The Crayon Papers | Page 8

own reflections. His retreat shall be sacred; no one shall intrude there; no one but myself, who will visit him now and then, in his seclusion, where we will devise grand schemes together for the improvement of mankind. How delightfully our days will pass, in a round of rational pleasures and elegant employments! Sometimes we will have music; sometimes we will read; sometimes we will wander through the flower garden, when I will smile with complacency on every flower my wife has planted; while in the long winter evenings the ladies will sit at their work, and listen with hushed attention to Glencoe and myself, as we discuss the abstruse doctrines of metaphysics."
From this delectable reverie, I was startled by my father's slapping me on the shoulder. "What possesses the lad?" cried he; "here have I been speaking to you half a dozen times, without receiving an answer."
"Pardon me, sir," replied I; "I was so completely lost in thought, that I did not hear you."
"Lost in thought! And pray what were you thinking of? Some of your philosophy, I suppose."
"Upon my word," said my sister Charlotte, with an arch laugh, "I suspect Harry's in love again."
"And if were in love, Charlotte," said I, somewhat nettled, and recollecting Glencoe's enthusiastic eulogy of the passion, "if I were in love, is that a matter of jest and laughter? Is the tenderest and most fervid affection that can animate the human breast to be made a matter of cold-hearted ridicule?"
My sister colored. "Certainly not, brother!--nor did I mean to make it so, or to say anything that should wound your feelings. Had I really suspected you had formed some genuine attachment, it would have been sacred in my eyes; but--but," said she, smiling, as if at some whimsical recollection, "I thought that you--you might be indulging in another little freak of the imagination."
"Ill wager any money," cried my father, "he has fallen in love again with some old lady at a window!"
"Oh, no!" cried my dear sister Sophy, with the most gracious warmth; "she is young and beautiful."
"From what I understand," said Glencoe, rousing himself, "she must be lovely in mind as in person."
I found my friends were getting me into a fine scrape. I began to perspire at every pore, and felt my ears tingle.
"Well, but," cried my father, "who is she?--what is she? Let us hear something about her."
This was no time to explain so delicate a matter. I caught up my hat, and vanished out of the house.
The moment I was in the open air, and alone, my heart upbraided me. Was this respectful treatment to my father--to such a father, too--who had always regarded me as the pride of his age--the staff of his hopes? It is true, he was apt sometimes to laugh at my enthusiastic flights, and did not treat my philosophy with due respect; but when had he ever thwarted a wish of my heart? Was I then to act with reserve toward him, in a matter which might affect the whole current of my future life? "I have done wrong," thought I; "but it is not too late to remedy it. I will hasten back and open my whole heart to my father!"
I returned accordingly, and was just on the point of entering the house, with my heart full of filial piety and a contrite speech upon my lips, when I heard a burst of obstreperous laughter from my father, and a loud titter from my two elder sisters.
"A footstep!" shouted he, as soon as he could recover himself; "in love with a footstep! Why, this beats the old lady at the window!" And then there was another appalling burst of laughter. Had it been a clap of thunder, it could hardly have astounded me more completely. Sophy, in the simplicity of her heart, had told all, and had set my father's risible propensities in full action.
Never was poor mortal so thoroughly crestfallen as myself. The whole delusion was at an end. I drew off silently from the house, shrinking smaller and smaller at every fresh peal of laughter; and, wandering about until the family had retired, stole quietly to my bed. Scarce any sleep, however, visited my eyes that night! I lay overwhelmed with mortification, and meditating how I might meet the family in the morning. The idea of ridicule was always intolerable to me; but to endure it on a subject by which my feelings had been so much excited seemed worse than death. I almost determined, at one time, to get up, saddle my horse, and ride off, I knew not whither.
At length I came to a resolution. Before going down to breakfast, I sent for Sophy, and employed her as embassador to treat formally in the matter. I insisted that the