“Well, I don’t want to give pain to either papa or mamma; and so if they don’t know it, they will be spared all pain and fuss in the matter, and nobody hurt. Now I’m ready. Let’s go.” And the two leaving the house, the subject is dropped for the time.
* * * * *
Only one month has passed since the cousins have had this morning’s talk together, but it has brought a great change in their feelings and relations to each other.
First, Elinor has quietly but courageously avowed herself a Catholic. Alone and unsupported she has made the great step—alone she goes to Mass and Vespers—and without sympathy from her family she practises faithfully all the observances of her
church. In all this, she has shown her aunt Lennox a wise prophet, but that lady is no less indignant on that account. She enlarges upon her favorite text, and congratulates herself that she has taken no such risk for her own daughter’s falling into Popish pitfalls, and traps set for the young and innocent. Lizzie chooses to consider herself called upon to give up the intimacy and nearly all intercourse with her cousin. In this she is secretly governed by a sense of annoyance at Elinor’s persistent discountenancing of her clandestine correspondences, but she makes a show of setting herself against “Popish influences.”
The parents of Elinor have taken the matter with seeming indifference. She loses none of their love in consequence of the change in her faith, and they are sure she is quite as good a daughter as ever. But a greater trouble, if this is a trouble, now absorbs their minds. John Lloyd has failed in business and failed in health. He is a broken-down man. In this emergency, Elinor has determined to accept a situation as musical governess in a wealthy family. She has felt the tug at her heartstrings, no less from her wounded pride in the matter of her changed social position, than in the hard necessity to leave her home and parents. She is no saint, only a good, pure-minded girl, who is scrupulously conscientious in all things. She battles against a bitter feeling of almost envy toward the better luck and easier life of her cousin. She does not really wish Lizzie to be as poor as herself, and she is sure she would rather be herself than Lizzie, but she does wish her father and mother were in the same comfortable ease that her uncle and aunt enjoy. Her uncle is disposed to be very kind to her, but he is hampered by his
wife and daughter in their bitter opposition to her. He has sent her a check to defray all necessary expenses in her wardrobe. So she goes to her new home so nicely clad that at least no air of shabbiness clings to her. Brave as she may be, this feminine sensitiveness to her appearance is very acute in her. Foolish vanity concerning dress she may not have, but, being young, she is only natural in liking to look well, to pass criticism which she cannot ignore at least creditably. If a young woman has not this much of feeling concerning her toilet, she is probably slovenly, or else she affects an eccentricity which is more disagreeable than a love for finery. Elinor is refined in her nature, and she is not strong-minded, so she likes the good opinion of others.
Elinor soon settles into the new and changed relations of her life, the more easily because her employer proves exceedingly kind. As her forte is music, she is of course, in the exercise of that accomplishment, brought into more constant contact and intercourse with the guests at the house than the mere instruction and supervision of her pupils would demand. Her seat at the piano calls to her the attention and brings upon her the criticism of many who otherwise might never notice her. And so it has happened that young Mr. Schuyler, the brother of her hostess, has more frequently than any other turned the leaves of her music, sang to her accompaniment, and gazed admiringly upon the pretty hands moving over the keys and upon the charming face turned to the pages before it. Mr. Schuyler is an agreeable young gentleman, good-looking enough, graceful enough, and flattering enough in his address to ladies to win their pleased recognition of his attentions. But buzzing
in his admiration around each sweet flower like the veriest male coquette of a bee, he is just unstable enough also to tantalize the fair recipients of his attentions. Elinor likes him, but with a little reserve. She is not of a distrustful nature, but she does not quite like Mr. Schuyler’s manner to her. He has been very unreserved in his admiration. He has attempted some sentimental love-making, but there has always been a sort of holding back—a non-committal manner, which has not seemed to her straightforward and manly. It has appeared to her that he has been attempting to gain her regard without making any actual avowal himself, and that he is trying to amuse himself or feed his own vanity at her expense. Yet she is so afraid of being unjust to him, knowing that her position in the family may make her unduly sensitive, that she strives against this feeling. He really is very kind in a great many little ways which she would be ashamed not to acknowledge, and she thinks, if she were not a governess for his sister, she might receive his attentions in a less cavilling spirit.
In the meantime, Mr. Schuyler studies Elinor from quite a different point of view from any she imagines. He has found by repeated experiment that he cannot make her understand or respond to various little devices which he has been in the habit of using to flirt with certain school-girls whom he has met often in his daily walks and rides. All these signals pass unnoticed upon the convent girl. But in fluttering thus around this innocent, cold light, the gay moth has got his wings singed. He does really love Elinor as much as such a nature is capable of loving. Just because she has not responded to any of his advances, he has become more seriously interested