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A week had passed since the Dundee Centennial, and life in the parsonage had been in outward aspect like the weather—still and sunny. The oldest Dundeeian had never known before so early and genial a season. Eunice's roses were in luxuriant bloom; the clover-meadows were pink and fragrant; the forests had burst into full leafage; the strawberries upon the southern terrace of the kitchen-garden were swelling globes, white on the nether, scarlet upon the upper sides.
The ways of the household, always simple and methodical, were not otherwise now. Roy spent a couple of hours each forenoon with his betrothed. Orrin rarely made his appearance until two or three hours after dinner when the cousins came up from the hotel together, and did not return to their lodgings before ten o'clock at night. Mr. Kirke had daily interviews with Mr. Wyllys in the course of the walks and drives they took in company, and brought home accounts of his suavity, wit, and varied information, which were endorsed by Eunice, which Jessie heard with growing bewilderment at the chance or purpose that withheld her from participation in what was freely enjoyed by her father and sister. Even their music practice had not melted the ice that lay, an impassive mass, just beneath the surface of his deportment whenever he approached or addressed her. Her liveliest sallies and most friendly overtures, met with a response, ready and civil, indeed, but so unlike the gentle courtesy, the kindliness and graceful deference of his behavior to Eunice that nothing but a spirit determined and unsuspicious of evil as was our heroine's could have kept her to her resolve to win his friendship.
Roy found her very charming under the light veil of pensiveness this secret solicitude cast over her. She never intimated to him that his kinsman had not met her expectation in every respect. She was thankful, instead, that her betrothed did not see for himself that all was not right between them. Some day, when the frost was quite dispelled, they would laugh over it together—over her fears, her innocent stratagems for the accomplishment of her object, Orrin's stateliness, and Roy's blindness to her perturbation. She had patience and hope. She would await the vanishment of the mist, passing content, meanwhile, with the heart-riches that were hers beyond peradventure. She had not heard of the German University scheme. It was unlike Roy Fordham to hang back from making a revelation which must come in the end, which delays could not soften, and which could cause no more distress now than if it were withheld until the close of his vacation. His judgment said that Jessie would better endure the prospect of the separation while he was with her, to lead her thoughts to the great and manifest advantages that would accrue to him from the year of foreign study, and—overleaping the gulf of absence—to paint the delight of re-union. Mr. Kirke represented that Jessie was a girl of sense and strength; that she would be better pleased to be confided in, and consulted as his future wife, than be blinded and petted as a child; and Roy, acquiescing in this opinion, still put off the evil hour. Was it loving consideration for her—or presentiment—that struck him with dumbness?
The lovers sat on the piazza, one afternoon, just after the sunset repast. Jessie's "trial effort" had been made with ease that augured rapid recovery, but she was forbidden to walk without assistance, or to bear her whole weight upon the injured foot.
"While I feel strong enough to run a race with you down to the mill," she said, pointing to a venerable building, a quarter of a mile distant. "You can form no idea of the perversity of the restless thing that used to be a manageable member, when I had leave to walk, or sit still as I liked. I have a terrific attack of the fidgets!"
"Penalty of insubordination—a return to the lounge and oriel-window!" smiled Roy, in warning.
"That would be no punishment at all! When I am strong and active again I mean often to play helpless, upon that dear old lounge, to lie within the window and dream. I love it!"
Her voice sank in an intonation of ineffable tenderness that went to Roy's heart in a pang, not a thrill. This evening he meant to tell her that for many months she must sit alone in what he had named their "betrothal-nook;" that the year they had agreed upon as the period of their engagement must be passed apart, the one from the other. He had made up his mind to another thing. If she asked the sacrifice at his hands, he would abandon the cherished hope of years, the fruition of which seemed now so near, and she should never guess the extent of his self-denial. She was so dear to him! this incarnation of frolic, passion, and of fancies—gay, graceful, as whimsical as various—but all beautiful to him; she, whose eyes deepened and softened and glowed with the tender cadence of those three words—"I love it!" He had never succeeded in telling Orrin why he loved her. His spoken analysis of her character was cold and imperfect. Had Orrin uttered aloud his unflattering, "pert Amaryllis," Roy would have resented the epithet warmly, yet acknowledged, secretly, that his own portrait of her was hardly more like the reality. He could not describe her trait by trait, feature by feature. But for himself, he knew that she was the embodied glory of his life; that every ray that kept his heart warm and bright with a very summer of gladness, could be traced to her,—her love, and the influence the consciousness of this had upon his thoughts of the present, and dreams of days to come.
