The village of Bleighton contained as many affectionate young people as any other place of its size, and was not without young ladies, for the possession of whose hearts two or more young men strove against each other. When, however, allusion was ever made to "the rivals" no one doubted to whom the reference applied: it was always understood that the young men mentioned were those two of Miss Florence Elserly\'s admirers for whom Miss Elserly herself seemed to have more regard than she manifested toward any one else.
There has always been some disagreement among the young ladies of Bleighton as to Miss Elserly\'s exact rank among beauties, but there was no possibility of doubt that Miss Elserly attracted more attention than any other lady in the town, and that among her admirers had been every young man among whom other Bleighton ladies of taste would have chosen their life-partners had the power of choosing pertained to their own sex.
The good young men of the village, the successful business men who were bachelors, and the stylish young fellows who came from the neighboring city in the Summer, bowed before Miss Elserly as naturally as if fate, embodied in the person of the lady herself, commanded them.
How many proposals Miss Elserly had received no one knew; for two or three years no one was able to substantiate an opinion, from the young lady\'s walk and conversation, that she specially preferred any one of her personal acquaintances; but at length it became evident that she evinced more than the interest of mere acquaintanceship in Hubert Brown, the best of the native-born young men of the village.
Mr. Brown was a theological student, but the march of civilization had been such at Bleighton that a prospective shepherd of souls might listen to one of Beethoven\'s symphonies in a city opera-house without having any sin imputed unto him! Such music-loving inhabitants of Bleighton as listened to one of these symphonies, which was also heard by Mr. Brown and Miss Elserly, noticed that when the young couple exchanged words and glances, Miss Elserly\'s well-trained features were not so carefully guarded as they usually were in society. Such ladies as had nothing to do, and even a few who were not without pressing demands upon their time, canvassed the probabilities of the match quite exhaustively, and made some prophecies, but were soon confused by the undoubted fact that Miss Elserly drove out a great deal with Major Mailing, the dashing ex-soldier, and successful broker from the city.
The charm of uncertainty being thus added to the ordinary features of interest which pertain to all persons suspected of being in love, made Miss Elserly\'s affairs of unusual importance to every one who knew the young lady even by sight, and for three whole months "the rivals" were a subject of conversation next in order to the weather. At length there came a day when the case seemed decided. For three days Hubert Brown\'s face was very seldom seen on the street, and when seen it was longer and more solemn than was required even by that order of sanctity in which theological students desire to live.
Then it was noticed that while Miss Elserly\'s beauty grew no less in degree, it changed in kind; that she was more than ever seen in the society of the handsome broker, and that the broker\'s attentions were assiduous. Then it was suspected that Mr. Brown had proposed and been rejected. Ladies who owed calls to Mr. Brown\'s mother, made haste to pay them, and, as rewards of merit, brought away confirmation of the report. Then, before the gossips had reported the probable engagement of Miss Elserly to Major Mailing, the lady and major made the announcement themselves to their intimate friends, and the news quickly reached every one who cared to hear it.
A few weeks later, however, there circulated very rapidly a story whose foreshadowing could not have been justly expected of the village gossips. The major absented himself for a day or two from his boarding-house, and at a time, too, when numerous gentlemen from the city came to call upon him.
Some of these callers returned hurriedly to the city, evincing by words and looks the liveliest disappointment, while two of them, after considerable private conversation with the proprietress of the house, and after displaying some papers, in the presence of a local justice of the peace, to whom the good old lady sent in her perplexity, took possession of the major\'s room and made quite free with the ex-warrior\'s cigars, liquors, and private papers.
Then the city newspapers told how Mr. Malling, a broker of excellent ability and reputation, as well as one of the most gallant of his country\'s defenders in her hour of need, had been unable to meet his engagements, and had also failed to restore on demand fifteen thousand dollars in United States bonds which had been intrusted to him for safe-keeping. A warrant had been issued for Mr. Malling\'s arrest; but at last accounts the officers had been unable to find him.
