The Pillars of the House Part 63

And as he spoke he sketched his mischievous likeness, at which the mirth grew more furious; while Cherry, always the most easily excited, uttered in a strangled voice, 'A parsnip, a barn-door hen, a dilapidated Guernsey cow, an old mother whale.'

'O Cherry, Cherry, you've immortalised yourself!' shouted Lance. 'How did you hit off the parsnip? the very thing that had stumped me.'

'The colour, and the odd sort of sweetness,' said Cherry.

'Won't we have fun with it when I go back!' cried Lance.--'Not tell?

Nonsense! Why, no one will enjoy it like Mother Harewood herself.'

'Only don't say I made it. There, Edgar has got one.'

'Touch-me-not balsam, blister-fly, bantam-c.o.c.k (full strut), black terrier.'

He did not caricature this time except with the muscles of his face, and with these he contrived to put on four different aspects, each so exactly like Mr. Mowbray Smith that not even Alice required the proclamation of the name; and Wilmet gravely said, 'I do not think this is a proper sort of game. It must be ill-natured or irreverent.'

'That depends,' said Geraldine, now thoroughly in the swing.-- Here!

Hawthornden apple-tree, stickleback, goldfinch, beaver.'

'The hardy Norseman's house of yore Was on the foaming wave,'

sang out Lance, recalling Theodore's subst.i.tute for Felix's name.

'Exactly like--figures, tastes, and all,' said Edgar, scanning Felix's clear, bright, fresh face, glossy hair, and rather short figure, at once trim and st.u.r.dy. 'The goldfinch hit him off exactly, but I don't see the force of the apple-tree.'

'You would,' said Cherry, 'if you were properly acquainted with our three trees and their individualities. The Hawthornden is a resolute looking fellow, but it indulges in the loveliest pink and white blossoms, and waxen, delicate, peachy fruit.'

'Uncommonly sour! Thank you, Cherry,' said Felix.

'Not in a pie,' suggested Alice.

'Properly treated and sweetened, eh ?' asked he, smiling on her.

'But why is Felix like a stickleback?' said Angela.

'Don't you know?' said Cherry; 'a beautiful bright little fish, and the good male one swims up and down taking care of the nest.'

'I do like the beaver,' allowed Wilmet. 'It always was my favourite beast.'

'It hits off the respectable householder element,' added Edgar.

'Three flaps of his broad tail rule beaverdom like Jupiter's nod.'

'I have one,' interposed Robina.--'Bella-donna lily, working bee, menura--'

'Hold hard!' called Lance; 'is a menura fish, flesh, or fowl?'

'Fowl: the lyre-tailed pheasant, that makes a shelter for its nest with its own tail.'

'Decided liar tale,' muttered Edgar.

'Go on, Bobbie,' Felix encouraged her. The pheasant suits both the twins as well as the bella-donna. Any more?'

'Perhaps the leading stag of the herd.'

'Don't make us like that proud, cowardly, tyrannical beast,'

exclaimed Wilmet.

'I have seen you look exactly like one,' said Geraldine. 'That and the pheasant both give the notion of your neck.'

'Such a set of trumpery gaudy things!' grumbled Wilmet. 'Nothing but the bee is tolerable.'

'I did think of a speckled Hamburg hen, and a nice quiet she-goat,'

said Robina; 'but they are all dowdy, and would not suit Alda.'

'There's something in the theory,' said Edgar. 'That belladonna approves itself perfectly--so delicate and stately, and yet so essentially unpoetical.'

'That Mettie takes as a compliment,' said Felix, 'only she would rather have been a potato, or a cabbage.'

'Now,' said Cherry, 'you will all know--bell-heather, the gra.s.shopper, the lark, and the squirrel.'

'Is this the lark's crest, or the squirrel's tail!' said Felix, giving an elder brother's pull to the boy's highest wave of hair.

'Or the gra.s.shopper's leap?' cried Lance, springing on him for a bout of buffeting and skirmis.h.i.+ng; in the midst of which Alice was heard wondering how the riddles, as she thought them, were either made or guessed.

'They come,' said Geraldine. 'I am only afraid we shall fall into a trick of making them for everybody.'

'I wonder what you would make for me.'

Geraldine had it on her tongue's end that Alice would be difficult, for want of anything distinctive, but Felix and Edgar were both jotting something down, and Robina was before-hand with either-- 'Scarlet pimpernel, tortoisesh.e.l.l b.u.t.terfly, budgerigar, marmoset.'

No one answered, for Felix had pushed a slip of paper over to Alice, on which she read--"'Forget-me-not, ladybird, linnet, kitten." I don't think I ever saw a linnet. Isn't it a little brown bird?'

'With a rich glow of red, and a beautiful song,' said Felix, smiling; and the red glowed redder on her cheek, as she said, laughing, 'Kitten for mischief, eh? For shame, Mr. Underwood!--What, another!

Dear me, I shall not know myself!'

This had been slipped into her hand; and Cherry suspected that her exclamation had been a mistake of which she was conscious, as the colour deepened on her already blus.h.i.+ng cheeks, and her eyes were cast down, while a demure smile played on her lips. The incautious exclamation had betrayed her, and the young ones clamoured to hear Edgar's view of her transmigration; but there was a little coy struggle of 'Oh no, she wouldn't, and she couldn't.'

'She smiled and blushed, and oft did say Her pretty oath by yea or nay.'

And in the midst came the message that the maid was arrived to take her home; and this being a cross stiff personage, who might never be kept waiting, she had to hurry away; and had no sooner gone than Angela burst out with, 'Here it is! I've got it! Listen to it: "Say, Lady--"'

'Stay, Angela,' interrupted Felix. 'You have no business with that.'

'Not Edgar's fun!' she exclaimed. 'Why, where is he?'

'Surely he is not going home with her!' said Wilmet in some dismay.