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HORACE CHASE
A Novel
by
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
AUTHOR OF "JUPITER LIGHTS" "EAST ANGELS" ETC.
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1894
Copyright, 1894, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
_All rights reserved._
HORACE CHASE
CHAPTER I
In a mountain village of North Carolina, in the year 1873, the spring
had opened with its accustomed beauty. But one day there came a pure
cold wind which swept through the high valley at tremendous speed from
dawn to midnight. People who never succumb to mere comfort did not
relight their fires. But to the Franklin family comfort was a goddess,
they would never have thought of calling her "mere"; "delightful" was
their word, and Ruth would probably have said "delicious." The fire in
Mrs. Franklin's parlor, therefore, having been piled with fresh logs at
two o'clock as an offering to this deity, was now, at four, sending out
a ruddy glow. It was a fire which called forth Ruth's highest
approbation when she came in, followed by her dog, Petie Trone, Esq. Not
that Ruth had been facing the blast; she never went out from a sense of
duty, and for her there was no pleasure in doing battle with things that
were disagreeable for the sake merely of conquering them. Ruth had come
from her own room, where there was a fire also, but one not so generous
as this, for here the old-fashioned hearth was broad and deep. The girl
sat down on the rug before the blaze, and then, after a moment, she
stretched herself out at full length there, with her head resting on her
arm thrown back behind it.
"It's a pity, Ruth, that with all your little ways, you are not little
yourself," remarked Dolly Franklin, the elder sister. "Such a whalelike
creature sprawled on the floor isn't endearing; it looks like something
out of Gulliver."
"It's always so," observed Mrs. Franklin, drowsily. "It's the oddest
thing in the world--but people never will stay in character; they want
to be something different. Don't you remember that whenever poor Sue
Inness was asked to sing, the wee little creature invariably chanted,
'Here's a health to King Charles,' in as martial a voice as she could
summon? Whereas Lucia Lewis, who is as big as a grenadier, always
warbles softly some such thing as 'Call me pet names, dearest. Call me a
bird.' Bird! Mastodon would do better."
"Mastodon?" Ruth commented. "It is evident, His Grand, that you have
seen Miss Billy to-day!"
Ruth was not a whale, in spite of Dolly's assertion. But she was tall,
her shoulders had a marked breadth, and her arms were long. She was very
slender and supple, and this slenderness, together with her small hands
and feet, took away all idea of majesty in connection with her, tall
though she was; one did not think of majesty, but rather of girlish
merriment and girlish activity. And girlish indolence as well. Mrs.
Franklin had once said: "Ruth is either running, or jumping, or doing
something in such haste that she is breathless; or else she is stretched
out at full length on the carpet or the sofa, looking as though she
never intended to move again!"
The girl had a dark complexion with a rich color, and hair that was
almost black; her face was lighted by blue eyes, with long thick black
lashes which made a dark fringe round the blue. The persons who liked
Ruth thought her beautiful; they asserted that her countenance had in it
something which was captivating. But others replied that though her
friends might call her captivating if they pleased, since that word
denotes merely a personal charm, they had no right to say that she was
beautiful; for as regards beauty, there are well-defined rules, and,
with the exception of her wonderful eyes, the face of the second Miss
Franklin transgressed every one of these canons. Ruth's features were
without doubt irregular. And especially was it true that her mouth was
large. But the lips were exquisitely cut, and the teeth very white.
Regarding her appearance as a whole, there was a fact which had not as
yet been noticed, namely, that no man ever found fault with it; the
criticism came always from feminine lips. And these critics spoke the
truth; but they forgot, or rather they did not see, some of the
compensations. There were people not a few, even in her own small
circle, who did not look with favor upon Ruth Franklin; it was not
merely, so they asserted, that she was heedless and frivolous, caring
only for her own amusement, and sacrificing everything to that, for of
many young persons this could be said; but they maintained in addition
that hers was a disposition in its essence self-indulgent; she was
indolent; she was fond of luxuries; she was even fond of "good
eating"--an odd accusation to be brought against a girl of that age. In
this case also the charges were made by feminine lips. And again it may
be added that while these critics spoke the truth, or part of the truth,
they did not, on the other hand, see some of the compensations.
