She passed from her presence, and Mittie felt as if she had been in a dream, so strange and unnatural was the impression left upon her mind. She was at first perfectly stunned with amazement, then consciousness, accompanied with some very disagreeable stinging sensations, returned. When a very calm, self-possessed person allows feeling or passion to gain the ascendency over them, they are invested for the moment with overmastering power.
“I have never done justice to her intellect,” thought she, recalling the words of her step-mother, with an involuntary feeling of admiration; “but I want not her love. When it is necessary to my happiness I will seek it. Love! she never cared any thing about me; she does not pretend that she did. She tried to win my good will from policy, not sensibility; and this is the origin of all the comforts and luxuries with which she has surrounded me. Why should I be grateful then? Thank Heaven! I am no hypocrite; I never dissembled, never professed what I do not feel. If every one were as honest and independent as I am, there would be very little of this vapid sentimentality, this love-breath, which comes and goes like a night mist, and leaves nothing behind it.”
The next morning Mittie could not help feeling some embarrassment when she met her step-mother at the breakfast-table, but the lady herself was not in the least disconcerted; she was polite and courteous, but calm and cold. There was a barrier around her which Mittie felt that she could not pass, and she was uncomfortable in the position in which she had placed herself.
And thus time went on—thus the golden opportunities of youth fled. Helen was still at school; Louis at college. But when Louis graduated, he came home, accompanied by a classmate whose name was Bryant Clinton—and his coming was an event in that quiet neighborhood. When Louis announced to his father that he was going to bring with him a young friend and fellow collegian, Mr. Gleason was unprepared for the reception of the dashing and high bred young gentleman who appeared as his guest.
Mittie happened to be standing on the rustic bridge, near the celebrated bleaching ground of Miss Thusa, when her brother and his friend arrived. She was no lover of nature, and there was nothing in the bland, dewy stillness of declining day to woo her abroad amid the glories of a summer’s sunset. But from that springing arch, she could look up the high road and see the dust glimmering like particles of gold, telling that life had been busy there—and sometimes, as at the present moment, when something unusually magnificent presented itself to the eye, she surrendered herself to the pleasure of admiration. There had been heavy, dun, rolling clouds all the latter part of the day, and when the sun burst forth behind them, he came with the touch of Midas, instantaneously transmuting every thing into gold. The trunks of the trees were changed to the golden pillars of an antique temple, the foliage was all powdered with gold, here and there deepening into a bronze, and sweeping round those pillars in folds of gorgeous tapestry. The windows of the distant houses were all gleaming like molten gold; and every blade of grass was tipped with the same glittering fluid. Mittie had never beheld any thing so gloriously beautiful. She stood leaning against the light railing, unconscious that she herself was bathed in the same golden light—that it quivered in the dark waves of her hair, and gilt the roses of her glowing cheek. She did not know how bright and resplendent she looked, when two horsemen appeared in the high road, gathering around them in quivers the glittering arrows darting from the sky. As they rapidly approached, she recognized her brother, and knew that the young gentleman who accompanied him must be his friend, Bryant Clinton. The steed on which he was mounted was black as a raven, and the hair of the young man was long, black, and flowing as his horse’s sable mane. As he came near, reining in the high mettled animal, while his locks blew back in the breeze, enriched with the same golden lustre with which every thing was shining, Mittie suddenly remembered Miss Thusa’s legend of the black horseman, with the jetty hair entwined in the maiden’s bleeding heart. Strange, that it should come back to her so vividly and painfully.
