THE COWDRICKS.—A CONJUGAL CHAT.—LEONIE.—A RISING ARTIST.—A PROPOSAL.—SWEETHEARTS. OCCUPYING a very comfortable position in an easy-chair, Mr. Cowdrick, banker, sat in his library before a blazing fire.
The Fate that arranges coincidences, and provides for the fitness of things, could not have persuaded Mr. Cowdrick to choose a more characteristic method of warming himself; for it was a sham fire. Some skilful worker in clay had produced a counterfeit presentment of a heap of logs, with the bark, the bits of moss, the knots, and the drops of sap exuding from the ends, all admirably imitative of nature. But the logs were hollow, and a hidden pipe, upon occasion, filled them with gas, which, as it escaped through imperceptible holes, was ignited, to burn as though it fed upon the inconsumable logs.
The library room was handsomely decorated in accordance with the prevailing modes. Upon the108 wall were fastened porcelain plates, bearing beautiful designs, but wholly useless for the purpose for which plates were originally devised. Mr. Cowdrick realized that as a mere matter of reason it would be as sensible to put a fireplace in the ceiling, or to cover his library table with the door-mat, as to adorn his wall with a dinner-plate; but, like some of the rest of us Mr. Cowdrick surrendered his private convictions to the suggestions of fashion.
Upon Mr. Cowdrick’s shelves and mantels were cups and saucers of curious wares, which were to be looked at and not used; and in his cabinets were jugs and bottles, which existed that they might contribute to the pleasure of the eye rather than to the pleasure of the palate. The bookcases, made with the best art of the workman, after the most approved designs, were filled with richly-bound volumes, into which Mr. Cowdrick had never cared to look since he bought them by the cubic foot; and which, in some instances, considered themes which would not have interested the banker in the slightest degree, even if he had examined them, and had been gifted with the capacity to comprehend them.
Upon the mantel ticked a clock, so fine that it had to be kept under glass, and which had never been known to indicate the time correctly during twenty-four consecutive hours. The chairs and the109 sofas were made of material so costly that Mrs. Cowdrick had them draped continually in closely-fitting brown-linen covers, so that, in fact, it was somewhat difficult to comprehend why the expensive and delicate fabrics beneath should have been employed at all, seeing that they were perpetually doomed to hide their loveliness.
Mr. Cowdrick sat looking at the deceitful fire in front of him, and as he mused he smoked an excellent cigar. His reverie was presently disturbed by the entrance of Mrs. Cowdrick to the room. Mrs. Cowdrick was a woman in middle life, of rounded figure and pleasing face; and she was clad, at this moment, in rich and tasteful dress. She held in her hand a bit of canvas, upon which she was working, in worsted, a pattern which was intended to convey to the observer the impression that it was of Japanese origin; but really it was as great a sham as Mr. Cowdrick’s fire.
Mrs. Cowdrick drew a chair near to that of her husband. Her first act, when she had taken her seat, was to clap her hands vigorously together two or three times, in ineffectual efforts to catch and to crush a fluttering moth-fly.
This is a form of exercise that is very dear to the female heart, but rarely is it productive of any practical results. Calculated in horse-powers, it may fairly be estimated that the amount of force expended annually by the sex upon the work of110 annihilating moth-flies would be sufficient to raise one pound two hundred thousand feet high, if any one cared to have a pound at such an elevation; while it is probable that the number of moth-flies actually taken upon the wing within the boundaries of civilization, does not in any one year exceed a few hundreds.
When she had concluded her efforts, without at all injuring the insect, Mrs. Cowdrick resumed her worsted attempt to insult Japanese art, and, as she did so, Mr. Cowdrick, turning his head about lazily, as he sent a whiff of smoke into the air, said,—
“Annie, dear, where is Leonie?”
“She is in her room, I think,” replied Mrs. Cowdrick, pleasantly. “She will be down in a few moments.”
“I wish to have a little talk with you about her, my love,” said Mr. Cowdrick. “I have been thinking that it is high time Leonie had found a husband. Let me see; how old is she now?”
