University of Virginia Library

I

"THE place seems pleasant enough, Anita," said Ralph Stoddard to his wife. "And of course we are visiting it tentatively. If we don't like it we can leave."

"We've surely got beyond a consideration of these matters now," replied Mrs. Stoddard. "Everything is done. The horses and trap have gone. Jane and Beulah and Watkins are ready — the last trunk is packed. There has been nothing tentative about my preparations."

"No, I dare say not," ventured Mr. Stoddard. He leaned back in his Morris chair in an attitude of irritating indifference.

"And now I've a few notes to answer," continued his wife. "The morning mail brought some letters that must he attended to. That is the last thing to be done."

"I haven't a doubt," sighed Mr. Stoddard, "that all is perfectly arranged, Anita." A faint accent of acerbity was discernible, and Mrs. Stoddard paused for a moment in the doorway, as if reflecting upon the unaccountable irritability of the masculine sex, and fixed a superior and patient smile upon her husband. He regarded it carefully in what seemed to be the spirit of investigation, and he reflected that he was certainly looking at a fine specimen of womanhood. Tall, stately, dignified, with calm gray eyes and a beautiful brow, she conveyed to the mind a wholesome suggestion of integrity and distinction. "Here," the observer might say, "is one who understands the etiquette of her time. Here is one who neglects nothing — neither the fashions nor the creeds: she reflects upon her time — she is abreast of it. She is Rectitude personified, and she certainly has an irreproachable dress-maker." Her husband regarded her with an expression almost as detached as might this hypothetical observer, but he

found her, as the observer would have done, above criticism. She had always seemed that way to him, and the time had been when he shrined her in a white and mystic place and cast before that altar the flowers of his ardor. Now — but here thought blurred into reverie, and Stoddard smiled back at his wife inanely, and lit a cigar.

Mrs. Stoddard acknowledged the smile graciously, and swept up the stairs, her garments making a rather important rustling about her. Stoddard, released from her benevolent gaze, let his eyes fall languidly, and began the aimless occupation of tapping the desk with his paper-knife. To him, a moment later, came Watkins, the coachman, attired for his journey.

"Have you any further orders, sir?" asked the young man. Stoddard looked at him quizzically. Watkins knew as well as he did that the mistress neglected nothing, and if there had been an imaginable order left to give, she would have forestalled all others in the giving of it. It caused him some amusement — a sort of pained amusement — to observe that Watkins also was perfect; the irreproachable man of an irreproachable mistress.

Stoddard rolled up a wad of paper as he had used to do when he was a boy at school, and he almost debated throwing it at Watkins — almost, but not quite. It requires a monstrous deal of bravado to take liberties with a man like the Tsar of Russia — or Watkins.

"There are no orders, Watkins," he said slowly, "but there is — an inquiry."

"Yessir," said Watkins, quickly on his guard. The man must look closely who would find him delinquent. These were Watkins's reflections, and in the vocabulary of his thoughts. There was nothing meagre about Watkins, educationally speaking. He subscribed to a circulating library and had his own ideas upon several subjects; the historical novel among others.

"Did you ever," asked Stoddard, very much devoted to the paper-knife, "chance to drive a comfortable old mule, blind in one eye, in front of an easy buggy with a broken dash-board and a top sagged at one side?" He looked up as if for information.

"I did not, sir," replied Watkins, with an accent of respectful resentment. He did not care to be made light of. "A man's a man for a' that." Watkins could have completed the quotation. Indeed he did so, mentally.

"Well, I thought you never did," said Stoddard, pensively. "And I suppose you wouldn't care to, eh?"

"It would lose me my reputation, sir," said Watkins with firmness. He was a willing man, but he said to himself that he had his dignity to preserve.

"Well, no doubt we all have reputations of one sort and another. I know I have, but I don't care to preserve it particularly. As to your experience, I didn't know, of course. I myself never rode in such a vehicle as I just described, but I've half a notion that I'd enjoy it. It seems to me to offer possibilities. But I infer that you do not agree with me?"

