"Ah, Miss Trixit," he said, as Cissy entered the little parlor, "and how is your dear father? Still startling the money market with his fearless speculations? This, brother Jones," turning to a visitor, "is the daughter of our Napoleon of finance, Montagu Trixit. Only last week, in that deal in 'the Comstock,' he cleared fifty thousand dollars! Yes, sir," repeating it with unction, "fifty--thousand--dollars!--in about two hours, and with a single stroke of the pen! I believe I am not overstating, Miss Trixit?"he added, appealing to Cissy with a portentous politeness that was as badly fitting as his previous "heartiness."Cissy colored slightly. "I don't know," she said simply. She was perfectly truthful. She knew nothing of her father's business, except the vague reputation of his success.
Her modesty, however, produced a singular hilarity in Mr. Windibrook, and a playful push. "YOU don't know? Ha, but I do. Yes, sir,"--to the visitor,--"I have reason to remember it. I called upon him the next day. I used, sir, the freedom of an old friend. 'Trixit,' Isaid, clapping my hand on his shoulder, 'the Lord has been good to you. I congratulate you.'
"'H'm!' he said, without looking up. 'What do you reckon those congratulations are worth?'
"Many a man, sir, who didn't know his style, would have been staggered. But I knew my man. I looked him straight in the eye.
'A new organ,' I said, 'and as good a one as Sacramento can turn out.'
"He took up a piece of paper, scrawled a few lines on it to his cashier, and said, 'Will that do?'" Mr. Windibrook's voice sank to a thrilling whisper. "It was an order for one thousand dollars!
Fact, sir. THAT is the father of this young lady.""Ye had better luck than Bishop Briggs had with old Johnson, the Excelsior Bank president," said the visitor, encouraged by Windibrook's "heartiness" into a humorous retrospect. "Briggs goes to him for a subscription for a new fence round the buryin'-ground--the old one havin' rotted away. 'Ye don't want no fence,' sez Johnson, short like. 'No fence round a buryin'-ground?' sez Briggs, starin'. 'No! Them as is IN the buryin'-ground can't get OUT, and them as ISN'T don't want to get IN, nohow! So you kin just travel--I ain't givin' money away on uselessnesses!' Ha! ha!"A chill silence followed, which checked even Piney's giggle. Mr. Windibrook evidently had no "heartiness" for non-subscribing humor.
"There are those who can jest with sacred subjects," he said ponderously, "but I have always found Mr. Trixit, though blunt, eminently practical. Your father is still away," he added, shifting the conversation to Cissy, "hovering wherever he can extract the honey to store up for the provision of age. An industrious worker.""He's still away," said Cissy, feeling herself on safe ground, though she was not aware of her father's entomological habits. "In San Francisco, I think."She was glad to get away from Mr. Windibrook's "heartiness" and console herself with Mrs. Windibrook's constitutional depression, which was partly the result of nervous dyspepsia and her husband's boisterous cordiality. "I suppose, dear, you are dreadfully anxious about your father when he is away from home?" she said to Cissy, with a sympathetic sigh.
Cissy, conscious of never having felt a moment's anxiety, and accustomed to his absences, replied naively, "Why?""Oh," responded Mrs. Windibrook, "on account of his great business responsibilities, you know; so much depends upon him."Again Cissy did not comprehend; she could not understand why this masterful man, her father, who was equal to her own and, it seemed, everybody's needs, had any responsibility, or was not as infallible and constant as the sunshine or the air she breathed. Without being his confidante, or even his associate, she had since her mother's death no other experience; youthfully alive to the importance of their wealth, it seemed to her, however, only a natural result of being HIS daughter. She smiled vaguely and a little impatiently. They might have talked to her about HERSELF;it was a little tiresome to always have to answer questions about her "popper." Nevertheless, she availed herself of Mrs.
Windibrook's invitation to go into the garden and see the new summerhouse that had been put up among the pines, and gradually diverted her hostess's conversation into gossip of the town. If it was somewhat lugubrious and hesitating, it was, however, a relief to Cissy, and bearing chiefly upon the vicissitudes of others, gave her the comforting glow of comparison.
Touching the complexion of the Secamp girls, Mrs. Windibrook attributed it to their great privations in the alkali desert. "One day," continued Mrs. Windibrook, "when their father was ill with fever and ague, they drove the cattle twenty miles to water through that dreadful poisonous dust, and when they got there their lips were cracked and bleeding and their eyelids like burning knives, and Mamie Secamp's hair, which used to be a beautiful brown like your own, my dear, was bleached into a rusty yellow.""And they WILL wear colors that don't suit them," said Cissy impatiently.
