Two gentlemen friends saunter arm in arm up and down the deck of the palace steamer Chicora as she enters our beautiful Lake Ontario from the picturesque Niagara River, on a perfect day in delightful September, when the blue canopy of the heavens seems so far away, one wonders that the mirrored surface of the lake can reflect its color.
"Do you know, Buckingham, you puzzle me; you were evidently happier in our little circle at the Hoffman House than in billiard, smoking, or reading-rooms, and just now in the saloon you seemed so content with Miss Crew, my wife and our boy, that I again wonder a man with these tastes, and who has made his little pile, does not marry," said Mr. Dale, in flute-like tones, distinctly English in accent. "I really think, my dear fellow, you would be happier in big New York city with some one in it to make a home for you."
"I am quite sure your words are kindly meant, Dale, but look at me," he says tranquilly, "I am not dwarfed by care, being six feet in my stockings, I have no worrying lines written on my forehead, and between you and I, I am fifty; to be sure I am bald and grey, but that is New York life, a bachelor life, then, has not served me ill; there is a woman at Toronto I should like as my wife, but until I can give her the few luxuries I now deem necessities, I shall remain as I am."
"I regret your decision, Buckingham, it is a rock many men split on, this waiting for wealth and missing wifely companionship."
"Perhaps you are right; but I should not care to risk it," he says, calmly.
"And you a speculator!" his friend said, smiling. At this they drifted into business and some joint investments in Canadian mineral locations, when Dale said:
"You must excuse me now, Buckingham, I promised my wife to go and read her a letter descriptive of Toronto, as we, you know, have not been there."
"Who is the writer, if I may know?"
"Our mutual friend at Toronto, Mrs. Gower."
"Oh, I am with you then," he said, with unusual eagerness, a fact noted by his friend.
Entering the saloon, Mrs. Dale, a pretty little woman, fashionably dressed, with Irish blue eyes and raven hair, said, lifting her head:
"Excuse my recumbent position, but I feel as if my head wasn't level, if I try to sit up; ditto, Miss Crew."
"Where is Garfield, Ella?"
"Over there with those boys; now read away, hubby, it will do my head good."
"Very well, let me see where the description commences (the personal part I may pass). Here it is:
"Toronto is a fair matron with many children, whom she has planted out on either side and north of her as far as her great arms can stretch. She lies north and south, while her lips speak loving words to her off-spring, and to her spouse, the County of York; when she rests she pillows her head on the pine-clad hills of sweet Rosedale, while her feet lave at pleasure in the blue waters of beautiful Lake Ontario.
"Her favorite children are Parkdale, Rosedale, and Scarboro'; Parkdale to her west, ambitious and clear-sighted, handsome and well-built, the sportive lake at his feet, in which his children revel at eve; her daughter, charming Rosedale, in society and quite the fashion even to the immense bouquet she carries at all seasons—now of autumn leaves, from the hand of Dame Nature; now of the floral beauties from her own gardens and conservatories, again, of beauteous ferns gathered in her own woods across her handsome bridges.
"Scarboro', fair Toronto's favorite son, of whom she is justly proud, is a handsome young warrior, fearless as his own heights, robust as his own trees, which seem as one gazes down his deep ravine, like so many giants marching upwards as though panting to reach the blue pavilioned heavens where they would fain rest their heads.
"From the time spring thaws the sceptre out of the frozen hand of winter, until again he is king, the breath of Scarboro' is redolent of the rose, honeysuckle and sweet-briar, with a rapid succession of the loveliest wild flowers in Canada beneath one's feet, a veritable carpet of sweet-scented blossoms has her son Scarboro'.
