“Would not any man in his senses run diametrically from you, and as far as his legs would carry him, rather than thus carelessly, foolishly, and foolhardily expose himself afresh and afresh, where his heart and his reason tell him he shall be sure to come off loser, if not totally undone?”—Sterne.

Next day was Sunday. I met my relatives at church, and returned with them to an early dinner at Grove End. Whilst at church I had not particularly noticed Conny’s manner, but as we walked to the house it struck me that she appeared very downcast. On the other hand, Mrs. Hargrave was in high spirits, undamped by a long and tedious sermon, and unrestrained by any sense of the solemnity of the day. She carried on quite a little flirtation with her husband, who submitted to her playfulness very amiably, and, whilst I walked between her and her daughter, entertained me with various reminiscenses of her young days, and of Thomas’s courtship.

“He was absurdly in love with me,” she observed, referring to her patient helpmate. “He wouldn’t like me to tell you what he threatened to do if I refused to marry him.”

“Come, come,” said my uncle, “Charlie would rather read a chapter of English History, and learn a good deal at once.”

“I don’t understand,” returned my aunt. “I didn’t know that we had anything to do with history.”“What you are talking about occurred in George the Fourth’s reign. There were wars and civil dissensions in those days which Charlie would rather hear about.”

“Don’t let your husband silence you,” said I. “Of course he was absurdly in love with you. What do you think, Conny?”

“I didn’t live in those days,” answered Conny absently.

“Well, I am very happy,” said my aunt, passing her hand through her husband’s arm. “I only hope that Conny may have my good fortune,” and she glanced askance at her daughter and me.

“Confess, my dear, that you would rather have had Edward,” exclaimed my uncle with a deep smile.

“You don’t mean what you say. But even if I had, I should only have acted as most women do, who invariably want the wrong man.”

Conny looked at me from under her parasol and smiled. What did she mean by smiling?

“There is a great deal of nonsense talked about marriage,” said my uncle. “My idea is, that every young man should get a wife as soon as he can.”

“That’s my idea, too,” said I.

“And mine,” exclaimed my aunt.

Thus fortified—how strong a man feels in his wife’s acquiescence! but then she must often contradict him—my uncle continued, “For what is a man without a home?”

“A vagabond,” cried my aunt.

“Quite right, my dear; for a vagabond means a wanderer.”“I am always suspicious of men without homes—of men who live in clubs or lodgings,” observed my aunt. “Of course I am not speaking of young men who haven’t had time to get married,” she added apologetically.

“A man is not respectable without a home,” said my uncle.

“And he can’t have a home without a wife,” I answered.

“How hot it is!” exclaimed Conny, a little peevishly. “This road is so dreadfully dazzling to the eyes, that I can hardly see. What a pity people mayn’t use their carriages on a Sunday!”

“No, no! we ought all to go afoot to God’s house,” said my uncle. “The day we dedicate to Him should be a levelling day—a reminder to rich and poor of their common mortality. But little piety will be left in the bosom of a hard-working labourer who, on quitting his place in the free seats, comes out and sees the rich saints luxuriously rolling homewards in fine carriages.”

“Remember what your papa says, Conny,” remarked my aunt.

“I don’t see why poor people should feel more on Sundays than on week days,” answered Conny.

“Well, they do,” said my aunt.

“This is better,” I exclaimed, as we turned into the long shady lane that led to my uncle’s house. But Conny seemed rather sulky, and for the rest of the walk remained silent.

In spite of my aunt’s cheerfulness, we were not so brisk a party at the dinner-table as we usually were. Conny complained of the heat, which, she said, always depressed her. For my part, I did not find it so very hot. The windows were wide open, and there was just enough air abroad to make the temperature of the atmosphere perfectly luxurious. However, Conny was in one of those moods which render grievances necessary conditions of life. “She is not all sweetness!” I thought. But that discovery didn’t weaken my admiration. I was just of that age when a man will love a woman through everything, and for everything; through spleen and sauciness; for fickleness and flirtation; through bad grammar, and for gross relations; when he finds that everything she wears becomes her, that everything she says makes her more enchanting; when he mistakes temper for spirit, and many other things for many other things. I think, had my cousin stood on her head, I should have considered her posture the most graceful and becoming one in the world.

