Arrived at the hall, the girls left their escorts at the door,
and hurried into the crowded dressing room under the stage. What
hand-shakings and laughing exchange of greetings they found there! What
merry peals of gentle laughter! What garrulous exchanges of confidences
as to the causes and effects of the day's labors and pleasures, were
buzzing in the two low-ceiled, square dressing rooms that happy night!
Up from the basement came the fragrant odor of baking meats, and
delicious pastry. A small army of cooks was busy preparing the
elaborate supper; for this was one of the good old-time parties, for
which the tickets cost five dollars in scrip or produce, or less in
cash; and the guests came at early dusk, and after dancing for three
or four hours, were served at the loaded tables in the basement, with
the luxuries and delicacies of mountain food and mountain cooking;
after eating heartily of the supper, all were ready then for the dance
to be renewed until the early morning hours; at any time, however, the
merry-makers were glad to cease from the gay quadrilles, and listen
to the wise counsel or appropriate remarks made, perchance, by the
Presidency of the Church or other good speakers, who were ever the
merriest and best dancers in the room. At these innocent revelries
also, there was a grateful lack of unholy passions and impure thoughts
and words begotten by the too frequent round dancing of novel-reading
youths.
"Did you ever, in your life, see Diantha and Ellie look so pretty?"
asked more than one unselfish mother, as the two girls came up the
little stairway from the dressing room, into the main hall, followed by
their cavaliers.
Diantha was entrancing in her simple, straight-skirted, pale-blue
slip--for she scorned the balloon-like hoops of the day--with no
ornament save the pale gold masses of her luminous hair, and the rich
pink and white of her unappreciated but glorious complexion. She
herself disliked her chief charm, the warm, rich coloring, which gave
so much glowing life and fascinating vitality to the otherwise somewhat
cold expression and haughty air.
Both the girls danced with the lightest grace and the keenest
enjoyment, and each was besieged with partners, for both were
recognized belles in their own circle. Ellen Tyler watched and waited
in vain for the appearance of her beloved friend, John Stevens. She
had never heard a word of love from his lips; indeed, she had never
given him direct encouragement to offer such words; but she knew that,
with a little insistence on his part, she could pour out to him the
wealth of her young heart. And with all her swarm of admirers, she was
unsatisfied, and yearning for the love that had never been offered her.
Yet she was too sweet and womanly to think for a moment of showing more
interest in any man than his own interest in her justified. And so
she waited and watched, trying to dance always in the set nearest the
stairway which led to the outer north entrance of the hall.
She was not particularly surprised when a small boy came up to her and
whispered that a gentleman outside wished to speak to her for a moment.
"Oh," she murmured in her heart, "it must be John."
She threw a shawl around her in passing the dressing room, and followed
the boy outside. She saw no one when she got in the deserted doorway
and was about to turn around and go back to the hall, for the lane
looked very dark and forbidding at that late hour.
Just as she turned, a man with a dark cloak enveloping his whole form
stepped out from the east corner of the building and, with a low bow,
said softly:
"Forgive me, Miss Tyler, but the sight of heaven tempted me to try and
draw out the angel, if but for one moment. I am lonesome, a stranger,
and full of longing for the acquaintance of a sweet woman, be she
sister or friend."
Ellen recognized the voice of her soldier acquaintance, and she
involuntarily shrank back from him.
"Do not shrink from me, dear, sweet, gentle spirit. I am but a lonely,
unhappy man, so near to a paradise of laughter, love and music, and yet
unable to partake of one single element of all the glory that I see.
You remember, even the angels are not ashamed to pity."
Just then someone came into the lane from the sidewalk, and Ellen
hurriedly moved away to enter the deep doorway. As she turned, she felt
a note thrust into her hand and then she was once more inside the safe
precincts of the lighted, noisy building, and she put the note deep
down into her pocket for future reference.
When she once more made her way into the dancing hall, she was
surprised to find John Stevens dancing on the floor, and with no less
a person than her dear friend Diantha. She wondered how she had missed
him, but reflected that he must have come in while she was in the
dressing room hunting her shawl.
"He will soon come to me," she whispered to herself, and waited
impatiently for that coming.
But he did not come. Diantha and he danced together the first time and
the second and the third time, and as Ellen had refused to dance, and
was sitting on the side benches, she could easily follow them as the
couple moved through the mazes of the quadrille and reel. Diantha's
cheeks were glowing, and her eyes looked like blazing stars in the
azure blue, while her lips were like the red balls on the winter wild
rose bushes. And Ellen's sharp eyes noted that Diantha was not now
wearing Charlie's ring. What was happening? Dian floated round with a
rhythmical grace that was always so witching an accomplishment of her
queenly beauty. Ellen watched and listened. She was too shrewd not to
detect some meaning beneath all this throbbing excitement, and she knew
that there was more than the usual effort to fascinate, in the manner
of her friend Dian.
As for John, he seemed almost another man. Talk about blazing eyes;
his almost burned into flame as he kept his intense gaze fastened upon
the uplifted glances of his companion. He said little; Ellen could see
that; but his look and his manner as he came near his dancing partner
betrayed his whole secret. It was for the first time, too, for never
before had he received such open, such undisguised encouragement from
the girl beside him.
"John never looked at me like that," whispered Ellen in her own heart,
"never, never!"
The two dancers were so absorbed in each other that they gave no heed
whatever to anyone about them, and so it came to pass that the brief
space of time spent by John in that eventful ball was spent wholly in
the society of Diantha.
Ellen's enjoyment was all over. She felt nothing but a thrill of
jealous regret, mingled with a passionate wish for another love to
prove to John Stevens that she, too, could be sought and she felt as
well an intense desire for the love itself. She was such a tender,
clinging nature, physical love to her was not an incident, it was life
itself.
When she was safely at home she opened her note and by the light of her
tallow candle, she read:
"My Dear Young Friend:
"I trust you will pardon the seeming forwardness of this letter.
Yours is such a gentle, forgiving nature, that you can but excuse,
especially when you know that the act is prompted by as deep an
affection and as earnest an admiration as could be bestowed by the
heart of a man. I am heartsick and alone. I find myself filled with a
love which is as hopeless as it is passionate; will you not let me at
least have the mournful pleasure of expressing that love, although I
know too well its hopeless character? You are so good, so pure that it
cannot hurt you to become the one star of peace in a stranger's dark
horizon. I would offer you all the love, protection and devotion usual
to my walk in life, if I knew that I dared.
"At least, let me have the opportunity of telling you, once for all,
the love that fills my whole being for the angel who saved my life
at the risk of the anger and ostracism of her own people. Will you
not meet me for a few happy, happy moments while I tell you of my
friendship and esteem? I will be on the northeast corner of the block
on which you live, with a sleigh, tomorrow evening after nine o'clock.
If you wear a white scarf over your head I shall see you in the
distance, and know you are coming.
"I am forever your hopeless, despairing
"LOVER."
The note was written on heavy cream-tinted paper. It bore a beautiful
crest or monogram in one corner, and it was sealed delicately with pink
sealing-wax, stamped with a signet ring, which bore the device of some
ancient French nobleman, and it was filled with a delicious perfumery,
the odor of which floated around her like a visible presence. Ellen
felt in her inmost soul that she should at once destroy this letter,
and go to Aunt Clara with her whole secret; but it was such an
entrancing letter! And John Stevens had flouted her so cruelly. No!
She would keep the letter just to read it again! And then Ellen gave
herself over to vague, delirious day-dreams.