Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 September 1895 — AN EPISODE OF THE SEASON. [ARTICLE]

AN EPISODE OF THE SEASON.

“We met by chance.” Sauntering over the sands at the seaside, at a sudden turn round a cliff, we ran plump against each other. The gentleman, not at all discomposed, lifted his hat and apologized. I, with my breath nearly knocked out of me, conscious of looking flushed and awkward, hurried away. I was 17 and susceptible. It was mortifying to be presented for the first time to the notice of so elegant a gentleman under such awkward circumstances. Involuntarily I looked back. He stood just as I had passed him, looking after me. Sufficiently vexed to shake myself, I hurried on . As I came back an hour later, the sands were dotted with loungers, but I saw nowhere the stranger. At dinner I contrived to have a look at every face that came in, but I did not find the face I was looking for. I had made my toilet with especial reference to correcting any unfavorable impression of the morning . Elegant strangers do not fall in one’s way every morning of the year. If my bonnet had only not tilted over my eyes in that ridiculous fashion, and it would not, if I had been taking the lady-like pace to which my sister Mabel so constantly exhorted me. Mabel had made a good match, and she was quite determined I should do the same. Mabel was very handsome and stylish looking. Her face had been her fortune, 1 don’t think I was plain, and I tried to be stylish to please Mabel, but I hated it. I had a little fortune, too, besides my face. Mabel and I were only half sisters, with the same father. My mother had left me some diamonds, and other handsome jewels, besides a little money, enough to marry me well, Mabel said, and she had taken me in hand for that purpose, as soon as she was married herself . I was too romantic to like the idea of marrying in so practical a fashion. I would not stay in the parlors this evening. Having once made their circuit I stole away just as they were beginning to dance. I went to my room soon. I heard my sister’s step in the passage, and I slipped through the window to the piazza, which was at this hour usually deserted.

I had left the key on the outside of my door, so that Mabel caine right in. Fortunately she did not look upon the piazza, but anathematizing me as a "careless creature,” I heard her go out and lock my door, taking the key with her. I was laughing softly to myself, when an oddly familiar voice close beside me said: "Good evening.” I whirled with a start, to behold my acquaintance of the morning, standing in an attitude of almost mock humility before me. "He is laughing at my vanity,” I thought. "He is certainly very presuming to address me without being introduced

I wished to return to my room, but the window-sell being rather more than one good step above the piazza floor, such a proceeding would have involved a sacrifice of dignity that I was not prepared, under all the circumstances, to undergo. So I stood still. "I am afraid I intrude,” said my companion, and when I lifted my would be cool eyes to his mine fell under the smiling audacity of the other’s. It was necessary I should say something. What should it be? "I believe the piazza is not private property,” I said superbly. I knew he was laughing at me and at that instant I remembered some of Mabel’s despairing comments conerning me that very morning. "I believe not,” was the response, and my companion, with a grave inclination turned aud slowly left the piazza. I climbed back into my own room, ready to cry with vexation. How I wished I had stayed in the parlor and made the acquaintance of this elegant look stranger in a legitimate manner. Of course he would have sought an introduction to me. I dared not go down now. Presently Mabel returned; I hoped, to make me go back to the parlors. Under her triumphant,convoy, I thought I could survive the ordeal and I was rather anxious to try. Mabel had a headache, however, and had come away from the parlors for the evening. She scolded me some, but said nothing about my going back. Instead, she subsided into a gossiping strain, afterward reproving me sharply for being so careless with my diamonds, which lay as I had tossed them upon my toilet table. "The hotel is full of thieves, ’’ she sai<l emphatically. "Half these gentlemen we see here live by just such

chances as your diamonds. Ym must let me take them, Bessy, and keep them for you.” For reply I silently returned the jewels to their casket, put that in my trunk, and locked it Mabel shrugged her shoulders, but she said no more, , I was a careless creature, as Mabel said. In pfoof thereof I retired that night and left my door unlocked and my key in my trunk. I waked some time in the middle of the night and saw. by the dim light, a form kneeling beside my trunk, and in the act of unlocking it. I had some ado to keep myself from screaming. I had a vague idea, however, that such a proceeding would call to life a pistol or a knife. There would be plenty of time for this cool intruder to secure ray diamonds of whose locality he seemed well aware, and to make off with them before hindrance could come. Cool intruder, I say, for he was by no means noiseless in his operations. I think it must have been the noise he made in opening the door which waked me, and he fumbled at the lock of my trunk in a perfectly audible manner. He seemed to have some difficulty in getting the trunk open.

