said Amy, looking up with a smile, “I was making a very innocent remark.”
“Perfectly innocent, I’m sure!” replied Fanny, in her sweetest manner. It was such a different sweetness from Amy Waring’s, that Hope turned and looked very curiously at Miss Fanny.
“There are few men of forty who have not been in love,” said Amy, calmly. “That is what I was saying.”
As there was only one man of forty, or near that age, in the little group, the appeal was evidently to him. Lawrence Newt looked at the three girls, with the swimming light in his eyes, half crushing them and smiling, so that every one of them felt, each in her own way, that they were as completely blinded by that smile as by a glare of sunlight—which also, like that smile, is warm, and not treacherous.
They could not see beyond the words, nor hope to.
“Miss Amy is right, as usual,” said he.
“Why, Uncle Lawrence, tell us all about it!” said Fanny, with a hard, black smile in her eyes.
Uncle Lawrence was not in the slightest degree abashed.
“Fanny,” said he, “I will speak to you in a parable. Remember, to you. There was a farmer whose neighbor built a curious tower upon his land. It was upon a hill, in a grove. The structure rose slowly, but public curiosity rose with fearful rapidity. The gossips gossiped about it in the public houses. Rumors of it stole up to the city, and down came reporters and special correspondents to describe it with an unctuous eloquence and picturesque splendor of style known only to them. The builder held his tongue, dear Fanny. The workmen speculated upon the subject, but their speculations were no more valuable than those of other people. They received private bribes to tell; and all the great newspapers announced that, at an enormous expense, they had secured the exclusive intelligence, and the exclusive intelligence was always wrong. The country was in commotion, dear Fanny, about a simple tower that a man was building upon his land. But the wonder of wonders, and the exasperation of exasperations, was, that the farmer whose estate adjoined never so much as spoke of the tower—was never known to have asked about it—and, indeed, it was not clear that he knew of the building of any tower within a hundred miles of him. Of course, my dearest Fanny, a self-respecting Public Sentiment could not stand that. It was insulting to the public, which manifested so profound an interest in the tower, that the immediate neighbor should preserve so strict a silence, and such a perfectly tranquil mind. There are but two theories possible in regard to that man, said the self-respecting Public Sentiment: he is either a fool or a knave—probably a little of each. In any case he must be dealt with. So Public Sentiment accosted the farmer, and asked him if he were not aware that a mysterious tower was going up close to him, and that the public curiosity was sadly exercised about it? He replied that he was blessed with tolerable eyesight, and had seen the tower from the very first stone upward. Tell us, then, all about it! shrieked Public Sentiment. Ask the builder, if you want to know, said the farmer. But he won’t tell us, and we want you to tell us, because we know that you must have asked him. Now what, in the name of pity!—what is that tower for? I have never asked, replies the farmer. Never asked? shrieked Public Sentiment. Never, retorted Rusticus. And why, in the name of Heaven, have you never asked? cried the crowd. Because, said the farmer—”
Lawrence Newt looked at his auditors. “Are you listening, dear Fanny?”
“Yes, Uncle Lawrence.”
“—because it’s none of my business.”
Lawrence Newt smiled; so did all the rest, including Fanny, who remarked that he might have told her in fewer words that she was impertinent.
“Yes, Fanny; but sometimes words help us to remember things. It is a great point gained when we have learned to hoe the potatoes in our own fields, and not vex our souls about our neighbor’s towers.”
Hope Wayne was not in the least abstracted. She was nervously alive to every thing that was said and done; and listened with a smile to Lawrence Newt’s parable, liking him more and more.
The general restless distraction that precedes the breaking up of a party had now set in. People were moving, and rustling, and breaking off the ends of conversation. They began to go. A few said good-evening, and had had such a charming time! The rest gradually followed, until there was a universal departure. Grace Plumer was leaning upon Sligo Moultrie’s arm. But where was Abel?
Hope Wayne’s eyes looked every where. But her only glimpse of him during the evening had been that glimmering, dreadful moment in the conservatory. There he had remained ever since. There he still stood gazing through the door into the drawing-room, seeing but not seen—his mind a wild whirl of thoughts.
“What a fool I am!” thought Abel, bitterly. He was steadily asking himself, “Have—I—lost—Hope Wayne—before—I—had—won—her?”
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