Miss Elserly immediately went into the closest retirement, and even girls whom she had robbed of prospective beaus felt sorry for her. People began to suggest that there might have been a chance for Brown, after all, if he had staid at home, instead of rushing off to the West to play missionary. He owned more property in his own right than the major had misplaced for other people; and though some doubts were expressed as to Miss Elserly\'s fitness for the position of a minister\'s wife, the matter was no less interesting as a subject for conversation. The excellence of the chance which both Brown and Miss Elserly had lost seemed even greater when it became noised abroad that Brown had written to some real estate agents in the village that, as he might want to go into business in the West, to sell for him, for cash, a valuable farm which his father had left him. As for the business which Mr. Brown proposed entering, the reader may form his own opinions from a little conversation hereinafter recorded.
As Hubert Brown, trying to drown thought and do good, was wandering through a Colorado town one evening, he found himself face to face with Major Mailing. The major looked seedy, and some years older than he did a month before, but his pluck was unchanged. Seeing that an interview could not be avoided, he assumed an independent air, and exclaimed:
"Why, Brown, what did you do that you had to come West?"
"Nothing," said the student, flushing a little—"except be useless."
"I thought," said the major, quickly, with a desperate but sickly attempt at pleasantry, "that you had gone in for Florence again; she\'s worth all your \'lost sheep of the house of Israel.\'"
"I don\'t make love to women who love other men," replied Brown.
"Don\'t, please, Brown," said the major, turning manly in a moment. "I feel worse about her than about all my creditors or those infernal bonds. I got into the snarl before I knew her; that\'s the only way I can quiet my conscience. Of course the—matter is all up now. I wrote her as good an apology as I could, and a release; she\'d have taken the latter without my giving it, but—"
"No she wouldn\'t," interrupted the student.
"How do you know?" demanded the major, with a suspicious glance, which did not escape Brown. "Did you torment her by proposing again upon the top of her other troubles?"
"No," said Brown; "don\'t be insulting. But I know that she keeps herself secluded, and that her looks and spirits are dreadfully changed. If she cared nothing for you, she knows society would cheerfully forgive her if she were to show it."
"I wish to Satan that I hadn\'t met you, then," said the major. "I\'ve taken solid comfort in the thought that most likely she was again the adored of all adorers, and was forgetting me, as she has so good a right to do."
"Major," said Brown, bringing his hand down on the major\'s shoulder in a manner suggestive of a deputy sheriff, "you ought to go back to that girl!"
"And fail," suggested the major. "Thank you; and allow me to say you\'re a devilish queer fellow for suggesting it. Is it part of your religion to forgive a successful rival?"
"It\'s part of my religion, when I love, to love the woman more than I love myself," said Brown, with a face in which pain and earnestness strove for the mastery. "She loves you. I loved her, and want to see her happy."
The defaulter grasped the student\'s hand.
"Brown," said he, "you\'re one of God\'s noblemen; she told me so once, but I didn\'t imagine then that I\'d ever own up to it myself. It can\'t be done, though; she can\'t marry a man in disgrace—I can\'t ask a woman to marry me on nothing; and, besides, there\'s the matter of those infernal bonds. I can\'t clear that up, and keep out of the sheriff\'s fingers."
"I can," said Brown.
"How?" asked the ex-broker, with staring eyes.
"I\'ll lend the money."
The major dropped Brown\'s hand.
"You heavenly lunatic!" said he. "I always did think religion made fools of men when they got too much of it. Then I could go back on the Street again; the boys would be glad to see me clear myself—not meeting my engagements wouldn\'t be remembered against me. But, say—borrow money from an old rival to make myself right with the girl he loved! No, excuse me. I\'ve got some sense of honor left!"
"You mean you love yourself more than you do her," suggested Brown. "I\'ll telegraph about the money, and you write her in the meantime. Don\'t ruin her happiness for life by delay or trifling."
The majo............