A few common weeds rear their profane heads in this innocent garden; forinstance a cruet-stand, a basket of cutlery, and a triangular dish of the kind inwhich the correct confine cheese. They have not strayed here, they live here;indeed this is among... Read more

A few common weeds rear their profane heads in this innocent garden; forinstance a cruet-stand, a basket of cutlery, and a triangular dish of the kind inwhich the correct confine cheese. They have not strayed here, they live here;indeed this is among other things the dining-room of a modest little house inBrompton made beautiful, or nearly so, by a girl, who has a soul above food andconceals its accessories as far as possible from view, in drawers, even in the wastepaper basket. Not a dish, not a spoon, not a fork, is hand-painted, a sufficientindication of her contempt for them.Amy is present, but is not seen to the best advantage, for she has been washingher hair, and is now drying it by the fire. Notable among her garments are adressing-jacket and a towel, and her head is bent so far back over the fire that wesee her face nearly upside-down. This is no position in which we can do justice toher undoubted facial charm. Seated near her is her brother Cosmo, a boy ofthirteen, in naval uniform. Cosmo is a cadet at Osborne, and properly proud of hisstation, but just now he looks proud of nothing. He is plunged in gloom. The causeof his woe is a telegram, which he is regarding from all points of the compass, as ifin hopes of making it send him better news. At last he gives expression to hisfeelings. 'All I can say,' he sums up in the first words of the play, 'is that if fathertries to kiss me, I shall kick him.'If Amy makes any reply the words arrive upside-down and are unintelligible. Themaid announces Miss Dunbar. Then Amy rises, brings her head to the position inwhich they are usually carried; and she and Ginevra look into each other's eyes.They always do this when they meet, though they meet several times a day, and it isworth doing, for what they see in those pellucid pools is love eternal. Thus they 5loved at school (in their last two terms), and thus they will love till the graveencloses them. These thoughts, and others even more beautiful, are in their mindsas they gaze at each other now. No man will ever be able to say 'Amy,' or to say'Ginevra,' with such a trill as they are saying it. Less