"Fair Toronto is also herself richly robed and jewelled, her necklet being of picturesque villas, in Rosedale and on Bloor Street; under her corsage, covered with beauteous blossoms from her Horticultural Gardens, her Normal School grounds, etc., her heart throbs with pride as she thinks of her gems, the spires from her one hundred and twenty churches glistening in heaven's sunbeams; of her magnificent University of Toronto, with its great Norman tower, which cost her nearly $500,000; her handsome Trinity College, in third period pointed English style; her Knox College, her hotels, her opera houses, her stately banks; with her diamonds, of which she is vastly proud, and which are her great newspaper offices—the most valuable being those of first water, viz., her Church papers as finger-posts, with her Sentinel as guard; her independent, cultured Mail; her mighty clear-Grit Globe; her brilliant, knowing Grip; her often-quoted World; her racy town-cry News; her social Saturday Night; her Life, her Week, her Truth, with her Evening Telegram, the whole set being so valued by fair Toronto, that she would as soon be minus her daily bread as her newspapers.
"It would take too long to enumerate the many attractions fair Toronto offers—some of those within her walls having throats full of song, others in the 'Harmony Club,' others elocutionists, with orators and athletes; her Cyclorama of Sedan, her Zoo—to which only a trifle pays the piper—her interesting museums, her fine art galleries.
"And again, one word of her pet river, her picturesque Humber, where lovers meet, poets dream, and fairies dwell; yes, as Imrie says:
"'Glide we up the Humber river,
Where the rushes sigh and quiver,
Plight our love to each forever,
Love that will not die.'"Such, dear Mr. and Mrs. Dale, is my lay of Toronto, which I hope you will like well enough to come and sojourn here awhile. You say, Mrs. Dale, that you have 'willed' to go to an hotel, if so, I shall say no more of my wish, for 'a woman's will dies hard on the field, or on the sward;' but when your will is carried out, should you sigh for home-life come to me—even then Holmnest will have open doors. You may be grave or gay, you may be en déshabillé in mind and robing, or you may have your war-paint on for the watchful eye of Grundy, be it as you will it, you are ever welcome, only tell dear Diogenes not to come in his tub. I can give you both amusement enough in many subjects or objects at which to level your glass, for Toronto society is in many instances an amusing spectacle, a droll conglomeration.
"Yours as always,
"Elaine Gower."
"Well, Buckingham, what think you of fair Toronto?" asked Dale, as he finished reading.
"I think that, though unusual, a Fair Matron has had ample justice from a fair woman."
"I want to-morrow and Mrs. Gower right now," said Mrs. Dale, "as Garfield says when he is promised a treat."
"Toronto must be a fine city, and covering a large area," said Miss Crew.
"Mrs. Gower has a taste for metaphor; I never heard her in that style before, that is to any extent," said Buckingham.
"I am intensely practical," said Dale; "but confess Toronto described in metaphor sounds more musical, at all events, than in plain brick and mortar style."
"Emerson says," said Buckingham, "men are ever lapsing into a beggarly habit in which everything that is not cyphering is hustled out of sight, and I think he is right."
"We cannot help it, it is the tendency of the age; but what have we here, Buckingham? What's the excitement about?"
"Oh, we are only nearing Hanlon's Point; the ladies had better come outside; every scene will be in gala dress. Miss Crew, can I assist you?"
said Dale, coming with the crowd to view the scene.
But since Moore so sang, the hills of the noble red man have disappeared, save as a boundary to our fair city; the pale faces, in the interests of progress and civilization, would have it so; and Bloor Street, to the north, is now reached by a gradual ascent of one hundred and fifty feet above the lake level. But now the stately and comfortable palace steamer, Chicora, with a goodly number of souls on board, is rounding Hanlon's Point, and entering our beautiful Bay, when the illumined city, with the Industrial Exhibition of 1887 in full swing, burst upon the view. The bands of music in and about the city, at the Horticultural Gardens and on the fair grounds, with the hum of many voices, fill the evening air with a glad song of joy.
"What a sparkling scene," cried Mrs. Dale; "see, Garfield, my boy, all the boats lit from bow to stern."
"They look as pretty as you in your diamonds, mamma."
