"Helen seems really sad at the prospect of parting with her school-days and her friends. But then she is eighteen, and that's quite old enough for a girl to come out. She says, too, that of all the girls at school, Lizzie Heartwell will be the most regretted when she leaves the Queen City for her home in a distant State. She is quite a pretty girl, but too religious, I should judge, from what Helen says. Her mother is a widow. I guess they are poor.
"Mother is quite reconciled to me again, and spoke playfully to me last night about marrying Miss Belle Upton, who is to visit Helen next week and attend the closing of Madam Truxton's school. Well, 'we shall see what we shall see,' but I hardly think I will. She can hardly eclipse 'Leah Mordecai the beautiful,'-that's the way I write it now."
CHAPTER IX.
THE examination-days at Madam Truxton's were over. The long-dreaded reviews had been passed with credit to both pupils and instructors. The certificates of scholarship, and the "rewards of merit," had been given to the fortunate competitors; the long-coveted diplomas awarded to the expectant "finishing class," and that memorable term of school life was closed forever. The hour for the event had come. The grand old drawing-rooms above the assembly hall in the spacious building were filled to repletion-filled with the patrons and select guests that were honored with the fastidious Madam's courtesy. It was an elegant assembly, one characteristic of the Queen City in her days of unostentatious aristocracy, of gentle-bred men and women.
Conspicuous among the famed guests were the three-score cadets, themselves just ready to emerge from college walls and step forth with triumphant tread upon life's broad opening field.
The "finishing class" numbered more than a score of girls-all young, some gifted, many beautiful-whose homes were scattered far and wide through the country; young girls who, for many months, and even years, had lived and studied and loved together, with all the ardor and strength of youth. Now they were to be sundered; sundered with no prospect of future reunion.
All felt this approaching separation with more or less sorrow, according to their varying natures; and some contemplated it with deep regret.
The greetings, congratulations, and presentations were over, and Madam Truxton, in all her stately elegance, had at last relaxed her rigid vigilance, and the "finishing class" were free-free to wander for the first time, and that first the last too, among the spacious halls and corridors of the old school building, as young ladies. Free to receive the smiles and addresses of the long-forbidden cadets without fear of madam's portentous frown.
At length the sound of music rose upon the air. Knotted groups here and there bespoke the preparation for the dance. Sets were forming in drawing-rooms and halls, and impatient feet were moving to the measure of the prelude.
"Miss Heartwell, may I claim your hand for the quadrille?" said George Marshall, bowing before Lizzie at the presentation of Madam Truxton herself.
"I thank you, I never dance, Mr. Marshall."
"Not dance! How's that?"
"Never learned, sir."
"That's stranger still. I supposed all of madam's young ladies danced."
"In general they do," replied Lizzie, "but from peculiar circumstances I am an exception to the general rule. If you desire a partner in the dance, allow ne to present you to my friend, Bertha Levy. She dances like a fay."
"Not just now, thank you, Miss Heartwell; if it is not impertinent, I would like to know why you do not dance."
"Well, it's a simple story, quickly told; and if you will listen a moment I'll inform you, if you desire."
"With pleasure. Go on."
"Melrose, my native home, in the State of -, is a quiet little town, with little social life and less gayety. My mother, too, is a widow, who has lived in great seclusion ever since my father's death, which occurred when I was a little child. I have been her only companion in all these years of bereavement and sorrow, and it has never been her desire that I should indulge in any of the pleasures and gayeties that young people are fond of. From these causes my life has assumed a sombre tone that may seem, and indeed is, unnatural in the young. Yet, as I have known nothing else all my life, it is no trial for me to forego the pleasures that are so alluring to you, perhaps, Mr. Marshall."
George Marshall made no reply, and for a time seemed absorbed in contemplation. He had listened attentively to this simple, half-told history of her life. And as he marked the gentle expression of her spirituelle face, she became in his eyes a model of beauty. The allusion to the death of her father had recalled to his mind the time and manner of his own father's death-a time when the terrible plague of yellow fever had swept over the Queen City with devastating wing. Observing George Marshall's silent, absorbed manner, Lizzie continued:
"You think me very uninteresting, I dare say. Young ladies who do not dance are generally so considered. Allow me to present you to some of my friends who will-"
"I beg pardon, Miss Heartwell, for my inattention. I was thinking of the past-the past recalled by your own story. Excuse my abstraction, I pray."
"But the young ladies?" said Lizzie.
"I do not care to dance now, if you will allow me the pleasure of a promenade," he replied.
"Certainly I will," replied Lizzie with a graceful bend of the shapely head; and clasping with her timid little hand the strong arm of the manly cadet, she passed with him from the lower drawing-room across the hall to the library.
"There's more room in the corridor than here," said Lizzie; "suppose we go there?"
"First let me ask a question, suggested by the musical instrument I see standing in the library. Do you sing? Do you sing with the harp?"
"I do."
"Will you not sing for me?"
"I will, with pleasure, if you will make room in the library," she replied with unaffected simplicity. The library was occupied by a number of matronly ladies and elderly gentlemen-all of the guests who were not participating in the dance. Lizzie bowed her head slightly, and passed to the harp, now silent in one corner. Without hesitation she seated herself before it, and the slender fingers grasped the strings of the instrument with a masterly touch, running through a soft, sweet prelude of tender chords. Her voice at last trilled forth in the charming strains of the old Scotch ballad, "Down the burn, Davy, love."
Concluding this old favorite air, she sang again, with sweetness, the witching song, "I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows."
Then rising from the harp, she said, with sweet accent and sweeter smile, "Now that I have bewitched you with my music, Mr. Marshall, I am ready for the promenade on the corridor."
These words so lightly spoken by the girl, were but the utterance of a truth of which she had no suspicion. George Marshall was indeed bewitched, and bowing a silent assent, he offered his arm to the enchantress, and soon Lizzie found herself among the dancers, who were seeking temporary relaxation from the exercise, scattered in groups here, there, and everywhere about the spacious building.
Out into the long balcony, where the silvery moonlight lay softly as dew upon the flowers, George Marshall led the way, with the young girl clinging timidly to the brave strong arm, that for months had known no tenderer touch than the cold, cruel steel of the musket, the constant companion of the cadet in the military course just closing.
They passed in silence through the corridor, and at last stood at the eastern end that overlooked the sea, stretching her arms around the child of her bosom, the devoted Queen City.
George Marshall, always taciturn, was now painfully silent. His brain, always quick and clear to comprehend a problem in Legendre, now seemed beclouded and sluggish. At length, embarrassed by the oppressive silence, Lizzie endeavored to arouse her companion by remarking,
"Are you fond of the sea, Mr. Marshall?"
Still gazing eastward over the deep, he replied abstractedly: