It is the pleasant summer time, and on the college green groups of
people hurry to and fro, some seeking their own pleasure beneath the
grateful shade of the majestic elms, others wending their way to the
hotel, while others still are hastening to the Center Church to hear the
valedictory, which rumor says will be all the better received for the
noble, manly beauty of the speaker chosen to this honor. Flushed with
excitement, he stands before the people, his clear hazel eye wandering
uneasily over the sea of upturned faces, as if in quest of one from
whose presence he had hoped to catch his inspiration. But he looked in
vain. Two figures alone met his view,--one a bent and gray-haired old
man leaning on his staff, the other a mustached, stylish-looking youth
of nearly his own age, who occupied a front seat, and with his glass
coolly inspected the young orator.
With a calm, dignified mien, Walter returned the gaze, wondering where
he had seen that face before. Suddenly it flashed upon him, and with a
feeling of gratified pride that it was thus they met again, he glanced a
second time at the calm, benignant expression of the old man, who had
come many miles to hear the speech his boy was to make. In the looks of
the latter there was that which kindled a thrill of enthusiasm in
Walter's frame, and when at last he opened his lips, and the tide of
eloquence burst forth, the audience hung upon his words with breathless
interest, greeting him at the close with shouts of applause which shook
the solid walls and brought the old man to his feet. Then the tumult
ceased, and amid the throng the hero of the hour was seen piloting his
aged grandfather across the green to the hotel.
"I wish your father was here to-day," the deacon said, as they reached
the public parlor; but before Walter could reply he saw approaching them
the stranger who had so leisurely inspected him with his quizzing-glass,
and who now came forward, offering his hand and saying, laughingly:
"Allow me to congratulate you upon having become yourself a _lion_."
It did not need this speech to tell Walter that his visitor was William
Bellenger, and he answered in the same light strain:
"Yes, I'm not afraid of the lion now;" "nor of the baboon, either," was
his mental rejoinder, as he saw the wondrous amount of hair his cousin
had brought back from Europe, where for the last two years he had been
traveling.
William Bellenger could be very gracious when he tried, and as his
object in introducing himself to Walter's notice was not so much to talk
with him particularly, as to inquire after a certain young girl and
heiress, whose bright, sparkling beauty was beginning to create
something of a sensation, he assumed a friendliness he did not feel, and
was soon conversing familiarly with Walter of the different people they
both knew, mentioning incidentally Mr. Graham, the wealthy New York
banker, whom he had met in Europe, for Mr. Graham had remained abroad
six years. From him William had heard the warmest eulogies of Walter
Marshall, and there had been kindled in his bosom a feeling of jealous
enmity, which the events of the day had not in the least tended to
diminish. Still if his cousin had not interfered with him in another
matter of greater importance than the being praised by Mr. Graham and
the people, he was satisfied, and it was to ascertain this fact that he
had followed young Marshall to the hotel.
Before going to New Haven William had called at the home of Jessie's
grandmother in the city, to inquire for the young lady. The house was
shut up and the family were in the country, the servant said, who
answered William's ring, but the sharp eyes of the young man caught the
outline of a figure listening in the upper hall, and readily divining
who the figure was, he answered:
"Yes, but Mrs. Bartow is here. Carry her my card and say that I will
wait."
The name of Bellenger brought down at once a bundle of satin and lace,
which Jessie called her grandmother, and which was supposed to be
showing off its diamonds at some fashionable hotel, instead of fanning
itself in the back chamber of that brownstone front. From her William
learned that Jessie was in Deerwood, and would probably attend the
commencement exercises at Yale, as a boy of some kind, whom Mr. Graham
had taken up, was to be graduated at that time. To New Haven, then, he
went, examining the books at every hotel, and scanning the faces of
those he met with an eager gaze, and at last, as he became convinced she
was not there, he determined to seek an interview with his cousin, and
question him of her whereabouts. After speaking of the father as a man
whose acquaintance every one was proud to claim, he said, quite
indifferently:
"By the way, Walter, his daughter Jessie is in Deerwood, is she not?"
