She was a small person, not quite five years
old, with great blue eyes and a glittering tangle of golden curls. She
made her proposal one summer afternoon on the lawn at Errington Manor,
in the presence of Beau Lovelace, on whose knee sat her little brother
Olaf, a fine boy a year younger than herself. She had placed her dimpled
arms round Lorimer's neck,--and when she so confidingly suggested
marriage to her "Zordie," as she called him, she was rubbing her rosy,
velvety cheek against his moustache with much sweet consideration and
tenderness. Lovelace, hearing her, laughed aloud, whereat the little
lady was extremely offended.
"I don't tare!" she said, with pretty defiance. "I do love oo, Zordie,
and I will marry oo!"
George held her fondly to his breast as though she were some precious
fragile flower of which not a petal must be injured.
"All right!" he answered gaily, though his voice trembled somewhat, "I
accept! You shall be my little wife, Thelma. Consider it settled!"
Apparently she did so consider it, for from that day, whenever she was
asked her name, she announced herself proudly as "Zordie's 'ittle wife,
Thelma"--to the great amusement of her father, Sir Philip, and that
other Thelma, on whom the glory of motherhood had fallen like a new
charm, investing both face and form with superior beauty and an almost
divine serenity.
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