There was a general movement of surprise among the men in the office, and all eyes, with a question-mark visible in them, were turned towards Octavius Buzzby. Upon him, the simple announcement had the effect of a shock; he felt the need of air, and slipped out to the veranda, but not before he received another bright smile from the little girl. He waited outside until he saw Augustus show the newcomers upstairs; then he re-entered the office and went to the register which was the speculative focus of interest for all the others. Octavius read:
June 18, 1889—Fr. John Francis Honoré, New York. Aileen Armagh, Orphan Asylum, New York City.
The Colonel was in a state of effervescing hilarity. He rubbed his hands energetically, slapped Octavius on the back, and exclaimed in high feather:
"How's this for the first drops of the deluge, eh, Tave?"
Octavius made no reply. He waited, as usual, for the evening's mail. The carrier handed him a telegram from New York for Mrs. Champney. It had just come up on the train from Hallsport. He wondered what connection its coming might have with the unexpected arrival of this orphan child?
II
On his way home Octavius Buzzby found himself wondering, as he had wondered many times before on occasion, how he could checkmate this latest and most unexpected move on the part of the mistress of Champ-au-Haut. His mind was perturbed and he realized, while making an effort to concentrate his attention on ways and means, that he had been giving much of his mental strength during the last twenty years to the search for ulterior motives on the part of Mrs. Louis Champney, a woman of sixty now, a Googe by birth (the Googes, through some genealogical necromancy, traced their descent from Sir Ferdinando Gorges. The name alone, not the blood, had, according to family tradition, suffered corruption with time), and the widow of Louis Champney, the late Judge Champney's only son.
The Champneys had a double strain of French blood in their veins, Breton and Flemish; the latter furnished the collateral branch of the Van Ostends. This intermixture, flowing in the veins of men and women who were Americans by the birthright of more than two centuries' enjoyment of our country's institutions, had produced for several generations as fine a strain of brains and breeding as America can show.
Louis Champney, the last of the line in direct descent, was looked upon from his boyhood up as the culmination of these centuries' flowering. When, at forty, he died without having fulfilled in any wise the great expectations of his townspeople and relations, the interest of the community, as well as of the family, centred in the prospects of Louis Champney Googe, his namesake, and nephew on his wife's side. Here, again, numerous family interests as well as communal speculations were disappointed. The Champney estate was left entire to the widow, Almeda Googe Champney, to dispose of as she might deem fit. Her powers of administratrix were untrammelled save in one respect: Octavius Buzzby was to remain in his position as factotum on the Champney estate and adviser for its interests.