(ouniPLi ^.^■ -:^ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/countryluckOOhabbrich Country Luck BY JOHN HABBEKTON, » AUTHOR OF "BRUETON'S BAYOU," ETC. P n I li A D E L P H I A : J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 1887. All Rightt Jteterved. Copyright, 1887, by J. B. Lippincott Company. CONTENTS. OHAPTZB PAOB I. — How IT CAKE ABOUT 5 II. — Family Councils 16 III.—" Down to York" 27 IV. — The Tramlay Reception 36 V. — Not so Dreadful after all 44 VI. — Reconstruction 62 VII.— At her Side 62 VIII. — Himself for Company 74 IX. — News, yet no News 80 X. — Agnes Dinon's Party 88 XI. — Drifting from Moorings 101 XII. — Iron looks up 109 XIIL— "While yet afar off" 117 XIV.— Going Home 126 XV. — The Fatted Calf, — but the Neighbors, too . 135 XVI. — More News that was not enough 142 XVII.— Father and Son 149 XVIII.— The New Clerk 168 XIX.— Hopes and Fears 168 XX.— An Old Question repeated 178 XXI. — Haynton rouses itself 186 XXII.— Several Green-eyed Monsters 196 XXIII.— E. AW 205 XXIV. — Iron looks still higher 212 XXV.— E. A W. AGAIN ; 220 XXVI.— Some Minds relieved 229 XXVII.— Among the Ruins 240 XXVIII.— "And e'en the Fates were Smiling" .... 249 XXIX. — So THEY were Married 267 8 M12005 COUNTRY LUCK CHAPTER I. HOW IT CAME ABOUT. *' Be sure to look us up when you come to the city." This invitation was extended with that delightful affectation of heartiness that a man can assume when he believes that the person invited will never avail himself of the courtesy. Fortunately for the purpose of this story, Master Philip Hayn, whom Mr. Tram- lay had asked to call, was too young and too unac- customed to the usages of polite society to regard the remark in any but its actual sense. It would have seemed odd to any one knowing the two men and their respective stations in life. Tram- lay was a New York merchant, well known and of fair standing in the iron trade ; Hayn was son of the farmer at whose house the Tramlay family had passed the summer. When the Tramlays determined to exchange the late summer dust of the country for the early autumn dust of the city, it was Philip who drove the old-fashioned carryall that transported them from the farm to the railway-station. The head of the merchant's family was attired like .a 1* 6 6 COUNTRY LUCK. well-to-do business-man ; Philip's coat, vest, and trousers were remnants of three different suits, none of recent cut. The contrast was made sharper by the easy condescension of the older man and the rather awkward deference of Philip, and it moved Mrs. Tramlay to whisper, as her husband helped her aboard the train, — ' ' Suppose he were to take you at your word, Edgar ?" The merchant shrugged his shoulders slightly, and replied, "Worse men have called upon us, my dear, without being made to feel unwelcome." " I think 'twould be loads of fun," remarked Miss Lucia Tramlay. Then the three, followed by smaller members of the family, occupied as many seats near windows, and nodded smiling adieus as the train started. Philip returned their salutations, except the smiles : somehow, the departure of all these people made him feel sober. He followed the train with his eyes until it was out of sight ; then he stepped into the old carryall and drove briskly homeward, declining to rein up and converse with the several sidewalk- loungers who manifested a willingness to converse about the departed guests. When he reached the outer edge of the little village he allowed the horses to relapse into their normal gait, which was a slow walk ; he let the reins hang loosely, he leaned forward until his elbows rested upon his knees and his hat-brim seemed inclined to scrape acquaintance with the dash-board, then he slowly repeated, — " ' Be sure to look us up when you come to the city.' You may be sure that I will." COUNTRY LUCK. 7 The advent of the Tramlays at Hayn Farm had been productive of new sensations to all concerned. The younger members of the Tramlay family had at first opposed the plan of a summer on a farm : they had spent one season at Mount Desert, and part of another at Saratoga, and, as Lucia had been " out" a year, and had a sister who expected early admis- sion to a metropolitan collection of rosebuds, against a summer in the country — the rude, common, real country — the protests had been earnest. But the head of the family had said he could not afford any- thing better ; trade was dull, a man had to live within his income, etc. Besides, their mother's health was not equal to a summer in society : they would find that statement a convenient excuse when explaining the family plans to their friends. Arrived at Hayn Farm, the objections of the juve- nile Tramlays quickly disappeared. Everything was new and strange ; nothing was repellent, and much was interesting and amusing : what more could they have hoped for anywhere, — even in Paris? The farm was good and well managed, the rooms neat and comfortable though old-fashioned, and the people intelligent, though Miss Lucia pro- nounced them "awfully funny." The head of the family was one of the many farmers who ** took boarders" to give his own family an opportunity to see people somewhat unlike their own circle of ac- quaintances,— an opportunity which they seemed un- likely ever to find in any other way, had he been able to choose. The senior Hayn would have put into liis spare rooms a Union Theological Seminary pro- 8 COUNTRY LUCK. fessor with his family, but, as no such person re- sponded to his modest advertisement, he accepted an iron-merchant and family instead. Strawberries were just ripening when the Tramlays appeared at Hayn Farm, and the little Tramlays were allowed to forage at will on the capacious old strawberry-bed ; then came other berries, in the brambles of which they tore their clothes and colored their lips for hours at a time. Then cherries reddened on a dozen old trees which the children were never reminded had not been planted for their especial benefit. Then the successive yield of an orchard was theirs, so far as they could absorb it. Besides, there was a boat on a pond, and another on a little stream that emptied into the ocean not far away; and al- though the Hayn boys always seemed to have work to do, they frequently could be persuaded to accom- pany the children to keep them from drowning themselves. For Mrs. Tramlay, who really was an invalid, there were long drives to be taken, over roads some of which were well shaded and others commanding fine views, and it was so restful to be able to drive without special preparation in the way of dress, — without, too, the necessity of scrutinizing each approaching vehicle for fear it might contain some acquaintance who ought to be recognized. As for the head of the family, who spent only Saturdays and Sundays with his family, he seemed to find congenial society in the head of the house, — a fact which at first gave his wife great uneasiness and annoyance. COUNTRY LUCK, 9 "Edgar," Mrs. Tramlay would say, "you know Mr. Hayn is only a common farmer." " He's respectable, and thoroughly understands his own business," the husband replied, — "two reasons, either of which is good enough to make me like a man, unless he happens to be disagreeable. * Common farmer' ! Why, I'm only a common iron-merchant, my dear." "That's different," protested Mrs. Tramlay. "Is it? Well, don't try to explain how, little woman : 'twill be sure to give you a three days' headache." So Tramlay continued to devote hours to chat with his host, pressing high-priced cigars on him, and sharing the farmer's pipes and tobacco in return. He found that Hayn, hke any other farmer with brains, had done some hard thinking in the thou- sands of days when his hands were employed at common work, and that his views of affairs in gen- eral, outside of the iron trade, were at least as sound as Tramlay 's own, or those of any one whom Tramlay knew in the city. The one irreconcilable member of the family was the elder daughter, Lucia. She was the oldest child, so she had her own way ; she was pretty, so she had always been petted ; she was twenty, so she knew everything that she thought worth knowing. She had long before reconstructed the world (in her own mind) just as it should be, from the stand-point that it ought to exist solely for her benefit. Not bad- tempered, on the contrary, cheerful and full of high spirits, she was nevertheless in perpetual protest 10 COUNTRY LUCK. against everything that was not exactly as she would have it, and not all the manners that careful breed- ing could impart could restrain the unconscious in- solence peculiar to young and self-satisfied natures. She would laugh loudly at table at Mrs. Hayn's way of serving an omelet, tell Mrs. Hayn's husband that his Sunday coat looked "so funny," express her mind freely, before the whole household, at the horrid way in which the half-grown Hayn boys wore their hair, and had no hesitation in telUng Philip Hayn, two years her senior, that when he came in from the field in his brown fiannel shirt and gray felt hat he looked like an utter guy. But the Hayns were human, and, between pity and admiration, humanity long ago resolved to endure anything from a girl— if she is pretty. Slowly the Hayns came to like then* boarders ; more slowly, but just as surely, the Tramlays learned to like their hosts. Mutual respect began at the extremes of both families. Mrs. Tramlay, being a mother and a housekeeper, became so interested in the feminine half of the family's head that she ceased to criticise her husband's interest in the old farmer. The Tramlay children wondered at, and then ad- mired, the wisdom and skill of their country com- panions in matters not understood by city children. Last of all, Lucia found herself heartily respecting the farmer's son, and forgetting his uncouth dress and his awkwardness of manner in her wonder at his general courtesy, and his superior knowledge in some directions where she supposed she had gone as far as possible. She had gone through a finishing- COUNTRY LUCK. H school of the most approved New York type, yet Philip knew more of languages and history and science than she, when they chanced — never through her fault — to converse on such dry subjects ; he knew more flowers than she had ever seen in a florist's shop in the city ; and once when she had attempted to decorate the rather bare walls of the farm-house parlor he corrected her taste with a skill which sho was obliged to admit. There was nothing strange about it, except to Lucia; for city seminaries and country high schools use the same text-books, and magazines and newspapers that give attention to home decorations go everywhere; nevertheless, it seemed to Lucia that she had discovered a new order of being, and by the time she had been at Hayn Farm a month she found herself occasionally surprised into treating Philip almost as if he were a gentleman. Phihp's interest in Lucia was of much quicker development. He had had no prejudices to over- come ; besides, the eye is more easily approached and satisfied than the intellect, and Lucia had acceptably filled many an eye more exacting than the young farmer's. There were pretty girls in homes near Hayn Farm, and more in the village near by, but none of them were well, none were exactly liko Lucia. PhiUp studied her face ; it was neither Roman nor Grecian, and he was obliged to confess that the proportions of her features were not so good as those of some girls in the neighborhood. Her figure sug- gested neither perfect grace nor perfect strength ; and yet whatever she did was gracefully done, and her attire, whether plain or costly, seemed part of 12 COUNTRY LUCK. herself, — a peculiarity that he had never observed among girls born in the vicinity. He soon discovered that she did not know everything, but whatever she did know she talked of so glibly that he could not help enjoying the position of listener. She did not often show earnestness about anything that to him w^as more than trifling, but when she did go out of her customary mood for a moment or two she was saintly : he could think of no other word that would do it justice. He had not liked her manner to his own mother, for at first the girl treated that estimable woman as a servant, and did it in the manner which makes most servants detest most ybung ladies ; but had she not afterward, with her own tiny fingers, made a new Sunday bonnet for Mrs. Hayn, and had not his mother, in genuine gratitude, kissed her ? Should he bear malice for what his mother had forgiven ? The young man merely admired and respected Lucia : of that he was very sure. Regard more ten- der he would have blamed himself for, first, because love implied matrimony, which he did not intend to venture into until he had seen more of the world and perhaps gone to college ; secondly, because he did not imagine that any such sentiment would be reciprocated. He came of a family that through generations of hard experience had learned to count the cost of everything, even the aflfections, hke most of the better country-people in the older States. He had also an aversion to marriage between persons of different classes. Lucia was to him an acquaint- ance,— not even a friend, — whom he highly esteemed ; that was alL COUNTRY LUCK. 13 His father thought differently, aud one day when the two were in the woodland belonging to the fiirm, loading a wagon with wood to be stored near the house for winter use, the old man said, abruptly, — ** I hope you're not growin' too fond of that young woman, Phil?'