"Yes," returned Walter; "she has been there for some weeks. She lived
with us all the time her father was in Europe, except when she was away
at school," and Walter felt his pulses quicken, for he remembered what
Mr. Graham had said of Mrs. Bartow's having set her heart on William as
her future grandson.
William knew as well as Walter that Jessie had lived at Deerwood, but he
seemed to be surprised, and continued:
"I wonder, then, she is not here to-day. She must feel quite a sisterly
interest in you," and the eyes, not wholly unlike Walter's, save that
they had in them a sinister expression, were fixed inquiringly upon
young Marshall, who replied:
"I did expect her, and my cousin too; but my grandfather says that Ellen
was not able to come, and Jessie would not leave her."
"She must be greatly attached to her country friends," returned William,
and the slight sneer which accompanied the words prompted Walter to
reply:
"She is attached to some of us, I trust. At all events, I love her as a
sister, for such she has been to me, while Mr. Graham has been a second
father. I owe him everything----"
"Not your education, certainly. You don't mean that?" interrupted
William, who had from the first suspected as much, for he knew that
Deacon Marshall was comparatively poor.
Walter hesitated, for he had not yet outlived the pride which caused him
to shrink from blazoning it abroad that a stranger's money had made him
what he was. Deacon Marshall, on the contrary, had no such
sensitiveness, and observing Walter's embarrassment, he answered for
him:
"Yes, Mr. Graham did pay for his education, and an old man's blessing on
his head for that same deed of his'n."
"Mr. Graham is very liberal," returned William, with a supercilious bow,
which brought the hot blood to Walter's cheek. "Do you go home
immediately?" he continued, and Walter replied:
"My grandfather has a desire to visit Medway, in Massachusetts, where he
married his wife, and as I promised to go with him in case he came to
New Haven, I shall not return to Deerwood for a week."
Instantly the face of William Bellenger brightened, and Walter felt a
strong desire to knock him down when he said:
"Allow me, then, to be the bearer of any message you may choose to send,
for I am resolved upon seeing Miss Graham, and shall, accordingly, go to
Deerwood. She will need a gallant in your absence, and trust me, I will
do my best, though I cannot hope to fill the place of a _lion_."
Involuntarily Walter clenched his fist, while in the angry look of
defiance he cast upon his cousin, the impudent William read all the
withering scorn he felt for him. Ay, more, for he read, too, or thought
he did, that the beautiful Jessie Graham, whose father was worth a
million, had a warm place in the young plebeian's heart, and this it was
which brought the wrathful scowl to his own face as he compelled himself
to offer his hand at parting.
"What message did you bid me carry?" he asked, and taking his extended
hand, Walter looked fiercely into his eyes as he replied:
"None; I can tell her myself all I have to say."
"Very well," said William, with another bow, and stroking the little
forest about his mouth, he walked away.
"I don't put much faith in presentiments," said the deacon, when he was
gone, "but all the time that chap was here I felt as if a snake were
crawling at my feet. Believe me, he's got to cross my path or yourn,
mebby both," and the deacon resumed his post by the window, watching the
passers-by, while Walter hurriedly paced the floor with a vague, uneasy
sensation, for though he knew of no way in which the unprincipled
Bellenger could possibly cross his grandfather's path, he did know how
he could seriously disturb himself.
Not that he had any confessed hope of winning Jessie Graham. She was far
above him, he said. Yet she was the one particular star he worshiped,
feeling that no other had a right to share the brightness with him, and
when he remembered the shady, winding paths in the pleasant old woods at
Deerwood, and the long afternoons when Ellen would be too languid to go
out, and William and Jessie free to go alone, he longed for his
grandfather to give up his favorite project and go back with him to
Deerwood. But when he saw how the old man was set upon the visit,
wondering if he should know the place, and if the thorn-apple tree were
growing still where he sat with Eunice and asked her to be his wife, he
put aside all thoughts of self, and went cheerfully to Medway, while his
cousin, with an eye also to the shadowy woods and the quiet mountain
walks, was hurrying on to Deerwood.