"Why do you say '_poor_ Sue Inness,' His Grand?" inquired Dolly, in an
expostulating tone. "Why do people always say '_poor_' so-and-so, of any
one who is dead? It is an alarmingly pitying word; as though the
unfortunate departed must certainly be in a very bad place!"
"Here is something about the bishop," said Mrs. Franklin, who was
reading a Raleigh newspaper in the intervals of conversation. Her tone
was now animated. "He has been in Washington, and one of his sermons
was--"
But she was interrupted by her daughters, who united their voices in a
chant as follows:
"Mother Franklin thinks,
That General Jackson,
Jared the Sixth,
Macaroon custards,
And Bishop Carew,
Are per-_fec_-tion!"
Mrs. Franklin made no reply to these Gregorian assertions (which she had
often heard before), save the remark, "You have torn your skirt, Ruth."
"Oh, please don't look at me over your glasses, His Grand. It spoils
your profile so," answered Ruth; for Mrs. Franklin was surveying the
skirt with her head bent forward and her chin drawn sharply in, so that
her eyes could be brought to bear upon the rent over her spectacles.
She now drew off these aids to vision impatiently. "Whether I look
through them or over them doesn't matter; you and Dolly are never
satisfied. I cannot read the paper without my glasses; do you wish me to
know nothing of the news of the world?"
"We'll _tell_ you," responded Dolly, going on busily with her knitting.
"For instance, to-day: Genevieve has had _all_ the paint cleaned and
_all_ the windows washed; she is now breathing that righteous atmosphere
of cold, fireless bleakness and soap which she adores. Miss Billy Breeze
has admired everything that she can think of, because admiration is so
uplifting. And she has written another page about the primeval world;
now she--"
Here the door which led to the entrance-hall was opened with a jerk by
Linda, a plump negro girl, who bounced in, ejaculated "Lady!" in a
congratulatory tone, and then bounced out to act as usher for the
incoming guest.
"Billy herself, probably," said Mrs. Franklin. "Ruth, are you stretched
out there under the plea that you are not yet fully grown?"
But Ruth did not deem it necessary to leave her couch for Miss Billy
Breeze. "Hail, Billy!" she said, as the visitor entered. "Mother thinks
that I ought to be seated politely on the sofa; will you please imagine
that I am there?"
"Oh, certainly," replied Miss Breeze, in a conciliatory tone. Miss
Breeze lived under the impression that the members of this family
quarrelled with each other almost incessantly; when she was present,
therefore, she did her best to smooth over their asperities. "It is
rather good for her, you know," she said reassuringly to Mrs. Franklin;
"for it is a windy day, and Ruth is not robust." Then to Ruth: "Your
mother naturally wishes you to look your best, my dear."
"Do you, His Grand?" inquired Ruth. "Because if you do, I must certainly
stay where I am, so that I can tuck under me, very neatly, this rip in
my skirt, which Miss Billy has not yet seen. Petie Trone, Esq., shake
hands with the lady." The dog, a small black-and-tan terrier, was
reposing on the rug beside Ruth; upon hearing her command, he trotted
across to the visitor, and offered a tiny paw.
"Dear little fellow," said Miss Breeze, bending, and shaking it gently.
"His Grand must allow that he looks extremely well?"
For the circle of friends had ended by accepting the legend (invented by
Ruth) that Mrs. Franklin was Petie Trone's grandmother, or "His Grand."
The only person who still held out against this title was Genevieve, the
daughter-in-law; Mrs. Franklin the younger thought that the name was
ridiculous. Her husband's family seemed to her incomprehensibly silly
about their pets.
Miss Wilhelmina Breeze was thirty-five; but no one would have thought so
from her fair pink-and-white complexion, and young, innocent eyes. From
her earliest years she had longed to hear herself called "Wilhelmina."
But the longing was almost never gratified; the boyish name given to her
in joke when she was a baby had clung to her with the usual fatal
tenacity.
"Miss Billy, have you seen mother to-day?" Dolly inquired.
"Not until now," answered the visitor, surprised.
"Well, then, have you thought of mastodons?"
