“What nonsense,” Mrs. Tracy replied, and then suddenly exclaimed: “Here it is at last,—Ridgefield! My grandfather’s old home. Strange I’ve never thought of that place. Listen,” and she read aloud Mark Hilton’s advertisement of the Prospect House.
Mrs. Tracy, who had been in Ridgefield when a child, had some very pleasant recollections of the town, with its river and ponds and hills, which Mark described so eloquently. The palatial hotel, with its modern improvements, must be something new, she thought, as she had no remembrance of it. But times change, and Ridgefield undoubtedly kept pace with the times, and Mrs. Tracy thought she would like to go there, and said so to her daughter.
“Your grandfather was the leading man in the town, and we should undoubtedly be lionized by the people,” she suggested, while Helen shrugged her shoulders and replied: “Oh, mamma, do let me indulge in a bit of slang and say dry up on lionizing. I’m tired of it. If you want to go to Ridgefield I am quite willing. I only hope there isn’t a newspaper there, nor a reporter, to write up the beautiful Miss Helen Tracy; nor a man to make love to her. Such a state of things would be Heaven for a few weeks; then I should pine for the flesh pots of Egypt. Go to Ridgefield by all means. I’m in love with its scenery as set forth in the paper, especially the haunted house, which makes me feel a little creepy. Did you ever hear of it when you were there?”
Mrs. Tracy replied that she was almost too young to have such things make an impression upon her when she was in Ridgefield, but she believed she did hear of such a house and passed it with her grandfather,—a big old brown house at the end of a lane.
“Delicious! The very place for us. Write at once,” Helen urged, and her mother wrote to Mr. Taylor that morning, engaging rooms for herself, daughter and maid, and in two days’ time the postman brought her Uncle Zacheus’ wonderful production, which Helen read aloud with peals of laughter and running comments on his composition, orthography and honesty. “Perfectly rich,” she cried. “Rivers and ponds and meadows and hills and views and graves a hundred years old and a haunted house and a cellar hole where a garrison stood, I believe I’ve read about that, haven’t I? Alice would know. She’s up in history. And then the house; clean sheets,—think of it! All the towels we want! He don’t know that I use about a dozen a day. Silver forks, solid, not plated! That is something new for a hotel. Bread that Dotty makes, and washes her hands every time she turns round. Good for the bread; bad for the hands. Big rooms, with a rocking chair in each one. Glad of that. You won’t be getting mine. No real suites. He spelled it sweets. Dear old man! I shall fall in love with him if he doesn’t with me. Only two faucets, and those under the stairs. Can have a saloon to eat in. Good! That comes of your confusing him with salon. Watched with your grandfather, and helped at the funeral. That must make him related to us. Yes, mother, sweets or no sweets, faucets or no faucets, we’ll go, and I’ll write and tell him so.”
She wrote the letter which Uncle Zach put away in his hair trunk, and after it was gone turned suddenly to her mother and said: “By the way, now is your chance to carry out your promise to Cousin Alice. You have always been going to take her somewhere with us, and have never done it, because it would make our expenses heavier. Ridgefield is cheap. A whole week will not cost much more than one day sometimes did when we had the best rooms in the hotel. Let me invite Alice to go with us. Just think how poky and forlorn her life must be in that stuffy little schoolhouse among the mountains, with those children smelling of the factory and things. Can I write to her? She’s such good company and so helpful every way.”
After a little hesitancy Mrs. Tracy consented, and Helen was soon dashing off the following letter:
“New York, July — 18—.
“Dear Allie:—
“Here we are home again; landed five days ago, and I have such a love of a gown for you in some of my trunks. Cream colored, china silk, with puffings of lace and ribbons and everything. I had a gloriously good time abroad. Went everywhere,—saw everything,—was told a hundred times how handsome I was and how strange that I didn’t seem to know it! ‘The one beautiful woman I have met who is not conscious of her beauty,’ I heard an Englishman say to mamma. Oh! oh! oh! As if I didn’t look in the glass every time I pass it and say to the face I see there ‘You are lovely, but never give any sign that you know it, for this innocent baby way succeeds as well as your good looks. Not know it indeed!’ I have some new names in the blue book. One with a big interrogation point. ‘Walter Prescott, New York?’ That is the way it reads. His is the 20th bona fide offer, and mamma was furious when I refused him. Says I’ll go through the woods and take up with a crooked stick. Maybe I shall, but I tell you what; I am getting tired of seeing men turn white when I say no, and fencing to keep others from compelling me to say no. I am going to turn over a new leaf, and not wink, nor smile, nor try to get any one to look at me; and after a while marry Mr. Prescott and lead a perfectly domestic life. He neither dances, nor smokes, nor drinks, nor drives fast horses, nor likes society any way. Prefers a quiet home life, with his wife and his books. Is a great reader. I shall have to take up a course of study with you if I am to be Mrs. Prescott. I am a perfect dunce now and hardly know who discovered America, or shouldn’t if I hadn’t seen Columbus’ statue in Genoa.