Daily Kennebec Journal

Tales and Sketches.
ESPERANZA.
(Continued from yesterday.)
And this crime Mrs. Geylass, the young widow, committed.
She constantly took a seat, which was obsequiously vacated for her, at the unsocial board, removed her gloves, took a card and pin, piled her stock of napoleons into little heaps in front of her, and went in for the thing in the most business-like way, her admirers clustering round, and backing her luck on the principle, I suppose, that imitation is the sincerest flattery. The admirers alluded to were all men: their mothers, wives and sisters abhorred her to a woman. They would have cut her, only her late husband's cousin was a lord, and her own father a baronet, and she was rich. Blood and money cover more sins than charity, so they bowed and smiled, and answered when she spoke to them, but that was not very often, for the widow preferred masculine conversation.
This was the lady to whom Graham now devoted himself. He procured nosegays for her: he contended for the honor of her hand in the ballroom, and her feet when she mounted on horseback, and his attentions were always most earnest when Milly Lund was present. Bertram smiled approval.
"Graham is no fool," thought he; "he has selected the next most attractive girl; just as the Lund has selected the next (in her blinded judgment) most attractive man." This soliloquizer had no false modesty, you see.
Having thus ascertained that these two young people were desperately in love with one another, Bertram no longer gave himself the trouble of paying so assiduous a court to Miss Lund, and cultivated the acquaintance of Graham, who was too much a man of the world to show a reserve which might betray jealousy, if he felt any, which is doubtful. The two men had not chanced to meet often, but they had been thrown together some two years before in the settlement of a domestic matter in which Graham had behaved in a manner calculated to excite Bertram's esteem, and he was inclined to like the man who knew better of him than most other people did. For our lives and friendships depend quite as much upon men and women's opinion of ourselves as upon their own intrinsic merits.
They breakfasted at the same little table: they strolled afterwards in the hotel garden, smoking; they also consumed their last cigars at night in company, and waxed confidential. At least, the one who had something to confide did it, and Bertram learned that Graham was on the point of going out to Africa to shoot big game.
The other visitors at Spa made a totally different arrangement for the young man, and decreed that he was about to marry the lively young widow forthwith. Mrs. Crackett announced the forthcoming event to Millicent Lund as an ascertained fact, and that young lady, believing it, went mad. I do not mean that she required a straight waistcoat, or put wild flowers in her hair, or sang scraps of songs, or danced with her shadow. She did not even show any emotion before Mrs. Crackett and the gossips, but smiled, and remarked that she supposed that it was a good match, for she was not of a hysterical nature. But her mind was for the time unhinged for all that: and she was quite capable of doing some desperate thing which society would have brought in temporary insanity. It was quite true that she had broken with Graham, but then, he had no business to marry anybody else, etc., etc. How could she appease her resentment; how prove that she did not care one iota for the man she had been betrothed to? If she could only take the initiative; that would be better still. No one can throw off the restraints conventionally imposed by their fellow creatures with impunity; if Milly Lund had not indulged her tastes for independence and originality to such an extent: if she had had any experienced friend of her own sex in whom she had confidence, to advise her, she would never have been guilty of writing, on a sheet of lemon-colored note-paper: "Let me see you tomorrow morning.-M. L.," and dropped it with her handkerchief at the Redoute, when only Bertram was near enough to pick it up.
The wisp of paper was not addressed to anybody in particular-that was the only shred of prudence she showed; but then, she gave it almost with her own hand, which was very shocking.
"If Graham had known that I had this in my pocket, he would hardly have bidden me such a friendly good-night!" said Bertram, on examining the note before going to bed. And then he put it carefully away in his pocket-book. When he called at Millicent's lodgings he found her alone, not even Miss Corney being present. She had a wild, excited look in her eyes, and a deep flush on her cheek; and directly the door was closed she stepped hurriedly towards him.
"Do you know why I have invited you here?" she asked.
Bertram looked as many volumes as he could, and bowed discreetly.
"Esperanza!" she said, turning away.
"What!" cried Bertram. "My sympathies were true; you are really-,
"The blue domino?"
Instead of throwing himself at her feet, seizing her hand, and calling her by her christian name, as he ought to have done, Bertram said in a musing tone: "Curious! I was never at a ball in Brussels in my life."
"Oh," cried Millicent, shrinking away, covering her face with her hands, and shedding tears of bitter shame and humiliation.
"I hope you will forgive me," Bertram continued. "I had no idea you would believe my rodomontade, which was only made up at the moment for fun. Pray, do not be distressed; I knew all about it. It is pique which has compelled you to listen to the suit of so unworthy an individual; if it were otherwise, I should indeed esteem myself the most fortunate of men. As it is, it is happy that I am neither a needy adventurer nor an unscrupulous lover, or perhaps you might have been hurried into a marriage which would have proved the misery of your life: and Graham would be eaten by lions, hugged to death by gorillas, stamped out by elephants, poisoned by snakes and quinine, and-and all sorts of things. By the by, do you know that he is off to the Cape next month?"
Millicent was too much overwhelmed by appreciation of the position she had placed herself in, to reply; so Bertram went on:
"They have made up a story about his engagement to Mrs. Geylass. Absurd! If he cannot marry one lady, I am certain he will never take to another, unless perhaps an Ashantee. Not even for pique. I do wish, dear Miss Lund, that you would make a friend of me, and tell me the real cause of offence in Graham. Do not think me curious and impertinent. I only ask because I have a suspicion that I might be able to remove some false impressions. I was left trustee to a young lady, a cousin of my own, to whom Graham was once