One evening Morton was at a ball, crowded to the verge of suffocation. At length he found himself in a corner from which there was no retreat, while the stately proportions of Mrs. Frederic Goldenberg barred his onward progress. But when that distinguished lady chanced to move aside, she revealed the countenance of Miss Blondel, beaming on him like the moon after an eclipse. She nodded and smiled. There was no escape. Morton smiled hypocritically, and said, "Good evening." Blanche, as usual, was eager for conversation, and, after a few commonplaces, she said, turning up her eyes at him with an arch expression—
"I have a piece of news to tell you, Mr. Morton."
"Ah!" replied Morton, expecting something disagreeable.
"A piece of news that you will be charmed to hear."
"Indeed."
"Why, how cold you are! And I know that, in your heart, you are burning to hear it."
"If you think so, you are determined to give my patience a hard schooling."
"Well, I will not tantalize you any more. Miss Edith Leslie sailed from Liverpool for home last Wednesday."
"Ah!"
"How cold you are again! Are you not glad to hear it?"
"Certainly—all her friends will be glad to hear it."
"Upon my word, Mr. Morton, you are worse and worse. When a gentleman dances twice with a young lady on class day, and twice at Mrs. Fanfaron's ball, and joins her in the street besides, has she not a right to feel hurt when he hears with such profound indifference of her coming home after a year's absence?"
Morton could hardly restrain the extremity of his distaste and impatience.
"Miss Leslie, I imagine, would spend very little thought upon the matter." And he hastened, first to change the conversation, and then to close it altogether.
Having escaped from his fair informant, he remained divided between pleasure at the tidings, and annoyance at the manner in which they had been told.
In a few days Miss Leslie arrived. Her beauty had matured during her absence. She was conspicuously and brilliantly handsome, and was admired accordingly—a fact which, though she could not but be conscious of it, seemed to affect her very little. Morton found her but slightly changed, with the same polished and quiet frankness, the same lively conversation, not without a tinge of sarcasm, and the same enthusiasm of character, betraying itself by an earnestness of manner, and never by any extravagance of expression. He had many opportunities of seeing her, Miss Blanche Blondel being but rarely present, and, in his growing admiration of her, the charms of his unbridled cousin faded more and more from his memory.
CHAPTER X.
| For three whole days you thus may rest From office business, news, and strife.—Pope. |
When the summer heats set in, Meredith, one evening, drove to Morton's house, and, arrayed in linen and grass-cloth, smoked his cigar under his friend's veranda with as much contentment as the thermometer at ninety would permit. The window at his side was that of the room which Morton used as his study, and the table was covered with books.
"Colonel," said Meredith, "what a painstaking fellow you are! Ever since you left college—except when you were off on that journey, which was one of the most rational things you ever did in your life—you have been digging here among your books, as if you were some half-starved law student, with a prospect of matrimony."
"I've done digging for the present. It's against my principles to work much in July and August."
"What do you mean to do?"
"Set out on a journey."
"I suppose so. You are a lucky fellow."
"Give yourself a vacation, and come with me."
"No, I'm in for it for the next two months; but I will have my revenge before long."
"Three days from your office will never ruin you or your family. Come with me to New Baden, if you can't do better."
"I think I can manage that—and I will."
Accordingly, on Monday morning, they took the train thitherward.
CHAPTER XI.
| The company is 'mixed,' (the phrase I quote is As much as saying, they're below your notice.)—Byron. |
On reaching New Baden, towards night, they learned that there was to be a dance that evening, in the hall.
"The deuse!" ejaculated Meredith, as they entered; "have we come all this distance to find old faces again at New Baden? Look at that corner."
Morton looked, and beheld a solemn group taking no part in the amusements, but scrutinizing the scene with the air of superior beings. He recognized the familiar countenance of Mrs. Primrose, with her daughter, Miss Constance Primrose, and her daughter's friend, Miss Wallflower. There, too, was Mr. Benjamin Stubb, Morton's classmate, and Miss Primrose's reputed admirer, with several other kindred spirits. Stubb was a tall and very slender young man, with a grave and pallid visage, and an uncompromising rigidity of cravat. Though his brain was unfurnished, his morals were reasonably good, and he went regularly to church, believing that there was, he could not tell how, an inseparable connection between good society and the ritual of the English church. He prided himself on his gentlemanly deportment, and regarded a lady as a being who is under no circumstances to be approached, except through the medium of certain prescribed forms and ceremonies. He seldom noticed those whom he thought his inferiors, and was very formal and exact towards the select few whom he acknowledged as his equals. As to superiors, he confessed none, except in the highest ranks of the English aristocracy, upon whom he looked with great reverence. He thought that there was no really good society in America, except the society of Boston, of which he regarded himself and his connections as the crême, de la crême. He cherished a just hereditary scorn of upstarts and parvenus; for already nearly half a century had expired since the Stubbs began to rise on golden wings from their native mud. Nor was this their only claim to ancestral eminence; since a judicious investment of a little surplus income at the College of Heralds had revealed the gratifying truth that the Stubbs of Boston were lineal descendants of King Arthur.
Mrs. Primrose was a very benevolent and estimable person, who knew nothing of the world beyond her own circle, and looked with dire reprehension on any deviation from the standard of morals and manners which she had been accustomed to regard as the correct and proper one. Miss Constance Primrose realized Stubb's most exalted ideal of a young lady. She was very pretty, but with a face cold and unchanging as marble. She carried an unquestionable air of good, not to say of high breeding; having in this point an advantage over her mother, whose style savored a little of the simplicity of her early surroundings. The material, indeed, was very slender; but it had received a creditable polish; and though she had nothing to say, she said it with an undeniable grace.
Morton and Meredith paid their compliments to the group, the former hastening to mingle with the crowd again, while Meredith remained to exchange a few words with the pretty, modest, and too-much-neglected Miss Wallflower.
"Upon my word, Mr. Meredith," said Mrs. Primrose, "Mr. Morton has found a singular pair of acquaintances."
"O, yes," said Meredith; "those are particular friends of his."
"Very