I came down one afternoon to the green bank behind the house,
where a table stood, and where we took our meals when the
weather was fine. Our three young men were around it and the
air was fragrant with the fumes of their cigars. The cigars of
two of them were tossed away on my appearance. Ransom held his
in abeyance.
"I did not know you were here," I said, "or I should have
scrupled about interrupting anything so pleasant."
"You do not think it pleasant, confess, Miss Randolph," said
De Saussure, drawing near to look over the progress of my
work.
"Do you dislike it, honestly, Miss Randolph?" said Hugh
Marshall.
"I don't dislike sugar-plums," I said.
"Daisy likes nothing that ordinary people like," cried Ransom.
"I pity the man that will marry you, Daisy! He will live
within a hedge-row of restrictions. You have lived among
Puritans till you're blue."
I lifted my eyes to Ransom without speaking. What there was in
my look, I do not know; but they all laughed.
"What connection is there between cigars and sugar-plums?"
Hugh Marshall asked next.
"None, I suppose," I said. "Only, - what would you think of a
lady who sat down regularly to eat sugar-plums three or four
times a day and the last thing before going to bed? and who
evidently could not live without them."
"But why not take a sugar-plum, or a cigar, as well as other
things - wine, or fruit, for instance?" said Marshall.
"It is an indulgence - but we all allow ourselves indulgences
of one sort or another."
"Besides, with a lady it is different," said De Saussure. "We
poor fellows have nothing better to do, half the time."
I had no wish to lecture Mr. De Saussure, but I could not help
looking at him, which again seemed to rouse their amusement.
"You seem to say, that is an insignificant way of life," Hugh
Marshall added.
"We'll try for something better to-morrow," said De Saussure.
"We have laid a plan to go to see the lake of Annecy, Miss
Randolph, if we can secure your company and approbation. It
will just take the day; and I propose that each one of us
shall go prepared to instruct the others, at luncheon, as to
his or her views of the worthiest thing a man can do with his
life; - cigars being banished."
"Cigars are not banished yet," said Ransom, taking delicate
whiffs of his own, which sent a fragrant wreath of blue smoke
curling about his face.
"What do you say, Miss Randolph?" Hugh asked.
"Wouldn't you like to see the house of Eugene Sue?" said De
Saussure.
"Who was Eugene Sue?" was my counter question; and they
laughed again, our two friends with sparkling eyes.