DRIFTING FROM MOORINGS.
Master Philip Hayn retired from his second evening in New York society with feelings very different from those which his rather heavy heart and head had carried down to Sol Mantring’s sloop only a short week before. No one called him “country” or looked curiously at his attire; on the contrary, at least one lady, in a late party that boarded the elevated train on which he was returning to his hotel, regarded him with evident admiration. Not many days before, even this sort of attention would have made him uncomfortable, but the experiences of his evening at Miss Dinon’s had impressed him with the probability that he would be to a certain degree an object of admiration, and he was already prepared to accept it as a matter of course,—very much, in fact, as he had been taught to accept whatever else which life seemed sure to bring.
Of one thing he felt sure: Lucia did not regard him unfavorably. Perhaps she did not love him,—he was modest enough to admit that there was no possible reason why she should,—yet she had not attempted to withdraw that little hand—bless it!—when he was covering it with kisses. She had appropriated him, in the loveliest way imaginable,{102} not only once but several times during the evening, showing marked preference for him. Perhaps this was not so great a compliment as at first sight it seemed, for, hold his own face and figure in as low esteem as he might, he nevertheless felt sure that the best-looking young man in Miss Dinon’s parlors was plainer and less manly than himself. But if her acceptance of his homage and her selection of him as her cavalier were not enough, there was that jealous look, twice repeated. He informed himself that the look did not become her; it destroyed the charm of her expression; it made her appear hard and unnatural: yet he would not lose the memory of it for worlds.
Could it be true, as he had heard while unintentionally a listener, that her father was not rich? Well, he was sorry for him; yet this, too, was a ground for hope. After what he had heard, it was not impossible to believe that perhaps the father of the country youth, with his thirty or forty thousand dollars’ worth of good land, which had been prospected as a possible site for a village of sea-side cottages for rich people, might be no poorer than the father of the city girl. It seemed impossible, as he mentally compared the residences of the two families, yet he had heard more than once that city people as a class seemed always striving to live not only up to their incomes, but as far beyond them as tradesmen and money-lenders would allow.
As to the talk he had heard about Miss Dinon, he resented it, and would not think of it as in the least degree probable. To be sure, he would not believe her thirty-six, though if she were he heartily honored{103} her that she had lived so well as to look far younger than her years. Still, he was not to be bought, even by a handsome and intelligent woman. It was not uncomplimentary, though, that any one should have thought him so attractive to Miss Dinon,—a woman whom he was sure must have had plenty of offers in her day. But should he ever chance to marry rich, what a sweet and perpetual revenge it would be upon people who had looked, and probably talked, as if he were an awkward country youth!
Then came back to him suddenly, in all their blackness, his moody thoughts over the obdurate facts in the case. Prolong his butterfly day as long as his money would allow, he must soon return to his normal condition of a country grub: he must return to the farm, to his well-worn clothes of antique cut and neighborly patches, to the care of horses, cows, pigs, and chickens, take “pot-luck” in the family kitchen instead of carefully selecting his meals from long bills of fare. Instead of attending receptions in handsome houses, he must seek society in church sociables and the hilarious yet very homely parties given by neighboring farmers, and an occasional affair, not much more formal, in the village.
It was awful, but it seemed inevitable, no matter how he tortured his brain in trying to devise an alternative. If he had a little money he might speculate in stocks; there, at least, he might benefit by his acquaintance with Marge; but all the money he had would not more than maintain him in New York a fortnight longer, and he had not the heart to ask his father for more. His father!—what could that good,{104} much-abused man be already thinking of him, that no word from the traveller had yet reached Hayn Farm? He would write that very night—or morning, late though it was; and he felt very virtuous as he resolved that none of the discontent that filled him should get into his letter.
It was nearly sunrise when he went to bed. From his window, eight floors from the ground, he could see across the ugly house-tops a rosy flush in the east, and some little clouds were glowing with gold under the blue canopy. Rose, blue, gold,—Lucia’s cheeks, her eyes, her hair; he would think only of them, for they were his delight; his misery could wait: it would have its control of him soon enough.
* * * * * * * *
“Margie, Margie, wake up!” whispered Lucia to her slumbering sister, on returning from the Dinon party.
“Oh, dear!” drawled the sleeper; “is it breakfast-time so soon?”
“No, you little goose; but you want to hear all about the party, don’t you?”
“To be sure I do,” said the sister, with a long yawn and an attempt to sit up. Miss Margie had heard that she was prettier than her elder sister; she knew she was admired, and she was prudently acquiring all possible knowledge of society against her approaching “coming out.” “Tell me all about it. Who was there?” continued the drowsy girl, rubbing her eyes, pushing some crinkly hair behind her ears, and adjusting some pillows so that she might sit at ease. Then she put her hands behind her head,{105} and exclaimed, “Why don’t you go on? I’m all ears.”
Lucia laughed derisively as she pulled an ear small enough, almost, to be a deformity, then tossed wraps and other articles of attire carelessly about, dropped into a low rocker, ............