At Last | Page 4

which place he had lately opened a law-office, he wrote to Mabel, declaring his affection for her, and suing for reciprocation. She granted him a gracious reply, and sanctioned by fond, sympathetic Aunt Rachel, in the absence of Mabel's brother and guardian, the correspondence was kept up briskly until Frederic's second visit in September. Ungenerous gossips, envious of her talents and influence, had occasionally sneered at Mrs. Sutton's appropriation of the credit of other alliances--but this one was her handiwork beyond dispute--hers and Providence's. She never forgot the partnership. She had carried her head more erect, and there was a brighter sparkle in her blue orbs since the evening Mabel had come blushingly to her room, Fred's proposal in her hand--to ask counsel and congratulations. Everybody saw through the discreet veil with which she flattered herself she concealed her exultation when others than the affianced twain were by--and while nobody was so unkind as to expose the thinness of the pretence, she was given to understand in many and gratifying ways that her masterpiece was considered, in the Aylett circle, a suitable crown to the achievements that had preceded it. Mabel was popular and beloved, and her betrothed, in appearance and manner, in breeding and intelligence, justified Mrs. Sutton's pride in her niece's choice.
The old lady colored up, with the quick, vivid rose-tint of sudden and real pleasure that rarely outlives early girlhood, when the first respondent to the breakfast-bell proved to be her Frederic's god-son.
"You are always punctual! I wish you would teach the good habit to some other people," she said, after answering his cordial "good-morning."
"None of us deserve to be praised on that score, to-day," rejoined he, looking at his watch. "I did not awake until the dressing-bell rang. Our riding-party was out late last night. The extreme beauty of the evening beguiled us into going further than we intended, when we set out."
"Yes! you young folks are falling into shockingly irregular habits--take unprecedented liberties with me and with Time!" shaking her head. "If Winston do not return soon, you will set my mild rule entirely at defiance."
Chilton laughed--but was serious the next instant.
"I expected confidently to meet him at this visit," he said, glancing at the door to guard against being overheard. "Should he not return to-day, ought I not, before leaving this to-morrow, to write to him, since he is legally his sister's guardian? It is, you and she tell me, a mere form, but one that should not be dispensed with any longer."
"That may be so. Winston is rigorous in requiring what is due to his position--is, in some respects, a fearful formalist. But he will hardly oppose your wishes and Mabel's. He has her real happiness at heart, I believe, although he is, at times, an over-strict and exacting guardian--perhaps to counterbalance my indulgent policy. He is unlike any other young man I know."
"His sister is very much attached to him."
"She loves him--I was about to say, preposterously. Her implicit belief in and obedience to him have increased his self-confidence into a dogmatic assertion of infallibility. But"--fearing she might create an unfortunate impression upon the listener's mind--"Winston has grounds for his good opinion of himself. His character is unblemished--his principles and aims are excellent. Only"--relapsing hopelessly into the confidential strain in which most of the conference had been carried--"between ourselves, my dear Frederic, I am never quite easy with these patterns to the rest of human-kind. I should even prefer a tiny vein of depravity to such very rectangular virtue."
"You are seldom ill at ease, if human perfection is all that renders you uncomfortable," responded Frederic. "There are not many in whose composition one cannot trace, not a tiny, but a broad vein of Adamic nature. What a delicious morning!" he added, sauntering to the window.
"And how sorry I am for those who did not get up in time to enjoy the freshness of its beauty!" cried a gay voice from the portico, and Mabel entered by the glass door behind him--her hands loaded with roses, herself so beaming that her lover refrained with difficulty from kissing the saucy mouth then and there.
He did take both her hands, under pretext of relieving her of the flowers, and Aunt Rachel judiciously turned her back upon them, and began a diligent search in the beaufet for a vase.
"Do you expect us to believe that you have been more industrious than we? As if we did not know that you bribed the gardener to have a bouquet cut and laid ready for you at the back-door," Frederic charged upon the matutinal Flora. "Else, where are other evidences of your stroll, in dew-sprinkled draperies and wet feet? Confess that you ran down stairs just two minutes ago! Now that I come to think of it, I am