Nellie, too, was well beloved, but he soon grew weary of her company, for she seldom talked of anything save herself and the compliments which were given to her youthful beauty. And Nellie, at the age of eighteen, was beautiful, if that can be called beauty which is void of heart or soul or intellect. She was very small, and the profusion of golden curls which fell about her neck and shoulders gave her the appearance of being younger than she really was. Her features were almost painfully regular, her complexion dazzlingly brilliant, while her large blue eyes had in them a dreamy, languid expression exceedingly attractive to those who looked for nothing beyond--no inner chamber where dwell the graces which make a woman what she ought to be. Louis' artist eye, undeveloped though it was, acknowledged the rare loveliness of Nellie's face. She would make a beautiful picture, he thought; but for the noble, the good, the pure, he turned to the dark-eyed Maude, who was as wholly unlike her stepsister as it was possible for her to be. The one was a delicate blonde, the other a decided brunette, with hair and eyes of deepest black. Her complexion, too, was dark, but tinged with a beautiful red, which Nellie would gladly have transferred to her own paler cheek. It was around the mouth, however, the exquisitely shaped mouth, and white even teeth, that Maude's principal beauty lay, and the bright smile which lit up her features when at all animated in conversation would have made a plain face handsome. There were some who gave her the preference, saying there was far more beauty in her clear, beautiful eyes and sunny smile than in the dollish face of Nellie, who treated such remarks with the utmost scorn. She knew that she was beautiful. She had known it all her life--for had she not been told so by her mirror, her father, her schoolmates, her Aunt Kelsey, and more than all by J.C. De Vere, the elegant young man whom she had met in Rochester, where she had spent the winter preceding the summer of which we are writing, and which was four and one-half years after Matty's death.
Greatly had the young lady murmured on her return against the dreary old house and lonely life at Laurel Hill, which did indeed present a striking contrast to the city gayeties in which she had been mingling. Even the cozy little chamber which the kind-hearted Maude had fitted up for her with her own means was pronounced heathenish and old-fashioned, while Maude herself was constantly taunted with being countryfied and odd.
"I wish J.C. De Vere could see you now," she said one morning to her sister, who had donned her working dress, and with sleeves rolled up and wide checked apron tied around her waist was deep in the mysteries of bread making.
"I wish he could see her too," said Louis, who had rolled his chair into the kitchen so that he could be with Maude. "He would say he never saw a handsomer color than the red upon her cheeks."
"Pshaw!" returned Nellie. "I guess he knows the difference between rose-tint and sunburn. Why, he's the most fastidious man I ever saw.
He can't endure the smell of cooking, and says he would never look twice at a lady whose hands were not as soft and white as--well, as mine," and she glanced admiringly at the little snowy fingers, which were beating a tune upon the window-sill.
"I wants no better proof that he's a fool," muttered old Hannah, who looked upon Nellie as being what she really was, a vain, silly thing.
"A fool, Hannah," retorted Nellie; "I'd like to have Aunt Kelsey hear you say that. Why, he's the very best match in Rochester. All the girls are dying for him, but he don't care a straw for one of them. He's out of health now, and is coming here this summer with Aunt Kelsey, and then you'll see how perfectly refined he is. By the way, Maude, if I had as much money at my command as you have I'd fix up the parlor a little. You know father won't, and that carpet, I'll venture to say, was in the ark. I almost dread to have J.C. come, he's so particular; but then he knows we are rich, and beside that, Aunt Kelsey has told him just how stingy father is, so I don't care so much. Did I tell you J.C. has a cousin James, who may possibly come too. I never saw him, but Aunt Kelsey says he's the queerest man that ever lived. He never was known to pay the slightest attention to a woman unless she was married or engaged. He has a most delightful house at Hampton, where he lives with his mother; but he'll never marry, unless it is some hired girl who knows how to work. Why, he was once heard to say he would sooner marry a good-natured Irish girl than a fashionable city lady who knew nothing but to dress, and flirt, and play the piano--the wretch! "
"Oh! I know I should like him," exclaimed Louis, who had been an attentive listener.
"I dare say you would, and Maude, too," returned Nellie, adding, after a moment: "And I shouldn't wonder if Maude just suited him, particularly if he finds her up to her elbows in dough. So, Maude, it is for your interest to improve the old castle a little. Won't you buy a new carpet?" and she drew nearer to Maude, who made no direct reply.
The three hundred and fifty dollars interest money which she had received the year before had but little of it been expended on herself, though it had purchased many a comfort for the household, for Maude was generous, and freely gave what was her own to give.
The parlor carpet troubled even her, but she would not pledge herself to buy another until she had first tried her powers of persuasion upon the doctor, who, as she expected, refused outright.
"He knew the carpet was faded," he said, "but 'twas hardly worn at all, and 'twas a maxim of his to make things last as long as possible."
