CHAPTER XXXI.Apologizingfor the prolixity of my last chapter on drunkenness only by the hope that a recital of my own ridiculous behavior may induce some slave of Bacchus, who may recognize any part of the account as familiar, to renounce his allegiance and be free, I invite my readers to take another skip with me.A year has passed and it is Commencement week. I am a Junior, while Frank is to graduate.Since his defeat, last year, for Marshal, he has gone rapidly down, till he has lost all moral and social position in college. He is drunk nearly all the time, and has gathered around himself a crowd of low associates, that place him almost beyond the pale of recognition. We have had very little intercourse since his defeat, though I have recently desired to notice him more out of pity than anything else, because so many others cut him. His brilliant mind, in spite of his dissipation, still achieves something in his studies, and it is thought he will get one of the honors in his class.The Saturday before Commencement he surprised me very much by coming to our room with an open letter in his hand, and saying:“John, I have just received a letter from Lulie. She and one or two of the Wilmington girls are coming up to our Commencement, and, as I will be busy in speech making and graduating, I must beg you to help me out in attending to them.”“It will give me great pleasure to do so,” I replied. “What day will they get here?”“On Monday,” he said, looking at the letter. “I believe you have not been to Wilmington since your father left, but you used to know all these ladies. You must introduce some fellows to them, so they will have a pleasant time.”“Of course I will; but take a seat, Frank, you have not been in my room before in a long time.”“No, thank you, I have an engagement at twelve.”He left the room, and I sat for some time in unpleasant reflection. If Lulie came to Chapel Hill, and received attention from Frank and his set, she would be put down as second class, and my circle of friends would hardly wait on her, even at my request. Knowing her high social positionat home, I knew that Dr. Mayland, as well as herself, would be deeply mortified when they knew the character of her associates, if she visited Chapel Hill under Frank’s auspices; on the other hand, if I went to her and warned her when she came she would regard my information as a fiction of my prejudice against Frank, and despise me for it. Yet I felt sure he did not love and respect her, for only a day or two before he had said, when I asked if he were going to be married after Commencement, that he was going to see something of life first, that Lulie would keep for a year or two yet without spoiling, and that, even if she did prove false and love another, he had about tired of her.After thinking over the matter I determined to wait and see whom Frank introduced to her, as his own pride might induce him to select companions suitable to her refinement and culture.Going to the post-office that afternoon I received a letter from father, dated at London, saying that they would start the next day but one for the United States. They would land at Halifax, and come through Canada to Niagara, where they would wait for me to join them as soon as my college exercises were over. He spoke of the wondrous beauty of Carlotta, now that she was a woman, and said that fortunes and honors in profusion had been laid at her feet, but that she had refused all, and he did not think her heart had yet been touched. Her cousin, Herrara Lola, a young Cuban of rank and fortune, had joined them at Madrid, and had been travelling with them ever since. He was coming South with them to spend the summer and autumn, returning to Havana in the winter.“And your mother and I fear,” continued he, “that when he leaves he will take away with him our beautiful Carlotta.”I closed the letter with a great aching restlessness in my heart. Lose Carlotta! I had feared it ever since I had toldher farewell, but my heart had not dared to acknowledge even to itself the possibility of such a loss. As I had received letter after letter telling of her ever increasing charms of person and character, I had longed with a great desire to see her once again and tell her how I loved her far more than any other dared to love, a desire made all the stronger by its utter hopelessness. And I had taken out my little ringlet each day, and, kissing it tenderly, wondered if she kept her pledge and ever thought of me. As I had learned the past winter of her successfuldebutin society, and her numberless triumphs, I felt that my hopes were forever fallen. She would return now puffed up with pride and conscious of superiority, while I would only appear to her as a rustic younger brother, whom she would be ashamed to exhibit to the arrogant Herrara.“I won’t go to Niagara,” I said, savagely, crumpling the letter in my hand; “they will all look down on me now, and even father and mother will think I lack polish, after their European tour, for travel invariably breeds conceit.”I took up myHeraldto divert my thoughts, and running my eyes over its columns, saw the following among the marriage announcements:“Marshman—Carrover. At the residence of the bride’s uncle, Mr. Isaac T. Carrover, No.——Fifth Avenue, by the Rev. Dr. Deeler, assisted by the Rev. Mr. Prynn, Hon. Palmer Marshman, M. C. for the—th Congressional District, to Miss Lillian Carrover. No cards.”Poor Marshman, thought I, the rose leaves are plucked, only thorns for thee!CHAPTER XXXII.WhenFrank and I entered the parlor of the hotel, after sending up our cards to Lulie and the other ladies fromWilmington, we found the room full of company. Strange faces among the ladies, and familiar faces among the students, were grouped on every side. All were bowing, smiling and talking in the most eager and interested manner, as they filled their dancing cards with engagements for the ball, or brought forward friends to be introduced. We had only to wait a few moments, when we heard light footfalls and the rustle of dresses on the stairway, and the next instant Lulie and her two friends came into the room and greeted us cordially.What a fairy vision of loveliness was Lulie! Her exquisite figure, aspetiteas Titania’s, perfect in the bloom of womanhood, a vine-work of brown ringlets clustering around her shoulders, a sparkle in her bright eyes, and a roseate hue on her dimpled cheeks! The same beautiful being I had once adored, though more perfect now in her bewitching loveliness; the same cherry lips I had kissed before the nursery fire; the same roguish glance that had so often brought my heart into my mouth, as our eyes met across Miss Hester’s school room, and the same silvery laugh that I had thought was the sweetest music in the world. A tinge of sadness came over me as I bowed over her hand and thought of what might have been.We passed a half hour very pleasantly, talking about old times and scenes, and making engagements for the festive occasions before us; but oh! what a yearning desire I felt to shield her from all possible harm, as I marked her fond looks turned, so often and trustfully, towards Frank’s bloated though still handsome features.I was to escort her that night to the “Fresh” Declamation, and when we walked up the brilliantly lighted aisle of the chapel, which was thronged with the beauty of the State, I saw many a look of intense admiration directed towards the little fairy on my arm. Next morning a score of my friends came to ask the favor of an introduction, sothat Lulie held quite a levee down at her hotel, though each one who called asked me in some surprise afterwards, how she came to be so intimate with “that fellow, Paning.”Frank carried her that night to the “Soph.” speaking, and I could not but feel ashamed for her, as I marked the looks of surprise and coldness on the faces of my acquaintances, who, I felt sure, to a certain extent, classed her by her escort. After the speaking we had a little hop in the ball room, and I noticed she remained in the room only a short time, dancing one or two sets with Frank’s friends, men whom Dr. Mayland would have ordered from his parlor. I felt it was my imperative duty to advise her of it all, but I was so sure that she would attribute all my counsel to prejudice against Frank, and despise me for it, that I hesitated and delayed.Next morning, while I was lying across my bed, enjoying the perfumed breeze that floated up from the flowery campus, Harrow, a friend and classmate, came in and sat down by me.“Say, Smith!” he said, shading a match with his hands to keep it from being blown out, and speaking on each side of his cigar, “is that little beauty who was with Paning last night a friend of yours?”“Yes,” I yawned; “why do you ask?”“Because if she was anything to me I would either whip Paning or carry her away from here.”“Why? What do you mean?” I asked, rising up on one elbow.“Well, well,” he said, tossing the match out of the window, “it’s none of my business, perhaps; so let it be.”“No, but you must tell me, Harrow; what have you seen or heard? The young lady and I at one time were great friends, and I still esteem her very highly, though she has not liked me much since that scoundrel Paning has taken possession of her heart. But I will do everythingI can to serve her now. What do you know about them?” I rose up and sat by him on the edge of the bed.“Paning does not respect her much, does he?” he asked, blowing smoke rings in the sunlight.“No, that’s just it. She believes him to be the purest and best under Heaven, and trusts him blindly, while he, a villain, is trifling with her, and keeps her love only because he is proud of it. If he respected her he would not obtrude his polluted presence on her. But tell me, Harrow, what you know about her,” I continued; “if you wish, I will keep secret all you confide.”“The deuce, no,” he said quickly; “I do not care for Paning. I would tell him about it myself, only I have no right to interfere.”“Speak on, Harrow; what is it?”“Well, for one thing, the very fact that she receives attention from such fellows as Paning and Donnery has lowered her in the estimation of your acquaintances; and then, even during the short time she has been here, those low fellows have originated enough scandal about her to damn a dozen women at the social bar.”“No! Harrow, you cannot mean that; I have not heard one word against her.”“Of course not,” he said, smoking vigorously; “nobody speaks of it before you.”“She’s as pure as an angel,” I said, indignantly.“I believe she is,” he replied, lolling back on the pillow; “but if she allows Paning to carry her into the company he does, she will not be thought so by others. Last night I had no lady with me, and, getting tired of dancing, I went up into the library, which you know was lit up for promenading couples. When it was pretty late, and everybody had gone down, I took down a book, and, reclining on a sofa in one of the alcoves, began to read. I had not read far before Donnery and another low fellow came into thelibrary, each with a lady, or I had better say woman on his arm. They made some show of looking at the books and paintings, and while thus engaged Paning and Miss Mayland came in. She was leaning on his arm with an air of devotion and confidence I have never seen equalled, and they were speaking in soft, loving tones. Donnery met them, and, in his coarse way, introduced his companions. After some noisy conversation, full of slang and rude jest, they agreed that the hop was a bore, and Donnery said he would go down to Muggs’ and get some wine if they would wait and drink it in the library. They all assented except Miss Mayland, and I distinctly heard her ask Paning to see her home; but he vowed she must not leave yet, and she remained, though I knew from her silence that she felt out of place and ill at ease. When Donnery returned they took the librarian’s table and made a gay party around it. Though I could not see them, I knew that Miss Mayland was blushing at the songs and toasts that passed around; and I inferred, by Paning’s calling out in a loud tone, ‘No, not yet, Lulie,’ that she was again begging him to leave.”“Harrow, did all this really occur as you have described it?” I asked, in indignant astonishment.“It did, upon my honor,” he replied. “Several ladies and gentlemen, on coming to the library door and seeing who were in there, turned back down stairs, and soon after I left myself.”“I’ll tell her of it to-day,” I said, throwing off my slippers and drawing on my boots. “Paning must be the veriest villain alive to take the woman he loves, or pretends to love, into such company.”“He certainly did so,” said Harrow; “and, as I said before, I heard much comment this morning from those who saw Miss Mayland with such a set.”When he rose to go I thanked him for coming to me with the information, and begged that he would explain andapologize for her presence in the library with Donnery and company to those whose opinion I valued, and whom he might hear allude to it.During the day I was engaged so that I could not procure an interview with Lulie, and, much to my regret and annoyance, I saw her walk in the Chapel in the afternoon on Donnery’s arm, while his coarse face was lit up with an expression of triumph as he took his seat “among the high up ones,” as he said in a loud whisper to one of his friends leaning in the window.That night the ball was to come off; and, as I buttoned my kids, and gave the last adjusting pull to the waist of my “spike,” I resolved that, as soon as I had paid the required courtesies to the lady I was going with, I would seek Lulie, and, whether it offended her or not, give her my last warning against Frank.It was with difficulty I found her amid the throng that swayed and surged through the ball room. She was in rather a retired corner, receiving very little attention from any one. She had few engagements or none for the dance, and her usually bright face wore an expression of weariness and mental pain as I approached. She welcomed me gladly, and accepted my proposal to stroll in the campus with eagerness. The avenues were lit up, as there was no moon, and strolling down one of these, we turned aside to a rustic seat beneath a large oak. It was a quiet and secluded place; even the music in the ball room sounded soft and indistinct across the maze of shrubbery.The opportunity was now mine, but I shrank from my duty. She would not appreciate my motives, I was sure, and would repel my counsel with scorn and indignation. Yet could I suffer Frank to betray her into imprudences that would tinge the purity of her character? Could I permit his villainous designs, palpable to all eyes but hers, to go unexposed? Could I see her threatened with evil shewould not suspect till it was too late to avert it, and not warn her? No, however thankless my task might prove, for the sake of her dead mother I would tell her of her danger.“Lulie!” I said, after some moments of silence and reflection on my part.“What is it, Sir Solemnity?” she replied, looking into my face by the dim light of the distant lamps.“I wish to speak to you on a very important and delicate subject, and I want you to promise me that you will believe my motives pure and disinterested in so doing. Do not fear that I am going to renew the fishing scene of our childhood; I know too well that my love is hopeless. Let memory sleep; ‘tis of the present now I wish to speak; and I want you to take off your glove and put your hand in mine, and if in what I am going to say you believe there is one single word prompted by aught save the most sacred friendship, instantly withdraw it, and I will say no more.”She undid the lace-edged kid with a slight tremor in her fingers, and, dropping it heedlessly on the ground, laid her little hand confidingly in mine.“There is my hand, John,” she said, “but you really frighten me with your solemn preface.”“Well, then,” I replied, with an effort at a smile, unheeded, perhaps, in the darkness, “to come directly to the point, do you love Frank?”I felt a quiver in her fingers as she said:“Dear John, do not be offended, but we must not talk on that subject. I know what you would say, but ‘tis useless; I cannot believe you.”“But, Lulie, perhaps you do not know how important it is that we should speak on this subject. Will you answer another question, then? Do you believe that Frank loves you?”She drew her head back with the merest touch of pride, and said, with a tinge of steel in her tone:“Yes, I do believe he loves me, because he has proved it in a thousand ways; and I do not fear to answer your first question. I do love him with all my heart. There! that confession is unladylike, but I make it to you alone.”I bowed in acknowledgment and continued:“Pardon me again, Lulie dear, for pursuing my catechism. You were in the library last night?”“Yes!”“Do you know the character of those to whom Frank introduced you, and with whom he forced you to spend an hour?”She made no reply, but I could feel her hand growing cold as the blood left it for her burning cheeks.“Do you know the social and moral position of those men he has permitted to wait on you since your stay here? Do you know how he speaks of you to others? Dearest little friend, though you hate me for it, Imustwarn you. Frank does not love, does not even respect you. He only retains your love as a trophy of his power. As God knows my heart, I have no motive but to save you. Will you heed me, Lulie?”She drew her hand quickly from mine, and, covering her face, remained silent a long while; then putting it back in mine, she said, with a sad earnestness I can never forget:“I do not doubt the sincerity of your motives, John; but your words are wasted. Frank has loved me too long and too fondly for me to desert him now at your bidding. ‘Twas naughty of him, I know, to carry me into bad company, but he did it thoughtlessly, and I forgive him for it.”“But, Lulie”—— I interposed.“No; let’s not speak of it any further. You cannot know how strangely sad I feel. A great gloom has fallen on my heart, which, indeed, has been hanging over it since I came here; and oh—I do so want to lean on mother’s breast and cry. Dear John, I shall ever love you dearly foryour kind interest in me,” and before I could prevent it she lifted my hand to her lips and kissed it; “but you are mistaken about Frank.Iknow that he loves me, and God knows that I love him, and will trust him even to death.”We rose from our seats, but instead of returning to the ball room, she asked me to see her to the hotel, where I bade her good night and came back up the campus. As I passed by the seat we occupied, something white in the darkness caught my eye, and on picking it up I found that it was her glove, which she had dropped while we were talking. On taking it to the light I found that some one, in passing, had trodden upon it, and ground it into the damp earth, soiling it hopelessly.“Heaven grant it may not be a type of her life!” I said fervently, as I laid it in my bosom.CHAPTER XXXIII.I concluded, after all, to go North. What if father, mother and Carlotta had travelled while I was studying in a quiet little village? I felt equal to them in learning, and resolved that I would be in manners and polish.I spent a few days in New York, which was very dull, as everybody was off at the summer resorts. With a pretty heavy draught on father’s bankers, I filled a trunk or two with the latest styles and started for Saratoga, where I would spend a few days before joining our family party at Niagara.Having paid the hackman as much again as his legal fare, and having seen my trunks checked through, I took my seat on a stool at one side of the already crowded deck of the Hudson river boat, which was steaming and hissing at thewharf like a chained griffin, and gazed, with the interest of novelty, at the scene before me. The long forests of masts and yards, with here and there a graceful flag or long fluttering streamer; the busy, fussy tugs, running hither and thither like noisy gossips, coughing and sneezing with bad colds; the patient jades of ferry boats, with their anxious human cargo, hardly waiting for the dropping of the chains; the ocean steamer looming its dark hull in the offing, and curling its black festoons of smoke on the morning sky; the white sailed skiffs leaning gracefully from the wooing wind, and the small row boat which a bare-armed sailor is sculling right under our prow, his blue jacket lying on the seat behind him, and the motion of his body, as he rocks from side to side, slushing the water about in the bottom of the boat, and wetting one sleeve of the jacket on the seat; the anchored ships, here and there, looking like immense laundries, with their rigging and sides covered with the clothes of the crew, all made me forget for a moment my own existence, till I was aroused to a consciousness of it by a shrill voice piping in my ear, “Herald!Times!Tribune!”Having bought a paper, I turned round on my stool and commenced to read. People continued to crowd in; a hoarse whistle from our boat, or some other, I could not tell which, a few taps on a very hoarse bell, and with a shiver, as if the water was cold, we glided from the wharf.I had read, perhaps, half a column when the rustle of a dress against my crossed feet attracted my attention, and I peeped under the edge of my paper. It was a very handsome black silk, and, being caught up over my foot, showed a beautiful bootee beneath it—an interesting bootee of purple glove kid, with a dainty high heel, and a firm curving instep—a bootee tapping the deck carelessly, as if about to execute a pirouette on its flexible toe. Standing against the silk dress, close to the bootee, was a pair of boots—large,dignified boots—with broad heels and thick soles, and coming down over their flat insteps were black pant legs. Lifting the edge of my paper a little I came in sight of the skirt of a black cloth coat, and hanging down by the skirt of the coat was a large white hand holding a morocco travelling bag—the hand of a middle aged man, white on the fingers and near the thumbs, and shaded with dark hairs on the side toward the little finger, on which was an onyx seal ring with P. M. in monogram. I knew the bootee belonged to a pretty woman, and the boots and hand to an intelligent elderly man, and to confirm my surmisings I took down the paper with a rattle and looked up at them. The lady turned her head and looked down at me the same instant.