"In our new country we must not get old. It is to be the land of perennial youth," she answered gayly.
Aldis Bartram joined his persuasions as well, and M. de Ronville went almost in spite of himself. He had kept his delicate, high-bred air and French atmosphere, and looked well in the attire of that day, with his flowered waistcoat, his black velvet suit and silk stockings, with a jewelled buckle on his low shoes. His beautiful white hair was just tied in a queue, with a black ribbon. There was something dignified and gracious about him, and friends thronged around to congratulate him. And though he had seen Washington in many different phases of his eventful life, he had not as yet met him as President of the nation he had fought for and cemented together.
There were handsomer girls than Daffodil; indeed, the fame of the beauties of Philadelphia in that day has been the theme of many a song and story. But she was very pretty in her simple white frock that in the fashion of the day showed her exquisite neck and shoulders, though the golden curls, tied high on her head, shaded and dazzled about it in a most bewitching manner. Madame Clerval was wise, she was not trying to outshine any of the belles, yet there was a bevy of young men about her constantly, and most devoted to her and to M. de Ronville, was Dr. Langdale. In fact, he was really the favorite visitor at the house. He ran in now and then with news of some new book, or some old translation, and a talk of the progress of the library and the trend of general education. Why should Boston have it all? Or a new medical discovery, though he was in no sense M. de Ronville's physician.
Was it strange that both these young people, having passed their childhood in Pittsburg, should come to a nearer and dearer understanding? Aldis Bartram watched them with the sense of a new revelation. Yet he could not subscribe to it cordially. The medical enthusiast was hardly the one he would choose for a girl like Daffodil. Arthur Pemberton would do better, yet he was not quite up to her mark. She was a simple seeming girl, yet he was learning that she had a great deal of character and sweetness. Somehow she kept herself curiously enfranchised from lovers. Her friendly frankness gave them a status it was difficult to overcome.
"I never expected to enjoy myself so much again," said M. de Ronville, when they were in the carriage. "It is an excellent thing to go on moving with the world, to keep in touch with the things that make up the sum of life, instead of feeling they belong to the gone-by time, and you have no interest in them."
How much like his olden self he was, Aldis Bartram thought. He wondered if he had been at fault in letting him drop down. There was much perplexing business, and he had hated to bother the elder man with it. Sometimes it seemed tedious to explain. Had he grown selfish in certain ways, preferring to take the burthen, rather than the trouble of sharing it with another? He had much personal ambition, he was in full earnest of a man's aims and life purposes. Yet it was this man who had helped him to the place whereon he stood, and it was not honorable to crowd him out under the plea that his best days were over.
It seemed, indeed, as if days fairly flew by, there was so much crowded in them. When the morning was fine, Daffodil insisted they should drive out. It was delightful to keep bowing and smiling to friends, with this attractive girl beside him. He went to some meetings of the Philosophical Society, and he took a new interest in the Library plans.
"You certainly have worked a transformation," Bartram said to Daffodil, when M. de Ronville consented to go to a concert with them, to hear two remarkable singers, who had come from abroad. "You will have to stay. Didn't I hear you discussing Pittsburg with Mrs. Jarvis?"
"Oh, they are longing for me to return. And in two days March will come in, that will be spring. And I was only to stay through the winter."
"But March is a cruel and deceitful travesty on spring. February has been too short."