The small terrier, awaking from the tuneful snooze that always accompanies her moments of inactivity, whether she be standing or lying, now rolls over to Lilian and makes a fat effort to lick her dear little Grecian nose. At which let no one wonder, as a prettier little nose was never seen. But Lilian is so far unsympathetic that she strongly objects to the caress.

”Poor Fanchette!” she says, kindly, recoiling a little, ”you must forgive me, but the fact is I can't bear having my face licked. It is bad taste on my part, I know, and I hope you will grant me pardon. No, I cannot pet you either, because I think my earthy fingers would not improve your snowy coat.”

”Come away, Fanchette; come away, _pet.i.te_, directly; do you hear?”

cries Miss Beauchamp, in an agony lest the scented fleece of her ”curled darling” should be defiled. ”Come to its own mistress, then. Don't you see you are disturbing Lilian?” this last as a mild apology for the unaffected horror of her former tone.

So saying, she gathers up Fanchette, and retires into the shaded shrubberies beyond.

Almost as she disappears from view, Guy comes upon the scene.

”Why, what are you doing?” he calls out while yet a few yards from her.

”I have been shocking your cousin,” returns Lilian, laughing. ”I doubt she thinks me a horrible unlady-like young woman. But I can't help that.

See how I have soiled my hands!” holding up for his inspection her ten little grimy fingers.

”And done your utmost to ruin your complexion, all for the sake of a few poor slugs. What a blood-thirsty little thing you are!”

”I don't believe there is any blood in them,” says Lilian.

”Do come away. One would think there wasn't a gardener about the place.

You will make yourself ill, kneeling there in the sun; and look how warm you are; it is a positive shame.”

”But I have preserved the lives, and the beauty of all these little plants.”