Alice Wilde. Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
years ago—short under the arms; a belt at the waist; low in the neck; full, puffed, short sleeves; narrow skirt, and no crinoline. Her profuse hair, when it was not allowed to fall in a golden torrent around her neck, was looped up in the quaint style which marked the fashion of her dress. She looked like the portrait, come to life, of some republican belle and beauty of long ago. Quite unconscious that this ancient style had been superseded by the balloons of to-day, she measured off the three short breadths which, when hemmed, would leave her pretty ankles exposed, even as they now, with the slippered feet, peeped from beneath her gingham.
If Philip Moore had understood the mantua-maker's art, and had possessed "patterns" of the latest mode, he would not have instructed his hostess in any changes, she looked so picturesque and quaint as she was. But he did not let her sew very steadily that day. He wanted to explore the surroundings of the cabin, and she was his ready, intelligent guide.
They went back into the forest, through which thundered, ever and anon, the crash of a falling tree; for many men were busy cutting timber for another raft, on which, at its completion, Philip was to return to Center City. His business would not have detained him more than three or four days, but he was in no haste; he wanted to hunt and fish a little, and he liked the novelty of the idea of floating down the river on a raft of logs in company with a score of rough fellows. Although David Wilde sawed up some of his timber himself, his old-fashioned mill was not equal to the supply, and he sent the surplus down to the steam saw-mills, one of which was owned by Philip and his partner.
It called forth all his affability to conquer the shyness of his pretty guide, who at last dared to look full into his face with those brilliant blue eyes, and to tell him where the brooks made the sweetest music, where the fawns came oftenest to drink, where the violets lingered the latest, and where there was a grape-vine swing.
Both of them looked very happy when they came in, just in time to meet Mr. Wilde at the supper-table, who had been at the mill all day. He did not seem in such good spirits. Some new thought troubled him. His keen, gray eyes scanned the countenance of his child, as if searching for something hitherto undiscovered; and then turned suspiciously to the stranger, to mark if he, too, held the same truth. For the first time it occurred to him, that his "cub," his pet, was no longer a little girl—that he might have done something fatally foolish in bringing that fine city aristocrat to his cabin. Had he not always hated and despised these dandified caricatures of men?—despised their vanity, falsehood, and affectation?—hated their vices, their kid-gloves, their perfumed handkerchiefs, and their fashionable nonsense? Yet, pleased with one of them, and on a mere matter of business, he had, without the wisdom of a fool, much less of a father, brought one of that very class to his house. How angry he was with himself his compressed lip alone revealed, as he sharply eyed his guest. Yet the laws of hospitality were too sacred with him to allow of his showing any rudeness to his guest, as a means of getting rid of him.
Unconscious of the bitter jealousy in her father's heart, Alice was as gay as a humming-bird. She had never been happier. We are formed for society; children are charmed with children, and youth delights in youth. Alice had been ignorant of this sweet want, until she learned it now, by having it gratified. For, although she had passed pleasant words with such young men as chanced to be employed by her father, they had never seemed to her like companions, and she naturally adopted the reserve which her father also used with them. His cabin was his castle. No one came there familiarly, except upon invitation. The "hands" were all fed and lodged in a house by themselves, near the mill. The gloom of the host gradually affected the vivacity of the others; and the whole household retired early to rest.
The next day, Philip set off to the mill with Mr. Wilde, carrying on his shoulder the excellent rifle of the latter, as he proposed, after business was over, to make a search for deer, now nearly driven away from that locality by the sound of the ax in those solitudes once so deep and silent.
"Tell Aunt Pallas I'll bring her a haunch of venison for supper," he said gayly to the young girl, touching his straw hat with a grace that quite confused her.
She looked after them wistfully as they went away. She felt lonely; her sewing fatigued her; the sun was too hot to go out on the water; she didn't know what to do. Even her new books failed for once to keep her interested many hours. When Pallas looked for her to help pick over berries to dry, she was not to be found. She had sought that delightful refuge of early youth—the garret; which in this instance was but a loft over the main story, reached by a ladder, and seldom resorted to by any one, except when the raftsman stored away a bear-skin, a winter's store of nuts, or something of the kind. To-day Alice felt powerfully attracted toward a certain trunk which had stood in that garret ever since she could remember. It was always locked; she had never seen it open; and did not know its contents. Now, for a wonder, the key was in the lock; she never thought of there being any thing wrong in the act, as she had never heard the trunk mentioned, and had never been forbidden access to it, and lifting the lid, she sat down beside it and began an examination of its mysteries. Lifting up a napkin spread over the top, she was met by a lovely face, looking up at her from the ivory upon which it was so exquisitely painted. The breath died upon her lips.
"It must be my mother's; how very beautiful she was—my mother!"
Hot tears rushed up into her eyes at this life-like vision of a being she did not remember, of whom old Pallas often spoke, but whom her father seldom mentioned—never, save in the most intimate moments of their association. She was sorry she had opened the trunk, realizing at once that if her father had desired her to know of the miniature he would have shown it to her years ago; she had a glimpse of a white-silk dress, some yellow lace, a pair of white-silk slippers, and long white-kid gloves, but she would not gratify the intense curiosity and interest which she felt. She remembered hearing her father descend from the garret late in the preceding night; and she guessed now the purpose of his visit.
An impulse was given to her thoughts which drove away her restless mood; she retreated from the loft, and set very quietly to work helping Pallas with the blackberries. She was sitting in the kitchen-door, an apron on, and a huge bowl in her lap, when Philip Moore came through the pines, dragging after him a young deer which he had slain. Pallas was on a bench outside the shanty, and it was at her feet the hunter laid his trophy.
"Bress you, masser Moore, I'se mighty glad you went a huntin'. Miss Alice she laugh and say de deer needn't be afraid of you, 'cause you was a city gentleum, but I tol' her she didn't know nuffin' about it. I was afeard you'd get tired of white-fish and salmon, and bacon and fowls—dis ven'sen jes' de meat I want."
"Well, Aunt Pallas, I shall claim one of your best pies as my reward," said the amateur hunter, laughing. "But little Alice here mustn't think no one can do any thing right except foresters and lumbermen."
"Oh, I don't!" exclaimed she, blushing. "I think you do every thing beautifully, Mr. Moore, that you've been brought up to do, you know—but shooting deer—they don't do that in cities, do they?"
"Not exactly in cities; but there are wild woods near enough New York yet for young men to have a chance at gaining that accomplishment. I suppose you wouldn't trust me to take you out sailing, to-morrow, would you?"
"If she would, yer couldn't do it, for I want the boat myself. Captain Wilde's goin' to send me down to the pint with it."
Mr. Moore looked up in surprise at the speaker, who had just come up from the river, and whose looks and tones were still ruder than his words.
"Hi, Ben! yer as surly as a bar," spoke up Pallas; "yer haven't a grain of perliteness in yer body," she added, in a lower tone.
"I leaves perliteness to them as is wimmen enough to want it," answered Ben, throwing back a glance of defiance and contempt at the innocent stranger, as he stepped into the shanty. "I want them new saws as came home with the capt'n."
"There's somebody that looks upon me in the same light you do," laughed Philip, when the youth had secured the saws and departed.
"Oh, Mr. Moore, you don't know how I look upon you!" she exclaimed, earnestly; neither did he, any more than he knew how the fate of that black-eyed, heavy-browed mill-hand was to be mixed and mingled with his own.
He