Part 19 (2/2)
”Oh dear,” says Jeannette, ”more work. Who can this be from? Why, Athalia, what is the matter, you look amazed?”
”I am amazed. Is there no mistake in the direction?”
”No, it is Miss Athalia Lovetree. No.--Broome street, up-stairs.”
”Oh! I cannot take it, indeed I cannot. Accept such a present from him?
No, no, no.”
He had thought of that. Jeannette by this time had the bandbox open. Did woman ever resist that temptation?
”Ah here is a note. This will explain the mystery.”
”TO MISS LOVETREE:--
”As it is decided that you will go with us to Lake George, please accept a few things that you will need, which I have commissioned my son to buy.
”From your friend,
”MRS. MORGAN.”
”Oh that is a different thing, if they come from her. And then for him to pretend all the time that they were for his sister. It is too bad.
Oh, but it is a love of a hat though! is it not, Jeannette?”
Yes, it was; that was settled. First one tried it on, and then the other. Jeannette said it was a _bride's_ hat. Athalia said she ought to be ashamed of herself to say so. Then all the other little bijouterie were overhauled, and looked at, and talked over, and praised, and then the note was read again, and the postscript; there was a postscript, there always is a postscript to a woman's letter. It was the postscript that gave it the air of genuineness. It read:
”P. S.--Don't say a word to me, or hint where the hat came from, for I don't want Mr. Morgan or the girls ever to know; n.o.body knows but Walter.”
No, n.o.body knows but Walter. There was no fiction in that.
In the morning there was another rap--louder this time. It did not disturb any sleep though; there had been none in that room that night.
It was John, come for the trunk and bandbox--two things that a modern lady never travels without. There was a wagon load of them left the Morgan and Grundy mansions that morning, and they and their owners all arrived, in due course of cars and locomotives, at Lake George.
Mr. Morgan and George Wendall fished, the girls flirted, Athalia sewed and sighed, and walked out evenings, slyly, with Walter Morgan.
More false steps. Sly walks in town are bad--in the country, dangerous.
There are a great many precipices, down which such a couple may tumble.
George was a glorious fis.h.i.+ng companion for the s.h.i.+pping merchant. He could row and drive, and get up all the fixings; and, after dinner, talk, and laugh, and drink, till both went to bed ”glorious.”
”Mr. Morgan, you drink one bottle too many.”
”Pshaw. What if I do? that is my business.”
It is sometimes the wife's business.
George was a boon companion, that was all. He had nothing, did nothing, lived somehow, dressed well--ill-natured folks said he did not pay his tailor.
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