"It is quite a pretty sight, and the city also," said Miss Crew; "I had no idea Canada could attempt anything to equal this."
"So much for England's instructions of her 'young ideas how to shoot,' as to her colonies, Miss Crew," said Dale; "Come, confess that a few squaws, bearing torches, with their lordly half smoking the calumet, was the utmost you expected."
"Oh, Mr. Dale, please don't exaggerate our ignorance in this respect; I am not quite so bad as a lady at home, who thought Toronto a chain of mountains, and Ottawa an Indian chief."
"One of Fenimore Cooper's, I hope," laughed Buckingham, "who hunted buffalo on the boundless prairie, instead of your lean gophers who hunt rusty bacon from agents who, some say, use him to swindle the public and line their own pockets. But listen; what a medley of sounds."
"And lights," cried Mrs. Dale; "it looks as if annexation was on, and they were firing up some of our gold dollars as sky rockets."
"It's pretty good for Canada, mamma," said Garfield, patronisingly.
"You say Toronto is quite a business centre, Buckingham?"
"Oh, yes; quite so; it makes one think of commercial union. Do you advocate it, Dale?"
"Well, as you know, Buckingham, I am not even yet sufficiently Americanised to look upon it from other than a British standpoint, and so do not advocate it, as it seems a slight to the Mother Country. What is your idea of advantages derived by Canada were it a fait accompli?"
"She would gain larger markets; her natural resources would be developed, especially her mineral, in which I am," he added, jokingly, "looking out for the interest of that most important number one, while also number two would benefit in home manufactures."
"You amuse me; I honestly believe number one is a universal lever; yet still in a way we are each patriotic; but, again, you must see that commercial union would be the forerunner of annexation."
"Yes, likely, though not for some time, but evolution will bring that about in a natural sort of way, as a final settlement of all vexed questions, whether," he added laughingly, "of humanity or—fish."
"Oh, I don't know that, but you have the fish at all events and mean to keep them too; humanity may follow, but I should not like to see the colonies hoist another flag. But here we are at last, at the portals of the Queen City, and such a multitude of people makes one feel as if one might be crowded out," he said, uneasily, as the Chicora came in at Yonge Street wharf.
"Don't bother your head about your rooms, Dale, you secured them by telegram."
"I did, ten days ago, though."
"You never fear, they will be all right, the manager is a thorough business man," he said quietly, gathering up the belongings of the ladies.
"You are invaluable, Mr. Buckingham," said Mrs. Dale, "and are as gallant as if you had as many wives as Blue Beard."
"Rather a scaly compliment, Buckingham," laughed his friend.
"She means well, but the fish are not far off," he answered, picking up Garfield, and giving his arm to quiet Miss Crew.
"What a moving sea of faces!" exclaimed Miss Crew.
"Yes, quite a few, and look as if they required laundrying—bodies, bones, and all."
"Here, Garfield, though you are 'very old' as you say, you had better take my hand," said Miss Crew, nervously, as Mr. Buckingham set him down on the wharf.
"Oh, no, he must go with his father," cried Mrs. Dale.
"Oh, I reckon a New York boy can elbow his way through that mean crowd." And darting through the mass of people, causing the collapse of not a few tournures, and with the aid of one of his mother's bonnet pins giving many a woman cause to scream as she unconsciously cleared his path by getting out of his way, he is on the outskirts of the crowd.
"Say, hackman, drive me off right smart to the Queen's!"
"Is it all square, young gent?"
"Yes; dimes sure as Vanderbilt money."
"Oh, I mean you are but a kid to go it alone."
"Chestnuts!"
And taking another hack, "Pooh, Bah!" quieting his scruples by pocketing a double insult they are off.
"I feel sure Garfield is quite safe, Ella, and probably choosing a cab for us; here, take my arm dear, and don't be nervous, Buckingham is looking after Miss Crew."
But he is on ahead making inquiries.
"Yes, sir, the young gent is all right, if you take my hack we'll catch him, I lost him by being too careful like."
