For all the time I
was thinking of another and sweeter one who was also a person of
importance in her own home and village over a dozen miles away.
In thoughtful silence we finished our talk; then there were lights and
tea and general conversation; and if Millicent had intended returning
to the subject she found no opportunity then or afterwards.
It was better so, seeing that the other character possessed my whole
heart. She was not intellectual; no one would have said of her,
for example, that she would one day blossom into a second Emily Bronte;
that to future generations her wild moorland village would be the
Haworth of the West. She was perhaps something better - a child of earth
and sun, exquisite, with her flossy hair a shining chestnut gold, her
eyes like the bugloss, her whole face like a flower or rather like a
ripe peach in bloom and colour; we are apt to associate these delicious
little beings with flavours as well as fragrances. But I am not going
to be so foolish as to attempt to describe her.
Our first meeting was at the village spring, where the women came with
pails and pitchers for water; she came, and sitting on the stone rim of
the basin into which the water gushed, regarded me smilingly, with
questioning eyes. I started a conversation, but though smiling she was
shy. Luckily I had my luncheon, which consisted of fruit, in my
satchel, and telling her about it she grew interested and confessed to
me that of all good things fruit was what she loved best. I then opened
my stores, and selecting the brightest yellow and richest purple
fruits, told her that they were for her - on one condition - that she
would love me and give me a kiss. And she consented and came to me. O
that kiss! And what more can I find to say of it? Why nothing, unless
one of the poets, Crawshaw for preference, can tell me. "My song," I
might say with that mystic, after an angel had kissed him in the
morning,
Tasted of that breakfast all day long.
From that time we got on swimmingly, and were much in company, for
soon, just to be near her, I went to stay at her village. I then made
the discovery that Mab, for that is what they called her, although so
unlike, so much softer and sweeter than Millicent, was yet like her in
being a child of character and of an indomitable will. She never cried,
never argued, or listened to arguments, never demonstrated after the
fashion of wilful children generally, by throwing herself down
screaming and kicking; she simply very gently insisted on having her
own way and living her own life. In the end she always got it, and the
beautiful thing was that she never wanted to be naughty or do anything
really wrong!
