The Actress' Daughter: A Novel

by May Agnes Fleming

All through Burnfield spread the news of the visit extraordinary, and before night it was currently known to every gossip from one end of it to the other that young Squire Wildair, forgetting the ancient dignity of his house, was going to be immediately married to Georgia Darrell, and before long this rumor reached the ears of Miss Jerusha and Mr. Wildair himself. From the latter personage it provoked a peculiar smile, full of quiet meaning, but Miss Jerusha hardly knew whether to be pleased or otherwise.

For her own part, she would have considered the rumor an honor; but Georgia was so "queer," Miss Jerusha would not for all the world she should hear it. Other girls might not mind such things; but she was not like other girls, and the old maid had a vague, uneasy idea that something terrible would be the consequence if she heard it. But Georgia did not hear it. There was a quiet, conscious dignity about her of late years that made people keep their distance and mind to whom they were talking; and not even that most inveterate of gossips, Mrs. Tolduso, would have been hardy enough to put the question to the haughty reserved girl. Therefore, though Emily, and Richmond, and Miss Jerusha, and every one over the innocent age of three years old in Burnfield, knew all about the current report, Georgia, the most deeply interested of all, never dreamed of its existence.

And so matters were getting most delightfully complicated, and Miss Jerusha's dreams were growing "small by degrees and beautifully less," when, one evening, about a fortnight after her visit, Georgia, who had been out for a walk—a very unusual thing for her of late days—came suddenly in, so changed, so transfigured, that Miss Jerusha dropped her knitting and opened her mouth and eyes to an alarming wideness in her surprise. Her face was radiant, lighted, brilliant; her eyes like stars, her cheeks glowing; she seemed to have found the fabled elixir of youth, and life, and hope, and happiness.

"Why, Georgia! My-y-y conscience!" exclaimed Miss Jerusha, with a perfect shake on the pronoun in her surprise.

But Georgia laughed. Miss Jerusha could not remember when she had heard her laugh before, and the rosy color lighted up beautifully her beaming face.

"What on airth has come to you, Georgey?" exclaimed Miss Jerusha, more completely bewildered than she had ever been before in the whole course of her life. "Why, one would think you was enchanted or something."

Again Georgia laughed. It was perfect music to hear her, and fairly gladdened Miss Jerusha's old heart. She did not say what had "come to her," but it was evidently something pleasant, for no face had changed so in one hour as hers had.

"Never mind, Miss Jerusha; shall I set the table for tea? Here, Betsey, get out of the way. Come, Fly, make haste; Miss Jerusha wants her tea, I know."

"Well, gracious!" was Miss Jerusha's ejaculation, as she watched the graceful form flitting airily hither and thither, like an embodied sunbeam, "if that gal ain't got as many streaks as a tulip! What will be the next, I wonder?"

All tea-time Georgia was another being; and when it was over, instead of going straight to her room, as was her fashion, she took some needle-work that Miss Jerusha could not sew on after candle-light, and sat down to work and talk, while Miss Jerusha sat at her work, still digesting her astonishment, and not quite certain whether she had not gone out of her mind.