Mrs. Freeman Burton, whose husband was a Wall-street Bull, lived on Madison Square in the winter, and in the summer queened it among the lesser lights in the neighborhood of Leighton Homestead. As thought Mrs. Freeman Burton of Oakwood, so thought Mrs. Anna Churchill of Leighton, and as Mrs. Burton knew that Mrs. Churchill was in all respects her equal, it came about naturally that the two ladies were on the most intimate terms,—so intimate indeed, that Mrs. Burton, seeing no one and hearing no one, passed into the house dragging her rich India shawl after her and knocking at the door of her friend’s private sitting-room. But Mrs. Churchill was up in Roy’s room in a state of great mental distress and agitation, which Roy was trying to soothe as well as his own condition would admit. He had been thrown from his horse only the day before and broken his leg, and he lay in a state of great helplessness and pain when, about half an hour before Mrs. Burton’s call, the morning letters were brought in and he asked his mother to read them.
There were several on business, which were soon dispatched, and then Mrs. Churchill read one to herself from Maude Somerton, a relative of Mr. Freeman Burton, who had spent the last summer at Oakwood, and flirted desperately with Charlie Churchill all through his vacation. Roy liked Maude and hoped that in time she might become his sister. Once he said something to Charlie on the subject, hinting that if he chose to marry Maude Somerton, and tried to do well, money should not be wanting when it was needed to set him up in business. There had been an awkward silence on Charlie’s part for a few moments, while he turned very red, and seemed far more embarrassed than the occasion would warrant. Then he had burst out with:
“Don’t you mind about Maude Somerton. She will flirt with anybody who wears a coat; but, old Roy, maybe I shall want that money for somebody else; or at all events want you to stand by me, and if I do, you will; won’t you, Roy?”
And Roy, without a suspicion of his brother’s meaning, said he would, and the next day Charlie returned to Canandaigua, while Maude went back to her scholars about ten miles from Leighton; for she was poor, and earned her own livelihood. But for her poverty she made amends in the quality of her blood, which was the very best New England could produce; and as she was fair, and sweet, and pure as the white pond-lilies of her native State, Mrs. Freeman Burton gave her a home at Oakwood, and gave her Georgie’s cast-off clothing, and would very much have liked to give her Charlie Churchill, after she heard that Roy intended to do something for his brother whenever he was married.
Maude’s letter was a very warm, gushing epistle, full of kind remembrances of Roy, “the best man in the world,” and inquiries after Charlie, “the nicest kind of a summer beau,” and professions of friendship for Mrs. Churchill, “the dear sweet lady, whose kindnesses could never be forgotten.”
“Maude writes a very good letter,” Mrs. Churchill said, folding it up and laying it on the table, and as she did so, discovering another which had fallen from her lap to the floor.
It was from Charlie and directed to Roy, but Mrs. Churchill opened it, turning first scarlet and then pale, and then gasping for breath as she read the dreadful news. Charlie was going to be married; aye, was married that moment, for he had named the morning of the 7th of October as the time when Edna Browning would be his wife! At that name Mrs. Churchill gave a little shriek, and tossed the letter to Roy, who managed to control himself, while he read that Charlie was going to marry Edna Browning, “the nicest girl in the whole world and the prettiest, as Roy would think if he could see her.” They had been engaged a long time; were engaged, in fact, when Roy and his mother were in Canandaigua, and he would have told them then, perhaps, if his mother had not asked who “that brazen-faced thing” was, or something like it, when they passed the seminary girls in driving.
“Mother means well enough, I suppose,” Charlie wrote, “but she is too confounded proud, and if I had told her about Edna, she would have raised the greatest kind of a row, for Edna is poor as a church mouse,—hasn’t a penny in the world, and nobody but an old maid aunt who lives in Richmond, and treats her like a dog. Her father was an Episcopal clergyman and her mother was a music teacher, and that’s all I know of her family, or care. I love her, and that’s enough. I s’pose I may as well make a clean breast of it, and tell you I’ve had a fuss with one of the teachers; and I wouldn’t wonder if they expelled me, and so I’ve concluded to take time by the forelock, and have quit on my own hook, and have persuaded Edna to cast in her lot with mine, a little sooner than she had agreed to do. They wrote to you about the fuss, but I paid the man who carries the letters to the office five dollars for the one directed to you, as I’d rather tell you myself, and it gives me time, too, for this other matter in hand. Fortune favors the brave. Edna went yesterday to Buffalo with her room-mate, who is sick, and wanted her to go home with her; and I am going up to-morrow, and Wednesday morning, the 7th, we shall be married, and take the early train for Chicago, where Edna has some connection living.
“And now, Roy, I want some money,—there’s a good fellow. You remember you spoke of my marrying Maude Somerton, and said you’d give me money and stand by me, too. Do it now, Roy, and when mother goes into hysterics and calls Edna that creature, and talks as if she had persuaded me, whereas it was I who persuaded her, say a word for me, won’t you? You will like Edna,—and, Roy, I want you to ask us to come home, for a spell, anyway. The fact is, I’ve romanced a little, and Edna thinks I am heir, or at least joint heir with you, of Leighton Homestead. She don’t know I haven’t a cent in the world but what comes from you, and I don’t want her to. Set me up in business, Roy, and I’ll work like a hero. I will, upon my word,—and please send me five hundred at once to the care of John Dana, Chicago. I shall be married and gone before this reaches you, so there’s no use for mother to tear her eyes out. Tell her not to. I’m sorry to vex her, for she’s been a good mother, and after Edna I love her and you best of all the world. Send the money, do. Yours truly,
“Charlie.”