第96章

"Now, Mr. Ellsworth, you are just the man I wanted. Three of these gentlemen are against me; I have only one on my side, and I want you to help me to fight the battle."

"Must I enlist, Miss Taylor, before I know whether the cause is good or bad?"

"Oh, certainly, or else you are not worth a cent. But I'll tell you how the matter stands: you know Helen de Vaux and you were at the Springs, last summer, when she and Mr. Van Alstyne were there. Well, I say she was dead in love with him, though she did refuse him."

"Was she?" replied Mr. Ellsworth.

"Why, I know she was; it was as plain as a pike-staff to everybody who saw them together. And here, these good folks provoke me so; they say if she refused him she did not care for him; and here is my ridiculous brother-in-law, Mr. St. Leger, says I don't know anything about it; and my sister Adeline always thinks just as her husband does."

"That's quite right, my dear," said the rusty Mr. Hopkins, taking a pinch of snuff. "I hope you will follow her example one of these days."

"What are the precise symptoms of a young lady's being dead in love?" asked the quiet, business-looking Theodore St. Leger.

"Oh, you know well enough what I mean. You may say what you please about Helen de Vaux not caring for him, I know better," continued the young lady, in a voice that might be heard on the other side of the boat.

"As Miss de Vaux's mother is on board, suppose you refer the question to her," said Mr. Ellsworth, in a dry manner.

"Is she?--I hope she didn't hear us," continued the young lady, lowering her voice half a tone. "But you need not ask her, though; for I don't believe her mother knows anything about it."

"You are going to the Springs, I suppose," said Mr. Ellsworth, by way of changing the conversation.

"I wish we were! No; Adeline has taken it into her head to be romantic, for the first time in her life. She says we must go to the Falls; and it will be a fortnight lost from Saratoga."

"But, have you no wish to see Niagara?"

"Not a bit; and I don't believe Adeline has, either. But it is no wonder she doesn't care about the Springs, now she's married; she began to go there four years before I did."

"Have you never been to Niagara, Mrs. St. Leger?" continued Mr. Ellsworth, addressing the elder sister; who, from the giddy, belleish Adeline, was now metamorphosed into the half-sober young matron--the wife of an individual, who in spite of the romantic appellation of Theodore St. Leger, was a very quiet, industrious business-man, the nephew and adopted son of Mr. Hopkins, Adeline's Boston escort. She had been sitting contentedly beside the old gentleman, for the last half hour, leaving her unmarried sister to entertain the beaux, according to etiquette.

"No, I have never been to the Falls; and all our party but my sister Emma, seemed to think it would be a pleasant jaunt."

"Mr. Hopkins has entered into an engagement to supply me with at least two beaux at a time, and a regular change all the way to Niagara, or else I shouldn't have come," said Miss Emma.

"We are engaged at least by the day, I hope," interposed one of the attendant young men.

"No, indeed; I should be tired to death of you, for more than an hour at a time. I sha'n't speak to YOU again, until we have passed West Point."

"I have had no trouble as yet, my dear, in picking up recruits," said Mr. Hopkins, whose attention seemed equally divided between his snuff-box, and the little Hopkins, junior, on his knee--his great-nephew.

"If there are two, that's all I care for; but I hate to have only one person to talk to."

Mr. Ellsworth bit his lips, to prevent their expressing his opinion, that the young lady must always have a large circle of listeners.

"Have you seen Mr. Wyllys's party this morning?" inquired Adeline.

"The Wyllyses!--Are they on board?" exclaimed Mr. Ellsworth, with surprise and pleasure. "I thought them at Saratoga by this time."

"Oh, no; they are somewhere on the other side of the boat; my sister-in-law, Mrs. Taylor's little girl is with them.

By-the-bye, Emma, I am going into the cabin to look after Jane; will you go with me?"

"No, indeed; I hale the cabin of a steamboat!"

Adeline was quite satisfied to leave her sister with the prospect of a good supply of young men to flirt with; though matrimony had changed her in some respects, she still considered it a duty to encourage to the utmost, all love-affairs, and flirtations going on in her neighbourhood. Mr. Hopkins resigned the little boy to his mother's care; Mr. St. Leger helped his wife through the crowd; and, under cover of the movement made to allow Adeline to pass, Mr. Ellsworth made his escape. His eye had been already directed towards the opposite side of the boat, where he had discovered the venerable, benevolent face of Mr. Wyllys, with three ladies near him. Mr. Ellsworth immediately recognised Miss Agnes, Elinor, and Mary Van Alstyne. It was several minutes before he could edge his way through the crowd, to join them; but when he reached the spot, he was received very cordially by Mr. Wyllys and Miss Agnes, in a friendly manner by Mary Van Alstyne, and possibly there was something of consciousness betrayed by Elinor.

"I thought you already at Saratoga!" exclaimed Mr. Ellsworth.

"We were detained several days, waiting for Mrs. Taylor," replied Elinor, to whom the remark was made.

"We shall not be at Saratoga until Monday," added Mr. Wyllys; "we are going to pass a day or two with our friends, the V-----s, at Poughkeepsie."

"I am very sorry to hear it," continued Mr. Ellsworth; "I have promised to carry Mrs. Creighton to Nahant, about that time, and shall have my usual bad luck in missing you."

{"Nahant" = sea-side resort in Massachusetts, then very popular, just north of Boston}

"We must persuade Mrs. Creighton not to run away," said Mr. Wyllys.

As Elinor stooped at that moment, to untie the hat of the pretty little creature at her side, it was impossible to say whether this intelligence were displeasing to her or not.