"Perhaps I can save you the trouble by cross-examining it out of you.
Let's try the method of elimination. I know that you're not harassed
by any economical considerations, for you've all the money you want;
and I know that ambition doesn't trouble you, for your tastes are
scholarly. This narrows down the investigation of your symptoms--
listlessness, general dejection, and all--to three causes--dyspepsia,
religious conflicts, love. Now, is your digestion awry?"
"No, sir; good as usual. I'm not melancholy on religion, and--"
"You don't tell me you're in love?"
"Well,--yes--I suppose that's about it, Uncle Teddy."
I took a long breath to recover from my astonishment at this
unimaginable revelation, then said: "Is your feeling returned?"
"I really don't know, uncle; I don't believe it is. I don't see how
it can be. I never did anything to make her love me. What is there in
me to love? I've borne nothing for her--that is, nothing that could
do her any good--though I've endured on her account, I may say,
anguish. So, look at it any way you please, I neither am, do nor
suffer anything that can get a woman's love."
"Oh, you man of learning! Even in love you tote your grammar along
with you, and arrange a divine passion under the active, passive and
neuter!"
Daniel smiled faintly.
"You've no idea, Uncle Teddy, that you are twitting on facts; but you
hit the truth there; indeed, you do. If she were a Greek or Latin
woman I could talk Anacreon or Horace to her. If women only
understood the philosophy of the flowers as well as they do the
poetry--"
"Thank God they don't, Daniel!" sighed I devoutly.
"Never mind--in that case I could entrance her for hours, talking
about the grounds of differences between Linnaeus and Jussieu. Women
like the star business, they say--and I could tell her where all the
constellations are; but sure as I tried to get off any sentiment
about them, I'd break down and make myself ridiculous. But what
earthly chance would the greatest philosopher that ever lived have
with the woman he loved if he depended for her favor on his ability
to analyze her bouquet or tell her when she might look out for the
next occultation of Orion? I can't talk bread-and-butter talk. I
can't do anything that makes a man even tolerable to a woman!"
"I hope you don't mean that nothing but bread-and-butter talk is
tolerable to a woman!"
"No; but it's necessary to some extent--at any rate, the ability is--
in order to succeed in society; and it's in society men first meet
and strike women. And, oh, Uncle Teddy! I'm such a fish out of water
in society!--such a dreadful floundering fish! When I see her dancing
gracefully as a swan swims, and feel that fellows like little Jack
Mankyn, who 'don't know twelve times,' can dance to her perfect
admiration; when I see that she likes ease of manners--and all sorts
of men without an idea in their heads have that--while I turn all
colors when I speak to her, and am clumsy, and abrupt, and
abstracted, and bad at repartee--Uncle Teddy! sometimes (though it
seems so ungrateful to father and mother, who have spent such pains
for me)--sometimes, do you know, it seems to me as if I'd exchange
all I've ever learned for the power to make a good appearance before
her!"
"Daniel, my boy, it's too much a matter of reflection with you! A
woman is not to be taken by laying plans. If you love the lady (whose
name I don't ask you, because I know you'll tell me as soon as you
think best), you must seek her companionship until you're well enough
acquainted with her to have her regard you as something different
from the men whom she meets merely in society, and judge your
qualities by another standard than that she applies to them. If she's
a sensible girl (and God forbid you should marry her otherwise), she
knows that people can't always be dancing, or holding fans, or
running after orange-ice. If she's a girl capable of appreciating
your best points (and woe to you if you marry a girl who can't!),
she'll find them out upon closer intimacy, and, once found, they'll a
hundred times outweigh all brilliant advantages kept in the show-case
of fellows who have nothing on the shelves. When this comes about,
you will pop the question unconsciously, and, to adapt Milton, she'll
drop into your lap, 'gathered--not harshly plucked.'"
"I know that's sensible, Uncle Teddy, and I'll try. Let me tell you
the sacredest of secrets--regularly every day of my life I send her a
little poem fastened round the prettiest bouquet I can get at
Hanft's."
"Does she know who sends them?"
