NOT SO DREADFUL AFTER ALL.

Regular hours being among the requirements of the head of the Tramlay household, Lucia appeared at the breakfast-table, the morning after the reception, as the clock struck eight. Her father, dressed for business, and her mother, in négligée attire and expression, were discussing the unbidden guest of the evening before.

“But he was so country,—so dreadful common,” protested Mrs. Tramlay, with her customary helpless air.

“Nonsense!” said her husband. “There was nothing country or common about his face and manners. There hasn’t been so bright-eyed, manly-looking a fellow in our house before since I don’t know when. Eh, Lucia?”

“Agnes Dinon said he was real fine-looking,” the girl answered.

“Agnes Dinon is thirty-six, if she’s a day,” said Mrs. Tramlay, in a petulant tone.

“So much the better fitted to pass opinions on young men,” said Tramlay. “Shows more sense in one girl of her age than a hundred like—like——”

“Like me, papa,” said Lucia. “You may as well say it.”{45}

“Like you, then. Bless your dear ignorant heart, I’d give my head if you could see as clearly as she without waiting so long to learn.”

“You may be very sure, though, that Miss Agnes will never invite him to her own receptions,” declared Mrs. Tramlay.

“Wrong again, mamma; she’s invited him for next Tuesday night, and I do believe she devised the reception just for the purpose. None of us had heard of it before.”

Mrs. Tramlay gathered all her strength, stimulated it with an entire cup of tea, and exclaimed,—

“Well, I should like to know what society is coming to, if a common farmer’s boy, of no family, can stumble into town and be invited about to good houses.”

“Coming to? Why, my dear wife, it is coming to its senses. I’m glad, in this particular case, the movement began at our house.”

“Nobody would have paid any attention to him, if you hadn’t talked so much about him,” said Mrs. Tramlay. “One would have thought him a dear old friend, to hear you go on about him as you did.”

“I said nothing but what was true. I merely said he was one of the finest young men I had ever known,—that he was of the highest character, and very intelligent besides.”

“Such qualities don’t make a man fit for society,” said the lady of the house.

“No, I suppose not; if they did we’d see more of them at our receptions and parties.”

“Edgar!”{46}

“Well, well,” said Tramlay, leaving the table, kissing his wife, and preparing to hurry to his office, “it isn’t your fault; we can’t expect what can’t be had, I suppose.”

“Lucia,” said Mrs. Tramlay, after the children had been despatched to school, “I hope your father’s peculiar notions won’t affect you.”

“About Phil? Nonsense, you dear old worry! But, really, mother, he made quite an impression. A lot of the girls admired him ever so much. I began to apologize and explain, as soon as I could get rid of him; but I found it wasn’t at all necessary.”

“Girls will admire anything that’s new,—anything, from a Zulu to a monkey.”

“Mamma!”

“Young men like Hayn can’t ever marry out of their own circle: you should be able to see that. How can they buy houses for their wives, and furnish them properly, and set up horses and carriages, and keep in society?”

“Mamma, you’re too dreadfully funny; indeed you are. Suppose young men aren’t rich enough to marry; can’t girls like them? Aren’t young people good for anything but to get married?”

“I’m very sorry,” said the mother, abruptly leaving the room, “that you have such trifling views of life.”

When Philip Hayn left the family mansion, a little after midnight, he had but two distinct ideas: one was that he had better find his way back to Sol Mantring’s sloop to sleep, and the other was that he didn’t believe he could fall asleep again in less than a{47} week. All that he had seen, the people not excepted, was utterly unlike Haynton. The conversation, also, was new, although he could not remember much of it; and the ladies—well, he always had admired whatever was admirable in the young women in the village, but there certainly were no such handsome and brilliant girls at Haynton as some he had met that night. He could not explain to himself the difference, except that, compared with Lucia’s friends, his old acquaintances appeared—well, rather unfinished and ignorant. And as far as these new acquaintances appeared above his older ones, so far did Lucia appear above her friends. He had studied her face scores of times before, and told himself where it was faulty; now he mentally withdrew every criticism he had ever made, and declared her perfection itself. Would he ever forget how she looked as she offered to help him from that easy-chair in the library? He wished his mother might have seen her at that instant; then he was glad she did not. He remembered that his mother did not entirely approve of some of Lucia’s bathing-dresses; what would the good woman think of fashionable evening attire? And yet perhaps it was not as dreadful as it seemed: evidently Lucia’s mother approved of it, and was not she a member of a church,—not, he regretted, of the faith in which all Haynton worshipped, yet still a church? And did not many of Lucia’s guests dress in similar style?