“Why, Mr. Smith! is it possible?” she exclaimed.“Miss Carrover!” I said, rising and blushing.“Mrs. Marshman, sir. Mr. Marshman! an old friend of mine, Mr. Smith, of North Carolina.”Mr. Marshman, a frowning man, with heavy gray brows and a grayer moustache, gave me his hand and a “glad to know you, sir.”“Let me make you acquainted with our party,” said Mrs. Marshman, turning to two ladies and a gentleman, “Mr. Finnock! Mr. Smith, Miss Sappho Finnock! Miss Stelway!”I made my obeisance, and, completing the usual commonplace remarks, “took in” the party.Mrs. Marshman, as beautiful as ever, but a trifle more mature and less dashing; Mr. Marshman, as above described; Mr. Finnock, a pale young man, with very blue eyes and very red lids, and light mossy side whiskers; he was exquisite in style and supercilious in demeanor, and very much devoted to Miss Stelway, a dark skinned young lady, with a short upper lip and very large front teeth, who looked at everything on the river with an opera glass, and whose conversational powers seemed limited to the constant ejaculation of:“See there, how pretty!”She was rich, though Finnock’s attentionsmayhave been disinterested.Miss Sappho Finnock was a little lady, not very young, with thin, sandy hair, which she plastered, classically, around her forehead, and wore in wiry little curls around the back of her neck. Her eyes were as blue as her brother’s, and were “near” in their sight, so that she wore circular gold-rimmed glasses, that magnified her eyes ludicrously when seen through them. She wore fawn gauntlets, and her fingers, when she drew off her gloves, were thin and bluish towards the ends. Her waist was straight from her arms to her skirt, and her neck long and corded. She was constantly taking notes in a gilt-edged book, and peeping at me sideways under her glasses, as I sat by her, which I did most of the way up the river. She opened her eyes a little wider whenever she spoke, as if she was surprised at her own voice, and spoke with a sudden quickness and a little jerk out of her head, as if she wanted to throw the words at you. I soon found that as Mr. Marshman would not give up Lillian, nor Finnock Miss Stelway, Miss Sappho Finnock was to be my companion for the voyage. I was not displeased, for she was entertaining for her very sentimentality, and was not disposed to laugh at any ignorance of the world I might betray, or any social solecism I might commit.In reply to Mrs. Marshman’s inquiries, I informed her that I was going first to Saratoga to spend a few days, thence to Niagara, where I would meet our family, just returned from Europe. At the mention of Europe, Finnock and Miss Stelway regarded me with more interest, and Miss Finnock increased her smiles and side glances.We all talked together for some time, when Mr. Marshman left us to go to his state room, Lillian took a novel from the morocco bag, and Finnock and Miss Stelway going tothe railing to lean over the water, nothing was left for Miss Finnock and myself, but to walk to the prow of the boat and take a couple of vacant seats that were there.“I always think of the Culprit Fay when I pass old Crow Nest” she said, arranging her skirt. “Are you not fond of poetry? I am, passionately.”“I enjoy poetry very much,” I said, not knowing how tame the reply would sound till I had made it.“I declare I almost cry when I think of that dear little Fay cleaving the waters to catch the crystal drop, while the great monsters swarm after him. What do you think is the most descriptive line in the poem, Mr. Smith.”“Confound Rodman Drake!” I muttered to myself, for I had not read his poem, having scarcely touched anything save my text-books since I had been at Chapel Hill. Fortunately, I remembered a lecture of our Professor of Rhetoric, on American poetry, in which he had quoted from the poem in question; I therefore replied, pausing as if to consider:“Really, Miss Finnock, the whole poem is so full of vivid descriptions and striking thoughts that it is hard to make a selection; but I think perhaps the finest passage is that which describes the firefly steed flinging a glittering spark behind.”“Ah, yes,” she replied, “I remember that. But I think the tiniest, sweetest idea is, ‘their wee faces giggling above the brine.’” To express thetinynessof an idea, she squinted her eyes painfully, and squeezed her forefingers and thumb together, as if she were holding a flea.“To tell the truth, Miss Finnock,” I said, hoping to take her out of her depth and thereby change the subject, “I greatly prefer the old classic writers, or even the earlier English poets, to the maudlin sentimentalists of the present day.”“Oh, you prefer the classics, do you?” she exclaimed, brightening her dim looking eyes, “then I am glad we arecongenial. Homer is too nervous in his style, but Pindar is so sweet; and Sappho—do you know I am named for her?—isn’t her poetry rapturous? and dear Horace, how pointed and terse he is. Do you know I have studied harder than anything his Art of Poetry, for I sometimes try to write verses myself. Did you ever write poetry? It is really difficult. And you say, too, you like the old English poets? How glad I am! I have a copy of Chaucer in my trunk, and we can read over some of his Canterbury Tales together. Then there’s Spencer; isn’t his Fairy Queen perfectly charming? And Sydney’s Arcadia, do you like that? Sometimes, when I am sad and gloomy, I even like to read the melancholy musings of poor John Ford. You’ve read Ford, have you not? and Marlowe?”Great Heaven! thought I; take her out of her depth indeed! I have only taken her into it. My only hope to change the subject, and prevent an exposure of my ignorance, is to speak of her own verses, as I know she will not quit that theme as long as I appear interested. I said, therefore, as soon as she ceased speaking,“You say that you write verses, Miss Finnock? I am sure they are lovely; and I would esteem it a very high honor and privilege to be permitted to read your composition.”“Oh, I could not think of it,” she said, with an attempt at a blush; “besides, my portfolio is in my trunk, and therefore inaccessible.”I protested my readiness to go below and have her trunk opened, that I might satisfy my desire to read her beautiful thoughts, and I insisted so earnestly that she would give me her keys and permit me to search, that she said, while she thanked me for my obliging spirit, she would not trouble me any farther than to get her reticule from Mrs. Marshman, for, if she was not mistaken, she had in that some verses on the Hudson that she had composed the summer before.Of course I was delighted to bring it to her; when she opened it and took out a yard and a quarter of printed poetry, which she commenced to read, first making me promise, a naughty boy, not to laugh at anything in it.She read the entire yard and a quarter with heaving bosom and unusually dilated optics; but I cannot inflict upon my readers more than an inch or two.The theme of the poem was the launching of the first steamboat, and in her eyes it seemed an epic fit for Virgil. The lines were these:THE HUDSON.“Oh thou mighty, sweeping, rushing river,Through thy cloud-reflecting bosom grand,With unfledged wheels the first steamboat proud-Ly plows, while on its trembling bulwarks standThe gay, triumphant and prophetic crowd.”“Oh, that is perfectly enchanting,” I exclaimed, when she had completed the ninety-third and last verse, feeling assured that, when she thought so highly of the effort herself, no commendation could be fulsome.“Pardon the abrupt praise, but Mrs. Browning could not have expressed the idea of the untried wheels more strikingly than you did, by the single word ‘unfledged.’”“You flatter me, indeed, sir,” she said, looking immensely pleased; “but, to be candid with you, I thought myself that the expression was original and effective. Can you imagine how I got such an idea?”“Not unless the fairies brought it to you,” I said, gallantly.“I was at Yonkers last summer, while composing this piece, and saw a young duck, with unfledged wings, learning to swim, and immediately I thought of the steamboat. Remarkable coincidence, was it not?”“Very remarkable, and all the more striking from that very fact,” I replied.“But the most striking stanza in the poem,” she continued, running her little thin fingers down the paper, and pinching it at a certain verse, “is the sixty-eighth. Do you remember it?”“They are all stamped so indelibly on my mind, by their wondrous power and beauty, that I cannot distinguish them by mere numbers; but I can easily recognize it if you will read it again.” This I said leaning forward with an increased air of attention and interest.“There is no merit about the lines, except that they convey to the mind a vivid impression of the circumstances,” she said, with a preparatory cough, and read:“And should a comet from the starry skyFall with its fiery tail along thy bed,Oh! what a yawning, cracking chasm dryWould stretch from parched mouth to fountain head.”“Miss Finnock!” I said, rapturously, “you are as daring as Milton in your conceptions. Even Dante does not surpass the appalling picture you draw. I can almost see the long, rugged chasm down which the ships are rolling over and over, snapping off their masts, the fish floundering in the steaming pools, while the red serpent of desolation winds its way down the hissing bed.”I did not deem it necessary to correct her astronomy by a hint at the nebulosity of comets, or at the absurdity of the idea that a tail, ten millions of miles long and half as many broad, could be squeezed into the channel of the Hudson. I could only admit to myself that if the tail of a comet was red hot, and small enough to fit the river, her picture of the effect of its fall was graphic.She thanked me with many blushes, and as I paused in my comments she folded up her poetry reluctantly, and returned it to her reticule. As the bag opened I saw a book in it, and my respect for her erudition, before which I positively trembled as she ran through the names I have mentioned,was considerably lessened as I recognized Spalding’s English Literature, and felt that her learning was “crammed.”As I felt as confident in my smattering as hers; I talked more boldly, and we spent the morning in a conversation on literature that would have made Porson envious at our attainments.When dinner was announced our party had a private table in the saloon, and I was embarrassed to find that Mr. Finnock and Miss Stelway were regarding my table deportment as if that was the Shibboleth on which they would cut or notice me. Miss Finnock, however, kept me more employed in attentions to the outer woman than to the inner man, so that I got on very well, except pouring her glass too full of wine and making too loud a sip when I tasted mine.Mr. Marshman had invited an elderly gentleman to dine with him, and was so absorbed in a political discussion that he completely ignored my presence; indeed, he seemed to forget that there was any one present except himself and his patient listener.Mrs. M. was much annoyed by his neglect of his guests, and wasted many nods and frowns on him. As he paid no attention to them she spoke to him:“Mr. Marshman, pass the claret to Mr. Smith.”But she might as well have addressed the post of the saloon, for Marshman was at that moment closing his most forcible argument in favor of his assumption.“Mr.Marshman!” exclaimed Lillian, a flush on her cheek and a flash in her eye, “do you know where you are? Mr. Smith’s glass is empty.”“Oh!—yes—pardon me, my dear,” turning with a confused smile to her, and anything but a smile to me as he ran my glass over with the crimson fluid.For a while there was an awkward pause, during which I felt very much embarrassed, as having been the innocent cause of the disturbance.Mrs. M. soon resumed her smile, and said:“Mr. Marshman thinks he is on the floor of the House whenever he gets to talking, and forgets his surroundings.”“Well, my dear,” he said, pouring out a glass of brandy, “excuse my absent-mindedness. Come, Mr. Debait, since they will not let us finish our discussion, we will have to join the young folks.”Mrs. Marshman gave him a sign to notice me, and he said, in a patronizing, Congressional way:“What are the times in North Carolina, Mr. Smith? Whom will your people support in the next Presidential election?”I was informing him that, as a student, I had not taken much interest in politics, when Mrs. M. cut in:“Mr. Marshman, you ought to observe Mr. Smith very closely. He is the only one who ever really flirted with me.”“Is he?” returned Mr. Marshman, trying to keep his good humor, though evidently disliking me. “What didIdo with your heart?”“Youflirt? Oh, life!” and Lillian laughed scornfully, as she looked around at us all. “I was afraid I was getting a littlepassé, and just took you when you proposed, which you did, you remember, with much agitation and tremulous fervor.”We all smiled, as was expected, except Mr. Marshman, who only drew his bushy brows a little nearer together.Lillian went on (as what woman will not when she is succeeding in a tease?).“You know, Pam, I put you off indefinitely; and, strange to tell, I received your first letter the very night Mr. Smith and I came so near loving. If he had talked differently then, perhaps the answer you received would have been different. You really owe him thanks.”But Mr. Marshman, instead of taking the jest, grew very red in the face, and, pushing his chair back, said, angrily:“You can make the change now, madam, if you desire it,” and left the saloon.We looked at Mrs. Marshman, but she was not in the least disconcerted.“Poor, dear Pam,” she said, running a spoon under the peel of an orange, “he loves me so dearly that he is morbidly jealous. I’ll have him pleasant by tea.”Miss Finnock occupied the remainder of the hour by making original remarks and comparisons, if similes without a shadow of similarity could be called original. She said the nut crackers were like adversity, because their crushing discovered the sound fruit; that Italian cream was like a coquette’s cheek, both pink and cold; that the heart of the melon was the heart of humanity, and the black seed black thoughts; that the lemon floating in the finger bowls was like the selfishness that mingles with the purest waters of life; and much more to the same effect.As Finnock preferred Miss Stelway to the wine, we left the table with the ladies, and going up on deck I excused myself for my siesta.As I turned over to the cool side of my pillow, and slid back the shutter to get the river breeze, I murmured as I dozed off:“If little Sappho won’t get in earnest I’ll make love to her, just for the fun of it.”Late in the afternoon we all met again on deck, and, to my surprise, Mr. Marshman was by Mrs. Marshman’s side, full of smiles and urbanity. I could not help thinking of Themistocles’ chain of government.Miss Finnock was unusually sentimental, and her style of conversation was a continual flow of heroic verse, with all the necessary inversions and syncope. She said that the river flashed its wavelet eyes beneath the sunset’s golden veil, that the mountains donned their purpled robes, their bald, bare summits, glory crowned: that the houses nestled‘long the shore like white ducks resting from their sport; the steamboats puffed like wearied beasts, the sail boats glided, graceful swans; and I have no doubt she would have gone on to personalities about her lonely heart and mine, had not her brother called her to Miss Stelway.As they had to spend a day in Albany, we parted there with many promises to renew our acquaintance at the Springs. The next day found me with good rooms at the Union Hotel, Saratoga. As I did not know a single person there, I found it, of course, very dull, and spent the day sauntering around to look at the various objects of interest. That night there was a ball at the Union, but there was such a press in the ball room that I might as well have been in the Mammoth Cave without a light, for all I could see.I retired early, leaving directions to the servant to call me soon in the morning.CHAPTER XXXIV.Thesun had not been up long when I reached the spring, and found the little boys already busy with their long-handled dippers. I gulped down a glass of the water, which is a bad mixture of soda and Epsom salts, and was strolling over the grounds, thinking how pleasant ‘twould be to have even little Miss Finnock along with me, when the rattling of the circular railway caught my ear and I walked towards it. A gentleman and lady were riding in the car, who riveted my attention at once. The gentleman was strikingly handsome. A snow white Panama hat, whose flexible brim, bending up before the current of air, showed a high, white forehead, and black eyes so piercing in their glance that I involuntarily shrank back as they whirled past me. A very heavy moustache, parted in themiddle, fell on each side of his lip like a stream of ink; a graceful, massive frame, yet a small hand turning the crank of the car and a small foot with high instep rested on the edge. This much I saw as they rattled by, and strange to say, so full of admiration was I for the man that it was not till they were coming around again that I noticed the lady, who was much the handsomer of the two. She was clad in a blue morning robe, whose ample folds floated gracefully out from the side of the car. One tiny gloved hand rested playfully on the flying crank, while the other held in her lap the broad straw hat she had taken off. Her eyes were as black as her companion’s, but were soft and gentle in their expression; her hair, superbly massive in its loose folds, was as black as a raven’s wing, and fell in wavy profusion far below her waist. These were the general outlines of her features, for I could not see her face distinctly, so swift was the speed of the car. But even that glimpse had thrilled me, and an indefinable something in the face seemed to speak familiarly to my heart, and awaken wild, vague visions of something forgotten—perhaps the memories of previous existence, as Plato calls them.“Have I seen her in my dreams?” I murmured, “or is she the star of my destiny which intuition thus reveals, that her beauty should so thrill me?”A romantic youth, fresh from college, on the lookout for adventures, with a very large fund of admiration, on which beauty could check at sight; is it a wonder I was in love a second after this bright vision of loveliness floated by?I waited for them to come round again, but I saw the car stop on the other side, and hurried through the crowd only to see them enter a gold mounted phæton, drawn by a splendid pair of blood bays, the driver and footman in liveries almost too gorgeous for Republican America.