“In her twenty-ninth year, really,” replied Mrs. Cowdrick; “but then, you know, she does not acknowledge more than twenty-five years to her friends. Leonie is an exceedingly prudent girl.”
“But, of course,” remarked Mr. Cowdrick, “she cannot keep that up forever. As she grows older she will have to allow a year or two, every now and then; and, after a while, you know, people will begin to count for themselves.”
111 “I have urged that upon her,” said Mrs. Cowdrick, “and I think she fully realizes it. Her hair is becoming thinner every week, and there would be no hope of her hiding the truth if the fashion did not permit her easily to cover the bald place upon the top of her head.”
“She is no longer the young girl she once was,” said Mr. Cowdrick with an air of sadness which seemed to indicate his disappointment at the refusal of Time to make an exception in the case of Leonie.
“No,” said Mrs. Cowdrick; “she is beginning to ascertain that she has nerves, and she has to take iron every morning. At the pic-nic in September she tried to appear as girlish as she could; but I noticed, while she was skipping the rope with those little chits of Mrs. Parker’s, that she would catch her breath convulsively every time she went up; and you know she was in bed with lumbago for three days afterward.”
“She must marry,” said Mr. Cowdrick, with emphasis. “The case is getting desperate. I will speak to her about it to-night. I wish her, before I quit home, to have herself engaged to some one who is able to support her handsomely.”
“How soon will it be necessary for you to fly?” asked Mrs. Cowdrick.
“Before the end of next week, at the very latest. Matters are fast approaching a crisis at the bank.112 We might have pulled through after the failure of Snell and Adam, to whom, as one of the directors was a partner, we lent a large sum upon bogus collateral; and I did not despair even when Pinyard, Moon and Company, with whom I had a silent interest, went under just after obtaining that last hundred thousand of us; but I heard to-day that J. P. Hunn and Co. are very much embarrassed, and as we have hypothecated some good collaterals deposited with us by our best customers in order to keep Hunn on his legs, his failure will inevitably result in the exposure of the whole business.”
“And how much, dear, is the bank short?” asked Mrs. Cowdrick, kindly.
“A full million and a quarter at the lowest estimate. We can’t tell exactly, because the accounts have been so much falsified to hide the deficiency. But the capital has gone, and with it the bulk of the money belonging to the depositors; and as I say, a whole lot of collateral securities, placed in our hands by some of the best men in town. It’s a bad business! They will make it hot for us, I am afraid.”
“But then, dear, you will save something from the wreck, you said?”
“Oh, yes! Pinyard told me that he thought he and I would come out with two or three hundred thousand apiece, if we can manage the creditors of113 his firm so that they will take twenty-five per cent. of their claims in settlement. That, however, is only a possibility.”
“If the crash is coming so soon,” said Mrs. Cowdrick, with a thoughtful air, “there are some little things I should like to get at once.”
“What are they?”
“Why, you know, Henry, I want a sealskin sacque for this winter, and I had thought of buying a pair of plain diamond earrings. Couldn’t I get them, say to-morrow, and have them charged, and then let the dealers just come in with the rest of your creditors when you arrange a settlement?”
“Certainly, my love! get them immediately, of course. It is your last chance. I have not yet gotten into such a position that I cannot provide comforts for my family! Tell Leonie to make any little purchases she may need, also. I might as well go to ruin for a large amount as for a small one. A few hundreds more or less will not matter.”
As Mr. Cowdrick spoke, Leonie entered the room. She was elegantly and fashionably dressed, and her face was wreathed with smiles. She ran up to her father as a child might have done, and with a girlish laugh kissed him; then, drawing a footstool close to him, she sat down beside him and placed her arm upon his knee. Mr. Cowdrick stroked her head affectionately, with a tenderness114 that was partly induced by fondness and partly by a recollection of what Mrs. Cowdrick had said of Leonie’s method of disguising the bare place upon her crown.
After reflecting for a moment in silence, Mr. Cowdrick said,—
“I want to ask my little girl if she has lost her heart to any one yet?”
Leonie blushed, and straightening herself up she said nervously, but with traces of a smile about her lips,—
“Lost my heart, papa! What do you mean?”
