"Never mind the length—no fear of its seeming long, because it will be true, you know."
"Yes, it will be true, but it is liker a fiction than any of the true stories I have told you: but if you are patient with an old woman's stories, and are willing to begin with the beginning, I will try to be as sketchy as possible."
"That will we be," said Alice; "when did you know us otherwise?" and both the girls hurried to take their seats on a low divan before Madam Stanwood's arm-chair, and to look attentively up in her kind face.
"Now then, to begin with the beginning, Mary Dunbar and myself were visiting at a town somewhere in the western part of Massachusetts. I could tell you where, but you may as well have some mystery about it—well, there we were visiting, and enjoying all the hospitalities of a small town where city people were rather rare articles, and prized accordingly. The beauty of Mary, and her gentle winning manners, made a great impression on every body, and a succession of pleasant rides, walks, pic-nics, little sociables, and every thing which could bring young people together, kept us quite delighted with every thing and every body about us; and as attentions and admiration are apt to have a pleasant effect on the disposition as well as the countenance, I, too, came in for a share, and we were quite the belles of the time. Every body regretted, however, and that continually, "that Mr. Gardner was not at home—oh! if he could see Miss Dunbar! and oh! if Miss Dunbar could see him!" and at last he did come from Burlington, where he had been gone a good while, at last he did see Miss Dunbar, and as in duty bound admired her very much. He was a common-looking young man, as he is now an old one—only then he had a fair youthful complexion and light curling hair, that united strangely with a premature gravity, and methodical way of saying every thing. He was not a taking person as you say, Louisa, but he was the nabob of the place. His father had died young, and the "Gardner place" was a very small part of the large property which this young man had inherited. He kept house, and managed his large domestic establishment with the greatest propriety and hospitality. All these things are looked into thoroughly in such a town as K——, and young Gardner's character was pronounced unexceptionable, and the match every way most desirable for any girl for twenty miles round.
"Mary did not seem to fancy him much, and when at length her brother came for us, and Mr. Gardner quietly proposed himself to Mr. Dunbar as Mary's suitor, and he had told him the connection would give him great pleasure, they neither of them seemed to think much more was necessary, for absolutely nothing was said to Mary till we got home. Mr. Dunbar lived at Cambridge then, near Boston. He was a widower, and Mary lived with him, and kept his house in some sort, and played with his little boy occasionally. You may suppose she was not a very staid personage, for she was at this time only seventeen years old, and as I was more than twenty-seven, I occasionally checked her wildness, while I could not help laughing at her graceful follies. She should have been born of a French mother and a Spanish father, for she was gay and volatile as the summer insect, and yet she had much depth of feeling, and was full of romantic tenderness, with sometimes a haughty expression that seemed altogether foreign to her usual character of face, and looked only the index of what might be expected of her if she should ever be exasperated to fight against her destiny. But so far destiny seemed to wait humbly on her pleasure; she was beloved by all, and though left early an orphan, had found in the indulgent tenderness of her brother and his wife a delightful home.
"A little while after our return, Mr. Dunbar took an opportunity when business did not press, for he went daily into Boston and left Mary and me to ourselves through the day, just to mention the little matter of Mr. Gardner's proposal to Mary; and to say he had accepted it so far as he was concerned.
"Now, girls, you must not ask me about characters, I shall tell you the facts, and you must guess at the characters of persons by them, the whys you can ascertain as well as I could tell you. When Mr. Dunbar had told Mary, who received the intelligence in silence, he dismissed the topic and no further allusion was made to it.
"I asked Mary soon after if she considered herself engaged to Mr. Gardner.
"'Certainly not.'
"I asked her if she liked him, and she gave me the same laconic answer. So I, too, dismissed the topic. There was a little mystery in Mary's manner about this time. If she did not like Mr. Gardner she did like young Randolph, a Southerner, and a student, who walked with her, and sent her flowers, and notes, and all sorts of pretty and poetical things to read—poems marked for her eye, and the sweetest and newest music for her piano. Then of a moonlight night we had serenades without number, and soft strains sung in a deep, rich voice, so that what with flowers, music, notes and very expressive looking and sighing, the prospect was all but shut out for poor Mr. Gardner, and opening an interminable vista for Randolph.