"Your boy is all right, Mrs. Dale, if you jump in quick we'll overtake him; allow me, Miss Crew."
"Thank heaven," said his mother fervently, "tell the man to go as quick as he can through this crowd; there he is, the young scamp, waving to us, there, on ahead, a pair of light greys."
"And here we are, and your boy of the period waiting to welcome us."
"Welcome to the Queen City," he said, pulling off his skull cap.
"You frightened your mother, my boy; see that you don't repeat this; remember she is nervous."
"Glad I ain't a woman, they are all nerves and bustles; here, give us a kiss, mamma, I only wanted to show you I aint a baby."
"There! there! that will do, my bonnet! my bangs! such a bustle as I've been in about you, I wish you were in long clothes."
"Then I'd have to wear a bustle too!"
"Ella you look tired, we had best let them show us our rooms at once; Buckingham, we shall have some dinner together, I hope."
"Yes, I shall meet you here, and go in with you."
"This is pleasant, rooms en suite, and you beside us, Miss Crew," said Mrs. Dale.
And now, while they refresh themselves by bath and toilette, a word of them: Mr. Dale, like his friend Buckingham, has reached fifty, is grey, also wearing short side whiskers and moustache. He is a man of sterling worth of character, honest as the day; a man whose word was never doubted, who, having seen much of life, was apt to be a trifle cynical; but withal, so generous that his criticisms on men and things are more on the surface than even he imagines. A good friend, a kind husband to the pretty, penniless girl, Ella Swift, whom he had married in New York eleven years ago, and though unlike in character, there is so much love between them that their wedded happiness flows on with never a rift in the rill; and though she does not look into life and its many vexed questions with his depth of thought, still, in other ways her brain is quite as active—a kindly, social astronomer, she loves to unravel mysteries in the lives about her, to set love affairs going to her liking, she not caring to soar above the drawing-room, leaving Wall Street, the Corn Exchange, and railway stocks to her astute husband, who has inherited English gold, to which he is adding or losing in speculations the American eagle. With some thought of changing their residence to fair Toronto, they had a year ago given up house, and have been residing at the Hoffman House, New York City; then engaging Miss Crew, as governess to their only child of nine years. Mr. Dale had been somewhat doubtful as to the advisability of giving the position to Miss Crew, who merely answering their advertisement in the New York Herald, stating nervously that she was without references, as the people she had been with had gone West; but she was a fair, delicate, lady-like, religious girl, interesting Mrs. Dale at once by her loneliness and reticence; above all, Garfield took to her, and she gained an influence for good over him at once; and by this time both Mr. and Mrs. Dale have come to consider her as one of themselves, though having decided to place their son at boarding-school until such time as they take up house.
Mr. Buckingham is, as we know, an eligible bachelor, fine-looking, tall, as we have heard, and a man of many dollars; a calmly quiet man (a trait from his German mother), who has lost two fortunes, but who will not play for high stakes again, as he does not care to begin over again at fifty, with nearly all he craves in his grasp; two women jilted him when fortune frowned, but taking it coolly, he merely told himself it was the dollar they had cared for, not he. Passionately fond of music, a skilled performer, the piano has been mistress and wife to him; if he marries he will be a good husband, but if he does not, he will be almost as happy in the best musical circle wherever his home may be.
Having dined, our friends gathered for a few moments' social chat before retiring, when Mrs. Dale said, "I expect, Mr. Buckingham, you feel as important as one of Barnum's show-men in your role, for you are aware you and Mrs. Gower must trot us round to see the lions."
"Any man, Mrs. Dale, would feel important as your cicerone, and in company with Mrs. Gower."
"How polite you are. Oh, Henry, I see by the News, "Fantasma" is on at the Grand Opera House; even if it is late, let us go."
"Nonsense, dear, we have seen it often enough."
"If you are tired, very well; but I wanted to make a spectacle of myself this time, and the ladies green with envy over my new heliotrope satin."
