How could Charles Cleaveland but fall in love? Not at first sight—not because it had seemed to him a very probable thing that he should; but because there was no earthly reason why he should not—because there was every thing to please his fancy, gratify his affections, and approve itself to his reason, in the young creature with whom he was daily associated in interesting pursuits and delightful recreations. In school she was that paragon of perfection to a teacher, a diligent, docile, and apt pupil; by the stream, a naiad; in the groves, a wood-nymph; in the garden and the meadow, the ideal of a bird or a butterfly. How could she but come, in time, to haunt his imagination and make her home in his heart, in one and all the bewitching forms of love’s metempsychosis?
His interest had been for some time deeply excited, before she became aware of the state of his mind or her own. But the truth gradually dawned upon her when, time after time as she raised her head, she found him intently gazing upon her; when she perceived unwonted abstraction, on his part, in the hours of her recitations; when she found herself, by some strange magic or other, meeting him at every turn, as if he knew all her out-goings and in-comings; when his visits at her father’s hitherto, on account of her mother’s forbidding manners few and far between, became more and more frequent; and as she sat at the piano, where he always liked to place her, she could feel the intensity of his gaze until it produced a burning in her own cheek.
Then she, too, began to muse of him. He was the subject of her day-dreams and night-dreams; his image forever in her mind; sleep did not displace it. It was there when she closed her eyes to sleep, and there to greet her at the first moment of her waking. The animated Caroline became pensive; the social Caroline began to affect solitary walks and lonely sittings in her chamber. She gazed upon the moon, or she listened to the murmuring brook or the whispering grove; and the gay and joyous feeling with which she had been accustomed to mingle herself with the harmonies of nature, gave way to one of sacred tenderness, as they seemed to her spirit to give forth a deeper tone.
Still her natural equanimity came in aid of her maidenly reserve to conceal from her lover the true state of her heart, and he felt by no means certain that his love was requited. But neither was he hopeless; and knowing that it would be difficult for him to carry himself toward her as he ought during the three months that still remained of his engagement with Mrs. Garrison without having an explanation with Caroline, which it would be improper for him to seek while he stood in his present relation to her, he determined to ask it as a favor of Mrs. Garrison that she would release him, which he did, of course, without assigning his principal motive.
The morning after this arrangement was made, Mrs. Garrison entered the school-room just as Caroline was finishing a recitation, and said, “Now, children, do your best to leave an agreeable impression upon the mind of Mr. Cleaveland, who is going to resign the charge of you in two weeks.”
Poor Caroline turned deadly pale, and the paleness was instantly succeeded by a deep blush. She took up her book and returned instantly to her seat, hoping she had been unobserved; but she was mistaken. Such a revelation is rarely lost upon a lover; and, in this instance, did not escape the observation of Mrs. Garrison.
At any other time, Mr. Cleaveland would have been gratified by the lively and most unaffected demonstrations of regret with which the announcement of his speedy departure had been received by the whole group of children. But now, one deep joy swallowed up all the rest; and his utter inability to reply to them would have been extremely embarrassing, had not Mrs. Garrison kindly and considerately relieved him by a request that he would look into a new school-book which she had just received.
His only trouble in life now, was the interminable duration of two weeks. That period of time overpast, he would declare his love, and then devote himself to his profession with the intent to hasten, as much as possible, the time when he might claim his bride. Meanwhile, Caroline had no resource but to put on, as far as possible, the appearance of being more than ever absorbed in her studies.
Mrs. Rutherford had not been unobservant of the signs of the times in regard either to Caroline or Cleaveland, and felt extremely uneasy and anxious. Her husband, on the contrary, she knew would like nothing better than just such a match for his daughter; and therefore she determined, in the present emergency, to keep her own counsels and act for herself.
During this last memorable fortnight, Cleaveland almost entirely suspended his visits to the Rutherfords, and his intercourse with Caroline, except as her teacher; because he found it almost impossible to carry himself toward her as circumstances required.