“I mean, my dear child, that it is high time you had obtained a husband and settled yourself for life. It is important you should marry as speedily as possible.”
“Oh, papa!” said Leonie, hiding her face in her hands.
“To speak plainly, darling,” said Mr. Cowdrick, “your poor father’s affairs are in such a condition that a judicious matrimonial alliance is almost necessary to your future happiness. You understand me, of course; I am not at all sure of my financial future.”
“I am very sorry,” said Leonie.
“Of course you are,” replied Mr. Cowdrick, “but being sorry is not enough. I should bear the calamity, when it comes, much more bravely if I were assured that my dear child had a good and affluent husband to console her amid the troubles that will115 befall her family. Is there no one to whom you could give your affection if you tried? If you tried right hard, just to please your poor old papa?”
Leonie hesitated before answering, and then she said,—
“Yes, papa, there is!”
“I am glad to hear that! Who is it, darling?”
“You will not be angry with me, papa, if I tell you, will you? I have given my love to some one, and that some one is—is—Mr. Weems, the artist!”
“What!” exclaimed Mr. Cowdrick, in a voice that indicated mingled surprise and indignation. “Not Julius Weems, the painter?”
“You don’t mean to say you are actually engaged to be married to that young man?” said Mrs. Cowdrick, vehemently.
“Yes, I am engaged to him,” said Leonie, putting her forehead down upon the arm of her father’s chair. “He proposed to me on Tuesday, while you were at the opera.”
“And you love him?” asked Mr. Cowdrick.
“Oh, yes,” replied Leonie, “I love him; of course I love him, or I never would have accepted him. But I don’t mean to say, positively and finally, that I would refuse a better chance if it presented itself. Julius is the only person who seems likely to want me, and certainly he is a great deal better than nobody.”
116 “Yes; but, my dear child,” observed Mr. Cowdrick, “a mere husband is nothing. The circumstances of the husband are everything.”
“And Mr. Weems is poor as poverty,” added Mrs. Cowdrick.
“Oh, no, mamma, you are mistaken,” said Leonie. “Julius is in very comfortable circumstances. He has a very profitable business.”
“He has, has he?” said Mr. Cowdrick. “Well, I can’t imagine where it can be. I never have seen any of his pictures.”
“Why, papa,” rejoined Leonie with a slight laugh. “Julius says that you have two of his best works in your gallery.”
“I have,” exclaimed Mr. Cowdrick, in astonishment. “I think not.”
“He says so, at any rate.”
“Which are they?”
“Why, the ‘Leader and the Swan,’ by Correggio, and the ‘St. Lawrence,’ by Titian.”
“Leonie, that is ridiculous,” said Mr. Cowdrick, warmly.
“Perfectly absurd,” remarked Mrs. Cowdrick.
“But Julius declares he really did paint them. He says he paints nothing but ‘old masters’; that they bring the best prices, and that there is always an active demand for them. He wants me to come to his studio to see a splendid Murillo he has just finished. He is making money rapidly.”
117 “In that case, Leonie,” said Mr. Cowdrick, with a slight touch of bitterness, as he thought of the prices he had paid for his Correggio and his Titian, but with a certain cheerfulness, gained from his suddenly formed resolution to realize on them to-morrow—“in that case, we must regard Mr. Weems differently. He appears at least to be an enterprising young man, and possibly he may do well.”
“You had better arrange to see him at once, dear,” said Mrs. Cowdrick, “so that you can ascertain what his income is, and how soon the wedding can be arranged.”
“I will do so,” replied Mr. Cowdrick. “But my child, did you tell him anything? Does he know that you have already been engaged three times? Does he know that you were affianced to old Mr. Baxter, who gained your affection under the pretence that he was a millionaire, only to tread upon the holiest of your emotions with the scandalous revelation that he was living upon a paltry pension?”
“No, papa, I did not think it worth while to disturb Julius with such matters as that. What does he care for my past? No more than I care for his!”
“Do you think he suspects your age, dear?” asked Mrs. Cowdrick.
