CHAPTER XXVI.
LOUIS.
"A look of pride, an eye of flame;
A full-drawn lip that upward curled;
An eye that seemed to scorn the world."—Scott.
t was a merry morn in June, many months after the events related in the last chapter. A brief retrospective glance it is necessary to take ere we proceed.
For many long weeks after the fatal night of her marriage, Gipsy lay hovering between life and death; and Celeste came, with her loving heart, and gentle voice, and noiseless footstep, and, unheeding rest or sleep, nursed the poor, pale, crazed little bride back to life. No one else would Gipsy have near her—not even Aunty Gower; and a physician from the city attended her—for the very mention of her detested bridegroom threw her into hysterics. But, notwithstanding all their care, long months passed away ere Gipsy was well again, and Celeste, worn and wearied, but uncomplaining, permitted to return to the peaceful solitude of Valley Cottage.
Dr. Wiseman had not yet breathed a syllable of Gipsy's parentage. He could not do so during her illness; and when she recovered, he wished a decent interval of time to elapse ere he made it known, lest the world should suspect his previous knowledge of it had caused him to marry her. Besides, he found there was no cause to hurry; for, during Gipsy's illness, the squire had invited him to shut up his house at Deep Dale, and bring Minnette with him, to reside at Sunset Hall. To this the doctor eagerly assented; and having, with some trouble, prevailed upon Minnette to accompany him, Deep Dale was rented, and the doctor and his daughter became domesticated at Mount Sunset Hall.
Nearly nine months had elapsed. Gipsy—now as well as ever, and more daring and mischievous even than before—had just set herself to work to begin fulfilling the vow she had made, and soon succeeded in driving the doctor nearly wild. Though he had merely married her for her money, he had, as time passed on, learned to love her with a strange, selfish, absorbing passion; and the more she mocked, and scorned, and laughed at him, the more infatuated he grew. The wilful elf kept her husband in a constant state of panic and terror, running into the greatest dangers with the utmost recklessness, and often barely escaping with her life. Out all hours of the day and night, sometimes not coming home until morning, it is not to be wondered at that she kept the whole household in alarm. Often after midnight, going out to search for her, they would find her riding among the rocks, or, having tied up Mignonne, she would be discovered asleep in some grotto or cavern. Then her flirting! The doctor was madly jealous, and not without reason. There was not a man under thirty, if at all presentable, but the reckless girl had flirted unmercifully with, in a way that would have completely destroyed the reputation of any other woman, but which was merely noticed by the remark that it was "just like Gipsy;" and her maddest actions were listened to with a smile and a stare of astonishment, and a "wonder what she'll do next?" Poor, half-crazed little Gipsy! The real goodness of her nature was too apparent to all through her outward recklessness to make them suspect her of evil.
St. Mark's had become a much gayer place than when we first knew it. Many new families had moved hither from the city; and balls, and parties, and sleigh-rides in winter, and picnics, and excursions, and soirees, in summer, became all the rage; and the leader of all these was the "merry little Mrs. Wiseman," as these new-comers called her. And no one, to see her entering heart and soul into these festivities, would ever dream of the miserable secret weighing on her mind, or the still untamed, restless heart that struggled to find forgetfulness in constant gayety.