At Last | Page 8

expend the wealth of her young, ardent heart;
others, that his strong will enforced her homage. The fact of her
devotion was undeniable, and upon his appreciation of this Aunt
Rachel built her expectations of a favorable hearing when she
volunteered to prepare the way for Mr. Chilton's formal application for
the hand of her nephew's ward. Between herself and Winston there
existed little real liking and less affinity. She was useful to him, and his
tolerance of her society was courteous, but she understood perfectly
that he secretly despised many of her views and actions, as, indeed, he
did those of most women. Her present mission was undertaken for the
love she bore Mabel and her sister. It was not kind to send the girl to
tell her own story. It was neither kind nor fair to subject their guest to
the ordeal of an unheralded disclosure of his sentiments and aspirations,
with the puissant lord of Ridgeley as sole auditor.
"Fred would never get over the first impression of your brother's
chilling reserve," said the self-appointed envoy to Mabel, when she
insisted that her affianced would plead his cause more eloquently than a
third person could. "For, you, must confess, my love, that Winston,
although in most respects a model to other young men, is
unapproachable by strangers."
As she said "your accounts and so forth," she looked at the table from
which Mr. Aylett had arisen to set a chair for her. There was a pile of
account-books at the side against the wall, but they were shut, and over
heaped by pamphlets and newspapers; while before the owner's seat lay
an open portfolio, an unfinished letter within it. Winston wiped his pen
with deliberation, closed the portfolio, snapped to the spring-top of his
inkstand, and finally wheeled his office chair away from the desk to

face his visitor.
"Is it upon business that you wish to speak to me?"
He always disdained circumlocution, prided himself upon the
directness and simplicity of his address. This acted now as a dissuasive
to the sentimental address Mrs. Sutton had meditated as a means of
winning the flinty walls behind which his social affections and
sympathies were supposed to be intrenched. Had her mission been in
behalf of any other cause, she would have drawn off her forces upon
some pretext, and effected an ignominious retreat. Nerved by the
thought of Mabel's bashfulness and solicitude, and Frederic's
strangerhood, she stood to her guns.
Winston heard her story, from the not very coherent preamble, to the
warm and unqualified endorsement of Frederic Chilton's credentials,
and her moved mention of the mutual attachment of the youthful pair,
and never changed his attitude, or manifested any inclination to stay the
narration by question or comment. When she ceased speaking, his
physiognomy denoted no emotion whatever. Yet, Mabel was his
nearest living relative. She had been bequeathed to his care, when only
ten years old, by the will of their dying father, and grown up under his
eye as his child, rather than a sister. And he was hearing, for the first
time, of her desire to quit the home they had shared together from her
birth, for the protection and companionship of another. Mrs. Sutton
thought herself pretty well versed in "Winston's ways," but she had
expected to detect a shade of softness in the cold, never-bright eyes and
anticipated another rejoinder than the sentence that stands at the head of
this chapter.
"And so you know nothing of this gentleman beyond what he has told
you of his character and antecedents?" he said--the slender white
fingers, his aunt fancied, looked cruel even in their idleness, lightly
linked together while his elbows restod upon the arms of his chair.
"My dear Winston! what a question! Haven't I told you that he is my
husband's namesake and godson! I was at his fathers house a score of
times, at least, in dear Frederic's life-time. It was a charming place, and
I never saw a more lovely family. I recollect this boy perfectly, as was
very natural, seeing that his name was such a compliment to my
husband. He was a fine, manly little fellow, and the eldest son. The
christening-feast was postponed, for some reason I do not now

remember, until he was two years old. It was a very fine affair. The
company was composed of the very elite of that part of Maryland, and
the Bishop himself baptized the two babies--Frederic, and a younger
sister. I know all about him, you see, instead of nothing!"
"What was the date of this festival?" asked Winston's unwavering
voice.
"Let me see! We had been married seven years that fall. It must have
been in the winter of 18--."
"Twenty-three years ago!" said Winston, yet more quietly.