Louis recognized his sister, standing on the airy arch of the bridge, and rode directly to the garden gate. Clinton did the same, but instead of darting through the gate, as Louis did, he only dismounted, lifted his hat gracefully from his head, and bowed with lowly deference—then throwing his arm over the saddle bow, he waited till the greeting was over. Mittie was not the favorite sister of Louis, for she had repelled him as she had all others by her cold and haughty self-concentration—but though he did not love her as he did Helen, she was his sister, she appeared to him the personification of home, of womanhood, and his pride was gratified by the full blown flower and splendor of her beauty. She had gained much in height since he had last seen her; her hair, which was then left waving in the wild freedom of childhood, was now gathered into bands, and twisted behind, showing the classic contour of her head and neck. Louis had never thought before whether Mittie was handsome or not. She had not seemed so to him. He had never spoken of her as such to his friend. Helen, sweet Helen, was the burden of his speech, the one lovely sister of his heart. The idea of being proud of Mittie never occurred to him, but now she flashed upon him like a new revelation, in the glow and freshness and power of her just developed womanly charms. He was glad he had found her in that picturesque spot, graceful attitude, and partaking largely and richly of the glorification of nature. He was glad that Bryant Clinton, the greatest connoisseur in female beauty he had ever seen, should meet her for the first time under circumstances of peculiar personal advantage. He thought, too, there was more than her wonted cordiality in her greeting, and that her cheek grew warm under his hearty, brotherly kiss.
“Why, Mittie,” cried he, “I hardly knew you, you have grown so handsome and stately. I never saw any one so altered in my life—a perfect Juno. I want to introduce my friend to you—a noble hearted, generous, princely spirited fellow. A true Virginian, rather reckless with regard to expenditure, perhaps, but extravagance is a kingly fault—I like it. He is a passionate admirer of beauty, too, Mittie, and his manners are perfectly irresistible. I shall be proud if he admires you, for I assure you his admiration is a compliment of which any maiden may be proud.”
While he was speaking, Clinton followed the beckoning motion of his hand, and approached the bridge. It is impossible to describe the ease and grace of his motions, or the wild charm imparted to his countenance by the long, dark, shining, back-flowing locks, that softened their haughty outline. His hair, eye-lashes and eye-brows were of deep, raven black, but his eyes were a dark blue, a union singularly striking, and productive of wonderful expression. As he came nearer and nearer, and Mittie felt those dark blue, black shaded eyes riveted on her face, with a look of unmistakable admiration, she remembered the words of her brother, and the consciousness of beauty, for the first time, gave her a sensation of pride and pleasure. She was too proud to be vain—and what cared she for gifts, destined, like pearls, to be cast before an unvaluing herd? The young doctor was the only young man whose admiration she had ever thought worthy to secure, and having met from him only cold politeness, she had lately felt for him only bitterness and dislike. Living as she had done in a kind of cold abstraction, enjoying only the pleasures of intellect, in all the sufficiency of self, it was a matter of indifference to her what people thought of her. She felt so infinitely above them, looking down like the æronaut, from a colder, more rarefied atmosphere, upon objects lessened to meanness by her own elevation.
She could never look down on such a being as Bryant Clinton. Her first thought was—“Will he dare to look down on me?” There was so much pride, tempered by courtesy, such an air of lofty breeding, softened by grace, so much intellectual power and sleeping passion in his face, that she felt the contact of a strong, controlling spirit, a will to which her own might be constrained to bow.
They walked to the house together, while Louis gave directions about the horses, and he entered into conversation at once so easily and gracefully, that Mittie threw off the slight embarrassment that oppressed her, and answered him in the same light spirited tone. She was astonished at herself, for she was usually reserved with strangers, and her thoughts seldom effervesced in brilliant sallies or sparkling repartees. But Clinton carried about with him the wand of an enchanter, and every thing he touched, sparkled and shone with newly awakened or reflected brightness. Every one has felt the influence of that indescribable fascination of manner which some individuals possess, and which has the effect of electricity or magnetism. Something that captivates, even against the will, and keeps one enthralled, in spite of the struggling of pride, and the shame attendant on submission. One of these fascinating, electric, magnetic beings was Clinton. Louis had long been one of his captives, but he was such a gay, frank, confiding, porous hearted being, it was not strange, but that he should break through the triple bars of coldness, haughtiness and reserve, which Mittie had built around her, so high no mortal had scaled them—this was more than strange—it was miraculous.