Two hours later, Miss Grierson's cutter, driven by herself, paraded in
Main Street to the delight of any eye aesthetic. The clean-limbed,
high-bred Kentuckian, the steel-shod, tulip-bodied vehicle, and the
faultlessly arrayed young woman tucked in among the costly fur lap robes
were three parts of a harmonious whole; and more than one pair of eyes
looked, and turned to look again; with envy if they were young eyes and
feminine; with frank admiration if they were any age and masculine. For
Miss Grierson, panoplied for conquest, was the latest reincarnation of
the woman who has been turning men's heads and quickening the blood in
their veins since that antediluvian morning when the sons of God saw the
daughters of men that they were fair.
Miss Margery drove daily in good weather, but on this crisp January
morning her outing had an objective other than the spectacular. When the
clean-limbed Kentuckian had measured the length of Main Street, he was
sent on across the railroad tracks into the industrial half of the town,
and was finally halted in front of the Raymer Foundry and Machine Works.
Raymer was at his desk when the smart equipage drew up before the office
door; and a moment later he was at the curb, bareheaded, offering to
help the daughter of men out of the robe wrappings.
"Perhaps I'd better not get out," she said. "Duke doesn't stand well.
Can I see Mr. Edward Raymer for a minute or two?"
Raymer bowed and blushed a little. He knew her so well, by eye-intimacy
at least, that he had been sure she knew him in the same way--as indeed
she did.
"I--that is my name. What can I do for you, Miss Grierson?"
"Oh, _thank_ you," she burst out, with exactly the proper shade of
impulsiveness. "Do you know, I was really afraid I might have to
introduce myself? I----"
The interruption was of Raymer's making. One of his employees appearing
opportunely, he sent the man to the horse's head, and once more held out
his hands to Miss Grierson.
"You must come in and get warm," he insisted. "I am sure you have found
it very cold driving this morning. Let me help you."
She made a driver's hitch in the reins and let him lift her to the
sidewalk. The ease with which he did it gave her a pleasant little
thrill of the sort that comes with the realization of a thing hoped for.
When she was not too busy with the social triumphs, strength, manly
strength, was a passion with Miss Grierson.
Raymer held the office door open for her, and in the grimy little den
which had been his father's before him, placed a chair for her at the
desk-end.
"Now you can tell me in comfort what I can do for you," he said,
bridging the interruption.
"Oh, it's only a little thing. I came to see you about renting a pew in
St. John's; that is our church, you know."
Raymer did not know, but he was politic enough not to say so.
"I am quite at your service," he hastened to say. "Shall I show you a
plan of the sittings?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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