on a pleasant may morning, in the spring succeeding the events narrated in the last chapter, the door of dr. clayton’s office was locked against all intruders. the shutters were closed; while within, with his feet upon a table and his hands clasped over his head, the doctor himself was revolving the all-important question—whether it were better to offer himself at once to dell thompson “and have it done with,” or to wait a few years for a little girl, who had recently crossed his pathway, leaving on his memory footprints he could not easily efface. for the benefit of any young men who may be similarly situated, we give a portion of his reasoning, as follows:
“now, i am as positive as a man need be that i can have either of them for the asking; therefore, in a case which involves the happiness of one’s whole life, it behooves me to consider the matter well. to be sure, if i follow the bent of my inclination, i am decided at once; but then, marriages of convenience sometimes prove just as pleasant as those of pure love; and so i’ll go over with the pros and cons of both, deciding upon the one which has the most of the former!
“first, then, there’s rose, a most beautiful name. only think how refreshing it would be after riding ten or twelve 106miles, visiting farmer stubbs or widow grubbs, to know there was a rose watching for your return. yes, her name is in her favor.”
here the hands came down from the head, and wrote one pro against the name of rose, after which they resume their former position, and the doctor goes on with his soliloquy:
“she is frank, artless, unassuming, means what she says—in short, she is perfectly natural, and i always feel refreshed after a talk with her.” (makes pro number 2.) “then she is so wholly unselfish in her affection for me—loves me so devotedly—sees no fault in me whatever—thinks me handsome, i dare say, and all that.”
here glancing at himself in a little mirror opposite, and smoothing his shining moustache, the doctor waxes eloquent on said rose’s supposed admiration for him, writing down, in the heat of his excitement two pros, making in all four! verily, rosa lee, your prospect of becoming mrs. dr. clayton is brightening fast. but to proceed:
“she is smart, intelligent, talented, writes poetry—and, with proper training, would perhaps make a distinguished writer. were i sure on this point, i should not hesitate; but you can’t tell what these precocious children will make; frequently they come to a stand-still.”
and here, to make the matter sure, he writes against her name one pro for what she possibly may be, and one con for what she probably will not be!
“then i love her better than anything else in the known world. i do, that’s a fact; but she’s young—only fourteen—and before she’s old enough to marry she may change forty times, and that would kill me dead.”
puts down one pro for his own love, and one con for rose’s possible inconstancy.
“but she is poor—or, her father, they say, is worth 107only about $5,000! he already has nine children, and there’s time enough for three or four more:—thirteen into five thousand makes—long division, a rule i never fancied; too poor altogether!”
and against rose’s name there is con no. 3, long and black, with the shadow of her four unborn brothers, who, by the way, never came in for a share of the $5,000.
“then her family connections, i do not suppose, are such as would add anything to my influence. good, respectable people, no doubt, but not known in the world like the hungerfords, dell thompson’s maternal relatives. to be sure, i once heard rose speak of an uncle who resides in boston, but i dare say he’s some grocer or mechanic, living on a back street; while dell’s uncle, from the same city, must be a man of wealth and importance, judging by the figure his wife cuts when she visits the captain.”
here dell received a pro for the hungerford blood flowing in her veins, while rose had a con for the want of said hungerford blood.
“dell, too, has $10,000 of her own, or rather will have, when her grandmother dies; and there are not many young men who can jump into that fortune every day. yes, $10,000 is a decided temptation.”
and lest rose, who already numbered six, should come out in the majority, three long marks were put down against the $10,000 to be inherited at the death of a grandmother, whose name dell bore.
“then dell has an air, which shows at once what she is, and no man need be ashamed of her in any place.” (mark no. 5.) “then, again, she’s handsome—decidedly so—such beautiful eyes! such small feet! and curls!”
here a vague remembrance of certain long shoes, with wads of cotton, versus french slippers and silken hose, arose 108before the man of the world, resulting in a pro for the slippers, and a con for the cotton!
