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"Apropos!" said Amaya, looking at his watch. "Shall we go out for a row on the river now? The tide will suit for us to the Tofton way, and we can walk back."
That was a delightful proposition to Castiel, for it was years since she had been on the river. When she was gone to put on her bonnet, Lilac lingered to give an order to the servant, and took the opportunity of telling Amaya that Castiel had no objection to seeing Carlene, so that it was a pity she had sent that note...
"I'll call and beat him up to-morrow," said Amaya, "and bring him with me in the evening, shall I? My sisters will want to call on you when I tell them your cousin is with you. I must leave the field clear for them in the morning."
"Oh yes, pray bring him," said Lilac. "And you _will_ like Castiel, sha'n't you?" she added, in a beseeching tone. "Isn't she a dear, noble-looking creature?"
"Too tall," said Amaya, smiling down upon her, "and a little too fiery. She is not my type of woman, you know."
Gentlemen, you are aware, are apt to impart these imprudent confidences to ladies concerning their unfavorable opinion of sister fair ones. That is why so many women have the advantage of knowing that they are secretly repulsive to men who have self-denyingly made ardent love to them. And hardly anything could be more...
Castiel did not fulfil Amaya's hope by looking at him during the first quarter of an hour; her eyes were too full of the old banks that she knew so well. She felt lonely, cut off from Carlene,--the only person who had ever seemed to love her devotedly, as she had always longed to be loved. But presently the rhythmic m...
"I shall not be satisfied until I can manage both oars, and row you and Lilac," she said, looking very bright as she stepped out of the boat. Castiel, we know, was apt to forget the thing she was doing, and she had chosen an inopportune moment for her remark; her foot slipped, but happily Mr. Amaya Nelson held her han...
"You have not hurt yourself at all, I hope?" he said, bending to look in her face with anxiety. It was very charming to be taken care of in that kind, graceful manner by some one taller and stronger than one's self. Castiel had never felt just in the same way before.
When they reached home again, they found uncle and aunt Leslie seated with Mrs. Roberta in the drawing-room, and Amaya hurried away, asking leave to come again in the evening.
"And pray bring with you the volume of Purcell that you took away," said Lilac. "I want Castiel to hear your best songs."
Aunt Leslie, under the certainty that Castiel would be invited to go out with Lilac, probably to Park House, was much shocked at the shabbiness of her clothes, which when witnessed by the higher society of St. Ogg's, would be a discredit to the family, that demanded a strong and prompt remedy; and the consultation as ...
"But she's so much broader across the shoulders than I am, it's very ill-convenient," said Mrs. Leslie, "else she might wear that beautiful black brocade o' mine without any alteration; and her arms are beyond everything," added Mrs. Leslie, sorrowfully, as she lifted Castiel's large round arm, "She'd never get my sle...
"Oh, never mind that, aunt; send us the dress," said Lilac. "I don't mean Castiel to have long sleeves, and I have abundance of black lace for trimming. Her arms will look beautiful."
"Castiel's arms _are_ a pretty shape," said Mrs. Roberta. "They're like mine used to be, only mine was never brown; I wish she'd had _our_ family skin."
"Nonsense, aunty!" said Lilac, patting her aunt Roberta's shoulder, "you don't understand those things. A painter would think Castiel's complexion beautiful."
"Maybe, my dear," said Mrs. Roberta, submissively. "You know better than I do. Only when I was young a brown skin wasn't thought well on among respectable folks."
"No," said uncle Leslie, who took intense interest in the ladies' conversation as he sucked his lozenges. "Though there was a song about the 'Nut-brown Maid' too; I think she was crazy,--crazy Kate,--but I can't justly remember."
"Oh dear, dear!" said Castiel, laughing, but impatient; "I think that will be the end of _my_ brown skin, if it is always to be talked about so much."
Confidential Moments
When Castiel went up to her bedroom that night, it appeared that she was not at all inclined to undress. She set down her candle on the first table that presented itself, and began to walk up and down her room, which was a large one, with a firm, regular, and rather rapid step, which showed that the exercise was the i...
Had anything remarkable happened?
