The Tracy diamonds

by Mary Jane Holmes

“I think you defer too much to the opinion of an employee. It spoils them,” Mrs. Tracy suggested, and Uncle Zach replied, “Can’t spile Mark,—the best feller ever born. I’d trust him with my life.”

Meanwhile Mark was feeling that he was as near Paradise as he would ever be until he reached its gates. It was a good deal to be sitting side by side with the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, and it was still more to have the beautiful girl as friendly and gracious as she was, treating him as if she had known him for years, and seldom looking back to speak to Craig, whom she left entirely to Alice. She professed to be enchanted with everything, and her face glowed with excitement. The spirit, which in one of her confidences with Alice she had ascribed to his satanic majesty whom she called the old gentleman was upon her, and she could no more help flirting with Mark Hilton than she could have helped breathing. Craig’s reserve had piqued her, but while ignoring him she didn’t forget him at all, or lose a word he was saying to Alice. He was the fish she meant to draw into her net eventually, but she was very happy watching Mark getting more and more entangled in her meshes.

It was a lovely summer afternoon and owing to the heavy rain of the previous night the road was neither dusty nor rough, and for a time Paul and Virginia did credit to Uncle Zach’s praise of them and trotted on without a sign of lagging. Mark still held the lines, but when they had crossed the river and the causeway and were out among the hills Helen said to him, “Don’t you believe the bloods have digested that two quarts of oats by this time and had the wind taken out of their sails sufficiently for me to drive.”

She held out her hands for the lines which Mark gave to her, asking if she had ever driven much.

“No,” she said, “but I want to learn, and I like to drive fast and feel the wind on my face. Touch them, please, with the whip.”

Mark touched Paul, while woman-like Helen jerked the reins and told them to go on, which they did at a rapid rate, until a long, steep hill was reached, or rather a succession of short hills, with level spaces like plateaus between. Up two of these hills the bloods pulled steadily, but stopped at the third, while Paul looked back expectantly and Virginia laid her head against his neck in a caressing kind of way.

“What have they stopped for? Get up! Get up!” Helen said, but her get ups were unavailing.

Paul still looked back and Virginia finally joined him while Mark and Craig laughed aloud. Craig had been up that hill, which was known as the mile hill and was rough and stony, but had at its summit one of the finest views in the surrounding country. He knew the habits of the horses and wondered that they had not stopped sooner and signified their wish for the load to be lightened, especially as it was more than double now with four people and the carryall to what it had been with himself and Uncle Zach and a light buggy.

“What are they stopping for?” Helen asked again, and Craig replied, “Stopping for us to get out and walk. Have you never heard that the horses in Norway are brought up to do that? I fancy the bloods may have come from that region.”

Alice sprang out in a moment and began to pat Virginia, whose eyes were beginning to have in them a dangerous gleam as she felt the weight of the load behind her and saw the long steep hill in front, with still another and another beyond. Craig alighted, too, and so did Mark, and tried to coax the horses to move on. At first Paul seemed inclined to do so, and turned half way towards Virginia, who, true to her sex, stood her ground and would not budge. She knew there was still one occupant in the carriage and until all were out she would stay where she was.