The Faith Doctor: A Story of New YorkEggleston, Edward
General
The Faith Doctor: A Story of New York
Eggleston, Edward
New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction
Millard was too busy with the packing of trunks, the arrangement of
business, and farewell visits to Phillida, to give much thought to
Philip's curious behavior; but it troubled him nevertheless. And when,
on the deck of the steamer _Arcadia_, he bade good-by to a large circle
of friends, including Mr. Hilbrough, who brought a bouquet from his
wife, and Mrs. Callender and her daughters, he looked about in vain for
Philip. He could no longer doubt that for some reason Philip disliked
his engagement. But when the last adieus had been waved to diminishing
and no longer distinguishable friends on the pier-end, and the great
city had shrunk into the background and passed from view as the vessel
glided steadily forward into the Narrows, Millard entered his cabin and
found a package of guide-books and a note from Philip excusing his
absence on the ground of a headache, but hoping that his friend would
have a pleasant voyage and expressing hearty good wishes for his future
with Phillida. It was all very curious and unlike Philip. But the truth
below dawned upon Charley, and it gave him sorrow that his great joy
might be Philip's disappointment.
When September had come Philip sat one day in a wide wicker chair on the
piazza of the old-fashioned cottage of the Gouverneurs at Newport. This
plain but ample cottage had once held up its head stoutly as one of the
best. But now that the age of the Newport cliff-dwellers had come, in
which great architects are employed to expend unsparingly all the ideas
they have ever borrowed, on cottages costlier than kings' palaces, the
Gouverneur house had been overshadowed, and, after the manner of age
outstripped by youth, had taken refuge in the inexpugnable advantage of
priority. Like the family that dwelt within, it maintained a certain
dignity of repose that could well afford to despise decoration and
garniture, and look with contempt on newness. The very althaeas, and
lilacs, and clambering jasmines in the dooryard and the large trees that
lent shade to a lawn alongside, bespoke the chronological superiority of
the place. There was no spruceness of biweekly mowing about the lawn, no
ambitious spick-and-spanness about the old, white, wooden, green-blinded
cottage itself, but rather a restful mossiness of ancient
respectability.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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