Jessamine. Marion Harland
about the casement, and living over the events of the day—an exciting one in her quiet life. Her thoughts of Roy were all of prideful joy. Her heart was very tender, very quiet in the glad humility that possessed her as she pondered upon the fact that he had chosen her—an undisciplined, unsophisticated country girl, to share the career she was sure would be noble and distinguished. Something more than usually fond in Eunice's silent caress at parting from her for the night, brought up a host of reminiscences of the motherly love with which this sister had guarded and nurtured her—the youngling of the household. Such a bright, sweet day her existence had been! In all her sky there was not a cloud, save this light vapor of discontent with herself that the introduction to Roy's relative—the first of his old friends whom she had ever met—should have been so unsatisfactory.
"His reserve actually increased as the hours went on," she reflected. "His manner was more free and cordial while I was telling him the story of old Davie Dundee than after Roy had explained to him what we are to one another. Perhaps he thinks an engaged young lady should be demure and dutiful, having no eyes or ears for any one except her betrothed. Perhaps it is as Roy says, and he fears to intrude upon our tête-à-têtes. I must convince him that we are not so selfish. Roy declares that his cousin approves heartily of our engagement—that he said many pleasant things of me, else I should fear that he had taken a dislike to me, from the beginning, that he thought Professor Fordham might and ought to have done better. I must make him like him for myself—not merely because I am his kinsman's choice."
From which soliloquy the reader will perceive that Mr. Wyllys had led off with a winning card.
CHAPTER IV.
A week had passed since the Dundee Centennial, and life in the parsonage had been in outward aspect like the weather—still and sunny. The oldest Dundeeian had never known before so early and genial a season. Eunice's roses were in luxuriant bloom; the clover-meadows were pink and fragrant; the forests had burst into full leafage; the strawberries upon the southern terrace of the kitchen-garden were swelling globes, white on the nether, scarlet upon the upper sides.
The ways of the household, always simple and methodical, were not otherwise now. Roy spent a couple of hours each forenoon with his betrothed. Orrin rarely made his appearance until two or three hours after dinner when the cousins came up from the hotel together, and did not return to their lodgings before ten o'clock at night. Mr. Kirke had daily interviews with Mr. Wyllys in the course of the walks and drives they took in company, and brought home accounts of his suavity, wit, and varied information, which were endorsed by Eunice, which Jessie heard with growing bewilderment at the chance or purpose that withheld her from participation in what was freely enjoyed by her father and sister. Even their music practice had not melted the ice that lay, an impassive mass, just beneath the surface of his deportment whenever he approached or addressed her. Her liveliest sallies and most friendly overtures, met with a response, ready and civil, indeed, but so unlike the gentle courtesy, the kindliness and graceful deference of his behavior to Eunice that nothing but a spirit determined and unsuspicious of evil as was our heroine's could have kept her to her resolve to win his friendship.
Roy found her very charming under the light veil of pensiveness this secret solicitude cast over her. She never intimated to him that his kinsman had not met her expectation in every respect. She was thankful, instead, that her betrothed did not see for himself that all was not right between them. Some day, when the frost was quite dispelled, they would laugh over it together—over her fears, her innocent stratagems for the accomplishment of her object, Orrin's stateliness, and Roy's blindness to her perturbation. She had patience and hope. She would await the vanishment of the mist, passing content, meanwhile, with the heart-riches that were hers beyond peradventure. She had not heard of the German University scheme. It was unlike Roy Fordham to hang back from making a revelation which must come in the end, which delays could not soften, and which could cause no more distress now than if it were withheld until the close of his vacation. His judgment said that Jessie would better endure the prospect of the separation while he was with her, to lead her thoughts to the great and manifest advantages that would accrue to him from the year of foreign study, and—overleaping the gulf of absence—to paint the delight of re-union. Mr. Kirke represented that Jessie was a girl of sense and strength; that she would be better pleased to be confided in, and consulted as his future wife, than be blinded and petted as a child; and Roy, acquiescing in this opinion, still put off the evil hour. Was it loving consideration for her—or presentiment—that struck him with dumbness?
The lovers sat on the piazza, one afternoon, just after the sunset repast. Jessie's "trial effort" had been made with ease that augured rapid recovery, but she was forbidden to walk without assistance, or to bear her whole weight upon the injured foot.
"While I feel strong enough to run a race with you down to the mill," she said, pointing to a venerable building, a quarter of a mile distant. "You can form no idea of the perversity of the restless thing that used to be a manageable member, when I had leave to walk, or sit still as I liked. I have a terrific attack of the fidgets!"
"Penalty of insubordination—a return to the lounge and oriel-window!" smiled Roy, in warning.
"That would be no punishment at all! When I am strong and active again I mean often to play helpless, upon that dear old lounge, to lie within the window and dream. I love it!"
Her voice sank in an intonation of ineffable tenderness that went to Roy's heart in a pang, not a thrill. This evening he meant to tell her that for many months she must sit alone in what he had named their "betrothal-nook;" that the year they had agreed upon as the period of their engagement must be passed apart, the one from the other. He had made up his mind to another thing. If she asked the sacrifice at his hands, he would abandon the cherished hope of years, the fruition of which seemed now so near, and she should never guess the extent of his self-denial. She was so dear to him! this incarnation of frolic, passion, and of fancies—gay, graceful, as whimsical as various—but all beautiful to him; she, whose eyes deepened and softened and glowed with the tender cadence of those three words—"I love it!" He had never succeeded in telling Orrin why he loved her. His spoken analysis of her character was cold and imperfect. Had Orrin uttered aloud his unflattering, "pert Amaryllis," Roy would have resented the epithet warmly, yet acknowledged, secretly, that his own portrait of her was hardly more like the reality. He could not describe her trait by trait, feature by feature. But for himself, he knew that she was the embodied glory of his life; that every ray that kept his heart warm and bright with a very summer of gladness, could be traced to her—her love, and the influence the consciousness of this had upon his thoughts of the present, and dreams of days to come.
"The oriel is enchanted ground to me. We will build one like it, in our own home, and cover it with jessamine and wisteria," he said, noting, with loving amusement, the crimson flush that always bathed her face at direct allusions to their marriage. "Orrin shall sketch it for me. He is a universal genius, and his taste is marvellous. His bachelor apartments are a notable exception to any others I ever saw. They are furnished almost as well, kept almost as neatly, as if he were married."
"Isn't he a bit of a Sybarite?" queried Jessie, abruptly. "If he has a fault—or, no! you wouldn't own that he has—but, isn't his foible a love of luxury—of comfort, if you prefer to call it so—bodily and mental?"
"He is certainly not indolent. I know no other man who will work more persistently, although quietly, to gain a coveted end. And if he loves the ease of the flesh, why so do we all—don't we? His philosophy teaches that it is folly for one to be miserable, when he can as readily be happy and comfortable. His has been a prosperous life, thus far. He has known little of sorrow or trial. Should these come, they will ripen, not sour him, for the original material is good. I am the more anxious that you should know and appreciate him because—"
The gate swung open to admit a visitor—a farmer's lad, in whose attempts at self-education the young professor took a lively interest.
"I found this in the field on the other side of the mountain,