At these levées Mr. Belden appeared frequently. He was in most amicable and laudatory mood. He pleased both the ladies by speaking in terms almost affectionate of Miss Sullivan. He had known her, he said, from his boyhood. They had been playmates in the fresh days of childhood. Many a morning he had gone proud to school with her rosebud in his buttonhole. They had grown up together, like brother and sister—no, more like cousins. He spoke of it with some sentiment. She was very lovely then.
“She seems to me still very lovely,” said Diana. “The loveliest woman I have ever seen. There is a serene sweetness and tranquillity in her beauty. No one else has that look of tender resignation. She is my idea of Faith.”
Belden uttered a strange sound like a sigh.
“Yes,” he said, “she is what you describe. She has had need of resignation after so much domestic trouble—her father’s disgrace—their poverty. And then her life of teaching—ah! that can hardly have been miserable, with pupils like you, young ladies! We can hardly regret that she was compelled temporarily to leave her own sphere for the purpose of educating you to fill yours so charmingly.”
“You are flattering Miss Sullivan through us,” retorted Diana. “We thank you in her name. You cannot praise her too highly. She is wise and good and noble. Only I could wish that she were not so sad.”
“Let us hope that her spirits will improve, now that she is rich in the means to do good,” Belden said.
In the same laudatory strain he spoke of Mr. Waddy.
“He, also, was one of my playmates. We have been separated for several years, but I hope to revive our old intimacy here.”
“Was he always the same odd, hasty, irascible, placable person?” asked Clara.
“Yes,” replied Belden; “we called him at school Ira the Irate. It was always a tropical climate wherever he was. I do not wonder he found our boreal Boston too chilly for his nature.”