The next day at class, Laura's place still being empty, I watched
eagerly for Clara. The people were pouring in at the door, and I,
knowing their faces, could not but feel how unlike she was to them
all, when in the way she appeared, so bright in her dark dress, with
her cloudless forehead and air of ecstatic innocence. She spoke to me
to-day.
"How are you?"
"Quite well; and you, Miss Benette? But I want you to listen to me
presently; seriously, I have something to say."
"I'll wait," and she took her seat.
Davy extolled our anthem, and did not stop us once, which fact was
unprecedented. We all applauded _him_ when he praised _us_, at which
he laughed, but was evidently much pleased. In fact, he had already
made for himself a name and fame in the town, and the antagonistic
jealousy of the resident professors could not cope therewith, without
being worsted; they had given him up, and now let him alone,--thus his
sensitive nature was less attacked, and his energy had livelier play.
When the class divided, Miss Benette looked round at me: "I am at your
service, Master Auchester."
I gave her my mother's message. She was sweet and calm as ever, but
still grave, and she said, "I am very grateful to your mother, and to
those young ladies your sisters; but I never do go anywhere out to
tea."
"But, Miss Benette, you are going to that party at the Redferns'."
"I am going to sing there,--that is different. It is very hard to me
not to come, but I must not, because I have laid it upon myself to do
nothing but study until I come out. Because, you see, if I make
friends now, I might lose them then, for they might not like to know
me."
"Miss Benette!"--I stamped my foot--"how dare you say so? We should
always be proud to know you."
"I cannot tell that," she retorted; "it might be, or it might not.
Perhaps you will think I am right one day. I should like to have
come," she persisted bewitchingly. But I was inwardly hurt, and I
daresay she thought me outwardly sulky, for it was all I could do to
wish her good-evening like a "young gentleman," as she had called me.
I said to Millicent, when we were walking the next morning, that I had
had my fortune told. We had a long conversation. I saw she was very
anxious to disabuse me of the belief that I must necessarily be what,
in myself, I had always held myself ready to become, and I laughed her
quite to scorn.
"But, Charles," she remonstrated, "if this is to be, you must be
educated with a direct view to those purposes."
"So I shall be; but when she said medicine she did not mean I should
be an apothecary, Millicent," and I laughed the more.
"No, I rather think it is music you ought to profess. But in that case
you will require high as well as profound instruction."
"I mean to profess an instrument, and I mean to go to Germany and
learn all about it."
"My dear boy!"
"Yes, I do, and I know I shall; but as I have not chosen my instrument
yet, I shall wait."
Millicent herself laughed heartily at this. "Would you like to learn
the horn, Charles? or the flute? or perhaps that new instrument, the
ophicleide?" And so the subject dwindled into a joke for that while. I
then told her in strict confidence about Laura. I scarcely ever saw
her so much excited to interest; she evidently almost thought Clara
herself angelic, and to my delight she at length promised to call with
me upon her, if I would ascertain that it would be convenient. I shall
never forget, too, that Millicent begged for me from my mother some
baked apples, some delicate spiced jelly, and some of her privately
concocted lozenges, for Laura. I do think my mother would have liked
to dispense these last _a la largesse_ among the populace. I carried
these treasures in a small basket to Miss Benette, and saw her just
long enough to receive her assurance that she should be so pleased if
my sister would come and look at her work.
Sweet child! as indeed she was by the right of Genius (who, if Eros be
immortal youth, hath alone immortal fancy),--she had laid every piece
of her beauteous work, every scrap of net or cambric, down to that
very last handkerchief, upon the table, which she had covered with a
crimson shawl, doubtless some relic of her luxurious mother conserved
for her. And with the instinct of that ideal she certainly created in
her life, she had interspersed the lovely manufactures with little
bunches of wild-flowers and green, and a few berries of the wild
rose-tree, ripe and red.
I was enchanted. I was proud beyond measure to introduce to her my
sister; proud of them both. Millicent was astonished, amazed; I could
see she was quite puzzled with pleasure, but more than all she seemed
lost in watching Clara's calm, cloudless face.
"Which of the pieces do you like best?" asked Miss Benette at last,
after we had fully examined all.
"Oh! it is really impossible to say; but if I could prefer, I should
confess, perhaps, that this is the most exquisitely imagined;" and
Millicent pointed to a veil of thin white net, with the border worked
in the most delicate shades of green floss silk, a perfect wreath of
myrtle-leaves; and the white flowers seemed to tremble amidst that
shadowy garland. I never saw anything to approach them; they were far
more natural than any paintings.
Miss Benette took this veil up in her little pink hands, and folding
it very small, and wrapping it in silver paper, presented it to
Millicent, saying, in a child-like but most touching manner, "You must
take it, then, that you may not think I am ungrateful; and I am so
glad you chose that."
As Millicent said, it would have been impossible to have refused her
anything. I quite longed to cry, and the tears stood in my
tender-hearted sister's eyes; but Clara seemed entirely unconscious
she had done anything touching or pretty or complete.
If I go on in this way, raking the embers of reminiscence into rosy
flames, I shall never emancipate myself into the second great phase of
my existence. It is positively necessary that I should not revert to
that veil at present, or I should have to delineate astonishment and
admiration that had no end.