"Well, if that isn't self-abnegation," laughed Buckingham.
"Oh, you needn't sympathize, I only feel as the peacock when he spreads his tail."
"How many churches did Mrs. Gower say there are here?" asked Miss Crew.
"One hundred and twenty; so you will have a choice of roads heavenward, Miss Crew," answered Buckingham.
"Yes, there are a number of roads, and only one guide-book," she answered, thoughtfully.
"Mrs. Gower will put you on the right track," he said quietly.
Here Mr. Dale returned, saying in pleased tones, "Well, Ella, I have telephoned Mrs. Gower of our arrival, and she says she will call at 11 a.m., then do the Exhibition, where we are to remain until we see Pekin bombarded."
"That is in the evening, and the best part of it this perfect weather; may I come?" said Buckingham.
"Assuredly."
"Thanks, and au revoir."
"Good night."
"Nothing is more deeply punished than the neglect of the affinities by which alone society should be formed and the insane levity of choosing our associates by other's eyes," read a lady, musingly, as Emerson's essays fall from her knees to the soft carpet under her cushioned feet.
"Yes, nothing is more deeply punished," she half chanted in a musical voice, while a grave, troubled look came to the dark eyes, and a quiver of pain to the sensitive lips. "And well do you and I know it, Tyr, though you are only a dog," she continued, as she patted a brown retriever beside her. "Yes, you and I, Tyr, like only affinities; the others seem to us mongrels, and to us don't seem good. I wonder if they were so pronounced in the first week when the world was young; but fancy is travelling without reason; they were all thorough-breds in the good old days, and one does not read of anything like Emerson's words on affinities, or a case similar to my own; but I am half asleep, Tyr; watch by me, good old dog."
And leaning her head back against the soft green velvet cushioned back of the rattan chair, Somnus is not wooed in vain; indeed, one might imagine the god of slumber had wound a garland of poppies about her brow, so does she sleep as an infant.
As she rests, a word of her. A Canadian; a native of Toronto, with far-away English kin; above the medium height; dark, comely, and slightly embonpoint; a woman of thirty, but with that troubled look at present on her face looking older; generous, warm-hearted and conscientious; with more than the average force of character; too sensitive in days past; too impulsive, even yet, in this world of "they daily mistake my words." Even at thirty, she has had years of trouble; has been dragged in the dust under Fortune's wheel, that others might ride aloft at her expense; earning her "dinner of herbs" that "Pooh Bah" in the plural, may have the "stalled ox." But at last she rests, and summer friends would again know her, who fled at her first out-at-elbow gown; but experience is a good teacher, she will cherish only those who have cherished her in her dark days. Society also now desires her company in polite bids to its various webs, in shape of dinners and lunches, with its other numerous distractions, knowing she is in possession of a rather pretentious little home, and is in a position to repay; for society is a debit and credit system.
"Once a widow always a widow" was not the motto of Mrs. Gower, and so she would have again wed, again gone to God's altar; but the angel of death forbade, using his scythe almost as the words of the church pronounced them man and wife, and the bridal gown of the morning gave place ere the sun had set to the black robes of a second widowhood. Truly, "Sorrow there seemeth more of thee than we can bear and live;" yet still we live, was her cry. The death of her friend, just at the time manly counsel would have saved her little fortune from vultures, habited as Christian pew-holders! was very hard, not to speak of that intense loneliness, the death of husband, wife, or betrothed, brings into one's life; one is as though struck mentally and physically blind, not knowing where to turn or whose hand to take; for until such relations are severed by death, one does not realize how one has leaned on the one in the multitude.
