CHAPTER XXV.
A YOUNG GENTLEMAN, JUST FROM WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE.
Instead of following Verty, who, like most lovers, is very far from being an amusing personage, let us go back and accompany Mr. Ralph Ashley, on his way to the Bower of Nature, where our young friend Fanny awaits him; and if these scenes and characters also fail to entertain us, we may at least be sure that they are from the book of human nature—a volume whose lightest chapters and most frivolous illustrations are not beneath the attention of the wisest. If this were not true, the present chronicler would never be guilty of the folly of expending his time and ink upon such details as go to make up this true history; it would be lost labor, were not the flower and the blade of grass, the very thistle down upon the breeze, each and all, as wonderful as the grand forests of the splendid tropics. What character or human deed is too small or trivial for study? Never did a great writer utter truer philosophy than when he said:
"Say not 'a small event!' Why 'small?'
Costs it more pains than this, ye call
A 'great event,' shall come to pass,
Than that? Untwine me from the mass
Of deeds which make up life, one deed
Power shall fall short in, or exceed!"
And now after this philosophical dissertation upon human life and actions, we may proceed to narrate the visit of Mr. Ralph Ashley, graduate of Williamsburg, and cousin of Miss Fanny, to the Bower of Nature, and its inmates.
Fanny was at the door when he dismounted, and awaited the young gentleman with some blushes, and a large amount of laughter.
This laughter was probably directed toward the somewhat dandified costume of the young gentleman, and he was not long left in the dark upon this point.
"How d'ye do, my dearest Fanny," said Mr. Ralph Ashley, hastening forward, and holding out his arms; "let us embrace!"
"Humph!" said Fanny; "indeed you shan't!"
"Shan't what—kiss you?"
"Yes, sir: you shall do nothing of the sort!"
"Wrong!—here goes!"
And before Miss Fanny could make her retreat, Ralph Ashley, Esq., caught that young lady in his arms, and impressed a salute upon her lips, so remarkably enthusiastic, that it resembled the discharge of a pistol. Perhaps we are wrong in saying that it was imprinted on his cousin's lips, inasmuch as Miss Fanny, though incapacitated from releasing herself, could still turn her head, and she always maintained that nothing but her cheek suffered. On this point we cannot be sure, and therefore leave the question undecided.
Of one fact, however, there can be no doubt—namely, that Mr. Ralph Ashley received, almost immediately, a vigorous salute of another description upon the cheek, from Miss Fanny's open hand—a salute which caused his face to assume the most girlish bloom, and his eyes to suddenly fill with tears.
"By Jove! you've got an arm!" said the cavalier, admiringly. "Come, my charming child—why did you treat me so cruelly?"
"Why did you kiss me? Impudence!"
"That's just what young ladies always say," replied her cavalier, philosophically; "whatever they like, they are sure to call impudent."
"Like?"
"Yes, like! Do you pretend to say that you are not complimented by a salute from such an elegant gentleman as myself?"
"Oh, of course!" said Miss Fanny, satirically.
"Then the element of natural affection—of consanguinity—has its due weight no doubt, my dearest. I am your cousin."
"What of that, man?"
"Everything! Don't you know that in this reputable province, called
Virginia, blood goes a great way? Cousins are invariably favorites."
"You are very much mistaken, sir," said Fanny.
"There it is—you girls always deny it, and always believe it," said
Mr. Ralph, philosophically. "Now, you would die for me."
"Die, indeed!"
"Would'nt you?"
"Fiddlesticks!"
"That's an impressive observation, and there's no doubt about your meaning, though the original signification, the philological origin of the phrase, is somewhat cloudy. You won't expire for me, then?"
"No!"
"Then live for me, delight of my existence!" said Mr. Ralph Ashley, with a languishing glance, and clasping his hands romantically as he spoke; "live for one, whose heart is wrapped in thee!"
Miss Fanny's sense of the ludicrous was strong, and this pathetic appeal caused her to burst into laughter.
"More ridiculous than ever, as I live!" she cried, "though I thought that was impossible."
"Did you?"
"Yes."