“I am certain he does not. You know I falsified118 the date in the family Bible, and last evening I got him to look over it with me, under pretense of searching for a text. When I showed him the record, laughingly, he pretended to be surprised. He said he should never have supposed me to be a day over twenty-three.”
Mr. Cowdrick slowly winked that one of his eyes which was upon the side towards his wife, and then he said,—
“Well, Leonie, we will see about it. There are some things about the match to recommend it, although I cannot say Weems is precisely the man I should have chosen for you. However, you are the person who is most deeply interested, and I suppose we must let you choose for yourself. I wish you would ask Mr. Weems to call to see me to-morrow evening concerning the matter.”
“He will be here to-night, papa,” replied Leonie. “He said he would call to make a formal proposal for my hand.”
“Very well; that will do nicely. The sooner we reach a distinct understanding, the better.”
Before many moments had elapsed, Mr. Julius Weems was announced by the servant, whereupon Mrs. Cowdrick and Leonie withdrew. When Mr. Weems entered the room, Mr. Cowdrick greeted him politely, but with dignified gravity. Mr. Weems was somewhat nervous. Mr. Cowdrick clearly perceived that he had reduced himself to a119 condition of misery with a resolution to obtain, if possible during this visit, the paternal blessing upon his proposed alliance with Leonie.
The current theory is that the most difficult of the processes by which the state of marriage is approached, is the first declaration of affection to the object of it; and it may be possible that most men, upon reviewing their conduct upon such occasions, are inclined to believe that they made fools of themselves. But, as a matter of fact, it is nearly certain that those who make a careful survey of their experiences will be likely to admit that the most trying ordeal through which the lover is compelled to go is that of ascertaining what opinion of the matter is held by the father of his sweetheart. If there is a reasonable certainty that the loved one will accept him, he is at least sure of the most acute and delicious sympathy when he summons up courage enough to take her little hand in his and to give voice to his feelings; and the difference of sex enables the performance to assume the most romantic aspect. But to face a cold, practical man of the world with a lot of sentiment, and to plunge boldly into an explanation to him of a fervid passion which he regards in the prosiest fashion possible, requires bravery of a very high order. And the man who can approach such a task with perfect self-possession, and positive command of his mental faculties and of his utterance, has a nervous system that ordinary men may envy.
120 For a moment after Mr. Weems seated himself upon the other side of the fireplace from Mr. Cowdrick, there was an embarrassing silence. Then Mr. Cowdrick, to open the way for his visitor, remarked that it had been a very disagreeable day.
“Very,” said Mr. Weems. “Uncommonly damp and chilly, even for this time of year.”
“Yesterday was far from pleasant also,” observed Mr. Cowdrick.
“Wasn’t it abominable?” replied Mr. Weems. “There will be a great deal of sickness if this kind of weather continues.”
“The prospect,” rejoined Mr. Cowdrick, “is that it will. There are no signs of a clear day to-morrow.”
“I’m afraid not,” returned Mr. Weems.
Then Mr. Cowdrick looked into the fire, and relapsed into silence. The weather of the past, the present, and the future having been considered, there really seemed to be nothing more to be said upon that particular topic. It would be curious to ascertain what men, who are in a stress for something to talk about, fall back upon in those regions where there is steadfast sunshine during half of every year, and unremitting rain during the other half.
“How is Miss Leonie?” said Mr. Weems, suddenly, and with an air of desperation.
“Quite well, thank you,” answered Mr. Cowdrick.
121 “Well, Mr. Cowdrick, I called this evening to speak to you about her,” continued Weems, with a determination to make the plunge and have it over.
“Indeed!”
“Yes, sir. In fact, Mr. Cowdrick, your daughter has consented to become my wife, and I wish to obtain, if I may, your approval of the match. May I have it?”
“Really, Mr. Weems, this is so unexpected. I was so little prepared for such an announcement that I hardly know what——. My answer would depend somewhat upon circumstances, I may say, I have no objection to you personally; but I know nothing of your prospects in your profession.”
“They are first-rate. I sold a picture to-day for five thousand dollars; and that is by no means an infrequent occurrence.”
“Who bought it?”
