“Well, I hope that some day you’ll find out to your own satisfaction. By the way, I wish you’d get out of that morning gown. My new clerk is coming to dinner.”
“Oh, dear! then I’ll have dinner sent up to my room, I think. I don’t feel a bit well, and it’s awful to think of sitting bolt upright in a tight dress for an hour or two.” And Lucia whirled from side to side on the piano-stool, and looked forlorn and cross.
“I suppose it would be impossible to dine in a dress that is not tight?” said the father.
“Papa, please don’t tease me: I don’t feel a bit well; really I don’t.”
“What is the matter, child?” asked the father, tenderly. “Too much candy?--too few parties?”
“Oh, nothing, that I know of,” said the girl, wearily. “I’ll feel better when real cold weather comes, I suppose.” She played with the piano-keys a moment or two, and continued,--
“So you have a new clerk? I hope he’s nice?--not a mere figuring-machine?”
“Quite a fine fellow,” said the merchant. “At least, he seems to be.”
“Is he--have you given him the place you intended to offer Philip Hayn?”
“The iron business is real good for a young man to get into, isn’t it?”
“Indeed it is, since iron has looked up.”
“And that stupid fellow might have had the chance if he hadn’t gone off home again without even calling to say good-by?”
“Oh, I don’t want to see him,” said Lucia, pettishly. “I’m tired of young men.”
“What a mercy it is that they don’t know it!” said her father. “They’d all go off and commit suicide, and then merchants couldn’t have any clerks at all.”
“Now, papa!” said Lucia, with a crash on the lower octaves of keys, followed by a querulous run, with her thumb, over the shorter strings. “Is the new clerk anybody in particular? What is his name?”
Lucia sprang from the piano-stool and almost strangled her father with her slender arms.
“Gracious, Lu!” exclaimed the merchant. “Your mother’s family must have descended from a grizzly bear. But why this excitement?”
“Because you’re a dear, thoughtful old man, who’s always trying to do good,” said Lucia. “If ’tweren’t for you that poor young man might never have a chance in the world. I think it’s real missionary work to help deserving people who aren’t able to help themselves; I know it is; for our minister has said so from the pulpit again and again.”