"But," she would say, "one must harden oneself to the inevitable, to Heaven's will, if one would keep one's reason;" and in time the sudden death of the man she had so passionately loved, was as some terrible dream. Not as she dreams away the moments now in her pretty restful library, with its rattan furniture, cushioned and trimmed in olive-green velvet; one side a library of her pet authors, with Davenport near; walls painted in alternate green and cream panels; on the light ground are lilies from nature, gathered from Ashbridge's Bay, and near the Island; nestling in their bed of green leaves an English ivy trails around the pretty Queen Anne mantel, with two tall palms, which bring content to the canary as the perfume from the blossoms on the stand give pleasure to the sleeping mistress of Holmnest.
Her own individuality is stamped upon its walls also, for on each alternate dark green panel is some pretty bits of painting, bric-a-brac, or motto; one reads, "Let ilka ane gang their ain gait," showing her dislike to meddling in another's business; another reads, "The greatest of these is charity;" and over a bust of Shakspeare are his own words, "No profit goes where is no pleasure taken; in brief, sir, study what you most affect."
But she dreams, and what a troubled expression. At this moment a coupé drives up a north-west avenue of our city, stops at the gate of Holmnest, when a gentleman, hurriedly springing out, saying, "come back for me in about an hour-and-a-half, Somers," enters the picturesque grounds, has reached the veranda and hall door on south side of pretty Holmnest, rings, when a boy, in neat blue suit, answers.
"Is Mrs. Gower at home, Thomas?"
"Yes, sir; in the library."
"Very well, you need not announce me, I know the way;" and hastening his steps he passes through a square hall, done in the warm tints now in vogue, sunbeams coming softened through artistic panes of stained glass, showing vases on brackets filled with flowers, which would delight "Bel Thistlethwaite," with a few appropriate pictures, giving life to the walls; the door of the library is ajar; he enters.
"Asleep!" he exclaims, softly; "with Emerson's thoughts for dreams and Tyr as watch; but what a troubled expression," he thinks, seating himself, evidently quite at home; a man, too, one would like to be at home with, if there be any truth in physiognomy, a handsome man, five feet eleven in height, dark hair and moustache, kindly blue eyes, amiability stamped on his face; a man who, had events shaped themselves that way, would have made an heroic self-sacrificing soldier of the Cross.
He is scarcely seated when the occupant awakes with a start and a terrified exclamation of "Oh!" at which the dog places his fore-paws on her knees, with a whine of sympathy, as her friend, Mr. Cole, comes forward with outstretched hand.
"When did you arrive; is it so late; you received my message to dine with the Dales and Smyths with me this evening? but I am half dreaming yet; of course you did, for you answered 'Yes.' Getting yourself in trim for leap-year, I suppose," she said, smiling; "but how is it you are in your office coat? I want you to look your very best, as you are to take in a young lady, a Miss Crew, who comes with the Dales; she is a super-excellent sort of girl."
"Has she money?" he says, laughingly.
"Oh, you need not pretend to be a fortune-hunter to me; I know you too well for that; but remember, I prophesy you will lose your heart to her. But, oh, Charlie, I have had such a horrible dream," and she presses one hand to her forehead, at which the lace rufflings fall back from her sleeve, showing a very good arm, her gown of ecru soft summer bunting, becoming her style, "that dream will haunt me unless you let me tell it you, Charlie."
"Oh, that's the use you put me to, is it? all right, fire away, I'll interpret; it was only a mistake the baptizing me Charlie, when I have to play the part of Joseph."
