CHAPTER V.
There was a variety-store on Main Street, with "Jane Dinsmore" painted in letters of mingled blue and orange on the sign above its door. Miss Dinsmore boarded in one of those green lanes whose inhabitants formed the second circle of Warren society. To this fact it may have been partly due that she was less appealed to than Mrs. Bray on all questions of social etiquette; but undoubtedly a more sufficient reason was to be found in Miss Dinsmore herself, who, though more beloved than any other woman in the village, had a suppressed, quiet manner, not at all adapted for leadership. Her reputation was that of having been a pretty, giddy young girl, a farmer's daughter; but some great crisis had swept over her life, muffling all the tinkling melodies, the ringing laugh, the merry coquettings of the village belle. It was rumored that the old story of disappointed love had changed the current of her life. Jenny Dinsmore, though humbly born and bred, had been fastidious; the uncouth advances of her rustic admirers were not agreeable to her; and so the romance of the fresh young heart was expended on a college youth, who found his way to Warren from classic halls for the renovation of physical and moral health, and who, attracted by her pretty face and figure, made his rustication less burdensome by devotion to her.
Jenny had not one of those weak natures whose influence dies away in absence. She had inherited some of the old farmer's sturdy traits of character, and her affections had a clinging tenacity of hold which would not suffer the young scholar to throw her off so easily. When he returned to college, he walked the grounds more than once, summoning through the avenues of embowering elms the slender figure, the smiling face, with the glow of the setting sun upon it, which had so often awaited his coming at the stile of the old orchard.
However, parental authority, and the prospect of an ample fortune on good behavior, soon convinced the young man of his folly. Let us be thankful, who note this brief sketch of their mingled fortunes, that he had a tender care for Jenny's trusting nature, and removed the sting from the sorrow he inflicted by making her believe it inevitable. Thus this little wellspring of romance forever watered and kept fresh her otherwise withered life; if subdued, she was not bitter; and no one can tell how the thin, wan face renewed its youth, and the wrinkled cheeks their pinkish bloom, caught in that far-off spring-time in her father's orchards, as, sitting in her solitary room, she remembered the man, now occupying a prominent position in life, who said, as he bade her tenderly good-bye, that he would never forget her, no matter what woman reigned by his fireside, or what children played on his hearth. Perhaps, in his stately library, no book was so welcome on a winter's evening as an idyl of rural life, no picture so pleasing as that of some Maud Muller raking hay or receiving the dumb caresses of the cows she milked.
What would the elegant woman, with her costly jewels, India shawls, and splendid equipage, have thought of this whilom rival, who issued every summer morning from the lane, in her hand a bunch of those simple flowers, occupying, as she did, the border-ground between the wild hemlock and honeysuckle of the wilderness and the exotic of the parterre, the bachelor's-button, mulberry-pink, southernwood, and bee-larkspur, destined to fill a tumbler on an end of the counter where she displayed her most attractive goods?
She prided herself upon the tastefulness and variety of her selections: ribbons and gowns, pins, needles, soap, and matches for all; jars of striped candy for well, and hoarhound for sick children; and a little fragrant Old Hyson and San Domingo for venerable customers. She walked about gently; was never betrayed into any bustle by the excitement of traffic; liked all sweet, shy, woodland natures, from Annie Bray to squirrels; and contracted an affection for me because of my diffidence and devotion to the former.
Whenever she came to the cottage, she poured oil upon the turbulent waters of its domestic life; coaxed up Amos as daintily and charily as a child would proffer crumbs to a bear in a menagerie; pleased Mrs. Bray by accounts of her city shopping; and petted Annie, giving her occasionally, in a shy way, some bow or bit of silk, of an especially brilliant hue, which had caught her eye in town. She was a very useful member of the Methodist Society, for she had always innumerable odds and ends for pin-cushions and needle-books; and although her religious experiences did not seek those stormy channels which the Reverend Mr. Purdo believed to have been elected for the saints, yet her sympathies were so ready, her heart so kind, that, when he saw her after a day of activity collect her bunch of flowers again in her hand, and start, as she often did, for one of the lanes or outlying farms, to watch through the night with some sick woman or child, he was fain to remember that "faith without works is dead."
Miss Dinsmore's store was exceedingly attractive to the young people of the village. She lent a cordial ear to every matrimonial scheme; was quite willing that all preliminaries for such arrangements should be settled within her precincts; and many a tender word and glance, doubtless, received its inspiration from a conspicuous stand for bonnets, whose four pegs were kept supplied with those of Miss Dinsmore's own manufacture, originally white, but so seldom demanded for village wear that the honey-moon in Warren shed its pale yellow beams on this crowning article of bridal attire long before it was donned by the happy wearer. These bonnets were severally labelled on modest slips of paper, after city nomenclature, "Bridal Hat"; and Miss Dinsmore would on no account have parted with them for any less occasion, however festive; so that one consulting her stand had as accurate a knowledge of impending marriages as could have been obtained from the "publishing-list" of the "meeting-house."
