Glancing toward the person indicated, ’Lena saw that it was the same
gentleman who, all the afternoon, had been talking with her uncle. He
was noble looking, and she felt glad that he was the father of the
boy—he was just such a man, she fancied, as ought to be his father—just
such a man as she could wish her father to be—and then ’Lena felt glad
that the youth had asked her nothing concerning her parentage, for,
though her grandmother had seldom mentioned her father in her presence,
there were others ready and willing to inform her that he was a
villain, who broke her mother’s heart.
When they reached Albany, the boy rose, and offering his hand to ’Lena,
said “I suppose I must bid you good-bye, but I’d like right well to go
farther with you.”
At this moment the stranger gentleman came up, and on seeing how his
son was occupied, said smilingly, “So-ho! Durward, you always manage to
make some lady acquaintance.”
“Yes, father,” returned the boy called Durward, “but not always one
like this. Isn’t she pretty,” he added in a whisper.
The stranger’s eyes fell upon ’Lena’s face, and for a moment, as if by
some strange fascination, seemed riveted there; but the crowd pressed
him forward, and ’Lena only heard him reply to his son, “Yes, Durward,
very pretty; but hurry, or we shall lose the boat.”
The next moment they were gone. Leaning from the window, ’Lena tried to
catch another glimpse of him, but in vain. He was gone—she would never
see him again, she thought; and then she fell into a reverie concerning
his home, his mother, his sisters, if he had any, and finally ended by
wishing that she were his sister, and the daughter of his father. While
she was thus pondering, her grandmother, also, was busy, and when ’Lena
looked round for her she was gone. Stepping from the car, ’Lena espied
her in the distance, standing by her uncle and anxiously watching for
the appearance of her “great trunk, little trunk, band-box, and bag.”
Each of these articles was forthcoming, and in a few moments they were
on the ferry-boat crossing the blue waters of the Hudson, Mrs. Nichols
declaring that “if she’d known it wasn’t a bridge she was steppin’
onto, she’d be bound they wouldn’t have got her on in one while.”
“Do sit down,” said ’Lena; “the other people don’t seem to be afraid,
and I’m sure we needn’t.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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