"The veritable man himself!" cried Mr. Warner. "George Douglas, the senior partner of the firm, said by some to be worth two hundred thousand dollars, and only twenty-eight years old, and the best fellow in the world, except that he pretends to dislike women."
By this time Theo"s proud blue eyes shone with delight, and when, after a little further conversation, Mr. Warner expressed a wish to write to his partner, she brought her own rosewood writing desk for him to use, and then, seating herself by the window, waited until the letter was written.
"What shall I say for you, Miss Theo?" he asked, near the close; and, coloring slightly, she answered, "Invite him to come out and see you."
"Oh, that will be grand!" cried Maggie, who was far more enthusiastic, though not more anxious, than her sister.
Of her Henry Warner did not ask any message. He would not have written it had she sent one; and folding the letter, after adding Theo"s invitation, he laid it aside.
"I must write to Rose next," he said; ""tis a whole week since I have written, and she has never been so long without hearing from me."
Instantly there came a shadow over Maggie"s face, while Theo, less scrupulous, asked who Rose was.
"A very dear friend of mine," said Henry; and, as Mrs. Jeffrey just then sent for Theo, Maggie was left with him alone.
"Wait one moment," she said, as she saw him about to commence the letter. "Wait till I bring you a sheet of gilt-edged paper. It is more worthy of Rose, I fancy, than the plainer kind."
"Thank you," he said. "I will tell her of your suggestion."
The paper was brought, and then seating herself by the window Maggie looked out abstractedly, seeing nothing, and hearing nothing save the sound of the pen, as it wrote down words of love for the gentle Rose.
It was not a long epistle; and, as at the close of the Douglas letter he had asked a message from Theo, so now at the close of this he claimed one from Maggie.
"What shall I say for you?" he asked; and, coming toward him, Margaret answered, "Tell her I love her, though I don"t know who she is!"
"Why have you never asked me?" queried Henry; and, coloring crimson, Maggie answered hesitatingly, "I thought you would tell me if you wished me to know."
"Read this letter, and that will explain who she is," the young man continued, offering the letter to Maggie, who, grasping it eagerly, sat down opposite, so that every motion of her face was clearly visible to him.
The letter was as follows:
"MY DARLING LITTLE ROSE: Do you fancy some direful calamity has befallen me, because I have not written to you for more than a week?
Away with your fears, then, for nothing worse has come upon me than a badly broken limb, which will probably keep me a prisoner here for two months or more. Now don"t be frightened, Rosa. I am not crippled for life, and even if I were I could love you just the same, while you, I"m sure, would love me more.
"As you probably know, I left Worcester on Tuesday morning for the purpose of collecting some bills in this neighborhood. Arrived at Hillsdale I procured a horse, and was sauntering leisurely through the woods, when I came suddenly upon a flying witch in the shape of a beautiful young girl. She was the finest rider I ever saw; and such a chase as she led me, until at last, to my dismay, she leaped across a chasm down which a nervous little creature like you would be afraid to look. Not wishing to be outdone, I followed her, and as a matter of course broke my bones.
"Were it not that the accident will somewhat incommode Douglas, and greatly fidget you, I should not much regret it, for to me there is a peculiar charm about this old stone house and its quaint surroundings.
But the greatest charm of all, perhaps, lies in my fair nurse, Maggie Miller, for whom I risked my neck. You two would be fast friends in a moment, and yet you are totally dissimilar, save that your voices are much alike.
"Write to me soon, dear Rose, and believe me ever
"Your affectionate brother,
"HENRY."
"Oh!" said Maggie, catching her breath, which for a time had been partially suspended, "Oh!" and in that single monosyllable there was to the young man watching her a world of meaning. "She"s your sister, this little Rose," and the soft dark eyes flashed brightly upon him.
"What did you suppose her to be?" he asked, and Maggie answered, "I thought she might be your wife, though I should rather have her for a sister if I were you."
The young man smiled involuntarily, thinking to himself how his fashionable city friends would be shocked at such perfect frankness, which meant no more than their own studied airs.
"You are a good girl, Maggie," he said at last, "and I wouldn"t for the world deceive you; Rose is my step-sister. We are in no way connected save by marriage, still I love her all the same. We were brought up together by a lady who is aunt to both, and Rose seems to me like an own dear sister. She has saved me from almost everything. I once loved the wine cup; but her kindly words and gentle influence won me back, so that now I seldom taste it. And once I thought to run away to sea, but Rose found it out, and, meeting me at the gate, persuaded me to return. It is wonderful, the influence she has over me, keeping my wild spirits in check; and if I am ever anything I shall owe it all to her."
