City and town life -- Fiction; Country life -- Fiction
“Father in heaven, have pity on my poor boy.”
CHAPTER X.
AGNES DINON’S PARTY.
Through several days spent listlessly except when dolefully, and through
several restless nights, Philip Hayn was assisted by one hope that
changed only to brighten: it was that nearer and nearer came the night
of the party to which Miss Agnes Dinon had invited him,--the party at
which he was sure he would again meet Lucia. Except for the blissful
incident of the arrested drive on the Avenue, he had not seen her since
the evening when he had raised her hand to his lips. How the thought of
that moment sent the blood leaping to his own finger-tips! He had
haunted the Avenue every afternoon, not daring to hope that the carriage
would again be stopped in its course, but that at least he might see her
passing face. As quick as a flash that day his eye, trained in country
fashion to first identify approaching riders by their horses, had
scanned the animals that drew the carriage, so that he might know them
when next he saw them. But again and again was he disappointed, for
spans on which he would have staked his reputation as being the same
were drawing carriages that did not contain the face he sought. He might
have been spared many heart-sinkings, as well as doubts of his
horse-lore, had he known that the Tramlays did not keep a turn-out, but
had recourse to a livery-stable when they wanted to drive.
He had even sought Lucia at church. He had known, since the family’s
summer at Haynton, the name of the church which they attended, and
thither he wended his way Sunday morning; but their pew was apparently
farther back than the seat to which he was shown, for not one member of
the Tramlay family could he see in front or to either side of him, and
when the service ended and he reached the sidewalk as rapidly as
possible he soon learned that the custom of rural young men to stand in
front of churches to see the worshippers emerge was not followed at
fashionable temples in the city.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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