“May the Fates grant he may only be a brother! They look alike,” I muttered, as I walked back to the hotel.I sought for them in vain during the day around the hotel, though I thought once I saw the black moustache behind the green baize door of the billiard room, but, on entering, I could not find it.That afternoon Mrs. Marshman and party came up from Albany, and took rooms also at the Union. How cordial was Miss Finnock in her manner towards me! and how long she let her hand remain in mine when I shook hands with her! Poor, little cold hand! I felt as if I was pressing a frog with five legs!The ladies were too much fatigued to go to the dance that night, so Finnock and I walked across to Congress Hall after tea. I told him of the wonderful beauty I had seen in the morning, and asked if he could not contrive to get an introduction for us.“Oh, yes,” he said, carelessly, “presyume so; she’s the same Monte wrote me about. Devilish pretty, rich, and so forth. Engaged to that fellow, Monte says. Pious old couple to take care of her. But yonder’s Monte now.”He carried me up to a throng of foppish young men who were lounging on the steps of the hotel. They spoke, after Finnock’s introduction, with a cool kind of condescension that irritated, and, to a certain extent, humiliated me. While in my heart I despised them for their foppish uselessness, yet I felt they somewhat looked down upon me as being from the country, and I desired their attention and consideration more than I did the esteem of the most prominent gentlemen of my acquaintance; such is pride!“Why, Finnock, where the devil did you spring from?” said Monte, a tall, languid fellow, with dark red hair, roached up in curling puffs on each side of the central division; somewhat lighter whiskers flowing in long wisps from each ear to the corner of his mouth, while his short chin, shaved clean, imparted an angry bull dog expression that required all the languor of his weak eyes and singleeye-glass to soften. “I thought you were going across the pond?”“No, not yet,” said Finnock, carelessly, “the old man swears that stocks are too low to think of Europe. I told him I didn’t care, I would either take three M’s for Europe next winter or two for the Springs and Newport.”“Say, Finn.,” continued Monte, “have you heard about Sedley?”“No, anything bad?”“Rather! got a lift from Lola, took the blues, and went into the jungle.”“‘D the tiger hurt him?”“A little—fifteen hundred or so. He left next morning, and I expect has committed suicide.”“Who the deuce is Lola?” asked Finnock.“She’s the rage now—prettier than Venus and richer than Plutus himself. Don’t you remember my writing you about her?”“Ah, yes, I do remember,” said Finnock, “but where is she from, Monte?”“The devil knows,” said that gentleman. “I found her here when I came and as all the first ladies were jealous and angry, and all the best fellows in love with her, I went in without questioning her previous history.”“Sed. was euchred badly,” put in a bloated young man, with protruding bleared eyes and very red nose; “held a good hand, too, but played his cards badly and lost. They say he went a five hundred diamond ring, but she sent it back.”“That was hard on him; but, Monte!” said Finnock, “Smith and I want an introduction, cannot you present us?”“Certainly,” said Monte, getting up from his chair, and shaking one leg at a time, to make his pants smooth, “but it’s useless, that black eyed fellow with her has it all his own way. She will waltz with no one else, pretends to besqueamish, but it is all because he will not let her. The devil take these old marching Lancers and trotting quadrilles; give me a soft hand and a trim waist, and my toe is at your service. Let’s have something to drink!”All assented, and I followed them into the bar-room. I did not wish to drink, but my moral courage shrank from refusing before a throng of exquisites, who were just admitting me to their fellowship. Accordingly, when the others had called for juleps, cold punches and “straights,” I responded to Monte’s inquiry, by stating very faintly that I would take a sherry cobbler, believing that was the weakest drink I could name. Monte repeated the orders to Snyder, the bar man, with the injunction to make them strong, and we all stood around trying to keep up a desultory conversation, but watching, with more interest, the preparation of the beverages, as men always do at a bar.Snyder, a large fat man, in his shirt sleeves, with a large diamond pin on his large bosom, and a heavy moustache on his heavy lip, who had been looking off vacantly while we delivered our orders, now started as if he suddenly remembered them, and calling an assistant, took down the bottles, put in the white hailed ice and sugar, the sprigs of mint, the slices of lemon, and set the dewy glasses on the counter. With a bow and a health we drank, and then Finnock swore we should have another round. This time I had weakened enough in my resolution to try a julep, and feeling a tinge of the old excitement coming over me, I asked, as we turned to leave the bar, the privilege of treating.“Have you some good champagne—green seal or Verzenay—the best now?” I asked the barkeeper, assuming something of the bully in my tone.“Not champagne at the bar!” said Monte, “that is sacred to the table.”The barkeeper pointed us to a curtained apartment, and sent in the champagne and some biscuit.We spent, perhaps, half an hour behind the curtain, and when we came forth I felt as if I was again at Frank’s party. Though the others had, perhaps, imbibed more than I, yet it had not affected them so sensibly, and, muddled as was my brain, I saw they were enjoying my condition.They proposed that we have a peep at the Tiger, and I agreed very readily, having a faint idea that we were going to a zoological exhibition.The zoological garden proved to be a brilliantly lighted room, redolent of cigars and full of tables, around which were grouped eager, anxious faces. I had never gambled in my life, but felt compelled to show my contempt for money by staking a few dollars on a game or two. I soon lost something over a hundred, and was getting more and more reckless, to the extent of much larger stakes, when Monte proposed to leave, saying to one of his companions, in an undertone, which I, however, heard:“That will do for to-night, not too much at a time.”Monte proposed to take us over to the ball room and introduce us to Lola, the sensation, but I objected that I was not in evening dress. Monte swore I was fit for Buckingham Palace, and dragged me along to the room. Our party was very noisy as we entered the ball room, and several gentlemen moved away from our group in apparent disgust. The brilliancy of the scene dazzled and confused me, and I stood staring stupidly about, holding to Monte’s arm for support. The floor was full of dancers, who were circling in a spirited Mazourka.“There she is, Smith!” exclaimed Monte, “isn’t she superb?”Just in front of us was the belle of the season—my unknown beauty of the circular railway, floating gracefully in the embrace of the black moustache.Her hair was now caught up in a magnificent coil, and its black folds were adorned with a beautiful spray ofpearls. Her eyes—and oh! how melting and tender was their look—splendid in their depth of expression, were turned up to the face of her partner, and her form, perfect in its outlines, reposed with easy confidence in his arms. Her arm, round, smooth and dazzling, was shown in fine relief against the black cloth of his coat, and her neck, white as snow, tapered exquisitely from her bare, dimpled shoulders to the shading of her hair.How my heart throbbed with admiration as she passed me; and again that strange memory of a dream of her face came over me!Again they came around, and her full face was turned toward me. Heavens, can it be? yes, there, on that lovely arm, just above the tinted kid, a serpent in Etruscan gold wound its coils up the flesh, and I knew it was Carlotta.“Monte!” I said, grasping his arm tightly, “that’s C’lotta; I know her, I raised her. Lem’me go and speak to her!”“Wait, Smith, don’t be a fool!” he said, impatiently shaking me off, and making his way across the room, as the music had now ceased.I turned to the others of our party and kept repeating, “That’s our C’lotta, I know her ‘s well ‘s I want to. She knows me soon ‘s she sees me.”An elderly gentleman, who had been much annoyed by our noise, and who had been looking very steadily at us for several minutes, now got up from his seat and approached. I looked at him now for the first time, and oh, shade of Hamlet! I recognized my father. The most fervent wish of my heart was that there might be a Samson underneath that floor with his hands already on the pillars.He did not smile as I pressed his hand, but said, “Come, go with me up to our room, John.”His presence, and my chagrin and surprise did one good thing—it effectually sobered me.As we walked out of the room he left me for a moment,and when he rejoined me a lady was on his arm—my mother. There was as much sorrow as joy in her kiss, and we proceeded in silence to their rooms. I took the proffered seat, and no one spoke for some time; then mother burst into tears and said:“Oh, my child! my child! you have almost broken my heart. To think that I left you such a pure, noble boy, and return to meet you drunk, and in a disorderly crowd. Oh, John, how cruelly you have deceived us!”I threw myself on my knees, as I used to do when a child, and buried my face in her lap.“Mother,” I said, humbly, “I have not deceived you; let me explain.”“My son,” said she, “there can be no explanation. I saw you intoxicated myself; and even now you are under the influence of liquor.”Her last words somewhat nettled me, and I resumed my seat, saying as I did so:“I am entirely sober, madam;” which, indeed, was the truth, for all the fumes and effects of the liquor I had taken departed instantly from me on the discovery of my parents. Father, who had been regarding me with much pity, now spoke:“Do not be too hard on him, Mary; perhaps this is his first offence.”“It is, it is,” I said, gratefully; then suddenly remembering, I said, candidly: “No, I will confess I was under the influence of wine once before this,” and I told of Frank’s party. With that exception this was my first time, and I promised that it should be the last.They both seemed mollified, and seeing that I was really not under the influence of liquor, they gradually fell into conversation with me, and we forgot all unpleasantness in our mutual inquiries about each other’s health, and a general hash of all that had occurred since we parted. Theevening wore on, and I commenced to make preparation for my departure; I had just taken my hat when a rustling was heard in the corridor, a musical “Good night!” and Carlotta came in, holding up her satin trail with its shower of lace. She started back on seeing a stranger in the room, but the next instant, as I rose to meet her, she dropped her skirt, and, holding out both hands, exclaimed:“John! dear brother!” and putting up her rosy lips she kissed me, then stood looking at me with earnest happiness in her glance, as if she was really glad to meet me. What a joyous feeling there was in my heart! An hour or two before I had coveted just the honor of an introduction, now I had pressed her hand and kissed her! There was a delightful surprise, too, about the kiss, that made it all the more thrilling. We had never been very intimate, though living in the same house, and while confiding many secrets to each other as children, as I have told, yet there was always a shadow of reserve between us, and it was only by observing, at a distance, the beautiful depth of her character, I had learned to love her. After a three years’ residence in Europe I had expected to find her haughty, vain and supercilious, and had rather dreaded the meeting; but now I found that the flattery and adulation she had received, instead of turning her head, had only conferred the insight of experience, and made her own heart more earnest and true.These thoughts of her ran rapidly through my mind as I gazed at the beautiful, brilliant woman that had bloomed from the lovely child, whose image I had cherished since we had parted.We sat down with father and mother, and as we all had much to say, there were not many seconds that escaped unfreighted with a word. Carlotta seemed much more ready to listen to me, though, than to talk, and instead of telling what she had seen and done seemed intensely interested in my dull affairs.Father asked her if she were not going back to the ball room.“Oh, dear, no,” she said, drawing off her gloves, “I had much rather stay here and talk with John; beside, I am tired. I had a long sail on the lake to-day, and drove out with Cousin Herrara this afternoon. Please unfasten my bracelet,” and she extended her arm to me.As I took her soft white arm in my hand can you wonder that I pretended to be awkward, that I might prolong the undoing of it?“Aproposof the ball, John,” she said, while I was fumbling at the bracelet, “Mr. Monte asked the privilege of introducing two friends, Mr. Finnock and Mr. Smith. Did he refer to you?”I told her he did, and what a romantic fervor I felt after I had seen her at the railway, and she and father rallied me on losing it as soon as I found her out, and mother helped me to deny it, and we were all so pleasant together we forgot the lapse of time. Looking at my watch and finding it nearly day, I bade them good night, and went to my room.Like a child with a new toy, I felt a continual surprise and delight that the brilliant belle of the Springs wasmyCarlotta. Mine? The thought of Cousin Herrara placed a very large mark of interrogation after that word. As all indications pointed to the fact that she was his, and would ere long leave our home, the question came to me, bitterly: Can I give her up?
CHAPTER XXXI.Apologizingfor the prolixity of my last chapter on drunkenness only by the hope that a recital of my own ridiculous behavior may induce some slave of Bacchus, who may recognize any part of the account as familiar, to renounce his allegiance and be free, I invite my readers to take another skip with me.A year has passed and it is Commencement week. I am a Junior, while Frank is to graduate.Since his defeat, last year, for Marshal, he has gone rapidly down, till he has lost all moral and social position in college. He is drunk nearly all the time, and has gathered around himself a crowd of low associates, that place him almost beyond the pale of recognition. We have had very little intercourse since his defeat, though I have recently desired to notice him more out of pity than anything else, because so many others cut him. His brilliant mind, in spite of his dissipation, still achieves something in his studies, and it is thought he will get one of the honors in his class.The Saturday before Commencement he surprised me very much by coming to our room with an open letter in his hand, and saying:“John, I have just received a letter from Lulie. She and one or two of the Wilmington girls are coming up to our Commencement, and, as I will be busy in speech making and graduating, I must beg you to help me out in attending to them.”“It will give me great pleasure to do so,” I replied. “What day will they get here?”“On Monday,” he said, looking at the letter. “I believe you have not been to Wilmington since your father left, but you used to know all these ladies. You must introduce some fellows to them, so they will have a pleasant time.”“Of course I will; but take a seat, Frank, you have not been in my room before in a long time.”“No, thank you, I have an engagement at twelve.”He left the room, and I sat for some time in unpleasant reflection. If Lulie came to Chapel Hill, and received attention from Frank and his set, she would be put down as second class, and my circle of friends would hardly wait on her, even at my request. Knowing her high social positionat home, I knew that Dr. Mayland, as well as herself, would be deeply mortified when they knew the character of her associates, if she visited Chapel Hill under Frank’s auspices; on the other hand, if I went to her and warned her when she came she would regard my information as a fiction of my prejudice against Frank, and despise me for it. Yet I felt sure he did not love and respect her, for only a day or two before he had said, when I asked if he were going to be married after Commencement, that he was going to see something of life first, that Lulie would keep for a year or two yet without spoiling, and that, even if she did prove false and love another, he had about tired of her.After thinking over the matter I determined to wait and see whom Frank introduced to her, as his own pride might induce him to select companions suitable to her refinement and culture.Going to the post-office that afternoon I received a letter from father, dated at London, saying that they would start the next day but one for the United States. They would land at Halifax, and come through Canada to Niagara, where they would wait for me to join them as soon as my college exercises were over. He spoke of the wondrous beauty of Carlotta, now that she was a woman, and said that fortunes and honors in profusion had been laid at her feet, but that she had refused all, and he did not think her heart had yet been touched. Her cousin, Herrara Lola, a young Cuban of rank and fortune, had joined them at Madrid, and had been travelling with them ever since. He was coming South with them to spend the summer and autumn, returning to Havana in the winter.“And your mother and I fear,” continued he, “that when he leaves he will take away with him our beautiful Carlotta.”I closed the letter with a great aching restlessness in my heart. Lose Carlotta! I had feared it ever since I had toldher farewell, but my heart had not dared to acknowledge even to itself the possibility of such a loss. As I had received letter after letter telling of her ever increasing charms of person and character, I had longed with a great desire to see her once again and tell her how I loved her far more than any other dared to love, a desire made all the stronger by its utter hopelessness. And I had taken out my little ringlet each day, and, kissing it tenderly, wondered if she kept her pledge and ever thought of me. As I had learned the past winter of her successfuldebutin society, and her numberless triumphs, I felt that my hopes were forever fallen. She would return now puffed up with pride and conscious of superiority, while I would only appear to her as a rustic younger brother, whom she would be ashamed to exhibit to the arrogant Herrara.“I won’t go to Niagara,” I said, savagely, crumpling the letter in my hand; “they will all look down on me now, and even father and mother will think I lack polish, after their European tour, for travel invariably breeds conceit.”I took up myHeraldto divert my thoughts, and running my eyes over its columns, saw the following among the marriage announcements:“Marshman—Carrover. At the residence of the bride’s uncle, Mr. Isaac T. Carrover, No.——Fifth Avenue, by the Rev. Dr. Deeler, assisted by the Rev. Mr. Prynn, Hon. Palmer Marshman, M. C. for the—th Congressional District, to Miss Lillian Carrover. No cards.”Poor Marshman, thought I, the rose leaves are plucked, only thorns for thee!
Apologizingfor the prolixity of my last chapter on drunkenness only by the hope that a recital of my own ridiculous behavior may induce some slave of Bacchus, who may recognize any part of the account as familiar, to renounce his allegiance and be free, I invite my readers to take another skip with me.
A year has passed and it is Commencement week. I am a Junior, while Frank is to graduate.
Since his defeat, last year, for Marshal, he has gone rapidly down, till he has lost all moral and social position in college. He is drunk nearly all the time, and has gathered around himself a crowd of low associates, that place him almost beyond the pale of recognition. We have had very little intercourse since his defeat, though I have recently desired to notice him more out of pity than anything else, because so many others cut him. His brilliant mind, in spite of his dissipation, still achieves something in his studies, and it is thought he will get one of the honors in his class.
The Saturday before Commencement he surprised me very much by coming to our room with an open letter in his hand, and saying:
“John, I have just received a letter from Lulie. She and one or two of the Wilmington girls are coming up to our Commencement, and, as I will be busy in speech making and graduating, I must beg you to help me out in attending to them.”
“It will give me great pleasure to do so,” I replied. “What day will they get here?”
“On Monday,” he said, looking at the letter. “I believe you have not been to Wilmington since your father left, but you used to know all these ladies. You must introduce some fellows to them, so they will have a pleasant time.”
“Of course I will; but take a seat, Frank, you have not been in my room before in a long time.”
“No, thank you, I have an engagement at twelve.”
