"And I remember, too, that he mentioned some wonderful Steinberger,--a cabinet wine, full two hundred years in wood!" chimed in papa.

I wished, dearest Kitty, that they could have entertained the subject-matter of the letter without these "contingent remainders," and not mix up my future fate with either wine or wild fowl; but they really were so carried away by the pleasures so peculiarly adapted to their own feelings that they at once said, and in a breath too, "Write him word 'Yes,' by all means!"

"Do you mean for his offer of marriage, papa?" asked I, with struggling indignation.

"By George, I had forgotten all about that," said he. "We must deliberate a bit. Your mother, too, will expect to be consulted. Take the letter upstairs to her; or, better still, just say that I want to speak to her myself."

As papa and mamma had not met nor spoken together since his return, I willingly embraced this opportunity of restoring them to intercourse with each other.

"Don't go away, Mary Anne," said James, as I was about to seek my own room, for I dreaded being left alone, and exposed to his unfeeling banter; "I want to speak to you." This he said with a tone of kindness and interest which at once decided me to remain. He wore a look of seriousness, Kitty, that I have seldom, if ever, seen in his features, and spoke in a tone that, to my ears, was new from him.

"Let me be your friend, Mary Anne," said he, "and the better to be so, let me talk to you in all frankness and sincerity. If I say one single word that can hurt your feelings, put it down to the true account,--that I 'd rather do even such than suffer you to take the most eventful step in all your life without weighing every consequence of it Answer me, then, two or three questions that I shall ask you, but as truly and unreservedly as though you were at confession."

I sat down beside him, and with my hand in his.

"Now, first of all, Mary Anne," said he, "do you love this Baron von Wolfenschafer?"

Who ever could answer such a question in one word, Kitty? How seldom does it occur in life that all the circ.u.mstances of any man's position respond to the ambitious imaginings of a girl's heart! He may be handsome, and yet poor; he may be rich, and yet low-born; intellectual, and yet his great gifts may be alloyed with infirmities of temper; he may be coldly natured, secret, self-contained, uncommunicative,--a hundred things that one does not like,--and yet, with all these drawbacks, what the world calls an "excellent match."

I believe very few people marry the person they wish to marry. I fancy that such instances are the rarest things imaginable. It is a question of compensation throughout,--you accept this, notwithstanding that; you put up with _that_, for the sake of this! Of course, dearest, I am rejecting here all belief in the "greatest happiness principle" as a stupid fallacy, that only imposes upon elderly gentlemen when they marry their housekeeper. I speak of the considerations which weigh with a young girl who has moved in society, who knows its requirements, and can estimate all that contributes to what is called a "position."

This little digression of mine will give you to understand what was pa.s.sing in my mind as James sat waiting for my reply.

"So, then," said he, at last, "the question is not so easily answered as I suspected; and we will now pa.s.s to another one. Are your affections already engaged elsewhere?"

What could I say, Kitty, but "No! decidedly not." The embarra.s.sment, however, so natural to an inquiry like this, made me blush and seem confused; and James, perceiving it, said,--

"Poor fellow, it will be a sad blow to _him_, for I know he loved you."

I tried to look astonished, angry, unconscious,--anything, in fact, which should convey displeasure and surprise together; but with that want of tact so essentially fraternal, he went on,--

"It was almost the last thing he said to me at parting, 'Don't let her forget me!'"

"May I venture to inquire," said I, haughtily, "of whom you are speaking?"

Simple and inoffensive as the words were, Kitty, they threw him into an ungovernable pa.s.sion; he stamped, and stormed, and swore fearfully. He called me "a heartless coquette," "an unfeeling flirt," and a variety of epithets equally mellifluous as well merited.

I drew my embroidery-frame before me quite calmly under this torrent of abuse, and worked away at my pattern of the "Faithful Shepherd," singing to myself all the time.

"Are you really as devoid of feeling as this, Mary Anne?" asked he.

"My dear brother," said I, "don't you wish excessively for a commission in a regiment of Hussars or Lancers? Well, as your great merits have not been recognized at the Horse Guards, would you feel justified in refusing an appointment to the Rifle Brigade?"

"What has all this to say to what we are discussing?" cried he, angrily.

"Just everything," replied I; "but as you cannot make the application, you must excuse _me_ if I decline the task also."

"And so you mean to be a baroness?" said he, rudely.

I courtesied profoundly to him, and he flung out of the room with a bang that nearly brought the door down. In a moment after, mamma was in my arms, overcome with tenderness and emotion.

"I have carried the day, my dearest child," said she. "We are to accept the invitation, at all events, and we set out to-morrow."

I have no time for more, Kitty, for all our preparations for departure have yet to be made. What fate awaits me I know not, nor can I even fancy what may be the future of your ever attached and devoted friend,

Mary Anne Dodd.

