"I should be pleased to have her go. It is right she should enjoy herself with the rest of the young folks," said Miss Hagar.
"There! you hear that? Now you go and get ready!"
"But really, dear Gipsy----"
"Now, none of your "dear Gipsy-ing" me! I won"t listen to another word!
You _must_ come; that"s the whole of it," said Gipsy, seizing the work, and throwing it into a corner, and pulling the laughing Celeste by main force from the room.
"But, Gipsy, why are you so anxious for me to go with you to-night?"
said Celeste, when they had reached her chamber.
"Oh, because I have my _raysons_ for it," as little Pat Flynn says. "Now I want you to look your very prettiest to-night, Celeste. In fact, you must be perfectly irresistible."
"I am afraid you are going to play me some trick, Gipsy!" said Celeste, smiling and hesitating.
"Oh! honor bright! Come, hurry up! Put on your white muslin; you look better in it than anything else."
"Besides being the best dress I have," said Celeste, as she took it down, for the cottage maiden always dressed with the utmost plainness and simplicity.
"I"ll run out and gather you some rosebuds for your hair," said Gipsy, as Celeste began to dress.
"But, indeed, Gipsy, I am not accustomed to be so gayly attired," said Celeste, anxiously.
"Nonsense! what is there gay in a few white rosebuds, I"d like to know?
You _shall_ wear them," said Gipsy, hurrying from the room.
Half an hour later and Celeste"s toilet was complete. Very lovely she looked in her simple white robe, fastened at her slender waist by a blue ribbon, her shining hair of pale gold falling like a shower of sunlight over her beautifully white and rounded neck, and wreathed with moss roses. Her fair, rose-tinted face, with its deep, blue eyes, shaded by long, sunny lashes; her red, smiling lips; her softly flushed cheeks, and broad, transparent forehead, bright with youth, and goodness, and loveliness!
"Why, Celeste, you are radiant to-night--lovely, bewitching, angelic!"
exclaimed Gipsy, gazing upon her in sort of rapture.
"Nonsense, dear Gipsy!" said Celeste, smiling, and blushing even at the words of the little hoyden. "Are you, too, becoming a flatterer?"
"Not I; I would scorn to be! You know I never flatter, Celeste; but you seem to have received a baptism of living beauty to-night."
Celeste very well knew Gipsy never flattered. Candor was a part of the elf"s nature; so, blushing still more, she threw a light shawl over her shoulders, and entered the sitting-room. Both girls took leave of Miss Hagar, and entered the carriage, that whirled them rapidly in the direction of Mount Sunset.
"Gipsy, I know you have some design in all this?" said Celeste, as they drove along.
"Well; suppose I have?"
"Why, I shall be tempted to take it very hard indeed. Why have you brought me here, Gipsy?"
"Well, to meet a friend. There now!"
"Who is it?"
"Sha"n"t tell you yet. Here we are at home."
Celeste glanced from the window, and saw the court-yard full of carriages, the hall illuminated, and throngs of people pouring in.
"Is it possible, Gipsy, this is a large party?"
"Yes; just so, my dear."
"Oh, Gipsy! it was too bad of you to entrap me in this way!" said Celeste, reproachfully.
"Fiddle! it"s a great thing to go to a party, ain"t it? Come, jump out, and come up to my dressing-room; I have a still greater surprise in store for you."
Celeste pa.s.sed, with Gipsy, through a side door, and both ran, un.o.bserved, up to her room. Then--after an hour or so, which it took Gipsy to dress, both descended to the saloon, where the dancing was already at its height.
Their entrance into the crowded rooms produced a decided sensation.
Gipsy, blazing with jewels, moved along like a spirit of light, and Celeste, in her fair, moonlight beauty, looking like some stray angel newly dropped in their midst.
Gipsy led her guest to the upper end of the room, under a raised arch of flowers that filled the air with fragrance.
"Stay here until I come back for you," she whispered, as she turned, and disappeared among the throng.
Flitting hither and thither like a sunbeam, she paused until she discovered Louis, with Minnette leaning on his arm, calling up the smiles and blushes to her face at his all-powerful will.
"Louis! Louis! come with me! I want you a moment. You"ll excuse him, Minnette, will you not?" said Gipsy.
"Oh, certainly!" said Minnette, with a radiant look, little dreaming for what purpose he was taken from her.
Pa.s.sing her arm through his, Gipsy led him to where he could obtain a full view of Celeste, without being seen by her.
"Look!" she said, pointing.
He looked, started suddenly, and then stood like one transfixed, with his eyes riveted to the glorious vision before him.
She stood under the flowery canopy, robed in white, crowned with roses, leaning against a marble statue of Hebe, herself a thousand times lovelier than that exquisitely sculptured form and face. This was his ideal, found at last--this the face and figure that had haunted his dreams all his life, but had never been found before; just such an angelic creature he had striven all his life to produce on canvas, and always failed. He stood motionless, enchanted, drinking in to intoxication the bewildering draught of her beauty.
"Louis," said Gipsy, laying her hand on his arm.
He heard not, answered not; he stood gazing like one chained to the spot.
"Louis," she said in a louder tone.
Still she was unheeded,
"Louis, you provoking wretch!" she said, giving him a shake.
"Well?" he said, without removing his dazzled eyes from the vision before him.
"What do you think of her? Is she not lovely?"
"Lovely!" he repeated, rousing himself from the trance into which he had fallen. "Gipsy, she is _divine_. Do not praise her beauty; no words can do it justice."