Winston Aylett, owner and tenant of the ancient mansion of Ridgeley—the great house of a neighborhood where small houses and men of narrow means were infrequent—had gone North about the first of June, upon a tour of indefinite length, but which was certainly to include Newport, the lakes, and Niagara, and was still absent. His aunt, Mrs. Sutton, and his only sister, Mabel, did the honors of his home in his stead, and, if the truth must be admitted, more acceptably to their guests than he had ever succeeded in doing. For a week past, the house had been tolerably well filled—ditto Mrs. Sutton's hands; ditto her great, heart. Had she not three love affairs, in different but encouraging stages of progression, under her roof and her patronage! And were not all three, to her apprehension, matches worthy of Heaven's making, and her co-operation? A devout Episcopalian, she was yet an unquestioning believer in predestination and “special Providences”—and what but Providence had brought together the dear creatures now basking in the benignant beam of her smile, sailing smoothly toward the haven of Wedlock before the prospering breezes of Circumstance (of her manufacture)?
While putting sugar and cream into the cups intended for the happy pairs, she reviewed the situation rapidly in her mind, and sketched the day's manoeuvres.
First, there was the case of Tom Barksdale and Imogene Tabb—highly satisfactory and creditable to all the parties concerned in it, but not romantic. Tom, a sturdy young planter, who had studied law while at the University, but never practised it, being already provided for by his opulent father, had visited his relatives, the Tabbs, in August, and straightway fallen in love with the one single daughter of his second cousin—a pretty, amiable girl, who would inherit a neat fortune at her parent's death, and whose pedigree became identical with that of the Barksdales a couple of generations back, and was therefore unimpeachable. The friends on both sides were enchanted; the lovers fully persuaded that they were made for one another, an opinion cordially endorsed by Mrs. Sutton, and they could confer with no higher authority.
Next came Alfred Branch and Rosa Tazewell—incipient, but promising at this juncture, inasmuch as Rosa had lately smiled more encouragingly upon her timid wooer than she had deigned to do before they were domesticated at Ridgeley. Mrs. Sutton did not approve of unmaidenly forwardness. The woman who would unsought be won, would have fared ill in her esteem. Her lectures upon the beauties and advantages of a modest, yet alluring reserve, were cut up into familiar and much-prized quotations among her disciples, and were acted upon the more willingly for the prestige that surrounded her exploits as high priestess of Hymen. But Rosa had been too coy to Alfred's evident devotion—almost repellent at seasons. Had these rebuffs not alternated with attacks of remorse, during which the exceeding gentleness of her demeanor gradually pried the crushed hopes of her adorer out of the slough, and cleansed their drooping plumes of mud, the courtship would have fallen through, ere Mrs. Sutton could bring her skill to bear upon it. Guided, and yet soothed by her velvet rein, Rosa really seemed to become more steady. She was assuredly more thoughtful, and there was no better sign of Cupid's advance upon the outworks of a girl's heart than reverie. If her fits of musing were a shade too pensive, the experienced eye of the observer descried no cause for discouragement in this feature. Rosa was a spoiled, wayward child, freakish and mischievous, to whom liberty was too dear to be resigned without a sigh. By and by, she would wear her shackles as ornaments, like all other sensible and loving women.
Thus preaching to Alfred, when he confided to her the fluctuations of rapture and despair that were his lot in his intercourse with the sometimes radiant and inviting, sometimes forbidding sprite, whose wings he would fain bind with his embrace, and thus reassuring herself, when perplexed by a flash of Rosa's native perverseness, Mrs. Sutton was sanguine that all would come right in the end. What was to be would be, and despite the rapids in their wooing, Alfred would find in Rosa a faithful, affectionate little wife, while she could never hope to secure a better, more indulgent, and, in most respects, more eligible, partner than the Ayletts' well-to-do, well-looking neighbor.
But the couple who occupied the central foreground of our match-maker's thoughts were her niece, Mabel Aylott, and her own departed husband's namesake, Frederic Chilton. She dilated to herself and to Mabel with especial gusto upon the “wonderful leading,” the inward whisper that had prompted her to propose a trip to the Rockbridge Alum Springs early in July. Neither she nor Mabel was ailing in the slightest degree, but she imagined they would be the brighter for a glimpse of the mountains and the livelier scenes of that pleasant Spa—and whom should they meet there but the son of “dear Frederic's” old friend, Mr. Chilton, and of course they saw a great deal of him—and the rest followed as Providence meant it should.
“The rest” expressed laconically the essence of numberless walks by moonlight and starlight; innumerable dances in the great ball-room, and the sweeter, more interesting confabulations that made the young people better acquainted in four weeks than would six years of conventional calls and small-talk. They stayed the month out, although “Aunt Rachel” had, upon their arrival, named a fortnight as the extreme limit of their sojourn. Frederic Chilton was their escort to Eastern Virginia, and remained a week at Ridgeley—perhaps to recover from the fatigue of the journey. So soon as he returned to Philadelphia, in which place he had lately opened a law-office, he wrote to Mabel, declaring his affection for her, and suing for reciprocation. She granted him a gracious reply, and sanctioned by fond, sympathetic Aunt Rachel, in the absence of Mabel's brother and guardian, the correspondence was kept up briskly until Frederic's second visit in September. Ungenerous gossips, envious of her talents and influence, had occasionally sneered at Mrs. Sutton's appropriation of the credit of other alliances—but this one was her handiwork beyond dispute—hers and Providence's. She never forgot the partnership. She had carried her head more erect, and there was a brighter sparkle in her blue orbs since the evening Mabel had come blushingly to her room, Fred's proposal in her hand—to ask counsel and congratulations. Everybody saw through the discreet veil with which she flattered herself she concealed her exultation when others than the affianced twain were by—and while nobody was so unkind as to expose the thinness of the pretence, she was given to understand in many and gratifying ways that her masterpiece was considered, in the Aylett circle, a suitable crown to the achievements that had preceded it. Mabel was popular and beloved, and her betrothed, in appearance and manner, in breeding and intelligence, justified Mrs. Sutton's pride in her niece's choice.
The old lady colored up, with the quick, vivid rose-tint of sudden and real pleasure that rarely outlives early girlhood, when the first respondent to the breakfast-bell proved to be her Frederic's god-son.
“You are always punctual! I wish you would teach the good habit to some other people,” she said, after answering his cordial “good-morning.”
“None of us deserve to be praised on that score, to-day,” rejoined he, looking at his watch. “I did not awake until the dressing-bell rang. Our riding-party was out late last night. The extreme beauty of the evening beguiled us into going further than we intended, when we set out.”