University of Virginia Library

11. CHAPTER XI.
AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.

After a pleasant ride of two hours they arrived at the
Glades, where the young man's multitudinous questions
addressed to the Doctor, for a moment ceased to stun that
gentleman's ears. At the gate stood a large lean horse
champing his bit, and this caused Mr. Robert Emberton
to surmise that “his dancing-master had come to give
him a lesson.”

The Doctor smiled; for this word “dancing-master,”
threw him back to former days when the art of dancing
was so excellently represented in Martinsburg, by that
worthy offshoot of the days of the Grand Monarque—
Monsieur Pantoufle Xaupi. But what was his astonishment
on entering the mansion to see approach him, no
less a personage than that very Monsieur Pantoufle,
twenty-five years older, and needing now no white powder
on his thin elegantly dressed hair; but still supple, still
bowing, ambling, smiling, still full of the thousand engaging
amenities of look and manner which characterized
him in those long past days, to which the Doctor's
thoughts had just flown back.

Monsieur Pantoufle ran to the Doctor and embraced
him enthusiastically.

“My dear friend!” cried the dancing-master, “is it
possible I now see you in person, so well, so excellent-looking!
Is it possible I see my much cherished friend
—Monsieur Max!”

“In person;” said the Doctor, smiling and cordially
returning the pressure of the old man's hand, “I am

as much surprised as yourself, Monsieur Pantoufle—
but delighted to see you!”

“Ah, you charm me!”

“You are as gay as ever?”

“Not so gay;” said the old dancing-master, shaking
his head, “age come on very fast; je suis veillard, Monsieur
Max.”

“Mais vous êtes bien aise?”

“Non, mon cher. I grow old. The times pass—it is
long since I fence, I dance, I play upon the harpsichord,
the violin, as I used to in the old time.”

“You look very well—and almost as young as ever,”
replied the Doctor.

The old man shook his head.

“I have but the spirits,” he said, “the spirits never
leave me.”

That is much.”

“Yes, yes—very much. I often tell my young friend
here, Monsieur Robert, to keep up the spirits; always
keep up the spirits.”

“He needs it little, I think; but really I am delighted
to see you,” said the kind hearted Doctor, “you recall to
me a great many pleasant reminiscences of the past,
though some are unpleasant, too. You recollect that I
bought your coat, eh?”

“My grand monarque coat!” said the old man, shrugging
his shoulders, and laughing.

“Yes, the Louis XIV.”

“I nevare can get such now,” said Monsieur Pantoufle.
“The present mode is abominable.”

“I am just from Paris.”

“From Paris; est il possible?”

“Direct.”

“My friends send me any message? But I have no
friends now,” added the old man shaking his head, “they
all pass away, they all go like the autumn leaf, in the
wind; they send me any message, eh?”

“I was there but a short time and made very few acquaintances.”

“You meet the Duc de Montmorenci?”

“No—your friend?”

“My cousin, my blood cousin: it is an homme d'esprit!
But he has forgot the poor dancing-master sans doute.”

“Well, at least I have not; for I retain too pleasant
an impression of you, my dear Monsieur Pantoufle; and I
wish sincerely that you may never have a day of trouble
or ill health.

“I have had much; but the spirits have not leave me.
I come, Monsieur Robert,” he added, turning to the young
man, “to give you your dancing lesson; I was grieve to
hear of Mademoiselle's sickness, and was going back to
Bath, but she send me word she would come see me—I
must wait; à la bonne heure. She is here.”

Miss Josephine Emberton entered, still pale and looking
feeble, but evidently not otherwise unwell. She
greeted the Doctor with manifest pleasure, and expressed
her great satisfaction at seeing him back again, very
gracefully.

“I scarcely exchanged three words with you yesterday,”
she said, “and now, Doctor, you must give me
leave to make my speech out, you know. It really looks
like old times to see you and Monsieur Pantoufle face to
face; it reminds me of the happy days of my girlhood in
Martinsburg, when I was so young and merry.”

“Ah,” said Monsieur Pantoufle, with a very engaging
bow, “you jest Mademoiselle: you are very young—not
twenty years, I think, indeed.”

“You are very gallant, Monsieur Pantoufle,” Miss
Emberton replied, languidly, but smiling kindly on the
old man, “and I always know what to expect from you
when I make any allusion to my age.”

