In the first place Mr. Sydney came back to our horizon like a comet in a blaze of glory. The first harbinger of his return was not himself in propriâ, but cards for a croquet fête up at Clairmont got up with the last degree of elegance.

Mr. Sydney, it appears, understands the effect of a gilded frame to set off a picture, and so resolved to manifest himself to us in all his surroundings at Clairmont.

The party was to be very select and recherché, and of course everybody was just wild to go, and the Elmores in particular were on the qui vive to know if we had invitations before them. Sophia Elmore called down for nothing but to see. We had all the satisfaction there was to be got in showing her our cards and letting her know that they had come two days sooner than theirs. Aunt Maria contrived to give them to understand that Mr. Sydney gave the entertainment mostly on my account, which I think was assuming quite too much in the case. I am positively tired of these mean little rivalries and these races that are run between families.

It is thought that Sophia Elmore is quite fascinated by Mr. Sydney. Sophia is a nice, spirited girl, with a good, generous heart as I believe, and it's a thousand pities she shouldn't have him if she cares for him.

But, to my story. You may imagine the fuss at Tullegig's. Of course we belong to the class who live in the enjoyment of "nothing to wear," and the first result of a projected entertainment is to throw us all on our knees before Tullegig, who queens it over us accordingly.

I was just dying to find out if a certain person was to be there. Of late our intercourse has been so very stately and diplomatic that it really becomes exciting. He has avoided every appearance of intimacy, every approach to our old confidential standing, and yet apparently for the life of him cannot keep from taking views of me at safe distance; so, as I said, it was something to see if he would be there.

As to Clairmont, I think in the course of my life I have seen fine grounds, fine houses, fine furniture, and fine fêtes before. Nevertheless I must do Sydney the justice to say that he gave a most charming and beautiful entertainment where everything was just as lovely as could be. We went up on a splendid boat to the sound of music. We had a magnificent lunch under the trees, and there were arrangements for four games to go on at once, which made a gay and animated tableau. All the girls wore the prettiest costumes you can imagine, each one seeming prettier than the other; and when they were all moving about in the game it made a bright, cheerful effect. Mr. Henderson was there and distinguished himself to such a degree that he was appointed one of the four who were to play a match-game, in conclusion, for a prize. Curiously enough he played with Sophia against Sydney and myself. How we did fight! Sophie is one of these girls that feel everything to the tips of their fingers, and I am another, and if we didn't make those men bestir themselves! I fancy they found women rulers were of a kind to keep men pretty busy.

I can imagine the excitement we women would make of an election if we should ever get into politics. Would we not croquet our adversaries' balls, and make stunning split-shots in parties, and wire ourselves artfully behind wickets, and do all sorts of perplexing things? I confess if the excitement should get to be half as great as in playing croquet, I should tremble to think of it.

Well, it was some excitement at all events to play against each other, he and I. Didn't I seek out his ball, didn't I pursue it, beat it back from wickets, come on it with most surprising and unexpected shots? Sophie fought with desperation on the other side, and at last they seemed to have carried the day, there was but one stroke wanting to put them out; they had killed Sydney at the stake and banished me to the farthest extremity of the ground. Mamma always said I had the genius for emergencies, and if you'll believe me I struck quite across the ground and hit Sophie's ball and sent it out, and then I took his back to make my two last wickets with, and finally with an imposing coup de théâtre I croqueted him to the other end of the ground, and went out amid thunders of applause. He took it with great presence of mind, knelt down and laid the mallet handsomely at my feet, and professed to deliver himself captive, and I imposed it on him as a task to write a ballad descriptive of the encounter. So he was shut up for about half an hour in the library, and came out with a very fine and funny ballad in Chevy Chase measure describing our exploits, which was read under the trees, and cheered and encored in the liveliest manner possible.

On the whole, Mr. Henderson may be said to have had quite a society success yesterday, as I heard him very much admired, and the Elmores overwhelmed him with pressing invitations to call, to come to their soirées, etc., etc. You see these Elmores have everything money can buy, and so they are distracted to be literary, or at least to have literary people in their train, and they have always been wanting to get Henderson and Jim Fellows to their receptions. So I heard Mrs. Elmore overwhelming him with compliments on his poem in a way that quite amused me, for I knew enough of him to know exactly how all this seemed to him. He is of all persons one of the most difficult to flatter, and has the keenest sense of the ridiculous; and Mrs. Elmore's style is as if one should empty a bushel basket of peaches or grapes on your head instead of passing the fruit dish.

