He returned to his seat, rather dubious about the smiles he detected, and, as a third effort, addressed himself, somewhat in the following manner, to Wallis, whose interlocutions are unnecessary. “How far did you say it was to the Sutton Mills?—only four miles, isn’t it? I shall have to apply to you to show me the way. I have a curiosity to see them, as they are one of my father’s favorite hobbies. I often laugh at him for christening them with his own name. Calling a villa, a fashionable country seat, after one’s self, is well enough, but mills or manufactories—it is rather out of taste. Is the fourth finished yet? I believe it is to be the finest of all; indeed, it seems to me a little injudicious in the old gentleman to have invested so much in a country property—there are at least half a dozen farms, are there not? but I suppose he was afraid to trust his funds to stocks, and he has already more real estate in the city than he can well attend to. However, if he had handed over the amount to me, I think I could have disposed of it with a much better grace. He did offer me a title to them, some time ago, but it was on condition that I should come here and manage them myself, but I begged to be excused, and it was only on agreement that I should have a hundred per cent. of the revenue this year, that I consented to undergo the trouble of visiting them, or the sacrifice, rather—there are so many delightful places to go to in the summer,” and so forth.
Having, from these indirect explanations, made a clear case that his society was entitled to a welcome from the best Thompson in the world, and to that with thanks, if his fair neighbor was only a crockery Thompson, he arose and returned to the front of the house. The village had, by this time, awakened from its nap, and the larger proportion of its inhabitants were bending their steps to the town hall. Numerous well appointed carriages were also coming in from the surrounding neighborhood, whose passengers were all bound to the same point. “Where are all these people going?” asked Sutton.
“To the lecture announced in that handbill,” replied Wallis—and Miss Thompson presenting herself at the door, ready bonnetted, he walked with her in a neighborly sort of a way across the street. After a while the throng ceased, and from some impatient expressions of the loungers about the tavern, Sutton ascertained that the lecturer had not yet appeared.
“Why, that man I mistook for a Yankee pedlar must be he, I should judge,” said he to the landlord.
“Who?—where?” said a young man, who had not heard the last clause.
“That tall fellow, in the garden, there, drest in the brown-holland pantaloons and Kentucky jean coat.”
“Indeed!—I thought he was to stop at the other house;” and he hastened down the street, while Sutton, finding that every body was going to the hall, strolled there also.
Meanwhile, the stranger in the coarse jeans was enjoying himself in a saunter through the quiet and pretty garden of the inn, which was so hedged and enclosed as to admit of no view of the street, when a consequential personage presented himself, and saluting him stiffly, introduced himself as “Mr. Smith, the proprietor of the G—— Hotel.”
“I am happy to make your acquaintance, sir,” said the young stranger, courteously.
“I have taken the liberty to call, sir, and inform you that the audience has been waiting for some time. It is full fifteen minutes past the time announced in the handbills;” pulling one from his pocket—“I felt a reluctance to intrude, but, putting the best construction upon your conduct, in not informing me of your arrival, after I had been at the pains to prepare for you, I presumed it proceeded from a mistake; you are at the opposition establishment.”