When the Birds Begin to Sing.

by Winifred Graham.

CHAPTER I.

AND WHEN LOVE SPEAKS.

She was certainly very pretty, and just then she looked prettier than usual, for the sharp run had brought a more vivid colour to the cheek, and an added sparkle to the eye. She was laughing, too--the rogue--as well she might, for had she not brought her right hand swiftly down upon his left ear when he had chased her, caught her, and deliberately and maliciously kissed her, and did he not now look red and foolish, and apparently repentant?

But let me start from the beginning, and tell you how it all came about.

Eleanor, the daughter of a neighbouring farmer, is as fresh and beautiful in the eyes of Philip Roche as the field flowers whose heads fall fading beneath his tread while he follows her through the long gra.s.s. He has watched her playing with the innocent school children--little more than a child herself--and then, with the calm a.s.surance that to him is second nature, joins the merry throng unasked.

The children greet him eagerly, after scrambling for a handful of silver from the stranger's pocket, for is it not the great, grand treat of all the year?

"Come and play wif us," lisps a little maiden of five summers, whom Philip tosses on his shoulder with good-natured ease. He has a way of winning the confidence of children.

"What is the game?"

"Kiss in the ring!" cries a small boyish voice at his elbow.

The stranger's eyes twinkle as he watches the lovely unknown Eleanor arranging a circle. Placing his tiny friend again on her feet, and taking her brother's grimy hand, Philip Roche joins the hilarious pastime.

Eleanor glances across the ring well-pleasedly, guessing that her dainty figure and deep-fringed eyes have attracted him thither.

A moment later she trips lightly round the chain of children, her heart beating higher as her feet approach the man's tall figure. Shall she?

Shall she? No time to consider, as the handkerchief falls from her hand upon Philip's shoulder.

Quick as lightning she flies away--faster--faster--through the b.u.t.tercups, while he pursues, nearer--nearer--and then the strong arms arrest her career, and the inevitable kiss occurs.

Eleanor, her cheeks aflame, frees herself from his audacious caress, and half laughing, half indignant, walks hastily away. But after their unconventional introduction Philip is not easily to be foiled.

"You are offended," he cries penitently. "It was only the game; won't you forgive me, Miss----?"

"Grebby," raising her eyes and pausing. "Eleanor Grebby," she continues with a prim little air that is quite unnatural, then laughing spontaneously:

"You see, I was rather taken aback at first, Mr.----"

"Roche--Philip Roche, at your service."

"So now we know each other," holding out her hand.

He grasps it eagerly--such a warm slim hand!

"It was rather a nice introduction, wasn't it?"

Philip thinks how amazingly pretty Eleanor is, as she a.s.sents with deepening colour.

"There! I knew it would come!" she cries, with a thought for her new poppy-bedizened hat.

"What?" asks Philip, still feasting his eyes on the girl's fair physique, and un.o.bservant of the gathering darkness overhead.

"Why, the rain, of course. We shall get wet."

"Only a summer shower."

"Yes, but as disastrous in its effects as any other downpour. I shall make for that barn in the next field; the children have all mysteriously vanished."

"I am dreadfully afraid of the wet," declares Philip, pretending to shiver. "May I accompany you?"

He is still retaining her hand as they run together towards the haven of "shelter.

"How nice of it to rain!" he gasps, applauding the accommodating skies.

"Let me make you comfortable," heaping together a pile of hay for her to sit upon. "Now tell me all about yourself."

Eleanor sinks down on the soft couch, looking somewhat wistfully through the open door of the barn.

"I am easily explained. I live here always. My father is a farmer, and I feed the chickens, dust the house, and teach in the Sunday-school. Only fancy what an exciting life, Mr. Roche. Doesn't it take your breath away?"

At the thought of her own humdrum existence Eleanor laughs again with a return of that superabundant vitality which is hers by nature.

"Then once or perhaps twice a year I am invited to tea at the Vicarage, and I sit up straight in a high-backed chair and say 'Yes' and 'No'

when I am spoken to, and answer prettily--like a schoolgirl. The vicar's wife would have a fit if I lounged like this," flinging herself back with an air of abandon on the hay. "Once she asked me to sing (I play the harmonium in church). My cousin Joe had brought me a comic song from town, and I couldn't help, for the life of me, getting up and giving her a verse."

"Of course it was wrong, and she looked frightfully shocked. I have certainly never been invited to tea since. Oh, how I should like to sing at concerts and halls--I mean the sort of places where you have an eyegla.s.s, and walk round with a hat and stick!"

Her face beamed as she delivered this sentence--involuntarily the little hands clasped themselves together in excitement.

"Be thankful that such an ambition is ungratified," declares Philip, speaking seriously for the first time. "You do not know the fate that you are coveting. Best contented, child, to remain your own sweet self. Your country life is ideal compared with--_that_!"

Eleanor shakes her head.

"It doesn't seem like it," she declares.

"No, I dare say not. Duty is sometimes heroism in its n.o.blest form."

"Then are all the people wicked that go to London, and sing, act, and enjoy themselves?"

"Indeed I trust not. We should have a pretty bad time of it if they were. Yet I don't know that you're far wrong. Few are guileless. But why talk of it? Time enough to warn you of the pitfalls when you are on your road to the great city."

"What is your life?" asks Eleanor curiously, drawing the long ends of hay through her teeth with a meditative smile.

"Scarcely less monotonous than yours, Miss Grebby"--an amused look in his eyes. "Instead of feeding chickens I feed my friends--lunches, dinners, midnight suppers--all of which pall terribly after a time.

Instead of dusting my house I leave it to acc.u.mulate dust, while I wander abroad. A home is a dull place for one man."

"You have no wife or mother?"