Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17.djvu/84

76 to be greatly disturbed by the rumor at which the Doctor had hinted of a lost fortune. (We write, it must be remembered, of a time nearly thirty years gone by.) Indeed, as she tripped along beside Reuben, it seemed to him that she had never been in a more jocular and vivacious humor. A reason for this (and it is what, possibly, many of our readers may count a very unnatural one) lay in the letter which she had that day received from her father, in which Maverick, in alluding to a possible affaire du cœur in connection with Reuben, had counselled her, with great earnestness, to hold her affections in reserve, and, above all, to control most rigidly any fancy which she might entertain for the son of their friend the Doctor.

It amused Adèle; for Reuben had been so totally undemonstrative in matters of sentiment, (possibly keeping his deeper feelings in reserve,) that Adèle had felt over and over a girl's mischievous propensity to provoke it. Not that she was in any sense heartless; not that she did not esteem him, and feel a keen sense of gratitude; but his kindest and largest favors were always attended with such demureness and reticence of manner as piqued her womanly vanity. For these reasons there was something exhilarating to her in the intimation conveyed by Maverick's letters, that she was the party, after all, upon whose decision must rest the peace of mind of the two, and that she must cultivate the virtue of treating him with coolness.

Possibly it would have been an easy virtue to cultivate, even though Reuben's attentions had shown the warmth which the blood of nineteen feminine years craves in a lover; but as the matter stood, there was something amusing to her in Maverick's injunction. As if there were any danger! As if there could be! Should it grow serious some day, it would be time enough then to consider her good papa's injunction; very possibly she would pay the utmost heed to it, since a respect for Mr. Maverick's opinions and advice was almost a part of Adèle's religion.

left Miss Eliza Johns in her chamber, swaying back and forth in her rocking-chair, and resolutely confronting the dire news which the Doctor had communicated. What was to be done? Never had so serious a problem been presented to her for solution. There were both worldly and religious motives, as the spinster reckoned them, for plucking out of her heart all the growing tenderness which she had begun to feel toward Adèle; and the sudden discomfiture of that engaging, ambitious scheme which she had fondled so long prompted a feeling of resentment which was even worse than worldly.

How would you have treated the matter, Madam? Would your Christian charities have shrunk from the ordeal? But whatever might have been the other sins of the spinster, there was in her no disposition to shrink from the conclusions to which her logic of propriety and respectability might lead. Adèle was to be discarded, but not suddenly. All her art must be employed to disabuse Reuben of any lingering tenderness. The Doctor's old prejudice against French blood must be worked to its utmost. But there must be no violent clamor,—above all, no disclosure of the humiliating truth. Maverick (the false man!) must be instructed that it would be agreeable to the Johns family—nay, that their sense of dignity demanded—that he should reclaim his child at an early day. On this last score, it might be necessary, indeed, to practise very adroit management with the Doctor; but for the rest, she had the amplest confidence in her own activity and discretion.

She was not the woman to sleep upon her plans, when once they were decided on; and she had no sooner forecast her programme than she took advantage of the lingering twilight to arrange her toilette for a call upon the Elderkins. Of course she led off the Doctor in her trail. The spinster's "marching orders," as he jocularly termed them, the good man was as incapable of resisting as if he had been twenty years a husband.