"A very sagacious little imp," laughed Mrs. Glendinning.
"Impertinent little rascal," cried Pierre.
"And am I not now the silliest of all silly girls, to be telling you my adventures so very frankly," smiled Lucy.
"No; but the most celestial of all innocents," cried Pierre, in a rhapsody of delight. "Frankly open is the flower, that hath nothing but purity to show."
"Now, my dear little Lucy," said Mrs. Glendinning, "let Pierre take off your shawl, and come now and stay to tea with us. Pierre has put back the dinner so, the tea-hour will come now very soon."
"Thank you; but I can not stay this time. Look, I have forgotten my own errand; I brought these strawberries for you, Mrs. Glendinning, and for Pierre;-Pierre is so wonderfully fond of them."
"I was audacious enough to think as much," cried Pierre; "for you and me, you see, mother; for you and me, you understand that, I hope."
"Perfectly, my dear brother."
Lucy blushed.
"How warm it is, Mrs. Glendinning."
"Very warm, Lucy. So you won't stay to tea?"
"No, I must go now; just a little stroll, that's all; good-bye! Now don't be following me, Pierre. Mrs. Glendinning, will you keep Pierre back? I know you want him; you were talking over some private affair when I entered; you both looked so very confidential."
"And you were not very far from right, Lucy," said Mrs. Glendinning, making no sign to stay her departure.
"Yes, business of the highest importance," said Pierre, fixing his eyes upon Lucy significantly.
At this moment, Lucy just upon the point of her departure, was hovering near the door; the setting sun, streaming through the window, bathed her whole form in golden loveliness and light; that wonderful, and most vivid transparency of her clear Welsh complexion, now fairly glowed like rosy snow. Her flowing, white, blue-ribboned dress, fleecily invested her. Pierre almost thought that she could only depart the house by floating out of the open window, instead of actually stepping from the door. All her aspect to him, was that moment touched with an indescribable gayety, buoyancy, fragility, and an unearthly evanescence.
Youth is no philosopher. Not into young Pierre's heart did there then come the thought, that as the glory of the rose endures but for a day, so the full bloom of girlish airiness and bewitchingness, passes from the earth almost as soon; as jealously absorbed by those frugal elements, which again incorporate that translated girlish bloom, into the first expanding flower-bud. Not into young Pierre, did there then steal that thought of utmost sadness; pondering on the inevitable evanescence of all earthly loveliness; which makes the sweetest things of life only food for ever-devouring and omnivorous melancholy. Pierre's thought was different from this, and yet somehow akin to it.
This to be my wife? I that but the other day weighed an hundred and fifty pounds of solid avoirdupois;-I to wed this heavenly fleece? Methinks one husbandly embrace would break her airy zone, and she exhale upward to-that heaven whence she hath hither come, condensed to mortal sight. It cannot be; I am of heavy earth, and she of airy light. By heaven, but marriage is an impious thing!
Meanwhile, as these things ran through his soul, Mrs. Glendinning also had thinkings of her own.
"A very beautiful tableau," she cried, at last, artistically turning her gay head a little sideways-"very beautiful, indeed; this, I suppose, is all premeditated for my entertainment. Orpheus finding his Eurydice; or Pluto stealing Proserpine. Admirable! It might almost stand for either."
"No," said Pierre, gravely; "it is the last. Now, first I see a meaning there." Yes, he added to himself inwardly, I am Pluto stealing Proserpine; and every accepted lover is.
"And you would be very stupid, brother Pierre, if you did not see something there," said his mother, still that way pursuing her own different train of thought. "The meaning thereof is this: Lucy has commanded me to stay you; but in reality she wants you to go along with her. Well, you may go as far as the porch; but then, you must return, for we have not concluded our little affair, you know. Adieu, little lady!"
There was ever a slight degree of affectionate patronizing in the manner of the resplendent, full-blown Mrs. Glendinning, toward the delicate and shrinking girlhood of young Lucy. She treated her very much as she might have treated some surpassingly beautiful and precocious child; and this was precisely what Lucy was. Looking beyond the present period, Mrs. Glendinning could not but perceive, that even in Lucy's womanly maturity, Lucy would still be a child to her; because, she, elated, felt, that in a certain intellectual vigor, so to speak, she was the essential opposite of Lucy, whose sympathetic mind and person had both been cast in one mold of wondrous delicacy. But here Mrs. Glendinning was both right and wrong. So far as she here saw a difference between herself-and Lucy Tartan, she did not err; but so far-and that was very far-as she thought she saw her innate superiority to her in the absolute scale of being, here she very widely and immeasurably erred. For what may be artistically styled angelicalness, this is the highest essence compatible with created being; and angelicalness hath no vulgar vigor in it. And that thing which very often prompts to the display of any vigor- which thing, in man or woman, is at bottom nothing but ambition-this quality is purely earthly, and not angelical. It is false, that any angels fell by reason of ambition. Angels never fall; and never feel ambition. Therefore, benevolently, and affectionately, and ail-sincerely, as thy heart, oh, Mrs. Glendinning! now standest affected toward the fleecy Lucy; still, lady, thou dost very sadly mistake it, when the proud, double-arches of the bright breastplate of thy bosom, expand with secret triumph over one, whom thou so sweetly, but still so patronizingly stylest, The Little Lucy.
But ignorant of these further insights, that very superb-looking lady, now waiting Pierre's return from the portico door, sat in a very matronly revery; her eyes fixed upon the decanter of amber-hued wine before her. Whether it was that she somehow saw some lurking analogical similitude between that remarkably slender, and gracefully cut little pint-decanter, brimfull of light, golden wine, or not, there is no absolute telling now. But really, the peculiarly, and reminiscently, and forecastingly complacent expression of her beaming and benevolent countenance, seemed a tell-tale of some conceit very much like the following:-Yes, she's a very pretty little pint-decanter of a girclass="underline" a very pretty little Pale Sherry pint-decanter of a girl; and I–I'm a quart-decanter of-of-Port — potent Port! Now, Sherry for boys, and Port for men-so I've heard men say; and Pierre is but a boy; but when his father wedded me, — why, his father was turned of five-and-thirty years.
After a little further waiting for him, Mrs. Glendinning heard Pierre's voice-"Yes, before eight o'clock at least, Lucy — no fear"; and then the hall door banged, and Pierre returned to her.
But now she found that this unforeseen visit of Lucy had completely routed all business capacity in her mercurial son; fairly capsizing him again into, there was no telling what sea of pleasant pensiveness.
"Dear me! some other time, sister Mary."
"Not this time; that is very certain, Pierre. Upon my word I shall have to get Lucy kidnapped, and temporarily taken out of the country, and you handcuffed to the table, else there will be no having a preliminary understanding with you, previous to calling in the lawyers. Well, I shall yet manage you, one way or other. Good-bye, Pierre; I see you don't want me now. I suppose I shan't see you till to-morrow morning. Luckily, I have a very interesting book to read. Adieu!"