The one irreconcilable member of the family was the elder daughter, Lucia. She was the oldest child, so she had her own way; she was pretty, so she had always been petted; she was twenty, so she knew everything that she thought worth knowing. She had long before reconstructed the world (in her own mind) just as it should be, from the stand-point that it ought to exist solely for her benefit. Not bad-tempered, on the contrary, cheerful and full of high spirits, she was nevertheless in perpetual protest against everything that was not exactly as she would have it, and not all the manners that careful breeding could impart could restrain the unconscious insolence peculiar to young and self-satisfied natures. She would laugh loudly at table at Mrs. Hayn’s way of serving an omelet, tell Mrs. Hayn’s husband that his Sunday coat looked “so funny,” express her mind freely, before the whole household, at the horrid way in which the half-grown Hayn boys wore their hair, and had no hesitation in telling Philip Hayn, two years her senior, that when he came in from the field in his brown flannel shirt and gray felt hat he looked like an utter guy. But the Hayns were human, and, between pity and admiration, humanity long ago resolved to endure anything from a girl—if she is pretty.
Slowly the Hayns came to like their boarders; more slowly, but just as surely, the Tramlays learned to like their hosts. Mutual respect began at the extremes of both families. Mrs. Tramlay, being a mother and a housekeeper, became so interested in the feminine half of the family’s head that she ceased to criticise her husband’s interest in the old farmer. The Tramlay children wondered at, and then admired, the wisdom and skill of their country companions in matters not understood by city children. Last of all, Lucia found herself heartily respecting the farmer’s son, and forgetting his uncouth dress and his awkwardness of manner in her wonder at his general courtesy, and his superior knowledge in some directions where she supposed she had gone as far as possible. She had gone through a finishing-school of the most approved New York type, yet Philip knew more of languages and history and science than she, when they chanced—never through her fault—to converse on such dry subjects; he knew more flowers than she had ever seen in a florist’s shop in the city; and once when she had attempted to decorate the rather bare walls of the farm-house parlor he corrected her taste with a skill which she was obliged to admit. There was nothing strange about it, except to Lucia; for city seminaries and country high schools use the same text-books, and magazines and newspapers that give attention to home decorations go everywhere; nevertheless, it seemed to Lucia that she had discovered a new order of being, and by the time she had been at Hayn Farm a month she found herself occasionally surprised into treating Philip almost as if he were a gentleman.
Philip’s interest in Lucia was of much quicker development. He had had no prejudices to overcome; besides, the eye is more easily approached and satisfied than the intellect, and Lucia had acceptably filled many an eye more exacting than the young farmer’s. There were pretty girls in homes near Hayn Farm, and more in the village near by, but none of them were——well, none were exactly like Lucia. Philip studied her face; it was neither Roman nor Grecian, and he was obliged to confess that the proportions of her features were not so good as those of some girls in the neighborhood. Her figure suggested neither perfect grace nor perfect strength; and yet whatever she did was gracefully done, and her attire, whether plain or costly, seemed part of herself,—a peculiarity that he had never observed among girls born in the vicinity. He soon discovered that she did not know everything, but whatever she did know she talked of so glibly that he could not help enjoying the position of listener. She did not often show earnestness about anything that to him was more than trifling, but when she did go out of her customary mood for a moment or two she was saintly: he could think of no other word that would do it justice. He had not liked her manner to his own mother, for at first the girl treated that estimable woman as a servant, and did it in the manner which makes most servants detest most young ladies; but had she not afterward, with her own tiny fingers, made a new Sunday bonnet for Mrs. Hayn, and had not his mother, in genuine gratitude, kissed her? Should he bear malice for what his mother had forgiven?
The young man merely admired and respected Lucia: of that he was very sure. Regard more tender he would have blamed himself for, first, because love implied matrimony, which he did not intend to venture into until he had seen more of the world and perhaps gone to college; secondly, because he did not imagine that any such sentiment would be reciprocated. He came of a family that through generations of hard experience had learned to count the cost of everything, even the affections, like most of the better country-people in the older States. He had also an aversion to marriage between persons of different classes. Lucia was to him an acquaintance,—not even a friend,—whom he highly esteemed; that was all.
His father thought differently, and one day when the two were in the woodland belonging to the farm, loading a wagon with wood to be stored near the house for winter use, the old man said, abruptly,—
“I hope you’re not growin’ too fond of that young woman, Phil?”
“No danger,” the youth answered, promptly, though as he raised his head his eyes did not meet his father’s.
“You seem to know who I mean, anyhow,” said the old man, after throwing another stick of wood upon the wagon.
“Not much trouble to do that,” Phil replied. “There’s only one young woman.”
The father laughed softly; the son blushed violently. Then the father sighed.