* "No danger," the youth answered, promptly, though as he raised his head his eyes did not meet his father's. "You seem to know who I mean, anyhow," said the old man, after throwing another stick of wood upon the wagon. "Not much trouble to do that," Phil replied. "There's only one young woman." The father laughed softly; the son blushed vio- lently. Then the father sighed. "That's one of the signs." " What's a sign ?— sign of what ?" said Phil, affect- ing wonder not quite skilfully. "When 'there's only one young woman' it's a sign the young man who thinks so is likely to con- sider her the only one worth thinkin' about." " Oh, pshaw !" exclaimed Phil, attacking the wood- pile with great industry. " Easy, old boy ; 'twasn't the wood-pile that said it. Brace up your head ; you've done nothing to be ashamed of. Besides, your old father can see through the back of your head, anyhow : he's been practisin' at it ever since you were born." Phil seated himself on the wood-pile, looked in the direction where his father was not, and said, — " I like Lucia very much. Slie's a new face ; she's 14 COUNTRY LUCK, different from the girls about here. She's somebody new to talk to, and she can talk about something be- side crops, and cows, and who is sick, and last Sun- day's sermon, and next month's sewing-society. That's all." " Yes," said the old man. " It doesn't seem much, does it? Enough to have made millions of bad matches, though, and spoiled millions of good ones." Phil was silent for a moment ; then he said, with a laugh, — " Father, I believe you're as bad as old Mrs. Trip- sey, whom mother's always laughing at because she thinks a man's in love if he sees her daughter home from prayer-meeting." "P'r'aps so, my boy, — p'r'aps,— and maybe as bad as you, for every time there's a bad thunder-storm you're afraid the lightning'U strike the barn. Do you know why? It's because your finest colt is there. Do you see?" Phil did not reply, so the old man continued : "I'll make it clearer to you. You're my finest colt ; there's more lightnings in a girl's eyes than I ever saw in the sky, you don't know when it's going to strike, and when it hits you you're gone before you know it." "Much obliged. I'll see to it that I keep myself well insulated," said Phil. Nevertheless, Phil studied Lucia whenever he had opportunity,— studied her face when she read, her fingers when they busied themselves with fancy work, her manner with different persons, as it changed according to her idea of the deservings of COUNTRY LUCK. 15 those with whom she talked. At church he regarded her intently from the beginning of the service to its end, analyzing such portions of prayer, hymn, or sermon as did not seem to meet her views. He even allowed his gaze to follow her when she looked more than an instant at other young women, in the igno- rance of his masculine heart wondering which of the features of these damsels specially interested her; his mother could have told him that Lucia was merely looking at bonnets and other articles of at- tire, instead of at their wearers. He wondered what she thought; he told himself where her character was at fault, and how it might be improved. In short, he had ample mental leisure, and she was the newest and consequently the least understood of his various subjects of contemplation. It is impossible to devote a great deal of thought to any subject without becoming deeply interested, even if it be unsightly, tiresome, and insignificant. Lucia was none of these, for she was a pretty girl. It is equally impossible to see a famihar subject of thought in the act of disappearance without a per- sonal sense of impending loneliness, and a wild desire to snatch it back or at least go in search of it. There- fore Philip Hayn needed not to be in love, or even to think himself so, to be conscious of a great vacancy in his mind as the train bore the Tramlay family rapidly toward their city home, and to determine that he would avail himself of the invitation which the head of the family had extended. CHAPTER II. FAMILY COUNCILS. "Husband," said Mrs. Hayn to her husband one night, when the person addressed was about to drop asleep, " something's the matter with Phil." "A touch of malaria, I suppose," said the farmer. ** He's been gettin' out muck earlier than usual, and spreadin' it on the ridge of the pasture. The sun's been pretty hot, though it is October, and hot sun on that sort of stuff always breeds malaria." *' I wasn't talkin' of sickness," said the wife. " The dear boy's health is as good as ever. It's his mind that's out o' sorts." A long soft sigh was the farmer's only reply for a moment. It was followed by the remark, — " That city gal, I s'pose, — confound her !" " I don't see what you want her confounded for : she hasn't done anythin'. They don't correspond." ** I should hope not," said Hayn, with considerable vigor: he now was wide awake, "What could they write about? You don't s'pose Phil could write anythin' about our goin's-on that would interest her, do you?" "No, but young people sometimes do find some- thin' to exchange letters about. You and I didn't, when we were boy and girl, because we lived within 16 COUNTRY LUCK. 17 a stone's throw of each other, an' you couldn't keep away from our house after dark ; but Philip and " "For goodness sake, old lady," interrupted the husband, "don't you go to settin' yourself down, at your time of life, by gettin' the match-makin' fever. There isn't the slightest chance that " ** I didn't say there was ; but boys will be boys." " It doesn't follow that they should be fools, does it?— not when they're our boys ?" " 'Tisn't bein' a fool to be interested in a rich man's daughter. I've often thought how different your life might have been if I'd had anything besides myself to give you when you married me." " I got all I expected, and a thousand times more than I deserved." This assertion was followed by a kiss, which, though delivered in the dark, was of absolutely accurate aim. " Don't put it into Phil's head that he can get more than a wife when he marries ; 'twill do him a great deal more harm than good." ** I'd like to see the dear boy so fixed that he won't have to work so hard as you've had to do." " Then you'll see him less of a man than his father, when he ought to be better. Isn't that rather poor business for a mother in Israel to be in, old lady?" "Well, anyhow, I believe Phil's heart is set on makin' a trip down to York." " Oh, is that all? Well, he's been promised it, for some day, this long while. Something's always prevented it, but I s'pose now would be as good a time as any. man ever had." b 2* 18 COUNTRY LUCK. Mrs. Hayn probably agreed with her husband as to the goodness of their son, but that was not the view of him in which slie was interested just then. Said she, — " If he goes, of course he'll see Aer." Again the farmer sighed ; then he said, quite earn- estly,— ** Let him see her, then ; the sooner he does it the sooner he'll stop thinkin' about her. Bless your dear foolish old heart, her ways and his are as far apart as Hayn ton and heaven when there's a spiritual drought in this portion of the Lord's vineyard." "J don't think the Tramlays are so much better than we, if they have got money," said Mrs. Hayn, with some indignation. " I always did say that you didn't set enough store by yourself. Mrs. Tramlay is a nice enough woman, but I never could see how she was any smarter than I ; and as to her husband, I always noticed that you generally held your own when the two of you were talking about anything." "Bless you!" exclaimed the farmer, "you are rather proud of your old husband, aren't you ? But Phil will soon see, with half an eye, that it would be the silliest thing in the world for him to fall in love with a girl like that." "I can't for the life of me see why," said the mother. "He's just as good as she, and a good deal smarter, or I'm no judge." " See here, Lou Ann," said the farmer, with more than a hint of impatience in his voice, "you know 'twon't do either of 'em any good to fall in love if they can't marry each other. An' what would Phil COUNTRY LUCK. 19 have to support his wife on ? Would she come out here an' 'tend to all the house-work of the farm, like you do, just for the sake of havin' Phil for a hus- band ? Not unless she's a fool, even if Phil is our boy an' about as good as they make 'em. An' you know well enough that he couldn't afford to live in New York : he's got nothin' to do it on." "Not now, but he might go in business there, and make enough to live in style. Other young fellows have done it !" "Yes,— in stories," said the old man. "Lou Ann, don't you kind o' think that for a church-member of thirty years' standin' you're gettin' mighty worldly- minded?" "No, I don't," Mrs. Hayn answered. "If not to want my boy to drudge away his life like his father's done is bein' worldly, then I'm goin' to be a backslider, an' stay one. I don't think 'twould be a bit bad to have a married son down to York, bo's his old mother could have some place to go once in a while when she's tired to death of work an' worry." " Oho !" said the old man : " that's the point of it, eh? Well, I don't mind backslidin' enough myself to say the boy may marry one of Satan's daughters, if it'll make life any easier for you, old lady." " Much obliged," the mother replied, " but I don't know as I care to do visitin' down there." The conversation soon subsided, husband and wife dropping into revery from which they dropped into slumber. In one way or other, however, the subject came up again. Said Mrs. Hayn one day, just as her 20 COUNTRY LUCK. husband was leaving the dinner-table for the field in which he was cutting and stacking corn, — '*I do believe Phil's best coat is finer stuff than anything Mr. Tramlay wore when they were up here. I don't believe what he wore Sundays could hold a candle to Phil's." ** Like enough," said the farmer ; " and yet the old man always looked better dressed. I think his clothes made him look a little younger than Phil, too." "Now, husband, you know it isn^t fair to make fun of the dear boy's clothes in that way. You know well enough that the stuff for his coat was cut from the same bolt of broadcloth as the minister's best." "Yes," drawled the farmer through half a dozen inflections, any one of which would have driven frantic any woman but his own wife. " It's real mean in you to say * Yes* in that way, Keuben !" " 'Tisn't the wearer that makes the man, old lady ; it's the tailor." "I'm sure Sarah Tweege cut an' made Phil's coat, an' if there's a better sewin'-woman in this part of the county I'd like to know where you find her." "Oh, Sarah Tweege can sew, Lou Ann," the old man admitted. " Goodness ! I wish she'd made my new harness, instead of whatever fellow did it. Mebbe, too, if she'd made the sacks for the last oats I bought I wouldn't have lost about half a bushel on the way home. Yesm', Sarah Tweege can sew a bed- quilt up as square as an honest man's conscience. But sewin' ain't tailorin'." COUNTRY LUCK. 21 *' Don't she always make the minister's clothes?" demanded Mrs. Hayn. "I never thought of it before, but of course she does. I don't believe anybody else could do it in that way. Yet the minister ain't got so bad a figure, when you see him workin' in his garden, in his shirt- sleeves." ** It's time for you to go back to the cornfield," sug- gested Mrs. Hayn. "Yes, I reckon 'tis," said the farmer, caressing what might have been nap had not his old hat been of felt. '"Tain't safe for an old farmer to be givin' his time an' thought to pomps an' vanities,— like the minister's broadcloth coat." " Gtet out !" exclaimed Mrs. Hayn, with a threaten- ing gesture. The old man kissed her, laughed, and began to obey her command ; but as, like country- men in general, he made his exit by the longest pos- sible route, wandering through the sitting-room, the hall, the dining-room, and the kitchen, his wife had time to waylay him at the door-step and remark, — *' I was only goin' to say that if Phil does make that trip to York I don't see that he'll need to buy new clothes. He's never wore that Sunday coat on other days, except to two or three funerals an' par- ties. I was goin' it over this very mornin', an' it's about as good as new." " I wonder how this family would ever have got along if I hadn't got such a caretali:in' wife?" said the old man. ** It's the best coat in the United States, if you've been goin' it over." Phil was already in the corn,— he had left the table 22 COUNTRY LUCK. some minutes before his father, — and as the old man approached, Phil said,— "Father, don't you think that wind-break for the sheep needs