A thoughtfulman once remarked that a special proof of divine wisdom was that the dear old story of the Prodigal Son did not reproduce any of the conversation of the neighbors with or regarding the naughty boy, for had this also been given as it really occurred, no subsequent penitent would ever have dared to follow the amateur swineherd’s example.
Philip Hayn was not a prodigal; he had spent none of his inheritance except as specially ordered by his father, and his only ground of self-reproach was regarding an affair about which the neighbors had no means of obtaining information; yet the special efforts made by the family to manifest their joy at regaining him were unequal to the task of overcoming the disquieting effects of the neighbors’ tongues. The dreadful man who had caught Phil on the train had spread the news of the boy’s return, so next morning the road from the village to Hayn Farm presented an appearance as animated as if an auction had been announced in that vicinity, or as if some one had been found dead in the woods. Men old and young, wives and maidens, and even little children, devised excuses for visiting the farm. People who came from the other direction were alreadysupplied with the standard excuse,—they wanted to borrow something; those who had really borrowed so often as to doubt their welcome made heroic efforts to return what they had already borrowed.
To escape the succession of visitors at the house, Phil went to the barn-yard to see a new family of pigs of which his little brothers had informed him, but just above the fence-line he saw two pairs of eyes—with their attendant heads, of course—that had been lying in wait for an hour or two, after the manner of that class of countrymen, evidently among the last offshoots from the brutes, who apparently have an inherited animal apprehension of harm should they enter the den of any species higher than their own.
“Guess you didn’t see any pigs like them down to York?” shouted the owner of one pair of eyes, while the other pair opened as if they would engulf the returned traveller. Phil nodded his head negatively and precipitately retreated to the barn, where he found quite a respectable old farmer studying the beach-wagon.
“Reuben reckoned mebbe he could gimme a bargain if I’d take this off his hands,” he said, by way of explanation, “so I thought I’d take a look at it.” The old man shook the wheels, tapped the bed, examined the iron-work closely, remarking, as he did so,—
“Reckon, by his wantin’ to dispose of it, that them city folks ain’t a-comin’ here next summer to be druv down to the beach,—eh?”
“I don’t know,” said the unhappy youth. He was grateful to the old fellow for not looking him in the eye, like a witness-teaser, as he asked the question, yet he longed to kick him out of the barn and lock the doors, so that there would be one less place for the enemy to lie in wait. He returned to the house, and entered the kitchen just in time to hear a feminine neighbor say,—
“I s’pose he’ll wear his new clothes—them that Sol Mantring fetched word about—to church on Sunday?”
Phil abruptly got an axe and went to the wood-lot; his first impulse was to take his gun, but half in jest and half in earnest he told himself that he would not dare to have arms in his hands if the torment was to continue. Yet even while in the depths of the ancestral forest he was not safe, for, on the hollow pretence of tracking a dog who had been stealing sheep, a neighbor followed Phil to the woods, found him by the tell-tale blows of the axe, and had him at his mercy for a full hour: the visitor had mentally set apart a half-day for the work.
“There’s one way o’ gettin’ rid of this raft o’ people,” said Mrs. Hayn, who rapidly became as indignant as her son at the persistency with which people brought Lucia’s name into conversation. “One would s’pose that the world had got back to the way it was in old Father Adam’s day, as far as gals was concerned, an’ there was only one female that anybody could take a notion to. They come a-pesterin’ the life out o’ me, just as if I knowed any more about it than they do,—which I don’t.” Thenthe anxious mother looked slyly, and somewhat reproachfully, at her son, who flushed and said,—
“Tell us the way of getting out of it, mother, and at least one of your children will arise and call you blessed.”
“Why, it’s to have the minister an’ his wife to tea. It’s manners, an’ pretty much everybody knows it, not to disturb anybody the day they’re goin’ to have the minister.”
“Let’s have him,” said Phil, eagerly; “I’ll do anything to help you get ready,—beat eggs, stone raisins,—anything but go to the store for nutmegs and be caught by the proprietor and all his customers. Say, mother, why can’t you invite the other ministers too, on successive days?”
“Youwillwear your new clothes, though, when the minister comes, won’t you?” asked the old lady, with some timidity. “You know I hain’t seen ’em on you yet, an’ I’m a-dyin’ to, though I hain’t liked to put you to the trouble of dressin’ up on purpose, knowin’ how men hate to try things on.”
Phil promised: he could not resist his mother’s appealing eyes. As the old lady prophesied, the family were not annoyed the day of the supper to the minister. Phil’s conscience was not easy in anticipation of the expected guest, for he knew he would be questioned about the appearance of noted New York divines whom he would be supposed to have heard, whereas the only service he had attended was at the Tramlays’ church, the pastor of which had no notoriety at all. Perhaps it was to punish his youthful parishioner for neglect of religious privilegesthat the good man questioned Phil quite closely about the Tramlay family and delivered a thoughtful analysis of the character of the oldest daughter, with comments upon the probable effects of marriage on various qualities of her nature. After each statement he appealed to Phil for corroboration, and on his way home confided to his wife that he believed he had fully prepared the dear young brother for what he might expect should he take the important step upon which in all probability he was resolved.
Phil endured with becoming fortitude the minister’s remarks about Lucia, and the whispered but not unheard comments of the minister’s wife on the “store clothes,” which had been worn in deference to Mrs. Hayn’s request. He ate the three kinds of solid cake without which no supper to a Haynton minister was supposed to be complete. He made unusual effort, his father being away, to cause the visit one to be pleasantly remembered by the good pastor. He was rewarded by discovering that his trip to the city which he had heard called the “Modern Sodom” and the “American Babylon” had not destroyed nor even weakened his interest in religious subjects, and he was prepared to retire with a more peaceable mind than he had known in several days. But after the table had been cleared and the uneaten pieces of cake carefully put in an earthen jar against the next Sunday’s tea, and Phil was about to go to his room, his mother said,—
“Dearie, I s’pose you’ll wear your new black things to meetin’ Sunday mornin’, won’t you?”
“Oh, mother,” said Phil, with a frown quicklysucceeded by a laugh, “nobody ever wears such a coat to church. Everybody would laugh at me.”
“Dear me!” said the old lady, evidently disappointed quite deeply. “I want to know! Then whenbeyou goin’ to wear it?”
“Never, I suppose,” said Phil, his smile vanishing. “I was an extravagant fool to buy that coat. I’ll never forgive myself for it.”