Mr. Ashley gently twined a lock around his finger, and assuming a foppish air, replied:
"I don't know whether you thought it impossible for me to become more ridiculous; but you can't help confessing, my own Fanny, that you doubted whether I could grow more fascinating."
Fanny's lip curled.
"Oh, yes!" she said.
"Come—don't deny what was perfectly plain—it won't do."
"Deny—?"
"That you were desperately in love with me, and that I was your sweetheart, as the children say."
And Mr. Ralph gently caressed the downy covering of his chin, and smiled.
"What a conceited thing you are," said Fanny, laughing; "you are outrageous."
And having uttered this opinion, Miss Fanny's eyes suddenly fell, and her merry cheek colored. The truth was simply, that Ralph had been a frank, good-humored, gallant boy, and the neighbors had said, that he was Fanny's "sweetheart;" and the remembrance of this former imputation now embarrassed the nearly-grown-up young lady. No one could remain embarrassed in Mr. Ralph's society long however; there was so much careless ease in his demeanor, that it was contagious, and so Fanny in a moment had regained all her self-possession, and returned the languishing glances of her admirer with her habitual expression of satirical humor.
"Yes, perfectly outrageous!" she said; "and college has positively ruined you—you cannot deny it."
"Ruined me?"
"Wholly."
"On the contrary, it has greatly improved me, my dearest."
And Ralph sat down on the trellised portico, stretching out his elegant rosetted shoes, and laughing.
"I am not your dearest," said Fanny; "that is not my name."
"You are mistaken! But come, sit by me: I'm just in the mood to talk."
"No! I don't think I will."
"Pray do."
"No," said Fanny, shaking her head coquettishly, "I'll stand while your lordship discourses."
"You positively shan't!"
And with these words, the young man grasped Miss Fanny's long streaming hair-ribbon, and gently drew it toward him, laughing.
Fanny cried out. Ralph laughed more than ever.
There was but one alternative left for the young girl. She must either see her elegantly bound up raven locks deprived of their confining ribbon, and so fall in wild disorder, or she must obey the command of the enemy, and sit quietly beside him. True, there was the third course of becoming angry, and raising her head with dignified hauteur. But this course had its objections—it would not do to quarrel with her cousin and former playmate immediately upon his return; and again the movement of the head, which we have indicated, would have been attended by consequences exceedingly disastrous.
Therefore, as Ralph continued to draw toward him gently the scarlet ribbon, with many smiles and admiring glances, Miss Fanny gradually approached the seat, and finally sat down.
"There, sir!" she said, pouting, "I hope you are satisfied!"
"Perfectly; the fact is, my sweet Fanny, I never was anything else but satisfied with you! I always was fascinated with you."
"That's one of the things which you were taught at college, I suppose."
"What?"
"Making pretty speeches."
"No, they didn't teach that, by Jove! Nothing but wretched Latin, Greek and Mathematics—things, evidently, of far less importance than the art you mention."
"Oh! of course."
"And the reason is plain. A gentleman never uses the one after he leaves college, and lays them by with the crabbed books that teach them; while the art of compliment is always useful and agreeable—especially agreeable to young ladies of your exceedingly juvenile age—is't not?"
"Very agreeable."
"I know it is; and when a woman descends to it, and flatters a man—ah! my dear Fanny, there's no hope for him. I am a melancholy instance."
"You!" laughed Fanny, who had regained her good-humor.
"Yes; you know Williamsburg has many other things to recommend it besides the college."
"What things?"
"Pretty girls."
"Oh! indeed."
"Yes, and I assure you I did not neglect the opportunity of prosecuting my favorite study—the female character. Don't interrupt me—your character is no longer a study to me."
"I am very glad, sir."
"I made you out long ago—like the rest of your sex, you are, of course, very nearly angelic, but still have your faults."
"Thank you, sir."
"All true—but about Williamsburg—I was, I say, a melancholy sample of the effect produced by a kind and friendly speech from a lady. Observe, that the said speech was perfectly commonplace, and sprung, I'm sure, from the speaker's general amiability; and yet, what must I do, but go and fall in love with her."
"Oh!" from Fanny.
