"Come, Priscilla," said I, looking her intently in the face, which was very pale and sorrowful, "we must make haste after our friends.Do you feel suddenly ill? A moment ago, you flitted along so lightly that I was comparing you to a bird.Now, on the contrary, it is as if you had a heavy heart, and a very little strength to bear it with.Pray take my arm!""No," said Priscilla, "I do not think it would help me.It is my heart, as you say, that makes me heavy; and I know not why.Just now, I felt very happy."No doubt it was a kind of sacrilege in me to attempt to come within her maidenly mystery; but, as she appeared to be tossed aside by her other friends, or carelessly let fall, like a flower which they had done with, I could not resist the impulse to take just one peep beneath her folded petals.
"Zenobia and yourself are dear friends of late," I remarked."At first, --that first evening when you came to us,--she did not receive you quite so warmly as might have been wished.""I remember it," said Priscilla."No wonder she hesitated to love me, who was then a stranger to her, and a girl of no grace or beauty,--she being herself so beautiful!""But she loves you now, of course?" suggested I."And at this very instant you feel her to be your dearest friend?""Why do you ask me that question?" exclaimed Priscilla, as if frightened at the scrutiny into her feelings which I compelled her to make."It somehow puts strange thoughts into my mind.But I do love Zenobia dearly!
If she only loves me half as well, I shall be happy!""How is it possible to doubt that, Priscilla?" I rejoined."But observe how pleasantly and happily Zenobia and Hollingsworth are walking together.
I call it a delightful spectacle.It truly rejoices me that Hollingsworth has found so fit and affectionate a friend! So many people in the world mistrust him,--so many disbelieve and ridicule, while hardly any do him justice, or acknowledge him for the wonderful man he is,--that it is really a blessed thing for him to have won the sympathy of such a woman as Zenobia.Any man might be proud of that.Any man, even if he be as great as Hollingsworth, might love so magnificent a woman.How very beautiful Zenobia is! And Hollingsworth knows it, too."There may have been some petty malice in what I said.Generosity is a very fine thing, at a proper time and within due limits.But it is an insufferable bore to see one man engrossing every thought of all the women, and leaving his friend to shiver in outer seclusion, without even the alternative of solacing himself with what the more fortunate individual has rejected.Yes, it was out of a foolish bitterness of heart that I had spoken.
"Go on before," said Priscilla abruptly, and with true feminine imperiousness, which heretofore I had never seen her exercise."It pleases me best to loiter along by myself.I do not walk so fast as you.
"
With her hand she made a little gesture of dismissal.It provoked me;yet, on the whole, was the most bewitching thing that Priscilla had ever done.I obeyed her, and strolled moodily homeward, wondering--as I had wondered a thousand times already--how Hollingsworth meant to dispose of these two hearts, which (plainly to my perception, and, as I could not but now suppose, to his) he had engrossed into his own huge egotism.
There was likewise another subject hardly less fruitful of speculation.
In what attitude did Zenobia present herself to Hollingsworth? Was it in that of a free woman, with no mortgage on her affections nor claimant to her hand, but fully at liberty to surrender both, in exchange for the heart and hand which she apparently expected to receive? But was it a vision that I had witnessed in the wood? Was Westervelt a goblin? Were those words of passion and agony, which Zenobia had uttered in my hearing, a mere stage declamation? Were they formed of a material lighter than common air? Or, supposing them to bear sterling weight, was it a perilous and dreadful wrong which she was meditating towards herself and Hollingsworth?
Arriving nearly at the farmhouse, I looked back over the long slope of pasture land, and beheld them standing together, in the light of sunset, just on the spot where, according to the gossip of the Community, they meant to build their cottage.Priscilla, alone and forgotten, was lingering in the shadow of the wood.
