Here a vague remembrance of certain long shoes, with wads of cotton, versus French slippers and silken hose, arose before the man of the world, resulting in a pro for the slippers, and a con for the cotton!
“But Dell is deceitful—high-tempered—artificial—selfish superficial—and all that! The other picture suits me best, or would, were it not for the Hungerford blood, and the $10,000. Let me see how it foots up:—Six pros for Dell, and the same number for Rose.”
Here was a dilemma; but anon he remembered how awkwardly the last mentioned young lady looked, when she fell at his feet—and this decides the matter. He is sensitive to ridicule, very, and he could not endure the sneering remarks which an avowed attachment to her might call forth from the world of fashion; so he crosses one of the pros which he had written against her name, when he thought how much she admired him—and then it stands, Dell 6; Rose 5!
Thus was the die cast. Alas! for the young girl, who, that same spring morning, stole away to her accustomed haunt, the old grape-vine, whose swelling buds were not an unfit symbol of the bright hopes now springing in her glad heart. As she sits there alone, with the running brook at her feet, she thinks of him who has grown so strongly into her love; and though, in words, he has never said so, by ten thousand little acts he has told her that her affection was returned, and for his sake she wishes she was older. He has wished so too, in her presence, many a time; but as that cannot be, she resolves to spend the season of her childhood in making herself what she knows he would wish her to be, were she to share his lot in life; and then, when the lapse of years shall have ripened her into womanhood, she thinks how she can, without shame, put her hand in his, and go forth into the world satisfied, though it brought her naught but care, if he were only with her.
Alas, for thee, Rosa! A few miles to the southward, and the same sun which now shines softly down on you, looks in through a richly curtained window, and its golden rays fall on the queenly form of your rival; who, with a look of exultation on her finely cast features, listens to the words she has long waited to hear, and which have now been spoken; while he, of whom you dream, bends gently over her, his own—his betrothed! And still, in the very moment of his triumph, there comes up before him a pale, childish face, which, with its dreamy eyes of blue, looks reproachfully upon him. But pride and ambition weave together a veil with which hides the image from his view, bidding him forget that any other save the peerless Dell, e’er stirred the fountain of his love.
Would it be well for us always to know what is passing in the minds of our friends, whether present or absent? I think not; and still, could Rosa Lee have known what had transpired, methinks she would not have darted away so quickly as she did, when told that Dr. Clayton was coming through the gate one afternoon, about six weeks after his engagement with Dell. Why she ran, she could not tell, except it were, as her brother Charlie said, that “gals always run off and spit on their hair, when they saw their beaux coming.”
Homely as this expression is, there was in this case some truth in it; for, though Rose did not spit upon her hair, she went to her room and brushed it, winding one or two of the rougher curls about her finger, then taking from its hiding-place the ring, his gift, she placed it upon her finger, and with heightened color went down to greet the doctor, who had come to make his farewell visit—for, four weeks from that night, Dell Thompson would be his wife. Long had he debated the propriety of seeing Rose again, conscience bidding him leave her alone, while inclination clamored loudly for one more quiet talk with her, one more walk by moonlight, one more look into her childish face, and then he would leave her forever; never again suffering a thought of her to come between him and the bride of his choice.
And for this purpose he had come; but when he saw how joyfully Rose met him, and how the bloom deepened on her usually pale cheek, his heart misgave him, and for the first time, he began to realize the wrong he had done her. But it was now too late to remedy it, he thought; and as if bent upon making matters still worse, he asked her to accompany him in a walk down the green lane, to the haunts he knew she loved the best, and where they had more than once been before. Oh, that walk!—how long it lingered in the memory of Rose, for never before had the doctor’s manner been so marked, or his words so kind as when together they sat upon the moss-grown bank, beneath the spreading vine, while he talked to her of the past, of the happiness he had experienced in her society, and which he said would be one of the few green spots, to which, in the years to come, he should look back with pleasure. Then drawing her so closely to him that her head almost rested upon his shoulder, he asked of her the privilege of “once kissing her before they parted”——he did not say forever, but the rustling leaves and the murmuring brook whispered it in her ear as she granted his request, shuddering the while, and wondering at the strangeness of his manner. Possibly he had it in his mind to tell her, but if so, he found himself unequal to the task, and he left her without a word of the coming event, of which she had not the slightest suspicion.