SOME MINDS RELIEVED.

When Tramlay bade good-by to his new partner a few moments after the partnership was verbally formed he wondered which to do first,—return to the club and announce his good fortune to the several other iron men who were members, or go home and relieve the mind of his wife. As he wondered, he carelessly remarked,—

“Which way are you going, Phil?”

The young man, who was already starting off at a rapid pace, returned, and said, in a low tone,—

“Can’t you imagine?”

The older man took his partner’s hand, and seemed to want to say something.

“What is it, Mr. Tramlay?” asked Phil, for the silence was somewhat embarrassing.

“My dear fellow,” said the merchant, “a man who has just given away his daughter is usually supposed to have done a great favor.”

“As you certainly have done,” Phil replied.

“Thank you; for I want to ask one in return. Fathers aren’t sole proprietors of their daughters, you know. Mrs. Tramlay—when you speak to her about the affair, as of course you will, be as—be all—do be your most considerate, courteous self, won’t you?”{230}

“I beg you will trust me for that,” said Phil.

“I’m sure I can,—or could, if you understood mothers as well as some day you may.”

“I have a mother, you know,” suggested Phil.

“True, but she had no daughters, I believe? Mothers and daughters—well, they’re not exactly like mothers and sons. Mrs. Tramlay respects you highly, I know, but she may not have seemed as friendly to your suit as you could have liked. Try to forget that, won’t you?—and forgive it, if it has made you uncomfortable?”

“I would forgive a bitter enemy to-night, if I had one,” said the excited youth.

“That’s right; that’s right: a man has so few chances to feel that way that he ought to improve them all. You’ll even be patient, should it be necessary?”

“As patient as Job,” promised Phil.

“Thank you! God bless you!” said the merchant, wringing Phil’s hand and turning away. Phil again started. The merchant walked toward the club, stopped after taking a few steps, looked in the direction Phil had taken, drew his hat down over his eyes, hurried to his house, entered the basement door, sneaked up the back stairway as if he were a thief, and quietly entered his own room, which, to his great relief, was empty.

Meanwhile, Phil had reached the house and been admitted. He had not to ask for Lucia, for he heard through the open door of the parlor some piano-chords which he knew were touched only by her fingers. Lucia did not hear him enter, and as he{231} stopped to look at her she seemed to be in a revery that was not cheerful. He had never seen her looking so-so plain, he would have said, had she been any one else. There was no color in her face, and her cheeks seemed thin and drawn. An involuntary motion startled her, and she turned, exclaiming,—

“How you frightened me!”

“I wish you might punish me in some way for it,” said Phil, approaching her.

“It was so late that I did not imagine any one would call,” the girl explained.

“I was quite busy in the earlier part of the evening,” said Phil,” and I needed to see your father.”

“Business is horrid,” said Lucia. “I should think men would attend to it by daylight. Well, I believe papa went to the club.”

“Yes; I found him.”

“And, as usual, he sent you home for some horrid papers of some kind?”

“No, not exactly,” said Phil. How uncomfortable it is to have a dream dispelled—even a day-dream! All along the way to the house he had imagined just how she would look; he could see the flush of her cheek through the half-mile of darkness that he had traversed, his path had seemed illumined by the light of her eyes, yet now she was pallid, and her eyes had none of their customary lustre, and her mental condition—it did not seem at all appropriate to the conversation which he had a hundred times imagined and upon which he had set his heart that night. Well, he would be patient: “Faint heart never won fair lady.”{232}

“Aren’t you a little severe on your father for his devotion to business?” he ventured to ask. “Out in the country we have an old saying, ‘Make hay while the sun shines.’ The sun never shone brighter than now in the iron-business.”

“Yes, I know,” replied Lucia, wearily. “It’s always something for business’ sake. Yes, we have that same dreadful saying in New York.”

“But it’s all for the sake of women that men are so absorbed in business,” argued Phil. “What would your father care for business, if it weren’t for his wife and charming daughters and younger children? He never sees iron, I imagine, while he is talking about it, nor even thinks of the money, for its own sake. Greenbacks and gold and notes and bonds all transform themselves, in his eyes, I suppose, into dresses and cloaks and bonnets and opera-boxes and trips to Europe, and——”

“You silly fellow!” said Lucia, with the first smile upon which she had ventured that evening; “I wonder where you get such notions. If you don’t give them up you will some day find yourself writing poetry,—something about the transmutation of railroad-iron into gold. Think how ridiculous that would seem!”

“But when iron attempts ‘to gild refined gold,—to paint the lily,’ ” said Phil, “as it does in your father’s case, why, ’twould be worth dropping into poetry to tell of at least one instance where Shakespeare’s conclusion was wrong. You know the rest of the quotation?”

Yes, evidently Lucia knew it, for her cheek glowed{233} prettily under the compliment, which, while somewhat awkward, reached its mark by the help of Phil’s eyes. As for Phil, his heart began to be itself again: whose heart wouldn’t, he asked himself, under the consciousness of having given one second of pleasure to that dear girl?

“You seem to be in a sermonizing mood to-night,” said Lucia. “I know my father is the best man alive, and I supposed you liked him,—a little; but I can’t imagine what should have impressed you so strongly with him to-night.”

Phil studied the toes of his boots, the tints of the patternless rug, the design of the frescoed ceiling. Lucia watched him with an amused face, and finally said, “Even you don’t seem to know.”

“I know,” said Phil, slowly, “and I’m trying to think how to express it properly.”

Poor fellow! how he did despise himself, that what he had hurried there to say would not come to his lips properly! Such a story had seemed easy enough when he had read, in books, of how other men told it,—so easy, indeed, that he had come to have very little patience with that portion of novels. Of course he could not tell it while Lucia was laughing,—laughing at him, too. Perhaps he could lead conversation back to the desired tone; but no; for just at that instant Margie flew into the room, exclaiming, before she fairly entered,—

“Oh, Lu, isn’t it awful? I just went across the room for something, and my dress caught the table-cover, and over went an inkstand on my very, veriest {234}white—— Why, Phil, I didn’t know you were here.”

“I wish I knew what would take ink-stains from very, veriest white——”

“Oh, so do I. What shall I do, Lu? Do tell me at once.”

“Perha............