Chapter Two

by Mrs. Elizabeth Prentiss
Edited by Amber Moeller

Horace Wheeler was a young man of fair abilities and some culture. He was handsome and quick-witted, and wide-awake; a favorite everywhere, because of his unfailing good humor and the comfortable sense of his own powers of pleasing, which made him self-possessed and easy under all circumstances. He was not more susceptible than the ordinary run of men of his age, but still contrived to have always on hand something bordering on a love affair. In fact, "the girls" did all they could to spoil him, and he would have been spoiled but for Aunt Jane, who kept a sharp eye upon him, and often painted his portrait for him in anything but flattering colors. And now Georgiana Fitzsimmons had him in tow, and was sailing off with him, as well as with half a dozen other bewildered victims. He admired her royal beauty, her style, her faultless mode of dress, and it was a luxury to spend an evening with her in the richly furnished parlors which offered such a contrast to his own quarters. She played and sang well, and was never at a loss for something to say. It didn't occur to him that this endless flow of small talk was very small indeed, nor did it once strike him that her papa and mamma, whose house this was, did not dare to show their plebeian faces in their own parlors. Miss Georgiana's idea of a father was of a man who spent his life in making money for her to spend--of a mother, as a woman who looked after the servants, ordered good dinners, and kept out of her way on all desirable occasions. To be sure, papa Fitzsimmons sometimes grumbled at the way in which money went, and declared that he was a poor man, and mamma Fitzsimmons often wept, maintaining that nobody has such ungrateful children as hers. But these little speeches rippled lightly over their gay daughter's heart, allowing that she had one, and never, for one moment, disturbed her peace of mind. She found it quite agreeable to have lovers; it was out of the question to go into society with such a figure of a man as papa, who, as she often assured him, only knew enough to sell calico, and it was convenient to have fine-looking young men like Horace Wheeler attend her when she went out. And it is amazing how, under a guise of sweet simplicity and unconsciousness, some girls can conceal an artifice that would do credit to a veteran. Each of the young men in her train fancied himself the favored one. If one of these poor wretches gave signs of escaping her clutches, as they sometimes did (for she took a cat-like pleasure in letting her mice run for the fun of catching them again), she had a sweet word, a captivating smile equal to the emergency. She meant to get married to somebody, but not now; she wanted to have what she called "a good time" with a dozen or two young men first; meaning by a good time, though she never quite owned that to herself, the being a little in love with each and all in turn, and having them each and all in love with her. And when they severally reached that point they ceased to interest her, and she turned to new ones. And this was the "glorious creature" who had caught Horace; she had let him run three or four times, overtaken and patted and bewildered and made him her captive again, and was finding this a pastime of peculiar pleasure.

"How long it is since you were here!" with a reproachful, charming look. "I began to think you were getting tired of me!"

Or, "I saw you at the last rehearsal, and you never gave me so much as a glance."

"Ah, you saw me, then!" with a gratified throb of the real heart he kept under his waistcoat. "How very strange! for I kept behind a pillar all the evening. I had the blues, and did not want to be seen."

"Really? But you should always come to me when you are low-spirited. I feel so much for my friends, and you are such an old friend!"

And this old friend of six months would have liked to prove to her, on the spot, what a friend he was. But there was Joe Fisher watching them both, trying to carry on an animated conversation with the lady on his arm, yet to hear every word spoken by these twain.

He must bide his time, but he was making up his mind that in spite of Aunt Jane, he must, at least, become engaged to his heroine. They were both young, and need not think of marriage yet. Will Jones had confidentially revealed to him that the three years of his own engagement had been delightful ones, and that Adela, his wife, was not half so nice now that they had settled down together.

"She used to say," moaned Will, "that she adored the smell of a cigar, and now she says it makes her sick. And she often spoke of my auburn hair as so much to her taste, but now she calls it red."

"And no wonder," thought Horace, and hugged himself for joy that his Georgiana was one of the sort to wear well; as unlike Mrs. Jones as possible. He neglected all his friends now; some wondered what had become of him, some secretly smiled at his infatuation; one almost rejoiced in it; Aunt Jane knew just how the whole thing would end, and felt that it would not hurt him to have a little of a wind taken out of his sails. He had assumed the attitude of a man who had only to choose what flower to pick, and this not merely because he was so steeped in natural self-conceit, but from the fact that he had been flattered and caressed into it. And this conceit was not becoming to him in her eyes.

