“I had resolved,” said she, “never to avail myself of this fortune. To what end could I desire wealth? I was dead to the world. If enough remained to support me through my lonely pilgrimage, I needed no more. The simple life of these peasants here offered me all that I could now care for, and it was in this obscure spot I meant to have ended my days, unnoticed and unwept. My dear father, however, a distinguished officer, whose services the Government is proud to acknowledge, had rashly involved himself in some speculations; everything went badly with him, and he finished by losing all that he had laid by to support his old age. In this emergency I bethought me of that will; but even yet I don't believe I should have availed myself of its provisions if it were not that my father urged me by another and irresistible argument, which was that in not asserting my own claim, I was virtually denying yours. 'Think of Winthrop,' said he. 'Why should he be defrauded of his inheritance because you have taken a vow of poverty?' He called it a vow of poverty,” said she, smiling through her tears, “since I wore no better dress than this, nor tasted any food more delicate than the rough fare of my peasant neighbors.”
If the costume to which she thus directed their attention was simple, it was eminently becoming, being, in reality, a sort of theatrical travesty of a peasant's dress, made to fit perfectly, and admitting of a very generous view of her matchless foot and ankle; insomuch, indeed, that Mr. Winthrop could not help feeling that if poverty had its privations, it could yet be eminently picturesque.
If Winthrop wished from time to time to ask some question about this, or inquire into that, her answers invariably led him far afield, and made him even forget the matter he had been eager about. A burst of emotion, some suddenly recalled event, some long-forgotten passage brought back to mind in a moment, would extricate her from any difficulty; and as to dates,—those awful sunk rocks of all unprepared fiction,—how could she be asked for these,—she, who really could not tell the very year they were then living in, had long ceased to count time or care for its onward course? There were things he did not understand; there were things, too, that he could not reconcile with each other; but he could not, at such a moment, suggest his doubts or his difficulties, nor be so heartless as to weary that poor crushed and wounded spirit by prolonging a scene so painful.
When he arose to take his leave, they were like old friends. With a delicate tact all her own, she distinguished him especially from Mr. Trover; and while she gave Winthrop both her hands in his, she bestowed upon his companion a very cold smile and a curtsey.
“Are they gone,—positively gone?” asked she of her father, who now entered the room, after having carefully watched the whole interview from a summer-house with a spy-glass.
“Yes, dear; they are out on the road. I just overheard the American, as he closed the wicket, remark, 'She's the most fascinating creature I ever talked to!'”
“I hope I am, papa. When one has to be a serpent, one ought surely to have a snake's advantages! What a dear old creature that American is! I really have taken a great liking to him. There is a marvellous attraction in the man that one can deceive without an effort, and, like the sheep who come begging to be eaten, only implores to be 'taken in again.'”
“I never took my eyes off him, and I saw that you made him cry twice.”
“Three times, papa,—three times; not to speak of many false attacks of sensibility that went off in deep sighs and chokings. Oh dear! am I not wearied? Fetch me a little lemonade, and put one spoonful—only one—of maraschino in it. That wretch Trover almost made me laugh with his absurd display of grief. I 'll not have him here to-morrow.”
“And is Winthrop to come to-morrow?”