"
She made no reply till they were screened from observation.
"You needn't be afraid, you little fool," she said. "Sit down on that
stump."
ARCHIBALD tremblingly obeyed her.
She imprisoned his fluttering hand in hers, and smoothed his hair
reassuringly.
"ARCHIE," she murmured; "_dear_ ARCHIE."
"Oh, don't, _don't_ talk that way," said ARCHIBALD. "You make me afraid
of you."
"Afraid!" she returned. "And of _me_? Oh cruel, cruel ARCHIBALD. Is it
for this that I have passed many a sleepless night, awaking unrefreshed
with haggard orbs? Is it for this that I've pined away and refused meat
victuals?"
She paused. Her heart was beating violently. She took from her pocket a
copy of the _Ledger_, adjusted her eye-glasses, and continued:
"ARCHIBALD BLINKSOP, for weeks I have basked in the sunlight of your
existence. Your celestial smile, shedding a tranquil calm o'er my
perturbed spirit, has been my daily sustenance. Your ethereal form,
beautiful as an houri, has, with its subtle fascination, enthralled and
steeped in bliss my innermost soul, lifting me as it were into a purer,
a holier existence. Your--"
"Oh-h," moaned the wretched ARCHIBALD, "_please_ stop. That's COBB, Jr.
I _know_ it is. When I was sea-sick on the canal, they read a chapter to
me just like that, instead of giving me an emetic, and I was out of my
head all next day.
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