One lovely evening in summer, a circle of young ladies was sitting in
the delicious moonlight that streamed fitfully through the glancing
leaves and fragrant clusters of honeysuckle that shaded the veranda of
Mrs. Tower’s residence, chatting joyfully—the _girls_ I mean—not the
honeysuckles or the moonlight, though I could not vouch that _they_
exchanged no love whispers audible to the ears of fairies—laughing
merrily over the ices and fruit, and of course, gossiping.
Mrs. Tower had been more than usually agreeable, though she was always
lovely; and as to Mr. Style, he had carried every heart. The girls had
all been completely captivated; some by his calm and manly beauty, and
some by the flashing brilliancy of his ripe and richly cultivated mind,
and some by those inexpressible fascinations, which, had he been a man
of the world, would have made him irresistible in all society. But Mr.
Style was a man of pure and exalted piety, and would have
conscientiously feared to use his slightest power to interest a heart to
which his own must stoop from its own moral height to meet, or to whose
affection he could not earnestly respond. Indeed so fastidious was the
Rev. Mr. Style, that he had never met the lady, as he determined, whom
he could cordially invite to the queenship of his affections. He was
verily so happy and contented as an inmate of Mrs. Tower’s family in the
pursuit of his daily duties—so happy in the satisfaction and regard of
his people, that it seldom occurred to him that “it is not good for a
man to be alone.” The mammas and blooming young ladies, however, adopted
that doctrine as one of the most important, prominent and practical of
the whole creed, and most especially did they set their faces against so
Popish a practice as the “celibacy of the clergy!”
Mrs. Tower had withdrawn from the circle a few minutes to examine the
dispatches brought in by the evening mail, but returning soon with a
smile of unusual gladness illuminating her pensive face, and an open
letter in her hand, she said—
“Well, girls, I have intelligence here that makes me very happy. I have
at length prevailed with a young friend of mine, to leave the city and
pass a few weeks with me during the hottest of the season, and I am so
very glad—”
“O, so am I,” interrupted Miss Charlotte Varley, a very languishing
young lady, who had great hopes of success with Mr. Style, since she had
joined his communion and was a teacher in his Sabbath-school—but withal
a _belle_—“a young gentleman from the city will be very refreshing this
terrible weather—I hope he is a pious man, Mrs. Tower—we have so few
of those—and that he will bring us some new plans about Sabbath-schools
and benevolent societies such as are found to be most useful in the
city!”
Miss Varley closed her remarks with a small sigh, and looked at Mr.
Style for pious sympathy. Mr. Style that moment turned away to pluck a
drooping blossom that hung near him, and some of the ruder minxes
indulged in mischievous glances and a smothered laugh.
“I declare, Charlotte,” interposed Miss Emilie Jones, who was one of
Miss Varley’s most sincere despisers, “the effervescence of your regard
for Sabbath-schools and ‘cent societies,’ has quite anticipated the
sequel of Mrs. Tower’s story—you did not allow her time to say whether
we are to be favored by the accession of a _lady_ or a _gentleman_ to
our little country community—but consulting your own fancy, I suppose
you took it for granted it must be a ‘pious young gentleman.’”
The color deepened in Charlotte’s really beautiful face, as a glimpse of
her ridiculous position flashed from Emilie’s playful satire, and to
increase her confusion, the girls all laughed more saucily than before.
There might have been some serious heart-burnings, but Mrs. Tower came
to the rescue.
“Charlotte is entirely excusable, young ladies,” she said, “and I am
responsible for her remark by my own ambiguity. My friend is a _lady_,
and one of the loveliest of her sex in mind and heart. I have not seen
her since she grew into a woman, but I am confident from what I know of
the development of her character, I shall not be disappointed in the
promise of her childhood. She will be here in two weeks at most, and
possibly sooner. Now I am old and dull girls, and I shall draw largely
on your vivacity for her entertainment, at _first_ for _my_ sake, and
afterward, when you know her, for her own.”
“O yes, indeed, Mrs. Tower,” promised the girls, and none more promptly
than Charlotte and Adelaide Varley, both for themselves and for their
mother and three sisters at home. They would specially make a party for
her, though they had determined to make _no_ parties till their friends,
Mrs. Tyler and her daughter, very genteel people from New York, should
come, which event could not certainly be hoped for at least for three
weeks. And Misses Charlotte and Adelaide telegraphed to each other,
while the rest were promising their attentions, how much pleasure it
must afford Mrs. Tyler and Elizabeth if they should happen to recognize
a city acquaintance in Mrs. Tower’s expected visiter—“as their
metropolitan friends,” Charlotte remarked, “were so very gay and
fashionable, they had sometimes languished in the country for a city
face or something that looked familiar.”
“It must be a melancholy and most insupportable deprivation,” chimed in
Emilie Jones, “to spend a whole fortnight on the stretch in such an ugly
and unsightly village as this of N. has the reputation of being,
especially in the summer, and all that time, not so much as _see_ fiery
red brick palisades towering up on both sides of you, and pouring down
on your ‘devoted head’ a perfect torrent of heat! I am sure if I were
anybody’s ‘metropolitan friends,’ I should mourn being obliged to set my
feet on the cool grass! How I should miss the scorching them on a hot
pavement, to say nothing of the disadvantage to my lungs of inhaling
fresh clear air, instead of dust and cigar smoke, and all sorts of vile
fumes and abominations! What is your taste, Mr. Style?”
“I am a great lover of the country, and particularly of this beautiful
village, Miss Emilie,” gallantly replied Mr. Style.
“Well, well, Emilie, enough of your mischief for once,” said Adelaide
Varley, with a very severe smile which she meant for an indifferent one.
