Autumnal Leaves: Tales and Sketches in Prose and Rhyme
9781465670946
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
“What a remarkably pretty girl Mrs. Barton has for a nursery maid,” said Mrs. Vernon to her daughter. “Yes, mamma; and it seems quite useless for a servant to be so handsome. What good will it do her?” She glanced at the mirror, as she spoke, and seemed less satisfied than usual with her own pretty face. She was thinking to herself, “If I had as much beauty as she has, I shouldn’t despair of winning a duke.” A similar idea flashed across Mrs. Vernon’s mind, as she noticed the involuntary appeal to the mirror. Therefore, she sighed as she answered, “Instead of doing her good, it will doubtless prove a misfortune. Some dissipated lord will take a fancy to her; but he will soon become weary of her, and will marry her to the first good-natured clown, who can be hired to take her.” “Very likely,” replied Miss Julia; “and after living with a nobleman, she can never be happy with a person of her own condition.” The prospect of such a future in reserve for the rustic beauty seemed by no means painful to the aristocratic young lady. Indeed, one might conjecture, from her manner, that she regarded it as no more than a suitable punishment for presuming to be handsomer than her superiors in rank. A flush passed over the countenance of her brother Edward, who sat reading at the opposite window; but the ladies, busy with their embroidery and netting, did not observe it. The lower extremity of their grounds was separated from Mrs. Barton’s merely by a hedge of hawthorns. A few weeks previous, as he was walking there, his attention had been attracted by joyful exclamations from their neighbour’s children, over a lupine that began to show its valves above the ground. He turned involuntarily, and when he saw the young girl who accompanied them, he felt a little glow of pleasant surprise curl around his heart, as if some entirely new and very beautiful wild flower had unexpectedly appeared before him. That part of the garden became his favourite place of resort; and if a day passed without his obtaining a glimpse of the lovely stranger, he was conscious of an undefined feeling of disappointment. One day, when the children were playing near by, their India-rubber ball bounced over into Mrs. Vernon’s grounds. When he saw them searching for it among the hawthorns, he reached across the hedge and presented it to their attendant. He raised his hat and bowed, as he did so; and she blushed as she took it from his hand. After this accidental introduction, he never passed her without a similar salutation; and she always coloured at a mark of courtesy so unusual from a gentleman to a person in her humble condition. The degree of interest she had excited in his mind rendered it somewhat painful to hear his mother’s careless prophecy of her future destiny.
