The girl’s face did not upturn promptly, so the merchant assisted it. His hands were strong and Lucia’s neck was slender, yet it took some effort to force that little head to a kissable pose. When the father succeeded, he exclaimed,--
“What a splendid complexion October air brings to a girl who’s spent the summer in the country! There; good-by.”
Away went Tramlay to his business. The instant he was out of the room Margie snatched Lucia in her arms and the couple waltzed madly about, regardless of the fact that the floor of a New York dining-room has about as little unencumbered area as that of the smallest apartment in a tenement-house.
Thinner and thinner became the roll of bank-notes in Philip Hayn’s pocket; nearer and nearer came the day when he must depart from the city,--depart without any hope that he might ever return. The thought was intolerable; but what could be done to banish it? He might again, and several times, make excuses to leave home and come to New York for a day or two, perhaps on Sol Mantring’s sloop, and keep up after a fashion the acquaintance he had made, but to remain in the city any length of time, and spend money as he had been doing, was not to be thought of: the money could not be taken from the family purse, or saved in any way that he could devise.
Oh that he might speculate! Oh that the people who had thought of Hayn Farm as a site for a cottage village would make haste to decide and purchase, so the family’s property might be in money instead of land,--solid earth, which could not be spent while in its earthy condition. Oh that he might at least find occupation in New York; he would deny himself anything for the sake of replacing himself on the farm by a laborer, who would be fully as useful with two hands as he, if he might remain in the city. Why had he never had the sense to study any business but farming? There were two stores and a factory at Haynton; had he taken employment in either of these, as he had been invited to do, he might have learned something that would be of avail in New York.
But, alas! it was too late. He must go back to the farm,--go away from Lucia. How should he say farewell to her? Could he ask her to accept an occasional letter from him, and to reply? Would the Tramlays want to spend the next summer at Hayn Farm, he wondered? Should they come, and Lucia see him carrying a pail of pea-pods to the pigsty, or starting off with oil-skins and a big black basket for a day’s fishing off shore, would not her pretty lip curl in disdain? Or if the family wanted to go to the beach for a bath, would he come in from the fields in faded cotton shirt and trousers and bandless old straw hat to drive them down?