He left the room, and I sat for some time in unpleasant reflection. If Lulie came to Chapel Hill, and received attention from Frank and his set, she would be put down as second class, and my circle of friends would hardly wait on her, even at my request. Knowing her high social positionat home, I knew that Dr. Mayland, as well as herself, would be deeply mortified when they knew the character of her associates, if she visited Chapel Hill under Frank’s auspices; on the other hand, if I went to her and warned her when she came she would regard my information as a fiction of my prejudice against Frank, and despise me for it. Yet I felt sure he did not love and respect her, for only a day or two before he had said, when I asked if he were going to be married after Commencement, that he was going to see something of life first, that Lulie would keep for a year or two yet without spoiling, and that, even if she did prove false and love another, he had about tired of her.
After thinking over the matter I determined to wait and see whom Frank introduced to her, as his own pride might induce him to select companions suitable to her refinement and culture.
Going to the post-office that afternoon I received a letter from father, dated at London, saying that they would start the next day but one for the United States. They would land at Halifax, and come through Canada to Niagara, where they would wait for me to join them as soon as my college exercises were over. He spoke of the wondrous beauty of Carlotta, now that she was a woman, and said that fortunes and honors in profusion had been laid at her feet, but that she had refused all, and he did not think her heart had yet been touched. Her cousin, Herrara Lola, a young Cuban of rank and fortune, had joined them at Madrid, and had been travelling with them ever since. He was coming South with them to spend the summer and autumn, returning to Havana in the winter.
“And your mother and I fear,” continued he, “that when he leaves he will take away with him our beautiful Carlotta.”
I closed the letter with a great aching restlessness in my heart. Lose Carlotta! I had feared it ever since I had toldher farewell, but my heart had not dared to acknowledge even to itself the possibility of such a loss. As I had received letter after letter telling of her ever increasing charms of person and character, I had longed with a great desire to see her once again and tell her how I loved her far more than any other dared to love, a desire made all the stronger by its utter hopelessness. And I had taken out my little ringlet each day, and, kissing it tenderly, wondered if she kept her pledge and ever thought of me. As I had learned the past winter of her successfuldebutin society, and her numberless triumphs, I felt that my hopes were forever fallen. She would return now puffed up with pride and conscious of superiority, while I would only appear to her as a rustic younger brother, whom she would be ashamed to exhibit to the arrogant Herrara.
“I won’t go to Niagara,” I said, savagely, crumpling the letter in my hand; “they will all look down on me now, and even father and mother will think I lack polish, after their European tour, for travel invariably breeds conceit.”
I took up myHeraldto divert my thoughts, and running my eyes over its columns, saw the following among the marriage announcements:
“Marshman—Carrover. At the residence of the bride’s uncle, Mr. Isaac T. Carrover, No.——Fifth Avenue, by the Rev. Dr. Deeler, assisted by the Rev. Mr. Prynn, Hon. Palmer Marshman, M. C. for the—th Congressional District, to Miss Lillian Carrover. No cards.”
Poor Marshman, thought I, the rose leaves are plucked, only thorns for thee!
CHAPTER XXXII.WhenFrank and I entered the parlor of the hotel, after sending up our cards to Lulie and the other ladies fromWilmington, we found the room full of company. Strange faces among the ladies, and familiar faces among the students, were grouped on every side. All were bowing, smiling and talking in the most eager and interested manner, as they filled their dancing cards with engagements for the ball, or brought forward friends to be introduced. We had only to wait a few moments, when we heard light footfalls and the rustle of dresses on the stairway, and the next instant Lulie and her two friends came into the room and greeted us cordially.What a fairy vision of loveliness was Lulie! Her exquisite figure, aspetiteas Titania’s, perfect in the bloom of womanhood, a vine-work of brown ringlets clustering around her shoulders, a sparkle in her bright eyes, and a roseate hue on her dimpled cheeks! The same beautiful being I had once adored, though more perfect now in her bewitching loveliness; the same cherry lips I had kissed before the nursery fire; the same roguish glance that had so often brought my heart into my mouth, as our eyes met across Miss Hester’s school room, and the same silvery laugh that I had thought was the sweetest music in the world. A tinge of sadness came over me as I bowed over her hand and thought of what might have been.We passed a half hour very pleasantly, talking about old times and scenes, and making engagements for the festive occasions before us; but oh! what a yearning desire I felt to shield her from all possible harm, as I marked her fond looks turned, so often and trustfully, towards Frank’s bloated though still handsome features.I was to escort her that night to the “Fresh” Declamation, and when we walked up the brilliantly lighted aisle of the chapel, which was thronged with the beauty of the State, I saw many a look of intense admiration directed towards the little fairy on my arm. Next morning a score of my friends came to ask the favor of an introduction, sothat Lulie held quite a levee down at her hotel, though each one who called asked me in some surprise afterwards, how she came to be so intimate with “that fellow, Paning.”Frank carried her that night to the “Soph.” speaking, and I could not but feel ashamed for her, as I marked the looks of surprise and coldness on the faces of my acquaintances, who, I felt sure, to a certain extent, classed her by her escort. After the speaking we had a little hop in the ball room, and I noticed she remained in the room only a short time, dancing one or two sets with Frank’s friends, men whom Dr. Mayland would have ordered from his parlor. I felt it was my imperative duty to advise her of it all, but I was so sure that she would attribute all my counsel to prejudice against Frank, and despise me for it, that I hesitated and delayed.Next morning, while I was lying across my bed, enjoying the perfumed breeze that floated up from the flowery campus, Harrow, a friend and classmate, came in and sat down by me.“Say, Smith!” he said, shading a match with his hands to keep it from being blown out, and speaking on each side of his cigar, “is that little beauty who was with Paning last night a friend of yours?”“Yes,” I yawned; “why do you ask?”“Because if she was anything to me I would either whip Paning or carry her away from here.”“Why? What do you mean?” I asked, rising up on one elbow.“Well, well,” he said, tossing the match out of the window, “it’s none of my business, perhaps; so let it be.”“No, but you must tell me, Harrow; what have you seen or heard? The young lady and I at one time were great friends, and I still esteem her very highly, though she has not liked me much since that scoundrel Paning has taken possession of her heart. But I will do everythingI can to serve her now. What do you know about them?” I rose up and sat by him on the edge of the bed.“Paning does not respect her much, does he?” he asked, blowing smoke rings in the sunlight.“No, that’s just it. She believes him to be the purest and best under Heaven, and trusts him blindly, while he, a villain, is trifling with her, and keeps her love only because he is proud of it. If he respected her he would not obtrude his polluted presence on her. But tell me, Harrow, what you know about her,” I continued; “if you wish, I will keep secret all you confide.”“The deuce, no,” he said quickly; “I do not care for Paning. I would tell him about it myself, only I have no right to interfere.”“Speak on, Harrow; what is it?”“Well, for one thing, the very fact that she receives attention from such fellows as Paning and Donnery has lowered her in the estimation of your acquaintances; and then, even during the short time she has been here, those low fellows have originated enough scandal about her to damn a dozen women at the social bar.”“No! Harrow, you cannot mean that; I have not heard one word against her.”“Of course not,” he said, smoking vigorously; “nobody speaks of it before you.”“She’s as pure as an angel,” I said, indignantly.“I believe she is,” he replied, lolling back on the pillow; “but if she allows Paning to carry her into the company he does, she will not be thought so by others. Last night I had no lady with me, and, getting tired of dancing, I went up into the library, which you know was lit up for promenading couples. When it was pretty late, and everybody had gone down, I took down a book, and, reclining on a sofa in one of the alcoves, began to read. I had not read far before Donnery and another low fellow came into thelibrary, each with a lady, or I had better say woman on his arm. They made some show of looking at the books and paintings, and while thus engaged Paning and Miss Mayland came in. She was leaning on his arm with an air of devotion and confidence I have never seen equalled, and they were speaking in soft, loving tones. Donnery met them, and, in his coarse way, introduced his companions. After some noisy conversation, full of slang and rude jest, they agreed that the hop was a bore, and Donnery said he would go down to Muggs’ and get some wine if they would wait and drink it in the library. They all assented except Miss Mayland, and I distinctly heard her ask Paning to see her home; but he vowed she must not leave yet, and she remained, though I knew from her silence that she felt out of place and ill at ease. When Donnery returned they took the librarian’s table and made a gay party around it. Though I could not see them, I knew that Miss Mayland was blushing at the songs and toasts that passed around; and I inferred, by Paning’s calling out in a loud tone, ‘No, not yet, Lulie,’ that she was again begging him to leave.”“Harrow, did all this really occur as you have described it?” I asked, in indignant astonishment.“It did, upon my honor,” he replied. “Several ladies and gentlemen, on coming to the library door and seeing who were in there, turned back down stairs, and soon after I left myself.”“I’ll tell her of it to-day,” I said, throwing off my slippers and drawing on my boots. “Paning must be the veriest villain alive to take the woman he loves, or pretends to love, into such company.”“He certainly did so,” said Harrow; “and, as I said before, I heard much comment this morning from those who saw Miss Mayland with such a set.”When he rose to go I thanked him for coming to me with the information, and begged that he would explain andapologize for her presence in the library with Donnery and company to those whose opinion I valued, and whom he might hear allude to it.During the day I was engaged so that I could not procure an interview with Lulie, and, much to my regret and annoyance, I saw her walk in the Chapel in the afternoon on Donnery’s arm, while his coarse face was lit up with an expression of triumph as he took his seat “among the high up ones,” as he said in a loud whisper to one of his friends leaning in the window.That night the ball was to come off; and, as I buttoned my kids, and gave the last adjusting pull to the waist of my “spike,” I resolved that, as soon as I had paid the required courtesies to the lady I was going with, I would seek Lulie, and, whether it offended her or not, give her my last warning against Frank.It was with difficulty I found her amid the throng that swayed and surged through the ball room. She was in rather a retired corner, receiving very little attention from any one. She had few engagements or none for the dance, and her usually bright face wore an expression of weariness and mental pain as I approached. She welcomed me gladly, and accepted my proposal to stroll in the campus with eagerness. The avenues were lit up, as there was no moon, and strolling down one of these, we turned aside to a rustic seat beneath a large oak. It was a quiet and secluded place; even the music in the ball room sounded soft and indistinct across the maze of shrubbery.The opportunity was now mine, but I shrank from my duty. She would not appreciate my motives, I was sure, and would repel my counsel with scorn and indignation. Yet could I suffer Frank to betray her into imprudences that would tinge the purity of her character? Could I permit his villainous designs, palpable to all eyes but hers, to go unexposed? Could I see her threatened with evil shewould not suspect till it was too late to avert it, and not warn her? No, however thankless my task might prove, for the sake of her dead mother I would tell her of her danger.“Lulie!” I said, after some moments of silence and reflection on my part.“What is it, Sir Solemnity?” she replied, looking into my face by the dim light of the distant lamps.“I wish to speak to you on a very important and delicate subject, and I want you to promise me that you will believe my motives pure and disinterested in so doing. Do not fear that I am going to renew the fishing scene of our childhood; I know too well that my love is hopeless. Let memory sleep; ‘tis of the present now I wish to speak; and I want you to take off your glove and put your hand in mine, and if in what I am going to say you believe there is one single word prompted by aught save the most sacred friendship, instantly withdraw it, and I will say no more.”She undid the lace-edged kid with a slight tremor in her fingers, and, dropping it heedlessly on the ground, laid her little hand confidingly in mine.“There is my hand, John,” she said, “but you really frighten me with your solemn preface.”“Well, then,” I replied, with an effort at a smile, unheeded, perhaps, in the darkness, “to come directly to the point, do you love Frank?”I felt a quiver in her fingers as she said:“Dear John, do not be offended, but we must not talk on that subject. I know what you would say, but ‘tis useless; I cannot believe you.”“But, Lulie, perhaps you do not know how important it is that we should speak on this subject. Will you answer another question, then? Do you believe that Frank loves you?”She drew her head back with the merest touch of pride, and said, with a tinge of steel in her tone:“Yes, I do believe he loves me, because he has proved it in a thousand ways; and I do not fear to answer your first question. I do love him with all my heart. There! that confession is unladylike, but I make it to you alone.”I bowed in acknowledgment and continued:“Pardon me again, Lulie dear, for pursuing my catechism. You were in the library last night?”“Yes!”“Do you know the character of those to whom Frank introduced you, and with whom he forced you to spend an hour?”She made no reply, but I could feel her hand growing cold as the blood left it for her burning cheeks.“Do you know the social and moral position of those men he has permitted to wait on you since your stay here? Do you know how he speaks of you to others? Dearest little friend, though you hate me for it, Imustwarn you. Frank does not love, does not even respect you. He only retains your love as a trophy of his power. As God knows my heart, I have no motive but to save you. Will you heed me, Lulie?”She drew her hand quickly from mine, and, covering her face, remained silent a long while; then putting it back in mine, she said, with a sad earnestness I can never forget:“I do not doubt the sincerity of your motives, John; but your words are wasted. Frank has loved me too long and too fondly for me to desert him now at your bidding. ‘Twas naughty of him, I know, to carry me into bad company, but he did it thoughtlessly, and I forgive him for it.”“But, Lulie”—— I interposed.“No; let’s not speak of it any further. You cannot know how strangely sad I feel. A great gloom has fallen on my heart, which, indeed, has been hanging over it since I came here; and oh—I do so want to lean on mother’s breast and cry. Dear John, I shall ever love you dearly foryour kind interest in me,” and before I could prevent it she lifted my hand to her lips and kissed it; “but you are mistaken about Frank.Iknow that he loves me, and God knows that I love him, and will trust him even to death.”We rose from our seats, but instead of returning to the ball room, she asked me to see her to the hotel, where I bade her good night and came back up the campus. As I passed by the seat we occupied, something white in the darkness caught my eye, and on picking it up I found that it was her glove, which she had dropped while we were talking. On taking it to the light I found that some one, in passing, had trodden upon it, and ground it into the damp earth, soiling it hopelessly.“Heaven grant it may not be a type of her life!” I said fervently, as I laid it in my bosom.
WhenFrank and I entered the parlor of the hotel, after sending up our cards to Lulie and the other ladies fromWilmington, we found the room full of company. Strange faces among the ladies, and familiar faces among the students, were grouped on every side. All were bowing, smiling and talking in the most eager and interested manner, as they filled their dancing cards with engagements for the ball, or brought forward friends to be introduced. We had only to wait a few moments, when we heard light footfalls and the rustle of dresses on the stairway, and the next instant Lulie and her two friends came into the room and greeted us cordially.
What a fairy vision of loveliness was Lulie! Her exquisite figure, aspetiteas Titania’s, perfect in the bloom of womanhood, a vine-work of brown ringlets clustering around her shoulders, a sparkle in her bright eyes, and a roseate hue on her dimpled cheeks! The same beautiful being I had once adored, though more perfect now in her bewitching loveliness; the same cherry lips I had kissed before the nursery fire; the same roguish glance that had so often brought my heart into my mouth, as our eyes met across Miss Hester’s school room, and the same silvery laugh that I had thought was the sweetest music in the world. A tinge of sadness came over me as I bowed over her hand and thought of what might have been.
We passed a half hour very pleasantly, talking about old times and scenes, and making engagements for the festive occasions before us; but oh! what a yearning desire I felt to shield her from all possible harm, as I marked her fond looks turned, so often and trustfully, towards Frank’s bloated though still handsome features.
I was to escort her that night to the “Fresh” Declamation, and when we walked up the brilliantly lighted aisle of the chapel, which was thronged with the beauty of the State, I saw many a look of intense admiration directed towards the little fairy on my arm. Next morning a score of my friends came to ask the favor of an introduction, sothat Lulie held quite a levee down at her hotel, though each one who called asked me in some surprise afterwards, how she came to be so intimate with “that fellow, Paning.”
Frank carried her that night to the “Soph.” speaking, and I could not but feel ashamed for her, as I marked the looks of surprise and coldness on the faces of my acquaintances, who, I felt sure, to a certain extent, classed her by her escort. After the speaking we had a little hop in the ball room, and I noticed she remained in the room only a short time, dancing one or two sets with Frank’s friends, men whom Dr. Mayland would have ordered from his parlor. I felt it was my imperative duty to advise her of it all, but I was so sure that she would attribute all my counsel to prejudice against Frank, and despise me for it, that I hesitated and delayed.
Next morning, while I was lying across my bed, enjoying the perfumed breeze that floated up from the flowery campus, Harrow, a friend and classmate, came in and sat down by me.
“Say, Smith!” he said, shading a match with his hands to keep it from being blown out, and speaking on each side of his cigar, “is that little beauty who was with Paning last night a friend of yours?”
“Yes,” I yawned; “why do you ask?”
“Because if she was anything to me I would either whip Paning or carry her away from here.”
“Why? What do you mean?” I asked, rising up on one elbow.
“Well, well,” he said, tossing the match out of the window, “it’s none of my business, perhaps; so let it be.”
“No, but you must tell me, Harrow; what have you seen or heard? The young lady and I at one time were great friends, and I still esteem her very highly, though she has not liked me much since that scoundrel Paning has taken possession of her heart. But I will do everythingI can to serve her now. What do you know about them?” I rose up and sat by him on the edge of the bed.
“Paning does not respect her much, does he?” he asked, blowing smoke rings in the sunlight.
