your assurance," she corrected, "that the vote is affirmative."
"What is your game?" demanded the old man. "What assurance have I that your information is correct?"
"Only my word," she said coolly. "I will tell you the name of the person having those papers, and where that person is to be found, the day I have proof that the affirmative vote is passed. You do as you like about accepting my terms."
It is needless to narrate further the conversation between the two: suffice it to say that Miss Flora was in the end triumphant. The wily lawyer determined to find his own account in the purposed vote, by the immediate purchase of Samoset and Brookfield Railroad stocks. One question Miss Sturtevant asked before she left the office.
"Had these papers any relation to Mr. Breck or his property?" she asked.
"No," Mr. Wentworth answered, evidently surprised. "What put that into your head?"
"Nothing," she said. "Good-morning."
And the enterprising woman, going to the bank, drew every dollar she could raise, and then hastened to catch the afternoon train to Montfield.
"Frank Breck," she said to herself, as she rolled along, "you are hardly a match for me, after all."
Within the next few days Miss Flora was very busy. She astonished the business-men of Samoset, a village half a dozen miles west of Montfield, by going about, purchasing the old Samoset and Brookfield stock, which everybody knew to be worthless, and which was to be had for a song. The lady was full of a thousand affectations and kittenish wiles in her leisure hours; but, when attending to business, she showed the hard, shrewd nature which lay beneath this soft exterior. She drove sharp bargains, and when, at last, the vote of the directors of the great Brookfield Valley Railroad to purchase the Branch became known, Miss Sturtevant's name was in every mouth, not always uncoupled with curses. Many a man and woman whose all had been sunk in the Branch found it hard to forgive this woman for the advantage she had taken; and she was accused of a sharpness not to be clearly distinguished from dishonesty; for country people see stock operations in a light very different from that of Wall Street. That Flora was not without consideration for the property of others, however, is proved by the following note, which she wrote the Sunday after her interview with Mr. Wentworth: —
Dear Mr. Putnam, – My interest in your welfare is too deep for me to stop to consider how you will regard my writing you. I heard in Boston yesterday, that the stock of the Samoset and Brookfield is likely to increase in value very soon. I tell you this in strictest confidence, as I have heard it intimated that you own some of the stock.
CHAPTER VIII
ON THE PIAZZA
The life of Bathalina Clemens was one long wail in the past-potential tense. "I might have been" was the refrain of all her days.
"I might ha' been Peter Mixon's wife, if my sinful pride hadn't a made me high-minded," she said continually. "How'd I know he'd give up so easily, 'cause I said I wouldn't let him lick the ground I walked on?"
The nasal melancholy of camp-meeting minors floated after her angular form like the bitter odor from wormwood or tansy. She reproved the levity of those about her with an inner satisfaction at having "borne testimony;" and particularly did she labor with Patty, whose high spirits were a continual thorn to Bathalina.
"It's so like the Amorites and the Hittites and Hivites," she groaned, "to be always singing and laughing and dancing about! How'll you feel when you come to your latter end? Would you dance on your dying-bed?"
"Probably not," Patty answered, laughing more than ever; "but I can't tell."
The spraining of Patty's ankle seemed to Bathalina a direct visitation of Providence in reproof for her vain merry-making.
"I knew some judgment would happen to you," the servant said. "'My sinfulness has been visited upon me.' If you'd only live as you'll wish you had when you come to stand around your dying-bed!"
"Bathalina," Patty said sedately, "I am glad you mention it. I intend to behave until my ankle gets better; and I wanted to ask you if you'd mind taking my place in the theatricals we are getting up."
"You may mock now," retorted Bathalina wrathfully; "but at the last you'll bite like an adder, and sting like a serpent. – Mrs. Sanford, I came to tell you that I am going this afternoon to the funeral of my cousin Sam's first wife's child."
"Is she dead?" asked Mrs. Sanford. "I hadn't heard of it; though, now, I remember I did hear a dog howl night before last."
"I suppose she's dead," the servant answered; "because, when I was over there Saturday, Jane said to me, says she, 'We sha'n't churn till after Emma dies.' And she wouldn't ha' said that if she warn't a-goin' to die soon. And, as that family always has their funerals Wednesday, I thought I better go over."
"But to-night is bread night," Mrs. Sanford objected; while Patty sank back in convulsions of laughter.
"Well'm, I'll mix it up early to-morrow morning."
"No," the housewife said decidedly; "none of your bread raised by daylight in my house. I'll see to it myself to-night. Grandmother Sanford is coming to-day; and she knows what good bread is, if anybody does."
"Mother," Patty asked, as the door closed behind Bathalina, "do you suppose Bath is as crazy as she seems? She talks like a perfect idiot."
"Well," her mother answered meditatively, "sometimes I think that perhaps maybe she isn't; and then, again, I don't know but after all I can't tell but she is."
Later in the forenoon Patty lay upon a light willow lounge which Will had placed for her on the piazza. It was a lovely summer's day. The bees hummed drowsily among the flowers, and Patty had drifted halfway from waking into sleeping. Through an opening in the vines which shaded the piazza, she watched the clouds moving slowly through the far, still spaces of blue ether, one shape insensibly changing into another as they passed.
The girl was thinking of nothing higher or greater than her suitors, perhaps having meditated sufficiently upon graver subjects in the days since her accident, now making almost a week. She was not counting her conquests; yet she had a pleasant consciousness of her power, and recalled with satisfaction the compliments bestowed upon her in words or attentions. The two nephews of Mr. Putnam, Frank and Hazard Breck, had the previous afternoon called upon her; and the younger was of old a devoted worshipper at her shrine. Hazard Breck was a fine, manly fellow a year Patty's junior. He believed himself madly in love with her; and indeed, in the fashion of pure-minded youth, he felt for her that maiden passion which is light and sweetness without the heat and wholesome bitter of a man's love.
As Patty lay watching the clouds, and enjoying the colors brought out by the sunlight as it filtered through the leafy screen, she heard the latch of the gate click. Without turning her head, she tried to guess whose step it was coming up the gravel-walk, and rightly concluded it must be that of Hazard Breck. He crossed the piazza, and came to her side.
"Good-morning," he said, in a tone having something of the richness of his uncle's voice. "Are you asleep, or awake?"
"Asleep," she answered, closing her eyes. "Isn't it a delicious morning to sleep and dream?"
"What do you dream?"
"That you have good news to tell."
"You are no witch to