"Well, in the first part, oh Joseph, I had been reading this morning what held my mind as to the ascent from Paris of the æronauts, Mallet and Jovis; their courage, and Mother Shipton's prophecy impressed me sufficiently as to dream, with the words of Emerson as to affinities also in my mind, that a party of us—you, the Dales, Mrs. St. Clair, Miss Hall, Mr. Buckingham, and myself, with a gentleman who was masked—had been taking part in an entertainment in the Pavilion, Horticultural Gardens, in aid of the Hospital for sick children; we gave readings, vocal and instrumental music, and laughed inwardly and glowed outwardly, as we everyone, regardless of merit, received repeated recalls, when afterwards the recalcitrant balloon, which refused to inflate, when we gazed in vain at the fair grounds, did ascend after our performance, which fact emptied the Pavilion ere we had concluded our last effort, everyone flying, as we do at Toronto, as though there was a drop curtain with the words in flaming colors, 'The de'il take the hind-most;' the building was empty as our last supreme effort frightened the few dead-heads who had slunk in; we then laughingly made a rush to the balloon ascension, and determined there and then to further distinguish ourselves by becoming æronauts pro tem. What made it ridiculously droll, Joseph, was the fact that the men in charge chanted continuously Emerson's words that had impressed me ere I slept—'Nothing is more deeply punished than the neglect of the affinities.' I was nearest the basket, and wild with reckless spirit. As I remember, myself stepped in; the owners seemed at variance who was to pose or rise," she said, smilingly, "as my affinity, that is of yourself, Messrs. Dale, Buckingham, or the man with the mask, when, finally, they signed to the latter to enter; I was nothing loth, for his voice, a sweet tenor, had charmed me; up we went, when to my horror your béte noir, Mr. Cobbe, sprang from among the branches of a tall tree into the basket.
"'Too much ballast,' he cried, throwing out all the owners had provided us with; we ascended rapidly—a feeling of faintness seizing me—up, up; I feel the sensation now," she said with a tremor; "up, up, nearing the feathery clouds, looking like down from the wings of angels. 'Too much ballast,' he again cried, excitedly springing on the masked man, first tearing off his mask, disclosing the essentially manly face of a gentleman whom I frequently meet, but am not acquainted with, but in whom I take an interest, because of his tender care of a little lady I used to see with him; Mr. Cobbe springing on him with the words, 'too much ballast; down with affinities!' hurled the poor fellow to earth, at which I cried out as you heard; his fall was a something too awfully real; one's nerves for the time suffer as severely as though all was reality," she added in a pre-occupied tone, as though mind was burdened with latent thought.
"But 'all's well that ends well;' Mr. Cobbe is in mid air, where I fervently hope he will remain."
"But you forget the poor man who was hurled to the earth; I know his face so well."
"And I know yours, Mrs. Gower, and you are safe and so am I; and as Joseph, I interpret that you are to give your charming self to an affinity, and don't fly too high."
"The first part of your speech is epicurean, in your second you play the mentor," she said, laughingly; "but in your face I see you have something to tell me; go now to the telephone and tell them to send you your dress coat, for you have no time to go all the way to the Walker House and be back by seven."
"No use; I cannot stay for dinner."
"Cannot stay! Why?"
"My father writes me he is going to sail for England at once, and wishes me to meet him at London."
"Well, you ought not to look so grave over such a meditated trip, Charlie, it will make a new man of you; and instead of betaking yourself to the Preston baths, a sea voyage, I should say, will set you up, making you forget the word rheumatism better than any sulphur bath in all Canada."
"But," he said, in serio-comic tones, "what do you think of my being forced into annexation?"
"Only that you use the word 'forced,' I should say I congratulate you."
"At the same time that you keep your own freedom, though," he said, despondently; seeing her look of gravity, he continued, touching her hand, "beg pardon, Elaine, I should not say that, knowing your past; but," he said brightly, "I should like to see you wed an affinity."
"I am afraid such pleasant fate is not for me," she said, gravely.
"Do you believe in predestination, Mrs. Gower?" he says, abruptly.
"What next! from annexation to dogma. Tell me all about yourself, and it is too lovely an Indian summer day to remain in the house, come to my favorite seat in the garden."
"Where I shall give you an instantaneous photograph, from my father's pen, of the girl I am predestined to change the name of."
"From your father's pen!"
As they near a knoll under a clump of trees commanding a view of the road, a gentleman sauntering up the street gazes, as many do, at Holmnest with its pretty grounds.
