University of Virginia Library

46. CHAPTER XLVI.
WHAT THEY ALL SAID ABOUT IT.

AND so Jim Fellows and Alice Van Arsdel were
engaged at last. The reader who has cared to
follow the workings of that young lady's mind has doubtless
seen from the first that she was on the straight highway
to such a result.

Intimate friendship—what the French call “camaraderie”—is,
in fact, the healthiest and the best commencement
of the love that is needed in married life;
because it is more like what the staple of married life
must at last come to. It gives opportunity for the
knowledge of all those minor phases of character under
which a married couple must at last see each other.

Alice and Jim had been side by side in many an
every-day undress rehearsal. They had laughed and
frolicked together like two children; they had known
each other's secrets; they had had their little miffs and
tiffs, and had gotten over them; but, through all, there
had been a steady increase on Jim's part of that deeper
feeling which makes a woman the ideal guide and
governor and the external conscience of life. But his
habit of jesting, and of talking along the line of his most
serious feelings in language running between joke and
earnest, had prevented the pathos and the power of
what was really deepest in him from making itself felt.
There wanted something to call forth the expression of
the deep manly feeling that lay at the bottom of his
heart. There wanted, on her part, something to change
friendship to a warmer feeling. Those few dreadful

moments, when they stood under the cloud of a sudden
and frightful danger, did more to reveal to them how
much they were to each other than years of ordinary
acquaintance. It was as if they had crossed the river of
death together, and saw each other in their higher
natures. Do we not all remember how suffering and
danger will bring out in well-known faces a deep and
spiritual expression never there before? It was a marked
change in the faces of our boys who went to the
recent war. Looking in a photograph book, one sees
first the smooth lines of a boyish face indicating nothing
more than a boy's experience, but, as he turns the following
pages, he sees the same face, after suffering and
danger and death have called up the strength of the
inner man, and imparted a higher and more spiritual
expression to the countenance.

The sudden nearness into which they had come to
the ever possible tragedy that underlies human life, had
given a deep and solemn tenderness to their affection.
It was a baptism into the love which is stronger than
death. Alice felt her whole heart going out, without a
fear or a doubt, in return for the true love that she felt
was ready to die for her.

Those few first days that they spent mostly in each
other's society, were full of the real, deep, enthusiastic
tenderness of that understanding of each other which
had suddenly arisen between them.

So, to her confidential female correspondent—the
one who had always held her promise to be the first
recipient of the news of her engagement—she wrote as
follows:

So wrote Alice to her bridesmaid that was to be.
Meanwhile, the declared engagement went its way, traveling
through the circle, making everywhere its sensation.

We believe there is nothing so generally interesting
to human nature as a newly-declared engagement. It is
a thing that everybody has an opinion of; and the editorial
comments, though they do not go into print, are
fully as numerous and as positive as those following a
new appointment at Washington.

Especially is this the case where the parties, being
long under suspicion and accusation, have denied the
impeachment, and vehemently protested that “there was,
and there would be, nothing in it,” and that “it was only
friendship.” When, after all the strength of such asseveration,
the flag is finally struck, and the suspected parties
walk forth openly, hand in hand, what a number of
people immediately rise in their own opinion, saying with
complacency: “There! what did I tell you? I knew it

was so. People may talk as much as they please, they
can't deceive me!”

Among the first to receive the intelligence was little
Mrs. Betsey, who, having been over with Jack to make a
morning call at the Henderson house, had her very cap
lifted from her head with amazement at the wonderful
news. So, panting with excitement, she rushed back
across the way to astonish Miss Dorcas, and burst in
upon her, with Jack barking like a storming party in the
rear.

“Good gracious, Betsey, what's the matter now?” said
Miss Dorcas. “What has happened?”

“Well, what should you think? You can't guess!
Jack, be still! stop barking! Stop, sir!”—as Jack ran
under a chair in a distant corner of the room, and fired
away with contumacious energy.

“Yes, Dorcas, I have such a piece of news! I
declare, that dog!—I'll kill him if he don't stop!” and
Mrs. Betsey, on her knees, dragged Jack out of his
hiding-place, and cuffed him into silence, and then went
on with her news, which she determined to make the
most of, and let out a bit at a time, as children eat gingerbread.

