and after a disturbed expression had flitted over it the hardly banished
frown seemed ready to come back. "I don't know what Miss Myrick would
want with you twice a day; I don't go there twice a day, I'm sure."
"Oh, I was only thinking--well, you _are_ the strangest girl." Miss
Matilda would have been offended, probably, had her sister given her
time; but Lola's hands were already gliding over her hair, removing
hair-pins, switches, and other appendages from the elder young lady's
head.
"Let me show you how I mean to dress your hair on New-Year's eve," said
Lola, and peace was made. To have her hair done up by Lola was always an
object worth attaining--no one else could make Miss Matilda's angular
head appear so well-shaped as she.
Miss Fanny meanwhile had picked up a book and thrown herself on the
lounge to read, but combs and combing material having been brought in
from an adjoining room she soon became interested in the braids and
twists with which her sister's head was being adorned. During the
progress of the work, she, as well as the mother, threw in suggestions,
or made criticisms with a freedom which sometimes caused the short upper
lip of the fair hair-dresser to be drawn up until the milk-white teeth
shone out from under it, though she responded with the utmost amiability
to the hints thrown out and the advice so lavishly given. The mother had
never allowed an opportunity like this to pass without "improving her
daughters' disposition," as she termed it--striving honestly so to do by
trying the somewhat quick temper of the impulsive, affectionate child.
Because the girl's eyes flashed fire and her lips curled haughtily when
any fancied slight was put upon her, as she thought her shy but loving
advances were repulsed, the family had come to look upon the youngest
born as having a bad disposition, when really a more amiable child than
little Lola had never grown into womanhood.
"She's an odd one, and always has been ever since they gave her that
outlandish name," the father would say, stroking his slender stock of
reddish-white hair from his forehead till it stood straight up like a
sentinel guarding the bald pate just back of it; "she don't look like
the rest, and don't act like 'em, either, though I spent more money on
her education than both her sisters put together ever cost me."
What he said about Lola's looks was true; the other two daughters had
inherited from him their water-blue eyes and florid complexions, while
Lola had the eyes of her mother--so far as the color went. But could the
pale, quiet woman ever have known the deep, intense feeling, or the
heartfelt, open joyousness that spoke from her daughter's eyes? Who
could tell? She had come to California in early days a sad-eyed, lonely
woman, and--she had not married her first love.
Her name Lola owed to the only romantic notion her mother ever had, as
her father said. When the child had grown to be two or three years old,
and Mrs. Wheaton had noted but too often the dreary look that would
creep into her eyes, even at this tender age, she kissed the little one
tenderly one day and murmured, her sad eyes raised to heaven, "Dolores,
he called me, and if he be dead, it will seem like an atonement to give
the name to my pet child." Her husband, blustering and pompous in his
ways--meaning to be commanding and dignified--seldom opposed a wish his
wife decidedly expressed, never stopping to ask reason or motive; and
the Spanish children with whom Lola's nurse came in contact calling her
by this diminutive, the child had grown up rejoicing in her outlandish
name, and an unusually large allowance of good looks.
In the meantime Matilda's hair has been "done up" and duly admired, and
Miss Fanny, loath to abandon her comfortable position on the lounge, has
just requested Lola to bring for her inspection the list of invitations
made out for the New-Year ball to be given by Mr. and Mrs. Wheaton.
"Wonder what Angelina Stubbs will wear?" soliloquized Miss Fanny. "And
how she'll make that diamond glitter! Wonder if papa will ever give me
the solitaire he promised me?"--turning to her mother.
"No doubt of it, if he has promised it," was the quiet reply.
"Swampoodle was up to three hundred this morning. I should think he
could afford it." Then glancing at the list again, she continued:
"Here's young Somervale's name. I suppose Angelina will be hanging on
his arm all the evening."
"Charles Somervale?" asked Matilda. "Papa said we ought not to have him
come; he says his salary will no more than pay for the kid gloves and
cravats he's got to buy when he attends gatherings like these, and papa
thinks it is wrong to encourage a poor young man in acquiring a taste
for fashionable society."
