then, you know, they don't forget. Winders, there 't is." And the Colonel approved of learning geography by going to the places themselves, and especially of learning the languages on the spot. This, he contended, was the only correct way, and enough better than by hammering forever at school-books and masters. It was in pursuance of this somewhat desultory, but healthful mode of education, that the family found itself, in 1857, at Baden-Baden.
As usual, there were, in the crowds there assembled for health and pleasure, a great many English; among them several persons of high rank. Here were German princes and counts, so plenty that Percy got tired of wondering they were not more refined and agreeable. She was herself a great attraction there, and, the Colonel said, had many admirers. Among the guests was an English family that took great notice of her, and made many advances towards intimacy. The two young ladies and their father seemed equally pleased and interested in the Lunts, and when they left Baden-Baden asked them to make them a visit in the autumn at their house in Derbyshire.
Thinking of this, I am not much surprised. For the Colonel's manners are unexceptionably good, with a simplicity and a self-reliance that mark a true gentleman; while Mrs. Lunt is the loveliest and best-bred woman in Barton, and consequently fit society for any nobleman.
When the Lunts went to England, in October, they visited these people. And there they found Charles Lunt, a second-cousin of the Colonel's, a New-Yorker, and a graduate of Oxford. His father had sent him to England to be finished off, after Yale had done its best for him here. He and Percy fell in love immediately, and matters came to a climax.
Colonel Lunt did not desire the connection at all. Charles's mother was related to the family where they were visiting, and, as he himself would feel it incumbent on him to state the facts relative to Percy's birth, he foresaw distinctly only a mortifying relinquishment of the alliance. Charles was, in fact, on his mother's side, second-cousin to an English Earl. The name of the Earl I don't give, for the good reason that the Colonel kept it a secret, and, even if I knew, I should not wish to reveal it.
Before Colonel Lunt could act on his impressions and decisions, Charles cut the knot by asking his relative, the Earl, to make proposals for him. He was of age, with an independent fortune, and could please himself, and it pleased him to marry Percy.
Then the Colonel asked to see Charles, and he was called in. He began by declining the connection; but finding this mortifying and mysterious to both the gentlemen, he ended by a plain statement of such of the facts as he had been made acquainted with by Madame Guyot.
"I don't know the name of Percy's father," said the Colonel, "the poor woman would give me no clew to him,—but he may be living,—he may some time trace and claim her!"
"Does this make any difference to you, Charles?" said the Earl, when Colonel Lunt had finished.
"Not a jot!" said Charles, warmly. "It isn't likely her father will ever either trace or claim her; and, if he should even, and all should come out, why, I care nothing for it,—nothing, I mean, in comparison with Percy."
Of course then the Colonel had no objections.
"Now, is it best, all things considered," said the Earl, who took the interest of a father in Charles, "is it best to say anything to Percy of her real history?"
Charles thought not by any means, and it was so agreed among the three. The young man left the room to go to his confident wooing, for there was not much reason to doubt of his fate, and left Colonel Lunt with the Earl.
"Nothing can be more honorable than your whole proceeding, Colonel, in this matter. You might have kept the thing quiet, if you had so chosen."
"I always meant to tell any man who really desired to marry Percy," said the Colonel; "we never can tell what may happen, and I wouldn't be such a swindler as to keep these facts from him, on which his whole decision might rest."
The Colonel looked at the Earl,—"looked him straight in the eye," he said,—for he felt it an imputation on his honor that he could have been supposed for a moment to do otherwise than he had done. To his surprise the Earl turned very red, and then very pale, and said, holding out his hand, "You have kept my secret well, Colonel Lunt! and I thank you for it!"
"You are Percy's father!" said the Colonel, at once.
The Earl wrung his hand hard. It isn't the English nature to express much, but it was plain that the past was full of mournful and distressful remembrances.
"I never thought of it till this instant," said Colonel Lunt, "and I don't know how I knew it; but it was written in your face. She never told me who it was!"
"But she wrote to me about you, and about the child. I have watched your comings and goings these many years. I knew I should meet you where I did. You may guess my feelings at seeing my beautiful child,—at seeing how lovely in mind and person she is, and at being unable to call her my own! I was well punished the first hour after I met you. But my next hope and desire was to interest you all enough in my own family to induce you to come here. In fact, I did think you were the depositary of my secret. But I see I was wrong there."
"Yes," the Colonel said, "Madame Guyot simply informed me the child's father would never claim her, and that the name was an assumed one. I saw how it probably was, but I respected her too much to ask anything which she did not herself choose to reveal. I think she was one of the loveliest and most superior women I ever saw, though, at the time I first met her, she showed that her health was fatally undermined. It was much on her account that I left Maryland for the more equable climate of Barton."
"You were everything to her that the most tender and noble friends could be!" said the Earl, warmly. "She wrote me of all your kindness. Now let me tell you a little about her. She was my sister's governess, and I saw her in my college vacations. I need not tell you how lovely she was in her youth. She was no French girl, but a country curate's daughter in Hampshire. Now, Colonel Lunt, it would have been as impossible for me to marry that girl—no matter how beautiful, refined, and good—as if she had been a Hottentot. How often I have wished to throw birth, connections, name, title, everything, to the winds, that I might take Amy Percival to my heart and hold her there legally! How I have envied the Americans, who care nothing for antecedents, to whom birth and social position are literally nothing,—often not even fortunate accidents! How many times I have read your papers, and imagined myself thrown on my own resources only, like so many of your successful men, and making my own way among you, taking my Amy with me and giving her a respectable and happy home! But these social cobwebs by which we poor flies are caught and held,—it is very hard to break them! I was always going to do right, and always did wrong. After my great wrong to Amy, which was a pretended marriage, she left me,—she had found out my villany,—and went to America. She did not write to me until she knew she must die, and then she related every particular,—all your great kindness to both her and the child, and the motherly tenderness with which Mrs. Lunt had endeavored to soften her sufferings. In twenty years I have changed very much every way, but I have never ceased to feel self-contempt for my conduct to Amy Percival."
Now a new question arose.
Was it best to reveal this last secret to Charles? He had been content to take Percy, nameless and illegitimate. The Earl was extremely unwilling to extend his confidence further than Colonel Lunt. It seemed to him unnecessary. He said he desired to give Percy the same share of his property that his other two daughters would receive on their marriage, but that he could not openly do this without exciting remarks and provoking unpleasant feelings. Colonel Lunt considered that the secret was not his to keep or reveal. So nothing was said, and the marriage took place at the house of the Earl; Colonel Lunt receiving from Percy's father ten thousand pounds, as some atonement by a wounded conscience.
"Now," said the Colonel, as he finished his long story, and we drove up to
