“If you really want to know, I don’t mind telling you. They make all sorts of fun down in the village of engaged girls. I shouldn’t want any one to make that sort of fun of me; I wouldn’t bear it.”
“Life in the city, and city manners, you would find quite different,” replied Lawyer Abbot, quietly; adding: “But if you do not wish the engagement known, I see of no reason to tell it. Mr. Dinsmore need not be mentioned in any way, or even known there.”
“Then I’ll go, Mr. Abbot. And, oh, I’ll be so glad to get away from Blackheath Hall for ever so short a time,” cried Jess, dancing around the room and clapping her hands in joy like a veritable child over the promise of a holiday.
Mrs. Bryson flushed a dull red. She had the very guilty and uncomfortable feeling and knowledge that the grand, old place had never been a home to the child any more than it had been to the wild birds that were sheltered there at night under the broad eaves. Her existence had been like theirs; she roamed where she would by day, until darkness drove her back to the shelter of its roof; and so matters would have continued to have gone on had it not been for that death abroad, and the strange will which was the result of it, and which had named the little Bohemian will-o’-the-wisp as one of the heirs of the vast estate, providing the conditions contained therein were carried out.
It had not been until then that Mrs. Bryson had taken the trouble to cultivate Jess’ acquaintance, as it were, and now she felt keen shame as she reviewed the past, and the little care she had expended upon the girl who had been left in her charge.
If the girl had grown up wild as a deer, and untamable as a young lioness, she was to blame for it, she well knew.
The wonder to her was that matters adjusted themselves by the young nephew proposing to Jess at all. She realized that it would never have been if the girl had not grown up as beautiful as a wild rose; and Jess had no one to thank for her wondrous beauty but nature, which had made her as perfect as it is given mortals to be.
“All’s well that ends well,” said Lawyer Abbot to Mrs. Bryson, as he was taking his leave.
“But has it ended?” asked his companion, anxiously. “I shall always be looking for something to happen to prevent it, until the girl actually stands at the altar. Even then she is as likely as not to back out. Jess does not realize the value of money, nor the fortune which hangs in the balance, or what its loss would mean to her. All that she is thinking about is that she does not love the man she is so soon to marry. I repeat—how will it end?”