“No, that’s just it. She believes him to be the purest and best under Heaven, and trusts him blindly, while he, a villain, is trifling with her, and keeps her love only because he is proud of it. If he respected her he would not obtrude his polluted presence on her. But tell me, Harrow, what you know about her,” I continued; “if you wish, I will keep secret all you confide.”
“The deuce, no,” he said quickly; “I do not care for Paning. I would tell him about it myself, only I have no right to interfere.”
“Speak on, Harrow; what is it?”
“Well, for one thing, the very fact that she receives attention from such fellows as Paning and Donnery has lowered her in the estimation of your acquaintances; and then, even during the short time she has been here, those low fellows have originated enough scandal about her to damn a dozen women at the social bar.”
“No! Harrow, you cannot mean that; I have not heard one word against her.”
“Of course not,” he said, smoking vigorously; “nobody speaks of it before you.”
“She’s as pure as an angel,” I said, indignantly.
“I believe she is,” he replied, lolling back on the pillow; “but if she allows Paning to carry her into the company he does, she will not be thought so by others. Last night I had no lady with me, and, getting tired of dancing, I went up into the library, which you know was lit up for promenading couples. When it was pretty late, and everybody had gone down, I took down a book, and, reclining on a sofa in one of the alcoves, began to read. I had not read far before Donnery and another low fellow came into thelibrary, each with a lady, or I had better say woman on his arm. They made some show of looking at the books and paintings, and while thus engaged Paning and Miss Mayland came in. She was leaning on his arm with an air of devotion and confidence I have never seen equalled, and they were speaking in soft, loving tones. Donnery met them, and, in his coarse way, introduced his companions. After some noisy conversation, full of slang and rude jest, they agreed that the hop was a bore, and Donnery said he would go down to Muggs’ and get some wine if they would wait and drink it in the library. They all assented except Miss Mayland, and I distinctly heard her ask Paning to see her home; but he vowed she must not leave yet, and she remained, though I knew from her silence that she felt out of place and ill at ease. When Donnery returned they took the librarian’s table and made a gay party around it. Though I could not see them, I knew that Miss Mayland was blushing at the songs and toasts that passed around; and I inferred, by Paning’s calling out in a loud tone, ‘No, not yet, Lulie,’ that she was again begging him to leave.”
“Harrow, did all this really occur as you have described it?” I asked, in indignant astonishment.
“It did, upon my honor,” he replied. “Several ladies and gentlemen, on coming to the library door and seeing who were in there, turned back down stairs, and soon after I left myself.”
“I’ll tell her of it to-day,” I said, throwing off my slippers and drawing on my boots. “Paning must be the veriest villain alive to take the woman he loves, or pretends to love, into such company.”
“He certainly did so,” said Harrow; “and, as I said before, I heard much comment this morning from those who saw Miss Mayland with such a set.”
When he rose to go I thanked him for coming to me with the information, and begged that he would explain andapologize for her presence in the library with Donnery and company to those whose opinion I valued, and whom he might hear allude to it.
During the day I was engaged so that I could not procure an interview with Lulie, and, much to my regret and annoyance, I saw her walk in the Chapel in the afternoon on Donnery’s arm, while his coarse face was lit up with an expression of triumph as he took his seat “among the high up ones,” as he said in a loud whisper to one of his friends leaning in the window.
That night the ball was to come off; and, as I buttoned my kids, and gave the last adjusting pull to the waist of my “spike,” I resolved that, as soon as I had paid the required courtesies to the lady I was going with, I would seek Lulie, and, whether it offended her or not, give her my last warning against Frank.
It was with difficulty I found her amid the throng that swayed and surged through the ball room. She was in rather a retired corner, receiving very little attention from any one. She had few engagements or none for the dance, and her usually bright face wore an expression of weariness and mental pain as I approached. She welcomed me gladly, and accepted my proposal to stroll in the campus with eagerness. The avenues were lit up, as there was no moon, and strolling down one of these, we turned aside to a rustic seat beneath a large oak. It was a quiet and secluded place; even the music in the ball room sounded soft and indistinct across the maze of shrubbery.
The opportunity was now mine, but I shrank from my duty. She would not appreciate my motives, I was sure, and would repel my counsel with scorn and indignation. Yet could I suffer Frank to betray her into imprudences that would tinge the purity of her character? Could I permit his villainous designs, palpable to all eyes but hers, to go unexposed? Could I see her threatened with evil shewould not suspect till it was too late to avert it, and not warn her? No, however thankless my task might prove, for the sake of her dead mother I would tell her of her danger.
“Lulie!” I said, after some moments of silence and reflection on my part.
“What is it, Sir Solemnity?” she replied, looking into my face by the dim light of the distant lamps.
“I wish to speak to you on a very important and delicate subject, and I want you to promise me that you will believe my motives pure and disinterested in so doing. Do not fear that I am going to renew the fishing scene of our childhood; I know too well that my love is hopeless. Let memory sleep; ‘tis of the present now I wish to speak; and I want you to take off your glove and put your hand in mine, and if in what I am going to say you believe there is one single word prompted by aught save the most sacred friendship, instantly withdraw it, and I will say no more.”
She undid the lace-edged kid with a slight tremor in her fingers, and, dropping it heedlessly on the ground, laid her little hand confidingly in mine.
“There is my hand, John,” she said, “but you really frighten me with your solemn preface.”
“Well, then,” I replied, with an effort at a smile, unheeded, perhaps, in the darkness, “to come directly to the point, do you love Frank?”
I felt a quiver in her fingers as she said:
“Dear John, do not be offended, but we must not talk on that subject. I know what you would say, but ‘tis useless; I cannot believe you.”
“But, Lulie, perhaps you do not know how important it is that we should speak on this subject. Will you answer another question, then? Do you believe that Frank loves you?”
She drew her head back with the merest touch of pride, and said, with a tinge of steel in her tone:
“Yes, I do believe he loves me, because he has proved it in a thousand ways; and I do not fear to answer your first question. I do love him with all my heart. There! that confession is unladylike, but I make it to you alone.”
I bowed in acknowledgment and continued:
“Pardon me again, Lulie dear, for pursuing my catechism. You were in the library last night?”
“Yes!”
“Do you know the character of those to whom Frank introduced you, and with whom he forced you to spend an hour?”
She made no reply, but I could feel her hand growing cold as the blood left it for her burning cheeks.
“Do you know the social and moral position of those men he has permitted to wait on you since your stay here? Do you know how he speaks of you to others? Dearest little friend, though you hate me for it, Imustwarn you. Frank does not love, does not even respect you. He only retains your love as a trophy of his power. As God knows my heart, I have no motive but to save you. Will you heed me, Lulie?”
She drew her hand quickly from mine, and, covering her face, remained silent a long while; then putting it back in mine, she said, with a sad earnestness I can never forget:
“I do not doubt the sincerity of your motives, John; but your words are wasted. Frank has loved me too long and too fondly for me to desert him now at your bidding. ‘Twas naughty of him, I know, to carry me into bad company, but he did it thoughtlessly, and I forgive him for it.”
“But, Lulie”—— I interposed.
“No; let’s not speak of it any further. You cannot know how strangely sad I feel. A great gloom has fallen on my heart, which, indeed, has been hanging over it since I came here; and oh—I do so want to lean on mother’s breast and cry. Dear John, I shall ever love you dearly foryour kind interest in me,” and before I could prevent it she lifted my hand to her lips and kissed it; “but you are mistaken about Frank.Iknow that he loves me, and God knows that I love him, and will trust him even to death.”
We rose from our seats, but instead of returning to the ball room, she asked me to see her to the hotel, where I bade her good night and came back up the campus. As I passed by the seat we occupied, something white in the darkness caught my eye, and on picking it up I found that it was her glove, which she had dropped while we were talking. On taking it to the light I found that some one, in passing, had trodden upon it, and ground it into the damp earth, soiling it hopelessly.
“Heaven grant it may not be a type of her life!” I said fervently, as I laid it in my bosom.
CHAPTER XXXIII.I concluded, after all, to go North. What if father, mother and Carlotta had travelled while I was studying in a quiet little village? I felt equal to them in learning, and resolved that I would be in manners and polish.I spent a few days in New York, which was very dull, as everybody was off at the summer resorts. With a pretty heavy draught on father’s bankers, I filled a trunk or two with the latest styles and started for Saratoga, where I would spend a few days before joining our family party at Niagara.Having paid the hackman as much again as his legal fare, and having seen my trunks checked through, I took my seat on a stool at one side of the already crowded deck of the Hudson river boat, which was steaming and hissing at thewharf like a chained griffin, and gazed, with the interest of novelty, at the scene before me. The long forests of masts and yards, with here and there a graceful flag or long fluttering streamer; the busy, fussy tugs, running hither and thither like noisy gossips, coughing and sneezing with bad colds; the patient jades of ferry boats, with their anxious human cargo, hardly waiting for the dropping of the chains; the ocean steamer looming its dark hull in the offing, and curling its black festoons of smoke on the morning sky; the white sailed skiffs leaning gracefully from the wooing wind, and the small row boat which a bare-armed sailor is sculling right under our prow, his blue jacket lying on the seat behind him, and the motion of his body, as he rocks from side to side, slushing the water about in the bottom of the boat, and wetting one sleeve of the jacket on the seat; the anchored ships, here and there, looking like immense laundries, with their rigging and sides covered with the clothes of the crew, all made me forget for a moment my own existence, till I was aroused to a consciousness of it by a shrill voice piping in my ear, “Herald!Times!Tribune!”Having bought a paper, I turned round on my stool and commenced to read. People continued to crowd in; a hoarse whistle from our boat, or some other, I could not tell which, a few taps on a very hoarse bell, and with a shiver, as if the water was cold, we glided from the wharf.I had read, perhaps, half a column when the rustle of a dress against my crossed feet attracted my attention, and I peeped under the edge of my paper. It was a very handsome black silk, and, being caught up over my foot, showed a beautiful bootee beneath it—an interesting bootee of purple glove kid, with a dainty high heel, and a firm curving instep—a bootee tapping the deck carelessly, as if about to execute a pirouette on its flexible toe. Standing against the silk dress, close to the bootee, was a pair of boots—large,dignified boots—with broad heels and thick soles, and coming down over their flat insteps were black pant legs. Lifting the edge of my paper a little I came in sight of the skirt of a black cloth coat, and hanging down by the skirt of the coat was a large white hand holding a morocco travelling bag—the hand of a middle aged man, white on the fingers and near the thumbs, and shaded with dark hairs on the side toward the little finger, on which was an onyx seal ring with P. M. in monogram. I knew the bootee belonged to a pretty woman, and the boots and hand to an intelligent elderly man, and to confirm my surmisings I took down the paper with a rattle and looked up at them. The lady turned her head and looked down at me the same instant.“Why, Mr. Smith! is it possible?” she exclaimed.“Miss Carrover!” I said, rising and blushing.“Mrs. Marshman, sir. Mr. Marshman! an old friend of mine, Mr. Smith, of North Carolina.”Mr. Marshman, a frowning man, with heavy gray brows and a grayer moustache, gave me his hand and a “glad to know you, sir.”“Let me make you acquainted with our party,” said Mrs. Marshman, turning to two ladies and a gentleman, “Mr. Finnock! Mr. Smith, Miss Sappho Finnock! Miss Stelway!”I made my obeisance, and, completing the usual commonplace remarks, “took in” the party.Mrs. Marshman, as beautiful as ever, but a trifle more mature and less dashing; Mr. Marshman, as above described; Mr. Finnock, a pale young man, with very blue eyes and very red lids, and light mossy side whiskers; he was exquisite in style and supercilious in demeanor, and very much devoted to Miss Stelway, a dark skinned young lady, with a short upper lip and very large front teeth, who looked at everything on the river with an opera glass, and whose conversational powers seemed limited to the constant ejaculation of:“See there, how pretty!”She was rich, though Finnock’s attentionsmayhave been disinterested.Miss Sappho Finnock was a little lady, not very young, with thin, sandy hair, which she plastered, classically, around her forehead, and wore in wiry little curls around the back of her neck. Her eyes were as blue as her brother’s, and were “near” in their sight, so that she wore circular gold-rimmed glasses, that magnified her eyes ludicrously when seen through them. She wore fawn gauntlets, and her fingers, when she drew off her gloves, were thin and bluish towards the ends. Her waist was straight from her arms to her skirt, and her neck long and corded. She was constantly taking notes in a gilt-edged book, and peeping at me sideways under her glasses, as I sat by her, which I did most of the way up the river. She opened her eyes a little wider whenever she spoke, as if she was surprised at her own voice, and spoke with a sudden quickness and a little jerk out of her head, as if she wanted to throw the words at you. I soon found that as Mr. Marshman would not give up Lillian, nor Finnock Miss Stelway, Miss Sappho Finnock was to be my companion for the voyage. I was not displeased, for she was entertaining for her very sentimentality, and was not disposed to laugh at any ignorance of the world I might betray, or any social solecism I might commit.In reply to Mrs. Marshman’s inquiries, I informed her that I was going first to Saratoga to spend a few days, thence to Niagara, where I would meet our family, just returned from Europe. At the mention of Europe, Finnock and Miss Stelway regarded me with more interest, and Miss Finnock increased her smiles and side glances.We all talked together for some time, when Mr. Marshman left us to go to his state room, Lillian took a novel from the morocco bag, and Finnock and Miss Stelway going tothe railing to lean over the water, nothing was left for Miss Finnock and myself, but to walk to the prow of the boat and take a couple of vacant seats that were there.“I always think of the Culprit Fay when I pass old Crow Nest” she said, arranging her skirt. “Are you not fond of poetry? I am, passionately.”“I enjoy poetry very much,” I said, not knowing how tame the reply would sound till I had made it.“I declare I almost cry when I think of that dear little Fay cleaving the waters to catch the crystal drop, while the great monsters swarm after him. What do you think is the most descriptive line in the poem, Mr. Smith.”“Confound Rodman Drake!” I muttered to myself, for I had not read his poem, having scarcely touched anything save my text-books since I had been at Chapel Hill. Fortunately, I remembered a lecture of our Professor of Rhetoric, on American poetry, in which he had quoted from the poem in question; I therefore replied, pausing as if to consider:“Really, Miss Finnock, the whole poem is so full of vivid descriptions and striking thoughts that it is hard to make a selection; but I think perhaps the finest passage is that which describes the firefly steed flinging a glittering spark behind.”“Ah, yes,” she replied, “I remember that. But I think the tiniest, sweetest idea is, ‘their wee faces giggling above the brine.’” To express thetinynessof an idea, she squinted her eyes painfully, and squeezed her forefingers and thumb together, as if she were holding a flea.“To tell the truth, Miss Finnock,” I said, hoping to take her out of her depth and thereby change the subject, “I greatly prefer the old classic writers, or even the earlier English poets, to the maudlin sentimentalists of the present day.”“Oh, you prefer the classics, do you?” she exclaimed, brightening her dim looking eyes, “then I am glad we arecongenial. Homer is too nervous in his style, but Pindar is so sweet; and Sappho—do you know I am named for her?—isn’t her poetry rapturous? and dear Horace, how pointed and terse he is. Do you know I have studied harder than anything his Art of Poetry, for I sometimes try to write verses myself. Did you ever write poetry? It is really difficult. And you say, too, you like the old English poets? How glad I am! I have a copy of Chaucer in my trunk, and we can read over some of his Canterbury Tales together. Then there’s Spencer; isn’t his Fairy Queen perfectly charming? And Sydney’s Arcadia, do you like that? Sometimes, when I am sad and gloomy, I even like to read the melancholy musings of poor John Ford. You’ve read Ford, have you not? and Marlowe?”Great Heaven! thought I; take her out of her depth indeed! I have only taken her into it. My only hope to change the subject, and prevent an exposure of my ignorance, is to speak of her own verses, as I know she will not quit that theme as long as I appear interested. I said, therefore, as soon as she ceased speaking,“You say that you write verses, Miss Finnock? I am sure they are lovely; and I would esteem it a very high honor and privilege to be permitted to read your composition.”“Oh, I could not think of it,” she said, with an attempt at a blush; “besides, my portfolio is in my trunk, and therefore inaccessible.”I protested my readiness to go below and have her trunk opened, that I might satisfy my desire to read her beautiful thoughts, and I insisted so earnestly that she would give me her keys and permit me to search, that she said, while she thanked me for my obliging spirit, she would not trouble me any farther than to get her reticule from Mrs. Marshman, for, if she was not mistaken, she had in that some verses on the Hudson that she had composed the summer before.Of course I was delighted to bring it to her; when she opened it and took out a yard and a quarter of printed poetry, which she commenced to read, first making me promise, a naughty boy, not to laugh at anything in it.She read the entire yard and a quarter with heaving bosom and unusually dilated optics; but I cannot inflict upon my readers more than an inch or two.The theme of the poem was the launching of the first steamboat, and in her eyes it seemed an epic fit for Virgil. The lines were these:THE HUDSON.“Oh thou mighty, sweeping, rushing river,Through thy cloud-reflecting bosom grand,With unfledged wheels the first steamboat proud-Ly plows, while on its trembling bulwarks standThe gay, triumphant and prophetic crowd.”