"Did you see the pig," she says, "sitting up by the fireplace? All through I couldn't take my eyes off him. He struck me as so comical.

There he sat blinking his small eyes and trying to look sympathetic. I am convinced he knew all about it. I never saw so solemn a pig."

She laughs again with fresh delight at her own thought. That pig in the cabin has come back to her, filling her with amus.e.m.e.nt. Geoffrey regards her with puzzled eyes. What a strange temperament is this, where smiles and tears can mingle!

"What a curious child you are!" he says, at length. "You are never the same for two minutes together."

"Perhaps that is what makes me so nice," retorts Miss Mona, saucily, the sense of fun still full upon her, making him a small grimace, and bestowing upon him a bewitching glance from under her long dark lashes, that lie like shadows on her cheeks.

CHAPTER V.

HOW MONA BETRAYS WHAT MAKES GEOFFREY JEALOUS, AND HOW AN APPOINTMENT IS MADE THAT IS ALL MOON-SHINE.

"Yes, it certainly is a charm," says Geoffrey slowly "but it puzzles me.

I cannot be gay one moment and sad the next. Tell me how you manage it."

"I can't, because I don't know myself. It is my nature. However depressed I may feel at one instant, the next a pa.s.sing thought may change my tears into a laugh. Perhaps that is why we are called fickle; yet it has nothing to do with it: it is a mere peculiarity of temperament, and a rather merciful gift, for which we should be grateful, because, though we return again to our troubles, still the moment or two of forgetfulness soothes us and nerves us for the conflict. I speak, of course, of only minor sorrows; such a grief as poor Kitty's admits of no alleviation. It will last for her lifetime."

"Will it?" says Geoffrey, oddly.

"Yes. One can understand that," replies she, gravely, not heeding the closeness of his regard. "Many things affect me curiously," she goes on, dreamily,--"sad pictures and poetry and the sound of sweet music."

"Do you sing?" asks he, through mere force of habit, as she pauses.

"Yes."

The answer is so downright, so unlike the usual "a little," or "oh, nothing to signify," or "just when there is n.o.body else," and so on, that Geoffrey is rather taken back.

"I am not a musician," she goes on, evenly, "but some people admire my singing very much. In Dublin they liked to hear me, when I was with Aunt Anastasia; and you know a Dublin audience is very critical."

"But you have no piano?"

"Yes I have: aunty gave me hers when I was leaving town. It was no use to her and I loved it. I was at school in Portarlington for nearly three years, and when I came back from it I didn't care for Anastasia's friends, and found my only comfort in my music. I am telling you everything am I not," with a wistful smile, "and perhaps I weary you?"

"Weary me! no, indeed. That is one of the very few unkind things you have ever said to me. How could I weary of your voice? Go on; tell me where you keep this magical piano."

"In my own room. You have not seen that yet. But it belongs to myself alone, and I call it my den, because in it I keep everything that I hold most precious. Some time I will show it to you."

"Show it to me to-day," says he, with interest.

"Very well, if you wish."

"And you will sing me something?"

"If you like. Are you fond of singing!"

"Very. But for myself I have no voice worth hearing. I sing, you know, a little, which is my misfortune, not my fault; don't you think so?"

"Oh, no; because if you can sing at all--that is correctly, and without false notes--you must feel music and love it."

"Well for my part I hate people who sing a little. I always wish it was even less. I hold that they are a social nuisance, and ought to be put down by law. My eldest brother Nick sings really very well,--a charming tenor, you know, good enough to coax the birds off the bushes. He does all that sort of _dilettante_ business,--paints, and reads tremendously about things dead and gone, that can't possibly advantage anybody.

Understands old china as well as most people (which isn't saying much), and I think--but as yet this statement is unsupported--I think he writes poetry."

"Does he really?" asks Mona, with eyes wide open. "I am sure if I ever meet your brother Nick I shall be dreadfully afraid of him."

"Don't betray me, at all events. He is a touchy sort of fellow, and mightn't like to think I knew that about him. Jack, my second brother, sings too. He is coming home from India directly, and is an awfully good sort, though I think I should rather have old Nick after all."

"You have two brothers older than you?" asks Mona, meditatively.

"Yes; I am that most despicable of all things, a third son."

"I have heard of it. A third son would be poor, of course, and--and worldly people would not think so much of him as of others. Is that so?"

She pauses. But for the absurdity of the thing, Mr. Rodney would swear there is hope in her tone.

"Your description is graphic," he answers, lightly, "if faintly unkind; but when is the truth civil? You are right. Younger sons, as a rule, are not run after. Mammas do not hanker after them, or give them their reserve smiles, or pull their skirts aside to make room for them upon small ottomans."

"That betrays the meanness of the world," says Mona, slowly and with indignation. "Has not Geoffrey just declared himself to be a younger son?"

"Does it? I was bred in a different belief. In my world the mighty do no wrong; and a third son is nowhere. He is shunted; handed on; if possible, scotched. The sun is not made for _him_, or the first waltz, or caviare, or the 'sweet shady side' of anything. In fact, he 'is the man of no account' with a vengeance!"

"What a shame!" says Mona, angrily. Then she changes her note, and says, with a soft, low, mocking laugh, "How I pity you!"

"Thanks. I shall try to believe you, though your mirth is somewhat out of place, and has a tendency towards heartlessness." (He is laughing too.) "Yet there have been instances," goes on Mr. Rodney, still smiling, while watching her intently, "when maiden aunts have taken a fancy to third sons, and have died leaving them lots of tin."

"Eh?" says Mona.

"Tin,--money," explains he.

"Oh, I dare say. Yes, sometimes: but--" she hesitates, and this time the expression of her face cannot be misunderstood: dejection betrays itself in every line--"but it is not so with you, is it? No aunt has left you anything?"

"No,--no aunt," returns Rodney, speaking the solemn truth, yet conveying a lie: "I have not been blessed with maiden aunts wallowing in coin."

"So I thought," exclaims Mona, with a cheerful nod, that under other circ.u.mstances should be aggravating, so full of content it is. "At first I fea--I thought you were rich, but afterwards I guessed it was your brothers' ground you were shooting over. And Bridget told me, too. She said you could not be well off, you had so many brothers. But I like you all the better for that," says Mona, in a tone that actually savors of protection, slipping her little brown hand through his arm in a kindly, friendly, lovable fashion.

"Do you?" says Rodney. He is strangely moved; he speaks quietly, but his heart is beating quickly, and Cupid's dart sinks deeper in its wound.

"Is your brother, Mr. Rodney, like you?" asks Mona presently.

He has never told her that his eldest brother is a baronet. Why he hardly knows, yet now he does not contradict her when she alludes to him as Mr. Rodney. Some inward feeling prevents him. Perhaps he understands instinctively that such knowledge will but widen the breach that already exists between him and the girl who now walks beside him with a happy smile upon her flower-like face.

"No; he is not like me," he says, abruptly: "he is a much better fellow.

He is, besides, tall and rather lanky, with dark eyes and hair. He is like my father, they tell me; I am like my mother."

At this Mona turns her gaze secretly upon him. She studies his hair, his gray eyes, his irregular nose,--that ought to have known better,--and his handsome mouth, so resolute, yet so tender, that his fair moustache only half conceals. The world in general acknowledges Mr. Rodney to be a well-looking young man of ordinary merits, but in Mona's eyes he is something more than all this; and I believe the word "ordinary," as applied to him, would sound offensive in her ears.