My uncle, dyspeptic as usual, was, in spite of his sufferings, garrulous. The little flirtation my aunt had indulged him in, had put him into a thoroughly self-satisfied humour. Once more he got upon the subject of marriage, and dogmatised in a very inspiriting manner. However, it turned out that my aunt was not so amicably disposed as he imagined; for, on his happening to say, that a true woman, if she loved a man, would follow him into a garret, and be content to make her bed on a sand-floor, his wife confounded him, by crying out, “Nonsense! the true woman who will act in such a manner is a true fool! A man who is really fond of a woman, wouldn’t take her to a sand-floor; but, if he should offer to do so, the woman ought to refuse him, because his offer would be a sure sign that he didn’t love her as he ought.”

“That is very good logic,” said I, approvingly. “But still,” I continued, “it is quite possible, and even reasonable, for a poor man to be devoted to a girl, to long to possess her, and to marry her without thinking of the poverty to which he will take her.”

“More shame to him!” said my aunt, who now differed from me for the first time since I had known her.

“True,” I answered, “but then he may hope, before long, to put her into a comfortable position.”

“He ought to wait.”

“He can’t,” interrupted my uncle. “You might as well expect a kettle not to boil after putting it on the fire.”

“And there is another side of the question,” said I, “which ought to be considered—speaking for myself, I should seriously doubt a girl’s love for me if she refused to marry me, simply because I couldn’t put her into a good house.”

“Mamma doesn’t understand love,” said Conny, querulously.

“Mamma does,” replied my aunt, with a severe nod; “but papa doesn’t, and you don’t.”

I looked at Conny just in time to catch sight of her little mouth twisted queerly at the corners.

“You wouldn’t have said that of me, when George the Fourth was on the throne,” said my uncle to his wife, with a wink at me.“You’re always talking about George the Fourth,” replied my aunt, fanning herself with a napkin. “One would think that he lived in Henry the Eighth’s time. He only died a few years ago.”

“When did he die, Conny?” asked her papa. “You are well read in history.”

“Oh, please, don’t let us argue any more,” said Conny. “It is too hot.”

“Marriage,” said I, feeling that I would give worlds to take and squeeze Conny’s hand under the table-cloth, “is one of those things you can’t reason about. The moth flies to the candle, and takes no thought of whither he goeth or what will become of him.”

“Whether,” continued my uncle, “the flame that attracts him is made by a farthing dip or by virgin wax.”

“Aye, or whether it illuminates the splendours of a royal drawing-room, or the sordid squalor of a pauper’s hovel,” said I.

“I don’t understand what you are talking about,” exclaimed my aunt.

“We do, though, Charlie—don’t we,” said my uncle with great glee. “But Conny looks bored, and my wife puzzled; so we’ll talk of feathers and rouge.”

I saw nothing of my cousin all the afternoon. Yes—once I caught a glimpse of her at her bed-room window as my uncle and I sat chatting on the lawn. I had it several times in my mind to tell my uncle what my feelings were for Conny, and to receive his opinion on the subject; but I thought I should be acting more wisely if, before speaking to her papa, I first of all ascertained what Conny’s views were. I rather wondered that my uncle never made any allusion to my admiration, not to say my love, which I thought must surely be as plain as the daylight. He could be confidential enough on other matters. I supposed he must have a pretty good notion that I couldn’t be in the society of so charming a creature every day without conceiving a very sentimental affection for her. My aunt suspected the truth, and relished it; why did my uncle choose to be so regardless? He appeared so thoroughly fond of me that I could not question the pleasure he would feel on hearing that I wanted to marry his child. The only possible objection he could offer to an alliance which could not fail to gratify his pride of family, was—my “circumstances”—which, to speak the truth, were not what the Barings or the Rothschilds would call splendid. But then, Conny would have money enough for both of us to cut a very considerable figure with; and what would it matter on which side the fortune lay, so long as it lay between us?

