"'No, indeed—nor his cousin neither,' Miss Hartney retorted, with a covert little sneer. 'What is it to you any way, child, who she is, or what he does?' she then asked with cruel mischief.
"'It is all the world to me, Aunt Winnie,' your mother made answer, rising up in solemn dignity, with a white face and quivering lips, 'It is my life to me, for I love this man.'
"'Whatever are you talking of, child!' her aunt screamed, leaning her thin hands on the arms of her chair, and bending towards her niece in furious consternation. 'Pretty work this is; how will your father like it, I wonder,' she gasped, sinking back again among her cushions in a dry rage.
"'I don't care how anyone likes it,' said your mother quietly and sadly. 'I am old enough now to know my own duty. I shall love, and marry whoever I please.'
"'Well! upon my word—you don't mean to say so—do you, Queen Amelia?' Miss Hartney returned in cold irony. 'Well then, my dear, you had better be wider awake to your own interests,' she went on, 'for your first attempt is going sadly against you already, poor child. I'm glad your choice pleases you, you are not fastidious—but to all appearances your regard is not reciprocated very warmly. May be, he is only amusing himself during your absence, I can't say. He would be a great fool not to take you when you are so willing, and aunt Liddy is so fond of you, and getting old now—but it is evident that he enjoys the society of the other girl. Aunt Liddy herself, with all her partiality for you, confessed that Ernest Dalton's manner is much more distant and reserved with you, than with this Inez Campuzano, with her Spanish beauty, enough to intoxicate any silly, sentimental youth.'
"'Go on, aunt Winnie, said your suffering mother,' looking up at her tormentor, with a glance of reproachful sarcasm. 'Go on, this is very comforting, and you seem to relish it. What else?'
"'What else?' Miss Hartney repeated, with all the dainty sarcasm of a disappointed old maid. 'Well! since you will know, child, I may as well tell you—the brave Mr. Dalton is not alone in the field; he has a powerful rival; one of those dark, heroic-looking Frenchmen of high birth and fierce tempers. He swears he will have Mlle. Campuzano's hand, or Ernest Dalton's heart-blood—at least this is the story I have heard; she, in all her rich southern foreign loveliness, plays a becomingly passive part, and is wooed, they say, first by one and then by the other. If I were you, Amelia, I would never marry any one who was not more faithful to me, than this, there will be little happiness in store for you, if you do; he has plainly slighted you, in giving cause for such vile rumours while I was in the town, and could hear of his unbecoming behaviour—give him up child, he is altogether unworthy of you.' Miss Hartney added, infusing something of a would-be sympathy and solicitude unto her shrill accents.
"Your mother stood for a moment toying nervously with her white, trembling fingers. She was so proud. My poor, dear Amelia, and this taunting intelligence smote her to her heart's core. She swallowed a great choking sob, and drove the blinding tears that lay upon the surface of her large sad eyes back into the deep caverns from whence they had sprung. She then sat quietly down, and resumed her writing. In a month from that date, my dear Amey," cousin Bessie added in a low hushed voice, "she was married to your father, Alfred Hampden, who had wooed her in the meantime."
The hot tears were rolling down my cheeks during this latter part of my mother's love-story, and when cousin Bessie looked and saw them, she buried her own face in her hands, and wept silently for few moments.
"And how did it end?" I asked through my sobs, impatient to know every detail.