"Thank you."
"O, it"s no fault of yours. You and aunt have been very kind, but--"
"But you are thinking of the "n.o.blest and most beautiful being in existence," as you once said, referring to my pretty little niece.
You have evidently changed your mind. Did you see some one in New York you liked better?"
"I have not changed my mind. I have only learned too well what my mind is. I wish that I had learned it sooner. There is one thing that troubles me greatly, uncle. I cannot speak of it to aunt, because--Well, I can"t. Do you think that Miss Marsden cares much for me? She will surely forget me, will she not, in the excitement of her city life? I do hope she has no such feeling as I have."
Mr. Dimmerly stared at his nephew as if he thought him demented.
"Well," said he, "I think you have been "enchanted, and are no longer yourself." You now out-Bottom old Bottom himself. Do you mean to say that you love such a gem of a girl as Lottie, and yet hope she does not love you, and will soon forget you?"
"Certainly I do. If I had my will, she would not have another unhappy hour in her life."
"Well, if you have the faintest notion that she has any regard for you, why don"t you get down on your marrow-bones and plead for a chance to make her happy? If I were in your place, and there was half a chance to win a Lottie Marsden, I would sigh like a dozen furnaces, and swear more oaths than were heard in Flanders, if it would help matters along any."
"But would you ask her to leave a home of luxury, her kindred, and every surrounding of culture and refinement, to go out on a rude frontier, and to share in the sternest poverty and the most wearing of work?"
"O--h--h, that is the hitch, is it?"
"Yes. Before I was aware, I had learned to love her. I trust she will never know how deeply; for if she had half a woman"s heart, she would be sad from very pity. If, unconsciously to herself, some regard for me has grown during our visit, it would be a mean and unmanly thing to take advantage of it to inveigle her into a life that would be a painful contrast to all that she had known before. It would be like a soldier asking a woman to share all the hardships and dangers of a campaign."
Mr. Dimmerly stroked his chin thoughtfully, while he regarded his nephew with a shrewd, sidelong glance. "Well," said he, suggestively, "there is force in what you say. But is there any necessity of your being a home missionary, and living out among the "border ruffians,"
as Lottie used to call them? There are plenty of churches at the East. Dr. Beams is old and sick: there may be a vacancy here before long."
"No, uncle," said Hemstead, firmly, "I fought that fight out in New York, and it was a hard one. I have felt for years that I must be a missionary, and shall be true to my vocation. It"s duty"; and he brought his clenched hand down heavily on the table.
"My good gracious!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Dimmerly, giving a nervous hop in the air. "Between the two, what will become of me? Yes, yes; I see. You are like your mother. If she took it into her head that anything was "duty," all the world couldn"t change her. So, rather than give up being a missionary, you will sacrifice yourself and Lottie too?"
"I should have no hesitation in making the sacrifice myself, but it would more than double my pain if I knew she suffered. And it is this that troubles me. But I must obey my orders, whatever happens."
"Well," said Mr. Dimmerly, dryly, and with a queer little twinkle in his eyes, "I cannot give you much aid and comfort. I never meddle in such matters. A third party never can. Of course you can sacrifice yourself and your own happiness if you choose. That is your own affair. But when it comes to sacrificing another, that is very different. Lottie is a warm-hearted girl with all her faults, and if she ever does love, it will be no half-way business with her.
So be careful what you do. Sacrificing her happiness is a very different thing from sacrificing your own."
"But do you think there is any danger of such a thing?" asked Hemstead, in a tone of the deepest distress.
"Bless me, boy! how should I know?" said his uncle, in seeming irritability. "Do you think that I am a go-between for you two?
Why don"t you go and ask her, like a man? How do you know but she has a vocation to be a missionary as well as yourself?"
Hemstead strode up and down the room, the picture of perplexity.
"Was ever a man placed in so cruel a position?" he groaned. But after a moment he became quiet and said, "When a thing is settled, let it stay settled; my course is the only right and manly one"; and he left the room saying he would be out for a walk till dinner.
But as he entered the hall Addie cried, "Frank, you must go; we won"t take no for an answer."
"Go where?"
"To West Point. It"s a glorious day. We want one more sleigh-ride before we break up,--one that shall exceed all the others. There is going to be a cadet hop over there this afternoon, in the dancing-hall, and a friend has sent for us to come. I"ve set my heart on going, and so have Bel and Lottie. Mother says that we can go, if you will go with us and drive, for the coachman is ill.
You will see lots of grand scenery, and all that kind of thing, which you like so much."
"And have you set your heart on the "cadet hop" also?" asked Hemstead of Lottie.
"I think I should appreciate scenery more at present," she said, with a quick blush.
"You"ll go; say you"ll go. He"ll go, mother. It"s all settled.
Let us have some lunch, and we"ll start at once;" and the spoiled little beauty already antic.i.p.ated the conquest of a cadet or two as a holiday episode.
So, in a single breezy moment, it was arranged, Hemstead scarcely having a voice in the matter. As he mounted to his room, reason told him that this long drive in the society of the one whom he believed he should avoid, for her sake as well as his own, was anything but wise. But he tried to satisfy himself with the thought that at no time would he be alone with her; and his heart craved this one more day of companionship, before a lifetime of separation.
As Lottie was about to ascend the stairs, she heard, for the first time since that wretched Monday, Mr. Dimmerly"s odd, chuckling laugh. She looked into the parlor, and, seeing that he was alone, went straight to him, and said, "Now! what do you mean by that queer little laugh of yours?"
"Why do you think I mean anything?" he said, staring at the ceiling.
"Because I haven"t heard it since that dreadful Monday, and before I always heard it when something nice had happened between me and--and--"
"Some one told me last night to mind my own business."
"Now, uncle, you know something."
"I should hope so, at my years,--enough not to meddle." And he still stared high over her head.
"There," said Lottie with tears in her eyes, "everybody in the house is against me now."
The old man"s eyes dropped to her flushed, disappointed face, and his features became almost n.o.ble in their expression of tender sympathy. In a grave, gentle tone, such as she never had heard him use before, he said, "Lottie, come to my private study, before you go."
While the others were at lunch, she glided, unseen, to the little study, that she might receive some comfort to sustain her fainting heart. Her uncle"s first words, however, seemed prosaic, indeed, and very different from what she had expected.
"How old are you, Lottie?"
"I was twenty-one last June," she said, a little proudly.
"So you are a June blossom, eh? Well, you look like it." But he puzzled her by his long, searching glance into her face.
"Why do you ask?" she said.
"I want to be sure that you are old and mature enough to decide a very important question."
"Well," said Lottie, her breath coming quick, "I intend to decide all questions which relate to my own life and well-being."
"Be careful, young woman. You had better follow the advice of old and wise heads like your aunt"s and mother"s."
"Uncle, what do you mean?" said she, impatiently.
"Well," said Mr. Dimmerly, deliberately, looking searchingly into her face all the time, "I have sounded that thick-headed nephew of mine--there, you needn"t start so: do you suppose a Dimmerly would betray a woman"s secret?--and what do you think he most dreads to discover as true?--that you love him a little."
"It"s something he never shall discover," said Lottie, almost harshly, springing up with flashing eyes and scarlet face. "I will not go on this ride, and he shall have no trouble in escaping my society."
"Hold on, now," expostulated Mr. Dimmerly. "Nitroglycerine doesn"t go off half so quick as you of late. I haven"t told you why he is afraid you love him."