“A young lady,—the loveliest, brightest—”
“Pho!” returned Mr. Holcroft, sinking again into his cushions with a look of disappointment; “why I see thousands of lovely, bright-looking girls passing here every day, and so it has been for the last twenty years. That, I suppose, is one reason why I have not married. I never could get one pretty face fixed in my heart, before a hundred others presented themselves to drive it away.”
The windows of the apartment, in which the gentlemen sat, opened upon one of the most noted thoroughfares on this side of the Atlantic, which at that hour, was crowded by an unusually brilliant throng of the fair and the gay, called out by the bright sunshine of a clear December afternoon, to exhibit, each, her new assortment of winter finery. During the foregoing dialogue, young Rockwell had not been so much occupied as to be unable to throw an occasional glance into the street, and the one which preceded his exclamation, had been met by a pair of radiant eyes, with an expression so cordial and familiar, that he was quite startled,—and the more easily, that they belonged to one of the most beautiful faces and one of the richest costumes that he had noticed on the crowded pavé. “I could never have seen her before,—no, I never did,”—said he to himself, and the passage of Moore so generally known to the sentimental and romantic youths, who sigh in our language, came into his mind:—
“As if his soul that moment caught
An image it through life had sought;
As if the very lips and eyes,
Predestined to have all his sighs,
And never be forgot again,
Sparkled and smiled before him then.”
“That is a favorite excuse with you old bachelors,” said he, at length, remembering that a reply might be expected to his uncle’s last observation; “but this young lady,—such a face could not be easily driven away! I wonder who she can be?—perhaps you know her,—she is evidently one of your élite, but I can’t describe her; one thing I noticed, however, she had on a blue velvet—, what is the name of those new articles?—neither a cloak nor a shawl;—you understand what I mean, uncle.”