University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XXI.
THE CAMPAIGN.

Miss Fanny Newt went to Saratoga with a perfectly clear
idea of what she intended to do. She intended to be engaged
to Mr. Alfred Dinks.

That young gentleman was a second cousin of Hope
Wayne's, and his mother had never objected to his little visits
at Pinewood, when both he and Hope were young, and when
the unsophisticated human heart is flexible as melted wax, and
receives impressions which only harden with time.

“Let the children play together, my dear,” she said, in conjugal
seclusion to her husband, the Hon. Budlong Dinks, who
needed only sufficient capacity and a proper opportunity to
have been one of the most distinguished of American diplomatists.
He thought he was such already. There was, indeed,
plenty of diplomacy in the family, and that most skillful
of all diplomatic talents, the management of distinguished diplomatists,
was not unknown there.

Fanny Newt had made the proper inquiries. The result was
that there were rumors—“How do such stories start?” asked
Mrs. Budlong Dinks of all her friends who were likely to repeat
the rumor—that it was a family understanding that Mr.
Alfred Dinks and his cousin Hope were to make a match.
“And they do say,” said Mrs. Dinks, “what ridiculous things
people are! and they do say that, for family reasons, we are
going to keep it all quiet! What a world it is!”

The next day Mrs. Cod told Mrs. Dod, in a morning call,
that Mrs. Budlong Dinks said that the engagement between
her son Alfred and his cousin Hope Wayne was kept quiet for
family reasons. Before sunset of that day society was keeping
it quiet with the utmost diligence.

These little stories were brought by little birds to New

York, so that when Mrs. Dinks arrived the air was full of
hints and suggestions, and the name of Hope Wayne was not
unknown. Farther acquaintance with Mr. Alfred Dinks had
revealed to Miss Fanny that there was a certain wealthy ancestor
still living, in whom the Dinkses had an interest, and
that the only participant with them in that interest was Miss
Hope Wayne. That was enough for Miss Fanny, whose instinct
at once assured her that Mrs. Dinks designed Hope
Wayne for her son Alfred, in order that the fortune should be
retained in the family.

Miss Fanny having settled this, and upon farther acquaintance
with Mr. Dinks having discovered that she might as well
undertake the matrimonial management of him as of any other
man, and that the Burt fortune would probably descend, in
part at least, to the youth Alfred, she decided that the youth
Alfred must marry her.

But how should Hope Wayne be disposed of? Fanny reflected.

She lived in Delafield. Brother Abel, now nearly nineteen
—not a childish youth—not unhandsome—not too modest—
lived also in Delafield. Had he ever met Hope Wayne?

By skillful correspondence, alluding to the solitude of the
country, et cetera, and his natural wish for society, and what
pleasant people were there in Delafield, Fanny had drawn her
lines around Abel to carry the fact of his acquaintance, if possible,
by pure strategy.

In reply, Abel wrote about many things—about Mrs. Kingo
and Miss Broadbraid—the Sutlers and Grabeaus—he praised
the peaceful tone of rural society, and begged Fanny to beware
of city dissipation; but not a word of old Burt and Hope
Wayne.

Sister Fanny wrote again in the most confiding manner.
Brother Abel replied in a letter of beautiful sentiments and a
quotation from Dr. Peewee.

He overdid it a little, as we sometimes do in this world.
We appear so intensely unconscious that it is perfectly evident

we know that somebody is looking at us. So Fanny,
knowing that Christopher Burt was the richest man in the
village, and lived in a beautiful place, and that his lovely grand-daughter
lived with him constantly, with which information
in detail Alfred Dinks supplied her, and perceiving from Abel's
letter that he was not a recluse, but knew the society of the
village, arrived very naturally and easily at the conclusion
that brother Abel did know Hope Wayne, and was in love
with her. She inferred the latter from the fact that she had
long ago decided that brother Abel would not fall in love with
any poor girl, and therefore she was sure that if he were in
the immediate neighborhood of a lady at once young, beautiful,
of good family and very rich, he would be immediately in
love—very much in love.

To make every thing sure, Abel had not been at home half
an hour before Fanny's well-directed allusion to Hope as the
future Mrs. Dinks had caused her brother to indicate an interest
which revealed every thing.

“If now,” pondered Miss Fanny, “somebody who shall be
nameless becomes Mrs. Alfred Dinks, and the nameless somebody's
brother marries Miss Hope Wayne, what becomes of
the Burt property?”

