Mrs. Hallam's companion; and The Spring Farm, and other tales

by Mary Jane Holmes

That night, when dinner was over, he said to his aunt: “I have a project in mind which I wish to tell you about.”

Mrs. Hallam gave a little shrug of annoyance. Her husband had been full of projects, most of which she had disapproved, as she probably should this of Rex, who continued:

“I am thinking of buying a place in the country,—the real country, I mean,—where the houses are old-fashioned and far apart, and there are woods and ponds and brooks and things.”

“And pray what would you do with such a place?” Mrs. Hallam asked.

Rex replied, “I’d make it into a fancy farm and fill it with blooded stock, hunting-horses, and dogs. I’d keep the old house intact so far as architecture is concerned, and fit it up as a kind of bachelor’s hall, where I can have a lot of fellows in the summer and fall, and hunt and fish and have a glorious time. Ladies will not be excluded, of course, and when you are fagged out with Saratoga and Newport I shall invite you, and possibly Mrs. Haynes and Grace, down to see the fox-hunts I mean to have, just as they do in the Genesee Valley. Won’t it be fun?”

Rex was eloquent on the subject of his fancy farm. He was very fond of the country, although he really knew but little about it, as he was born in New York, and had lived there all his life with the exception of two years spent at the South with his mother’s brother and four years at Yale. His aunt, on the contrary, detested the country, with its woods, and ponds, and brooks, and old-fashioned houses, and she felt very little interest in Rex’s fancy farm and fox-hunts, which she looked upon as wholly visionary. She asked him, however, where the farm was, and he replied:

“You see, Marks, who is in the office with me, has a client who owns a mortgage on some old homestead among the hills in Massachusetts. This mortgage, which has changed hands two or three times and been renewed once or twice, comes due in October, and Marks says there is not much probability that the old man,—I believe he is quite old,—can pay it, and the place will be sold at auction. I can, of course, wait and bid it off cheap, as farms are not in great demand in that vicinity; but I don’t like to do that. I’d rather buy it outright, giving the old fellow more than it is worth rather than less. Marks says it is a rambling old house, with three or four gables, and stands on a hillside with a fine view of the surrounding country. The woods are full of pleasant drives, and ponds where the white lilies grow and where I can fish and have some small boats.”

“But where is it? In what town, I mean?” Mrs. Hallam asked, with a slight tremor in her voice, which, however, Rex did not notice as he answered:

“I don’t remember where Marks’s client said it was, but I have his letter. Let me see.” And, taking the letter from his pocket, he glanced at it a moment, and then said, “It is in Leicester, and not more than five or six miles from the city of Worcester and Lake Quinsigamond, where I mean to have a yacht and call it the Lucy Hallam for you. Why, auntie, it has just occurred to me that you once lived in Worcester, and Uncle Hallam, too, and that he and father were born in Leicester. Were you ever there,—at the house where father was born, I mean? But of course you have been.”

Rex had risen to his feet and stood leaning on the mantel and looking at his aunt with an eager, expectant expression on his face. She was pale to her lips as she replied: