“Harry, you never were more mistaken in your life.”
“Well, well—it will be difficult to convince me of my error.” A slight rustle at the door was heard as Mr. Wentworth finished his ungallant speech, and the next moment cousin Agatha entered.
“I thought I would endeavor to make my way to the drawing-room instead of depriving you any longer of the society of your husband, dear Alice,” said she as she languidly sank into the softly-cushioned chair which Mr. Wentworth drew forward for her accommodation. Of course the usual congratulations followed, and as the invalid dropped the heavy shawl from her shoulders, Alice glanced towards her husband in the hope that he would not fail to observe the symmetry of her petite figure. He was too great an admirer of beauty to fail in such notice, yet still he could see little to claim admiration in her face. Her complexion was not clear; her mouth, though well formed and adorned with superb teeth, was large, and her eyes were dim from recent illness, while her curls were hidden beneath one of those fairy fabrics of gossamer and ribbon which often display the taste of the wearer at the expense of a crowning beauty. But, ere the evening had expired, Mr. Wentworth was forced to acknowledge that he had formed too hasty an opinion of her manners, for, whatever brusquerie he might have observed on the morning of her arrival, he was certainly struck now by the easy elegance and graceful dignity of her deportment.
From this time cousin Agatha laid aside the character of an invalid, and, quietly taking her place at the table and fireside, seemed to have no other wish than to make herself useful. Devoted in her attentions to Alice, she took little notice of Mr. Wentworth except to receive his courteous civility with profound gratitude. He was nothing more to her than the husband of her friend, and while she exhibited the deepest interest in the development of Alice’s mind and feelings, she seemed scarcely to observe the fine taste, the elegant scholarship, and the nobleness of sentiment which characterized Mr. Wentworth. Alice suffered no small degree of mortification from this evident coldness between those whom she was so anxious to behold friends. She could not bear to find Agatha so totally blind to the perfections of her beloved Henry, and she was almost as much annoyed at her husband’s indifference to the graces of her cousin.
“You are pained because I do not sufficiently admire your husband, Alice,” said Agatha, one day, when they were alone, “but surely you would not have me estimate him as highly as you do?”
“I would not have you love him quite as well, but I would have you appreciate his exalted qualities.”
“My dear coz,” said Agatha, with a slightly sarcastic smile, “do not, I pray you, make it one of the conditions of our friendship that I should see through your eyes. Mr. Wentworth is a fine scholar, a tolerable amateur painter, and a most ardent lover of his pretty wife; is that not sufficient praise?”
Alice felt uncomfortable, though she could scarcely tell why, at this and similar remarks from cousin Agatha. She had been accustomed to consider her husband a being of superior worth and endowments, but there was something in her cousin’s manner of uttering commendation of him, which seemed to imply contempt even while it expressed praise. In the innocence of her heart, Alice several times repeated cousin Agatha’s sayings to her husband, and they were not without their effect upon him. The self-love which exists, more or less, in every heart, was by no means a negative quantity in the character of Mr. Wentworth. He knew his wife overrated his talents, but he loved her the better for her affectionate flattery, and cousin Agatha’s apparent ignorance of his character mortified and vexed him. He began to think that his prejudices had prevented him from showing himself in a proper light, and his wounded vanity led him to redouble his attentions to his guest. Heretofore he had never thought of her except when in her company; but now, the certainty that she was as yet blind to his merits, made her an object of interest. He was not a very vain man, but his wife’s idolatry had gratified even while he was fully aware of its extravagance, and he was proportionably annoyed by the perfect coldness with which cousin Agatha regarded him. She seemed to think him a very good sort of a man, but not at all superior to the common herd, and he was determined to convince her of her mistake. Agatha had succeeded in her first design:—she had aroused him from the torpor of indifference.
Cousin Agatha was a most invaluable assistant to a young housekeeper, for she had a quick hand, a ready invention, and exquisite taste, so that whether a pudding was to be concocted, a dress trimmed, or a party given, she was equally useful. Alice had learned the duties of housekeeping theoretically and was now only beginning to put them in practice, as every young wife must do, for whatever she may know in the home of her childhood, she still finds much to be learned in organizing and arranging a new household. Cousin Agatha, on the contrary, had been trained from her childhood to do all these things, for the dependent orphan had early learned to earn her bread by her own usefulness. In the course of her married life she had been compelled to practice the thousand expedients which pride and poverty teach to a quick-witted woman, and it is not surprising, therefore, that her skill should far surpass that of the gentle and self-distrusting Alice. Doubting her own knowledge only because Agatha was near to advise, the young wife applied to her on all occasions, until at length the regulation of domestic affairs was entirely in her hands, and Alice was left only to assist in the execution of Agatha’s plans. Cousin Agatha was always busied in some pretty feminine employment. She had very beautiful hands, and her long taper fingers were always engaged in some delicate needle-work or an elegant piece of tapestry. Did it ever occur to you, my fair reader, that a pretty hand never appears to such advantage as when busied with the needle? The piano extends the fingers until the hand sometimes resembles a bird’s claw;—the pencil or the pen contracts it until half its beauty is concealed; but needle-work, with the various turnings and windings necessary to its accomplishment, displays both hands in perfectly natural positions and in every variety of grace. This fact was not unknown to cousin Agatha; she had no accomplishments, but she was rarely seen without the tiniest of gold thimbles upon her slender finger.
Slowly and by scarcely perceptible degrees, Agatha seemed to learn the full value of the prize which her friend had drawn in the lottery of life. His fine talents seemed to dawn upon her with daily increasing vividness, his amateur sketches became more and more characterized by genius, his musical taste developed itself surprisingly, and, ere many weeks had elapsed, Alice had the satisfaction of repeating to her husband many a heart-warm compliment breathed into the ear of the happy wife by cousin Agatha in her hours of confidential communing with her friend. Nor was Mr. Wentworth slower in discovering the latent charms of his guest. Restored to her former health, and associating as the guest of Mrs. Wentworth, in a pleasant circle of society, cousin Agatha threw aside the weeds of widowhood, and appeared in all the attractive coquetry of tasteful and becoming dress. Her luxuriant tresses were once more allowed to shadow her low feminine brow, and fall upon her graceful neck, or, if bound up in conformity with fashion, the very restraint was studiously arranged in such a manner as to display their rich redundancy. Her grey eyes sometimes seemed actually flashing with light, and again were filled with the soft liquid lustre of intense sensibility; and then her smile, displaying her brilliant teeth and lighting up her whole face, had the effect of a sudden sunbeam upon a darkened landscape. The charm of Agatha’s face was its vivid and varied expression; the grace of her person was the effect of long and carefully studied art. Not a look, not a gesture, not even a movement of her fringed eyelids, but was the result of frequent practice. There was a perfection of grace in her attitudes that seemed like Nature’s self. Her head always assumed a pretty position, her curls always seemed to drop in their proper place, her drapery always fell in becoming folds, and no one observed that she was particular in avoiding cross lights, especially careful not to face a broad glare of sunshine, and remarkably fond of placing herself at the arm of a sofa, so as to obtain a fine back ground for the exhibition of her attitudes. Harry Wentworth wondered how he could ever have thought her ugly. And then her manners:—what could be more gentle, more feminine, more fascinating than the tenderness of her tones and the sweetness of her deportment? She seemed to look upon gentlemen as if she felt all a woman’s helplessness, and was willing to consider man as a “chevalier sans peur et sans reproche,” born to be her natural protector. There was something so pleading in the soft eyes which she lifted to the face of the sterner sex, that few could resist their charm, and actually Harry Wentworth was not one of those few.