26. CHAPTER XXVI.
THE NECKLACE.
This was Redbud.
The poor girl presented a great contrast to the lively Fanny,
who, with sparkling eyes and merry lips, and rosy, sunset cheeks,
afforded an excellent idea of the joyous Maia, as she trips on
gathering her lovely flowers. Poor Redbud! Her head was
hanging down, her eyes wandered sadly and thoughtfully toward
the distant autumn horizon, and the tender lips wore that expression
of soft languor which is so sad a spectacle in the young.
At Mr. Ralph Ashley's bow, she raised her head quickly; and
her startled look showed plainly she had not been conscious of
the presence of Fanny, or the young man on the portico.
Redbud returned the profound bow of Fanny's cavalier with a
delightful little curtsey, and would have retired into the house
again. But this Miss Fanny, for reasons best known to herself,
was determined to prevent—reasons which a close observer might
have possibly guessed, after looking at her blushing cheeks and
timid, uneasy eyes. For everybody knows that if there is anything
more distasteful and embarrassing to very young ladies than
a failure on the part of gallants to recognise their claims to attention,
that other more embarrassing circumstance is a too large
quantum of the pleasing incense. It is not the present writer,
however, who will go so far as to say that their usual habit of
running away from the admirer should be taken, as in other
feminine manœuvres, by contraries.
So Fanny duly introduced Mr. Ralph Ashley to Miss Redbud
Summers; and then, with a little masonic movement of
the head, added, with perfect ease:
“Suppose we all take a walk in the garden—it is a very pretty
evening.”
This proposition was enthusiastically seconded by Mr. Ralph
Ashley, who had regained his laughing ease again—and though
Redbud would fain have been excused, she was obliged to yield,
and so in ten minutes they were promenading up and down the
old garden, engaged in pleasant conversation—which conversation
has, however, nothing to do with this veracious history.
Just as they arrived, in one of their perambulatory excursions
around the walks, at a small gate which opened on the hill-side,
they discovered approaching them a worthy of the pedlar description,
who carried on his broad German shoulders a large
pack, which, as the pedlar jogged along, made pretences continually
of an intention to dive forward over his head, but
always without carrying this intention into execution. The
traveling merchant seemed to be at the moment a victim to that
species of low spirits which attacks all his class when trade is
dull; and no sooner had he descried the youthful group, than his
face lighted up with anticipated business.
He came to the gate at which they stood, and ducking his
head, unslung the pack, and without further ceremony opened it.
A tempting array of stuffs and ribbons, pencils, pinchbeck
jewels and thimbles, scissors and knives, immediately became
visible; with many other things which it is not necessary for us
to specify. The pedlar called attention to them by pointing
admiringly at each, and recommended them by muttering broken
English over them.
With that propensity of young ladies to handle and examine
all articles which concern themselves with personal adornment,
Fanny and Redbud, though they really wanted nothing, turned
over everything in the pack. But little resulted therefrom for
the pedlar. He did not succeed in persuading Redbud to buy a
beautiful dress pattern, with dahlias and hollyhocks, in their
natural size and colors; and was equally unsuccessful with
Fanny, who obstinately declined to reduce into her possession a
lovely lace cap, such as our dear old grandmamas' portraits show
us—though this description may be incorrect, as Fanny always
said that the article in question was a night-cap.
Disappointed in this, the pedlar brought out his minor “articles;”
and here he was more successful. Mr. Ashley bought
sufficiently for his young lady friends at the seminary, he said,
and Redbud and Fanny both purchased little things.
Fanny bought the most splendid glass breastpin, which she
pretended, with a merry laugh, to admire “to distraction.” Redbud,
without knowing very well why, bought a little red coral
necklace, which looked bright and new, and rattled merrily as
she took it; for some reason the pedlar parted with it for a very
small sum, and then somewhat hastily packed up his goods, and
ducking his head in thanks, went on his way.
“Look what a very handsome breastpin I have!” said Fanny,
as they returned through the garden; “I'm sure nobody would
know that it is not a diamond.”
“You are right,” said Mr. Ashley, smiling, “the world is given
to judging almost wholly from outward appearances. And what
did you purchase, Miss Summers—or Miss Redbud, if you will
permit me—”
“Oh, yes, sir,” said Redbud, looking at him with her kind,
sad eyes, “you need'nt be ceremonious with me. Besides, you're
Fanny's cousin. I bought this necklace—I thought it old-fashioned
and pretty.”
Redbud was silent again, her eyes bent quietly upon the
walk, the long lashes reposing thus upon the tender little
cheeks.
“Old-fashioned and pretty,” said the young man, with a
smile, “did you not make a mistake there, Miss Redbud?”
“No, sir—I meant it,” she said, raising her eyes simply to
his own. “I think old-fashioned things are very often prettier
and more pleasant than new ones. Don't you?”
“I do!” cried Fanny; “I'm sure my great grandmother's
diamond breastpin is much handsomer than this horrid thing!”
And the young lady tore the pinchbeck jewel from ner neck.
Mr. Ashley laughed.
“There's your consistency,” he said; “just now you thought
nothing could be finer.”
Miss Fanny vehemently opposed this view of her character at
great length, and with extraordinary subtilty. We regret that
the exigencies of our narrative render it impossible for us to
follow her—we can only state that the result, as on all such
occasions, was the total defeat of the cavalier. Mr. Ralph
Ashley several times stated his willingness to subscribe to any
views, opinions or conclusions which Miss Fanny desired him to,
and finally placed his fingers in his ears.
Fanny greeted this manoeuvre with a sudden blow in the
laugher's face, from her bouquet; and Redbud, forgetting her disquietude,
laughed gaily at the merry cousins.
So they entered, and met the bevy of young school girls on
the portico, with whom Mr. Ralph Ashley, in some manner, became
instantaneously popular: perhaps partly on account of the
grotesque presents he scattered among them, with his gay, joyous
laughter. After thus making himself generally agreeable, he
looked at the setting sun, and said he must go. He would, however,
soon return, he said, to see his dearest Fanny, the delight of his
existence. And having made this pleasant speech, he went away
on his elegant horse, laughing, good-humored, and altogether a
very pleasing, graceful-looking cavalier, as the red sunset
showered upon his rich apparel and his slender charger all its
wealth of ruddy, golden light.
And as he went on thus, so gallant, in the bravery of youth
and joy, a young lady, sitting on the sun-lit portico, followed him
with her eyes; and leaning her fine brow, with its ebon curls,
upon her hand, mused with a sigh and a smile. And when the
cavalier turned round as the trees swallowed him, and waved his
hat, with its fine feather, in the golden light, Miss Fanny
murmured—“Really, I think—Ralph—has very much—improved!”
Which seemed to be a very afflicting circumstance to
Miss Fanny, inasmuch as she uttered a deep sigh.
Meanwhile our little Redbud gazed, too, from the brilliantly-illumined
portico, toward the golden ocean in the west. The rich
light lingered lovingly upon her golden hair, and tender lips and
cheeks, and snowy neck, on which the coral necklace rose and
fell with the pulsations of her heart. The kind, mild eyes were
fixed upon the sunset sadly, and their blue depths seemed to hold
more than one dew-drop, ready to pass the barrier of the long
dusky lashes, which closed gradually as the pure white forehead
drooped upon her hand.
For a long time the tender heart remained thus still and quiet;
then her lips moved faintly, and she murmured—
“Oh, it is wrong—I know it is—I ought not to!”
And two tears fell on the child's hand, and on the necklace,
which the fingers held.
