What he thought he saw was a golden-brown profusion1 of hair with a peculiar2 richness in its platted coils, an unconsciously faultless poise3 of head, and, equally unconscious, a dreamy softness of sweeping4 lashes5. As she laughed with the General her student noted6 further what seemed to him a rare silkiness in the tresses, a vapory lightness in the short strands7 that played over the outlines of temple and forehead, and the unstudied daintiness with which they gathered into the merest mist of a short curl before her exquisite9 ear.
Anna
But when now she spoke10 with him these charms became forgettable as he discovered, or fancied he did, in her self-oblivious eyes, a depth of thought and feeling not in the orbs11 alone but also in the brows and lids, and between upper and under lashes as he glimpsed them in profile while she turned to Mandeville. And now, unless his own insight misled him, he observed how unlike those eyes, and yet how subtly mated with them, was her mouth; the delicate rising curve of the upper lip, and the floral tenderness with which it so faintly overhung the nether13, wherefrom it seemed ever about to part yet parted only when she spoke or smiled.
"A child's mouth and a woman's eyes," he mused14.
When her smiles came the mouth remained as young as before, yet suddenly, as truly as the eyes, showed--showed him at least--steadfastness of purpose, while the eyes, where fully15 half the smile was, still unwittingly revealed their depths of truth.
"Poor Fred!" he pondered as the General and Mandeville entered the carriage and it turned away.
A mile or two from Carrollton down the river and toward the city lay the old unfenced fields where Hilary had agreed with Irby to help him manoeuvre16 his very new command. Along the inland edge of this plain the railway and the common road still ran side by side, but the river veered17 a mile off. So Mandeville pointed18 out to the two ladies as they, he, and the General drove up to the spot with Kincaid and Greenleaf as outriders. The chosen ground was a level stretch of wild turf maybe a thousand yards in breadth, sparsely19 dotted with shoulder-high acacias. No military body was yet here, and the carriage halted at the first good view point.
Mrs. Callender, the only member of her family who was of Northern birth and rearing, was a small slim woman whose smile came whenever she spoke and whose dainty nose went all to merry wrinkles whenever she smiled. It did so now, in the shelter of her diminutive20 sunshade opened flat against its jointed21 handle to fend22 off the strong afternoon beams, while she explained to Greenleaf--dismounted beside the wheels with Mandeville--that Constance, Anna's elder sister, would arrive by and by with Flora12 Valcour. "Connie", she said, had been left behind in the clutches of the dressmaker!
"Flora," she continued, crinkling her nose ever so kind-heartedly at Greenleaf, "is Lieutenant23 Mandeville's cousin, you know. Didn't he tell you something back yonder in Carrollton?"
Greenleaf smiled an admission and her happy eyes closed to mere8 chinks. What had been told was that Constance had yesterday accepted Mandeville.
"Yes," jovially24 put in the lucky man, "I have divulge25' him that, and he seem' almoze as glad as the young lady herseff!"
Even to this the sweet widow's misplaced wrinkles faintly replied, while Greenleaf asked, "Does the Lieutenant's good fortune account for the--'clutches of the dressmaker'?"
It did. The Lieutenant hourly expecting to be ordered to the front, this wedding, like so many others, would be at the earliest day possible. "A great concession," the lady said, turning her piquant26 wrinkles this time upon Mandeville. But just here the General engrossed27 attention. His voice had warmed sentimentally28 and his kindled29 eye was passing back and forth30 between Anna seated by him and Hilary close at hand in the saddle. He waved wide:
"This all-pervading haze31 and perfume, dew and dream," he was saying, "is what makes this the Lalla Rookh's land it is!" He smiled at himself and confessed that Carrollton Gardens always went to his head. "Anna, did you ever hear your mother sing--
"'There's a bower32 of roses--'?"
She lighted up to say yes, but the light was all he needed to be lured33 on through a whole stanza34, and a tender sight--Ocean silvering to brown-haired Cynthia--were the two, as he so innocently strove to recreate out of his own lost youth, for her and his nephew, this atmosphere of poetry.
"'To sit in the roses and hear the bird's song!'"
he suavely35 ended--"I used to make Hilary sing that for me when he was a boy."
"Doesn't he sing it yet?" asked Mrs. Callender.
"My God, madame, since I found him addicted36 to comic songs I've never asked him!"
Kincaid led the laugh and the talk became lively. Anna was merrily accused by Miranda (Mrs. Callender) of sharing the General's abhorrence37 of facetious38 song. First she pleaded guilty and then reversed her plea with an absurd tangle39 of laughing provisos delightful40 even to herself. At the same time the General withdrew from his nephew all imputation41 of a frivolous42 mind, though the nephew avowed43 himself nonsensical from birth and destined44 to die so. It was a merry moment, so merry that Kincaid's bare mention of Mandeville as Mandy made even the General smile and every one else laugh. The Creole, to whom any mention of himself, (whether it called for gratitude45 or for pistols and coffee,) was always welcome, laughed longest. If he was Mandy, he hurried to rejoin, the absent Constance "muz be Candy--ha, ha, ha!" And when Anna said Miranda should always thenceforth be Randy, and Mrs. Callender said Anna ought to be Andy, and the very General was seduced46 into suggesting that then Hilary would be Handy, and when every one read in every one's eye, the old man's included, that Brodnax would naturally be Brandy, the Creole bent47 and wept with mirth, counting all that fine wit exclusively his.
"But, no!" he suddenly said, "Hilary he would be Dandy, bic-ause he's call' the ladies' man!"
"No, sir!" cried the General. "Hil--" He turned upon his nephew, but finding him engaged with Anna, faced round to his chum: "For Heaven's sake, Greenleaf, does he allow--?"
