Bluebell / A Novel

by Mrs. G. C. Huddleston

Any such incident might have commenced an acquaintance, were it not that Miss Prosody, with a boatful of children, was never far off, and had a scaring and terrifying effect.

Bluebell rather despised very young men. Still, she was not insensible to admiration, and was quite aware of these two young aborigines following in her wake as surely as a gull in that of a vessel.

One day Alec Gough was able to render her some slight assistance, her line being obstinately entangled in the snag; but Miss Prosody sternly brought up the boatman to complete the service, and bowed off the interloper with such extreme severity, that Bluebell could not resist bestowing a coquettish and dangerously grateful glance, which set his heart bumping, and instantaneously obliterated the image of his sandy-haired little love.

It was too bad of Alec, for he had been engaged a year, and had already cleared (he was a lumberer) space enough in the backwoods to start a farm, and he was now on a short visit to his betrothed to report progress and pursue his suit. So he had no business to get his heart entangled with the line, and his legitimate affections disengaged with the string he was clearing, under Circe's azure eyes; and why need he, in that tactless manner, talk of her at tea as "The Lady of the Lake"? which, if such a senseless sobriquet was worth having at all, Miss Janet Cameron considered she had an indisputable right to, for could she not row, swim, dive, and paddle with the best?

Then again, after tea, he actually stole out in his canoe, muttering something about "looking for ducks," to which Bernard Lumley gallantly remarked that he "needn't leave home to find them." He certainly did take a gun, but was also provided with a little flageolet, the companion of his lonely life in the woods; and waiting till nightfall, by the light of a waning moon, this absurd and reprehensible young lumberer paddled himself off to Lyndon's Landing.

There he carefully reconnoitred the house, wondering which could be Bluebell's casement. The insensible building afforded no hint, so he pulled out his "howling stick," as Bernard called it, and timorously breathed forth a lay of love, which certainly must have been first cousin to the one that encompassed the extinction of the cow.

The inmates were apparently asleep, and Alec, getting bolder, played every suggestive air he could think of. I don't know whether he expected Bluebell would open the window and enter into conversation; but, in point of fact, the lattice under which he was serenading was Mrs. Rolleston's, who not particularly expecting any lovers, was sleeping the sleep of the just far too soundly to be disturbed by it.

There being no policeman to direct him to "move on," Alec continued his dismal repertory till he was tired, and then paddled off, not wholly discouraged, as he hoped that Bluebell, though she would make no sign, might have been secretly listening to, even watching him, and conscious of the admiration he sought to convey.

The Lake families called within the next few days. Bluebell did not appear when the Camerons, mother and daughter, came; and, as Mrs. Rolleston happened to say her daughter was away, they were quite mystified as to whom the dangerous stranger could be. Then Coey and Crickey Palmer came with their mother's cards; and as at that time Bluebell was present, reading to Mrs. Rolleston, they naturally took her for one of the daughters, and made acquaintance after the manner of girls; and, I have no doubt, had Bluebell committed a murder and absconded next day, either of these young ladies could have given a more complete and accurate description of her person than detectives are generally furnished with. Notwithstanding the reluctant admiration that the inspection resulted in, Coey (Bernard's affianced) heroically hoped, as she rose to take leave, that Miss Rolleston would spend the afternoon and stay to tea the following day.

Mrs. Rolleston glanced at Bluebell, who was rather dimpling at the prospect of a change, and carelessly replied that "her daughter was at Tadousac, but that her young friend Miss Leigh would be very happy."