“Permit me, madam, also to reiterate Monsieur Pantoufle's
compliment,” said Doctor Courtlandt, “I find you
changed, it is true, from the merry school-girl you were

formerly, when a very pert and impudent boy used to
come and visit you at his aunt's: he also is changed but
like yourself, God be thanked, still retains his love of old
friends and holds in his heart, as a sacred treasure, the
recollections of those times you allude to.”

“They are very far off, Doctor,” said Miss Emberton,
with a smile and a sigh.

“But very vivid to me, madam,” replied the Doctor,
“they were happy times—very happy. The memory of
them even now when long years have gone by, each
touching my forehead with a wrinkle, my hair with a
snow flake, even now my recollections when they go back
to the times we speak of, are full of pleasant regret.”

“Is regret ever pleasant, Doctor?”

“Often—very often.”

“How is that?”

“It is very simple. We naturally regret all that
splendor and joy which has flown away; the present is
not equal to the bright past in any thing;—from our proclivity
to love the `good old times,' whether those times
were good or not. That is human; therefore we ever sigh
for them back again. But with the regret is mingled
the consciousness of having once been happy—grand and
most affecting recollection!—and so the regret is often
swallowed up in joyful satisfaction.”

“C'est vrai!” said Monsieur Pantoufle, wisely and
thoughtfully shaking his head.

The lady smiled.

“Well, I confess there is very often some such feeling
in my own mind,” she said, “but I am still very child-like
in my character—though I am becoming an old woman
—which probably accounts for it.”

“Child-like, madam? I find you paying yourself a
very high compliment.”

“How so?”

“The child character is my beau ideal—the most perfect.”

“'Tis true, 'tis true,” said Monsieur Pantoufle, mournfully
shaking his head; “hélas!”

“Why, Doctor?” asked Miss Emberton.

“Because it is the purest. Carping men may exhaust
their rhetoric in scoffing at the idea, but my experience
tells me that the child-mind, unfettered as it is with conventionality
and custom, unobscured and unaffected by
worldly fallacy, that this first virgin tablet takes truer as
well as more beautiful impressions than the adult mind.
Thus I have ever loved children.”

“There is much truth in what you say, Doctor; I think
I should like to possess some enchanter's wand for a moment.
I would transport myself back to Mrs. Courtlandt's
in Martinsburg, and for a time live again in the
midst of my child-friends there as I used to. But they
have grown up, married, and I believe quite forgotten
me; the world is real, not enchanted.”

“Alas,” said the Doctor, “no truer word could be
spoken. But the other day I visited that very house—
collecting my memories, you will understand, madam,”
said the Doctor, smiling.

“The old school?”

“Yes; and I stood in the room just where I so often
stood in the old days listening to the merry laughter of
the girls. I thought I heard it again ringing joyfully
through the passages and out under the broad garden
trees! I was mistaken; it was all gone, and the place
only made me melancholy.”

“So you came away sighing, Doctor, did you?” asked
Miss Emberton, with a languid smile.

“No, no. For one memory rescued me from this
prison house of tears,” said Doctor Courtlandt, laughing.

“What memory?”

“Do you recall the occasion of Mrs. —'s exhibition,
or examination, rather?”

“Perfectly.”

“When I played Romeo you recollect, madam?”

“Yes—yes!”

“Well I recollected, as I stood there in the old room,
that foolish act of mine—the note I gave you.”

The doctor and the lady both laughed.

“When we were dancing the minuet?” she said, “oh
yes, I recollect perfectly.”

“So now, madam; there is one of those pleasant regrets
I spoke of.”

“True it is such.”

“I have my Romeo coat still,” said the Doctor.

“What a curiosity!”

“A curiosity indeed; and how singular that Monsieur
Pantoufle should be here now so long after, just as we
are speaking of those times. That was his coat, my dear
madam.”

“Oh, I recollect; you seem to have forgotten the `subscription'
you proposed!”

The Doctor laughed heartily; and after some more
pleasant conversation arose to take his leave.

“I hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing your sister
and yourself at the Lock upon Friday,” he said to the
young man, “some friends come to dine with me.”

“With great pleasure, Doctor, should I be well enough.
Call again when you find it convenient: we should not
neglect old friends.”

Twenty years before the Doctor would have made his
departure glitter with a speech replete with gallantry;
but time had affected him equally with Monsieur Pantoufle.
He therefore, simply bowed, and requesting Monsieur
Pantoufle to accompany the party, wrapped his surtout
around him, and returned homeward, thinking of
Max.