To this trumpeting mother of mining-camps came the Follansbees, fresh
from an America which was slow to concede an America west of the
Alleghenies; the judge, a fine, upstanding gentleman of the old school,
with silvering hair and beard; his wife, an ample and gracious lady
corseted to the moment and expert in the use of fan and lorgnette;
their son Thomas, a spectacled young man who had had a post-graduate
year at Oxford, returning with a pronounced English accent and as the
introducer of the curious English custom of wearing spats; an elder
daughter fully bearing out Bromley’s description of her as a “glorious
blonde,” and a younger, thin and pale, with wistful eyes looking out
upon a world which would always be alien to them.
True to his traditions, Bromley joined Thurlow in meeting the
migrants-for-health’s-sake at the Union Depot, saw them carriaged for
their hotel, saw to the transfer of their luggage, and afterward called
at the hotel, dutifully and at the proper hour, to pay his respects
and to place himself, as a somewhat seasoned Denverite, at the service
of the family in helping to find summer quarters in which the invalid
Lucy Ann could have the benefits to be derived from the miracle-working
climate.
“Their reactions to the ‘wild and woolly’ are delightful to behold,”
Bromley told Philip that night at dinner. “The judge and Lucy Ann take
things as they are; but Mrs. Aurelia and Tom and Eugie are distinctly
disappointed at finding themselves surrounded by all the comforts and
most of the luxuries of civilization. I don’t know just what they were
expecting to find, but they evidently haven’t found it--yet.”
“They will live at the Windsor?” Philip asked.
“Oh, no; their idea is to take a ‘villa,’ as Tom calls it, somewhere
in the suburbs and settle down in a housekeeping way. And, by the by,
Tom is a joke--a shout! He used to be a rather decent chap, as harmless
as a cockroach; a trifle on his toes, perhaps, because the Follansbees
date back to Colonial times, but otherwise quite bearable. But he spent
last year in England, at Oxford, and now he does everything but drop
his ‘h’s.’ He was out with me this afternoon and he wore a top hat and
spats. The grins we met, if put end to end, would reach from here to
Leadville. He calls me ‘my deah fellaw.’”
“And the fair Eugenia?” Philip inquired maliciously.
Bromley sighed and shook his head.
“I’m still a ruined community. She is as fair as ever and she hasn’t
changed a particle. I was in hopes some really good chap had cut in by
this time, but I am afraid she is still taking the parental bargain as
a matter of course.”
Philip’s grin was sardonic.
“And as long as she does, you’ll have to. Still, this is a man’s town,
and perhaps you won’t bulk so large in the lady’s imagination after she
has had time to look the Western collection over.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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