"She can't have any idea. The German boy that takes them knows not a
word of English except her name and address. You'll forgive me,
uncle, for not mentioning her name yet? You see, she may despise or
hate me some day when she knows who it is that has paid her these
attentions; and then I'd like to be able to feel that at least I've
never hurt her by any absurd connection with myself."
"Forgive you? Nonsense! The feeling does your heart infinite credit,
though a little counsel with your head will show you that your only
absurdity is self-depreciation."
Daniel bid me good-night. As I put out my cigar and went to bed my
mind reverted to the dauntless little Hotspur who had spent the
afternoon with me and reversed his mother's wish, thinking:
"Oh, if Daniel were more like Billy!"
It was always Billy's habit to come and sit with me while I smoked my
after-breakfast cigar, but the next morning did not see him enter my
room until St. George's hands pointed to a quarter of nine.
"Well, Billy Boy Blue, come blow your horn; what haystack have you
been under till this time of day? We shan't have a minute to look
over our spelling together, and I know a boy who's going in for
promotion next week. Have you had your breakfast and taken care of
Orab?"
"Yes, sir; but I didn't feel like getting up this morning."
"Are you sick?"
"No-o-o--it isn't that; but you'll laugh at me if I tell you."
"Indeed I won't, Billy!"
"Well"--his voice dropped to a whisper, and he stole close to my
side--"I had such a nice dream about _her_ just the last thing
before the bell rang; and when I woke up I felt so queer--so kinder
good and kinder bad--and I wanted to see her so much that, if I
hadn't been a big boy, I believe I should have blubbered. I tried
ever so much to go to sleep and see her again; but the more I tried
the more I couldn't. After all, I had to get up without it, though I
didn't want any breakfast, and only ate two buckwheat cakes, when I
always eat six, you know, Uncle Teddy. Can you keep a secret?"
"Yes, dear, so you couldn't get it out of me if you were to shake me
upside-down like a savings bank."
"Oh, ain't you mean! That was when I was small I did that. I'll tell
you the secret, though--that girl and I are going to get married. I
mean to ask her the first chance I get. Oh, isn't she a smasher!"
"My dear Billy, won't you wait a little while to see if you always
like her as well as you do now? Then, too, you'll be older."
"I'm old enough, Uncle Teddy, and I love her dearly! I'm as old as
the kings of France used to be when they got married--I read it in
Abbott's histories. But there's the clock striking nine! I must run
or I shall get a tardy mark, and, perhaps, she'll want to see my
certificate sometimes."
So saying, he kissed me on the cheek and set off for school as fast
as his legs could carry him. Oh, Love, omnivorous Love, that sparest
neither the dotard leaning on his staff nor the boy with pantaloons
buttoning on his jacket--omnipotent Love, that, after parents and
teachers have failed, in one instant can make Billy try to become a
good boy!
With both of my nephews hopelessly enamored and myself the confidant
of both, I had my hands full. Daniel was generally dejected and
distrustful; Billy buoyant and jolly. Daniel found it impossible to
overcome his bashfulness; was spontaneous only in sonnets, brilliant
only in bouquets. Billy was always coming to me with pleasant news,
told in his slangy New York boy vernacular. One day he would exclaim:
"Oh, I'm getting on prime! I got such a smile off her this morning as
I went by the window!" Another day he wanted counsel how to get a
valentine to her--because it was too big to shove in a lamp-post, and
she might catch him if he left it on the steps, rang the bell and ran
away. Daniel wrote his own valentine; but, despite its originality,
that document gave him no such comfort as Billy got from his twenty-
five cents' worth of embossed paper, pink cupids and doggerel.
Finally Billy announced to me that he had been to play with Jimmy and
got introduced to his girl.
Shortly after this Lu gave what they call "a little company"--not a
party, but a reunion of forty or fifty people with whom the family
were well acquainted, several of them living in our immediate
neighborhood. There was a goodly proportion of young folk, and there
was to be dancing; but the music was limited to a single piano played
by the German exile usual on such occasions, and the refreshments did
not rise to the splendor of a costly supper. This kind of compromise
with fashionable gaiety was wisely deemed by Lu the best method of
introducing Daniel to the _beau monde_--a push given the timid
eaglet by the maternal bird, with a soft tree-top between him and the
vast expanse of society. How simple was the entertainment may be
inferred from the fact that Lu felt somewhat discomposed when she got
a note from one of her guests asking leave to bring along her niece,
who was making her a few weeks' visit. As a matter of course,
however, she returned answer to bring the young lady, and welcome.
