Elinor Wyllys Volume Ii Part 8

"My mother wishes me to thank you myself, for your last act of goodness to us--but I can never tell you all we feel on the subject. My dear mother cried with joy all the evening, after she had received your letter. I am going to school according to your wish, as soon as mother can spare me, and I shall study very hard, which will be the best way of thanking you. The music-master says he has no doubt but I can play well enough to give lessons, if I go on as well as I have in the last year; I practise regularly every day. Mother bids me say, that now she feels sure of my education for the next three years, one of her heaviest cares has been taken away: she says too, that although many friends in the parish have been very good to us, since my dear father was taken away from us, yet 'no act of kindness has been so important to us, none so cheering to the heart of the widow and the fatherless, as your generous goodness to her eldest child;' these are her own words. Mother will write to you herself to-morrow. I thank you again, dear Miss Wyllys, for myself, and I remain, very respectfully and very gratefully,

"Your obliged servant and friend,

"MARY SMITH."

This last letter seemed to restore all Elinor's good humour, acting as an antidote to the three which had preceded it. The correspondence which we have taken the liberty of reading, will testify more clearly than any a.s.surance of ours, to the fact that our friend Elinor now stands invested with the dignity of an heiress, accompanied by the dangers, pleasures, and annoyances, usually surrounding an unmarried woman, possessing the reputation of a fortune. Wherever Elinor now appeared, the name of a fortune procured her attention; the plain face which some years before had caused her to be neglected where she was not intimately known, was no longer an obstacle to the gallantry of the very cla.s.s who had shunned her before. Indeed, the want of beauty, which might have been called her misfortune, was now the very ground on which several of her suitors founded their hopes of success; as she was p.r.o.nounced so very plain, the dandies thought it impossible she could resist the charm of their own personal advantages. Elinor had, in short, her full share of those persecutions which are sure to befall all heiresses. The peculiar evils of such a position affect young women very differently, according to their various dispositions. Had Elinor been weak and vain, she would have fallen into the hands of a fortune-hunter.

Had she been of a gloomy temper, disgust at the coa.r.s.e plots and manoeuvres, so easily unravelled by a clear-sighted person, might have made her a prey to suspicion, and all but misanthropic. Had she been vulgar-minded, she would have been purse-proud; if cold-hearted, she would have become only the more selfish. Vanity would have made her ridiculously ostentatious and conceited; a jealous temper would have become self-willed and domineering.

Change of position often produces an apparent change of character; sometimes the effect is injurious, sometimes it is advantageous. But we trust that the reader, on renewing his acquaintance with Elinor Wyllys, will find her, while flattered by the world as an heiress, essentially the same in character and manner, as she was when overlooked and neglected on account of an unusually plain face. If a shade of difference is perceptible, it is only the natural result of four or five years of additional experience, and she has merely exchanged the first retiring modesty of early youth, for a greater portion of self-possession.

In the first months of her new reputation as an heiress, Elinor had been astonished at the boldness of some attacks upon her; then, as there was much that was ridiculous connected with these proceedings, she had been diverted; but, at length, when she found them rapidly increasing, she became seriously annoyed.

"What a miserable puppet these adventurers must think me--it is cruelly mortifying to see how confident of success some of them appear!" she exclaimed to her aunt.

"I am very sorry, my child, that you should be annoyed in this way--but it seems you must make up your mind to these impertinences--it is only what every woman who has property must expect."

"It is really intolerable! But I am determined at least that they shall not fill my head with suspicions--and I never can endure to be perpetually on my guard against these sort of people. It will not do to think of them; that is the only way to keep one's temper. If I know myself, there never can be any danger to me from men of that kind, even the most agreeable."

"Take care," said Miss Agnes, smiling, and shaking her head.

"Well, I know at least there is no danger at present; but as we all have moments of weakness, I shall therefore very humbly beg that if you ever see me in the least danger, you will give me warning, dear Aunt; a very sharp warning, if you please."

"In such a case I should certainly warn you, my dear. It strikes me that several of your most disagreeable admirers--"

"How call you call them ADMIRERS, Aunt Agnes?"

"Well, several of your pursuers, then, are beginning to discover that you are not a young lady easily persuaded into believing herself an angel, and capable of fancying them the most chivalrous and disinterested of men."

This was quite true; there was a quiet dignity, with an occasional touch of decision in Elinor's manner, that had already convinced several gentlemen that she had more firmness of character than suited their views; and they had accordingly withdrawn from the field.

"Suppose, Elinor, that I begin by giving you a warning, this morning?" continued Miss Agnes, smiling.

"You are not serious, surely, Aunt?" replied Elinor, turning from some music she was unpacking, to look at Miss Wyllys.

"Yes, indeed; I am serious, so far as believing that you are at this moment exposed to the manoeuvres of a gentleman whom you do not seem in the least to suspect, and who is decidedly agreeable."

"Whom can you mean?" said Elinor, running over in her head the names of several persons whom she had seen lately. "You surely do not suspect--No; I am sure you have too good an opinion of him."

"I am very far from having a particularly good opinion of the person I refer to," said Miss Agnes; "I think him at least, nothing better than a fortune-hunter; and although it is very possible to do many worse things than marrying for money, yet I hope you will never become the wife of a man whose principles are not above suspicion in every way."

"I am disposed just at present, I can a.s.sure you, dear Aunt, to have a particularly poor opinion of a mere fortune-hunter."

"Yes; you do not seem to feel very amiably towards the cla.s.s, just now," said Miss Agnes, smiling.

"But who is the individual who stands so low in your opinion?"

"It is your opinion, and not mine, which is the important one,"

replied Miss Agnes.

"Ah, I see you are joking, Aunt; you half frightened me at first.