Horace had never laid anything but flowers on the shrine of his beloved, but he now thought it time to offer her some gift that should at once prove his admiration and his refined, cultivated taste. What should it be? He tried to lie awake at nights to think about it, but unfortunately his perfect health forbade that, and he never knew what happened after he laid his head on his pillow until he awoke next morning. At last he bethought him of a ring of some value, that had been his mother's. He could put this ring upon her finger, and at the same time whisper some words that would reveal that to one human being only could he entrust this sacred relic. Georgiana would shed tears, half accept and half refuse it; he should then in this tender moment speak of his love--hopeless, because of his poverty and her position, and she would throw herself into his arms, declaring that a cottage with him, etc., etc.

He went over this little program a good many times before there was the least chance of carrying it out. Georgiana was so sweetly unconscious that he was dying for a chance to see her alone; she knew so little what she was in herself and what she was to him, and let such very inferior young men hang around her.

This unconsious creature was really communing with herself after this wise.

"I may as well let him propose; he comes so often now that people are beginning to talk. And all the rest are hanging back, thinking I like him. And of course I do like him. He's so handsome and dotes on me so; but then, I've always let him see that I did not care particularly of him, at least he might see it if he would, but men are so conceited."

And so it happened, one evening that on being ushered into the parlor where he had spent so many agreeable hours, Horace found Miss Georgiana quite alone, and began to put his little plan into execution. He had a sufficiently good opinion of himself to be in general quite self-possessed, but now that the long-coveted hour had arrived, he felt sheepish and wished the thing well over. She sat before him provokingly pretty and provokingly cool, her hands folded lightly together in her lap, and somehow he got possession of one of them, and slipped his dead mother's ring upon a finger.

"What queer, old-fashioned thing have you picked up, Mr. Wheeler?" she asked, gazing at it through her eye-glass. "Dear me, I never saw anything so very peculiar; indeed, you must not ask me to wear it; it would set people talking, you know."

"It was my mother's wedding-ring," he stammered, "and I hoped that for her sake, for my sake---"

She laughed merrily and musically, and knew that she did.

"But you know, Mr. Wheeler I never saw your mother, and couldn't be expected--really," as the poor fellow blundered on, "you surprise me greatly. You must see that I am fancy free, that I have no preference for any gentleman."

"But you have looked, you have acted, you have said---"

"I hope you do not intend to insinuate that I have given you any encouragement, Mr. Wheeler."

"No," he said, a little angrily, for her self-possession and suavity unnerved him, "I never deal in insinuations. What I have to say I say plainly, and in so many words. And I say you have led me into this ridiculous, mortifying position by a long series of deliberate and heartless acts."

"I could not have believed you were so uncharitable," she returned, smiling. "It is very disagreeable, but I forgive you, and we will be as good as friends as ever; shall we not?" She held out her hand, as she spoke, but he did not take it.

"Heaven have mercy on the man that wins it!" he said, and bowed himself majestically out.

For once in her life she felt uncomfortable, and she had a whole evening in which to face herself; for, expecting a long interview with Horace, she had given orders that no one else should be admitted.

"I never gave him that least encouragement, not the very least," she said to herself. "And how could he suppose that I should look at him? A poor lawyer, whose wife would have to sweep her own parlors, provided she had any, which I do not suppose she would. However, I can't help it if men will make fools of themselves. I must tell Harriet Foot about it; how she will laugh!"

This thought quite restored her spirits; she sent a servant to summon Harriet, who lived next door, and gave her a magnified picture of the whole scene, and the twain made themselves merry over the rejected lover, eating chocolate caramels the while, in a insatiable way, quite after the manner of girls in general.

Now, we do not intend to insinuate that all young ladies, in what is called "good society," are thoughtless and heartless: but that this is the hot-bed in which they are likely to thrive. Who goes home from a ball, to kneel down and pray to God? Who leaves the theatre with new self-denying, Christian work?

Would that some eloquent hand could paint the contrast between Miss Fitzsimmons and what she had refused to give to Horace, and what one earnest, Christian heart, unseen by all the world, was at that moment giving to him! For while the one laughed, the other prayed; and those prayers were so many guardian angels that prevented, encompassed--saved him.

To be continued ...

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