University of Virginia Library

25. CHAPTER XXV.
A YOUNG GENTLEMAN, JUST FROM WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE.

Instead of following Verty, who, like most lovers, is very far
from being an amusing personage, let us go back and accompany
Mr. Ralph Ashley, on his way to the Bower of Nature, where
our young friend Fanny awaits him; and if these scenes and
characters also fail to entertain us, we may at least be sure that
they are from the book of human nature—a volume whose
lightest chapters and most frivolous illustrations are not beneath
the attention of the wisest. If this were not true, the present
chronieler would never be guilty of the folly of expending his
time and ink upon such details as go to make up this true history;
it would be lost labor, were not the flower and the blade
of grass, the very thistle down upon the breeze, each and all, as
wonderful as the grand forests of the splendid tropics. What
character or human deed is too small or trivial for study?
Never did a great writer utter truer philosophy than when he
said:

And now after this philosophical dissertation upon human life
and actions, we may proceed to marrate the visit of Mr. Ralph

Ashley, graduate of Williamsburg, and cousin of Miss Fanny, to
the Bower of Nature, and its inmates.

Fanny was at the door when he dismounted, and awaited the
young gentleman with some blushes, and a large amount of
laughter.

This laughter was probably directed toward the somewhat
dandified costume of the young gentleman, and he was not long
left in the dark upon this point.

“How d'ye do, my dearest Fanny,” said Mr. Ralph Ashley,
hastening forward, and holding out his arms; “let us embrace!”

“Humph!” said Fanny; “indeed you shan't!”

“Shan't what—kiss you?”

“Yes, sir: you shall do nothing of the sort!”

“Wrong!—here goes!”

And before Miss Fanny could make her retreat, Ralph Ashley,
Esq., caught that young lady in his arms, and impressed a salute
upon her lips, so remarkably enthusiastic, that it resembled the
discharge of a pistol. Perhaps we are wrong in saying that it was
imprinted on his cousin's lips, inasmuch as Miss Fanny, though
incapacitated from releasing herself, could still turn her head, and
she always maintained that nothing but her cheek suffered. On
this point we cannot be sure, and therefore leave the question
undecided.

Of one fact, however, there can be no doubt—namely, that
Mr. Ralph Ashley received, almost immediately, a vigorous salute
of another description upon the cheek, from Miss Fanny's
open hand—a salute which caused his face to assume the most
girlish bloom, and his eyes to suddenly fill with tears.

“By Jove! you've got an arm!” said the cavalier, admiringly.
“Come, my charming child—why did you treat me so
cruelly?”

“Why did you kiss me? Impudence!”

“That's just what young ladies always say,” replied her

cavalier, philosophically; “whatever they like, they are sure to
call impudent.”

“Like?”

“Yes, like! Do you pretend to say that you are not complimented
by a salute from such an elegant gentleman as myself?”

“Oh, of course!” said Miss Fanny, satirically.

“Then the element of natural affection—of consanguinity—
has its due weight no doubt, my dearest. I am your cousin.”

“What of that, man?”

“Everything! Don't you know that in this reputable province,
called Virginia, blood goes a great way? Cousins are invariably
favorites.”

“You are very much mistaken, sir,” said Fanny.

“There it is—you girls always deny it, and always believe
it,” said Mr. Ralph, philosophically. “Now, you would die for
me.”

“Die, indeed!”

“Would'nt you?”

“Fiddlesticks!”

“That's an impressive observation, and there's no doubt about
your meaning, though the original signification, the philological
origin of the phrase, is somewhat cloudy. You won't expire for
me, then?”

“No!”

“Then live for me, delight of my existence!” said Mr. Ralph
Ashley, with a languishing glance, and clasping his hands
romantically as he spoke; “live for one, whose heart is wrapped
in thee!”

Miss Fanny's sense of the ludicrous was strong, and this
pathetic appeal caused her to burst into laughter.

“More ridiculous than ever, as I live!” she cried, “though I
thought that was impossible.”

“Did you?”

“Yes.”

Mr. Ashley gently twined a lock around his finger, and assuming
a foppish air, replied:

“I don't know whether you thought it impossible for me to
become more ridiculous; but you can't help confessing, my own
Fanny, that you doubted whether I could grow more fascinating.”