"Yes—true as truth itself; and, as a consequence, my friends, for the first, and only time, had a good joke against me. They had a tale about my going to his Excellency, the Governor's palace, to look at the great map there—all for the purpose of finding where the country was in which she lived; for, observe, she was only on a visit to Williamsburg—of studying out this boundary, and that—this river to cross, and that place to stop at,—the time it would take to carry my affections over them—and all the thousand details. Of course, this was not true, my darling Fanny, at least—"
"Ralph, you shall stop talking to me like a child!" exclaimed Fanny, who had listened to the details of Mr. Ashley's passion with more and more constraint; "please to remember that I am not a baby, sir."
Ralph looked at the lovely face, with its rosy-cheeks and flashing eyes, and burst out laughing.
"There, you are as angry as Cleopatra, when the slave brought her bad news—and, by Jove, Fanny, you are twice as lovely. Really! you have improved wonderfully. Your eyes, at this moment, are as brilliant as fire—your lips like carnation—and your face like sunlit gold; recollect, I'm a poet. I'm positively rejoiced at the good luck which made me bring such a lovely expression into your fair countenance."
Fanny turned her head away.
"Come now, Fanny," said Ralph, seriously, "I do believe you are going to find fault with my nonsense."
No reply.
Mr. Ralph Ashley heaved a sigh; and was silent.
"You treat me like a child," said Fanny, reproachfully; "I am not a child."
"You certainly are not, my dearest Fanny—you are a charming young lady—the most delicious of your sex."
And Mr. Ralph Ashley accompanied these words with a glance so ludicrously languishing, that Fanny, unable to command herself, burst into laughter; and the quarrel was all made up, if quarrel it indeed had been.
"You were a child in old times," said Mr. Ashley, throwing his foot elegantly over his knee; "and, I recollect, had a perfect genius for blindman's-buff; but, of course, at sixteen you have 'put away' all those infantile or 'childish things'—though I am sincerely rejoiced to see that you have not 'become a man.'"
Fanny laughed.
"I wish I was," she said.
"What?"
"Why a man."
"Oh! you're very well as you are;—though if you were a 'youth,' I'm sure, Fanny dear, I should be desperately fond of you."
"Quite likely."
"Oh, nothing truer; and everybody would say, 'See the handsome friends.' Come now, would'nt we make a lovely couple."
"Lovely!"
"Suppose we try it."
"Try what?"
"Being a couple."
Fanny suddenly caught, from the laughing eye, the young man's meaning, and began to color.
"I see you understand, my own Fanny," observed Mr. Ralph, "and I expected nothing less from a young lady of your quickness. What say you? It is not necessary for me to say that I'm desperately in love with you."
"Oh, not at all necessary!" replied Fanny, satirically, but with a blush.
"I see you doubt it."
"Oh, not at all."
"Which means, as usual with young ladies, that you don't believe a word of it. Well, only try me. What proof will you have?"
Fanny laughed with the same expression of constraint which we have before observed, and said:
"You have not looked upon the map of Virginia yet for my 'boundaries?'"
Ralph received the hit full in the front.
"By Jove! Fanny," he exclaimed, "I oughtn't to have told you that."
"I'm glad you did."
"Why?"
"Because, of course, I shall not make any efforts to please you—you are already 'engaged!'"
"Engaged! well, you are wrong. Neither my heart nor my hand is engaged. Ah, dear Fanny, you don't know how we poor students carry away with us to college some consuming passion which we feed and nurture;—how we toast the Dulcinea at oyster parties, and, like Corydon, sigh over her miniature. I had yours!"
"My—miniature?" said the lively Fanny, with a roseate blush, "you had nothing of the sort."
"Your likeness, then."
"Equally untrue—where is it?"
"Here!" said Mr. Ralph Ashley, laying his hand upon his heart, and ogling Miss Fanny with terrible expression. "Ah, Fanny, darling, don't believe that story I relate about myself—never has any one made any impression on me—for my heart—my love—my thoughts—have always—"
Suddenly the speaker became silent, and rising to his feet, made a courteous and graceful bow. A young lady had just appeared at the door.