patching this fall?" "It generally does, my son, before cold weather sets in." " I guess I'll get at it, then, as soon as we get the corn stacked." "What's the hurry? The middle of November is early enough for that." " Oh, when it's done it'll be off our minds." " See here, old boy," said the father, dropping the old ship's cutlass with which he had begun to cut the corn-stalks, "you're doin' all your work a month ahead this fall. What are you goin' to do with all your time when there's no more work to be done?" "I can't say, I'm sure," said Phil, piling an arm- ful of stalks against a stack with more than ordinary care. " Can't, eh ? Then I'll have to, I s'pose, seein' I'm your father. I guess I'll have to send you down to New York for a month, to look aroun' an' see some- thin' of the world." Phil turned so quickly that he ruined all his elabor- ate work of the moment before, almost burying his father under the toppling stack. "That went to the spot, didn't it?" said the old man. " I mean the proposition, — not the fodder," he continued, as he extricated himself from the mass of corn-stalks. "It's exactly what I've been wanting to do," said Phil, "but " COUNTRY LUCK. 23 ** But you didn't like to say so, eh? Well, 'twasn't necessary to mention it ; as I told you t'other day, I can see through the back of your head any time, old boy." "'Twouldn't cost much money," said Phil. "I could go down on Sol Mantring's sloop for nothing, some time when he's short-handed." " Guess I can afford to pay my oldest son's travel- lin' expenses when I send him out to see the world. You'll go down to York by railroad, an' in the best car, too, if there's any difference." ** I won't have to buy clothes, anyhow," said the younger man. " Yes, you will, — lots of 'em. York ain't Haynton, old boy ; an' as the Yorkers don't know enough to take their style from you, you'll have to take yours from them. I was there once, when I was 'long about your age : I didn't have to buy no more meetin'- clothes after that until I got married, — nigh on to ten years." "If it's as expensive as that, I'm not going," said Phil, looking very solemn and beginning to recon- struct the demolished stack. "Yes, you are, sir. I'll have you understand you're not much over age yet, an' have got to mind your old father. Now let that corn alone. If it won't stay down, sit on it, — this way,— see." And, suiting the action to the word, the old man sprawled at ease on the fallen fodder, dragged his son down after him, and said, — " You shall have a hundred dollars to start with, and more afterward, if you need it, as I know you 24 COUNTRY LUCK. ' will. The first thing to do when you get to the city is to go to the best-looking clothing-store you can find, and buy a suit such as you see well-dressed men wearing to business. Keep your eyes open on men as sharply as if they were bosses and clothes were their only points, and then see that you get as good clothes as any of them. It don't matter so much about the stufi*; but have your clothes fit you, an' cut like other people's." ** I don't want to put on city airs," said Phil. "That's right, — that's right ; but city clothes and city airs aren't any miore alike than country airs an' good manners. You may be the smartest, brightest young fellow that ever went to York, — as of course you are, bein' my son,— but folks at York' 11 never find it out if you don't dress properly,— that means, dress as they do, I'll trade watches with you, to trade back after the trip : mine is gold, you know. You'll have to buy a decent chain, though." "I won't take your watch, father. I can't ; that's all about it." ** Nonsense ! of course you can, if you try. It isn't good manners to wear silver watches in the city." "But your watch " Phil could get no further ; for his father's gold watch was venerated by the family as if it were a Mayfiower chair or the musket of a soldier of the Revolution. Once while old farmer Hayn was young Captain Hayn, of the whaling-ship Lou Ann, he saved the crew of a sinking British bark. Unlike modern ship-captains (who do not own their vessels), he went in the boat with the rescuing- party instead of merely sending it out, and he COUNTRY LUCK. 25 suffered so much through exposure, strain, and the fear of the death which seemed impending that he abandoned the sea as soon thereafter as possible. Nevertheless he thought only of the work before him, until he had rescued the imperilled crew and stowed them safely in his own ship. The circum- stances of the rescue were so unusual that they formed the subject of long columns in foreign news- papers ; and in a few months Captain Hayn received through the State Department at Washington a gold watch, with sundry complimentary papers from the Britisli Admiralty. The young seaman never talked of either ; his neighbors first learned of the presenta- tion by conning their favorite weekly newspapers ; nevertheless the papers were framed and hung in the young captain's bedchamber, and, however care- lessly he dressed afterward, nobody ever saw him when he had not the watch in his pocket. ** Father," said Phil, after some moments spent in silence and facial contortion, "I can't take your wat COUNTRY LUCK, 65 Marge frowned perceptibly ; Mrs. Tramlay looked horrified ; but Phil's face lightened so quickly that Lucia's little heart gave a gay bound. ** Why didn't you ever give a clam-bake on Sunday, —the only day I could be there?" asked Tramlay. " I'd give more for such a meal out of doors than for the best dinner that Delmonico could spread." ** Edgar !" gasped Mrs. Tramlay. It did not reach him, tliough the look that accompanied it passed in its full force from the foot of the table to the head. **Why, Sunday," said Phil, with some hesitation, — "Sunday is — Sunday." " Quite true," said the host. " It is in the country, at least ; I wish 'twas so here." *' Edgar," said Mrs. Tramlay, *' don't make Mr. Hayn think we are heathens. You know we never fail to go to service on Sunday." ." Yes," said Tramlay ; " we're as good Pharisees as any other family in New York." *• And after that dinner in the woods," continued Lucia, *' we went for pond-lilies : don't you remem- ber? I do believe I should have been drowned in that awful pond if you hadn't caught me." Again Marge's brows gathered perceptibly. " He merely drew her aside from a muddy place," whispered Mrs. Tramlay. " Well, this is interesting," said Tramlay, at the other end of the table. "Hayn, are there many places out your way where silly girls are likely to be drowned if they are allowed to roam about without a keeper?" •' Quite a number," said Phil, as seriously as if his 6* 66 COUNTRY LUCK. host expected a list of the Hayntou ponds and their relative depths. "For instance, Boddybanks Pond is about " " Oh, that was the pond where we went canoeing, — that pond with the funny name ! My ! I wish I was in that very canoe, on that very pond, this very minute." ** Lucia !" exclaimed Mrs. Tramlay. "I know 'twas dreadfully impolite to say before company," said Lucia, with a pretty affectation of penitence, "but everybody knows I can't be there, and that 'twould be too cold for comfort ; so it doesn't do any harm to wish it. And I should like that canoe-trip over again : shouldn't you, Phil?" "I certainly should," said Phil. "That pond is very pretty in summer, when everything around it is green. There are a great many shades of green there, on account of there being a great variety of trees and bushes. But you wouldn't know the place at this season ; and I think it's a great deal prettier. The ground — the water, too — is covered with leaves of bright colors ; there are a lot of blazing red swamp maples around it, in spots, and three or four cedar- trees, with poison-ivy vines " "Ugh !" ejaculated Mrs. Tramlay. "Poison-ivy leaves, you know, are the clearest crimson in the fall," Phil continued, "and they're so large and grow so close together that they make a bit of woods look like a splendid sunset.'^ " Oh, papa !" exclaimed Lucia, clapping her hands, " let*s go out to Haynton to-morrow, just for two or three days." COUNTRY LUCK. 67 "Lucia," said her mother, severely, "you forget all your engagements for the next few days." "Her father's own child," said Tramlay. "She forgets everything but the subject before her. She would make a good business-man— if she weren't a girl." " I saw some couples out canoeing at Mount Desert, last season," drawled Marge. " It seemed to me dread- fully dangerous, as well as very uncomfortable for the lady." "Oh, our canoe wasn't one of those wretched little things ; was it, Phil ? 'Twas a great long pond-boat, made of beech bark " "Birch," suggested Phil. "Birch bark, and so heavy that I couldn't upset it, though I tried my hardest." "Lucia !" The voice was Mrs. Tramlay's, of course. "Why, mamma, the water wasn't knee-deep; I measured it with tlie paddle." Mrs. Tramlay sank back in her chair, and whis- pered that if the family ever went to the country again she would not dare leave that child out of her sight for a single instant, but she had hoped that a girl twenty years of age would have enough sense not to imperil her own life. As for that farmer fellow, she had supposed he was sensible enough to " You wouldn't have tried that trick if I had been in the canoe, Miss Tramlay," said Phil. "Why not?" asked Lucia : she knew how to look defiant without ceasing to be pretty. "Well, I would have been responsible for you, you know, —your instructor in navigation, so to speak ; 68 COUNTRY LUCK. and it's one of the first principles of that art hot to talve any risk unless something's to be gained by it." " Good !" exclaimed Tramlay. "Not bad," assented Marge. "But I'd have got something if I'd succeeded in upsetting the boat," said Lucia: "I'd have got a ducking." Then everybody laughed, — everybody but Mrs. Tramlay, who intimated to Marge that Lucia was simply being ruined by her father's indulgence. The dinner ended, the host and Marge retired to the library to smoke. Phil was invited to accompany them, but Lucia exclaimed, — " Phil has been too well brought up to have such bad habits. He is going to keep me from feeling stupid, as ladies always do while gentlemen smoke after dinner." She took Phil's arm and led him to the drawing- room, where the young man soon showed signs of being more interested in the pictures on the wall than in the girl by his side. "These are very different from the pictures you used to see in our little parlor in Haynton," said Phil. " Different from any in our town, in fact." "Are they?" said Lucia. "But you might be loyal to home, and insist that yours were unlike any in New York ; because they were, you know." "I didn't suppose they were anything unusual," said Phil, quite innocently. "Oh, they were, though," insisted Lucia, with much earnestness. " I'm sure you couldn't find one of them in any parlor in New York. Let me see : I COUNTRY LUCK. 69 do believe I could name thorn all, if I were to close my eyes a moment. There was * General Taylor at the Battle of Buena Vista,' 'The Destruction of Je- rusalem,' the * Declaration of Independence,' 'Napo- leon's Tomb at St. Helena,' ' Rock of Ages,' ' George Washington,' Peale's 'Court of Death,' 'Abraham Lincoln and his Family,' and 'Rum's Deadly Upas- Tree.' There !" " Your memory is remarkable," said Phil. " I didn't suppose any one had even noticed our pictures at all ; for I'm sure they are old-fashioned." "Old-fashioned things, — why, they're all the fashion now, don't you know?" said Lucia, with a pretty laugh. Phil did not reply, for he was quite overpowered by what seemed to him the elegance of the Tramlay pictures. He could easily see that the engravings were superior in quality to those to which he was ac- customed ; he was most profoundly impressed by the paintings, — real oil paintings, signed by artists some of whose names he had seen in art-reviews in New York papers. He studied them closely, one aft^r another, with the earnestness of the person whose tastes are in advance of his opportunities: in his interest he was almost forgetful of Lucia's presence. But the young woman did not intend to be forgotten, BO she found something to say about each picture over which Phil lingered. Among the paintings was one which had been seen, in the original or replicas, in almost all the picture- auctions which were frequently held in the New York business-district for the purpose of fleecing men 70 COUNTRY LUCK. who have more money than taste. Sometimes the artist's name is German, oftener French, and occa- sionally Italian ; the figures and background also differ from time to time as to the nationality, and the picture is variably named "The Parting," "Good-By," ♦♦Auf Wiedersehen," "Good-Night," or "Adieu," but the canvases all resemble one another in display- ing a young man respectfully kissing the hand of a young woman. The Tramlays' copy of this auction- eer's stand-by was called "Adieu," the name being lettered in black on the margin of the frame. "Why," exclaimed Phil, with the air of a man in the act of making a discovery, "I