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The lad that copied the anonymous letter has left Wenbourne-Hill! Is run away! No one knows whither! He went the very day on which your brother left London, to be present with you at Mrs. Clifton's funeral; and Clifton now denies, with pretended indignation, having had any knowledge whatever of this letter! Oh how audacious is he in error!
Presently Irene approached and began to examine the drawings, which were fragmentary, except one or two heads, and a sketch taken from the bank opposite the Falls. After some moments passed in looking over them, Irene addressed the quiet little figure. "Have you been to Mr. Clifton's studio?" "No; who is he?" "An artist from New York. His health is poor, and he is spending the winter south.
"Is he one of your Madison-Avenue friends?" asked Clifton, a little mystified. "I don't know where he lives," said Dick, with truth; "but he's a friend of mine, in business down town." "Wholesale or retail?" "Retail I should say, shouldn't you, Fosdick?" "Yes," said Fosdick, amused at Clifton's evident mystification. "Well, good-evening, gents," said Clifton, sauntering out of the room.
He was home several times during the autumn and winter, and always spoke of the time when he was coming for good, and his father was content with that. Whether her brother Jacob was really disappointed or not at Clifton's decision, Elizabeth could not tell. "Jacob had never counted much on any help he would be likely to get from his brother," Mrs Jacob said.
Her soul flitted out through the window, and suffused itself in the bit of bright, bright blue showing beyond the stand-pipe, in the soft, soft air that stole in to kiss her cheek, in the elusive fragrance of young, green, growing things, in the drowsy, drowsy sound of Mrs. Clifton's chickens across the way... Precious minutes were speeding by; she would not have her Geometry lesson.
Clifton was quite aged, and though uniformly gentle and affectionate toward the orphan, there was no common ground of congeniality on which they could meet. To a proud, exacting nature like Electra's, Mr. Clifton's constant manifestations of love and sympathy were very soothing.
He often came wearily home to slumber through the rest of the day. He was querulous sometimes and exacting as to his daughter's care, and she rarely left him for a long time. She looked forward to no social duties in the way of merry-making for the young folks of the place this year. Even Clifton's coming home now and then did not enliven the house in this respect as it had done in former winters.
I intend, madam, said he, to make some inquiries of his master; and if they please me to hire him; for I want a servant, and if I am not deceived he will make a good one. Think, Louisa, whether I were not pleased with this proof of discernment. By this accident, I learned more of Clifton's character in ten minutes than perhaps I might have done in ten months.
The good humour as well as the good sense of Clifton's reproof pleased me highly; and we must all acknowledge him our superior, in the art of easily conforming to the customs of foreigners, and in readily pardoning even their absurdities. For foreigners, Louisa, have their absurdities, as well as ourselves. But I have not yet done.
Jacob Holt was having a hard time, and it did not for the moment make his troubles any lighter that his younger brother seemed likely, by and by, to show him a way out of them all. Indeed, it was rather an aggravation to his troubles to see Clifton's success.
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