Moreover, Miss Dinsmore herself was laboring under that hallucination, not infrequent with maiden ladies rather advanced, that her own spring-time was perennial; and though by no means disposed to displace the hero of her youth from his supremacy in her heart, she yet accepted, with the ordinary feminine serenity, gallant attentions from youths over whose infant slumbers she had, in times of domestic disturbance, often presided. Hence it happened that the "Variety Store" often afforded the first introduction to Warren society; indeed, so sharp was the rivalry between it, as a lounging-place, and the tavern, that, when a youth was won over from the bar-room to its counter fascinations, his work of regeneration was regarded by Mr. Purdo as begun; and the walk round the corner to the parsonage (which Miss Dinsmore's hats suggested) made his calling and election sure.
Entering the store, therefore, on one of my leisure evenings, I was not surprised to find there a number of Miss Darry's class, and the Reverend Mr. Purdo himself, who had evidently walked in to discover what young men had sowed their wild oats and were seeking the "strait and narrer path" between Miss Dinsmore's counter and the wall. Mr. Purdo was of middle height, and portly; and there was such a sombre hue about the entire man,—black suit of clothes, jet-black hair, eyebrows, and eyes,—that it was a relief to find that Nature had relented in her mourning over making him, and bestowed a sallow complexion, which strove to enliven his aspect by an infusion of orange. He greeted me with a mild and forgiving manner, which at once reminded me of the quiet strolls I occasionally preferred, on a pleasant Sunday, to a prolonged sitting and homily in the church; but I was glad of his presence, since it would be likely to restrain the boisterous mirth of the young men, when I should make known my errand.
Since seeing Miss Merton, my imagination had been so filled with the idea of how complete a transformation Annie Bray would undergo, if only the ugly garments she wore could be pulled away like weeds from her sweet, flower-like beauty, that I resolved to expend a part of my money in buying her a dress. With diffidence, therefore, I made known my wish to Miss Dinsmore, who responded at once with a ready comprehension of the whole matter.
"I know jest what'll suit you, Sandy. Nothin' like vi'let for blue eyes and yeller hair; my own was like June butter once, but of course it's been darker since I've grown up" (Miss Dinsmore's gold was fast becoming silver); "Sary Ann's is changin', too, I see. Miss Bray says she isn't over-fond of stirrin' round; and I shouldn't wonder if 't was so. Sary Ann don't look no more like workin' than a buttercup; but then, as I tell Miss Bray, corn is made for usin' and flowers for starin' at, and I don't know as any special sign is set on either of 'em to show which is the best. Don't mind them youngsters, Sandy; they're always pretty chipper of an evenin'. You see, I've measured off this piece of calico,—nine yard and a finger; if you like it, seein' it's for you and Annie, and a remnant, I'd want it to go cheap."
It was as near the shade of Miss Merton's dress as the coarser material could copy it; and with all the embarrassment of a novice in such matters, I signified my wish to take it, when the door swung open to admit Annie Bray herself, who had come to make some trifling purchase for her mother.
"All right, Sandy; we'll settle some other time," whispered Miss Dinsmore, quite aware that I should scarcely like to make so public a presentation of my gift, and quietly concealing it in a sheet of wrapping-paper, while Annie, surprised and pleased at seeing me, approached the counter.
"Bless your sweet face, it isn't often I see it of an evenin'," was Miss Dinsmore's welcome to her favorite.
"Beauty's but a witherin' flower," said Mr. Purdo, by way of professional improvement of the occasion, and pointing the remark by a glance at Miss Dinsmore, whose early bloom he undoubtedly remembered. "Still it's cause for great gratitude, Sary, that your cheeks are so rosy,"—here a general laugh warned him of the dangerous admission, and he added,—"it shows you're healthy, and that's a most aboundin' blessin'."
"That's so!" exclaimed Tracy Waters. "You're mighty pretty now, Sary Ann; and it a'n't no use to look ahead to the time when you won't be, is it?"
Annie's cheeks glowed more deeply still now. She was accomplishing her errand as quickly as possible; and while Miss Dinsmore tied up her parcel, Tracy Waters bent over her, whispering. It may have been only that "innate gallantry" alluded to by Miss Darry that made me reprove his evidently unwelcome admiration.
"Annie is a shy little thing. Don't you see, Tracy, that she doesn't like flattery?" I exclaimed, angrily approaching them.
"I see pretty plain that you don't want her to have it from any other fellow than yourself," he answered, roughly. "Miss Annie," he added, in imitation of my manner, "supposin' I see you home?"
But I pushed past him and went out of the store with her.
"He says I am to be his little wife by-and-by," said Annie, a most unusual expression of disgust and alarm ruffling the quiet serenity of her face; "but that can never be, unless I wish it, can it, Sandy?"
"I should think not, indeed," I answered, smiling at her earnestness. "When he speaks of it again, tell him I want you myself."
"That would be a good way to stop him," she replied, accepting graciously this solution of her present difficulty.