"Well, yes!" answered Jacob, holding the note at arm's length, and eyeing it askance; "it's rather too fine, that are handwriting; but then I can manage to cipher it out if you give me time enough."
"Very well—you have had time enough. Go! and remember to observe all that passes when you deliver it."
Jacob took up his drab beaver, planted it firmly on the back of his head, and disappeared, holding the note between his thumb and finger.
While our friend Jacob is making his way up town, we will precede him, and enter the pretty cottage which, with its fairy garden, has before been an object of description.
In the parlor of this beautiful but monotonous dwelling sat Florence Craft. Cold as it was becoming, she still wore the pretty morning dress of fine India muslin, with its profusion of soft lace, but over it was a scarf of scarlet cashmere, that gave to her cheek its rosy shadow, as a crimson camilla sometimes casts a trace of its presence on the marble urn against which it falls. But for this warm shadow her face was coldly white, and even traced with mournful lines, as if she had been suffering from illness or some grief unnatural to her youth, and weighing sadly upon her gentle nature. Her soft brown eyes seemed misty and dulled by habitual tears, and the long curling lashes flung a deeper shadow on the cheek just beneath; for a faint circle, such as disease or grief often pencils, was becoming definitely marked around those sad and beautiful eyes. The imprint of many a heavy heart-ache might have been read in those shadowy circles, and the paler redness of a mouth that smiled still—but oh, how mournfully!
Florence sat by a sofa-table, one foot, too small now for the satin slipper that had so beautifully defined its proportions a little while before, rested upon the richly carved supporter. She had become painfully fragile, and the folds of her dress fell around her drooping form like a white cloud, so transparent that but for the red scarf, you might have defined the slender arms and marble neck underneath with startling distinctness. She was occupied with her drawing lesson, but even the pencil seemed too heavy for the slender and waxen fingers that guided it; and to one that understood the signification, there was something ominous in the bright, feverish tinge that spread over her palm, as if she had been crushing roses in that little hand, and might not hope to wash the stain away.
Robert Otis leaned over the unhappy girl. He too was changed, but not like her. The flesh had not wasted from his limbs; the fire of youth had not burned out prematurely in those bright eyes; but his look was unsettled, restless, nay, sometimes wild. His very smile was hurried and passed quickly away; all its soft, mellow warmth was gone. The change was different, but terribly perceptible both in the youth and the young girl.
It was no boyish passion which marked the features of that noble face as it bent lower and lower over the drooping girl. Tenderness, keen, deep sympathy was there, but none of the ardent feeling that had fired his whole being when only the semblance of that beautiful form first met his eye. If Robert Otis loved Florence Craft, it was with the tender earnestness of a brother, not with the fiery ardor natural to his age and temperament.
"You seem tired; how your hand trembles; rest awhile, Miss Craft. This stooping posture must be oppressive," said Robert, gently attempting to remove the pencil from the fair hand that could really guide it no longer.
"No, no," said Florence, raising her eyes with a sad smile, "you do not give lessons every day, now, and we must improve the time. When Mr. Leicester comes he should find me quite an artist, I must not disgrace you with my idleness. He would feel hurt if we did not meet his expectations. Don't you think so?"