CHAPTER XXIV.
“How well the Parson is looking, Mary,” said Alice, as she stood before the glass that night, unpinning her collar.
Mary, tired and sleepy as she was, dropped into a chair and shook with half-unwilling laughter.
“What is the Little Thing laughing at?”
“Alice, you are the hardest case I ever knew. Why do you persist in turning the man into ridicule?”
“Who, the Pass’n?” for thus she pronounced the word,—and her merry eyes twinkled.
I doubt whether the reader can guess who the “Pass’n” is. I must explain, therefore, that when I mentioned to the girls, in Richmond, that I had found the Don reading the New Testament, Alice had immediately cried out that now she had it. “He is a Methodist parson in disguise.” And upon this theme she had ever since been playing inimitably grotesque variations. Coming down on the boat, notably, she had surpassed herself; and I hear our party disgraced themselves by their hilarity. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she had cried out, when first we had come in view of Elmington,—“ladies and gentlemen,” said she, leaning out of the carriage window, and declaiming solemnly to the passengers in the rear vehicle, “in yonder mansion sits meditating, at this moment, Pass’n Smith, the disguised Methodist divine. He is the Whitefield of our day. For generations, no exhorter of such power—especially with sentimental young girls and lonesome widows— Will some one be so good as to administer restoratives to the Fat Lady? She seems on the verge of— Where was I?” And so she went on, her young heart ceaselessly bubbling over with freshness and high spirits.
“Ridicule the Pass’n!” said Alice, dropping into her friend’s lap. “Far from me the profane idea.” And she smoothed back from Mary’s brow her loosened hair.
“In the first place, Alice, it is perfectly absurd for you to say he is a parson; and even if he were,” she continued, after a sharp struggle with her rising laughter.—“even if he were studying with a view to the ministry, I don’t see that he should be made fun of on that account. To my mind,—and you ought to think so too, Alice,—to my mind there is no nobler spectacle than that of a young man deliberately turning his back upon all the allurements that lead astray so many of his comrades, and devoting himself, in the very vigor of his manhood and in all the glory of his youthful strength, to the service of his God. But as for the Don,—Mr. Smith I mean,—I think he is about as far from being a parson as he well could be. Don’t you remember how, when I first met him, I said I was afraid of him? Well, that feeling grows on me. He may have his passions well under control, but, you may depend upon it, they would be terrible if ever they got the mastery over him. Did you ever notice his teeth, how strong and even they are, and as white as ivory? but do you know that, at times, when he smiles in that peculiar way of his, they seem to me to glitter through his moustache like—like—”
“Is the Little Thing afraid the Pass’n will bite her? ’Twould be a wicked shepherd to bite a little lamb. And if he ever does such a thing,” she continued, “you go straight and tell your mamma.” And she dropped her head on Alice’s shoulder and stuck out her mouth like a three-year-old child.
“Incorrigible scamp!” cried Mary, between laughter-kisses that, like bubbles, exploded as they touched those pouting lips. “But, Alice, will you never be serious?”
“Serious?” replied Alice, rising. “I was never more serious in my life. It wouldn’t be right.”
“What wouldn’t be right?”
“For you to let the Pass’n bite you, without telling your mother,—and with those glittering teeth too! Think of it! Glittering teeth and starry eyes! Imagine! Most improper, upon my word!”—and she gave a toss of her shapely little head. “Mary,” said Alice, dropping again, suddenly, into her laughing friend’s lap,—“Mary, look me in the eyes!”
From her fine honest face, as well as from her voice,—both changeful as the dolphin’s hues,—had vanished in an instant all trace of raillery. Mary looked up with a smile half serious, half inquiring.
“Well?”
“Straight in the eyes!” repeated Alice, lifting her friend’s chin on the tip of her forefinger.
“I am looking.”
“Mary,” began Alice, leaning forward, and with that same forefinger daintily depressing the tip of Mary’s nose, “are—you—quite—sure—that—you—are—not—”
“Not what?”
“Falling in love with Mr. Smith?”
“Alice, what can have put that idea into your head?”
“That sounds more like a question than an answer to a question. Look me in the eyes and say no,—if you can.”
“Well, no, then!”
“No fluttering here, when he approaches? no quick breathing when he speaks to you? no pit-a-pat?”
“No pit-a-pat,—no anything! Will that do?”
“Well, I suppose it will have to do,—at least for the present.”
“How ‘for the present’?”
“Never mind,” said Alice, rising; “and now for another question. Is the Don, so far as you can see, falling in love with you?”
“With me?” cried Mary, with genuine surprise. “What, pray, will you ask next? Whether, for example, I do not perceive that Mr. Frobisher is enamoured of me? No, you will not ask that. Dear Charles,—well, he is a nice fellow, I must admit,—and would let you do all the talking.” And she gave Alice a squeeze, as girls will do, when talking sweethearts among themselves.
“Mr. Frobisher! Why are you continually harping on him? He has never said a dozen words to me. But mark my words, that Enigma is interested in you. He showed it to-day at dinner. You know, my dear, when the humor strikes you, you talk beautifully—”
“I don’t compare with you, Alice.”
“Never mind about me. This meeting has not been called with a view to organizing a Mutual-Admiration Society. You are the subject of this little pow-wow. Now, to-day, at dinner—well, I don’t like to sit here and flatter you to your face, but I saw very plainly that the Reverend Mr.—I beg your pardon, the Don, was enraptured with your unconscious eloquence.”
“Eloquence, Alice?” And Mary flushed with ill-concealed delight.
“Yes, Little Dumpling, eloquence.”
“Really?”
“That’s the charm of the thing, goosey; your words flow from you so easily, that you are unconscious how lovely your language often is. Then, of course, as none of us know the sound of our own voices, you are hardly aware how low and musical your voice is.”
