“Madam, I am charmed with the honor you do me,” courteously returned the Southerner, bowing low with her hand in his, and serenely smiling.
“And this is my eldest daughter, sir,” continued the merchant. “Caroline, Mr. Lafitte.”
Caroline looked very pretty, as with a fluttering heart, and a faint sea-shell pink on her cheeks and lips, she wafted herself forward, and dawdled down into a low curtsey, with a languishing glance at the rich brunette visage of the Southerner. Mr. Lafitte glided up to her, bowing, pressed her hand in his, and cast into her eyes a momentary ardent look, which threw Caroline into feeble ecstasy.
“I am enchanted to meet you, Miss Atkins,” said Mr. Lafitte, in a low, smooth voice, sweeter than music to her ear.
Caroline was so overcome with rapture, that she could only color, curtsey, cast another languishing glance at her adorer, and withdraw a pace or two, while her father introduced Julia. Then came Horatio’s turn, and then Thomas’s. Horatio did it in the aristocratic Hawbury style—a solemn face, a stiff bend of the back, the thumb of the left hand in his vest pocket, and his right hand clasping Mr. Lafitte’s fingers. Thomas came the Lord Charles Chawles—head up, shoulders back, coat-tail jutting out in the bow, legs wide, hand slowly wagging Mr. Lafitte’s, horse-shoe mouth agrin, and voice remarking, “Mr. Lafitte, yours—glad to meet you, sir; be Jove, I am!” To which Mr. Lafitte replied, that he was always proud to make a gentleman’s acquaintance, especially yours, Mr. Atkins, on this happy occasion.
The introductions successfully over, Mr. Lafitte was invited to take a seat near the hostess, and the rest of the company settled into their respective chairs, Mr. Atkins surveying them all with an air of proud and smiling gratification. He was a strong, sturdily-built man, of good presence, dressed in black, with a purple velvet vest, crossed by a short and thick gold chain. On his little finger he wore a heavy gold seal-ring, with a red stone. His face was more like Horatio’s and Julia’s than any of the others, but much finer and stronger than either’s, for Mr. Atkins’s boyhood was cast in the robust life of a country town, and he had fought his way up to wealth and social position in Boston, battling with the forces of trade, and hewing out for himself the character of a self-made man. The black, hard eyes of his younger daughter, and the short, bold nose and large round jaw of her and the sons, were stronglier seen in him than in them. He was smooth-shaven, wore his hair short, and had the blanched, resolute color of a man whose days had been strenuously devoted to money-making. Usually his face was decisive and stern, though now it was relaxed into a proud and gratified smile, as he surveyed his guest and family circle.
“Charming weather you’re having in Boston, madam,” remarked Mr. Lafitte, addressing his hostess. “Cooler though than when I left Louisiana three weeks ago. We had some of the hottest days there in April that I ever knew. It was positively like midsummer.”
“Ah, Mr. Lafitte,” sighed Mrs. Atkins, “our climate must seem cold to you, who have come so lately from the sunny South. Is this your first visit to Boston?”
“Yes, madam, it is the first time I ever had the pleasure of visiting your beautiful city,” courteously replied the Southerner. “I was sorry not to be able to get here in time to hear Mr. Webster, who spoke, they tell me, in your Faneuil Hall, last Saturday. Dear Webster! I positively love him as if he were my brother. He is doing such a good work for our common country.”
“Oh, isn’t he splendid!” lisped Miss Atkins, with a languishing air. “So statesmanlike! We were all there to hear him, Mr. Lafitte. Oh, it was beautiful!”