Still, as long as he remained unmarried, there was hope; and though her youth was rapidly slipping away, she would rather wait on the slightest chance of winning Roy Leighton, than give herself to another. And so, that summer,—at Saratoga, where she reigned a belle,—she refused two very eligible offers; one from the young heir of a proud Boston family; the other from a widower of sixty, with a million and a half of gold, and seven grown-up daughters.
CHAPTER XXV.
IN THE SUMMER.
Maude spent her summer vacation at Uncle Phil’s, where she was received with every demonstration of joy by each one of the family, Uncle Phil dragging her off at once to see the “suller hole” of his chapel, or “synagogue,” as he called it, which was not progressing very fast; “such hard work to get the men, and when they do come, they won’t work more than half the time, and want such all-fired big wages, it is enough to break a feller; but then I’m in for it, and it’s got to go,” he said to Maude, who expressed so much delight, and called him a darling man so many times, and showed her trim, pretty ancles and dainty white tucks and ruffles with such abandon, as she stepped over the stones and sticks of timber, that Uncle Phil felt “curis again at the pit of his stomach,” and did not care how much his synagogue cost, if Maude was only pleased.
Maude did not talk to Edna quite so much as usual at first; she was studying her closely, and trying to recall what she had heard Georgie say of Mrs. Charlie Churchill’s looks. Then she began to lay little traps for her, and Edna fell into some of them, and then fell out again so adroitly, that Maude was kept in a constant fever of excitement, until one day, early in August, when, in walking by herself up the road which led to the hotel on the mountain, she met Jack Heyford, who had arrived the night before, and was on his way, he said, to call on her.
“I was up here a few years ago,” he explained, as they walked back together, “and I retained so pleasant a remembrance of the mountain scenery that I wanted to see it again; so, as I could have a vacation of two weeks, I came first to Oakwood, but it was lonely there with Georgie gone; she’s off to Saratoga, you know, and hearing you were here, I concluded to come too. You are stopping at a farm-house. I have an indistinct recollection of Mr. Overton; a queer old fellow, isn’t he?”
He talked very fast, and Maude did not hear more than half he said, for her tumultuous thoughts. If Louise Overton were really Edna Churchill, then Jack Heyford would recognize her, for he had been with her at the time of the accident, and had seen her frequently in Chicago.
“Yes, I have her now,” Maude thought, as she said to Jack. “Mr. Overton has a niece living with him, Miss Louise Overton, a pretty little creature, whom you are sure to fall in love with. I hardly think she could have been here when you were at Rocky Point before.”
“No, I think not. I have no recollection of seeing a person of that name. Pretty, is she?” Jack answered as indifferently as if he really had no idea of meeting any young lady at the farm-house, except Maude herself, and that his sole object that morning, was to call upon the girl chatting so gayly at his side, and telling him how pretty and charming and sweet Miss Overton was, and how he was certain to lose his heart at once.
“Suppose I have lost it already,” Jack said, glancing at Maude, whose cheeks flushed a little, and who tossed her head airily and made him some saucy reply.