University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.

Henry VI.

About the middle of the following March, the season, by
courtesy, called spring, but when winter sometimes reigns
de facto, in the neighbourhood to which Wyllys-Roof belonged,
Mr. Wyllys proposed, one morning, to drive his
granddaughter to Longbridge, with the double object of

making the most of a late fall of snow, and procuring the
mail an hour earlier than usual.

The light cutter slipped through a track in which there
was quite as much mud as snow, and, it seemed, as if most
people preferred staying at home, to moving over roads in
that half-and-half condition: they met no one they knew,
excepting Dr. Van Horne.

“I was sure you would be out this morning, Mr. Wyllys,”
cried the Doctor, as they met, “your sleigh is always the
first and the last on the road.”

“You generally keep me company, I find, doctor. I am
going for the mail. How far have you been, this morning?”

“To Longbridge, sir; but, with this sun, the snow will
hardly carry you there and home again; and yet, I dare say,
you will find something worth having, in the mail, for I saw
letters in your box; and there is a French packet in.”

“Indeed! We'll make the best of our way, then, at
once;” and, wishing the doctor good morning, Mr. Wyllys
drove off. “We shall have letters from Paris, I hope, Nelly,”
said her grandfather.

“Certainly, I hope so,” replied Elinor; “Jane's last letter
was shamefully short. I had half a mind not to answer
it; and so I told her; but my scolding has not had time to
reach her yet.”

“Jenny is no great letter-writer; and she is very busy
enjoying her year in Paris, I suppose. But I shall be
glad to have a sight of Harry's handwriting again. Where
was it he wrote from last, in December?”

“From Beyroot, sir. He was to be in Paris early in the
spring.”

“Well, I hope we shall hear something from him to-day.
Before long, I suppose, we shall have the young gentleman
at Wyllys-Roof, trying to persuade you that he wants your
help in reading Blackstone. But, don't believe him, Nelly;
I shan't give you up for a year to come.”

“There is time enough to think of all that,” said Elinor,
blushing a little.

“Yes, time enough! and we can judge what sort of a
lawyer he will make, by the way in which he handles the
subject. As it is a bad cause, he ought to find a great deal
to say on the occasion. Suppose he manages the matter so
well, as to bring your aunt and myself over to his side, what
would you say?”

“I can only say now, grandpapa, that I cannot bear to
think of the time when I shall have to leave Aunt Agnes
and yourself,” replied Elinor, with feeling. “Pray, don't
let us talk about it yet; I shall be very well satisfied with
things as they are, for a long time to come.”

“Well, you may be satisfied to have Harry in Egypt; but
I should like to see him here, once in a while. When is it
they are to be home?”

“The last of the summer, sir. They sail in August, that
Louisa may see Mrs. Graham before she goes south.”

“You have had a different sort of a winter, my child, from
Harry and Jane.”

“It has been a pleasant winter to me, and to all three, I
hope.”

“Yes; Jenny has had all the gaiety—Harry all the adventure—and
you, all the sobriety. But it was your own
wish, my dear, that has kept us in the country, this winter.”

The last six months had, indeed, passed very differently to
the young people. Jane had been dancing away her evenings
on the parquets of Paris; and dividing her mornings
between walks to the Tuileries, drives to the Bois de Boulogne,
and visits to the shops. As for the lessons which had,
at one time, entered into the plan, they had never been even
commenced. Jane was too indolent to take pleasure in anything
of the kind; and her companions, the daughters of
Mrs. Howard, led her into so much gaiety, that she really
seemed to have little time for anything else. Mrs. Robert
Hazlehurst thought, indeed, that her sister was quite too dissipated;
still, Jane seemed to enjoy it so much, she looked
so well and happy, and Mrs. Howard was such an obliging

chaperon, that the same course was pursued, week after
week; although Mrs. Hazlehurst, herself, who had an infant
a few weeks old, seldom accompanied her.

Elinor, in the mean time, was passing the quietest of
country lives at Wyllys-Roof, where the family remained all
winter. Even the letters, which the previous year had given
her so much pleasure, had been wanting during the past
season. Jane never wrote oftener than was absolutely necessary;
and only two of Harry's letters reached their destination.
There was a package from Europe, however, in the Longbridge
Post-Office, on the morning of the sleigh-drive we
have alluded to. It contained a long letter from Harry,
written at Smyrna, announcing that he hoped to be in Paris
some time in March; and one from Mrs. Hazlehurst, informing
her friends of their plans for the summer—including an
excursion to Switzerland—after which they were to return
home late in August.

The very day Elinor received these letters, Harry returned
to Paris. After pitching his tent among Grecian ruins, and
riding on camels over the sands of Egypt and Syria, he had
returned to France through Turkey and Austria; thinking
himself a very lucky fellow to have seen so much of what
the world contains, worth seeing.

