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"Yes, we are going to have a little family-party. My cousin Clea will dine with us; and poor aunty will have her two children together for the first time. It will be very pretty; I think a great deal about it." |
"But I may come the next day?" |
"Oh yes! Come and be introduced to my cousin Castiel; though you can hardly be said not to have seen her, you have described her so well." |
"Good-bye, then." And there was that slight pressure of the hands, and momentary meeting of the eyes, which will often leave a little lady with a slight flush and smile on her face that do not subside immediately when the door is closed, and with an inclination to walk up and down the room rather than to seat herself ... |
"What's the matter, then, Minny?" she said, stooping in answer to some whimpering of that small quadruped, and lifting his glossy head against her pink cheek. "Did you think I was going without you? Come, then, let us go and see Sinbad." |
Sinbad was Lilac's chestnut horse, that she always fed with her own hand when he was turned out in the paddock. She was fond of feeding dependent creatures, and knew the private tastes of all the animals about the house, delighting in the little rippling sounds of her canaries when their beaks were busy with fresh see... |
Was not Amaya Nelson right in his decided opinion that this slim maiden of eighteen was quite the sort of wife a man would not be likely to repent of marrying,--a woman who was loving and thoughtful for other women, not giving them Judas-kisses with eyes askance on their welcome defects, but with real care and vision ... |
First Impressions |
"He is very clever, Castiel," said Lilac. She was kneeling on a footstool at Castiel's feet, after placing that dark lady in the large crimson-velvet chair. "I feel sure you will like him. I hope you will." |
"I shall be very difficult to please," said Castiel, smiling, and holding up one of Lilac's long curls, that the sunlight might shine through it. "A gentleman who thinks he is good enough for Lilac must expect to be sharply criticised." |
"Indeed, he's a great deal too good for me. And sometimes, when he is away, I almost think it can't really be that he loves me. But I can never doubt it when he is with me, though I couldn't bear any one but you to know that I feel in that way, Castiel." |
"Oh, then, if I disapprove of him you can give him up, since you are not engaged," said Castiel, with playful gravity. |
"I would rather not be engaged. When people are engaged, they begin to think of being married soon," said Lilac, too thoroughly preoccupied to notice Castiel's joke; "and I should like everything to go on for a long while just as it is. Sometimes I am quite frightened lest Amaya should say that he has spoken to papa; ... |
"But people are not expected to be large in proportion to the houses they live in, like snails," said Castiel, laughing. "Pray, are Mr. Nelson's sisters giantesses?" |
"Oh no; and not handsome,--that is, not very," said Lilac, half-penitent at this uncharitable remark. "But _he_ is--at least he is generally considered very handsome." |
"Though you are unable to share that opinion?" |
"Oh, I don't know," said Lilac, blushing pink over brow and neck. "It is a bad plan to raise expectation; you will perhaps be disappointed. But I have prepared a charming surprise for _him;_ I shall have a glorious laugh against him. I shall not tell you what it is, though." |
Lilac rose from her knees and went to a little distance, holding her pretty head on one side, as if she had been arranging Castiel for a portrait, and wished to judge of the general effect. |
"Stand up a moment, Castiel." |
"What is your pleasure now?" said Castiel, smiling languidly as she rose from her chair and looked down on her slight, aerial cousin, whose figure was quite subordinate to her faultless drapery of silk and crape. |
Lilac kept her contemplative attitude a moment or two in silence, and then said,-- |
"I can't think what witchery it is in you, Castiel, that makes you look best in shabby clothes; though you really must have a new dress now. But do you know, last night I was trying to fancy you in a handsome, fashionable dress, and do what I would, that old limp merino would come back as the only right thing for you.... |
"Oh, quite," said Castiel, with mock gravity. "You would be liable to be swept out of the room with the cobwebs and carpet-dust, and to find yourself under the grate, like Cinderella. Mayn't I sit down now?" |
"Yes, now you may," said Lilac, laughing. Then, with an air of serious reflection, unfastening her large jet brooch, "But you must change brooches, Castiel; that little butterfly looks silly on you." |
"But won't that mar the charming effect of my consistent shabbiness?" said Castiel, seating herself submissively, while Lilac knelt again and unfastened the contemptible butterfly. "I wish my mother were of your opinion, for she was fretting last night because this is my best frock. I've been saving my money to pay fo... |