“Never?” the old lady had echoed. “Then your poor old mother, who loves you better than anybody in the world, is never to see you in it?”
“She shan’t wait another hour!” said Phil, hurrying out of the room, and telling himself that his mother cared more for him than all his New York friends combined. He dressed himself anew, with as much care, though not as much trepidation, as when preparing for the Dinon party; he even slipped out of doors and by lighting two or three matches selected a bud from a rose-bush which was carefully covered from the frost every night. He dressed his hair carefully, caressed his moustache into the form a barber had told him was most becoming to his style of face, and squeezed his feet into the low, tight, patent-leather shoes which a shoemaker had assured him were the only proper thing for evening dress. Then he came down-stairs, whistling “Hail to the chief.”
Mrs. Hayn hastily adjusted the spectacles she had been polishing, and as Phil entered the room she threw up both hands in amazement and delight. It was worth the price of a coat, thought Phil to himself, to enable that dear, honest old face to express somuch enjoyment. As his mother gazed at him, Phil went through the various poses which had been demanded of him when he was a child—even later—and clothes were being fitted to him by the trustworthy Sarah Tweege; he turned around, presented one side view and the other, walked across the room and back, and saluted his mother with his most profound bow. His mother’s delight knew no bounds. Finally the good old lady took both his hands, held him at arms’ length, looked as if she never could see enough of him; then she gave him a motherly hug, and exclaimed,—
“I should think she’d have fell dead in love with you the minute she clapped her eyes on you, with all those things on.”
Phil retired hastily, and when he removed his dress-coat he savagely shook his fist at it.
Littleby little the excitement over Phil’s return abated, being merged in curiosity as to why his father was remaining in the city. Local curiosity was somewhat discouraged, too, by a few sharp retorts to persons who were impertinently inquisitive about the New York developments of Phil’s acquaintance with Lucia. There was no lack of stories, however, regarding the couple: in any part of the civilized world, no matter how stolid the inhabitants, there is imagination enough to replace the absent links in a desired chain of facts. All that Haynton and its vicinity really knew about the supposed Hayn-Tramlay affair was that the Tramlays had been at Hayn Farm, that they had a daughter named Lucia whose age did not differ much from Phil’s, that Phil had been in New York for more than a fortnight, that he had gone direct from Sol Mantring’s sloop to Tramlay’s office, that he had been seen in New York in store-clothes, and that he admitted having seen Lucia once or twice. Out of these few facts, which would have been useless to even a detective were he unable to treat them as mere clues to be followed carefully, the enterprisingpeople of Haynton constructed a number of stories, each of which hung together admirably. That they differed radically from one another was not the fault of the local romancers; they had honestly done their best with the material at hand.
Phil did not regard the matter in this light. When day by day his little brothers returned from school with tales they had heard from class-mates and wondered greatly that they had not first heard them at home, Phil’s temper broke loose so suddenly that the boys almost feared to repeat all they had heard. The wrathful young man learned that he had proposed to Lucia and been refused, that he had been accepted, apparently at the same interview, that Tramlay was to build a handsome house on the water front of Hayn Farm for his daughter as a wedding-present, that Phil took his refusal so seriously to heart that he was going to study for the ministry, and that while in New York he had fallen into drinking-habits so deeply that Tramlay had been obliged to write Farmer Hayn to hurry to the city and remove his unfortunate son from the scene of temptation.
Phil grumbled and stormed; he even vowed that if gossip about him did not end he would go to sea. He thought seriously of publishing a list of denials in the weekly paper, edited in the county town, which devoted a column or two to Haynton news. Then he wondered whether he might not make a confidant of the minister and beg that a sermon be preached on the sinfulness of gossip; but this plan disappeared abruptly when the statement of hisapproaching marriage was traced, almost with certainty, to the minister himself.
But the worst trial of all remained. On Sunday he met at church and in the Young People’s Bible-Class all the girls who lived at or near Haynton. Some of them belonged to churches other than that which included the Hayn family among its members, but for once they waived denominational preferences and went to the First Church, and not only to see Phil’s new clothes and cane, of which Sol Mantring had brought such astonishing reports. They were as good and sweet-hearted, those Haynton girls, as any of their sex on the face of the earth: fashions a trifle old, and lack of professional advice as to how best to enhance their natural charms by borrowing from art, could not disguise the fact that some of them were quite pretty. It was not their fault that Phil’s heart had gone elsewhere for a mate, but that the young man himself was greatly to blame for such a course was the general opinion among them, and they would have at least the consolation of seeing how he had been affected by a step so unusual among Haynton youth. And what questions those girls’ eyes did ask! There was no need that they should put any of them into words; Phil understood them all, with the result that never before on Sunday had he heard so little of sermon, hymn, or prayer or betrayed so feeble a grasp of the topic of the day in the Bible-class.
So seriously was his mind disturbed that he held himself sharply to account, “examined his evidences” in the time-honored and orthodox manner, and resolved that lack of occupation was at the bottom of his trouble. He would begin bright and early Monday morning an extension of the big ditch in the marsh land: if the mud and stones and roots and quicksands, the tugging and straining and perspiring, sure to be incident to the work, would not cure him, he grimly told himself, then his case was hopeless indeed.
Bravely he kept his word. At sunrise he was already on his way to the marsh, and by the middle of the morning a single sensation encompassed his entire mind: it was that ditching was the hardest, dirtiest, forlornest work that ever fell to a farmer’s lot. He dragged one heavily-booted foot after the other from the ooze, leaned on his spade, and offered himself five minutes’ rest. He looked wearily along the prolongation of the line of the ditch already completed, and wondered how many hundred days the entire improvement would require. Before he decided, his calculations were disturbed by the sound of the family dinner-bell. He looked at the sun, which was his only timepiece while at work, and wondered what could have befallen the hitherto faithful family clock. Again the bell sounded, and when he looked in the direction of the house he saw, on the brow of the hill behind the orchard, his mother waving her apron to him. Something was the matter: what could it be? a tramp?—a persistent lightning-rod man? He hurried toward the house, and soon saw that his mother was waving also something that looked like a handkerchief andthen like a piece of paper. A little nearer, and he heard his mother shouting,—
“Father’s writ! We’ve got a letter!”
