Page 52 - Fairbrass

f By this time nay wearer seemed to

think he ought to be going; and then a
thing* occurred that might have proved fatal

to my errand.
‘ One of the brilliantly decorated young

ladies, who had waited upon the young clerk,
and joked with him, and who struck me as

being a terribly loud, forward, and alto­
gether vulgar young lady, not at all the

kind I have been used to see here at home,
begged that she might be allowed to take

me out of his coat and keep me. For a
moment I shuddered, but your father’s clerk

was loyal, and said she must be content
with what he called one “ long, strong sniff1’

of me. The girl bent forward, and as she
inhaled my perfume I heard her softly

murmur something about being reminded
of “ old times,” And then I knew that I
had taken her back to long ago and, per­

haps, half-forgotten days, when she played

in a country garden with some of my relations
for her fragrant comrades. I saw a tear
glisten in her eye as she went back to her