“Alice,” said Mary, gravely, “you are making fun of me. You have never said anything like this to me before. It is not kind,—it really isn’t!” And her lips quivered.
“You little goose! Not to know me any better than that! Well, to-day you became so much interested in some subject you were discussing with Mr. John Whacker that you did not observe, for some time, that every one at the table was listening to you; and then, when you discovered that you ‘had the floor,’ you blushed furiously and stopped talking.”
“Yes, I remember; it made me feel so foolish!”
“Well, you know, my love, I am very proud of you; and so I was looking around to see what others thought of you. I give you my word, I nearly exploded when I caught sight of the Don. There he sat, with an oyster on the end of his fork poised midway between his plate and his mouth, with his eyes riveted on you. Put this down in your book, Mary,—this,—as a maxim on love: ‘Whenever a man forgets the way to his mouth his heart’s in danger.’”
“I will,” said Mary, shaking with laughter.
“Yes,” continued Alice, standing before the glass and taking down her hair, “you have a streak of genius, that’s the truth; but it is not the whole truth.”
“Give me the rest of it.”
Alice, instead of replying, made a face at herself in the glass; then, folding her arms across her bosom and swaying from side to side two or three times, sailed off in a waltz around the room.
“The trouble with you, my dear, is simply this,”—and she stood before her friend with arms akimbo,—“you are devoid of common sense.” And off she capered again, this time in the rhythm of the polka. “Oh, I’m so happy!” cried she, clasping her hands and rolling up her eyes.
“Because I have no common sense?”
“Because I have so much! I’ve lots! Oceans!” And she spread out her arms. Catching sight of her own waving arms in the mirror, she, like the kaleidoscope, changed in an instant. Standing on her left foot, she described, with the extended toe of her right, an elaborate semicircle, and ended with a profound courtesy, her young face corrugated, meanwhile, with that professional grin of the equestrienne, which, among the horsical, passes for a smile. Turning then to Mary, she repeated the movement. “Behold,” cried she, drawing herself up to her full height,—“behold the Empress of the Arena! The Champion Bare-back Rider of the World!”
“I don’t know so much about the champion part of it, but of the bare back there can be little doubt.”
“Well said, Little Dumpling! I must admit that my costume is rather meagre.”
“Alice, you ought to be able to explain it if anybody can,—how do people come to be ‘privileged characters,’ as they are called? You do whatever you please, and cut all sorts of crazy antics, and no one ever thinks you foolish, or even undignified; and then, you say whatever you think, yet no one can get angry with you. You tell me, to my face, that I am destitute of common sense—”
“Totally, that’s a fact.”
“And yet I am not the least bit vexed?”
“The simplest thing imaginable. Listen, and I will explain. As to the crazy antics, as you are pleased to term my joyous, lamb-like friskings, of course you cannot expect me to have the face to stand up here and say that they do not offend, because of the bewitching, inborn grace which characterizes my every movement?”
“Naturally.”
“Of course. And you will naturally pardon my not alluding to what I can’t help.”
“Poor thing!”
“Of course. I was born so; and that’s the end of that. Now, as to your not being hurt by my telling you that plain truth about yourself—”
“My destitution as regards—”
“Common sense—yes,—I think you yourself must understand it.”
“Because you told me, first, that I had a streak of genius,—flatterer?”
“Precisely; I credit you with bullion, and you are not worried that I should deny you the small change of every-day life. You see I am as deep as Machiavelli,—in other words, as full of common sense as an egg is of meat. Lucy will not be home,” said she, abruptly veering off from the line of their talk, as she seated herself on the edge of the bed, “till the middle of January.”
“No; I am so sorry. What made you think of her?”
“Because I wish she were here right now.”
“Why, pray?”
“Because, from what I saw in Richmond, the Don might devote himself to her instead of you.”
“Thank you for wishing to rob me of an admirer, as you pretend to deem him!”
“No, I am glad she is not here. She is so pure and earnest, so single-minded and devoted, that I should tremble to see her exposed to such a danger.”
“And I am so—”
“You are what you are, my dear, and I would not have you other. But there is but one Lucy in the world. You know it and I know it, and neither of us would think of comparing ourselves with her.”
“Yes, Lucy is a real madonna.”
“And, somehow, I am not,—you may speak for yourself. Yes, I am glad she is not here. I’ll tell you, Mary: I wish he would fall in love with me,—I’ve got so much hard sense that I should never think of reciprocating. However,” added she, resting her head in her hand, while her elbow and fair, plump arm sank in the pillow, “I am not so sure. I, too, am human. Perhaps it would be too much for me. He is tall,” she continued, looking dreamily into space,—“he is distinguished-looking!—so brave!—so mysterious!—perhaps I haven’t as much sense as I thought,”—and she seemed to nod,—“and his teeth are so like stars! and his rows of eyes are so even and white! glitter so!—Am I asleep? Mary, my love,” cried she, bouncing off the bed, “are you going to talk all night? Talk on,—but I’ll tell you what I am going to do. I shall straightway put on my little N. G.,—the toggery, to wit, of repose; and then I shall fall on my little knees and say my little prayers; which done, I shall curl up my little self in my little bed, and know no more till the rising-bell. One word with you, however. Mary, do you know what all I have been saying to you means?”
“I don’t know what any of it means,—not one word; nor do you, I should imagine.”
“Then listen! All that I have said and done and danced to-night means this, and this only. The Pass’n is going to fall in love with you. That’s the Pass’n’s affair, and shows his good taste. Now, who on earth is the Pass’n? Do you see? Well, don’t you go and fall in love with him, now mind! don’t,—that’s a good, wise girl. Good-night!”