"From the first, Mrs. Le Vert seemed determined to make a match between us, for her brother was poor, and she fancied it would be a fine idea to have the Porter estate come into the Dunlap family. So she threw us constantly together—talked of me to him and of him to me, until I really began to believe I liked him. He, on the contrary, cared for nothing but my money. Still he deemed it advisable to assume a show of affection, and one night talked to me of love quite eloquently. I had been to a dinner party that day, and had worn all my diamonds. He had never seen them before, and they must have inflamed his avarice, for I afterward heard him tell his sister that he never should have proposed if I had not looked so beautiful that night. 'I was irresistible in my diamonds,' he said."
Miss Porter paused a moment to witness the effect of her last words, but Rosamond was looking over her shoulder at a wrinkle she had just discovered in the waist, and did not heed them. Still she was listening, and she said, "Yes—go on. You were looking beautifully that night. Did you consent to marry him?"
"Unhappily, I did," returned Miss Porter, "for I had made myself believe that I loved him. I wished that he was older, to be sure, but he said he would wait until he was of age. This plan, however, did not suit his ambitious sister. She knew I intended asking my father's approval, and from what she heard of him she feared he would never consent to my marrying a poor student, and she urged an immediate union. But I persisted in writing to my father, who answered immediately, forbidding me to think of young Dunlap, ordering me to go home, and saying he always intended me for John Castlewell, a neighbor of ours—a millionaire—a booby—a fool—whom I hated as I did poison.
"Not long after the receipt of this letter I was surprised by the sudden appearance of Uncle Bertram, who had come at my father's request to take me home. This roused me at once. My father was a tyrant, I said, and I would let him know I could do as I pleased. In my excitement, I fancied I could not exist a moment without Richard Dunlap, while he declared that life would be a blank for him if passed away from me. At this opportune moment Mrs. Le Vert suggested that we be married immediately—that very night. Uncle Bertram fortunately was a clergyman, and could officiate as well as any other. In justice to Richard, I will say that he hesitated longer than I did—but he was persuaded at last, as was Uncle Bertram, and with no other witness than Mrs. Le Vert and a white woman who lived with her as half waiting-maid and half companion, we were married."
Rosamond was interested now, and forgetting to remove her dress, she threw a crimson shawl around her shoulders, and sitting down upon the bed, exclaimed, "Married! You married! Why, then, are you called Porter?"
"Listen and you shall know," returned the lady, a dark look settling down upon her face.
"Scarcely was the ceremony over, when I began to regret it—not because I disliked Richard, but because I dreaded my father's displeasure, for he had a most savage, revengeful temper, and his daughter possesses the same." This was bitterly spoken, and she continued—"Hardly an hour after we were married, a negro brought a letter to Richard from an eccentric old man for whom he had been named. In it the old man said he had made his namesake his heir, provided he did not marry until he was twenty-five.
"'I know just how frillickin' you are,' he wrote, 'and I know, too, how unsuitable and how unhappy most early marriages are—so my boy, if you want Sunnyside, wait till you are twenty-five before you take an extra rib. I hate to be bothered with letters, and if you don't answer this, I shall conclude that you accept my terms.'"
"Mrs. Le Vert at once suggested that, as the old gentleman had already had two fits of apoplexy, and would undoubtedly soon have the third, our marriage should for a time be kept a secret.
"But he didn't consent," cried Rosamond.