"All your attempts
Shall fall on me like brittle shafts on armor."
Lucy came into Elsie's room early the next morning to show her
birthday gifts, of which she had received one or more from every
member of her family. They consisted of articles of jewelry, toilet
ornaments, and handsomely-bound books.
They learned on meeting Herbert at breakfast that he had fared quite
as well as his sister. Elsie slipped a valuable ring on Lucy's finger
and laid a gold pencil-case beside Herbert's plate.
"Oh, charming! a thousand thanks, mon ami!" cried Lucy, her eyes
sparkling with pleasure.
"Thank you, I shall value it most highly; especially for the giver's
sake," said Herbert, examining his with a pleased look, then turning
to her with a blush and joyous smile, "I am so much better this
morning that I am going out for a drive. Won't you and Lucy give me
the added pleasure of your company?"
"Thank you, I can answer for myself that I'll be very happy to do so."
"I, too," said Lucy. "It's a lovely morning for a ride. We'll make up
a party and go, but we must be home again in good season; for Carrie
and Enna promised to come to dinner. So I'm glad we finished the book
yesterday, though we were all so sorry to part from little Ellen."
They turned out quite a strong party; Herbert and the ladies filling
up the family carriage, while Harry on horseback, and John and Archie
each mounted upon a pony, accompanied it, now riding alongside, now
speeding on ahead, or perchance dropping behind for a time as suited
their fancy.
They travelled some miles, and alighting in a beautiful grove, partook
of a delicate lunch they had brought with them. Then, while Herbert
rested upon the grass the others wandered hither and thither until it
was time to return. They reached home just in season to receive their
expected guests.
Carrie Howard was growing up very pretty and graceful; womanly in her
ways, yet quite unassuming in manner, frank and sweet in disposition,
she was a general favorite with old and young, and could already boast
of several suitors for her hand.
Enna Dinsmore, now in her fourteenth year, though by some considered
even prettier, was far less pleasing--pert, forward, and conceited as
she had been in her early childhood; she was tall for her age, and
with her perfect self-possession and grown-up air and manner, might
be easily mistaken for seventeen. She had already more worldly wisdom
than her sweet, fair niece would ever be able to attain, and was, in
her own estimation at least, a very stylish and fashionable young
lady. She assumed very superior airs toward Elsie when her brother
Horace was not by, reproving, exhorting, or directing her; and was
very proud of being usually taken by strangers for the elder of the
two. Some day she would not think that a feather in her cap.
Elsie had lost none of the childlike simplicity of five years ago;
it still showed itself in the sweet, gentle countenance, the quiet
graceful carriage, equally removed from forwardness on the one hand,
and timid self-consciousness on the other. She did not consider
herself a personage of importance, yet was not troubled by her
supposed insignificance; in fact seldom thought of self at all, so
engaged was she in adding to the happiness of others.
The four girls were gathered in Lucy's room. She had been showing her
birthday presents to Carrie and Enna.
"How do you like this style of arranging the hair, girls?" asked the
latter, standing before a mirror, smoothing and patting, and pulling
out her puffs and braids. "It's the newest thing out. Isabel Carleton
just brought it from New York. I saw her with hers dressed so, and
sent Delia over to learn how."
Delia was Miss Enna's maid, and had been brought along to Ashlands
that she might dress her young lady's hair in this new style for the
party.
"It's pretty," said Lucy. "I think I'll have Minerva dress mine so for
to-night, and see how it becomes me."
"Delia can show her how," said Enna. "Don't you like it, Carrie?"
"Pretty well, but if you'll excuse me for saying so, it strikes me as
rather grown up for a young lady of thirteen," answered Carrie in a
good-naturedly bantering tone.
Enna colored and looked vexed. "I'm nearly fourteen," she replied with
a slight toss of the head; "and I overheard Mrs. Carleton saying to
mamma the other day, that with my height and finished manners I might
pass anywhere for seventeen."
"Perhaps so; of course, knowing your age, I can't judge so well how it
would strike a stranger."
"I see you have gone back to the old childish way of arranging your
hair. What's that for?" asked Enna, turning to Elsie; "I should
think it was about time you were beginning to be a little womanly in
something."
"Yes, but not in dress or the arrangement of my hair. So papa says,
and of course I know he is right."
"He would not let you have it up in a comb?"
"No," Elsie answered with a quiet smile.
"Why do you smile? Did he say anything funny when you showed yourself
that day?"
"Oh, Elsie, have you tried putting up your hair?" asked Carrie; while
Lucy exclaimed, "Try it again to-night, Elsie, I should like to see
how you would look."