Phil ran nearly all the way up the hill; he had not performed that difficult feat since he and another boy had raced up, in coasting-time, in wild strife as to which should capture a popular girl and take her down on his sled. A letter from his father was indeed an unusual event, for the old man had not been away from home before, except when on jury-duty in the county town, in many years, yet from the old lady’s manner it seemed the letter must contain something unusual. As he reached the hilltop his mother placed the sheet in his hand, saying,—
“I thought mebbe you’d better see it at once.”
Phil took it, and read aloud as follows:
“Dear Old Girl:“Your husband is about as usual, though the well-water in this town ain’t fit for decent cattle to drink. I’ve seen some of the sights, and wished more than once that I had you along: if things turn out as they look, though, I’ll bring you down in style yet. I’ve run against the folks that looked at our south ridge with a view to making a cottage village, and, as luck would have it, they knew Mr. Tramlay, who’s rolled up his sleeves and done his best to help clinch things and make a good thing out of it for me. I need Phil; Mr. Tramlay wants him too; and I wish you’d tell him to pack his bag and get back here as soon as he can. The boys can take care ofthe animals, and there’s nothing else on the farm but can wait till I get back.“The Lord be with you all, so no more at present, from“Your loving husband,“Reuben.”“P.S.—That gal ain’t no more engaged than I am.”
“Dear Old Girl:
“Your husband is about as usual, though the well-water in this town ain’t fit for decent cattle to drink. I’ve seen some of the sights, and wished more than once that I had you along: if things turn out as they look, though, I’ll bring you down in style yet. I’ve run against the folks that looked at our south ridge with a view to making a cottage village, and, as luck would have it, they knew Mr. Tramlay, who’s rolled up his sleeves and done his best to help clinch things and make a good thing out of it for me. I need Phil; Mr. Tramlay wants him too; and I wish you’d tell him to pack his bag and get back here as soon as he can. The boys can take care ofthe animals, and there’s nothing else on the farm but can wait till I get back.
“The Lord be with you all, so no more at present, from
“Your loving husband,“Reuben.”
“P.S.—That gal ain’t no more engaged than I am.”
Phil took off his hat, rubbed his eyes, looked away in the direction of the ditch-extension, and made a face at the faithful old spade.
“I s’pose you’d better be thinkin’ about gettin’ off at once,” said his mother.
“Father’s will is law,” said Phil, in the calmest tone he could command. “Do you think the boys and Carlo can help you take care of the place for a few days?”
“To be sure,” said his mother, “an’ a powerful sight o’ days besides, if it’s goin’ to save your father from drudgin’ away the rest of his days. An’ I ain’t above sayin’ that I’d stand a good deal of loneliness if I thought ’twould end in my stoppin’ trottin’ around in a pint-pot day in an’ day out. An’ you,” said the old lady, looking at her son, “I want to see the time come when I can take them old boots out to a brush-heap and burn ’em out o’ sight an’ knowledge. But what does your father mean about that gal not bein’ engaged? Is it that Tramlay gal?”
“I suppose so,” said Phil, carelessly, though his manner was the result of prodigious effort. “When he found me he asked me about her, along with theother folks, and I told him, just as I’d heard, that she was engaged to be married. Father must have been asking some pointed questions about her. It does beat everything, the interest that old men sometimes take in young women who aren’t kith nor kin to them, doesn’t it? I guess it’s about as well that I’m going back, if only to keep the old gentleman’s country curiosity within proper bounds. Don’t you think so?”
“She ain’t engaged,” said Mrs. Hayn, ignoring her son’s explanation and his attempt at joking. “She ain’t engaged,” the old lady repeated; “so you—”
The sentence was not completed, but Phil’s face flushed as he looked down at his muddy boots. For the first time since his return he had heard an allusion to Lucia which did not make him uncomfortable.
Within two hours Haynton was shaken from centre—the railway-station—to circumference by the announcement that Phil Hayn, in his store-clothes, had bought a ticket for New York and was already well on his journey. Meanwhile, at Hayn Farm an old woman as deeply interested as any one in the business and other possibilities that had been foreshadowed was doing all in her power to further them: she was spending the afternoon on her knees at her bedside.
Youthhas some advantages peculiarly its own in the general battle for fame and fortune and in capacity for enjoyment, but for discovering all that may be pleasing in whatever is nearest at hand it is left far behind by age. The school-girl does not care for dainty flavors unless they have candy for a basis; her mother, with a palate which has been in training for half a century, will get truer enjoyment out of a neighbor’s loaf of home-made cake than the girl can find in a shop-full of bonbons. A boy will ramble through an orchard in search of the tree which is fullest and has the largest fruit; his father, in late autumn, will find higher flavor, and more of it, in the late windfalls which his stick discovers among the dead leaves.
Farmer Hayn was old and weary; he was alone in his rambles about the metropolis, and he kept close guard on his pocket-book; but no country youth who ever hurried to the city to squander his patrimony could have had so good a time. He saw everything that the local guide-books called attention to, and so much else which was interesting that Tramlay, whom he had occasion to see for a few minutes each day, said one morning at the breakfast-table,—
“I wish, my dear, that I could steal a week or two from business, so that you and I could poke about New York, personally conducted by that old farmer.”
“Edgar!” exclaimed Mrs. Tramlay, “I sometimes fear that old age is taking sudden possession of you, you get such queer notions. The idea of New York people seeing their own city with a countryman for a guide!”
“There’s nothing queer about facts, my dear,” replied Tramlay, “except that they may be right under our eyes for years without being seen. A few years ago you and I spent nearly a thousand dollars in visiting some European battle-fields. To-day that old fellow has carefully done the Revolutionary battle-fields of New York and Brooklyn, at a total expense of a quarter of a dollar: even then he had a penny left to give to a beggar.”
“I never heard of a battle-field in New York or Brooklyn,” said Mrs. Tramlay.
“Nor I,” her husband replied; “at least not in so long a time that I’d forgotten the localities. But that old fellow knows all about them: when I drew him out a little he made me plans of each, with pencil on the back of an envelope, and explained how we lost Long Island and New York, as well as nearly two thousand men, when men were far scarcer than they are now. Here”—the merchant drew a mass of letters from his pocket and extracted from them a scrap of paper,—“here’s the way it happened; let me explain——”
“I’m not interested in those stupid old times,” said Mrs. Tramlay, with a deprecatory wave of herhand. “I’ve heard that in those days there wasn’t a house above Wall Street, no Park to drive in, and parties began before sunset.”
