And now I want you to come right over to our house and spend the evening with us. Mother told me to come for you. Oh, Georgia! we"ll have a good time!"
"Well, there, Em, you needn"t strangle me about it," said Georgia, laughingly releasing herself. "If Miss Jerusha doesn"t want me particularly, I"ll go."
Two years previously Georgia would no more have thought of asking Miss Jerusha"s leave about any thing than she would of flying; but since she had come to a sense of her duty things were different. But as the leopard cannot change his spots, nor the Ethiope his skin, so neither could she entirely change her nature, and there was an involuntary defiant light in her eye and haughtiness in her tone when asking a favor, and a fierce bright flash and pa.s.sionate gesture when refused.
Miss Jerusha looked undecided, and was beginning a dubious "Wal, raily, now--" when Emily"s impulsive arms were around _her_ neck, and her pretty face upturned.
"Ah, now, Miss Jerusha, please do; that"s a dear! Do just let her come over this once. I want her so dreadfully! P-p-please now."
No heart, unless made of double-refined cast iron, could resist that sweet little face and pleading "please now;" so Miss Jerusha, who liked little Emily (as indeed n.o.body could help doing), accordingly "pleased,"
and Emily, giving her a kiss--of which commodity that small individual had a large stock in trade, that like the widow"s cruse of old, never diminished--put on Georgia"s hat, and, nodding a smiling good-by to Miss Jerusha, marched her off in triumph.
"I am so glad, Georgia, you got so many prizes. Oh! I knew all along you were real clever. I should like to be clever, but I"m not one bit; but you, I guess you"re going to be a genius, Georgia," said Emily, soberly.
"Nonsense, Em! A genius! I hope I shall never be anything half so dreadful."
"Dreadful! Why, Georgia!"
"Why, Emily!" said Georgia, mimicking her, "geniuses are a nuisance, I repeat--just as comets, or meteors, or eclipses, or anything out of the ordinary course are. People make a fuss about them and blacken their noses looking through smoked gla.s.s at them, and then they are gone in a twinkling, and not worth all the time that was wasted looking at them. I know it is sacrilege and high treason to say so, but that doesn"t alter my opinion on the subject, and so don"t trouble that small, anxious head of yours, my dear little snow-flake, about my being a genius again."
"I know who thinks so as well as I do," said Emily.
"Who?"
"Why, Richmond Wildair. Do you recollect the day, long ago, he first told you to go to school?"
"Yes."
"Coming home that day he said he knew you were a little genius and should not hide your light under a bushel, but set it on the hill-top. I remember his words, because they sounded so funny then that they made me laugh."
"Pooh! what does he know about it? What a little simpleton I must have been to do everything he used to tell me to! Still, that was good advice about going to school, and I don"t know but what, on the whole, I feel grateful to him for it. That was two years ago--wasn"t it, Em? Why, it seems like yesterday."
"And that funny brother of his," said Emily, laughing at some recollections of her own, "he used to say things in such a droll way. I wonder if they"ll ever come back."
"Why, what would bring them back, now that their uncle is gone away for his health? I wonder if traveling really _does_ make sick people well?"
"Don"t know, I"m sure. Isn"t it a pity to have such a nice house as that shut up and so lonely and deserted looking?"
"I wish that house was mine," said Georgia. "I should like to live in a large, handsome place like that. I hate little old cramped places like our cottage--they"re horrid."
"Why, that"s coveting your neighbor"s goods," said Emily. "Look out, Georgia."
"Well, then, I should like one as good as that. I wish I owned one just like it. I _shall_, too, some day," said Georgia, decidedly.
"Do tell," said Emily, "where are you going to get it? Are you going to rob a peddler?"
"No. I intend to be rich."
"You do? _How?_"
"I don"t know yet; but I _shall_! I"m determined to be rich. I am quite sure I will be," said Georgia, in a tone of quiet decision.
"Well, really! But it"s better to be poor than rich. "It"s easier for a camel--" You know what the Testament says."
"I"d risk it. Why, Emily, it"s riches moves the world; the whole earth is seeking it. Poverty is the greatest social crime in the whole category, and wealth covereth a mult.i.tude of sins. Don"t tell me! I know all about it, and I am determined to be rich--_I don"t care by what means_!"
Her wild eyes were blazing with that insufferable light that always illuminated them when she was excited, and the stern determination her set face expressed as she looked resolutely before her startled timid little Emily.
"Oh, Georgia, I don"t think it"s right to talk so!" she said, in a subdued tone; "I"m sure it"s not. I don"t think riches make people happy; do you?"
"No," said Georgia, quietly.
"Oh, Georgia, then why do you wish for it? Why do you crave so for wealth?"
"Because wealth brings power!"
"But neither does power bring happiness."
"To _me_ it would. Power is the life of my life. Knowledge is power--therefore I studied; but it is only a means to an end. Wealth will attain that end, therefore wealth I must and _will_ have."
The look of resolute determination deepened. She looked at that moment like one resolved to conquer even fate, and to tread remorselessly under foot all that stood between her and the goal of her daring ambition.
"What would you do if you were rich?"
"I would travel, for one thing--I should like to see the world. I would visit England, and France, and Germany, and Italy--dear, beautiful Italy! that I love as if it were my fatherland. I would visit the Alps--Oh, Em! how I love great sublime mountains rearing their heads up to heaven. I would sail down the Rhine, the bright flowing Rhine! I would visit the demons of the Black Forest, and see if I happen to be related to them, in any way. I would cultivate the acquaintance of the Black Horseman of the Hartz Mountains--and finally I should settle down and marry a prince. Yes, I rather think I _shall_ marry some prince, Em!"
"Oh, Georgia! you"re a case!" said Emily, breaking into one of her silvery peals of laughter; "marry a prince! what an idea!"
"Well, I am good enough for any prince or emperor that ever wore a crown," said Georgia, with a flash of her black eyes, and a proud lift of her haughty little head, "and I should consider that the honor was conferred upon him, and not me, if I did marry one--now then!"
"Oh, what a b.u.mp of self-esteem you have, Georgia!" said Emily, still laughing; "what a notion to talk about getting married, any way! whoever heard of such a thing."
"Well, it"s nothing strange! you didn"t suppose I was going to be an old maid like Miss Jerusha, did you? _Of course_ I"ll get married! I always intended to!" said Georgia, decidedly, "and so will you, Emily."
"To another prince," said Emily, shyly.
"No, to--Charley Wildair!"
"I guess not! But here we are at home, and what would mother say if she heard us talking like this? It all comes of your reading so many novels, Georgia. Here, mother; here she is. I"ve got her," cried Emily, flying into the pretty little parlor, where Mrs. Murray, a pleasant little lady, a faded copy of her bright little daughter, sat sewing. Mrs.
Murray kissed Georgia, and congratulated her on her success, and then went out to see about tea.
Later in the evening Father Murray, a benign-looking old man, with silver-white hair, and a look so patriarchal that it had suggested Charley Wildair"s graphic description of his being like one of those "blessed old what"s-their-names in the Bible," came in, and the conversation turned upon Georgia"s success.
"I suppose you felt quite elated, Georgia, at carrying off the highest honors to-day?" he said, smiling.
"A little, only," said Georgia. "It wasn"t much to be proud of."
"What! To vanquish all compet.i.tors not much to be proud of! Why, Georgia?"