Dora Deane; Or, The East India Uncle

by Mary Jane Holmes

And growing suddenly very careful of her cousin's reputation, she dispatched a note to Rose Hill requesting her immediate return. Not that she really thought there would be any impropriety in Dora's staying with Mr. Hastings, but because she had a plan by which she hoped herself to see him every day. And in this plan she succeeded. As she had expected, her note brought down Mr. Hastings himself, who, on his child's account, objected to parting with Dora, unless it were absolutely necessary.

"She is as well off there as here," said he; "and why can't she stay?"

"I am perfectly willing she should take care of little Ella," answered the previously instructed Mrs. Deane, who, in a measure, shared her daughter's ambitious designs; "but it must be done here, if at all. I can't suffer her to remain alone with those gossiping servants."

"Oh, yes!" exclaimed Eugenia, speaking as if this were the first she had heard of it. "That is a good idea. It will be delightful to have the dear little creature here, and so much better for her too in case of croup, or anything like that, to be with an experienced person like mother!"

"But," said Mr. Hastings, "this would keep Dora entirely from her studies, and that ought not to be."

"It need not," hastily interrupted Eugenia. "She can go to school every day, for nothing will give me greater pleasure than to take care of our dear Ella's child;" and the pocket-handkerchief went up to her face to conceal the tears which might have been there, but probably were not.

It was finally arranged, and in the course of a few days the parlor of Locust Grove was echoing sometimes to the laughter, and sometimes to the screaming, of little Ella Grey, who, from some unaccountable freak of babyhood, conceived a violent fancy for Eugenia, to whom she would go quite as readily as to Dora, whose daily absence at school she at last did not mind. Regularly each day, and sometimes twice a day, Mr. Hastings came down to Locust Grove, and his manner was very kind toward Eugenia, when he found her, as he often did, with his baby sleeping in her arms. He did not know how many times, at his approach, it was snatched from the cradle by Eugenia, who, in reality, was not remarkably fond of baby-tending, and who, in the absence of the father, left the child almost wholly to the care of her mother and sister. Management, however, was everything, and fancying she had found the shortest avenue to Mr. Hastings's heart, she, in his presence, fondled, and petted and played with his child, taking care occasionally to hint of neglect on the part of Dora, whom he now seldom saw as, at the hour of his calling, she was generally in school. It was by such means as this that Eugenia sought to increase Mr. Hastings's regard for herself, and in a measure she succeeded; for though his respect for Dora was undiminished, he could not conceal from himself the fact that Eugenia was very agreeable, very interesting and very kind to his daughter!

As the autumn advanced, and the cold rainy weather precluded out-door exercise, it was but natural that he should spend much of his time at Locust Grove, where his tastes were carefully studied, his favorite books read, and his favorite authors discussed, while Eugenia's handsome black eyes smiled a welcome when he came, and drooped pensively beneath her long eyelashes when he went away. Thus the autumn and the winter passed, and when the spring had come, the village of Dunwood was rife with rumors concerning the attraction which drew Mr. Hastings so often to Locust Grove; some sincerely pitying him if, indeed, he entertained a serious thought of making Eugenia Deane his wife, while others severely censured him for having so soon forgotten one whose grave had not been made a twelvemonth. But he had not forgotten, and almost every hour of his life was her loved name upon his lips, and the long golden tress his own hand had severed from her head was guarded as his choicest treasure, while the dark hours of the night bore witness to his lonely grief. And it was to escape this loneliness—to forget for a brief time the sad memories of the past—that he went so often to Locust Grove, where as yet his child was the greater attraction, though he could not be insensible to the charms of Eugenia who spared no pains to interest him in herself.

He was passionately fond of music, and many an hour she sat patiently at the piano, seeking to perfect herself in a difficult piece, with which she thought to surprise him. But nothing, however admirably executed, could sound well upon her old-fashioned instrument, and how to procure a new one was the daily subject of her meditations. Occasionally, as she remembered the beautiful rosewood piano standing useless and untouched in the parlors of Rose Hill, something whispered her to wait "and it would yet be hers." But this did not satisfy her present desire, for aside from the sweet sounds, with which she hoped to entrance Mr. Hastings, was the wish to make him think them much wealthier than they were. From one or two circumstances, she had gathered the impression that he thought them poor, and, judging him by herself, she fancied her chances for becoming Mrs. Hastings 2d, would be greatly increased if by any means he could be made to believe her comparatively rich. As one means of effecting this, she must and would have a new piano, costing not less than four hundred dollars. But how to procure the money was the question; the remittance from Uncle Nat, which had come on the first day of January, was already half gone, and she could not, as she had once done before, make Dora's head keep her out of the difficulty. At last, a new idea suggested itself, and springing to her feet she exclaimed aloud, for she was alone, "I have it; strange I didn't think of that before. I'll write to the old man, and tell him that as Dora is now fifteen, we would gladly send her away to school, if we had the means, but our expenses are so great it is impossible, unless the money comes from him. And he'll do it too, the old miser!—for in his first letter he said he would increase the allowance as Dora grew older."

Suiting the action to the word, she drew out her writing-desk, and commenced a letter to her "dearest Uncle Nathaniel," feelingly describing to him their straitened circumstances, and the efforts of herself and her sister to keep the family in necessaries, which they were enabled to do very comfortably with the addition of the allowance he so generously sent them every year. But they wished now to send Dora to school, to see if anything could be made of her! She had improved latterly, and they really hoped a change of scene would benefit her. For Dora's sake, then, would "her dear uncle be so kind as to send them, on the receipt of that letter, such a sum as he thought best. If so, he would greatly oblige his loving niece."