“Ah! to be sure,” said Tramlay, with a sigh. “But old Hayn has seen modern New York too: I was intensely interested in his description of the work being done in some of the industrial schools, where hundreds of little street Arabs are coaxed in by a promise of full stomachs, and taught to be good for something; the boys learn how to use tools, and the girls are taught every branch of housekeeping.”
“I really don’t see,” said Mrs. Tramlay, as she nibbled a roll, “what there is to interest us in the doings of such people.”
“They’re the people,” said her husband, raising his voice a little, “who generally supply us with paupers and criminals, they being untaught at home, and consequently having to beg or steal for a living. It is because of such people that we have iron bars on our dining-room windows and area-door, and hire a detective whenever we give a party, and put a chain on our door-mat and pay taxes to build jails and asylums and——”
“Oh, Edgar,” said Mrs. Tramlay, plaintively, “our minister told us all this in a sermon nearly a year ago. I’m sure I listened patiently to it then; I don’t think it’s very kind of you to go all over it again.”
“No, I suppose not,” sighed the merchant, hastily kissing his family good-by and starting for his office. In a moment he returned, and said,—
“Just a word with you, my dear. It’s nothingabout farmers, or battles, or industrial—— Say,” he whispered, as his wife joined him in the hall, “don’t you think I’d better have the doctor drop in to see Lucia? I’m afraid she’s going to be sick. She’s looked poorly for days, and doesn’t seem to have any spirit.”
“I’m sure she’s lively enough when she’s out of temper,” said Mrs. Tramlay, “which she is nearly all the while. She’s snapped at the children until they hate the sight of her, and I can’t speak to her without being greeted by a flood of tears. Margie seems the only one who can do anything with her.”
“Umph!” muttered the merchant, taking much time to arrange his hat before the mirror of the hat-rack.
Meanwhile, the old farmer and his son were having a long chat in a hotel bedroom.
“So you see how the land lies,” said the old man. “Though I never held that part of the farm at over two hundred an acre, the soil bein’ thinner than the lower-lyin’ land, an’ requirin’ a good deal more manure to make decent crops, Tramlay says it’ll fetch a clean two thousand an acre when it’s cut up, if the scheme takes hold as it’s likely to. That’s why he advised me to retain an interest, instead of sellin’ out-an’-out. I’m to get five thousand in cash for the forty acres, an’ have a quarter interest in all sales: that means twenty thousand in the end, if things turn out as Tramlay thinks.”
“My!” ejaculated Phil, his eyes opening very wide, and going into a brown study. The old man contemplated him for some time with a smile of supreme satisfaction. Finally he said,—
“Makes you feel a little bit as if you was a rich man’s son, don’t it, old boy?”
“Indeed it does,” Phil replied. “But I don’t see how I can help you about it.”
“Don’t, eh? Well, I’ll tell you,” said the old man, eying his son closely. “That forty acres is about quarter of the farm-land in value, I calculate, counting out the house an’ other buildin’s. If I was makin’ my will, an’ dividin’ things up among the family, I’d leave just about that much land to you, with an interest in the house, stock, etcetery, when the Lord sees fit to call your mother. So”—here the old man intensified his gaze—“I’ve arranged to give my quarter interest in the enterprise to you, as your inheritance: that’ll make you a director in the comp’ny, with as much say as anybody else. It’ll keep you in York a good deal, though.”
“Father!” exclaimed Phil.
“An’,” continued the old man, dropping his eyes as soon as his son looked at him, and putting on the countenance in which he usually discussed the ordinary affairs of the farm, “as it may need some money for you to keep up proper style with the people whom you’ll have to deal with, I propose to put the five thousand in bank here to our joint account, so you can draw whenever you need cash.”
The old man began to pare fine shavings from the tooth-pick which he had cherished ever since he left the dining-room, but Phil compelled a suspension of industry for a moment by going over to his father’s chair and pressing the gray head to his breast.
“The other principal stockholders,” said the oldman, as soon as he was able to resume his whittling, “are Tramlay an’ a man named Marge.”
“Marge!” Phil echoed.
“You seem to know him,” said the farmer, looking up from under his eyebrows.
“I should think so,” said Phil, frowning and twitching his lips a great deal. “He’s the man——”
“Well?” asked the old man, for Phil had not finished his sentence. There was no reply, so he continued,—
“The man you thought had caught the gal?”
Phil nodded affirmatively.
“Now you see what comes of goin’ off at half-cock,” said the farmer. “Lost your expenses two ways, to say nothin’ of peace o’ mind.”
“I heard one man telling another it,” said Phil, quite humbly: “so what was I to think?”
“If you believe ev’rythin’ you hear about men an’ women, my boy, you’ll be off your course all your life long. Take a good grip on that.”
Again Phil went into a brown study, from which he emerged suddenly to say,—
“It’s just what you did, when you supposed you learned she wasn’t engaged, isn’t it? You believed it, and wrote it at once to me.”
“Oh, no!” said the old man, with an air of superiority as he put a very sharp point on what remained of the tooth-pick. “Not much. I’ve learned always to go to head-quarters for information.”
“Why, father,” Phil exclaimed, excitedly, “you don’t mean to say, after what you promised me, that you went—and—and——”
“Poked my nose into other people’s business? Not I. Mr. Tramlay took me home to dinner,—say, what an outlandish way these city folks have got of not eatin’ dinner till nigh onto bed-time!—an’ after the meal, ’long about the edge o’ the evenin’, when Tramlay had gone for some papers to show me, an’ the old lady was out of the room for somethin’, I took ’casion to congratulate the gal on her engagement; that’s the proper thing in such cases made an’ purvided, you know. She looked kind o’ flabbergasted, an’ at last she said ’twas the fust she’d heerd of it. I tried to git out of it by sayin’ if it wa’n’t true it ort to be, if young men in York had eyes in their heads. But it didn’t seem to work. She asked how I heerd of it, an’ I had to say that somebody in the city had told my son about it.”
Phil frowned.
“Then,” continued the old man, “she bust out cryin’.”
“Oh, dear!” sighed Phil.
“Well,” said the old man, “I see somethin’ had to be done, so I put my arms around her——”
“Why, father!” said Phil, in alarm.
“I put my arms around her, an’ said that when a gal was cryin’ she ort to have her parents to comfort her, an’, as neither of ’em was present, I hoped she’d make b’lieve for a minute or two that I was her grandfather. So she took my advice; an’ it seemed to do her a sight o’ good.”
“What advice did you give her?” asked Phil.
