The fair and lovely form, the Lady Geraldine.
"That's where she got her romantic and historic name. To us boys—my brother Tom and myself—she was always Dina. She was our cousin. Her father had died when she was but a babe. So had my mother, and Aunt Patty thenceforth was the housewife with us. Father was one of those merchants and ship owners who have long passed away in Baltimore. No firm was better known around the Basin than that of Dunton & Jameson, and no clipper ships were faster than those with the Dunton signal.
"Dina was Tom's age, some years younger than I, but both of us made her our playmate. We didn't have the hundred and one diversions and sports that young people seem to have nowadays—no suburban clubs, no motoring, little driving. We roamed through Howard's woods around and beyond the Washington Monument, and we strolled the banks of the 'canal' that used to parallel Jones' Falls down there above Centre street. And in all our rambles and excursions Dina was our joyous, care-free companion. I can see her now, as she was at 14, a simply dressed school girl, with her olive complexion, her clear, trustful gray eyes, her trim, petite, lissom figure and her rosebud mouth, ready ever to kiss either of us in fond sisterly affection.
"She was 16 when I was sent to Edinburgh on one of father's ships, to become a doctor. For once her laughter deserted her, and the last picture I had of her as our boat headed down the Patapsco on a bright, blue morning was of a tearful miss on Bowly's wharf, waving a bedewed handkerchief and watching through misty eyes the going of Cousin Jim across the water. There had been a tender farewell between us, and though no word of love was spoken, I tell you, lad, I knew I was leaving my heart behind.
"My three years in Scotland were ones of hard work, and the chief joy I knew came with Dina's letters. The mails were slow in those days, and they came too uncertainly for me, you may be sure. But each brought me, in addition to a budget of news, just a bit of Dina's lovely personality. I saw her, in her letters, growing into sweet womanhood, and, as I sometimes stretched myself in meditation on Arthur's Seat, far above old Edinburgh, my thoughts were not of the city, nor of my own lifework, but of the little girl at home.
"I was just completing my course, when there came my first terrible blow. A letter came from Dina, the first in two months, and it brought me word, lad, that she was married! Married! Just think of it! And to Tom. He had been with Watson and Ringgold in the Mexican War, and clippings they sent me had recounted the bravery of young Captain Dunton. I confess to you, sir, that for days I had murder in my heart, and against my own brother. I went off on a walking trip in the Trossachs, and a savage time I had of it with myself; I had schemes of petty revenge; I abused Dina; I vowed she could not love Tom; that she must have been swept off her feet by the brass buttons and the war glamour about him.
"By the time I came back to Baltimore I had regained self-control, and when I met Tom and his wife it was with the determination to do everything for Dina's happiness, even though she were another's. I was not wrong in my prophecy that she would develop into sweet womanhood, only I underestimated it. In all our circle of acquaintances in Baltimore there was no more beautiful young matron than Mrs. Dunton; no more sprightly and piquant bride; no hostess more gracious, as she presided over the dinners and 'small and early' affairs that were given at our home here.
"But, alas! it was not long before sorrows came to her. Tom began to drink heavily. He got in with a gay set at Barnum's Hotel, his hours grew irregular, his absences from home more numerous and more prolonged. Father and I remonstrated ineffectually, at first pleadingly and then in anger. We did our best to keep Dina ignorant of some of the worst stories out concerning Tom's dissipation, but she knew. And though she loyally never criticised him in talking to us, we saw the joy fade out of her heart and lips, and the glint of ineffaceable sadness come into those pure gray eyes. God only knows what she suffered in the nine years before death, invited by alcohol, came and took Tom.
"It may sound brutal, but I was glad when besotted Tom was gone. It ended Dina's terrible worry, it relieved father and myself of unexplainable trouble, expense and annoyance, it laid to rest a family skeleton of whose existence all Baltimore seemed to know. And deep down in my heart, I confess it, there was a thrill that the woman I loved above all was free.
"Of course, being a true woman, and a tender-hearted one, Dina grieved long over Tom's death. She had loved him sincerely despite his grievous faults, and ours was a melancholy household for another year. In those days our women wore deep black mourning and veils, and sombre, indeed, was Dina as she went out to church, to Tom's grave, or to half a dozen poor households she had taken under her wing. But most of the time she was at home ministering to father, whose declining health was a cause of alarm to both of us.