am sure I have seen a wood engraving of that painting in one of the illustrated papers." "I don't see why they should do it," said Lucia ; "it's dreadfully old-fashioned. People don't say * adieu' in that way nowadays, except on the stage." " I thought you said a moment ago that old-fash- ioned things were all the fashion." Lucia shrugged her shoulders, and said, " Kissing hands may come in again." Then she raised one of her own little hands slightly and looked at it ; Phil's eyes followed hers, and then the young man became conscious of a wish that the old form of salutation might be revived, on special occasions, at least. The thought succeeded that such a wish was not entirely proper, and while he reasoned about it Lucia caught his eye and compelled him to blush, — an act which the young woman perhaps thought pretty, for she immediately imitated it, the imitation being much more graceful and effective than the original. The .COUNTRY LUCK, 71 situation was awkward, and Phil instantly lost his self-possession ; but not so Lucia. "Here," she said, turning so as to face the wall opposite that on which the mischief-making picture hung, "is papa's favorite picture. He thinks every- thing of it ; but I say it's simply dreadful." It certainly was. The centre of the canvas, which was enormous, was filled with several columns and a portion of the entablature of a ruined Greek temple. "It is as large as all the other pictures combined, you see ; all the lines in it are straight, and there isn't anywhere in it a dress, or a bit of furniture, or even bric-^-brac." Phil imagined his host must have seen other qual- ities than those named by Lucia, and he seated him- self on a sofa to study the picture in detail. Lucia also sat down, and continued : *' There is color in it, to be sure ; bits of the columns where the light is most subdued are as lovely as — as a real Turkish rug." Much though Phil had endeavored to keep himself in communication and sympathy with the stronger sentiments of the world outside of Haynton, he had never realized even the outer edge of the mysteries and ecstasies of adoration of old rugs. So Lucia's comparison started him into laughter. The girl seemed surprised and offended, and Phil immediately tumbled into the extreme depths of contrition. ** I beg your pardon," he murmured, quickly. *' It was all because of my ignorance. We haven't any Turkish rugs at Haynton, nor any other rugs, ex- pect those we lay on floors and use very much as if 72 COUNTRY LUCK. they were carpets. I ought to have known better, though ; for I remember that in Eastern stories, where the rare possessions of Oriental kings and chiefs are spoken of, rugs are always classed with jewels and silks and other beautiful things. Please forgive me." Half in earnest, half pretending, Lucia continued to appear offended. Phil repeated his confession, and enlarged his explanation. In his earnestness he leaned toward her ; Lucia dropped her head a little. Marge, who had finished his cigar, entered the parlor at that instant, and raised his eyebrows, — a motion more significant in a man of his tempera- ment than a tragic start would have been to ordi- nary flesh and blood. Lucia started and showed signs of embarrassment when she could no longer ignore his presence ; Phil merely looked up, with- out seeming at all discomposed. " I think, my dear," said Tramlay to his wife, who had been turning the backs of a magazine, "that I'll take our friend around to the club with me for half an hour, just to show him how city men squan- der their time and keep away from their families. I won't be long gone." "Oh, papa! right after dinner? We've scarcely seen Phil yet, to ask him any questions." "Plenty of time for that," the merchant replied. "We'll see him often : eh, Hayn ?" "I shall be delighted," said Phil. " Suppose you drop him at my club, on your way home?" suggested Marge. " I shall be there." " Good ! thanks ; very kind of you. He'll see some COUNTRY LUCK. 73 men nearer his own age : all our members are middle-aged and stupid." *' I think it's real mean of you both," said Lucia, witli a pretty pout. Phil looked as if he thought so too. At Haynton it was the custom, when one went out to dinner, — or supper, which was the evening meal,— to spend the evening with the entertainer. But objection seemed out of place : the merchant had gone for his hat and coat, and Marge made his adieus and was donning his overcoat at the mirror in the hall. "I'm very sorry to go," said Phil to Lucia. His eyes wandered about the room, as if to take a dis- tinct picture of it with him : they finally rested on the picture of '* The Adieu." "You shall take my forgiveness with you," said the girl, " if you will solemnly promise never, never to laugh at me again." "I never will," said Phil, solemnly; then Lucia laughed and offered him her hand. Perhaps it was because Phil had just removed his eyes from "The Adieu" and was himself about to say good-by, that lie raised the little hand to his lip. Fortunately for her own peace of mind, Mrs. Tramlay did not see the act, for she had stepped into the library to speak to her husband ; Marge, however, was amazed at what he saw in the mirror, and, a second or two later, at Phil's entire composure. Lucia's manner, however, puzzled him; for she seemed somewhat disconcerted, and her complexion had suddenly be- come more brilliant than usual. D 7 CHAPTER VIII. HIMSELF FOR COMPANY. For years Philip Hayn had been wondering about the great city only a hundred or two miles distant from his home, — wondering, reading, and question- ing, — until he knew far more about it than thousands of men born and reared on Manhattan Island. He had dreamed of the day when he would visit the city, and had formed plans and itineraries for con- suming such time as he hoped to have, changing them again and again to conform to longer or shorter periods. He was prepared to be an intelligent tour- ist, to see only what was well worth being looked at, and to study much that could not be seen in any other place which he was ever likely to visit. At last he was in New York : his time would be limited only by the expense of remaining at hotel or boarding-house. Yet he found himself utterly with- out impulse to follow any of his carefully-perfected plans. He strolled about a great deal, but in an utterly aimless way. He passed public buildings which he knew by sight as among those he had in- tended to inspect, but he did not even enter their doors ; the great libraries in which for years he had hoped to quench the literary thirst that had been little more than tantalized by the collective books iu 74 COUNTRY LUCK. 75 Haynton were regarded with impatience. Of all he saw while rambling about alone, nothing really fixed his attention but the contents of shop-windows. He could not pass a clothing-store without wondering if some of the goods he saw within would not become him better than what he was wearing ; he spent hours in looking at displays of dress-goods and im- agining how one or other pattern or fabric would look on Lucia ; and he wasted many hours more in day-dreams of purchasing — only for her — the bits of jewelry and other ornaments with which some win- dows were filled. Loneliness increased the weakening effect of his imaginings. He knew absolutely no one in the city but the Tramlays and Marge, and he had too much sense to impose himself upon tliem ; besides, Marge was terribly uninteresting to him, except as material for a study of human nature, — material that was peculiarly unattractive when such a specimen as Lucia was always in his mind's eye and insisting upon occupying his whole attention. His loneliness soon became intolerable ; after a single day of it he hurried to the river, regardless of probable criticism and teasing based on his new clothes, to chat with Sol Mantring and the crew of the sloop. The interview was not entirely satisfac- tory, and Phil cut his visit short, departing with a brow full of wrinkles and a heart full of wonder and indignation at the persistency with which Sol and both his men talked of Lucia Tramlay and the regard in which they assumed Pliil held her. How should they imagine such a thing? He well knew— and 76 COUNTRY LUCK. detested — the rural rage for prying into the affairs of people, particularly young men and women who seemed at all fond of one another ; but what had he ever done or said to make these rough fellows think Lucia was to him anything but a boarder in his father's house? As he wondered, there came to his mind a line which he had often painfully followed in his copy-book at school: "The face of youth is an open book." It did not tend at all to restore com- posure to his own face. Hour by hour he found himself worse company. He had never before made such a discovery. There had been hundreds and thousands of days in his life when from dawn to dark he had been alone on the farm, in the woods, or in his fishing-boat, several miles off shore on the ocean ; yet the companionship of his thoughts had been satisfactory. He had sung and whistled by the hour, recited to himself favorite bits of poetry and prose, rehearsed old stories and jokes, and enjoyed himself so well that sometimes he was annoyed rather than pleased when an acquaint- ance would appear and insist on diverting his atten- tion to some trivial personal or business affair. Why could he not cheer himself now? — he who always had been the life and cheer of whatever society he found himself in? He tried to change the current of his thoughts by looking at other people ; but the result was dismal in the extreme. He lounged about Broadway, strolled in Central Park, walked down Fifth Avenue, and from most that he saw he assumed that everybody who was having a pleasant time, driving fine horses, COUNTRY LUCK. 77 or living in a handsome house, was rich. He had been carefully trained in the belief that "a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth," but his observations of New York were severely straining his faith. He was en- tirely orthodox in his belief as to the prime source of riches, but he suddenly became conscious of an unliappy, persistent questioning as to why he also had not been born rich, or had riches thrust upon him. He understood now the mad strife for wealth which he had often heard alluded to as the prevail- ing sin of large cities; he wished he knew how to strive for it himself, — anywhere, in any way, if only he might always be one of the thousands of people who seemed to wear new clothes all the time, and spend their evenings in elegant society, or in the gorgeous seclusion of palaces like that occupied by Marge's club. For instance, there was Marge. Phil had asked Tramlay what business Marge was in, and the re- ply was, "None in particular: lives on his income." What, asked Phil of himself, was the reason that such a man, who did not seem much interested in anything, should have plenty of money and nothing to do, when a certain other person, who could keenly enjoy, and, he believed, honestly improve, all of Marge's privileges, should have been doomed to spend his life in hard endeavor to wrest the plain- est food from the jealous earth and threatening sea, and have but a chance glimpse of the Paradise that the rich were enjoying, — a glimpse which probably would make his entire after-life wretched. Could he 78 COUNTRY LUCK. ever again be what he had so loug been? — a cheerful, contented young farmer and fisherman? He actu- ally shivered as he called up the picture of the long road, alternately dusty and muddy, that passed his father's house, its sides of brown fence and straggling bushes and weeds converging in the distance, an un- couth human figure or a crawling horse and wagon its only sign of animation, and contrasted it with Fifth Avenue, its boundaries handsome houses and its roadway thronged with costly equipages bearing well-dressed men and beautiful women. Passing the house of a merchant prince, he saw in the window a fine bronze group on a stand ; how different from the little plaster vase of wax flowers and fruits which had been visible through his mother's " best room" window as long as he could remember ! Yes, money was the sole cause of the difference : money, or the lack of it, had cursed his father, as it now was cursing him. None of the elderly men he saw had faces more intelligent than his father, yet at that very moment the fine old man was probably clad in oft-patched trousers and cotton shirt, digging m.uck from a black slimy pit to enrich the thin soil of the wheat-lot. And his mother : it made his blood boil to think of her in faded calico preparing supper in the plain old kitchen at home, while scores of richly-clad women of her age, but without her alert, smiling face, were leaning back in carriages and seemingly unconscious of the blessing of being ex- empt from homely toil. And, coming back to himself, money, or lack of it, would soon banish him from all that now his eye COUNTRY LUCK. 79 was feasting upon. It would also banish him from Lucia. He had read stories of poor young men whom wondrous chances