Her name was not mentioned, but Herbert was so handsome in the southern style; he was so picturesque, and manly, and graceful—a kind of Sidney and Bayard—that I was sure his sister was not less than Amy Robsart, or Lucy of Lammermoor, or perhaps Zuleika.
Toward the close of our course, we were one day sauntering beyond the little college-town, and dreaming dreams of that Future which, to every ambitious young man, seems a stately palace waiting to be royally possessed by him, when Herbert, who really loved me, said:
"I wish you knew Lulu."
"I wish I did know Lulu."
And that was all we ever said about it.
When we met at Saratoga it was a pleasant surprise to both, and doubly so to me, for I was sadly bored by my want of acquaintances. We fell into an earnest conversation, in the midst of which Herbert suddenly said:
"Ah! there, I must run and join Lulu!" and left me.
Who has not had just this experience, or a similar one, at any Watering-Place? One day you suddenly discover that some certain person has arrived; and when you go to your room to dress for dinner, your boots look splayed—your waistcoats are not the thing—your coat isn't half as handsome as other coats—and you spoil all your cravats in your nervous efforts to tie them exquisitely. You get dressed, however, and descend to dinner, giving yourself a Vivian Grey-ish air—a combination of the coxcomb, the poet, and the politician—and yet wonder why your hands seem so large, and why you do not feel at your ease, although every thing is the same as yesterday, except that Lulu has arrived.
And there she sits!
So sat Lulu, Herbert's sister, cool in light muslin, as if that sultry summer day she were Undine draped in mist. She had the self-possession, which many children have, and which greatly differs from the elaborate sang froid of elegant manners. There was no haughty reserve, no cold unconsciousness, as if the world were not worth her treading. But when Herbert nodded to me—and I, knowing that she was about to look at me, involuntarily put forward the poet-aspect of Vivian—she turned and looked toward me earnestly and unaffectedly for a few moments, while I played with a sweet-bread, and looked abstracted. It is a pity that we men make such fools of ourselves when we are in the callow state! Lulu turned back and said something to Herbert; of course, it was telling him her first impression of me! Do you think I wished to hear it?