“None,—in words,” said the old man. “Wait till you’re my age; then you’ll understand.”
“I don’t see,” said Phil, after a moment or two of silence, “that things are much better than they were. Perhaps she’s not engaged; but that fellow Marge is hanging about her all the time. From what I’ve heard people remark, he’s been paying attention to her for a year or two. When the family were at our house last summer he was the only man she talked about. I’m pretty sure, too, from what I’ve seen, that her mother favors him. So, putting everything together, and thinking about it a good deal, as I’ve had to do in spite of myself since I’ve been up home, I’ve made up my mind that it’s a foregone conclusion.”
“So you’re goin’ to flop like a stuck pig, an’ let it go on, are you? Just because you’ve thought somethin’ you’re goin’ to do nothin’. If I’d thought that of you I don’t b’lieve I’d have brought you down here to be a business-man in the city. A fellow that hain’t got the grit to fight for a gal that he wants is likely to make a mighty poor fist of it in fightin’ for a fortune. No, sir; you’re not goin’ to knuckle under while you’ve got a father to egg you on. I don’t say she’s in ev’ry way the gal I’d have picked out for you, but any gal that’ll live up to the best that’s in her is good enough for any man alive. If you care as much for her as you thought you did when I met you in the street that day, that gal is the one for you to tie to, unless she breaks the rope. A man sometimes gets a bad lickin’ in a love-fight, an’ a powerful big scar besides, but both together don’t do him as much harm as backin’ out an’ playin’ coward.”
“I’m not a coward, father,” protested Phil, and his eyes flashed as if he meant it.
“You don’t mean to be, my boy,” said the old man, with a pat on his son’s shoulder, “but ev’rythin’ in this affair is new to you, an’ you’re in the dark about some things that mebbe look bigger than they are. That sort of thing’ll make cowards out of the best of men, if they give in to it: that’s the reason I’m crackin’ the whip at you.”
“I wonder what Mr. Tramlay wants of me,” said Phil, a moment later.
“Reckon you’d better go down and find out,” the old man replied.
“Yourmother’s out, as usual, I suppose,” said Mr. Tramlay to his oldest daughter, as he came home in the afternoon and roamed despondently about the house, after the manner of family men in general when their wives are away.
“She isn’t back from her ride yet,” said Lucia. “You know the usual drive always keeps her out until about six.”
“I ought to know it by this time, I suppose,” said the merchant, “and I don’t begrudge her a moment of it, but somehow the house is never quite the same when she is out of it.”
Lucia looked at her father with a little wonder in her face. Then she laughed, not very cheerfully, and said,—
“Father, do you know that you’re dreadfully old-fashioned?”
“I suppose so. Maybe it’s force of habit.”
Lucia still wondered. She loved her mother, in the instinctive, not over-intelligent way of most young people, but really she could not see what there was about the estimable woman that should make her father long to see her every day of the year and search the house for her whenever he returned. Shehad never heard her father make romantic speeches, such as nice married people sometimes do in novels; and as for her mother, what did she ever talk of to her liege lord but family bills, the servants, the children’s faults, and her own ailments? Could it be, she asked herself, that this matter-of-fact couple said anything when alone that was unlike what the whole family heard from them daily at the table and in the sitting-room?
“Why are you looking at me so queerly?” suddenly asked the father. Lucia recovered herself, and said,—
“I was only wondering whether you never got tired of looking for mother as soon as you came home.”
“Certainly not,” said the merchant.
“Most husbands do, sooner or later,” said Lucia.
“Perhaps I will, some day,” the father replied; “and I can tell you when it will be.”
“Tell,” said Lucia.
“I think ’twill be about the day after eternity ends,” was the reply. “Not a day sooner. But what do you know about what some husbands do, you little simpleton? And what put the subject into your little head?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Lucia, dropping upon the piano-stool and making some chords and discords. “It came into my mind; that’s all.”
“Well, I hope that some day you’ll find out to your own satisfaction. By the way, I wish you’d get out of that morning gown. My new clerk is coming to dinner.”
“Oh, dear! then I’ll have dinner sent up to my room, I think. I don’t feel a bit well, and it’s awful to think of sitting bolt upright in a tight dress for an hour or two.” And Lucia whirled from side to side on the piano-stool, and looked forlorn and cross.
“I suppose it would be impossible to dine in a dress that is not tight?” said the father.
“Papa, please don’t tease me: I don’t feel a bit well; really I don’t.”
“What is the matter, child?” asked the father, tenderly. “Too much candy?—too few parties?”
“Oh, nothing, that I know of,” said the girl, wearily. “I’ll feel better when real cold weather comes, I suppose.” She played with the piano-keys a moment or two, and continued,—
“So you have a new clerk? I hope he’s nice?—not a mere figuring-machine?”
“Quite a fine fellow,” said the merchant. “At least, he seems to be.”
“Is he—have you given him the place you intended to offer Philip Hayn?”
“Yes.”
“The iron business is real good for a young man to get into, isn’t it?”
“Indeed it is, since iron has looked up.”
“And that stupid fellow might have had the chance if he hadn’t gone off home again without even calling to say good-by?”
“Just so.”
“Oh, I don’t want to see him,” said Lucia, pettishly. “I’m tired of young men.”
“What a mercy it is that they don’t know it!”said her father. “They’d all go off and commit suicide, and then merchants couldn’t have any clerks at all.”
“Now, papa!” said Lucia, with a crash on the lower octaves of keys, followed by a querulous run, with her thumb, over the shorter strings. “Is the new clerk anybody in particular? What is his name?”
“Philip Hayn.”
Lucia sprang from the piano-stool and almost strangled her father with her slender arms.
“Gracious, Lu!” exclaimed the merchant. “Your mother’s family must have descended from a grizzly bear. But why this excitement?”
“Because you’re a dear, thoughtful old man, who’s always trying to do good,” said Lucia. “If ’tweren’t for you that poor young man might never have a chance in the world. I think it’s real missionary work to help deserving people who aren’t able to help themselves; I know it is; for our minister has said so from the pulpit again and again.”
“I’m real glad to learn that my daughter remembers some of the things she hears in church,” said the merchant. “So you think young Hayn deserves a chance in the world, eh?”
“I only know what you yourself have said about him,” said Lucia, demurely.
“Good girl! always take your father’s advice about young men, and you’ll not be mistaken in human nature. Which cut of the roast chicken shall I send up to your room?”
“Oh, I’ll try to come down, as it’s only Phil: maybe I can coax Margie to help me dress.”