“St. Cadmus’s church. It is an altar piece; very handsome and old; by Michael Angelo. You see, I give you my secret; in confidence, of course.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Cowdrick, “I am a regular attendant at St. Cadmus’s and I was one of four subscribers for that picture. The balance of the amount we made up by mortgaging the organ. Mr. Tunicle, the incumbent, said it was indisputably genuine.”
“Oh, well,” said Mr. Weems, laughing; “if it looks like a genuine one, and everybody thinks it is122 genuine, what difference is there? The people are every bit as happy as if it were real. If one of my pictures sells better with the name of some old chap who has been dead for two or three centuries tagged to it, why shouldn’t I let it go in that way? It does not hurt him, and it helps me.”
“From your point of view the theory is excellent; but from mine, as the owner of a couple of old masters, it looks a little thin.”
“Well, to be fair,” said Mr. Weems, “I acknowledge that I painted those you have, but I am willing to find you a market for them, to oblige you; or I will sell you two or three more, if you prefer it. I have just run off a fine Salvator Rosa, and a Titian, as kind of ‘pot-boilers,’ and you can have them for almost nothing if you want them.”
“Thank you, no,” said Mr. Cowdrick. “My interest in art is gradually cooling off. And then, besides, if you are going to turn out pictures every time you want a suit of clothes, or a box of cigars, it seems likely there will soon be a glut of old masters in the market.”
“But to come back to the point, Mr. Cowdrick,” said Mr. Weems. “What may I accept as your decision respecting my claim to your daughter’s hand?”
“Have you ever had an affair of this kind before, Mr. Weems? Pardon me for asking. Is Leonie your first love?”
123 “Well, you know, every man does foolish things in his youth. I have been involved in one or two trifling matters of the sort. But I am a careful man, and to avoid any unpleasant demonstrations in the future, I have procured formal decrees of divorce from eleven different girls; all, in fact, with whom I have ever had any acquaintance that was at all sentimental. I obtained six decrees from the State of Indiana, at a cost of ten dollars apiece, and the remainder from Utah, at a little higher rate.”
“And you were never married to any of the parties?”
“Oh, no! merely knew them; took them out driving, or danced with them at balls. Some of them are married to other men. But, you know, a man is never certain what may happen; women are so queer; and so I concluded to destroy all the chances of anything turning up, and I have the legal documents to show for it. Leonie’s happiness is perfectly safe with me, I assure you.”
“Your course seems to me a prudent one, at any rate,” remarked Mr. Cowdrick; “but then, of course, it is possible for a man to be a little too far-sighted for the comfort of other people. How do I know, for instance, that you haven’t taken the precaution to file away among your papers a divorce from Leonie?”
“Oh, well,” said Mr. Weems, laughing, “you124 know I wouldn’t go quite that far. I admit that I have half a dozen blank decrees, which I can fill up to meet emergencies, but I pledge you my word of honor that I will never put her name in one. I love her too dearly.”
“Do you believe you would love her if she were poor; or if she were to become poor?”
“Yes, certainly; of course,” answered Mr. Weems. And then he added mentally, “I wonder if anything is the matter? I’ll inquire about the old man’s financial standing the first thing in the morning.”
“Well,” said Mr. Cowdrick, “I hardly know. Leonie is very dear to me. I have not contemplated an early marriage for her. It would be a terrible wrench upon my heartstrings. What would you do if I refused my consent?”
“Try to submit with what patience I could command, I suppose. But you will not refuse, will you?”
Mr. Cowdrick did not respond at once. He had rather cherished the hope that Weems would elope with Leonie, and save him the expense of a wedding outfit and of a wedding festival, besides relieving him of all responsibility. But he saw now that it would not be safe to take the chances.
“Well, Mr. Weems,” he said, at length, “so far as I am concerned, I think I may say that if Leonie wishes to marry you, she can. But we must ask125 her mother about it. It will be a terrible shock to poor Mrs. Cowdrick. I will call her in.”
When Mrs. Cowdrick entered the room with Leonie, Mr. Cowdrick said,—
“My dear, Mr. Weems, here, has formally proposed for the hand of Leonie, and I have given my consent, provided you also would do so.”
