Conny

“ Grove End! There, at least, they know how to treat a gentleman.”
“A gentleman!” she exclaimed. “I am very sure that were you to behave to Conny as you have behaved to me——”
“Are you aware,” I interrupted her, “that in mentioning the name of Conny, you are speaking of the sweetest and most womanly of girls? who would no more insult me as you do, than I would knowingly insult you?” ”

“ But I was not so sure that Conny herself would share in their delirium. She rather puzzled me. Sometimes I thought her shy and simple. Sometimes she confounded me with a sudden sally—a smart retort—a pat allusion, apt, shrewd and well-timed enough to reverse my judgment, and set me [Pg 120] speculating on her real character. If she meant me to fall in love with her, she was going the right way to work. Pique your man, Clorinda, before you angle for him. The cleverest fishers among you always summon the sentiments with ground-bait before they throw the hook in. ”

“ Pride she had in abundance. It peeped out in all directions. But it did not affect her behaviour to me; simply because she believed me heart and [8] soul devoted to Conny; and attributed any effervescing manner of mine to the most cousinly impulses, and the most laudable anxiety to be thought amiable.
I had been now ten days at my uncle’s. He had begged me in his hearty, hospitable manner to stop the fortnight, and I had consented.
There had been a time during those ten days when I was eager for nothing but to return to Updown. But Conny’s silence had made me rebellious. ”

“ However, I may point out that there was some difference between the love I had felt for Conny and the love that I now felt for Theresa. To [161] begin with, I deny that I ever did love Conny. Oh yes, you may turn back to other chapters and point me out several most condemnatory phrases; but don’t judge people by phrases. There is only one alphabet, but there are a hundred passions; and admiration will express itself in the language of love, precisely as if it were the most perfect and enduring devotion. ”

“ No doubt I should be asked there as often as I cared to be; and I should certainly enjoy my kind-hearted relations’ hospitality not the less because I could combine my privileges with personal independence.
Conny ran in my head a good deal. What a little pet she was! I could love that girl, I thought. Who was Curling? Did she like him? He must be a very impertinent sort of fellow to think about her. ”

“ I remember one fine evening at the latter end of June, that I left the drawing-room and strolled on to the lawn, and seated myself under a fine old oak tree. I wanted Conny to join me, and hoped she would take the hint, or that her mamma would send her with a cigar; for as I have said, Mrs. Hargrave took great pleasure in seeing us together. I made up my mind, if Conny came, to tell her that I loved her. I was suffering at that moment from an access. Everybody [Pg 149] knows that love is an intermittent fever, and that the delirium is very powerful at times. ”

“ It is all very fine for my wife to abuse him now; but up to the moment when she suspected that he was paying Conny attention, she professed to like him very much. I might hunt a long time before I should find a man better suited for my work than Curling. And strange as it will strike you to hear, I can assure you that when my wife has been trying to frighten me about him and Conny, I have thought that he might make my [109] child as good a husband as a richer man, and as my partner be of the greatest use to me. ”

“ What do you think of Conny?”
“She is a cousin to boast of. She is the prettiest girl I have ever seen.”
My uncle looked immensely gratified.
“Yes, yes,” said he with a broad smile. “She is pretty enough. I have nothing to complain of. An only child is not always so well favoured. When nature is mean, she is generally mean with a vengeance. But Conny is a sly puss; she has made her mamma and me a little uneasy latterly.”
“Indeed!”
“My cashier, Curling, is a rather good looking young fellow, and Mrs. Hargrave has got an idea in her head that Conny admires him.” ”

“ I watched Conny incessantly: too much so, I fear, for I believe I embarrassed her. I wish she had laughed: I wish she had sneered: I wish she had insulted me. I wanted steeling. But no! she gave me thrilling looks, kept her countenance, and eat so languidly, that my heart leapt up, like Wordsworth’s when he saw the blue sky; I believed that her [38] father’s scheme had been unfolded to her, and that the fear of losing me had taught her to know she LOVED!
Neither my uncle nor aunt conversed with their wonted ease. A cloud overhung us. ”

