father is a man of talent before him," observed Mrs. Mervale. "As a family, the Hazlewoods have always been distinguished for ability. This young man is ugly, you say, Angila?"
"Yes – " replied Angila, though with some hesitation. "Yes, he is ugly, certainly – but he has a good countenance; and when he converses he is better looking than I thought him."
"It's a pity he's conceited," said Mrs. Mervale, innocently; her impression of the young man being taken from her daughter's previous description of him. "Since he is really clever, it's a pity, for it's such a drawback always."
"Conceited! I don't think he's conceited," said Angila, quite forgetting her yesterday's opinion.
"Don't you? I thought it was you who said so, my dear," replied her mother, quietly.
"Yes, I did once think so," said Angila, slightly blushing at her own inconsistency. "I don't know why I took the idea in my head – but in fact I talked more to him, and became better acquainted with him last evening than I ever have before. When there is dancing, there is so little time for conversation; and he really talks very well."
"He is engaged to Miss Morton, you say?" continued Mrs. Mervale.
"Well, I don't know," replied Angila, adding, as she remembered the animated looks of admiration he had bestowed upon herself, "I doubt it – that is the report, however."
"Hazlewood's no more engaged to Mary Morton than I am," said young Mervale, carelessly. "Where did you get that idea?"
"Why every body says so, George," said Angila.
"Pshaw! every body's saying so don't make it so."
"But he's very attentive to her," replied Angila.
"Well, and if he is," retorted Mervale, "it does not follow that he must be in love with her. You women do jump to conclusions, and make up matches in such a way," he continued, almost angrily.
"I think she likes him," pursued Angila. "I think she would have him."
"Have him! to be sure she would," replied George, in the same tone; not that he considered the young lady particularly in love with his friend, but as if any girl might be glad to have him – for brothers are very apt to view such cases differently from sisters, who refuse young gentlemen for their friends without mercy.
"But he's ugly, you say," continued Mrs. Mervale, sorrowfully, who, old lady as she was, liked a handsome young man, and always lamented when she found mental gifts unaccompanied by personal charms.
"Yes, he's no beauty, that's certain," said Angila, gayly.
"Has he a good air and figure?" pursued Mrs. Mervale, still hoping so clever a man might be better looking after all.
"Yes, tolerable – middle height – nothing remarkable one way or the other." And then the young lady went off to tell some piece of news, that quite put Mr. Hazlewood out of her mother's head for the present.
When Angila next wrote to Augusta, although she spoke of Mrs. Carpenter's party, a little consciousness prevented her saying much about Robert Hazlewood, and consequently her friend was quite unsuspicious of the large share he had in making the party she described so pleasant.
Hazlewood had really been pleased by Angila. She was pretty – and he found her lively and intelligent. He had always been inclined to admire her, but she had turned from him once or twice in what he had thought a haughty manner, and consequently he had scarcely known her until they met at this little conversazione of Mrs. Carpenter's, where accident placed them near each other. The party was so small that where people happened to find themselves, there they staid – it requiring some courage for a young man to break the charmed ring, and deliberately plant himself before any lady, or attempt to talk to any one except her beside whom fate had placed him.
Now Angila had the corner seat on a sofa near the fire-place, and Hazlewood was standing, leaning against the chimney-piece, so that a nicer, more cosy position for a pleasant talk could hardly be conceived in so small a circle. Miss Morton was on the other side of the fire-place, occupying the corresponding situation to Angila, and Angila could see her peeping forward from time to time to see if Hazlewood still maintained his place. His back was turned toward her, so if she did throw any anxious glances that way, he did not see them.
Angila met him a few evenings after this at the Opera, and found that he was a passionate lover of music. They talked again, and he very well, for he really was a sensible, well-educated young man. Music is a favorite source of inspiration, and Hazlewood was a connoisseur as well as amateur. She found that he seldom missed a night at the Opera, and "she was surprised she had not seen him there before, as she went herself very often."
"He had seen her, however;" and he looked as if it were not easy not to see her when she was there.
She blushed and was pleased, for it evidently was not an unmeaning compliment.
"Mr. Hazlewood's very clever," she said the next day; "and his tastes are so cultivated and refined. He is very different from the usual run of young men." (When a girl begins to think a man different from the "usual run," you may be sure she herself is off the common track.) "There's something very manly in all his sentiments, independent and high-toned. He cannot be engaged to Mary Morton, for I alluded to the report, and he seemed quite amused at the idea. I can see he thinks her very silly, which she is, though pretty – though he was two gentlemanly to say so."
"How, then, did you find out that he thought so," asked George, smiling.
"Oh, from one or two little things. We were speaking of a German poem that I was trying to get the other day, and he said he had it, but had lent it to Miss Morton. 'However,' he added, with a peculiar smile, 'he did not believe she wanted to read it, and at any rate, he would bring it to me as soon as she returned it. He doubted whether she was much of a German reader.' But it was more the smile and the manner in which he said it, than the words, that made me think he had no very high opinion of her literary tastes."
"He may not like her any the less for that," said George, carelessly. "I think your clever literary men rarely do value a woman less for her ignorance."
But there was an expression in Angila's pretty face that seemed to contradict this assertion; for, like most pretty women, the was vainer of her talents than her beauty – and she thought Hazlewood had been quite struck by some of her criticisms the night before.
However this might be, the intimacy seemed to progress at a wonderful rate. He called and brought her books; and they had a world to say every time they met, which, whether by accident or design, was now beginning to be very often.
"You knew old Mr. Hazlewood, mamma, did not you?" said Angila. "And who did you say Mrs. Hazlewood was?" And now she listened very differently from the last time that her mother had launched forth on the topic of old times and friends. Angila was wonderfully interested in all the history of the whole race, for Mrs. Mervale began with the great grandfathers, maternal and paternal; and she kept the thread of the story with surprising distinctness, and made out the family pedigree with amazing correctness.
"Then they are an excellent family, mamma," she said.
"To be sure they are," replied Mrs. Mervale, "one of the oldest and best in the city."
It was wonderful what a quantity of books Angila read just about this time; but Hazlewood was always sending her something, which she seemed to take peculiar pleasure in surprising him by having finished before they met again. And her bright eyes grew brighter, and occasionally,
