I know what you will say. You will say that I love Mr. Cullen; and I expect that I do. I expect that I have loved him since the day that he came. And I shall never regret this, even if I find that it is only friendliness he feels for me, if I find that he loves and marries another—for my life is enriched and beautified by the new emotions, by the love of one so noble, so pure!
For the present, aunt looks smilingly on, takes Mr. Cullen’s part when he and uncle are both going to ride, and both lay claims to my company. She adjusts the matter by saying, “Frederic, let her go with Alfred! He isn’t going to stay long, you know. And, besides, I want to go with you myself. So just bring my hood and cloak in from the hall, while I am finding the rest of my things.”
“Yes, ‘finding the rest of your things!’ this takes a week; and this is why I like it best having Monde go with me.” But, notwithstanding uncle contends I can see that he likes best seeing me go and come with Mr. Cullen. Notwithstanding he and aunt send Mr. Cullen or me in every morning to see how it is with Paulina’s neuralgia, they are neither of them much sorry to be told that her face is still swelled out of all comeliness of shape with it, so that she will not see either of us. Her mother, by the way, says she took cold wearing such thin stockings over here the day that Mr. Cullen came. She would wear them, she says, because she wanted to pinch her feet up in her tight summer boots.
“A silly puss!” said uncle, when aunt told him about it. “I wonder how a woman can imagine that any person of sense cares a fig whether her foot is like an elephant or a mouse.”
We rode a long way to-day, for our visitors were old people, who cared more for talking with uncle and aunt about their fathers and grandfathers and great-uncles, than for all Mr. Cullen and I had to say to them. And the day and the scenery were magnificent. I wonder if you know, Edith, mine, that one never needs go to Italy because one is longing to look upon deep blue skies, sunsets, and moonlights splendid enough to bewitch one; and upon mountains, great and small, ranging off like troops of living monsters. One needs only come to New England; here, to this hilly town, Danville. And one should come, at least once in one’s life, in the winter of the year; for the so much bepraised summer glory must yield to the winter, if many mountains are in the scene, and such noble ones as Mount Washington and its kindred. Their snowy lights are softened by the distance, and their shades deepened, so that, at midday, it is as if they were all of pearl. They lie along the whole eastern horizon; and when the sun takes a golden setting, there can hardly be any thing much finer of its kind in all Italy, in all Switzerland, I imagine; for a reflected glory is upon the mountains as varied nearly, nearly as intense as that which immediately surrounds the sun.
We talked of Alice to-day as we rode; and Mr. Cullen had serious eyes and hushed tones, as if he had infinite tenderness for her memory.
“I think as your uncle and aunt do, that you are like Alice in many respects, dear Monde,” said he, leaning a little toward me, as if he felt tenderness for me, in that he felt it for the dead Alice. “Only,” he added, “as the judge says, you have much the superior character. You have, I see, the pliancy of the reed, when you need to bend, and the consistency of the oak, when you need to stand erect. I like the way you bear praise,” added he, after a little pause. “I suppose you would bear the same amount of fault-finding as quietly.”
“Try me, and see.”
“Yes; for instance, if I tell you that you have a certain obstinate self-reliance, piquant to see.”
“Well?”