Fanny's lip curled.

“Oh, yes!” she said.

“Come—don't deny what was perfectly plain—it won't do.”

“Deny—?”

“That you were desperately in love with me, and that I was
your sweetheart, as the children say.”

And Mr. Ralph gently caressed the downy covering of his chin,
and smiled.

“What a conceited thing you are,” said Fanny, laughing;
“you are outrageous.”

And having uttered this opinion, Miss Fanny's eyes suddenly
fell, and her merry cheek colored. The truth was simply, that
Ralph had been a frank, good-humored, gallant boy, and the
neighbors had said, that he was Fanny's “sweetheart;” and the
remembrance of this former imputation now embarassed the
nearly-grown-up young lady. No one could remain embarrassed
in Mr. Ralph's society long however; there was so much careless
case in his demeanor, that it was contagious, and so Fanny in a
moment had regained all her self-possession, and returned the
languishing glances of her admirer with her habitual expression
of satirical humor.

“Yes, perfectly outrageous!” she said; “and college has positively
ruined you—you cannot deny it.”

“Ruined me?”

“Wholly.”

“On the contrary, it has greatly improved me, my dearest.”

And Ralph sat down on the trellised portico, stretching out his
elegant rosetted shoes, and laughing.

“I am not your dearest,” said Fanny; “that is not my
name.”

“You are mistaken! But come, sit by me: I'm just in the
mood to talk.”

“No! I don't think I will.”

“Pray do.”

“No,” said Fanny, shaking her head coquettishly, “I'll stand
while your lordship discourses.”

“You positively shan't!”

And with these words, the young man grasped Miss Fanny's
long streaming hair-ribbon, and gently drew it toward him,
laughing.

Fanny cried out. Ralph laughed more than ever.

There was but one alternative left for the young girl. She
must either see her elegantly bound up raven locks deprived of
their confining ribbon, and so fall in wild disorder, or she must obey
the command of the enemy, and sit quietly beside him. True,
there was the third course of becoming angry, and raising her head
with dignified hauteur. But this course had its objections—it
would not do to quarrel with her cousin and former playmate
immediately upon his return; and again the movement of the
head, which we have indicated, would have been attended by
consequences exceedingly disastrous.

Therefore, as Ralph continued to draw toward him gently the
scarlet ribbon, with many smiles and admiring glances, Miss
Fanny gradually approached the seat, and finally sat down.

“There, sir!” she said, pouting, “I hope you are satisfied!”

“Perfectly; the fact is, my sweet Fanny, I never was anything
else but satisfied with you! I always was fascinated with
you.”

“That's one of the things which you were taught at college, I
suppose.”

“What?”

“Making pretty speeches.”

“No, they did'nt teach that, by Jove! Nothing but wretched
Latin, Greek and Mathematics—things, evidently, of far less importance
than the art you mention.”

“Oh! of course.”

“And the reason is plain. A gentleman never uses the one
after he leaves college, and lays them by with the crabbed books
that teach them; while the art of compliment is always useful
and agreeable—especially agreeable to young ladies of your exceedingly
juvenile age—is't not?”

“Very agreeable.”

“I know it is; and when a woman descends to it, and flatters
a man—ah! my dear Fanny, there's no hope for him. I am a
melancholy instance.”

“You!” laughed Fanny, who had regained her good-humor.

“Yes; you know Williamsburg has many other things to recommend
it besides the college.”

“What things?”

“Pretty girls.”

“Oh! indeed.”

“Yes, and I assure you I did not neglect the opportunity of
prosecuting my favorite study—the female character. Don't
interrupt me—your character is no longer a study to me.”

“I am very glad, sir.”

“I made you out long ago—like the rest of your sex, you are,
of course, very nearly angelie, but still have your faults.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“All true—but about Williamsburg—I was, I say, a melancholy
sample of the effect produced by a kind and friendly speech
from a lady. Observe, that the said speech was perfectly common-place,
and sprung, I'm sure, from the speaker's general amiability;
and yet, what must I do, but go and fall in love with
her.”

“Oh!” from Fanny.

