"Altered?"
"I have noticed it ever since you showed him your beads, that day."
"Oh! it's the amber," I said. "They are amulets, and have bound him in a thrall. You must wear them, and dissolve the charm. He's in a dream."
"What is it to be in a dream?" she asked.
"To lose thought of past or future."
She repeated my words,—"Yes, he's in a dream," she said, musingly.
II.
Rose didn't come near us for a fortnight; but he had not camped at all, as he said. It was the first stone thrown into Lu's life, and I never saw any one keep the ripples under so; but her suspicions were aroused. Finally he came in again, all as before, and I thought things might have been different, if in that fortnight Mr. Dudley had not been so assiduous; and now, to the latter's happiness, there were several ragged children and infirm old women in whom, Lu having taken them in charge, he chose to be especially interested. Lu always was housekeeper, both because it had fallen to her while mamma and I were away, and because she had an administrative faculty equal to General Jackson's; and Rose, who had frequently gone about with her, inspecting jellies and cordials and adding up her accounts, now unexpectedly found Mr. Dudley so near his former place that he disdained to resume it himself;—not entirely, because the man of course couldn't be as familiar as an old playmate; but just enough to put Rose aside. He never would compete with any one; and Lu did not know how to repulse the other.
If the amulets had ravished Rose from himself, they did it at a distance, for I had not worn them since that day.—You needn't look. Thales imagined amber had a spirit; and Pliny says it is a counter-charm for sorceries. There are a great many mysterious things in the world. Aren't there any hidden relations between us and certain substances? Will you tell me something impossible?—But he came and went about Louise, and she sung his songs, and all was going finely again, when we gave our midsummer party.
Everybody was there, of course, and we had enrapturing music. Louise wore—no matter—something of twilight purple, and begged for the amber, since it was too much for my toilette,—a double India muslin, whose snowy sheen scintillated with festoons of gorgeous green beetles' wings flaming like fiery emeralds.—A family dress, my dear, and worn by my aunt before me,—only that individual must have been frightened out of her wits by it. A cruel, savage dress, very like, but ineffably gorgeous.—So I wore her aquamarina, though the other would have been better; and when I sailed in, with all the airy folds in a hoar-frost mistiness fluttering round me and the glitter of Lu's jewels,—