Daniel's dressing-room having been given up to the gentlemen, I
invited him to make his toilet in mine, and, indeed, wanting him to
create a favorable impression, became his valet _pro tem_, tying
his cravat and teasing the divinity student look out of his side
hair. My little dandy Billy came in for another share of attention,
and when I managed to button his jacket for him so that it showed his
shirt-studs "like a man's," Count d'Orsey could not have felt a more
pleasing sense of his sufficiency for all the demands of the gay
world.
When we reached the parlor we found Pa and and Ma Lovegrove already
receiving. About a score of guests had arrived. Most of them were old
married couples, which, after paying their _devoirs_, fell in
two like unriveted scissors--the gentlemen finding a new pivot in pa
and the ladies in ma, where they mildly opened and shut upon such
questions as severally concerned them, such as "the way gold closed"
and "how the children were."
Besides the old married people, there were several old young men of
distinctly hopeless and unmarried aspect who, having nothing in
common with the other class, nor sufficient energy of character to
band themselves for mutual protection, hovered dejectedly about the
arch pillars or appeared to be considering whether, on the whole, it
would not be feasible and best to sit down on the center table. These
subsisted upon such crumbs of comfort as Lu could get an occasional
chance to throw them by rapid sorties of conversation--became
galvanically active the moment they were punched up and fell flat the
moment the punching was remitted. I did all I could for them, but,
having Daniel in tow, dared not sail too near the edge of the
Doldrums, lest he should drop into sympathetic stagnation and be
taken preternaturally bashful, with his sails all aback, just as I
wanted to carry him gallantly into action with some clipper-built
cruiser of a nice young lady. Finally, Lu bethought herself of that
last plank of drowning conversationalists, the photograph album. All
the dejected young men made for it at once, some reaching it just as
they were about to sink for the last time, but all getting a grip on
it somehow, and staying there in company with other people's babies
whom they didn't know, and celebrities whom they knew to death,
until, one by one, they either stranded upon a motherly dowager by
the Fireplace Shoals, or were rescued from the Soda Reef by some
gallant wrecker of a strong-minded young lady, with a view to taking
salvage out of them in the German.
Besides these were already arrived a dozen nice little boys and
girls, who had been invited to make it pleasant for Billy. I had to
remind him of the fact that they were his guests, for, in comparison
with the queen of his affections, they were in danger of being
despised by him as small fry.
The younger ladies and gentlemen--those who had fascinations to
disport or were in the habit of disporting what they considered such,
were probably still at home consulting the looking-glass until that
oracle should announce the auspicious moment for their setting forth.
Daniel was in conversation with a perfect godsend of a girl, who
understood Latin and had begun Greek. Billy was taking a moment's
vacation from his boys and girls, busy with "Old Maid" in the
extension room, and whispering with his hand in mine, "Oh, don't I
wish _she_ were here!" when a fresh invoice of ladies, just unpacked
from the dressing-room in all the airy elegance of evening costume,
floated through the door. I heard Lu say:
"Ah, Mrs. Rumbullion! Happy to see your niece, too. How d'ye do, Miss
Pilgrim?"
At this last word Billy jumped as if he had been shot, and the bevy
of ladies opening about sister Lu disclosed the charming face and
figure of the pretty girl we had met at Barnum's.
Billy's countenance rapidly changed from astonishment to joy.
"Isn't that splendid, Uncle Teddy? Just as I was wishing it! It's
just like the fairy books!" and, rushing up to the party of
newcomers, "My dear Lottie!" cried he, "if I'd only known you were
coming I'd have gone after you!"
As he caught her by the hand I was pleased to see her soft eyes
brighten with gratification at his enthusiasm, but my sister Lu
looked on naturally with astonishment in every feature.