“Well, now, Betsey, since the scuffle is over between
you and Jack, perhaps you will tell me what all this is
about,” said Miss Dorcas, with dignity.

“Well, Dorcas, it's another engagement; and who do
you guess it is? You never will guess in the world, I
know; now guess.”

“I don't know,” said Miss Dorcas, critically surveying
Mrs. Betsey over her spectacles, “unless it is you
and old Major Galbraith.”

“Are n't you ashamed, Dorcas?” said the little old
lady, two late pink roses coming in either cheek. “Major
Galbraith!—old and deaf and with the rheumatism!”

“Well, you wanted me to guess, and I guessed the
two most improbable people in the circle of our acquaintance.”
Now, Major Galbraith was an old admirer of
Mrs. Betsey's youth, an ancient fossil remain of the
distant period to which Miss Dorcas and Mrs. Betsey
belonged.

He was an ancient bachelor, dwelling in an ancient
house on Murray hill, and subsisting on the dry hay of
former recollections. Once a year, on Christmas or
New Year's, the old major caused himself to be brought
carefully in a carriage to the door of the Vanderheyden
house, creaked laboriously up the steps, pulled the rusty,
jangling old bell, and was shown into the somber twilight
of the front parlor, where he paid his respects to
the ladies with the high-shouldered, elaborate stateliness
and gallantry of a former period. The compliments
which the major brought out on these occasions were of
the most elaborate and well-considered kind, for he had
an abundance of leisure to compose them, and very few
ladies to let them off upon. They had, for the parties to
whom they were addressed, all the value of those late
roses and violets which one now and then finds in the
garden, when the last black frosts have picked off the
blooms of summer. The main difficulty of the interview
always was the fact that the poor major was stone-deaf,
and, in spite of both ladies screaming themselves hoarse,
he carried away the most obviously erroneous impressions,
to last him through the next year. Yet, in ages past, the
major had been a man of high fashion, and he was, if
one only could get at him, on many accounts better
worth talking to than many modern beaux; but as age
and time had locked him in a case and thrown away the
key, the suggestion of tender relations between him and
Mrs. Betsey was impossible enough to answer Miss Dorcas's
purpose.

But Mrs. Betsey was bursting to begin on the contents
of her news-bag, and so, out it came.

“Well now, Dorcas, if you won't go to being ridiculous,
and talking about Major Galbraith, I'll tell you
who it is. It's that dear, good Mr. Fellows that got
Jack back again for us, and I'm sure I never feel as if
I could do enough for him when I think of it, and besides
that, he always is so polite and considerate, and
talks with one so nicely and is so attentive, seems to
think something of you, if you are an old woman, so
that I'm glad with all my heart, for I think it's a
splendid thing, and she's just the one for him, and do
you know I've been thinking a great while that it was
going to be? I have noticed signs, and have had my
own thoughts, but I didn't let on. I despise people that
are always prying and spying and expressing opinions
before they know.”

This lucid exposition might have proceeded at greater
length, had not Miss Dorcas, whose curiosity was now
fully roused, cut into the conversation with an air of
judicial decision.

“Well now, after all, Betsey, will you have the goodness,
since you began to tell the news, to tell it like a
reasonable creature? Mr. Fellows is the happy man,
you say. Now, who—is—the woman?”

“Oh, did n't I tell you? Why, what is the matter
with me to-day? I thought I said Miss Alice Van
Arsdel. Won't she make him a splendid wife? and I'm
sure he'll make a good husband; he's so kind-hearted.
Oh! you ought to have seen how kind he was to Jack
that day he brought him back; and such a sight as Jack
was, too—all dirt and grease! Why it took Dinah and
me at least two hours to get him clean, and there are not
many young gentlemen that would be so patient as he
was. I never shall forget it of him.”

“Patient as who was?” said Miss Dorcas. “I believe
Jack was the last nominative case in that sentence; do
pray compose yourself, Betsey, and do n't take entire
leave of your senses.”

“I mean Mr. Fellows was patient, of course, you
know.”

“Well, then, do take a little pains to say what you
mean,” said Miss Dorcas.

