Dora Deane; Or, The East India Uncle

by Mary Jane Holmes

Returning ere long to his seat, he resumed the conversation, which resulted at last in Mrs. Elliott's expressing her perfect willingness to give Dora a home, and a mother's care, to see that she had every possible advantage, to watch over and make her not only what Uncle Nat would wish to find her, but what Howard Hastings himself desired that she should be. Of Mrs. Elliott, we have said but little, neither is it necessary that we should dwell upon her character at large. She was a noble, true-hearted woman, finding her greatest happiness in doing others good. Widowed in the second year of her married life, her home was comparatively lonely, for no second love had ever moved her heart. In Dora Deane, of whom Ella had written so enthusiastically, she felt a deep interest, and when her brother came to her with the story of her wrongs, she gladly consented to be to her a mother, nay, possibly a sister, for, with woman's ready tact, she read what Mr. Hastings did not even suspect, and she bade him bring her at once.

A short call upon his mother, to whom he talked of Dora Deane; a hasty visit to Ella's grave, on which the winter snow was lying; a civil bow across the street to Mrs. Grey, who had never quite forgiven him for having killed her daughter; and he started back to Dunwood bearing with him a happier, healthier, frame of mind, than he had experienced for many a day. There was something now worth living for—the watching Dora Deane grow up into a woman, whose husband would delight to honor her, and whose children would rise up and call her blessed. This picture, however, was not altogether pleasing, though why the thoughts of Dora's future husband should affect him unpleasantly, he could not tell. Still it did, and mentally hoping she would never marry, he reached Dunwood at the time and took his departure from it. And here we leave him while, in another chapter, we look in upon Eugenia, whom we left waiting for him at the hotel.

CHAPTER XVI.

FAILURE AND SUCCESS.

In a state of great anxiety, which increased each moment, Eugenia looked for the twentieth time into the long hall, and seeing no one, went back again to the glass, wondering if her new hat, which, without her mother's knowledge, had that afternoon been purchased, and now adorned her head, were as becoming as the milliner had said, and if fifteen dollars were not a great price for one in her circumstances to pay for a bonnet. Then she thought if Mr. Hastings proposed soon, as she believed he would, she should never again feel troubled about the trivial matter of money, of which she would have an abundance. But where was he and why did he not come? she asked herself repeatedly, caring less, however, for the delay, when she considered that if they were late, more people would see her in company with the elegant Mr. Hastings, who was well known in the city.

"Eight o'clock as I live," she exclaimed at last, consulting her watch, "and the concert was to commence at half-past seven. What can it mean?" and with another glance at her bonnet, she walked the length of the hall, and leaning far over the balustrade looked anxiously down into the office below, to see if by any chance he were there.

But he was not, and returning to her room, she waited another half hour, when, grown more fidgety and anxious, she descended to the office, inquiring if Mr. Hastings had been there that evening. Some one thought they had seen him in the ladies' parlor that afternoon, but further information than that she could not obtain, and the discomfited young lady went back to her room in no very enviable frame of mind, particularly as she heard the falling of the rain and thought how dark it was without.

"What can have kept him?" she said, half crying with vexation. "And how
I wish I had gone home with mother!"

Wishing, however, was of no avail, and when that night at half-past ten, the hotel omnibus as usual went to the depot, it carried a very cross young lady, who, little heeding what she did, and caring less, sat down beneath a crevice in the roof, through which the rain crept in, lodging upon the satin bows and drooping plumes of her fifteen-dollar hat, which, in her disappointment, she had forgotten to exchange for the older one, safely stowed away in the bandbox she held upon her lap. Arrived at Dunwood station, she found, as she had expected, no omnibus in waiting, nor any one whose services she could claim as an escort, so, borrowing an umbrella, and holding up her dress as best she could, she started, band-box in hand, for home, stepping once into a pool of water, and falling once upon the dirty sidewalk, from which the mud and snow were wiped by her rich velvet cloak, to say nothing of the frightful pinch made in her other bonnet by her having crushed the band-box in her fall.

In a most forlorn condition, she at last reached home, where to her dismay she found the door was locked and the fire gone out, her mother not having expected her to return on such a night as this. To rouse up Dora, and scold her unmercifully, though for what she scarcely knew, was under the circumstances quite natural, and while Mr. Hastings at Rose Hill was devising the best means of removing Dora from her power, she at Locust Grove was venting the entire weight of her pent-up wrath upon the head of the devoted girl, who bore it uncomplainingly. Removing at last her bonnet, she discovered the marks of the omnibus leak, and then her ire was turned towards him as having been the cause of all her disasters.