Lord Overton did not like the conversation, and changed it; and the two gentlemen returned to the house. Not many days after he took his departure for London, not quite able to make up his mind whether Rose or Emily, or either, was qualified by wealth, beauty, and grace to become Viscountess Overton. After three days thought in London, he decided that neither was, upon the consideration of the great moral objection that exists to men of rank marrying Misses, especially where that most horrible denomination is not corrected by the word honourable before it. If Emily had been even a maid of honour, so that her name might have appeared in the newspapers as the Honourable Miss Tracy, he might have consented; but as it was, he judged decidedly it would be a mesalliance, although Mr. Tracy's direct ancestors stood upon the rolls of fame, when his own were herding cattle.
He saved himself a very great mortification; for, to be rejected when a man mistakenly thinks he is condescending, is the bitterest draught with which false pride can be medicined.
Both Emily and Rose Tracy were very glad when the peer was gone, for his fluttering from one to the other (though he annoyed Emily most) had much the same effect as having a bee or large fly in the room; but there was another person in the neighbourhood who rejoiced still more, and that was Horace Fleming. He had dined twice at Mr. Tracy's while the party of visitors were there, and he did not at all approve of Lord Overton's attentions to Emily. Chandos Winslow was not sorry, for although he had not such definite cause for uneasiness as Fleming, yet that little god of love, whom we hear so much of, and so seldom see, is not only a metaphysical god, but a very irritable god too. The sight of Rose Tracy had always been pleasant to him during the whole time he had been in Mr. Tracy's service. Her beautiful little ancle and tiny foot, as she walked along the paths, had to his fancy the power of calling up flowers as it passed. Her smile had seemed to him to give back summer to the wintry day; the light of her eyes to prolong the sunshine, and make the twilight bright. In the morning she was his Aurora, in the evening his Hesperus; and in a word, in the space of six weeks and a day, Chandos Winslow had fallen very much in love. But it must be remarked, that the odd day mentioned, was far detached from the six weeks, dating nearly one year before. It had been an epocha which he had always remembered however--one of the green spots in the past. A lovely and intelligent girl, fresh, and unspoiled by the great corruptor of taste, feeling, and mind--fashionable society--had been cast upon his care and attention for several hours, in a crowd which prevented her from finding her own party at a fête. They had danced together more than was prudent and conventional, because they did not well know what else to do; and the little embarrassment of the moment had only excited for her an additional interest over and above that created by youth, beauty, grace, and innocence. At the end of the evening, she had passed from his sight like a shooting star, as he thought, for ever. But he remembered the bright meteor, and its rays sometimes even had visited him in sleep. Thus that day had as much to do with the love of the case as the far-detached six weeks; though they had served to ripen, and perfect, and mature a passion of which but one solitary seed had been sown before.
Four days after Lord Overton had departed, and three after the rest of the guests had taken flight, Chandos saw Rose through the trees come along towards the marble basin with a quicker step than usual. The little velvet and chinchilla mantle was pressed tight over her full, fine bosom, to keep out the cold wind of the last day of the year; but there was an eager look in her bright eyes which made him think that her rapid pace had other motives than mere exercise; and he, too, hurried his steps, to reach the spot to which her steps tended, at the same time as herself. Just as they both approached it, however, one of the under-gardeners came up to ask a question of his superior officer. He got a quick but kindly answer; but then he asked another; and that was answered too. The devil was certainly in the man; for, having nothing more to say to Chandos, he turned to Rose, and inquired whether she would not like the screens put up to keep the pond from the cold wind; and by the time he had done, General Tracy appeared, and took possession of his niece's ear.
Rose went away with a slower step and less eager look than she came. But Chandos took care to be near the little basin at the time of sunset, marking out some alterations in the surrounding shrubs which he intended to propose against the spring. When Rose appeared, Emily was with her; and Chandos was again disappointed. He showed the two fair girls, however, what he intended to suggest to their father; and, for one single moment, while Emily, taking the basket, scattered some crumbs to her sister's favourites, Rose followed the head-gardener to a spot which he thought might be well opened out, to give a view beyond; and then, she said, in a low, hurried tone, "I am going to do what perhaps is not right; but I must speak to you to-morrow morning, at all risks. I will be here half-an-hour earlier than usual;" and with limbs shaking as if she had committed theft, Rose left him, and hurried back to her sister, ere Emily well perceived that she had left her side.
They were two sisters, however; loving like sisters, trusting like sisters, with barely a year between them; and though they knew that the one was younger, the other elder, they hardy felt it; for Lily was gentle and unpresuming, though firm as she was mild. She took nought upon her; and though she acted as the mistress of her father's house, yet Rose seemed to share her authority, and more than share her power. Emily pretended not to question or to rule her sister; and, had she been suspicious, she would have asked no questions: but she suspected nothing.
CHAPTER XIV.
"Fie, for shame!" cries the old lady so exceedingly smartly dressed in the corner, whom one who did not see her face, or remark her figure, but who only looked at her gay clothing, would take to be twenty-three, though forty added to it would be within the mark--I mean the old lady with the nutmeg-grater face, so like the portrait of Hans Holbein's grand-aunt, which figures in many of his wood-cuts, but, especially in the accouchement of the Burgomaster's wife of Nuremburg. "Fie, for shame! What a very improper thing for a young lady, like Miss Rose Tracy, to make an appointment with her father's head-gardener. It is a breach of three of the Commandments!" (Let the reader sort them.) "It is indecent, dangerous, abominable, terrible, disgraceful, contrary to all the rules and regulations of society! What a shocking girl she must be!"
I will not defend her; I know that all the old ladies, in whatever garments, whether bifurcate or circumambient, will reasonably cry out upon Rose Tracy; but let us for a moment hear what it was that induced her to perform that which the philosophers and critics of Lambeth, and especially those nearest to the door of the famous peripatetic school of the Bricklayers'-arms, would call "a very young trick."
"Well, Arthur, what news do you bring us from the other side of the hills?" asked General Tracy, when his brother appeared at the dinner-table, on the second day after the departure of his last guest.