Her daughter Helen was, as has been said, a beautiful girl of eighteen, with as much refinement, and less exclusiveness than her mother; a belle in society, and the idol of her father at home. While Harry Armitage, a frank, manly, high-spirited youth, just of age, full of fun, yet the soul of honor, was his mother’s delight and the beau ideal of the ladies.
Truly not to know the Armitages was to argue oneself unknown.
Harry Armitage, who was away on a shooting excursion, did not return home until a few days after his mother, and consequently had heard nothing of the Rumseys. But it so chanced, that on the very morning upon which his mother called upon Mrs. Leonard, he was strolling up one of the principal promenades with a friend, when they met a person whose appearance attracted Harry’s attention.
“Who, in the name of all the tailors, is this walking fashion-plate?” he exclaimed, glancing at the same moment toward a small, slight young man, with very light hair, and a luxuriant buff-colored moustache, who, with an air of ill-attempted ease, came sauntering toward them. He was attired according to the latest mode, his bottle-green “cut-away” displaying a gaudy vest and plaid neckerchief to great advantage, while from beneath his drab pantaloons appeared feet snugly encased in patent-leather pumps and crimson hose.
Harry’s friend looked up, as he replied smiling—“Why, Armitage, don’t you remember your old chum and particular friend, young Rumsey?”
“I can’t say that I do,” replied the other with a smile, as the individual in question passed, with a stare at Armitage and a low bow to his friend. “At least,” he added, “you see he has cut me quite coolly. I don’t think he recognized me any better than I did himself, for I am pretty sure we never met before.”
“Strange, that he should not have known you,” said his companion. “Why, he used your name as a means of introducing himself to me.”
“My name!” ejaculated Harry in surprise. “Impossible—how did it happen?”
“Why, I met him at the tailor’s one day, and as I was waiting to be served, heard him say—‘I think I will have a coat from the same piece as my friend Armitage ordered, I like his taste.’ Of course I turned upon hearing your name, and noticing my inquiring look, he asked—‘Do you know Harry Armitage, sir?’ I bowed assent. ‘Fine fellow,’ said he, ‘an old college chum, and particular friend of mine—his sister Helen is a superb girl. Happy to make your acquaintance, sir.’ He tendered me his card, which bore the name of Samuel Rumsey, Esq., and received mine in exchange. Since then I have met him several times at the theatre and elsewhere, and have been not a little amused at his assumption of fashionable manners, which sit upon him as awkwardly as a dress-coat upon a Turk; but as your friend I have always treated him civilly. I am surprised at your apparent ignorance of each other now.”
“I have been trying to recollect when I ever knew a person by that name,” said Harry, after a pause, “and I remember such a boy at one of the first schools to which I ever went. He was a lazy fellow, who spent all his pocket-money in buying gilded watch-chains and imitation breast-pins, and his leisure time in writing letters directed to himself, purporting to come from fashionable friends in town. I recollect he burnt nearly half his hair off at one time with the curling tongs, and was constantly begging old boot-tops from the elder boys to make straps, which he pinned fast to his pantaloons. We called him ‘gentleman Rumsey,’ a title with which he appeared highly delighted. This person is doubtless the same, though I have never met him since I left school, and why he should claim me as an acquaintance, I know not. Do you know the family?”