“That is noble, Mrs. Tower! All I want. Your avenue is longer and wider than ours. I am sure I shall have roses as red as my own on Jessie’s cheek in a very little while. And you, Mr. Style, may prepare yourself for a challenge to a horse-race, when Miss Lincoln can ride my Romulus!”
Jessie expressed unbounded delight at the prospect of amusement that was before her, and offered a thousand thanks to Emilie for her willingness to instruct her.
“O pray don’t say a word about that,” replied Emilie. “Perhaps I shall not prove so competent as I promise. But if I fail, Mr. Style here shall finish your education!”
“Now, Mr. Style,” said Mrs. Tower, when the ladies had made their adieux, “you must take charge of Jessie’s entertainment, while I attend to a little business. I am sure she will be pleased with the conservatory?”
The young clergyman very readily undertook the commission, and throwing open a door from the drawing-room, he led the delighted girl into a sweet wilderness of flowers and fragrance.
Three weeks glided by almost imperceptibly, for Jessie Lincoln had never experienced such a full tide of happiness. The cool, fresh country zephyr kissed her cheeks, and there crept over them a delicious tinting, delicate as the blush of a rose-bud. Vigorous exercise, rural walks, and every kind of simple pleasure banished the sickly and languid expression from her face, and with returning health came vigor, vivacity, and joyousness. George and Emilie Jones were unwearied in their devotion to Jessie’s happiness; the Varleys had outdone everybody in promises of attention and politeness, especially Miss Charlotte, who found very frequent occasion to watch for any indications of Mr. Style’s preference of Jessie before herself. Poor Charlotte! she longed to read his heart; the indifference, nay, positive aversion she would have discovered there, would have been “the gall of bitterness” to her own, for she was deeply and desperately in love, if ever a silly young woman was, and a breath could have fanned her electrical jealousy into an uncontrollable flame. She would have given the last farthing of her fortune for an assurance of affection from the young minister. Alas! he never gave her any; yet at this juncture, without the slightest reason to believe he regarded her with any other sentiment than the commonest acquaintance, she confidently did believe she had taken him in her toils, and he would soon declare himself her admirer, unless Jessie stood in the way.
It was impossible not to see with one’s eyes open that Mr. Style was becoming deeply and vitally interested in Jessie, though in her simplicity and humility she was wholly unconscious of it; and if she had conceived the possibility of such a thing, she would bitterly have rebuked her own presumption, for she regarded herself altogether too humble to aspire to such a position in the world as to become the wife of such a gifted man. It is true that the lustre of his mind, the high tone of his moral endowments, and the faultlessness of his exterior moulding, charmed her—and what young heart would they not charm, I pray you tell me, dear lady reader? But the idea of loving Mr. Style with any other love than that which is inspired and sanctioned by respect and friendship merely never entered her mind. Jessie was, however, the beau ideal of all his visions—the pure, pious, refined, and high-souled woman he had always hoped to meet before he surrendered his heart with its rich treasury of manly and generous love. He knew her history—you shall know more of it anon, reader—and he admired and revered the strength and unconquerable resolution with which she had combated and triumphed in the midst of the most depressing discouragements. Respect, admiration, love, combined to make him—no, not a willing slave at her feet—he felt her moral nobility would revolt at that; but they made him ready to plant his strength by the side of her weakness, to be its defence and protection till the death-angel should come, commissioned to guide her from earth to heaven.
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CHAPTER IV.
Mrs. Tyler and Elizabeth, Mrs. Varley’s genteel “metropolitan friends,” had detained themselves at Saratoga so long as the most fashionable company remained. But they at length wrote a hasty note to the “dear Varleys” stating definitely when they should be at the depôt in N., expecting to see the carriage in waiting. And they did come, “bag and baggage,” to stay till November—it was only August then, and they flattered themselves, so they announced, that even in so short a stay, very much happiness might be reciprocated.