A Young Girl's Wooing Read online

  The Works of E. P. Roe

  Volume Sixteen

  A YOUNG GIRL'S WOOING

  Illustrated

  1884

  "ARE YOU SO BENT UPON WINNING HER, GRAYDON?"]

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I A Crescent of a Girl

  CHAPTER II Graydon Muir

  CHAPTER III The Parting

  CHAPTER IV Effort

  CHAPTER V Achievement

  CHAPTER VI The Secret of Beauty

  CHAPTER VII Not a Miracle

  CHAPTER VIII Rival Girls

  CHAPTER IX The Meeting

  CHAPTER X Old Ties Broken

  CHAPTER XI "I Fear I Shall Fail"

  CHAPTER XII The Promptings of Miss Wildmere's Heart

  CHAPTER XIII "You Will Be Disappointed"

  CHAPTER XIV Miss Wildmere's Strategy

  CHAPTER XV Perplexed and Beguiled

  CHAPTER XVI Declaration of Independence

  CHAPTER XVII Not Strong in Vain

  CHAPTER XVIII Make Your Terms

  CHAPTER XIX An Object for Sympathy

  CHAPTER XX "Veiled Wooing"

  CHAPTER XXI Suggestive Tones

  CHAPTER XXII Disheartening Confidences

  CHAPTER XXIII The Filial Martyr

  CHAPTER XXIV "I'll See How You Behave"

  CHAPTER XXV Gossamer Threads

  CHAPTER XXVI Mrs. Muir's Account

  CHAPTER XXVII Madge's Story

  CHAPTER XXVIII Dispassionate Lovers

  CHAPTER XXIX The Enemies' Plans

  CHAPTER XXX The Strong Man Unmanned

  CHAPTER XXXI Checkmate

  CHAPTER XXXII Madge is Matter-of-Fact

  CHAPTER XXXIII The End of Diplomacy

  CHAPTER XXXIV Broken Lights and Shadows

  CHAPTER XXXV A New Experiment

  CHAPTER XXXVI Madge Alden's Ride

  CHAPTER XXXVII "You are Very Blind"

  CHAPTER XXXVIII "Certainly I Refuse You"

  CHAPTER XXXIX "My True Friend"

  CHAPTER XL The End of the Wooing

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  "_Are you so bent upon winning her, Graydon?_"

  _"There, now, be rational" cried the young girl_

  _Her lips were parted, her pose, grace itself_

  "_Promise me you will take a long rest_"

  "_So you imagine I shall soon be making love to another girl?_"

  CHAPTER I

  A CRESCENT OF A GIRL

  When Madge Alden was seventeen years of age an event occurred whichpromised to be the misfortune of her life. At first she was almostoverwhelmed and knew not what to do. She was but a young andinexperienced girl, and for a year or more had been regarded as aninvalid.

  Madge Alden was an orphan. Four years prior to the opening of ourstory she had lost her mother, her surviving parent, and since hadresided with her elder sister Mary, who was several years hersenior, and had married Henry Muir, a merchant of New York City. Thisgentleman had cordially united with his wife in offering Madge a home,and his manner toward the young girl, as far as his absorbed and busylife permitted, had been almost paternal. He was a quiet, reticentman, who had apparently concentrated every faculty of soul and body onthe problem of commercial success. Trained to business from boyhood,he had allowed it to become his life, and he took it very seriously.It was to him an absorbing game--his vocation, and not a means to someulterior end. He had already accumulated enough to maintain his familyin affluence, but he no more thought of retiring from trade than woulda veteran whist-player wish to throw up a handful of winning cards.The events of the world, the fluctuations in prices, over which he hadno control, brought to his endeavor the elements of chance, and it washis mission to pit against these uncertainties untiring industry andsuch skill and foresight as he possessed.

  His domestic life was favorable to his ruling passion. Mary Alden, atthe time of her marriage, was a quiet girl, whose early life had beenshadowed by sorrow. She had seen her father pass away in his prime,and her mother become in consequence a sad and failing woman.The young girl rallied from these early years of depression intocheerfulness, and thoroughly enjoyed what some might regard as amonotonous life; but she never developed any taste for the diversionsof society. Thus it may be surmised that Mr. Muir encountered nodistractions after business hours. He ever found a good dinnerawaiting him, and his wife held herself in readiness to do whathe wished during the evening, so far as the claims of the childrenpermitted. Therefore there were few more contented men in the citythan he, and the name of Henry Muir had become a synonym among hisacquaintances for methodical business habits.

