"I'll step and get them.Aunty must be tired, and we should enjoy reading the news together.""She is the most convenient girl that ever was," observed Jamie as Rose departed, thinking Mac might like some more substantial refreshment than sweetmeats.
"I should think so, if you let her run your errands, you lazy little scamp," answered Mac, looking after her as she went up the green slope, for there was something very attractive to him about the slender figure in a plain white gown with a black sash about the waist and all the wavy hair gathered to the top of the head with a little black bow.
"Sort of pre-Raphaelite, and quite refreshing after the furbelowed creatures at the hotels," he said to himself as she vanished under the arch of scarlet runners over the garden gate.
"Oh, well! She likes it.Rose is fond of me, and I'm very good to her when I have time," continued Jamie, calmly explaining."I let her cut out a fishhook, when it caught in my leg, with a sharp penknife, and you'd better believe it hurt, but I never squirmed a bit, and she said I was a brave boy.And then, one day I got left on my desert island­out in the pond, you know­the boat floated off, and there I was for as much as an hour before I could make anyone hear.But Rose thought I might be there, and down she came, and told me to swim ashore.It wasn't far, but the water was horrid cold, and I didn't like it.I started though, just as she said, and got on all right, till about halfway, then cramp or something made me shut up and howl, and she came after me slapdash, and pulled me ashore.Yes, sir, as wet as a turtle, and looked so funny, I laughed, and that cured the cramp.Wasn't I good to mind when she said, 'Come on'?""She was, to dive after such a scapegrace.I guess you lead her a life of it, and I'd better take you home with me in the morning," suggested Mac, rolling the boy over and giving him a good-natured pummeling on the haycock while Dulce applauded from her nest.
When Rose returned with ice-cold milk, gingerbread, and letters, she found the reader of Emerson up in the tree, pelting and being pelted with green apples as Jamie vainly endeavored to get at him.The siege ended when Aunt Jessie appeared, and the rest of the afternoon was spent in chat about home affairs.
Early the next morning Mac was off, and Rose went as far as the old church with him.
"Shall you walk all the way?" she asked as he strode along beside her in the dewy freshness of the young day.
"Only about twenty miles, then take car and whisk back to my work,"he answered, breaking a delicate fern for her.
"Are you never lonely?"
"Never.I take my best friends along, you know," and he gave a slap to the pocket from which peeped the volume of Thoreau.
"I'm afraid you leave your very best behind you," said Rose, alluding to the book he had lent her yesterday.
"I'm glad to share it with you.I have much of it here, and a little goes a great way, as you will soon discover," he answered, tapping his head.
"I hope the reading will do as much for me as it seems to have done for you.I'm happy, but you are wise and good­I want to be also.""Read away, and digest it well, then write and tell me what you think of it.Will you?" he asked as they paused where the four roads met.
"If you will answer.Shall you have time with all your other work? Poetry­Ibeg pardon­medicine is very absorbing, you know," answered Rose mischievously, for just then, as he stood bareheaded in the shadows of the leaves playing over his fine forehead, she remembered the chat among the haycocks, and he did not look at all like an M.D.
"I'll make time."
"Good-bye, Milton."
"Good-bye, Sabrina."
