HARDlE.”
As he concluded, Julia came in, and he insisted on her reading this masterpiece. She hesitated. Then he told her with juvenile severity that a good husband always shares his letters with his wife.
“His wife! Alfred!” and she coloured all over. “Don't call me names,” said she, turning it off after her fashion. “I can't bear it: it makes me tremble. With fury.”
“This will never do, sweet one,” said Alfred gravely. “You and I are to have no separate existence now; you are to be I, and I am to be you. Come!”
“No; you read me so much of it as is proper for me to hear. I shall not like it so well from your lips: but never mind.”
When he came to read it, he appreciated the delicacy that had tempered her curiosity. He did not read it all to her, but nearly.
“It is a beautiful letter,” said she; “a little pomposer than mamma and I write. 'The paternal roof!' But all that becomes you; you are a scholar: and, dear Alfred, if I should separate you from your papa, I will never estrange you from him; oh, never, never. May I go for my work? For methinks, O most erudite, the 'maternal dame,' on domestic cares intent, hath confided to her offspring the recreation of your highness.” The gay creature dropt him a curtsey, and fled to tell Mrs. Dodd the substance of “the sweet letter the dear high-flown Thing had written.”
By then he had folded and addressed it, she returned and brought her work: charity children's great cloaks: her mother had cut them, and in the height of the fashion, to Jane Hardie's dismay; and Julia was binding, hooding, etcetering them.
How demurely she bent her lovely head over her charitable work, while Alfred poured his tale into her ears! How careful she was not to speak, when there was a chance of his speaking! How often she said one thing so as to express its opposite, a process for which she might have taken out a patent! How she and Alfred compared heart-notes, and their feelings at each stage of their passion! Their hearts put forth tendril after tendril, and so curled, and clung, round each other.
In the afternoon of the second blissful day, Julia suddenly remembered that this was dull for her mother. To have such a thought was to fly to her; and she flew so swiftly that she caught Mrs. Dodd in tears, and trying adroitly and vainly to hide them.
“What is the matter? I am a wretch. I have left you alone.”
“Do not think me so peevish, love! you have but surprised the natural regrets of a mother at the loss of her child.”
“Oh, mamma,” said Julia, warmly, “and do you think all the marriage in the world can ever divide you and me—can make me lukewarm to my own sweet, darling, beautiful, blessed, angel mother? Look at me: I am as much your Julia as ever; and shall be while I live. Your son is your son till he gets him a wife: but your daughter's your daughter, ALL—THE——DAYS—OF HER LIFE.”
Divine power of native eloquence: with this trite distich you made hexameters tame; it gushed from that great young heart with a sweet infantine ardour, that even virtue can only pour when young, and youth when virtuous; and, at the words I have emphasised by the poor device of capitals, two lovely, supple arms flew wide out like a soaring albatross's wings, and then went all round the sad mother, and gathered every bit of her up to the generous young bosom.
“I know it, I know it!” cried Mrs. Dodd, kissing her; “I shall never lose my daughter while she breathes. But I am losing my child. You are turning to a woman visibly: and you were such a happy child. Hence my misgivings, and these weak tears, which you have dried with a word: see!” And she contrived to smile. “And now go down, dearest: he may be impatient; men's love is so fiery.”
The next day Mrs. Dodd took Julia apart and asked her whether there was an answer from Mr. Hardie. Julia replied, from Alfred, that Jane had received a letter last night, and, to judge by the contents, Mr. Hardie must have left London before Alfred's letter got there. “He is gone to see poor Uncle Thomas.”
“Why do you call him 'poor?'”
“Oh, he is not very clever; has not much mind, Alfred says; indeed, hardly any.”
“You alarm me, Julia!” cried Mrs. Dodd. “What? madness in the family you propose to marry into?”
“Oh no, mamma,” said Julia, in a great hurry; “no madness; only a little imbecility.”
Mrs. Dodd's lip curved at this Julian answer; but just then her mind was more drawn to another topic. A serious doubt passed through her, whether, if Mr. Hardie did not write soon, she ought not to limit his son's attendance on her daughter. “He follows her about like a little dog,” said she half fretfully.
Next day, by previous invitation, Dr. Sampson made Albion Villa his head-quarters. Darting in from London, he found Alfred sitting very close to Julia over a book.
“Lordsake!” cried he, “here's 'my puppy,' and 'm' enthusiast,' cheek by chowl.” Julia turned scarlet, and Alfred ejaculated so loudly, that Sampson inquired “what on airth was the matter now?”
“Oh, nothing; only here have I been jealous of my own shadow, and pestering her who 'your puppy' was: and she never would tell me. All I could get from her,” added he, turning suddenly from gratitude to revenge, “was that he was no greater a puppy than yourself, doctor.”
“Oh, Alfred, no; I only said no vainer,” cried Julia in dismay.
“Well, it is true,” said Sampson contentedly, and proceeded to dissect himself just as he would a stranger. “I am a vain man; a remarkably vain man. But then I'm a man of great mirit.”
“All vain people are that,” suggested Alfred dryly.
“Who should know better than you, young Oxford? Y' have got a hidache.”
“No, indeed.”
“Don't tell lies now. Ye can't deceive me; man, I've an eye like a hawk. And what's that ye're studying with her? Ovid, for a pound.”
“No; medicine; a treatise on your favourite organ, the brain, by one Dr. Whately.”
“He is chaffing you, doctor,” said Edward; “it is logic. He is coaching her; and then she will coach me.”
“Then I forbid the chaff-cutting, young Pidant. Logic is an ill plaster to a sore head.”
“Oh, 'the labour we delight in, physics pain.'”
“Jinnyus, Jinnyus;
Take care o' your carkuss,”
retorted the master of doggrel. “And that is a profounder remark than you seem to think, by your grinning, all of ye.”
Julia settled the question by putting away the book. And she murmured to Alfred, “I wish I could steal your poor dear headaches: you might give me half of them at least; you would, too, if you really loved me.”
This sound remonstrance escaped criticism by being nearly inaudible, and by Mrs. Dodd entering at the same moment.
After the first greeting, Sampson asked her with merry arrogance, how his prescription had worked? “Is her sleep broken still, ma'am?
