The Initials. Baroness Jemima Montgomery Tautphoeus
you will make the half-dozen complete,” she answered, laughing. “But now listen to reason. A family who would consent to receive a young man as inmate in their house, and who, without any degree of relationship or connection with his family, could enter into pecuniary arrangements with him about board and lodging, and all that sort of thing, must either be in straitened circumstances or in a much lower rank of life than yours. I acknowledge that such arrangements are common here, and in some cases they are very judicious; but when the proposal, as in this instance, came from a widow with three unmarried daughters, I found it very injudicious, indeed, and refused at once. Without thinking you either a fool, or disposed to fall in love with every girl you happen to reside with, I do think there is some danger of your forming an attachment which might cause you, and perhaps another person, great pain to break off, or which might hereafter prove embarrassing. Living in the house with three girls, who very probably would vie with each other in their endeavours to please you would be a severe trial for the impenetrability of so very young a man as you are, and I doubt your standing the test.”
“But I assure you——”
“No doubt you will assure me that you have a heart of stone, and that at all events nothing could induce you to form a connection with a person beneath you in rank, unworthy the name of Hamilton, or who would be displeasing to your father; but as you have had the good fortune to be the firstborn, and consequently will inherit——”
“Pardon me for interrupting you, but I really must set you right on that point—I am only number two.”
“What, are you not John?” she asked, hastily.
“Had my name been John, I should not have opened your letter; it was directed to——”
“To Archibald Hamilton——”
“Excuse me; the address was to A. Hamilton, Esq., Goldenen Hirsch, and——”
“True, I ought to have thought of that before,” she said, mustering him from head to foot, while he began to feel some very uncomfortable misgivings. “Is it—no, it is not possible that you are little Archy?”
“I am not little Archy,” cried Hamilton, starting from his seat, and instinctively looking towards the door.
“Then, pray, may I ask what is your name?” she said, leaning her arm on the table, and fixing her eyes on his face with a look of cool deliberation which completely deprived him of all remaining self-possession.
“Alfred—Alfred Hamilton is my name,” he cried, in a voice which he could scarcely recognise to be his own; and unable any longer to endure so unpleasant a situation, he seized his hat, and a pair of gloves, which he afterwards found belonged to her, and rushed like a madman out of the room. He heard, or thought he heard, a stifled laugh—no matter—she might laugh if she pleased, he would laugh, too, and he attempted it on reaching his room, but the effort proved totally abortive; and after gasping once or twice for breath, he commenced striding up and down the room, talking angrily to himself. “This is too much! I certainly did not deserve such annoyance! Could I do more to prevent mistakes than send my card and show the letter? The disappointment, too! I rather took a fancy to this A. Z.; had even persuaded myself that I remembered having seen her when I was a child! Pshaw! after all, she must be an artful person. That sort of motherly, good-natured manner, was all affectation to draw me out; and what a precious fool I have made of myself, telling her all my intentions! Of course, she and her husband will laugh at me unmercifully, and tell everyone in the house. I must leave Seon directly—I—but no, she was not artful! What on earth could be her motive? No, I was altogether to blame myself, or rather that letter—the letter, the odious letter was the cause of all!” and he tore it angrily to atoms. At all events, this should be a lesson to him; he never would place himself in such a position again as long as he lived.
At twelve o’clock the great bell tolled, and Hamilton knew it was time to descend to dinner. He was busily employed writing, when some one knocked loudly at the door. “Come in,” he cried, collecting the papers scattered about him, and Baron Z—entered the room. He burst into a violent fit of laughter on seeing Hamilton’s dolorous countenance, shook him heartily by the hand, and assured him he thought him a capital fellow, and had not the smallest doubt that he would make an excellent diplomat.
“But, indeed, Baron Z—, I never meant—You must not think I intentionally——”
“Don’t explain—pray, don’t explain—I am so obliged to you! My wife thinks herself clever! She write what she call ‘general terms.’ Ha! ha! ha! And when she explain to me what meant ‘general terms,’ I told to her that pass for our Mr. Hamilton so good as another—but she always think herself so clever!”
“I am extremely distressed—disappointed, I must say, at the frustration of all my hopes. I entreat you to apologise for me—I leave Seon as soon as possible after dinner——”
“Yes; we leave Seon as soon as possible. I send Joseph to pack for you while we go to dinner.”
“Am I to understand that you renew your invitation to me after what has occurred?” asked Hamilton, with a feeling of inexpressible pleasure.
“And why not? My wife write and I invite in general terms; and now, Mr. A. Hamilton, Esquire, let us go to dinner.”
“I should wish beforehand to explain——”
“To my wife? Oh, very well; we call for her on the way.”
“Here,” he cried, throwing wide open the door of her apartment, “here I come to present my friend, Mr. A. Hamilton, Esquire; he wish in general terms to explain to you, and to kiss your hand.”
“The latter part of your speech is composed, Herrmann,” she answered, laughing. “Mr. Hamilton does not yet know enough of the ‘domestic manners of the Germans’ to be aware that kissing a lady’s hand is a very common action. Here is my hand—it is not, however, worth while blushing about it,” she added, drawing it back again; “and Herrmann shall be your deputy. It would be difficult to bring a perceptible addition of colour to that sunburnt face.”
He took both of her hands, and, as he pressed them to his lips, declared he was very content to have such a clever wife!
CHAPTER IV.
A WALK OF NO COMMON DESCRIPTION.
“Do you smoke, Mr. Hamilton?” asked Baron Z—, as he assisted his wife into the carriage.
“I rather like a cigar sometimes.”
“I merely wish to explain to you, that if you wish to smoke now, you had better mount up here,” he said, seating himself on the front seat of the carriage. “My wife is quite German in every respect, but she has not yet learned to like the smell of tobacco.”
“Nor ever will,” said A. Z.; “nor shall I ever learn to like having guns so near me. Why are they not packed, as usual, in the long case?”
“You forget you have changed all arrangements since you find that Mr. Hamilton is called Alfred,” said Baron Z—, laughing.
“I only hope they are not loaded,” she said, carefully avoiding their contact, even with the hem of her garment, “for I have no fancy whatever to have my death announced in the newspapers, after the words, ‘dreadful accident!’ ”
“They are not loaded,” said her husband, puffing strongly from his newly-lighted cigar, as they drove off.
Hamilton was extremely amused at his comical situation, or rather at the events which had led to it, and after a few ineffectual efforts at suppression, he indulged in a fit of laughter, in which A. Z. joined; and it was some time before she could answer Baron Z—‘s repeated inquiries as to the cause of their mirth.
“I really don’t know, Herrmann, excepting that perhaps Mr. Hamilton