"Poor or not," persisted Miss Fanny, "he's got to come, because he's a
splendid figure in a ball-room, and such a dancer! Poor, indeed! Why,
Angelina Stubbs would take him this moment, and her father would jump at
the chance."
"I should think he would--to get rid of her domineering," laughed Miss
Matilda. "But our papa isn't a widower, and I doubt that he would give
any man a fortune to have him marry one of his daughters."
Miss Fanny's face grew crimson with vexation. "You are very disagreeable
sometimes, Matilda. But I don't wonder at your fearing my getting
married before you, seeing that you are the oldest of the family."
It was now Matilda's turn to get angry, but the mother's quiet, even
voice broke in and calmed the rising storm before the oldest of the
family could frame an answer. The leading question--the dresses to be
worn the night of the ball--was brought up; and when the mother turned
to consult her youngest daughter on some point, she found her no longer
in the room.
"Where is Lola?" she wondered.
"Gone to the matinee, probably," yawned Fanny, composing herself for the
further perusal of her novel, "and I should have gone too, if it was not
too much trouble to dress so early in the day. Dear me, don't I pity
Tilly, though!"
"Why?" asked Mrs. Wheaton, regarding her eldest daughter.
"She will have to sit up straight all day long with that bunch of hair
on her head. She thinks old Toots is coming to-night, and she wouldn't
for the world lose her elegant _coiffure_ and the chance of looking
pretty in his eyes."
Before she had finished speaking her eyes were fastened on the book
again, and whatever Tilly replied about not wishing to receive a
solitaire as gift from her father fell unheeded, apparently, on the fair
Fanny's ears.
It was a mistake about Lola's having gone to the matinee. If we follow
her we shall see her ascending one of the streets in the same quarter of
the city in which the paternal mansion--as the novel-writers have
it--stood, though in a far less fashionable part. Indeed, there was no
fashion about; for a corner-grocery, or a retail fruit-shop occasionally
made its appearance among the ranks of the generally neat houses, each
of which was provided with a flower-covered veranda, or a trim front
yard. One of them boasted of a garden and veranda both--the former set
out with well-tended flowers, the latter almost hidden under creeping
roses and trailing fuchsias. Everything about the place looked prim and
neat; even the China boy, who opened the door for Lola, seemed to have
been infected by the spirit prevailing, and his snowy apron fairly
blinked in the rays of the sun falling through the curtain of the
foliage, thinned by the cold nights of the winter season.
Miss Myrick was in, sewing by the window, seated in her own chair, so
low that she could not see out into the garden, for fear of being
tempted to waste her time. The parlor was comfortably furnished,
homelike and tidy, though Miss Myrick occupied it most of the time with
her work. She did not often sit in the little room at the back of the
house, which really had a better light--the windows opening to the
ground--because there was another garden there, and Miss Myrick was so
passionately fond of her bright-hued pets that it once happened that the
sewing which had been entrusted to her by a cloaking establishment in
the city was found unfinished and she in the garden when the porter came
to take the garments home. Since that time she had been a great deal
stricter with herself--she never had been strict with anybody else, not
even with Charlie Somervale, when he had been left to her a romping,
frolicking boy of thirteen by his dying mother.
She was an old maid even then, dreadfully set in her ways, as people
said, and the twelve years which had passed since then had made her no
younger. Her ways, however set, must have been gentle and good, for they
had won the boy back from the almost hopeless despondency into which his
mother's death had thrown him, and she had made of him a man such as
few are met with in our time. His mother had left him nothing, his
father having died in the mines years before, poor and away from his
friends.
Dying his mother had said to her friend, "Find my brother; he will
provide for the boy for my sake." This, however, Miss Myrick had failed
to do for two reasons: she knew of the whereabouts of the brother only
that he was in the Indies; and had she known more she would not have
prosecuted the search, because--well, Charlie "didn't know exactly, but
he guessed that her mother had intended Miss Myrick for her brother's
wife, but the brother had declined taking stock in that mine." Charlie
was clerk in the bank, and we must forgive him some of his peculiar
expressions on the ground that "he heard nothing but stocks talked from
morning till night."
