A Little Girl of Long Ago - Amanda Minnie Douglas (top 100 novels of all time txt) 📗

fluffy waves, gathered in bandeaux just above her ears. She had her mother's beautiful pearl earrings, that had come from France with the old French grandmother, and a handsome mother-of-pearl-topped comb in her hair.

They put on the ball-dress. "Now look at yourself," said Miss Cynthia, "and get used to it before I let in the folks."

Hanny stood before her mother's tall mirror. Oh, this was Miss Nan Underhill, and she had never seen her before. There was a mystery about her,--a sudden sense of a strange, beautiful, unseen world, a new country she was going into, an old world left behind, an intangible recreation that no words could explain, but that touched her with a kind of exalted sacredness, as if a new life was unfolding all about her. She hardly dared stir or breathe.

"For a girl with no special beauty, I think you look very well. But, land sakes! You'll see no end of handsome girls; Margaret and Jim carried off the beauty of this family."

Miss Cynthia's voice recalled her from the vision of coming womanhood, that she was to live over again on her wedding night, with its holy blessedness enshrining her within her bridal veil.

Her father's eyes shone with a softness that looked like tears. Her mother viewed her all over with a critical air.

"I must say, Cynthia, you've done wonderfully. The dress looks very nice. And now, Hanny, I do hope you won't be forward or silly. Mind everything Mrs. Jasper says, and don't you and Daisy giggle. Be careful and don't lose Margaret's handkerchief. I don't just know as you ought to carry that."

Joe said she was lovely; and Jim really was very complimentary. He _did_ wish that he was going. But Jim counted the cost of everything now, for he was trying to get out of debt.

The coach came up from the Jaspers' and Hanny was put inside. Joe insisted on sharing the box with the driver.

When Daisy took off her wrap in the dressing-room, she had on a pale pink silk. Part of her curls were tied up in a bunch on top of her head, and fastened with a silver arrow and two roses. She would always wear it in ringlets, or at least until she was so old she wouldn't mind about her shoulders being not quite straight.

The affair was a banquet primarily. To be sure they gathered in the Assembly room; and there was Ben, and Delia, who looked very nice and bright in maize colour and brown.

"Oh, Hanny, you are as lovely as a picture," she whispered enthusiastically. "But you _are_ a little mite; there is no denying it. I was so afraid you couldn't come, that something would happen at the last moment. Miss Cynthia is capital."

Hanny coloured and almost sighed. She might as well give up hoping to be tall, and accept the fact.

They went into the banquet-room, where there were two long tables. They passed around to where a circle of men stood, some of them very fine looking indeed. The advancing group were presented to the great novelist, and in future years Hanny was to treasure the cordial smile and pressure of the hand. But he was to come again when the world had learned to pay him a finer and more discriminating admiration.

His end of the table was literary. The Jasper party were opposite, at the other one. What brightness and wit spiced the party, they could gather from the genial laughter. There were toasts and responses that scintillated with gaiety and touched the border of pathos.

It was long, and of course the younger people who came for the ball were not compelled to stay. The novelist was to leave at the close of the dinner. And presently most of the company found their way to the dancing room, where the band was discoursing enchanting music, and where every one enjoyed the promenade.

But when the quadrille sets were formed and in motion, Hanny was enraptured. Ben and Delia were among them. Delia certainly had a frivolous side to her nature for a genius. She was very fond of fun and pleasure and dancing, and had no lack of partners all the evening.

Some there were who danced like a fairy dream; others who made blunders and gave the wrong hand, and betrayed various awkwardnesses. Doctor Joe found several lady friends, and danced two or three times, then proposed that Hanny should try, which he was sure "would inspire Daisy into making the attempt," he said with a persuasive smile.

Hanny was very much afraid out on the large space. But Delia was in the same set, and her bright merry eyes were full of encouragement. It was not alarming. Indeed, in five minutes, the music had put a "spirit in her feet," and she felt quite at home.

Then a friend of Ben's came to ask her; and Doctor Joe sat down to persuade Daisy. While abroad, she had taken what we should now term a series of physical culture lessons to strengthen and develop her limbs, and to learn how to overcome her misfortune in every possible manner. Indeed, it was hardly noticeable now, and she had outgrown the sensitiveness of her childhood.

"Oh, mamma, do you think I could?"

"Of course she can," declared Doctor Joe. "I can't have you playing wall flower altogether at your first ball. And if you drop down in surprise, or faint away, I will carry you to the dressing-room at once."

He was so tender and full of nonsense, yet so much in earnest, that she rose reluctantly. But like Hanny, with the eager joy of youth, she soon forgot everything except the pure pleasure, and the delight of gratifying dear Doctor Joe, who was so strong and gentle that she could not even feel a bit nervous.

