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I avoided the public table, and shrunk from society. During the whole of the next morning, I kept aloof from the temptations of Tarlingford, and took to billiards. It was the same melody which had attracted me a few happy days before.
"I suppose there is no reason why they should not?" "A thousand." "Why, what harm?" "My dear Miss Tarlingford, if your first name were not Arabella, alas, alas! there would be none." "Nonsense! now you are laughing at me. Come, you shall teach me billiards." "It cannot be, Miss Tarlingford." "Why not?" "Because your name is Arabella."
Have you seen anything of a Miss Tarlingford, where you are staying? You should know her. She is very brilliant and accomplished, but is retiring. I am willing to tell you, but it must go no farther, that we are betrothed. "Yours, in a hurry, My heart was as the mercury of a thermometer which is plunged into ice; but I preserved an outward composure.
That evening, when Frank Lillivan arrived, I met him at the door. "God bless you, Frank!" said I; "I forgive you everything. Say no more." "Hollo! what's up?" cried Frank. "Well, certainly, it was a little imprudent for you to neglect writing the whole address of the letter you sent to Anna Tarlingford. I thought it was for Arabella." "Dear me!" said Frank, twinkling, "what then?" That is enough.
Very soon Miss Tarlingford withdrew, and I experienced an aching void within, which chops and fritters had no power to replenish. I opened a chambermaid's heart with a half-dollar, and the treasures of her knowledge were revealed to me. The beauty and her party were to remain a fortnight Among her companions there were no males, except a youthful irresponsibility. Exultemus!
This rather took away my breath, and a vacuum began to come under my waistcoat. For three blissful days Miss Tarlingford and I were seldom separated. Her sister, a pale, sedate maiden, of amiable appearance, and her brother, a small, rude boy, of intrusive habits and unguarded speech, I consented to undergo, for the sake of conventional necessity.
Plovins, I will say you are very very inconstant, to be absent all day, thus." "Miss Tarlingford, it is not inconstancy, it is billiards." "Billiards!" "Billiards. I adore them. You know nothing of billiards; women never do. They are my joy. "Dear me! I should like to do billiards." "Heaven forbid!" "Why so, Sir?" "No, I do not mean that; but ladies never play billiards."
Later in the morning I heard the tinkling of the parlor pianoforte. Music has soothing charms for me, though I have not a savage breast. I drew near, and found Miss Tarlingford trifling with the keys, those keys which lock together so many chains of human sympathy. She rose, and gave out demonstrations of impending disappearance. I interposed, "Pray, continue.
Plovins," said the fair enslaver; "I hope you have not been unwell?" "Unwell? oh, no, no!" A sudden hope mounted within me. "Miss Tarlingford, pray, excuse me, your first name, may I ask what it is?" "Oh, hideous horror! And this is what they call flirtation," I thought. And the hope which had risen blazing, like a rocket, went down fuliginous, like the stick. "Mr.
Sometimes we took our morning happiness on foot, sometimes our mid-day ecstasy served up on horseback, sometimes our evening rapture in an open wagon at two forty. The puerile Tarlingford, interfering at first, was summarily crushed.
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