“I can’t explain it,” he said, “but the child has that something,—her grandmother had it—” and here the president fell to musing over those far-away days when he had fallen in love with a pretty southern girl.
“Please don’t let her make me sleep in the dark:”—Caro’s grandfather felt positively chivalrous in his determination to protect her—from what? His own dear sister in whose wisdom and devotion he had rested all these years!
CHAPTER II
THE SILVER CANDLESTICK
It is not for a moment to be supposed that Trolley appeared in the first chapter simply because he was picturesque. He was undoubtedly handsome, and had a remarkable gift for elegant attitudes. He would pose as dignity and wisdom personified in the president’s arm chair, or stretch himself in careless grace on Aunt Charlotte’s choicest divan, and had even been known to make a mantel ornament of himself in an aspiring mood.
But above all else Trolley had a mind of his own. For example he had chosen his home. He began life at the Graysons’ on Grayson avenue, but as soon as he was old enough to choose for himself he took up his abode with the President of the Seminary.
Aunt Charlotte did not particularly care for cats, and furthermore did not covet anything that was her neighbor’s, so again and again Trolley was sent back, all to no purpose, and at length he was allowed to have his way.
This was just at the time when the Graysons and some others were bringing suit to prevent the laying of a trolley line on the avenue, and between the progressive people who wished more rapid transportation than the stage which passed back and forth once an hour, and the old-fashioned residents who feared to have the beauty of their street destroyed, and their quiet disturbed by clanging bells and buzzing wheels, feeling had grown exceedingly bitter.
Dr. Barrows himself had no special interest in the matter, but some members of his family were warm supporters of the railway, and when the suit was decided in its favor one of his nephews named the cat in honor of the event.