“If you think it will add to your enjoyments, Alice, invite her by all means.”
Alice Wentworth had been a wife scarcely two years, and her married life had been a scene of uninterrupted happiness. Nothing would have induced her to risk the disturbance of her tranquillity, but remembering the companion of her early years as one who had been the confidant of all her childish joys and sorrows, she looked upon her presence as the completion of her plans of enjoyment. Her husband’s scruples she naturally attributed to unfounded prejudice which an acquaintance with her cousin could not fail to overcome, and, therefore, following the dictates of kindly feeling, she determined to cheer the bereaved widow by an affectionate letter of invitation.
Some three weeks after she had despatched her missive, at an early hour, on a cold autumnal morning, a carriage drove up to the door, and a loud ring announced the expected guest. Alice had not yet finished her morning toilet, and Mr. Wentworth hastened down to receive the lady; but scarcely had he got through the awkwardness of a self-introduction when his wife entered, full of impatience to embrace her early friend. During the mutual raptures of their meeting, he had leisure to scrutinize the new inmate of his family, and certainly his impressions were any thing but favorable. Cousin Agatha had taken a violent cold, her countenance was disfigured by a swollen cheek, and her eyes were bleared and inflamed by a severe attack of influenza, while the effect of steamboat slumbers and a steamboat toilet did not tend to the improvement of her appearance. Indeed Harry Wentworth could scarcely refrain from laughter when he contrasted his wife’s enthusiastic description with the reality before him. But Alice, with ready hospitality, conducted her cousin to her apartment, and to that room the wearied traveller, overcome with illness and fatigue, was confined during the several succeeding days.
“When will your friend be presentable, Alice?” asked Mr. Wentworth one evening as he threw himself upon a sofa, after tea, “since she has been here you have not sat with me a half hour, for your whole time seems devoted to nursing.”
“I hope she will be well enough to meet you at dinner to-morrow, Harry; the swelling has left her face and she begins to look like herself. What amuses you so much?” she asked, as her husband burst into a loud laugh.
“I was thinking of the force of contrast, Alice; you are an excellent painter, dear, but you draw your tints too exclusively from fancy; who could have recognized your picturesque beauty with soft grey eyes and raven curls in the dowdyish looking woman with red nose and redder eyes whom I welcomed as cousin Agatha?”
“For shame, Harry, you ought not to judge of her by her appearance at that time.”
“Perhaps not; but first impressions are the most durable, and I shall never see any beauty in your cousin, for even if she should hereafter appear to advantage when dressed for display, I shall never forget how she looked in her travelling dishabille; one thing you may be sure of, Alley, you will never have cause to be jealous of your picturesque cousin.”
“I don’t mean to be jealous of any one, Harry, but I shall be much mistaken if you do not learn to admire cousin Agatha.”
“Then you may prepare yourself for a disappointment, Alice; I do not think I should feel perfectly satisfied with any one who had thus broken in upon our tranquil happiness, and even if I were disposed to like your cousin elsewhere she would not please me in our quiet home. Besides, I was disappointed in my idea of her personal beauty, and her manners appeared to me abrupt and inelegant.”