"Not yet," said Harry, his eyes shining, "but you can be sure that I am going to. You see, Uncle Harold, the articles of surrender were only signed, sealed and delivered, night before last in the middle of the night. Since then I have not had a moment's time that belonged to me; but I'll write her such a letter as she has never had from me."
While the uncle walked the parlor of the boarding-house, and waited for his nephew to make ready for evening service, he had some questions to settle which were personal. He became aware of the fact that he had certainly jumped to conclusions regarding some of the workers in the Master's vineyard which were apparently without foundation. Here was this Miss Benedict. He had heard her name mentioned frequently in the days gone by, and always as one of the dependences of the church to which she belonged; and yet he had always thought of her with curling lip. "Workers!" he had told himself, being mentally very sarcastic, "yes, didn't all the initiated know what that meant when applied to a fashionable young lady who lived in an elegant home and mingled with the fashionable world? It meant that she helped at the fancy fairs, and festivals, and bazaars, and what not? Worked them up, probably, with all their accompanying train of evils. It meant that she was a district visitor, perhaps, and left a tract on 'Redeeming the Time' in a home where they were starving for lack of employment, and needed a loaf of bread." He had seen workers of that sort, and he found it difficult to feel for them anything but contempt. The thing for which he was now to take himself to task was the fact that he had classed Claire Benedict among these, knowing nothing of her, meantime, save that she was a member of a fashionable up-town church; and that, too, after knowing her father, and singling him out as a man among thousands. The simple truth was, that he had imagined a character of which he disapproved, and named it Claire Benedict, and then let himself disapprove of her heartily.
"The sole thing that I know about the young woman is that she was once wealthy, and on this account I have judged her as I have; and I find that it is what I am apt to do." This is what he told himself as he walked the length of that little parlor, and waited. He was much ashamed of himself. "It is an excellent standpoint from which to judge character," he said, severely. "If there is any justice in it I must be a worthless person myself. I wonder how many people are setting me down as one who merely plays at Christian work, because my father left me one fortune and my old aunt another!"
I am glad that this man had this severe talk with himself. He needed it. The truth is, he was very apt to judge of people in masses; as though they were specimens, and belonged to certain types.
The conclusion of his self-examination at this time was, that he declared that if one third of what Harry thought about this young person was true, it had taught him a lesson. He went to church that evening apparently for the purpose of studying the lesson more thoroughly; at least, he gave some attention to the organist. He had recognized her in the morning, because she had eyes like her father; and this evening he decided that her head was shaped like his, and that she had the firm mouth and yet sweet set of lips that had characterized the father, and he told himself that he might have known that the daughter of such a man would be an unusual woman.
After service was concluded, he walked deliberately forward and claimed acquaintance with Sydney Benedict's daughter. The glow that he brought to her face, and the tender light which shone in her eyes, when he mentioned that dear father's name, gave him a glimpse of what the daughter's memories were.
Harry came up to them eagerly, having been detained by the pastor for a moment.
"You have introduced yourself, Uncle Harold, I see. Miss Benedict, I wanted my Uncle Harold to know you for very special reasons."
Uncle Harold was unaccountably embarrassed. What a strange thing for that boy to say! and what did he propose to say next? But Claire relieved the embarrassment, and plunged him into a maze of questioning, by the sudden, eager interest which flashed in her face with the mention of his name.
"Are you Harold Chessney?" she asked as though a new thought came to her with the union of the two names, "and are you going to the Rocky Mountains?"