Elsie started, and blushed violently.
Alice took both her hands and gazed deeply into her face.
At that earnest and tender mother’s gaze, the tears sprung into Elsie’s eyes, and then, as struck by something ludicrous in herself or her position, Elsie laughed.
Alice pressed her hands, and released them, saying:
“It is time to dress, my dear Elsie, your father expects you in the parlor. Let me fix your hair; it is in sad disorder.” And she smoothed and twined the rich ringlets around her fingers, letting them drop in long tendrils of golden auburn.
And then she arranged her dress of purple cashmere, and they went below to the lighted parlor, where General Garnet and Magnus awaited them. The general and Magnus were engaged in a political discussion, but Magnus broke off and came at once to meet them.
Elsie, with a bright blush, turned away and walked to a distant table, where she ensconced herself with her tambour frame.
But from that day Elsie gradually changed. She kept out of the way of Magnus most sedulously. The courtship became a regular hunt. All Magnus’ ingenuity was employed in devising how he could circumvent Elsie’s arch and saucy prudery, and entrap her into a little lover’s talk or walk. And all Elsie’s tact was engaged in devising means to avoid without offending Magnus.
And so days went on, until one day it fell like ice upon the warm heart of Magnus, that Elsie might not love him except as a brother; and oh! he thought of her first, free, fond, sisterly affection for him, until the evening upon which he first declared his passion, and then of her calm agreement to marry him because their lands joined, and her cold avoidance of him ever since. “Yes,” he said to himself, “it is too true. Elsie does not love me. I am wooing an unwilling bride. Shall I continue to do so? Shall I marry her and seal her misery? No, my God! No, though she is the first and last hope of my life, I will resign her if that will make her happy.” And so Magnus suddenly abandoned the pursuit of Elsie, and grew thoughtful, sorrowful, pale, and weary-looking.
Then he absented himself from Mont Calm for several days. Elsie did not grow pale or thin; she was too sanguine for that; but she became uneasy, then anxious, then restless, and would walk about looking silently from the windows, particularly the back windows that overlooked the forest road leading down to the Hollow; or looking into her father’s or her mother’s face with an anxious, appealing look of silent inquiry. If the door-bell were rung, she would start violently, pause breathlessly, turn very pale, ask eagerly of the servant who returned, “who was that?” The answer, “Judge Jacky Wylie,” or “Marse Roebuck” caused her to sink back in her seat, disappointed and blushing with mortification. And yet only two or three days had passed; but then Magnus had been in the habit of coming twice a day, and staying over night; and two or three days seems to a young, impatient heart like two or three eternities.