The Rose of Old St. Louis

by Mary Dillon

This, of course, was an especial grief to me on Pelagie's account, but also it touched me a little that the prince should so soon have forgotten me and what he was pleased to term my "great services" to him, for I had been strongly attracted to him by his noble bearing and chivalrous protection of mademoiselle. Often, in thinking of them,—he a noble young prince of great manly beauty and endowed by nature with all charming and lovable qualities; she the most exquisite of womankind,—I thought it would be strange indeed if in the intimate companionship of that long ride together they had not become so deeply interested in each other as to forget the existence of a young American gentleman three thousand miles away.

When in the winter there came news of the Cadoudal plots against the life of Napoleon, in which the young Prince de Polignac and his older brother the duke were involved; that both brothers had been arrested, tried, and condemned to death; and, later, that Napoleon had granted them a free pardon, I could easily believe that other interests than love and marriage had so absorbed the prince as to make him forgetful of a distant acquaintance.

On the heels of this appalling news, which shook the world and which yet left me glad and grateful that the chivalrous young prince had been saved from the ignominious death of an assassin, there came a letter to me from Captain Clarke, written in St. Louis, inviting me to join the expedition of discovery and exploration which Mr. Meriwether Lewis and he were to conduct up the Missouri River and across the mountains.

Few duties have come to me in life more difficult to perform than the writing of that letter declining the invitation. It was the life I longed for, to be had for the taking, and an expedition of such kind under the leadership of two men like my captain, whom I still adored, and Mr. Meriwether Lewis, whom I greatly admired, was the strongest temptation that could be presented to me.

But I knew well it was not for me. It would, no doubt, be a year or two in the accomplishing, with many hazards to life and limb, and I was now the virtual head of the family, with mother and sisters and invalid father all looking to me for protection and guidance and comfort. No, it was not to be thought of.

Without consulting any one I sent my answer, but I suppose my face was an open book to my dear mother, and in some moment of abstraction I had forgotten to be cheerful and so betrayed that something was troubling me. At any rate, she came to my room one night, and there, in the way that mothers have, she beguiled my secret from me. She agreed with me that it would never do in my father's state of health to join such an expedition, but she was greatly distressed for what she called my disappointment, though I tried to assure her it was not enough to think about.

Now mothers have a way of finding a salve for every hurt. I suppose it is a talent God has given them, that this world may be a pleasanter place for living in, and that the rugged path we have to tread through it may be smoother and pleasanter to our feet. (Though I hope no one will think because I have said this that I am one of those long-faced people who think this world a vale of woes to be traversed as quickly as possible, looking neither to the right nor to the left, lest they see something to please their eyes. I have ever found it a pleasant world, and my path through it of exceeding interest, with some sorrows and many difficulties to test one's mettle and add to the zest of living; but also with many wonderful and beautiful things lying all along the path, that God has placed there that one may stop and enjoy them and rest by the wayside.)

Now the salve my mother found for this hurt was one to my especial liking.

"Though you could not be gone from home two or three years, my son," she said, "a matter of two or three months could make no great difference to any one; why not go out to St. Louis, see your friends there, and help the expedition get under way?"

My heart gave a great leap. "And get news of mademoiselle from Dr. Saugrain," I said to myself; but then I hesitated. Would my father miss me too sadly? for he had seemed to lean upon me much for comfort and companionship. When I expressed my fears to my mother, she hesitated also, but we both finally agreed we would leave it to her to broach the matter to my father, and if it seemed to distress him too greatly, we would say nothing more about it.