“ It is impossible to suppose that a child of mine could continue to care about so insignificant a person; and certainly, since your arrival, I have had no cause whatever [Pg 220] to suspect that she any longer thinks about him. If she has given you encouragement, I am satisfied. Conny is an honest girl, and would not dream of accepting one man’s attention, while her heart was secretly given to another. ”

“ He only died a few years ago.”
“When did he die, Conny?” asked her papa. “You are well read in history.”
“Oh, please, don’t let us argue any more,” said Conny. “It is too hot.”
“Marriage,” said I, feeling that I would give worlds to take and squeeze Conny’s hand under the table-cloth, “is one of those things you can’t reason about. The moth flies to the candle, and takes no thought of whither he goeth or what will become of him.”
“Whether,” continued my uncle, “the flame that attracts him is made by a farthing dip or by virgin wax.” ”

“ But if you drive your nephew into loving another woman, as sure as you are a man, Conny will grow sentimental again over your cashier. How are you to help it?’ I asked him. ‘You bring no young men to the house: she sees no society; if she isn’t actually in love with Charlie, she told me enough to persuade me that it will not be long before she loves him.’ But he pish’d and pshaw’d, and pooh-pooh’d me down, and told me I was [48] interfering, and that I was foolish to imagine for a moment that there had been anything serious between Conny and Mr. Curling. ”

“ Betty's birthday came and went. The wonderful little toy was presented, and it was hard saying who was most delighted, Betty or the doctor.
"You are a genius, Conny—an artist, a poet," he exclaimed; and he made a journey to Kilbourne, bringing back a set of carving tools for Conny, and a furnished doll's house, with which he bribed the little lady to give her dainty sideboard into safe-keeping until her curious fingers should have outgrown their passion for pulling things to pieces.
Day by day the attachment of the family for Conny increased.
"He is a gentleman born," said Mrs. Hunter. ”

“ In England prejudice against it was for a long time very strong, especially among the poor.
[Begun in Harper's Young People No. 47, September 21.] "MOONSHINERS." BY E. H. MILLER. Chapter II. CONNY FINDS A HOME.
Two days afterward, when the doctor went out for his horse, he found Conny sitting astride the block, his lap filled with sweet white clover, which he was feeding to Prince with one hand, while with the other he stroked the beautiful head that was bent down to him. He dropped to his feet on seeing the doctor, and made a bow, grave and stiff, but not at all bashful. ”

“ I said, blushing.
“There is an old French proverb that says we forgive in proportion as we love. I don’t find you making enough excuses for Conny to satisfy me that you love her.”
“Love makes people critical and harsh,” said I, “not lenient. I never believe what a Frenchman says about love. They know nothing about it in that country. When I left Updown I [19] was in Conny’s power. ”

“ Curling does admire Conny? People can only be prevented from touching—not from looking.”
“Oh, Mr. Curling is welcome to admire,” replied my aunt, with pleasant disdain. “All that I want to be assured of is, that Conny doesn’t care about him.”
“I don’t think she does; at least,” I [Pg 154] added, with a twinge of jealousy, “she has never given me to understand by word or look that she cares a farthing for him. ”

“ One thing I could predict: the presence of the major would entirely nullify every lingering feeling of humiliation with which Tom and his wife might still regard Conny’s marriage. So gorgeous a relation could not but absorb out of the family circle the remnants of degradation Conny’s elopement had left behind it ”

“ No truely Sir, answered the seruingman, I know not any such Gentleman as you speake of. By my troth replyed the Conny-catcher, I am assured I knew thee and thy Maister, though now I cannot suddenly remember my selfe. The seruingman fearing no harme, yet fitting the humour of this trecherous companion, tolde right his Masters name whome he served, and that his Master was even then walking in Paules. O Gods will (quoth the Cony-catcher, repeating his masters name) a very honest Gentleman, of such a place is he not? ”

