And the sum of my thoughts was this: Lisbeth had deceived me; the hour of trial had found her weak; my idol was only common clay, after all. And yet she had but preferred wealth to comparative poverty, which surely according to all the rules of common sense, had shown her possessed of a wisdom beyond her years. And who was I to sit and grieve over it? Under the same circumstances ninety-nine women out of a hundred would have chosen precisely the same course; but then to me Lisbeth had always seemed the one exempt--the hundredth woman; moreover, there be times when love, unreasoning and illogical, is infinitely more beautiful than this much-vaunted common sense.
This and much more was in my mind as I sat fumbling with my useless pipe and staring with unseeing eyes at the flow of the river. My thoughts, however, were presently interrupted by something soft rubbing against me, and looking down, I beheld Dorothy's fluffy kitten, Louise. Upon my attempting to pick her up, she bounded from me in that remarkable sideways fashion peculiar to her kind, and stood regarding me from a distance, her tail straight up in the air and her mouth opening and shutting without a sound. At length, having given vent to a very feeble attempt at a mew, she zig-zagged to me, and, climbing upon my knee, immediately fell into a purring slumber.
"Hallo, Uncle Dick!--I mean, what ho, Little-John!" cried a voice, and looking over my shoulder carefully, so as not to disturb the balance of "Louise," I beheld the Imp. It needed but a glance at the bow in his hand, the three arrows in his belt, and the feather in his cap, to tell me who he was for the time being.
"I'm a bitter, disappointed man, Uncle Dick!" he answered, putting up a hand to feel if his feather was in place.
"Yes; the book says that Robin Hood was 'bitter an' disappointed,' an' so am I!"
The Imp folded his arms and regarded me with a terrific frown.
"It's all the fault of my Auntie Lisbeth!" he said in a tragic voice.
"Sit down, my Imp, and tell me all about it."
"Well," he began, laying aside his "trusty sword," and seating himself at my elbow, "she got awfull' angry with me yesterday, awfull' angry, indeed, and she wouldn't play with me or anything; an' when I tried to be friends with her an' asked her to pretend she was a hippopotamus, 'cause I was a mighty hunter, you know, she just said, 'Reginald, go away an' don't bother me!'"