The Belle of the Town.
Once in a long while Banker McElwin made it a policy to gather up a number of his boastful relations, reinforced by a number of friends, and then conduct the party to the house of another kinsman, where he would give them an evening of delight. He did not give notice of these gracious recognitions, preferring to make the event sweeter with surprise. On his part it was a generous forgetfulness of self-importance—it was as if a placid and beneficent moon had come to beam upon a cluster of stars. To the men he would quote stocks, as if, a lover of letters, he were giving a poem to a "mite society." Upon the ladies he would smile and throw off vague hints of future silks and fineries.
One evening this coterie gathered at the home of Jasper Staggs. Old Jasper, in his earlier days, had been a town marshal, and it was his boast that he had arrested Steve Day, the desperado who had choked the sheriff and defied the law. This great feat was remembered by the public, and old Jasper nursed it as a social pension. But it did not bring in revenue sufficient to sustain life, so he made a pretense of collecting difficult accounts while his wife and "old maid" daughter did needlework and attended to the few wants of one boarder, Sam Lyman. The "banker's society" recognized the Staggs family in the evening of the day which followed Sam Lyman's call at the First National, and was in excitable progress while Lyman, in ignorance of it all, prolonged his talk with Warren. In the family sitting room the banker talked of the possibility of a panic in Wall Street. In the parlor the younger relatives were playing games, with Annie Staggs, the old maid, as director of ceremonies. After a time they hit upon the game of forfeits. Miss Eva McElwin, the great man's daughter, fell under penalty, and the sentence was that she should go through the ceremony of marriage with the first man who came through the door. At that moment Sam Lyman entered the room. He was greeted with shouts and clapping of hands, and he drew back in dismay, but Miss Annie ran to him and led him forward. Eva McElwin, with a pout, turned to some one and said:
"What, with that thing?"
"Oh, you've got to," was shouted. "Yes, you have."
"Well, what is expected of me?" Lyman asked.
"Why," Miss Annie cried, "you've got to marry a young lady, the belle of Old Ebenezer."
He had often gazed at the girl, in church, had been struck by her beauty, but had shared the belief of the envious—that she was a charming "simpleton."
"Well, don't you think you'd better introduce us?"