I. 1, No. 1. _MID-OCEAN LIBRARY._ Nov., 1890.
Issued Monthly. By Subscription, $3.00 per Year.
[Illustration: THE GOD OF CIVILIZATION A ROMANCE MRS. M. A. PITTOCK]
Chicago: EUREKA PUBLISHING CO., 310 Inter Ocean Building.
WAS HE A LEPER?
_A novel bearing the above title, written by the author of “The God of
Civilization,” is now in press._
_The story, the scene of which is laid in Honolulu, deals with the dread
scourge leprosy._
EUREKA PUBLISHING COMPANY,
_PUBLISHERS_.
310 Inter Ocean Building,
CHICAGO.
THE
God of Civilization.
A ROMANCE
—BY—
MRS. M. A. PITTOCK,
AUTHOR OF “WAS HE A LEPER?” IN PRESS.
_Copyright 1890. All rights reserved._
CHICAGO:
EUREKA PUBLISHING COMPANY.
TO
FRANCES M. BLUMAUER,
The valued friend who pointed out to me a pleasant path wherein my feet
might tread; and to whose loving advice I shall owe whatever of success
I may hereafter achieve.
THE AUTHOR.
_Chicago, Oct., 1890._
THE GOD OF CIVILIZATION.
CHAPTER I.
“Oh! I have grown so tired of this continual round of parties, calls,
and theatre going; I do wish something would happen to break the
monotony of my life.”
The foregoing remark was made by Mabel Miller, who spoke in a very
discontented manner.
“Why, Mabel, how can you talk of monotony? There is not a girl in our
acquaintance who has more delightful changes of amusement than yourself.
What with your winters, a succession of gaieties, your summers at Santa
Cruz or Monterey, I don’t see how you can be so discontented.” It was
Mabel’s cousin, Lucy Maynard, who spoke.
“Oh, I know that is what you always say, but it does not alter the fact
that I am sick of it all.”
“Well, well, what’s the trouble? What is this, that my little girl is so
sick of?” Mabel turned hastily as these words of her father’s caught her
ear.
“Why, papa, I didn’t know you were here or I might not have said what I
did; I ought to be contented, I know, after all you do for me.”
“Come, come; this won’t do, little girl. If you are unhappy why
shouldn’t your old father know all about it?”
“I am not unhappy, papa, only I am so tired of everything. I was just
saying I did wish something out of the ordinary way might happen.”
“How would a trip to Australia do for novelty, Mabel?”
“Oh, papa, do you mean it? I would like it above all things. I have
always wanted to go there.”
“Well, Mabel, if you think you can be ready in a week’s time you shall
go. I met our old friend Captain Gray to-day, and it seems he is bound
for Australia, and is going to take his wife and two daughters along
with him, and he has room for one or two more on board; so there is a
chance for you to go, if you like.”
“Won’t that be splendid?” cried Mabel, clapping her hands and dancing
gleefully about the room like a child.
“But, Mabel, you must remember it is a sailing vessel, and not a
steamer, that you are to go on, and, aren’t you afraid that the number
of weeks it will take you to reach your destination, will prove as
monotonous as parties and calls do now.”
“I don’t mind the length of time that we shall be in going. I shall find
something amusing I feel sure; will you go too, Lucy?”
“Oh no, thank you; you will have to excuse me;” laughed Lucy. I like the
present order of things very well and will try a little while longer to
find amusement in balls, and so on, and then besides there is Harry, you
know, I couldn’t leave him.”
“No, indeed, I do not intend to spare both of my dear girls at once;
what in the world would I do with you both away,” said Mr. Miller.
“But, papa, you don’t mean to say that you are not going too,” asked
Mabel.
“Why, of course, that is what I mean; did my girlie think I could drop
everything and trot off to the antipodes with her at a moment’s notice?
No, Mabel, I can’t go; but you will be well cared for, as Mrs. Gray, I
know, will look after your welfare as closely as would your own mother
if she were living. And her two daughters will prove most delightful
companions if they are half as amiable as they are pretty.”
“They are lovely girls. I met them last summer at Santa Cruz, and liked
them ever so much. I know we shall have a nice time.”
