The Last of the Foresters Part 32

"Oh! indeed."

"Yes, and I a.s.sure you I did not neglect the opportunity of prosecuting my favorite study--the female character. Don't interrupt me--your character is no longer a study to me."

"I am very glad, sir."

"I made you out long ago--like the rest of your s.e.x, you are, of course, very nearly angelic, but still have your faults."

"Thank you, sir."

"All true--but about Williamsburg--I was, I say, a melancholy sample of the effect produced by a kind and friendly speech from a lady.

Observe, that the said speech was perfectly commonplace, and sprung, I'm sure, from the speaker's general amiability; and yet, what must I do, but go and fall in love with her."

"Oh!" from f.a.n.n.y.

"Yes--true as truth itself; and, as a consequence, my friends, for the first, and only time, had a good joke against me. They had a tale about my going to his Excellency, the Governor's palace, to look at the great map there--all for the purpose of finding where the country was in which she lived; for, observe, she was only on a visit to Williamsburg--of studying out this boundary, and that--this river to cross, and that place to stop at,--the time it would take to carry my affections over them--and all the thousand details. Of course, this was not true, my darling f.a.n.n.y, at least--"

"Ralph, you shall stop talking to me like a child!" exclaimed f.a.n.n.y, who had listened to the details of Mr. Ashley's pa.s.sion with more and more constraint; "please to remember that I am not a baby, sir."

Ralph looked at the lovely face, with its rosy-cheeks and flashing eyes, and burst out laughing.

"There, you are as angry as Cleopatra, when the slave brought her bad news--and, by Jove, f.a.n.n.y, you are twice as lovely. Really! you have improved wonderfully. Your eyes, at this moment, are as brilliant as fire--your lips like carnation--and your face like sunlit gold; recollect, I'm a poet. I'm positively rejoiced at the good luck which made me bring such a lovely expression into your fair countenance."

f.a.n.n.y turned her head away.

"Come now, f.a.n.n.y," said Ralph, seriously, "I do believe you are going to find fault with my nonsense."

No reply.

Mr. Ralph Ashley heaved a sigh; and was silent.

"You treat me like a child," said f.a.n.n.y, reproachfully; "I am not a child."

"You certainly are not, my dearest f.a.n.n.y--you are a charming young lady--the most delicious of your s.e.x."

And Mr. Ralph Ashley accompanied these words with a glance so ludicrously languishing, that f.a.n.n.y, unable to command herself, burst into laughter; and the quarrel was all made up, if quarrel it indeed had been.

"You _were_ a child in old times," said Mr. Ashley, throwing his foot elegantly over his knee; "and, I recollect, had a perfect genius for blindman's-buff; but, of course, at sixteen you have 'put away' all those infantile or 'childish things'--though I am sincerely rejoiced to see that you have not 'become a man.'"

f.a.n.n.y laughed.

"I wish I was," she said.

"What?"

"Why a man."

"Oh! you're very well as you are;--though if you were a 'youth,' I'm sure, f.a.n.n.y dear, I should be desperately fond of you."

"Quite likely."

"Oh, nothing truer; and everybody would say, 'See the handsome friends.' Come now, would'nt we make a lovely couple."

"Lovely!"

"Suppose we try it."

"Try what?"

"Being a couple."

f.a.n.n.y suddenly caught, from the laughing eye, the young man's meaning, and began to color.

"I see you understand, my own f.a.n.n.y," observed Mr. Ralph, "and I expected nothing less from a young lady of your quickness. What say you? It is not necessary for me to say that I'm desperately in love with you."

"Oh, not at all necessary!" replied f.a.n.n.y, satirically, but with a blush.

"I see you doubt it."

"Oh, not at all."

"Which means, as usual with young ladies, that you don't believe a word of it. Well, only try me. What proof will you have?"

f.a.n.n.y laughed with the same expression of constraint which we have before observed, and said:

"You have not looked upon the map of Virginia yet for my 'boundaries?'"

Ralph received the hit full in the front.

"By Jove! f.a.n.n.y," he exclaimed, "I oughtn't to have told you that."

"I'm glad you did."

"Why?"

"Because, of course, I shall not make any efforts to please you--you are already 'engaged!'"

"Engaged! well, you are wrong. Neither my heart nor my hand is engaged. Ah, dear f.a.n.n.y, you don't know how we poor students carry away with us to college some consuming pa.s.sion which we feed and nurture;--how we toast the Dulcinea at oyster parties, and, like Corydon, sigh over her miniature. I had yours!"

"My--miniature?" said the lively f.a.n.n.y, with a roseate blush, "you had nothing of the sort."

"Your likeness, then."

"Equally untrue--where is it?"

"Here!" said Mr. Ralph Ashley, laying his hand upon his heart, and ogling Miss f.a.n.n.y with terrible expression. "Ah, f.a.n.n.y, darling, don't believe that story I relate about myself--never has any one made any impression on me--for my heart--my love--my thoughts--have always--"

Suddenly the speaker became silent, and rising to his feet, made a courteous and graceful bow. A young lady had just appeared at the door.