As for Hanny, she was really enchanted. The room full of people, smiling and happy, the changing figures, the light airy dresses, the shimmer of silks, the cloudlets of lace, the soft flying curls, for so many people wore ringlets still, the happy smiling faces, and the throb of the music was intoxicating. It was a strange, delightful world that she had gone into with her first long gown and her hair done up.

She came back, flushed and excited, her pretty eyes shining, her red lips all in a quiver.

"Now you must sit down and rest," said Mrs. Jasper. "And if you are very obedient, you may get up in that Spanish dance. I think that quite delightful and bewildering."

A lady sat on the other side of Mrs. Jasper, and resumed the incident she was describing. Mr. Jasper came up with a young man.

"Here is an old friend!" he exclaimed. "Where is Daisy?"

"Somewhere with the Doctor. Oh, what a surprise!" and she took the young man's hand.

"I wasn't sure I could get here; and it would have been very ungrateful to Mr. Jasper, when he sent me a ticket. I wanted to see Miss Daisy again. But I have just come on a flying business tour, and must start to-morrow for Philadelphia. Still, I may have a little leisure when I return. What a gay scene."

Hanny sat fanning herself, and feeling that her cheeks were scarlet. If it only wouldn't culminate in her nose! Then Mr. Jasper turned and introduced his young friend. Hanny moved a little, so he could sit between her and Mrs. Jasper,--a very attractive young man, a Mr. Andersen.

"Miss Underhill," he repeated, as Mr. Jasper turned away, "I've been speculating on a Miss Underhill for five minutes. I wonder if you will consider it impertinent; but perhaps you never speculate upon people, and then it might be reprehensible. Just as I entered the room, there was a merry group talking, and a sort of 'nut brown mayde,' all in brown and yellow with bright hair and laughing eyes said, 'Miss Nan Underhill.' Of course I was too well bred, and in too great a hurry to listen to any more, or I might have found out about her. I had just an instant interior gleam of what she must be like with that English name. And I wonder if the fates have directed my steps to her?"

Mr. Andersen was not the tall, stern, gloomy hero of romance; he was medium in height and figure, with a frank, eager sort of face, dark hair, and eyes she thought black then, but afterwards came to know that they were of the deep blue of a midnight sky in winter. He had such a smiling mouth, and his voice had a curious, lingering cadence that suggests that one may have heard it in a previous state.

Hanny caught the spirit of the half badinage, and the laughing light in his face.

"I think I ought to know the ideal before I confess identity," she replied.

"Can't I change the ideal? Or repent my vague, wild fancy?"

"Oh, was it wild? Then I must insist upon it. Miss Nan Underhill, an English girl; of course she was tall, this vision of your imagination?"

Hanny was quite sure her face grew redder. And this ideal girl was beautiful. Oh, dear!

"Yes, tall; a daughter of the gods, or the old Norse Vikings before they were Anglicised, with fair hair. And you have the fair hair."

"But I am not tall! I am sorry to have you disappointed."

"I am not disappointed. What does a vagrant fancy amount to? I consider myself fortunate in meeting Miss Underhill. Why, suppose I had gone rambling about and missed you altogether? Have you known the Jaspers long?"

"Oh, years and years. Before they went abroad."

"What a beautiful girl Daisy is! I am glad she is here enjoying herself. Oh, isn't it the regulation thing to speak of the hero of the feast? Of course when you heard he was coming to lecture you began to read his novels--if you had not before."

"I had not read them before. There are a great many books I have not read. But I tried at 'Vanity Fair;' and I am afraid I don't like it."

"I do not believe you will now. I can't imagine real young people liking them. But when one has grown older and had sorrow and suffering and experience, there are so many touches that go to one's heart. And 'Vanity Fair' is a novel without a hero. Still I always feel sorry for poor Major Dobbins. I wonder if Amelia would have liked him better if his name had been something else? Could you fall in love with such a name?"

They both laughed. She raised her eyes. How exquisitely fair and sweet and dainty she was! The soft hair had shining lights; and her eyes had a twilight look that suggested a pellucid lake, with evening shades blowing over it.

"A little more of something would have made him a hero, and spoiled the book."

"But I don't like Amelia, nor Becky; and the Crawleys are horrid. And Thackeray seems holding up everybody and laughing at them. I like to believe in people."

"I am glad there is a time when we can believe in them: it is the radiant time of youth. What did that little smile hide, and half betray? Confess!"

"Are you so very old?"

The charming gravity was irresistible.

"Seven and twenty, and I am beginning to worship Thackeray. At seven and thirty, he will be one of my passions, I know. Now and then I come to a