From Jest to Earnest | Page 8

them--he would make an imposing-looking man." And when
De Forrest posed beside him just before they went out to tea, even this
thought flashed across her, "Julian, seems like an elegant manikin
beside a man." If De Forrest had only known it, the game of contrasts
was not wholly in his favor.
But poor Mr. Hemstead came to grief on his way to the supper-room.
Miss Marchmont tried to disguise her diminutive stature by a long
trailing dress. Upon this he placed his by no means delicate foot, as she
was sweeping out with Mr. Harcourt. There was an ominous sound of
parting stitches, and an abrupt period in the young lady's graceful
progress. In his eager haste to remedy his awkwardness, he bumped up
against Mr. Dimmerly, who was advancing to speak to him, with a
force that nearly overthrew that dapper gentleman, and rendered his
greeting rather peculiar. Hemstead felt, to his intense annoyance, that
the young people were at the point of exploding with merriment at his
expense, and was in a state of indignation at himself and them. His aunt
and Mr. Dimmerly, who soon recovered himself, were endeavoring to
look serenely unconscious, with but partial success. All seemed to feel
as if they were over a mine of discourteous laughter. The unfortunate
object looked nervously around for the beautiful "cousin," and noted
with a sigh of relief that she had disappeared.
"I hope she did not see my meeting with uncle," he thought. "I was
always a gawk in society, and to-night seem possessed with the very

genius of awkwardness. She is the only one who has shown me any real
kindness, and I don't want her to think of me only as a blundering,
tongue-tied fool."
He would not have been re-assured had he known that Lottie, having
seen all, had darted back into the parlor and was leaning against the
piano, a quivering, and for the moment a helpless subject of suppressed
mirth. Mr. Dimmerly was always a rather comical object to her, and his
flying arms and spectacles, as he tried to recover himself from the rude
shock of his nephew's burly form, made a scene in which absurdity,
which is said to be the chief cause of laughter, was pre-eminent.
But, the paroxysm passing, she followed them and took a seat opposite
her victim, with a demure sweetness and repose of manner well-nigh
fatal to the conspirators.
As Mr. Hemstead was regarded as a clergyman, though not quite
through with his studies, his aunt looked to him for the saying of grace.
It was a trying ordeal for the young fellow under the circumstances. He
shot a quick glance at Lottie, which she returned with a look of serious
expectation, then dropped her eyes and veiled a different expression
under the long lashes. But he was sorely embarrassed, and stammered
out he scarcely knew what. A suppressed titter from Addie Marchmont
and the young men was the only response he heard, and it was not
re-assuring. He heartily wished himself back in Michigan, but was
comforted by seeing Lottie looking gravely and reproachfully at the
irreverent gigglers.
"She is a good Christian girl," he thought, "and while the others ridicule
my wretched embarrassment, she sympathizes."
Hemstead was himself as open as the day and equally unsuspicious of
others. He believed just what he saw, and saw only what was clearly
apparent. Therefore Lottie, by tolerably fair acting, would have no
difficulty in deceiving him, and she was proving herself equal to very
skilful feigning. Indeed she was one who could do anything fairly that
she heartily attempted.
A moment after "grace" Harcourt made a poor witticism, at which the
majority laughed with an immoderateness quite disproportionate. Mrs.
Marchmont and her brother joined in the mirth, though evidently vexed
with themselves that they did. Even Hemstead saw that Harcourt's
remark was but the transparent excuse for the inevitable laugh at his

expense. Lottie looked around with an expression of mingled surprise
and displeasure, which nearly convulsed those in the secret. But her
aunt and uncle felt themselves justly rebuked, while wondering greatly
at Lottie's unwonted virtue. But there are times when to laugh is a
dreadful necessity, whatever be the consequences.
"Mr. Hemstead," said Lottie, gravely, beginning, as she supposed, with
the safe topic of the weather, "in journeying east have you come to a
colder or warmer climate?"
"Decidedly into a colder one," he answered, significantly.
"Indeed, that rather surprises me!"
"Well, I believe that the thermometer has marked lower with us, but it
has been said, and justly I think, that we do not feel the cold at the West
as at the East."
"No matter," she said, sweetly. "At the East, as in the West, the cold is
followed by thaws