“All right, then; you had better begin your preparations, as young
ladies are not noted for their ability to do things up well at short
notice.”
“I could be ready to go to-morrow, but as long as I have a week to get
ready in I expect I shall find every minute of the time taken up, so I
am off to make a beginning. Lucy, will you run down to O’Brien’s with
me? I shall want a dress or so, and you are such an authority on such
things, I want you with me when I choose them.”
“Yes, I will go to O’Brien’s with you; that is much more to my taste
than a disagreeable, tedious voyage to Australia,” answered Lucy.
The two girls left the room to don hats and wraps for their shopping
tour; and as they left it Mrs. Maynard, Lucy’s mother, who had entered
the room in time to catch a part of the conversation, came toward Mr.
Miller with rather a troubled look on her face, saying, “James, how can
you propose such a thing as this trip for Mabel; you really encourage
her in her foolish notions of dislike for conventionalities. She has no
mother, poor child, to explain to her, her duties and responsibilities,
and I’m sure I have tried my best, if ever a woman tried, ever since I
have been living here, to make her see how foolish she is to be always
wishing for some new mode of life. She almost drives me to despair with
her whims and her notions. You ought to help me in my efforts for her
good.”
“Come, come,” broke in Mr. Miller, “you don’t mean to say I haven’t got
the good of my only child as much at heart as you have, do you? Why,
that girl and her happiness is my first care in life.”
“I know, you think you are doing what is best, but James, don’t you see
you have spoiled her by always letting her have her own way in obtaining
what she calls happiness? You ought to realize that Mabel is now twenty
years old, and it is high time she thought of marriage instead of such
foolish trips as this one.”
“Oh, nonsense, she has plenty of time yet; and if she don’t happen to
get married I guess I’ve got money enough to keep her here with me yet
awhile; hey, Kate?”
“I might almost as well talk to the girl herself as to you. Now, why
can’t she settle down to take an interest in society, as Lucy does? In a
few months I shall see Lucy nicely settled in an establishment of her
own; and if Mr. Howard is a little wild now he will settle down after he
and Lucy are married awhile, and I had hoped that when she was married
and all that, I should then see Mabel as well suited.”
“I know, Kate, you are a great little matchmaker; but you see Mabel
don’t want to find a husband just yet, and I don’t want to lose her yet
awhile, sister; so we will just let her alone.”
Perhaps Mrs. Maynard might have felt inclined to carry the argument
further, but at this moment the two girls returned, and with them Harry
Howard, the young man to whom Lucy was betrothed. Of course the subject
was dropped, and the few days that followed before Mabel’s departure was
so fully occupied with the arrangements for her trip that the subject
was not again referred to. These last days at home were made lively by a
farewell afternoon tea and a round of calls, all of which Mrs. Maynard
thought necessary for Mabel to make before her departure, although Mabel
tried to evade making them by putting forward the plea that she was too
busy; but her aunt was firm in her purpose, saying, “My dear Mabel, you
do not seem to realize what you owe to society. You must make these
calls or what will people in our set say?”
“Oh, auntie, I don’t care even the least little bit what people say. I
don’t care for the people in our set, which means three or four hundred
people that I don’t care the snap of my finger for, anyway; and who do
not care at all for me. Then, what is the use of trying all the time to
keep up with society? I like my friends, and I hope I have some friends
who like me really in return; but I don’t care for society, as you call
it, at all.”
Mabel and her aunt were not all likely ever to have the same ideas of
society, as Mrs. Maynard was one of those women who all her life had
lived for society, and struggled continually to be a leader, but as yet
her ambition was ungratified, for, though she was a prominent figure
socially, she was by no means a leader; whereas, Mabel, having lost her
mother in early childhood, had been the companion, more or less, of her
father, a man kindhearted and thoroughly good, but who regarded social
duties as rather a bore, and consequently Mabel saw the world through
his eyes and had learned, very young, the bitter lesson of
disenchantment as far as the social system was concerned. It was all a
sham to her, and, as she was eighteen when her aunt and cousin Lucy came
to form a part of their household, the ideas of the two girls were very
different.