The next moment Haxon had forgotten his cold fit of disinclination in sudden overwhelming curiosity. From one of the intersecting streets there rolled into the square one of those vehicles of the region denominated "hacks," strong, light, furnished with a canopy and with curtains for falling weather, and with a brake, regulated by the driver's foot, which the steep slants of the mountain roads rendered imperatively necessary. It was drawn by two strong, well-fed, speedy horses, caparisoned with good stout harness, and gay with red tassels dangling at their heads. It had three seats, and a boot for trunks, and it could hold comfortably nine persons. There were only five passengers, however, and the driver headed straight for the hotel.
The two showmen watched without a word the commotion of the arrival; the porter ran forth with a grin of delighted recognition; the clerk at the desk threw down his pen and issued precipitately on the verandah; nay, the Boniface, himself, outstripped the underling's speed and opened the door of the hack, smiling benignly with the dignity of a portly, affable man, and with so obvious a pleasure that it might seem that he ran an hotel for the fun of the thing.
"Here we are again, Mr. Benson," a lady of perhaps forty-five years of age said agreeably, while Mr. Benson's bald head shone in the sun, and his slippered feet shuffled to and fro as he sought to offer her the most efficient assistance in alighting from the high-swung vehicle.
"Mighty glad to see you all again—fine weather for an outing," he asseverated, still all bland, blond smiles.
The lady was of a slender type, ostentatiously simple, with a black taffeta skirt and a "white handkerchief linen" blouse, speckless, perfect, absolutely plain, with large plaits or tucks, and a broad black belt with a big steel buckle in the back. Her large black hat partly shaded a fair, faded oval face with a crown of blond hair, the sheen of which was fairly quenched by time; she wore a mere thread of a filigree gold necklace about her high collar and on the wrist of one of her delicate, transparent, thin hands, which was without her black silk glove, a narrow gold bracelet with a bangle dangled.
Two young men had leaped out of the vehicle on the other side, while still seated, looking about them for gloves, bags, and small sundries, were two young ladies whose appearance made no pretensions whatever to simplicity. Both were arrayed in the height of the mode, in white embroidered linen suits, one made with a natty short jacket, the other with a stylish long coat; their white lingerie hats were tilted forward, and the embroidered frills gave scant view of aught but fair and delicately flushed cheeks, while at the back of their heads their redundant tresses of brown and gold showed in soft heavy puffs.
"We are simply perishing at New Helvetia," the eldest lady confided to Mr. Benson, "for the lack of something to do or say, or see, and we heard that down here in the 'flat woods' you have evolved a Circus, or Street Fair, or Carnival or something, and it has saved our lives, Mr. Benson. Don't tell us that you are overcrowded and can't take us in, for we don't want to stay over night. You can feed the hungry, surely, Mr. Benson."
"Indeed, madam, we can always do that."
"To perfection," the lady protested, and Mr. Benson bowed and blushed with pleasure, flattered as well he might be.
They were all speedily housed; the flutter of skirts, the swift tread of soft, pliant, well-made boots, and they had disappeared. As the team of the hack trotted off to the stables Haxon beckoned to the negro porter.