CHAPTER XIII.

CURL-PAPER CONFIDENCES.

When two young women are closeted in their bedchamber after a pleasant day, and preparing for repose, then is the time for the interchange of sacred confidences. The events of the last few hours are touched upon with significant emphasis, the gentlemen are discussed and judged, and their personal peculiarities and excellencies commented upon with approval or otherwise. However quiet, demure, and comparatively unobservant the young ladies may have been, depend upon it not the smallest detail of the gentlemen's dress and manners has escaped their penetrating eyes. Especially is this the case upon the occasion of the introduction of a new male acquaintance. Everything appertaining to him is recalled, from the parting of his hair to the tying of his shoestrings. It would much astonish him to hear the pretty girls (all girls are pretty in their spring-time), who seemed to scarcely have courage to glance at him, speak of the colour of his eyes, of the cut of his clothes, of the quality of his moustache, of the size of his hands and feet, and the shape of his finger-nails. No learned judge in his summing up was ever so precise and correct, and the beauty or the despair of it is that these gossiping damsels are not only judges but juries, from whose verdict there is absolutely no appeal. Of course such sacred confidences are all the more interesting when the subjects for dissection are young unmarried men.

Many such conversations had Phoebe and Fanny held, and now, according to their wont, they proceeded to discuss the incidents of the evening, as they made their preparations for bed.

"I have often thought it a pity," said Phoebe, "that Mr. Kiss is not married."

"It _is_ a pity," assented Fanny; "he is so good-natured and jolly that he deserves a good wife."

"And so clever," remarked Phoebe.

"And so good-looking. Phoebe, depend upon it, he has been crossed in love."

Phoebe sighed, and Fanny echoed the sigh. To these young hearts the very idea of being crossed in love was terribly sad.

"I _do_ hope Mr. Linton's play will be a success," said Fanny, after a little pause. "Isn't it wonderful how a person can think of it all?"

"It is certain to be a success," said Phoebe, taking the last hair-pin out of her beautiful hair, which fell in waves over her shoulders.

Fanny gazed at her admiringly, and a charming picture indeed did the young girl present at that moment.

"If I envy you anything, Phoebe," said Fanny, "it is your hair. No one would think you had half as much."

"That's because it's so fine," said Phoebe, with a pleased smile.

"It's as fine as the finest silk," said Fanny, lifting bunches of it, and giving her cousin a quick affectionate kiss. "But you mustn't think I really envy you, Phoebe."

"I don't. I would change with you if I could."

"No, you wouldn't; no, you wouldn't," cried Fanny, with a merry laugh, "any more than I would with you."

"I am sure your hair is lovely, Fanny."

"It is altogether too coarse," said Fanny, with pretended pettishness. "But, there!--whoever gets me will have to make the best of it."

"Whoever gets you, Fanny, will have the dearest little wife in the world, and if he doesn't love every hair in your head he will be the most ungrateful of men--and I shall tell him so."

"I wonder who he will be," said Fanny, "and whether he knows that I've been growing up for him?"

It was quite a natural remark for a light-hearted, innocent girl to make. Why, therefore, should it cause both the cousins to fall straightway into the mood ruminative--a mood which entails silence while it lasts.

"One thing I am determined upon," said Fanny, waking up, as it were; "I won't have him unless he can waltz."

"If he can't," said Phoebe, with an arch smile, "you can teach him."

"Well, yes; that _would_ be nice." And Fanny, brush in hand, commenced to hum a favourite waltz, and took a few turns to it, saying, when she was again before the glass, "What were we speaking of, Phoebe, before my young man popped in?"

"About the play."

"We are all going on the first night--think of that! And in a private box--think of _that_! The observed of all observers, as Mr. Kiss would say. I shall feel so excited--almost as if I were the author--though such a thing is impossible."

"Why impossible, Fanny? You wrote a story when you were nine years old."

"Yes, and it commenced, "They were born in India without any father or mother." Was there anything ever so absurd?"

"The success of Mr. Linton's play will mean a great deal to him. He is not rich, I am afraid."

"If he isn't he ought to be," said Fanny, brushing with great care the tresses she pretended to despise; "wearing his brains out in the way he does. He _did_ look anxious, didn't he, while Mr. Kiss was reading it? And how beautifully he read! I felt like kissing him when he was going through the love scenes. They _do_ kiss a good deal on the stage, don't they?"

"Yes," said Phoebe, speaking with difficulty, her mouth being full of hair-pins; "but then they don't mean it."

Fanny made a face. "I shouldn't care for it that way," she said, and then she laughed, as though she had said something funny.

"Do you think Bob meant it," asked Phoebe, "when he said he was going to be an actor?"

"Bob's a riddle," replied Fanny. "I give him up."

"He might do worse. It's quite a fashionable profession."

"It isn't a profession. Didn't Mr. Kiss tell us that an actor was a rogue and vagabond by Act of Parliament."

"That was only a joke. Mr. Kiss is a gentleman."

"Of course he is. The Prince of Wales once shook hands with him, and _he_ wouldn't shake hands with any one _but_ a gentleman. Do you wish you were a man, Phoebe?"

