The Youth of Jefferson | Page 4

countries sigh, as
he gazed on it, embowered in its verdurous grove.
In the garden is an arbor, over which flowering vines of every
description hover and bloom, full of the wine of spring. Around the
arbor extend flower plats carefully tended and fragrant with violets,
crocuses, and early primroses. Foliage of the light tender tint of May
clothes the background, and looking from the arbor you clearly discern
the distant barn rising above the trees.

In this arbor sits or rather reclines a young girl--for she has stretched
herself upon the trellised seat, with a languid and careless ease, which
betrays total abandon--an abandon engendered probably by the warm
languid air of May, and those million flowers burdening the air with
perfume.
This is Miss Belle-bouche, whom we have heard the melancholy
Jacques discourse of with such forlorn eloquence to his friend Tom, or
Sir Asinus, as the reader pleases.
Belle-bouche, Pretty-mouth, Belinda, or Rebecca--for this last was the
name given her by her sponsors--is a young girl of about seventeen, and
of a beauty so fresh and rare that the enthusiasm of Jacques was
scarcely strange. The girl has about her the freshness and innocence of
childhood, the grace and elegance of the inhabitants of that realm of
fairies which we read of in the olden poets--all the warmth, and reality,
and beauty of those lovelier fairies of our earth. Around her delicate
brow and rosy cheeks fall myriads of golden "drop curls," which veil
the deep-blue eyes, half closed and fixed upon the open volume in her
hand. Belle-bouche is very richly clad, in a velvet gown, a satin
underskirt from which the gown is looped back, wide cuffs and profuse
lace at wrists and neck; and on her diminutive feet, which peep from
the skirt, are red morocco shoes tied with bows of ribbon, and adorned
with heels not more than three inches in height. Her hair is powdered
and woven with pearls--she wears a pearl necklace; she looks like a
child dressed by its mother for a ball, and spoiled long ago by "petting."
Belle-bouche reads the "Althea" of Lovelace, and smiles approvingly at
the gallant poet's assertion, that the birds of the air know no such liberty
as he does, fettered by her eyes and hair. It is the fashion for Lovelaces
to make such declarations, and with a coquettish little movement she
puts back the drop curls, and raises her blue eyes to the sky from which
they have stolen their hue.
She remains for some moments is this reverie, and is not aware of the
approach of a gallant Lovelace, who, hat in hand, the feather of the said
hat trailing on the ground, draws near.

Who is this gallant but our friend of one day's standing, the handsome,
the smiling, the forlorn, the melancholy--and, being melancholy, the
interesting--Jacques.
He approaches smiling, modest, humble--a consummate strategist; his
ambrosial curls and powdered queue tied with its orange ribbon,
shining in the sun. He wears a suit of cut velvet with gold buttons; a
flowered satin waistcoat reaching to his knees; scarlet silk stockings,
and high-heeled worsted shoes. His cuffs would enter a barrel with
difficulty, and his chin reposes upon a frill of irreproachable Mechlin
lace.
Jacques finds the eyes suddenly turned upon him, and bows low. Then
he approaches, falls upon one knee, and presses his lips gallantly to the
hand of the little beauty, who smiling carelessly rises in a measure from
her recumbent position.
"Do I find the fair Belinda reading?" says the gallant; "what blessed
book is made happy by the light of her eyes?"
Which remarkable words, we must beg the reader to remember, were
after the fashion of the time and scarcely more than commonplace. The
fairer portion of humanity had even then perfected that sovereignty
over the males which in our own day is so very observable. So, instead
of replying in a tone indicating surprise, the little beauty answers quite
simply:
"My favorite--Lovelace."
Jacques heaves a sigh; for the music of the voice has touched his
heart--nay, overwhelmed it with a new flood of love.
He dangles his bonnet and plume, and carefully arranges a drop curl.
He, the prince of wits, the ornament of ball rooms, the star of the
minuet and reel, is suddenly quite dumb, and seems to seek for a
subject to discourse upon in surrounding objects.
A happy idea strikes him; a thought occurs to him; he grasps at it with

the desperation of a drowning man. He says:
"'Tis a charming day, fairest Belle-bouche--Belinda, I mean. Ah,
pardon my awkwardness!"
And the unhappy Corydon betrays by his confusion how much this slip
of the tongue has embarrassed him--at least, that he wishes her to think
so.
The little beauty smiles faintly, and