Read Online Silverbeach Manor by Margaret S. Haycraft - Free Book Online Page A

he, "if I may have that wild rose you gathered."
    She yields it
to him with a smile. "No, but I mean in another sense. You were
very anxious to get to Masden, and I have been thinking you might
have been seeking some appointment, which perhaps you lost through
missing an interview. It may have meant a heavy loss for you. Would
ten ... twenty pounds...?"
    "No, they
would not," he says gently, for he reads her distress too clearly
to feel offended. "I was in search of no work that day, as concerns
my pen. Some friends were inconvenienced by my unpunctuality, that
is all. There was a large temperance meeting at Masden, and the
speaker did not get there till the close. If you have ever arranged
such meetings you will understand I was anxious not to put out the
organisers by arriving late. Still, it is over now, Miss Adair, and
my Masden friends have forgiven me. So banish remorse from your
heart, and let us enjoy the wild flowers and these young
ferns."
    The woods have
never seemed so charming to Pansy before, nor has a picnic appeared
to pass so quickly. Somehow she feels as if she had known this
young poet a long, long time, and they part that day each secretly
feeling they want to know more of each other. Marlow Holme is not a
society man, but is the working spirit in many a project of
usefulness, many a channel of blessing difficult to open up.
    "I can never
understand your being a poet," she says, smilingly, to Holme one
day. "People call you so business-like and practical, and you are
working such splendid schemes. I thought poets lived in a dream
world of their own."
    "And were
useless to hungry, sick, neglected fellow-creatures," he exclaims.
"I cannot permit you to misjudge my brethren thus, Miss Adair. I
know lives aflame with genius that count it more glory to give a
practical helping hand here and there than to wear Fame's laurels,
and count it more happiness than receiving public plaudits to
comfort those that mourn and make straight rough and crooked
pathways."
    ***
    When young Mrs.
May Thornden settles down in her Richmond home Pansy frequently
spends a few days with her, for Mrs. Adair is feeling unequal to
going out much just now, and is glad for her adopted daughter to
enjoy herself without the cost of personal weariness. Those three
or four days at Richmond are sunshiny times for Pansy.
    She
often sees Mr. Thornden's poet-friend, who so often chances to drop
in while she is visiting there. She seldom mentions Marlow Holme,
even to Mrs. Adair, for she is well aware Mrs.
Adair would suspect a poor poet of fortune-hunting.
But she thinks of him when alone, dreams of him, reads his poems
again and again, till the beautiful thoughts and words seem graven
upon her heart. And she learns to look up to him, to treasure his
opinion, to revere his character in a way that never entered into
her former fascination for him.
    One
evening Mrs. Thornden has been singing a ballad about a mother's
love, and Marlow Holme remarks to Pansy on the balcony, "That is a
blessing we two have missed, is it not so, Miss Adair? I can just
remember my own mother. She died when I was quite a little fellow,
but her face is a fadeless memory. And if I am not mistaken, you
are Mrs. Adair's niece? At least, so I
have heard,"
    His face
is full of interest, perhaps of something more. Pansy's life story
concerns him in a way his secret heart is just beginning to
realize. The girl flushes and trembles, not so much because his
kind, clear gaze is meeting her own, as because the recollection
that has become so dim of the general shop at Polesheaton rises
anew before her eyes. Marlow Holme must never know of poor Aunt
Piper and the shop. He is her ideal of a cultured, educated
gentleman, and she prizes his good opinion more than that of any
other friend. What would he think of her
if he knew she were related to a second-rate shopkeeper, and had
cut bacon and weighed candles, and made up packets of grocery for
many a bygone year?
    The perfume
from her fan