"The oriel is enchanted ground to me. We will build one like it, in our own home, and cover it with jessamine and wisteria," he said, noting, with loving amusement, the crimson flush that always bathed her face at direct allusions to their marriage. "Orrin shall sketch it for me. He is a universal genius, and his taste is marvellous. His bachelor apartments are a notable exception to any others I ever saw. They are furnished almost as well, kept almost as neatly, as if he were married."
"Isn't he a bit of a Sybarite?" queried Jessie, abruptly. "If he has a fault—or, no! you wouldn't own that he has—but, isn't his foible a love of luxury—of comfort, if you prefer to call it so—bodily and mental?"
"He is certainly not indolent. I know no other man who will work more persistently, although quietly, to gain a coveted end. And if he loves the ease of the flesh, why so do we all—don't we? His philosophy teaches that it is folly for one to be miserable, when he can as readily be happy and comfortable. His has been a prosperous life, thus far. He has known little of sorrow or trial. Should these come, they will ripen, not sour him, for the original material is good. I am the more anxious that you should know and appreciate him because—"
The gate swung open to admit a visitor—a farmer's lad, in whose attempts at self-education the young professor took a lively interest.
"I found this in the field on the other side of the mountain, to-day," he said, laying a piece of stone in Mr. Fordham's hand. "I think there's ore in it."
Roy inspected it closely.
"Miss Jessie"—he gave her no more familiar address in the hearing of common acquaintances—"is your father in his study?"
"I believe so," she replied, eyeing the intruder less amiably than her lover had done, in the anticipation of the prolonged interruption.
"Mr. Kirke has an acid that will test this in a few minutes," continued Fordham to the boy. "Will you excuse me for a little while?" turning to Jessie with a smile loving for herself, and entreating her forbearance for his protégé .
Her ill-humor vanished instantly under the benignant ray.
"Certainly!" she replied, nodding cordially to the bashful lad. "He is the noblest man God ever made!" she said aloud, when she was alone.
She leaned back in her easy chair, her hands folded in blissful contentment, enjoying the breeze from the mountains, the sunset clouds, the incense from the flower-garden, and the hum of the mill-wheel, mentally recapitulating her hero's perfections, until her heart ached with happy sighs, and she saw the landscape through an iridescent haze.
"I am a baby!" was her indignant ejaculation, as she cleared her eyes with an impatient brush of her hand. "I grow more ridiculous every day!"
As a means of growing wiser, she fell to watching her sister and Orrin Wyllys, who were busy tying up wandering rose-bushes in Eunice's pet labyrinth. Mr. Wyllys had his back to Jessie, when she first observed them. He was fastening back a branch which Miss Kirke held in its place, and their hands were very close together. It may have been this circumstance, it may have been the heat of the day, or the reflection of a bunch of pink moss-roses overhead—it could hardly have been anything which her companion was saying which brought the delicate roseate flush to the face usually pale and calm. His attitude was far too dignified and respectful to hint the possibility of gallant badinage on his part. Bonâ-fide love-making was, of course, out of the question, since they had not known each other ten days.
"Euna is handsome!" mused her sister in complacent affection. "What a high-bred face and bearing she has! She looks the lady in her morning-gowns of print and dimity; but that lawn with the forget-me-not sprig becomes her rarely. I am glad I insisted upon her putting it on. But she wouldn't let me fasten the lilies-of-the-valley in her hair! Her only fault is a tendency to primness. She and Mr. Wyllys get on admirably together. He evidently admires her, and it is a treat to her to have the society of a cultivated gentleman. I know," smiling and blushing anew, "it is a salvo to my conscience to see them satisfied with each other's company, needing Roy and myself as little as we need them. I should else blame myself for our seeming selfishness."
Rambling on discursively, she struck upon an idea, too fraught with delightsome mischief not to urge her to immediate action. Eunice had turned her head away, and Orrin was concealed by a tall shrub. The grassy alley leading from the porch to where they were standing would not give back the sound of footsteps. How frightened and amazed the careful elder sister would be, if she were to steal down the walk and present herself before her! How solemnly Orrin would look on while she submitted to be lectured for her imprudence, and how she, in the end would triumph over her custodians, Roy included (who, by the way, was staying away an unconscionable time), when she should demonstrate that she knew better than they what she could do and bear; that she was none the worse for the escapade that had wrought their consternation. She only regretted that she must lose the sight of Roy's horrified visage when he should return to discover her flight.