"No."

"_I_ do!" said Fanny, with a decided nod of her head, the hair of which was by this time elaborately done up in curl-papers. Phoebe had also completed her preparations for bed. "And now, Phoebe, let us have a chat." She made this proposition with a feminine obliviousness of having spoken a single word since she had locked the bedroom door.

"What about, Fanny?"

"Open your mouth and shut your eyes, and see what God will send you," said Fanny.

"Nonsense, Fanny."

"Very well--nonsense. Then we won't have a chat. Only"--and Fanny pursed up her lips and shook her paper-covered little head wisely.

"Only what?"

"That you'll be sorry for it--that's all."

"What a tease you are! There!" Phoebe opened her mouth and shut her eyes.

"Don't move--don't stir!" cried Fanny, and she took from her dress an envelope, the edge of which she placed between Phoebe's teeth. "What is this?"

"A piece of paper. I'd sooner have a chocolate cream."

"You would, eh? Well, here's your chocolate cream--here's a packet of them--and if I don't tell him when he comes home, my name isn't Fanny Lethbridge."

This remark caused Phoebe to open her eyes very quickly, and the colour on her face to come and go. Fanny's right hand was behind her back.

"Tell whom, Fanny?"

"'Tell whom, Fanny?'" mimicked Fanny. "Now _is_ there more than one Frederick Cornwall, Esq., in the world?"

"There may be--in the London Directory."

"But they don't all write letters from Switzerland to Camden Town, do they?"

"Have you received another letter from Mr. Cornwall, Fanny?"

"Yes, I have; and here it is. It came this morning."

"And you kept it to yourself all this time!"

"How could I show it to you before? You had hardly been in the house two minutes when papa came home with Mr. Kiss and Mr. Linton. Then there was Bob hanging about, and you know how he scowls when I speak lovingly of Fred--I beg his pardon, Mr. Frederick Cornwall. Then there was helping mother with the tea. Then there was the reading of the play. Then there were the songs. With all that excitement, the letter went clean out of my head--except that I thought you would like it all the better if we read it together quietly here, where nobody can disturb us."

"You are a dear, good girl!"

"Of course I am, and you're another." Whereupon the cousins, with their arms round each other's necks, fondly embraced. They were sitting now on the bed very cosily, side by side. "Phoebe, I have something very horrifying to tell you."

"He hasn't met with an accident--he isn't ill?" exclaimed Phoebe, turning pale.

"Not a bit of it. He is as well as five feet eleven, aged six-and-twenty, should be. No, it isn't that; but it is about him, though."

"Tell me, Fanny."

"For a long time I have had my suspicions, but I wouldn't venture to breathe them to you. I watched mamma; I watched papa. When we were talking of him--it was always I who brought up his name--I set traps for them, and they fell into them unsuspiciously. And then there was what mamma said, in a pretended off-hand way, this morning, when she gave me the letter from Fred. It amounts to this, Phoebe"--she dropped her voice, and said in a whisper--"they think he comes after _me_!"

"Why shouldn't he, dear?"

"Why should he, dear?"

Phoebe stroked her cousin's face fondly, and rested her head on Fanny's shoulder.

"I hope," said Fanny, "that they won't be disappointed when they find out that he doesn't mean _me_, after all. But I don't think they will be when they know it is you, darling."

"Oh, Fanny! And he has never said one word to me!"

"What of that, sly puss? I can speak with my eyes quite as well as I can with my tongue; and Fred Cornwall is a great deal cleverer than I am. I don't positively hate him, you know."

"It would be very wrong of you to do so."

"And I don't positively love him. I like him, just a little, in a so-soish way. How it might have been if I didn't happen to have the dearest, sweetest, prettiest cousin that a foolish girl could ever boast of, isn't for me to say." (More hugs and embraces here.) "I _might_ have fallen a victim to his lordship's charms; I don't say I should, but I might."

"But, Fanny," said Phoebe, in a low tone, her lips slightly trembling, "it is foolish, it is wrong, to speak like this."

"Now, Phoebe!" said Fanny, holding up a warning forefinger.

"Well, I won't say a word."

"That's a good, sensible, sweet-hearted cousin."

"You are not sorry, Fanny?"

"That he is not made for me? Well, it gives me a pang here to say no"--she placed her hand on her heart, and emitted a comically pathetic sigh--"because, you know, he _is_ the very loveliest waltzer that ever put his arm round a girl's waist. You said so yourself. Now confess, Phoebe, if Fred _did_--eh?--you wouldn't run away, would you?" Phoebe's silence was the most eloquent answer she could give to her cousin's question, which, enigmatical as it may sound in the ears of unsentimental persons, was as clear and as sweet to the young girls as the sound of wedding bells. "If he doesn't," added Fanny, energetically, "I shall call him out!"

"Would Aunt and Uncle Leth be very angry?" murmured Phoebe.