As we are aware that the banks close at twelve o'clock on Saturdays, we
need not be surprised to see Charlie coming down the street, on the way
to Aunt Myrick's house, his home. Lola seemed very much surprised, so
much so that her face flushed when he came in at the door, just as she
was about to leave the house. After a few moments' conversation about
"the delightful weather--and this time of the year, too--nearly
Christmas--" Charlie asked permission to escort Miss Wheaton down the
street, which permission was graciously given.
Though we should like much to remain with Miss Myrick in her cozy little
home, where nothing indicated that the mistress was compelled to earn
her bread with her needle, we have more interest in going with the
handsome young couple, moving along in front of us as if they were
treading on air. Though there is no lack of deference or respect in the
manner with which the young man leans over to whisper something into the
ear of the younger Miss Wheaton, he has yet dropped the formal address
and speech of which he made use at Miss Myrick's gate.
"Lola," and the little hand on his coat sleeve is surreptitiously
pressed as they turn the corner of a quiet street _not_ leading to the
paternal mansion, "how can I thank my angel for the unspeakable
happiness of this meeting? The bright sun would have been shrouded in
darkness to me if you had broken my heart by disappointing me. A
thousand, thousand thanks for your visit to--my Aunt Myrick's."
She caught the roguish twinkle in his merry blue eye, and the joyous
laugh that rang out on the air could not have offended Miss Myrick
herself, had she heard the conversation.
"What pretty speeches," Lola tossed her head mockingly; "did you learn
them from Miss Angelina Stubbs?" and another laugh spoke of the
lightness of heart which finds food for laughter and gladness in all
harmless things.
"I told her the other day when she joked me about my advancing
bachelorhood" (they were slowly ascending one of the hills overlooking
the bay, and it is impossible to talk fast at such a time, even for a
young man six feet tall, with black moustache and corresponding hair,
and a beautiful young lady leaning on his arm) "that I should have to
wait--till my uncle from the Indies came home; and what do you think she
said?"
They had come to a little nook high up, where the great bustling city
was almost hidden from sight, and the bay seemed stretching out at their
very feet; the houses below them concealed by the brow of the hill. To
the right, afar off, were peaceful homesteads and gardens filled with
shrubs and trees; and whatever might have been harsh or unromantic in
the view, was toned down by the distance and the softening lights of the
mild winter's sun.
"Well," asked Lola, seating herself on a little ledge of rock where
Charlie had spread his handkerchief.
"She intimated, with becomingly downcast eyes, that I might find a
fortune within my grasp any time I chose it. 'Oh, yes,' said I, 'Miss
Angelina, but then, you know, it's always a venture. And besides, I have
made a vow never to dabble in stocks.' She gave me rather a blank look
at first, but thought she wouldn't stop to explain."
Lola could only reach him with her parasol, and the blow she struck him
could not have been very severe, for they both laughed heartily the next
moment.
"But I have really heard from my uncle in India--it was a letter sent to
my poor mother--only I did not want to tell Aunt Myrick; she never likes
to hear the name mentioned."
"Tell me about that story," said Lola, her woman's interest in a woman's
heart-story aroused; "you once said that she had been disappointed."
"Not she so much as this uncle whom my mother wanted to marry Miss
Myrick. It seems that he was engaged to some other young lady--some
lovely maid--but a hard-hearted wretch of a brother, or cruel, unfeeling
parent interfered--"
"Don't speak so lightly, Charlie," pleaded Lola, her eyes filling with
tears; "it _is_ bad to have brother or parent come between yourself and
the one you love, is it not?"
"Why, Lola darling, what has happened? Does your heart fail? Do you
already doubt your love for me, or the strength to assert it?"
"No, no, Charlie--never fear. It is you or death; you know what I have
said," and her tiny fingers clasped his strong hand. "But you know as
well as I that papa will interfere when he discovers--"
"That you intend to become a poor man's wife. Lola, you know the law I
have made for you--the only command I would ever lay on you," and his
voice, though tender, was firm, "when you marry me you will be a poor
man's wife, not a rich man's daughter. Not a cent of your father's
money, good and kind man though he be, will ever be brought across my
threshold, even should he be willing to give you the fortune he holds in
store for some wealthy son-in-law. There, my angel, let us have done
with tragedy and care." It was easy to make an excuse for stooping, so
as to touch her fingers with his lips. "Who knows but I shall be a rich
man yet before I claim you? I have been sorely tempted to try my luck in
something new they have just struck."
