He stayed and dined with us; another gentleman had come home with my uncle, who talked well and amused us very much. I was excited and in high spirits; altogether, it was a very happy day.
It was more than a week after this, that the invitation came which turned the world upside down at once, and made me most extravagantly happy. It was from Mrs. Hollenbeck, and I was asked to spend part of June and all of July and August, with them at R----.
At R---- was their old family home, a place of very little pretension, but to which they were much attached. When the father died, five years before, the two sons had bought the place, or rather had taken it as their share, turning over the more productive property to their sister.
They had been very reluctant to close the house, and it was decided that Sophie should go there every summer, and take her servants from the city; the expenses of the place being borne by the two young men. They were very well able to do it, as both were successful in business, and keeping open the old home, with no diminution of the hospitality of their father's time, was perhaps the greatest pleasure that they had. It was an arrangement which suited Sophie admirably. It gave her the opportunity to entertain pleasantly and informally; it was a capital summer-home for her two boys; it was in the centre of an agreeable neighborhood; and above all, it gave her yearly-exhausted purse time to recuperate and swell again before the winter's drain. Of course she loved the place, too, but not with the simple affection that her two brothers did. The young men invited their friends there without restriction, as was to be supposed; and Sophie was a gay and agreeable hostess. No one could have made the house pleasanter than she did; and she left nothing undone to gratify her brothers' tastes and wishes, like a wise and prudent woman as she was.
I did not know all this then, or my invitation might not have overwhelmed me with such gratitude to her. I reproached myself for not having loved her the first time I saw her.
Three months! Three happy months in the country! I could hardly believe it possible such a thing had happened to me. I took the note to my uncle without much fear of his opposition, for he rarely opposed anything that I had the courage to ask him, except going in the street alone. (I believe my mother had made a runaway match, and I think he had faith in inherited traits; his one resolution regarding me must have been, not to give me a chance.) He read the note carefully, and then looked me over with more interest than usual, and told me I might go. Afterward he gave me a roll of bills, and told me to come to him for more money, if I needed it.
I was much excited about my clothes. I could not think that anything was good enough to go to R----; and I am afraid I spent a good deal of my uncle's money. Ann Coddle and the cook thought that my dresses were magnificent, and old Peter groaned over the coming of the packages. I had indeed a wardrobe fit for a young princess, and in very good taste besides, because I was born with that. An inheritance, no doubt. And my uncle never complained at all about the bills. I seemed to have become, in some way, a person of considerable importance in the house. Ann Coddle no more fretted at me, but waited on me with alacrity. The cook ceased to bully me, and on the contrary, flattered me outrageously. I remembered the long years of bullying, and put no faith in her assurances. I did not know exactly why this change had happened, but supposed it might be the result of having become a young lady, and being invited to pay visits.