When Glenowen came to Second Westings he was in such haste that Barbara
concluded he had other duties in New York than the searching of records
and verification of titles; but with unwonted discretion she asked no
questions. Affairs of state, it seemed to her, were the more
mysterious and important the less she knew about them; and it pleased
her to feel that the fate of commonwealths, perchance, was carried
secretly within the ruffled cambric of her debonair and brown-eyed
uncle. From Second Westings they journeyed by coach to New Haven, and
from that city voyaged by packet down the Sound to New York. Arrived
in New York, they went straight into lodgings which Glenowen had
already engaged, in an old, high-stooped Dutch house on State Street.
From the moment of her landing on the wharf, Barbara was in a state of
high exhilaration. The thronging wharves, the high, black,
far-travelled hulls, the foreign-smelling freights, all thrilled her
imagination, and made her feel that now at last unexpected things might
happen to her and story-books come true. Then the busy, bustling
streets, where men jostled each other abstractedly, intent each on his
own affairs, how different from Second Westings, where three passers-by
and a man on horseback would serve to bring faces to the windows, and
where the grass on each side of the street was an item of no small
consequence to the village cows! And then the houses--huddled
together, as if there was not space a-plenty in the world for houses!
It was all very stirring. She felt that it was what she wanted, at the
moment,--a piquant sauce to the plain wholesomeness of her past. But
she felt, too, that it would never be able to hold her long from the
woods and fields and wild waters.
Of her arrival Barbara sent no word to Robert, though she knew by
somewhat careful calculation that his office was but a stone's throw
away from her lodging. She looked forward to some kind of a dramatic
meeting, and would not let her impatience--which she scarcely
acknowledged--risk the marring of a picturesque adventure. When
Glenowen, the morning after their arrival, gave her the superfluous
information that Robert's office was close by, right among the
fashionable houses of Bowling Green, and proposed that they should
begin their exploration of the city by strolling past his window,
Barbara demurred with emphasis.
"Well," said Glenowen, thinking he understood what no man ever has a
right to think he understands, "just as you like, mistress mine. I'll
drop in on him myself, and let him know where we are, so he can call
with all due and fitting ceremony!"
"Oh, Uncle Bob!" she cried, laughing at his density, "don't you know
yet how little _I_ care for ceremony? 'Tis not that--by any manner of
means. But I want to surprise Robert,--I want to meet him at some fine
function, in all my fine feathers, and see if he'll know me! You know,
it is five years, nearly, since we saw him. Have I changed much, Uncle
Bob?"
"Precious little have you changed, sweet minx!" answered Glenowen.
"You're just the same small, peppery, saucy, unmanageable, thin brown
witch that you were then, only a _little_ taller, a _little_ more
good-looking, a little--a very little--more dignified. No fear but
he'd know you, though he saw you not for a score of years. 'Twere as
easy perhaps for a man to hate you as love you, my Barbe! But forget
you! Oh, no!"
So it was that in the walks which they took about the point of
Manhattan Island, during the first three or four days after their
coming, they avoided Bowling Green, save in the dim hours of twilight;
and Glenowen, prone to humour Barbara in everything, had a care to shun
the resorts which Robert Gault affected. He learned, by no means to
his surprise, that Robert was uncompromisingly committed to the Tory
party, but this he did not feel called upon to tell Barbara.
"Time enough! Time enough!" said he to himself, half whimsical, half
sorrowful. "Let the child have her little play with all the mirth
that's in it! Let hearts not bleed until they must! She won't forgive
him,--and he won't yield,--or I'm not Bob Glenowen!"
In New York, where most of his life had been spent, Glenowen knew
everybody; and he was _persona grata_ to almost everybody of
consequence. His standing was so impregnable, his antecedents so
unimpeachable, his social talents so in demand, that even the most
arrogant of the old Tory aristocrats--the Delanceys, the Philipses, the
Beverley Robinsons--were not disposed to let their hostility to his
views hamper their hospitality to his person.
It followed, therefore, as a matter of course, that almost before she
had gathered her wits after the excitement of the journey and the
changed surroundings, Barbara found herself afloat upon the whirl of
New York gaieties. Every night, in the solitude of her bedroom in the
old Dutch house, in the discreet confidence of her pillow, she was
homesick, very homesick, and a child again. She would sob for Aunt
Hitty, and Doctor John, and Doctor Jim,--and for big, round-faced,
furry "Mr. Grim," whom she had so tearfully left behind,--and for Black
Prince, who, she felt sure, would let no one else ride him in her
absence,--and for dear old Debby in her lonely cabin. She would think
very tenderly of Amos,--and then, with a very passion of tenderness, of
her own little room over the porch, now silent and deserted. With
great surges of pathos she would picture Mistress Mehitable going into
the little room every day, and dusting it a bit, and then sitting down
by the bed and wishing Barbara would come back. In such a melting mood
Barbara would resolve not to be horrid any more, but to send for Robert
the first thing in the morning, and tell him just how glad she was to
see him.
But when morning came, she would be no more the homesick child, but a
very gay, petulant, spoiled, and sparkling young woman, her head full
of excitements and conquests to come.