Lucia slipped slowly from the room, but went up the stairs like a whirlwind. The merchant sat down at the piano and made as dreadful a succession of noises as the much afflicted instrument had ever endured. He had to do something.
A quarter of an hour later Lucia floated down-stairs in a robe of pale blue, her face as fresh and bright as dawn.
“Sunrise at sunset!” exclaimed her father. “Well, girls are possessed to upset the natural order of things, I suppose. But, my dear daughter, you’ve put the rouge on too thick; don’t you think so?”
“Father!” exclaimed the girl, and the flush of her cheeks spread to her brow.
“Edgar,” said Mrs. Tramlay, who came in a moment or two after, “see how foolish you were to think Lucia ill. I never saw her looking better.”
“Yes,” said the merchant, dryly; “I told her the doctor was coming. That’s often enough to cure the ailments of some children, you know.” Then the merchant devoted ten minutes of business tact to the task of explaining to his wife the reasons of Philip’s return to New York; he also enlarged upon the Haynton Bay Improvement Company, and the probability that if the Tramlays were to build the first and handsomest house on the new property Mrs. Tramlay would naturally be the fashionable leader of whatever section or sub-section of society might select the place as a summer home. Mrs. Tramlay was inclined to be conservative on the subject, but when she learned that Marge was a stockholder and director in the company she became quite cheerful.
Phil was not so happy as he should have been while on his way to the Tramlays’. He wondered how he should be able to greet Lucia without betraying the mixed emotions which he was sure the first sight of her face would cause him. He had a firm conviction that he would feel awkward and act accordingly, and his remembrance of various men whom he had seen behaving awkwardly in the presence of young ladies made him certain that Lucia and Margie would laugh at him when his back was turned. He did not realize that in meeting, as well as in fighting, the burden of action does not all rest upon one person. Neither did he take into consideration the tact which some maidens acquire in a year or two spent in society. As he was ushered into the parlor, with a face which he was sure was sober and set, Lucia approached him with a pleasant smile, and exclaimed, as heartily and unaffectedly as if she were a Haynton girl,—
“How do you do, Phil? I’m ever so glad to see you back again.”
Away went all sense of soberness, hesitation, and doubt; the young man’s soul leaped to his face, and he held so long the little hand offered him that Lucia, perhaps remembering some impulsive demonstrations toward that graceful member, withdrew it before any attempt to release it had begun. Then the girl began a rapid series of questions about Hayn Farm and its occupants, and Phil made cheery replies, and Tramlay, after gazing at the couple from the back parlor, retired to his library to indulge undisturbed in as much vigorousand affirmative head-shaking as the situation seemed to justify.
“How do you think you will like the iron business, Mr. Hayn?” asked Mrs. Tramlay at dinner.
“Greatly, so far as I know it,” Phil replied. “Up to date my duties have been to go to lunch, read the morning papers, and chat with a railroad company’s vice-president about off-shore fishing.”
“We always try to break in our young men pleasantly,” said Tramlay, “so they’ll be willing to promise long service for small money: then we begin to put on heavier chains, one by one.”
“Papa’s clerks have a hard time, if they happen to be nice,” said Lucia. “They have to get postage-stamps for Margie and me when we happen in at the office, and find small change for us when we lose our pocket-books, and take us out to lunch when we come down town and don’t find papa in, and sometimes they have to come to trains for us when we’ve been a few miles out of town on a visit and the team doesn’t get in before dark.”
“Then I shall earnestly strive to be nice,” said Phil.
“There’s some down-town place,” said Margie, “where papa gets lovely candy a great deal cheaper than up Broadway; but he forgets it half the time, so we sometimes have one of the clerks order it sent to papa’s desk,—that is, clerks who know how to select candy,” said Margie.
“My education in that respect,” said Phil, “has not been as thorough as if I could have foreseen such necessity for it; but I will resume my studies at once.”
“Are you a good judge of tea?” asked Lucia. “Mamma has not been quite herself since one of papa’s clerks went to Pennsylvania to take charge of a rolling-mill. The good man used to spend hours in the tea-importers’ warehouses, down near the office, searching for the kind of tea that mamma dotes on.”
“You children are not to worry Phil with any of your trifling affairs,” said the head of the house. “I want you all to understand that, besides having a desk in my office, he is a large operator in real estate,—a capitalist,—a sort of monopolist, in fact, for he is secretary and a director of the Haynton Bay Improvement Company, which monopolizes one of the finest bits of shore front on the Atlantic Coast.”
“Haynton Bay!” said Lucia, in wonder. “Why, that is where Hayn Farm is.”
“Wise child!” said her father; “and that fine bluff portion of the farm that overlooks the bay is the company’s property. You’ll never again cut your shoes to pieces on the oat stubble on that bluff, for when next you see the place it will be covered by fine villas, the handsomest of which you probably will some day see mentioned in the newspapers as the country-seat of the well-known merchant prince, Edgar Tramlay, Esq., father of the charming——”
“Edgar! Edgar!” said Mrs. Tramlay.
“And, as I was saying,” continued Tramlay, “no purchaser’s title will be good without the signature and official seal of Mr. Philip Hayn. Candy and postage-stamps, indeed! Why, such a man’s time ought to be valued at about a dollar a minute.”
Then Phil was rich, Lucia said to herself. She did not much care, and she knew even less, about business-details; a fortune on paper was as good as any other kind, so far as she knew; but what she did very distinctly understand was that no one, not even her mother, would again have occasion to speak of Phil as a poor man, or even a countryman. Some young men who were accounted great catches were only secretaries and even assistant secretaries of one thing or other; she knew it, because she had seen their names in dividend notices and other advertisements in newspapers. How would the change in his fortunes affect her mother, she wondered. Mrs. Tramlay certainly was more affable to the young man than she ever had been before, and after dinner she even took Phil’s arm in returning to the parlor: the act signified nothing to Phil, but it set Lucia’s little heart dancing gayly. When Phil departed, soon after dinner, to accompany his father, by request, to a meeting of the “Society for the Amelioration of the Spiritual Condition of Savage Tribes,” Lucia lost very little time in signalling Margie with her eyes and going up to her room. A moment later Margie bounced in, closed the door, and exclaimed,—
“Lucia Tramlay! I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. The idea of mamma, with the blood of a dozen High Dutch and Mayflower families in her veins, taking the arm of a countryman!”
