University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER XIII.

When I was about fifteen years old, and had
been at school nearly two years, I received permission
from my father to attend a riding-school
in the city, at which some of the more advanced
girls had already been attending. Among these
were most of my intimate associates, some of
whom resided in the city, and of course did not
sleep at the school. Of the latter number was my
dear and valued friend, Isabel Hazlehurst. When
we had been at riding-school some time, Isabel and
I were pronounced sufficiently secure in our seats
to ride out into the country. One Saturday afternoon,
when I was spending the day with my friend,
a riding-party was proposed and soon made up,
consisting entirely of the girls of our school, and
escorted by Isabel's brother and several other
young gentleman, most of whom had sisters of the
party. When we had proceeded safely for several
miles, and timidity and caution began to give way
to our usual wild mirth, the horse on which Isabel
rode became all at once very restless and unmanageable;
this soon startled mine, which was the
most restive and mettlesome of the whole. All
my endeavours to quiet and pacify him were fruitless;
the nearer Isabel or one of the gentlemen

endeavoured to approach, the worse he became,
until he was at length fairly at the top of his
speed. I scarcely recollect what happened afterward,
until I found myself lying on the road-side,
and all the party standing around, frightened almost
out of their senses. When I became able to sit
up and look more freely about me, I found a gentleman
added to the party, and then began to have
some confused recollection of a person galloping
by my side. The truth of the matter was, that
the gentleman mentioned was riding along the
avenue, in a direction to meet us, when he discovered
my horse to be beyond my control, and saw
that the efforts of our escorts to overtake him
only made him fly the faster. With admirable
address and presence of mind, he wheeled his
horse, and began to canter in the same direction
with us until my horse came up with his, when he
seized the bridle without suddenly checking him,
and would have skilfully graduated his movements
to our usual gait, had he not discovered me falling,
when, seizing me and drawing me from the saddle,
by means of a movement between a jump and a
fall, we came to the ground together, without my
receiving, however, the slightest injury, and with
only a slight bruise on his part.

As soon as he saw that I had recovered my bewildered
senses, he sprang upon his horse and was
out of hearing in an instant, before any one had
asked his name or address, or even thanked him
for his interference; all were so much interested

to know whether I was seriously hurt, that no one
thought of it until it was too late: I was much
chagrined, but there was no remedy. A carriage
was soon procured, and Isabel and I were safely
conveyed to Mr. Hazlehurst's. This was the last
of our equestrian expeditions beyond the limits of
the riding-school grounds.

On the Monday following our excursion, as I
was sitting intently engaged upon a piece of painting
in a front apartment of the school, a fashionable
vehicle drove up to the door. Most of the
younger misses (as was usual) ran to the window
to see whose friend or relation had arrived. Immediately
was heard the exclamation, “Oh! what
an elegant young gentleman! What a beautiful
carriage!” I, too, ran to the window now, with
the others who were crowding around; but the
gentleman had descended, and was ringing at the
door before I arrived. We were all soon seated
and waiting with breathless expectation, fluttering
hearts, and eyes cast towards the door, to see who
would be called down into the parlour. One said,
“'Tis my brother!” another, “'Tis my cousin!”
At length the formal old house-servant opened the
door, and exclaimed, in her usual drawl, “Miss St.
Clair is wanted in the parlour.” I went down
with fear and trembling, which was little tranquillized
when I pushed open the door and discovered
the handsome horseman of our riding adventure,
sitting in conversation with the schoolmistress,
with great case and familiarity, and apparently

answering inquiries about some person who was
mutually known to them.

“My dear” (the mistress's usual salutation before
company), “this is Mr. Sandford, a friend of your
father's, whom he has directed me to introduce to
you, in order that he may inform them at home of
your health, and the progress of your studies.” I
made a desperate effort at conversation, in order
to occupy the time until the mistress should be
called out for a moment, lest he should suddenly
introduce our surreptitious and disastrous ride before
her; out it came, nevertheless, in spite of all
my shallow cunning. “Certainly I cannot be mistaken
in supposing Miss St. Clair to be the same
lady whom I was so fortunate as to assist, the day
before yesterday, in alighting from her horse?” I
hung my head and blushed like a culprit, or looked
guilty as I really felt; when the mistress, holding
up her finger, exclaimed, “Ah! you naughty girls.
I suspected something was in the wind, from so
many of you going to Hazlehurst's together, contrary
to the custom.” But it is useless to dwell on
this particular visit, and every word that passed at
it, for it was succeeded by many others, until I
became the envy of the whole school.

