"She only laughed."
He fell into sombre reverie, and I left him for more cheerful companionship.
Later in the evening I was in the vicinity of the belle of the ball, and she beckoned me, stooped, and whispered. "Take this to Mr G. Don't let anyone see it. Give it to him when nobody is looking."
I brought him the note, and straightway he forgot me and my services. The next I saw of him he was sitting in her pocket under the stairs.
And she did not marry him, after all! And now she is an old, old woman!
There was another member of the family (a cousin of these two), whose portrait in my mental picture gallery has been classed always as a gem of romantic art.
I only saw her once, and that was after another ball given at the same old country house where the lady of the tulle dress and dew-sprinkled roses disported herself with Mr G. I do not think I could have attended this ball myself, for I have no recollection of seeing the girl I refer to, who was there, until the following day. Her chaperon, whoever it was, had left her over in my mother's care, probably to get thoroughly rested before taking the journey home. In the morning we only heard of her. She was in bed, being assiduously coddled. Before she came forth mother gathered her little ones together and thus admonished them:
"Yes, you will see her at dinner, and if you are very good you may take her for a walk with you this afternoon. But, mind, you must be very gentle with her. You must take the greatest care of her, because she is in a decline and very soon she is going to die." We were further commanded on no account to disclose our knowledge of her sad fate to the invalid.
She come down to the midday farmhouse dinner, and it was then I took my indelible picture of her. She was probably eighteen, a willowy slip of a girl, and with the pathos of her doom about her, the loveliest creature my eyes (with such an idealising quality in them) had ever seen. That was the impression, made permanent. Very fair of skin, with golden hair arranged Madonna-wise in smooth bands; and dressed all in white, looking the part my mother had given her to perfection—an angel at large, granted to gross mortals for a little while to be jealously recalled to her proper place. Her white muslin bodice was long-waisted and stiffly-boned, and cut to a deep point in front over the bunchy skirt; but it was lovely. And the gold watch at her side, and the long gold chain round her neck to which it was attached, gave just the touch of radiance to the unearthly purity of her appearance, as effective as a Fra Angelico halo.
We took her for a walk through our fields and lanes, and with awe and reverence laid ourselves out to take care of her. I remember that we gathered mushrooms and that she ate some raw, which was unwise of her in her delicate condition. I also remember (only it spoils the picture to include such a squalid detail) that some of the little party ate more than she did, and that one was deadly sick and had to be carried home. At that point she fades from the scene—went away to die, as I supposed. This one tragic vision of her made such an impression upon my imagination that I have thought of her when anything reminded me, for over half-a-century; but I have never thought of her as being other than half angel in heaven and half dust of the earth all the time. I thought of her when I looked out of my window in my sister-in-law's house at the old house opposite, when first I returned to D——, still with an ache of pity for a young life defrauded of the common heritage, which we others, not more deserving, had come into.