Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/175

. 2, 1862.] “You had discovered my secret, then,” I said. “I knew you had. Long ago, Miss Simms, long ago—did you not?”

“I could not be blind,” she said. “Maiden modesty is very innocent; but could I help seeing?”

“Ah!” I exclaimed. “And there is hope for me?”

“What can I say? Do not press me.”

“I intreat you. Say, at least, there is not despair.”

“No, do not despair,” she said. “I do not wish that.”

We were silent for a minute or so. Miss Simms spoke first.

“You will speak to my brother!brother? [sic]” she said, covering her face with her hand.

“Certainly. That is my intention, if you tell me I may do so. Do you think I may?”

Miss Simms looked at me between the fingers of the hand that covered her face.

“Yes,” she said. “I think you may.”

I deliberated.

“My dear Miss Simms,” I said. “I can never sufficiently repay the kindness—the sympathy, the great sympathy—you have shown to me, today. I am going to take advantage of this sympathy—”

“Sir!” cried Miss Simms.

“Yes; gratitude consists mostly in taking advantage of the people who are kind to you. I am going to ask a still greater favour of you. Will you break this matter to your brother? Will you hint my feelings to Lotty?”

“I see no occasion for that! Why to Lotty!Lotty? [sic]”

“Well; I respect your prudence. No doubt you are right. To your brother, then?”

“Had not you better do that.that? [sic] It is so very awkward.”

“My dear Miss Simms, oblige me in this. I shall be eternally indebted to you.”

Miss Simms gave me her angular white hand. She looked up into my face with an expression of most intense sympathy. “I will do anything you tell me, Henry,” she said—“May I call you Henry?”

“I consider it a most tender mark of your sympathy,” I replied. I really thought her calling me by my Christian name, which she had never done before, a touching proof of her kind friendship.

“And now,” I said, “I had better go. I am not inclined to see any one in the present state of my feelings. When I next see you, Miss Simms, I hope to be received in this house on another—a closer and more intimate footing. I think we fully understand each other?”

“Oh, yes!”

“Adieu! God bless you!”

My readers, I have no doubt, see clearly the fix I had got myself into. Will they believe me when I say that I had no notion of it myself! A pre-occupied man assimilates every word that is spoken to the subject of his own pre-occupation. When he enters into tender confidences, he speaks in ambiguously bashful hints, not in that precise language wherewith he would draw up his will.

Do you remember the scene between Bélise and Clitandre in “Les Femmes Savantes.”

“Souffrez,” says Clitandre.Clitandre, [sic]

Souffrez, pour vous parler, madame, qu’un amant

Prenne l’occasion de cet heureux moment,

Et se découvre à vous de la sincère flamme ”

"Ah! tout beau;" cries BeliseBélise [sic].

Of course she applies the words of Clitandre to herself—what woman would not do so?

I left the house with a feeling of the greatest satisfaction. The first move had been made, and made, I could not but flatter myself, with consummate address, and with a success equal to my highest hopes. This good, kind aunt of Lotty’s, I was deeply grateful to her, and determined that I would make her a handsome present on my wedding.

Everything went well.

The next morning I received a letter from Lotty’s papa.

“I can have no objection, if you have none,” he wrote. “I consent gladly to receive your visits at my house on the footing you desire. Come and dine with us at six, and we will talk it over.”

Miss Simms, how could I feel sufficiently grateful to you! Every difficulty was cleared at once from my path. I saw now how foolish had been my self-depreciatory doubts on the subject of age. My budding obesity no longer gave me a pang. Did Ophelia find Hamlet the less attractive for his fatness?

And Lotty—what did Lotty think of all this? How would she meet me under these new relations? I painted for myself the most delightful picture. The sweet bashfulness, the maiden coyness, the blushes of the charming face, the beatings of the pure little heart, the downcast eyes, the trembling lips. Ah, me!—away with such remembrances!

I confess I was slightly nervous as I knocked at the Simmses’ door. There was a smile on the flunkey’s face and an alacrity in his manner as he let me in. I saw that he knew all about it. What can we hide from these omniscient flunkeys?

Miss Simms happened to be upon the stairs.

“How can I thank you?” I said, grasping her hand with the warmth of friendship. The flunkey had disappeared.

“Oh, Henry!” Miss Simms gasped.

Her feelings were too much for her. What a good heart this woman had to be so moved by the happiness of others. She clung to my hand, to my arm, to my shoulder, for support. She raised her eyes to mine, her face to mine—her lips; by Jove, I thought for a moment the good creature was going to kiss me. Her attitude was the very attitude of Helena lifting beseeching lips to Bertram. “What would you have?” quoth he. She answers:

Something, and scarce so much: nothing, indeed.

I would not tell you what I would, my lord—’faith, yes;—

Strangers and foes do sunder, and not kiss.

But I did gently sunder myself from the weight of Miss Simms without any osculation.