Pink and White Tyranny

“You haven’t seen the boiling spring yet?” she added.

“No, I haven’t seen any thing yet.”

“Well, then, if you’ll give me your arm across the lawn, I’ll show it to you.”

All of this was done in the easiest, most matter-of-course manner in the world; and off they started, John in a flutter of flattered delight at the gracious acceptance accorded to him.

Ethridge and Belle Trevors looked after them with a nod of intelligence at each other.

“Hooked, by George!” said Ethridge.

“Well, it’ll be a good thing for Lillie, won’t it?”

“For her? Oh, yes, a capital thing for her!”

“Well, for him too.”

“Well, I don’t know. John is a pretty nice fellow; a very nice fellow, besides being rich, and all that; and Lillie is somewhat shop-worn by this time. Let me see: she must be seven and twenty.”

“Oh, yes, she’s all that!” said Belle, with ingenuous ardor. “Why, she was in society while I was a school-girl! Yes, dear Lillie is certainly twenty-seven, if not more; but she keeps her freshness wonderfully.”

“Well, she looks fresh enough, I suppose, to a good, honest, artless fellow like John Seymour, who knows as little of the world as a milkmaid. John is a great, innocent, country steer, fed on clover and dew; and as honest and ignorant of all sorts of naughty, wicked things as his mother or sister. He takes Lillie in a sacred simplicity quite refreshing; but to me Lillie is played out. I know her like a book. I know all her smiles and wiles, advices and devices; and her system of tactics is an old story with me. I shan’t interrupt any of her little games. Let her have her little field all to herself: it’s time she was married, to be sure.”

Meanwhile, John was being charmingly ciceroned by Lillie, and scarcely knew whether he was in the body or out. All that he felt, and felt with a sort of wonder, was that he seemed to be acceptable and pleasing in the eyes of this little fairy, and that she was leading him into wonderland.

They went not only to the boiling spring, but up and down so many wild, woodland paths that had been cut for the adornment of the Carmel Springs, and so well pleased were both parties, that it was supper-time before they reappeared on the lawn; and, when they did appear, Lillie was leaning confidentially on John’s arm, with a wreath of woodbine in her hair that he had arranged there, wondering all the while at his own wonderful boldness, and at the grace of the fair entertainer.

The returning couple were seen from the windows of Mrs. Chit, who sat on the lookout for useful information; and who forthwith ran to the apartments of Mrs. Chat, and told her to look out at them.

Billy This, who was smoking his cigar on the veranda, immediately ran and called Harry That to look at them, and laid a bet at once that Lillie had “hooked” Seymour.

“She’ll have him, by George, she will!”

“Oh, pshaw! she is always hooking fellows, but you see she don’t get married,” said matter-of-fact Harry. “It won’t come to any thing, now, I’ll bet. Everybody said she was engaged to Danforth, but it all ended in smoke.”

Whether it would be an engagement, or would all end in smoke, was the talk of Carmel Springs for the next two weeks.

At the end of that time, the mind of Carmel Springs was relieved by the announcement that it was an engagement.

The important deciding announcement was first authentically made by Lillie to Belle Trevors, who had been invited into her room that night for the purpose.

“Well, Belle, it’s all over. He spoke out to-night.”

“He offered himself?”

“Certainly.”

“And you took him?”

“Of course I did: I should be a fool not to.”

“Oh, so I think, decidedly!” said Belle, kissing her friend in a rapture. “You dear creature! how nice! it’s splendid!”

Lillie took the embrace with her usual sweet composure, and turned to her looking-glass, and began taking down her hair for the night. It will be perceived that this young lady was not overcome with emotion, but in a perfectly collected state of mind.

“He’s a little bald, and getting rather stout,” she said reflectively, “but he’ll do.”

“I never saw a creature so dead in love as he is,” said Belle.

A quiet smile passed over the soft, peach-blow cheeks as Lillie answered,—

“Oh, dear, yes! He perfectly worships the ground I tread on.”

“Lil, you fortunate creature, you! Positively it’s the best match that there has been about here this summer. He’s rich, of an old, respectable family; and then he has good principles, you know, and all that,” said Belle.

“I think he’s nice myself,” said Lillie, as she stood brushing out a golden tangle of curls. “Dear me!” she added, “how much better he is than that Danforth! Really, Danforth was a little too horrid: his teeth were dreadful. Do you know, I should have had something of a struggle to take him, though he was so terribly rich? Then Danforth had been horridly dissipated,—you don’t know,—Maria Sanford told me such shocking things about him, and she knows they are true. Now, I don’t think John has ever been dissipated.”