Mrs. Cowdrick replied by a shriek, after which she flung herself into a chair, and, with an expensive handkerchief to her face, she sobbed hysterically.
“Ma is doing that to show how well she can pose,” said Leonie, in a whisper to Weems. “She used to be splendid in private theatricals.”
Mrs. Cowdrick sprang up, and in tones of apparently intense excitement she said,—“No, no! I cannot let her go! It is impossible! It is so unexpected, so sudden! My child, my poor, darling child! To be torn ruthlessly from the arms of her dear mother! I cannot bear it! It will kill me!” and Mrs. Cowdrick flung her arms wildly about Leonie and wept.
Leonie seemed quite calm. She lowered her shoulder slightly, to incline her mother’s head, so that her tears would fall upon the floor instead of upon her dress.
Mr. Cowdrick comforted her, reasoned with her, and showed her that, after all, Leonie’s happiness was at stake. To promote her happiness, her parents126 must be willing to make some sacrifices, and she must try to brace herself to meet the trial, hard as it was. Mrs. Cowdrick’s agitation gradually decreased, as her husband spoke; and when she had rested upon the sofa for a moment, and helped her nerves by inhaling salts from a gilded smelling-bottle, she said:
“If it must be, it must! Take her, Julius! Take her, and love her, and cherish her, so that she will never rue having been torn from the parental nest!”
“I promise you faithfully to do my best,” replied Mr. Weems.
“And now, my children,” said Mr. Cowdrick, as his voice trembled with emotion, “I give you an old man’s blessing! May you be happy in each other’s love until life shall end!”
Then Mr. Cowdrick wiped his eyes, and taking Mrs. Cowdrick on his arm, they went upstairs to discuss some method by which the marriage could be celebrated before the crash came at the bank.
“And you are mine at last, darling!” said Mr. Weems, as he pushed his chair up close to Leonie’s and took her hand in his.
In reply she nestled her head up against his shoulder, and her thoughts went out dreamily over the past. Old Mr. Baxter and her two other lovers had made precisely the same remark to her under similar circumstances, and she had responded to127 them in the same manner. Life is an endless round of repetitions.
“Sweet face!” said Mr. Weems, patting it tenderly, as if he were a trifle uncertain of the permanent nature of the color. “Did you know, darling, that I put your face in one of my recent pictures?”
“Oh, Julius! Did you?”
“Yes, dear, I gave it to my full length of St. Ethelberta, by Rubens.”
“Is it a good likeness?”
“I think it is. But,” said Mr. Weems thoughtfully, “it didn’t sell! That is, I mean, no person of really good taste has inspected it yet.”
“And you painted it because you loved me, did you?”
“Oh, yes! Certainly! Of course!”
“How fortunate it was that I could return your love, wasn’t it? Julius, what would you have done if I had refused you?”
“Done? Why, it would have mortified me dreadfully. I don’t believe I should have had any appetite for a week or more.”
“Some disappointed lovers,” said Leonie almost reproachfully, and with an air of chagrin, “become utterly desperate and try to take their own lives.”
“Oh, I know,” replied Mr. Weems. “Dreadful, isn’t it? But I generally try to bear up under misery. It’s a duty.”
128 “Could you bear misery for my sake, Julius? Do you think your love would endure if poverty should overtake us? Bitter, blinding poverty?”
“I am sure I could,” replied Mr. Weems with a renewed determination to discover in the morning if Mr. Cowdrick’s credit had been impaired.
“You believe, then, that love in a cottage is a possibility, do you, dear?” asked Leonie.
“Yes, darling; possible, but not fascinating. My observation is that love, upon the whole, has a better chance in a commodious mansion with all of the modern conveniences; with gas, water and a boy to answer the front-door bell. Love, darling, is like some other things in this world—it thrives better when it is comfortable.”
“Have you thought about our wedding, dear?” asked Leonie. “Where will we go upon our wedding journey? Wouldn’t it be splendid to take a trip to Europe?”
