"Yes," said Mrs. Churchill, quite blandly, "it is peculiar, that any one can see in him a marrying man. At his age, it is very seldom that one of his disposition feels any inclination to form new ties and interests, and enter upon so different a life. Nothing could surprise me more than to hear that Mr. Rutledge was going to be married."

Grace squeezed up her mouth in a significant way, and gave a funny look at her mother as she said this, evidently exercising great self-denial in not answering.

Mr. Ellerton Wynkar took upon himself that office, and agreed entirely with Mrs. Churchill, adding, however, that there were some stories about the early life of the gentleman, that he didn't know whether to believe or not. Was it true that he had been so dissipated when he was a young man?

Mrs. Churchill smiled, and shrugged her shoulders. She knew nothing about that; he had spent most of his early life abroad, she said, and sowed his wild oats, if he had any to sow, on another continent, and it was but fair for us to be content to take him as he wished to appear at home, and ignore the other continent.

"You may bet your head," exclaimed the captain, emphatically, "that no man with a fortune like his, ever settled down into morality and farming, without having a good time or so, to begin with. Trust him for that! The ladies wouldn't like him so well, if there wasn't a touch of the sinner about him."

Aunt Edith shook her head, and said that was a shocking doctrine; while Josephine declared, with a laugh, they had to like sinners--there was nothing else in society; and Mr. Wynkar taking it as a personal tribute, pulled his pale moustache and smiled, while the captain concentrated his herculean powers on an appropriate rejoinder, and Grace drew the attention of the table to me, by exclaiming:

"Why, what's the matter? You look as if you had been shot."

"Rather, as if she'd like to shoot us," said Josephine, laughing. "What _have_ we done to excite such horror? I hope you're not making yourself unhappy on Mr. Rutledge's account. I think he's able to take care of himself."

"If I had known," said Mr. Wynkar, with an apologetic wave of the hand, and a smile that was meant to be ironical, "if I had known that Mr.

Rutledge had so enthusiastic a friend present, I should have been more careful; and I most humbly beg, that what I have said may be forgiven."

The captain laughed a great laugh, and said he might have known that wherever there was a pretty face, there was a friend to Mr. Rutledge; and Grace asked, artlessly, what made me blush so; while only good-natured Phil came to the rescue, and in his blunt, honest way, exclaimed:

"It's my opinion she's much in the right of it. I shouldn't think much of her, if she wasn't angry at hearing anybody used up so, all on suspicion, too. If there's anything against him, why, hang it, come out and say so; but this making a man out a rascal, because people like him and because he's got a fortune, upon my soul, I think it's a scurvy sort of trick, that I do."

"Don't hit him any more--he's got friends," whined Grace.

"Phil quite mistakes us if he thinks we are not all Mr. Rutledge's friends," said Mrs. Churchill. "No one dreamed of saying anything that could possibly be considered uncomplimentary."

"I don't know, Aunt Edith," said Phil, rather warmly; "but I hope you don't pay me that sort of compliment when I'm not by."

"Indeed we don't," exclaimed Josephine, laughing. "When you're absent, Phil (which isn't often, you know), we all say you're the best fellow in the world, and count the hours till you come back."

"Then I think the best thing I can do is to stay away," he answered, with a sort of sigh.

"Ah, Phil, I know you wouldn't have the heart!" said Josephine, in a low tone, with a bright flash of her coquettish eye; which had the effect of subduing her cousin for the rest of the evening, and keeping him obedient to her slightest whim.

Though the rest of the family seemed to forget very soon the little episode that had been so excruciating to me, and so amusing to them, I do not think it was lost upon my aunt. I always found her looking at me very narrowly whenever Mr. Rutledge was mentioned, and she on more than one occasion, in my presence, took pains to speak of him in a way that seemed to put a greater distance than ever between us, of his age, his eccentricities, his reserve. My aunt might have saved herself the trouble. I "knew my place" by this time, and shrunk as naturally from meeting him now, as I had before been eager and forward. On the one or two occasions when I could not avoid encountering him, it had been in her presence, and I had been shy and cold to a degree that must have been unaccountable to him, if he had given the matter a thought, which I very much doubted. I had excused myself as hurriedly as possible, and slipped back to the study, glad to be by myself again, yet bitterly sorry, as soon as it was too late, that I had not staid where only I wished to be--where only I found any pleasure, if such a doubtful emotion indeed could be called pleasure. It was the nearest approach to it, however, that my life presented; it was what I looked forward to, spite of my good resolves from day to day; yet, when the wished-for pleasure came, with strange shyness and perverseness, I thrust it away out of my own reach, then cried pa.s.sionately at the disappointment, and began to hope again. The most inexplicable and contradictory thing in all this world of contradictions, is a woman's heart, before experience has tutored it. The woman herself does not understand it. What wonder if its strange willfulness and sudden impulses hopelessly bewilder and mislead the one of all others whom she most desires to please, and for whom alone, if the truth were known, the foolish heart throbs and flutters and pines.

CHAPTER XX.

"Doth not the world show men a very Judas' part, and betray them unto Satan, saying, whom I kiss with a feigned sign of love, take them--torture them?"

SUTTON.

"Mamma says," drawled out Grace, sauntering into the study one snowy morning, as I sat busy at my German, "mamma says, that as you write a good hand, you may direct these cards for her, and she will excuse you to Mr. Waschlager, if you don't have time to finish your German before he comes."

I could not help a slight exclamation of impatience as I relinquished my books, and took the long list of names and the basketful of blank envelopes that Grace handed me.