“When there was no call for her to take any one’s arm,” added Lucia, “the affair being only an every-day family dinner.”
“ ‘Twas simply paralyzing,” said Margie; “but ’twas a sign that everything will be all right from this time forward. Dear me! I can imagine just how your new visiting-cards will look: ‘Mrs. Philip Hayn.’ ”
“Margie, Margie,” said Lucia, in a quick whisper, “do be quiet. I don’t even know whether he really loves me.”
“That’s because you didn’t sit at table where you could see his face all the while, as I did. Besides, a stone image would fall in love with you to-night: you never looked so perfectly entrancing in all your life.”
So, between all she had seen and heard, Lucia’s head was crowded with pleasant dreams long before it pressed its pillow.
Betweenhis duties at the office of the Haynton Bay Improvement Company and his earnest desire to master the mysteries of the iron trade, Philip Hayn found very little time for dropping into moody reflections. Like many another young man in business, he became convinced that a great deal of telling work might be done outside of business-hours: so he spent many evenings and occasional days in endeavoring to forward the interests of his employer, and of the Improvement Company, in which Mr. Tramlay was as largely interested as himself.
He had more than business to absorb his thoughts, for his stock of knowledge regarding human nature was at first entirely inadequate to the demands made upon it. At Haynton it was a safe rule that a man whose appearance and manner were those of a gentleman could be safely regarded as, at least, an honest man; in New York he found this assumption caused some of his plans to be utterly shattered by Tramlay’s more experienced hand. The railroad-men who wanted iron, to be paid for partly by stock in their roads, he learned to distrust if they were habitually well dressed and wore kid gloves when visiting Tramlay’s office, but he occasionally saw hisemployer neglect an appointment, even with his family, and devote his entire time to some insignificant, badly-dressed little fellow, and even to an occasional awkward man who seemed, as he really was, the farmer-secretary and treasurer of a lot of fellow-farmers who had planned a short road for their own benefit. The amount of cash that such a man could pay was seldom large, but not so the probable profit on the stock which Tramlay received “to boot.”
A pleasing relief from the work of his two offices was Phil’s occasional evenings at Tramlay’s home, which he had been so heartily urged to regard as his own that he no longer waited for special invitations. In spite of his pressing duties, he had devoted himself to being “nice,” as Lucia had termed the condition which made the family avail themselves of the services of Mr. Tramlay’s clerks. He improved upon his instructions so far as always to have in his pockets enough postage-stamps for the girls’ letters, and to see that boxes of candies from “the place somewhere down town” reached the house without first lying neglected for a day or two upon his employer’s desk. When Margie and Lucia were returning from a short visit out of town, he was at station, wharf, or ferry to meet them, regardless of what railway-magnate from out of town might be already accessible at a hotel, and the pang of hurrying away afterward was always sweetened by the gentle protests that no subsequent conversation could banish from his ear.
And yet, as he informed himself in occasional moments of leisure, the interest that lay closest tohis heart was not being advanced visibly. Lucia seemed always glad to meet him, always sorry to part with him; but was she not so to all mere acquaintances whose society was not unpleasing? She never made an excuse to cut short his conversation, no matter if he talked on subjects of which she evidently was ignorant; but had he not always been accustomed to patient listeners? She sometimes asked questions that seemed beyond her taste, as the subjects certainly were beyond her ken; but might not ordinary human desire for knowledge prompt any girl to do the same?
Sometimes he would bitterly inform himself that of his host’s two daughters any listener might imagine Margie, instead of her sister, the object of his affection. Margie, whose feelings and manner and enthusiasm lacked the restraint which a year or two of society will impose on an observing maiden, was as artless and effusive and affectionate as if Phil were an ideal older brother, if not a lover. Of course Margie was not in love with him; for was she not continually sounding Lucia’s praises? To her the world seemed to live and move and have its being solely for Lucia. Phil had never before seen such affection between sisters, and it seemed all the more wonderful as he recalled some frequent passages of words in which the two girls had indulged at Hayn Farm, not a half-year before. Margie seemed to have adopted him as a big brother, and it was quite delightful, as well as a new sensation, he having no sisters of his own, but he did wish that the samespirit—not exactly the same, either—might be manifested by Lucia.
Another disquieting thought came from the frequency with which Marge visited the Tramlay abode. He had heard almost too much of Marge before he ever saw him, but now he saw far more. It seemed, that Phil never could visit the Tramlays without either finding Marge already there, or having him come in just as a pleasanttête-à-têtewith Lucia was fairly under way. That Marge did not approve of the cordiality with which Phil was received was quite evident, in spite of his impassive demeanor, and Phil felt none the easier that Marge showed him many courtesies, and introduced him quite freely among his club acquaintances. Marge explained that many of these gentlemen had money and might be persuaded to purchase cottage-sites of the Haynton Bay Company; but if this was his purpose why did he not conduct the negotiations himself? Occasionally Phil suspected that there were dark designs hidden in Marge’s invitations to quiet little games at the club, and his rather sneering replies, to Phil’s refusals, that all gentlemen played cards sometimes; still, such games as he chanced to see were not for large sums, nor were they attended by any of the excitement that is supposed to make inexperienced players reckless.
Almost as disturbing was Mrs. Tramlay’s manner. At times she was affable and almost hearty in her manner toward Phil; again she was reserved and distant. What did it mean? Did she divine his purpose and resent it? or could it be that she wasimpatient that he did not pay his court with more fervor? Could he have overheard some of the conversations of which he was the subject, he would have been enlightened, yet scarcely more hopeful.
“Edgar,” said Mrs. Tramlay to her husband one evening, “young Hayn comes here so much that no one else is likely to visit Lucia with any serious intentions.”
“Well, why should they?” asked her husband. “Isn’t he good enough for a son-in-law?”
“I’m not even sure that he aspires to that position,” said Mrs. Tramlay.
“Aren’t you? I’m afraid, then, you’ll soon need to wear glasses, my dear.”
“Don’t joke about it, please: it’s a serious subject.”
“Yes,” sighed the merchant; “one’s first glasses——”
“You know very well I don’t mean glasses,” said the lady, with some petulance. “This is Lucia’s second season, and desirable young men are rare. ’Twould be unfair to her to have a man dawdling about her, acting frequently as her escort——”
“Assisted by her mother——”
“That doesn’t alter the case: it makes it all the graver in other people’s eyes.”