"Why, Billy!" said she, "you ought not to call a strange young lady
'_Lottie!_' Miss Pilgrim, you must excuse my wild boy."
"And you must excuse my mother, Lottie," said Billy, affectionately
patting Miss Pilgrim's rose kid, "for calling you a strange young
lady. You are not strange at all--you're just as nice a girl as there
is."
"There are no excuses necessary," said Miss Pilgrim, with a
bewitching little laugh. "Billy and I know each other intimately
well, Mrs. Lovegrove; and I confess that when I heard the lady aunt
had been invited to visit was his mother, I felt all the more willing
to infringe etiquette this evening by coming where I had no previous
introduction."
"Don't you care!" said Billy encouragingly--"I'll introduce you to
every one of our family; I know 'em, if you don't."
At this moment I came up as Billy's reinforcement, and fearing lest
in his enthusiasm he might forget the canon of society which
introduces a gentleman to a lady, not the lady to him, I ventured to
suggest it delicately by saying:
"Billy, will you grant me the favor of a presentation to Miss
Pilgrim?"
"In a minute, Uncle Teddy," answered Billy, considerably lowering his
voice. "The older people first;" and after this reproof I was left to
wait in the cold until he had gone through the ceremony of
introducing to the young lady his father and his mother.
Billy, who had now assumed entire guardianship of Miss Pilgrim, with
an air of great dignity intrusted her to my care and left us
promenading while he went in search of Daniel. I myself looked in
vain for that youth, whom I had not seen since the entrance of the
last comers. Miss Pilgrim and I found a congenial common ground in
Billy, whom she spoke of as one of the most delightfully original
boys she had ever met--in fact, altogether the most fascinating young
gentleman she had seen in New York society. You may be sure it wasn't
Billy's left ear which burned when I made my responses.
In five minutes he reappeared to announce, in a tone of
disappointment, that he could find Daniel nowhere. He could see a
light through his keyhole, but the door was locked, and he could get
no admittance. Just then Lu came up to present a certain--no, an
uncertain--young man of the fleet stranded on parlor furniture
earlier in the evening. To Lu's great astonishment Miss Pilgrim asked
Billy's permission to leave. It was granted with all the courtesy of
a _preux chevalier_, on the condition readily assented to by the
lady that she should dance one lancers with him during the evening.
"Dear me!" exclaimed Lu, after Billy had gone back like a superior
being to assist at the childish amusement of his contemporaries,
"would anybody ever suppose that was our Billy?"
"I should, my dear sister," said I, with proud satisfaction; "but you
remember I always was just to Billy."
Left free, I went myself to hunt up Daniel, I found his door locked
and a light shining through the keyhole, as Billy had stated. I made
no attempt to enter by knocking, but, going to my room and opening
the window next his, leaned out as far as I could, shoved up his sash
with my cane, and pushed aside his curtain. Such an unusual method of
communication could not fail to bring him to the window with a rush.
When he saw me he trembled like a guilty thing, his countenance fell,
and, no longer able to feign absence, he unlocked his door and let me
enter by the normal mode.
"Why, Daniel Lovegrove, my nephew, what does this mean? Are you
sick?" "Uncle Edward, I am not sick--and this means that I am a fool.
Even a little boy like Billy puts me to shame. I feel humbled to the
very dust. I wish I'd been a missionary and got massacred by savages.
Oh, that I'd been permitted to wear damp stockings in childhood, or
that my mother hadn't carried me through the measles! If it weren't
wrong to take my life into my own hands, I'd open that window, and--
and--sit in a draft this very evening! Oh, yes! I'm just that bitter!
Oh, oh, oh!"
And he paced the floor with strides of frenzy.
"Well, my dear fellow, let's look at the matter calmly a minute. What
brought on this sudden attack? You seemed doing well enough the first
ten minutes after we came down. I was only out of your sight long
enough to speak to the Rumbullion party, who had just come in, and
when I turned around you were gone. Now you are in this fearful
condition. What is there in the Rumbullions to start you off on such
a bender of bashfulness as this which I here behold?"