"What? After you told Miss Angelina about your vow?"
"But it is something truly wonderful; I have it from old Bingham
himself. He cannot go into it--at least not under his own name--and
there are only two or three others to be initiated." He was gazing
meditatively at the roof of a house that peeped out from among a clump
of trees below and far to the right of him. "There's the money I laid by
for paying on the house, and Aunt Myrick, I know, has five hundred in
the bank; if I knew I could only double it within the year--"
"Don't touch anything belonging to Aunt Myrick, or she will instantly
conceive it to be her duty to work still harder, because you might be
unfortunate--and then what would become of the old blind woman and the
paralyzed man, and the sick family back of the grocery, and her old
gouty cat, and the boy with fits--"
"Hush, hush--I'll not touch a cent belonging to her," vowed Charlie,
with his hands to his ears.
The sun was sinking low, and after it had been agreed between them just
how many dances Lola was to give to strange gentlemen at the coming
ball, and how many Charlie was to claim, and how often Charlie in turn
was to dance with Miss Angelina, and how often with Fanny and Tilly, the
lovers descended the hill more slowly, if possible, than they had
climbed it, and finally parted within sight of Lola's home.
There was to be no New Year's party at the Wheaton mansion this year.
"No!" sneered Miss Angelina, "for they disposed of the oldest old maid
at the last, and probably expect to get rid of the second at somebody
else's ball this year."
I am sure Miss Angelina need not have sneered so, because she tried hard
enough to get old Toots herself. But that is neither here nor there;
Miss Tilly had received a proposal at that New Year's ball, and Miss
Fanny her solitaire--from her father, to be sure; but then that was
better than not to receive any. Old Toots, proud husband of the peerless
Tilly now for many months, was not old at all, and his name wasn't Toots
either. His name was Jacob Udderstrome; and in early days he had been
the proprietor of a milk ranch, and having used a tin trumpet for the
purpose of making known his coming to the more tardy of his customers,
he had been honored with the unromantic appellation without his
particular wish or consent. When the country had become more settled
Jacob sold out, and being possessed of a great deal of natural
shrewdness and a native talent for keeping his mouth shut, he had
doubled and trebled his money by simply buying up real estate and
selling at the right time.
Fanny was still languishing for the right one; she could never think of
entertaining less than a hundred thousand, when Tilly had gotten at
least three times that amount. Father and mother seldom interfered with
any of their daughters' plans or pleasures, and only once in the course
of the past year had Papa Wheaton been seriously displeased. On this
occasion he had Lola called into the room, and demanded sternly of her
why she had refused the hand and fortune of Hiram Watson? He looked
quite fierce and kept brushing up the ridge of hair on his head stiffer
and stiffer, till at last it stood alone. Then Lola ventured to ask,
"Are you speaking of Mr. Watson the tobacconist?"
"Tobacconist? To be sure I am; a tobacconist isn't to be sneezed at
when he's got a cool half million to back him."
"It was not that I spoke of; I have only to say that I could feel
nothing more than respect for him; and I will never marry where I cannot
give my heart with my hand."
"That's your notion of what's right, is it? What, do you tell me, when
I've spent more money on your education than both your sisters together
ever cost me, that you can't marry a worthy, solid man because he won't
write sentimental love-letters? I tell you--"
He was talking himself into a rage and turning purple in the face, when
his wife entered, and, like the good, quiet angel she always was, put an
end to the interview and the father's anger with her favorite child.
Lola told Charlie of the interview, and he thanked her for her devotion,
and strengthened her resolution by such words as only Charlie could
utter--so full of the heart's deep love and the warmth of a rich
chivalrous nature. "On Christmas day, my love," he said, "I shall be
able to step boldly before your father and claim you for my wife. I am
all but a rich man now, thanks to old Bingham's prompting and the
secrecy observed, which has left this thing entirely in our own hands. I
have the field almost to myself, and shall realize within the next three
months such a fortune as I had never dreamed of possessing."