of fortune had helped to the hands and hearts of beautiful maidens clad in fine raiment and wearing rare gems, but he never had failed to remind himself that such tales were only romances; now the memory of them seemed only to empliasize the sarcasm of destiny. Money had made between him and Lucia a gulf as wide as the ocean,— as the distance between the poles, — He might have compared it with eternity, had not his eye been arrested by somebody in a carriage in the long line that was passing up the avenue. It was Lucia herself, riding with her mother. Perhaps heaven had pity on the unhappy boy, for some ob- struction brought the line to a halt, and Phil, step- ping from the sidewalk, found that the gulf was not too wide to be spanned, for an instant at least, by two hands. CHAPTER IX. NEWS, YET NO NEWS. "Any letters?" "Not a letter." "Sho!" Farmer Hayn and his wife would have made good actors, if tested by their ability to clothe a few words with pantomime of much variety and duration. From almost the time that her husband started to the post-office, Mrs. Hayn had been going out on the veranda to look for him returning. She had readjusted her afternoon cap several times, as she would have done had she expected a visitor ; she had picked faded buds from sotne late roses, had ex- amined the base of one of the piazza posts to be sure that the old wistaria vine was not dragging it from its place, and had picked some bits of paper from the little grass-plot in front of the house ; but each time she went from one duty to another she shaded her eyes and looked down the road over which her hus- band would return. She had eyes for everything outside the house, — an indication of rot at an end of one of the window-sills, a daring cocoon between two slats of a window-blind, a missing screw of the door-knob, — all trifles that had been as they were for weeks, but had failed to attract her attention until 80 COUNTRY LUCK. 81 expectation had sharpened her eyesight. As time wore on, she went into the house for her spectacles ; generally she preferred to have letters read to her by her husband, but her absent son's writing she must see with her own eyes. Tlien she polished the glasses again and again, trying them each time by gazing down the road for the bearer of the expected letter. Calmness, in its outward manifestation, was notice- able only after her hope had again been deferred. As for the old man, who was quite as disappointed as his wife, he studied a partly-loosened vest-button as if it had been an object of extreme value ; then he sat down on the steps of the veranda, studied all visible sections of the sky for a minute or two, and finally ventured the opinion that a middling lively shower might come due about midnight. Then he told his wife of having met the minister, who had not said anything in particular, and of a coming auction-sale of which he had heard, and how eggs for shipment to the city had "looked up" three cents per dozen. Then he sharpened his j^ocket-knife on his boot-leg, handling it as delicately and trying its edge as cau- tiously as if it were an instrument of which great things were expected. Then both joined in estima- ting the probable cost of raising the youngest calf on the farm to its full bovine estate. Finally, both having thoroughly repressed and denied and repulsed themselves, merely because they had been taught in youth that uncomfortable restraint was a i^recious privilege and a sacred duty, Mrs. Hayn broke the silence by exclaiming,— "It does beat all." / ^2 COUNTRY LUCK. "What does?" asked her husband, as solicitously as if he had not the slightest idea of what was ab- sorbing his wife's thoughts. ''Why, that Phil don't write. Here's everybody in town tormentin' me to know when he's comin' back, an' if he's got the things they asked him to buy for 'em, an' not ,a solitary word can I say ; we don't even know how to send a letter to him to stir him up an' remind him that he's got parents." *' Well, ther's sure to be a letter somewheres on the way, I don't doubt, tellin' us all we want to know," said the old man, going through the motions of budding an althea-bush, in the angle of the step, from a scion of its own stock. ** * Watched pots never bile,' you know, an' 'tain't often one gets a letter till he stops lookin' for it." "But 'tain't a bit like Phil," said the old lady. "Why, he's been away more'n a week. I thought he'd at least let us know which of the big preachers he heerd on Sunday, an' what he thought of 'em. Hearin' them big guns of the pulpit was always one of the things he wanted to go to tlie city for. Then there's the bread-pan I've been wan tin' for ten years, — one that's got tin enough to it not to rust through every time there comes a spell of damp weather : he might at least rest my mind for me by lettin' me know he'd got it." "All in good time, old lady; let's be patient, an' we'll hear all we're waitin' for. Worry's more wearyin' than work. Rome wasn't built in a day, you know." " For mercy's sake, Reuben, what's Rome got to do COUNTRY LUCK. 83 with our Phil ? I don't see that Rome's got anythin' to do with the case, onless it's somethin' lil^e New York, wliere our hoy is." " Well, Rome was built an' rebuilt a good many times, you see, 'fore it got to be all that was 'xpeeted of it : an' our Phil's goin' through the same operation, mebbe. A man's got to be either a stupid savage or a finished-off saint to be suddenly pitched from fields and woods into a great big town without bein^ dazed. When I first went down to York, my eyes was kept so wide open that I couldn't scarcely open my mouth for a few days, much less take my pen in hand, as folks say in letters. I hardly knowed which foot I was standin' on, an' sometimes I felt as if the ground was gone from under me. Yet New York ground is harder than an onbeliever's heart." Mrs. Hayn seemed to accept the simile of Rome's building as applied to her son, for she made no fur- ther objection to it ; she continued, however, to polish her glasses, in anticipation of what she still longed to do with them. Her husband continued to make tiny slits and cross-cuts in the althea's bark, and to in- sert buds carefully cut from the boughs. Finally he remarked, as careleasly as if talking about the weather, — " Sol Mantring's sloop's got back." "Gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. Hayn; "why ain't you told me so before? Sol's seen Phil, ain't he? What does he say ? Of course you didn't come home without seein' him?" "Of course I didn't. Yes, Sol's seen Phil, — seen him the day before he caught the tide an' came out. 84 COUNTRY LUCK. An' Sol says he's a stunner, too,— don't look no more like his old self than if he'd been born an' raised in York. I tell j^ou, Lou Ann, it don't take that boy much time to catch on to whatever's got go to it. Why, Sol says he's got store-clothes on, from head to foot. That ain't all, either ; he " Here the old man burst into laughter, which he had great difficulty in suppressing ; after long effort, however, he continued : " Sol says he carries a cane, — a cane not much thicker than a ramrod. Just imagine our Phil swingin' a cane if you can !" And the old man resumed his laughter, and gave it free course. "Mercy sakes !" said the old lady; "I hope he didn't take it to church with him. An' I hope he won't bring it back here. What' 11 the other mem- bers of the Young People's Bible-Class say to see Buch goin's-on by one that's always been so proper?" "Why, let him bring it: what's a cane got to do with Bible-classes? I don't doubt some of the 'pos- tles carried canes ; I think I've seed 'em in pictures in the Illustrated Family Bible. I s'pose down in Judee ther' was snakes an' dogs that a man had to take a clip at with a stick, once in a while, same as in other countries." "What else did Sol say?" asked the mother. "Well, he didn't bring no special news. He said Phil didn't know he was leavin' so soon, else like enough he'd have sent some word. He said Phil was lookin' well, an' had a walk on him like a sojer in a picture. I'm glad the boy's got a chance to get the plough-handle stoop out of his shoulders for a few days. Sez you wouldn't know his face, though, COUNTRY LUCK. 85 *cause his hair's cut so short; got a new watch- chain, too ; I'm glad to hear that, 'cause I was par- ticular to tell him to do it." " Well, I half wish Sol Mantring's sloop had stayed down to York, if that's all the news it could bring," said Mrs. Hayn, replacing her spectacles in their tin case, which she closed with a decided snap. " Such a little speck of news is only aggravatin' : that's what 'tis." "Small favors thankfully received, old lady, as the advertisements sometimes say. Oh, there was one thing more Sol said : 'twas that he reckoned Phil was dead gone on that Tramlay gal." Mrs. Hayn received this information in silence; her husband began to throw his open knife at a leaf on one of the veranda steps. " I don't see how Sol Mantring was to know any- thing like that," said Mrs. Hayn, after a short silence. "He isn't the kind that our Phil would go an' un- bosom to, if he had any such thing to tell, which it ain't certain he had." " Young men don't always have to tell such things, to make 'em known," suggested the farmer. " Pooty much everybody knowed when I was fust gone on you, though I didn't say nothin' to nobody, not even to the gal herself." "If it's so," said Mrs. Hayn, after another short pause, " mebbe it explains why he hain't writ. He'd want to tell us 'fore anybody else, an' he feels kind o' bashful hke." " You've got a good mem'ry, Lou Ann," said the old farmer, rising, and pinching his wife's ear. 8 86 COUNTRY LUCK. " What do you mean, Reuben ?" **0h, nothin', 'xcept that you hain't forgot the symptoms, — that's all." "Sho!" exclaimed the old lady, giving her hus- band a push, though not so far but that she was leaning on his shoulder a moment later. " 'Twould be kind o' funny if that thing was to work, though, wouldn't it?" she continued; "that is, if Sol's right." "Well," replied her husband, with a sudden acces- sion of earnestness in his voice, "if Sol's right, 'twon't be a bit funny if it doriH work. I hope the blessed boy's got as much good stuff in him as I've always counted on. The bigger the heart, the wuss it hurts when it gets hit ; an' there's a mighty big heart in any child of you an' me, though I say it as mebbe I shouldn't." " That boy ain't never goin' to have no heart-aches, — not on account o' gals," said the mother, whose voice also showed a sudden increase of earnestness. "I don't b'lieve the gal was ever made that could say no to a splendid young feller like that, — a young feller that's han'some an' good an' bright an' full o' fun, an' that can tell more with his eyes in a minute than a hull sittin'-room-fuU of ord'nary young men can say with their tongues in a week." "No," said the old man, soberly, "not if the gal stayed true to the pattern she was made on, — like you did, for instance. But gals is only human, — ther' wouldn't be no way of keepin' 'em on earth if they wasn't, you know, — an' sometimes they don't do 'xactly what might be expected of 'em." COUNTRY LUCK. 87 "That Tramlay gal won't give him the mitten, anyhow," persisted Mrs. Hayn. "Mebbe she ain't as smart as some, but that family, through an' through, has got sense enough to know what's worth havin' when they see it. She needn't ever expect to come back here to board for the summer, if she cuts up any such foolish dido as that." "Lou Ann," said the farmer, solemnly, "do you reely think it over an' above likely that she'd want to come back, in such case made an' pervided ?" Then both old people laughed, and went into the house, and talked of all sorts of things that bore no relation whatever to youth or love or New York. They retired early, after the manner of farm-people in general, after a prayer containing a formal and somewhat indefinite petition for the absent one. The old lady lay awake for hours, it seemed to her, her head as full of rosy dreams as if it were not cov- ered with snow ; yet when at last she was dropping asleep she was startled by hearing her husband whisper, — " Father in heaven, have pity on my poor boy.'