"Yes," said Elsie, answering Carrie's query first. "Enna persuaded me
one day to have mammy do it up in young-lady fashion. I liked it right
well for a change, and that was just what mamma said when I went into
the drawing-room and showed myself to her. But when papa came in, he
looked at me with a comical sort of surprise in his face, and said.
'Come here; what have you been doing to yourself?' I went to him and
he pulled out my comb, and ordered me off to mammy to have my hair
arranged again in the usual way, saying, 'I'm not going to have you
aping the woman already; don't alter the style of wearing your hair
again, till I give you permission.'
"And you walked off as meek as Moses, and did his bidding," said Enna
sarcastically. "No man shall ever rule me so. If papa should undertake
to give me such an order, I'd just inform him that my hair was my own,
and I should arrange it as suited my own fancy."
"I think you are making yourself out worse than you really are,
Enna," said Elsie gravely. "I am sure you could never say anything so
extremely impertinent as that to grandpa."
"Impertinent! Well, if you believe it necessary to be so very
respectful, consistency should lead you to refrain from reproving your
aunt."
"I did not exactly mean to reprove you, Enna, and you are younger than
I."
"Nobody would think it," remarked Enna superciliously and with a
second toss of her head, as she turned from the glass; "you are so
extremely childish in every way, while, as mamma says, I grow more
womanly in appearance and manner every day."
"Elsie's manners are quite perfect, I think," said Carrie; "and her
hair is so beautiful, I don't believe any other style of arrangement
could improve its appearance in the least."
"But it's so childish, so absurdly childish! just that great mass of
ringlets hanging about her neck and shoulders. Come, Elsie, I want you
to have it dressed in this new style for to-night."
"No, Enna, I am perfectly satisfied to wear it in this childish
fashion; and if I were not, still I could not disobey papa."
Enna turned away with a contemptuous sniff, and Lucy proposed that
they should go down to the drawing-room, and try some new music she
had just received, until it should be time to dress for the evening.
Herbert lay on a sofa listening to their playing. "Lucy," he said in
one of the pauses, "what amusements are we to have to-night?--anything
beside the harp, piano, and conversation?"
"Dancing, of course. Cad's fiddle will provide as good music as any
one need care for, and this room is large enough for all who will be
here. Our party is not to be very large, you know."
"And Elsie, for one, is too pious to dance," sneered Enna.
Elsie colored, but remained silent.
"Oh! I did not think of that!" cried Lucy. "Elsie, do you really think
it is a sinful amusement?"
"I think it wrong to go to balls; at least that it would be wrong for
me, a professed Christian, Lucy."
"But this will not be a ball, and we'll have nothing but quiet country
dances, or something of that sort, no waltzing or anything at all
objectionable. What harm can there be in jumping about in that way
more than in another?"
"None that I know of," answered Elsie, smiling. "And I certainly shall
not object to others doing as they like, provided I am not asked to
take part in it."
"But why not take part, if it is not wrong?" asked Harry, coming in
from the veranda.
"Why, don't you know she never does anything without asking the
permission of papa?" queried Enna tauntingly. "But where's the use of
consulting her wishes in the matter, or urging her to take part in the
wicked amusement?--she'll have to go to bed at nine o'clock, like any
other well-trained child, and we'll have time enough for our dancing
after that."
"Oh, Elsie, must you?--must you really leave us at that early hour?
Why, that's entirely too bad!" cried the others in excited chorus.
"I shall stay up till ten," answered Elsie quietly, while a deep flush
suffused her cheek.
"That is better, but we shall not know how to spare you even that
soon," said Harry. "Couldn't you make it eleven?--that would not be so
very late just for once."
"No, for she can't break her rules, or disobey orders. If she did,
papa would be sure to find it out and punish her when she gets home."
"For shame, Enna! that's quite too bad!" cried Carrie and Lucy in a
breath.
Elsie's color deepened, and there was a flash of anger and scorn in
her eyes as she turned for an instant upon Enna. Then she replied
firmly, though with a slight tremble of indignation in her tones: "I
am not ashamed to own that I do find it both a duty and a pleasure to
obey my father, whether he be present or absent. I have confidence,
too, in both his wisdom and his love for me. He thinks early hours of
great importance, especially to those who are young and growing, and
therefore he made it a rule that I shall retire to my room and begin
my preparations for bed by nine o'clock. But he gave me leave to stay
up an hour later to-night, and I intend to do so."
"I think you are a very good girl, and feel just right about it," said
Carrie.
"I wish he had said eleven, I think he might this once," remarked
Lucy. "Why, don't you remember he let you stay up till ten Christmas
Eve that time we all spent the holidays at Roselands, which was five
years ago?"
"Yes," said Elsie, "but this is Saturday night, and as to-morrow is
the Sabbath, I should not feel it to be right to stay up later, even
if I had permission."
