39. CHAPTER XXXIX.
CLYTIE.
A year had added to the beauty of Miss Clytie.
She was more decidedly than ever the belle of
the settlement. She had had several offers of
marriage and had refused them all. In deportment
she was no less correct than in the days
when she had been held up as a model for Mliss,
to the extreme displeasure of that sensitive lady.
Her beauty was still suggestive of strawberries
and cream, but that type was in favor with the
young gentlemen who composed the rugged element
of the society of Smith's Pocket. An impression
prevailed to some extent that Mr. Gray
might have attained the felicity of an alliance
with the village beauty, if he had availed himself
of the favorable moment, but there were
those who did not believe that the young man
lived who could be indifferent to her charms.
Miss Clytie was reticent on the subject. She
was far too correct to plead an unrequited love
as an excuse for the numerous disappointments
she was compelled to inflict. When reproached
for the hardness of heart which rendered her
impervious either to siege or assault, she only
cast upon the supplicant a soft and melancholy
regard which added fuel to the flame
she would not quench. It was characteristic
of this exemplary young lady that she parted
friends with those who came as admirers. Her manner
seemed to say that it was not their fau't if they
loved her nor her fault if she could not love them.
She was sure she was very sorry if she had ever
seemed to try to win a love that she could not requite,
and they must not think she had. Then she would
bestow upon him a melting glance of her tender blue
eyes and mutely ask to be forgiven. Then the disappointed
swain would fall upon his knees and swear
that she was an angel, and that he was a presumptuous
fool to think of winning her. Then Clytie would
give him her soft white hand; her soft white hand
would rest caressingly in a hard palm, and after a moment
of ecstasy the strong man would tear himself
away. Certainly if Clytie still remembered the night
when she had laid awake thinking of a flinty-hearted
schoolmaster, she was revenged on his perfidious
sex.
One afternoon, an hour before sunset, Clytie was in
the garden among the vines and flowers herself the
fairest flower of them all. The pink of her check
rivaled the softest blush of the cinnamon rose, and
the blonds curis that fell over her shapely shoulders
were touched with a richer gold than the brightest
shades of the yellow lily. Her petite round figure was
clad in blue gingham, and decorated with bows of
pink ribbon. Dress with this lovely child of nature
was not an art, but an observant eye had taught her
to select shades in harmony with her delicate complexion,
and a consciousness that masculine eyes followed
her when she was out of doors inspired a steady devotion
to her toilet that prepared for her admirers
surprise after surprise. The charm of all was her apparent
unconsciousness of producing effects.
This afternoon, in particular, Clytie had neglected
no attentious to toilet that she usually observed.
For the just Aristides had confided to her a great
secret. The young hero, who for three weeks had
laid at the hotel, at the point of death, was coming to
thank in person the esteemed heads of the Morpher
family for the kindness shown him while dependent
on the good offices of strangers. Miss Clytie very
much disapproved of this young man, as a character,
but her good sense informed her that she need not
be discourteous to him as an individual. From all
accounts, he was a wild and reckless young man.
But he came from the distant city which she hoped
some day to visit, and he was a friend of the man who
had caused her more sleepless hours than she cared to
confess.
Fully conscious that her absent brother was approaching
the gate, accompanied by the expected visitor,
Clytie continued to practice her graceful attitudes
among the vines and flowers. The gate opened and
closed, and footsteps were heard on the little piece of
graveled walk that stretched from the door to the
gate. The sonorous voice of the self-appointed master
of ceremonies forbade longer indulgence in an appearance
of unconsciousness. Miss Clytie turned,
with the graceful quiet which characterized all her
movements, and found herself face to face with the
just Aristides and his companion.
“Cly,” exclaimed the young hopeful, advancing a
little, and speaking in a suppressed tone, but still loud
enough to be heard a mile off, “this is him. This is
the man that whipped Butcher Bill.”
The reader will perhaps have perceived that the
moral and social ideas of the youthful Aristides were
as yet unformed. Notwithstanding the redeeming
circumstances of name, there was enough of the hoodlum
in his nature to so far warp the presumed rectitude
of his mind that he gloried undisguisedly in the
pugilistic triumphs of his new friend, and he thought
his introduction of a character to insure the admiration
of any human being not dead to all the finer sentiments
is that animate mankind.
Miss Clytie cast a mildly reproving glance upon the
tripping Aristides and then bowed gracefully and
decorously to the young gentleman. The young gentleman
bowed in return, but instead of sidling off as
most boys she knew would have done, he came close
up to her and held out his hand.
“So,” he said, with shocking audacity, “you are
the pretty Clytie I've heard so much about. Give us
your band. Know we shall be good friend.”
The correct Clytie was a little shocked when she
found her delicate white hand in a stranger's clasp
but she saw at the moment no way to extricate it. He
held it gently, yet persistently, while he surveyed her
blushing face with a gaze of undisguised admiration.
“I” I should call you Miss Morpner,” continued
Bob, “as I suppose I ought, I shouldn't know who
I'm epeaking to. It would break the charm. Mr.
Gray always speaks of you as Clytie, Mliss always
speaks of you as Clytie, and even my sister, who is
the most proper girl you ever heard of, speaks of you
as Clytie.”
“But Mr. Gray is a very old friend of the family,”
remonstrated Clytie, “and Mliss and I were children
together.”
“There is something in that,” assented Bob, as if
he had just thought of it, “but then I'm a very old
friend of Mr. Gray's.”
Aristides meantime was looking on in open-eyed admiration.
The observant youth had seen the young men of
Smith's Pocket stammer and blush when brought in
contact with his pretty sister, and the elan of Bob's
attack appealed to his during mind as something altogether
heroic and worthy of imitation. He inwardly
resolved that the next time he met Susie Storms, a
young lady, of nine of whom he was secretly enamored,
he would talk to her just as Bob talked to Clytie.
Then came other claimants to Bob's attention. Mrs
Morpher appeared and gave her guest a wordy welcome,
mingled with inquiries after his health and how
he liked the village. In a little time the younger members
of the Morpher family insinuated themselves into
the room, and being of a kissable age were seized upon
by the irrepressible Bob. The closest friendship was
immediately established between the visitor and Octavia,
who was a precocious child of about nine years, a
friendship to which Cassandra, a year or more younger,
was finally admitted.
This visit was followed by others. Bob was still a
patient of Dr. Duchesne, and as such was forbidden
to make explorations into the mines or to mingle with
his acquaintances in the saloon. His time, therefore,
was on his hands, and the Mountain Rauch was close
by. Mrs. Morpher always welcomed him warmly and
sent Clytie to entertain him while she attended to
household dutier. Octavia and Cassandra went to
school. Aristides and Lycurgus being boys, were
rarely in the house.
The correct Clytie soon forgot to raise her eyes reproachfully
when she heard her abbreviated name
spoken by her new acquaintance. His plea that he
was an old friend of an old friend of hers, was accepted
after very little consideration. His way of
taking what he wanted rather imposed upon her yielding
and gentle disposition. Her air of habitual reserve
melted insensibly when she found it utterly ineffectual
to keep him at a respectful distance, as other
admirer had been kept. Of what use to struggle to
withdraw her hand when a struggle inviriably ended
in the imprisonment of her wrist, or hesitate to give
him a good-night kiss when she knew by sad experience
that he would persiss until the kiss was given.
Bob recovered his health and strength, but he resigned
the position of pugilistic champion. Butcher
Bill left the settlement in chagrin without seeking to
regain his lost laurels, and no one appeared to question
a supremacy which that fistic warrior decined to
challenge. Nothing occurred therefore to interrupt
the relations which Bob had established with the Morpher
family.