* CHAPTER X. AGNES DINON'S PARTY. THROUCffl: several days spent listlessly except when dolefully, and through several restless nights, Philip Hayn was assisted by one hope that changed only to brighten : it was that nearer and nearer came the night of the party to which Miss Agnes Dinon had invited him, — the party at which he was sure he would again meet Lucia. Except for the blissful in- cident of the arrested drive on the Avenue, he had not seen her since the evening when he had raised her hand to his lips. How the thought of that moment sent the blood leaping to his own finger-tips ! He had haunted the Avenue every afternoon, not daring to hope that the carriage would again be stopped in its course, but that at least he might see her passing face. As quick as a flash that day his eye, trained in country fashion to first identify ap- proaching riders by their horses, had scanned the animals that drew the carriage, so that he might know them when next he saw them. But again and again was he disappointed, for spans on which he would have staked his reputation as being the same were drawing carriages that did not contain the face he sought. He might have been spared many heart- sinkings, as well as doubts of his horse-lore, had he 88 COUNTRY LUCK. 89 known that the Tramlays did not keep a turn-out, but had recourse to a livery-stable when they wanted to drive. He had even sought Lucia at church. He had known, since the family's summer at Haynton, the name of the church whicli tliey attended, and tliitlier he wended his way Sunday morning ; but their pew was apparently farther back than the seat to which he was shown, for not one member of the Tramlay family could he see in front or to either side of him, and when the service ended and he reached the side- walk as rapidly as possible he soon learned that the custom of rural young men to stand in front of churches to see the worshippers emerge was not followed at fashionable temples in the city. Another comforting hope, which was sooner lost in full fruition, was in the early arrival of his dress- suit. Fully- arrayed, he spent many hours before the mirror in his room at the hotel, endeavoring to look like some of the gentlemen whom he had seen at the Tramlay reception. Little though he admired Marge on general principles, he did not hesitate to conform himself as nearly as possible to that gentle- man's splendid composure. Strolling into a theatre one evening on a "general admission" ticket, which entitled him to the privilege of leaning against a wall, he saw quite a number of men in evening dress, and he improved the opportunity to study the com- parative effects of different styles of collars and shirt- fronts. Finally he ventured to appear at the theatre in evening dress himself, and from the lack of special attention he justly flattered himself that he did nol 8* 90 COUNTRY LUCK. carry himself unlike other men. He also made the important discovery that Judge Dickman's custom of buttoning his swallow-tailed coat at the waist, and displaying a yellow^ silk handkerchief in the fulness thereof, had been abandoned in the metropolis. At last the long-hoped-for evening arrived, and Phil was fully dressed and uncomfortable before sun- set. He had already learned, by observation, that well-dressed men kept their faces closely shaved, and he had experimented, not without an inward groan at his extravagance, in what to him were the mys- teries of hair-dressing. He ventured into the streets as soon as darkness had fairly fallen, made his way to the vicinity of the Dinon residence, and from a safe distance reconnoitred the house with the pur- pose, quite as common in the country as in town, of not being among the earliest arrivals. So long did he watch without seeing even a single person or carriage approach the door that there came to him the horrible fear that perhaps for some reason the affair had been postponed. About nine o'clock, how- ever, his gaze was rewarded by a single carriage ; another followed shortly, and several others came in rapid succession : so a quarter of an hour later he made his own entry. On this occasion he was not unable to translate the instructions, as to the locality of the gentlemen's dressing-room, imparted by the servant at the door ; but, having reached the general receptacle of coats, hats, and sticks, \^q was greatly puzzled to know why a number of gentlemen were standing about doing nothing. By the time he learned that most of them were merely waiting for COUNTRY LUCK. 91 their respective feminine charges to descend with them, a clock in the room struck ten, and as Phil counted the strokes and remembered how often he had been half roused from his first doze beneatli his bedclothes at home by just that number, he yawned by force of habit and half wislied he never had left Haynton. But suddenly drowsiness, melancholy, and every- thing else uncomfortable disappeared in an instant, and heaven — Phil's own, newest heaven — enveloped the earth, for as he followed two or three bachelors who were going down-stairs he heard a well-known voice exclaiming, — "Oh, Phil ! Isn't this nice? Just as if you'd been waiting for me I I haven't any escort to-night, so you'll have to take me down. Papa will drop in later, after he's tired of the club." Oh, the music in the rustle of her dress as it trailed down the stair ! Oh, the gold of her hair, the flush of her cheek, the expectancy in her eyes and her parted lips ! And only twenty steps in which to have it all to himself! Would they had been twenty thousand ! At the foot of the stair Lucia took Phil's arm, and together they saluted their hostess. Phil felt that he was being looked at by some one besides Miss Dinon, as indeed he was, for handsome young strangers are quite as rare in New York as anywhere else in the world. Nevertheless his consciousness was not al- lowed to make him uncomfortable, for between long- trained courtesy and intelligent admiration Miss Dinon waa enabled to greet him so cordially that ho 92 COUNTRY LUCK. was made to feel entirely at ease. Other guests came down in a moment, and Lucia led Phil away, pre- senting him to some of her acquaintances and keenly enjoymg the surprise of those who recognized in him the awkward country-boy of a week before. Then one gentleman after another engaged Lucia in con- versation, and begged dances; other ladies with whom he was chatting were similarly taken from him ; and Phil finally found himself alone on a sofa, in a position from which he could closely observe the hostess. Miss Agnes Dinon was very well worth looking at. Mrs. Tramlay may not have been far from right in fixing her years at thirty-six, but there were scores of girls who would gladly have accepted some of her years if they might have taken with them her superb physique and some of the tact and wit that her years had brought her. Gladly, too, would they have shared Miss Dinon's superfluous age could they have divided with her the fortune she had in her own right. Nobody knew exactly how much it was, and fancies on the subject differed widely ; but what did that matter? The leading and interesting fact was that it was large enough to have attracted a pleasing variety of suitors, so that there had not been a time since she "came out" when Miss Dinon might not have set her wedding-day had she liked. What detriment is there in age to a girl who can aflTord to choose instead of be chosen ? Is not the full- blown rose more satisfactory, to many eyes, than the bud ? And how much more charming the rose whose blushing petals lack not the gUnt of gold ! COUNTRY LUCK. 93 Phil had about reached the conclusion that Miss Dinon was a woman whom he believed it would do his mother good to lool£ at, when his deliberations were brought to an end by the lady herself, who ap- proached him and said,— "At last I can take time to present you to some of my friends, Mr. Hayn. May I have your arm ?" Phil at once felt entirely at ease. It was merely a return of an old and familiar sensation, for he had always been highly esteemed by the more mature maidens of Haynton, and generally found them far more inspiring company than their younger sisters. Phil informed himself, in the intervals of introduc- tions, that Miss Dinon was not like Lucia in a single particular, but she certainly was a magnificent creat- ure. Her features, thougli ratlier large, were pei-fect, her eye was full of soul, especially when he looked down into it, as from his height he was obliged to, and the pose of her head, upon shouldera displayed according to the prevailing custom of evening dress, was simply superb. She found opportunities to chat a great deal, too, as they made the tour of the parlors, and all she said implied that her hearer was a man of sense, who did not require to be fed alternately upon the husks and froth of polite conversation. Phil's wit was quite equal to that of his fair enter- tainer, and as her face reflected her feelings the guests began to be conscious that their hostess and the stranger made a remarkably flne-lookiug couple. Impossible though he would have imagined it half an hour before, Phil's thoughts had been entirely des- titute of Lucia for a few moments ; suddenly, how- 94 COUNTRY LUCK. ever, they recovered her, for looking across the head of a little rosebud to whom he had just been intro- duced, Phil beheld Lucia looking at him with an ex- pression that startled him. He never before had seen her look that way,— very sober, half blank, half angry. What could it mean? Could she be oflfended? But why? Was he not for the moment in charge of his hostess, who, according to Haynton custom, and probably custom everywhere else, had supreme right when she chose to exercise it ? Could it be — the thought came to him as suddenly as an unexpected blow— could it be that she was jeal- ous of his attention to Miss Dinon, and of his proba- bly apparent enjoyment of that lady's society? Oh, horrible, delicious thought ! Jealousy was not an unknown quality at Haynton : he had observed its development often and often. But to be jealous a girl must be very fond of a man, or at least desirous of his regard. Could it be that Lucia regarded him as he did her ? Did she really esteem him as more than a mere acquaintance ? If not, why that strange look? If really jealous, Lucia soon had ample revenge, for music began, and Miss Dinon said,— "Have you a partner for the quadrille, Mr. Hayn ? If not, you must let me find you one." ** I— no, I don't dance," he stammered. " How unfortunate — for a dozen or more girls this evening !" murmured Miss Dinon. " You will kindly excuse me, that I may see if the sets are full?" Phil bowed, and edged his w^ay to a corner, where in solitude and wretchedness he beheld Lucia go COUNTRY LUCK. 95 through a quadrille, bestowing smiles in rapid suc- cession upon her partner, who was to Phil's eyes too utterly insignificant to deserve a single glance from those fairest eyes in the world. His lips liardcned as •he saw Lucia occasionally whirled to her place by the arm of her partner boldly encircling her waist. He had always thought dancing was wrong; now he knew it. At Haynton the young people occasionally went through a dance called "Sir Roger de Cover- ley," but there was no hugging in that. And Lucia did not seem at all displeased by her partner's famil- iarity,— confound it ! He had to unbend and forget his anger when the quadrille ended, for a pretty maiden to whom he had been introduced accosk'd him and said some cheer- ful nothings, fluttering suggestively a miniature fan on which were pencilled some engagements to dance. But soon the music of a waltz arose, and Phil's eye flashed, to a degree that frightened the maiden be- fore him, for directly in front of him, with a man's arm permanently about her slender waist and her head almost pillowed on her partner's shoulder, was Lucia. More dreadful still, she seemed not only to accept the situation, but to enjoy it; there was on her face a look of dreamy content that Phil remem- bered having seen when she swung in a hammock at Haynton. He remembered that then he had thought it angelic, but— then there was no arm about her waist. The pretty maiden with the fan had looked to see what had affected the handsome young man so un- pleasantly. '* Oh," she whispered, '* he is dreadfully 96 COUNTRY LUCK. awkward. I positively shiver whenever he asks me for a dance.'' "Awkward, indeed!" exclaimed Phil. A very- young man with a solemn countenance came over just then to remind the maiden with the fan that the next quadrille would be his : so she floated away, be- stowing upon Phil a parting smile far too sweet to be utterly wasted, as it was. ** You seem unhappy, Mr. Hayn," said Miss Dinon, rejoining Phil. "I really believe it's because you don't dance. Confess, now." **You ought to be a soothsayer. Miss Dinon, you are so shrewd at guessing," said Phil, forcing a smile and then mentally rebuking himself for lying. "Won't you attempt at least a quadrille? The next one will be very easy." "Phil !" exclaimed Lucia, coming up to him with an odd, defiant look, part of which was given to Miss Dinon, "you're too mean for anything. You haven't asked me for a single dance." Phil's smile was of the sweetest and cheeriest as he replied,— " Wouldn't it be meaner to ask for what I wouldn't know how to accept? We country-people don't know how to dance." "But any one can go through a quadrille : it's as easy as walking." "You couldn't have a better opportunity than the next dance, Mr. Hayn," said Miss Dinon, "nor a more graceful partner and instructor than Miss Tramlay." Lucia looked grateful and penitent ; then she took COUNTRY LUCK. 97 Phil's arm, and whispered rapidly, "We'll take a side: all you need do will be to watch the head couples carefully, and do exactly as they do, when our turn comes." ''But if I blunder " " Then I'll forgive you. What more can you ask ?" "Nothing," said Phil, his heart warming, and his face reflecting the