He mentally laid the subject away for future consideration, and gave his mind to his own attire. Until that evening his faith in the perfection of his{48} Sunday suit was as unquestioning as his faith in Haynton’s preacher, but now it was hopelessly shattered. He did not admire the attire of the gentlemen he had met, but the evidence was overwhelming that it was the correct thing, and that he must prepare himself to dress in like fashion if he went to Miss Dinon’s party. And, by the way, what a queenly woman that Miss Dinon was! He would like to meet her again: he certainly must attend that party. But if he bought evening dress, what should he do with it when he left the city? No young man felt more freedom than he to do as he liked in Haynton, but to appear in a “swallow-tail” at church or anywhere else in the village would be simply impossible: the mere thought of it made him tremble and then laugh. A suit of clothes merely to wear two or three evenings—perhaps only one—would be a shocking extravagance: they probably would cost half as much as a new horse, or two or three dozen of the books he had for years been longing to buy. He would give up Miss Dinon’s party: the thought of doing so made him doleful, but do it he must.

Almost immediately after forming this virtuous resolution he boarded a horse-car, on which were several couples, evidently returning from a party somewhere: so again Phil found himself studying attire. Gradually it occurred to him that his own appearance was attracting attention. This was not a new experience: he had encountered it several times at Haynton with calmness; indeed, although he was not vain, he had never feared comparison, in church, of his appearance with that of any summer{49} boarder from the city; for, as his mother has already intimated in these pages, his Sunday coat had been cut from the same piece of cloth as the minister’s. But now he felt ill at ease while being eyed, not at all impertinently, by the young people who sat facing him. First he thought the mildly critical glances were directed to his hard-rubber watch-guard; then he was sure the cut of his vest was not being approved; he detected one very pretty young woman in the act of suppressing a smile as she looked at his shoes. Thirdly, he was obliged to believe that an admirably-dressed fellow opposite entirely disapproved of his Sunday coat,—the coat cut from minister’s cloth and made by Sarah Tweege, and with a real silk-velvet collar, too!

Little by little Phil lost his self-possession; he could scarcely look in any direction without encountering the eyes of some one who seemed to regard him as a curiosity. An attempt to ignore the attention by reading the advertising signs above the windows of the car was a dismal failure, for he somehow felt that several pairs of eyes were upon him, and this was rather more annoying than seeing them. The strain became unendurable; so he suddenly looked through a window, as if to see where he was, then hastily went to the rear platform and asked the conductor to let him off. As he stood there he heard a young man whisper,—

“Country!”

Then he heard a young woman softly ejaculate,—

“Te-he!”

The street was as dark as gas-lighted streets usually{50} are; it was almost deserted, and the autumn evening was quite chilly, but Phil felt as if his blazing eyes were illuminating everything,—as if the walls had eyes to look disapprovingly at Haynton fashions, or as if his own blood were hot enough to warm the entire atmosphere of New York. He knew what he would do: when he reached Sol Mantring’s sloop he would remain aboard until she sailed; then he would go back to Haynton and remain there forever. He could exist without New York, if New York found him unsatisfactory. He didn’t care ever to see again anybody in New York, except, perhaps, Lucia. As for her, hadn’t even she——

Before the next car arrived, Phil had entirely changed his mind. Nevertheless, before continuing his journey he cautiously peered in to see if any of the passengers were likely to prove critical. There seemed to be no one to fear; at one end of the car was a shabby-looking peddler with his pack, evidently arrived by a late train from the suburbs; at the other an old man seemed inclined to doze, and directly opposite the newest passenger sat a plain, modest-looking person, whom a New Yorker would have rightly identified as a waiter at a restaurant or café. Apparently three persons less qualified or inclined to criticise personal appearance could not have been found by careful search; yet within five minutes Phil was sure that all of them had noticed him and studied him. As he was disinclined to squander another car-fare on his feelings, he sought the dusky seclusion of the rear platform and engaged the conductor in conversation, which on Phil’s part consisted solely{51} of questions; yet he was astonished, as well as indignant, when the conductor remarked, at a moment when the talk showed signs of lagging,—

“You’re from the rural district, I s’pose?”

“What makes you say that?” asked Phil, indicating a sense of injury.

“Oh, I didn’t mean nothin’ out of the way,” said the conductor. “I only kinder thought I was sure—why, I come from the country myself; yes sir, an’ I ain’t ashamed of it, neither.”

The explanation was not satisfactory; so Phil completed the trip in gloomy silence, and he felt a sense of great relief when he reached Sol Mantring’s sloop and made his way into the little cabin, where, of the three men lying at ease, no one took the pains to intimate that Phil was anything but city-born and city-bred.