“Well, don't you think it a good thing—and were you
expecting it?”

“So far as I know the parties, it's as good a thing as
engagements in general,” said Miss Dorcas. “They have
my very best wishes.”

“Well, did you ever think it would come about?”

“No; I never troubled my head with speculations
on what plainly is none of my concern,” said Miss
Dorcas.

It was evident that Miss Dorcas was on the highest
and most serene mountain-top of propriety this morning,
and all her words and actions indicated that calm
superiority to vulgar curiosity which, in her view, was
befitting a trained lady. Perhaps a little pique that
Betsey had secured such a promising bit of news in
advance of herself, added to her virtuous frigidity of
demeanor. We are all mortal, and the best of us are apt
to undervalue what we did not ourselves originally
produce. But if Miss Dorcas wished in a gentle manner
to remind Mrs. Betsey that she was betraying too
much of an inclination for gossip, she did not succeed.
The clock of time had gone back on the dial of the little
old lady, and she was as full of chatter and detail as a
school-girl, and determined at any rate to make the
most of her incidents, and to create a sensation in her
sister's mind—for what is more provoking than to have
people sit calm and unexcited when we have a stimulating

bit of news to tell? It is an evident violation of
Christian charity. Mrs. Betsey now drew forth her next
card.

“Oh, and, Dorcas! you've no idea. They've been
having the most dreadful time over there! Miss Alice
has had the greatest escape! The most wonderful
providence! It really makes my blood run cold to think
of it. Don't you think, she was all dressed to go to
Mrs. Wouvermans's party, and her dress caught on fire,
and if it had n't been for Mr. Fellows's presence of mind
she might have been burned to death—really burned to
death! Only think of it!”

“You do n't say so!” said Miss Dorcas, who now
showed excitement enough to fully satisfy Mrs. Betsey.
“How very dreadful! Why, how was it?”

“Yes—she was passing in front of the fire, in a thin
white tarlatan, made very full, with flounces, and it was
just drawn in and flashed up like tinder. Mr. Fellows
caught the cloth from the table, wrapped her in it and
laid her on the sofa, and then tore and beat out the fire
with his hands.”

“Dear—me! dear—me!” said Miss Dorcas, “how
dreadful! But he did just the right thing.”

“Yes, indeed; you ought to have seen! Mrs. Henderson
showed me what was left of the dress, and it was
really awful to see! I could not help thinking, `In the
midst of life we are in death.' All trimmed up with
scarlet velvet and bows, and just hanging in rags and
tatters, where it had been burned and torn away! I
never saw any thing so solemn in my life.”

“A narrow escape, certainly,” said Miss Dorcas.
“And is she not injured at all?”

“Nothing to speak of, only a few slight burns; but
poor Mr. Fellows has to have his hands bandaged and
dressed every day; but of course he does n't mind that

since he has saved her life. But just think of it, Dorcas,
we shall have two weddings, and it'll make two more
visiting places. I'm going to tell Dinah all about it,”
and the little woman fled to the kitchen, with Jack at
her heels, and was soon heard going over the whole
story again.

Dinah's effusion and sympathy, in fact, were the final
refuge of Mrs. Betsey on every occasion, whether of joy
or sorrow or perplexity—and between her vigorous
exclamations and loud responses, and Jack's running
commentary of unrestrained barking, there was as much
noise over the announcement as could be made by an
average town meeting.

Thus were the tidings received across the way. In
the Van Arsdel family, Jim was already an established
favorite. Mr. Van Arsdel always liked him as a bright,
agreeable evening visitor, and, now that he had acquired
a position that promised a fair support, there was no opposition
on his part to overcome. Mrs. Van Arsdel was
one of the motherly, complying sort of women, generally
desirous of doing what the next person to her wanted
her to do; and, though she was greatly confused by
remembering Alice's decided asseverations that “it never
was and never would be anything, and that Jim was not
at all the person she ever should think of marrying,” yet,
since it was evident that she was now determined upon
the affair, Mrs. Van Arsdel looked at it on the bright
side.