But I am so busy traducing my neighbors that I forgot to say I won the croquet prize, which was duly presented. It was a gold croquet mallet set as a pin with four balls of emerald, amethyst, ruby, and topaz depending from it. It had quite an Etruscan effect and was very pretty, but when I saw how much Sophia really took the defeat to heart, my soul was moved for her and I made a peace-offering by getting her to accept it. It was not easy at first, but I made a point of it and insisted upon it with all my logic, telling her that in point of skill she had really won the game, that my last stroke was only a lucky accident, and you know I can generally talk people into almost anything I set my heart on, and so as Sophie was flattered by my estimate of her skill and as the bauble is a pretty one, I prevailed on her to take it. I am tired and sick of this fuss between the Elmores and us, and don't mean to have more of it, for Sophie really is a nice girl, and not a bit more spoiled than any of the rest of us, notwithstanding all the nonsense of her family, and she and I have agreed to be fast friends for the future, whatever may come.

I had one other motive in this move. I never have accepted jewelry from Sydney, and I was quite willing to be rid of this. If I could only croquet his heart down to Sophie to use, it might be a nice thing. I fancy she would like it.

I managed my cards quite adroitly all day to avoid a tête-à-tête interview with Sydney. I was careful always to be in the center of a group of two or three, and when he asked me to walk through the conservatories with him I said, "Come, Amy and Jane," and took them along.

As to somebody else, he made no attempt of the kind, though I could see that he saw me wherever I went. Do these creatures suppose we don't see their eyes, and fancy that they conceal their feelings? I am perfectly certain that whatever the matter is, he thinks as much of me as ever he did.

Well, it was moonlight and music all the way home, the band playing the most heart-breaking, entrancing harmonies from Beethoven and melodies from Schubert, and then Wat Sydney annoyed me beyond measure by keeping up a distracting chit-chat when I wanted to be quiet and listen. He cares nothing for music, and people who don't are like flies, they have no mercy and never will leave you a quiet moment. The other one went off and sat by himself, gazed at the moon and heard the music all in the most proper and romantic style, and looked like a handsome tenor at an opera.

So far, my dear, the history of our affairs. But something more surprising than ever you heard has just happened, and I must hasten to jot it down.

Yesterday afternoon, being worried and wearied with the day before, I left your letter, as you see, and teased Ida to go out driving with me in the Park. She had promised Effie St. Clere to sketch some patterns of arbors and garden seats that are there, for her new place at Fern Valley, and I had resolved on a lonely ramble to clear my heart and brain.

Moreover, the last time I was there I saw from one of the bridges a very pretty cascade falling into a charming little wooded lake in the distance. I resolved to go in search of this same cascade which is deep in a shady labyrinth of paths.

Well, it was a most lovely perfect day, and we left our carriage at the terrace and started off for our ramble, Ida with her sketch-book in hand. She was very soon hard at work at a rustic summer-house while I plunged into a woody tangle of paths guided only by the distant sound of the cascades. It was toward evening and the paths seemed quite solitary, for I met not a creature. I might really have thought I was among the ferns and white birches up in Conway, or anywhere in the mountains, it was so perfectly mossy and wild and solitary. A flock of wild geese seemed to be making an odd sort of outlandish noise, far in a deep, dark tangle of bushes, and it appeared to me to produce the impression of utter solitude more than anything else. Evidently it was a sort of wild lair seldom invaded. I still heard the noise of the cascade through a thicket of leaves, but could not get a sight of it. Sometimes it seemed near and sometimes far off, but at last I thought I hit upon a winding path that seemed to promise to take me to it. It wound round a declivity and I could tell by the sound I was approaching the water. I was quite animated and ran forward till a sudden turn brought me to the head of the cascade where there was a railing and one seat, and as I came running down I saw suddenly a man with a book in his hand sitting on this seat, and it was Mr. Henderson.

He rose up when he saw me and looked pale, but an expression of perfectly rapturous delight passed over his face as I checked myself astonished.

"Miss Van Arsdel!" he said. "To what happy fate do I owe this good fortune!"

I recovered myself and said that "I was not aware of any particular good fortune in the case."

"Not to you, perhaps," he said, "but to me. I have seen nothing of you for so long," he added, rather piteously.

"There has been nothing that I am aware of to prevent your seeing me," I said. "If Mr. Henderson chooses to make himself strange to his friends it is his own affair." He looked confused and murmured something about "many engagements and business."

