it’s the best match that there has been about here this summer. He’s rich, of an old, respectable family; and then he has good principles, you know, and all that,” said Belle.
“I think he’s nice myself,” said Lillie, as she stood brushing out a golden tangle of curls. “Dear me!” she added, “how much better he is than that Danforth! Really, Danforth was a little too horrid: his teeth were dreadful. Do you know, I should have had something of a struggle to take him, though he was so terribly rich? Then Danforth had been horridly dissipated—you don’t know—Maria Sanford told me such shocking things about him, and she knows they are true. Now, I don’t think John has ever been dissipated.”
“I think he’s nice myself.”
“Oh, no!” said Belle. “I heard all about him. He joined the church when he was only twenty, and has been always spoken of as a perfect model. I only think you may find it a little slow, living in Springdale. He has a fine, large, old-fashioned house there, and his sister is a very nice woman; but they are a sort of respectable, retired set—never go into fashionable company.”
“Oh, I don’t mind it!” said Lillie. “I shall have things my own way, I know. One isn’t obliged to live in Springdale, nor with pokey old sisters, you know; and John will do just as I say, and live where I please.”
She said this with her simple, soft air of perfect assurance, twisting her shower of bright, golden curls; with her gentle, childlike face, and soft, beseeching, blue eyes, and dimpling little mouth, looking back on her, out of the mirror. By these the little queen had always ruled from her cradle, and should she not rule now? Was it any wonder that John was half out of his wits with joy at thought of possessing her? Simply and honestly, she thought not. He was to be congratulated; though it wasn’t a bad thing for her, either.
“Belle,” said Lillie, after an interval of reflection, “I won’t be married in white satin—that I’m resolved on. Now,” she said, facing round with increasing earnestness, “there have been five weddings in our set, and all the girls have been married in just the same dress—white satin and point lace, white satin and point lace, over and over, till I’m tired of it. I’m determined I’ll have something new.”
“Well, I would, I’m sure,” said Belle. “Say white tulle, for instance: you know you are so petite and fairy-like.”
“No: I shall write out to Madame La Roche, and tell her she must get up something wholly original. I shall send for my whole trousseau. Papa will be glad enough to come down, since he gets me off his hands, and no more fuss about bills, you know. Do you know, Belle, that creature is just wild about me: he’d like to ransack all the jewellers’ shops in New York for me. He’s going up to-morrow, just to choose the engagement ring. He says he can’t trust to an order; that he must go and choose one worthy of me.”
“Oh! it’s plain enough that that game is all in your hands, as to him, Lillie; but, Lil, what will your Cousin Harry say to all this?”
“Well, of course he won’t like it; but I can’t help it if he don’t. Harry ought to know that it’s all nonsense for him and me to think of marrying. He does know it.”
“To tell the truth, I always thought, Lil, you were more in love with Harry than anybody you ever knew.”
Lillie laughed a little, and then the prettiest sweet-pea flush deepened the pink of her cheeks.
“To say the truth, Belle, I could have been, if he had been in circumstances to marry. But, you see, I am one of those to whom the luxuries are essential. I never could rub and scrub and work; in fact, I had rather not live at all than live poor; and Harry is poor, and he always will be poor. It’s a pity, too, poor fellow, for he’s nice. Well, he is off in India! I know he will be tragical and gloomy, and all that,” she said; and then the soft child-face smiled to itself in the glass—such a pretty little innocent smile!
All this while, John sat up with his heart beating very fast, writing all about his engagement to his sister, and, up to this point, his nearest, dearest, most confidential friend. It is almost too bad to copy the letter of a shy man who finds himself in love for the first time in his life; but we venture to make an extract:—
“It is not her beauty merely that drew me to her, though she is the most beautiful human being I ever saw: it is the exquisite feminine softness and delicacy of her character, that sympathetic pliability by which she adapts herself to every varying feeling of the heart. You, my dear sister, are the noblest of women, and your place in my heart is still what it always was; but I feel that this dear little creature, while she fills a place no other has ever entered, will yet be a new bond to unite us. She will love us both; she will gradually come into all our ways and opinions, and be insensibly formed by us into a noble womanhood. Her extreme beauty, and the great admiration that has always followed her, have exposed her to many temptations, and caused most ungenerous things to be said of her.
“Hitherto she has lived only in the fashionable world; and her literary and domestic education, as she herself is sensible, has been somewhat neglected.
“But she longs to retire from all this; she is sick of fashionable folly, and will come to us to be all our own. Gradually the charming circle of cultivated families which form our society will elevate her taste, and form her mind.
“Love is woman’s inspiration, and love will lead her to all that is noble and good. My dear sister, think not that any new ties are going to make you any less to me, or touch your place in my heart. I have already spoken of you to Lillie, and she longs to know you. You must be to her what you have always been to me—guide, philosopher, and friend.
“I am sure I never felt better impulses, more humble, more thankful, more religious, than I do now. That the happiness of this soft, gentle, fragile creature is to be henceforth in my hands is to me a solemn and inspiring thought. What man is worthy of a refined, delicate woman? I feel my unworthiness of her every hour; but, so help me God, I shall try to be all to her that a husband should; and you, my sister, I know, will help me to make happy the future which she so confidingly trusts to me.
“Believe me, dear sister, I never was so much your affectionate brother,
“John Seymour.
“P.S.—I forgot to tell you that Lillie remarkably resembles the ivory miniature of our dear sainted mother. She was very much affected when I told her of it. I think naturally Lillie has very much such a character as our mother; though circumstances, in her case, have been unfavorable to the development of it.”
Whether the charming vision was realized; whether the little sovereign now enthroned will be a just and clement one; what immunities and privileges she will allow to her slaves—is yet to be seen in this story.
CHAPTER II.
WHAT SHE THINKS OF IT.
“From John, good fellow.”
SPRINGDALE was one of those beautiful rural towns whose flourishing aspect is a striking
