He greeted Miss Carden with easy grace, and took no more notice of the other two, than if they were chairs and tables.
Mr. Frederick Coventry had studied the great art of pleasing, and had mastered it wonderfully; but he was not the man to waste it indiscriminately.
He was there to please a young lady, to whom he was attached, not to diffuse his sunshine indiscriminately.
He courted her openly, not indelicately, but with a happy air of respect and self-assurance.
Henry sat, sick with jealousy, and tried to work and watch; but he could only watch: his hand trembled too much to work.
What may be called oblique flattery is very pleasing to those quick-witted girls, who have had a surfeit of direct compliments: and it is oblique flattery, when a man is supercilious and distant to others, as well as tender and a little obsequious to her he would please.
Grace Carden enjoyed this oblique flattery of Mr. Coventry's all the more that it came to her just at a moment when her companions seemed disposed to ignore her. She rewarded Mr. Coventry accordingly, and made Henry Little's heart die within him. His agony became intolerable. What a position was his! Set there, with a chisel in his hand, to copy the woman he loved, while another wooed her before his face, and she smiled at his wooing!
At last his chisel fell out of his hand, and startled everybody: and then he rose up with pale cheek, and glittering eyes, and Heaven only knows what he was going to do or say. But at that moment another visitor was announced, to whom indeed the door was never closed. He entered the next moment, and Grace ran to meet him, crying, "Oh, Mr. Raby! this IS a surprise."
Mr. Raby kissed her, and shook hands with Mr. Coventry. He then said a kind word to Jael Dence, who got up and courtesied to him.
He cast a careless glance on Henry and the bust, but said nothing.
He was in a hurry, and soon came to the object of his visit.
"My dear," said he, "the last time I saw you, you said you were sorry that Christmas was no longer kept in Hillsborough as it used to be."
"And so I am."
"Well, it is kept in Cairnhope, thank Heaven, pretty much as it was three centuries ago. Your father will be in London, I hear; will you honor my place and me with a visit during the Christmas holidays?"
Grace opened her eyes with astonishment. "Oh, that I will," said she, warmly.
"You will take your chance of being snowed up?"
"I am afraid I shall not be so fortunate," was the charming reply.
The Squire turned to Coventry, and said slyly, "I would ask you to join us, sir; but it is rather a dull place for a gentleman who keeps such good company."
"I never heard it spoken of as a dull place before," said the young man; "and, if it was, you have taken a sure means to make it attractive."
"That is true. Well, then, I have no scruple in asking you to join us;" and he gave Grace a look, as much as to say, "Am I not a considerate person?"
"I am infinitely obliged to you, Mr. Raby," said Coventry, seriously; "I will come."
"You will stay to luncheon, godpapa?"
"Never touch it. Good-by. Well, then, Christmas-eve I shall expect you both. Dinner at six. But come an hour or two before it, if you can: and Jael, my girl, you know you must dine at the hall on Christmas-eve, and old Christmas-eve as usual, you and your sister and the old man."
Jael courtesied, and said with homely cordiality, "We shall be there, sir, please God we are alive."
"Bring your gun, Coventry. There's a good sprinkling of pheasants left. By-the-bye, what about that pedigree of yours; does it prove the point?"
"Completely. Dorothy Raby, Sir Richard's youngest sister, married Thomas Coventry, who was out in the forty-five. I'm having the pedigree copied for you, at a stationer's near."
"I should like to see it."
"I'll go with you, and show it to you, if you like."
Mr. Raby was evidently pleased at this attention, and they went off together.
Grace accompanied them to the door. On her return she was startled by the condition of young Little.
This sudden appearance of his uncle, whom he hated, had agitated him not a little, and that uncle's interference had blasted his last hope. He recognized this lover, and had sided with him: was going to shut the pair up, in a country house, together. It was too much.
He groaned, and sank back in his chair, almost fainting, and his hands began to shake in the air, as if he was in an ague.
Both the women darted simultaneously toward him. "Oh! he's fainting!" cried Grace. "Wine! wine! Fly." Jael ran out to fetch some, in spite of a despairing gesture, by which the young man tried to convey to her it was no use.
"Wine can do me no good, nor death no harm. Why did I ever enter this house?"
"Oh, Mr. Little, don't look so; don't talk so," said Grace, turning pale, in her turn. "Are you ill? What is the matter?"
"Oh, nothing. What should ail me? I'm only a workman. What business have I with a heart? I loved you dearly. I was working for you, fighting for you, thinking for you, living for you. And you love that Coventry, and never showed it."
Jael came in with a glass of wine for him, but he waved her off with all the grandeur of despair.
"You tell me this to my face!" said Grace, haughtily; but her bosom panted.
"Yes; I tell you so to your face. I love you, with all my soul."
"How dare you? What have I ever done, to justify-- Oh, if you weren't so pale, I'd give you a lesson. What could possess you?
It's not my fault, thank heaven. You have insulted me, sir. No; why should I? You must be unhappy enough. There, I'll say but one word, and that, of course, is 'good morning.'"
And she marched out of the room, trembling secretly in every limb.
Henry sat down, and hid his face, and all his frame shook.
Then Jael was all pity. She threw herself on her knees, and kissed his trembling hands with canine fidelity, and wept on his shoulder.
He took her hand, and tried hard to thank her, but the words were choked.