DR. HUGER was thirty years old when he deliberately resolved to be in love,—I cannot say "fall in love" of anything so matter-of-fact and well-considered. He made up his mind that marriage was a good thing,—that he was old enough to marry,—finally, that he would marry. Then he decided, with equal deliberation, on the qualifications necessary in the lady, and began to look about him to find her. She must be a blonde. Above all things else, he must have her gentle and trustful; and he believed that gentleness and trustfulness inhered in the blue-eyed, fair-haired type of womanhood. She must be appreciative, but not strong-minded,—well-bred, with a certain lady-like perfectness, which could not be criticised, and yet which would always save her from being conspicuous. Not for the world would he have any new-fangled woman's-rights notions about her.
You might fancy it would be a somewhat difficult matter for him to find precisely the realization of this ideal; but here fate befriended him,—fate, who seemed to have taken Dr. Huger under her especial charge, and had been very kind to him all his life. He looked out of his window, after he had come to the resolution heretofore recorded, and saw Amy Minturn tripping across the village green.
Amy was eighteen,—blonde, blue-eyed, innocent, well-bred, unpresuming, without ambition, and without originality. She was very lovely in her own quiet, tea-rose style. Her position was satisfactory; for her father, Judge Minturn, was a man of mark in Windham, and one of Dr. Huger's warmest friends. So, having decided that here was an embodiment of all his "must-haves," the doctor went over that evening to call at the Minturn mansion. Not that the call in itself was an unusual occurrence. He went there often; but hitherto his conversation had been principally directed to the judge, and to-night there was a noticeable change.
Amy was looking her loveliest, in her diaphanous muslin robes, with blue ribbons at her throat, and in her soft light hair. Dr. Huger wondered that he had never before noticed the pearly tints of her complexion, the deep lustrous blue of her eyes, the dainty, flower-like grace of her words and ways. He talked to her, and watched the changing color in her cheeks, and her rippling smiles, until he began to think the falling in love, to which he had so deliberately addressed himself, the easiest and pleasantest thing in the world. She had the prettiest little air of propriety,—half prudish, and half coquettish. She received his attentions with a shy grace that was irresistibly tempting.
He went often to Judge Minturn's after that—not too often, for he did not wish to startle his pretty Amy by attentions too sudden or too overpowering; and, indeed, there was nothing in the gentle attraction by which she drew him to hurry him into any insane forgetfulness of his customary moderation. But he liked and approved her more and more. He made up his mind to give her a little longer time in which to become familiar with him, and then to ask her to be his wife.
When he had reached this determination, he was sent for, one August day, to see a new patient,—a certain Miss Colchester. He was thinking about Amy as he went along,—laughing at the foolish old notion concerning the course of true love; for what could run any smoother, he asked himself, than his had? It seemed to him as simple and pretty as an idyl,—the "Miller's Daughter" New Englandized.
"Oh, that I were beside her now!
Oh, will she answer if I call?
Oh, would she give me vow for vow,—
Sweet Amy,—if I told her all?"
he hummed, half unconsciously, as he walked on.
Soon he came in sight of Bock Cottage, the place to which he was going, and began thereupon to speculate about Miss Colchester. Of course she was one of the summer boarders of whom Rock Cottage was full. He wondered whether she were young or old,—whether he should like her,—whether she would be good pay;—and by this time, he had rung the bell, and was inquiring for her of the tidy girl who answered his summons.