THE OLD
s'roun
MANSION.
41
“She must be beautiful then,” laughed his friend, “if, being only a governess, she has attracted you.”
“Not what a fashionable woman would call beautiful; but something more original,” was the reply. “She is dressed in a simple white robe, with wavy brown hair worn in ringlets: from the back of her head; a tall, stately girl, with great, luminous eyes, and a brilliant complexion: a sort of high-souled Diana stepped down from a pedestal.”
I was dizzy with a strange delight. I had not only never heard myself called beautiful before, but had never supposed that I was beautiful.
“You are enthusiastic,” replied Mr. Talbot's friend, in a tone, half banter, half surprise. I must see this paragon.”
“She’s clever, too; clever in the English sense,” continued Mr. Talbot. “Whom do you think I found here, when I arrived this morning? That fellow you defended, when I was opposed to you last.”
‘Not Despencer?” :
“Yes! and passing himself off for an Englishman. I happened to overhear him flirting with a stylish-looking heiress, the daughter, I suspect, of the people who employ this governess. He was romancing grandly about my lord this and my lady that, and doing it, I assure you, in a way to impose on nine out of ten, when this young lady, who sat there quietly knitting, but dreadfully annoyed, as I could see, happened to be appealed to.” And he briefly narrated what I have already told. “When she had done,” he said, “the fellow looked as crest-fallen as he did in the dock. He evidently thought she had heard about him. He caught my eye, afterward; recognized me; and has disappeared, I’ve no doubt, for I don’t see him here tonight. You know he’s a coward.”
“Cursing you heartily,” laughed the other, “for having prevented his trapping an heiress.”
“Precisely. But he’d have been found out, even if I hadn’t come. This Diana of mine would have seen through him before long. If she has culture, as well as intellect and beauty, what a woman she must be!”
“How old is she?”
“That’s the most curious part of all. Apparently about eighteen. Governesses, you know, are generally old and ugly.”
“How do you know she's a governess?”
“I heard one of these old tabby-cats say to her daughter, a bony, sharp-nosed caricature of herself, ‘see what a ridiculous way that girl, the Elliotts’ governess, has her hair dressed in.’ The heiress, I believe, is a Miss Elliott.”
Fortunately, at this juncture, a crowd of young people, came gallopading down the piazza, and availing myself of the noise, I escaped, undetected.
Up to that hour of my life, I had said and believed that a woman ought to be more gratified by praise of her intellect than of her person. I now knew better. For the sweetest words I had ever heard were Mr. Talbot’s declaration that I was beautiful. A tumult of strange, but happy feelings possessed me; I could not remain among the crowd; I stole away to my favorite arbor, at the foot of the lawn, overlooking the sea. There I sat, for quite an hour, in a dreamy, delicious revery, only mechanically hearing the surf breaking on the beach beneath me, and the music of the dancers fitfully rising and falling on the land wind.
When I stole back to the drawing-room, I could not, at first, lift my eyes, and my heart fluttered nervously. But the one I dreaded, yet wished to see, was not there, nor did he reappear for the rest of the evening.
The next morning, Georgiana was out of humor: I suppose at the absence of her admirer. I deferred telling her, therefore, as I had intended, what I had overheard about him. I took a long walk on the beach with Rosalie and her nurse, and when the bathing hour arrived, told my pet I would watch her from the bank, as I did not wish, myself, to go in, that day. I was leaving the hotel, for this purpose, when my steps were arrested, in the doorway, by the crowd of laughing and talking young girls and their admirers, who blocked it up for the moment. All at once I observed that Mr. Talbot was near me. One of the young men, who had, I suppose, picked up an acquaintance with him, asked him if he was going to bathe, and on his replying in the negative, the other added, familiarly,
“Not used to it, eh? Or a little afraid? It’s rough, today, and will take a good bather.”
A quiet smile of contempt was the only answer to this ill-bred speech; then the crowd opened, and I pushed through.
The crowd flocked after me. Ladies in wrappers; gentlemen in bathing hats; nurses carrying children in long flannel night-gowns; a grotesque medley; but every one in high good- humor. A group near me was talking of Mr. Talbot’s refusal.
“Afraid, that’s it,” said his interlocutor. “One of your solemn prigs. Shouldn’t wonder if he was a parson on a ticket of leave.”
At this coarse sally there was a laugh from one or two silly girls. But here another gentleman interposed.