“After all, my dear,” she said to her spouse, “if I
must lose both my daughters, it's a mercy to have them
marry and settle down here in New York, where I can
have the comfort of them. Jim will always be an attentive
husband and a good family man. I saw that when
he was helping us move; but I'm sure I don't know
what Maria will say now!”

“No matter what Maria says, my dear,” said Mr.
Van Arsdel. “It don't make one hair white or black.
It's time you were emancipated from Maria.”

But Aunt Maria, like many dreaded future evils,
proved less formidable on this occasion than had been
feared.

The very submissive and edifying manner in which
Mr. Jim Fellows had received her strictures and cautions
on a former occasion, and the profound respect he had
shown for her opinion, had so far wrought upon her as
to make her feel that it was really a pity that he was not
a young man of established fortune. If he only had
anything to live on, why, he might be a very desirable
match; and so, when he had a good position and salary,
he stood some inches higher in her esteem. Besides
this, there was another balm which distilled resignation
in the cup of acquiescence, and that was the grand
chance it gave her to say, “I told you so.” How dear
and precious this privilege is to the very best of people,
we need not insist. There are times when it would
comfort them, if all their dearest friends were destroyed,
to be able to say, “I told you so. It's just as I always
predicted!” We all know how Jonah, though not a
pirate or a cut-throat, yet wished himself dead because a
great city was not destroyed, when he had taken the
trouble to say it would be. Now, though Alice's engagement
was not in any strict sense an evil, yet it was an
event which Aunt Maria had always foreseen, foretold
and insisted on.

So when, with heart-sinkings and infinite precautions,
Mrs. Van Arsdel had communicated the news to her, she
was rather relieved at the response given, with a toss of
the head and a vigorous sniff:

“Oh, that's no news to me; it's just what I have
foreseen all along—what I told you was coming on, and

you would n't believe it. Now I hope all of you will see
that I was right.”

“I think,” said Mrs. Van Arsdel, “that it was Jim's
presence of mind in saving her life that decided Alice at
last. She always liked him; but I don't think she really
loved him till then.”

“Well, of course, it was a good thing that there was
somebody at hand who had sense to do the right thing,
when girls will be so careless; but it was n't that. She
meant to have him all along; and I knew it,” said Aunt
Maria. “Well, Jim Fellows, after all, is n't the worst
match a girl could make, either, now that he has some
prospects of his own—but, at any rate, it has turned out
just as I said it would. I knew she'd marry him, six
months ago, just as well as I know it now, unless you
and she listened to my advice then. So now all we have
to do is to make the best of it. You've got two weddings
on your hands, now Nellie, instead of one, and I
shall do all I can to help you. I was out all day yesterday
looking at sheeting, and I think that at Shanks &
Maynard's is decidedly the firmest and the cheapest, and
I ordered three pieces sent home; and I carried back
the napkins to Taggart's, and then went rambling off up
by the Park to find that woman that does marking.”

“I'm sure, Maria, I am ever so much obliged to
you,” said Mrs. Van Arsdel.

“Well, I hope I'm good for something. Though I 'm
not fit to be out; I 've such a dreadful cold in my head,
I can hardly see; and riding in these New York omnibuses
always makes it worse.”

“Dear Maria, why will you expose yourself in that
way?”

“Well, somebody 's got to do it—and your judgment
is n't worth a fip, Nellie. That sheeting that you were
thinking of taking was n't half so good, and cost six cents

a yard more. I could n't think of having things go that
way.”

“But I 'm sure we do n't any of us want you to make
yourself sick.”

“Oh, I sha'n't be sick. I may suffer; but I sha'n't
give up. I 'm not one of the kind. If you had the cold
in your head that I have, Nellie, you 'd be in bed, with
both girls nursing you; but that is n't my way. I keep
up, and attend to things. I want these things of Angie's
to be got up properly, as they ought to be, and there 's
nobody to do it but me.”

And little Mrs. Van Arsdel, used, from long habit, to
be thus unceremoniously snubbed, dethroned, deposed,
and set down hard by her sister when in full career of
labor for her benefit, looked meekly into the fire, and
comforted herself with the reflection that it “was just
like Maria. She always talked so; but, after all, she was
a good soul, and saved her worlds of trouble, and made
excellent bargains for her.”