“I really can hardly realize, grandfather, that I have been married one
year and that today is the anniversary of my wedding,” exclaimed Mrs.
Walter Burton to her grandfather, as lingering over a late breakfast,
they chatted in a desultory manner on many subjects.
The breakfast-room of the Dunlap mansion was one of the prettiest
apartments in the house; bright and airy, with great windows reaching
from ceiling to floor, which flooded the place with sunshine and
cheerfulness this brilliant snowy New England morning.
Surely it had been difficult to find anything prettier than the young
matron who presided over the sparkling service with the grace of the
school-girl still visible notwithstanding the recently assumed dignity of
wife.
Lucy Burton’s face and form possessed that rare quality of seeming
always displayed to best advantage in the last costume she wore. Nothing
could be more becoming than the lace-trimmed breakfast gown of a clinging
silky, pink fabric worn by her this morning.
The tete-a-tete between grandfather and granddaughter each morning over
the breakfast-table was an established and, to both, a cherished custom
that had grown up since Lucy’s marriage.
Mr. James Dunlap carried his seventy-three years as lightly as many men
of less rugged constitutions carry fifty. His was a fresh, healthy,
kindly old face, the white hair resting like the snow on some Alpine peak
served but to heighten the charm of those goodly features below.
“A year to young people means very little, I judge, daughter, but we old
folk regard it differently. You have been away from me during the last
year so much that old man as I am, the time has dragged,” the grandfather
replied laying aside his morning paper and adjusting his glasses that he
might see better the pretty face across the table.
“Now, that I look at you, my dear, apparently you have not aged to any
alarming extent since you have become a matron,” jocosely added the old
gentleman, his eyes beaming lovingly on his granddaughter.
“I may not show it, still I have my troubles.” Lucy’s attempt to wrinkle
her smooth brow and draw down the corners of her sweet mouth while she
tried to muster up a sigh was so ridiculous that her companion began to
laugh.
“Don’t laugh at me, grandfather; it’s unkind,” cried Lucy, with the
childish manner that still crept out when alone with him who had been
both father and mother to her.
“Very well, deary, I shall not laugh. Tell me of those dire troubles that
afflict you,” rejoined her still smiling grandfather.
“Well! now there is Walter, obliged to run away so early to that horrid
old office that I never see him at the breakfast-table,” began the young
creature with pretty pettishness.
“Sad! indeed sad!” said Mr. Dunlap in affected sorrow. “A gay young
couple attend some social function or the theatre nightly and are up
late; the unfortunate young husband is obliged to be at his office at ten
o’clock in the morning to save an old man of seventy odd from routine
labor; the young wife who is fond of a morning nap must breakfast alone,
save the companionship of an old fogy of a grandfather; ’tis the saddest
situation I ever heard of.”
The laughter in the old gentleman’s throat gurgled like good wine poured
for welcome guest as Lucy puckered up her lips at him.
“Then that hateful old ‘Eyrie.’ When we were married and you insisted
that we should live here with you, which, of course, I expected to do, I
thought Walter would sell or lease that lonely bachelor den of his, but
he has done no such thing; says he keeps up the establishment for the
sake of the conservatory, which is the finest in the State,” proceeded
the wife ruefully recounting her alleged woes.
“Walter speaks truly concerning the conservatory at the ‘Eyrie.’ Mr.
Foster Agnew, who is authority on the subject, says that he has never
seen a finer collection of rare and beautiful plants and flowers in any
private conservatory in this country,” replied Mr. Dunlap in defense of
Burton’s action in maintaining his former home.
“Yes, but there is no reason for Walter’s running up there at all hours
of the night, and sometimes even staying there all night, telling me
that he is anxious about the temperature; that Leopold may fall asleep
or neglect something. I hate that miserable conservatory,” rejoined Lucy
with flushed face and flashing eyes.
“Oh! Pshaw! you exacting little witch! You are fearfully neglected by
reason of the ‘Eyrie’s’ conservatory, are you? Now, let me see. You were
in Florida and California two months of the last year, and in Europe four
more, leaving just six months that you have spent in Boston since your
marriage. I suppose Walter has spent a half dozen nights at the ‘Eyrie.’
Great tribulation and trial,” rejoined the amused grandfather.
“Well, but Walter knows I don’t like his going there at night. Something
might happen to him,” persisted Lucy, woman-like seizing any argument to
gain her point.
[Illustration: “Lucy passed her soft, white arm around her grandfather’s
neck.”