At the Sign of the Silver Flagon. Farjeon Benjamin Leopold

ho!" laughed Philip; "Juliet was a girl of sixteen or seventeen, and your Leading Lady is forty."

      "Woe for your life if you said so in her presence!" exclaimed Mr. Hart, with a quiet chuckle; "it would not be worth a moment's purchase. Forty, sir! and what if she is forty? – which she is not by five years-she is the only woman that can play Juliet to your Romeo."

      "Hush!" whispered Philip. "She is opening the window."

      Margaret, alone, in her white dress, was indeed opening the window. She did not know-not she! – that her lover was below, nor that her form could be seen, for she had extinguished the light in the room. Her shadow might be discerned, but what is there in a shadow? She sat down by the window, and rested her head on her arm. The graceful outlines of her arm and neck and bended head were clearly visible, and the lover feasted his eyes upon them. She held in her hand the flowers which Philip had thrown her! Her lips were upon the tender leaves-sweets to the sweet. He saw her kiss the flowers, and his soul thrilled with rapture. The night was beautifully still; not a sound was stirring; and as far as eye could see the white tents of the diggers were gleaming. So Margaret sat and mused, and Philip looked on and dreamed. Here, in the new world, but yesterday a savage waste, the old, old story was being enacted with as much freshness as though the world were but just created. What wonder? Because the sun has risen a few million of times, is the dew on the leaves less sweet and pure in the early morning's light than on that wondrous day when Adam awoke and found Eve by his side?

      So Margaret sat and mused, and Philip looked on and dreamed; and I think that Margaret peeped through the lattice-work of her fingers, and saw with her cunning eyes that her lover was there, worshipping her.

      How long they would have thus remained, Heaven only knows. Mr. Hart gave them at least twenty minutes, and then touched Philip's arm. Philip started, and Margaret at the window started also, and with a swift happy glance outwards, and with wave of the pretty hand and arm, closed the window. Philip was standing in the light, and Mr. Hart, like a kind and careful friend, had crept backward in the shade; so that Margaret, when she cast that straight swift glance in her lover's direction, saw only him. Surely as the hand-love's white flag of recognition-waved towards him, it had touched her lips first, and she had sent a kiss into the air-which he received in his heart. It stirred tender chords there, and through his veins crept love's fever, which turns dross into gold, and makes a heaven of earth!

      CHAPTER VII

      AH, PHILIP, MY SON! I, ALSO, HAVE A GIRL WHOM I LOVE

      Then said Philip, as he and Mr. Hart moved slowly away-then said Philip softly, as though but a moment had passed since his companion last spoke:

      "Her name is Margaret, not Juliet. I have no need to play Romeo to Margaret. Margaret!" he whispered to himself, finding a subtle charm in the name; "My Margaret!" and then aloud, "Has your Leading Lady ever played such a character?"

      "Yes," replied Mr. Hart, without any direct meaning, "in 'Faust.'"

      Philip's face flushed scarlet, not at the words, but at the tone, which was sad and significant, without the speaker intending it to be so.

      "I know you to be a gentleman-" pursued Mr. Hart.

      "I thought you to be one," interrupted Philip hotly.

      "I hope you will see no reason to change your opinion," said Mr. Hart.

      "I see a reason already."

      "Let me hear it," asked Mr. Hart, secretly pleased at the young man's ill-humour.

      "You associated my Margaret's name-"

      "Your Margaret!" exclaimed Mr. Hart. "My Margaret, if you please!"

      "Mine!" cried Philip, in a loud voice.

      "Mine!" echoed Mr. Hart, in a calmer tone.

      "Call her down and ask her!" demanded Philip in his rashness, without considering; and, for the life of him, Mr. Hart could not help laughing long and heartily.

      "O that you were twenty years younger!" said Philip.

      "O that I were!" exclaimed Mr. Hart, with grave humour. "Then you would really have cause for uneasiness when you hear me call her mine."

      "How do you make her yours?"

      "I stand to her in the light of a father," replied Mr. Hart more seriously. "When I persuaded her mother in town to let her accompany us, I promised that I would look after her and protect her. Therefore she is mine, because I am her father."

      "And without any 'therefore,'" responded Philip, "she is mine, because I am her lover."

      "Ah," said Mr. Hart, with a bright smile, "here is a case to be settled, then. But if every pretty girl was her lover's, then one might belong to fifty, or more, for there are hearts enough. Why, you rash-head! do you know how many men in Silver Creek might call your Margaret theirs by the same right as that by which you claim her?"

      "No," said Philip, a little sulkily, "I don't know."

      "Then I'll tell you. To my certain knowledge, sixty-nine; to my almost as certain conviction, some five hundred. She had forty-two offers of marriage the first week, and has had twenty-seven since. Come now, divide her between the sixty-nine lovers who have declared themselves; what part of her is yours?"

      "You talk nonsense," said Philip roughly.

      "Well, suppose you talk sense," said Mr. Hart blandly.

      "It is hardly believable," cried Philip, clenching his fist. "Sixty-nine offers of marriage! She never told me, and I'm her lover."

      "She has told me, and I'm only her father."

      "By proxy," corrected Philip.

      "Well, by proxy."

      "Why should she tell you and not me?" asked Philip, more sulkily still.

      "Because, my dear Philip," said Mr. Hart, laying his hand kindly on the young man's arm, "up to the present, as I have said, she is mine, and not yours; and because she has a frank open nature, and must confide in some one. As I come first, she confides in me. She has given me all the letters to read, and a rare collection they are. If they were printed they would be a curiosity."

      "I should like to see them, and the names at the bottom of them."

      "So that you might fight all the writers for falling in love as you have done! Well, you would have enough to do, for you would have to fight according to the fashion of different countries. I have made an analysis, my dear Philip. Seven Frenchmen, four Germans, one Spaniard, three Americans, fifty-three Englishmen, Irishmen, and Scotchmen, and one Chinaman, have offered marriage to-I will say-our Margaret."

      "A Chinaman! Good heavens! such a creature to raise his eyes to my Margaret! Tell me, at least, his name, that I may cut his pigtail from his dirty crown!"

      "There's an Ah in it and a Sen in it and a Ping in it; and if you can find him out by those signs you are very welcome. But why should a Chinaman not love? Hath he not eyes, hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? His letter is the greatest curiosity of the lot, and he has evidently educated himself in the English language. I know his proposal by heart. Here it is: 'You welly good English girl; me welly good Chinaman. You mally me, welly good match. Roast pig and m'landy (brandy) for dinner every day. M'lenty gold-make m'lenty more. Me take you to my country, by bye. Chinaman welly good man.' Then comes the Ah and the Sen and the Ping. But let us be serious, although this is true enough that I have told you-truth with a comical side to it. You were angry with me a little while ago."

      "Yes, for associating my Margaret's name with mine in the character of Faust."

      "I had no distinct intention in my mind, Philip; the conversation happened to take that turn. It would pain me very much to have to think of you in that way. But Margaret is a simple good girl, and it is my duty to look after her. I never knew till to-night that you were paying marked attention to her."

      "Who told you?"

      "Our Leading Lady."

      Philip Rowe smiled: he had his vanities.

      "O, indeed!" he said, with assumed carelessness.

      "And