Encouraged by the success that was attending her unselfish efforts to
harmonize her own and her uncle’s conceptions of the temporal fitness
of things, Miss Lee began to find life at the Pier quite supportable.
“There’s not much to do here,” she declared, with her customary candor,
“and the hotels--all ugly and all in a row--make it look like an
overgrown charitable institution; and most of the people, I must say,
are such a dismal lot that they might very well be the patients out for
an airing. But, on the whole, I’ve been in several worse places, Uncle
Hutchinson; and if only you’d take me to a hop now and then, instead of
sitting every evening on the pokey hotel veranda talking Philadelphia
twaddle with that stuffy old Mr. Pennington Brown, I might have rather a
good time here.”
“You will oblige me, Dorothy,” replied Mr. Port, “by refraining from
using such a word as ‘stuffy’ in connection with a gentleman who
belongs to one of the oldest and best families in Philadelphia, and who,
moreover, is one of my most esteemed friends.”
“But he _is_ stuffy, Uncle Hutchinson. He never talks about anything but
who peoples’ grandfathers and grandmothers were; and _Watson’s Annals_
seems to be the only book that he ever has heard of. Indeed, I do truly
think that he is the very stuffiest and stupidest old gentleman that I
ever have known.”
Mr. Port made no reply to this sally, for his feelings were such that he
deemed it best not to give expression to them in words; but he was not
unnaturally surprised, after such a declaration of sentiments on
the part of his niece, when she begged to be excused on the ensuing
afternoon from her regular drive to the Point, on the ground that she
had promised to make an expedition to the Rocks in Mr. Brown’s company.
Had an opportunity been given him Mr. Port would have asked for an
explanation of this phenomenon; but the carriage was in waiting that
was to convey his ward and her extraordinary companion to the end of the
road at Indian Rock--a slight rheumatic tendency, that he declared was
hereditary, rendering it advisable for Mr. Brown to reduce the use of
his legs to a minimum--and before Mr. Port could rally his forces they
had entered it and had driven away.
[Illustration: They had entered it and had driven away 050]
In the evening Mr. Port found another surprise awaiting him. Miss Lee
presently retired from the veranda for the avowed purpose of searching
for a missing fan, thus leaving the two gentlemen together.
[Illustration: What a charming girl your niece is 054]
“What a charming girl your niece is, Port!” said Mr. Brown, as the
fluttering train of Dorothy’s dress disappeared through the door-way.
Mr. Port evidently considered that this possibly debatable statement was
sufficiently answered by a grunt, for that was all the answer he gave
it.
Not permitting his enthusiasm to be checked by this chillingly dubious
response, Mr. Brown continued:
“She certainly is one of the most charming girls I have met in a long
time, Port. She is not a bit like the average of young girls nowadays.
I rarely have known a young person of either sex to be so genuinely
interested in genealogy, especially in Philadelphia genealogy; and
I must say that her liking for antiquarian matters generally is very
remarkable. I envy you, I really envy you, old boy, the blessing of that
sweet young creature’s constant companionship.”
“Umph--do you?” was Mr. Port’s concise and rather discouraging reply.
“Indeed I do”--Mr. Brown was too warm to notice the cynical tone of his
friend’s rejoinder--“and I have been thinking, Port, that we are a pair
of selfish old wretches to monopolize every evening in the way that we
have been doing this bright young flower. It is a shame for us to keep
her in our stupid company--though she tells me that she finds our talk
about old people and old times exceedingly interesting--instead of
letting her have a little of the young society and a little of the
excitement and pleasure of watering-place life. Now, how would it do
for us to take her down to the Casino to-night? There is to be a hop
to-night, she says; at least, that is to say”--Mr. Brown became somewhat
confused--“I heard somewhere that there is to be a hop tonight, and
while that sort of thing is pretty stupid for you and me, it isn’t a bit
stupid for a young and pretty girl like her. So suppose we take her, old
man?”
As this amazing proposition was advanced by his elderly friend, Mr.
Port’s anger and astonishment were aroused together; and his rude
rejoinder to it was: “Have you gone crazy, Brown, or has Dorothy been
making a fool of you? Has she asked you to ask me to take her to the
Casino hop? She knows there is no use in talking to me about it any
longer.”
“No, certainly not--at least--that is to say--well, no, not exactly,”
replied Mr. Brown, beginning his sentence with an asperity and
positiveness that somehow did not hold out to its end. “She did say to
me, I confess, how fond she was of dancing, and how she had refrained
from saying much about it to you”--Mr. Port here interpolated a
sceptical snort--“because she knew that taking her to the Casino would
only bore you. And I do think, Port, that keeping her here with us all
the time is grossly selfish; and if you don’t want to take her to the
hop I hope you’ll let her go with me. But what we’d better do, old man,
is to take her together--then we can talk to each other just as well,
at least nearly as well, as we can here, and we can have the comfort of
knowing that she is enjoying herself too. Come, Hutch; we’re getting old
and rusty, you and I, but let us try at least to keep from degenerating
into a pair of selfish old brutes with no care for anybody’s comfort but
our own.”
Mr. Hutchinson Port might have replied with a fair amount of truth that
so far as he himself was concerned the degeneration that his friend
referred to as desirable to avoid already had taken place. But all of us
like most to be credited with the virtues of which we have least, and he
therefore accepted as his due Mr. Brown’s tribute of implied praise.
And the upshot of the matter was that Dorothy, when she returned to the
veranda again, was unaffectedly surprised (and considering how carefully
she had planned her small campaign she did it very creditably) by
discovering that her uncle’s edict against the Casino hops had been
withdrawn.