THE note-book of Mr. Horatio Armorer, president of our street railways, contained a page of interest to some people in our town, on the occasion of his last visit.
He wrote it while the train creaked over the river, and the porter of his Pullman car was brushing all the dust that had been distributed on the passengers' clothing, into the main aisle.
If you had seen him writing it (with a stubby little pencil that he occasionally brightened with the tip of his tongue), you would not have dreamed him to be more profoundly disturbed than he had been in years.
Nor would the page itself have much enlightened you.
"_See abt road M-- D--
See L
See E & M tea-set See abt L_."
Translated into long-hand, this reads: "See about the street-car road, Marston (the superintendent) and Dane (the lawyer).
See Lossing, see Esther and Maggie, and remember about tea-set.
See about Lossing."
His memoranda written, he slipped the book in his pocket, reflecting cynically, "There's habit! I've no need of writing that.
It's not pleasant enough to forget!"
Thirty odd years ago, Horatio Armorer--they called him 'Raish, then--had left the town to seek his fortune in Chicago. It was his daydream to wrestle a hundred thousand dollars out of the world's tight fists, and return to live in pomp on Brady Street hill!
He should drive a buggy with two horses, and his wife should keep two girls. Long ago, the hundred thousand limit had been reached and passed, next the million; and still he did not return.
His father, the Presbyterian minister, left his parish, or, to be exact, was gently propelled out of his parish by the disaffected;the family had a new home; and the son, struggling to help them out of his scanty resources, went to the new parish and not to the old.
He grew rich, he established his brothers and sisters in prosperity, he erected costly monuments and a memorial church to his parents (they were beyond any other gifts from him); he married, and lavished his money on three daughters; but the home of his youth neither saw him nor his money until Margaret Ellis bought a house on Brady Street, far up town, where she could have all the grass that she wanted.
Mrs. Ellis was a widow and rich. Not a millionaire like her brother, but the possessor of a handsome property.
She was the best-natured woman in the world, and never guessed how hard her neighbors found it to forgive her for always calling their town of thirty thousand souls, "the country."She said that she had pined for years to live in the country, and have horses, and a Jersey cow and chickens, and "a neat pig."All of which modest cravings she gratified on her little estate;and the gardener was often seen with a scowl and the garden hose, keeping the pig neat.
It was later that Mr. Armorer had bought the street railways, they having had a troublous history and being for sale cheap.
Nobody that knows Armorer as a business man would back his sentiment by so much as an old shoe; yet it was sentiment, and not a good bargain, that had enticed the financier.
Once engaged, the instincts of a shrewd trader prompted him to turn it into a good bargain, anyhow. His fancy was pleased by a vision of a return to the home of his childhood and his struggling youth, as a greater personage than his hopes had ever dared promise.
But, in the event, there was little enough gratification for his vanity.
Not since his wife's death had he been so harassed and anxious;for he came not in order to view his new property, but because his sister had written him her suspicions that Harry Lossing wanted to marry his youngest daughter.
Armorer arrived in the early dawn. Early as it was, a handsome victoria, with horses sleeker of skin and harness heavier and brighter than one is used to meet outside the great cities, had been in waiting for twenty minutes; while for that space of time a pretty girl had paced up and down the platform.
The keenest observer among the crowd, airing its meek impatience on the platform, did not detect any sign of anxiety in her behavior.
She walked erect, with a step that left a clean-cut footprint in the dust, as girls are trained to walk nowadays.
Her tailor-made gown of fine blue serge had not a wrinkle.
It was so simple that only a fashionable woman could guess anywhere near the awful sum total which that plain skirt, that short jacket, and that severe waistcoat had once made on a ruled sheet of paper.
When she turned her face toward the low, red station-house and the people, it looked gentle, and the least in the world sad.
She had one of those clear olive skins that easily grow pale;it was pale to-day. Her black hair was fine as spun silk;the coil under her hat-brim shone as she moved. The fine hair, the soft, transparent skin, and the beautiful marking of her brows were responsible for an air of fragile daintiness in her person, just as her almond-shaped, liquid dark eyes and unsmiling mouth made her look sad. It was a most attractive face, in all its moods;sometimes it was a beautiful face; yet it did not have a single perfect feature except the mouth, which--at least so Harry Lossing told his mother--might have been stolen from the Venus of Milo.
Even the mouth, some critics called too small for her nose;but it is as easy to call her nose too large for her mouth.
The instant she turned her back on the bustle of the station, all the lines in her face seemed to waver and the eyes to brighten.
Finally, when the train rolled up to the platform and a young-looking elderly man swung himself nimbly off the steps, the color flared up in her cheeks, only to sink as suddenly;like a candle flame in a gust of wind.
Mr. Armorer put his two arms and his umbrella and travelling-bag about the charming shape in blue, at the same time exclaiming, "You're a good girl to come out so early, Essie! How's Aunt Meg?""Oh, very well. She would have come too, but she hasn't come back from training.""Training?"
"Yes, dear, she has a regular trainer, like John L. Sullivan, you know.
