Winston Aylett, owner and tenant of the ancient mansion of
Ridgeley--the great house of a neighborhood where small houses and
men of narrow means were infrequent--had gone North about the first
of June, upon a tour of indefinite length, but which was certainly
to include Newport, the lakes, and Niagara, and was still absent.
His aunt, Mrs. Sutton, and his only sister, Mabel, did the honors of
his home in his stead, and, if the truth must be admittbd, more
acceptably to their guests than he had ever succeeded in doing. For
a week past, the house had been tolerably well filled--ditto Mrs.
Sutton's hands; ditto her great, heart. Had she not three love
affairs, in different but encouraging stages of progression, under
her roof and her patronage! And were not all three, to her
apprehension, matches worthy of Heaven's making, and her
co-operation? A devout Episcopalian, she was yet an unquestioning
believer in predestination and "special Providences"--and what but
Providence had brought together the dear creatures now basking in
the benignant beam of her smile, sailing smoothly toward the haven
of Wedlock before the prospering breezes of Circumstance (of her
manufacture)?
While putting sugar and cream into the cups intended for the happy
pairs, she reviewed the situation rapidly in her mind, and sketched
the day's manoeuvres.
First, there was the case of Tom Barksdale and Imogene Tabb--highly
satisfactory and creditable to all the parties concerned in it, but
not romantic. Tom, a sturdy young planter, who had studied law while
at the University, but never practised it, being already provided
for by his opulent father, had visited his relatives, the Tabbs, in
August, and straightway fallen in love with the one single daughter
of his second cousin--a pretty, amiable girl, who would inherit a
neat fortune at her parent's death, and whose pedigree became
identical with that of the Barksdales a couple of generations back,
and was therefore unimpeachable. The friends on both sides were
enchanted; the lovers fully persuaded that they were made for one
another, an opinion cordially endorsed by Mrs. Sutton, and they
could confer with no higher authority.
Next came Alfred Branch and Rosa Tazewell--incipient, but promising
at this juncture, inasmuch as Rosa had lately smiled more
encouragingly upon her timid wooer than she had deigned to do before
they were domesticated at Ridgeley. Mrs. Sutton did not approve of
unmaidenly forwardness. The woman who would unsought be won, would
have fared ill in her esteem. Her lectures upon the beauties and
advantages of a modest, yet alluring reserve, were cut up into
familiar and much-prized quotations among her disciples, and were
acted upon the more willingly for the prestige that surrounded her
exploits as high priestess of Hymen. But Rosa had been too coy to
Alfred's evident devotion--almost repellent at seasons. Had these
rebuffs not alternated with attacks of remorse, during which the
exceeding gentleness of her demeanor gradually pried the crushed
hopes of her adorer out of the slough, and cleansed their drooping
plumes of mud, the courtship would have fallen through, ere Mrs.
Sutton could bring her skill to bear upon it. Guided, and yet
soothed by her velvet rein, Rosa really seemed to become more
steady. She was assuredly more thoughtful, and there was no better
sign of Cupid's advance upon the outworks of a girl's heart than
reverie. If her fits of musing were a shade too pensive, the
experienced eye of the observer descried no cause for discouragement
in this feature. Rosa was a spoiled, wayward child, freakish and
mischievous, to whom liberty was too dear to be resigned without a
sigh. By and by, she would wear her shackles as ornaments, like all
other sensible and loving women.