"Certainly I have; and if you yourself, Dolly, would think more
seriously of the whole subject, the primeval world--you would soon be as
fascinated with it as I am. Imagine one of those vast extinct animals,
Dolly, lifting his neck up a hill to nibble the trees on its top!" said
Miss Breeze with enthusiasm. "And birds as large as chapels flying
through the air! Probably they sang, those birds. What sort of voices
do you suppose they had? The cave-lion was twenty-nine feet high. The
horned tryceratops was seventy-five feet long! It elevates the mind even
to think of them."
"You see, His Grand, that she _has_ thought of mastodons," commented
Dolly. "Your unexpected mention of them, therefore, is plainly the
influence of her mind acting upon yours from a distance--the distance of
the Old North Hotel."
"Have you really thought of them, dear Mrs. Franklin? And do you believe
there can be such a thing as the conscious--I mean, of course,
_un_conscious--influence of one mind upon another?" inquired Miss Billy,
her face betraying a delighted excitement.
"No, no; it's only Dolly's nonsense," answered Mrs. Franklin.
"It's easy to say nonsense, His Grand. But how, then, do you account for
the utterances of my planchette?" demanded Dolly, wagging her head
triumphantly.
Dolly, the second of Mrs. Franklin's three children, was an invalid. The
Franklins, as a family, were tall and dark, and Dolly was tall and dark
also; her face, owing to the pain which frequently assailed her, was
thin, worn, and wrinkled. She sat in a low easy-chair, and beside her
was her own especial table, which held what she called her "jibs." These
were numerous, for Dolly occupied herself in many ways. She sketched,
she carved little knick-knacks, she played the violin; she made lace,
she worked out chess problems, and she knitted; she also scribbled
rhymes which her family called poetry. The mantel-piece of this parlor
was adorned with a hanging which bore one of her verses, stitched in old
English text, the work of her mother's needle:
"O Fire! in these dark frozen days
So gracious is thy red,
So warm thy comfort, we forget
The violets are dead."
The family thought this beautiful. Dolly's verses, her drawing and
wood-carving, her lace-making and chess, were amateurish; her
violin-playing was at times spirited, and that was the utmost that could
be said of it. But her knitting was remarkable. She knitted nothing but
silk stockings, and these, when finished, had a wonderful perfection.
Dolly was accustomed to say of herself that in the heels of her
stockings was to be found the only bit of conscience which she
possessed.
When she mentioned planchette, her mother frowned. "I do not approve of
such things."
"Yes, because you are afraid!" chuckled Dolly.
"Oh, anything that dear Mrs. Franklin does not approve of--" murmured
Miss Billy.
Mrs. Franklin rose.
"His Grand is fleeing!" Dolly announced, gleefully.
"I must make the salad-dressing, mustn't I? Ruth will not touch Zoe's
dressing. Billy, Mr. Chase is to dine with us to-day, informally; don't
you want to stay and help us entertain him?" added the mistress of the
house as she left the room.
"Dolly," suggested Ruth, from her place on the rug, "set planchette to
work, and make it tell us secrets; make it tell us whether Miss Billy
understands the _true_ character of Achilles Larue!"
"She does not; I can tell her that without planchette," replied Dolly.
"Only one person in the world has ever fully understood Achilles--had
the strength to do it; and _he_ died!"
"Yes, I know; I have heard Mr. Larue speak of that one friend," said
Miss Billy, regretfully. "How unfortunate that he lost him!"
"Yes, baddish. And the term is quite in his own line," commented Dolly.
"With him it is never warm, but warmish; the bluest sky is bluish; a
June day, fairish; a twenty-mile walk, longish. In this way he is not
committed to extravagant statements. When he is dead, he won't be more
than deadish. But he's that now."
Mrs. Franklin, having made the salad-dressing (when she made it, it was
always perfection), returned to the parlor. "Ruth, go and change your
dress. Take Miss Billy with you, but take her to my room, not yours. For
of course you will stay, Billy?"
"I don't think I'd better; I'm not dressed for the evening; and I said I
should be back," answered Miss Breeze, hesitatingly.
"To whom did you say it? To the Old North? Run along," said Mrs.
Franklin, smiling. "If it is shoes you are thinking of, as yours are
muddy, Ruth can lend you a pair."
