smile about his mouth, which said, "I have a brownie that sits in my
ear, and knows every one of you, inside and out." Old Elsie had pulled
off her wooden shoes, and stood there in her stockings, to do honor to
the noble guests. The hens clucked, and the cocks crowed, and the
ducks waddled to and fro, and said, "Quack, quack!" But the fair, pale
girl, the friend of his childhood, the daughter of the General,
stood there with a rosy blush on her usually pale cheeks, and her eyes
opened wide, and her mouth seemed to speak without uttering a word,
and the greeting he received from her was the most beautiful
greeting a young man can desire from a young lady, if they are not
related, or have not danced many times together, and she and the
architect had never danced together.
The Count shook hands with him, and introduced him.
"He is not altogether a stranger, our young friend George."
The General's lady bowed to him, and the General's daughter was
very nearly giving him her hand; but she did not give it to him.
"Our little Master George!" said the General. "Old friends!
Charming!"
"You have become quite an Italian," said the General's lady,
"and I presume you speak the language like a native?"
"My wife sings the language, but she does not speak it,"
observed the General.
At dinner, George sat at the right hand of Emily, whom the General
had taken down, while the Count led in the General's lady.
Mr. George talked and told of his travels; and he could talk well,
and was the life and soul of the table, though the old Count could
have been it too. Emily sat silent, but she listened, and her eyes
gleamed, but she said nothing.
In the verandah, among the flowers, she and George stood together;
the rose-bushes concealed them. And George was speaking again, for
he took the lead now.
"Many thanks for the kind consideration you showed my old mother,"
he said. "I know that you went down to her on the night when my father
died, and you stayed with her till his eyes were closed. My
heartiest thanks!"
He took Emily's hand and kissed it- he might do so on such an
occasion. She blushed deeply, but pressed his hand, and looked at
him with her dear blue eyes.
"Your mother was a dear soul!" she said. "How fond she was of
her son! And she let me read all your letters, so that I almost
believe I know you. How kind you were to me when I was little girl!
You used to give me pictures."
"Which you tore in two," said George.
"No, I have still your drawing of the castle."
"I must build the castle in reality now," said George; and he
became quite warm at his own words.
The General and the General's lady talked to each other in their
room about the porter's son- how he knew how to behave, and to express
himself with the greatest propriety.
"He might be a tutor," said the General.
"Intellect!" said the General's lady; but she did not say anything
more.
During the beautiful summer-time Mr. George several times
visited the Count at his castle; and he was missed when he did not
come.
"How much the good God has given you that he has not given to us
poor mortals," said Emily to him. "Are you sure you are very
grateful for it?"
It flattered George that the lovely young girl should look up to
him, and he thought then that Emily had unusually good abilities.
And the General felt more and more convinced that George was no
cellar-child.
"His mother was a very good woman," he observed. "It is only right
I should do her that justice now she is in her grave."
The summer passed away, and the winter came; again there was
talk about Mr. George. He was highly respected, and was received in
the first circles. The General had met him at a court ball.
And now there was a ball to be given in the General's house for
Emily, and could Mr. George be invited to it?
"He whom the King invites can be invited by the General also,"
said the General, and drew himself up till he stood quite an inch
higher than before.
Mr. George was invited, and he came; princes and counts came,
and they danced, one better than the other. But Emily could only dance
one dance- the first; for she made a false step- nothing of
consequence; but her foot hurt her, so that she had to be careful, and
leave off dancing, and look at the others. So she sat and looked on,
and the architect stood by her side.
"I suppose you are giving her the whole history of St. Peter's,"
said the General, as he passed by; and smiled, like the
personification of patronage.
With the same patronizing smile he received Mr. George a few
days afterwards. The young man came, no doubt, to return thanks for
the invitation to the ball. What else could it be? But indeed there
was something else, something very astonishing and startling. He spoke
words of sheer lunacy, so that the General could hardly believe his
own ears. It was "the height of rhodomontade," an offer, quite an
inconceivable offer- Mr. George came to ask the hand of Emily in
marriage!
"Man!" cried the General, and his brain seemed to be boiling. "I
don't understand you at all. What is it you say? What is it you
want? I don't know you. Sir! Man! What possesses you to break into
my house? And am I to stand here and listen to you?" He stepped
backwards into his bed-room, locked the door behind him, and left
Mr. George standing alone. George stood still for a few minutes, and
then turned round and left the room. Emily was standing in the
corridor.
"My father has answered?" she said, and her voice trembled.
George pressed her hand.
"He has escaped me," he replied; "but a better time will come."
There were tears in Emily's eyes, but in the young man's eyes
shone courage and confidence; and the sun shone through the window,
and cast his beams on the pair, and gave them his blessing.
The General sat in his room, bursting hot. Yes, he was still
boiling, until he boiled over in the exclamation, "Lunacy! porter!
madness!"
Not an hour was over before the General's lady knew it out of
the General's own mouth. She called Emily, and remained alone with
her.
"You poor child," she said; "to insult you so! to insult us so!
There are tears in your eyes, too, but they become you well. You
look beautiful in tears. You look as I looked on my wedding-day.
Weep on, my sweet Emily."
"Yes, that I must," said Emily, "if you and my father do not say
'yes.'"
"Child!" screamed the General's lady; "you are ill! You are
talking wildly, and I shall have a most terrible headache! Oh, what
a misfortune is coming upon our house! Don't make your mother die,
Emily, or you will have no mother."
