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“120 WILD MARGARET,
upon him.
“y
~ i
| “OR? hesaid. 2
“No, sir,’? she corrected him, blushing; ‘“T ghall noti
- take it off again, but I shall take it out whenever I am:
likely to forget you.”’ , .
“Don’t say that, even in fun, Madge,” he said in a low.
voice, and with a sudden look of pain. ‘‘I can’t bear te.
think of you forgetting me. Why, if I were dead, and you »
-were walking near my grave——” he stopped;, and (ene
murmured the well-known song:
“¢ Were it ever so airy a tread, — .
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed; ~
My dust would hear her and beat, -
Had I lain for a century dead;
Would start and tremble under her feet, |
‘And blossom in purple and red.” _ {
“That's it? he said, approvingly and admiringly.
‘“What_ a memory you/have got, Madge. Is it Shake-
speare?”’ |
‘“No; Tennyson,” and she smiled. ‘‘ What an ignorant —
‘boy it is!”
* Ain’t 17” he said, with a laugh. ‘Austin often says
_ that the things I know would go into half a sheet of note-
paper, and the things I don’t would more than fill the
reading-room at the British Museum. But one thing I
know, Madge, and that is that I love you with all my heart |
and soul.’’ .
‘Tl forgive you all the rest!’ she murmured.
She was painting the picture the earl had commissioned,
and she took up her brush and palette and worked, while
~ Blair sat at her side, watching her with an admiring won-
' der, as the skillful hand conveyed the little bushy dell to
the canvas, ;
\_ “What a fuss they’ll make about you when we are mar--
ried,’” he said, after a pause.
_ Margaret bent forward to hide the blush which the words”
had called up. . -
‘Who are they?’ And why should they make a fuss?” *
she asked.
‘They? Oh, all the people, you know. They'll make
no end of you, Madge. You see, you are so good-look-
ing—— : oe
She threatened him with her wet brush. Dos k
—‘*And then you are. so clever, and this’ painting of
yours will just finish them off. I shouldn’t wonder if you
are the leading item in the next season.” 3
‘The next season!’ echoed Margaret, turning her eyes
He colored and:looked rather guilty; then he’ raised his
eyes to hers boldly.