"How glad I am that I don't write a nice hand!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, as she threw herself lazily into a chair by the window, and leaning on her elbow, gazed out into the streets, now "dumb with snow," but where, before an hour was over, the jingling of an occasional sleigh-bell would be but a prelude to the merry music with which, till the snow vanished, they were to resound.

"I should think you'd be glad to get rid of your German; though, I suppose, it's only 'out of the frying-pan,' for you have a good morning's work before you in those precious cards."

I didn't trust myself to answer, and, after a pause, Grace went on:

"I should think mamma might have set Josephine to write those things herself, don't you? The party's all on her account, and she and Phil are doing nothing down in the library this morning."

Grace looked a little longer at the lessening snow-flakes, then continued, pleasantly:

"What shall you wear? For we've got to come down, mamma said so; and she said, too, that she didn't believe you had anything fit to wear."

"I haven't given a thought to the subject. Pray, don't talk, Grace, you confuse me."

"But you'll have to give it a thought," she exclaimed. "Josephine's going to wear her new pink silk, and I should think you'd want to look nicely the first time you go into company. Ella Wynkar was saying the other day, she thought it was the queerest thing you never went anywhere."

"Grace, really if you can't be quiet, I must go into my own room. I won't waste any more time misdirecting these cards, which I cannot help doing if you talk all the while."

She subsided for a few minutes, but pretty soon began again.

"It's going to be splendid sleighing; it's stopped snowing altogether, and I believe the sun is actually coming out; don't you wish there was any chance of your having a sleigh-ride?"

"No," I exclaimed, impatiently; "I don't wish for anything but quiet, and if you must be lazy yourself, I don't see what need there is of making other people so."

"You're shockingly out of temper this morning," said Grace, shrugging her shoulders and getting up to go. "I think I shall have to 'leave you to your own reflections,' as mamma always says after giving any of us a lecture. I must go and see what mischief Esther is in. She has been too quiet this morning."

I saw, by the sly gleam in Grace's eye, that Esther's peace was over; I knew the futility of argument, and attempted none; ten minutes after, a distressed little voice outside, crying, "Won't you speak to Grace?

She's got the brushes out of my paint-box, and she won't give 'em to me," showed me how Grace was killing time. I opened the door for the little _malheureuse_, told her not to mind about the paint-brushes, but if she'd be a quiet child, she might sit down here and look at the big "Pilgrim's Progress;" so I installed her in Grace's vacated seat, by the window, and she dried her tears, and looked the book through twice; then, kneeling in the chair, gazed out into the street, so quietly that I almost forgot her existence. My task was a distasteful one, insomuch as it interfered with pleasanter occupations, and I had great difficulty in keeping my patience to its completion; but at last it was ended, and the last name on the list copied on the envelope of the last card, and replaced in the basket, and, f.a.gged and dispirited, I pushed them away, and, crossing over to the window, sat down by it, and took the child on my knee.

No wonder the scene had fascinated her so long; it certainly was bright and picturesque. Snow is as magical a beautifier as moonlight; it freshens up, gilds over, and brightens the worn-out surface of every-day, and makes a pretty picture of a common reality. I had never suspected Gramercy Park of beauty before, but under the light mantle of this snow it became lovely. The trees bent with its light weight; it capped and decorated the iron railings, and crested the roofs and window-casings of the houses on the square. It lay white and unsullied on the ground, and in the courtyards; only a few children had as yet burst nursery bounds, and, wild with delight, rushed into the new element; and but a few shovels and brooms were at work. The sky had come out gorgeously blue, the sunshine was glittering gaily on the white snow; it was altogether a brilliant picture, done in high colors, but possessing the advantage that nature's pictures always enjoy, of not having an inharmonious or jarring tinge. Even the sleigh-loads of gaily-dressed people that began to dash past, seemed to have got themselves up to match and not mar the scene. The bright colors of the sleigh-robes, the flashing of the silver bells, the red cheeks of the girls, the gay clothes of the pretty children, were quite harmonious and quite effective. Esther looked at it for a long while in perfect content, as she would have looked at a nice picture-book; by and by, it began to a.s.sume a more personal character on her eyes.

"I should like to go out and ride myself," she said, at length.

"So should I, but there doesn't seem much chance of it," I answered; "therefore, it's best not to think about it."

"Other children go," she said. "I don't see why I can't. I think mamma might have a sleigh."

"That's mamma's business, and not yours," I said; "and there are more little children who don't ride than there are little children who do.

There is one, for instance, coming out of the area, who has been poking about, in all the ash-barrels in the square, for a few cinders to keep him warm at home. Poor little fellow! Don't you feel sorry for him, Essie? His ears and nose are so red, and his lips are almost purple. I don't believe _he's_ had a sleigh-ride, do you?"

Essie looked down thoughtfully at him, but didn't answer; no more repinings occurring, however, I inferred that she had profited by the train of thought the shivering little object below us had suggested. I still sat by the window, with Essie in my lap and a book in my hand, when, with a cry of pleasure, she started up, exclaiming, as a sleigh drew up at the door:

"There's Mr. Rutledge, and I know he's come for us to ride! Hurrah!"

I bent forward, just in time to meet his eye, as he sprang from the sleigh, and to return awkwardly his salutation. Esther waited for no permission, but bounded from my lap, flew across the room, and downstairs before I could recall her, and opened the door for him before he had rung the bell. There was a very enthusiastic meeting between them, and an excited "That's good!" from the child, and in a moment she was back again at my side, breathless and eager, exclaiming:

"Mr. Rutledge has come for us all, to drive out to High Bridge. Put on your things quick--quick as ever you can."