"Never! oh, Ida! Why do yourself such injustice? Why not let your friends know that you have feeling? They would love you but the more."
"Do not believe it. I should be sent to the Insane Hospital. Hearts are at a discount in the market just now, and hypocrisy above par."
"There you go!" exclaimed Carry. "One moment all softness—the next, an ocean is between us. Contradictory enigma! If I loved you less, I should be angry. You read every leaf of my heart as easily as you unfold a newspaper; and just as I fancy that I have the key to yours, it is shut close—a casket, whose spring I cannot find."
"Or like an oyster," said Ida. "Apropos de bottes—here come the candles, harbingers of supper, and I hear our brace of Esculapii, upon the porch, ready to discuss it."
Carry asked herself if it could be the impassioned improvisatrice, who charmed her father and Arthur into forgetfulness of professional anxieties, and the attractions of the inviting board, by her brilliant play of wit, sparkling and pleasant as foam upon champagne, without its evanescence. The gentlemen admired and liked her. That they unconsciously identified her with Carry, may have accounted for this, in part, but most was owing to her powers of pleasing. An inquiry, made with extreme gravity, as to the number and welfare of their patients, was the preface to a burlesque sketch of the saddle-bag scene; in which, not a hint of the reflections it inspired, escaped her; and when she described the doctor's rueful countenance, as he held up the neck and stopple of a large phial, saying dolefully, "The Calomel too, and three cases of fever on hand!" Arthur resigned knife and fork, in despair of eating another mouthful, and Dr. Carleton drew out his Bandanna to wipe off the coursing tears.
"Hist," said Ida, her finger uplifted, "some one is coming!" The roll of an approaching vehicle was plainly heard; the coachman's sharp "Whoa!" followed by a cheer, in sound like a view-hallo, but it said, "Ship ahoy!"
"Charley! Charley!" screamed Carry, upsetting the tea-urn on her way to the door, pursued by Arthur and Dr. Carleton. Ida went as far as the porch. She heard Mrs. John Dana's voice, then her husband's; and Elle's incoherent response to the efforts made to awaken her; but the stranger was chief spokesman. "Look after your wife and the baggage, John; I will disembark the lighter freight. Elle! Elle! don't you want to see Aladdin's lamp? Aha! well, here is something prettier—Aunt Carry, and a nice supper. Charley! you monkey! wide awake as usual! Feel if you have your own head, my boy! People are apt to make mistakes in the dark. Give me that small-sized bundle, Jenny—you'll lose it in the weeds, and then there will be the mischief to pay. One, two, three, all right!" And with the "small-sized bundle" in his arms, he marched up the walk, Carry scolding and laughing.
"Charley! you are too bad! give her to me—a pretty figure you are, playing nurse!"
"He has carried her, or Elle, before him, on the horse, all the way!" said Mrs. Dana. "Ida, my love, how do you do?" warmly kissing her. John Dana shook hands with her, and Elle cried, "Cousin Ida! you here at grandpa's!"
Charley gave a comic glance at his burden, when he was presented; but his bow was respectful, and as graceful as the case admitted. Ida hardly saw him until the second supper was served; Carry insisting that she should occupy her accustomed seat, and go through the form of eating. Elle petitioned for a chair by her, and the three brothers were together on the opposite side of the table. They were an interesting study. John, with his strong, dark, yet singularly pleasing physiognomy, was the handsomest; but his precedence in age, and perhaps rougher experiences in life, had imparted an air of command, which, while it became him well, deterred one from familiarity. Charley was so unlike him, that the supposition of their being of the same lineage, seemed absurd. His hair and complexion were many shades lighter, and the features cast in a different mould, his eyes the only fine ones in the set. He was not so tall, by half a head, and more slightly built. Arthur was the connecting link; with John's height, and Charley's figure; the perfect mouth and teeth of one; the brown eyes of the other; and hair and skin a juste milieu between the two. Ida's attention was most frequently directed to the new-comer. She thought him more homely than his brothers; and it certainly was not a family resemblance that troubled her with the notion, that she had seen him somewhere not very long ago—when, she could not say—except that his expression was not the same as now. Heedless of her observation, he rattled on; doing ample justice to the edibles, in some unaccountable manner; his gastronomical and vocal apparatus never interfering; yet withal, he was an excellent listener; and allowed the rest of the party to say whatever they wished. "He would be worth his weight in gold to a comic almanac-maker," thought Ida, as he dashed off caricature and anecdote, conveying a character in an epithet, and setting the table in a roar, by a grimace or inflection. His pictures, however, were coloured by his gay mood; there were no frowning portraits, and their smiles were all broad grins.