Conny made her appearance at tea-time, and though she met my admiring gaze very steadily, I could not help thinking that she had been crying. There was just the faintest tinge of red round the rim of the eyes, whilst the eyes themselves looked soft and humid. I waited to see if her father or mother would notice these signs, but as they did not, I concluded that my suspicions were wrong, and that the effect I noticed was due to the heat, of which she had complained.

She had changed her dress since dinner, and now appeared in white muslin. Her arms and throat were bare, and down her back, almost to her waist, fell the long gold-coloured curl she always wore.

“And beauty leads us with a single hair,” said I, taking the curl between my fingers.

“If it were a single hair it wouldn’t lead you,” she answered, with a coquettish manner that appeared to me perfectly natural, and thoroughly undeceived me in my notion that she had been crying. “Men like women to have plenty of hair.”

“You should tell Charlie that your hair is all your own,” exclaimed my aunt, looking proudly at her child.

“I don’t want to be told; I have eyes to see,” I replied.

“It’s her own, take my word for it,” said my uncle. “I thank heaven that the dead have not been despoiled nor the living shorn to contribute to that show of hair. I only wonder that people can be found to skewer dead or distressed females’ tresses among their own locks. I should as soon think of wearing another man’s skull, were I dissatisfied with the shape of my own, as of gumming another fellow’s curls over my baldness.”

“There are some things that are better not thought of,” said I, “buns, cooking, and wigs among them.”

“Why buns?” asked my aunt.

“Because,” said I, “I am told that they are the platform on which bare-footed bakers are sometimes accustomed to dance a saraband.”

“Faugh!” cried my aunt.

Conny ran out into the garden. I was going to follow her, when she came back holding a rosebud.

“Put that in my hair,” said she, “and let me see what taste you have.”

I ought to have possessed Uncle Toby’s simplicity when he looked into the Widow Wadman’s eye, and attended earnestly to what I was about, instead of thinking of other things, for then, perhaps, I should have pleased her. As it was, I put the rose in the wrong place, when she whipped it out, and smartly bade me try again.

My aunt looked delighted: my uncle amused.

“Where will you have it?” I enquired.

“In the right place, of course,” she replied.

“Well, then,” said I, “don’t face the glass, but be good enough to look at me.”

You may believe I took some time in satisfying myself; putting the rose now on one side, now on the other side, stepping elegantly backwards to inspect her sweet face, touching with reverent fingers her golden locks, and twisting them round and round my heart in so complicated a mesh, that the fly whom a spider has spun upon its sticky threads is not a securer prisoner; until my uncle, losing patience, cried out,

“Come, let us have tea, or we shall be late for church.”

“Charlie has put the rose in very becomingly,” said my aunt.

“Yes, it will do very nicely,” responded my cousin, peeping at herself in the glass. Then, while she made the tea, she said, “I feel too tired to go to church to-night, mamma.”

“Very well, my dear.”

“Why, what has tired you?” asked her papa.

“I don’t know, unless it is the heat.”

“The garden will be deliciously cool, this evening,” I observed. “I think I’ll stay at home too, and keep my cousin company.”

“Do,” said my aunt.

My uncle sipped his tea, and appeared to take no notice.

But Conny exclaimed, “Oh, Charlie, please don’t stop at home for me.”

“Ah, you dear little flirt!” I thought; “it needs no Solomon to understand the English of your ‘don’ts.’”

“I should be sorry to be thought irreligious,” I said: “but I can’t help saying that I would rather stay at home this evening, than go to church.”

