From Jest to Earnest | Page 2

into her companion's usually pale face, but
not of an attractive kind, for the north-east wind that deepened the
vermilion in the beauty's cheek could only tinge that of the other with a
ghastly blue. The delicate creature shivered and sighed.
"I wish we were there."
"Really, Bel, I sometimes think your veins are filled with water instead
of blood. It's not cold to-day, is it, Mr. De Forrest?"
"Well, all I can say with certainty," he replied, "is that I have been in a
glow for the last two hours. I thought it was chilly before that."
"You are near to 'glory' then," cried the boy saucily, from his 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