The suggestion did not seem to excite any great amount of enthusiasm in the heart of Mr. Weems. He said: “It would be very nice, but I am afraid it would be almost too expensive, unless your pa—Did your pa say anything about it?” asked Julius, with a faint expectation that Mr. Cowdrick may have intended to include a handsome cheque among the presents.
“No,” replied Leonie; “he said nothing. Only I thought may-be you might want to go.”
129 “So I do, my love, but business is a trifle dull just now. I am afraid we shall have to wait until the prevailing prejudice against Rubens and St. Ethelberta blows over, as it were. I thought perhaps we might make a short trip to Boston and back. How would that suit you?”
“I would be satisfied with it, dear, of course,” said Leonie.
Mr. Weems heard her answer with the serene consciousness that he had a free pass for two over that particular route, and that even upon a wedding journey there would be no need to be actually riotous in the matter of hotel expenses.
“And when we get home, and settle down, may I keep a parrot, Julius?”
“Well,” replied Mr. Weems, “the question is sudden and somewhat irrelevant, but I should think you might; provided, of course, you selected one that has not been taught to use profane language, and to imitate a screeching wheelbarrow with too great accuracy.”
“You are so kind! And, Julius?”
“What, sweet?”
“If papa should die, could dear mamma come to live with us?”
“I’ll tell you what, Leonie, suppose we postpone the consideration of some of these distressing contingencies until they actually present themselves! I am perfectly willing to wrestle with a grief when130 it comes, but there is no use of putting crape on a door-knocker until there is bereavement in the family circle.”
“That is true, dear. And, Julius?”
“Well, my love?”
“Whenever you can’t come to see me, will you write to me? I want you to send me, at least once every day, a dear, kind, affectionate letter, full of love; won’t you, dear?”
“I will, if you will promise faithfully to burn them,” replied Julius, as his prudent mind grasped the possibility of some unfortunate future misunderstanding, in which ardent love-letters might have a damaging effect upon the case of the defendant. “That is, pretty nearly every day.”
“Thus far,” continued Leonie, “I have kept all that you have written. I have read them over, and over, and over, and kissed them again and again. The sweet verses you have sent to me I have learned by heart.”
“Have you, darling?” said Mr. Weems, with a feeling of pride in his success as a poet.
“Shall I repeat them to you?”
“If you will, dearest,” replied Mr. Weems, with the air of a man who was conscious that he had turned off rather a good thing in the way of verses.
“Let me see,” said Leonie, leaning back in her chair, “how do they begin? Oh, yes!”
131
‘Sweetheart, if I could surely choose
The aptest word in passion’s speech,
And all its subtlest meaning use
With eloquence, your soul to teach,
Still, forced by its intensity,
Sweetheart, my love would voiceless be.
‘Sweetheart, though all the days and hours
Sped by, with love in sharpest stress,
To find some reach of human powers
Its faintest impulse to express;
Till Time merged in Eternity,
Sweetheart, my love would voiceless be.’
“Are they not beautiful?” asked Leonie, as she concluded.
“Very beautiful,” responded Mr. Weems, with a faint impression that it might perhaps pay him to abandon the old masters, and to grasp the resounding lyre, with a resolution to thrum it during the remainder of his life.
“‘Sweetheart’ is a name I always liked,” said Leonie. “You called me your ‘rosebud,’ in your last letter; but somehow it did not please me so much as ‘sweetheart;’ it was not so natural.”
“Twenty-five years is old for a rosebud,” said Mr. Weems, absently.
“Yes,” replied Leonie; “and does it not seem odd, Julius, that we who have been apart so long should now be united forever, and that we should go down the current of time together until the end?”
132 While she was speaking, the elegant clock, from beneath its crystal covering, chimed out the hour of four, and the artist, consulting his watch, discovered that the correct time was precisely ten minutes past eleven. He arose from his seat, and fondly embracing Leonie, he kissed her, and bade her good night. She went to the window, and as, by the light of the street lamp, she saw him descending the steps in front of the house, she waved her hand toward him. Then turning, she proceeded to the hall, and up the stairs to bed, murmuring to herself,—
“Burn them! That would be insane!”