"It will not do to have a dancing-party, Mamma," said Ella, when they were making the necessary arrangements, "it will not do to have a dancing-party, or Agnes will refuse to come, and I have set my heart on having her, and I strongly suspect somebody else has done the same," glancing mischievously at her brother, who had just entered the room. "I am sure, too, I shall enjoy myself a great deal better with a few select friends, than if we had a large, gay party."
"Have it your own way, my dear," said the mother, fondly kissing her daughter's fair upturned brow; "if it pleases you, I am sure it will satisfy me."
"Thank you, dear Mamma, and now I have nothing to do but to write my invitations, and send them. But, Arthur, I declare you have not said a word; one would imagine, only I know better, that you do not feel at all interested in the matter."
"Interested, why should I, in your foolish parties? Do you not know I have something better to think of?"
"Doubtless, and you do not care in the least who accepts the invitations. Now, confess, for you may as well, that when I proposed, a few evenings ago, having a small select gathering of friends for Agnes's sake, your very eyes shone with joy, for all you did wear that provoking grave look. Confess, too, that you have thought of little else ever since. I am sure you dreamed about it last night, for you looked very smiling as you entered the breakfast room this morning."
"You are an incorrigible little rattle-brain, Ella, and, to punish you, I have a great mind to declare I will not enter your party. How would you like that?"
"I am not in the least alarmed, brother dear, that that threat will be carried into execution, for the very good and sufficient reason, that you would thus punish yourself worse than me. But if I stand talking any longer, my invitations will not be written in season, so I must defer our very edifying conversation till another opportunity,"—and, humming a favorite air, the lively girl danced gaily out of the room.
Arthur, left alone, stood for a moment musing, half amused and half vexed with his sister. He scarcely had ever mentioned Agnes's name, and yet, he could not conceal from himself that he felt an interest in her, beyond that he had ever experienced for any other woman.
"Absence is love's food," so poets say, and Arthur proved the truth of the observation. While spending his college vacations at home, he had often met with her before; and, even then, she charmed him as no other woman ever did, but when report told of her engagement to Edward Lincoln, honor forbade him any longer to cherish hopes which he had allowed to tint with their bright hues his dreams of the future.
He had shunned her society as far as possible from that time while at home, and striven, while at college and during his year's sojourn in foreign lands, to banish her image from his remembrance, and vainly imagined he had succeeded; but the flame, though it may be dimmed, was by no means quenched, and was ready, at the slightest encouragement, to burst forth with renewed vigor.