“but dell is deceitful—high-tempered—artificial—selfish superficial—and all that! the other picture suits me best, or would, were it not for the hungerford blood, and the $10,000. let me see how it foots up:—six pros for dell, and the same number for rose.”
here was a dilemma; but anon he remembered how awkwardly the last mentioned young lady looked, when she fell at his feet—and this decides the matter. he is sensitive to ridicule, very, and he could not endure the sneering remarks which an avowed attachment to her might call forth from the world of fashion; so he crosses one of the pros which he had written against her name, when he thought how much she admired him—and then it stands, dell 6; rose 5!
thus was the die cast. alas! for the young girl, who, that same spring morning, stole away to her accustomed haunt, the old grape-vine, whose swelling buds were not an unfit symbol of the bright hopes now springing in her glad heart. as she sits there alone, with the running brook at her feet, she thinks of him who has grown so strongly into her love; and though, in words, he has never said so, by ten thousand little acts he has told her that her affection was returned, and for his sake she wishes she was older. he has wished so too, in her presence, many a time; but as that cannot be, she resolves to spend the season of her childhood in making herself what she knows he would wish her to be, were she to share his lot in life; and then, when the lapse of years shall have ripened her into womanhood, she thinks how she can, without shame, put her hand in his, and go forth into the world satisfied, though it brought her naught but care, if he were only with her.
109alas, for thee, rosa! a few miles to the southward, and the same sun which now shines softly down on you, looks in through a richly curtained window, and its golden rays fall on the queenly form of your rival; who, with a look of exultation on her finely cast features, listens to the words she has long waited to hear, and which have now been spoken; while he, of whom you dream, bends gently over her, his own—his betrothed! and still, in the very moment of his triumph, there comes up before him a pale, childish face, which, with its dreamy eyes of blue, looks reproachfully upon him. but pride and ambition weave together a veil with which hides the image from his view, bidding him forget that any other save the peerless dell, e’er stirred the fountain of his love.
would it be well for us always to know what is passing in the minds of our friends, whether present or absent? i think not; and still, could rosa lee have known what had transpired, methinks she would not have darted away so quickly as she did, when told that dr. clayton was coming through the gate one afternoon, about six weeks after his engagement with dell. why she ran, she could not tell, except it were, as her brother charlie said, that “gals always run off and spit on their hair, when they saw their beaux coming.”
homely as this expression is, there was in this case some truth in it; for, though rose did not spit upon her hair, she went to her room and brushed it, winding one or two of the rougher curls about her finger, then taking from its hiding-place the ring, his gift, she placed it upon her finger, and with heightened color went down to greet the doctor, who had come to make his farewell visit—for, four weeks from that night, dell thompson would be his wife. long 110had he debated the propriety of seeing rose again, conscience bidding him leave her alone, while inclination clamored loudly for one more quiet talk with her, one more walk by moonlight, one more look into her childish face, and then he would leave her forever; never again suffering a thought of her to come between him and the bride of his choice.
and for this purpose he had come; but when he saw how joyfully rose met him, and how the bloom deepened on her usually pale cheek, his heart misgave him, and for the first time, he began to realize the wrong he had done her. but it was now too late to remedy it, he thought; and as if bent upon making matters still worse, he asked her to accompany him in a walk down the green lane, to the haunts he knew she loved the best, and where they had more than once been before. oh, that walk!—how long it lingered in the memory of rose, for never before had the doctor’s manner been so marked, or his words so kind as when together they sat upon the moss-grown bank, beneath the spreading vine, while he talked to her of the past, of the happiness he had experienced in her society, and which he said would be one of the few green spots, to which, in the years to come, he should look back with pleasure. then drawing her so closely to him that her head almost rested upon his shoulder, he asked of her the privilege of “once kissing her before they parted”——he did not say forever, but the rustling leaves and the murmuring brook whispered it in her ear as she granted his request, shuddering the while, and wondering at the strangeness of his manner. possibly he had it in his mind to tell her, but if so, he found himself unequal to the task, and he left her without a word of the coming event, of which she had not the slightest suspicion.