“Oh, that is perfectly enchanting,” I exclaimed, when she had completed the ninety-third and last verse, feeling assured that, when she thought so highly of the effort herself, no commendation could be fulsome.“Pardon the abrupt praise, but Mrs. Browning could not have expressed the idea of the untried wheels more strikingly than you did, by the single word ‘unfledged.’”“You flatter me, indeed, sir,” she said, looking immensely pleased; “but, to be candid with you, I thought myself that the expression was original and effective. Can you imagine how I got such an idea?”“Not unless the fairies brought it to you,” I said, gallantly.“I was at Yonkers last summer, while composing this piece, and saw a young duck, with unfledged wings, learning to swim, and immediately I thought of the steamboat. Remarkable coincidence, was it not?”“Very remarkable, and all the more striking from that very fact,” I replied.“But the most striking stanza in the poem,” she continued, running her little thin fingers down the paper, and pinching it at a certain verse, “is the sixty-eighth. Do you remember it?”“They are all stamped so indelibly on my mind, by their wondrous power and beauty, that I cannot distinguish them by mere numbers; but I can easily recognize it if you will read it again.” This I said leaning forward with an increased air of attention and interest.“There is no merit about the lines, except that they convey to the mind a vivid impression of the circumstances,” she said, with a preparatory cough, and read:“And should a comet from the starry skyFall with its fiery tail along thy bed,Oh! what a yawning, cracking chasm dryWould stretch from parched mouth to fountain head.”“Miss Finnock!” I said, rapturously, “you are as daring as Milton in your conceptions. Even Dante does not surpass the appalling picture you draw. I can almost see the long, rugged chasm down which the ships are rolling over and over, snapping off their masts, the fish floundering in the steaming pools, while the red serpent of desolation winds its way down the hissing bed.”I did not deem it necessary to correct her astronomy by a hint at the nebulosity of comets, or at the absurdity of the idea that a tail, ten millions of miles long and half as many broad, could be squeezed into the channel of the Hudson. I could only admit to myself that if the tail of a comet was red hot, and small enough to fit the river, her picture of the effect of its fall was graphic.She thanked me with many blushes, and as I paused in my comments she folded up her poetry reluctantly, and returned it to her reticule. As the bag opened I saw a book in it, and my respect for her erudition, before which I positively trembled as she ran through the names I have mentioned,was considerably lessened as I recognized Spalding’s English Literature, and felt that her learning was “crammed.”As I felt as confident in my smattering as hers; I talked more boldly, and we spent the morning in a conversation on literature that would have made Porson envious at our attainments.When dinner was announced our party had a private table in the saloon, and I was embarrassed to find that Mr. Finnock and Miss Stelway were regarding my table deportment as if that was the Shibboleth on which they would cut or notice me. Miss Finnock, however, kept me more employed in attentions to the outer woman than to the inner man, so that I got on very well, except pouring her glass too full of wine and making too loud a sip when I tasted mine.Mr. Marshman had invited an elderly gentleman to dine with him, and was so absorbed in a political discussion that he completely ignored my presence; indeed, he seemed to forget that there was any one present except himself and his patient listener.Mrs. M. was much annoyed by his neglect of his guests, and wasted many nods and frowns on him. As he paid no attention to them she spoke to him:“Mr. Marshman, pass the claret to Mr. Smith.”But she might as well have addressed the post of the saloon, for Marshman was at that moment closing his most forcible argument in favor of his assumption.“Mr.Marshman!” exclaimed Lillian, a flush on her cheek and a flash in her eye, “do you know where you are? Mr. Smith’s glass is empty.”“Oh!—yes—pardon me, my dear,” turning with a confused smile to her, and anything but a smile to me as he ran my glass over with the crimson fluid.For a while there was an awkward pause, during which I felt very much embarrassed, as having been the innocent cause of the disturbance.Mrs. M. soon resumed her smile, and said:“Mr. Marshman thinks he is on the floor of the House whenever he gets to talking, and forgets his surroundings.”“Well, my dear,” he said, pouring out a glass of brandy, “excuse my absent-mindedness. Come, Mr. Debait, since they will not let us finish our discussion, we will have to join the young folks.”Mrs. Marshman gave him a sign to notice me, and he said, in a patronizing, Congressional way:“What are the times in North Carolina, Mr. Smith? Whom will your people support in the next Presidential election?”I was informing him that, as a student, I had not taken much interest in politics, when Mrs. M. cut in:“Mr. Marshman, you ought to observe Mr. Smith very closely. He is the only one who ever really flirted with me.”“Is he?” returned Mr. Marshman, trying to keep his good humor, though evidently disliking me. “What didIdo with your heart?”“Youflirt? Oh, life!” and Lillian laughed scornfully, as she looked around at us all. “I was afraid I was getting a littlepassé, and just took you when you proposed, which you did, you remember, with much agitation and tremulous fervor.”We all smiled, as was expected, except Mr. Marshman, who only drew his bushy brows a little nearer together.Lillian went on (as what woman will not when she is succeeding in a tease?).“You know, Pam, I put you off indefinitely; and, strange to tell, I received your first letter the very night Mr. Smith and I came so near loving. If he had talked differently then, perhaps the answer you received would have been different. You really owe him thanks.”But Mr. Marshman, instead of taking the jest, grew very red in the face, and, pushing his chair back, said, angrily:“You can make the change now, madam, if you desire it,” and left the saloon.We looked at Mrs. Marshman, but she was not in the least disconcerted.“Poor, dear Pam,” she said, running a spoon under the peel of an orange, “he loves me so dearly that he is morbidly jealous. I’ll have him pleasant by tea.”Miss Finnock occupied the remainder of the hour by making original remarks and comparisons, if similes without a shadow of similarity could be called original. She said the nut crackers were like adversity, because their crushing discovered the sound fruit; that Italian cream was like a coquette’s cheek, both pink and cold; that the heart of the melon was the heart of humanity, and the black seed black thoughts; that the lemon floating in the finger bowls was like the selfishness that mingles with the purest waters of life; and much more to the same effect.As Finnock preferred Miss Stelway to the wine, we left the table with the ladies, and going up on deck I excused myself for my siesta.As I turned over to the cool side of my pillow, and slid back the shutter to get the river breeze, I murmured as I dozed off:“If little Sappho won’t get in earnest I’ll make love to her, just for the fun of it.”Late in the afternoon we all met again on deck, and, to my surprise, Mr. Marshman was by Mrs. Marshman’s side, full of smiles and urbanity. I could not help thinking of Themistocles’ chain of government.Miss Finnock was unusually sentimental, and her style of conversation was a continual flow of heroic verse, with all the necessary inversions and syncope. She said that the river flashed its wavelet eyes beneath the sunset’s golden veil, that the mountains donned their purpled robes, their bald, bare summits, glory crowned: that the houses nestled‘long the shore like white ducks resting from their sport; the steamboats puffed like wearied beasts, the sail boats glided, graceful swans; and I have no doubt she would have gone on to personalities about her lonely heart and mine, had not her brother called her to Miss Stelway.As they had to spend a day in Albany, we parted there with many promises to renew our acquaintance at the Springs. The next day found me with good rooms at the Union Hotel, Saratoga. As I did not know a single person there, I found it, of course, very dull, and spent the day sauntering around to look at the various objects of interest. That night there was a ball at the Union, but there was such a press in the ball room that I might as well have been in the Mammoth Cave without a light, for all I could see.I retired early, leaving directions to the servant to call me soon in the morning.
I concluded, after all, to go North. What if father, mother and Carlotta had travelled while I was studying in a quiet little village? I felt equal to them in learning, and resolved that I would be in manners and polish.
I spent a few days in New York, which was very dull, as everybody was off at the summer resorts. With a pretty heavy draught on father’s bankers, I filled a trunk or two with the latest styles and started for Saratoga, where I would spend a few days before joining our family party at Niagara.
Having paid the hackman as much again as his legal fare, and having seen my trunks checked through, I took my seat on a stool at one side of the already crowded deck of the Hudson river boat, which was steaming and hissing at thewharf like a chained griffin, and gazed, with the interest of novelty, at the scene before me. The long forests of masts and yards, with here and there a graceful flag or long fluttering streamer; the busy, fussy tugs, running hither and thither like noisy gossips, coughing and sneezing with bad colds; the patient jades of ferry boats, with their anxious human cargo, hardly waiting for the dropping of the chains; the ocean steamer looming its dark hull in the offing, and curling its black festoons of smoke on the morning sky; the white sailed skiffs leaning gracefully from the wooing wind, and the small row boat which a bare-armed sailor is sculling right under our prow, his blue jacket lying on the seat behind him, and the motion of his body, as he rocks from side to side, slushing the water about in the bottom of the boat, and wetting one sleeve of the jacket on the seat; the anchored ships, here and there, looking like immense laundries, with their rigging and sides covered with the clothes of the crew, all made me forget for a moment my own existence, till I was aroused to a consciousness of it by a shrill voice piping in my ear, “Herald!Times!Tribune!”
Having bought a paper, I turned round on my stool and commenced to read. People continued to crowd in; a hoarse whistle from our boat, or some other, I could not tell which, a few taps on a very hoarse bell, and with a shiver, as if the water was cold, we glided from the wharf.
I had read, perhaps, half a column when the rustle of a dress against my crossed feet attracted my attention, and I peeped under the edge of my paper. It was a very handsome black silk, and, being caught up over my foot, showed a beautiful bootee beneath it—an interesting bootee of purple glove kid, with a dainty high heel, and a firm curving instep—a bootee tapping the deck carelessly, as if about to execute a pirouette on its flexible toe. Standing against the silk dress, close to the bootee, was a pair of boots—large,dignified boots—with broad heels and thick soles, and coming down over their flat insteps were black pant legs. Lifting the edge of my paper a little I came in sight of the skirt of a black cloth coat, and hanging down by the skirt of the coat was a large white hand holding a morocco travelling bag—the hand of a middle aged man, white on the fingers and near the thumbs, and shaded with dark hairs on the side toward the little finger, on which was an onyx seal ring with P. M. in monogram. I knew the bootee belonged to a pretty woman, and the boots and hand to an intelligent elderly man, and to confirm my surmisings I took down the paper with a rattle and looked up at them. The lady turned her head and looked down at me the same instant.
“Why, Mr. Smith! is it possible?” she exclaimed.
“Miss Carrover!” I said, rising and blushing.
“Mrs. Marshman, sir. Mr. Marshman! an old friend of mine, Mr. Smith, of North Carolina.”
Mr. Marshman, a frowning man, with heavy gray brows and a grayer moustache, gave me his hand and a “glad to know you, sir.”
“Let me make you acquainted with our party,” said Mrs. Marshman, turning to two ladies and a gentleman, “Mr. Finnock! Mr. Smith, Miss Sappho Finnock! Miss Stelway!”
I made my obeisance, and, completing the usual commonplace remarks, “took in” the party.
Mrs. Marshman, as beautiful as ever, but a trifle more mature and less dashing; Mr. Marshman, as above described; Mr. Finnock, a pale young man, with very blue eyes and very red lids, and light mossy side whiskers; he was exquisite in style and supercilious in demeanor, and very much devoted to Miss Stelway, a dark skinned young lady, with a short upper lip and very large front teeth, who looked at everything on the river with an opera glass, and whose conversational powers seemed limited to the constant ejaculation of:
“See there, how pretty!”
She was rich, though Finnock’s attentionsmayhave been disinterested.
Miss Sappho Finnock was a little lady, not very young, with thin, sandy hair, which she plastered, classically, around her forehead, and wore in wiry little curls around the back of her neck. Her eyes were as blue as her brother’s, and were “near” in their sight, so that she wore circular gold-rimmed glasses, that magnified her eyes ludicrously when seen through them. She wore fawn gauntlets, and her fingers, when she drew off her gloves, were thin and bluish towards the ends. Her waist was straight from her arms to her skirt, and her neck long and corded. She was constantly taking notes in a gilt-edged book, and peeping at me sideways under her glasses, as I sat by her, which I did most of the way up the river. She opened her eyes a little wider whenever she spoke, as if she was surprised at her own voice, and spoke with a sudden quickness and a little jerk out of her head, as if she wanted to throw the words at you. I soon found that as Mr. Marshman would not give up Lillian, nor Finnock Miss Stelway, Miss Sappho Finnock was to be my companion for the voyage. I was not displeased, for she was entertaining for her very sentimentality, and was not disposed to laugh at any ignorance of the world I might betray, or any social solecism I might commit.
In reply to Mrs. Marshman’s inquiries, I informed her that I was going first to Saratoga to spend a few days, thence to Niagara, where I would meet our family, just returned from Europe. At the mention of Europe, Finnock and Miss Stelway regarded me with more interest, and Miss Finnock increased her smiles and side glances.
We all talked together for some time, when Mr. Marshman left us to go to his state room, Lillian took a novel from the morocco bag, and Finnock and Miss Stelway going tothe railing to lean over the water, nothing was left for Miss Finnock and myself, but to walk to the prow of the boat and take a couple of vacant seats that were there.
“I always think of the Culprit Fay when I pass old Crow Nest” she said, arranging her skirt. “Are you not fond of poetry? I am, passionately.”
“I enjoy poetry very much,” I said, not knowing how tame the reply would sound till I had made it.
“I declare I almost cry when I think of that dear little Fay cleaving the waters to catch the crystal drop, while the great monsters swarm after him. What do you think is the most descriptive line in the poem, Mr. Smith.”
“Confound Rodman Drake!” I muttered to myself, for I had not read his poem, having scarcely touched anything save my text-books since I had been at Chapel Hill. Fortunately, I remembered a lecture of our Professor of Rhetoric, on American poetry, in which he had quoted from the poem in question; I therefore replied, pausing as if to consider:
“Really, Miss Finnock, the whole poem is so full of vivid descriptions and striking thoughts that it is hard to make a selection; but I think perhaps the finest passage is that which describes the firefly steed flinging a glittering spark behind.”
“Ah, yes,” she replied, “I remember that. But I think the tiniest, sweetest idea is, ‘their wee faces giggling above the brine.’” To express thetinynessof an idea, she squinted her eyes painfully, and squeezed her forefingers and thumb together, as if she were holding a flea.
“To tell the truth, Miss Finnock,” I said, hoping to take her out of her depth and thereby change the subject, “I greatly prefer the old classic writers, or even the earlier English poets, to the maudlin sentimentalists of the present day.”
“Oh, you prefer the classics, do you?” she exclaimed, brightening her dim looking eyes, “then I am glad we arecongenial. Homer is too nervous in his style, but Pindar is so sweet; and Sappho—do you know I am named for her?—isn’t her poetry rapturous? and dear Horace, how pointed and terse he is. Do you know I have studied harder than anything his Art of Poetry, for I sometimes try to write verses myself. Did you ever write poetry? It is really difficult. And you say, too, you like the old English poets? How glad I am! I have a copy of Chaucer in my trunk, and we can read over some of his Canterbury Tales together. Then there’s Spencer; isn’t his Fairy Queen perfectly charming? And Sydney’s Arcadia, do you like that? Sometimes, when I am sad and gloomy, I even like to read the melancholy musings of poor John Ford. You’ve read Ford, have you not? and Marlowe?”
Great Heaven! thought I; take her out of her depth indeed! I have only taken her into it. My only hope to change the subject, and prevent an exposure of my ignorance, is to speak of her own verses, as I know she will not quit that theme as long as I appear interested. I said, therefore, as soon as she ceased speaking,
“You say that you write verses, Miss Finnock? I am sure they are lovely; and I would esteem it a very high honor and privilege to be permitted to read your composition.”
“Oh, I could not think of it,” she said, with an attempt at a blush; “besides, my portfolio is in my trunk, and therefore inaccessible.”
I protested my readiness to go below and have her trunk opened, that I might satisfy my desire to read her beautiful thoughts, and I insisted so earnestly that she would give me her keys and permit me to search, that she said, while she thanked me for my obliging spirit, she would not trouble me any farther than to get her reticule from Mrs. Marshman, for, if she was not mistaken, she had in that some verses on the Hudson that she had composed the summer before.
Of course I was delighted to bring it to her; when she opened it and took out a yard and a quarter of printed poetry, which she commenced to read, first making me promise, a naughty boy, not to laugh at anything in it.
She read the entire yard and a quarter with heaving bosom and unusually dilated optics; but I cannot inflict upon my readers more than an inch or two.
The theme of the poem was the launching of the first steamboat, and in her eyes it seemed an epic fit for Virgil. The lines were these:
THE HUDSON.
“Oh thou mighty, sweeping, rushing river,Through thy cloud-reflecting bosom grand,With unfledged wheels the first steamboat proud-Ly plows, while on its trembling bulwarks standThe gay, triumphant and prophetic crowd.”
“Oh, that is perfectly enchanting,” I exclaimed, when she had completed the ninety-third and last verse, feeling assured that, when she thought so highly of the effort herself, no commendation could be fulsome.
“Pardon the abrupt praise, but Mrs. Browning could not have expressed the idea of the untried wheels more strikingly than you did, by the single word ‘unfledged.’”
“You flatter me, indeed, sir,” she said, looking immensely pleased; “but, to be candid with you, I thought myself that the expression was original and effective. Can you imagine how I got such an idea?”
“Not unless the fairies brought it to you,” I said, gallantly.
