The Mystery of Metropolisville | Page 6

in his regard for ladies. All the more that he had lived
out of society all his life, did his heart flutter when he took his seat in
the stage after dinner. For Miss Minorkey's father and the fat gentleman

felt that they must have the back seat; there were two other gentlemen
on the middle seat; and Albert Charlton, all unused to the presence of
ladies, must needs sit on the front seat, alongside the gray
traveling-dress of the intellectual Miss Minorkey, who, for her part,
was not in the least bit nervous. Young Charlton might have liked her
better if she had been.
But if she was not shy, neither was she obtrusive. When Mr. Charlton
had grown weary of hearing Mr. Minorkey pity himself, and of hearing
the fat gentleman boast of the excellence of the Minnesota climate, the
dryness of the air, and the wonderful excess of its oxygen, and the
entire absence of wintry winds, and the rapid development of the
country, and when he had grown weary of discussions of investments at
five per cent a month, he ventured to interrupt Miss Minorkey's reverie
by a remark to which she responded. And he was soon in a current of
delightful talk. The young gentleman spoke with great enthusiasm; the
young woman without warmth, but with a clear intellectual interest in
literary subjects, that charmed her interlocutor. I say literary subjects,
though the range of the conversation was not very wide. It was a great
surprise to Charlton, however, to find in a new country a young woman
so well informed.
Did he fall in love? Gentle reader, be patient. You want a love-story,
and I don't blame you. For my part, I should not take the trouble to
record this history if there were no love in it. Love is the universal bond
of human sympathy. But you must give people time. What we call
falling in love is not half so simple an affair as you think, though it
often looks simple enough to the spectator. Albert Charlton was
pleased, he was full of enthusiasm, and I will not deny that he several
times reflected in a general way that so clear a talker and so fine a
thinker would make a charming wife for some man--some intellectual
man--some man like himself, for instance. He admired Miss Minorkey.
He liked her. With an enthusiastic young man, admiring and liking are,
to say the least, steps that lead easily to something else. But you must
remember how complex a thing love is. Charlton--I have to confess
it--was a little conceited, as every young man is at twenty. He flattered
himself that the most intelligent woman he could find would be a good

match for him. He loved ideas, and a woman of ideas pleased his fancy.
Add to this that he had come to a time of life when he was very liable
to fall in love with somebody, and that he was in the best of spirits from
the influence of air and scenery and motion and novelty, and you render
it quite probable that he could not be tossed for half a day on the same
seat in a coach with such a girl as Helen Minorkey was--that, above all,
he could not discuss Hugh Miller and the "Vestiges of Creation" with
her, without imminent peril of experiencing an admiration for her and
an admiration for himself, and a liking and a palpitating and a
castle-building that under favorable conditions might somehow grow
into that complex and inexplicable feeling which we call love.
In fact, Jim, who drove both routes on this day, and who peeped into
the coach whenever he stopped to water, soliloquized that two fools
with idees would make a quare span ef they had a neck-yoke on.

CHAPTER III.
LAND AND LOVE.
Mr. Minorkey and the fat gentleman found much to interest them as the
coach rolled over the smooth prairie road, now and then crossing a
slough. Not that Mr. Minorkey or his fat friend had any particular
interest in the beautiful outline of the grassy knolls, the gracefulness of
the water-willows that grew along the river edge, and whose paler
green was the prominent feature of the landscape, or in the sweet
contrast at the horizon where grass-green earth met the light blue
northern sky. But the scenery none the less suggested fruitful themes
for talk to the two gentlemen on the back-seat.
"I've got money loaned on that quarter at three per cent a month and
five after due. The mortgage has a waiver in it too. You see, the
security was unusually good, and that was why I let him have it so
low." This was what Mr. Minorkey said at intervals and with some