"Oh, grandpa! I--I wish he hadn"t!" she stammered, dropping her face upon his breast and bursting into tears.
"Who, my pet? who has dared to ill use you?" he asked, caressing her.
Vi lifted her head and looked up at him in surprise, for certainly his tone was rather amused than angry or stern. Then at a sudden remembrance of the captain"s a.s.sertion that he had sought and obtained her grandfather"s permission to offer her his hand, "Oh, grandpa, why did you let him?" she said, again hiding her blushing face on his breast; "you know I could never, never leave mamma! dear, dear mamma!"
"I am glad to hear it!" he returned with satisfaction, repeating his caresses, "for I don"t know what either she or I could do without you. And that was your answer to Capt. Raymond?"
"Yes, sir."
"Very well, go and tell mamma about it--she will be as glad as I am to hear that we are not to lose our darling little Vi--while I see what I can say to comfort the captain."
He released her as he spoke, and she flew to do his bidding.
Rosie and Walter were still with their mother in her boudoir, but as Violet came in with her flushed, agitated face, they were gently bidden to run away for a little while.
As the door closed on them, Violet dropped on her knees by her mother"s chair and laid her head in her lap, hiding her face.
"My dear child! my dear, precious little daughter!" Elsie said, softly smoothing the golden tresses.
"Mamma, you know?"
"Yes, dearest."
"O mamma, I can"t leave you! how could I?"
"Dear child! it would be a sore trial to have to part with you; and I cannot be sorry that you are not ready or willing to go. You are one of the very great blessings and comforts of your mother"s life!"
"Dearest mother, thank you! They are very sweet words to hear from your lips," Violet said, lifting her face to look up into her mother"s with a beautiful smile.
"And so you have said your suitor nay?" Elsie asked, with playful look and tone.
"I hardly know what I said, mamma, except that I was too young and foolish and couldn"t leave you!"
"You do not care for him at all?"
"I--I don"t know, mamma!" and the sweet, innocent face was suffused with blushes; "I had never thought of his fancying me--hardly more than a child--while he--mamma, is he not very n.o.ble and good and wise? and so brave and unselfish!--you know how he risked his life to save a poor old negress; and how much he has suffered in consequence, and how patiently he has borne it all!"
"And how handsome he is?"
"Yes, mamma, one reads the n.o.bility of his nature in his face, and his bearing is soldierly."
"Ah, my little girl! my heart misgives me that I hold you by a very frail tenure!" Elsie sighed between a smile and a tear, as she bent her head to look searchingly into the depths of the azure eyes.
Violet"s face crimsoned, and her head went down again into her mother"s lap.
"Mamma, you need not fear," she said, very low and tremulously, "I have rejected his offer, and I cannot leave you."
"I am much mistaken if he is so easily repulsed," Elsie said. "He is a brave soldier, and will renew the a.s.sault nor raise the siege of my daughter"s heart until he has brought it to a full if not unconditional surrender."
"Mamma, I wish I could run away."
"Come, then, to the Laurels with me, and you need not return until bedtime to-night, unless you choose."
Vi"s face brightened, then clouded again. "Thank you, mamma, I will go, yet it will be putting off the evil day for but a very little while."
"It will give you time to think and a.n.a.lyze your own feelings, so that you will be the better prepared for the next a.s.sault," was the playful rejoinder. "Go now, dear child, and make yourself ready. The carriage will be at the door almost immediately--Arthur has consented to my taking the children in a close carriage. They must return before sundown, but you need not be in such haste."
Mr. Dinsmore did not find Capt. Raymond looking so completely cast down as he had expected. His face was slightly flushed, his expression somewhat perplexed and disappointed, but by no means despairing.
"I fear I have been too precipitate," he said, in answer to his host"s inquiring look. ""The more haste the less speed," as the old proverb has it. I fear I frightened the dear girl by too sudden and vehement an avowal of my pa.s.sion. Yet I trust it may not be too late to retrieve my error."
"She rejected your suit?" Mr. Dinsmore said interrogatively.
"Yes, she seemed to do so!" sighed the lover, "yet the objections she urged are not insurmountable. She calls herself too young and foolish, but I hope to convince her that that is a mistake. Young she is indeed, but very far from foolish. She cannot leave her mother is another objection, but that I should not ask her to do--as a landlubber might," he added sportively, "would in all probability. As much of my life must be spent at sea, it would not be worth while to set up a home of my own on land, if I had a wife who preferred to live with her mother."
"Well, sir, that is certainly much in your favor," said Mr. Dinsmore; "our greatest, almost our only objection to your suit being the thought of parting with the child of our love."
When Violet came home that evening she did not rejoin the family in the parlor, but went directly to her own apartments.
"Where is mamma?" she inquired of her maid as she threw off her hat and cloak.
"In de parlor, Miss Wi"let."
"Are the children in bed and asleep?"
"Yes, miss."
Violet opened a bureau drawer and took therefrom several small packages.
Undoing one, she brought to light the miniature of her father which she had painted. She carried it to the lamp and stood for some minutes gazing down upon the beloved face with fast-falling tears.
"Oh, papa, papa!" she murmured, "how hard it is to live without you!"
At length closing the case and restoring it to the box whence she had taken it, she gathered up the other parcels and went first to her mother"s dressing-room, where she laid the little box on the toilet-table, then on to the rooms occupied by her younger sister and brothers, leaving a gift for each.
Going back to her own rooms, she espied a letter directed to herself, which she had not noticed before. She had seen Capt. Raymond"s handwriting frequently during the weeks he had been at Ion, and recognized it at a glance. The rich color rushed over face and neck, and her heart beat fast.
"Agnes," she said to her maid, "you may go now; I shall not need you any more to-night," and the girl went out, leaving her alone.
Even then she did not at once open her letter, but moved slowly back and forth for some minutes, with it in her hand. Then kneeling down she asked earnestly for heavenly guidance in this important crisis of her life.
Looking into her own heart that day, she had learned that she was far from indifferent to him who had asked her to exchange with him vows of mutual love and trust, and to be the partner of his joys and sorrows. She was not indifferent, but did she love him well enough to leave, for his sake, the dear home of her childhood and the sweet mother to whom her heart had ever clung with the most ardent affection?
CHAPTER XIV.
"Nor less was she in heart affected, But that she masked it with modesty, For fear she should of lightness be detected."
--_Spenser"s "Fairy Queen."_