It was probably owing to the unusually good humor in which Mr. Wheaton found himself this morning, that Charlie was requested to walk into the breakfast-room, where the flying robes adorning Miss Fanny's person were seen whisking out at the other door, as the young man entered the pleasant, sun-lighted room. The last glowing coals were falling to ashes, in a grate, which at this hour of the day seemed an unnecessary ornament for a California house.
"Come in, come in, young man. But where are the girls? Tom, go call Miss Fanny and Miss Lola."
There was no necessity for calling Miss Lola—she was close at hand, though becoming suddenly invisible; and as for Miss Fanny, she remained invisible. She had no notion of taking her hair out of crimps just for Charlie Somervale, when she expected to meet a far more interesting person—Crown Point, Gould & Curry, Eureka Con., report said five hundred thousand dollars—at the Wadsworth reception that night. Had Mr. Wheaton not taken off his glasses when Charlie came in he might have noticed an unusual flush on the young man's face; as it was he shook hands with him so cordially that Charlie's color subsided somewhat, and his heart beat less loud for a minute.
I doubt that either the old gentleman or the young one remember just how the conversation was opened; but in less than fifteen minutes Mr. Wheaton, with motions something like those of an enraged turkey-gobbler, and a color darkening face and neck fully equal to the intensest shade that bird can boast of on its gills, flew to the door, and called on Lola to make her appearance, in no pleasant tones. Together with Lola, as though divining the trouble drawing near, came Mrs. Wheaton, though so noiselessly, through a side-door, that no one observed her at first.
"Lola," sputtered Mr. Wheaton, "I have spent more money on your education than both your other sisters together ever cost me; and now here comes this young fellow and tells me, as coolly as you please, that you are engaged to him, and the like nonsense. Engaged, indeed; you are not eighteen yet, and he hasn't got a cent to his name. I thought I had brought up my children to love me at least, if I cannot compel them to obedience; and if you, Lola, go off and leave me in my old age—go away from my house with a beggar—you who have been petted and spoiled; you on whom I had built the hopes of my declining years, you will never darken my doors again, but live a beggar and an outcast forever away from your parents' home."
Mrs. Wheaton had approached the group, and Charlie turned to her.
"It is not as a poor man that I claim your daughter for my bride; see, I am rich—worth a hundred thousand this moment," he drew a package of papers from his pocket; "and I have the ambition and the power to amass a fortune, and place your daughter where she will never miss the comforts and luxuries of her childhood's home."
He stepped over to where Mr. Wheaton stood listening in incredulous silence to what the young man said.
"And may I ask from where this fabulous wealth springs so suddenly?" he asked, breaking the silence.
"I own to having tried my luck, against the strict advice and wish of my employers, in mining speculations. The venture has proved successful. I say nothing in extenuation of the fault—if fault I have committed—save that I wanted to offer to Lola a home which should not be too great a contrast to her father's house. Old Bingham—"