Kansas University Weekly.
217
LITERARY.
What is Love?
What is Love?
Born in passion, fed with smiles,
Cradled in a maiden's eyes,
Fleeting moments it beguiles;
As unbounded as the skies,
This is Love—is Cupid's Love.
W. S. C.
A Maryland Episode.
We had been sitting on the bank in the hammock which swung between two trees at the top of the slope, discussing the probabilities of our going sailing that evening. The low round moon was rising at our backs, though the daylight had as yet, barely begun to fade. The river which was really an arm of the bay, rippled and dimpled in the swift light breeze that swayed the grass on the lawn and blew her soft little curls into my pretty cousin's dark eyes.
"To tell the truth, Maisie," I said, "I don't believe he'll come. You know that "our Willie" has taken us, now, for three weeks every time he has been down from Baltimore. It's really the turn of the Lowndes girls."
"Yes," answered my cousin, wrinkling her straight brows. "But still."
"While there's breeze there's hope, you think. I'll tell you what," I went on, "let's toss a penny. Heads he comes, tails he does not. One, two, three, tails, he doesn't! He isn't coming, Maisie. Shall we weep?"
"What nonsense!" said my cousin, with an attempt at dignity. "You may, if you wish, I won't. Besides, pennies don't always tell the truth. Remember the day we tossed to see who would put the row boat away and you had to do it in spite of winning."
"I remember," I groaned, and I did very well, indeed. For the tide was out, and there was a gap of a foot and a half below the rollers and the water over which the boat had to be lifted. "And I also remember that it was because Willie came to see you. He has an extremely unpleasant way of dropping in to confound my calculations. But I'll back the penny this time. If he comes, I do penance by going off in the bow of the boat, like a figger head."
"You're getting silly, now," remarked Maisie crushingly, "You won't do any such thing."
"No, because he won't come." I started to retort, but broke off suddenly with my eyes fixed on the river. Slowly, gracefully out of Bartlett's cove slipped the sail-boat, the movements of which we had been discussing. Swiftly she curved like a great white bird and began to tack up the river, unmistakably up toward us.
"Well," I observed, plaintively, "I always did enjoy sitting in the bow of a boat any how."
"Our Willie" as we had named Will Bartlett, (though for the last week or so I had begun to have serious doubts as to the propriety of the name on my lips), this exceedingly eligible young Marylander was an attractive, clean-limbed, yellow-headed fellow, and I groaned in spirit as I watched him help Maisie into the boat and noticed what a fine pair they made.
But I remembered my vow. "Mr.Bartlett," I said, "I am going sailing on just two conditions. One of these is, that you will let me sit up in front of the mast for the whole time. Mr. Chapman never will and I am consumed with a great desire to do it."
"You shall do just as you wish, Miss L—" said Willie, smiling down tolerantly upon me. Willie always smiled tolerantly upon me. He remembered that I had a very pretty cousin.
"Very well," I ran on. "And the other condition is that you will make Maisie see the lady in the moon. She presents an actually phenomenal blindness to that personage, and I have explained and pointed out until I'm 'clean wore up,' as Aunt Dilsey says."
Of course, Willie acceded at once. Who wouldn't? So we were soon speeding down the river, "wing-and-wing" before the wind. I was supremely happy in my place. The roll of