"Mr. Henderson, you will excuse me," said I, resolved not to have this sort of thing go on any longer. "You have always been treated at our house as an intimate and valued friend; of late you seem to prefer to act like a ceremonious stranger."

"Indeed, you mistake me, entirely, Miss Van Arsdel," he said, eagerly. "You must know my feelings; you must appreciate my reasons; you see why I cannot and ought not."

"I am quite in the dark as to both," I said. "I cannot see any reason why we should not be on the old footing, I am sure. You have acted of late as if you were afraid to meet me; it is all perfectly unaccountable to me. Why should you do so? What reason can there be?"

"Because," he said, with a sort of desperation, "because I love you, Miss Van Arsdel. Because I always shall love you too well to associate with you as the wife or betrothed bride of another man."

"There is no occasion you should, Mr. Henderson. I am not, so far as I understand, either wife or betrothed to any man," I said.

He looked perfectly thunderstruck.

"Yet I heard it from the best authority."

"From what authority?" said I, "for I deny it."

"Your mother."

"My mother?" I was thunderstruck in my turn; here it was to be sure. Poor mamma! I saw through the whole mystery.

"Your mother told me," he went on, "that there was a tacit engagement which was to be declared on Mr. Sydney's return, and cautioned me against an undue intimacy."

"My mother," I said, "has done her utmost to persuade me to this engagement. I refused Mr. Sydney out and out in the beginning. She persuaded me to allow him to continue his attentions in hope of changing my mind, but it never has changed."

He grew agitated and spoke very quickly.

"Oh, tell me, Miss Van Arsdel, if I may hope for success in making the same effort?"

"I shouldn't be surprised if you might," said I.

There followed a sort of electric flash and a confusion of wild words after this – really my dear I cannot remember half what he said – only the next I knew, somehow, we were walking arm in arm together.

"What a talk we had, and what a walk up and down those tangled alleys! going over everything and explaining everything. It was a bright long twilight and the great silver moon rose upon us while yet we were talking. After a while I heard Ida calling up and down the paths for me. She came up and met us with her sketch-book under her arm."

"Ida, we're engaged, Harry and I," I said.

"So I thought," she said, looking at us kindly and stretching out both hands.

I took one and he the other.

"Do you think I have any chance with your parents?" asked Harry.

"I think," said Ida, "that you will find trouble at first, but you may rely on Eva, she will never change; but we must go home."

"Yes," said I, "it would not do to introduce the matter by getting up a domestic alarm and sending a party to drag the lake for us; we must drive home in a peaceable, orderly manner," and so, it being agreed among us that I should try my diplomatic powers on mamma first, and Harry should speak to papa afterward, we drove home.

Well, now Belle, it is all over – the mystery I mean; and the struggle with the powers, that bids to begin. How odd it is that marriage, which is a thing of all others most personal and individual, is a thing where all your friends want you to act to please them!

Mamma probably in her day felt toward papa just as I feel, but I am sure she will be drowned in despair that I cannot see Wat Sydney with her eyes, and that I do choose to see Harry with mine. But it isn't mamma that is to live with him, it is I; it is my fearful venture for life, not hers. I am to give the right to have and to hold me till life's end. When I think of that I wonder I am not afraid to risk it with any man, but with him I am not. I know him so intimately and trust him so entirely.

What a laugh I gave him last night, telling him how foolishly he had acted; he likes to have me take him off, and seemed perfectly astonished that I had had the perspicuity to read his feelings. These men, my dear, have a kind of innocent stupidity in matters of this kind that is refreshing!

Well, if I am not mistaken, there was one blissful individual sent home in New York last night, notwithstanding the terrors of the 'stern parents,' that are yet to be encountered.

How I do chatter on! Well, my dear Belle, you see I have kept my word. I always told you that I would let you know when I was engaged, the very first of any one, and now here it is. You may make the most of it and tell whom you please, for I shall never change. I am as firm as Ben Lomond.

Ever your loving

Eva.

CHAPTER XXXV.
DOMESTIC CONSULTATIONS

On the afternoon after the croquet party Aunt Maria Wouvermans and Mrs. Van Arsdel, withdrawn to the most confidential recess of the house, held mysterious council.

"Well, Nelly," said Aunt Maria, "how did you think things looked yesterday?"

