“Shall I introduce you?” said Jones.
“No,” I said. “I’ll go on to the pond. I’ll see you to-night.”
Jones advanced, hat in hand. “What happy fortune,” he said, addressing her, “has led me to meet the goddess of these woods?” Then, altering his tone, he added in a bantering way: “I see you have been poaching on our preserves, Miss Cortland. But I do wonder at your taste, fishing for eels!” pointing to a small basket on her arm from which hung some of the long stems of the pond-lily. This he said to vex her, knowing her horror of those creatures. “Eels?” she exclaimed indignantly, with a tone and gesture of aversion at the thought. “They are pond-lilies.”
“Oh! that is very well to say,” replied Jones, “when you have the lid of the basket down to hide them; but I insist upon their being eels unless you show them to me.”
By this time I was out of hearing. I left them together, and kept on down the road to the pond.
That night Jones came into my room with a quieter manner than usual. He was evidently very happy, but his happiness had a sobering effect upon him. He told me that he had made a plain avowal of his feelings to Agnes Cortland as they walked home together, and that he had won from her the confession that she loved him and had not been indifferent to him before he left for Europe. I wished him joy of his good-fortune, though I could foresee plainly enough that his difficulties had only begun. For a little time these two innocent young souls—for Jones I knew to be singularly unsullied by the world for a man of his age—would enjoy their paradise undisturbed together. Then would come maternal explanations, and the father’s authority would be invoked. A solemn promise would be exacted from her to see him no more. Miss Cortland was much attached to her parents, who would be sincerely anxious for her welfare. She would not make much resistance. Some day there would come a storm of tears, and poor Jones’s letters and the ring he gave her would be returned to him by a faithful messenger, and a little note, blotted with tears, asking him to forgive her and praying for his happiness. This must be the end. A year or two of separation and a summer and winter in Europe with her parents would leave nothing more than a little sad memory of her brief New Hampshire romance; and in five years she would be married to some foreigner of distinction or successful man of business, and would be a happy wife and mother. As for poor Jones, he would probably be heard of at rare intervals for a year or two as a trader on the Pacific coast or prospecting a claim in Nevada. But men like him, vigorous, powerful, well equipped in body and temper for the struggle with the world, are not kept down long by such disappointments. The storm is fierce, and leaves its scars after it; but the man rises above it, and is more closely knit thereafter. Jones will make his mark in the world of business, if not of art.
No unwelcome prophecies of mine, however, disturbed his happiness for those few days. I let events take their course. Why should I interrupt his dream by Cassandra-like anticipations of woe, which would have been resented as a reflection upon the constancy of his idol? I know that they met frequently for the following three or four days. Then came the packing up for departure. My long holiday was over.
On a foggy morning in September we steamed up the Sound on a Fall River boat. Through Hell Gate the stately boat sped on her way, past Blackwell’s Island, and across the bows of the Brooklyn ferry-boats, crowded with passengers for the city in the early morning. Around the Battery we swept, into the North River, and slowly swung alongside of Pier 28. Then the hackmen yelled at us; our coach stuck at the corner of the street; a jam followed; the drivers swore; the policemen shouted and threatened; the small boys grinned and dodged between the horses; and a ward politician, with a ruby nose, looked on complacently from the steps of a corner “sample” room. In one word, we were in New York, and our village life in Hampshire was a thing of the past.