And the eyes of the General's lady were wet, for she could not
bear to think of her own death.
In the newspapers there was an announcement. "Mr. George has
been elected Professor of the Fifth Class, number Eight."
"It's a pity that his parents are dead and cannot read it," said
the new porter people, who now lived in the cellar under the General's
apartments. They knew that the Professor had been born and grown up
within their four walls.
"Now he'll get a salary," said the man.
"Yes, that's not much for a poor child," said the woman.
"Eighteen dollars a year," said the man. "Why, it's a good deal of
money."
"No, I mean the honor of it," replied the wife. "Do you think he
cares for the money? Those few dollars he can earn a hundred times
over, and most likely he'll get a rich wife into the bargain. If we
had children of our own, husband, our child should be an architect and
a professor too."
George was spoken well of in the cellar, and he was spoken well of
in the first floor. The old Count took upon himself to do that.
The pictures he had drawn in his childhood gave occasion for it.
But how did the conversation come to turn on these pictures? Why, they
had been talking of Russia and of Moscow, and thus mention was made of
the Kremlin, which little George had once drawn for Miss Emily. He had
drawn many pictures, but the Count especially remembered one, "Emily's
Castle," where she was to sleep, and to dance, and to play at
receiving guests.
"The Professor was a true man," said the Count, "and would be a
privy councillor before he died, it was not at all unlikely; and he
might build a real castle for the young lady before that time came:
why not?"
"That was a strange jest," remarked the General's lady, when the
Count had gone away. The General shook his head thoughtfully, and went
out for a ride, with his groom behind him at a proper distance, and he
sat more stiffly than ever on his high horse.
It was Emily's birthday. Flowers, books, letters, and visiting
cards came pouring in. The General's lady kissed her on the mouth, and
the General kissed her on the forehead; they were affectionate
parents, and they and Emily had to receive grand visitors, two of
the Princes. They talked of balls and theatres, of diplomatic
missions, of the government of empires and nations; and then they
spoke of talent, native talent; and so the discourse turned upon the
young architect.
"He is building up an immortality for himself," said one, "and
he will certainly build his way into one of our first families".
"One of our first families!" repeated the General and afterwards
the General's lady; "what is meant by one of our first families?"
"I know for whom it was intended," said the General's lady, "but I
shall not say it. I don't think it. Heaven disposes, but I shall be
astonished."
"I am astonished also!" said the General. "I haven't an idea in my
head!" And he fell into a reverie, waiting for ideas.
There is a power, a nameless power, in the possession of favor
from above, the favor of Providence, and this favor little George had.
But we are forgetting the birthday.
Emily's room was fragrant with flowers, sent by male and female
friends; on the table lay beautiful presents for greeting and
remembrance, but none could come from George- none could come from
him; but it was not necessary, for the whole house was full of
remembrances of him. Even out of the ash-bin the blossom of memory
peeped forth, for Emily had sat whimpering there on the day when the
window-curtain caught fire, and George arrived in the character of
fire engine. A glance out of the window, and the acacia tree
reminded of the days of childhood. Flowers and leaves had fallen,
but there stood the tree covered with hoar frost, looking like a
single huge branch of coral, and the moon shone clear and large
among the twigs, unchanged in its changings, as it was when George
divided his bread and butter with little Emily.
Out of a box the girl took the drawings of the Czar's palace and
of her own castle- remembrances of George. The drawings were looked
at, and many thoughts came. She remembered the day when, unobserved by
her father and mother, she had gone down to the porter's wife who
lay dying. Once again she seemed to sit beside her, holding the
dying woman's hand in hers, hearing the dying woman's last words:
"Blessing George!" The mother was thinking of her son, and now Emily
gave her own interpretation to those words. Yes, George was
certainly with her on her birthday.
It happened that the next day was another birthday in that
house, the General's birthday. He had been born the day after his
daughter, but before her of course- many years before her. Many
presents arrived, and among them came a saddle of exquisite
workmanship, a comfortable and costly saddle- one of the Princes had
just such another. Now, from whom might this saddle come? The
General was delighted. There was a little note with the saddle. Now if
the words on the note had been "many thanks for yesterday's
reception," we might easily have guessed from whom it came. But the
words were "From somebody whom the General does not know."
"Whom in the world do I not know?" exclaimed the General. "I
know everybody;" and his thoughts wandered all through society, for he
knew everybody there. "That saddle comes from my wife!" he said at
last. "She is teasing me- charming!"
But she was not teasing him; those times were past.
Again there was a feast, but it was not in the General's house, it
was a fancy ball at the Prince's, and masks were allowed too.
The General went as Rubens, in a Spanish costume, with a little
ruff round his neck, a sword by his side, and a stately manner. The
General's lady was Madame Rubens, in black velvet made high round
the neck, exceedingly warm, and with a mill-stone round her neck in
the shape of a great ruff- accurately dressed after a Dutch picture in
the possession of the General, in which the hands were especially
admired. They were just like the hands of the General's lady.
Emily was Psyche. In white crape and lace she was like a
floating swan. She did not want wings at all. She only wore them as
emblematic of Psyche.
Brightness, splendor, light and flowers, wealth and taste appeared
at the ball; there was so much to see, that the beautiful hands of
Madame Rubens made no sensation at all.
A black domino, with an acacia blossom in his cap, danced with
