Campbell promised that black Ezra, who had accompanied her from Chicopee, should go and report faithfully all the proceedings, and then Jenny consented to remain at home, though all the day she seemed restless and impatient, wondering how long before Uncle Ezra would return, and then weeping as in fancy she saw article after article disposed of to those who would know little how to prize it.
About five o"clock Uncle Ezra came home, bringing a note from Ida, saying that the carriage would soon be round for Mary and Jenny, both of whom must surely come, as there was a pleasant surprise awaiting them. While Mary was reading this, Jenny was eagerly questioning Uncle Ezra with regard to the sale, which, he said, "went off uncommon well," owing chiefly, he reckoned, "to a tall, and mighty good-lookin"
chap, who kept bidding up and up, till he got "em about where they should be. Then he"d stop for someone else to bid."
"Who was he?" asked Mary, coming forward, and joining Jenny.
"Dun know, Miss; never seen him afore," said Uncle Ezra, "but he"s got heaps of money, for when he paid for the pianner, he took out a roll of bills near about big as my two fists!"
"Then the piano is gone," said Jenny sadly, while Mary asked how much it brought.
"Three hundred dollars was the last bid I heard from that young feller, and somebody who was biddin" agin him said, "twas more"n "twas wuth."
"It wasn"t either," spoke up Jenny, rather spiritedly, "It cost five hundred, and it"s never been hurt a bit."
"Mr. Bender bought that _little fiddle_ of your"n," continued Uncle Ezra, with a peculiar wink, which brought the color to Jenny"s cheeks; while Mary exclaimed, "Oh, I"m so glad you can have your guitar again."
Here the conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the carriage, which came for the young ladies, who were soon on their way to Mr.
Selden"s, Mary wondering what the surprise was, and Jenny hoping William would call in the evening. At the door they met Ida, who was unusually merry,--almost too much so for the occasion, it seemed to Mary, as she glanced at Jenny"s pale, dispirited face. Aunt Martha, too, who chanced to cross the hall, shook Mary"s hand as warmly as if she had not seen her for a year, and then with her broad, white cap-strings flying back, she repaired to the kitchen to give orders concerning the supper.
Mary did not notice it then, but she afterwards remembered, that Ida seemed quite anxious about her appearance, for following her to her room, she said, "You look tired, Mary. Sit down and rest you awhile.
Here, take my vinaigrette,--that will revive you." Then as Mary was arranging her hair, she said, "Just puff out this side a little more;--there, that"s right. Now turn round, I want to see how you look."
"Well, how do I?" asked Mary, facing about as Ida directed.
"I guess you"ll do," returned Ida. "I believe Henry Lincoln was right, when he said that this blue merino, and linen collar, was the most becoming dress you could wear: but you look well in every thing, you have so fine a form."
"Don"t believe all her flattery," said Jenny, laughingly "She"s only comparing your tall, slender figure with little dumpy me; but I"m growing thin,--see," and she lapped her dress two or three inches in front.
"Come, now let"s go down," said Ida, "and I"ll introduce you, to Jenny"s surprise, first."
With Ida leading the way, they entered the music room, where in one corner stood Rose"s piano, open, and apparently inviting Jenny to its side. With a joyful cry, she sprang forward, exclaiming, "Oh, how kind in your father; I almost know we can redeem it some time. I"ll teach school,--any thing to get it again."
"Don"t thank father too much," answered Ida, "for he has nothing to do with it, except giving it house room, and one quarter"s teaching will pay that bill!"
"Who _did_ buy it, then?" asked Jenny; and Ida replied, "Can"t tell you just yet. I must have some music first. Come, Mary, you like to play. Give me my favorite, "Rosa Lee," with variations."
Mary was pa.s.sionately fond of music, and, for the time she had taken lessons, played uncommonly well. Seating herself at the piano, she became oblivious to all else around her, and when a tall figure for a moment darkened the doorway, while Jenny uttered a suppressed exclamation of surprise, she paid no heed, nor did she become conscious of a third person"s presence until the group advanced towards her, Ida and Jenny leaning upon the piano, and the other standing at her right, a little in the rear. Thinking, if she thought at all, that it was William Bender, Mary played on until the piece was finished, and then, observing that her companions had left the room, she turned and met the dark, handsome eyes,--not of William Bender, but of one who, with a peculiar smile, offered her his hand, saying, "I believe I need no introduction to Miss Howard, except a slight change in the name, which instead of being _Stuart_ is Moreland!"