"Not even if that mythical uncle in the Indies had come home?"
"Hang the uncle--no--I mean, I believe he is dead, poor fellow. I
answered his letter last year, but never heard from him again, though he
expressed the greatest longing to hear from or see some one who had ever
belonged to him. It was hard to tell him that even mother, his only
sister, was dead."
"Poor fellow!"
"Yes, mother used to say that he was heart-broken. Having come into the
world myself after he left it, for the Indies, I can't well remember
him; but I can feel for him now, because I know what I should do if you
could not be mine. I should break into your room at night, steal you,
and take you to the bottom of the sea with me."
Like a romantic young lady, Lola expressed her entire willingness to
visit such a place with him; and she said it so quietly that Charlie, at
least, believed what she said.
"Let us talk of life now, not of death," Charles went on. "If I obtain
your father's consent to our union at Christmas, will you become mine on
New-Year's day? I have a queer notion of wanting to celebrate my
marriage--to make it a feast or hold it on a feast day. I believe that
people who have determined to pass their days together should begin
their new married life with the beginning of the year. Will you assist
me in carrying out this romantic idea?"
She called him an enthusiast, a philosopher, and a thousand other
contradictory names, but the pressure of her hand gave him assurance of
her consent to his wish.
Christmas brought with it skies as blue and days as radiant as those for
which we sing songs of glory to Italy. The rains of the season so far
had fallen mostly at night, leaving the sun day by day to kiss the brown
hills into fresher green, after he had freed himself from the heavy fogs
of early morning.
The Wheatons were not a church-going people, though the costliest pew at
one of the largest churches was theirs; and while Mr. Wheaton was never
known to refuse heading a subscription list for any undertaking, the
benevolence of which had been duly proclaimed in the newspapers, Mrs.
Wheaton had taught her daughters to delight in unostentatious charity.
Presuming on her father's fondness for a late dressing-gown and
slippers, on days when the observance of a religious feast or popular
holiday required that he should not be seen on California street, Lola
had intimated to Charlie her opinion as to the time the old gentleman
would probably be in the most "malleable" humor. It was with some
trepidation, nevertheless, that Charlie ascended the steps leading up to
the wide hall-door of the Wheaton mansion, after having spent the
morning in his own room, shutting out Aunt Myrick, Orlando, the cat, the
morning papers, in fact the whole world from his sight.
It was probably owing to the unusually good humor in which Mr. Wheaton
found himself this morning, that Charlie was requested to walk into the
breakfast-room, where the flying robes adorning Miss Fanny's person were
seen whisking out at the other door, as the young man entered the
pleasant, sun-lighted room. The last glowing coals were falling to
ashes, in a grate, which at this hour of the day seemed an unnecessary
ornament for a California house.
"Come in, come in, young man. But where are the girls? Tom, go call Miss
Fanny and Miss Lola."
There was no necessity for calling Miss Lola--she was close at hand,
though becoming suddenly invisible; and as for Miss Fanny, she remained
invisible. She had no notion of taking her hair out of crimps just for
Charlie Somervale, when she expected to meet a far more interesting
person--Crown Point, Gould & Curry, Eureka Con., report said five
hundred thousand dollars--at the Wadsworth reception that night. Had Mr.
Wheaton not taken off his glasses when Charlie came in he might have
noticed an unusual flush on the young man's face; as it was he shook
hands with him so cordially that Charlie's color subsided somewhat, and
his heart beat less loud for a minute.
I doubt that either the old gentleman or the young one remember just how
the conversation was opened; but in less than fifteen minutes Mr.
Wheaton, with motions something like those of an enraged turkey-gobbler,
and a color darkening face and neck fully equal to the intensest shade
that bird can boast of on its gills, flew to the door, and called on
Lola to make her appearance, in no pleasant tones. Together with Lola,
as though divining the trouble drawing near, came Mrs. Wheaton, though
so noiselessly, through a side-door, that no one observed her at first.