But how shall I describe Mr. Sandford to you,
so that you will understand his difficult character
thoroughly? As to his external appearance, there
is no difficulty. He was a tall, fashionable, sandy
haired gentleman, with a sanguine complexion,
eyes between gray and blue, teeth perfect and

white; lips thin and compressed; rather large
fox-coloured, fashionable whiskers, extending down
under the chin; cheeks, lips, forehead, and ears
were all of the same florid colour. In his address
he showed evidently that he had seen much good
company; his speech was rather slow, deliberate,
and inclined to pomposity. He had been educated
at one of the eastern colleges, and my father mentioned
in his letter, that he had been always distinguished
in his classes. His address to females
was rather calculated to please a mixed collection
of young girls, than a select company of educated
ladies, his discourse consisting chiefly of badinage,
and a kind of conversational satire upon every
passing circumstance and object. Since I have
reflected upon his character, I can account for
many things, which at that time made only an
evanescent impression. Though he was peculiarly
gentle and persuasive in his manners, these qualities
did not originate in the heart. He was courteous
from selfish motives, rather than polite from
benevolence; he suited himself to the cast of our
girlish society; yet his courtesy would have been
an insult to our understanding, if we had understood
it at that time as I do now. To me he was
peculiarly attentive and polite, in the usual acceptation
of the words; yet I was neither entertained
nor improved by his conversations. Not that I
thought or felt his attentions disagreeable to me at
that time; far from it; I considered myself under
obligations to him, to a romantic extent, perhaps,
and the failure of our conversations I attributed
rather to my own want of tact and information,
more especially as he sometimes introduced subjects
with which I was entirely unacquainted, and seemingly
dropped them again, and resumed the common-place,
in pity or charity to my youth or ignorance.
Such was my interpretation at that time;
it is very different now.

He was undoubtedly a man of good sense and
education, and I was as certainly pleased and
flattered by his attentions. He affected poetry,—
and here again he threw me in the background,
not because I had not really a soul capable of
poetic feelings, but because his exhibitions were
too classically refined for my obtuseness; I rather
dreaded the stores of his head, than sympathized
with the feelings which he affected. Now the
truth is, he had not one particle of poetry in his
composition. He no doubt thought otherwise, and
his associates and preceptors may have thought so
too. I did not discern this by intuition, but from
a thorough study and experience of his character,
under circumstances well calculated to develop
the secret motives of the heart, which will soon
appear.

He was full of anecdotes, which were lavishly
told among, and much enjoyed and laughed at by,
the girls; but there was a sneer upon his nose and
upper lip, even when he joined in the laugh at his
own stories, as if they were told for our amusement
solely, and thrown humanely down to us

rather than contributed as his share of the mutual
entertainment. He never listened to the conversation
or anecdotes of others with the feelings of
the heart attuned properly to the social pitch; he
gave his attention as a kind of conventional and
fashionable duty. In short, he had an utterly contemptuous
opinion of the understanding of our sex,
and one as much too exalted of his own. He had
been cried up for a genius at school, because he
was successful in getting “his lessons,” until he
believed it. The truth is, he had no genius, although
he was not without good sense, as I have already
said, when it could be brought to bear uninfluenced
by his contempt for others, or admiration of himself.
He was supremely selfish. He could not
laugh, any more than he could listen, with the heart.
His mirth was forced. Even when he laughed at
his own stories, he would pull the lower part of his
ear with each motion of the chest, or place a finger
beside his nose, in such a way as seemed to me
at that time droll and expressive, but which I now
know proceeded from a contempt for the understanding
of his hearers. I have learned to attach
some importance to these things. For instance,
since I have detected the heartlessness of one
through these little tokens,—laughter among the
rest,—I now habitually observe people when they
give way to their feelings. If I see a man laughing
now with the same spirit that he would join
in a chorus, I cannot keep my eyes from him, so
deeply has my experience in one case affected the
general current of my thoughts. But perhaps I
anticipate, for it must be recollected that my impressions
at the time I have been speaking of were
very different from the results of my subsequent
mature and painful reflections. Mr. Sandford appeared
to me to be an elegant and accomplished
young gentleman; and I was flattered by his attentions,
because they seemed to be highly estimated
by my thoughtless associates.

At length, after repeating his visits to the school
as often as it was proper for my father's most intimate
friends to do, he called for the last time to
take leave of me, and be the bearer of my letters.
These I gave him, with many verbal messages for
my friends in the country, and then shook hands
with him, and was about to run away. But he
detained me a moment, as no one was present, and
said that he hoped again to enjoy the pleasure of
my society at H—, where my father then lived,
as soon as the session should be ended. There was
something sly and peculiar in his way of saying
such things; something that seemed to imply that
he knew more than I did, or had a secret worth
knowing, of which I would like to be a partaker.
However, we parted with a slight fluttering on my
part, the result of novelty; for I can truly say, as
far as first impressions were concerned, that I was
as free from any thing like being in love with him
at first sight as might be. I may have received
pleasure from having a handsome, rich, and fashionable

suitor; but I had no feelings personally favourable
to Mr. Sandford.

After his departure, I was as calm and unmoved
as if he had never made his appearance, except
when the girls teased me about my handsome lover;
and then the only effect was a little excitement,
having more relation to them than to him. But I
was surprised, not long afterward, to receive a
most inquisitive letter from my mother, asking
particularly what I thought of my father's friend,
Mr. Sandford; and, not answering it as promptly
as I ought to have done, I soon received another
from my father, on the same subject. These surprised
me very much; because I never imagined
for a moment that they took any interest in our
girlish notions of beaux; and as to any serious
thought of marriage, it had never entered my head,
except in the same manner in which we think of
death. I thought of it only as a thing to happen, if
at all, at some far, far distant day.