"Nossir," gasped Watkins, and he touched his forehead quite solemnly and withdrew.

"My household is not a humorous one," reflected Stoddard. "Ah, there come Beulah and Elizabeth. I suppose if I were to be facetious with them, Beulah would give warning and Elizabeth would tell her mother."

Beulah came of a dusky and cheerful race, but she more than made up for these facts by the whiteness of her linen and the solemnity of her deportment. And she looked with restrained pride upon her young charge, Elizabeth Stoddard, aged eight, who, in a speckless French frock of pale-blue linen, delicately embroidered, entered, holding Stevenson's "A Child's Garden of Verses" for reading upon the train.

Elizabeth said: "Good morning, papa," very sweetly, and took a seat upon the enshrouded sofa, spreading out her little frock carefully. Beulah stood at the door, uncomfortable but erect.

"Sit down, Beulah," said Stoddard. "You've a long journey before you."

"Yes, sah. Thank you, sah," said Beulah — but she stood. Mrs. Stoddard had trained her for seven years.

Stoddard looked her over disgustedly.

"Did you hear me invite you to sit down, Beulah?" he asked.

"Yes, sah," said Beulah, blinking hard.

"May I ask why you do not accept my invitation?"

"Ah'm not allowed to sit down in this room, sah — an' befoah you, sah."

"Excuse me, you are allowed. You are a human creature, I suppose, Beulah. You get tired sometimes, don't you, though your linen is so stiff? This room — there's nothing sacred about it, I assure you. I'm quite honest in saying that I'm no ogre. You can be proper at the proper time, but you're not intimidated so you can't use sense, are you, girl? I say you have a long journey before you and I ask you to sit down."

"Yes, sah," murmured Beulah, her eyes suffused with tears of embarrassment. She took a chair, gingerly. Elizabeth averted her face, striving to remain oblivious to the weakness of her ill-trained elders. Her father stared at her for a minute, noting her scrupulous manners. Her wide hat with its huge bunch of pale-blue ribbon half hid the delicate face — a high-bred face with a sensitive mouth and a well-cared-for complexion. The small hands in their white silk gloves lay clasped upon her lap. The "Child's Garden" was beside her. The little legs hung down from the settee in beautifully worked hose and shining ties.

"My soul!" said Stoddard, with unmistakable irascibility, and he went out and paced the corridor.

Beulah, hearing a firm step on the stairs, glanced about uneasily, and then sidled out of her chair and stood grimly erect. Mrs. Stoddard came into the room followed by Jane, the cook, bearing hand luggage.

Little Elizabeth arose at once.

"Mamma dear," she said, with ineffable sweetness, "will you have this seat?"

Stoddard placed himself in the doorway.

"Elizabeth," he said, sharply, "don't you know we are going to the station? Do you think it is good manners to talk like a parrot? Do you think anyone but a parrot could be excused for repeating a sentence taught it, when there was no occasion for it? Why do you ask your mother to sit down when you know she's going to leave the house? You don't speak by rote, do you?"

"Excuse me, papa," said Elizabeth. Her lips trembled, but she was careful to speak without vexation.

Then all went out together, and Amanda Schaur, the second girl, stood ready to lock the door after them. She was to stay in the city house and watch it during vacation. Mrs. Stoddard gave her a few parting admonitions.

"I hope you will keep well, Amanda," she said. "And that you will be very careful about setting the burglar alarm at night."

Stoddard lifted his hat to her.

"Have a good time, Amanda," he cried. "Ask in a few friends now and then, and be sure to cook good square meals for yourself. This eating alone is dreary business, at best. Suppose you ask that little cousin of yours down to spend a few weeks with you. She'll have better air here than she can get at home, and you can feed her up and get her a few toys. Charge 'em to me."

He helped his wife on the street-car, placed Elizabeth beside her, and went back to the smokers' seats.

The Stoddard party seemed singularly depressed for persons bent on pleasuring, and they achieved the journey to the station without a word. But Mrs. Stoddard smiled throughout like one who understands forbearance.