Cupids Understudy | Page 2

though Dad fought
him about it. You see, Dad didn't have the reputation of being the
squarest man in San Bernardino for nothing.
Chapter Two
My mother's family had never approved of her marriage with Dad, but
Dad, poor and running a hardware shop or a livery-stable, and Dad with
a fortune in his hands were two very different people--from their
standpoint, at least; so as soon as Olaf and the three burros struck it rich,
Dad sold his livery-stable, and mammy Rachel and I were bundled off
to Ninette's relations in New Orleans. I didn't like it a bit at first, but
one can get used to anything in time. Ninette's maiden sister, Miss
Marie Madeline Antoinette Hortense Prevost, was awfully nice to me;
so was grandmere Prevost. I lived with them till I was sixteen, when I
was sent to France.
If I wanted to (and you would let me) I could personally conduct you to
Paris, where if you were ten feet tall and not averse to staring, you
could look over a certain gray stone wall on the Boulevard des
Invalides, and see me pacing sedately up and down the gravel walks in
the garden of the Convent of the Sacred Heart. That is, you could have
seen me three years ago. I'm not there now, thank goodness! I'm in
California.
And just one word before we go any further any further. I don't want
you to think for a minute that I came back from Paris a little
Frenchified miss. No, indeed! I'm as American as they make them.
When I boasted to the other girls, whether in Paris or New Orleans, I

always boasted about two things: Dad and California. And I've an idea
I'll go on boasting about them till my dying day.
Of course, when I returned from Paris, Dad met me in New York. It
was a good thing he was rich, for it took a lot of money to get me and
my seven trunks through the custom-house. It might have taken more,
though, if it hadn't been for a young man who came over on the same
boat.
He was such a good-looking young man; tall and broad-shouldered and
fair, with light-brown hair, and the nicest eyes you ever saw. It wasn't
their color so much (his eyes were blue) as the way they looked at you
that made them so attractive. He was awfully well bred, too! He noticed
me a lot on the boat (I had a perfect love of a Redfern coat to wear on
deck), but he didn't try to scrape acquaintance with me. He worshipped
from afar (a woman can always tell when a man's thinking about her),
and while I wouldn't have had him act otherwise for the world, I was
crazy to have him speak to me.
Our boat docked at Hoboken, and by tipping right and left I managed to
be the very first passenger down the gangway. I half ran, half slid, but I
landed in Dad's arms.
My boxes and bags passed through the custom-house with flying colors.
But my trunks--I couldn't even find them all. Five of them were stacked
in the "M" division, but the other two. . . . Then there was my maid's
trunk to look for under the "V's" (her name is Valentine). Dad and I
were commencing at "A," prepared to got through the whole alphabet,
if necessary, when the nice young man stepped up and, raising his hat,
asked if he might be of any service. He asked Dad, but he looked at me.
"Oh, If you please!" I said "I've lost two trunks. My brand is a white,
'M' in a red circle."
"I noticed them in the 'R' pile" he replied. "I'll have them moved to the
'M's' right away."
"Now that's what I call being decent," said Dad, as soon as the young

man had left us. "Did you notice, he didn't wear a uniform? Probably an
inspector, or something of the sort, eh, Elizabeth?"
"Well--er--not exactly," I managed to say. "The fact is, Dad, he came
over on the boat with me, and--"
Dad looked thoughtful.
"He never spoke to me once the whole trip," I added hastily.
Dad looked less thoughtful.
"It was nice of him to wait till I had you with me, wasn't it?"
Dad smiled. "If you think it was, it probably was, my dear," he said.
Chapter Three
The nice young man did more than find my missing trunks; he found a
custom-house officer, and, after asking me privately which trunks
contained my most valuable possessions and how much I had thought
of declaring, he succeeded in having them passed through on my own
valuation without any undue exposure of their contents.
By this time