"That she cannot," remarked Dolly. "Buy Ruth six pairs of new shoes, and
in six days all will be shabby. But you can have a pair of mine, Miss
Billy."
When she was left alone with her elder daughter, Mrs. Franklin said:
"Poor Billy! She is always haunted by the idea that she may possibly
meet Achilles Larue here. She certainly will not meet him at the Old
North, for he never goes near the place, in spite of her gentle
invitations. But here there is always a chance, and I never can resist
giving it to her, although in reality it is folly; he has never looked
at her, and he never will."
"No. But you need not be anxious about her," replied Dolly; "she has the
happy faculty of living in illusions, day after day. She can go on
hopefully admiring Achilles to the last moment of her life, and I dare
say she even thinks that he has a liking for her, little as he shows it.
She has occult reasons for this belief; she would find them in a kick."
"Goose!" said Mrs. Franklin, dismissing Billy's virginal dreams with the
matron's disillusioned knowledge. "Aren't you going to change your
dress, Dolly?"
"Why? Am I not tidy as I am? I thought you considered me too tidy?" And
it was true that the elder Miss Franklin was always a personification
of rigid neatness; from the dark hair that shaded her tired face, to the
shoes on her feet, all was severely orderly and severely plain.
"Oh, go, go!" answered her mother, impatiently.
Dolly screwed up her mouth, shook her head slowly, and laid her work
aside; then she rose, and with her cane walked towards the door. On her
way she stopped, and, bending, kissed her mother's forehead. "Some of
these days, mother, I shall be beautiful. It will be during one of our
future existences somewhere. It must be so, dear; you have earned it for
me by your loving pity here." Nothing could exceed the tenderness of her
tone as she said this.
Mrs. Franklin made no response beyond a little toss of her head, as
though repudiating this account of herself. But after Dolly had left the
room, a moisture gathered in the mother's eyes.
Ruth, meanwhile, had conducted Miss Billy to her own chamber.
"But Mrs. Franklin said I was to go to _her_ room?" suggested the guest.
"She doesn't mind; she only meant that Bob is probably here," answered
Ruth, as she opened the windows and threw back the blinds; for the
afternoon was drawing towards its close.
Miss Billy took off her bonnet, and, after a moment's thought, hung it
by its crown on a peg; in that position it did not seem possible that
even Bob could make a resting-place within it. Bob was young and very
small. He was beautiful or devilish according to one's view of
flying-squirrels. But whether you liked him or whether you hated him,
there was always a certain amount of interest in connection with the
creature, because you could never be sure where he was. Miss Billy, who
was greatly afraid of him, had given a quick look towards the tops of
the windows and doors. There was no squirrel visible. But that was small
comfort; Bob could hide himself behind a curtain-ring when he chose. One
of the blinds came swinging to with a bang, and Ruth, reopening the
window, struggled with it again. "There is Mr. Hill coming along the
back street on Daniel," she said, pausing. "He is beckoning to me! What
can he want? You will find shoes in the closet, Miss Billy, and don't
wait for me; I am going down to speak to him." Away she flew, running
lightly at full speed through the upper hall and down the back stairs,
closely followed by Petie Trone, Esq.
Miss Billy closed the window and stood there for a moment looking out.
Presently she saw Ruth at the stone wall at the end of the garden. She
also recognized (with disapproving eyes) the unclerical hat of the Rev.
Malachi Hill, who had stopped his horse in the road outside. He was
talking to Ruth, who listened with her chin resting on her hands on the
top of the wall, while the wind roughened her hair wildly, and blew out
her skirts like a balloon. Miss Billy watched her for a while; then,
after making her own preparations for the evening, she seated herself
by the fire to wait. For no one could make Ruth come in one moment
before she chose to do so; it seemed better, therefore, not to call
attention to her absence by returning to the parlor alone, lest Mrs.
Franklin should be made uneasy by knowing that the girl was out,
bareheaded, in the cold wind. Having made her decision (Billy was always
troubled, even upon the smallest occasion, by four or five different
theories as to the best course to pursue), she looked about the room
with the same wonder and gentle dislike which she had often felt before.
The necessary articles of furniture were all set closely back against
the wall, in order that the central space of the large chamber should be
left entirely free. For Ruth did not like little things--small objects
of any kind which required dusting, and which could be easily upset.
