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His rapt face betokened his enjoyment, and Errington, nothing loth, still lingered, his eyes fixed on the white-robed slim figure framed in the dark old rose-wreathed window the figure that swayed softly with the motion of the wheel and the rhythm of the song, while flickering sunbeams sparkled now and then on the maiden's dusky gold hair, or touched up a warmer tint on her tenderly flushed cheeks, and fair neck, more snowy than the gown she wore.
It had once been a woman's room, I thought, from certain prettinesses, the blue, rose-wreathed carpet on the floor, the ceiling groined under its thatch and painted in blue with a crescent moon and stars in gold, the walls covered with silk set in panels. But now it was a man's room, with the pleasant litter of a man's belongings.
He always looked at the rose-wreathed curtains with a mingling of pride and awe. Margaret had put several hymns on the blackboard in clear, bold printing, and the singing that day was wonderful. Not the least part of the service was her own playing over of the hymns before the singing began, which was listened to with reverence as if it had been the music of an angel playing on a heavenly harp.
Rhoda sat enthroned on her rose-wreathed chair, looking on at the revels, well content with idleness since it was the badge of superiority. The pleasantest part of her duties was still to come, and the girls realised for what purpose the sixpence-a-head contribution had been levied by the Games Captains, as they saw the prizes which were awarded the successful competitors.
"I thought as long as it was the first day," Maria said, in a slightly faltering tone. She bent her head until her rose-wreathed hat almost concealed her face. The sisters stood in front of the house waiting for their car. Evelyn made a sudden little run back into the yard. "You hold the car!" she cried. "I don't know that they will wait; you must not stop," Maria called out.
It had grown customary for the young men to spend that part of the day which, in spite of persistent sunshine, they still called evening, in the comfortable, quaint parlor of the old farmhouse, looking at the view through the rose-wreathed windows, listening to the fantastic legends of Norway as told by Olaf Gueldmar, or watching Thelma's picturesque figure, as she sat pensively apart in her shadowed corner spinning.
"My fancy-dress party," returned the young man, "will catch the next trolley for New York. Oh! Here labors the trusty henchman across the green. Right you are, Jim! No, the lady is not to come down. I'm to go up." And go up he did, in the twinkling of an eye, and in less than another the rose-wreathed hat and the young man's gray cap had disappeared from view together.
They styled their house "The Lodge." 'What right had a lounger up their lane? But by creeping very close, With the good wall's help their eyes might strain And stretch themselves to oes, 'Yet never catch her and me together, As she left the attic there, By the rim of the bottle labelled "Ether" And stole from stair to stair, 'And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas! We loved, sir; used to meet.
Then through a crimson curtain at the rear Pearl flashed in as if blown by the mountain wind. The chrysalis had cast aside its shell and this tropical butterfly had emerged. Her skirts were of yellow satin, and from a black bodice her beautiful bare shoulders rose half revealed and half concealed by her rose-wreathed, white manton de Manila.
In his workroom were piled, under a thick layer of dust or with faces turned to the wall, the canvases of his student years, when, as the fashion of the day was, he limned scenes of gallantry, depicting with a sleek, timorous brush emptied quivers and birds put to flight, risky pastimes and reveries of bliss, high-kilted goose-girls and shepherdesses with rose-wreathed bosoms.
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