Mary never knew what she said or did. She only remembered a dizzy sensation in her head, a strong arm pa.s.sed round her, and a voice which fully aroused her as it called her "Mary," and asked if she were faint. Just then Ida entered the room, announcing tea, and asking her if she found "Mr. Stuart" much changed? At the tea-table Mary sat opposite George, and every time she raised her eyes, she met his fixed upon her, with an expression so like that of the picture in the golden locket which she still wore, that she wondered she had not before recognized George Moreland in the Mr. Stuart who had so puzzled and mystified her. After supper she had an opportunity of seeing why George was so much beloved at home. Possessing rare powers of conversation, he seemed to know exactly what to say, and when to say it, and with a kind word and pleasant smile for all, he generally managed to make himself a favorite, notwithstanding his propensity to tease, which would occasionally show itself in some way or other.
During the evening William Bender called, and soon after Henry Lincoln also came in, frowning gloomily when he saw how near to each other were William and his sister, while he jealously watched them, still keeping an eye upon George and Mary, the latter of whom remembered her young sister, and treated him with unusual coldness. At last, complaining of feeling _blue_, he asked Ida to play, at the same time sauntering towards the music room, where stood his sister"s piano.
"Upon my word," said he, "this looks natural. Who bought it?" and he drummed a few notes of a song.
"Mr. Moreland bought it. Wasn"t he kind?" said Jenny, who all the evening had been trying for a chance to thank George, but now when she attempted to do so he prevented her by saying, "Oh don"t--don"t--I can imagine all you wish to say, and I hate to be thanked. Rose and I are particular friends, and it afforded me a great deal of pleasure to purchase it for her--but," he added, glancing at his watch, "I must be excused now, as I promised to call upon my ward."
"Who"s that?" asked Jenny, and George replied that it was a Miss Herndon, who had accompanied him from New Orleans to visit her aunt, Mrs. Russell.
"He says she"s an heiress, and very beautiful," rejoined Ida, seating herself at the piano.
Instantly catching at the words "heiress" and "beautiful," Henry started up, asking "if it would be against all the rules of propriety for him to call upon her thus early."
"I think it would," was George"s brief answer, while Mary"s eyes flashed scornfully upon the young man, who, rather crestfallen, announced himself ready to listen to Ida whom he secretly styled "an old maid," because since his first remembrance she had treated him with perfect indifference.
That night before retiring the three girls sat down by the cheerful fire in Mary"s room to talk over the events of the day, when Mary suddenly asked Ida to tell her truly, if it were not George who had paid her bills at Mount Holyoke.
"What bills?" said Jenny, to whom the idea was new while Ida replied, "And suppose it was?"
"I am sorry," answered Mary, laying her head upon the table.
"What a silly girl," said Ida. "He was perfectly able, and more than willing, so why do you care?"
"I do not like being so much indebted to any one," was Mary"s reply, and yet in her secret heart there was a strange feeling of pleasure in the idea that George had thus cared for her, for would he have done so, if--. She dared not finish that question even to herself,--dared not ask if she hoped that George Moreland loved her one half as well as she began to think she had always loved him. Why should he, with his handsome person and princely fortune, love one so unworthy, and so much beneath him? And then, for the first time, she thought of her changed position since last they met. Then she was a poor, obscure schoolmistress,--now, flattered, caressed, and an heiress. Years before, when a little pauper at Chicopee, she had felt unwilling that George should know how dest.i.tute she was, and now in the time of her prosperity she was equally desirous that he should, for a time at least, remain ignorant of her present condition.
"Ida," said she, lifting her head from the table "does George know that I am Mrs. Campbell"s niece?"
"No," answered Ida, "I wanted to tell him, but Aunt Martha said I"d better not."
