A month full of happy days had flown by when Evadne and her father returned one morning from a long tramp in search of specimens. A delightful afternoon had followed, he in a hammock, she on a low seat beside him, arranging, classifying and preparing their morning’s spoil for the microscope. Suddenly she turned towards him with a troubled face.
“Dearest, how pale you look! Are you very tired?”
“It is only the heat,” he answered lightly. “We had a pretty stiff walk this morning, you know.”
“And I carried you on and on!” she cried reproachfully. “I was so anxious to find this particular crab. Isn’t he a pretty fellow?” and she lifted the box that her father might watch the tiny creature’s play. “I shall go at once and make you an orange sherbet.”
“Let Dinah do it and you stay here with me.”
“No indeed! You know you think no one can make them as well as I do. I promise you this one shall be superfine.”
“As you will, little one, – only don’t stay away too long.”
He lay very still after she had left him, looking dreamily through the vines at the silver spray of the fountain. The air had grown oppressively sultry; no breath of wind stirred the heavily drooping leaves, no sound except the rhythmic splash of the fountain and the soft lapping of the waves upon the beach. He closed his eyes while their ceaseless monotone seemed to beat upon his brain.
“Forever! Forever! Forever!”
A spasm of pain crossed his face as Evadne’s voice woke the echoes with a merry song. “Poor little lass!” he murmured. Then he smiled as she came towards him, quaffed off the beverage she had prepared with loving skill, and called her the best cook in all the Indies.
“Has it refreshed you, dearest?” she asked anxiously.
“Immensely! Now you shall read me some of Lalla Rookh, and after dinner I will set about making a Mecca for your crab.”
Evadne stroked the dainty claws,–
“Poor little chap! So you are a pilgrim like the rest of us. I wish we did not have to go on and on, dearest!” she exclaimed passionately, “why cannot we stand still and enjoy?”
“It would grow monotonous, little Vad. Progress is the law of all being, and seventy years of life is generally enough for the majority. You would not like to live to be an old lady of two hundred and fifty? Think how tired you would be!”
She laid her cheek against his upon the pillow. “I should Page 1