“Oh, no!” said Belle. “I heard all about him. He joined the church when he was only twenty, and has been always spoken of as a perfect model. I only think you may find it a little slow, living in Springdale. He has a fine, large, old-fashioned house there, and his sister is a very nice woman; but they are a sort of respectable, retired set,—never go into fashionable company.”

“Oh, I don’t mind it!” said Lillie. “I shall have things my own way, I know. One isn’t obliged to live in Springdale, nor with pokey old sisters, you know; and John will do just as I say, and live where I please.”

She said this with her simple, soft air of perfect assurance, twisting her shower of bright, golden curls; with her gentle, childlike face, and soft, beseeching, blue eyes, and dimpling little mouth, looking back on her, out of the mirror. By these the little queen had always ruled from her cradle, and should she not rule now? Was it any wonder that John was half out of his wits with joy at thought of possessing her? Simply and honestly, she thought not. He was to be congratulated; though it wasn’t a bad thing for her, either.

“Belle,” said Lillie, after an interval of reflection, “I won’t be married in white satin,—that I’m resolved on. Now,” she said, facing round with increasing earnestness, “there have been five weddings in our set, and all the girls have been married in just the same dress,—white satin and point lace, white satin and point lace, over and over, till I’m tired of it. I’m determined I’ll have something new.”

“Well, I would, I’m sure,” said Belle. “Say white tulle, for instance: you know you are so petite and fairy-like.”

“No: I shall write out to Madame La Roche, and tell her she must get up something wholly original. I shall send for my whole trousseau. Papa will be glad enough to come down, since he gets me off his hands, and no more fuss about bills, you know. Do you know, Belle, that creature is just wild about me: he’d like to ransack all the jewellers’ shops in New York for me. He’s going up to-morrow, just to choose the engagement ring. He says he can’t trust to an order; that he must go and choose one worthy of me.”

“Oh! it’s plain enough that that game is all in your hands, as to him, Lillie; but, Lil, what will your Cousin Harry say to all this?”

“Well, of course he won’t like it; but I can’t help it if he don’t. Harry ought to know that it’s all nonsense for him and me to think of marrying. He does know it.”

“To tell the truth, I always thought, Lil, you were more in love with Harry than anybody you ever knew.”

Lillie laughed a little, and then the prettiest sweet-pea flush deepened the pink of her cheeks.

“To say the truth, Belle, I could have been, if he had been in circumstances to marry. But, you see, I am one of those to whom the luxuries are essential. I never could rub and scrub and work; in fact, I had rather not live at all than live poor; and Harry is poor, and he always will be poor. It’s a pity, too, poor fellow, for he’s nice. Well, he is off in India! I know he will be tragical and gloomy, and all that,” she said; and then the soft child-face smiled to itself in the glass,—such a pretty little innocent smile!

All this while, John sat up with his heart beating very fast, writing all about his engagement to his sister, and, up to this point, his nearest, dearest, most confidential friend. It is almost too bad to copy the letter of a shy man who finds himself in love for the first time in his life; but we venture to make an extract:—

“It is not her beauty merely that drew me to her, though she is the most beautiful human being I ever saw: it is the exquisite feminine softness and delicacy of her character, that sympathetic pliability by which she adapts herself to every varying feeling of the heart. You, my dear sister, are the noblest of women, and your place in my heart is still what it always was; but I feel that this dear little creature, while she fills a place no other has ever entered, will yet be a new bond to unite us. She will love us both; she will gradually come into all our ways and opinions, and be insensibly formed by us into a noble womanhood. Her extreme beauty, and the great admiration that has always followed her, have exposed her to many temptations, and caused most ungenerous things to be said of her.

“Hitherto she has lived only in the fashionable world; and her literary and domestic education, as she herself is sensible, has been somewhat neglected.

“But she longs to retire from all this; she is sick of fashionable folly, and will come to us to be all our own. Gradually the charming circle of cultivated families which form our society will elevate her taste, and form her mind.

“Love is woman’s inspiration, and love will lead her to all that is noble and good. My dear sister, think not that any new ties are going to make you any less to me, or touch your place in my heart. I have already spoken of you to Lillie, and she longs to know you. You must be to her what you have always been to me,—guide, philosopher, and friend.