Grace Carden ran to the window, and saw Henry Little go away slowly, and hanging his head. This visible dejection in her manly lover made her heart rise to her throat, and she burst out sobbing and weeping with alarming violence.
Mr. Carden found her in this state, and set himself to soothe her.
He told her the understanding he had come to with Mr. Little, and begged her to be as reasonable and as patient as her lover was. But the appeal was not successful. "He came to see me," she cried, "and he has gone away without seeing me. You have begun to break both our hearts, with your reason and your prudence. One comfort, mine will break first; I have not his fortitude. Oh, my poor Henry! He has gone away, hanging his head, broken-hearted: that is what you have DONE for me. After that, what are words? Air--air--and you can't feed hungry hearts with air."
"Well, my child, I am sorry now I did not bring him in here. But I really did it for the best. I wished to spare you further agitation."
Agitation!" And she opened her eyes with astonishment. "Why, it is you who agitate me. He would have soothed me in a moment. One kind and hopeful word from him, one tender glance of his dear eye, one pressure of his dear hard hand, and I could have borne anything; but that drop of comfort you denied us both. Oh, cruel! cruel!"
"Calm yourself, Grace, and remember whom you are speaking to. It was an error in judgment, perhaps--nothing more."
"But, then, if you know nothing about love, and its soothing power, why meddle with it at all?"
"Grace," said Mr. Carden, sadly, but firmly, "we poor parents are all prepared for this. After many years of love and tenderness bestowed on our offspring, the day is sure to come when the young thing we have reared with so much care and tenderness will meet a person of her own age, a STRANGER; and, in a month or two, all our love, our care, our anxiety, our hopes, will be nothing in the balance. This wound is in store for us all. We foresee it; we receive it; we groan under it; we forgive it. We go patiently on, and still give our ungrateful children the benefit of our love and our experience. I have seen in my own family that horrible mixture, Gentility and Poverty. In our class of life, poverty is not only poverty, it is misery, and meanness as well. My income dies with me. My daughter and her children shall not go back to the misery and meanness out of which I have struggled. They shall be secured against it by law, before she marries, or she shall marry under her father's curse."
Then Grace was frightened, and said she should never marry under her father's curse; but (with a fresh burst of weeping) what need was there to send Henry away without seeing her, and letting them comfort each other under this sudden affliction? "Ah, I was too happy this morning," said the poor girl. "I was singing before breakfast. Jael always told me not to do that. Oh! oh! oh!"
Mr. Carden kept silence; but his fortitude was sorely tried.
That day Grace pleaded headache, and did not appear to dinner. Mr. Carden dined alone, and missed her bright face sadly. He sent his love to her, and went off to the club, not very happy. At the club he met Mr. Coventry, and told him frankly what he had done. Mr. Coventry, to his surprise, thanked him warmly. "She will be mine in two years," said he. "Little will never be able to make a settlement on her." This remark set Mr. Carden thinking.
Grace watched the window day after day, but Henry never came nor passed. She went a great deal more than usual into the town, in hopes of meeting him by the purest accident. She longed to call on Mrs. Little, but feminine instinct withheld her; she divined that Mrs. Little must be deeply offended.
She fretted for a sight of Henry, and for an explanation, in which she might clear herself, and show her love, without being in the least disobedient to her father. Now all this was too subtle to be written. So she fretted and pined for a meeting.
While she was in this condition, and losing color every day, who should call one day--to reconnoiter, I suppose--but Mr. Coventry.
Grace was lying on the sofa, languid and distraite, when he was announced. She sat up directly, and her eye kindled.
Mr. Coventry came in with his usual grace and cat-like step. "Ah, Miss Carden!"
Miss Carden rose majestically to her feet, made him a formal courtesy, and swept out of the room, without deigning him a word.
She went to the study, and said, "Papa, here's a friend of yours--
Mr. Coventry."
"Dear me, I am very busy. I wish you would amuse him for a few minutes till I have finished this letter."
"Excuse me, papa; I cannot stay in the same room with Mr. Coventry."
"Why not, pray?"
"He is a dangerous man: he compromises one. He offered me an engagement-ring, and I refused it; yet he made you believe we were engaged. You have taken care I shall not be compromised with the man I love; and shall I be compromised with the man I don't care for? No, thank you."
"Very well, Grace," said Mr. Carden, coldly.
Shortly after this Mr. Carden requested Dr. Amboyne to call; he received the doctor in his study, and told him that he was beginning to be uneasy about Grace; she was losing her appetite, her color, and her spirits. Should he send her to the seaside?
"The seaside! I distrust conventional remedies. Let me see the patient."