Miss Billy, who adored little things, and who lived in a grove of them,
thought the place dreadfully bare. There were no souvenirs; no
photographs of friends in velvet frames; there were no small tables,
brackets, screens, hanging shelves, little chairs, little boxes, little
baskets, fans, and knick-knacks; there was not even a wall-calendar.
With Miss Billy, the removal of the old leaf from her poetical calendar,
and the reading of the new one each morning, was a solemn rite. And when
her glance reached the toilet-table, her non-comprehension reached its
usual climax. The table itself was plain and unadorned, but on its top
was spread out a profuse array of toilet articles, all of ivory or
crystal. That a girl so wholly careless about everything else should
insist upon having so many costly and dainty objects for her personal
use in the privacy of her own room seemed remarkable. "Give Ruth her
bath in scented water, and all these ivory and crystal things to use
when she dresses, and she is perfectly willing to go about in a faded,
torn old skirt, a hat entirely out of fashion, shabby gloves, and
worn-out shoes; in short, looking anyhow!" mused Billy, perplexed.
Down-stairs Mrs. Franklin was receiving another visitor. After Dolly's
departure, Rinda had made a second irruptive entrance, with the
announcement, "Gen'lem!" and Mr. Anthony Etheridge came in. Etheridge
was a strikingly handsome man, who appeared to be about fifty-eight. He
entered with light step and smiling face, and a flower in his coat.
"Ah, commodore, when did you return?" said Mrs. Franklin, giving him her
hand.
"Two hours ago," answered Etheridge, bowing over it gallantly. "You are
looking remarkably well, my dear madam. Hum-ha!" These last syllables
were not distinct; Etheridge often made this little sound, which was not
an ahem; it seemed intended to express merely a general enjoyment of
existence--a sort of overflow of health and vitality.
"Only two hours ago? You have been all day in that horrible stage, and
yet you have strength to pay visits?"
"Not visits; _a_ visit. You are alone?"
"Only for the moment; Dolly and Ruth are dressing. We are expecting some
one to dine with us--a new acquaintance, by-the-way, since you left; a
Mr. Chase."
"Yes, Horace Chase; I knew he was here. I should like to kick him out!"
"Why so fierce?" said Mrs. Franklin, going on with her lamplighters. For
the making of lamplighters from old newspapers was one of her pastimes.
"Of course I am fierce. We don't want fellows of that sort here; he will
upset the whole place! What brought him?"
"He has not been well, I believe" ("That's one comfort! They never are,"
interpolated Etheridge), "and he was advised to try mountain air. In
addition, he is said to be looking into the railroad project."
"Good heavens! Already? The one solace I got out of the war was the
check it gave to the advance of those horrible rails westward; I have
been in hopes that the locomotives would not get beyond Old Fort in my
time, at any rate. Why, Dora, this strip of mountain country is the most
splendid bit of natural forest, of nature undraped, which exists to-day
between the Atlantic Ocean and the Rockies!"
"Save your eloquence for Genevieve, commodore."
"Hum-ha! Mrs. Jared, eh?"
"Yes; she knew Mr. Chase when he was a little boy; she says she used to
call him Horrie. As soon as she heard that he was here, she revived the
acquaintance; and then she introduced him to us."
"Does she _like_ him?" asked Etheridge, with annoyance in his tone.
"I don't know whether she likes him or not; but she is hoping that he
will do something that will increase the value of property here."
"It is intelligent of Mrs. Jared to be thinking of that already," said
Etheridge, softening a little. "Perhaps if I owned land here, I should
take another view of the subject myself! You too, Dora--you might make
something?"
"No; we have no land save the garden, and the house is dreadfully
dilapidated. Personally, I may as well confess that I should be glad to
see the railroad arrive; I am mortally tired of that long jolting
stage-drive from Old Fort; it nearly kills me each time I take it. And I
am afraid I don't care for nature undraped so much as you do, commodore;
I think I like draperies."