She went, therefore, to Saratoga in great spirits, and with
an unusual wardrobe. The opposing general, Field-marshal
Mrs. Budlong Dinks, had certainly the advantage of position,
for Hope Wayne was of her immediate party, and she could
devise as many opportunities as she chose for bringing Mr.
Alfred and his cousin together. She did not lose her chances.
There were little parties for bowling in the morning, and early
walking, and Fanny was invited very often, but sometimes
omitted, as if to indicate that she was not an essential part of
the composition. There was music in the parlor before dinner,
and working of purses and bags before the dressing-bell.
There was the dinner itself, and the promenade, with music,
afterward. Drives, then, and riding; the glowing return at
sunset—the cheerful cup of tea—the reappearance, in delightful

toilet, for the evening dance—windows—balconies—piazzas
—moonlight!

Every time that Fanny, warm with the dance, declared that
she must have fresh air, and that was every time she danced
with Alfred, she withdrew, attended by him, to the cool, dim
piazza, and every time Mrs. Dinks beheld the departure. On
the cool, dim piazza the music sounded more faintly, the quiet
moonlight filled the air, and life seemed all romance and festival.

“How beautiful after the hot room!” Fanny said, one evening
as they sat there.

“Yes, how beautiful!” replied Alfred.

“How happy I feel!” sighed Fanny. “Ever since I have
been here I have been so happy!”

“Have you been happy? So I have been happy too. How
very funny!” replied Alfred.

“Yes; but pleasant too. Sympathy is always pleasant.”
And Fanny turned her large black eyes upon him, while the
young Dinks was perplexed by a singular feeling of happiness.

They were content to moralize upon sympathy for some
time. Alfred was fascinated, and a little afraid. Fanny moved
her Junonine shoulders, bent her swan-like neck, drew off one
glove and played with her rings, fanned herself gently at intervals,
and, with just enough embarrassment not to frighten her
companion, opened and closed her fan.

“What a fine fellow Bowdoin Beacon is!” said Miss Fanny,
a little suddenly, and in a tone of suppressed admiration, as
she drew on her glove and laid her fan in her lap, as if on the
point of departure.

“Yes, he's a very good sort of fellow.”

“How cold you men always are in speaking of each other!
I think him a splendid fellow. He's so handsome. He has
such glorious dark hair—almost as dark as yours, Mr. Dinks.”

Alfred half raged, half smiled.

“Do you know,” continued Fanny, looking down a little,
and speaking a little lower—“do you know if he has any particular
favorites among the girls here?”

Alfred was dreadfully alarmed.

“If he has, how happy they must be! I think him a magnificent
sort of man; but not precisely the kind I should think
a girl would fall in love with. Should you?”

“No,” replied Alfred, mollified and bewildered. He rallied
in a moment. “What sort of man do girls fall in love with,
Miss Fanny?”

Fanny Newt was perfectly silent. She looked down upon
the floor of the piazza, fixing her eyes upon a pine-knot, patiently
waiting, and wondering which way the grain of the
wood ran.

The silence continued. Every moment Alfred was conscious
of an increasing nervousness. There were the Junonine
shoulders—the neck—the downcast eyes—moonlight—
the softened music.

“Why don't you answer?” asked he, at length.

Fanny bent her head nearer to him, and dropped these
words into his waistcoat:

“How good you are! I am so happy!”

“What on earth have I done?” was the perplexed, and
pleased, and ridiculous reply.

“Mr. Dinks, how could I answer the question you asked
without betraying—?”

“What?” inquired Alfred, earnestly.

“Without betraying what sort of man I love,” breathed
Fanny, in the lowest possible tone, which could be also perfectly
distinct, and with her head apparently upon the point
of dropping after her words into his waistcoat.

“Well?” said Dinks.

“Well, I can not do that, but I will make a bargain with
you. If you will say what sort of girl you would love, I will
answer your question.”

Fanny dreaded to hear a description of Hope Wayne. But
Alfred's mind was resolved. The foolish youth answered with
his heart in his mouth, and barely whispering,

“If you will look in your glass to-night, you will see.”

[ILLUSTRATION]

At Saratoga

[Description: 538EAF. Page 121. In-line Illustration. Image of a man and a woman seated on a bench. The woman is leaning against the man and he has his arm around her shoulders.]

The next moment Fanny's head had fallen into the waistcoat—Alfred
Dinks's arms were embracing her. He perceived
the perfume from her abundant hair. He was frightened,
and excited, and pleased.