“Well, my dear, I see plainly enough that young Hayn has fixed intentions; and I’m as fully satisfied that they are entirely to Lu’s taste.”
“Then the question is, should it be allowed to go on?”
“Why not, if they love each other, or want to?”
“Because we want our first daughter to make as good a match as possible, and I don’t see that the young man’s prospects are very brilliant. If the Improvement Company shouldn’t succeed, he’ll be nothing but your clerk, with no certainty nor any expectations.”
“I feel entirely easy about the money I’ve put into the Improvement Company,” said the merchant, “and Phil will do as well as I, he having an equal number of shares. If worst comes to worst with him from that speculation, and he and Lu continue to like each other, I can take him into partnership. That would give him financial standing: there are plenty of young men of good families who would pay well for such an opportunity, for iron is up, and to stay.”
Mrs. Tramlay tossed her head, and replied, “I didn’t ever suppose it would be necessary to set a young man upon his feet in order to get a husband for one of our daughters.”
“Quite right: don’t suppose so yet, either, for I assure you he is fully earning whatever it might be necessary to give him. I find that he makes a very favorable impression upon the class of people who visit the iron-houses, or whom the iron-houses look after. He’s already got two or three desirable little orders, besides being on the track of others.”
“But he’s only a clerk, after all,” persisted Mrs. Tramlay.
“Say but the word, and I’ll make him my partner to-morrow,” said Tramlay.
“Don’t be hasty,” replied the lady, in some alarm. “He is not Lucia’s only chance, you know.”
Tramlay looked inquiringly; his wife appeared embarrassed, and averted her eyes.
“Oh! You mean Marge, I suppose? Well, if Lu should really want him, I wouldn’t like to make her unhappy by saying no. But really, my dear,”—here the merchant put his arm around his wife,—“really, now, don’t you think that a man who was a beau of yours a quarter of a century ago is rather mature to be the husband of an impulsive girl?”
“Young wives can’t live on impulse alone,” said Mrs. Tramlay. “Mr. Marge has means.”
“Not to any great extent, that any one has been able to discover,” interrupted the merchant.
“And he has social position, which is of more importance in New York than anything else,” continued the wife. “He knows many prominent people whom we do not, and if he were to marry Lucia it would improve Margie’s opportunities. We haven’t gone into society as much as we should, and I’m afraid our daughters will have to suffer for it.”
“Don’t trouble your head with any such fears,” said the husband, with more than his usual earnestness. “Girls like ours—bless them!—aren’t going to make bad matches.”
“Besides,” said Mrs. Tramlay, retracing her thoughts, “Mr. Marge doesn’t look the least bit old: he is not the kind of man to grow old. I can’t see that he appears a day older than he did years ago.”
“Bless your sentimental heart!” said the merchant. “He doesn’t, eh? Well, it does you credit to think so, and it doesn’t make me jealous in the least.”
“If the Company succeeds,” continued Mrs. Tramlay,“Mr. Marge will be as much the gainer as you or young Hayn, won’t he?”
“Certainly.”
“Then he’ll be that much better off than this young man you’re so fond of?”
“Yes, if he does nothing foolish in the mean time; but I have my doubts of the financial stability of any man who can’t pass a stock-ticker without looking at it. Wall Street exists solely for the purpose of absorbing such men’s money.”
“Mr. Marge is no fool,” said Mrs. Tramlay.
“He’s no wiser than some veterans who have had to leave their millions in the street and live on their children for ever after.”
“The Improvement Company has only about forty acres, I believe you said?”
“Just forty.”
“And two thousand an acre is the most you hope for?”
“Yes.”
“That would be eighty thousand dollars: four into eighty goes twenty times, and——”
“If I’d known you’d such a head for business I would have asked you to put a housekeeper in charge of the family, so I could have your services at the office,” said Tramlay.
“Twenty thousand dollars would be very little for a young man to marry on in New York,—and in our set.”
“Twenty thousand, and a salary which I must soon increase in simple justice; also, expectations from his father’s estate in the course of time. I don’tremember to have told you, though, that the young man was long-headed enough to suggest that his father should buy options on the continuation of the ridge,—there are several hundred acres in all, distributed among different farms,—and the old fellow has worked it so skilfully that we have the refusal of it all, for a year, at a trifling outlay in money. There’s genuine city business capacity in that young man’s head,—he?”
“It appears so,” Mrs. Tramlay admitted.
This admission might have been of great comfort to Phil could he have heard it, but, as he never received any information, except through his alternating hopes and suspicions, he was obliged to remain in doubt. His principal hope, aside from that based on Lucia’s willingness to devote any amount of time to him, was obtained through the manner of the head of the family. Tramlay was communicative as wise merchants usually are to their employees; he was also confidential: evidently he trusted Phil implicitly, for he told the new clerk all his business expectations and hopes, instructed him carefully regarding every one whom the young man was to see for business-purposes, and threw much important work upon him. It seemed impossible to misconstrue the purpose of all this: at the very least, it implied a high order of respect; and the respect of a possible father-in-law was not an ally to be underrated. Besides, Tramlay frequently put Lucia in his charge when she was out for an evening; and this implied a still higher order of trust.
But, after all, the hopes that were strongest and most abiding were formed in the Tramlay parlor,while Lucia was apparently only acting the part of a listener. The young man occasionally found himself expressing his own opinion freely, and to great extent, on subjects that interested him, and the flow of language was interrupted only by badly-concealed yawns from Mrs. Tramlay and Margie. Where to them could be the interest in the latest campaign against the Indians, or methods of ventilating schoolrooms, or the supposed moral purpose underlying England’s continued occupation of Egypt? Such questions were fit only for men, thought Mrs. Tramlay and her second daughter: the mother sometimes said, after excusing herself from impromptu lectures on these or kindred topics, that the young man from the country loved to hear himself talk, and Margie half believed that Phil only began what she denominated “harangues” in order to clear the room, so that he might have Lucia to himself.
But to all that Phil said, no matter how heavy the subject, Lucia listened patiently, attentively, and often with an air of interest. Sometimes she attained sufficient grasp of a statement to reconstruct it, in words, though not in facts, and return it to the original maker, who, in the blindness of bliss, immediately attributed it to Lucia’s mental superiority to the remainder of the family. Had he seen her afterward perplexedly pinching her brow as she appealed to cyclopædia or dictionary to make his meaning clearer, he might have revised his opinion as to her intellect, yet he would have been the surer of what to him, just then, was more desirable than the collective intellect of the world.