From Jest to Earnest | Page 6

be your guest."
"No he won't. He's mother's guest, and I feel like punishing them both."
"Very well," said Lottie, lightly; "if you have no scruples, I have none.
It will be capital sport, and will do him good. It would be an excellent
thing for his whole theological seminary if they could have a thorough
shaking up by the wicked world, which to him, in this matter, I shall
represent. They would then know what they were preaching about.
What do you say, Julian?"
"When did I ever disagree with you?" he replied, gallantly. "But in this
case I really think we owe Miss Addie a vote of thanks for having hit
upon a joke that may enliven the greater part of our visit. This embryo
parson seems a sort of a scriptural character; and why should he not
blindly, like Samson, make sport for us all?"
"I fear you do not understand your own scriptural allusion," sneered
Bel. "Like Samson, he may also pull everything down about our ears in
a most uncomfortable manner."
"I hope you won't spoil everything by telling him or mother," said
Addie, petulantly.
"Oh, no! Since you are determined upon it, I will look on and see the
fun, if there is any. But, bah! He will find you all out in a day. As for
Lottie palming herself off as a goodish young woman to whom any
sane man would talk religion,--the very thought is preposterous!"
"Don't be too confident, Miss Bel," said Lottie, put upon her mettle. "If
you all will only sustain me and not awaken his suspicions with your
by-play and giggling, I will deceive the ingenuous youth in a way that

will surprise you as well as him. Good acting must have proper support.
This is something new,--out of the rut; and I am bound to make it a
brilliant jest that we can laugh over all our lives. So remember, Julian,
you will disconcert me at your peril."
"No fears of me. So long as your jest remains a jest, I will be the last
one to spoil the sport."
With a chime of laughter that echoed to the attic of the old mansion,
Lottie exclaimed, "The idea that I could ever become in earnest!"
"But the young clergyman may become dead in earnest," said Bel, who
seemed the embodiment of a troublesome but weak conscience. "You
know well, Mr. De Forrest, that Lottie's blandishments may be fatal to
his peace."
"That is his affair," replied the confident youth, with a careless shrug.
Having arranged the details of the plot and been emphatically cautioned
by Lottie, they awaited their victim.

CHAPTER II
.
THE VICTIM.

Frank Hemstead was expected on the evening train from the north, so
the conspirators would not have long to wait. To pass the brief
intervening time Lottie went to the piano and gave them some music
like herself, brilliant, dashing, off-hand, but devoid of sentiment and
feeling. Then she sprang up and began playing the maddest pranks on
languid Bel, and with Addie was soon engaged in a romp with De
Forrest and Harcourt, that would have amazed the most festive Puritan
that ever schooled or masked a frolicsome nature under the sombre
deportment required. The young men took their cue from the ladies,
and elegance and propriety were driven away in shreds before the gale
of their wild spirits. Poor Bel, buffeted and helpless, half-enjoying,
half-frightened, protested, cried, and laughed at the tempest around her.
"I mean," said Lottie, panting after a desperate chase among the
furniture, "to have one more spree, like the topers before they reform."
Though these velvety creatures with their habits of grace and elegance

could romp without roughness, and glide where others would tear
around, they could not keep their revel so quiet but that hurrying steps
were heard. Bel warned them, and, before Mrs. Marchmont could enter,
Lottie was playing a waltz, and the others appeared as if they had been
dancing. The lady of precedent smiled, whereas if she had come a
moment earlier she would have been horrified.
But the glow from the hearth, uncertain enough for their innocent deeds
of darkness, had now to fade before the chandelier, and Mrs.
Marchmont, somewhat surprised at the rumpled plumage of the young
ladies, and the fact that Mr. De Forrest's neck-tie was awry, suggested
that they retire and prepare for supper, whereat they retreated in literal
disorder. But without the door their old frenzy seized them, and they
nearly ran over the dilatory Bel upon the stairs. With sallies of
nonsense, smothered laughter, a breezy rustle of garments, and the rush
of swift motion, they seemed to die away in the upper halls like a
summer gust. To Mrs. Marchmont their departure had seemed