Miss Dividends: A NovelGunter, Archibald Clavering
General
Miss Dividends: A Novel
Gunter, Archibald Clavering
Latter Day Saints -- Fiction
Her well-proportioned head, supported by a neck of enchanting whiteness,
is lighted by two eyes which would be sapphires, were they not made
dazzling by the soul that shines through them, reflecting each emotion
of her vivacious yet brilliant mind. Her forehead has that peculiar
breadth, which denotes that intellect would always dominate passion,
were it not for her lips that indicate when she loves, she will love
with her whole heart. Her figure, betwixt girlhood and womanhood,
retains the graces of one and the contours of the other. The dress she
wears brings all this out with wonderful distinctness, for it is jet
black, even to its laces,--a color which segregates her from the more
brilliant decorations of the room, outlining her exquisite arms,
shoulders and bust, in a way that would make her seem a statue of ebony
and ivory, were it not for the delicate pink of her lips and nostrils as
she softly breathes, the slight compression of her brows, and the
nervous tapping of her little foot that just shows itself in dainty boot
beneath the laces of her robe. These indicate that youthful and
enthusiastic life will in a moment make this dreaming figure a vivacious
woman.
As Lawrence thinks this, action comes to her. She says impulsively: "You
must let me thank you again for the attention you showed me on the
stairway."
"What attention?" asks Mr. Oliver Livingston, waking up also.
"Something you were too occupied with yourself to notice," smiles the
young lady. "I dropped my fan as we entered this evening, and this
gentleman, though he did not know me, was kind enough to pick it up.
But," she continues suddenly, "Captain Lawrence, you can do me a much
greater favor."
"Indeed! How?" is Harry's eager answer.
"You say that you have been an engineer upon the Union Pacific Railway.
What portion of it?"
"From Green River to Ogden, though I was employed as assistant at one
time at Cheyenne."
"From Green River to Ogden! Then you must have met my father, Ralph
Harriman Travenion."
"No, I never had that pleasure," answers the young man, after a moment's
consideration.
"But you must have!" cries the girl impulsively. "He was one of the
largest contractors on that portion of the road."
"Your father--a railroad contractor?" answers Harry, opening his eyes,
which appear to the young lady very large, earnest, and flashing
compared to the rather effeminate ones of Mr. Livingston.
"Not in New York," laughs Ollie, waving his white hands. "When here, Mr.
Travenion is one of our leading fashionables. Did you see any one dance
more gracefully than your father did last winter, Miss Erma?--though I
believe he did have something to do with the building of the railway out
there."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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