Mr. Dinsmore lost no time in accepting her invitation, and looked around in considerable satisfaction at the handsome suite of rooms which had been prepared for him.
“What an unlucky dog my rival was to kick the bucket and leave all this good fortune behind him,” he thought, as he gazed about him; “but still, what was his loss is my gain.”
“I will inform Miss Jess that you are here, sir,” remarked the housekeeper, with a courtesy, as she turned and left the room. Like all women, she was attracted to him because of his singularly handsome face, and she was wondering what the fastidious young gentleman would think when he beheld the incorrigible Jess—who was a child of nature still, though she had done her utmost during the last few days to revolutionize the girl’s appearance.
The thin pink and white mull dress, with its soft, fluttering pink ribbons, became her dark, gypsyish beauty as nothing else could have done, but Jess declared that she would a thousand times over wear her brown linsey gown, that bade defiance to briar and bush as she sprang like a wild deer through them.
Mrs. Bryson had had a severe and trying ordeal in bending the will of Jess to her own, in submitting to the transformation; but at last the good woman accomplished her purpose, and when at last the young girl stood before her, gowned as a young girl should be, she could not repress her exclamation of great satisfaction.
“If your manners but correspond with your looks, Jess,” she said, “you would be simply irresistible, and would be sure to capture the heir for a husband.”
“It seems that my tastes and inclinations in the matter are not to be considered at all!” cried the girl, with flashing eyes; “he is to come here and look me over quite the same as though I was a filly he wished to purchase, and if I suit, he will take me; if not, he will coolly refuse to conclude the bargain.”
“My dear—my dear—do not look upon the matter in such a horribly straightforward light—of course, he must be pleased with you to want to marry you—and——”
“I don’t want to marry your Mr. John Dinsmore! I hate him!” cried Jess, stamping her tiny little foot angrily.
“How can you say that you hate him when you have not even seen him, child?” argued the old housekeeper.