The Essential Winston Churchill Collection. Winston Churchill
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Название: The Essential Winston Churchill Collection
Автор: Winston Churchill
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Контркультура
isbn: 9781456613488
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"Why should I set him upon a pedestal?" said Puss, with a thread in her mouth; "why should you all set him upon a pedestal? He is only a Yankee," said Puss, tossing her head, "and not so very wonderful."
"I did not say he was wonderful," replied Anne, with dignity.
"But you girls think him so. Emily and Eugenie and Maude. He had better marry Belle Cluyme. A great man, he may give some decision to that family. Anne!"
"Yes."
"Shall I tell you a secret?"
"Yes," said Anne. She was human, and she was feminine.
"Then--Virginia Carvel is in love with him."
"With Mr. Brice!" cried astonished Anne. "She hates him!"
"She thinks she hates him," said Miss Russell, calmly.
Anne looked up at her companion admiringly. Her two heroines were Puss and Virginia. Both had the same kind of daring, but in Puss the trait had developed into a somewhat disagreeable outspokenness which made many people dislike her. Her judgments were usually well founded, and her prophecies had so often come to pass that Anne often believed in them for no other reason.
"How do you know?" said Anne, incredulously.
"Do you remember that September, a year ago, when we were all out at Glencoe, and Judge Whipple was ill, and Virginia sent us all away and nursed him herself?"
"Yes," said Anne.
"And did you know that Mr. Brice had gone out, with letters, when the Judge was better?"
"Yes," said Anne, breathless.
"It was a Saturday afternoon that he left, although they had begged him to stay over Sunday. Virginia had written for me to come back, and I arrived in the evening. I asked Easter where Jinny was, and I found her--"
"You found her--?" said Anne.
Sitting alone in the summer-house over the river. Easter said she had been there for two hours. And I have never known Jinny to be such miserable company as she was that night.
"Did she mention Stephen?" asked Anne.
"No."
"But you did," said Anne, with conviction.
Miss Russell's reply was not as direct as usual.
"You know Virginia never confides unless she wants to," she said.
Anne considered.
"Virginia has scarcely seen him since then," she said. "You know that I was her room-mate at Monticello last year, and I think I should have discovered it."
"Did she speak of him?" demanded Miss Russell.
"Only when the subject was mentioned. I heard her repeat once what Judge Whipple told her father of him; that he had a fine legal mind. He was often in my letters from home, because they have taken Pa's house next door, and because Pa likes them. I used to read those letters to Jinny," said Anne, "but she never expressed any desire to hear them."
"I, too, used to write Jinny about him," confessed Puss.
"Did she answer your letter?"
"No," replied Miss Puss,--"but that was just before the holidays, you remember. And then the Colonel hurried her off to see her Pennsylvania relatives, and I believe they went to Annapolis, too, where the Carvels come from."
Stephen, sitting in the next house, writing out his account, little dreamed that he was the subject of a conference in the third story front of the Brinsmades'. Later, when the young ladies were asleep, he carried his manuscript to the Democrat office, and delivered it into the hands of his friend, the night editor, who was awaiting it.
Toward the end of that week, Miss Virginia Carvel was sitting with her back to one of the great trees at Monticello reading a letter. Every once in a while she tucked it under her cloak and glanced hastily around. It was from Miss Anne Brinsmade.
"I have told you all about the excursion, my dear, and how we missed you. You may remember" (ah, Anne, the guile there is in the best of us), "you may remember Mr. Stephen Brice, whom we used to speak of. Pa and Ma take a great interest in him, and Pa had him invited on the excursion. He is more serious than ever, since he has become a full-fledged lawyer. But he has a dry humor which comes out when you know him well, of which I did not suspect him. His mother is the dearest lady I have ever known, so quiet, so dignified, and so well bred. They come in to supper very often. And the other night Mr. Brice told Pa so many things about the people south of Market Street, the Germans, which he did not know; that Pa was astonished. He told all about German history, and how they were persecuted at home, and why they came here. Pa was surprised to hear that many of them were University men, and that they were already organizing to defend the Union. I heard Pa say, 'That is what Mr. Blair meant when he assured me that we need not fear for the city.'
"Jinny dear, I ought not to have written you this, because you are for Secession, and in your heart you think Pa a traitor, because he comes from a slave state and has slaves of his own. But I shall not tear it up.
"It is sad to think how rich Mrs. Brice lived in Boston, and what she has had to come to. One servant and a little house, and no place to go to in the summer, when they used to have such a large one. I often go in to sew with her, but she has never once mentioned her past to me.
"Your father has no doubt sent you the Democrat with the account of the Convention. It is the fullest published, by far, and was so much admired that Pa asked the editor who wrote it. Who do you think, but Stephen Brice! So now Pa knows why Mr. Brice hesitated when Pa asked him to go up the river, and then consented. This is not the end. Yesterday, when I went in to see Mrs. Brice, a new black silk was on her bed, and as long as I live I shall never forget how sweet was her voice when she said, 'It is a surprise from my son, my dear. I did not expect ever to have another.' Jinny, I just know he bought it with the money he got for the article. That was what he was writing on the boat when Clarence Colfax interrupted him. Puss accused him of writing verses to you."
At this point Miss Virginia Carvel stopped reading. Whether she had read that part before, who shall say? But she took Anne's letter between her fingers and tore it into bits and flung the bits into the wind, so that they were tossed about and lost among the dead leaves under the great trees. And when she reached her room, there was the hated Missouri Democrat lying, still open, on her table. A little later a great black piece of it came tossing out of the chimney above, to the affright of little Miss Brown, teacher of Literature, who was walking in the grounds, and who ran to the principal's room with the story that the chimney was afire.
CHAPTER VIII. THE COLONEL IS WARNED
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