“Well, mother, have you wormed any thing out of old Aunty Evans about that red-haired horror’s adoption?” said Sylvester Wilson, to his mother one day, when she had been taking an old-fashioned cup of tea with Mrs. Evans.
“How can you, Sylvester!” said his mother, a good deal disturbed. “The child is very well, I am sure.”
“Frights generally have good health.”
“I meant that she was very well-looking. She has changed much in the two years she has lived with her cousin. Her hair is deepening its color, her eyes do not squint any more, and she is very plump and fresh.”
“All the better for me—fourteen, is she? She will get better still, perhaps, in two or three years. But about the cash, mother—will that old hunks of a cousin portion her? If so, I am his man.”
“Mrs. Evans thinks he considers her as good as his own child now,” said Mrs. Wilson. “You are to be three years in the University, my child, and you can’t think of a wife till that time is past.”
“I don’t know what harm thinking is to do a fellow. I am not in the University yet, and I don’t exactly see how I am to be there, unless I find a gold mine. If I could get employed to give lessons to that fox-pate, I might earn some money, and borrow more, and get an education and independence at last. One can’t expect beauty and tin together.”
Success was all Mrs. Wilson asked for her son, and his life-plans did not seem to her at all profane. And he succeeded in obtaining the place he sought. He gave Fanny lessons in music and mathematics. It was a great triumph when Fanny got leave of Cousin Charles to learn music. She had thought of a piano, and dreamed of one, and thumped on one that belonged to a young friend for a long time—but she had no idea of ever being the happy possessor of a mine of music.
At Christmas, just about two years from the time when she came to live with her cousin, she made a little “Christmas box” for her best friend. It contained a pair of slippers, a watch-holder, and a lamp-mat, all worked by herself. They had grown very pretty under her skillful fingers, but the coarse canvas had not changed more under her hands than she had changed since she had lived in this happy home. And she was daily improving. When Charles Evans found this Christmas gift on his table, he resolved to give Fanny just what she should ask for, and so he said, “I have only got you a book for Christmas, Fanny, but if you think of any thing else that you want, you must tell me.”
“And will you really give it me?” said Fanny, and her deep-blue eyes seemed melting in their own lustre.