"Don"t then," returned Mary, and resuming her former position she fell into a deep reverie, from which she was at last aroused, by Jenny"s asking "if she intended to sit up all night?"
The news that George Moreland had returned, and bought Rose Lincoln"s piano, besides several other articles, spread rapidly, and the day following his arrival Mary and Ida were stopped in the street by a group of their companions, who were eager to know how George bore the news that his betrothed was so ill, and if it was not that which had brought him home so soon, and then the conversation turned upon Miss Herndon, the New Orleans lady who had that morning appeared in the street; "And don"t you think," said one of the girls, "that Henry Lincoln was dancing attendance upon her? If I were you," turning to Mary, "I"d caution my sister to be a little wary of him. But let me see, their marriage is to take place soon?"
Mary replied that the marriage was postponed indefinitely, whereupon the girls exchanged meaning glances and pa.s.sed on. In less than twenty-four hours, half of Ella"s acquaintances were talking of her discarding Henry on account of his father"s failure, and saying "that they expected it, "twas like her."
Erelong the report, in the shape of a condolence, reached Henry, who caring but little what reason was a.s.signed for the broken engagement, so that he got well out of it a.s.sumed a much injured air, but said "he reckoned he should manage to survive;" then pulling his sharp-pointed collar up another story, and brushing his pet mustache, wherein lay most of his mind, he walked up street, and ringing at Mrs. Russell"s door, asked for Miss Herndon, who vain as beautiful, suffered his attentions, not because she liked him in the least, but because she was fond of flattery, and there was something exceedingly gratifying in the fact that at the North, where she fancied the gentlemen to be icicles, she had so soon made a conquest. It mattered not that Mrs.
Russell told her his vows were plighted to another. She cared nothing for that. Her life had been one long series of conquests, until now at twenty-five there was not in the whole world a more finished or heartless coquette than Evren Herndon.
Days pa.s.sed on, and at last rumors reached Ella, that Henry was constant in his attendance upon the proud southern beauty, whose fortune was valued by hundreds of thousands. At first she refused to believe it, but when Mary and Jenny both a.s.sured her it was true, and when she her self had ocular demonstration of the fact, she gave way to one long fit of weeping; and then, drying her eyes, declared that Henry Lincoln should see "that she would not die for him."
Still a minute observer could easily have seen that her gayety was feigned, for she had loved Henry Lincoln as sincerely as she was capable of loving, and not even George Moreland, who treated her with his old boyish familiarity could make her for a moment forget one who now pa.s.sed her coldly by, or listened pa.s.sively while the sarcastic Evren Herndon likened her to a waxen image, fit only for a gla.s.s case!
CHAPTER x.x.xI.
A QUESTION
Towards the last of April, Mrs. Mason and Mary returned to their old home in the country. On Ella"s account, Mrs. Campbell had decided to remain in the city during a part of the summer, and she labored hard to keep Mary also, offering as a last inducement to give Mrs. Mason a home too. But Mrs. Mason preferred her own house in Chicopee, and thither Mary accompanied her, promising, however, to spend the next winter with her aunt, who wept at parting with her more than she would probably have done had it been Ella.
Mary had partially engaged to teach the school in Rice Corner, but George, a.s.suming a kind of authority over her, declared she should not.
"I don"t want your eyes to grow dim and your cheeks pale, in that little pent-up room," said he. "You know I"ve been there and seen for myself."
Mary colored, for George"s manner of late had puzzled her, and Jenny had more than once whispered in her ear "I know George loves you, for he looks at you just as William does at me, only a little more so!"
Ida, too, had once mischievously addressed her as "Cousin," adding that there was no one among her acquaintances whom she would as willingly call by that name. "When I was a little girl," said she, "they used to tease me about George, but I"d as soon think of marrying my brother. You never saw Mr. Elwood, George"s cla.s.smate, for he"s in Europe now. Between you and me, I like him and--"
A loud call from Aunt Martha prevented Ida from finishing, and the conversation was not again resumed. The next morning Mary was to leave, and as she stood in the parlor talking with Ida, George came in with a travelling satchel in his hand, and a shawl thrown carelessly over his arm.