The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals

by Ann S. Stephens

"Indeed, indeed she has! Oh, grandmamma, do love her, because she has been so good to me and everybody else!"

Lady Carset reached forth her hand gently, and with delicate cordiality; but there was no yearning of the heart there, such as had marked her reception of that young girl.

Lady Hope cared very little for this. She had attained the great aim of her life in this recognition; anything like warmth of affection would have been as irksome to her as it was impossible to the old countess. She took the little hand, pressed her lips upon it, and retreated from the room, keeping her face toward the old lady, as if she were retiring from the presence of a queen.

The old countess stood up bravely, and bent her delicate person with the exquisite grace of a lady of the olden time, as her guests disappeared. The moment they were gone she turned to seek her couch; but her limbs lost their strength, her feet became entangled in the satin train, and she would have fallen to the carpet but for Lady Clara, who sprang forward and held her up.

"Dear me, how you tremble! Oh, grandmamma, don't! I never saw you cry before. It breaks my heart!"

The poor old lady was trembling in all her limbs, and crying like a child. It had been a hard cross for her feebleness to take up when she admitted that man and woman to her presence. It seemed as if her own dead child had stood between them, and with shadowy arms striven to push them apart.

"I have done no more than my duty," she said, with a piteous smile. "It was hard, very hard. Still a Carset must not allow any wrong to go unatoned for, and about those diamonds I did wrong her."

Clara did not speak. She was frightened by the agitation into which this scene had thrown the old lady, and only besought her to rest; but strong, nervous excitement is not so easily pacified. The countess conquered her tears, but the couch shook under her nervous trembling. Then Clara ran to her own apartments, and came back to an adjoining room with Caroline, whose voice had a power of soothing which even excitement could not resist.

"Begin to sing—something low and sweet," she whispered. "I will leave the door ajar."

Then Clara stole back to her grandmother, and directly a soft strain of music stole into the room, almost unnoticed at first, like the perfume of flowers, but growing into harmonies so full and swelling, that the whole atmosphere seemed flooded with it.