The Loves of Alonzo Fitz Clarence and Rosannah Ethelton | Page 3

and stood at the window and looked out upon the
wintry prospect. The storm was driving the snow before it more
furiously than ever; window-shutters were slamming and banging; a
forlorn dog, with bowed head and tail withdrawn from service, was
pressing his quaking body against a windward wall for shelter and
protection; a young girl was plowing knee-deep through the drifts, with
her face turned from the blast, and the cape of her waterproof blowing
straight rearward over her head. Alonzo shuddered, and said with a sigh,
"Better the slop, and the sultry rain, and even the insolent flowers, than
this!"
He turned from the window, moved a step, and stopped in a listening
attitude. The faint, sweet notes of a familiar song caught his ear. He
remained there, with his head unconsciously bent forward, drinking in
the melody, stirring neither hand nor foot, hardly breathing. There was
a blemish in the execution of the song, but to Alonzo it seemed an
added charm instead of a defect. This blemish consisted of a marked
flatting of the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh notes of the refrain
or chorus of the piece. When the music ended, Alonzo drew a deep
breath, and said, "Ah, I never have heard 'In the Sweet By-and-by' sung
like that before!"
He stepped quickly to the desk, listened a moment, and said in a
guarded, confidential voice, "Aunty, who is this divine singer?"
"She is the company I was expecting. Stays with me a month or two. I
will introduce you. Miss--"
"For goodness' sake, wait a moment, Aunt Susan! You never stop to
think what you are about!"
He flew to his bedchamber, and returned in a moment perceptibly
changed in his outward appearance, and remarking, snappishly:
"Hang it, she would have introduced me to this angel in that sky-blue
dressing-gown with red-hot lapels! Women never think, when they get
a-going."
He hastened and stood by the desk, and said eagerly, "Now, Aunty, I
am ready," and fell to smiling and bowing with all the persuasiveness

and elegance that were in him.
"Very well. Miss Rosannah Ethelton, let me introduce to you my
favorite nephew, Mr. Alonzo Fitz Clarence. There! You are both good
people, and I like you; so I am going to trust you together while I attend
to a few household affairs. Sit down, Rosannah; sit down, Alonzo.
Good-by; I sha'n't be gone long."
Alonzo had been bowing and smiling all the while, and motioning
imaginary young ladies to sit down in imaginary chairs, but now he
took a seat himself, mentally saying, "Oh, this is luck! Let the winds
blow now, and the snow drive, and the heavens frown! Little I care!"
While these young people chat themselves into an acquaintanceship, let
us take the liberty of inspecting the sweeter and fairer of the two. She
sat alone, at her graceful ease, in a richly furnished apartment which
was manifestly the private parlor of a refined and sensible lady, if signs
and symbols may go for anything. For instance, by a low, comfortable
chair stood a dainty, top-heavy workstand, whose summit was a
fancifully embroidered shallow basket, with varicolored crewels, and
other strings and odds and ends protruding from under the gaping lid
and hanging down in negligent profusion. On the floor lay bright shreds
of Turkey red, Prussian blue, and kindred fabrics, bits of ribbon, a
spool or two, a pair of scissors, and a roll or so of tinted silken stuffs.
On a luxurious sofa, upholstered with some sort of soft Indian goods
wrought in black and gold threads interwebbed with other threads not
so pronounced in color, lay a great square of coarse white stuff, upon
whose surface a rich bouquet of flowers was growing, under the deft
cultivation of the crochet-needle. The household cat was asleep on this
work of art. In a bay-window stood an easel with an unfinished picture
on it, and a palette and brushes on a chair beside it. There were books
everywhere: Robertson's Sermons, Tennyson, Moody and Sankey,
Hawthorne, Rab and His Friends, cook-books, prayer-books,
pattern-books--and books about all kinds of odious and exasperating
pottery, of course. There was a piano, with a deck-load of music, and
more in a tender. There was a great plenty of pictures on the walls, on
the shelves of the mantelpiece, and around generally; where coigns of
vantage offered were statuettes, and quaint and pretty gimcracks, and
rare and costly specimens of peculiarly devilish china. The bay-window
gave upon a garden that was ablaze with foreign and domestic flowers

and flowering shrubs.
But the sweet young girl was the daintiest thing these premises, within
or without, could offer for contemplation: delicately chiseled features,
of Grecian cast; her complexion the pure snow of a japonica that is