Winston Aylett, owner and tenant of the ancient mansion of

Ridgeley--the great house of a neighborhood where small houses and

men of narrow means were infrequent--had gone North about the first

of June, upon a tour of indefinite length, but which was certainly

to include Newport, the lakes, and Niagara, and was still absent.

His aunt, Mrs. Sutton, and his only sister, Mabel, did the honors of

his home in his stead, and, if the truth must be admittbd, more

acceptably to their guests than he had ever succeeded in doing. For

a week past, the house had been tolerably well filled--ditto Mrs.

Sutton's hands; ditto her great, heart. Had she not three love

affairs, in different but encouraging stages of progression, under

her roof and her patronage! And were not all three, to her

apprehension, matches worthy of Heaven's making, and her

co-operation? A devout Episcopalian, she was yet an unquestioning

believer in predestination and "special Providences"--and what but

Providence had brought together the dear creatures now basking in

the benignant beam of her smile, sailing smoothly toward the haven

of Wedlock before the prospering breezes of Circumstance (of her

manufacture)?

While putting sugar and cream into the cups intended for the happy

pairs, she reviewed the situation rapidly in her mind, and sketched

the day's manoeuvres.

First, there was the case of Tom Barksdale and Imogene Tabb--highly

satisfactory and creditable to all the parties concerned in it, but

not romantic. Tom, a sturdy young planter, who had studied law while

at the University, but never practised it, being already provided

for by his opulent father, had visited his relatives, the Tabbs, in

August, and straightway fallen in love with the one single daughter

of his second cousin--a pretty, amiable girl, who would inherit a

neat fortune at her parent's death, and whose pedigree became

identical with that of the Barksdales a couple of generations back,

and was therefore unimpeachable. The friends on both sides were

enchanted; the lovers fully persuaded that they were made for one

another, an opinion cordially endorsed by Mrs. Sutton, and they

could confer with no higher authority.

Next came Alfred Branch and Rosa Tazewell--incipient, but promising

at this juncture, inasmuch as Rosa had lately smiled more

encouragingly upon her timid wooer than she had deigned to do before

they were domesticated at Ridgeley. Mrs. Sutton did not approve of

unmaidenly forwardness. The woman who would unsought be won, would

have fared ill in her esteem. Her lectures upon the beauties and

advantages of a modest, yet alluring reserve, were cut up into

familiar and much-prized quotations among her disciples, and were

acted upon the more willingly for the prestige that surrounded her

exploits as high priestess of Hymen. But Rosa had been too coy to

Alfred's evident devotion--almost repellent at seasons. Had these

rebuffs not alternated with attacks of remorse, during which the

exceeding gentleness of her demeanor gradually pried the crushed

hopes of her adorer out of the slough, and cleansed their drooping

plumes of mud, the courtship would have fallen through, ere Mrs.

Sutton could bring her skill to bear upon it. Guided, and yet

soothed by her velvet rein, Rosa really seemed to become more

steady. She was assuredly more thoughtful, and there was no better

sign of Cupid's advance upon the outworks of a girl's heart than

reverie. If her fits of musing were a shade too pensive, the

experienced eye of the observer descried no cause for discouragement

in this feature. Rosa was a spoiled, wayward child, freakish and

mischievous, to whom liberty was too dear to be resigned without a

sigh. By and by, she would wear her shackles as ornaments, like all

other sensible and loving women.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024