"Does she live in Worcester?" asked Maggie; and Henry answered: "No; in Leominster, which is not far distant. I go home once a month; and I fancy I can see Rose now, just as she looks when she comes tripping down the walk to meet me, her blue eyes shining like stars and her golden curls blowing over her pale forehead. She is very, very frail; and sometimes when I look upon her the dread fear steals over me that there will come a time, ere long, when I shall have no sister."
There were tears in Maggie"s eyes, tears for the fair young girl whom she had never seen, and she felt a yearning desire to look on the beautiful face of her whom Henry called his sister. "I wish she would come here; I want to see her," she said at last; and Henry replied: "She does not go often from home. But I have her daguerreotype in Worcester. I"ll write to Douglas to bring it," and opening the letter, which was not yet sealed, he added a few lines. "Come, Maggie," he said, when this was finished, "you need exercise. Suppose you ride over to the office with these letters?"
Maggie would rather have remained with him; but she expressed her willingness to go, and in a few moments was seated on Gritty"s back with the two letters clasped firmly in her hand. At one of these, the one bearing the name of Rose Warner, she looked often and wistfully; it was a most beautiful name, she thought, and she who bore it was beautiful too. And then there arose within her a wish--shadowy and undefined to herself, it is true; but still a wish--that she, Maggie Miller, might one day call that gentle Rose her sister. "I shall see her sometimes, anyway," she thought, "and this George Douglas, too. I wish they"d visit us together;" and having by this time reached the post-office she deposited the letters and galloped rapidly toward home.
CHAPTER VII.
THE SENIOR PARTNER.
The establishment of Douglas & Co. was closed for the night. The clerks had gone each to his own home; old Safford, the poor relation, the man-of-all-work, who attended faithfully to everything, groaning often and praying oftener over the careless habits of "the boys," as he called the two young men, his employers, had sought his comfortless bachelor attic, where he slept always with one ear open, listening for any burglarious sound which might come from the store below, and which had it come to him listening thus would have frightened him half to death. George Douglas, too, the senior partner of the firm, had retired to his own room, which was far more elegantly furnished than that of the old man in the attic, and now in a velvet easy-chair he sat reading the letter from Hillsdale, which had arrived that evening, and a portion of which we subjoin for the reader"s benefit.
After giving an account of his accident, and the manner in which it occurred, Warner continued:
"They say "tis a mighty bad wind which blows no one any good, and so, though I verily believe I suffer all a man can suffer with a broken bone, yet when I look at the fair face of Maggie Miller I feel that I would not exchange this high old bed, to enter which needs a short ladder, even for a seat by you on that three-legged stool behind the old writing-desk. I never saw anything like her in my life. Everything she thinks, she says, and as to flattering her, it can"t be done. I"ve told her a dozen times at least that she was beautiful, and she didn"t mind it any more than Rose does when I flatter her. Still, I fancy if I were to talk to her of love it might make a difference, and perhaps I shall ere I leave the place.
"You know, George, I have always insisted there was but one female in the world fit to be a wife, and as that one was my sister I should probably never have the pleasure of paying any bills for Mrs. Henry Warner; but I"ve half changed my mind, and I"m terribly afraid this Maggie Miller, not content with breaking my bones, has made sad work with another portion of the body, called by physiologists the heart.
I don"t know how a man feels when he is in love; but when this Maggie Miller looks me straight in the face with her sunshiny eyes, while her little soft white hand pushes back my hair (which, by the way, I slyly disarrange on purpose), I feel the blood tingle to the ends of my toes, and still I dare not hint such a thing to her. "Twould frighten her off in a moment, and she"ll send in her place either an old hag of a woman called Hagar, or her proud sister Theo, whom I cannot endure.
"By the way, George, this Theo will just suit you, who are fond of aristocracy. She"s proud as Lucifer; thinks because she was born in England, and sprang from a high family, that there is no one in America worthy of her ladyship"s notice, unless indeed they chance to have money. You ought to have seen how her eyes lighted up when I told her you were said to be worth two hundred thousand dollars! She told me directly to invite you out here, and this, I a.s.sure you, was a good deal for her to do. So don your best attire, not forgetting the diamond cross, and come for a day or two. Old Safford will attend to the store. It"s what he was made for, and he likes it. But as I am a Warner, so shall I do my duty and warn you not to meddle with Maggie.
