CHAPTER XIV.IN OAK CITY.
The boat was beginning to stop, and the passengers were hurrying from the deck, which Elithe was almost the last to leave. On the wharf crowds of people were gathered,—hundreds it seemed to her,—and by the time she was in their midst, pushed and jostled and deafened by the hackmen’s cries for the different hotels, she lost her head completely and wondered how she was ever to get through it, and if her aunt were there and how she was to know her, and what had become of her trunk. She found it at last on top of a Saratoga, with both hinges broken now and the lid kept in place by the rope, but still pushed up enough to show a bit of her second best dress through the aperture. It did look strange perched on top of the handsome Saratoga, but she did not realize how strange till she heard some one near her say very impatiently, “My gracious,how came this rubbish here! I hope you don’t think it belongs to me. Can’t you read the name, Elithe Hansford, on it? Take it away.”
Turning, she saw Clarice Percy ordering a porter to remove the obnoxious baggage, which he did with a bang. Close behind her was Paul Ralston, who, the moment he saw her, called out cheerily, “Oh, here you are. I’ve looked everywhere for you, thinking you might get dazed in this infernal jam, the biggest, I do believe, I’ve ever seen here. Everybody in town has come to meet somebody, and the rest to look on. Clarice, this is Miss Elithe Hansford from Montana. You remember, I told you she was on the boat. Miss Hansford, Miss Percy.”
If ever eyes expressed utter indifference if not contempt, those of Clarice did, as, with a swift glance, they took Elithe’s measure, from her hat and gown to her gloves and shoes. That she was a fright and a nobody she decided at once. But Paul had presented her, and she must show a semblance of civility. Taking Elithe’s hand, she held it so high that Elithe, who had not learned the fashion, wondered what it meant. She gave it a little shake and said, “Glad to meet you, I am sure.”
Nothing could be colder or haughtier than her voice and manner, and Elithe felt it keenly and was going away when Paul, with his usual kindness of heart, said to her, “I don’t see your aunt, but she must be here. I’ll look for her. Stay where you are, both of you. I’ll be back in a minute.”
While he was gone Elithe kept guard over her despised trunk, trying to adjust the hasp in its place and pushing back the fold of her dress showing so conspicuously. Clarice turned her back upon her and stood impatiently tapping her foot and humming to herself.
“She is very proud, and if all the people here are like her, I shall want to go home at once,” Elithe was thinking, when Paul came hurrying up and with him a young man so nearly resembling him in figure and height and general appearance that but for their dress one might be readily mistaken for the other when his back was turned.
“Your aunt is not here. Tom saw her on the piazza as he drove by. She probably did not expect you on this boat,” Paul said to Elithe, and added, “My man Tom will drive you home in our carriage. Here, Tom, take this trunk to an expressman and leave the young lady at Miss Hansford’s.”
Tom shouldered the trunk, while Paul continued to Clarice, whose face was clouded, “You don’t mind walking, do you? It is so short a distance.”
Clarice did mind, not so much the walk as the fact that Elithe, whom she considered far beneath her, was to be driven in the Ralston carriage while she went on foot.
“Oh, no; a little roasting, more or less, in this hot sun won’t hurt me; let’s go,” she said, with a toss of her head, and was turning away when Elithe, who had heard everything and understood it, exclaimed, “Please, Mr. Ralston, let Miss Percy ride. I would rather walk if some one will show me the way.”
“All right,” Paul answered, with some annoyance in his tone. “Tom shall take Clarice and I will go with you. Hallo, Tom! Bring the horses here.”
In an instant Clarice changed her tactics. She had no intention to let Paul take Elithe home, and she said, “How absurd! Do you think I am going to ride and let her walk, tired as she is. She looks quite worn out.”
She was beginning to be ashamed of her manner, which she knew was displeasing to Paul, and as she addressedherself to Elithe she flashed upon her a smile which made Elithe start, it seemed so familiar. The eyes, too, in their softer expression, had in them a look she had surely seen before. Tom had brought the horses up by this time, and at a sign from Clarice Paul gave his hand to Elithe and assisted her into the carriage. Clarice had played the amiable, and kept the role up as she walked with Paul the few blocks to the Percy cottage on Ocean Avenue. Then her mood changed, and without asking him in, she said, “I suppose I shall see you to-night, unless you feel it your duty to call upon that Miss,—what’s her name? Hansford isn’t it?”
“Girls are queer,” Paul reflected, as he bade her good-bye and went slowly towards home.
His road did not take him directly past Miss Hansford’s cottage, but he could see it from the avenue and knew that Elithe was there, as the carriage was driving away from it. Miss Hansford had fully intended to meet her niece, but for the first time in her life had forgotten to wind her clock, which stopped at three, and the first indication she had that it was time for the boat was when she saw it moving up to the wharf.
“For the land’s sake,” she exclaimed in alarm, glancing at the clock, “if there ain’t the boat, and I not there to meet her! What will she do?”
Then like an inspiration her bones came to her aid and told her somebody would see to her. She did not, however, expect her to be seen to in quite the way she was, and felt not a little surprised and elated when the Ralston carriage stopped before her door and Elithe alighted from it.