"I thought a crisis was impending, but after all nothing came. But you see, Maria," said Mrs. Van Arsdel, "that girl! she is the most peculiar creature. She wouldn't give him the least chance; she just held herself away from him. Two or three times I tried to arrange that they should be alone together, but she wouldn't. She would keep Susan and Jane Seaton at her elbow as if they had been glued to her."

"It was so provoking," said Aunt Maria, "because all the Elmores were there watching and whispering. Those Elmores are in such an elated state on account of the wedding in their family. You'd really think it was a royal marriage at the very least; and they whisper about and talk as if we had been trying to catch Sydney and couldn't; that's what provokes me! they were all on tiptoe watching every turn, and I did long to be able to come down on them with an announcement! What ails Eva? Of course she must mean to have him; no girl at her age would be fool enough to refuse such an offer; you see she's three-and-twenty."

"Well, if you'll believe me, Eva actually went and gave that croquet pin Sydney gave her to Sophie Elmore! I overheard her urging it on her, and he overheard it too, and I know he didn't like it; it was so very marked a thing, you see!"

"Eva gave that pin to Sophie Elmore! The girl is crazy. She is too provoking for anything! I can't think what it is, Nelly, makes your girls so singular."

Mrs. Wouvermans, it will appear, was one of that very common class of good people who improve every opportunity to show how very senseless their neighbors are compared with themselves. The sole and only reason, as might be gathered from her remarks, why anything disagreeable happened to anybody, was because they did not do, or had not done just as she should have done in their circumstances.

Now Mrs. Van Arsdel, though conceding in general that sister Maria was stronger and brighter than herself, was somewhat rebellious under the process of having it insisted in detail that every unfortunate turn of affairs was her fault, and so she answered with some spirit.

"I don't see that my girls are any more singular than other people's. Very few mothers have brought up nicer girls than mine. Everybody says so."

"And I say, Nelly, they are peculiar," insisted Mrs. Wouvermans. "There's Ida going off at her tangent! and Miss Eva! Well! one thing, it isn't my fault. I've done the very best I could in instructing them! It must come from the Van Arsdel side of the house. I'm sure in our family girls never made so much trouble. We all grew up sensible, and took the very best offer we had, and were married and went about our duties without any fuss. Though of course we never had a chance like this."

"Now, I shouldn't wonder in the least," said Mrs. Van Arsdel, "if Sydney should fly off to Sophie Elmore. It's evident that she is perfectly infatuated with him! and you know men's hearts are caught on the rebound very often."

"Oh, yes," said Aunt Maria, "I shouldn't wonder, just as Jerold Macy flew off to Blanche Sinclair, when Edith Enderly coquetted so with him. He never would have gone to Blanche in the world if Edith had not thrown him off. Edith was sorry enough afterward when it was too late to help it."

"I declare," said Mrs. Van Arsdel, "one never knows what trouble is till one has girls at the marrying age!"

"It's all your own fault," said Aunt Maria, "you indulge them too much. For my part," she continued, "I like the French way of arranging these things. It ought not to be left to the choice of a young silly girl. The parents ought to arrange for her, and then the thing is settled without any trouble. Of course people of experience in mature life can choose better for a girl than she can choose for herself! Our girls in America have too much liberty. If I had daughters to bring up I should bring them up so that they would never think of disputing what I told them."

"So you are always saying, Maria," said Mrs. Van Arsdel, "it's quite safe to say what you'll do when you haven't any, but it's very provoking to me. I only wish you had Ida and Eva to manage."

"I only wish I had!" said Aunt Maria. "I should have had them both well married by this time. There shouldn't be any of this kind of nonsense that you allow. I'd set down my foot. I wouldn't have it. My daughters should obey me. You let them make a perfect nose-of-wax of you. They treat you in any way they please."

"You always think so much of yourself, Maria, and whatever happens you turn round and blame me. I wish to mercy you'd had children and then you'd see! People who haven't are always delighted with themselves and always criticising people who have. If you had a family of children to manage they'd soon bring you down."

"Well, Nelly, you'll just see, you'll have a lot of old maids on your hands, that's all," said Aunt Maria. "Ida is a gone case now, and Eva is on the certain road. Girls that are so difficult and romantic and can't tell their own mind are sure to make old maids at last. There was Ellen Gilliflower, and Jane Seabright, they might both have had houses and horses and carriages of their own if they had taken offers when they could get them."

"You know poor Jane lost her lover."

