The Fortunes of Oliver Horn

by Francis Hopkinson Smith

Then her glance rested on Oliver. He was hanging over the piano whispering in Miss Clendenning's ear, his face breaking into smiles at her playful chidings. If the pathos of the melody had reached him he showed no sign of its effects.

Instantly there welled up in her heart a sudden gush of tenderness—one of those quick outbursts that often overwhelm a mother when her eyes rest on a son whose heart is her own—an outburst all the more intensified by the melody that thrilled her. Why should her heart have been troubled? Here was her strong hope! Here was her chief reliance! Here the hope of the future. How could she doubt or suffer when this promise of the coming day was before her in all the beauty and strength of his young manhood.

With the echoes of Nathan's flute still vibrating in her, and with her mind filled with the delight of these fresh hopes, she suddenly recalled the anxious look on her boy's face as he led Miss Clendenning into the library—a new look—one she had never seen before. Still under the quickening spell of the music she began to exaggerate its cause. What had troubled him? Why had he told Lavinia, and not her? Was there anything serious?—something he had kept from her to save her pain?

From this moment her mind became absorbed in her boy. With restless, impatient fingers she began thrumming on the arm of her chair. Oliver would tell her, she knew, before many hours, but she could not wait—she wanted to know at once.

With the ending of the first part of the overture, and before the two gentlemen had laid down their instruments to grasp Unger's hands, she called to Miss Clendenning, who sat at the piano alone, Oliver having slipped away unobserved.

Miss Clendenning raised her eyes in answer. "Come over and sit by me, dear, while the gentlemen rest."

Miss Clendenning picked up her white silk mits and fan lying beside the candles, and moved toward the fireplace. Malachi saw her coming—he was always in the room during the interludes—and with an alacrity common to him when the distinguished little lady was present, drew up a low chair beside his mistress and stood behind it until she took her seat. Miss Clendenning smoothed out her skirt and settled herself with the movement of a pigeon filling her nest. Then she laid her mits in her lap and fanned herself softly.

"Well, Sallie, what is it? Did you ever hear Nathan play so well!" she asked, at last.

"What did Oliver want, my dear?" replied Mrs. Horn, ignoring her question. "Is there anything worrying him, or is Sue at the bottom of it!"

The little woman smiled quizzically. "No, Sallie—not Sue—not this time. That little rattle-brain's affections will only last the week out. Nothing very important—that is, nothing urgent. We were talking about the Tilghman portraits and the Lely that Cousin John has brought into town from Claymore Manor, and what people should and should not do to earn their living, and what professions were respectable. I thought one thing and Ollie thought another. Now, what profession of all others would you choose for a young man starting out in life?"