Did Conny pout? Did a little frown gather upon Conny’s white forehead? I couldn’t be sure—she turned her head so quickly aside. But even had I been sure that she pouted and frowned, I should never have doubted for a moment that her choosing not to go to church, was a hint for me to remain with her. Come, Eugenio, you are a judge of human nature—tell me, what did that little episode of the rosebud mean? What, my friend, but the delicate proem, the crimson-coloured preface, the sweet, the graceful, the womanly initialing of the Arcadian scene she wanted me to rehearse with her?

She said no more, but drank her tea in silence, looking at the clock now and then, and sometimes out of window, until her mamma having left the room to put on her things, whilst her papa read a letter he had taken out of his pocket-book, she sidled up to me and whispered, with her eyes full of sweetness, and with the tenderest blush on her fair face,

“I wish, Charlie, you wouldn’t stop at home for me.”

“Are you very deeply concerned for my spiritual welfare?”

“I am sure mamma would rather have you with her. She is so fond of you, you know.”

“No living being could appreciate her kindness more than I do; but I would rather risk her displeasure than miss the chance of being with you alone.”

In those ignorant days I used to think that a woman’s wishes were to be read backwards, like a witch’s prayers. Since then I have learned that this is not true. I gave Conny a smile to let her see that I thoroughly understood her, and heartily appreciated the delicate sense of embarrassment that made her anxious for me not to imagine, &c., and then praised the charming effect produced by the contrast of the red rosebud against her sunny hair. She said “Oh!” and “Ah!” and “Yes?” and “Indeed?” and grew very absent.

“She is wondering,” I thought to myself, “whether I mean to propose this evening.”

Before long Mrs. Hargrave put her head into the room to tell her husband that she was ready; whereupon my uncle pocketed his letter, and giving us a nod, went out. I watched them leave the house—my uncle walking a yard or two behind his wife, as people who have been long married often do—and then said to Conny, “Let us go and stroll in the grounds.” She made no answer, but went upstairs to get her hat, and returned after a short absence, looking very docile and even frightened. I noticed as I held the door open for her to pass out, that she looked at the clock, making perhaps the tenth time she had done so in less than twenty minutes. But I was in the humour to interpret every action of hers, into a compliment to myself, and was quite willing to believe that this farewell peep at the clock was merely meant to satisfy herself that she would have two good hours with me alone before her papa and mamma returned.

The grounds covered pretty nearly seven acres. They were wonderfully well tended, and had been laid out with great judgment and good taste. They were richly stocked with trees; at one extremity was a fine orchard; the wilder aspects of nature had been judiciously preserved, and among the trees, in some portions of the estate, you would have imagined yourself in the wilds of a forest. The evening was beautiful, beyond the power of language to describe. The sun shone brightly, but with the mellow and tender light that it takes in its descent, and which deepens upon it as it nears the western horizon. Under the trees a soft and fairy-like night had gathered, though here and there the sunshine streamed through the branches, and bathed the deep green grass with pools of yellow splendour. Far and near, the pink hills reared their wooded ridges to the sky; while the quiet breeze rang with the silvery chimes of the distant church-bells.

“Englishmen are quite right in believing in their country,” said I. “It is the finest place in the world to live in.”

“You like it better than France?”

“I like Updown better than Longueville, certainly. What makes you smile? I suppose you think me capricious and unfaithful to my old affections.”

“And yet I am sure you find Updown very much duller than Longueville.”

“I daresay I should, if it were not for Grove End.”

“We are dull enough here.”

“I am not. I am very happy. I know I should be very sorry to go back to Longueville, unless I could return to it on my own terms.”“What are they?”

“First of all, I should wish to take you with me.”

“Oh, Charlie,” she exclaimed, striking at the grass with her parasol, “I hope you are not going to talk any nonsense.”

“It all depends,” I replied, gravely, “on what you call nonsense.”

“Flattery is nonsense, and compliments, and personal remarks.”

“Dear Conny, I haven’t flattered you?”

“See how fine the trees look, and the sky. Let us talk about Wordsworth.”

“I’d rather talk about you.”

“I hope you won’t.”

