第15章

It was Sally Sellers Lady Gwendolen; she had come in the night.And it seemed to him that her clothes were the prettiest and the daintiest he had ever looked upon, and the most exquisitely contrived and fashioned and combined, as to decorative trimmings, and fixings, and melting harmonies of color.It was only a morning dress, and inexpensive, but he confessed to himself, in the English common to Cherokee Strip, that it was a "corker." And now, as he perceived, the reason why the Sellers household poverties and sterilities had been made to blossom like the rose, and charm the eye and satisfy the spirit, stood explained; here was the magician; here in the midst of her works, and furnishing in her own person the proper accent and climaxing finish of the whole.

"My daughter, Major Hawkins--come home to mourn; flown home at the call of affliction to help the authors of her being bear the burden of bereavement.She was very fond of the late earl--idolized him, sir, idolized him--""Why, father, I've never seen him."

"True--she's right, I was thinking of another--er--of her mother--""I idolized that smoked haddock?--that sentimental, spiritless--""I was thinking of myself! Poor noble fellow, we were inseparable com--""Hear the man! Mulberry Sel--Mul--Rossmore--hang the troublesome name Ican never--if I've heard you say once, I've heard you say a thousand times that if that poor sheep--""I was thinking of--of--I don't know who I was thinking of, and it doesn't make any difference anyway; somebody idolized him, I recollect it as if it were yesterday; and--""Father, I am going to shake hands with Major Hawkins, and let the introduction work along and catch up at its leisure.I remember you very well in deed, Major Hawkins, although I was a little child when I saw you last; and I am very, very glad indeed to see you again and have you in our house as one of us;" and beaming in his face she finished her cordial shake with the hope that he had not forgotten her.

He was prodigiously pleased by her outspoken heartiness, and wanted to repay her by assuring her that he remembered her, and not only that but better even than he remembered his own children, but the facts would not quite warrant this; still, he stumbled through a tangled sentence which answered just as well, since the purport of it was an awkward and unintentional confession that her extraordinary beauty had so stupefied him that he hadn't got back to his bearings, yet, and therefore couldn't be certain as to whether he remembered her at all or not.The speech made him her friend; it couldn't well help it.

In truth the beauty of this fair creature was of a rare type, and may well excuse a moment of our time spent in its consideration.It did not consist in the fact that she had eyes, nose, mouth, chin, hair, ears, it consisted in their arrangement.In true beauty, more depends upon right location and judicious distribution of feature than upon multiplicity of them.So also as regards color.The very combination of colors which in a volcanic irruption would add beauty to a landscape might detach it from a girl.Such was Gwendolen Sellers.

The family circle being completed by Gwendolen's arrival, it was decreed that the official mourning should now begin; that it should begin at six o'clock every evening, (the dinner hour,) and end with the dinner.