"Confound them all, I don't care what they, say," and J.C. drove his knife-blade into the pine table, while he gave his reasons for having chosen Maude in preference to Nellie, or anyone else he had ever seen. "There's something to her," said he, "and with her for my wife I shall make a decent man. What would Nellie and I do together--when neither of us know anything--about business, I mean," he added, while Mrs. Kelsey rejoined, "I always intended that you would live with me, and I had that handsome suite of rooms arranged expressly for Nellie and her future husband. I have no children, and my niece will inherit my property."
This, under some circumstances, would have strongly tempted the young man; nay, it might perchance have tempted him then, had not the deep tones of the organ at that moment have reached his ear. It was the night when Maude usually rehearsed for the coming Sabbath, and soon after her interview with her sister she had gone to the church where she sought to soothe her ruffled spirits by playing a most plaintive air. The music was singularly soft and sweet, and the heart of J.C. De Vere trembled to the sound, for he knew it was Maude who played--Maude, who out-weighed the tempting bait which Mrs. Kelsey offered, and with a magnanimity quite astonishing to himself he answered, "Poverty with Maude, rather than riches with another!"
"Be it so, then," was Mrs. Kelsey's curt reply, "but when in the city you blush at your bride's awkwardness don't expect me to lend a helping hand, for Maude Remington cannot by me be recognized as an equal," and the proud lady swept from the room, wearing a deeply injured look, as if she herself had been refused instead of her niece.
"Let me off easier than I supposed," muttered J.C., as he watched her cross the street and enter Dr. Kennedy's gate. "It will be mighty mean, though, if she does array herself against my wife, for Madam Kelsey is quoted everywhere, and even Mrs. Lane, who lives just opposite, dare not open her parlor blinds until assured by ocular demonstration that Mrs. Kelsey's are open too. Oh, fashion, fashion, what fools you make of your votaries! I am glad that I for one dare break your chain and marry whom I please," and feeling more amiably disposed toward J.C. De Vere than he had felt for many a day, the young man started for the church, where to his great joy he found Maude alone.
She was not surprised to see him, nay, she was half expecting him, and the flush which deepened on her cheek as he came to her side showed that his presence was not unwelcome. Human nature is the same everywhere, and though Maude was perhaps as free from its weaknesses as almost anyone, the fact that her lover was so greatly coveted by others increased rather than diminished her regard for him, and when he told her what had passed between himself and Mrs. Kelsey, and urged her to give him a right to defend her against that haughty woman's attacks by engaging herself to him at once, she was more willing to tell him Yes than she had been in the morning. Thoughts of James De Vere did not trouble her now--he had ceased to remember her ere this--had never been more interested in her than in any ordinary acquaintance, and so, though she knew she could be happier with him than with the one who with his arm around her waist was pleading for her love, she yielded at last, and in that dim old church, with the summer moonlight stealing up the dusky aisles, she promised to be the wife of J.C. De Vere on her eighteenth birthday.
Very pleasant now it seemed sitting there alone with him in the silent church. Very pleasant walking with him down the quiet street, and when her chamber was reached, and Louis, to whom she told her story, whispered in her ear, "I am glad that is so," she thought it very nice to be engaged, and was conscious of a happier, more independent feeling than she had ever known before. It seemed so strange that she, an unpretending country girl, had won the heart that many a city maiden had tried in vain to win, and then with a pang she thought of Nellie, wondering what excuse she could render her for having stolen J.C. away.
"But he will stand between us," she said; "he will shield me from her anger," and grateful for so potent a protector, she fell asleep, dreaming alas, not of J.C., but of him who called her Cousin Maude, and whose cousin she really was to be.
J.C. De Vere, too, had dreams of a dark-eyed girl, who, in the shadowy church, with the music she had made still vibrating on the ear, had promised to be his. Dreams, too, he had of a giddy throng who scoffed at the dark-eyed girl, calling her by the name which he himself had given her. It was not meet, they said, that he should wed the "Milkman's Heiress," but with a nobleness of soul unusual in him, he paid no heed to their remarks, and folded the closer to his heart the bride which he had chosen.
Alas! that dreams so often prove untrue.
