Ellis was a belle by profession, and she understood her business perfectly. In nothing did she show herself master of her craft, more than in the adroitness with which she could soothe the bashful pangs of new votaries, and place them on an easy footing with her.
“Mr. Seymour,” she said affably, “to tell the truth, I have been desirous of the honor of your acquaintance, ever since I saw you in the breakfast-room this morning.”
“I am sure I am very much flattered,” said John, his heart beating thick and fast. “May I ask why you honor me with such a wish?”
“Well, to tell the truth, because you strikingly resemble a very dear friend of mine,” said Miss Ellis, with her sweet, unconscious simplicity of manner.
“I am still more flattered,” said John, with a quicker beating of the heart; “only I fear that you may find me an unpleasant contrast.”
“Oh! I think not,” said Lillie, with another smile: “we shall soon be good friends, too, I trust.”
“I trust so certainly,” said John, earnestly.
Belle Trevors now joined the party; and the four were soon chatting together on the best footing of acquaintance. John was delighted to feel himself already on easy terms with the fair vision.
“You have not been here long?” said Lillie to John.
“No, I have only just arrived.”
“And you were never here before?”
“No, Miss Ellis, I am entirely new to the place.”
“I am an old habituée here,” said Lillie, “and can recommend myself as authority on all points connected with it.”
“Then,” said John, “I hope you will take me under your tuition.”
“Certainly, free of charge,” she said, with another ravishing smile.
“You haven’t seen the boiling spring yet?” she added.
“No, I haven’t seen any thing yet.”
“Well, then, if you’ll give me your arm across the lawn, I’ll show it to you.”
All of this was done in the easiest, most matter-of-course manner in the world; and off they started, John in a flutter of flattered delight at the gracious acceptance accorded to him.
Ethridge and Belle Trevors looked after them with a nod of intelligence at each other.
“Hooked, by George!” said Ethridge.
“Well, it’ll be a good thing for Lillie, won’t it?”
“For her? Oh, yes, a capital thing for her!”
“Well, for him too.”
“Well, I don’t know. John is a pretty nice fellow; a very nice fellow, besides being rich, and all that; and Lillie is somewhat shop-worn by this time. Let me see: she must be seven and twenty.”
“Oh, yes, she’s all that!” said Belle, with ingenuous ardor. “Why, she was in society while I was a school-girl! Yes, dear Lillie is certainly twenty-seven, if not more; but she keeps her freshness wonderfully.”
“Well, she looks fresh enough, I suppose, to a good, honest, artless fellow like John Seymour, who knows as little of the world as a milkmaid. John is a great, innocent, country steer, fed on clover and dew; and as honest and ignorant of all sorts of naughty, wicked things as his mother or sister. He takes Lillie in a sacred simplicity quite refreshing; but to me Lillie is played out. I know her like a book. I know all her smiles and wiles, advices and devices; and her system of tactics is an old story with me. I shan’t interrupt any of her little games. Let her have her little field all to herself: it’s time she was married, to be sure.”
Meanwhile, John was being charmingly ciceroned by Lillie, and scarcely knew whether he was in the body or out. All that he felt, and felt with a sort of wonder, was that he seemed to be acceptable and pleasing in the eyes of this little fairy, and that she was leading him into wonderland.
They went not only to the boiling spring, but up and down so many wild, woodland paths that had been cut for the adornment of the Carmel Springs, and so well pleased were both parties, that it was supper-time before they reappeared on the lawn; and, when they did appear, Lillie was leaning confidentially on John’s arm, with a wreath of woodbine in her hair that he had arranged there, wondering all the while at his own wonderful boldness, and at the grace of the fair entertainer.
“Lillie was leaning confidentially on John’s arm.”
The returning couple were seen from the windows of Mrs. Chit, who sat on the lookout for useful information; and who forthwith ran to the apartments of Mrs. Chat, and told her to look out at them.
Billy This, who was smoking his cigar on the veranda, immediately ran and called Harry That to look at them, and laid a bet at once that Lillie had “hooked” Seymour.
“She’ll have him, by George, she will!”
“Oh, pshaw! she is always hooking fellows, but you see she don’t get married,” said matter-of-fact Harry. “It won’t come to any thing, now, I’ll bet. Everybody said she was engaged to Danforth, but it all ended in smoke.”
Whether it would be an engagement, or would all end in smoke, was the talk of Carmel Springs for the next two weeks.
At the end of that time, the mind of Carmel Springs was relieved by the announcement that it was an engagement.
The important deciding announcement was first authentically made by Lillie to Belle Trevors, who had been invited into her room that night for the purpose.
“Well, Belle, it’s all over. He spoke out to-night.”
“He offered himself?”
“Certainly.”
“And you took him?”
“Of course I did: I should be a fool not to.”
“Oh, so I think, decidedly!” said Belle, kissing her friend in a rapture. “You dear creature! how nice! it’s splendid!”
Lillie took the embrace with her usual sweet composure, and turned to her looking-glass, and began taking down her hair for the night. It will be perceived that this young lady was not overcome with emotion, but in a perfectly collected state of mind.
“He’s a little bald, and getting rather stout,” she said reflectively, “but he’ll do.”
“I never saw a creature so dead in love as he is,” said Belle.
A quiet smile passed over the soft, peach-blow cheeks as Lillie answered—
“Oh, dear,
