From Jest to Earnest | Page 2

perch on the driver's box.
"Of course I am," said Mr. De Forrest in a low tone, and leaning towards the maiden.
"You are both nearer being silly," she replied, pettishly. "Dan, behave yourself, and speak when you are spoken to."
The boy announced his independence of sisterly control by beginning to whistle, and the young lady addressed as "Bel" remarked, "Mr. De Forrest is no judge of the weather under the circumstances. He doubtless regards the day as bright and serene. But he was evidently a correct judge up to the time he joined you, Lottie."
"He joined you as much as he did me."
"O, pardon me; yes, I believe I was present."
"I hope I have failed in no act of politeness, Miss Bel," said De Forrest, a little stiffly.
"I have no complaints to make. Indeed, I have fared well, considering that one is sometimes worse than a crowd."
"Nonsense!" said Lottie, petulantly; and the young man tried not to appear annoyed.
The sleigh now dashed in between rustic gate-posts composed of rough pillars of granite; and proceeding along an avenue that sometimes skirted a wooded ravine, and again wound through picturesque groupings of evergreens, they soon reached a mansion of considerable size, which bore evidence of greater age than is usual with the homes in our new world.
They had hardly crossed the threshold into the hall before they were hospitably welcomed by a widowed lady, whose hair was slightly tinged with gray, and by her eldest daughter.
The greetings were so cordial as to indicate ties of blood, and the guests were shown to their rooms, and told to prepare for an early dinner.
In brief, Mrs. Marchmont, the mistress of the mansion, had gratified her daughter's wish (as she did all her fancies) by permitting her to invite a number of young friends for the Christmas holidays. Both mother and daughter were fond of society, and it required no hospitable effort to welcome visitors at a season when a majority of their friends had fled from the dreariness of winter to city homes. Indeed, they regarded it as almost an honor that so prominent a belle as Charlotte Marsden had consented to spend a few weeks with them at a time when country life is at a large discount with the fashionable. They surmised that the presence of Mr. De Forrest, a distant relative of both Miss Marsden and themselves, would be agreeable to all concerned, and were not mistaken; and to Miss Lottie the presence of a few admirers--she would not entertain the idea that they were lovers--had become an ordinary necessity of life. Mr. De Forrest was an unusually interesting specimen of the genus,--handsome, an adept in the mode and etiquette of the hour, attentive as her own shadow, and quite as subservient.
His love-making would equal his toilet in elegance. All would be delicately suggested by touch of hand or glance of eye, and yet he would keep pace with the wild and wayward beauty in as desperate a flirtation as she would permit.
Miss Lottie had left her city home with no self-sacrificing purpose to become a martyr for the sake of country relatives. She had wearied of the familiar round of metropolitan gayety; but life on the Hudson during midwinter was an entire novelty. Therefore, as her little brother had been included in the invitation, they had started on what was emphatically a frolic to both.
Bel Parton, her companion, was another city cousin of the Marchmonts, with whom they were in the habit of exchanging visits. She was also an intimate of Lottie's, the two being drawn together by the mysterious affinity of opposites.
She was indeed a very different girl from Lottie Marsden, and many would regard her as a better one. Her face and character were of a type only too familiar to close observers of society. She was the beginning of several desirable things, but the pattern was in no instance finished, and was always ravelling out on one side or the other. She had the features of a pretty girl, but ill health and the absence of a pleasing expression spoiled them. She had a fine education, but did not know what to do with it; considerable talent, but no energy; too much conscience, as she had not the resolution to obey it. Her life was passed mainly in easy chairs, chronic dyspepsia, and feeble protest against herself and all the world.
Lottie often half provoked but never roused her by saying: "Bel, you are the most negative creature I ever knew. Why don't you do something or be something out and out? Well, ''Tis an ill wind that blows nobody any good.' You make an excellent foil for me."
And gloriously rich and tropical did Lottie appear against the colorless background of her friend. Bel felt that she suffered by