CHAPTER VI.
The morning following these occurrences, and for several days thereafter, I had occasion to be absent from town. Calling at the Carters’ on the evening of my return, I found that the daily visits of the mysterious stranger had not been interrupted. There was, however, nothing of special interest to report. The interviews with Laura had been short, and marked only by the invariable production of the package of candy. When I expressed fears for that young lady’s digestion, I learned that, owing to a like solicitude, the girls had shared the danger with Laura so magnanimously that her health was in no immediate peril.
“Here are still some of the remains of to-day’s spoil,” said Alice, handing me a collapsed package.
“Well,” said I, “now that you have seen him so often, what do you think of him? What are your theories?”
“There are as many opinions as there are girls,” said Mrs. Carter. “What is mine? Well, I should suppose that I was too old to express an opinion upon such romantic affairs. But one thing I will say, he is undoubtedly a gentleman.”
“Oh, thank you, mamma!” cried Alice, running up to her mother and kissing her on the check with what the French call effusion,—“thank you!”
“And what are you up to now, Rattle-brain?” asked her mother, looking at her daughter with a smile full of affectionate admiration.
“You see, Mr. Whacker,” said Alice, turning to me with earnest gravity in her eyes, under which their irrepressible twinkle could have been discernible only to those who knew her well,—“you see I have been in love with him ever since I first saw him, and I infer from mamma’s remark that should anything ever come of it, I should find in her an ally.”
“Well, we shall see,” said her mother, laughing. “And what does Miss Mary think of him?”
“Oh, I’ll tell you,” promptly began Alice. “Mary, who is, you know, of a very romant—”
“Suppose, Miss Chatterbox, you will be so good,” interrupted her mother, “as to let Mary speak for herself.”
“’Tis ever thus,” sighed Alice, pouting, “never allowed to open my poor little mouth!”
“I give you permission now,” said Mary. “Tell Mr. Whacker, if you know, what I think of the Don.”
“The who?”
“The Don; that’s what we call him.”
“What! is he a Spaniard?”
“Not at all. You must know, we put Laura up to asking him his name, and she brought back the drollest one imaginable,—‘Don Miff.’ Think of it! But of course Laura got it all wrong; that could not be any human being’s name,—of course not.”
“The Don part of it,” broke in Alice, “has confirmed Mary in her previously entertained opinion that he was a nobleman of some sort travelling incog.; it would be so novelly, you know; though what good it could do her I cannot conceive, even were it so, for it was I who ‘sighted’ him first; it was I to whom he first offered his hand; mark that! it was I who first fell in love with him; and I wish it distinctly understood that as against the present company”—and she made a sweeping courtesy—“he—is—MINE!”
“I waive all my rights,” said I.
“Yes; but I don’t know how it will be with these girls, particularly Mary; for Mary is, in my opinion, already infatuated,—yes, infatuated with this Don Miff, as he calls himself.”
“Why, Alice, how can you say so?” But an explosion all around the circle aroused Mary to the consciousness that once more and for the thousand and first time she had failed to detect the banter that lay in ambush behind her friend’s assumed earnestness. “Oh, I knew you couldn’t mean it,” said she, with a faint smile. “The truth is, Mr. Whacker,” continued she, “I am not sure that I altogether like this mysterious Don. Do you know, Alice, I should be afraid of him?”
“Afraid of him! Why, pray?”
“Well, perhaps I am jumping at conclusions, as they say we women all do; but, unless I am greatly mistaken, that man, while he might be a very staunch friend, is certainly capable of proving a most unrelenting foe.”
“Oh, I am sure you do him injustice,” said Lucy.
This young woman was not a great talker; but whenever the absent needed a defender, the suffering a friend, or the down-trodden a champion, that gentle voice was not wanting.
“I am sure nothing could surpass the gentleness of his manner towards little Laura.”
“Very true,” rejoined Mary; “but have you not noticed the expression of his eyes at times, when he is pacing to and fro, as he did for some time yesterday, reviewing in his mind, I should judge, some event in his past life? Every now and then there would come into them a look so stern and bitter as to give his countenance an expression which might almost be called ferocious.”
“Oh, Mr. Whacker, I think Mary’s imagination must be running away with her,” broke in Lucy. “Now let me tell you of an incident which all of us witnessed one day while you were absent. The day had been damp and raw; and just as Mr. Don Miff—I don’t wonder at your laughing,—was there ever such a name before? What was I saying? Ah! there came on one of those cold October rains just as the Don was going away. He had taken but a few steps when his attention was arrested by the whining of a little dog across the street. What kind of a dog did you say it was, Mrs. Carter?”
“It was a Mexican dog, a wretched little thing, of a breed which is almost entirely destitute of hair. Our volunteers brought home some of them, as curiosities, on their return from the Mexican war. The one Lucy is speaking of is very old, and is, likely enough, the last representative of his species in the city.”
“Well,” resumed Lucy, “the poor, little, naked creature was whining piteously in the rain, and pawing against that alley-gate over yonder by that large tree; and when this ferocious man, whom Mary thinks so terrible, saw him, he stopped, then moved on, then stopped again, and at last, seeing that the little thing had been shut out, he actually walked across the street and opened the gate for him!”
“That was very sweet of my Don!” chimed in Alice.
“Yes,” urged Lucy, with gentle warmth, “you girls may laugh, and you, Mr. Whacker, may smile—”
“Upon my word—”
“Oh, I saw you—but the ferocity of a man who is tender with children and kind to brutes is ferocity of a very mild form, and I—”
“Speech! speech!” cried Alice, clapping her hands. And Lucy sank back in her chair, blushing at her own eloquence.
“Order! order! ladies and gentlemen,” cried Alice, gravely tapping on the table with a spool. “Sister Rolfe, the convention would be pleased to hear from you, at this stage of the proceedings, a continuation of your very edifying observations touching the lord Don Miff’s exceedingly alarming eyes. Sister Rolfe has the floor—order! The chair must insist that the fat lady on the sofa come to order!”
The last remark was levelled at her mother, who had a singular way of laughing; to wit, shaking all over, without emitting the slightest sound, while big tears rolled down her cheeks. Alice was the idol of her heart, and her queer freaks of vivacious drollery often set her mother off, as at present, into uncontrollable undulations of entirely inaudible laughter.
“The fat lady on the sofa, I am happy to be able to announce to the audience, is coming to.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Carter, wiping her eyes, “and do you cease your crazy pranks till the fat lady gets her breath. What were you going to say, Mary?”
“I was going to say that I am glad I said what I did, if for no other reason than that it afforded us all another opportunity of seeing how kind and charitable is Lucy’s heart.”
“Yes,” said Alice, “you elicited from Lucy her maiden speech; which I had never expected to hear in this life.”
“But really,” continued Mary, “the Don’s eyes are peculiar. Do you know what I have thought of, more than once, when I have seen their rapidly changing expression? I was reminded of certain stars which—”
“Reminiscences of our late astronomy class,” broke in Alice, in a stage whisper.
Mary smiled, but continued: “of certain stars which seem first to shrink and then to dilate,—now growing dark, at the next moment shooting forth bickering flames,—at one time—”
Mary here caught Alice’s eye, and could get no farther.
Alice rose slowly to her feet and said, gravely waving her closed fan as though it had been the wand of a showman, “This, ladies and gentlemen, is not a speech, but poetry and romance. I would simply observe that when a young woman begins by stating that she does not like a certain man, and ends by comparing his eyes to stars, the last state of that young woman shall be worse than the first. But I am somehow reminded of the Moonlight Sonata. Mr. Whacker, I beg you will conduct Miss Lucy to the piano.”