Mr. Read came home to tea, on a sultry July evening, with some crotchet in his brain. That could be seen with half an eye; and Josephine was affable to a distressing degree, to coax the stranger into an earlier incubation, than would occur without artificial warmth. The effects of her Eccolodeon were presently apparent.
"When does your session close, Josey?" he inquired.
"On Friday, sir."
"Then you will be on your head to quit town, like everybody else."
"I have no solicitude on the subject, sir. I am as indifferent to it, as to many other things people rave about."
"You are your father's child, cool and hard!" observed her parent, with a gratified look.
"But for a novelty, what say you to a trip to Saratoga?"
"I should like it, sir—if you accompany me."
"I have business which takes me in that direction, and I thought, as you are to 'come out' next winter, it would sound well to have made your début at such a fashionable place."
Josephine smiled; she could appreciate this argument. The journey was discussed—the expenses, dress, appearance, etc. Ida sat by, taciturn and unconsulted. She had a motive in remaining. Finally, she contrived to throw in a word.
"I wish to inform you of my arrangements for the summer, sir, if you have time to listen."
"Yours! they are the same as ours, of course. Do you imagine that I would permit my daughter to travel without a female companion, or give her an advantage, you are not to share!"
The latter clause was so clearly an afterthought, and dove-tailed so oddly with its antecedent, that Ida's smile was almost a sneer.
"I am sorry, sir, that you are disappointed in your calculations; but as Josephine has a maid, I do not deem my attendance indispensable. If I leave town, I shall go in another direction, unless you positively forbid it."
"And what place is to be honored by your preference? May I presume to ask?"
"I shall go home with Miss Carleton."
"Ahem! I comprehend. I should have anticipated this from your overpowering intimacy. You have played your cards badly, Josephine. Why have you not ingratiated yourself with some 'divine creature,' who has a rich papa? It is a capital means of extending one's acquaintance, and sparing one's purse. How long do you intend to sponge—to remain, I mean, with your friend, Miss Ross?"
"I may not return before Christmas. I hear that the holidays are celebrated with much style and festivity, in the country," she replied.
Mr. Read suppressed something very like an oath, at her calm assurance.
"When do you go?"
"Next Monday. Dr. Carleton is expected daily. Did I understand you to say, that you did not object?"
"Confound it! what do I care where, or when you go?"
"Oh Carry!" apostrophized Ida, shutting herself in her room. "Even you could not be charitable and forbearing here. It is hard! hard!"
"That is unquestionably the most wrong-headed girl I know," said Mr. Read, to his daughter.
"I am heartily glad she is not going with us," was the answer. "She would be of no use to me, and an additional care to you."
"Maybe so, maybe not. Her travelling expenses would not have come out of my pocket; and there are advantages, sometimes, in having two ladies, a larger and better room, and such like; you pay the same price, and have twice the value of your money. You understand?"
"I don't care. I had rather sleep upon a pallet in a loft, by myself, than in the handsomest room in the house, with her for a room-mate. It frets me, though to see her airs! I wish the law allowed you absolute control."
"It won't do with her. If she suspected a design on my part to abridge her liberties, or defraud her of her dues, she would as lief enter a complaint against me as not. She has the temper of the Evil One; and watch as you may, will get the bit between her teeth."
The carriage was at the door by six o'clock on Monday morning. Ida was ready; but her trunk was strapped on, and her maid seated upon the box with the driver, before she appeared. The truth was, she dreaded to meet Dr. Carleton. She did not recollect her own father, and had no agreeable associations connected with any who bore that relation to her young acquaintances. She was inclined to look upon the class, as a set of necessary discords in life; Mr. Read being the key-note. Carry often spoke of her surviving parent with earnest affection; but Ida attributed this to a charity, that beheld no faults in those she loved. The thought of her ride and visit would have been unalloyed, but for this idiosyncrasy. "If he were like Mr. Dana!" she said, going slowly down stairs. He was in the porch, with Mr. Read and Carry. "My friend Ida, father," said Carry. He was not like Mr. Dana—better than that! He was the image of Carry—her eyes, mouth and smile—his locks, although silvered by years, must in youth have waved in the same golden curls. He was handsome yet, how could he be otherwise! and had she failed to love him at sight, the unaffected geniality of his salutation would have captivated her. She had not a care in the world, as she reclined in the carriage, beside Carry, the revolving wheels bearing her towards the country. Mr. Read and his feminine prototype were sign-posts, marking rough and miry roads she had travelled; they were troubles no more; she was leaving them behind.
There had been a thunder-storm in the night, and in that brief fit of passion, nature had wept away every unkind or unpleasant emotion. The sky wore that rich, soft, transparent hue, which imparts its own pureness to the soul of him, who looks upon it; smilingly luring it to soar away, and "steep itself in the blue of its remembered home;" the forest-leaves glittered with rain-diamonds, and the bird-matin was warbled by a full orchestra. And on, through the slants of sunlight, and the alternations of deep, green shade; with the old, familiar chirpings in her ear, and the touch of the loved one's hand upon hers, rode the orphan; very quiet, through excess of happiness; afraid to speak or move, lest this should prove a never-to-be realized dream, whose awaking should bring bitter, hopeless yearnings!
Little by little, Carry broke up her musings; and her father seconded her. He was prepared to like his daughter's friend, and there was that in his eye and voice, which made Ida forget, as she had done with Carry—that she was talking with a stranger.
"That is a fine specimen of your favorite tree, Ida," observed Carry, pointing to a majestic pine, grand and solitary, at the entrance of a grove of oaks.
"And superb it is, in its loneliness!" said Ida.
"Farmers would cavil at your taste," remarked Dr. Carleton. "'Pine barrens' are proverbial. A thick growth of them is an unmistakeable sign of poverty of soil. Nothing else can extract sustenance from the worn out ground."
"That is why I like them, sir. There is sublimity in their hardy independence, taking root, as you say, where pampered, or less robust vegetation would perish, and with never-furling banners, stretching up boldly towards the stars."
"They are emblems to you—of what?" asked the Doctor.
"Of the few really great ones, who have demonstrated that human nature is not of necessity, vile or imbecile, or yet a debtor to accident, for its spice of good."
"The gifted—or the fortunate?"
"The