smile that accompanied Lucia's promise. The quadrille was really as easy as had been promised : indeed, Phil found it almost identical, ex- cept in lack of grace, with an alleged calisthenic exer- cise which a pious teacher had once introduced in Hayn ton's school. The motion of swinging a partner back to position by an encircling arm puzzled him somewhat, as he contemplated it, but Lucia kindly came to his assistance, and 'twas done almost before he knew it, — done altogether too quickly, in fact. And although he honestly endeavored to analyze the wickedness of it, and to feel horrified and remorse- ful, his mind utterly refused to obey him. "There !" exclaimed Lucia, as the quadrille ended, and, leaning on Phil's arm, she moved toward a seat. " You didn't seem to find that difficult." " Anything w^ould be easy, with you for a teacher," Phil replied. " Thanks," said Lucia, with a pretty nod of her head. "And I'm ever so much obliged to Miss Dinon for urging me to try," continued Phil. "Agnes Dinon is a dear old thing," said Lucia, fanning herself vigorously. "Old?" echoed Phil. "A woman like Miss Dinon can never be old." ^ g 9 98 COUNTRY LUCK. Lucia's fan stopped suddenly; again the strange jealous look came into her face, and she said, — " I should imagine you had been smitten by Miss Dinon." ' ' K'onsense !' ' Phil exclaimed, with a laugh. * * Can' t a man state a simple fact in natural history without being misunderstood?" ' * Forgive me, ' ' said Lucia, prettily. ' ' I forgot that you were always interested in the deepest and most far-away side of everything. Here comes that stupid little Laybrough, who has my next waltz. I'm going to depend upon you to take me down to supper. By-by.'» A minute later, and Phil sobered again, for again Lucia was floating about the room with a man's arm around her waist. Phil took refuge in philosophy, and wondered whether force of habit was sufficient to explain why a lot of modest girls, as all in Miss Dinon's parlors undoubtedly were, could appear entirely at ease during so immodest a diversion. During the waltz he leaned against a door-casing : evi- dently some one was occupying a similar position on the other side, in the hall, for Phil distinctly heard a low voice saying, — ** Wouldn't it be great if our charming hostess were to set her cap for that young fellow from the country?" "Nonsense !" was the reply : "she's too much the older to think of such a thing." "Not a bit of it. She'll outlive any young girl in the room. Besides, where money calls, youth is never slow in responding." COUNTRY LUCK. 99 "They Bay he's as good as engaged to Miss Tram- lay," said the first speaker. ** Indeed ? Umph ! Not a bad match. Has lie got any money? I don't believe Tramlay is more than holding his own." Pliil felt his face flush as he moved away. He wanted to resent the remarks about his hostess, an implication that his friend Tramlay was other than rich, and, still more, that any young man could be led to the marriage-altar merely by money. If people were talking about him in such fiishion he wished he might be out of sight. He would return at once to his hotel, had he not promised to take Lucia down to supper. He could at least hide himself, for a little while, in the gentlemen's room up-stairs. Thither he went, hoping to be alone, but he found Marge, who had just come in, and who lost his self-posses- sion for an instant when he recognized the well- dressed young man before him. "Anybody here?" drawled Marge. ** Lucia is, — I mean Miss Tramlay," said Phil, in absent-minded fashion, — "and lots of other people, of course." Marge looked curiously at Phil-s averted face, and went down-stairs. Phil remained long enough to find that his mind was in an utter muddle, and that apparently nothing would compose it but another glimpse of Lucia. As supper was served soon after he went down, his wish was speedily gratified. From tliat time forward his eye sought her continu- ally, although he tried to speak again to every one to whom he had been introduced. How he envied 100 COUNTRY LUCK. Lucia's father, who was to escort the little witch home ! How he wished that in the city, as at Hayn- ton, people walked home from parties, and stood a long time at the gate, when maid and man were pleasantly acquainted ! He saw Lucia go up-stairs when the company began leave-taking ; he stood at the foot of the stair, that he might have one more glance at her. As she came down she was an entirely new picture, though none the less charming, in her wraps. And— oh, bliss ! — she saw him, and said, — " See me to the carriage, Phil, and then find papa for me.'* How tenderly he handed her down the carpeted stone steps ! He had seen pictures of such scenes, and tried to conform his poses with those he recalled. He opened the carriage door. Lucia stepped in, but her train could not follow of its own volition, so Phil had the joy of lifting the rustling mass that had the honor of following the feet of divinity. Then he closed the carriage door regretfully, but a little hand kindly stole through the window as Lucia said,— " Good-night. Don't forget to send papa out." ** I won't," said Phil. Then he looked back quickly : the door of the house was closed, so he raised the little hand to his lips and kissed it several times in rapid succession. True, the hand was gloved ; but Phil's imagination was not. CHAPTER XL DRIFTING FROM MOORINGS. Master Philip Hayn retired from his second even- ing 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 ele- vated 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 what- ever 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. Slie had appropriated him, in the loveliest way imaginable, 9* 101 102 COUNTRF LUCK 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 uninten- tionally 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 pros- pected as a possible site for a village of sea-side cot- tages 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 COUNTRV LUCK. 103 her that she had lived so well as to look far younger than her years. Still, he was not to be bouglit, even by a handsome and intelligent woman. It was^ot uncomplimentary, though, that any one should liave 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 re- turn 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 recep- tions in handsome houses, he must seek society in church sociables and the hilarious yet very homely parties given by neighboring farmers, and an occa- sional afTair, 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 al- ternative. If he had a little money he might specu- late 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 COVNTRY LUCK. 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 mornin g, 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 tliat she was prettier than her elder sister ; she knew she was admired, and she was prudently acquiring all possible knowledge of society against her ap- proaching "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, COUNTRY LUCK. 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, and said,-r- "Only the usual set were there. I danced every dance, of course, and there was plenty of cream and coffee. Agnes and her mother know how to enter- tain : it's a real pleasure to go to supper there. But I've kept the best to the last. There was one addi- tion to the usual display of young men, — a tall, straight, handsome, manly, awfully stylish fellow, that set all the girls' tongues running. You've seen him, but I'll bet you a pound of candy that you can't guess his name." "Oh, don't make me guess when I'm not wide awake yet. Who was it?" " It— was— Philip— Hayn !" said Lucia, so earnestly that she seemed almost tragical. " Lucia Tramlay !" exclaimed Margie, dropping her chin and staring blankly. " Not that country fellow who used to drive us down to the beach at Haynton ?" " The very same ; but he's not a country fellow now. Upon my word, I shouldn't have known him, if I hadn't known he had been invited and would proba- bly come. I was in terror lest he would come dressed as he did to our reception last week, and the girls would get over their admiration of his talk and tease me about him. But you never in your life saw so splendid-looking a fellow, — you really didn't. And he was very attentive to me : he had to be ; I took •^.. 106 COUNTRY LVCK. possession of him from the first. He doesn't dance, so I couldn't keep him dangling, but I had him to myself wherever men could be most useful. Margie, what are you looking so wooden about?" "The idea!" said Margie, in a far-away voice, as if her thoughts were just starting back from some distant point. "That heavy, sober fellow becoming a city beau ! it's like Cinderella and the princess. Do pinch me, so I may be sure I'm not dreaming." "Margie," whispered Lucia, suddenly seating her- self on the bedside, and, instead of the desired pinch, burying her cheek on a pillow close against her sister's shoulder, "after he had put me into the car- riage he kissed my hand, — oh, ever so many times." " Why, Lucia Tramlay ! Where was papa?" " He hadn't come down yet." " Goodness ! What did you say or do?" " What could I ? Before I could think at all, 'twas all over and he was in the house." "That country boy a flirt!" exclaimed Margie, going off into blankness again. "He isn't a flirt at all," replied Lucia, sharply. "You ought to have learned, even in the country, that Philip Hayn is in earnest in whatever he says or does." "Oh, dear!" moaned Margie; "I don't want countrymen making love to my sister." "I tell you again, Margie, that he's simply a splendid gentleman, — the handsomest and most stylish of all whom Agnes Dinon inA^ited, — and I won't have him abused when he's been so kind to me." COUNTRY LUCK. 107 "Lu," said Margie, turning so as to give one of Lucia's shoulders a vigorous shake,;*'! believe you think Phil Hayn is in love with you !" "What else can I think?" said Lucia, without moving her head. Her sister looked at her in silence a moment, and replied, — " A good deal more, you dear little wretch : you can think you're in love with him, and, what is more, you are thinking so this very minute. Confess, now !' ' Lucia was silent; she did not move her head, except to press it deeper into the pillow, nor did she change her gaze from the wall on the opposite side of the room : nevertheless, she manifested undoubted signs of guilt. Her sister bent over her, embraced her, covered her cheek with kisses, and called her tender names, some of which had l>een almost un- heard since nursery days. When at last Lucia al- lowed her eyes to be looked into, her sister took both her hands, looked roguish, and said,— "Say, Lu, how does it feel to be in love? Is it anything like what novels tell about?" " Don't ask me," exclaimed Lucia, " or I shall have a fit of crying right away." "Well, I'll let you off— for a little while, if you'll tell me how it feels to have your hand kissed." "It feels," said Lucia, meditatively, "as if some- thing rather heavy was pressing upon your glove." "Ah, you're real mean!" protested the younger girl. " But what will papa and mamma say ? And how are you going to get rid of Mr. Marge? I give you warning that you needn't turn him over to me when I come out. I detest him." 108 COUNTRY LUCK. " I don't want to get rid of him," said Lucia, be- coming suddenly very sober. *' Of course I couldn't marry Phil if he were to ask me, — not if he's going to stay poor and live out of the world." "But you're not going to be perfectly awful, and marry one man while you love another?" "I'm not going to marry anybody until I'm asked," exclaimed Lucia, springing from the bed, wringing her hands, and pacing the floor; "and nobody has asked me yet ; I don't know that any- body ever will. And I'm perfectly miserable ; if you say another word to me about it I shall go into hys- terics. Nobody ever heard anything but ,good of Phil Hayn, either here or anywhere else, and if he loves me I'm proud of it, and I'm going to love him back all I like, even if I have to break my heart afterward. He shan't know how I feel, yoU may rest assured of that. But oh, Margie, it's just too dreadful. Mamma has picked out Mr. Marge for me, — who could love such a stick?