At Last | Page 6

in the acquaintanceship of each of these with the charmer, when he had marvelled at the infatuation which had blinded her previous adorers. She was "a neat little thing," with her round waist, her tiny hands and feet and roguish eye--but there was nothing else remarkable about her features, and in coloring, the picture was too dark for his taste. Why, she might be mistaken for a creole! And each critic held fast to his expressed opinion until the roguish eyes met his directly and with meaning, and he found himself diving into the bright, shimmering wells, and drowning--still ecstatically--before he reached the bottom whence streamed the light of passionate feeling, striking upward through the surface. What her glances did not effect was done by her dazzling smile and musical voice.
As one of her victims swore, "It was a dearer delight to be rejected by her than to be accepted by a dozen other girls--she did the thing up so handsomely! And yet, do you know, sir, I could have shot myself for a barbarous brute when I saw the pitying tears standing upon her lashes, and heard the tremor in her sweet tones, as she begged me to forgive her for not loving me!"
Those she had once captivated never quite rid themselves of the glamour of her arts; remained her trusty squires, ready to serve, or to defend her always afterward.
Aunt Rachel, intent, during the short pause, upon the movements of the servant who was setting the smoking breakfast upon the table, glanced around when all was properly arranged, to summon the two to their places--but something in Rosa's attitude and countenance held her momentarily speechless. Mabel still bent over her roses, in smiling interest, and Frederic Chilton was watching her--but not as the third person of the group about the beaufet watched them both between her half-closed lids, her black brows close together, and the glittering teeth visible under the curling upper lip.
"She looked like a panther lying in wait for her prey!" Mrs. Sutton said to her niece, many months later, in attempting to describe the scene. "Or like a bright-eyed snake coiled for a spring. The sight of her sent shivers all down my spine."
Her interruption of the tableau sounded oddly abrupt to ears used to her pleasant accents.
"Come, young people! how long are you going to keep me waiting? Breakfast is cooling fast!"
"I beg your pardon, Auntie! I did not notice that it had been brought in," apologized Mabel, drawing back, that Frederic might lift the loaded salver carefully to its place upon the board.
As they were closing about this, they were joined by Messrs. Barksdale and Branch, Miss Tabb delaying her appearance until the repast was nearly over, and meeting the raillery of the party upon her late rising with the sweet, soft smile her cousin-betrothed admired as the indication of unadulterated amiability. The breakfast-hour, always pleasant, was to-day particularly merry. Rosa led off in the laughing debates, the play of repartee, friendly jest, and anecdote that incited all to mirth and speech and tempted them to linger around the table long after the business of the meal wag concluded.
"This is the perfection of country life!" said Frederic Chilton, when, at last, there was a movement to end the sitting. "But it spoils one fearfully for the everyday practicalities of the city--a Northern city, especially."
"Better stay where you are, then, instead of deserting our ranks to-morrow," suggested Rosa, gliding by his side out upon the long portico at the end of the house. "What does your nature crave that Ridgeley cannot supply?"
"Work, and a career!"
"You still feel the need of these?" significantly.
"Otherwise I were no man!"
"You are right!"
Her disdainful eyes wandered to the farther end of the portico, where Alfred Branch, in his natty suit of white grasscloth, plucked at his ebon whiskers with untanned fingers, and talked society nothings with the ever-complaisant Imogene.
"Come what may, you, Mr. Chilton, have occupation for thought and hands; are not tied down to a detestable routine of vapid pleasures and common-place people!"
"You are--every independent woman and man--is as free in this respect as myself, Miss Rosa. None need be a slave to conventionality unless he choose."
She made a gesture that was like twisting a chain apon her wrist.
"You know you are not sincere in saying that. I wondered, moreover, when you were railing at the practicalities of city life, if you were learning, like the rest of the men, to accommodate your talk to your audience. Where is the use of your trying to disguise the truth that all women are slaves? I used to envy you when I was in Philadelphia, last winter, when you pleaded business engagements as an excuse for declining invitations to dinner-parties and balls. Now, if a woman defies popular decrees by