Almost at the same instant the door flew open, and a servant announced Major Gordon.
CHAPTER X.
ARAB
Oh! spirits gay and kindly heart,
Precious the blessings ye impart. —Joanna Baillie.
There’s little of the melancholy element in her, my lord:
for she is never sad, but when she sleeps;
and not over sad then; for I have heard my daughter say
she hath often dreamed of unhappiness, and waked herself
with laughing. —Shakespeare.
It would be difficult to explain the cause of Kate’s flutter of spirits at this visit. Certainly, she could not have analyzed her own feelings, even if she had tried. Her agitation both surprised and annoyed her. Never before had she been thus affected on any similar occasion, and she mentally pronounced it a bit of weakness unworthy of her.
It is true that Major Gordon had occupied no inconsiderable portion of her thoughts during the last fortnight. Nor is this surprising. His almost exclusive agency in the rescue of herself and aunt could not be concealed from her, in spite of the modesty on his part which would have represented it as a deed equally shared by many others. Indeed, the deportment of Major Gordon in reference to the affair, heightened the estimate which Kate had been predisposed to form of him. Though the words he had exchanged with our heroine had been few, she still seemed to hear the mellow tones of his rich, manly voice. Not that Kate was what is called a romantic girl. She was very far from supposing that, because a handsome young officer had been instrumental in saving her life, she must fall in love with him, irrespective of other and higher claims to her notice. Imaginative as she was, she had too much strong sense to be so weak. She had often detected herself speculating at the causes which kept Major Gordon from visiting them, as he had been formally solicited to do by her aunt, and by herself more reservedly, though not less earnestly; but she had not felt it as a personal slight, like an ordinary heroine of romance would have been expected to do, under similar circumstances.
The emotion of Kate, from whatever cause it sprung, was but temporary. Before the door was fairly opened, much less before she was called on to return Major Gordon’s bow, she had schooled her face and manner into that highbred ease, which, in combination with the natural force of her character, made her so bewitching as a woman.
Major Gordon, attired carefully in the full uniform of his rank, had a striking personal appearance. He looked every inch a gentleman, even as gentlemen were in those, their palmy days. Bowing gracefully, with a calm, self-collected air, first to Mrs. Warren and then to Kate, he took the seat offered to him by the servant, and glided gracefully into conversation.
“We have been expecting you before, Major,” said Mrs. Warren. “Especially since we heard you were stationed at the Forks, which is so nigh to Sweetwater.”
“I have been delayed by important public business,” was the answer. “The powder, for which I was on the lookout, having arrived, I had personally to see to its safety and subsequent transmission to head-quarters. I made daily inquiries after your health and that of Miss Aylesford, however,” he continued, “and had the pleasure of hearing that you were slowly but surely recovering from your fatigues.”