The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales Part 12

"Julia Heathcote," answered Charles, with a half sigh, "an old flame of mine. I proposed, but she refused me."

"On what ground?"

"Simply because I had a comfortable income. Her head is full of romantic notions, and she dreams of nothing but love in a cottage. She contends that poverty is essential to happiness--and money its bane."

"Have you given up all hopes of her?"

"Entirely; in fact, I'm engaged."

"Then you have no objections to my addressing this dear, romantic angel?"

"None whatever. But I see my _fiancee_--excuse me--I must walk through the next quadrille with her."

Frank Belmont was a stranger in Boston--a New Yorker--immensely rich and fas.h.i.+onable, but his reputation had not preceded him, and Charley Hastings was the only man who knew him in New England. He procured an introduction to the beauty from one of the managers, and soon danced and talked himself into her good graces. In fact, it was a clear case of love at first sight on both sides.

The enamoured pair were sitting apart, enjoying a most delightful _tete-a-tete_. Suddenly Belmont heaved a deep sigh.

"Why do you sigh, Mr. Belmont?" asked the fair Julia, somewhat pleased with this proof of sensibility. "Is not this a gay scene?"

"Alas! yes," replied Belmont, gloomily; "but fate does not permit me to mingle habitually in scenes like this. They only make my ordinary life doubly gloomy--and even here I deem to see the shadow of a fiend waving me away. What right have I to be here?"

"What fiend do you allude to?" asked Miss Heathcote, with increasing interest.

"A fiend hardly presentable in good society," replied Belmont, bitterly. "One could tolerate a Mephistophiles--a dignified fiend, with his pockets full of money--but my tormentor, if personified, would appear with seedy boots and a shocking bad hat."

"How absurd!"

"It is too true," sighed Belmont, "and the name of this fiend is _Poverty_!"

"Are you poor?"

"Yes, madam. I am poor, and when I would fain render myself agreeable in the eyes of beauty--in the eyes of one I could love, this fiend whispers me, 'Beware! you have nothing to offer her but love in a cottage.'"

"Mr. Belmont," said Julia, with sparkling eyes, and a voice of unusual animation, "although there are sordid souls in this world, who only judge of the merits of an individual by his pecuniary possessions, I am not one of that number. I respect poverty; there is something highly poetical about it, and I imagine that happiness is oftener found in the humble cottage than beneath the palace roof."

Belmont appeared enchanted with this encouraging avowal. The next day, after cautioning his friend Charley to say nothing of his actual circ.u.mstances, he called on the widow Heathcote and her fair daughter in the character of the "poor gentleman." The widow had very different notions from her romantic offspring, and when Belmont candidly confessed his poverty on soliciting permission to address Julia, he was very politely requested to change the subject, and never mention it again.

The result of all this manoeuvring was an elopement; the belle of the ball jumping out of a chamber window on a shed, and coming down a flight of steps to reach her lover, for the sake of being romantic, when she might just as well have walked out of the front door.

The happy couple pa.s.sed a day in New York city, and then Frank took his beloved to his "cottage."

An Irish hack conveyed them to a miserable shanty in the environs of New York, where they alighted, and Frank, escorting the bride into the apartment which served for parlor, kitchen, and drawing room, and was neither papered nor carpeted, introduced her to his mother, much in the way Claude Melnotte presents Pauline. The old woman, who was peeling potatoes, hastily wiped her hands and face with a greasy ap.r.o.n, and saluted her "darter," as she called her, on both cheeks.

"Can it be possible," thought Julia, "that this vulgar creature is my Belmont's mother?"

"Frank!" screamed the old woman, "you'd better go right up stairs and take off them clothes--for the boy's been sent arter 'em more'n fifty times. Frank borried them clothes, ma'am," she added to Julia, by way of explanation, "to look smart when he went down east."

The bridegroom retired on this hint, and soon reappeared in a pair of faded nankeen pantaloons, reaching to about the calf of the leg, a very shabby black coat, out at the elbows, a ragged black vest, and, instead of his varnished leather boots, a pair of immense cowhide brogans.

"Now," said he, sitting quietly down by the cooking stove, "I begin to feel at home. Ah! this is delightful, isn't it, dearest?" and he warbled,--

"Though never so humble, there's no place like home."

Julia's heart swelled so that she could not utter a word.

"Dearest," said Frank, "I think you told me you had no objection to smoking?"

"None in the least," said the bride; "I rather like the flavor of a cigar."

"O, a cigar!" replied Belmont; "that would never do for a poor man."

And O, horror! he produced an old clay pipe, and filling it from a little newspaper parcel of tobacco, began to smoke with a keen relish.

"Dinner! dinner!" he exclaimed at length; "ah! thank you, mother; I'm as hungry as a bear. Codfish and potatoes, Julia--not very tempting fare--but what of that? our aliment is love!"

"Yes, and by way of treat," added the old woman, "I've been and gone and bought a whole pint of Albany ale, and three cream cakes, from the candy shop next block."

Poor Julia pleaded indisposition, and could not eat a mouthful. Before Belmont, however, the codfish and potatoes, and the ale, and cream cakes disappeared with a very unromantic and unlover-like velocity. At the close of the meal, a thundering double knock was heard at the door.

"Come in!" cried Belmont.

A low-browed man, in a green waistcoat, entered.

"Now, Misther Belmont," he exclaimed, in a strong Hibernian accent, "are ye ready to go to work? By the powers! if I don't see ye sailed to-morrow on the s...o...b..ard, I'll discharge ye without a character--and ye shall starve on the top of that."

"To-morrow morning, Mr. Maloney," replied Belmont, meekly, "I'll be at my post."

"And it'll be mighty healthy for you to do that same," replied the man as he retired.

"Belmont, speak--tell me," gasped Julia, "who is that man--that loafer?"

"He is my employer," answered Belmont, smiling.

"And his profession?"

"He is a tailor."

"And you?"

"Am a journeyman tailor, at your service--a laborious and thankless calling it ever was to me--but now, dearest, as I drive the hissing goose across the smoking seam, I shall think of my own angel and my dear cottage, and be happy."

That night Julia retired weeping to her room in the attic.

"That 'ere counterpin, darter," said the old woman, "I worked with these here old hands. Ain't it putty? I hope you'll sleep well here.

There's a broken pane of gla.s.s, but I've put one of Frank's old hats in it, and I don't think you'll feel the draught. There used to be a good many rats here, but I don't think they'll trouble you now, for Frank's been a pizinin' of 'em."

Left alone, Julia threw herself into a chair, and burst into a flood of tears. Even Belmont had ceased to be attractive in her eyes--the stern privations that surrounded her banished all thoughts of love.

The realities of life had cured her in one day of all her Quixotic notions.