"You may not be aware, Miss Tazewell, that the lyric to which you
have reference is celebrated, both for its antiquity, and the
pleasing harmonies that must ever commend it to the taste of the
true lover of music; although I allow that to a disciple of the
modern and more flimsy school of this glorious art, it may seem
puerile and ridiculous," he remarked, in grandiose patronage. Then,
again to Mabel, "There were four of us--as I said--all students.
What is it, Clara?"
"I have dropped my bracelet upon the floor, between you and Miss
Tazewell," stooping to shake out Rosa's full skirts from which the
trinket fell with a clinking sound.
Three gentlemen darted forward to pick it up, but her husband noted
approvingly that while she accepted it graciously from the lucky
finder, and thanked the others for their kindly interest in the fate
of her "bauble," she held out her arm to her brother, that he might
clasp it again in its place. Affable always, winning whomsoever she
chose to admiration of her personal and mental endowments, she never
departed from matronly decorum. The company agreed silently, or in
guarded asides, that she was charming. No tongue--even the most
reckless or venomous--ever lisped the dread word, levity, in
connection with her name.
"Take care, my dear brother! you will pinch me!" those near heard
her say, and she twisted the golden circlet that the clasp might be
uppermost.
Rosa's alert ear caught the hurried murmur which succeeded, and was
muffled, so to speak, by her affectionate smile of gratitude.
"What were you about to say? Will you never learn prudence?"
"The dove has talons, then?" mused the eavesdropper, "But what was
he in danger of revealing?"
If the interdicted revelation had connection, close or remote, with
the famous quartette club, he kept well away from it after this
reminder, beginning, when he resumed his seat, to discourse upon the
comparative excellence of wood and coal fires, of open chimney-
places and stoves.
Mrs. Aylett smiled an engaging and regretful "au revoir" to the
circle, and passed on to look after the comfort and pleasure of her
elder visitors, and Rosa soon discovered that her awakened curiosity
would be in no wise appeased by listening to the steady, pattering
drone of Mr. Dorrance's oration. Oratorical he was to a degree that
excited the secret amusement of the facile Southern youths about
him. With them, the art of light conversation had been a study from
boyhood, the topics suitable for and pleasing to ladies' ears
carefully culled and adroitly handled. To amuse and entertain was
their main object. Erudite dissertations upon science and
literature; abstruse arguments--whatever resembled a moral thesis,
a political, religious, or philosophical lecture met with the sure
ban of ridicule from them, as from the fair whose devoted cavaliers
they were. If they laughed, when it was safe and not impolitic to do
so, at the ponderous elocution of the Northern barrister, they
marvelled exceedingly more at Mabel's indulgence of his attentions.
That a girl, who, in virtue of her snug fortune and attractive face,
her blood and her breeding, might, as they put it, have the "pick of
the county," if she wanted a husband, should lend a willing ear to
the pompous platitudes, the heavy rolling periods of this alien to
her native State--a man without grace of manner or beauty--in their
nomenclature, "a solemn prig," defied all ingenuity of explanation,
was an increasing wonder outlasting the prescribed nine days. He
rode with the ill assurance of one who, accustomed to the sawdust
floor, treadmill round, and enclosing walls of a city riding-school,
was bewildered by the unequal roads and free air of the breezy
country. He talked learnedly of hunting, quoting written authorities
upon this or that point, of whom the unenlightened Virginians had
never heard, much less read; equipped himself for the sport in a
bewildering arsenal of new-fangled guns, game-bags, shot-pouches,
and powder-horns, with numerous belts, diagonal, perpendicular, and
horizontal, and in the field carried his gun a la Winkle; never, by
any happy accident, brought down his bird, but was continually
outraging sporting rules by firing out of time, and flushing coveys
prematurely by unseasonable talking and precipitate strides in
advance of his disgusted companions.