English 22.
Joseph A, Cone.
First Year Special.
March 17,1895.
Theme # 11.
First Connecticut Theme
A MONTH
AT “MOUNTVIEW.”
CHAPTER I.
Miss Stearnfield closed
the office door with a bang, threw her wrap about her, and hurried out. She
neither glanced at nor gave a word of parting to either of the two young men
who were watching her, half-humorously from behind their respective desks. When
they were sure she had passed beyond their hearing one of them burst into a
hearty laugh. The other one merely smiled.
“I have been
wondering,” said Haskell, the critic, “if I shall not miss these little clashes
when I am away?”
“You may miss the
clashes, but I shall miss you,” said Grant, thoughtfully. “You see, with your
help I always come off victorious, but alone, I’m afraid fear I shall be no match for her.”
“Well, I can’t not say but that it should be a good
thing; we have been a little hard on her, perhaps. After all, the worst we can
say of Miss Stearnfield is that she’s is
a typewriter.”
“Yeah, that’s is so,” said Grant, with a readiness that
surprised his companion. “And an unusually pretty one, too.” he added.
“Yes,” said Haskell,
eyeing him keenly; “she is pretty, and were she anything but a typewriter I
might endeavor to further her acquaintance.”
“Anything but a
typewriter? Why is there something degrading about that?” asked Grant, just a
little nettled.
“No-o,” Haskell
replied; “but you can see what I mean; a woman to interest me must know much of
the literary world; must have read widely and travelled some.”
“As far as reading is
concerned, Miss Stearnfield has done much of that,” said Grant. “She is far in
advance of me on that score.”
Haskell smiled,
meaningly.
“How do you know that?”
he asked.
“I – why, I have often
talked with her about books and travel when you have been out; she never seems
herself when you are around,” said Grant, laughing.
“Ah, you sly dog,” said
his friend, rising. “But you shall have a whole month to devote to her. Find
out all you can. You will find her interesting no doubt. My good wishes I leave
with you.”
Haskell glanced at his
watch.
“My train leaves in
just forty minutes,” he said. “I must hasten now. Come down to the station and
see me off.”
After a few slight
preparations, the two friends left the office together.
Sidney Haskell was a
critic, reviewer and special writer on “The Tribune”, also a ‘reader’ for a
large publishing house in the same city. He had risen from special reporter to
his present position, was five and twenty, good looking, and popular with his
companions. His warmest friend was his room mate, Richard Grant, by whose side
he passed a few hours each day in “The Tribune” office.
He had travelled much,
written a few books, and had gained considerable notoriety defending the Bacon
side of the “Bacon – Shakespeare” argument. Whether he really believed the side
he was on was right, or whether he did it for journalistic fame no one but
himself knew. He was an able writer, however and had created a stir in literary
circles, his chief opponent being Miss Ethel E. G. Roberts, a critic and writer
of wide reputation. He had never met her, personally, and as he sped along upon
the “White Mountain Limited,” he frequently turned from the wild and ever
changing scenery to the last edition of “The Tribune”, in which his journalistic
enemy had made a keen and effective reply to his last article.
He had often talked of
her with Grant, and both had come to the latter’s conclusion, “that she was an
old maid, sharp featured, with glasses nearly to the end of her nose.”
Haskell’s reverie was
broken by the porter’s cry of “Mountview!” His friend Mather, of the Press
Club, had given him a letter to Mr. Cummings, the proprietor of the “Mountview
House,” and that gentleman greeted him cordially as he stepped from the train.
On the way to the hotel in the buckboard, Haskell learned many things, the most
important of which was that a young lady by the name of Roberts was amongst the
guest at the “Mountview.”
“Yes, she’s a writer of
some sort,” said Mr. Cummings, in answer to a question from his new guest, “and
my daughter is just crazy over her. In fact everybody is, after they meet her,”
he added, looking sideways.
Mr. Cummings liked to
talk, and everybody who knew him liked to listen. He rattled on good naturedly,
he and the buckboard, but Haskell appeared to be thinking of other things. When
they drew up in front of the long veranda he hurried to the office and seized
the register. Yes, it was there. In a bold, almost masculine hand, was written,
“Ethel E. G. Roberts.” A smile, in which humor and scorn sought to get the
strongest foothold, played beneath his dark moustache, and dipping the pen he
scratched carelessly on the half filled page, “W. W. Haskell.”
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