Miss Birdseye felt twenty years younger at the intelligence,—for a man must be in earnest when he threatens to kill himself,—and, with a true tragedy uplifting of the hands, she exclaimed,
"Mrs. Tibs, I wouldn't have a man's death at my door for a world! No, Augustus——" Further exclamation was cut short by a sort of titter outside the parlour-door. Now none knew better than Lauretta Birdseye how well a keyhole afforded sight and sound; and, throwing the door suddenly open, she burst into the passage. A hurried footstep on the stair convinced her of what she knew from experience to be a fact, that by the time the door is opened the listener gets out of sight.
After sundry comments upon the meanness of listening, Lauretta informed Mrs. Tibs, who sat like a cat watching a mouse, of her Christian determination to save human life by sacrificing herself, all loth as she was, to the officer of the piebald horse!
"It was the first time in her life," as she said, "a man had ever made an appointment with her,"—who shall question the truth?—and her delicacy yielded to her philanthropy!
Lauretta determined to go,—and, what is more, without her mother.
The "Mount" alluded to in Augustus Green Horn's letter is a hill planted round with winding hedges; and the lawn on which it stands forms the principal promenade of all the little gentry, all the small-consequence people, their pride stuck like a nosegay in their button-holes, who look in looks of hot-bed consequence the dignity the tradesman bows to.
It was a dark evening, and the cathedral clock struck nine as Lauretta Birdseye passed through the gates of the broad walk. Her horror may be imagined when she saw servant-maids and others,—who had nothing but their character to live upon, stealing in and out the trees in loving paces with—Lauretta shut her eyes—the fellows! 'Prentice boys were here whispering golden precepts in the ears of willing maids, who, as servant-maids are not supposed to blush, cried "La!" Lauretta hurried across the green,—doubtless to escape such infamy,—to the foot of the "Mount;" a man and some "impudent hussy" were coming down the way she was to go up,—and, or her eyes deceived her, no less a hussy than Laura Dyke! who, she shuddered to think, had picked up a new man. Lauretta heard—or fancied she heard—a titter as they passed; and the man—he looked very like an officer—laughed outright. Lauretta bridled in the full virginity of three-and-thirty, and walked up the opposite side! How long she walked up and down, this side and that side, from the top to the bottom, and sate "like Patience" on one of the seats at the top, we will not here describe. Suffice it, after waiting two hours and three-quarters, a boy, who brought the candles, laid hold of her in the dark, and, spite of her exertions to the contrary,—Lauretta was strong and bony,—ravished a kiss! Whether the boy's taste was not matured, or what, we know not, but he did not offer to repeat his rashness; and Lauretta, who held kissing a vice, after telling him "what a rude boy he was," and "hoping he would not do it again," walked very slowly down the "Mount," waited ten minutes at the bottom, and then, with a heavy heart went home to bed, strengthened in the truth that men have no taste, and women no shame!
To her gentle summons on the next morning, Biddy herself opened the door. Lauretta looked, and so did Biddy as she cried, "What you! then where's that devil's niece of mine? the jade's been out all night, and——"
"With some of the fellows, take my word for it. Mrs. Tibs, the age we live in is a disgrace to our sex—look at me!"