Magnus had been corresponding with Elsie for the last three years, and looked forward to her return with more of joyful anticipation than anyone else in the world, perhaps, except her mother. A year before this, two miniature portraits of Elsie, in her young womanhood, had been forwarded from England. One of them had been retained by her mother; the other was presented by General Garnet to Magnus. He wore it in his—vest pocket. It was his charm, his talisman, his abracadabra. When, if ever, he would become, for the instant, lazy, stupid, hopeless, or impatient, he would take that miniature out, touch the spring so that the case would fly open, and gaze upon that handsome, wholesome, happy face until energy, inspiration, hope, and patience came again; and he would close it, and replace it in his pocket with a joyous faith in his coming life, that not all the powers of evil could have shaken.
I told you that Magnus was the zealous, active, and most efficient partisan of General Garnet; he was also the dear friend and confidant of Mrs. Garnet. Many and long were the confidential talks they would have in Alice’s dressing room; and the subject of these conversations was Elsie—still Elsie.
One day, after reading with Mrs. Garnet Elsie’s last delightful letter, and discussing with her Elsie’s expected arrival, he exclaimed joyfully: “This makes me gladdest of all!—that our fresh, dewy, charming Elsie will come at once to us. Well!—at once to me—that she will not have had, as most young ladies have, many other lovers; that the sun of the world will not have stolen the bloom and the dew from our beautiful Maryland rose.”
But Magnus “reckoned” his future without destiny, his “host.”
Elsie had been withdrawn from school, indeed, and was quite ready and anxious to get home. She was to return with General A——’s family, who were soon expected to sail for the United States. But one circumstance following another, and connected with his diplomatic business, had deferred his departure from time to time, until six months passed away—during which time Miss Garnet had been presented at court, and was moving in the best society in London. Yes; and, though still impatient to come home, enjoying her happy self to the utmost, as every letter testified.
Now, you would think that after having congratulated himself so upon the unsunned freshness of this beautiful Maryland rose, that Magnus would lament that she was blooming in the very blaze of the sun of fashion, in the very conservatory of a court.
By no means; her letters reassured him, every one.
“It is well, very well, upon the whole,” he said. “She has now an opportunity of forming an acquaintance with one order of society that may never occur again—of getting an insight into one phase of human nature that nothing but this experience could afford her.”
And time sped on, and brought the day when a letter came to them, dated at Liverpool, and announcing that General A——, with his family, and Miss Garnet, would sail within a few days, in the ship Amphytrite, bound from that port to Norfolk. Therefore, it was expected that within a few days after, if not before the arrival of the letter, the Amphytrite would be in port.
General Garnet, accompanied by Dr. Hardcastle, left Mount Calm immediately for Norfolk, to welcome his daughter, if the ship had come; to wait for her if it had not.