“Well, I shall not try to guess again, lest you should say, ‘Pooh, pooh, pooh, pooh!’—four times!”
“Zuleime!” said the young man, earnestly, “I think, without presumption, I may say that I know your disposition towards me. Zuleime, I wish that we should pass all our lives together, side by side! I would like to open my heart and bid you look into it and read for yourself. I hate to say, ‘I love you,’ (though if you could look into my heart!) Oh, that phrase, ‘I love you,’ Zuleime, is so fallen, is so prostituted, so degraded from its high meaning—‘I love you’ so often means ‘I need your wealth,’ ‘need your family influence,’ ‘I desire your delightful beauty!’ Oh, Zuleime, dearest girl, how then shall I express my true, sincere, earnest devotion to you?”
“You needn’t—I know you like me, Frank,” murmured Zuleime, very low. And then she added, lower still—“But I am nothing but a wild school-girl, and, seriously, I fear it isn’t right for me to listen to such words for years to come yet. And I fear father might not like it, only that he likes you so very well.”
And Zuleime bent over her sampler, diligently, commencing the next word, hope, in azure silk.
“I know it, Zuleime! Dear, candid girl, I know it all—all the seeming error! But, Zuleime, I am going away to-day,” (she looked up in surprise,) “and I may be gone for several years. When I come back I shall certainly return a captain, if not probably a major, or possibly a colonel. Before I go, I wish to have a fair understanding with yourself and your father, so that I may go away with some feeling of security. I want you both to promise that when I return you will give me your hand.”
“You may speak to father, Frank. But I tell you frankly now, what I wish you had heard before. It is this:—that I have been promised to my grim cousin, Major Cabell, ever since I can remember anything. And till you came, I have always, whenever I have anticipated the future at all, looked forward to being his hum-drum wife, and living in a grim three-story red brick, in a row, and opposite another row of stiff, prison-like red brick houses, each one of which, taken singly, is more dreary than all the rest. I didn’t like the prospect, Frank; but I thought it was my fate, and the best father could do for me, and so I thought of no other possibility but the grim red brick house in the city and Major Cabell. Besides, father is so good a father, and so fond and indulgent, that it seemed too wicked to think of disappointing his gentle wishes, that never take the form of commands. And so, Frank, although whenever I would think of the grim brick house, with tall dark chambers, and the narrow, stony, distracting street before it, and Major Cabell, my heart would sink very heavy, and I would think, young as I was, that there was scarcely any hope for me at all—yet, I would recollect my dear good father wished it, and I would pluck up my spirits and feel blithe as a bird again. It was all understood at the school where I am getting finished, as they call it. And father left word that Major Cabell should be admitted to visit me. So when I am there he comes to visit me frequently, and takes me out riding, or driving, and to concerts. And the girls whisper together, and say that I am engaged—”
“Stop—stop—stop—stop! Pardon me, Zuleime! Pardon me, dear girl! But, I am giddy—indeed, I am ill! Have you yourself promised to marry him?”
“No, surely not; and that is the reason why I consider myself in some sort free—but of my duty to my good father. No, he has never even asked me. He considers my father’s promise quite sufficient, and our marriage quite a matter of course. And so I used to consider it, too. These things are often done, Frank. These betrothals, I mean. Any one might suppose the custom obsolete—having died in the dark ages. It is not. It prevails here to a considerable extent. It is done to keep family property together, or family interest closely cemented. And, Frank, he has never courted me yet. You see he considers me a child still. And so I am, compared to him, in years. And so I should be, in all things, a child, but that the shadow of that grim brick house is always falling on my heart!”
“And yet, with all this, you are a very, very merry maiden!”
“Yes, so I am. I try to be! I keep a din up in my head to prevent me hearing what my heart wants to say! Goodness! I can do nothing for the poor thing, you know, and what’s the use of stopping to listen to its cry?—that would only encourage it to complain the more. Don’t look so sorry, Frank! It is not all effort! It could not be, you know. I’m naturally of a glad, elastic temper; and but for this drawback, Heaven knows what I should be! the wildest, maddest, most harem-scarem, most heels-over-head, skip-over-the-moon madcap that ever turned a quiet home topsy-turvy, and drove a quiet family to distraction! The Bible says,—‘God loveth whom He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son (and daughter) whom He receiveth.’ Then I think, (I do think, sometimes, young and volatile as I am,) I think that every one whom God redeems has some sorrow, and that sorrow is always the precise one fitted to cure their besetting sin! As the proud are still kept down by poverty and oppression, the vain lose their charms, or the power of enhancing them, etc., etc., etc., among all the erring whom God designs to set right. And I, who am naturally so wild and thoughtless, must be sobered and made thoughtful by the prospect of that prison before me!”