"I own," said Fitzroy, "that I have some foolish prejudices, and this may be one. But I cannot bear to see a lady with a soiled pocket-handkerchief. I never wish to see anything less pure and elegant than this in the hand of a beautiful maiden." He lifted, as he spoke, a superb linen handkerchief, decorated with lace, that lay carelessly folded in the lap of Mary Lee.
"Ah, yes," exclaimed her cousin Kate, laughing, "it looks very nice now, for she has just taken it from her drawer. See, the perfume of the lavender has not begun to evaporate. But wait till to-morrow, and then it will look no nicer than mine."
"To-morrow!" cried the elegant Fitzroy, with an expression of disgust; "surely no lady would think of using a handkerchief more than once. If I were in love with a Venus de Medici herself, and detected her in such an unpardonable act, I believe the spell would be broken."
"I would not give much for your love, then," cried Kate, "if it had no deeper foundation—would you, Mary?"
Mary blushed, for she was already more than half in love with the handsome Fitzroy, and was making an internal resolution to be exceedingly particular in future about her pocket-handkerchiefs.
Fitzroy was a young man of fashion and fortune, of fine person, elegant manners, cultivated mind, and fastidiously refined taste. He had, however, two great defects—one was, attaching too much importance to trifles, and making them the criterion of character; the other, a morbid suspicion of the sincerity of his friends, and a distrust of their motives, which might become the wildest jealousy in the passion of love. He had a most intense admiration of female loveliness, and looked upon woman as a kind of super-angelic being, whose food should be the ambrosiæ and nectar of the gods, and whose garments the spotless white of vestal purity. He had never known misfortune, sickness, or sorrow, therefore had never been dependent on those homely, domestic virtues, those tender, household cares, which can alone entitle woman to the poetical appellation of a ministering angel. He was the spoiled child of affluence and indulgence, who looked, as Kate said, "as if he ought to recline on a crimson velvet sofa, and be fanned with peacocks' feathers all the day long." He was now the guest of Mr. Lee, and consequently the daily companion of the beautiful, sensitive Mary and her gay cousin. With his passionate admiration for beauty, it is not strange that he should become more and more attracted towards Mary, who never forgot, in the adornments of her finished toilet, the robe of vestal white and the pure, delicate, perfumed handkerchief, which Fitzroy seemed to consider the ne plus ultra of a lady's perfections. The cousins walked, rode, and visited with the elegant stranger, and never did weeks glide more rapidly away. Mary was happy, inexpressibly happy, for life began to be invested with that soft, purple hue, which, like the rich blush of the grape, is so easily brushed away, and can never be restored.
Fitzroy had often noticed and admired, among the decorations of Mary's dress, a beautiful reticule of white embroidered satin. One evening, on returning from a party, Mary's brow became suddenly clouded. "Oh, how could I be so careless?" exclaimed she, in a tone of vexation; "I have left my reticule behind. How unfortunate!"
Fitzroy immediately offered his services, but Mary persisted in refusing them, and dispatched a servant in his stead.
"You must have something very precious in that bag," said Kate. "I have no doubt it is full of billetdoux or love-letters. I intend to go after it myself, and find out all Mary's secrets."
"How foolish!" cried Mary. "You know there is no such thing in it—nothing in the world but——" She stopped, in evident embarrassment, and lowered her eyes, to avoid Fitzroy's searching glance.