  In character and antecedents his younger brother, Graydon Muir, whowas also an inmate of his family, presented many marked contrasts tothe elder man. He had received a liberal education, and had graduatedat a city college. He had developed into one of the best productsof metropolitan life, and his defects were chiefly due to thecircumstances of his lot. During his academic course he had been knownas an athletic rather than a bookish man, and had left his Alma Materwith an Apollo-like physique. At the same time he had developed fineliterary tastes, and was well informed, even if he had not gone verydeeply into the classics and the sciences that were remote from thebusiness career which he had chosen. After a brief interval of foreigntravel he had entered his brother's office, and was schooling hisbuoyant, pleasure-loving temperament to the routine of trade. Whenbusiness hours were over, however, Graydon gave himself up to thegratification of his social tastes. His vitality and flow of spiritswere so immense that wherever he went he always caused a breezy rippleof excitement. Even veteran society girls found something exhilaratingin the mirthful flash of his blue eyes, and to be whirled througha waltz on his strong arm was a pleasure not declined by reigningbelles. Many looks that to other men might have been the arrows ofCupid were directed toward him, but they glanced harmlessly fromhis polished armor. Society was to him what business was to hisbrother,--an arena in which he easily manifested his power. Atthe same time he was a manly fellow, and had no taste for cornerflirtations or the excitement of drawing perilously near to acommittal with those who would have responded to marked attentions.The atmosphere he loved was that of general and social gayety. Thegirls that he singled out for his especial regard were noted for theirvivacity and intelligence, as well as their beauty. Meanwhile he hadwon a reputation for his good-natured attentions to "wall-flowers."Such kindly efforts were rarely made at the promptings of conscience.The truth was, he enjoyed life so fully himself that he disliked tosee any one having a dismal time. It gave him genuine pleasure to cometo a plain-featured, neglected damsel, and set all her blood tinglingby a brief whirl in a dance or a breezy chat that did her good, bodyand soul, so devoid of satire or patronage was the attention. Hissuperb health and tireless strength, his perfect familiarity with theusages of society, and his graceful decision of action made everythinghe did appear as easy and natural as the beat of a bird's wing uponthe air, and in his large circle it was felt that no entertainment wascomplete without his presence.

  Graydon was still attending college when Madge Alden first becameassociated with him in her home-life. She was then but thirteen, andwas small and slight for her age. The first evening when she came downto dinner, shrinking in the shadow of her sister, lingered ever in hermemory. Even now it gave her pain to recall her embarrassment when shewas compelled to take her seat in the full blaze of the light andmeet the eyes of the one to whom she felt that she must appear sovery plain and unattractive. Clad in the deepest mourning, pallidfrom grief and watching at her mother's bedside, coming from a life ofseclusion and sorrow, sensitive in the extreme, sh
e had barely reachedthat age when awkwardness is in the ascendant, and the quiet cityhome seemed the centre of a new and strange world. One other thing sheremembered in that initial chapter of her life,--the kindly glancesthat Graydon Muir bent on the pale crescent of a girl who sat oppositeto him. Even as a child she knew that the handsome young fellow wasnot secretly laughing at or criticising her, and before dinner wasover she had ventured upon a shy, grateful glance, in reward for hisgood-humored efforts to break the ice.

  There had, in truth, been no ice to break. The child was merely likea plant that had grown in the shade, and to her the strong, healthfulyouth was sunshine. His smile warmed and vivified her chilled nature,his hearty words and manner were bracing to her over-sensitive andtimid soul, and his unaffected, unforced kindness was so constant thatshe gradually came to regard it as one of the best certainties of herlife. She soon learned, however, that behind his sunny good-naturewas a fiery and impatient spirit, ready to manifest itself if he waschafed beyond a certain point, and so a slight element of fear wasmingled with her childlike affection.

  He had sufficient tact to understand Madge's diffidence, and he knewthat their family life would soon banish it. He welcomed this paleslip of a girl to their home circle because it gave him pleasure topet and rally such a wraith into something like genuine existence. Healso hoped that eventually she would become a source of amusement tohim. Nor was he disappointed. Madge's mind was not colorless, if herface was, and she gradually began to respond to his mirthfulness, andto take an interest, intelligent for a child, in what occupied histhoughts. Kindness creates an atmosphere in which the most sensitiveand diffident natures develop and reveal themselves, and Madge Alden,who might easily have been chilled into a reticent and dispiritedgirl, eventually manifested an unusual versatility of fancy andthought, acquiring also no slight power of expression.