He found his brother entirely recovered, as well as he had
been before the accident which had injured him. He was
called upon to admire the little niece born during his absence;
she was a sweet little baby, and Mrs. Hazlehurst had named
her Elinor, after her future sister-in-law—a kind attention
for which Harry was much obliged to her, and which, he
declared, would make the child a favourite with him.

Jane was there, of course, and glad to see Harry, of course.
Hazlehurst had scarcely taken possession of a comfortable
fauteuil in his brother's drawing-room, before the thought
occurred to him, that all the party looked much as usual,
excepting Jane. During the first evening, he became convinced
that she was certainly altered by the air of Paris.

How very much she had improved in appearance and
manner! He had never before thought her so very beautiful
as many others had done—but he must now retract all he
had ever said on the subject. He supposed the good taste
with which she was dressed must have some effect; but it
seemed as if her beauty were now in its perfection. When
he last saw her, there was something almost childish in her
appearance and expression, which she had now lost entirely.
He was struck with the air of finish about her whole person,
from the rich glossy lustre on her dark hair, to the pearly
tint of her complexion. She was, indeed, a beatiful creature.
What a sensation such a face must create among the enthusiastic
Parisians! Then, she must have more feeling than
he had given her credit for; she had received him quite
kindly, and seemed really glad to see him again.

Daily observation, while living under the same roof, only
confirmed Harry in this new opinion of Jane. He began to
admire the languid grace of her movements; and he discovered
that it is very possible to have too much warmth of
manner, and that some women certainly fatigue one by their
animation. He must tell the family at Wyllys-Roof how
much Jane had improved. He found he was not mistaken
in supposing that she must produce an impression wherever
she was seen. Whether they were walking in the Tuileries
of a morning, or went into society in the evening, the
effect was always the same; he saw her everywhere followed
by very evident and open admiration. And no wonder; her
beauty threw a charm over all her actions: it was even a
pleasure to accompany her in shopping excursions—which
he used to look upon as the greatest tax that a lady could
impose upon his gallantry; but then, few persons looked so
beautiful as Jane, when selecting a muslin, or trying on a
hat. He soon became proud of a place at her side, and
much more vain of her beauty than she was herself.

“I must let them know at Longbridge,” he thought,
“what a sensation Jane is making. She is, indeed, a beauty

to be proud of. I saw nothing like her in Greece. She
does credit to the country.” Harry thought it patriotic to
admire her, and to lose no opportunity of enjoying the effect
of her beauties among the gay world of Paris. American
patriotism, as we all know, often takes singular shapes.

Jane and himself became more intimate, and on more
friendly terms than they had ever yet been. She seemed,
indeed, to prefer him, as a cavaliere servente, to any of her
other admirers, American or European. But that might
easily be accounted for, on the score of connexion. Of
course, Harry was grateful for this preference, and after a
while he even began to look upon the excessive devotion of
one or two of her admirers, as impertinence on their part.

About this time—some weeks after his return—Hazlehurst
gave himself very much to the study of æsthetics.
The beautiful, the harmonious, alone attracted him; he
could not endure anything approaching to coarseness. He
wandered up and down the galleries of the Louvre, delighting
more in the beautiful faces of the Italian masters, in the
Nymphs and Muses of the old Greeks, than he had ever
done before. He became quite a connoisseur. He had no
taste for the merely pretty; perfect beauty he admired with
his whole soul, but anything short of it was only to be tolerated.
He felt the fact, if he did not reason on the discovery,
that beauty in the very highest degree, carries with it—we
do not say the expression—but the stamp of dignity, and
even of intelligence. Such was the impression produced by
Jane's perfectly classical head and features. It was impossible,
as you gazed upon her smooth polished forehead, and
noble dark eyes, to believe her wanting in character, or intellect.
Then, Harry remembered that talent of the highest
order bears a calm aspect; not frothy, sparkling cleverness,
which takes so well with the vulgar; not wit, exactly; but
that result of a well-balanced mind, in which all the faculties
harmonize so well, that they leave no one particularly prominent.
He had been much struck, lately, with several

remarks of Jane's—they showed a depth of observation, a
fund of good sense, which he had not formerly supposed
her to possess; but then, of old, he used to be unpardonably
unjust to Jane. She was certainly improved, too; her
friends at Longbridge would be gratified by the change.

This course of æsthetics gradually carried Harry so far,
that after a profound study of the subject in general, and of
Jane's features in particular, he became a convert to the
opinion of the German philosopher, who affirms that “The
Beautiful is greater than the Good.” There have been disputes,
we believe, on the subject of this axiom, some critics
giving it a deep mystical sense, others, again, attempting to
explain it in different ways. Our friend Hazlehurst, though
a pretty good German scholar, seemed disposed to adopt the
idea in its simplest interpretation.

Things were in this train, when the family set out for
Switzerland.