"I found him inexorable, as to writing," replied Orinda.
"Well, really," said Mr. Jenkins, "I don't know how a gentleman can reconcile himself to refuse anything a lady asks. And he an officer too! For my part, I always hold it my bounden duty to oblige the ladies, and never on any account to treat them with hauteur, as the French call it. To be sure, I am not a marrying man—that is, I do not marry under a hundred thousand—but still, that is no reason why I should not be always polite and agreeable. Apropos, as the French say—apropos, Miss Melbourne, you know I offered the other day to write something for you in your album, and I will do it with all the pleasure in life. I am very partial to albums, and quite au-fait to them, to use a French term."
"We return to the city this afternoon," said Orinda. "You will scarcely have time to add anything to the treasures of my album."
"Oh! it won't take me long," replied Jenkins; "short and sweet is my motto. There will be quite time enough. You see I have already finished my breakfast. I am not the least of a gourmand, to borrow a word from the French."
Orinda had really some curiosity to see a specimen of Jenkins's poetry: supposing that, like the poor cadet's, it might be amusingly bad. Therefore, having sent for her album, she put it hastily into Jenkins's hand: for at that moment Lieutenant Sunderland, who had, as usual, breakfasted at the mess-table with his brother officers, came in to invite her to walk with him to Gee's Point. Orinda assented, and immediately put on her bonnet, saying to her lover as she left the house—
"You know this is one of my favourite walks—I like that fine mass of bare granite running far out into the river, and the beautiful view from its extreme point. And then the road, by which we descend to it, is so charmingly picturesque, with its deep ravine on one side, filled with trees and flowering shrubs, and the dark and lofty cliff that towers up on the other, where the thick vine wanders in festoons, and the branches of the wild rose throw their long streamers down the rock, whose utmost heights are crowned with still-lingering remnants of the grass-grown ruins of Fort Clinton."
But we question if, on this eventful morning, the beauties of Gee's Point were duly appreciated by our heroine, for long before they had reached it, her lover had made an explicit avowal of his feelings and his hopes, and had obtained from her the promise of her hand: which promise was faithfully fulfilled on that day two months.
In the afternoon, Lieutenant Sunderland accompanied Miss Melbourne and her friends on their return to the city. Previous to her departure, Orinda did not forgot to remind Mr. Jenkins of her album, now doubly valuable to her as containing the name of La Fayette, written by his own hand.
Jenkins begged a thousand pardons, alleging that the arrival of a friend from New York, had prevented him from writing in it, as he had intended. "And of course," said he, "I could not put off my friend, as he is one of the élite of the city, to describe him in French. However, there is time enough yet. Short and sweet, you know"—
"The boat is in sight," said Sunderland.