A Cathedral Courtship | Page 8

fact almost anything, if I could have in exchange a few grains of common sense, just enough to guide me in the practical affairs of life.
I wonder what he is? He might be an artist, but he doesn't seem quite like an artist; or a dilettante, but he doesn't seem in the least like a dilettante. Or he might be an architect; I think that is the most probable guess of all. Perhaps he is only "going to be" one of these things, for he can't be more than twenty-five or twenty-six. Still he looks as if he were something already; that is, he has a kind of self-reliance in his mien,--not self-assertion, nor self-esteem, but belief in self, as if he were able, and knew that he was able, to conquer circumstances.

HE

GLOUCESTER, June 10 The Bell.
Nothing accomplished yet. Her aunt is a Van Tyck, and a stiff one, too. I am a Copley, and that delays matters. Much depends upon the manner of approach. A false move would be fatal. We have six more towns (as per itinerary), and if their thirst for cathedrals isn't slaked when these are finished we have the entire continent to do. If I could only succeed in making an impression on the retina of aunt Celia's eye! Though I have been under her feet for ten days, she never yet has observed me. This absent-mindedness of hers serves me ill now, but it may prove a blessing later on.

SHE

OXFORD, June 12 The Mitre.
It was here in Oxford that a grain of common sense entered the brain of the flower of chivalry. You might call it the dawn of reason. We had spent part of the morning in High Street, "the noblest old street in England," as our dear Hawthorne calls it. As Wordsworth had written a sonnet about it, aunt Celia was armed for the fray,--a volume of Wordsworth in one hand, and one of Hawthorne in the other. (I wish Baedeker didn't give such full information about what one ought to read before one can approach these places in a proper spirit.) When we had done High Street, we went to Magdalen College, and sat down on a bench in Addison's Walk, where aunt Celia proceeded to store my mind with the principal facts of Addison's career, and his influence on the literature of the something or other century. The cramming process over, we wandered along, and came upon "him" sketching a shady corner of the walk.
Aunt Celia went up behind him, and, Van Tyck though she is, she could not restrain her admiration of his work. I was surprised myself: I didn't suppose so good looking a youth could do such good work. I retired to a safe distance, and they chatted together. He offered her the sketch; she refused to take advantage of his kindness. He said he would "dash off" another that evening, and bring it to our hotel,--"so glad to do anything for a fellow- countryman," etc. I peeped from behind a tree and saw him give her his card. It was an awful moment; I trembled, but she read it with unmistakable approval, and gave him her own with an expression that meant, "Yours is good, but beat that if you can!"
She called to me, and I appeared. Mr. John Quincy Copley, Cambridge, was presented to her niece, Miss Katharine Schuyler, New York. It was over, and a very small thing to take so long about, too.
He is an architect, and of course has a smooth path into aunt Celia's affections. Theological students, ministers, missionaries, heroes, and martyrs she may distrust, but architects never!
"He is an architect, my dear Katharine, and he is a Copley," she told me afterwards. "I never knew a Copley who was not respectable, and many of them have been more."
After the introduction was over, aunt Celia asked him guilelessly if he had visited any other of the English cathedrals. Any others, indeed! This to a youth who had been all but in her lap for a fortnight! It was a blow, but he rallied bravely, and, with an amused look in my direction, replied discreetly that he had visited most of them at one time or another. I refused to let him see that I had ever noticed him before; that is, particularly.
Memoranda: "The very stones and mortar of this historic town seem impregnated with the spirit of restful antiquity." (Extract from one of aunt Celia's letters.) Among the great men who have studied here are the Prince of Wales, Duke of Wellington, Gladstone, Sir Robert Peel, Sir Philip Sidney, William Penn, John Locke, the two Wesleys, Ruskin, Ben Jonson, and Thomas Otway. (Look Otway up.)

HE

OXFORD, June 13 The Angel.
I have done it, and if I hadn't been a fool and a