"Of course you do! But when you--and by you I mean the nation at
large--when you perceive that your last acre of primitive forest is
forever gone, then you will repent. And you will begin to cultivate
wildness as they do abroad, poor creatures--plant forests and guard 'em
with stone walls and keepers, by Jove! Horace Chase appears here as the
pioneer of spoliation. He may not mean it; he does not come with an axe
on his shoulder exactly; he comes, in fact, with baking-powder; but
that's how it will end. Haven't you heard that it was baking-powder? At
least you have heard of the powder itself--the Bubble? I thought so.
Well, that's where he made his first money--the Bubble Baking-Powder;
and he made a lot of it, too! Now he is in no end of other things. One
of them is steamships; some of the Willoughbys of New York have gone in
with him, and together they have set up a new company, with steamers
running south--the Columbian Line."
"Yes, Genevieve explained it to us. But as he does not travel with his
steamers round his neck, there remains for us, inland people as we are,
only what he happens to be himself. And that is nothing interesting."
"Not interesting, eh?" said Etheridge, rather gratified.
"To my mind he is not. He is ordinary in appearance and manners; he says
'yes, ma'am,' and 'no, ma'am,' to me, as though I were a
great-grandmother! In short, I don't care for him, and it is solely on
Genevieve's account that I have invited him. For she keeps urging me to
do it; she is very anxious to have him like Asheville. He has already
dined with us twice, to meet her. But to-day he comes informally--a
chance invitation given only this morning (and again given solely to
please _her_), when I happened to meet him at the Cottage."
"How old is the wretch?"
"I don't know. Forty-four or forty-five."
"Quite impossible, then, that Mrs. Jared should have known him when he
was a boy; she was not born at that time," commented Etheridge. "What
she means, of course, is that she, as a child herself, called him
'Horrie.'"
Mrs. Franklin did not answer, and at this moment Dolly came in.
"Yes, I am well," she said, in reply to the visitor's greeting; "we are
all well, and lazy. The world at large will never be helped much by us,
I fear; we are too contented. Have you ever noticed, commodore, that the
women who sacrifice their lives so nobly to help humanity seldom
sacrifice one small thing, and that is a happy home? Either they do not
possess such an article, or else they have spoiled it by quarrelling
with every individual member of their families."
"Now, Dolly, no more of your sarcasms. Tell me rather about this new
acquaintance of yours, this bubbling capitalist whom you have invented
and set up in your midst during my unsuspecting absence," said
Etheridge.
"You need not think, commodore, that you can make me say one word about
him," answered Dolly, solemnly; "for I read in a book only the other day
that a tendency to talk about other persons, instead of one's self, was
a sure sign of advancing age. Young people, the book goes on to say, are
at heart interested in nothing on earth but themselves and their own
affairs; they have not the least curiosity about character or traits in
general. As I wish to be considered young, I have made a vow to talk of
nothing but myself hereafter. Anything you may wish to hear about _me_
I am ready to tell you." Dolly was now attired in a velvet dress of dark
russet hue, like the color of autumn oak leaves; this tint took the eye
away somewhat from the worn look of her plain thin face. The dress,
however, was eight years old, and the fashion in which it had been made
originally had never been altered.
"The being interested in nothing but themselves, and their own doings
and feelings, is not confined to young people," said Mrs. Franklin,
laughing. "I have known a goodly number of their elders who were quite
as bad. When these gentry hold forth, by the hour, about their
convictions and their theories, their beliefs and disbeliefs, their
likings and dislikings, their tastes and their principles, their souls,
their minds, and their bodies--if, in despair, you at last, by way of a
change, turn the conversation towards some one else, they become loftily
silent. And they go away and tell everybody, with regret of course, that
you are hopelessly given to gossip! Gossip, in fact, has become very
valuable to me; I keep it on hand, and pour it forth in floods, to drown
those egotists out."
"When you gossip, then, I shall know that _I_ bore you," said Etheridge,
rising, "I mustn't do so now; I leave you to your Bubble. Mrs. Jared, I
suppose, will be with you this evening? I ask because I had thought of
paying her a how-do-you-do visit, later."
"Pay it here, commodore," suggested Mrs. Franklin. "Perhaps you would
like to see her 'Horrie' yourself?"
"Greatly, greatly. I am always glad to meet any of these driving
speculators who come within my reach. For it makes me contented for a
month afterwards--contented with my own small means--to see how yellow
they are! Not a man jack of them who hasn't a skin like guinea gold."
