CHAPTER V.
THE SISTERS ALONE.—THE GOSSIP OF LOVE.—AN ALARM
—AND AN EVENT.
Juliet.—My true love is grown to such excess,
I cannot sum up half my sum of wealth.
—Romeo and Juliet.
Eros.—Oh, a man in arms;
His weapon drawn, too!
—The False One.
It was a custom with the two sisters, when they repaired to their chamber for the night, to sit conversing, sometimes even for hours, before they finally retired to bed. This indeed was the usual time for their little confidences, and their mutual dilations over those hopes and plans for the future, which always occupy the larger share of the thoughts and conversation of the young. I do not know any thing in the world more lovely than such conferences between two beings who have no secrets to relate but what arise, all fresh, from the springs of a guiltless heart,—those pure and beautiful mysteries of an unsullied nature which warm us to hear; and we think with a sort of wonder when we feel how arid experience has made ourselves, that so much of the dew and sparkle of existence still linger in the nooks and valleys, which are as yet virgin of the sun and of mankind.
The sisters this night were more than commonly indifferent to sleep. Madeline sate by the small but bright hearth of the chamber, in her night dress, and Ellinor, who was much prouder of her sister’s beauty than her own, was employed in knotting up the long and lustrous hair which fell in rich luxuriance over Madeline’s throat and shoulders.
“There certainly never was such beautiful hair!” said Ellinor admiringly; “and, let me see,—yes,—on Thursday fortnight I may be dressing it, perhaps, for the last time—heigho!”
“Don’t flatter yourself that you are so near the end of your troublesome duties,” said Madeline, with her pretty smile, which had been much brighter and more frequent of late than it was formerly wont to be, so that Lester had remarked “That Madeline really appeared to have become the lighter and gayer of the two.”
“You will often come to stay with us for weeks together, at least till—till you have a double right to be mistress here. Ah! my poor hair,—you need not pull it so hard.”
“Be quiet, then,” said Ellinor, half laughing, and wholly blushing.
“Trust me, I have not been in love myself without learning its signs; and I venture to prophesy that within six months you will come to consult me whether or not,—for there is a great deal to be said on both sides of the question,—you can make up your mind to sacrifice your own wishes, and marry Walter Lester. Ah!—gently, gently. Nell—” “Promise to be quiet.”
“I will—I will; but you began it.”