As far as having no fears for myself, I am really in an alarming state."

"So it would seem. But have you really no suspicions of one of our visiters of last evening?"

Elinor looked uneasy.

"Is it possible," she said, lowering her voice a little, "that you believe Mr. Ellsworth to be a common fortune-hunter? I thought you had a very different opinion of him."

"You are right, my child," said Miss Agnes, apparently pleased by this allusion to their friend; "I have, indeed, a high opinion of Mr. Ellsworth; but he was not our only visiter last evening,"

"Is it Mr. Stryker? I have half-suspected some such thing myself, lately; I cannot take credit for so much innocence as you gave me. But it is not worth while to trouble oneself about Mr.

Stryker; he is certainly old enough, and worldly-wise enough to take care of himself. If he actually has any such views, his time will be sadly thrown away. But it is much more probable that he is really in love with Mrs. Creighton; and it would be very ridiculous in me, to imagine that he is even pretending to care for me, when he is attached to some one else."

"He may flirt with Mrs. Creighton, but, if I am not mistaken, he intends to offer himself before long to Miss Wyllys; and I thought you had not remarked his advances."

"I fancy, dear Aunt, that men like Mr. Stryker seldom commit themselves unless they feel pretty sure of success."

The conversation was here interrupted, Elinor was engaged to ride with Mr. Wyllys, who now returned from the reading-room for his grand-daughter. Mrs. Creighton was also going out with her brother, and proposed the two parties joining; an invitation which Mr. Wyllys had very readily accepted. The horses were ordered, Elinor was soon equipped, and on joining Mrs. Creighton at the door, she was a.s.sisted to mount by Mr. Ellsworth. Mr.

Stryker had also been invited to ride with them by the pretty widow.

It was a lovely morning, and they moved off gaily on one of the roads leading to Saratoga Lake; Elinor enjoying the air and the exercise, Mr. Ellsworth at her side, doing his best to make his society agreeable, Mrs. Creighton engaged in making a conquest of the two gentlemen between whom she rode. Yes, we are obliged to confess the fact; on her part at least, there was nothing wanting to make up a flirtation with Mr. Wyllys. The widow belonged to that cla.s.s of ladies, whose thirst for admiration really seems insatiable, and who appear anxious to compel all who approach them to feel the effect of their charms. Elinor would have been frightened, had she been aware of the attack made that morning by Mrs. Creighton, on the peace of her excellent grandfather, now in his seventy-third year. Not that the lady neglected Mr.

Stryker--by no means; she was very capable of managing two affairs of the kind at the same moment. All the remarks she addressed particularly to Mr. Wyllys, were sensible and lady-like; those she made to Mr. Stryker, were clever, worldly, and piquant; while the general tone of her conversation was always a well-bred medley of much fashionable levity, with some good sense and propriety. Mr. Stryker scarcely knew whether to be pleased, or to regret that he was obliged to ride at her side. He had lately become particularly anxious to advance in the good graces of Miss Elinor Wyllys, for two reasons; he had lost money, and was very desirous of appropriating some of Elinor's to his own use; and he had also felt himself to be in imminent danger of falling in love with Mrs. Creighton, and he wished to put it out of his own power to offer himself to her in a moment of weakness.

Much as he admired the beauty, the wit, and the worldly spirit of the pretty widow, he was half-afraid of her; he judged her by himself; he knew that she was artful, and he knew that she was poor; for her late husband, Mr. Creighton, during a short married life, had run through all his wife's property, as well as his own, and his widow was now entirely dependent upon her brother.

The attention of the two gentlemen was not, however, entirely engrossed by Mrs. Creighton. Mr. Stryker was by no means willing to resign the field to his rival, Mr. Ellsworth; and Mr. Wyllys was not so much charmed by the conversation of his fair companion, but that his eye could rest with pleasure on the couple before him, as he thought there was every probability that Elinor would at length gratify his long-cherished wish, and become the wife of a man he believed worthy of her. As the party halted for a few moments on the bank of the Lake, Mr. Wyllys was particularly struck with the expression of spirit and interest with which Elinor was listening to Mr. Ellsworth's description of the lakes of Killarney, which he had seen during his last visit to Europe; and when the gentleman had added a ludicrous account of some Paddyism of his guide, she laughed so gaily that the sound rejoiced her grandfather's heart.

Elinor had long since regained her former cheerfulness. For a time, Harry's desertion had made her sad, but she soon felt it a duty to shake off every appearance of gloom, for the sake of her grandfather and aunt, whose happiness was so deeply interwoven with her own. Religious motives also strengthened her determination to resist every repining feeling. The true spirit of cheerfulness is, in fact, the fruit of two of the greatest virtues of Christianity--steadfast faith, and unfeigned humility; and it is akin to thankfulness, which is only the natural consequence of a sense of our own imperfections, and of the unmerited goodness of Providence.

"We have had a charming ride, Miss Wyllys!" said Mrs. Creighton, as the party returned to the hotel.

"Very pleasant," said Elinor.

"Delightful!" exclaimed Mr. Ellsworth. "I hope we shall have such another every day."

"Then I must try and find an animal, with rather better paces than the one which has the honour of carrying me at present,"

said Mr. Stryker.

"But Mrs. Creighton has been so very agreeable, that I should think you would have been happy to accompany her on the worst horse in Saratoga," observed Mr. Wyllys.

"Only too agreeable," replied Mr. Stryker, as he helped the lady to dismount, while Mr. Ellsworth performed the same service to Elinor.

CHAPTER V. {XXVIII}

"I do beseech your grace, for charity, If ever any malice in your heart Were hid against me, now to forgive me frankly."

Henry VIII.

{William Shakespeare, "Henry VIII", II.i.79-81}