“Oh, Godfrey, I do believe you are half in love with her yourself,” Alice said, a little reproachfully, and the young man replied:
“To be sure I am; and if she had been younger there’s no telling what I might have done, but when I subtracted eighteen from twenty-eight, I said to myself, ‘that will never do; a man may not marry his grandmother;’ and then, Alice, I knew there was a little pug nose over the sea, which would get very red and ugly looking if I did that,” he added, mischievously, as he saw the disturbed look on Alice’s face, and knew why it was there.
“Is she twenty-eight? She does not look it,” Emma said, while Julia and Alice declared she did; and then as women, especially envious ones, will do, they picked her to pieces, from her head to her feet, and putting her together again, decided that though they had seen much finer faces and prettier, too, her tout ensemble was very good, and they were so much relieved, as they had expected something horrid, of which even the villagers would make fun.
“Wait till you see her in her dinner dress,” Godfrey said. “I tell you her gowns are elegant, Paris made, too. I’ve seen them. I know. I’ve travelled.” (This with a wink at Alice.) “And that reminds me, Jule and Em, why are you rigged out in black, this warm, pleasant day? You look as if you were in mourning. I believe you did it on purpose too, but I tell you she is stunning in her dinner costumes, and if you don’t wish to be thrown quite in the shade, I’d take off those black things, and put on something fluffy and light and airy and becoming; and you, auntie, certainly do not mean to stay mewed up here on toast and oatmeal, while we are at dinner. Take a big drink from every bottle in the closet, and if that don’t do, try some of your lightning. I’ll fix the battery; and then dress yourself and go down, and look handsome and bright. Why, I think you’ve grown pretty and young while I was gone, and I want that beauty to see that all the good looks are not on her side. The Schuylers have some of it. Come, girls, hurry up.”
They could not withstand Godfrey, especially when he mingled a little seasonable flattery with his persuasions, and both Julia and Emma went to their rooms to change their dress, while Miss Rossiter expressed her willingness to go down if she could be ready in time.
“I’ll help you. I can do it first-rate,” Godfrey said, mischievously, but Miss Rossiter declined his services, and ringing for Kitty, sent him from the room, telling him he might as well attend to his own toilet.
“That’s a fact,” he said. “But my dressing won’t take long. Come, Alice, let’s go out on the balcony awhile;” and leading Miss Creighton to the glass door at the end of the hall, he brought her a chair and seated her in it. “You won’t have to dress, and can talk with me. You’ve got yourself up stunningly, especially that ball on the top of your head. Couldn’t have put that a peg higher if you tried, could you? I say, Alice, why do you want to make yourself such a fright? Do you think it is the style? It isn’t. I saw a few shop-girls and bar-maids with their heads tricked out like yours, but not one lady. I believe you would wear a boot-jack if you thought it was the fashion in Paris!”
“Oh, Godfrey, don’t, please, and you just come home, too,” Alice said, with a tremor in her voice and tears in her eyes.
It hurt her that he should find fault with her personal appearance within an hour of his return after so long an absence, especially as she had taken so much pains to dress for him. Godfrey saw she was hurt, and said to her, coaxingly, as he put his arm around her:
“Never mind, Alice. You are real stylish anyway, and I’m so glad to see you again. I am, upon my word, and you used to write to me such nice, sisterly letters. Do you find me improved?”