"He can't help it now," laughed his friend, "he's tagged it on himself by one of his songs."
"Oh, by Jove, Hilary, it serves you right for singing them!"
Hilary laughed to the skies, the rest echoing.
"A ladies' man!" the uncle scoffed48 on. "Of all things on God's earth!" But there he broke into lordly mirth: "Don't you believe that of him, ladies, at any rate. If only for my sake, Anna, don't you ever believe a breath of it!"
The ladies laughed again, but now Kincaid found them a distraction49. Following his glance cityward they espied50 a broad dust-cloud floating off toward the river. He turned to Anna and softly cried, "Here come your guns, trying to beat the train!"
The ladies stood up to see. An unseen locomotive whistled for a brief stop. The dust-cloud drew nearer. The engine whistled to start again, and they could hear its bell and quickening puff51. But the dust-cloud came on and on, and all at once the whole six-gun battery--six horses to each piece and six to each caisson--captain, buglers, guidon, lieutenants52, sergeants53 and drivers in the saddle, cannoneers on the chests--swept at full trot54, thumping55, swaying, and rebounding56, up the highway and off it, and, forming sections, swung out upon the field in double column, while the roaring train rolled by it and slowed up to the little frame box of Buerthe's Station with passengers cheering from every window.
The Callenders' carriage horses were greatly taxed in their nerves, yet they kept their discretion57. Kept it even when now the battery flashed from column into line and bore down upon them, the train meanwhile whooping58 on toward Carrollton. And what an elated flock of brightly dressed citizens and citizenesses had alighted from the cars--many of them on the moment's impulse--to see these dear lads, with their romantically acquired battery, train for the holiday task of scaring the dastard59 foe60 back to their frozen homes! How we loved the moment's impulse those days!
What a gay show! And among the very prettiest and most fetchingly arrayed newcomers you would quickly have noticed three with whom this carriage group exchanged signals. Kincaid spurred off to meet them while Greenleaf and Mandeville helped Anna and Miranda to the ground. "There's Constance," said the General.
"Yes," Mrs. Callender replied, "and Flora and Charlie Valcour!" as if that were the gleefulest good luck of all.
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1
profusion
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| n.挥霍；丰富 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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poise
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| vt./vi. 平衡，保持平衡；n.泰然自若，自信 | |
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sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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lashes
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| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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strands
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| n.（线、绳、金属线、毛发等的）股( strand的名词复数 )；缕；海洋、湖或河的)岸；（观点、计划、故事等的）部份v.使滞留，使搁浅( strand的第三人称单数 ) | |
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8
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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11
orbs
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| abbr.off-reservation boarding school 在校寄宿学校n.球，天体，圆形物( orb的名词复数 ) | |
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12
flora
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| n.(某一地区的)植物群 | |
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nether
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| adj.下部的，下面的；n.阴间；下层社会 | |
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mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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manoeuvre
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| n.策略，调动；v.用策略，调动 | |
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veered
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| v.（尤指交通工具）改变方向或路线( veer的过去式和过去分词 )；（指谈话内容、人的行为或观点）突然改变；（指风） （在北半球按顺时针方向、在南半球按逆时针方向）逐渐转向；风向顺时针转 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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sparsely
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| adv.稀疏地；稀少地；不足地；贫乏地 | |
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diminutive
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| adj.小巧可爱的，小的 | |
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jointed
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| 有接缝的 | |
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fend
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| v.照料（自己），（自己）谋生，挡开，避开 | |
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lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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jovially
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| adv.愉快地，高兴地 | |
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divulge
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| v.泄漏(秘密等)；宣布，公布 | |
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piquant
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| adj.辛辣的，开胃的，令人兴奋的 | |
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engrossed
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| adj.全神贯注的 | |
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sentimentally
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| adv.富情感地 | |
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kindled
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| （使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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bower
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| n.凉亭，树荫下凉快之处；闺房；v.荫蔽 | |
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lured
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| 吸引，引诱（lure的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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stanza
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| n.（诗）节，段 | |
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suavely
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addicted
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| adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的 | |
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37
abhorrence
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| n.憎恶；可憎恶的事 | |
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facetious
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| adj.轻浮的，好开玩笑的 | |
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tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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41
imputation
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| n.归罪，责难 | |
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42
frivolous
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| adj.轻薄的；轻率的 | |
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43
avowed
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| adj.公开声明的，承认的v.公开声明，承认( avow的过去式和过去分词) | |
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44
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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46
seduced
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| 诱奸( seduce的过去式和过去分词 )； 勾引； 诱使堕落； 使入迷 | |
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47
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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48
scoffed
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| 嘲笑，嘲弄( scoff的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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49
distraction
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| n.精神涣散，精神不集中，消遣，娱乐 | |
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50
espied
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| v.看到( espy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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51
puff
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| n.一口(气)；一阵(风)；v.喷气，喘气 | |
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52
lieutenants
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| n.陆军中尉( lieutenant的名词复数 )；副职官员；空军；仅低于…官阶的官员 | |
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53
sergeants
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| 警官( sergeant的名词复数 )； （美国警察）警佐； （英国警察）巡佐； 陆军（或空军）中士 | |
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54
trot
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| n.疾走，慢跑；n.老太婆；现成译本；(复数）trots:腹泻（与the 连用）；v.小跑，快步走，赶紧 | |
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55
thumping
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| adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持 | |
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56
rebounding
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| 蹦跳运动 | |
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57
discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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58
whooping
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| 发嗬嗬声的，发咳声的 | |
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59
dastard
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| n.卑怯之人，懦夫；adj.怯懦的，畏缩的 | |
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60
foe
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| n.敌人，仇敌 | |
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