"Why not? it isn't Sunday till twelve," said Herbert.
"No, but I should be apt to oversleep myself, and be dull and drowsy
in church next morning."
"Quite a saint!" muttered Enna, shrugging her shoulders and marching
off to the other side of the room.
"Suppose we go and select some flowers for our hair," said Lucy,
looking at her watch. "'Twill be tea-time presently, and we'll want to
dress directly after."
"You always were such a dear good girl," whispered Carrie Howard,
putting her arm about Elsie's waist as they left the room.
Enna was quite gorgeous that evening, in a bright-colored silk,
trimmed with multitudinous flounces and many yards of ribbon and gimp.
The young damsel had a decidedly gay taste, and glanced somewhat
contemptuously at Elsie's dress of simple white, albeit 'twas of the
finest India muslin and trimmed with costly lace. She wore her pearl
necklace and bracelets, a broad sash of rich white ribbon; no other
ornaments save a half-blown moss rosebud at her bosom, and another
amid the glossy ringlets of her hair, their green leaves the only bit
of color about her.
"You look like a bride," said Herbert, gazing admiringly upon her.
"Do I?" she answered smiling, as she turned and tripped lightly away;
for Lucy was calling to her from the next room.
Herbert's eyes followed her with a wistful, longing look in them, and
he sighed sadly to himself as she disappeared from his view.
Most of the guests came early; among them, Walter and Arthur Dinsmore;
Elsie had not seen the latter since his encounter with Mr. Travilla.
He gave her a sullen nod on entering the room, but took no further
notice of her.
Chit-chat, promenading and the music of the piano and harp were
the order of the evening for a time; then games were proposed, and
"Consequences," "How do you like it?" and "Genteel lady, always
genteel," afforded much amusement. Herbert could join in these, and
did with much spirit. But dancing was a favorite pastime with the
young people of the neighborhood, and the clock had hardly struck nine
when Cadmus and his fiddle were summoned to their aid, chairs and
tables were put out of the way, and sets began to form.
Elsie was in great request; the young gentlemen flocked about her,
with urgent entreaties that she would join in the amusement, each
claiming the honor of her hand in one or more sets, but she steadily
declined.
A glad smile lighted up Herbert's countenance, as he saw one and
another turn and walk away with a look of chagrin and disappointment.
"Since my misfortune compels me to act the part of a wallflower, I am
selfish enough, I own, to rejoice in your decision to be one also," he
said gleefully. "Will you take a seat with me on this sofa? I presume
your conscience does not forbid you to watch the dancers?"
"No, not at all," she answered, accepting his invitation.
Elsie's eyes followed with eager interest the swiftly moving forms,
but Herbert's were often turned admiringly upon her. At length he
asked if she did not find the room rather warm and close, and proposed
that they should go out upon the veranda. She gave a willing assent
and they passed quietly out and sat down side by side on a rustic
seat.
The full moon shone upon them from a beautiful blue sky, while a
refreshing breeze, fragrant with the odor of flowers and pines, gently
fanned their cheeks and played among the rich masses of Elsie's hair.
They found a good deal to talk about; they always did, for they were
kindred spirits. Their chat was now grave, now gay--generally the
latter; for Cad's music was inspiriting; but whatever the theme of
their discourse, Herbert's eyes were constantly seeking the face of
his companion.
"How beautiful you are, Elsie!" he exclaimed at length, in a tone of
such earnest sincerity that it made her laugh, the words seemed to
rush spontaneously from his lips. "You are always lovely, but to-night
especially so."
"It's the moonlight, Herbert; there's a sort of witchery about it,
that lends beauty to many an object which can boast none of itself."
"Ah, but broad daylight never robs you of yours; you always wear it
wherever you are, and however dressed. You look like a bride to-night;
I wish you were, and that I were the groom."
Elsie laughed again, this time more merrily than before. "Ah, what
nonsense we are talking--we two children," she said. Then starting to
her feet as the clock struck ten--"There, it is my bed-time, and I
must bid you good-night, pleasant dreams, and a happy awaking."
"Oh, don't go yet!" he cried, but she was already gone, the skirt of
her white dress just disappearing through the open hall door.
She encountered Mrs. Carrington at the foot of the stairs. "My dear
child, you are not leaving us already?" she cried.
"Yes, madam; the clock has struck ten."
"Why, you are a second Cinderella."
"I hope not," replied Elsie, laughing. "See, my dress has not changed
in the least, but is quite as fresh and nice as ever."
"Ah, true enough! there the resemblance fails entirely. But, my dear
child, the refreshments are just coming in, and you must have your
share. I had ordered them an hour earlier, but the servants were slow
and dilatory, and then the dancing began. Come, can you not wait long
enough to partake with us? Surely, ten o'clock is not late."