"Why, Phoebe," replied Fanny, reproachfully, "they love you as much as they love me. I should feel dreadful if I wasn't sure of that. We are more than cousins, dear; we are sisters. Just put your ear to my heart: don't you hear it beat, 'Phoebe, Phoebe'? It is a good job for Fred Cornwall that I am _not_ a man. _He_ shouldn't have you, if I were; no--not if he were fifty Fred Cornwalls. I would run away with you, just as Young Lochinvar did with--I forget her name, but it doesn't matter; I'd do it. Isn't it strange that elderly people can't see half as well as young?--they don't look at what is under their noses; they are always looking over their spectacles."

"Aunt and Uncle Leth don't wear them," said Phoebe smiling.

"I am speaking--metaphorically. That's not my word; it's Fred's--rather a favourite with him, you know. Of course, if they asked me plainly, I should tell them; but it wouldn't do for me to start it--would it?--till things are properly settled. They will be overjoyed, Phoebe; and so shall I be; for, don't you see, my dear, when you are disposed of, there will be a chance for _me_, and if a young gentleman comes to the house there will be no mistake the next time, because I shall be the only disposable young lady in view. To that young gentleman, whoever he is, wherever he may be, I extend an invitation--I say, with a courtesy, 'Come!' Oh! but I must tell you, Phoebe, it was so funny. You remember the last time Fred Cornwall had tea with us here--before he went on his holiday trip?"

"Yes."

"_I_ invited him, and perhaps you may remember that I wrote to you and told you to be sure and come and spend two or three days with us. I didn't mention Fred's name in my letter to you, for you would have kept away." It was delightful to hear Fanny's laugh at this innocent badinage. "Well, you came--and Fred came--and I sent Bob off to the theatre, with an order. Now what does mamma pride herself especially upon in the way of jams?"

"Her gooseberry jam."

"Yes, and it really is very fine; I never tasted any half as good. Well, all the while we were at tea I saw it was you Fred was feeding on."

"Fanny, Fanny! You are incorrigible!"

"Am I? Nevertheless, I am right. When he wasn't looking at you, he was thinking of you; when he wasn't thinking of you, he was looking at you. I am quite an experienced person in love matters. 'Mr. Cornwall,' said mamma, 'this is home-made gooseberry jam--my own making. What do you think of it?' 'It is a dream,' replied Fred. He was gazing at you when he passed that very remarkable opinion upon mamma's gooseberry jam. Afterward I heard mamma say to papa, 'Did you hear what Mr. Cornwall said of my gooseberry jam? He said it was a dream. Depend upon it, he means something by it.' And I happening to pop into the room just then, mamma looked at papa significantly; and papa looked at mamma significantly; and then both of them kissed me. I couldn't help laughing to myself and thinking, 'Mamma will have to try her gooseberry jam on some other young man.' And now, Phoebe, we will read Fred's letter."

"How is it, Fanny, that Mr. Cornwall has written you so many letters?" asked Phoebe.

"Jealous?" inquired Fanny.

"No, I have no right to be; Mr. Cornwall is really nothing to me."

"You should have ended that sentence with 'yet.' 'Mr. Cornwall is really nothing to me--yet!' Quite right for you to call him _Mr._ Cornwall; I shall call him Fred, to his face. He will like it--so shall I."

"How you rattle on, Fanny!"

"Yes," said Fanny, composedly; "papa used to call me a regular little chatterbox."

"You have not answered my question, Fanny."

"Oh, about the letters. How is it Fred has written me so many? I have received one, two, three, and this is the fourth. A famous correspondence, isn't it? The fact is," said Fanny unblushingly, "I asked him to write to me, and he, being such a polite young fellow, couldn't very well refuse. I did it quite openly; mamma was present. 'You might write me a nice chatty letter or two, Mr. Cornwall,' said I, 'while you are away.' 'I shall be very happy,' said he, looking at mamma, 'if I may be allowed.' '_I_ have no objection,' said mamma. His asking mamma was almost like a declaration, wasn't it? Many a man has been had up for breach of promise for less than that. And to think of a lawyer so committing himself! But I don't believe they are a bit cleverer than other people; they only pretend to be. 'But I shall stipulate,' said Fred, 'that you answer my letters.' 'Of course I will,' said I, without asking mamma; and I have. In the last one I wrote to him I said that you sent him your dearest love."

"I hope you did not say that, Fanny."

"If I didn't, I meant it; so that it amounts to the same thing. Don't be ungrateful, Phoebe. I inveigled him into writing to me for your sake, not for mine, though I _do_ wear his letters next to my heart. He is supposed to be addressing me in his correspondence, but he is really writing to you, and he knows that you read every word. Is there one of his letters without a lot about you in it?"

"He is always thoughtful."

"A model young man; when he comes home we'll put him in a glass case. And now we must really get to sleep, or we shall have mamma crying outside in the passage, 'Girls, girls, put out the light!' Don't you feel tired, Phoebe?"

"But the letter, Fanny!"

"Oh, the letter! Well, if I wasn't almost forgetting it! I suppose it _must_ be read. See, it is addressed from the Grimsel Hospice. That's where the monks are. What a splendid monk Fred would make! He really ought to become one. What do _you_ think, Phoebe?"

Then Fanny kissed her cousin half a dozen times, and proceeded to read Fred Cornwall's letter.