“Be kind and courteous to all, my little pink-cheek, and do not listen with such a ready ear to the honied words that make you giddy. Do not every week or month select one on whom to bestow your favors, but treat all alike indifferently until you really find your own feelings enlisted. Then I need not advise, your own delicacy, your own natural modesty will make you every thing you ought to be. But for heaven’s sake do not give people the idea, that you are caught like a candle-fly by every glare, and wear a battered down heart after your first winter is over.”
“Oh, Kate, how matter-of-fact you are! Why didn’t you say ‘pretty moth,’ and ‘withered heart?’ You shock me with your every day-isms.”
“You have very fastidious ears, Minnie, and I am not jesting. There is one thing more to be said and I have done. Beware of trifling with young Freeman. He will not suffer himself to be led like his predecessors if he is serious. And if he is, as I think, merely playing your game of flirting, he will make you regret ever having seen him. I do not like him—I cannot look at him without a feeling of uneasiness.”
“How foolish!” cried Minnie, laughing, “and how ungrateful! he is always praising my charming sister Mrs. Linden.”
“Yes, so as to tell you immediately afterward how much you resemble her,” said Kate gravely. “I am not old, Minnie, but I am sorrowed, and feel no longer young. Let what I have said this morning be of some benefit to you, for your own sake, if not for mine. I must watch and warn you, heedless as you are to all counsel, and in so doing I make a sacrifice that costs me something, for I might be conversing pleasantly on other subjects, and feel secure that my sister Minnie does not think me harsh and disagreeable,” and her eyes filled with tears.
“How unjust!” cried Minnie, throwing her arms around Kate’s neck, and kissing her affectionately. “How very unjust! Do I not know how to value your advice, Kate—am I so heartless in your eyes? Heedless I am indeed, but not heartless, and I will try and remember what you have said, that I may act upon it.”
And so she did until it was forgotten, and young Freeman’s devotion became once more a triumph to the unreflecting Minnie. Her sisters rejoiced as the end of the season drew nigh, as the entire summer would be undisturbed by these constant amusements. They would once more live in quiet after the gay and to them tiresome winter, passed in following their young charge from place to place, and in the meantime a change might come over the “spirit of her dream.”
It was at the opera that Minnie sat once more, while Mme. —— enchanted and fascinated her audience. Her bright eyes were fixed upon the sweet singer, and she did not perceive the door of her box opened to admit a gentleman, who took his seat and gazed in silence at the lovely form before him. Ever and anon he turned to Mr. Stuart, who stood behind with a smile of pleasurable surprise upon his fine open countenance, and watched with some impatience the close of the second act of “Jerusalem,” in spite of his love of music and the beauty of this particular opera.
But the curtain fell, and Minnie turned to speak her delight to her brother. She started as she recognized Harry Selby!
He could not but be flattered at the expression of pleasure upon that speaking countenance, and the fluttering of the little hand, which, for a moment, rested in his; while Minnie read in those dark eloquent eyes a story that sent the tell-tale blush to her cheek, and forced her into a silence that provoked and embarrassed her.