So Phil, swelling with his ten years, and tall of his age, walks to the bar and calls for two tumblers of lemonade, which Old Boody stirs with an appetizing rattle of the toddy-stick,—dropping, meantime, a query or two about the Squire, and a look askance at the parson's boy, who is trying very hard to wear an air as if he, too, were ten, and knew the ropes.
"It's good, a'n't it?" says Phil, putting down his money, of which he always had a good stock.
"Prime!" says Reuben, with a smack of the lips.
And then Suke comes in, hunting over the room for last week's "Courant"; and the boys, with furtive glances at those pink cheeks and brown ringlets, go down, the steps.
"A'n't she handsome?" says Phil.
Reuben is on the growth. And when he eats dinner that day, with the grave Doctor carving the rib-roast and the prim aunt ladling out the sauces, he is elated with the vague, but not unpleasant consciousness, that he is beginning to be familiar with the world.
XVIII.
It was some four or five months after the despatch of the Doctor's letter to Maverick before the reply came. His friend expressed the utmost gratitude for the Doctor's prompt and hearty acceptance of his proposal. With his little Adèle frolicking by him, and fastening more tenderly upon his heart every year, he was sometimes half-disposed to regret the scheme; but, believing it to be for her good, and confident of the integrity of those to whom he intrusted her, he reconciled himself to the long separation.
It does not come within the limits of this simple New England narrative to enter upon any extended review of the family relations or the life of Maverick abroad. Whatever details may appear incidentally, as the story progresses, the reader will please to regard as the shreds and ravelled edges of another and distinct life, which cannot be fairly interwoven with the homespun one of the parsonage, nor yet be wholly brushed clear of our story.
"I want," said Maverick in his letter, "that Adèle, while having a thorough womanly education, should grow up with simple tastes. I think I see a little tendency In her to a good many idle coquetries of dress, (which you will set down, I know, to her French blood,) which I trust your good sister will see the prudence of correcting. My fortune is now such that I may reasonably hope to put luxuries within her reach, if they be desirable; but of this I should prefer that she remain ignorant. I want to see established in her what you would call those moral and religious bases of character that will sustain her under any possible reverses or disappointments. You will smile, perhaps, at my talking in this strain; but if I have been afloat in these matters, at least you will do me the credit that may belong to hoping better things for my little Adèle. It's not much, I know; but I do sincerely desire that she may find some rallying-point of courage and of faith within herself against any possible misfortune. Is it too much to hope, that, under your guidance, and under the quiet religious atmosphere of your little town, she may find such, and that she may possess herself of the consolations of the faith you teach, without sacrificing altogether her natural French vivacity?