“Of course I will; but take a seat, Frank, you have not been in my room before in a long time.”
“No, thank you, I have an engagement at twelve.”
He left the room, and I sat for some time in unpleasant reflection. If Lulie came to Chapel Hill, and received attention from Frank and his set, she would be put down as second class, and my circle of friends would hardly wait on her, even at my request. Knowing her high social position at home, I knew that Dr. Mayland, as well as herself, would be deeply mortified when they knew the character of her associates, if she visited Chapel Hill under Frank’s auspices; on the other hand, if I went to her and warned her when she came she would regard my information as a fiction of my prejudice against Frank, and despise me for it. Yet I felt sure he did not love and respect her, for only a day or two before he had said, when I asked if he were going to be married after Commencement, that he was going to see something of life first, that Lulie would keep for a year or two yet without spoiling, and that, even if she did prove false and love another, he had about tired of her.
After thinking over the matter I determined to wait and see whom Frank introduced to her, as his own pride might induce him to select companions suitable to her refinement and culture.
Going to the post-office that afternoon I received a letter from father, dated at London, saying that they would start the next day but one for the United States. They would land at Halifax, and come through Canada to Niagara, where they would wait for me to join them as soon as my college exercises were over. He spoke of the wondrous beauty of Carlotta, now that she was a woman, and said that fortunes and honors in profusion had been laid at her feet, but that she had refused all, and he did not think her heart had yet been touched. Her cousin, Herrara Lola, a young Cuban of rank and fortune, had joined them at Madrid, and had been travelling with them ever since. He was coming South with them to spend the summer and autumn, returning to Havana in the winter.
“And your mother and I fear,” continued he, “that when he leaves he will take away with him our beautiful Carlotta.”
I closed the letter with a great aching restlessness in my heart. Lose Carlotta! I had feared it ever since I had told her farewell, but my heart had not dared to acknowledge even to itself the possibility of such a loss. As I had received letter after letter telling of her ever increasing charms of person and character, I had longed with a great desire to see her once again and tell her how I loved her far more than any other dared to love, a desire made all the stronger by its utter hopelessness. And I had taken out my little ringlet each day, and, kissing it tenderly, wondered if she kept her pledge and ever thought of me. As I had learned the past winter of her successful debut in society, and her numberless triumphs, I felt that my hopes were forever fallen. She would return now puffed up with pride and conscious of superiority, while I would only appear to her as a rustic younger brother, whom she would be ashamed to exhibit to the arrogant Herrara.
“I won’t go to Niagara,” I said, savagely, crumpling the letter in my hand; “they will all look down on me now, and even father and mother will think I lack polish, after their European tour, for travel invariably breeds conceit.”
I took up my Herald to divert my thoughts, and running my eyes over its columns, saw the following among the marriage announcements:
“Marshman—Carrover. At the residence of the bride’s uncle, Mr. Isaac T. Carrover, No.——Fifth Avenue, by the Rev. Dr. Deeler, assisted by the Rev. Mr. Prynn, Hon. Palmer Marshman, M. C. for the—th Congressional District, to Miss Lillian Carrover. No cards.”