Miss Dividends: A NovelGunter, Archibald Clavering
General
Miss Dividends: A Novel
Gunter, Archibald Clavering
Latter Day Saints -- Fiction
To this, Mrs. Livingston, who, though fair, plump and forty-five, is of
a nervous tendency, cries out, "My Heaven! She's running out of the
depot--she is so impulsive--if anything happens to Erma, what shall I
say to her father?" And the chaperon casts anxious glances on her
charge, who is still moving in pursuit of the abstracted Mr. Kruger, who
is apparently looking for somebody himself.
"NEXT!" cries the ticket man savagely. "Don't block the way!"
"Ferdie, take us in," whispers Miss Livingston, who is immediately
behind her mother, and is sixteen, pretty and snippy. "That gateman
looks impatient."
"Quick, Louise, or the ticket puncher 'll mistake my head for a ticket,"
laughs the young man. Then he cries, "Come along, auntie. Don't be
frightened. You don't suppose Oliver will ever lose sight of Miss
Dividends?" And with a passing wink of inborn knowledge to Ollie, which
is returned by a stare prim and savage, Ferdie rushes his aunt and Miss
Louise past the portals, towards a private Pullman car, the last of an
express train standing ready to move out to Chicago, on a bright
September day, of the year of our Lord 1871.
Livingston, relieved of the care of the other ladies of his party,
watches his valet, assisted by two maid-servants in caps, carrying the
hand-satchels, shawls, and minor baggage of the party to the car, then
turns his glance towards Miss Travenion. The savageness leaves his eyes,
and a little soft passion takes its place. They follow the movements of
the girl with prim rapture, as well they may.
Miss Travenion is just overtaking the man she is pursuing; her eyes,
intent upon her chase, sparkle as blue diamonds. From her well-shaped
head float, after the fashion of that day, two long curls of hair that
would be golden, did not the sun seem to claim them as his own, and
permeating them with his fire, make each hair as brilliant as his own
bright rays. Above the curls, a summer hat, beneath this, waving locks
that crown a marble forehead, perhaps too broad for ancient sculptors'
taste, but ideal for modern artists, who love soul in woman; cheeks rosy
with health, lips red and moist as coral washed by sea-spray, the upper
one laughing, the under one eager; a chin that tells of resolution, a
figure light as a fairy's, but with the contours of a Venus; clothed in
a travelling gown that does not disguise the graces that it robes; one
eager hand outstretched towards the flitting Kruger, the other grasping
firmly, yet lightly, the skirt and draping it about her, plucking its
laces and broideries from out the dust, and showing as she trips along a
foot and ankle that a lover would rave about--a sculptor mould.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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