Читать книгу At the Sign of the Fox. A Romance онлайн

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“But there was little that I could do for her,—indomitable pluck and dauntless spirits were her best medicine. Well I remember one gray, cold day, the last of her stay, I found Miss Keith in some alarm about her, as the child had gone out on foot over two hours before.

“As we stood consulting in the porch, a slim, gray-coated figure, with soft brown hair flying like a gypsy’s, arms full of autumn leaves and berries, came swiftly down the lane between house and wood, and throwing her load on the steps, gazed at it in a sort of ecstasy, from which she waked only at Miss Keith’s words of chiding.

“‘I—lost?’ she queried, straightening her thick eyebrows into an expression of incredulity, ‘why, Cousin Keith, I’ve only been to my River Kingdom collecting tribute, but when I’m grown up and do as I please, I’m coming back here to reign and have the wild flowers bow to me when I pass and the little wood beasts follow me in procession.’

“I must have told you of it at the time, for I was stopping with you. Yes, it was Brooke Lawton who christened the River Kingdom,—but she never returned, and I heard indirectly that she had gone abroad to study art. Come to think of it, she must be a grown woman now, at the rate time goes. All of which reminds me that I sent word that I would go to Miss Keith’s to-day; she wants counsel of some sort, about what I could not even surmise from her letter. As she is one of the good middle-aged women who always wish excuses made for every act, I will take her these grouse as an apology and tangible explanation as to my clothes and gun, and as she always insists that I should take a meal with her, you will not see me until supper-time. If you will tell José to dress and split the quail, I myself will broil them over the wood coals in your den, spitted on hickory forks. Metal should never touch wild fowl, but you of the younger generation do so grudge trouble and seem to have no capacity for detail,” and, half chiding, half laughing, Dr. Russell shouldered his beloved gun, picked up the grouse, smoothed the rumpled ruff of the cock bird, and started on the mile walk downhill to the West homestead, whistling.