University of Virginia Library

40. CHAPTER XL.
THE ENGAGEMENT ANNOUNCED.

MEANWHILE Dr. Gracey found his way to Arthur's
study.

“So, Arthur,” he said, “that pretty Miss Van Arsdel's
engaged.”

The blank expression and sudden change of color in
St. John's face was something quite worthy of observation.

“Miss Van Arsdel engaged!” he repeated with a
gasp, feeling as if the ground were going down under
him.

“Yes, that pretty fairy, Miss Angelique, you know.”

“How did you hear—who told you?”

“How did I hear? Why, it's all over town. Arthur,
you bad boy, why haven't you told me?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you; you are the happy individual. I came
to congratulate you.”

St. John looked terribly confused.

“Well, we are not really exactly engaged.”

“But you are going to be, I understand. So far so
good. I like the family—good stock—nothing could be
better; but, Arthur, let me tell you, you'd better have it
announced and above board forthwith. You are not my
sister's son, nor the man I took you for, if you could
take advantage of the confidence inspired by your position
to carry on a flirtation.”

The blood flushed into St. John's cheeks.

“I'm not flirting, uncle; that vulgar word is no name

for my friendship with Miss Van Arsdel. It is as sacred
as the altar. I reverence her; I love her with all my
heart. I would lay down my life for her.”

“Good! but nobody wants you to lay down your life.
That is quite foreign to the purpose. What is wanting
is, that you step out like a man and define your position
with regard to Miss Van Arsdel before the world; otherwise
all the gossips will make free with her name and
yours. Depend upon it, Arthur, a man has done too
much or too little when a young lady's name is in every
one's mouth in connection with his, without a definite
engagement.”

“It is all my fault, uncle. I hadn't the remotest
idea. It's all my fault—all. I had no thought of what
the world would say; no idea that we were remarked—
but, believe me, our intimacy has been, from first to last,
entirely of my seeking. It has grown on us gradually,
till I find she is more to me than any one ever has been
or can be. Whether I am as much to her, I cannot tell.
My demands have been humble. We are not engaged,
but it shall not be my fault if another day passes and we
are not.”

“Right, my boy. I knew you. You were no nephew
of mine if you didn't feel, when your eyes were open,
the honor of the thing. God made you a gentleman
before he made you a priest, and there's but one way for
a gentleman in a case like this. If there's anything I
despise, it's a priest who uses his priestly influence,
under this fine name and that, to steal from a woman love
that does n't belong to him, and that he never can return,
and never ought to. If a man thinks he can do more
good as a single man and a missionary, well; I honor
him, but let him make the sacrifice honestly. Don't
let him want pretty girls for intimate friends or guardian
angels, or Christian sisters, or any such trumpery. It's

dishonest and disloyal; it is unfair to the woman and
selfish in the man.”

“Well, uncle, I trust you say all this because you
don't think it of me; as I know my heart before God, I
say I have not been doing so mean and cowardly a
thing There was a time when I thought I never should
marry. Those were my days of ignorance. I did not
know how much a true woman might teach me, and how
much I needed such a guide, even in my church work.”

“In short, my boy, you found out that the Lord was
right when he said, `It is not good for man to be alone.'
We pay the Lord the compliment once in a while to believe
he knows best. Depend on it, Arthur, that Christian
families are the Lord's church, and better than any
guild of monks and nuns whatsoever.”

All which was listened to by Mr. St. John with a radiant
countenance. It is all down-hill when you are
showing a man that it is his duty to do what he wants to
do. Six months before, St. John would have fought
every proposition of this speech, and brought up the
whole of the Middle Ages to back him. Now, he was
as tractable as heart could wish.

“After all, Uncle,” he said, at last, “what if she will
not have me? And what if I am not the man to make
her happy?”

“Oh, if you ask prettily, I fancy she won't say nay;
and then you must make her happy. There are no two
ways about that, my boy.”

“I'm not half good enough for her,” said St. John.

“Like enough. We are none of us good enough for
these women; but, luckily, that isn't apt to be their
opinion.”

