This “W. M.,” however, was not without its interest, and two days later the maid exhibited an old copy of Feltham’s “Resolves,” abstracted from William’s little file of books, with “William Martin” neatly inscribed on the fly-leaf, but in a hand so quaint and ancient, and with ink so brown, that even Miss Clara “pooh-poohed” the discovery.
Now, the young lady could not help in some sort requiting William’s secret estimate of her good looks. She thought the young tutor decidedly handsome; in fact, there could be no question about it. He was well formed too; and with that undefinable grace which people are apt to refer to gentle blood. There was, moreover, a certain refinement and sensitiveness in his countenance utterly incompatible with the idea of vulgarity of any kind. Now, a tutor might be anything—a decayed nobleman or a chandler’s son. Was not Louis Philippe an usher in a school? All you were to assume was that he could teach Latin grammar, and was in want of money.
There were some little signs of superfluity, too, in William’s valuables. The butler, who was a native of Geneva, presuming on William’s tutorship, had, on a fitting opportunity, begged leave to inspect his watch, and appraised it at twenty guineas among his fellow-servants. This and the massive gold chain, which also excited his admiration, were gifts from Miss Perfect, as was also that glorious dressing-case, presented on his attaining his twenty-first year, resplendent with gold and mother-o’-pearl, and which the same competent authority valued at seventy guineas at least. Now, those things, though little, and some not at all seen outside the walls of his own little bed-room, emitted, like the concealed relics of a saint, so to speak, a glory and a fragrance which permeated the house. It was quite impossible, then, that want of money had driven this Mr. Herbert, or whoever he was, into his present position.
On the plate on top of this resplendent dressing-case the maid, who, fired by Monsieur Drouet’s report, had visited the treasure clandestinely, were inscribed, as she reported to Miss Clare, the same mysterious characters “W. M.”
“I like the old gentleman—kind old man. What wonderful things books are; nourishment for all sorts and sizes of minds—poor old Mr. Kincton Knox. How he reads and positively enjoys them. Yet the best things in them might just as well never have been written or thought, for any real perception he has of them! A kind man; I like him so much; I feel so obliged to him. And what ill-bred, insupportable persons the ladies are; that pompous, strong-willed, stupid old woman; her magnificence positively stifles me; and the young lady, how disagreeably handsome she is, and how impertinent. It must be a love of inflicting pain and degradation—how cruel, how shabby, how low!”
Such was William’s review of the adult members of the family among whom he had come to reside, as he lay down with his fair hair on the pillow, and his sad eyes long open in the dark, looking at scenes and forms of the past, crossed and troubled by coming sorrows and apprehensions.
The ice and snow spread crisp and hard, and the frosty sun has little heat, but yet the thaw will come. And the radiance emitted by William’s dressing-case, watch and other glories, began imperceptibly to tell upon the frozen rigor of his first reception. There was a word now and then about the weather, he was asked more graciously to take some more tea. The ladies sometimes smiled when they thus invited him, and Miss Clara began to take an interest in her brother, and even one day in her riding habit, in which she looked particularly well, looked into the school-room for a moment, just to give Howard a little box of bonbons she had promised him before she went out.
“May I, Mr. Herbert?” asked Miss Clara, with that smile which no one could resist.
“Certainly,” said William, bowing very low, and she thought there was something haughty in his grave humility.
So she thanked him, smiling more, and made her present to Howard, who broke out with—