after examination found Frank at the foot of his class, and teacher after teacher said he could not learn, she gave up the presidential chair, and contenting herself with a seat in Congress, asked that great pains should be taken to bring out the talent for debate and speech-making which she was sure Frank possessed; but when even this failed, and nineteen times out of twenty Frank could get no farther than "My name is Norval, on the Grampian Hills," she yielded the M.C. too, and set herself to make him a gentleman, polished, refined, and cultivated--one, in short, who was au fait with all that fashionable society required; and here she succeeded better. Frank was perfectly at home on the dancing floor or in the saloons of gaiety, or the establishment of a fashionable tailor, so that when Ethelyn, at twelve, went down to Boston, she found her tall, slender, light-haired cousin of sixteen a perfect dandy, with a capability and a disposition to criticise and laugh at whatever there was of gaucherie in her country manners and country dress. In some things the two were of mutual benefit to each other. Ethelyn, who could conquer any lesson however difficult, helped thick-headed, indolent Frank in his studies, translating his hard passages in Virgil, working out his problems in mathematics, and even writing, or at least revising and correcting, his compositions, while he in return gave her lessons in etiquette as practiced by the Boston girls, teaching her how to polka a waltz gracefully, so he would not be ashamed to introduce her as his cousin, he said, at the children's parties which they attended together. It was not strange that Frank Van Buren should admire a girl as bright and piquant and pretty as his cousin Ethelyn, but it was strange that she should idolize him, bearing patiently with all his criticisms, trying hard to please him, and feeling more than repaid for her exertions by a word of praise or commendation from her exacting teacher, who, viewing her at first as a poor relation, was inclined to be exacting, if not overbearing, in his demands. But as time passed on all this was changed, and the well-developed girl of fifteen, whom so many noticed and admired, would no longer be patronized by the young man Frank, who, finding himself in danger of being snubbed, as he termed Ethelyn's grand way of putting him down, suddenly awoke to the fact that he loved his high-spirited cousin, and he told her so one hazy day, when they were in Chicopee, and had wandered up to a ledge of rocks in the huckleberry hills which overlooked the town.
"They might as well make a sure thing of it," he said, in his off-hand way. "If she liked him and he liked her, they would clinch the bargain at once, even if they were so young." And so, when they went down the hill back to the shadow of the elm trees, where Mrs. Dr. Van Buren sat cooling herself and reading "Vanity Fair," there was a tiny ring on Ethelyn's finger, and she had pledged herself to be Frank's wife some day in the future.
Frank had promised to tell his mother, for Ethelyn would have no concealment; and so, holding up her hand and pointing to the ring, he said, more in jest than earnest:
"Look, mother, Ethie and I are engaged. If you have any objections, state them now, or ever after hold your peace."
He did not think proper to explain either to his mother or Ethie that this was his second serious entanglement, and that the ring had been bought before for a pretty milliner girl, at least six years his senior, whose acquaintance he had made at Nahant the summer previous, and whom he had forgotten when he learned that to her taste his mother was indebted for the stylish bonnet she sported every season. Frank generally had some love affair in hand--it was a part of his nature; and as he was not always careful in his choice, the mother had occasionally felt a twinge of fear lest, after all her care, some terrible mésalliance should be thrust upon her by her susceptible son. So she listened graciously to the news of his betrothal--nay, she was pleased with it, as for the time being it would divert his mind and keep him out of mischief. That he would eventually marry Ethelyn was impossible, for his bride must be rich; but Ethelyn answered the purpose now, and could easily be disposed of when other and better game appeared. So the scheming woman smiled, and said "it was not well for cousins to marry and even if it were, they were both too young to know their minds, and would do well to keep their engagement a secret for a time," and then returned to Becky Sharp, while Frank went to sleep upon the lounge, and Ethelyn stole off upstairs to dream over her happiness, which was as real to her as such a thing could well be to an impulsive, womanly girl of fifteen summers. She, at least, was in earnest, and as time passed on Frank seemed to be in earnest, too, devoting himself wholly to his cousin, whose influence over him was so great that he was fast becoming what Aunt Barbara called a man, while his mother began again to have visions of a seat in Congress, and brilliant speeches, which would find their way to Boston and be read and admired in the circles in which she moved.