"Rumbullion indeed!" said Daniel. "A hundred Rumbullions could not
make me feel as I do. But _she_ can shake me into a whirlwind with her
little finger; and _she_ came with the Rumbullions!"
"What! D'you--Miss Pilgrim?"
"Miss Pilgrim!"
I labored with Daniel for ten minutes, using every encouragement and
argument I could think of, and finally threatened him that I would
bring up the whole Rumbullion party, Miss Pilgrim included, telling
them that he had invited them to look at his conchological cabinet,
unless he instantly shook the ice out of his manner and accompanied
me downstairs. The dreadful menace had the desired effect. He knew
that I would not scruple to fulfil it; and at the same time that it
made him surrender, it also provoked him with me to a degree which
gave his eyes and cheeks as fine a glow as I could have wished for
the purpose of a favorable impression. The stimulus of wrath was good
for him, and there was little tremor in his knees when he descended
the stairs. Well-a-day! So Daniel and Billy were rivals!
The latter gentleman met us at the foot of the staircase.
"Oh, there you are, Daniel!" he said cheerily. "I was just going to
look after you and Uncle Teddy. We've wanted you for the dances.
We've had the lancers twice, and three round dances; and I danced the
second lancers with Lottie. Now we're going to play some games--to
amuse the children, you know," he added loftily, with the adult
gesture of pointing his thumb over his shoulder at the extension
room. "Lottie's going to play, too; so will you and Daniel, won't
you, uncle? Oh, here comes Lottie now! This is my brother, Miss
Pilgrim--let me introduce him to you. I'm sure you'll like him.
There's nothing he don't know."
Miss Pilgrim had just come to the newel-post of the staircase and,
when she looked into Daniel's face, blushed like the red, red rose,
losing her self-possession perceptibly more than Daniel.
The courage of weak warriors and timid gallants mounts as the
opposite party's falls, and Daniel made out to say in a firm tone
that it was long since he had enjoyed the pleasure of meeting Miss
Pilgrim.
"Not since Mrs. Cramcroud's last sociable, I think," replied Miss
Pilgrim, her cheeks and eyes still playing the telltale.
"Oho! so you don't want any introduction!" exclaimed Master Billy. "I
didn't know you knew each other, Lottie?"
"I have met Mr. Lovegrove in society. Shall we go and join the
plays?"
"To be sure we shall!" cried Billy. "You needn't mind--all the grown
people are going, too."
On entering the parlor we found it as he had said. The guests being
almost all well acquainted with each other, at the solicitation of
jolly little Miss Bloomingal, sister Lu had consented to make a
pleasant Christmas kind of time of it, in which everybody was
permitted to be young again and romp with the rompiest. We played
blindman's buff till we were tired of that--Daniel, to Lu's delight,
coming out splendidly as blindman, and evincing such "cheek" in the
style he hunted down and caught the ladies as satisfied me that
nothing but his eyesight stood in the way of his making an audacious
figure in the world. Then a pretty little girl, Tilly Turtelle, who
seemed quite a premature flirt, proposed "doorkeeper"--a suggestion
accepted with great _eclat_ by all the children, several grown
people assenting.
To Billy--quite as much on account of his shining prominence in the
executive faculties as of his character as host--was committed the
duty of counting out the first person to be sent into the hall. There
were so many of us that "Aina maina mona mike" would not go quite
round; but, with that promptness of expedient which belongs to
genius, Billy instantly added on, "Intery-mintery-cutery-corn," and
the last word of the cabalistic formula fell upon me--Edward Balbus.
I disappeared into the entry amidst peals of happy laughter from both
old and young, calling, when the door opened again to ask me whom I
wanted, for the pretty lisping flirt who had proposed the game. After
giving me a coquettish little chirrup of a kiss and telling me my
beard scratched, she bade me on my return, send out to her "Mithter
Billy Lovegrove." I obeyed her; my youngest nephew retired; and after
a couple of seconds, during which Tilly undoubtedly got what she
proposed the game for, Billy being a great favorite with the little
girls, she came back, pouting and blushing, to announce that he
wanted Miss Pilgrim. That young lady showed no mock-modesty, but
arose at once and laughingly went out to her youthful admirer, who,
as I afterward learned, embraced her ardently and told her he loved
her better than any girl in the world. As he turned to go back she
told him that he might send to her one of her juvenile cousins,
Reginald Rumbullion. Now, whether because on this youthful
Rumbullion's account Billy had suffered the pangs of that most
terrible passion, jealousy, or from his natural enjoyment of playing
practical jokes destructive of all dignity in his elders, Billy
marched into the room, and, having shut the door behind him,
paralyzed the crowded parlor by an announcement that Mr. Daniel
Lovegrove was wanted.