St. John started out from the conference with an alert
step. In two days more, rumor was met with open confirmation.
St. John had had the decisive interview with

Angie, had seen and talked with her father and mother,
and been invited to a family dinner; and Angie wore on
her finger an engagement-ring. There was no more to
be said now. Mr. St. John was an idol who had stepped
down from his pedestal into the ranks of common men.
He was no longer a mysterious power—an angel of the
churches, but a man of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless,
it is an undoubted fact that, for all the purposes
of this mortal life, a good man is better than an angel.

But not so thought the ecstasia of his chapel. A
holy father, in a long black gown, with a cord round his
waist, and with a skull and hour-glass in his cell, is somehow
thought to be nearer to heaven than a family man
with a market-basket on his arm; but we question
whether the angels themselves think so. There may be
as holy and unselfish a spirit in the way a market-basket
is filled as in a week of fasting; and the oil of gladness
may make the heavenward wheels run more smoothly
than the spirit of heaviness. The first bright day, St.
John took Angie a drive in the park, a proceeding so
evidently of the earth, earthy, that Miss Gusher hid her
face, after the manner of the seraphim, as he passed; but
he and Angie were too happy and too busy in their new
world to care who looked or who didn't, and St. John
rather triumphantly remembered the free assertion of the
great apostle, “Have we not power to lead about a sister
or a wife?” and felt sure that he should have been proud
and happy to show Angie to St. Paul himself.

Alice was at first slightly disappointed, but the compensation
of receiving so very desirable a brother-in-law
reconciled her to the loss of her poetic and distant
ideal.

As to little Mrs. Betsey, she fell upon Angie's neck
in rapture; and her joy was heightened in the convincing
proof that she was now able to heap upon the unbelieving

head of Dorcas that she had been in the right all
along.

When dear little Mrs. Betsey was excited, her words
and thoughts came so thick that they were like a flock
of martins, all trying to get out of a martin-box together,
—chattering, twittering, stumbling over each other, and
coming out at heads and points in a wonderful order.
When the news had been officially sealed to her, she
begged the right to carry it to Dorcas, and ran home and
burst in upon her with shining eyes and two little pink
spots in her cheeks.

“There, Dorcas, they are engaged. Now, didn't I say
so, Dorcas? I knew it. I told you so, that Thursday
evening. Oh, you can't fool me; and that day I saw him
standing on the doorstep! I was just as certain! I saw
it just as plain! What a shame for people to talk about
him as they do, and say he's going to Rome. I wonder
what they think now? The sweetest girl in New York,
certainly. Oh! and that ring he bought! Just as if he
could be a Roman Catholic! It's big as a pea, and
sparkles beautiful, and's got the `Lord is thy keeper' in
Hebrew on the inside. I want to see Mrs. Wouvermans
and ask her what she thinks now. Oh, and he took her
to ride in such a stylish carriage, white lynx lap-robe, and
all! I don't care if he does burn candles in his chapel.
What does that prove? It don't prove anything. I like
to see people have some logic about things, for my part,
don't you, Dorcas? Don't you?”

“Mercy! yes, Betsey,” said Miss Dorcas, delighted
to see her sister so excitedly happy, “though I don't
exactly see my way clear through yours; but no matter.”

“I'm going to crochet a toilet cushion for a wedding
present, Dorcas, like that one in the red room, you know.
I wonder when it will come off? How lucky I have that
sweet cap that Mrs. Henderson made. Wasn't it good

of her to make it? I hope they'll invite us. Don't you
think they will? I suppose it will be in his chapel, with
candles and all sorts of new ways. Well, I don't care,
so long as folks are good people, what their ways are; do
you, Dorcas? I must run up and count the stitches on
that cushion this minute!” And Mrs. Betsey upset her
basket of worsteds in her zeal, and Jack flew round and
round, barking sympathetically. In fact, he was so
excited by the general breeze that he chewed up two
balls of worsted before recovering his composure. Such
was the effect of the news at the old Vanderheyden
house.