She is my own exclusive property, and altogether too good for a worldly fellow like you. Theo will suit you better. She"s just aristocratic enough in her nature. I don"t see how the two girls come to be so wholly unlike as they are. Why, I"d sooner take Maggie for Rose"s sister than for Theo"s!
"Bless me, I had almost forgotten to ask if you remember that stiff old English woman with the snuff-colored satin who came to our store some five years ago, and found so much fault with Yankee goods, as she called them? If you have forgotten her, you surely remember the two girls in flats, one of whom seemed so much distressed at her grandmother"s remarks. She, the distressed one, was Maggie; the other was Theo; and the old lady was Madam Conway, who, luckily for me, chances at this time to be in England, buying up goods, I presume.
Maggie says that this trip to Worcester, together with a camp-meeting held in the Hillsdale woods last year, is the extent of her travels, and one would think so to see her. A perfect child of nature, full of fun, beautiful as a Hebe, and possessing the kindest heart in the world. If you wish to know more of her come and see for yourself; but again I warn you, hands off; n.o.body is to flirt with her but myself, and it is very doubtful whether even I can do it peaceably, for that old Hagar, who, by the way, is a curious specimen, gave me to understand when I lay on the rock, with her sitting by, as a sort of ogress, that so long as she lived no city chap with strapped pants (do pray, bring me a pair, George, without straps!) and sneering mouth was going to fool with Margaret Miller.
"So you see my mouth is at fault again. Hang it all, I can"t imagine what ails it, that everybody should think I"m making fun of them.
Even old Safford mutters about my making mouths at him when I haven"t thought of him in a month! Present my compliments to the old gentleman and tell him one of "the boys" thinks seriously of following his advice, which you know is "to sow our wild oats and get a wife." Do, pray, come, for I am only half myself without you.
"Yours in the brotherhood,
"HENRY WARNER."
For a time after reading the above George Douglas sat wrapped in thought, then bursting into a laugh as he thought how much the letter was like the jovial, light-hearted fellow who wrote it, he put it aside, and leaning back in his chair mused long and silently, not of Theo, but of Maggie, half wishing he were in Warner"s place instead of being there in the dusty city. But as this could not be, he contented himself with thinking that at some time not far distant he would visit the old stone house--would see for himself this wonderful Maggie--and, though he had been warned against it, would possibly win her from his friend, who, unconsciously perhaps, had often crossed his path, watching him jealously lest he should look too often and too long upon the fragile Rose, blooming so sweetly in her bird"s-nest of a home among the tall old trees of Leominster.
"But he need not fear," he said somewhat bitterly, "he need not fear for her, for it is over now. She has refused me, this Rose Warner, and though it touched my pride to hear her tell me no, I cannot hate her for it. She had given her love to another, she said, and Warner is blind or crazy that he does not see the truth. But it is not for me to enlighten him. He may call her sister if he likes, though there is no tie of blood between them. I"d far rather it would be thus, than something nearer;" and, slowly rising up, George Douglas retired to dream of a calm, almost heavenly face which but the day before had been bathed in tears as he told to Rose Warner the story of his love.
Mingled, too, with that dream was another face, a laughing, sparkling, merry face, upon which no man ever yet had looked and escaped with a whole heart.
The morning light dispelled the dream, and when in the store old Safford inquired, "What news from the boy?" the senior partner answered gravely that he was lying among the Hillsdale hills, with a broken leg caused by a fall from his horse.
"Always was a careless rider," muttered old Safford, mentally deploring the increased amount of labor which would necessarily fall upon him, but which he performed without a word of complaint.
The fair May blossoms were faded, and the last June roses were blooming ere George Douglas found time or inclination to accept the invitation indirectly extended to him by Theo Miller. Rose Warner"s refusal had affected him more than he chose to confess, and the wound must be slightly healed ere he could find pleasure in the sight of another. Possessed of many excellent qualities, he had unfortunately fallen into the error of thinking that almost anyone whom he should select would take him for his money. And when Rose Warner, sitting by his side in the shadowy twilight, had said, "I cannot be your wife,"
the shock was sudden and hard to bear. But the first keen bitterness was over now, and remembering "the wild girls of the woods," as he mentally styled both Theo and Maggie, he determined at last to see them for himself.