“Yes—true as truth itself; and, as a consequence, my friends,

for the first, and only time, had a good joke against me. They
had a tale about my going to his Excellency, the Governor's palace,
to look at the great map there—all for the purpose of finding
where the country was in which she lived; for, observe, she
was only on a visit to Williamsburg—of studying out this boundary,
and that—this river to cross, and that place to stop at,—
the time it would take to carry my affections over them—and all
the thousand details. Of course, this was not ture, my darling
Fanny, at least—”

“Ralph, you shall stop talking to me like a child!” exclaimed
Fanny, who had listened to the details of Mr. Ashley's passion
with more and more constraint; “please to remember that I am
not a baby, sir.”

Ralph looked at the lovely face, with its rosy-cheeks and flashing
eyes, and burst out laughing.

“There, you are as angry as Cleopatra, when the slave brought
her bad news—and, by Jove, Fanny, you are twice as lovely.
Really! you have improved wonderfully. Your eyes, at this moment,
are as brilliant as fire—your lips like carnation—and your
face like sunlit gold; recollect, I'm a poet. I'm positively rejoiced
at the good luck which made me bring such a lovely expression
into your fair countenance.”

Fanny turned her head away.

“Come now, Fanny,” said Ralph, seriously, “I do believe
you are going to find fault with my nonsense.”

No reply.

Mr. Ralph Ashley heaved a sigh; and was silent.

“You treat me like a child,” said Fanny, reproachfully; “I
am not a child.”

“You certainly are not, my dearest Fanny—you are a charming
young lady—the most delicious of your sex.”

And Mr. Ralph Ashley accompanied these words with a glance
so ludicrously languishing, that Fanny, unable to command herself,
burst into laughter; and the quarrel was all made up, if
quarrel it indeed had been.

“You were a child in old times,” said Mr. Ashley, throwing
his foot elegantly over his knee; “and, I recollect, had a perfect
genius for blindman's-buff; but, of course, at sixteen you have
`put away' all those infantile or `childish things'—though I am
sincerely rejoiced to see that you have not `become a man.' ”

Fanny laughed.

“I wish I was,” she said.

“What?”

“Why a man.”

“Oh! you're very well as you are;—though if you were a
`youth,' I'm sure, Fanny dear, I should be desperately fond of
you.”

“Quite likely.”

“Oh, nothing truer; and everybody would say, `See the
handsome friends.' Come now, would'nt we make a lovely
couple.”

“Lovely!”

“Suppose we try it.”

“Try what?”

“Being a couple.”

Fanny suddenly caught, from the laughing eye, the young
man's meaning, and began to color.

“I see you understand, my own Fanny,” observed Mr. Ralph,
“and I expected nothing less from a young lady of your quickness.
What say you? It is not necessary for me to say that
I'm desperately in love with you.”

“Oh, not at all necessary!” replied Fanny, satirically, but
with a blush.

“I see you doubt it.”

“Oh, not at all.”

“Which means, as usual with young ladies, that you don't
believe a word of it. Well, only try me. What proof will you
have?”

Fanny laughed with the same expression of constraint which
we have before observed, and said:

“You have not looked upon the map of Virginia yet for my
`boundaries?' ”

Ralph received the hit full in the front.

“By Jove! Fanny,” he exclaimed, “I ought'nt to have told
you that.”

“I'm glad you did.”

“Why?”

“Because, of course, I shall not make any efforts to please you
—you are already `engaged!' ”

“Engaged! well, you are wrong. Neither my heart nor my
hand is engaged. Ah, dear Fanny, you don't know how we
poor students carry away with us to college some consuming
passion which we feed and nurture;—how we toast the Duleinea
at oyster parties, and, like Corydon, sigh over her miniature.
I had yours!”

“My—miniature?” said the lively Fanny, with a roseate
blush, “you had nothing of the sort.”

“Your likeness, then.”

“Equally untrue—where is it?”

“Here!” said Mr. Ralph Ashley, laying his hand upon his
heart, and ogling Miss Fanny with terrible expression. “Ah,
Fanny, darling, don't believe that story I relate about myself—
never has any one made any impression on me—for my heart—
my love—my thoughts—have always—”

Suddenly the speaker became silent, and rising to his feet,
made a courteous and graceful bow. A young lady had just
appeared at the door.