Blakely was oddly
reticent. He had nothing whatever to suggest as explanation of either
matter. The watch was taken from the inner pocket of his thin white
coat as he lay asleep at the pool, of this he felt confident, but by
whom he would not pretend to say. Everybody knew by this time that
Angela Wren had seen him sleeping, and had, in a spirit of playful
mischief, fetched away his butterfly net, but who would accuse Angela
of taking his watch and money? Of course such things had been, said
one or two wise heads, but--not with girls like Angela.
But who could say what, all this while, Angela herself was thinking?
Once upon a time it had been the way of our young folk well over the
North and West to claim forfeit in the game of "Catching the weasel
asleep." There had been communities, indeed, and before co-education
became a fad at certain of our great universities, wherein the maid
caught napping could hold it no sin against watchful swain, or even
against her, that he then and there imprinted on her lips a kiss. On
the other hand, the swain found sleeping might not always expect a
kiss, but must pay the penalty, a pair of dainty gloves. Many a
forfeit, both lip and glove, had there been claimed and allowed in
army days whereof we write, and Angela, stealing upon Blakely as he
dozed beneath the willows, and liking him well and deploring her
father's pronounced aversion to him--perhaps even resenting it an
undutiful bit--had found it impossible to resist the temptation to
softly disengage that butterfly net from the loosely clasping fingers,
and swiftly, stealthily, delightedly to scamper away with it against
his waking.
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