“Why? A man mayn’t marry his grandmother, but it is nowhere written that a man mayn’t talk of his cousin.”She laughed at this, but made no reply. Though she had answered me pretty briskly, I was nevertheless struck by her air, which was at once subdued and uneasy.

“What are you thinking about, Conny?”

“About nothing.”

“Were you thinking of me?”

“How could I be thinking of you, when I tell you I was thinking of nothing?”

“I wonder whether you have a good opinion of me?”

“I don’t suppose you care what my opinion is.”

“I do. I want you to like me.”

“I should be very wicked not to like you, considering we are relations.”

“Oh, don’t let us talk of relations. There is a brotherly-sisterly twang about the word which is effective enough in tracts, but which disagreeably affects the mind that is engrossed with worldly considerations. I want you to do more than like me—I want you to love me.”

She grew pale and stooped her head, then turning her eyes up to me, said with a forced, nervous laugh,

“I have begged you not to talk any nonsense.”

“It is not nonsense to me. I am deeply in earnest. I love you, Conny, and shan’t be happy unless you love me in return.”

Her head dropped again. My heart thumped like an Irish valet’s fist upon a door. I strained my ear to catch the breathless whisper, but no whisper came. Raising her head suddenly, she said,“It is mamma’s wish that I should marry you. She came to my room last night, and told me to prepare for an offer of marriage. I think you ought to have spoken to me first, before speaking to her. It would have been fairer.”

“Spoken to her!” I exclaimed, greatly astonished. “Why, I have never breathed my feelings for you to a living creature.”

“How could she have known?”

“She must have guessed the truth by my manner. She must have seen, as everybody with eyes must, that I was in love with you. I am very glad to have her sanction; but I can assure you I have never yet sought it.”

Here came another pause, and then I said, “I hope you believe me.”

“Oh yes; but I was pained when mamma said she wished me to accept you if you proposed, because—because I haven’t had time to fall in love with you yet, Charlie.”

Here I caught hold of her hand, and said—I don’t know what. What man does know what he says when he makes love? It is wonderful that I can recollect so much as I have set down. I doubt if even Boswell, who was born with a note-book in his hand, could remember all the observations he had occasion to make, both to the lady he did marry and to the great number of ladies he didn’t marry. I don’t think I talked like a hero. I don’t fancy I made use of any of those striking and powerful expressions which I strongly suspect must have been first brought into fashion among novelists by good-natured elderly women, who had either never experienced or had forgotten the characteristics of love-making among thinking beings. To conceal nothing, I don’t think I said very much at all. “Will you love me?” and “Ho, won’t you love me?” and “Ah! can’t you love me?” and “Please, try to love me,” with an occasional Oh and a No, and a sigh, and a smile, and a blush from her, comprise, Eugenio, pretty much all that was said and done between us. I looked without sighing, and she sighed without looking. I sink—sank—sunk my voice into a whisper, and was about to express a very poetical and touching sentiment, when she interrupted me by crying out, “Isn’t that seven o’clock striking?” and before I could collect my senses, so as to enable me to listen to the distant bell and answer her, behold! she exclaimed, “I will be back in a few minutes,” and ran—yes, ran—with great speed and surprising grace, down the grounds and out of sight.

Much astonished, I beheld her disappear, and then pulling out a cigar, lighted it, and sank, carefully, and after a narrow inspection, upon the grass, at the foot of a tree, and there, like Tityrus, supine but not careless laid, waited for her to return. I tried to think over what I had said to her, and how, on the whole, it struck me, she had received my fervid language; but I found myself chiefly wondering what on earth had drawn her away so hastily, and what connection seven o’clock could have with a proceeding so entirely disagreeable and undesirable.

In about five minutes’ time, however, I saw her returning through the trees. She smiled very sweetly on seeing me seated and smoking, and exclaimed with indescribable sauciness, “I think you are very wise to rest yourself after your late severe attack.”

“I hope,” I answered a little sarcastically, “that you didn’t run away from me because you were afraid!”

