Nobody Part 30

"You have been spoiling Appledore?" added Tom.

"I don't think I have done any harm," said Lois innocently. "There is enough more, Mr. Caruthers."

"Enough of what?" Tom inquired, while Julia and her friend exchanged a swift glance again, of triumph on the lady's part.

"There is a sh.e.l.l," said Lois, putting one into his hand. "I think that is pretty, and it certainly is odd. And what do you say to those white violets, Mr. Caruthers? And here is some very beautiful pimpernel--and here is a flower that I do not know at all,--and the rest is what you would call rubbish," she finished with a smile, so charming that Tom could not see the violets for dazzled eyes.

"Show me the flowers, Tom," his mother demanded; and she kept him by her, answering her questions and remarks about them; while Julia asked where they could be found.

"I find them in quite a good many places," said Lois; "and every time it is a sort of surprise. I gathered only a few; I do not like to take them away from their places; they are best there."

She said a word or two to Mrs. Wishart, and pa.s.sed on into the house.

"That's the girl," Julia said in a low voice to her lover, walking off to the other end of the verandah with him.

"Tom might do worse," was the reply.

"George! How can you say so? A girl who doesn't know common Englis.h.!.+"

"She might go to school," suggested Lenox.

"To school! At her age! And then, think of her a.s.sociations, and her ignorance of everything a lady should be and should know. O you men! I have no patience with you. See a face you like, and you lose your wits at once, the best of you. I wonder you ever fancied me!"

"Tastes are unaccountable," the young man returned, with a lover-like smile.

"But do you call that girl pretty?"

Mr. Lenox looked portentously grave. "She has handsome hair," he ventured.

"Hair! What's hair! Anybody can have handsome hair, that will pay for it."

"She has not paid for hers."

"No, and I don't mean that Tom shall. Now George, you must help. I brought you along to help. Tom is lost if we don't save him. He must not be left alone with this girl; and if he gets talking to her, you must mix in and break it up, make love to her yourself, if necessary.

And we must see to it that they do not go off walking together. You must help me watch and help me hinder. Will you?"

"Really, I should not be grateful to anyone who did _me_ such kind service."

"But it is to save Tom."

"Save him! From what?"

"From a low marriage. What could be worse?"

"Adjectives are declinable. There is low, lower, lowest."

"Well, what could be lower? A poor girl, uneducated, inexperienced, knowing n.o.body, brought up in the country, and of no family in particular, with nothing in the world but beautiful hair! Tom ought to have something better than that."

"I'll study her further, and then tell you what I think."

"You are very stupid to-day, George!"

n.o.body got a chance to study Lois much more that day. Seeing that Mrs.

Wishart was for the present well provided with company, she withdrew to her own room; and there she stayed. At supper she appeared, but silent and reserved; and after supper she went away again. Next morning Lois was late at breakfast; she had to run a gauntlet of eyes, as she took her seat at a little distance.

"Overslept, Lois?" queried Mrs. Wishart.

"Miss Lothrop looks as if she never had been asleep, nor ever meant to be," quoth Tom.

"What a dreadful character!" said Miss Julia. "Pray, Miss Lothrop, excuse him; the poor boy means, I have no doubt, to be complimentary."

"Not so bad, for a beginner," remarked Mr. Lenox. "Ladies always like to be thought bright-eyed, I believe."

"But never to sleep!" said Julia. "Imagine the staring effect."

"_You_ are complimentary without effort," Tom remarked pointedly.

"Lois, my dear, have you been out already?" Mrs. Wishart asked. Lois gave a quiet a.s.sent and betook herself to her breakfast.

"I knew it," said Tom. "Morning air has a wonderful effect, if ladies would only believe it. They won't believe it, and they suffer accordingly."

"Another compliment!" said Miss Julia, laughing. "But what do you find, Miss Lothrop, that can attract you so much before breakfast? or after breakfast either, for that matter?"

"Before breakfast is the best time in the twenty-four hours," said Lois.

"Pray, for what?"

"If _you_ were asked, you would say, for sleeping," put in Tom.

"For what, Miss Lothrop? Tom, you are troublesome."

"For doing what, do you mean?" said Lois. "I should say, for anything; but I was thinking of enjoying."

"We are all just arrived," Mr. Lenox began; "and we are slow to believe there is anything to enjoy at the Isles. Will Miss Lothrop enlighten us?"

"I do not know that I can," said Lois. "You might not find what I find."

"What do you find?"

"If you will go out with me to-morrow morning at five o'clock, I will show you," said Lois, with a little smile of amus.e.m.e.nt, or of archness, which quite struck Mr. Lenox and quite captivated Tom.

"Five o'clock!" the former echoed.

"Perhaps he would not then see what you see," Julia suggested.

"Perhaps not," said Lois. "I am by no means sure."

She was let alone after that; and as soon as breakfast was over she escaped again. She made her way to a particular hiding-place she had discovered, in the rocks, down near the sh.o.r.e; from which she had a most beautiful view of the sea and of several of the other islands. Her nook of a seat was comfortable enough, but all around it the rocks were piled in broken confusion, sheltering her, she thought, from any possible chance comer. And this was what Lois wanted; for, in the first place, she was minded to keep herself out of the way of the newly-arrived party, each and all of them; and, in the second place, she was intoxicated with the delights of the ocean. Perhaps I should say rather, of the ocean and the rocks and the air and the sky, and of everything at Appledore, Where she sat, she had a low brown reef in sight, jutting out into the sea just below her; and upon this reef the billows were rolling and breaking in a way utterly and wholly entrancing. There was no wind, to speak of, yet there was much more motion in the sea than yesterday; which often happens from the effect of winds that have been at work far away; and the breakers which beat and foamed upon that reef, and indeed upon all the sh.o.r.e, were beyond all telling graceful, beautiful, wonderful, mighty, and changeful. Lois had been there to see the sunrise; now that fairy hour was long past, and the day was in its full bright strength; but still she sat spellbound and watched the waves; watched the colours on the rocks, the brown and the grey; the countless, nameless hues of ocean, and the light on the neighbouring islands, so different now from what they had been a few hours ago.