I would look up and see him standing so smooth and benevolent behind Mrs Monnerie's chair that he reminded me of my bishop, and I doubt if ever she crisply uttered his delightful name but it recalled the pleasant chime of a poem which my mother had taught me: _The Nymph Complaining of the Death of her Fawn_. I should have liked to have a long talk with Mr Marvell--any time of the day when he wasn't a butler, I mean--but the opportunity never came.
One day, when he had left us to ourselves, I ventured to quote a stanza of this poem to Mrs Monnerie:--
"With sweetest milk and sugar first I it at my own fingers nursed; And as it grew, so every day It waxed more white and sweet than they-- It had so sweet a breath! and oft I blushed to see its foot more soft And white--shall I say?--than my hand, Nay, any lady's in the land...."
"Charming, charming, Poppet," she cooed, much amused, pushing in a nut for Chakka. "Many shades whiter than _your_ wrinkled old claw, you old wretch. _Another_ sagacious old bird, my dear, though past blushing, I fear, at any lady's hand."
Nothing would content her but that I must recite my _bon mot_ again when her nephew Percy dandled in to tea that afternoon. He sneered down on me with his pale eyes, and with finger and thumb exposed yet another inch of his silk sock, but made no comment.
"Manners, my dear Percy, maketh man," said his aunt. "Congratulate Miss M."
If Percy Maudlen had had no manners at all, I think I should at that moment have seen the pink tip of his tongue; for if ever any human being detested my small person it was he. For very good reasons, probably, though I never troubled to inquire into them, I disliked him, too, beyond expression. He was, of course, a superior young man with a great many similar ancestors looking out of his face, yet he resembled a weasel. But Susan Monnerie--the very moment I saw her I loved her; just as one loves a field of buttercups or a bush of may. For some little time she seemed to regard me as I suppose a linnet regards a young cuckoo that has been hatched out in her nest (though, of course, a squab cuckoo is of much the same size as its fostermother). But she gradually grew accustomed to me, and even realized at last that I was something a little more--and also perhaps less--human than either Chakka or Cherry or a Dresden china shepherdess.