CHAPTER IV.

IN

THE AUTHORESS PROVES TO BE A DAGUERREOTYPIST, AND BEGS TO LAY BEFORE THE READER SOME CHOICE SPECIMENS OF HER ART.

WE

TE were pleased to see that our guests enjoyed themselves. Every thing was done that could be done to promote their pleasure. Mrs. Blanton was delighted with her visit, and a favorite with every member of the family, except grandma. In a few days, Therese was completely domesticated. With mamma she was a particular favorite; and the two, happy with each other, would go off upon housekeeping excursions, and to see the sick, and take the longest walks, while Adolphe would be skipping around them, forming a group most pleasant to the eye, and perfectly charming to Robert. My brother would watch the evolutions of this little fairy who had enslaved him, with mingled expressions of pride, tenderness, and ecstacy. She was so natural and good-humored, so arch and coquettish, so filled with all we are wont to love in woman, that nobody need blame Robert for his happiness, or Mr. Blanton for his misery. Therese proposed to make some cakes for us, with her own little hands. She told the housekeeper that she knew how to make the best cakes any body ever tasted in the world. Of course, such a proposition placed my brother Robert in the seventh heaven. To think that Therese could make cakes! Gracious, what a thought! Real, round, plump little cakes, light and melting in the mouth! And that he should eat them!

Of course, these cakes were honored above all the cakes that ever appeared upon our table. Therese, funny little woman, doing the honors, while her little tongue ran on the while in its pleasant social way. Miss Blanton frowned, and asked her if those cakes hadn't soda in them?

They are seasoned with nectar, genuine nectarine cakes, upon my word," retorted Robert.

"I put a little piece of soda, sister, just so much," said Therese, checking off a little tip of rosy finger nail, to show how much.

"Ah, ha! I detected it." cried Miss Blanton; whereupon Robert turned around gravely, and looked at Miss Blanton, evidently regarding that lady as a complex chemical apparatus from that moment.

Dashwood cried out from his seat for a few more of the nectarine cakes, and papa reached forth demurely, and apologized for taking "Captain Manners," which was the last of them. Little Therese was so delighted with her performance. Her oval eyes were glistening, and her soft cheek glowing; really, all this was most charming. Robert became so magnanimous, after eating of these cakes, that he allowed Mr. Blanton a tête-à-tête with Therese in the grotto.

Dashwood was the life of our party. He planned fishing excursions and riding parties. He played at graces with Miss Blanton, and at backgammon with Mr. Blanton. He read for our amusement in the early hours, and repeated poetry in sylvan haunts, at times when all hearts were filled with poetry. He sang bass with all the ladies, and got up serenades in the wee small hours. He aided and comforted mamma during the weighty ceremonies of dinner, and was never too late for breakfast. He sat in tableaux with rigid propriety, and in a rash moment undertook a waltz with the dangerous Willianna. He captivated every heart but papa's-and even papa was charmed with him as a guest, only begging to be excused when he was proposed as a son-in-law. Mrs. Blanton was in transports about Dashwood. What a man he was! Never had she seen such an intellectual face, faultless contour, and superb addressexcept-except-and here Therese broke down, and looked sideways at Robert, and blushed.

"She alludes to the departed Blanton,” whispered grandma in confidence to metapping her snuff-box, getting her pocket handkerchief ready, and sighing with great force.

"Very likely," said I, pretending not to notice Robert's eye catching the light of hers, and the half whispered "charming Therese," which followed.

I have already said that Robert was so overcome by generosity and magnanimity, after partaking of Mrs. Blanton's cakes, that he went off to the river with Alphonse, and allowed Mr. Blanton a tête-à-tête with his adorable, in his own consecrated grotto. It seems that Mr. Blanton was consumed by jealousy, and that he really became restive and unruly, and that Therese almost broke her heart in this grotto, begging her brother to give

her up like a man, and let her love Mr. Rushton. I learned it was a terrific scene. The tender woman fearing to wound, and yet obliged to cut him to the very heart. She throwing herself upon his mercy, and he mad with love. "And has it come to this?" said Mr. Blanton, sternly, to his sister. "Am I to be trifled with in this way? Is my love of five years to be measured with the mushroom passion of this flippant stripling? Have you no gratitude-no common sense-nothing, absolutely nothing, but dimples, and tears, and nonsense?"