"To be sure. Well, he was dead, wasn't he? and she couldn't marry him, but was that any reason why she never should marry anybody? There was John Smithson would have put her at the head of one of the best establishments about New York, and she might have had her own coupé and horses just as Mrs. Smithson does now. It's all this ridiculous idea about loving. Why, girls can love anybody they'd a mind to, and if I had a daughter she should."

"Oh! I don't know, Maria," said Mrs. Van Arsdel. "I think it is a pretty serious thing to force a daughter's affections."

"Fiddlestick upon affections, Nelly, don't you begin to talk. It makes me perfectly sick to hear the twaddle about it. People in good circumstances always like each other well enough, and any girl can get along with any man that puts her in a good position and takes good care of her. If Ida had been made to marry a good man when she first came out of school she never would have gone off at all these tangents, and she'd have been a contented woman, and so would Eva. She ought to be made to marry Wat Sydney, it is a tempting of Providence to let the thing drag on so. Now, if Sydney was like Sim Rivington, I wouldn't say a word. I think Polly's conduct is perfectly abominable, and if Sim goes on getting drunk and raises a hell upon earth at home Polly may just have herself to thank for it, for she was told all about him. She did it with her eyes open, but Eva's case is different."

At this moment the door-bell rung, and the waiter brought in a letter on a silver salver. Both ladies pounced upon it, and Aunt Maria saying, "It's to you, from Sydney," eagerly broke it open and began reading.

"I should think, sister," said Mrs. Van Arsdel, in an injured tone, "I might be allowed the first reading of my own letters."

"Oh, pshaw, don't be so peevish," said Aunt Maria, pushing it petulantly toward her. "If you don't want me to take any interest in your affairs I'm sure I don't see why I should. I'll go, and you may manage them yourself."

"But, Maria," said poor Mrs. Van Arsdel, apologetically, "one naturally has the wish to see one's own letters first."

"Well, mercy on us, child, don't be in a passion about it," said Aunt Maria, "you've got your letter, haven't you? Do read it, and you'll see it's just as I thought. That girl has offended him with her airs and graces, and he is just on the point of giving her up."

"But, you see, he says that he still desires to propose to her," said Mrs. Van Arsdel, reading, "only that as her manner to him is so marked he does not wish to expose himself to another refusal."

"Well," said Aunt Maria, "now you see, Nelly, after all, that letter leaves the game in Eva's own hands. If now she will behave herself and let you invite him to an interview and treat him properly, it can all be settled. The letter, in fact, amounts to a proposal in form. Now, Nelly, that girl must be made to behave herself. I wish I could put some pluck into you; you must be decided with her."

"It's of no use, sister, you don't know Eva. She's an easy child to be coaxed, but she has a terrible will of her own. The only way to manage her is through her affections. I can't bear to cross her, for she always was a good child."

"Well, then, tell her just how critical the state of the family is. She may have it in her power to save her father from failure. It may be just life or death with us all. Put it to her strongly. It would be a pretty thing, indeed, if instead of being mistress of Clairmont and that place at Newport, we should all be driven to take second-rate houses and live like nobodies, just for her foolish fancies. You ought to frighten her, Nelly. Set it out strongly. Appeal to her affections."

"Well, I shall do my best," said Mrs. Van Arsdel.

"Where is she? let me talk with her," said Aunt Maria.

"She and Ida are both gone driving in the Park this afternoon, but after all, sister, I think I had best manage it. I think I understand Eva better than you do. She would do more for me than for anybody, I think, for the child is very affectionate."

"There can't be anybody else in the case, can there?" said Aunt Maria. "I began to think it rather imprudent to have that Henderson round so much, but of late he seems to have stopped coming."

"I flatter myself, I managed him," said Mrs. Van Arsdel, with complacency. "I gave him a little motherly admonition that had a wonderful effect. After all it was a duty I owed to him, poor youth! Eva is wonderfully fascinating, and I could see he was getting too much interested in her. I have a regard for him. He is a nice fellow."

"I intended to have him take Ida," said Aunt Maria. "That would have been the proper thing to do."

"Well, Maria, I should think you might have found out by this time that everybody in the world isn't going to walk in the ways you mark out for them."

"It would be better for them if they would," said Aunt Maria. "If I had had the bringing up of your children from the beginning, Nelly, and you had never interfered, I think you would have seen results that you never will see now. It seems mysterious that Providence shouldn't send children to those best fitted to bring them up. Well, you must do the best you can. What time is it? Dear me, it is almost dinner time and I have a new table girl to-day. I expect she'll have everything topsy-turvey. I'll call round to-morrow to see how things come on."