  Thus Graydon obtained his reward. His brother was a grave and silentman, to whom few themes could be broached except those of businessand the events and politics of the day in their relation to trade. Hissister-in-law was absorbed in household and family cares, but Madge'sgreat black eyes responded with quick appreciation to all that hesaid, and their merry nonsense often provoked a smile upon even theface of Mr. Muir. The good-natured sympathy of the young man thereforepassed gradually into a genuine fraternal regard, and he rarely camehome of an evening without bringing flowers, bonbons, or some otherevidence that he had remembered her. Unconsciously to herself, hebecame more to her than her sister, who was indulgent in the extreme,but not very demonstrative. Her shyness disappeared, and his caressesseemed as natural as those of an elder brother, in which light sheregarded him.

  Thus time passed on, and the girl rapidly approached the stature ofwomanhood. Apparently she grew too fast for her slight reserve ofphysical strength. She nominally attended a fashionable school, butwas often absent from ill health, and for this reason her sisterpermitted her to follow her own moods. Indolence and inanitionaccounted largely for her lack of strength. Exercise broughtweariness, and she would not take it. Nothing pleased her more than tocurl up on a lounge with a book; and her sister, seeing that she wasreading most of the time, felt that she was getting an education. Tothe busy lady a book was a book, a kind of general fertilizer ofthe mind, and as Madge usually took cold when she went out, and wasassuredly acquiring from the multitude of volumes she devoured allthe knowledge a woman needed, she was safer in the evenly heated cityhouse. The sisters had independent fortunes of their own, and thegreat point in Mrs. Muir's mind was that they should live and enjoythem. If Madge was only sufficiently coddled now while she wasgrowing, she would get strong eventually; and so the good lady, whohad as much knowledge of hygiene as of Sanscrit, tempted the invalidwith delicacies, permitted her to eat the confectionery that Graydonbrought so often, and generally indulged a nature that needed wise andfirm development.

  Thus Madge lived on, growing more pale and languid with eachsucceeding year. The absence in the mountains and at the seashorewhich Mr. Muir permitted to his family every summer brought changesfor the better, even though the young girl spent most of the time in ahammock or reclining in the stern of a sail-boat. She could not escapethe invigoration caused by the mere breathing of pure air, but duringthe winters in town she lost all and more than she had gained, andsunk back into her old apathetic life.

  This life, however, contained two elements which gave some color andzest to her existence. All through the day she would look forward toGraydon's return from business, and when she heard his latch-key thefaintest possible color would steal into her cheeks. Up-stairs, twosteps at a time, he would come, kiss her, waltz her about the roomwith a strength which scarcely permitted her feet to touch the floor,then toss her back on the lounge, where she would lie, laughing,breathless, and happy. With a man's ignorant tolerance he accepted hercharacter as an invalid, and felt that the least he could do wasto brighten a life which seemed so dismal to him. When he came downdressed for dinner or some evening engagement, she looked at him witha frank, admiring pride that amused him immensely. When he returnedearlier than usual he often found her still upon the lounge with herinevitable book, usually a novel, and then he would take her uponhis lap and call her his "dear little spook, the household ghost thatwould soon cease to cast a shadow;" and she, with a languid curiosity,would easily beguile from him a portrayal of the scenes through whichhe had just passed. She cared little for them, but from his storesof vitality and strength he imparted life to her, and withoutunderstanding why, she simply knew she was happy.

  Apart from her fondness for the unreal scenes presented by themiscellaneous books she read--scenes all the more unreal because shehad no experience by which to correct them--she had one other tastewhich promised well for the future--a sincere love of music. She wastaking lessons, but it was from a superficial teacher, who was contentto give her pretty and showy pieces; and she brought even to thisfavorite study the desultory habits which characterized all herefforts to obtain an education. When she sat down to her piano,however, nature was her strong ally. Her ear was fine and correct, andher sensitive, fanciful spirit gave delicacy and originality to hertouch. It scarcely seems possible for one to become a sympatheticmusician without a large degree of imagination and a nature easilymoved by thought and feeling. The young girl's thoughts and feelingswere as yet very vague, not concentrated on definite objects, and yetso good a connoisseur as Graydon often acknowledged her power, andwould listen with pleased attention to her girlish rendering of musicmade familiar to him by the great performers of the day. He enjoyed itall the more because it was her own interpretation, often incorrect,but never commonplace or slovenly; and when her fingers wandered amongthe keys in obedience to her own impulses he was even more charmed,although the melody was usually without much meaning. She was alsoendowed with the rudiments of a fine voice, and would often strikenotes of surpassing sweetness and power; but her tones would soonquaver and break, and she complained that it tired her to sing. Thatended the matter, for anything that wearied her was not to be thoughtof.

  Thus she had drifted on with time, unconscious of herself, unconsciousof the influences that would bring to pass the decisive events inthe future. She was like multitudes of others who are controlled bycircumstances of their lot until the time comes when a deep personalexperience applies the touchstone to character.