Imagine my dismay, when seemingly getting out of patience at last, ' he rose to his feet and gave the lid a resounding kick, that caused the refractory spring to loose its grip ■ and expose my treasures to his 1 hand. Now, I was very much attached to my diamonds. I could not lie coolly and see them depart without making an effort in their behalf. However, I was just about to speak, just about to make a wild appeal to the wretch’s generosity, when he, having groped hither and thither through the trunk in the most astounding manner, muttering to himself some curious expletives, suddenly reached the burner and turned up the gas. The blaze showed me the face of myencounterer of the morning; it showed him—me ! I don’t know which was most confounded. He swept the room with dancing eyes, and vacated it very abruptly indeed, but I could hear him softly laughing in the passage, or, I fancied so, probably at the ridiculous figure I must have been, as I sat up in bed, my face like ashes with fright, and my head bristling like a porcupine’s back. I got up presently, and locked my door, and saw that my diamonds were safe. Then I lay down again, but not to sleep any more. So this was the end of my romance. Mabel had said the hotel was full of thieves, and I had only a most un- , looked for chance to thank for having saved my diamonds. Such an elegant man, so handsome; ah, me! In the few hours sleep that finally came to me, I dreamed "hat I was promenading the beach with my midnight visitor, and that I had just discovered that I had only a waterproof cloak over my ; night-dress, and had forgotten to take my hair out of its pins. I dreamed that the stranger was making love to me in that absurd rig. I was angry enough with my dream when I waked. I went down to breakfast in anything but a pleasant humor. The first face that my eyes fell upon was that of the stranger. Ridiculous? I should think so. I believe I turned pale with surprise at his effrontery. To dare to present himself there, after last night’s proceedings. He did not meet my glance at first; his eyes were dropped demurely to his plate, as though he had seen my look coming, and so chose to meet it, but I fancied I could see that silken mustache twitch slightly. He dared to laugh at me still I I averted my eyes immediately, and did not once look toward him again.

Later in the day my sister and I went for our bath, and while we were in the water, Mabel confidently informed me that just the match for me had coma at last. "He arrived night before last, dear, but I would not say a word till I was perfectly satisfied as to his antecedents and belongings,” she said eagerly. "He is rich, and from one of the finest families, and can’t bear the sight of a fashionable woman; so you are sure to suit him, if you half try.” I said nothing and Mabel went on.

"You must have seen him at breakfast. The handsomest man at our table. He sat half way down, and I saw him look at you several times —a gentleman with curly hair, and such funny eyes. ” I turned my face towards my sister with a start of recognition. "Oh, you did see him, then?” and Mabel laughed. Then I told her of the night. To my amazement Mabel began to laugh as though she would go into convulsions before I was half through; and when I refused to go on, she laughed the harder. We had to quit the water, or she would have drowned herself, I believe. I never liked to be seen in my bathing rig, and I was hurrying away to my "house,” when Mabel stopped me. "Bessy, Mr. Trevelyan; Mr. Trevelyan, my sister. Miss Winston;” and there he was again. "Will be back in a minute,” I heard Mabel say as she dragged me away to dress, and still laughing so as scarcely to be intelligible. She made out to explain to me that Mr. Trevelyan’s room was next mine, and that he had blundered into mine by mistake the night before. "He told me all about it before breakfast this morning, but I never guessed it was you. You see, Bessy, the rooms on that floor are exactly alike, and he said your trunk was as like his as two pins, even to the spring lock, and it stood on the same part of the room, of course. There’s only one corner of the room a trunk could-stand in, in those rooms. Don't you dare to let him know you thought he was a thief, though; promise me you won’t tell him you thought he was after your diamonds?” ‘‘lndeed I shall. It is the only way I can be even with him,” I said, decidedly, thinking of those eyes that bad laughed at me five times within less than forty-eight hours. Mr. Trevelyan walked to the hotel with us, and Mabel frowned and {shook her head at me all the way,

I did not take my revenge then, but I did in the evening; ai|d though he laughed, I could see that my shot told. Well, to make a long story short, Mr. Trevelyan and I developed a wonderful appreciation of each other’s society in a remarkably short space of time. When people are in the same house, and meetingas often as is only natural in such a case, it don’t take long to develop that organ of appreciativeness from ever so incipient a state. Mr. Trevelyan, greatly to my sister’s exultation, asked me to marry him before we left the seaside; and as he made some very pretty speeches about that morning when he had nearly knocked the breath out of me, showing that he was prepared for the worse with the better, I consented to take him on the general basis.