And so the days and years wore on until Frank was a man of twenty-four--a third-rate practitioner, too, whose sign, "Frank Van Buren, Attorney-at-law," etc., looked very fresh and respectable in front of the office on Washington Street, and Frank himself began to have thoughts of claiming Ethelyn's promise and having a home of his own. He would not live with his mother, he said; it was more independent to be alone; and then, from some things he had discovered in his bride-elect, he had an uneasy feeling that possibly the brown of Ethelyn's eyes might not wholly harmonize with the gray of his mother's, "for Ethie was spunky as the old Nick," he argued with himself, while "for perversity and self-conceit his mother could not be beaten." It was better they should keep up two households, his mother seeing to both, and if need be, supplying the wants of both. To do Frank justice, he had some very correct notions with regard to domestic happiness, and had he been poor and dependent upon his own exertions he might have been an average husband; at least he would have gotten on well with Ethelyn, whose stronger nature would have upheld his and been like a supporting prop to a feeble timber. As it was, he drew many pleasing pictures of the home which was to be his and Ethie's. Now it was in the city, near to his mother's and Mrs. General Tophevie, his mother's intimate friend, whose house was the open sesame to the crême de la crême of Boston society; but oftener it was a rose-embowered cottage, of easy access to the city, where he could have Ethie all to himself when his day's labor was over, and where the skies would not be brighter than Ethie's eyes as she welcomed him home at night, leaning over the gate in the pale buff muslin he liked so much, with rosebuds in her hair.
He had seen her thus so often in fancy, that the picture had become a reality, and refused to be erased at once from the mental canvas, when, in January, Miss Nettie Hudson, niece to Mrs. General Tophevie, came from Philadelphia, and at once took prestige of everything on the strength of the one hundred thousand dollars of which she was sole heiress. The Hudson blood was a mixture of blacksmith's and shoemaker's, and peddler's too, it was said; but that was far back in the past. The Hudsons of the present day scarcely knew whether peddler were spelled with two d's or one. They bought their shoes at the most fashionable shops, and could, if they chose, have their horses shod with gold, and so the handsome Nettie reigned supreme as belle. The moment Mrs. Dr. Van Buren saw her, she recognized her daughter-in-law, the future Mrs. Frank, and Ethie's fate was sealed. There had been times when Mrs. Dr. Van Buren thought it possible that Ethelyn might, after all, be the most favored of women, the wife of her son. These times were at Saratoga, and Newport, and Nahant, where Ethelyn Grant was more sought after than any young lady there, and where the proud woman herself took pride in talking of "my niece," hinting once, when Ethelyn's star was at its height, of a childish affaire du coeur between the young lady and her son, and insinuating that it might yet amount to something. She changed her mind when Nettie came with her one hundred thousand dollars, and showed a willingness to be admired by Frank. That childish affaire du coeur was a very childish affair, indeed; she never gave it a moment's thought herself--she greatly doubted if Frank had ever been in earnest, and if Ethelyn had led him into an entanglement, she would not, of course, hold him to his promise if he wished to be released. He must have a rich wife to support him in his refined tastes and luxurious habits, for her own fortune was not so great as many supposed. She might need it all herself, as she was far from being old, and then again it was wicked for cousins to marry each other. It did not matter if the mothers were only half-sisters; there was the same blood in the veins of each, and it would not do at all, even if Ethelyn's affections were enlisted, which Mrs. Van Buren greatly doubted.
This was what Mrs. Dr. Van Buren said to Ethelyn, after a stormy interview with Frank, who had at first sworn roundly that he would not give Ethie up, then had thanked his mother not to meddle
