“You see,” he said, “at first I found those American young ladies who imitate English girls rather a bore, as most of us do. When we go in for an English girl, we like the real thing—sweet, genuine, and wholesome. But at least the ideas of these pseudo-English girls are correct. They are not flirts”—Sir Archy classed flirts as the feminine form of barnburners and horse thieves—“and there’s nothing clandestine in their way of arranging marriages. They are quite candid and correct in that matter. They receive the attentions of men properly, and when an engagement is made, it is duly and promptly announced. But my cousin, Miss Corbin, has the most extraordinary notions on the subject of the proprieties. She goes according to the rule of contrary. She thinks it no harm to make eyes at every man she sees, without caring a button about any one of them—and an engagement is a thing to be concealed as if it were something to be ashamed of. I confess it puzzles me.”
“And it puzzles me, too,” replied Ethel. “Of course I know how sincerely high minded Miss Corbin is, but, like you, I can’t reconcile myself to her peculiar notions. Do you remember the evening we went to the theater in New York and she wore that astonishing white gown?”
“Yes—and uncommonly pretty she looked. But it was bad form—decidedly bad form—and she never seemed to suspect it. My cousin is charming, but unusual and unaccountable.”
Which Miss Maywood felt a profound satisfaction in hearing.
It was a month or two before the Chessinghams sailed. Although Mr. Romaine’s affairs were so well arranged, the sale of the landed property could not take place at once, and Chessingham concluded to return to England, and come back in a year’s time to settle up the small estate. The more he looked into it, the more convinced he was that Mr. Romaine’s residuary legatee would get nothing, and that Mr. Romaine knew it; and his object was merely that contrary impulse and the natural perversity and desire to disconcert people which always gave him acute delight.
Colonel Corbin and Letty were sincerely sorry to part from the Chessinghams, but Letty bore the coming privation of Miss Maywood’s society with the utmost fortitude. When they went over to say good-by on an early spring afternoon, Letty noticed a peculiarly joyous look on Ethel’s fair face. In a little while she proposed a walk in the old-fashioned garden. The two girls strolled together down the box-edged walk, and passed under the quaint old arbors, heavy with the yellow jessamine, just beginning then to show the faintly budding leaves. There was something melancholy in the scene. The place had been deserted for so long—and it was now for sale, with the prospect of soon passing into other hands. The graveyard, with its high brick wall, was just below the garden, and, although she could not see it, Letty was conscious of a new white tombstone there with Mr. Romaine’s name and “aged 58” engraved upon it—which last had caused Colonel Corbin much dissatisfaction. But Chessingham preferred to carry out what he knew to be Mr. Romaine’s wishes in the matter, and believed that his ghost would have walked had his real age been proclaimed upon his monument.
As soon as the two girls were well in the garden, Ethel began, with a glowing face:
“I have had great happiness lately.”
“Have you?” asked Letty, sympathetically. “What is it?”
“I am engaged to Sir Archibald Corbin,” said Ethel, looking into Letty’s face with a bright smile. Letty was so shocked by Miss Maywood’s candor that she stood quite still, and said “Oh!” in a grieved voice, which Miss Maywood took to mean regret at having lost the prize.