Part 1 (2/2)
”Ah, Miss Annie!” exclaimed Mr. Arlington, with considerable satisfaction apparent in his voice and manner, ”you must try again, and I think I must trouble you, ladies, for another handkerchief. This seems to me to have been scarcely thick enough.”
”I appeal to the company,” cried Annie, ”whether this is in accordance with Mr. Arlington's engagement. Was he not to accept any thing I should draw from his portfolio as the foundation of his sketch?”
”Ay, ay,” was responded from every part of the room.
”But pray, my good friends,” persisted Mr. Arlington, ”observe the impossibility of compliance with your demand. How can I possibly hope to entertain you by any thing based upon that memento of an idle hour in court, which I should long ago have destroyed, had I not fancied that I could detect in those sketchy outlines--those mere profiles--very accurate likenesses of the heads for which they were taken?”
”Those heads look as though they might have histories attached to them,”
said Annie, as she bent to examine them more narrowly.
”Histories indeed they have,” said Mr. Arlington.
”Give them to us,” suggested Col. Donaldson.
”You have them already. These are all men whose histories are as well known to the public as to their own families. There is the elder K----, at once so simple in heart and so acute in mind. Cannot you read both in his face? There is his son; and there is D. B. O----, and O. H----, and G----, and J----. What can I tell you of any of them that you do not know already?”
”Who are these?” asked Annie, pointing to two heads, placed somewhat aloof from the rest, and near each other. ”That older face is so benevolent in its expression, and the younger has so n.o.ble a physiognomy, and looks with such reverence on his companion, that I am persuaded they have a history beyond that which belongs to the world. Is it not so?”
”It is. Those are Mr. Cavendish and Herbert Latimer. They have a history, and I will give it you if you desire it, though, thus impromptu, I must do it very imperfectly I fear.”
”No apologies,” said Col. Donaldson. ”Begin, and do your best; no one can do more.”
”Than _my_ best,” said Mr. Arlington, with a smile, ”thank you. My narrative will have at least one recommendation--truth--as I have received its incidents from Latimer himself.”
Without further preliminary, Mr. Arlington commenced the relation of the following circ.u.mstances, which he has since written out, by Annie's request, at somewhat greater length for insertion here, giving it the t.i.tle of
THE MAIN CHANCE.
Herbert Latimer was only twenty when, having pa.s.sed the usual examination, he was admitted, by a special act of the legislative a.s.sembly of his native State, to practise at the bar. Young as he was, he had already experienced some of the severest vicissitudes of life.
His father had been a bold, and for many years a successful merchant, and the young Herbert, his only child, had been born and nurtured in the lap of wealth and luxury. He was only sixteen--a boy--but a boy full of the n.o.ble aspirations and lofty hopes that make manhood honorable, when his father died. Mr. Latimer's last illness had been probably rendered fatal by the intense anxiety of mind he endured while awaiting intelligence of the result of a mercantile operation, on which, contrary to the cautious habits of his earlier years, he had risked well nigh all he possessed. He did not live to learn that it had completely failed, and that his wife and child were left with what would have seemed to him the merest pittance for their support.
The character and talents of young Latimer were well known to his father's friends, and more than one among them offered him a clerks.h.i.+p on what could not but be considered as very advantageous terms. To these offers Herbert listened with painful indecision. For himself, he would have suffered cheerfully any privation, rather than relinquish the career which his inclinations had prompted, and with which were connected all his glowing visions of the future--but his mother--had he a right to refuse what would enable her to preserve all her accustomed elegances and indulgences?
”You must be aware, Master Latimer,” said he who had made him the most liberal offers, and who saw him hesitating on their acceptance, ”you must be aware that only my friends.h.i.+p for your father could induce me to offer such terms to so young a man, howsoever capable. Three hundred dollars this year, five hundred the next, if you give satisfaction in the performance of your duties, a thousand dollars after that till you are of age, and then a share in the business equal to one-fourth of its profits--these are terms, sir, which I would offer to no one else. Your father was a friend to me, sir, and I would be a friend to his son.”
”I feel your kindness and liberality, sir.”
”And yet you hesitate?”
”Will you permit me, sir, to ask till to-morrow for consideration? I must consult my mother.”
”That is right, young man; that is right. She knows something of life, and will, I doubt not, advise you to close with so unexceptionable an offer.”
”Whatever she may advise, sir, be a.s.sured I will do.”
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