H. C. Bunner

“ Celia Leete, whose brief experience of a strange social world had led her to doubt the accuracy and the usefulness of the Leete foot-rule, sat alone, on this particular afternoon, in the chamber which she shared with Dorinda. She was trying to read a novel of local manufacture, which, according to a press-notice quoted from the Peoria Palladium, gave "a vivid glimpse into the highest stratum of New York's most exclusive society." ”

“ It was a grand story that Celia had to tell a little later, while her mother and Dorinda were setting the table, and Popper Leete sat in his shirt-sleeves, with his stocking-feet on the window-sill, and divided his attention between the evening paper and his chattering family. The visit of a stranger was always an event of some importance in that quiet household; surely a visitor with such a mission was a rare bird, and one to be well talked over. And then, I regret to say, there was something in the fact that the visitor was a Wykoff, something in the fact that the Wykoffs were "swells." ”

“ Dorinda was buying unnecessary personal adornments at 27 cents and 39 cents apiece, as was her wont of a Saturday afternoon. Mr. Leete and Alonzo were still at the factory, for it was pay-day, and they stayed later than the hands. And Susan, the "help," was enjoying herself at the eleventh annual picnic of the Daughters of Temperance and Grand Rebekah Protective Lodge. It was clear that Celia had to go down-stairs and answer the bell. Why should it make her heart flutter and throb with wild and irrational disturbance just to open the door to a stranger of amiable and pacific appearance? ”

“ For the Fairy Prince still comes among us, in spite of what the photographers of fiction say; and every now and then he marries the beggar maid, and takes her home to live with his people, and is mightily sorry for it afterward, although, as his antique prototype most likely did, he makes shift to live happily with her ever after—before the eyes of the world. ”

“ This young lady was anally saved from the wiles of a titled foreign adventurer by the interposition of the hero, a dark and superficially cynical person, who had sounded all the depths and heights of swellness, and who, finding all things else hollow and objectionable, married her and took her off to do missionary work in the far West, where he felt that he could readily win the confidence and friendship of the miners and the Red Indians, and let the light of apostolic Episcopalianism into their darkened lives. ”

“ It ain't their way. I declare, Celia, how many napkins have you had this week? Now, I see your ring when you put it away yesterday, an' it was jest as clean as it could be, that napkin. If you're so mighty finicky, you'd better wash 'em yourself."
Mr. Leete took Wykoff's explanation as an admission of defeat. There are some people who cannot bear to own that they have been angry for naught.
"I thought he'd come to his senses," Popper Leete condescended to say; "he's a young feller, an' he's got suthin' to learn in this world, he'll find in good time. ”

“ But at last they all understood why he sought their society, and that was the drop of acid in the cloudy solution. There were five different individual reactions in the family of Leete. To Celia came the consciousness of a great and closely impending possibility. Her father was disturbed in mind, suspicious, and anxious. He had sufficient knowledge of the world to grasp the fact that men held, in such matters, widely differing codes of morality. He had no idea what Mr. Wykoff's code might be. ”

“ With a tact which comes to a young man only under certain circumstances, he suppressed the fact that he had been presented at court, and said nothing of driving in coroneted carriages and dining at the tables of the great. ”

“ Wykoff said, as he stepped into the entry and told his tale with a flattering deference in his manner.
"Of course I didn't mean, when I made up my mind to build on that unfortunate block—I didn't mean to give annoyance to any of the tenants—certainly not to Mr. Leete. I have always heard my father speak of Mr. Leete in the highest terms—he has often said that he would rather lose all the rest of his tenants than Mr. Leete." ”

“ Leete had a better appetite for his supper than his younger daughter could often muster up. By six o'clock, as a general thing, the day had grown very heavy to this young lady, and she was not tempted by the cold meat, the hot biscuit, the cake and the tea which were good enough for her father and her mother, her brother Alonzo and her sister Dorinda, more commonly called Dodie or Doe. ”

“ The chat stretched out; it was past three when Celia tied up his plans for him, and he took his leave.
Dorinda thought him a reel elegant gentlem'n, and Mrs. Leete said: "Why, I think he's a nice, pleasant-spoken, well-behaved young feller. I ain't seen a young man I liked so well in some time."
It is a simple tale. Mr. Wykoff found occasion to come again with his plans, that he might avail himself of Mr. Leete's superior knowledge of the exigencies of practical business. ”