Here the carriage stopped. “A modest little place we have taken for the summer, Mr. Vance. Small, but convenient and retired. Most worthy and quiet people, our neighbors. Walk in, sir.”
They entered the parlor. “Take a seat, Mr. Vance. If you’ve a taste for art, let me commend to your examination that fine engraving between the windows. Here’s a new book, if you are literary,—Miss Carrie Cameron’s famous novel. Amuse yourself.”
And having handed him “The Guerilla’s Bride,” Pompilard rushed up-stairs. Instantly a great tumult was heard in the room over Vance’s head. It was accompanied with poundings, jumpings, and exultant shouts. Three hundred and sixty dollars had been placed on the coverlid beneath which lay the wounded Purling. It was the first money his literary efforts had ever brought him. The spell was broken. Thenceforth the thousands would pour in upon him in an uninterrupted flood. Can it be wondered that there was much jubilation over the news?
Vance was of course introduced to all the inmates, and made a partaker in their good spirits. At last Mrs. Pompilard and Netty were dressed and ready. Vance handed them into the carriage. He and Pompilard took the back seat. As they drove off they encountered a crowd before an adjoining door. It was composed of some of those “most worthy and quiet neighbors” of whom Pompilard had recently spoken. They were gathering, amid a Babel of voices, round a cart where an ancient virago, Milesian by birth, was berating a butcher whom she charged with having sold her a stale leg of mutton the week before.
“One misses these bustling little scenes in the rural districts,” quoth Pompilard. “They serve to give color and movement, life and sparkle, to our modest neighborhood.”
“Mrs. Pompilard,” said Vance, “we are on our way to the Astor House, where I propose to introduce to you a young lady. I wish you and your daughter to scrutinize her closely, and to tell me if you see in her a likeness to any one you have ever known.”
CHAPTER XLV.
ANOTHER DESCENDANT OF THE CAVALIERS.
“Those flashes of marvellous light point to the existence of dormant faculties, which, unless God can be supposed to have over-furnished the soul for its appointed field of action, seem only to be awaiting more favorable circumstances, to awaken and disclose themselves.”—John James Tayler.
While the carriage is rolling on, and the occupants are getting better acquainted, let us hurry forward and clear the way by a few explanations.
Vance and his party had now been several days in New York, occupying contiguous suites of rooms at the Astor House. The ladies consisted of Clara, Madam Volney, and Mrs. Ripper (late Mrs. Gentry). Esha was, of course, of the party. She had found her long-lost daughter in Hattie, or Mrs. Davy, now a widow, whose testimony came in to fortify the proofs that seemed accumulating to place Clara’s identity beyond dispute. Hattie joyfully resumed her place as Clara’s femme de chambre, though the post was also claimed by the unyielding Esha.