Her eyes gleaming with mirth, she arose cautiously, favoring the unused joint, and stepped off the low piazza. Even when she felt the cool, delicious turf under foot, she steadied herself by grasping the nearest objects that offered a support. First it was a clump of box, then the stout prickly branches of a Japan apple-tree, then a fan-shaped trellis, which would by and by be covered with Cyprus vines. She would do nothing rashly—would come to her own by degrees. But when another step would bring her within arms' length of the florists, she trod firmly upon both feet, and feeling neither pain nor weakness, laughed aloud in wicked glee, and took that step. She saw Eunice start and grow white; saw Orrin's grave yet courtly surprise as he advanced to offer his arm. Ere he could reach her, the treacherous ankle gave way with a wrench that drove breath and sense in one quick shuddering breath from her body.
As they left her, she heard, like a strain of far-off music, a voice say in her ear, "My poor child!" had a dizzy thought that strong arms—stronger than Eunice's—received her.
Then, all was a blank until she awoke upon her lounge, hair and face dripping with wet; the scent of sal volatile tingling in her nostrils, and a cluster of anxious faces about her. Eunice's was the first she knew, Roy's next. He was on his knees by her, chafing her hands. She pulled them feebly from his hold, and clasped them about his neck, hiding her eyes upon his bosom.
"O, Roy! I was very wrong! very foolish! Don't scold me."
"Hush! hush!" he said, soothingly. "Nobody thinks of scolding you! If you apologize to any one, it must be to this gentleman. He brought you into the house, and I suspect his arms want looking after more than your foot does."
He laughed, not quite steadily, in saying it, and Jessie felt his fingers tighten upon hers. She flushed up rosily—was herself again, as she looked around for Orrin. He was in the rear of the family party, as was seemly, but his eyes were bent upon her with a singular fixedness—the irids closing in upon a spark that flashed and pierced like steel. Involuntarily, she shut hers, for a second, as if blinded.
He came forward at that.
"Don't believe him!" said the same voice that had sent its echo through her swoon. "I am none the worse for the slight exertion. I consider myself very fortunate in having been near enough to help you, when you fainted—am very thankful that you are better. Come with me, Roy! Here is the doctor! If he scolds you, Miss Jessie, please consider me your champion."
The doctor, being an old friend, did scold the "madcap," who had, he for a while averred, undone his and Nature's fortnight's work. Relenting, finally, at Jessie's pretty show of penitence, he confessed that less harm had been done than he had expected, and contented himself with sentencing the delinquent to two days' strict confinement to the sofa, and "serious meditation upon what might have been the result of her imprudence—her reckless step."
"My misstep, you mean," said the incorrigible patient. "If I had not lain here so long already as to forget how to walk straightly and squarely, and to maintain the centre of gravity, this would not have happened."
Altogether, the evening was gayer than usual to all. Jessie's spirits were exuberant to a degree her sister feared was hysterical, and Orrin seconded her sallies with a quieter humor, that amused the rest and enchanted her.
"It was worth my while to faint!" she owned to him, sotto voce , when he came up to say "Good-night." "I wish I had done it before!"
Her cheeks were red with excitement; her eyes laughed up into his with arch meaning that was very bewitching and very indiscreet. His pupils contracted suddenly to the blue spark, and his left palm covered the little hand he held within his right.
"You are very kind!" was all he said with his lips.
"What treason are you two whispering there?" questioned Roy.
"Nothing that concerns you in the least!" answered Jessie, saucily. "We will keep our own counsel—won't we?" to Orrin.
He was too sensible to lie awake thinking, at an hour when people with accommodating consciences and gutta-percha hearts are wont to sleep soundly. Nor had he ever contracted the unsafe and irrational habit of talking audibly to himself—one to which poor Jessie was addicted. Yet he had his thoughts as he put out the candle in his bedroom that night.
"She is either a born flirt, and over-anxious to practise her calling, or she is the most charming, because most novel compound of naïveté, cleverness, and feeling that has crossed my path for many a day. In either case, she is a study."
The best and the worst women were with him resolved into that—studies, all,—and when they had fed his vanity and ministered to his individual gratification, they were laid aside for other specimens. As the dissecter of men's bodies soon loses his reverence for whatever of divinity the common mind may discern in the human form; as the anemone and the nettle are to the botanist but different combinations of stamen, pistil, and petal,—so your professed student of character, your mortal searcher and tryer of souls, merges heart into head in the practice of his art. Sorrow has no sacredness; Love no warning purity; Pain no appeal to him. Sensibilities are interesting only as they quiver and shrink beneath his touch; Affection is his plaything; blasted hopes, withered and wounded hearts, are the unconsidered débris of the sacrificial honors done the ensanguined Moloch of his Self-love.
It is the fashion to call such ornaments of Society. A better, because truer, name, would be the Thugs of Civilization.