Page:Life's little ironies (1894).pdf/93

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ON THE WESTERN CIRCUIT
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ness; for the moment she did not know her age or her history or her lineaments, much less her troubles. He himself was full of vague latter-day glooms and popular melancholies, and it was a refreshing sensation to behold this young thing, then and there, absolutely as happy as if she were in a Paradise.

Dreading the moment when the inexorable stoker, grimly lurking behind the glittering rococo-work, should decide that this set of riders had had their pennyworth, and bring the whole concern of steam-engine, horses, mirrors, trampets, drums, cymbals, and such like to pause and silence, he waited for her every reappearance, glancing indifferently over the intervening forms, including the two plainer girls, the old woman and child, the two youngsters, the newly-married couple, the old man with a clay pipe, the sparkish youth with a ring, the young ladies in the chariot, the pair of journeyman carpentera, and others, till his select country beauty followed on again in her place. He had never seen a fairer product of nature, and at each round she made a deeper mark in his sentiments. The stoppage then came, and the sighs of the riders were audible.

He moved round to the place at which be reckoned she would alight ; but she retained her seat. The empty saddles began to refill, and she plainly was deciding to have another turn. The young man drew up to the side of her steed, and pleasantly asked her if she had enjoyed her ride.

“Oh yes!” she said, with dancing eyes. “It has been quite unlike anything I have ever felt in my life before !”

It was not difficult to fall into conversation with her. Unreserved — too unreserved — by nature, she was not experienced enough to be reserved by art, and after a little coaxing she answered his remarks