“We all know you are more wicked than citified. But my watch says it is
time to go home, and I guess Mrs. Tower will be glad to be rid of such a
set of chatter-boxes as we have proved ourselves this time.”
“Mr. Style will write a livelier sermon for it, I’ll wager my thimble,
after he has slept upon the savor of our conversation,” said Emilie, as
she gave him her hand at parting, and turned gayly round to bid Mrs.
Tower good night.
“Come again, dears, every one of you,” said Mrs. Tower, as she smiled on
the youthful group, “come every day and enliven us with the life of such
glad spirits. Mr. Style would lead a most monotonous life indeed if _I_
were all the company he could have.”
“You, indeed, my dearest Mrs. Tower,” replied Emilie. “That man is
verily avaricious who covets better or more charming society than our
most delightful hostess of this evening, to say nothing of the ice
creams and etceteras! Yes, worthy of stripes is he, whether clergyman or
layman!”
And Emilie finished her speech with a quick glance at the young
minister, and her own peculiarly rich and musical shout of mirth, and
tripped lightly down the terrace and across the wide and shaded street
to her own home.
As the other young ladies of the party had farther to go, Mr. Style took
them all under his protection, rendering particular assistance to Miss
Charlotte, who complained of excessive weariness and lassitude. Beside,
being occasionally afflicted with a difficulty of the heart, she could
not walk so fast as some of the girls, so Mr. Style found himself safely
at Mrs. Varley’s door with his delicate charge, many minutes after all
the others were laughing and speculating about it in their own rooms.
“Well, Adelaide, what do you think of Mrs. Tower’s coaxing a very pretty
young lady to her house, to pass some weeks in company with the Rev. Mr.
Style?” said Charlotte, very sharply, as she ran upstairs to the parlor,
in double quick time, quite independent of the “heart difficulty,” that
had so impeded her progress home.
“It’s downright scandalous!” said Miss Annette, the eldest daughter,
“and I should not wonder at any breeze it might raise in the church and
society—it may result in something very unpleasant indeed!” and Annette
shook her head very doubtfully.
“It is ridiculous! Nothing but a trap, depend on it,” said Mrs. Varley,
for Adelaide had detailed the whole story with her own annotations long
before Charlotte reached home.
“It is really a very presuming thing,” seriously responded Annette,
shaking her head still more dubiously.
“Yes, yes—very presumptuous indeed!” sneered Mrs. Varley, who never had
any opinions, only those that were to be had at second hand. “Just as if
Mrs. Tower could not only dictate who we shall have for minister, but
also who he shall _marry_! for I declare, girls, it looks like
that—don’t it now?”
“To be sure it does, mamma,” replied Annette; “you have hit the nail on
the head this time! It takes _you_ to see what folks are about behind
the scenes. Lottie, did you get any particulars about this person out of
Mr. Style, coming home—whether he ever saw her—whether she is rich and
fashionable, so it will do for _us_ to notice her—”
“No, Annette, I did not learn any thing about her, though I asked
questions enough in all conscience,” fretted Charlotte. “But I think we
had better write immediately to Mrs. Tyler and find out something,” she
continued. “I declare, mamma,” and the tears started to her eyes for
very vexation and disappointment, “Mr. Style would not speak only on the
most indifferent subjects coming home, and if I don’t bring him to the
point soon, I don’t believe one of us will ever be married in the world,
and I will go to a convent! I _will_!”
“Don’t say so, Lottie! don’t dear,” soothed the mamma—“only think what
good aim money takes at the hearts of men, and are we not _rich_, child;
and are not my daughters fine dashing girls, dressing as well as the
best of ’em, and wont they finally marry _jest as they please_? The
chaff always blows away first, they used to say when I was young!”
“Well, who wants to wait forever, mother, for all that?” said Annette,
who really had waited a reasonable time, with her purse and her heart in
her hand, and yet no bidders.
“_I_ for one, want to wait till I am _sought_,” said Adelaide, “and not
make such a ridiculous matter of it as Charlotte does, in her pursuit of
Mr. Style. The girls all laughed at your speeches, Lottie, till I am
heartily vexed and ashamed about the whole game. Do be a little wiser in
your demonstrations—”
“I guess I’ll come and borrow some of the wisdom _you_ have to spare,
Miss,” retorted Charlotte, very angrily, as she rose and whisked out of
the room, slamming the door violently after her.
Mrs. Varley and the three sisters, Annette, Almeda, and Cynthia, all
pounced upon Adelaide, who was really more shrewd and sensible than they
all, till she diverted them from the attack by a narration of what was
always interesting, the gossip she had gathered from one and another,
together with her own active surmises during the evening.
“If you had seen how Emilie Jones acted, mamma—I could not help
thinking Mr. Style and Mrs. Tower were both delighted with her
impudence,” said Adelaide. “For my part, I think she is one of the
sauciest and most sarcastic imps I ever saw. If Capt. Jones was not so
rich and his family so influential, I would cut her acquaintance.”
“And a mighty deal would she care for that,” replied Annette, “so long
as Mrs. Tower makes such friends of her and her mother. But did she tell
you that her father and George are coming home directly? Mrs. Jones was
here to-night, and she said so.”
“No—she did not say a word about it. She makes no disclosures to me,”
returned Adelaide. “There will be another mark for our beautiful
Charlotte—the young lieutenant—if she does not succeed in her
‘ecclesiastical measures,’” she added, biting her lips in expectation of
a torrent of displeasure from her mother and sisters. It came, of
course, and in a fit of resentment and passion, she too flirted off to
bed.