The game of the coquettish Georgian was well played. With a true woman's
pique, she had redoubled her attentions to my friend from the moment
that she found it gave pain to another of her sex; and St. John, like
most men, seemed not unwilling to see a new altar kindled to his vanity,
though a heart he had already won, was stifling with the incense. Miss
Temple was very lovely: her skin of that teint of opaque and patrician
white, which is found oftenest in Asian latitudes, was just perceptibly
warmed toward the centre of the cheek with a glow like sunshine through
the thick white petal of a magnolia: her eyes were hazel with those
inky lashes which enhance the expression a thousand fold either of
passion, or melancholy; her teeth were like strips from the lily's
heart; and she was clever, captivating, graceful, and a thorough
coquette. St. John was mysterious, romantic-looking, superior, and just
now the only victim in the way. He admired, as all men do, those
qualities, which to her own sex, rendered the fair Isabella unamiable,
and yielded himself, as all men will, a satisfied prey to enchantments
of which he knew the springs were the pique and vanity of the
enchantress. How singular it is that the highest and best qualities of
the female heart are those with which men are the least captivated!
A rib of the mountain formed a natural seat a little back from the pitch
of the precipice, and here sat Miss Temple, triumphant in drawing all
eyes upon herself and her tamed lion, her lap full of flowers which he
had found time to gather on the way, and her fair hands employed in
arranging a bouquet, of which the destiny was yet a secret. Next to
their own loves, ladies like nothing on earth like mending or marring
the loves of others; and, while the violets and already drooping wild
flowers were coquettishly chosen or rejected by those slender fingers,
the sun might have swung back to the east like a pendulum, and those
seven-and-twenty misses would have watched their lovely schoolfellow the
same. Nunu turned her head slowly around at last, and silently looked
on. St. John lay at the feet of the Georgian, glancing from the flowers
to her face, and from her face to the flowers, with an admiration not at
all equivocal. Mrs. Ilfrington sat apart, absorbed in finishing a sketch
of New-Haven; and I, interested painfully in watching the emotions of
the Cherokee, sat with my back to the trunk of a hemlock, the only
spectator who comprehended the whole extent of the drama.
A wild rose was set in the heart of the bouquet at last, a spear of
riband-grass added to give it grace and point, and nothing was wanting
but a string.
Reticules were searched, pockets turned inside out, and never a bit of
riband to be found. The beauty was in despair.
"Stay!" said St. John, springing to his feet. "Last! Last!"
The dog came coursing in from the wood, and crouched to his master's
hand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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