Phil was not so happy as he should have been while on his way to the Tramlays’. He wondered how he should be able to greet Lucia without betraying the mixed emotions which he was sure the first sight of her face would cause him. He had a firm conviction that he would feel awkward and act accordingly, and his remembrance of various men whom he had seen behaving awkwardly in the presence of young ladies made him certain that Lucia and Margie would laugh at him when his back was turned. He did not realize that in meeting, as well as in fighting, the burden of action does not all rest upon one person. Neither did he take into consideration the tact which some maidens acquire in a year or two spent in society. As he was ushered into the parlor, with a face which he was sure was sober and set, Lucia approached him with a pleasant smile, and exclaimed, as heartily and unaffectedly as if she were a Haynton girl,—
“How do you do, Phil? I’m ever so glad to see you back again.”
Away went all sense of soberness, hesitation, and doubt; the young man’s soul leaped to his face, and he held so long the little hand offered him that Lucia, perhaps remembering some impulsive demonstrations toward that graceful member, withdrew it before any attempt to release it had begun. Then the girl began a rapid series of questions about Hayn Farm and its occupants, and Phil made cheery replies, and Tramlay, after gazing at the couple from the back parlor, retired to his library to indulge undisturbed in as much vigorous and affirmative head-shaking as the situation seemed to justify.
“How do you think you will like the iron business, Mr. Hayn?” asked Mrs. Tramlay at dinner.
“Greatly, so far as I know it,” Phil replied. “Up to date my duties have been to go to lunch, read the morning papers, and chat with a railroad company’s vice-president about off-shore fishing.”
“We always try to break in our young men pleasantly,” said Tramlay, “so they’ll be willing to promise long service for small money: then we begin to put on heavier chains, one by one.”
“Papa’s clerks have a hard time, if they happen to be nice,” said Lucia. “They have to get postage-stamps for Margie and me when we happen in at the office, and find small change for us when we lose our pocket-books, and take us out to lunch when we come down town and don’t find papa in, and sometimes they have to come to trains for us when we’ve been a few miles out of town on a visit and the team doesn’t get in before dark.”
“Then I shall earnestly strive to be nice,” said Phil.
“There’s some down-town place,” said Margie, “where papa gets lovely candy a great deal cheaper than up Broadway; but he forgets it half the time, so we sometimes have one of the clerks order it sent to papa’s desk,—that is, clerks who know how to select candy,” said Margie.
“My education in that respect,” said Phil, “has not been as thorough as if I could have foreseen such necessity for it; but I will resume my studies at once.”