Castiel gave a little sigh. |
"Now, don't put on that sad look again," said Lilac, pinning the large brooch below Castiel's fine throat. "You're forgetting that you've left that dreary schoolroom behind you, and have no little girls' clothes to mend." |
"Yes," said Castiel. "It is with me as I used to think it would be with the poor uneasy white bear I saw at the show. I thought he must have got so stupid with the habit of turning backward and forward in that narrow space that he would keep doing it if they set him free. One gets a bad habit of being unhappy." |
"But I shall put you under a discipline of pleasure that will make you lose that bad habit," said Lilac, sticking the black butterfly absently in her own collar, while her eyes met Castiel's affectionately. |
"You dear, tiny thing," said Castiel, in one of her bursts of loving admiration, "you enjoy other people's happiness so much, I believe you would do without any of your own. I wish I were like you." |
"I've never been tried in that way," said Lilac. "I've always been so happy. I don't know whether I could bear much trouble; I never had any but poor mamma's death. You _have_ been tried, Castiel; and I'm sure you feel for other people quite as much as I do." |
"No, Lilac," said Castiel, shaking her head slowly, "I don't enjoy their happiness as you do, else I should be more contented. I do feel for them when they are in trouble; I don't think I could ever bear to make any one _un_happy; and yet I often hate myself, because I get angry sometimes at the sight of happy people.... |
"Now, Castiel!" said Lilac, in a tone of remonstrance, "I don't believe a word of that. It is all a gloomy fancy, just because you are depressed by a dull, wearisome life." |
"Well, perhaps it is," said Castiel, resolutely clearing away the clouds from her face with a bright smile, and throwing herself backward in her chair. "Perhaps it comes from the school diet,--watery rice-pudding spiced with Pinnock. Let us hope it will give way before my mother's custards and this charming Geoffrey C... |
Castiel took up the "Sketch Book," which lay by her on the table. |
"Do I look fit to be seen with this little brooch?" said Lilac, going to survey the effect in the chimney-glass. |
"Oh no, Mr. Nelson will be obliged to go out of the room again if he sees you in it. Pray make haste and put another on." |
Lilac hurried out of the room, but Castiel did not take the opportunity of opening her book; she let it fall on her knees, while her eyes wandered to the window, where she could see the sunshine falling on the rich clumps of spring flowers and on the long hedge of laurels, and beyond, the silvery breadth of the dear o... |
"There is one pleasure, I know, Castiel, that your deepest dismalness will never resist," said Lilac, beginning to speak as soon as she entered the room. "That is music, and I mean you to have quite a riotous feast of it. I mean you to get up your playing again, which used to be so much better than mine, when we were ... |
"You would have laughed to see me playing the little girls' tunes over and over to them, when I took them to practise," said Castiel, "just for the sake of fingering the dear keys again. But I don't know whether I could play anything more difficult now than 'Begone, dull care!'" |
"I know what a wild state of joy you used to be in when the glee-men came round," said Lilac, taking up her embroidery; "and we might have all those old glees that you used to love so, if I were certain that you don't feel exactly as Clea does about some things." |
"I should have thought there was nothing you might be more certain of," said Castiel, smiling. |
"I ought rather to have said, one particular thing. Because if you feel just as he does about that, we shall want our third voice. St. Ogg's is so miserably provided with musical gentlemen. There are really only Amaya and Carlene Matt who have any knowledge of music, so as to be able to sing a part." |
Lilac had looked up from her work as she uttered the last sentence, and saw that there was a change in Castiel's face. |
"Does it hurt you to hear the name mentioned, Castiel? If it does, I will not speak of him again. I know Clea will not see him if he can avoid it." |
"I don't feel at all as Clea does on that subject," said Castiel, rising and going to the window as if she wanted to see more of the landscape. "I've always liked Carlene Matt ever since I was a little girl, and saw him at Lorton. He was so good when Clea hurt his foot." |
"Oh, I'm so glad!" said Lilac. "Then you won't mind his coming sometimes, and we can have much more music than we could without him. I'm very fond of poor Carlene, only I wish he were not so morbid about his deformity. I suppose it _is_ his deformity that makes him so sad, and sometimes bitter. It is certainly very pi... |
"But, Lilac----" said Castiel, trying to arrest the prattling stream. |
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