— and she'll be perfectly crazy if I marry any one else, unless perhaps it's some one with a great deal more money. I wonder if ever a poor girl was in such a perfectly horrible position?" Margie did not know, so both girls sought consola- tion in the ever-healing fount of maidenhood, — a good long cry. CHAPTER XII. IRON LOOKS UP. The truth of the old saying regarding the reluct- ance of watched pots to boil is proved as well in busi- ness as elsewhere, as Edgar Tramlay and a number of other men in the iron trade had for some time been learning to their sorrow. Few of them were making any money ; most of them were losing on interest account, closed mills, or stock on hand that could not find purchasers. To know this was un- comfortable; to know that the remainder of the business world knew it also was worse : there is a sense of humiliation in merely holding one's own for a long period which is infinitely more provoking and depressing to a business-man than an absolute failure or assignment. How closely every one in Tramlay's business circle watched the iron-market ! There was not an industry in the world in the least degree dependent upon iron which they did not also watch closely and deduce apparent probabilities which they exchanged with one another. The proceedings of Congress, the re- sults of elections, the political movements abroad that tended to either peace or war, became interest- ing solely through their possible infiuence upon the iron trade. Again and again they were sure that the 10 109 110 COUNTRY LUCK. active and upward movement was to begin at once ; the opening of a long-closed mill to execute a small order, even a longer interval than usual between the closings of mills, was enough to lift up their collect- ive hearts for a while. Then all would become faint- hearted again when they reaUzed that they, Uke Hosea Biglow's chanticleer, had been ♦•Mistakin' moonrise for the break o' day." But suddenly, through causes that no one had foreseen, or which all had discounted so often that they had feared to consider them again, iron began to look up ; some small orders, of a long-absent kind, began to creep into the market, prices improved a little as stock depleted, several mills made haste to open, and prudent dealers, who had been keeping down expenses for months and years, now began to talk hopefully of what they expected to do in the line of private expenditures. Good news flies fast ; the upward tendency of iron was soon talked of in New York's thousands of down- town offices, where, to an outside observer, talk seems the principal industry. Men in other businesses that were depressed began to consult iron-men who had weathered the storms and endured the still more destructive calms of the long period of depression. Bankers began to greet iron-men with more cordi- ality than of late. Announcements of large orders for iron given by certain railroads and accepted by certain mills began to appear on the tapes of the thousands of stock-indicators throughout the city. It naturally followed that Mr. Marge, to whom the COUNTRY LUCK. l\\ aforesaid "tape" seemed the breath of life, began to wonder whether, in the language of Wall Street, he had not a "privilege" upon which he might "realize." If the upward movement of iron was to continue and become general, Tramlay would un- doubtedly be among those who would benefit by it. Would the result be immediate, or would Tramlay first have to go into liquidation, after the manner of many merchants who through a long depression keep up an appearance of business which is de- stroyed by the first opportunity for actual transac- tions? Marge had long before, for business purposes, made some acquaintances in the bank with which Tramlay did business, but he did not dare to inquire too pointedly about his friend's balance and dis- counts. Besides, Marge had learned, througli the published schedules of liabilities of numerous insol- vents, that some business-men have a way of borrow- ing privately and largely from relatives and friends. He would risk nothing, at any rate, by a gentle and graceful increase of attention to Lucia. Ho flattered himself that he was quite competent to avoid direct proposal until such time as might entirely suit him. As for Lucia, she was too fond of the pleasures of the season just about to open to hold him to ac- count were he to off*er her some of them. Tlie sug- gestion that his plans had a mercenary aspect did not escape him, for even a slave of the stock-tape may have considerable conscience and self-respect. He explained to himself that he did not esteem Lucia solely for her possible expectations ; she was good, pretty, vivacious, ornamental, quite intelligent— for 112 COUNTRY LUCK. a girl, and he had an honest tenderness for her as the daughter of a woman he had really loved many years before, and might have won had he not been too deliberate. But his income was not large enough to support the establishment he would want as a married man, so he would have to depend to a cer- tain extent upon his wife, or upon her father. It was solely with this view, he explained to himself, that he had made careful reconnoissances in other directions : if some ladies who would have been ac- ceptable — Miss Agnes Dinon, for instance — had not been able to estimate him rightly as a matrimonial candidate, he was sure that they as well as he had been losers through their lack of perception. As matters now stood, Lucia was his only apparent chance in the circle where he belonged and pre- ferred to remain. His purpose to advance his suit was quickened, within a very few days, by the announce- ment on the tape that a rolling-mill in which he knew Tramlay was largely interested had received a very large order for railroad-iron and would open at once. But indications that iron was looking up were not restricted to the business-portion of the city. Tram- lay, who, like many another hard-headed business- man, lived solely for his family, had delighted his wife and daughters by announcing that they might have a long run on the continent the next year. And one morning at breakfast he exclaimed, — " Do any of you know where that young Hayn is stopping ? I want him. ' ' " Why, Edgar !" said Mrs. Tramlay. "What are you going to do to him, papa?" asked COUNTRY LUCK. 113 Margie, seeing that Lucia wanted to know but did not seem able to ask. " I want another clerk," was the reply, •* and I be- lieve Hayn is just my man. I can teach him quickly all he needs to know, and I want some one who I am sure hasn't speculation on the brain, nor any other bad habits. That young Hayn commands respect — from me, at any rate : I used to find down in the country that he, like his father, knew better than I what was going on in the world. I believe he'll make a first-rate business-man ; I'm willing to try him, at any rate." Margie stole a glance at Lucia : that young lady was looking at a chicken croquette as intently as if properly to manage such a morsel with a fork re- quired alert watchfulness. "The idea of a farmer's boy in a New York mer- chant's counting-room !" exclaimed Mrs. Tramlay. ** You seem to forget, my dear, that nearly all the successful merchants in New York were once country boys, and that all the new men who are making their mark are from everywhere but New York itself." "If young Hayn is as sensible as you think him, he will probably be wise enough to decline your off'er and go back to his father's farm. You youi-self used to say that you would rather be in their busi- ness than your own." "Bright woman !" replied Tramlay, with a smile and a nod ; " but I wouldn't have thought so at his age, and I don't believe Hayn will. I can afford to pay him as much as that farm earns in a year,— say h 10 114 COUNTRY LUCK. fifteen hundred dollars; and I don't believe he'll decline that amount of money ; 'twill enable him to take care of himself in good bachelor style and save something besides. I'm sure, too, he'd like to re- main in the city : country youths always do, after they have a taste of it." Again Margie glanced at Lucia, but the chicken croquette continued troublesome, and no responsive glance came back. "He had far better be at home," persisted Mrs. Tramlay, "where the Lord put him in the first place." "Well," said Tramlay, finishing a cup of coffee, " if the Lord had meant every one to remain where he was born, I don't believe he would have given each person a pair of feet. And what a sin it must be to make railroad-iron, which tempts and aids hundreds of thousands of people to move about !" "Don't be irreverent, Edgar, and, above all things, try not to be ridiculous," said the lady of the house. "And when you've spoiled this youth and he goes back to home a disappointed man, don't forget that you were warned in time." " Spoiled? That sort of fellow don't spoil ; not if I'm any judge of human nature. Why, if he should take a notion to the iron trade, there's nothing to pre- vent him becoming a merchant prince some day,— a young Napoleon of steel rails, or angle-iron, or some- thing. Like enough I'll be glad some time to get him to endorse my note." Once more Margie's eyes sought her sister's, but Lucia seemed to have grown near-sighted over that COUNTRY LUCK. 115 chicken croquette, for Margie could see only a tiny nose-tip under a tangle of yellow hair. ** My capacity for nonsense is lessening as I grow older," said Mrs. Tramlay. " I'll have to ask you to excuse me." Then, with the air of an overworked conservator of dignity, the lady left the dining-room. "Excuse me, too," said her husband, a moment later, after looking at his watch. "Conversation is the thief of time — in the early morning. Good-by, children." Margie sprang from her chair and threw her arms around her father's neck. She was a fairly affec- tionate daughter, but such exuberance came only by fits and starts, and it was not the sort of thing that any father with a well-regulated heart cares to hurry away from, even when business is looking up. When finally Tramlay was released, he remarked, — "I used to have two daughters :— eh, Lu?" Lucia arose, approached her father softly and with head down, put her arms around him, and rested her head on his breast as she had not often done in late years, except after a conflict and the attendant reconciliation. Her father gave her a mighty squeeze, flattened a few crimps and waves that had cost some effort to produce, and finally said,— " I mxLst be off". Give me a kiss, Lu." The girl's face did not upturn promptly, so the merchant assisted it. His hands were strong and Lucia's neck was slender, yet it took some eflbrt to force that little head to a kissable pose. When the father succeeded, he exclaimed,— ''What a splendid complexion October air brings 116 COUNTRY LUCK. to a girl who's spent the summer in the country I There ; good-by." Away went Tramlay to his business. The instant he was out of the room Margie snatched Lucie in her arms and the couple waltzed madly about, regardless of the fact that the floor of a New York dining-room has about as little unencumbered area as that of the smallest apartment in a tenement-house. CHAPTER XIII. "WHIIiB YET AFAR OFF.'* Thinner and thinner became the roll of bank- notes in Philip Hayn'a pocket; nearer and nearer came the day when he must depart from the city, — depart without any liope that he might ever return. The thought was intolerable ; but wliat could be done to banish it? He might again, and several times, make excuses to leave home and come to New York for a day or two, perhaps on Sol Mantring's sloop, and keep up after a fashion the acquaintance he had made, but to remain in the city any length of time, and spend money as he had been doing, was not to be thought of : the money could not be taken from the family purse, or saved in any way that he could devise. Oh that he might speculate ! Oh that the people who had thought of Hayn Farm as a site for a cot- tage village would make haste to decide and pur- chase, so the family's property might be in money instead of land, — solid earth, which could not be spent while in its earthy condition. Oh that he might at least find occupation in New York; he would deny himself anything for the sake of re- placing himself on the farm by a laborer, who would be fully as useful with two hands as he, if he might 117 118 COUNTRY LUCK. remain in the city. Why had he never had the sense to study any business but farming? Tliere were two stores and a factory at Haj^nton ; had he taken employment in either of these, as he had been invited to do, he might have learned something that would be of avail in New York. But, alas ! it was too late. He must go back to the farm, — go away from Lucia. How should he say farewell to her? Could he ask her to accept an occasional letter from him, and to reply? Would the Tramlays want to spend the next summer at Hajm Farm, he wondered ? Should they come, and Lucia see him carrying a pail of pea-pods to the pig- sty, or starting off with oil-skins and a big black basket for a day's fishing off shore, would not her pretty Up curl in disdain ? Or if the family wanted to go to the beach for a bath, would he come in from the fields in faded cotton shirt and trousers and band- less old straw hat to drive them down ? No ; none of these things should occur. The Tram- lays should not again board at Hayn Farm, unless he could manage in some way to be away from home at the time. He would oppose it with all his might. And, yet, what could he say by way of explanation to his parents? There are some things that one can- not explain, — not if one is a young man who has suddenly had his head turned by change of scene. How he should say farewell to Lucia troubled him a great deal, particularly as the time was approaching rapidly. To tell her of his love would be unmanly, while he was unable to carry love forward to its natural fruition ; but, on the other hand, would it COUNTRY LUCK. 119 be right for him t