She folded up her sister's letter, and addressed herself very slowly to the task of getting ready for a party at Judge Provost's—the great house of the town. It was given in honor of a niece of his, who was visiting his daughter, and was to be a grand affair. Jessie had never attended one half so fine, but she was ennuyée in anticipation.
"There will be the stock company of beaux," she meditated. "The one unmarried professor; the ten almost marriageable seniors, and the ten utterly ineligible ones, who are without beards or moneyed capital; the whole army (I had nearly said 'herd') of juniors and sophomores; the dozen or fifteen gentlemen detailed for the occasion from the doctors' and lawyers' offices, and the higher rank of tradespeople in Hamilton. There will be dancing in one parlor, and small-talk in another; promenading in the halls and billiard-room; flirtations in all stages among the oleanders and lemon-trees of the conservatory, and a "jam"—not sweet—in the supper-room. As a clergyman's daughter and the guest of a clergyman's wife, I must not dance in public. I am sick to nausea of callow collegians and small-talk, and I don't care for late suppers of indigestible dainties. I would rather spend the evening with Mariana in the moated grange, for that mopish damsel would let me sit still and sulk if I wanted to. And I believe I do!"
"A little more fire, my love!" whispered Mrs. Baxter in the dressing-room, affecting to be busy in shaking out Jessie's pink silk drapery. "I have a presentiment that you are to meet your fate to-night. But you must positively exert yourself to seem less quiet and preoccupied. Repose and lofty indifference are considered well-bred, and are a very safe rôle for the commonplace to adopt. But they are unbecoming to us."
The novice did her best to throw light into her eyes and warmth into her complexion. Being a novice, the attempt was a failure; but Mrs. Baxter, perceiving that ignorance, not obstinacy, hindered the desired effect, forbore to hint that, in spite of Jessie's elegant attire and becoming coiffure, she had never seen her look worse. Trusting to the animating influences of the festive scene to restore that which friendly expostulation had proved inefficient to recall, she committed her to the officious homage of young Lowndes, and turned her attention to the part she was herself to play in the evening's drama.
"What a magnificent creature your niece is, Mrs. Baxter; or is she a cousin?" said an elderly gentleman—also one of the judge's visitors—to her, at length.
The pleased and amiable chaperone looked over her shoulder, directed by his gaze, just in time to see Jessie pass, treading as if on air; her eyes luminous orbs of rapture; her cheeks like the inner foldings of a damask rose; her lips apart in a smile, sweet and happy, and her hand on Orrin Wyllys' arm.
CHAPTER IX.
And you have really been to Dundee!" Jessie was saying, unconscious that she was clinging to Mr. Wyllys' arm—very slightly, but perceptibly to him, with the glad hold of one to whom something dear and rare has been restored. "Was this a part of the original plan of your journeyings?"