"No, madam; not for another night of the week, but to-morrow's the
Sabbath, you know, and if I should stay up late to-night I would be
likely to find myself unfitted for its duties. Besides, papa bade me
retire at this hour; and he does not approve of my eating at night; he
thinks it is apt to cause dyspepsia."
"Ah, that is too bad! Well, I shall see that something is set away for
you, and hope you will enjoy it to-morrow. Good-night, dear; I must
hurry away now to see the rest of my guests, and will not detain you
longer," she added, drawing the fair girl toward her and kissing her
affectionately, then hastening away to the supper-room.
Elsie tripped up the stairs and entered her room. A lamp burned low on
the toilet table, she went to it, turned up the wick, and as she did
so a slight noise on the veranda without startled her. The windows
reached to the floor and were wide open.
"Who's there?" she asked.
"I," was answered, in a rough, surly tone, and Arthur stepped in.
"Is it you?" she asked in surprise and indignation. "Why do you come
here? it is not fit you should, especially at this hour."
"It is not fit you should set yourself up to reprove and instruct your
uncle, I've come for that money you are going to lend me."
"I am not going to lend you any money."
"Give it then; that will be all the better for my pocket.
"I have none to give you either, Arthur; papa has positively forbidden
me to supply you with money."
"How much have you here?"
"That is a question you have no right to ask."
"Well, I know you are never without a pretty good supply of the
needful, and I'm needy. So hand it over without any more ado;
otherwise I shall be very apt to help myself."
"No, you will not," she said, with dignity. "If you attempt to rob me,
I shall call for assistance."
"And disgrace the family by giving the tattlers a precious bit of
scandal to retail in regard to us."
"If you care for the family credit you will go away at once and leave
me in peace."
"I will, eh? I'll go when I get what I came for, and not before."
Elsie moved toward the bell rope, but anticipating her intention, he
stepped before it, saying with a jeering laugh, "No, you don't!"
"Arthur," she said, drawing herself up, and speaking with great
firmness and dignity, "leave this room; I wish to be alone."
"Hoity-toity, Miss Dinsmore! do you suppose I'm to be ordered about by
you? No, indeed! And I've an old score to pay off. One of these days
I'll be revenged on you and old Travilla, too; nobody shall insult and
abuse me with impunity. Now hand over that cash!"
"Leave this room!" she repeated.
"None of your ---- impudence!" he cried fiercely, catching her by the
arm with a grasp that wrung from her a low, half-smothered cry of
pain.
But footsteps and voices were heard on the stairs, and he hastily
withdrew by the window through which he had entered.
Elsie pulled up her sleeve and looked at her arm. Each finger of
Arthur's hand had left its mark. "Oh, how angry papa would be!" she
murmured to herself, hastily drawing down her sleeve again as the door
opened and Chloe came in, followed by another servant bearing a small
silver waiter loaded with dainties.
"Missus tole me fetch 'em up with her compliments, an' hopes de young
lady'll try to eat some," she said, setting it down on a table.
"Mrs. Carrington is very kind. Please return her my thanks, Minerva,"
said Elsie, making a strong effort to steady her voice.
The girl, taken up with the excitement of what was going on
downstairs, failed to notice the slight tremble in its tones. But
not so with Chloe. As the other hurried from the room, she took her
nursling in her arms, and gazing into the sweet face with earnest,
loving scrutiny; asked, "What de matter, darlin'? what hab resturbed
you so, honey?"
"You mustn't leave me alone, to-night, mammy," Elsie whispered,
clinging to her, and half hiding her face on her breast. "Don't go out
of the room at all, unless it is to step on the veranda."
Chloe was much surprised, for Elsie had never been cowardly.
"'Deed I won't, darling" she answered, caressing the shining hair, and
softly rounded cheek. "But what my bressed chile 'fraid of?"
"Mr. Arthur, mammy," Elsie answered scarcely above her breath. "He was
in here a moment since, and if I were alone again he might come back."
"An' what Marse Arthur doin' yer dis time ob night, I like ter
know?--what he want frightenin' my chile like dis?"
"Money, mammy, and papa has forbidden me to let him have any, because
he makes a bad use of it." Elsie knew to whom she spoke. Chloe was no
ordinary servant, and could be trusted.
"Dear, dear, it's drefful that Marse Arthur takes to dem bad ways! But
don't go for to fret, honey; we'll 'gree together to ask de Lord to
turn him to de right."
"Yes, mammy, you must help me to pray for him. But now I must get
ready for bed; I have stayed up longer than papa said I might."
"Won't you take some of de 'freshments fust, honey?"
Elsie shook her head. "Eat what you want of them, mammy. I know I am
better without."