"Look, quick, Charlie," said Mrs. Gower, in low and rapid tones, apparently intent on spreading a rug on the rustic bench, "there he is, I mean——"
"Well, I only see a very ordinary and thoroughly independent looking man, seeming as though he feared nothing, not even you, and as if Toronto was built for him."
At this Mrs. Gower, laughing merrily, says, "And not for the Lieutenant-Governor, Mayor Howland, Archbishop Lynch, or the 'caller herrin'-man.'"
As the soft laughter fell on the air, the stranger looked towards them, and looked so intently, that involuntarily his hand is raised to his head and his hat lifted.
"You say you have not met him, Mrs. Gower; you are a very prudent woman, I must say, coming out here in your white gown, with ribbons the color of a peach, creating a sensation; you had better wed an affinity since you won't have me, and get a protector at once."
"That is the man I dreamed of whom the æronauts dubbed my affinity; it's too bad we are not acquainted, instead of only getting instantaneous photographs of each other."
"What a trial!" he said, ironically; "but still," he added, as with a sudden remembrance, "I have, strange to say, had occasion to say, hang the conventionalities, more than once, with reference to a fair-haired girl with blue eyes, that seem, when I think of her, to follow me; no later, too, than this morning at W. A. Murray's door, as you I have had only instantaneous photographs of her; once before at a window in New York city, also there in a suspension car; it is not that I have fallen in love with her—not by a long chalk, but she seems to have been in my life some time, that by a trick of memory I have lost; but I advise you, Mrs. Gower, not to allow that man to bow to you again."
"Oh, he only lifted his hat in apology; but I wish you were not going away, and that I could see this girl."
"I wish I hadn't to; but this is the way time flies whenever I come to Holmnest; I am forgetting that I came to tell you I am just now the foot-ball of circumstance, which compels me to cross seas to have a halter put around my neck in wedding a girl whom I have never seen."
"Even if you have to, Charlie, you may love her at first sight, so don't take it to heart; if it is so that she is no affinity, you will suffer only as many others," she says gravely, "in having a taste of the tantalus punishment, in losing what we would fain grasp; but tell me all about it, as my dinner guests will be soon arriving, and I did so want you for—myself, as well as for Miss Crew."
"That's the first sympathetic word you have said, 'for yourself,'" he said, touching her hand, "but I am to be always for somebody else," he said, a little sadly; "but I see you think I am never going to begin, so here goes: My father, as you have heard me say, did not marry a second time, not that he did not again fall a victim to the tender passion, but that the miscreator, circumstance, putting in an oar, sent him out of England, when his bride-elect that was to be, was coerced into marrying her guardian (one Edward Villiers, of Bayswater, London,) by his sister-in-law, a domestic tyrant, and his housekeeper; who, knowing to rid himself of her presence he would probably wed a woman of as strong a will as her own, when she, penniless, would be thrust out, told lies, not white ones, of my father, that he had married in Canada, intercepting his letters, and heaven knows what; at all events, Lucifer's agent triumphed, for on my father going across the water to claim her and scold her for her silence, he found her a wife with a baby girl, when, to reduce a three-volume story to a line, they, in despair, wept and raved, nearly heart broken, vowing that I and the little one should wed and inherit all the yellow sovereigns; and so, Elaine, it comes to pass in years of evolution this youngster has become of age, and I am presented with her as my bride. I have always known of this contract, but you know the kind of man I am, ever shoving the unpleasant into a corner; for the bare idea of marrying a woman for money has always been repugnant to me."
"I should say it has, for with you it has ever been 'more blessed to give than to receive.'"
"I don't know that, but to hasten, breathing time is at last not given me, I am summoned to England by those people and by my father's wish, who sends me a copy of the will of the late Mrs. Villiers, a clause of which I shall read to you; but what a bore I am to you."
"Nonsense; who have I poured my life puzzles into the ear of but your own kind self—turn about is fair play, and besides, yours is a sensational life story, and so more interesting than thoughts from the clever pens of Haggard or Mannville, Fenn, or our own Watson Griffin."