The Gypsy Queen's Vow

by May Agnes Fleming

“I have promised Miss Lawless to go and spend the day with her soon,” said Erminie, embarrassed by his too-ardent gaze, and striving to withdraw her hand. “I hope she is well?”

“Who? Eh? Oh, yes! she’s well. Come over to-morrow, Miss Germaine. I shall be very glad to see you.”

“I thank you, sir; I shall be most happy to do so,” replied Erminie, growing more and more embarrassed by his open, admiring gazes, and again trying to withdraw her hand.

But the judge, quite unconsciously, held the little snowflake fast, and seemed inclined to commit petty larceny by keeping it altogether, while he gazed and gazed in the sweet, blushing face, with its waving hair and drooping eyes, and fell desperately and more desperately in love every moment.

“Won’t you come in, Judge Lawless?” said Erminie, at last, confused by her situation, fearing to offend him, yet wishing to get away.

“Come in? Oh, yes—to be sure!” exclaimed the judge, with alacrity. “I was just thinking—a—of going in to see your grandmother. I hope she is quite well.”

And the judge, who had never entered the cottage before, nor dreamed in the most remote way of ever doing so, actually got off his horse, tied him to a stake, and followed the surprised Erminie into the house. And then, forgetting Ketura, and his business in Judestown, and all other sublunary things, in the presence of this enchanting maiden, there he remained for three mortal hours, until the unlooked-for entrance of Ray, who had been over the moor gunning, and now returned with a well-filled game-bag, looking happy, handsome, and with a powerful appetite. As his eye fell upon their strange guest, he started, colored slightly, and then bowed with cold hauteur. Judge Lawless returned it with one no less stiff; for though in love with the sister, it by no means followed he was very passionately enamored of the brother. And then discovering, to his horror, that the whole morning was gone, he rode off, followed by the haunting vision of a sweet young face, with waving, floating hair, and dark, lustrous, violet eyes.

And from that hour may be dated the “decline and fall” of Judge Lawless.

His business was given up for visits to the cottage; his family concerns were neglected for day-dreams that, however excusable in youths with faintly-sprouting mustaches, were quite absurd in a dark, dignified, “potent, grave, and reverend seigneur” like Judge Adolphus Lawless. But when love comes in at the door, sense flies out at the window, to change the adage a little, and especially where gentlemen on the disagreeable side of forty are concerned. So Judge Lawless was deaf, blind and dumb to that awful bugbear, “They say,” and might have been seen at the cottage morning, noon, and night, to the utter amazement and complete astonishment of all who knew him, and to none more so than to his blue-eyed inflammation of the heart herself. Erminie was at a loss—completely at a loss, and so was Ray. Neither of them dreamed—no one dreamed—that the pompous, haughty Prince Grandison of a Judge Lawless could have fallen in love at all, much less with the little, obscure cottage-girl, Erminie Germaine—tainted, as she was, by that greatest of all crimes, poverty. Obscure, I said; let me retract that word. Erminie Germaine—beautiful Erminie—was known and celebrated far beyond Old Barrens Cottage for her beauty, and goodness, and gentleness, and all the other qualities that make some women a little lower than the angels. But no one thought that on a heart of flint like his—or, rather, no heart at all—the Venus de Medicis herself, should she step out alive from her pedestal, could make the slightest impression; and therefore, though our Erminie was every bit as good-looking as that scantily-draped lady of whom the world raves, though she had grown to be another Helen for whom another Troy might have been lost, no one set his visits to the cottage down to her, but rather to eccentricity, to some scheme, to some inexplicable notion, to anything at all but to the real cause.

And so Judge Lawless was in love, and unsuspected. And as he sat there in his library, with his head in his hand, thinking and pondering, and revolving, and wondering, on the best method of bringing matters to a crisis, and astonishing his friends, his intention was to raise Miss Germaine to the dignity of his wife. Judge Lawless was severely moral; but how to propose—that was the trying horn of the dilemma. Judge Lawless was not accustomed to proposing; he had not attempted it for the last five-and-twenty years, and then the lady had saved him the trouble. Mrs. Lawless had been a wild young heiress, who fell violently in love with the “sweet” curling hair and “divine” whiskers of the handsome young lawyer, and not being troubled with that disagreeable disease incident to most very young ladies, yclept bashfulness, had, like a girl of honor, come to the point at once, and, in a very composed, upright, and downright way, tendered him her hand and fortune. The ambitious young lawyer, nothing loth, took her at her word, and, one fine moonlight night, a fourth-story window was opened, a rope-ladder put in requisition; then a carriage; then a parson; then a ring, and “Adolphus Lawless, barrister at law,” as his shingle then announced him, was wooed and won.