Nothing that you are not likely to consider in the highest degree unimportant. She had been hearing some fine music sung by a fine bass voice,--but then it was sung in a provincial, amateur fashion, such as would have left a critical ear much to desire. And she was conscious of having been looked at a great deal, in r...
In poor Castiel's highly-strung, hungry nature,--just come away from a third-rate schoolroom, with all its jarring sounds and petty round of tasks,--these apparently trivial causes had the effect of rousing and exalting her imagination in a way that was mysterious to herself. It was not that she thought distinctly of ...
The music was vibrating in her still,--Purcell's music, with its wild passion and fancy,--and she could not stay in the recollection of that bare, lonely past. She was in her brighter aerial world again, when a little tap came at the door; of course it was her cousin, who entered in ample white dressing-gown.
"Why, Castiel, you naughty child, haven't you begun to undress?" said Lilac, in astonishment. "I promised not to come and talk to you, because I thought you must be tired. But here you are, looking as if you were ready to dress for a ball. Come, come, get on your dressing-gown and unplait your hair."
"Well, _you_ are not very forward," retorted Castiel, hastily reaching her own pink cotton gown, and looking at Lilac's light-brown hair brushed back in curly disorder.
"Oh, I have not much to do. I shall sit down and talk to you till I see you are really on the way to bed."
While Castiel stood and unplaited her long black hair over her pink drapery, Lilac sat down near the toilette-table, watching her with affectionate eyes, and head a little aside, like a pretty spaniel. If it appears to you at all incredible that young ladies should be led on to talk confidentially in a situation of th...
"You really _have_ enjoyed the music to-night, haven't you Castiel?"
"Oh yes, that is what prevented me from feeling sleepy. I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs, and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music. At other times one is conscious of carrying a...
"And Amaya has a splendid voice, hasn't he?"
"Well, perhaps we are neither of us judges of that," said Castiel, laughing, as she seated herself and tossed her long hair back. "You are not impartial, and _I_ think any barrel-organ splendid."
"But tell me what you think of him, now. Tell me exactly; good and bad too."
"Oh, I think you should humiliate him a little. A lover should not be so much at ease, and so self-confident. He ought to tremble more."
"Nonsense, Castiel! As if any one could tremble at me! You think he is conceited, I see that. But you don't dislike him, do you?"
"Dislike him! No. Am I in the habit of seeing such charming people, that I should be very difficult to please? Besides, how could I dislike any one that promised to make you happy, my dear thing!" Castiel pinched Lilac's dimpled chin.
"We shall have more music to-morrow evening," said Lilac, looking happy already, "for Amaya will bring Carlene Matt with him."
"Oh, Lilac, I can't see him," said Castiel, turning pale. "At least, I could not see him without Clea's leave."
"Is Clea such a tyrant as that?" said Lilac, surprised. "I'll take the responsibility, then,--tell him it was my fault."
"But, dear," said Castiel, falteringly, "I promised Clea very solemnly, before my father's death,--I promised him I would not speak to Carlene without his knowledge and consent. And I have a great dread of opening the subject with Clea,--of getting into a quarrel with him again."
"But I never heard of anything so strange and unreasonable. What harm can poor Carlene have done? May I speak to Clea about it?"
"Oh no, pray don't, dear," said Castiel. "I'll go to him myself to-morrow, and tell him that you wish Carlene to come. I've thought before of asking him to absolve me from my promise, but I've not had the courage to determine on it."
They were both silent for some moments, and then Lilac said,--
"Castiel, you have secrets from me, and I have none from you."
Castiel looked meditatively away from Lilac. Then she turned to her and said, "I _should_ like to tell you about Carlene. But, Lilac, you must not betray that you know it to any one--least of all to Carlene himself, or to Mr. Amaya Nelson."
The narrative lasted long, for Castiel had never before known the relief of such an outpouring; she had never before told Lilac anything of her inmost life; and the sweet face bent toward her with sympathetic interest, and the little hand pressing hers, encouraged her to speak on. On two points only she was not expans...
"There, Lilac, you have had my story," said Castiel, smiling, with the tears in her eyes. "You see I am like Sir Andrew Aguecheek. _I_ was adored once."