LETTER x.x.xVI. MRS. DODD TO MRS. MARY GALLAGHER, DODSBOROUGH.

SCHLOSS, WOLFENFELS

My dear Molly,--It is only since we came to the elegant place, the hard name of which I have written at the top of this letter, that my feelings have subsided into the calm seriousness adapted to epistolary correspondence. From the day that K. I. returned, my life has been like the parallax of a fever! The man was never possessed of any refined or exalted sentiments; but the woman, this Mrs. G. H.--I could n't write the name in full if you were to give me twenty pounds for it--made him far worse with self-conceit and vanity. If you knew the way my time is pa.s.sed, "taking it out of him," Molly, showing him how ridiculous he is, and why everybody is laughing at him, you 'd pity me. As to grat.i.tude, my dear, he hasn't a notion of it; and he feels no more thankful to me for what I 've gone through than if I was indulging him in all his nefarious propensities. It is a weary task; and the only wonder is how I 'm able to go on with it.

"Have n't you done yet, Mrs. D.?" said he, the other morning. "Don't you think that you might grant me a little peace now?"

"I wish to the saints I had," said I; "it's bringing me to the grave, it is; but I have a duty to perform, and as long as my tongue can wag, I 'll do it! When I 'm gone, K. I.," said I,--"when I 'm gone, you 'll not have to say, 'It was her fault,--it was all her doing. Jemima never said this; she never told me that.'" I vow and declare to you here, Molly, that there is n't a thing a woman could say to a man, that I haven't said to him; and as I remarked yesterday, "If I have n't taken the self-conceit out of you now, it is because it's grained in your nature,"--I believe, indeed, I said, "in your filthy nature."

When we left Baden, we came to a place called Rastadt, a great fortification that they 're making, as they tell me, to defend the Rhine; but, between ourselves, it's as far from the river as our house at Dodsborough is from Kelly's mills. There we stopped three weeks,--I believe in the confident hope of K. I. that I could n't survive the uproarious tumult. They were drilling or training horses, or firing guns, or flogging recruits under our windows, from sunrise to sunset; and although at first the novelty was, amusing, you grew, at last, so tormented and teased with the noise that your very brain ached from it.

"I wonder," said I, one night, "that you never thought of taking furnished apartments in Barrack Street! It ought to be to your taste."

"It's not unlikely, ma'am, that I may end my days in that neighborhood,"

said he, tartly, "for I believe it's very convenient to the sheriff's prison."

"I was alluding to your military tastes," said I. "One might suppose you were meant for a great general."

"I might have claim to the character, ma'am," said he, "if being always under fire signified anything,--always exposed to attack."

"Oh, but," said I, "you forget she has retired her forces,"--I meant Mrs. G., Molly; "she took pity on your poor unprotected situation!"

"Look now, Mrs. D.," said he, with a blow of his fist on the table, "if there 's another word--one syllable more on this matter, may I never sign my name K. I. again, if I don't walk you back, every one of you, to Dodsborough! It was an evil hour that saw us leave it, but it would be a joyous one that brings us back again."

When, he grows so brutal as that, Molly, I never utter a word. 'T is n't to-day nor yesterday that I learned to be a martyr; so that all I did was to wait a minute or two, and then go off in strong hysterics! and, indeed, I don't know anything that provokes him more.

I give you this as a slight sample of the way we lived, with occasional diversions on the subject of expense, the extravagance of James, his idleness, and so forth; pleasant topics, and amusing for a family circle. Indeed, Molly, I'm ashamed to own that my natural spirit was beginning to break down under it. I felt that all the blood of the M'Carthys was weak to resist such inhuman cruelty; and whether it was the climate, or what, I don't know, but crying did n't give me the same relief it used. I suppose the fact is that one exhausts the natural resources of one's const.i.tution; but I think I 'm not so old but that a good hearty cry ought to be a comfort to me.

This is how affairs was, when, about a week ago, came a servant on horseback, with a letter for K. I. I was sitting up at my window, with the blinds down, when I saw the man get off and enter the inn, and the first thought that struck me was that it was Mrs. G. herself sent him.

"I 've caught you," says I to myself; and throwing on my dressing-gown, I slipped downstairs. It was K. I. and James were together talking, so I just waited a second at the door to listen. "If I had a voice in the family,"--it was K. I. said this,--"if I had a voice in the family,"

said he, "I 'd refuse. These kind of things always turn out ill,--people calculate so much upon affection; but the truth is, marrying for love is like buying a pair of Russia-duck trousers to wear through the year.

They 'll do beautifully in summer, and even an odd day in the autumn; but in the cold and rainy reason they 'll be downright ridiculous."

"Still," said James, "the offer sounds like a great one."

"All glitter, maybe. I distrust them all, James. At any rate, say nothing about it to your mother till I think it over a bit."