“ It was ridiculous to suppose that golden-haired Conny could see anything in such a man as that. As to Spratling, he looked a harmless little fellow; his head and hands were immense, and his shoulders broad enough for a man of my father’s height; yet he might have walked under my arm.
I cocked my hat as I strolled past the counter with a slow and indolent step; and stopped, when on the pavement, full in the sight of Mr. Curling, to light [Pg 99] a cigar, though I should have preferred a pipe. I then got into the phaeton, and was driven to Grove End. ”

“ Conny looked indescribably pretty, in spite of a somewhat affected pose. Teazer’s face was in profile, and a handsome profile it was. There was plenty of intellect in the low, square brow, over which the plentiful dark hair was roughly drawn. The eyelashes were long, but contributed little of tenderness to the determined gaze of the large eye. The contour of the bust was noble. She held a stout riding-whip across her shoulder, as a man holds a gun. Yet there was something very striking about this photograph. [88] I caught myself examining it intently and not without admiration ”

“ Now then Conny’s affection displayed itself. She clung to her husband, kissed him, asked him if he was hurt and where, behaved herself altogether so pathetically that I felt myself a wretch for having laughed to see him fall.
“Do let us go home!” she cried, [182] turning to her papa. “We are so much happier alone. Theodore never wanted to come, and mamma will break his heart.”
Ay, and his neck too, she might have added.
“Yes, yes! go home! go home!” exclaimed my poor uncle. “Tell James, one of you, to bring the phaeton round. ”

“ This Gentleman walking in Paules, with his Chaine faire glittering about his necke, talking with his man about some businesse: was well viewed and regarded by a crewe of Conny-catchers, whose teeth watred at his goodly Chaine, yet knew not how to come by it hanging as it did, and therefore entred into secret conspiration among themselves, if they could not come by all the Chaine, yet how they might make it lighter by halfe a score poundes at the least. ”

“ The satten and the lace being brought to the Tayler that should make the gowne, and spread abroade on the shop boord to be measured, certaine good fellowes of the Conny-catching profession chanced to go by, who seeing so rich lace, and so excellent good satten, began to commune with themselues how they might make some purchase of what they had seene: and quickly it was to bee done or not at al. ”

“ Well, at the length with much ado, he is contented to stay, when Margaret and her Mistresse presently stirred to make ready his bed, which the more to the honest mans hard hap, but all the better for this artificial Conny-catcher, was in the same room where they supped, being commonly called their hall, and there indeed stood a verie faire bed, as in such sightly roumes it may easily bee thought, Citizens vse not to haue any thing meane or simple. ”

“ He that had done this tall exploit, in a place so open in view, so hardly to be come by, & on a man that made no meane esteem of his wit: bids his fellowes keepe the worthles name of a Conny-catcher to themselves: for he hence-foorth would bee termed a Foole-taker, and such as could imitate this quaint example of his, (which he would set down as an entrance into that art) should not thinke scorne to become his schollers. ”

“ There's never any use bothering to tell people the truth when you don't like them. The reason Conny and Pris and I get on so well together, is because we always tell each other the exact truth about our faults. Then we have a chance to correct them—that's what makes us so nice," she added modestly. ”

“ And detestable as Rochefoucauld’s philosophy always is, there is but too much truth in his [157] assertion, that there is something in the misfortunes of our friends that seldom fails to please us. I honoured uncle Dick for the cheerful light his large kind heart streamed upon this family trouble. He talked so well, reasoned so clearly and honestly, that it was difficult to hear him and not consider that Conny had shown profound sagacity in selecting Curling for a husband ”

“ What have you done with the young people?”
This question brought about a long and minute narrative, which was barely finished when my aunt and cousin returned.
You may conceive that nothing but Conny and her elopement was talked about till dinner was announced. My aunt was still most violent and irascible in her views and opinions, nor was her temper improved by her giving occasion more than once to her husband to call [138] her to order. Uncle Dick hardly remembered Curling: and Theresa had never seen him ”