Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17.djvu/86

78 own mistress. I should be very sorry to consider myself responsible for all her tastes."

Reuben, hearing this, felt his heart leap toward Adèle in a way which the spinster's praises had never provoked.

Dame Tourtelot here says, in her most aggravating manner,—

"I think she dances beautiful, Miss Johns. She dooz yer credit, upon my word she dooz."

And thereupon there followed a somewhat lively altercation between those two sedate ladies,—in the course of which a good deal of stinging mockery was covered with unctuous compliment. But the spinster did not lose sight of her chief aim, to wit, the refusal of all responsibility as attaching to the conduct of Adèle, and a most decided intimation that the rumors which associated her name with Reuben were unfounded, and were likely to prove altogether false.

This last hint was a revelation to the gossipping Dame; there had been trouble, then, at the parsonage; things were clearly not upon their old footing. Was it Adèle? Was it Reuben? Yet never had either shown greater cheer than on this very night. But the Dame none the less eagerly had communicated her story, before the evening closed, to Mrs. Elderkin,—who received it doubtingly,—to Rose, who heard it with wonder and a pretty confusion,—and to the old Squire, who said only, "Pooh! pooh! it's a lover's quarrel; we shall be all straight to-morrow."

Adèle, by her own choice, was convoyed home, when the evening was over, by the good Doctor, and had not only teased him into pardon of her wild mirth, before they had reached the parsonage-gate, but had kindled in him a glow of tenderness that made him utterly forgetful of the terrible news of the day. Reuben and the spinster, as they followed, talked of Rose; never had Aunt Eliza spoken so warmly of her charms; but before him was tripping along, in the moonlight, the graceful figure of Adèle, clinging to the old gentleman's arm, and it is doubtful if his eye did not feast more upon that vision than his ear upon the new praises of the spinster.

Yet, for all that, Rose was really charming. The young gentlemen, it would seem, hardly knew his own heart; and he had a wondrous dream that night. There was a church, (such as he had seen in the city,) and a delicately gloved hand, which lay nestling in his; and Mr. Maverick, oddly enough, appeared to give away a bride, and all waited only for the ceremony, which the Doctor (with his old white hat and cane) refused to perform; whereat Phil's voice was heard bursting out in a great laugh; and the face of Rose, too, appeared; but it was only as a saint upon a painted window. And yet the face of the saint upon the window was more distinct than anything in his dream.

The next morning found Miss Eliza harsh and cold. Even the constrained smile with which she had been used to qualify her "good morning" for Adèle was wanting; and when the family prayers were said, in which the good Doctor had pleaded, with unction, that the Christian grace of charity might reign in all hearts, the poor girl had sidled up to Miss Eliza, and put her hand in the spinster's,—

"You think our little frolic last night to be very wrong, I dare say?"

"Oh, no," said the spinster. "I dare say Mr. Maverick and your French relatives would approve."

It was not so much the language as the tone which smote on poor Adèle, and brought the tears welling into her eyes.

Reuben, seeing it all, and forgetful of the good parson's plea, gnawed his lip to keep back certain very harsh utterances.

"Don't think of it, Ady," said he, watching his chance a little later; "the old lady is in one of her blue moods to-day."

"Do you think I did wrong, Reuben?" said Adèle, earnestly.

"I? Wrong, Adèle? Pray, what should I have to say about the right or wrong? and I think the old ladies are beginning to think I have no clear idea of the difference between them."

"You have, Reuben! you have!