Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1887 | Page 5

fellow to have knocking about among fragile susceptibilities. But on
reflection he saw there could be no danger.
"All up with him,--poor diavolo! Can't understand it--such a little
sixpenny miss--pretty enough boiled parsnip blonde, if one likes that
sort of thing--pleases some of the old boys, apparently. Look out, Mr.
L.--remember Susanna and the Elders. Good!
"Safe enough if something new doesn't turn up. Youngish. Sixteen's a
little early. Seventeen will do. Marry a girl while she's in the gristle,
and you can shape her bones for her. Splendid creature--without her
trimmings. Wants training. Must learn to dance, and sing something
besides psalm-tunes."
Mr. Bradshaw began humming the hymn, "When I can read my title
clear," adding some variations of his own. "That's the solo for my
prima donna!"
In the mean time Myrtle seemed to be showing some new
developments. One would have said that the instincts of the coquette,
or at least of the city belle, were coming uppermost in her nature. Her
little nervous attack passed away, and she gained strength and beauty
every day. She was becoming conscious of her gifts of fascination, and
seemed to please herself with the homage of her rustic admirers. Why
was it that no one of them had the look and bearing of that young man
she had seen but a moment the other evening? To think that he should
have taken up with such a weakling as Susan Posey! She sighed, and

not so much thought as felt how kind it would have been in Heaven to
have made her such a man. But the image of the delicate blonde stood
between her and all serious thought of Clement Lindsay. She saw the
wedding in the distance, and very foolishly thought to herself that she
could not and would not go to it.
But Clement Lindsay was gone, and she must content herself with such
worshippers as the village afforded. Murray Bradshaw was surprised
and confounded at the easy way in which she received his compliments,
and played with his advances, after the fashion of the trained ball-room
belles, who know how to be almost caressing in manner, and yet are
really as far off from the deluded victim of their suavities as the
topmost statue of the Milan cathedral from the peasant that kneels on
its floor. He admired her all the more for this, and yet he saw that she
would be a harder prize to win than he had once thought. If he made up
his mind that he would have her, he must go armed with all implements,
from the red hackle to the harpoon.
The change which surprised Murray Bradshaw could not fail to be
noticed by all those about her. Miss Silence had long ago come to
pantomime,--rolling up of eyes, clasping of hands, making of sad
mouths, and the rest,--but left her to her own way, as already the
property of that great firm of World & Co. which drives such sharp
bargains for young souls with the better angels. Cynthia studied her for
her own purposes, but had never gained her confidence. The Irish
servant saw that some change had come over her, and thought of the
great ladies she had sometimes looked upon in the old country. They all
had a kind of superstitious feeling about Myrtle's bracelet, of which she
had told them the story, but which Kitty half believed was put in the
drawer by the fairies, who brought her ribbons and partridge-feathers,
and other simple adornments with which she contrived to set off her
simple costume, so as to produce those effects which an eye for color
and cunning fingers can bring out of almost nothing.
Gifted Hopkins was now in a sad, vacillating condition, between the
two great attractions to which he was exposed. Myrtle looked so
immensely handsome one Sunday when he saw her going to

church,--not to meeting, for she would not go, except when she knew
Father Pemberton was going to be the preacher,--that the young poet
was on the point of going down on his knees to her, and telling her that
his heart was hers and hers alone. But he suddenly remembered that he
had on his best pantaloons; and the idea of carrying the marks of his
devotion in the shape of two dusty impressions on his most valued
article of apparel turned the scale against the demonstration. It
happened the next morning, that Susan Posey wore the most becoming
ribbon she had displayed for a long time, and Gifted was so taken with
her pretty looks that he might very probably have made the same
speech to her that he had been on the point of making to Myrtle the day
before, but that he remembered her plighted affections, and thought