“I was at Yonkers last summer, while composing this piece, and saw a young duck, with unfledged wings, learning to swim, and immediately I thought of the steamboat. Remarkable coincidence, was it not?”
“Very remarkable, and all the more striking from that very fact,” I replied.
“But the most striking stanza in the poem,” she continued, running her little thin fingers down the paper, and pinching it at a certain verse, “is the sixty-eighth. Do you remember it?”
“They are all stamped so indelibly on my mind, by their wondrous power and beauty, that I cannot distinguish them by mere numbers; but I can easily recognize it if you will read it again.” This I said leaning forward with an increased air of attention and interest.
“There is no merit about the lines, except that they convey to the mind a vivid impression of the circumstances,” she said, with a preparatory cough, and read:
“And should a comet from the starry sky
Fall with its fiery tail along thy bed,
Oh! what a yawning, cracking chasm dry
Would stretch from parched mouth to fountain head.”
“Miss Finnock!” I said, rapturously, “you are as daring as Milton in your conceptions. Even Dante does not surpass the appalling picture you draw. I can almost see the long, rugged chasm down which the ships are rolling over and over, snapping off their masts, the fish floundering in the steaming pools, while the red serpent of desolation winds its way down the hissing bed.”
I did not deem it necessary to correct her astronomy by a hint at the nebulosity of comets, or at the absurdity of the idea that a tail, ten millions of miles long and half as many broad, could be squeezed into the channel of the Hudson. I could only admit to myself that if the tail of a comet was red hot, and small enough to fit the river, her picture of the effect of its fall was graphic.
She thanked me with many blushes, and as I paused in my comments she folded up her poetry reluctantly, and returned it to her reticule. As the bag opened I saw a book in it, and my respect for her erudition, before which I positively trembled as she ran through the names I have mentioned,was considerably lessened as I recognized Spalding’s English Literature, and felt that her learning was “crammed.”
As I felt as confident in my smattering as hers; I talked more boldly, and we spent the morning in a conversation on literature that would have made Porson envious at our attainments.
When dinner was announced our party had a private table in the saloon, and I was embarrassed to find that Mr. Finnock and Miss Stelway were regarding my table deportment as if that was the Shibboleth on which they would cut or notice me. Miss Finnock, however, kept me more employed in attentions to the outer woman than to the inner man, so that I got on very well, except pouring her glass too full of wine and making too loud a sip when I tasted mine.
Mr. Marshman had invited an elderly gentleman to dine with him, and was so absorbed in a political discussion that he completely ignored my presence; indeed, he seemed to forget that there was any one present except himself and his patient listener.
Mrs. M. was much annoyed by his neglect of his guests, and wasted many nods and frowns on him. As he paid no attention to them she spoke to him:
“Mr. Marshman, pass the claret to Mr. Smith.”
But she might as well have addressed the post of the saloon, for Marshman was at that moment closing his most forcible argument in favor of his assumption.
“Mr.Marshman!” exclaimed Lillian, a flush on her cheek and a flash in her eye, “do you know where you are? Mr. Smith’s glass is empty.”
“Oh!—yes—pardon me, my dear,” turning with a confused smile to her, and anything but a smile to me as he ran my glass over with the crimson fluid.
For a while there was an awkward pause, during which I felt very much embarrassed, as having been the innocent cause of the disturbance.
Mrs. M. soon resumed her smile, and said:
“Mr. Marshman thinks he is on the floor of the House whenever he gets to talking, and forgets his surroundings.”
“Well, my dear,” he said, pouring out a glass of brandy, “excuse my absent-mindedness. Come, Mr. Debait, since they will not let us finish our discussion, we will have to join the young folks.”
Mrs. Marshman gave him a sign to notice me, and he said, in a patronizing, Congressional way:
“What are the times in North Carolina, Mr. Smith? Whom will your people support in the next Presidential election?”
I was informing him that, as a student, I had not taken much interest in politics, when Mrs. M. cut in:
“Mr. Marshman, you ought to observe Mr. Smith very closely. He is the only one who ever really flirted with me.”
“Is he?” returned Mr. Marshman, trying to keep his good humor, though evidently disliking me. “What didIdo with your heart?”
“Youflirt? Oh, life!” and Lillian laughed scornfully, as she looked around at us all. “I was afraid I was getting a littlepassé, and just took you when you proposed, which you did, you remember, with much agitation and tremulous fervor.”
We all smiled, as was expected, except Mr. Marshman, who only drew his bushy brows a little nearer together.
Lillian went on (as what woman will not when she is succeeding in a tease?).
“You know, Pam, I put you off indefinitely; and, strange to tell, I received your first letter the very night Mr. Smith and I came so near loving. If he had talked differently then, perhaps the answer you received would have been different. You really owe him thanks.”
But Mr. Marshman, instead of taking the jest, grew very red in the face, and, pushing his chair back, said, angrily:
“You can make the change now, madam, if you desire it,” and left the saloon.
We looked at Mrs. Marshman, but she was not in the least disconcerted.
“Poor, dear Pam,” she said, running a spoon under the peel of an orange, “he loves me so dearly that he is morbidly jealous. I’ll have him pleasant by tea.”
Miss Finnock occupied the remainder of the hour by making original remarks and comparisons, if similes without a shadow of similarity could be called original. She said the nut crackers were like adversity, because their crushing discovered the sound fruit; that Italian cream was like a coquette’s cheek, both pink and cold; that the heart of the melon was the heart of humanity, and the black seed black thoughts; that the lemon floating in the finger bowls was like the selfishness that mingles with the purest waters of life; and much more to the same effect.
As Finnock preferred Miss Stelway to the wine, we left the table with the ladies, and going up on deck I excused myself for my siesta.
As I turned over to the cool side of my pillow, and slid back the shutter to get the river breeze, I murmured as I dozed off:
“If little Sappho won’t get in earnest I’ll make love to her, just for the fun of it.”
Late in the afternoon we all met again on deck, and, to my surprise, Mr. Marshman was by Mrs. Marshman’s side, full of smiles and urbanity. I could not help thinking of Themistocles’ chain of government.
Miss Finnock was unusually sentimental, and her style of conversation was a continual flow of heroic verse, with all the necessary inversions and syncope. She said that the river flashed its wavelet eyes beneath the sunset’s golden veil, that the mountains donned their purpled robes, their bald, bare summits, glory crowned: that the houses nestled‘long the shore like white ducks resting from their sport; the steamboats puffed like wearied beasts, the sail boats glided, graceful swans; and I have no doubt she would have gone on to personalities about her lonely heart and mine, had not her brother called her to Miss Stelway.
As they had to spend a day in Albany, we parted there with many promises to renew our acquaintance at the Springs. The next day found me with good rooms at the Union Hotel, Saratoga. As I did not know a single person there, I found it, of course, very dull, and spent the day sauntering around to look at the various objects of interest. That night there was a ball at the Union, but there was such a press in the ball room that I might as well have been in the Mammoth Cave without a light, for all I could see.
I retired early, leaving directions to the servant to call me soon in the morning.
CHAPTER XXXIV.Thesun had not been up long when I reached the spring, and found the little boys already busy with their long-handled dippers. I gulped down a glass of the water, which is a bad mixture of soda and Epsom salts, and was strolling over the grounds, thinking how pleasant ‘twould be to have even little Miss Finnock along with me, when the rattling of the circular railway caught my ear and I walked towards it. A gentleman and lady were riding in the car, who riveted my attention at once. The gentleman was strikingly handsome. A snow white Panama hat, whose flexible brim, bending up before the current of air, showed a high, white forehead, and black eyes so piercing in their glance that I involuntarily shrank back as they whirled past me. A very heavy moustache, parted in themiddle, fell on each side of his lip like a stream of ink; a graceful, massive frame, yet a small hand turning the crank of the car and a small foot with high instep rested on the edge. This much I saw as they rattled by, and strange to say, so full of admiration was I for the man that it was not till they were coming around again that I noticed the lady, who was much the handsomer of the two. She was clad in a blue morning robe, whose ample folds floated gracefully out from the side of the car. One tiny gloved hand rested playfully on the flying crank, while the other held in her lap the broad straw hat she had taken off. Her eyes were as black as her companion’s, but were soft and gentle in their expression; her hair, superbly massive in its loose folds, was as black as a raven’s wing, and fell in wavy profusion far below her waist. These were the general outlines of her features, for I could not see her face distinctly, so swift was the speed of the car. But even that glimpse had thrilled me, and an indefinable something in the face seemed to speak familiarly to my heart, and awaken wild, vague visions of something forgotten—perhaps the memories of previous existence, as Plato calls them.“Have I seen her in my dreams?” I murmured, “or is she the star of my destiny which intuition thus reveals, that her beauty should so thrill me?”A romantic youth, fresh from college, on the lookout for adventures, with a very large fund of admiration, on which beauty could check at sight; is it a wonder I was in love a second after this bright vision of loveliness floated by?I waited for them to come round again, but I saw the car stop on the other side, and hurried through the crowd only to see them enter a gold mounted phæton, drawn by a splendid pair of blood bays, the driver and footman in liveries almost too gorgeous for Republican America.“May the Fates grant he may only be a brother! They look alike,” I muttered, as I walked back to the hotel.I sought for them in vain during the day around the hotel, though I thought once I saw the black moustache behind the green baize door of the billiard room, but, on entering, I could not find it.That afternoon Mrs. Marshman and party came up from Albany, and took rooms also at the Union. How cordial was Miss Finnock in her manner towards me! and how long she let her hand remain in mine when I shook hands with her! Poor, little cold hand! I felt as if I was pressing a frog with five legs!The ladies were too much fatigued to go to the dance that night, so Finnock and I walked across to Congress Hall after tea. I told him of the wonderful beauty I had seen in the morning, and asked if he could not contrive to get an introduction for us.“Oh, yes,” he said, carelessly, “presyume so; she’s the same Monte wrote me about. Devilish pretty, rich, and so forth. Engaged to that fellow, Monte says. Pious old couple to take care of her. But yonder’s Monte now.”He carried me up to a throng of foppish young men who were lounging on the steps of the hotel. They spoke, after Finnock’s introduction, with a cool kind of condescension that irritated, and, to a certain extent, humiliated me. While in my heart I despised them for their foppish uselessness, yet I felt they somewhat looked down upon me as being from the country, and I desired their attention and consideration more than I did the esteem of the most prominent gentlemen of my acquaintance; such is pride!“Why, Finnock, where the devil did you spring from?” said Monte, a tall, languid fellow, with dark red hair, roached up in curling puffs on each side of the central division; somewhat lighter whiskers flowing in long wisps from each ear to the corner of his mouth, while his short chin, shaved clean, imparted an angry bull dog expression that required all the languor of his weak eyes and singleeye-glass to soften. “I thought you were going across the pond?”“No, not yet,” said Finnock, carelessly, “the old man swears that stocks are too low to think of Europe. I told him I didn’t care, I would either take three M’s for Europe next winter or two for the Springs and Newport.”“Say, Finn.,” continued Monte, “have you heard about Sedley?”“No, anything bad?”“Rather! got a lift from Lola, took the blues, and went into the jungle.”“‘D the tiger hurt him?”“A little—fifteen hundred or so. He left next morning, and I expect has committed suicide.”“Who the deuce is Lola?” asked Finnock.“She’s the rage now—prettier than Venus and richer than Plutus himself. Don’t you remember my writing you about her?”“Ah, yes, I do remember,” said Finnock, “but where is she from, Monte?”“The devil knows,” said that gentleman. “I found her here when I came and as all the first ladies were jealous and angry, and all the best fellows in love with her, I went in without questioning her previous history.”“Sed. was euchred badly,” put in a bloated young man, with protruding bleared eyes and very red nose; “held a good hand, too, but played his cards badly and lost. They say he went a five hundred diamond ring, but she sent it back.”“That was hard on him; but, Monte!” said Finnock, “Smith and I want an introduction, cannot you present us?”“Certainly,” said Monte, getting up from his chair, and shaking one leg at a time, to make his pants smooth, “but it’s useless, that black eyed fellow with her has it all his own way. She will waltz with no one else, pretends to besqueamish, but it is all because he will not let her. The devil take these old marching Lancers and trotting quadrilles; give me a soft hand and a trim waist, and my toe is at your service. Let’s have something to drink!”All assented, and I followed them into the bar-room. I did not wish to drink, but my moral courage shrank from refusing before a throng of exquisites, who were just admitting me to their fellowship. Accordingly, when the others had called for juleps, cold punches and “straights,” I responded to Monte’s inquiry, by stating very faintly that I would take a sherry cobbler, believing that was the weakest drink I could name. Monte repeated the orders to Snyder, the bar man, with the injunction to make them strong, and we all stood around trying to keep up a desultory conversation, but watching, with more interest, the preparation of the beverages, as men always do at a bar.Snyder, a large fat man, in his shirt sleeves, with a large diamond pin on his large bosom, and a heavy moustache on his heavy lip, who had been looking off vacantly while we delivered our orders, now started as if he suddenly remembered them, and calling an assistant, took down the bottles, put in the white hailed ice and sugar, the sprigs of mint, the slices of lemon, and set the dewy glasses on the counter. With a bow and a health we drank, and then Finnock swore we should have another round. This time I had weakened enough in my resolution to try a julep, and feeling a tinge of the old excitement coming over me, I asked, as we turned to leave the bar, the privilege of treating.“Have you some good champagne—green seal or Verzenay—the best now?” I asked the barkeeper, assuming something of the bully in my tone.“Not champagne at the bar!” said Monte, “that is sacred to the table.”The barkeeper pointed us to a curtained apartment, and sent in the champagne and some biscuit.We spent, perhaps, half an hour behind the curtain, and when we came forth I felt as if I was again at Frank’s party. Though the others had, perhaps, imbibed more than I, yet it had not affected them so sensibly, and, muddled as was my brain, I saw they were enjoying my condition.They proposed that we have a peep at the Tiger, and I agreed very readily, having a faint idea that we were going to a zoological exhibition.The zoological garden proved to be a brilliantly lighted room, redolent of cigars and full of tables, around which were grouped eager, anxious faces. I had never gambled in my life, but felt compelled to show my contempt for money by staking a few dollars on a game or two. I soon lost something over a hundred, and was getting more and more reckless, to the extent of much larger stakes, when Monte proposed to leave, saying to one of his companions, in an undertone, which I, however, heard:“That will do for to-night, not too much at a time.”Monte proposed to take us over to the ball room and introduce us to Lola, the sensation, but I objected that I was not in evening dress. Monte swore I was fit for Buckingham Palace, and dragged me along to the room. Our party was very noisy as we entered the ball room, and several gentlemen moved away from our group in apparent disgust. The brilliancy of the scene dazzled and confused me, and I stood staring stupidly about, holding to Monte’s arm for support. The floor was full of dancers, who were circling in a spirited Mazourka.“There she is, Smith!” exclaimed Monte, “isn’t she superb?”Just in front of us was the belle of the season—my unknown beauty of the circular railway, floating gracefully in the embrace of the black moustache.Her hair was now caught up in a magnificent coil, and its black folds were adorned with a beautiful spray ofpearls. Her eyes—and oh! how melting and tender was their look—splendid in their depth of expression, were turned up to the face of her partner, and her form, perfect in its outlines, reposed with easy confidence in his arms. Her arm, round, smooth and dazzling, was shown in fine relief against the black cloth of his coat, and her neck, white as snow, tapered exquisitely from her bare, dimpled shoulders to the shading of her hair.How my heart throbbed with admiration as she passed me; and again that strange memory of a dream of her face came over me!Again they came around, and her full face was turned toward me. Heavens, can it be? yes, there, on that lovely arm, just above the tinted kid, a serpent in Etruscan gold wound its coils up the flesh, and I knew it was Carlotta.“Monte!” I said, grasping his arm tightly, “that’s C’lotta; I know her, I raised her. Lem’me go and speak to her!”“Wait, Smith, don’t be a fool!” he said, impatiently shaking me off, and making his way across the room, as the music had now ceased.I turned to the others of our party and kept repeating, “That’s our C’lotta, I know her ‘s well ‘s I want to. She knows me soon ‘s she sees me.”An elderly gentleman, who had been much annoyed by our noise, and who had been looking very steadily at us for several minutes, now got up from his seat and approached. I looked at him now for the first time, and oh, shade of Hamlet! I recognized my father. The most fervent wish of my heart was that there might be a Samson underneath that floor with his hands already on the pillars.He did not smile as I pressed his hand, but said, “Come, go with me up to our room, John.”His presence, and my chagrin and surprise did one good thing—it effectually sobered me.As we walked out of the room he left me for a moment,and when he rejoined me a lady was on his arm—my mother. There was as much sorrow as joy in her kiss, and we proceeded in silence to their rooms. I took the proffered seat, and no one spoke for some time; then mother burst into tears and said:“Oh, my child! my child! you have almost broken my heart. To think that I left you such a pure, noble boy, and return to meet you drunk, and in a disorderly crowd. Oh, John, how cruelly you have deceived us!”I threw myself on my knees, as I used to do when a child, and buried my face in her lap.“Mother,” I said, humbly, “I have not deceived you; let me explain.”“My son,” said she, “there can be no explanation. I saw you intoxicated myself; and even now you are under the influence of liquor.”Her last words somewhat nettled me, and I resumed my seat, saying as I did so:“I am entirely sober, madam;” which, indeed, was the truth, for all the fumes and effects of the liquor I had taken departed instantly from me on the discovery of my parents. Father, who had been regarding me with much pity, now spoke:“Do not be too hard on him, Mary; perhaps this is his first offence.”“It is, it is,” I said, gratefully; then suddenly remembering, I said, candidly: “No, I will confess I was under the influence of wine once before this,” and I told of Frank’s party. With that exception this was my first time, and I promised that it should be the last.They both seemed mollified, and seeing that I was really not under the influence of liquor, they gradually fell into conversation with me, and we forgot all unpleasantness in our mutual inquiries about each other’s health, and a general hash of all that had occurred since we parted. Theevening wore on, and I commenced to make preparation for my departure; I had just taken my hat when a rustling was heard in the corridor, a musical “Good night!” and Carlotta came in, holding up her satin trail with its shower of lace. She started back on seeing a stranger in the room, but the next instant, as I rose to meet her, she dropped her skirt, and, holding out both hands, exclaimed:“John! dear brother!” and putting up her rosy lips she kissed me, then stood looking at me with earnest happiness in her glance, as if she was really glad to meet me. What a joyous feeling there was in my heart! An hour or two before I had coveted just the honor of an introduction, now I had pressed her hand and kissed her! There was a delightful surprise, too, about the kiss, that made it all the more thrilling. We had never been very intimate, though living in the same house, and while confiding many secrets to each other as children, as I have told, yet there was always a shadow of reserve between us, and it was only by observing, at a distance, the beautiful depth of her character, I had learned to love her. After a three years’ residence in Europe I had expected to find her haughty, vain and supercilious, and had rather dreaded the meeting; but now I found that the flattery and adulation she had received, instead of turning her head, had only conferred the insight of experience, and made her own heart more earnest and true.These thoughts of her ran rapidly through my mind as I gazed at the beautiful, brilliant woman that had bloomed from the lovely child, whose image I had cherished since we had parted.We sat down with father and mother, and as we all had much to say, there were not many seconds that escaped unfreighted with a word. Carlotta seemed much more ready to listen to me, though, than to talk, and instead of telling what she had seen and done seemed intensely interested in my dull affairs.Father asked her if she were not going back to the ball room.“Oh, dear, no,” she said, drawing off her gloves, “I had much rather stay here and talk with John; beside, I am tired. I had a long sail on the lake to-day, and drove out with Cousin Herrara this afternoon. Please unfasten my bracelet,” and she extended her arm to me.As I took her soft white arm in my hand can you wonder that I pretended to be awkward, that I might prolong the undoing of it?“Aproposof the ball, John,” she said, while I was fumbling at the bracelet, “Mr. Monte asked the privilege of introducing two friends, Mr. Finnock and Mr. Smith. Did he refer to you?”I told her he did, and what a romantic fervor I felt after I had seen her at the railway, and she and father rallied me on losing it as soon as I found her out, and mother helped me to deny it, and we were all so pleasant together we forgot the lapse of time. Looking at my watch and finding it nearly day, I bade them good night, and went to my room.Like a child with a new toy, I felt a continual surprise and delight that the brilliant belle of the Springs wasmyCarlotta. Mine? The thought of Cousin Herrara placed a very large mark of interrogation after that word. As all indications pointed to the fact that she was his, and would ere long leave our home, the question came to me, bitterly: Can I give her up?