"Dearest brother," begun ThereseI am not your brother, madam." "Dear Henry, I only tell you how I love Robert," said Therese, naively. "Pshaw!"

"And implore your forgiveness." "My forgiveness; pray, madam, what have I to forgive?"

"Me-your little Therese-your sis

ter."

"My own dear good brother," murmured Therese. He suffered her to call him so. She might have called him fiend, and he would have held her to his breast, with her soft wreathing arms and pearly cheek.

Poor Blanton! To find himself so proud, stiff, and unyielding; being turned around a little woman's finger, in spite of his teeth. And to be dying and sighing at his age, for a pair of wreathing arms and pearly cheeks.

We were all very sad when our gay guests took their departure. Robert watched the carriages until they turned down the hill, and were out of sight; and then he came into the back parlor, and declared that Mrs. Blanton was the sweetest woman in the world. Grandma immediately remarked that her dresses were too low, for which illusion scarfs could offer no apology at all; and gave it as her deliberate opinion, that she had better marry Mr. Blanton, or he would petrify; indeed, she considered that stiff specimen as already far advanced into petrifaction.

Dashwood said she had about as much soul as a mermaid. And that the whole secret of her success with Bob could be distinctly traced to three dimples (they being, he was sorry to say, very weak points with Bob), a well turned bust, two rows of teeth, several smiles, and a pair of baby feet-not to mention a way she had of looking up at a man, and down at a man,

and aside at a man-and thereby putting a man to great bewilderment and confusion.

"Pray, what do you call soul? She has delicacy, refinement, quickness of apprehension, relish for wit; she is never ruffled; she is always tender and gentle; she is careful of every body's feelings, and good to the poor. Now if that isn't soul, old fellow," cried Robert, slapping him on the shoulder, "tell me what it is?"

'Art," said Dashwood.

"Art! By heaven, she is as unsophisticated as a child! Her own son is not more guileless."

"By the way, that little son, how will you dispose of him in the matrimonial contract?" asked Dashwood.

"Why," said Robert, "I will take that little boy by the hand, and show him the way to go. I will tell him where to look for breakers, and where he may expect treachery beneath the dimpling waves -and, perhaps—perhaps," said Robert laughing, "I will point to one eccentric Dashwood; and bid him look and take warning."

"No, you will not!" cried Dashwood, with a bright face; "no, you will not, sir! But you may be able to say by that time, 'See Dashwood, how he has struggled, and how he has conquered, and what a brave figure he cuts upon his pedestal!' You may say, 'Go and do likewise,' to your little son-who knows?"

I saw Louise look up, and smile gloriously upon him. I saw mamma turn with a proud bright look towards him, and I saw Robert reach forward and grasp his hand, and hold it, that he might read his sparkling, glowing countenance.

Surely Dashwood, if aught under the sun can fix thee in thy purpose, it is this. If aught can settle the rover in thee, it is this. Unstable as water, restless as the wind, unsatisfied as the sea, brilliant as the sun, magnanimous as Jove; if aught can gather thy great powers into one purpose, surely it is this!

"I intend," said Dashwood, "to shake off the sin which doth so easily beset me, and turn over a new leaf. You see, I have been all this time running my fingers over the keys."

"And uncertain music making," said Robert.

"Merely to find the tune; and I intend to find the tune."

"God grant it," said my brother.

"I intend to run up and down the gamut, until I find out the tune of my life," remarked Dashwood.

"It is to be a brilliant introduction to an overture, I suspect," said Robert. "Or a romance à la Reeve," said I.