Page:New Peterson magazine 1859 Vol. XXXV.pdf/52



WHAT

ANNE

DALAND

today, poor Brett’s face lights up, an’ off he goes a telling the doctor of all your kindness to him, till you’d think he'd never be done. An’ the doctor he stands and listens, and shure I’ve noticed,” said the shrewd Irish woman, with a glance at Anne, whose face did not change in the least, “that he never tells’him at all he’ll be hurting himself talking, when he’s speaking of you, but other times he stops him.”

It was but two or three days after this, that Anne, os she stood at the door of the garret, heard voices, and a sort of hubbub in the usually quiet room. She started as she went in. On the bed lay a long, white figure, covered with a sheet. Mrs. Tighe was washing up the floor, and talking with one of the neighbors, who sat watching her. The Sick man was dead. Anne’s tears fell fast as she turned back the sheet, and looked at the thin, white face, on which rested a holy calm that awed her.

“He went off very soft and peaceful-like,” said Mrs. Tighe, wiping her eyes with her apron. “He prayed the Lord to bless you over and over: then he looked np quick, very bright, and said something about ‘the many mansions,’ that I couldn’t understand, and didn’t breathe no more.”

Several months had passed away. There was a select party at Mrs. Ward’s, who was universally acknowledged to give the most delightful parties in town. Her social position as well as her own personal charms, enabled her to draw around her the most elegant, the most intellectual, whatever was best in the society of the city. Her easy, cordial manners, which were too highbred to be other than simple and unassuming, charmed all, and she possessed the rare quality as hostess of drawing out the particular gift of each of her guests, and making each appear to the best advantage. The brightly-lighted rooms were nearly filled. In front of a crimson curtain, which threw off her figure in clear relief, stood Anne Daland, as natural and unconscious in her airy dress of white lace, with superb scarlet verbenas in her bosom and hair, as a few hours before, in her calico morning-dress, at work in the kitchen, the cook having gone to bed sick.

“Mary, I don’t believe Dr. Morris is coming after all,” said Miss Osgood, one of a group standing near Anne.

Anne had not seen him since the night when he had so gallantly protected her from insult, and waited with some interest for the reply.

“I should think he would come, he is such a particular friend of Mrs. Ward’s,” replied Mary Barle, the one addressed, “I’m dying for an introduction to him. Delightful, isn’t he?”

“Perfectly, and has such an animated, brilliant face, and such expressive blue eyes, and manners that arc so free, and yet so gentlemanly!” The young lady was becoming very enthusiastic, when she suddenly exclaimed in a low voice, “Oh, there ho comes now!”

Mrs. Ward’s handsome face brightened as Walter Morris entered the room, and came toward her. She reproached him playfully for coming so late, that she had positively given him up. “You may imagine my despair,” said she.

“More easily than I can describe my own, when I feared I could not come, as I did an hour ago.”

A little conversation, full of raillery and fun, passed between them, then Mrs. Ward said to him, “I have private designs upon you tonight,

Walter, I am going to introduce you to an indefinite number of pretty girls, who will do their best to fascinate you, but it’s on your peril that you fall a victim to any but the one I have chosen.”

“Why, may I ask?” he said, looking gayly round the room.

“Because she is a young friend of mine, whom

I am sure your fastidious taste-” he bowed sedately, “is sure to appreciate. I have been longing for an opportunity for ever so long to introduce you to each other, it’s such a clear case of suitability. She is so entirely charming and good! more than ordinarily cultivated, she is so simply earnest and natural in everything she does! In short, the most lovable creature!

Prepare to be vanquished as soon as I introduce you.”

“I have once seen one,” said the young man, quietly, “to whom your glowing description might apply: but I do not see her here.”

“Alas, then! If you have ever seen one whom you could so wholly admire, I withdraw from the field, you are already vanquished.”

“I declare, Mrs. Ward,” said he, “I was not aware that I admitted anything of the kind. To Jove and to admire are not the same thing, are they? If they are, in what danger I stand at this very moment,” looking at her with warm admiration expressed in his fine eyes, as she stood,gracefully before him.

“To waste such a look and speech as that on an old married woman, Walter!” she said, in a deprecating tone. “But it’s not fair for mo to monopolize you in this way. Let me take your arm, and I will go and present you to Miss Hale over there. She is not the one though, my young lady wears only natural flowers: and is the only one here tonight who does, I think.”