Upon this point the commodore could enlarge safely, for no color could
be fresher and finer than his own.
After he had gone, Mrs. Franklin said: "Imagine what he has just told
me--that Genevieve could not possibly have known Horace Chase when he
was a boy, because she is far too young!" And then mother and daughter
joined in a merry laugh.
"It would be fun to tell him that she was forty on her last birthday,"
said Dolly.
"He would never believe you; he would think that you fibbed from
jealousy," answered Mrs. Franklin. "As you are dressed, I may as well go
and make ready myself," she added, rising. "I have been waiting for
Ruth; I cannot imagine what she is about."
This is what Ruth was about--she was rushing up the back stairs in the
dark, breathless. When she reached her room, she lit the candles
hastily. "You still here, Miss Billy? I supposed you had gone down long
ago." She stirred the fire into a blaze, and knelt to warm her cold
hands. "Such fun! I have made an engagement for us all, this evening.
You can never think what it is. Nothing less than a fancy-dress
procession at the rink for the benefit of the Mission. A man is carrying
costumes across the mountains for some tableaux for a soldiers' monument
at Knoxville; his wagon has broken down, and he is obliged to stay here
until it is mended. Mr. Hill has made use of this for the Mission. Isn't
it a splendid idea? He has been rushing about all the afternoon, and he
has found twenty persons who are willing to appear in fancy dress, and
he himself is to be an Indian chief, in war-paint and feathers."
"In war-paint and feathers? _Oh!_"
"Yes. It seems that he has a costume of his own. He had it when he was
an insurance agent, you know, before he entered the ministry; he was
always fond of such things, he says, and the costume is a very handsome
one; when he wore it, he called himself Big Moose."
"Big Moose! It must be stopped," said Miss Billy, in a horrified voice.
For Miss Billy had the strictest ideas regarding the dignity of the
clergy.
"On the contrary, I told him that it would be a great attraction, and
that it was his duty to do all he could," declared Ruth, breaking into
one of her intense laughs. Her laugh was not loud, but when it had once
begun it seemed sometimes as if it would never stop. At present, as soon
as she could speak, she announced, "We'll _all_ go."
"Do not include me," said Miss Billy, with dignity. "I think it
shocking, Ruth. I do indeed."
"Oh, you'll be there," said Ruth, springing up, and drawing Miss Billy
to her feet. "You'll put on roller-skates yourself, and go wheeling off
first this way, then that way, with Achilles Larue." And, as she said
this, she gleefully forced her visitor across the floor, now in a long
sweep to the right, now to the left, with as close an imitation of
skating as the circumstances permitted.
While they were thus engaged, Mrs. Franklin opened the door. "What are
you doing? Ruth--not dressed yet?"
"I'm all ready, His Grand," responded Ruth, running across the room and
pouring water into the basin in a great hurry. "I have only to wash my
hands" (here she dashed lavender into the water); "I'll be down
directly."
"And we shall all admire you in that torn dress," said her mother.
"Never mind, I'll pin it up. Nobody will see it at dinner, under the
table. And after dinner my cloak will cover it--for we are all going
out."
"Going out this windy evening? Never! Are you ready, Billy? And Ruth,
you must come as you are, for Mr. Chase is already here, and Rinda is
bringing in the soup."
"Never fear, His Grand. I'll come."
And come she did, two minutes later, just as she was, save that her
wind-roughened hair had been vaguely smoothed, and fastened down hastily
with large hair-pins placed at random. Owing to her hurry, she had a
brilliant color; and seeing, as she entered, the disapproving
expression in her mother's eyes, she was seized with the idea of making,
for her own amusement, a stately sweeping courtesy to Horace Chase; this
she accordingly did, carrying it off very well, with an air of majesty
just tempered at the edges with burlesque.
Chase, who had risen, watched this salutation with great interest. When
it was over, he felt it incumbent upon him, however, to go through, in
addition, the more commonplace greeting. "How do you do, Miss Ruth?" he
said, extending his hand. And he gave the tips of her fingers (all she
yielded to him) three careful distinct shakes.
Then they went to dinner.