“Oh, no,” she exclaimed, with serene candour shining in her countenance; “one of the servants—but I mustn’t tell stories out of school. This is my little secret; so ask me no questions.”

“I must ask you one question,” I replied, melted and won over as any petulant child is with a sweetmeat, by her delightful manner, “will you give me leave to love you?”

“Now, listen to me, Charlie,” said she, laying her little hand on my arm and upturning her celestial eyes, so that I could see my own lovely features gazing at me out of them, like twin cherubs leaning forth from the blue vaults of paradise. “You have not yet given me time to love you; and I have determined never to marry until I do love. I like you very much now, and that is all I mean to say for the present. You’ll never be able to make me love you by constantly questioning me. You must take this for my answer, and not say another word about what has passed between us until I give you leave.”

“But how long are you going to take?” said I, fretfully. “You put me in the position of a child who is told to shut its eyes and open its mouth, and see what it will get; whereby it may get the lock-jaw, to say nothing of the exquisite mental torture it is subjected to by blindness under such conditions.”

“Ah, we must all learn to be patient in this world,” she answered, with a look of real sadness in her face.

“Well, Conny,” said I, raising her hand to my lips, “I am so much in love with you, that I will do anything you want—though I would rather you ordered me to hang myself than wait.”

“Let us go in, I begin to feel the air a little chilly.”

We walked to the house; but, as I had not finished my cigar, and as, so far from feeling the air chilly, I found it peculiarly mild and delightful, I said I would remain on the lawn, making sure, of course, that she would join me. She went into the house, and I walked to the seat under the oak-tree, where I sat waiting and watching, and watching and waiting, and wondering where she was, and what she was doing, until my cigar was burned out, and the evening had fairly fallen; when I rose and entered the drawing-room, expecting to find her there. Then I peeped into the dining-room, and then into the library. “She is in her bed-room,” I thought; and not very well knowing what to do with myself, I returned to the grounds.

I could not help reflecting that I had not gained much by not going to church. “It is true,” I thought, “that she knows I love her; but her answers were very unsatisfactory.” Was she in love with somebody else? Was his vulgar name Curling? Why hadn’t I asked her? and supposing I had? would she have told me the truth?Just as I got to the conservatory, I, to my infinite amazement, saw her coming out from among the trees—those trees within whose gloom her figure had faded, on the clock striking seven.

“I thought you were on the lawn, smoking?” she exclaimed. She pronounced the word smoking, “thmoking.” Heavens! how I loved that one lisp! And I fancied she blushed, but it was almost too dark to see clearly.

“And I thought you were in your bed-room,” I replied, with the proper severity of a suspicious wretch.

“Then we were both wrong,” she said, laughing.

“What is the particular attraction of those trees?” I asked, looking hard at her.

“That’s my secret,” she answered, with a little rebellious toss of the head.“You found the air chilly just now. I don’t feel that it has grown warmer since you left me,” said I, holding my hand out and looking upwards, like a man in search of rain.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she exclaimed, in a rather tremulous voice. “I suppose I may go into the grounds without any insinuations being made.”

“Insinuations!” I cried. “Heaven forbid! Who insinuates? I have been waiting for you on the lawn, and wishing for you to join me; but as you had left the grounds because you said you felt chilly, I was surprised to find you in them again.”

“And pray,” asked she, getting up her courage, and looking at me pertly, “what is the awful conclusion you draw from finding me here?”“That you want to avoid me.”

“Indeed I don’t, Charlie,” she answered quite softly and tenderly, and laying that bewitching little white hand of hers once again upon my arm. “But I gave you a hint about a servant, didn’t I? and I told you not to ask me any questions. Some of these days, I daresay, we shall be very confidential; and now I will go with you to the drawing-room, and sing you a piece from the ‘Stabat Mater.’”

And with the archest look in the world, this most puzzling, seductive, repelling little creature passed her hand through my arm, and led me into the house.