I was standing at his side and could feel him tremble--see him turn
pale.
"Dear me!" he whispered in a choking voice, "can she mean me?"
"Of course she does," said I. "Who else? Do you hesitate? Surely you
can't refuse such an invitation from a lady?"
"No, I suppose not," said he mechanically. And amidst much laughter
from the disinterested while the faces of Mrs. Rumbullion and his
mother were spectacles of crimson astonishment, he made his exit from
the room. Never in my life did I so much long for that instrument
described by Mr. Samuel Weller--a pair of patent double-million-
magnifying microscopes of hextry power, to see through a deal door.
Instead of this, I had to learn what happened only by report.
Lottie Pilgrim was standing under the hall burners with her elbow on
the newel-post, looking more vividly charming than he had ever seen
her before at Mrs. Cramcroud's sociable or elsewhere. When startled
by the apparition of Mr. Daniel Lovegrove instead of the little Rum-
bullion whom she was expecting, she had no time to exclaim or hide
her mounting color, none at all to explain to her own mind the
mistake that had occurred, before his arm was clasped around her
waist, and his lips so closely pressed to hers, that through her soft
thick hair she could feel the throbbing of his temples. As for
Daniel, he seemed in a walking dream, from which he waked to see Miss
Pilgrim looking into his eyes with utter though not incensed
stupefaction--to stammer:
"Forgive me! Do forgive me! I thought you were in earnest."
"So I was," she said tremulously, as soon as she could catch her
voice, "in sending for my cousin Reginald."
"Oh, dear, what shall I do! Believe me, I was told you wanted me. Let
me go and explain it to mother--she'll tell the rest. I couldn't do
it--I'd die of mortification. Oh, that wretched boy Billy!"
On the principle already mentioned, his agitation reassured her.
"Don't try to explain it now--it may get Billy a scolding. Are there
any but intimate family friends here this evening?"
"No--I believe--no--I'm sure," replied Daniel, collecting his
faculties.
"Then I don't mind what they think. Perhaps they'll suppose we've
known each other long; but we'll arrange it by-and-by. They'll think
the more of it the longer we stay out here--hear them laugh! I must
run back now. I'll send you somebody."
A round of juvenile applause greeted her as she hurried into the
parlor, and a number of grown people smiled quite musically. Her
quick woman wit showed her how to retaliate and divide the
embarrassment of the occasion. As she passed me she said in an
undersone:
"Answer quick! Who's that fat lady on the sofa, that laughs so loud?"
"Mrs. Cromwell Crags," said I as quietly.
Miss Pilgrim made a satirically low courtsey and spoke in a modest
but distinct voice:
"I really must be excused for asking. I'm a stranger, you know; but
is there such a lady here as Mrs. Craggs--Mrs. _Cromwell_ Craggs? For
if so, the present doorkeeper would like to see Mrs. Cromwell Craggs."
Then came the turn of the fat lady to be laughed at; but out she had
to go and get kissed like the rest of us.
Before the close of the evening Billy was made as jealous as his
parents and I was surprised to see Daniel in close conversation with
Miss Pilgrim among the geraniums and fuchsias of the conservatory. "A
regular flirtation!" said Billy somewhat indignantly. The conclusion
they arrived at was, that after all no great harm had been done, and
that the dear little fellow ought not to be peached on for his fun.
If I had known at the time how easily they forgave him, I should have
suspected that the offense Billy had led Daniel into committing was
not unlikely to be repeated on the offender's own account; but so
much as I could see showed me that the ice was broken.
--From "Little Brother, and Other Genre Pictures."