She said the last very slowly, and there was a look of pain in the eyes of this girl who had once thought to be a missionary’s wife, and who had in her many elements of a noble woman. She did not tell Grace the price she had put upon herself That was something she would rather her young sister should not know, and when Grace, whose ideas of marriage were more what Bell’s had been in the days of the Fred Patterson romance, tried to expostulate, she stopped her short with,—“It’s of no use; my mind is made up. I have told you what I have because I knew you would wonder at my choice, and I wanted you to know some of the causes which led me to make it. I want your love, your respect, your confidence, Grace, I want—”
Bell’s lip quivered a little, and she bowed her dark head over her sister’s golden one, and cried a little; then sat erect, and the old proud, independent look came back to her face, and Bell Burleigh was herself again,—the calm, resolute, cool-headed woman of the world, who had sold herself for money and a home.
They met in the wide entrance hall to the dining-room next morning, Frank and Bell, and while he stood for a moment, waiting for his paper, she said a word to him, and they walked together into breakfast an engaged pair, with quite as much love and sentiment between them as exists in many and many an engagement which the world pronounces so eligible and brilliant.
Bell had some shopping to do that morning, and Frank did not see her again till just before dinner, when he met and escorted her to his mother’s private parlor, where she was to receive the priceless boon of Mrs. Walter Scott’s blessing. That lady had heard the news of her son’s engagement with a good deal of equanimity, considering there was no money to be expected. Like many people of humble birth, Mrs. Walter Scott set a high value on family and blood, and, as Bell’s were both of the first water, she accepted her as her future daughter-in-law, wishing to herself that she was not quite so independent, and resolute, and strong-minded, as the absence of these qualities would render her so much more susceptible to subjugation, for Mrs. Walter Scott meant to subjugate her.
As Mrs. Franklin Irving, she would, of course, be the nominal mistress of Millbank; but it would be only nominal. Mrs. Walter Scott would be the real head; the one to whom every body would defer, even her daughter-in-law. But she said nothing of this to Frank. She merely told him she was willing, that Miss Burleigh was a girl of rare talent and attainments that she had a great deal of mind, and intellect, and literary taste, and would shine in any society.
Frank did not care a picayune for Bell’s talents, or attainments, or literary taste. Indeed he would rather of the two that she had less of these virtues, and did not overshadow him so completely as he knew she did. Still he was in love with her, or thought he was, and extolled her to his mother, but did not speak of the hundred thousand dollars as a marriage settlement, or of the arrangement about the Judge and Charlie and Grace. He would let these things adjust themselves; and he had faith in Bell’s ability to manage her own matters quietly, and without his aid.
She was looking very beautiful when he led her to his mother, arrayed in her heavy purple silk with the white ermine on the waist and sleeves, and Mrs. Walter Scott thought what a regal-looking woman she was. There was a deep flush on her cheek and a sparkle in her black eyes, and her white teeth glittered between the full, pouting lips which just touched Mrs. Walter Scott’s hand, as she stood to receive the blessing.
When they went into dinner that night after the blissful interview, there was about Frank a certain consciousness of ownership in the beautiful girl who walked beside him and on whose finger a superb diamond was shining, the seal of her engagement, and those who noticed them particularly, and to whom Miss Burleigh was known, guessed at the new relations existing between the two.
This was in the winter, and before Magdalen’s parentage was discovered. Since then the course of true love had run pretty smoothly for once, and Frank had only felt a single pang, and that when he heard who Magdalen Lennox was. Then for a moment all his former love for her came back, and Bell Burleigh, who chanced to be at Millbank for a day or so, wondered what had happened to him that he was so absent-minded and indifferent to her blandishments. She was very gracious to him now, feeling that there was something due him for all his generosity to her, and as she could not give him love in its truest sense, she would give him civility at least and kindliness of manner and a show of affection. So when she saw the shadow on his face, and with a woman’s intuition felt that something more than mere business matters had brought it there, she spoke to him in her softest manner and sang him her sweetest songs and wore his favorite dress, and twice laid her hand on his, and asked what was the matter that he looked so gloomy; had he heard, bad news? He told her no, and kissed her forehead, and felt his blood tingle a little at this unusual demonstration from his fiancée, and so fickle and easily soothed was he, that beneath the influence of Bell’s smile the shadow began to lift, and in the letter of congratulation which he wrote to Magdalen there was nothing but genuine sympathy and rejoicing that she had found her home at last and a sister like Alice Grey.
He did not tell of his engagement; he was a little ashamed to have Magdalen know that he was so soon “off with the old love and on with the new;” and so she did not suspect it until every arrangement was complete and the day for the bridal fixed. Great was the expenditure for silks and satins and laces and jewelry, and not only New York and Boston, but Paris, too, was drawn upon to furnish articles of clothing rare and expensive enough for a bride of Bell Burleigh’s fastidious taste and extravagant notions. Frank, who grew more and more proud of his conquest, and consequently more and more in love with his bride-elect, insisted upon furnishing the bridal trousseau, and bade her spare neither money nor pains, but get whatever she wanted at whatever cost. And Bell accepted his money, and spent it so lavishly that all Boston was alive with gossip and wonder. There were to be six bridesmaids, and three of them were to accompany the happy pair for a week or so at Frank’s expense; and Frank never flinched a hair, even when presented with the Paris bill, in which were charges of one hundred dollars and more for just one article of underclothing. All Bell’s linen came ready made from Paris, and such tucks and ruffles and puffs and flutings and laces had never been seen before in Boston in so great profusion. And Bell bore herself like a queen, who had all her life been accustomed to Parisian luxury. There was no doubt of her gracing Millbank or any other home, and Frank each time he saw her felt more than repaid for the piles and piles of money which he paid out for her.