A voyage of discovery

by Hamilton Aïdé

Mrs. Frampton's unspoken reply was, "I almost wish you would. Not seriously, of course, but just to distract your thoughts."

Pierce Caldwell returned at dusk, and found the ladies at tea. His frank charm of manner, even more than his good looks, won Mrs. Frampton at once; and knowing how energetic he was in the work he was carrying on, she began questioning him about it. Her capacity for taking a vivid interest in the details of other people's affairs always distinguished her. It is not a common gift, that power of throwing one's self heartily into matters that do not personally concern one.

"Your mother tells me you have had a hard fight with your mine, Mr. Caldwell; but you have triumphed over all your difficulties?"

"Oh! mother exaggerates the difficulties. It only wanted a little patience. The mine when father died, you see, was a mere prospect. I had to develop it. It turned out much better than even father ever expected, but I had to go on with the exploration for two years before I thought it prudent to erect a mill."

"Well? And now," she continued, with eagerness, "it is proving a great success? Everything has prospered with you?"

"Yes," he said, quietly. "Everything, up to the present, has prospered, I am glad to say. I am now going to turn it into a company. We have to erect other works, and it is too great an undertaking for one man, alone. Of course I shall retain a very large interest in, and the chief management of, the company, but I can't work it all by myself."

"Humph!" said Mrs. Frampton, reflectively. "I suppose you want to get away occasionally, and amuse yourself in New York, like other young men of your age?"

"Well, no; I do go away, now and again, when business takes me to New York or Washington, but I don't stay much longer than I can help. I always feel as if things couldn't get on without me at the mine, and I love this place. I believe I am never so happy anywhere as here."

The skaters, with Mordaunt and Doreen, now entered. Alan Brown did not look happy. Doreen had driven the Englishman in her sleigh to and from the skating-grounds; and Alan's proclivities for all that was English did not extend to a baronet, six feet high, who was notorious as a flirt, and who seemed inclined to try his hand, just to keep it in, upon the object of the young American's affections. In this he was quite mistaken; Mordaunt had the same manner with every woman under—and some over—fifty, which accounted for his being so popular. The unsophisticated Doreen thought him charming, and he was quite willing to be thought so. It gave him but little trouble to be nice to this bread-and-butter miss, whom he found really not so dull as he had anticipated. Alan only saw the effect, however—the young girl's increased animation and volubility, and he was proportionately depressed.

The other man, Bloxsome by name, was a Californian. He was not attractive, either in appearance or manner, to our friends, and, as he only stayed one day at the "Falcon's Nest," it would be unnecessary, but for subsequent events, to name him here. How did he come to be a friend of the family? His manner and the tone of his mind contrasted so strongly with Pierce Caldwell's that it was difficult to account for their apparent intimacy. He was coarse and loud, with a grating voice and accent, and his "spread-eagleism" was especially offensive to Mordaunt. To the ladies this was simply amusing. They did not in the least object to his thinking everything in his own country, beginning with himself, nobler, greater, and better than the rest of the universe. It was a failing with which they were not wholly unacquainted in England. But foibles, which may be pardoned when allied with good manners, are more trying when accentuated with ill-breeding.