Thesun had not been up long when I reached the spring, and found the little boys already busy with their long-handled dippers. I gulped down a glass of the water, which is a bad mixture of soda and Epsom salts, and was strolling over the grounds, thinking how pleasant ‘twould be to have even little Miss Finnock along with me, when the rattling of the circular railway caught my ear and I walked towards it. A gentleman and lady were riding in the car, who riveted my attention at once. The gentleman was strikingly handsome. A snow white Panama hat, whose flexible brim, bending up before the current of air, showed a high, white forehead, and black eyes so piercing in their glance that I involuntarily shrank back as they whirled past me. A very heavy moustache, parted in themiddle, fell on each side of his lip like a stream of ink; a graceful, massive frame, yet a small hand turning the crank of the car and a small foot with high instep rested on the edge. This much I saw as they rattled by, and strange to say, so full of admiration was I for the man that it was not till they were coming around again that I noticed the lady, who was much the handsomer of the two. She was clad in a blue morning robe, whose ample folds floated gracefully out from the side of the car. One tiny gloved hand rested playfully on the flying crank, while the other held in her lap the broad straw hat she had taken off. Her eyes were as black as her companion’s, but were soft and gentle in their expression; her hair, superbly massive in its loose folds, was as black as a raven’s wing, and fell in wavy profusion far below her waist. These were the general outlines of her features, for I could not see her face distinctly, so swift was the speed of the car. But even that glimpse had thrilled me, and an indefinable something in the face seemed to speak familiarly to my heart, and awaken wild, vague visions of something forgotten—perhaps the memories of previous existence, as Plato calls them.
“Have I seen her in my dreams?” I murmured, “or is she the star of my destiny which intuition thus reveals, that her beauty should so thrill me?”
A romantic youth, fresh from college, on the lookout for adventures, with a very large fund of admiration, on which beauty could check at sight; is it a wonder I was in love a second after this bright vision of loveliness floated by?
I waited for them to come round again, but I saw the car stop on the other side, and hurried through the crowd only to see them enter a gold mounted phæton, drawn by a splendid pair of blood bays, the driver and footman in liveries almost too gorgeous for Republican America.
“May the Fates grant he may only be a brother! They look alike,” I muttered, as I walked back to the hotel.
I sought for them in vain during the day around the hotel, though I thought once I saw the black moustache behind the green baize door of the billiard room, but, on entering, I could not find it.
That afternoon Mrs. Marshman and party came up from Albany, and took rooms also at the Union. How cordial was Miss Finnock in her manner towards me! and how long she let her hand remain in mine when I shook hands with her! Poor, little cold hand! I felt as if I was pressing a frog with five legs!
The ladies were too much fatigued to go to the dance that night, so Finnock and I walked across to Congress Hall after tea. I told him of the wonderful beauty I had seen in the morning, and asked if he could not contrive to get an introduction for us.
“Oh, yes,” he said, carelessly, “presyume so; she’s the same Monte wrote me about. Devilish pretty, rich, and so forth. Engaged to that fellow, Monte says. Pious old couple to take care of her. But yonder’s Monte now.”
He carried me up to a throng of foppish young men who were lounging on the steps of the hotel. They spoke, after Finnock’s introduction, with a cool kind of condescension that irritated, and, to a certain extent, humiliated me. While in my heart I despised them for their foppish uselessness, yet I felt they somewhat looked down upon me as being from the country, and I desired their attention and consideration more than I did the esteem of the most prominent gentlemen of my acquaintance; such is pride!
“Why, Finnock, where the devil did you spring from?” said Monte, a tall, languid fellow, with dark red hair, roached up in curling puffs on each side of the central division; somewhat lighter whiskers flowing in long wisps from each ear to the corner of his mouth, while his short chin, shaved clean, imparted an angry bull dog expression that required all the languor of his weak eyes and singleeye-glass to soften. “I thought you were going across the pond?”
“No, not yet,” said Finnock, carelessly, “the old man swears that stocks are too low to think of Europe. I told him I didn’t care, I would either take three M’s for Europe next winter or two for the Springs and Newport.”
“Say, Finn.,” continued Monte, “have you heard about Sedley?”
“No, anything bad?”
“Rather! got a lift from Lola, took the blues, and went into the jungle.”
“‘D the tiger hurt him?”
“A little—fifteen hundred or so. He left next morning, and I expect has committed suicide.”
“Who the deuce is Lola?” asked Finnock.
“She’s the rage now—prettier than Venus and richer than Plutus himself. Don’t you remember my writing you about her?”
“Ah, yes, I do remember,” said Finnock, “but where is she from, Monte?”
“The devil knows,” said that gentleman. “I found her here when I came and as all the first ladies were jealous and angry, and all the best fellows in love with her, I went in without questioning her previous history.”
“Sed. was euchred badly,” put in a bloated young man, with protruding bleared eyes and very red nose; “held a good hand, too, but played his cards badly and lost. They say he went a five hundred diamond ring, but she sent it back.”
“That was hard on him; but, Monte!” said Finnock, “Smith and I want an introduction, cannot you present us?”
“Certainly,” said Monte, getting up from his chair, and shaking one leg at a time, to make his pants smooth, “but it’s useless, that black eyed fellow with her has it all his own way. She will waltz with no one else, pretends to besqueamish, but it is all because he will not let her. The devil take these old marching Lancers and trotting quadrilles; give me a soft hand and a trim waist, and my toe is at your service. Let’s have something to drink!”
All assented, and I followed them into the bar-room. I did not wish to drink, but my moral courage shrank from refusing before a throng of exquisites, who were just admitting me to their fellowship. Accordingly, when the others had called for juleps, cold punches and “straights,” I responded to Monte’s inquiry, by stating very faintly that I would take a sherry cobbler, believing that was the weakest drink I could name. Monte repeated the orders to Snyder, the bar man, with the injunction to make them strong, and we all stood around trying to keep up a desultory conversation, but watching, with more interest, the preparation of the beverages, as men always do at a bar.
Snyder, a large fat man, in his shirt sleeves, with a large diamond pin on his large bosom, and a heavy moustache on his heavy lip, who had been looking off vacantly while we delivered our orders, now started as if he suddenly remembered them, and calling an assistant, took down the bottles, put in the white hailed ice and sugar, the sprigs of mint, the slices of lemon, and set the dewy glasses on the counter. With a bow and a health we drank, and then Finnock swore we should have another round. This time I had weakened enough in my resolution to try a julep, and feeling a tinge of the old excitement coming over me, I asked, as we turned to leave the bar, the privilege of treating.
“Have you some good champagne—green seal or Verzenay—the best now?” I asked the barkeeper, assuming something of the bully in my tone.
“Not champagne at the bar!” said Monte, “that is sacred to the table.”
The barkeeper pointed us to a curtained apartment, and sent in the champagne and some biscuit.
We spent, perhaps, half an hour behind the curtain, and when we came forth I felt as if I was again at Frank’s party. Though the others had, perhaps, imbibed more than I, yet it had not affected them so sensibly, and, muddled as was my brain, I saw they were enjoying my condition.
They proposed that we have a peep at the Tiger, and I agreed very readily, having a faint idea that we were going to a zoological exhibition.
The zoological garden proved to be a brilliantly lighted room, redolent of cigars and full of tables, around which were grouped eager, anxious faces. I had never gambled in my life, but felt compelled to show my contempt for money by staking a few dollars on a game or two. I soon lost something over a hundred, and was getting more and more reckless, to the extent of much larger stakes, when Monte proposed to leave, saying to one of his companions, in an undertone, which I, however, heard:
“That will do for to-night, not too much at a time.”
Monte proposed to take us over to the ball room and introduce us to Lola, the sensation, but I objected that I was not in evening dress. Monte swore I was fit for Buckingham Palace, and dragged me along to the room. Our party was very noisy as we entered the ball room, and several gentlemen moved away from our group in apparent disgust. The brilliancy of the scene dazzled and confused me, and I stood staring stupidly about, holding to Monte’s arm for support. The floor was full of dancers, who were circling in a spirited Mazourka.
“There she is, Smith!” exclaimed Monte, “isn’t she superb?”
Just in front of us was the belle of the season—my unknown beauty of the circular railway, floating gracefully in the embrace of the black moustache.
Her hair was now caught up in a magnificent coil, and its black folds were adorned with a beautiful spray ofpearls. Her eyes—and oh! how melting and tender was their look—splendid in their depth of expression, were turned up to the face of her partner, and her form, perfect in its outlines, reposed with easy confidence in his arms. Her arm, round, smooth and dazzling, was shown in fine relief against the black cloth of his coat, and her neck, white as snow, tapered exquisitely from her bare, dimpled shoulders to the shading of her hair.
How my heart throbbed with admiration as she passed me; and again that strange memory of a dream of her face came over me!
Again they came around, and her full face was turned toward me. Heavens, can it be? yes, there, on that lovely arm, just above the tinted kid, a serpent in Etruscan gold wound its coils up the flesh, and I knew it was Carlotta.
“Monte!” I said, grasping his arm tightly, “that’s C’lotta; I know her, I raised her. Lem’me go and speak to her!”
“Wait, Smith, don’t be a fool!” he said, impatiently shaking me off, and making his way across the room, as the music had now ceased.
I turned to the others of our party and kept repeating, “That’s our C’lotta, I know her ‘s well ‘s I want to. She knows me soon ‘s she sees me.”
An elderly gentleman, who had been much annoyed by our noise, and who had been looking very steadily at us for several minutes, now got up from his seat and approached. I looked at him now for the first time, and oh, shade of Hamlet! I recognized my father. The most fervent wish of my heart was that there might be a Samson underneath that floor with his hands already on the pillars.
He did not smile as I pressed his hand, but said, “Come, go with me up to our room, John.”
His presence, and my chagrin and surprise did one good thing—it effectually sobered me.
As we walked out of the room he left me for a moment,and when he rejoined me a lady was on his arm—my mother. There was as much sorrow as joy in her kiss, and we proceeded in silence to their rooms. I took the proffered seat, and no one spoke for some time; then mother burst into tears and said:
“Oh, my child! my child! you have almost broken my heart. To think that I left you such a pure, noble boy, and return to meet you drunk, and in a disorderly crowd. Oh, John, how cruelly you have deceived us!”
I threw myself on my knees, as I used to do when a child, and buried my face in her lap.
“Mother,” I said, humbly, “I have not deceived you; let me explain.”
“My son,” said she, “there can be no explanation. I saw you intoxicated myself; and even now you are under the influence of liquor.”
Her last words somewhat nettled me, and I resumed my seat, saying as I did so:
“I am entirely sober, madam;” which, indeed, was the truth, for all the fumes and effects of the liquor I had taken departed instantly from me on the discovery of my parents. Father, who had been regarding me with much pity, now spoke:
“Do not be too hard on him, Mary; perhaps this is his first offence.”
“It is, it is,” I said, gratefully; then suddenly remembering, I said, candidly: “No, I will confess I was under the influence of wine once before this,” and I told of Frank’s party. With that exception this was my first time, and I promised that it should be the last.
They both seemed mollified, and seeing that I was really not under the influence of liquor, they gradually fell into conversation with me, and we forgot all unpleasantness in our mutual inquiries about each other’s health, and a general hash of all that had occurred since we parted. Theevening wore on, and I commenced to make preparation for my departure; I had just taken my hat when a rustling was heard in the corridor, a musical “Good night!” and Carlotta came in, holding up her satin trail with its shower of lace. She started back on seeing a stranger in the room, but the next instant, as I rose to meet her, she dropped her skirt, and, holding out both hands, exclaimed:
“John! dear brother!” and putting up her rosy lips she kissed me, then stood looking at me with earnest happiness in her glance, as if she was really glad to meet me. What a joyous feeling there was in my heart! An hour or two before I had coveted just the honor of an introduction, now I had pressed her hand and kissed her! There was a delightful surprise, too, about the kiss, that made it all the more thrilling. We had never been very intimate, though living in the same house, and while confiding many secrets to each other as children, as I have told, yet there was always a shadow of reserve between us, and it was only by observing, at a distance, the beautiful depth of her character, I had learned to love her. After a three years’ residence in Europe I had expected to find her haughty, vain and supercilious, and had rather dreaded the meeting; but now I found that the flattery and adulation she had received, instead of turning her head, had only conferred the insight of experience, and made her own heart more earnest and true.
These thoughts of her ran rapidly through my mind as I gazed at the beautiful, brilliant woman that had bloomed from the lovely child, whose image I had cherished since we had parted.
We sat down with father and mother, and as we all had much to say, there were not many seconds that escaped unfreighted with a word. Carlotta seemed much more ready to listen to me, though, than to talk, and instead of telling what she had seen and done seemed intensely interested in my dull affairs.
Father asked her if she were not going back to the ball room.
“Oh, dear, no,” she said, drawing off her gloves, “I had much rather stay here and talk with John; beside, I am tired. I had a long sail on the lake to-day, and drove out with Cousin Herrara this afternoon. Please unfasten my bracelet,” and she extended her arm to me.
As I took her soft white arm in my hand can you wonder that I pretended to be awkward, that I might prolong the undoing of it?
“Aproposof the ball, John,” she said, while I was fumbling at the bracelet, “Mr. Monte asked the privilege of introducing two friends, Mr. Finnock and Mr. Smith. Did he refer to you?”
I told her he did, and what a romantic fervor I felt after I had seen her at the railway, and she and father rallied me on losing it as soon as I found her out, and mother helped me to deny it, and we were all so pleasant together we forgot the lapse of time. Looking at my watch and finding it nearly day, I bade them good night, and went to my room.
Like a child with a new toy, I felt a continual surprise and delight that the brilliant belle of the Springs wasmyCarlotta. Mine? The thought of Cousin Herrara placed a very large mark of interrogation after that word. As all indications pointed to the fact that she was his, and would ere long leave our home, the question came to me, bitterly: Can I give her up?