University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.

On the morrow the splendid equipage of Mr.
Langdale drove up to Holly. He paid his respects
to its inmates with the easy and graceful courtesy
which marked all his actions.

“Miss Fanny Fitzhurst,” said he, “I have come to
beg a favour of you?”

“'Tis granted: what is it, Mr. Langdale?”

“Ah, you tempt me to make a request, which I
know would make you break your word. Remember,
I'm a bachelor; you smile, not so old, either. I have
a newly-discovered relative, who has just arrived in
this country from England; may I ask that you will
do me the honour of calling on her.”

“With great pleasure, sir; I will make a visit to
town to-morrow for the very purpose. What is
the name of your relative? Is she married or
single?”

“You are extremely kind, Miss Fitzhurst; Atherton
is her name; she is a splendid woman, is she not,
Pinckney?”

“She is, indeed, sir,” replied Pinckney.

“Yet I hesitated to ask you the question,” rejoined
Langdale; “for when you visited me yesterday, you
found her all alone, and staid but a few minutes, and
went—where? I pray you.”

“Directly thither,” replied Pinckney, bowing to

Fanny, who blushed while a rosy tint flushed her
very forehead.

“I expected as much, Miss Fitzhurst,” said Langdale,
addressing the lady; “this young friend of mine,
during a fever, the result of his wounds, talked wildly
in his sleep, and as I was watching by him I became
unconsciously the depository of certain of his
secrets.”

Fanny blushed again, and after a moment's pause,
asked:

“What connection is Miss Atherton of yours,
Mr. Langdale?”

“Something like a second or third cousin. We
have not yet traced the connection exactly; her
uncle is a gentleman of the old school, and devotedly
attached to her. You did not meet him, I believe,
Howard?”

“No, sir; he was, my impression is, absent in
England when I met Miss Atherton on the continent.
He is an American, and a southerner. I know their
connections south.”

“Well,” said Langdale, with enthusiasm, “she
is almost that rare bird—a perfect beauty. What a
full, flashing eye she has—what a graceful form;—
and mind—has she not mind, Howard?—is she not
bewitching?”

“Yes; she is, indeed,” said Pinckney, with a peculiar
smile. Take care, Langdale.”

“I must, if I hope to keep my bachelor vow.”

“Why should you keep it?” said Fanny, gaily.
“It is a matter of town-wonder that you do not
marry, and here is a beautiful bird flown into your
very cage.”

“True, true; my time has come. What say you,
Howard, to my choice?”

“A most excellent one, Mr. Langdale, “to get a
wife. Would she suit you?”

“Would she not? how old is she?”

“We must not speculate upon a lady's age, Langdale,”
rejoined Pinckney.

Langdale staid to dinner; he was every now and
then, whatever was the topic of conversation, quoting
Miss Atherton, or alluding to her beauty, and the
prize he had found in her relationship. Pinckney
could not but smile while he watched him. He listened
to his remarks with even more than his usual
interest.

The evening found Langdale in high spirits by the
side of Miss Atherton.

“You have been absent long,” said the lady,
throwing the lustre of her dark eye on him as he took
a seat beside her.

“I have been to the country residence of Mr.
Fitzhurst, where my friend Pinckney has been spending
some time. Miss Fitzhurst will call to see you
to-morrow. Pinckney used to tell me of an Italian
lady who had stolen his heart, and I suspect made
off with it without any return. I replied he was not
incurable, and I find I have been a prophet.”

“How so? do tell me?”

“Miss Fitzhurst has caught him completely; and,
if I have any sagcity, he has caught her. They'll
make a noble pair; saving your fair presence, coz,
I know no one, personally, or mentally, her superior.”

“Ay, is she so beautiful?”

“Yes, indeed, she is; I rallied Pinckney for leaving
town so quickly yesterday, and with a profound
bow to the lady, he confessed the cause.”

“Indeed!”

“Yes, indeed! how you echo me. Don't you
think him a man to please a woman.”

“Perhaps to please a very young one, but he seems,
does he not? as Master Stephen has it in Every Man in

his Humour, to be given up to most gentlemanly melancholy.”

“He has strong energies, and they, are inactive—
that's all. He would be much happier if he were
without fortune, and was struggling in the up-hill for
fame and wealth. Yes, he sometimes gets a fit of
this gentlemanly melancholy; but I don't believe the
Italian lady had much to do with it. He describes
her as a splendid woman, and no doubt she was; but
utterly worldly (according to my notions), and one
who would have made him happy for a month, and
miserable for the rest of his life. She, I suspect, was
older than himself. No! such a lady as Miss Fitzhurst
is the one for him. It was amusing to observe how
all regret of this fair Italian faded away from his
mind, turned to pitying contempt almost, as his intimacy
with Miss Fitzhurst increased. In fact, I
suspect that the Italian had rather piqued his vanity
than wounded his heart; and from his personal appearance,
address, and fortune, I take it, his vanity
has not been used to many wounds. Pshaw! it was
all stuff; a youthful traveller's dream of some old
beauty of the old world, such as those of the theatre—
all point, furbelow, florence, folly, flatter, and fury,
from which he awoke in the new world with a brain
made reasonable to meet a new and youthful beauty,
with feelings fresh as the rose-clad forest fountain of
her native land, the bubbles of which nought but the
bird's beak ever broke in the unbroken wilderness—
he awoke here to realize the truth of love. I admire
Pinckney—I love him; I know no young man I respect
half so much. When you see Miss Fitzhurst,
you will agree with me that they are just suited to
each other. How romantically I have been holding
forth! Alas! for us bachelors; if they are to be married
I trust it will be soon, fair coz.

“Have you understood that they were soon to be
married?” asked Miss Atherton, looking up from her
slipper, which she had been observing as Langdale
spoke.

“I have not; but I doubtless suppose that they will
be soon. Her family certainly will be highly gratified
by the event. Ha, ha! Pinckney wished to make me
believe that there must be a long interval for the
heart to recover itself—a long dark night, as he expressed
it, between the sitting of our first love and
rising of the second—a passionless period. Why, this
first love of his, if it was first love, went plump down
in the wide ocean, without creating the least stir on
its bosom, except, perhaps, the light rippling of vanity
and pique. It went down, as Shakespeare describes
the golden set of the sun, which argues a goodly day
to-morrow.