From Jest to Earnest Part 59

But Hemstead was overwhelmed and troubled at first, when he opened an envelope, and found a check for a thousand dollars, with the words:

"We send you this, not in any sense as compensation,--for we know enough of your character to recognize that you would have taken equal risks in behalf of the penniless,--but because we wish to be remembered by you, whom we can never forget. And we only request tint you invest this sum towards your library, so that, in coming years, the thoughts of your favorite authors may remind you of those whose best wishes, sincerest grat.i.tude, and highest esteem Will ever be yours.

"(Signed) HERBERT MARTELL, ALICE MARTELL."

"Now, Frank, what is the use of putting on such airs?" said Addie.

"You surely expected a handsome present from Mr. Martell."

"I a.s.sure you, I expected nothing of the kind," he replied, a trifle indignantly. "Why should I? As it is, I am doubtful whether I ought to accept it."

"Why should I?" Lottie echoed with a merry laugh. "That's like you.

But, unless you wish to hurt and wrong sincere friends very much, I advise you to keep it and do as they say. You are so exceedingly proud or humble--which shall I call it?--that I fear you neither expect, nor will take anything from me."

"Here is a queer-looking parcel for Frank Hemstead," said Mr.

Dimmerly, with his chuckling laugh.

With intense delight Lottie saw the student hesitate, and his hand tremble as he slowly began to open it.

"It's not a torpedo, or an infernal machine, that you need be in such trepidation," she whispered. "It won't go off."

"Is it from you?"

"Look and see."

It was a sermon holder, of rich, plain morocco without, but within, most elaborately embroidered. Most prominent among the rare and dainty devices was a single oar.

The expression of his face repaid her, as he examined it with a comical blending of reverence and affection, such as a devout Catholic would manifest towards a relic. In the blade of the oar were worked, with the most exquisite fineness, the words, "A True Knight." Within an inner pocket, where they could not be readily seen, were the words,

"With the thanks of Lottie Marsden."

But his quick scrutiny soon discovered them, and he turned and said, with an emphasis that did her good, "I value this more than the check."

"What folly!" she said, blus.h.i.+ng with pleasure; "it isn't worth five dollars."

"I can prove that it is worth more than the check," he said, in a low tone.

"How?"

"We value that gift most which we receive from the friend we value most. There; it is proved in a sentence; but I can prove it over again."

"What delightful lessons in logic! But you surely cannot prove it again."

"Yes. If the gift from the friend we value most contains evidence that thought and time have been expended upon it, that gift, however slight its market value, has a worth to us beyond price, because showing that the friend we love supremely thinks of us in our absence."

"I did put a great deal of time and thought in that little gift, but you have repaid me," Lottie answered.

Their brief but significant tete-a-tete was now interrupted by De Forrest, who came forward to thank Lottie for her costly gift to him,--a gift bought on Broadway. He had uneasily marked the fact that she had given something to Hemstead, but when he saw that it was only a sermon-cover, he was quite relieved.

"Come here, Frank, and show me your present," said Mr. Dimmerly, a little later.

Hemstead good-naturedly complied, and the old gentleman looked at the single embroidered oar, with a comical twinkle in his eye, and called again, "Lottie, come here."

She approached rather shyly and reluctantly, not knowing what to expect.

"Now, Lottie," said her uncle, reproachfully, pointing to the oar, "I did not expect that from so sensible a girl as you are. What is a man going to do with one oar, unless he is to take a lonely scull through life as I have? Did you mean to suggest that to Mr.

Hemstead?"

"Mr. Hemstead found out another meaning than that," she said, laughing, "and I'm not going to stay here to be teased by you"; and she ran out of the room, the picture of blus.h.i.+ng happiness.

When Hemstead again saw her it was with a great dread in his heart, and his tones were grave and almost stern.

"O--h--h, you found out another meaning, did you?" said Mr.

Dimmerly, looking both kindly and quizzically over his spectacles at his nephew.

"Well, uncle, to tell you the truth I hardly understand myself.

My visit here is a great contrast to my quiet seminary life, and I have been getting deeper and deeper into a maze of happy bewilderment every day. So much has happened, and I am so changed, that, like many in tales of enchantment, I scarcely know whether I am myself."

"I have seen the spell working," said Mr. Dimmerly, dryly, "and am thankful that the transformation has not been of the nature that Shakespeare portrayed in his Midsummer Night Fantasy. Your head might have become turned by the wrong girl, and you have reached the period when it is bound to be turned by some one."

"Uncle," he said, fervently, "she is the n.o.blest and most beautiful being in existence."

"Frank, I wish to see you," said his aunt, quietly; and he followed her to her own private sitting-room.

Mr. Dimmerly indulged in his chuckling laugh as he looked after them.

"Now she's going to 'stop' it, he--he--In the mean time I'll go out and stop the brook from running down hill."

"The time has come," said Mrs. Marchmont to her perplexed nephew, with the complacent superiority with which the wise of this world enlighten those whose "heads are often in the clouds,"--"the time has come when I must speak plainly to you of a matter as important as it is delicate. You are my own sister's child, and I cannot see you wronged or going blindly into trouble without warning you. Are you not permitting yourself to become interested in Miss Marsden to a degree that is not wise?"

"Why not wise?" he answered with burning cheeks.

"Have you not realized that she is one of the most fas.h.i.+onable young ladies in New York, and belongs to one of the wealthiest and most fas.h.i.+onable families? If you could but once see her mother you would understand me."

"But she herself has changed," he urged, eagerly.

Mrs. Marchmont smiled incredulously and pityingly. "How little you know the world!" she said. "In what do you expect all your sentiment to end? Only sentiment? You say you purpose being a home missionary. Can you imagine for a moment that one situated as she is would contemplate such a life? Her parents would as soon bury her."

Hemstead groaned under his aunt's remorseless words, but said in a sort of blind desperation: "Her parents! Is this Hindostan, that parents can treat their daughters as merchandise? A girl of Miss Marsden's force and n.o.bility of character--"

"O Frank, hus.h.!.+ It absolutely makes me sick to see one so easily deceived. 'n.o.bility of character,' indeed! Well, I didn't wish to speak of it. I could not believe it even of Lottie, but nothing less than the whole truth will convince you"; and she told him of the plot in which Lottie purposed to make him the ridiculous subject of a practical joke, and intimated that all her action since had been but the carrying out of that plot.

At first Hemstead grew deathly pale, and his aunt, thinking he was going to faint, began fumbling for her salts. But a moment later the blood suffused even his neck and brow, and he said pa.s.sionately, "I don't believe a word of this; Miss Marsden is not capable of such falsehood."

"Whether in your unreasoning pa.s.sion you will believe it or not makes no difference," said Mrs. Marchmont, quietly. "It is true, as I can prove by Addie and Miss Parton."

He took a few hasty strides up and down the room and muttered, "I will take her word against all the world. She shall answer for herself"; and he rang the bell.

When the servant appeared he said, "Please ask Miss Marsden to come here at once."