“Dear Alfred!”

“Dear Fanny!”

“Come Hope, dear, it is very late,” said Mrs. Dinks in the

ball-room, alarmed at the long absence of Fanny and Alfred,
and resolved to investigate the reason of it.

The lovers heard the voice, and were sitting quietly just a
little apart, as Mrs. Dinks and her retinue came out.

“Aren't you afraid of taking cold, Miss Newt?” inquired
Alfred's mother.

“Oh not at all, thank you, I am very warm. But you are
very wise to go in, and I shall join you. Good-night, Mr.
Dinks.” As she rose, she whispered—“After breakfast.”

The ladies rustled along the piazza in the moonlight. Alfred,
flushed and nervous and happy, sauntered into the bar-room,
lit a cigar, and drank some brandy and water.

Meanwhile the Honorable Budlong Dinks sat in an arm-chair
at the other end of the piazza with several other honorable
gentlemen—Major Scuppernong from Carolina, Colonel le
Fay from Louisiana, Captain Lamb from Pennsylvania, General
Arcularius Belch of New York, besides Captain Jones,
General Smith, Major Brown, Colonel Johnson, from other
States, and several honorable members of Congress, including,
and chief of all, the Honorable B. J. Ele, a leading statesman
from New York, with whom Mr. Dinks passed as much time as
possible, and who was the chief oracle of the wise men in arm-chairs
who came to the springs to drink the waters, to humor
their wives and daughters in their foolish freaks for fashion
and frivolity, and who smiled loftily upon the gay young people
who amused themselves with setting up ten-pins and knocking
them down, while the wise men devoted themselves to
talking politics and showing each other, from day to day, the
only way in which the country could be made great and glorious,
and fulfill its destiny.

“I am not so clear about General Jackson's policy,” said
the Honorable Budlong Dinks, with the cautious wisdom of a
statesman.

“Well, Sir, I am clear enough about it,” replied Major
Scuppernong. “It will ruin this country just as sure as that,”
and the Major with great dexterity directed a stream of saliva

which fell with unerring precision upon the small stone in the
gravel walk at which it was evidently aimed.

The Honorable Budlong Dinks watched the result of the illustration
with deep interest, and shook his head gravely when
he saw that the stone was thoroughly drenched by the salivary
cascade. He seemed to feel the force of the argument. But
he was not in a position to commit himself.

“Now, I think,” said the Honorable B. J. Ele, “that it is
the only thing that can save the country.”

“Ah! you do,” said the Honorable B. Dinks.

And so they kept it up, day after day, pausing in the intervals
to smile at the ardor with which the women played
their foolish game of gossip and match-making.

When Mrs. Dinks withdrew from her idle employments to
the invigorating air of the Honorable B.'s society, he tapped
her cheek sometimes with his finger—as he had read great
men occasionally did when they were with their wives in moments
of relaxation from intellectual toil — asked her what
would become of the world if it were given up to women, and
by his manner refreshed her consciousness of the honor under
which she labored in being Mrs. Budlong Dinks.

The weaker vessel smiled consciously, as if he very well
knew that was the one particular thing which under no conceivable
circumstances could she forget.

“Budlong, I really think Alfred ought to keep a horse.”

“My dear!” replied the Honorable B., in a tone of mingled
reproach, amusement, contempt, and surprise.

“Oh! I know we can't afford it. But it would be so pleasant
if he could drive out his cousin Hope, as so many of the
other young men do. People get so well acquainted in that
way. Have you observed that Bowdoin Beacon is a great
deal with her? How glad Mrs. Beacon would be!” Mrs.
Dinks took off her cap, and was unpinning her collar, without
in the least pressing her request. Not at all. His word was
enough. She had evidently yielded the point. The horse was
out of the question.

Now the state of the country did not so entirely engross
her husband's mind, that he had not seen all the advantage of
Hope's marrying Alfred.

“It is a pleasant thing for a young man to have his own
horse. My dear, I will see what can be done,” said he.

Then the diplomatist untied his cravat as if he had been undoing
the parchment of a great treaty. He fell asleep in the
midst of rehearsing the speech which he meant to make upon
occasion of his presentation as foreign minister somewhere;
while his beloved partner lay by his side, and resolved that
Alfred Dinks must immediately secure Hope Wayne before
Fanny Newt secured Alfred Dinks.