To be sure, he possessed one grand requisite for success,—he seemed most perfectly happy himself. There was that air dégagé about him which, when an old man puts it on among his juniors, is so very attractive. Then the ladies, too, were evidently well pleased; and the usually austere mamma had relaxed her “rigid front” into a smile in which any habitué of the house could have read our fate.
We ate, we drank, we ogled, smiled, squeezed hands beneath the table, and, in fact, so pleasant a party had rarely assembled round the major’s mahogany. As for me, I made a full disclosure of the most burning love, backed by a resolve to marry my fair neighbor, and settle upon her a considerably larger part of my native county than I had ever even rode over. Sparks, on the other side, had opened his fire more cautiously, but whether taking courage from my boldness, or perceiving with envy the greater estimation I was held in, was now going the pace fully as fast as myself, and had commenced explanations of his intentions with regard to Fanny that evidently satisfied her friends. Meanwhile the wine was passing very freely, and the hints half uttered an hour before began now to be more openly spoken and canvassed.
Sparks and I hob-nobbed across the table and looked unspeakable things at each other; the girls held down their heads; Mrs. Dal wiped her eyes; and the major pronounced himself the happiest father in Europe.
It was now wearing late, or rather early; some gray streaks of dubious light were faintly forcing their way through the half-closed curtains, and the dread thought of parting first presented itself. A cavalry trumpet, too, at this moment sounded a call that aroused us from our trance of pleasure, and warned us that our moments were few. A dead silence crept over all; the solemn feeling which leave-taking ever inspires was uppermost, and none spoke. The major was the first to break it.
“O’Malley, my friend, and you, Mr. Sparks; I must have a word with you, boys, before we part.”
“Here let it be, then, Major,” said I, holding his arm as he turned to leave the room,—“here, now; we are all so deeply interested, no place is so fit.”
“Well, then,” said the major, “as you desire it, now that I’m to regard you both in the light of my sons-in-law,—at least, as pledged to become so,—it is only fair as respects—”
“I see,—I understand perfectly,” interrupted I, whose passion for conducting the whole affair myself was gradually gaining on me. “What you mean is, that we should make known our intentions before some mutual friends ere we part; eh, Sparks? eh, Major?”
“Right, my boy,—right on every point.”
“Well, then, I thought of all that; and if you’ll just send your servant over to my quarters for our captain,—he’s the fittest person, you know, at such a time—”