Paul Ralston

by Mary Jane Holmes

“Never,” Elithe replied, “but I wish I could go there. I’d like sometime to see the great world which lies east of here and is so different from this.”

“Elithe,” Mr. Pennington said, with suppressed emotion. Then he remembered himself in time to keep back the words he had come so near speaking. “Give yourself to me and you shall see the world,” had trembled on his lips, but he did not say them.

He had no home to take her to, or friends who would receive her if she would go with him, and if he had, her innocence and purity must not mate with him till he had purged himself from more than one evil spirit still lurking in his heart.

“Did you speak to me?” Elithe asked, and he replied, “No, did I? If so, I’ve forgotten what I wished to say.”

He was unfolding his own paper, the New York Times, and glancing up and down its columns. Seeing this, Elithe said no more to him until the Rectory was reached. Then she asked him to go in and offered him the Herald to look at, while she carried her aunt’s letter to her father and heard what was in it. He took the paper and, sitting down upon the porch steps, turned at once to the column headed “Affairs in Oak City.” The place was filling rapidly and the season bade fair to be gayer and more prosperous than it had been in years. The Ralstons had returned from Europe and would soon occupy their handsome house, which had been undergoing some repairs. Mrs. Percy and daughter had also returned from Europe, but were not yet in their cottage. There were rumors in the air of a wedding in high life, to come off during the summer. The names of the parties were for a time withheld. Miss Phebe Hansford had been giving her cottage a coat of fresh paint, which had greatly improved it, and the band had arrived and played every afternoon in the park in front of the Casino.

Such items and more he read with a blur before his eyes and a humming sound in his ears like the echo of years past and gone, leaving memories he would like to blot out. While he was reading the Herald, Mr. Hansford in his study was reading his aunt’s letter aloud to his wife and Elithe. As she heard the invitation, Elithe exclaimed, “Oh, I am so glad; if I can only go.” Then followed the conditions. She must not gad to concerts and rides on the water and clambakes and the Casino. She must always be in by nine or half-past, at the latest, as her aunt kept early hours. She must not slat her things around:—her aunt liked order. She must not whistle in the house, as some rude girls did; her aunt liked to be still and meditate.

At this point Roger laughed merrily. “Aunt Phebe to a dot. I don’t believe she has changed an iota in twenty years,” he said.

Elithe was very grave, and a summer at the seashore did not look so desirable as at first. The last of the letter, however, promising a good many privileges, was more re-assuring, and she began again to wish she might go.

“But how can I? What would you do without me?” she said, looking first at her mother, who was very pale, and then at her father, who tried to seem cheerful and natural.

Here was an answer to his letter and his prayer. Providence had opened a way for Elithe to see something of the world, and to escape from an influence which might eventually prove hurtful. An acquaintance of Mr. Pennington had once said of him that with his smooth tongue he could deceive the very elect. Mr. Hansford had never put his opinion of the man into these words, but he felt the truth of them in his own experience. Mr. Pennington was magnetic and fascinating, and he wondered much that Elithe had remained so long indifferent to him. Of his many good qualities he was fully aware, but he believed there was a questionable side to his character from which he would shield his daughter. He did not trust to his bones for intuition, as his aunt did to hers, but he had a childlike faith in the signs of Providence and watched them closely. He had prayed that his aunt might answer his letter favorably. She had done so, and sent money for needed expenses. It was right that Elithe should go, and when she asked how they could do without her, he said, “It seems too good a chance to be lost, and it is only for the summer. If we have some one to help us we may be able to get along; eh, Lucy?”