“Roger, you would never be so ungallant as to run away just at the very time when I need you most. Why I depend upon you to be our cavalier. What should I do?”
“Oh, Andy would pull you through all right. He can make himself twice as agreeable to the ladies as I can. He’ll have the English daisy dead in love with him in less than a month. Hey, old fellow?”
Roger rose and slapped Andrew heartily upon the back, whose brow clouded still darker as he watched his brother’s smiling face. “I’ll go off, also,” he said, gloomily. “Mother won’t want me around. She never does.”
“Don’t say that, my son,” replied Mary, warmly. “Why should I not want you? Are you not my own boy, and as dear to me as Roger? You will both stay here, I know, and help me to entertain my friends. Roger spoke a moment ago of their being grand people. Lady Augusta will be greatly changed from what I knew her, if she has even a spark of haughtiness. She is simple, and free from anything approaching the English pride of birth, which mar the otherwise lovely characters of the ladies of England. I am sure she is too wise and thoughtful to rear her daughter in any other but the true way, so we may expect to receive and welcome two ladies who are not ‘grand,’ as Roger is pleased to style them, but who will be as ourselves. Lady Vale could boast of her high lineage if she chose, for there is no bluer blood in all England, but she is not one to make a show, or parade her ancestors. I am sure you will never hear her speak of it boastingly. She has not much of a fortune left, I believe. Just enough to make her comfortable.”
Mary ended her little speech with a look of entreaty toward Roger, which said plainly: “You are my dear son. There is none other in the whole world like you. Stay and lay siege to this maiden’s heart, and give me a daughter.” Roger interpreted the look, and arose with a shrug of his shoulders, and left the room. His mother’s manner was marked, and therefore man-like, he mulishly determined that no one should arrange his love affairs for him, and that if his mother for a moment imagined such a thing, he would very shortly undeceive her. Accordingly, a few days before the visitors were expected, he appeared at his mother’s private room, attired for traveling. “I’m off for New York, mother mine,” he said, kissing her cheek. “Don’t know how long I shall be gone.”
Mary arose and threw her arms around his neck. “This is not treating me fairly, my son. I know you are going on account of my guests who are coming. Why do you object so strongly to meeting with them?”
“Home won’t seem the same after they get here,” replied Roger, brushing the soft hair from his mother’s brow. “Andy will take good care of Lady Vale and her daughter, and I’ll promise not to be gone longer than they stay. Write me when they are leaving, and you’ll see me here in a jiffy.”
Mary watched him depart with a tearful face. His long, swinging strides soon took him from her view, and she sank into a seat, burying her face in her hands. Until now she had not fully realized how much she had reckoned on Roger’s falling in love with the daughter of her old friend. He was heart free she well knew, never having cared especially for any one lady, and she had really set her heart upon a marriage between her favorite son and this girl who she imagined must be just the wife for him. Now her plans were all dashed to the ground, and by her own foolishness, too. If she had not mentioned their coming, but had taken Roger by surprise, all might have been well.
She dashed the tears away, and went out to find Andrew, whom she told of his brother’s departure. Andrew was not ill-pleased at the course Roger had taken. He had not much of an idea of laying siege to Miss Vale’s heart, still he was not unconscious of his brother’s superiority in many ways, and he thought to himself that so long as the ladies stayed, it was as well for Roger to be absent, and very thoughtful of him to take himself out of the way.
Soon after this the ladies came. Lady Vale, tall, statuesque, with snow white hair, and a beautiful face despite her years, and her daughter, so much like the mother, barring the beautiful bronze hair, and laughing grey eyes in which, as yet, there was no shadow of a sorrow. Both had the same sweet, serious mouth, charming when in repose, but most enchanting when parted with a smile, which was often the case with Victoria Vale. Her’s was a sunny nature, and Mary took her to her heart at once. In less than a week they had grown to be inseparable companions, and Lady Vale often laughingly remarked, that she was beginning to feel the pangs of jealousy for the first time in her life.