Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 | Page 2

hands without yielding up its most precious
item, the announcement of your arrival in New York. To think of your
having perhaps missed the welcome you had a right to expect from me!
Here it is, dear Max--as cordial as you please. When I say I have just
read of your arrival, I mean that twenty minutes have elapsed by the
clock. These have been spent in conversation with my excellent friend
Mr. Sloane--we having taken the liberty of making you the topic. I
haven't time to say more about Frederick Sloane than that he is very
anxious to make your acquaintance, and that, it your time is not
otherwise engaged, he would like you very much to spend a month
with him. He is an excellent host, or I shouldn't be here myself. It
appears that he knew your mother very intimately, and he has a taste
for visiting the amenities of the parents upon the children; the original
ground of my own connection with him was that he had been a
particular friend of my father. You may have heard your mother speak

of him. He is a very strange old fellow, but you will like him. Whether
or no you come for his sake, come for mine.
Yours always, THEODORE LISLE.
Theodore's letter is of course very kind, but it's remarkably obscure.
My mother may have had the highest regard for Mr. Sloane, but she
never mentioned his name in my hearing. Who is he, what is he, and
what is the nature of his relations with Theodore? I shall learn betimes.
I have written to Theodore that I gladly accept (I believe I suppressed
the "gladly" though) his friend's invitation, and that I shall immediately
present myself. What can I do that is better? Speaking sordidly, I shall
obtain food and lodging while I look about me. I shall have a base of
operations. D., it appears, is a long day's journey, but enchanting when
you reach it. I am curious to see an enchanting American town. And to
stay a month! Mr. Frederick Sloane, whoever you are, _vous faites bien
les choses_, and the little that I know of you is very much to your credit.
You enjoyed the friendship of my dear mother, you possess the esteem
of the virtuous Theodore, you commend yourself to my own affection.
At this rate, I shall not grudge it.
D--, 14th.--I have been here since Thursday evening--three days. As we
rattled up to the tavern in the village, I perceived from the top of the
coach, in the twilight, Theodore beneath the porch, scanning the vehicle,
with all his amiable disposition in his eyes. He has grown older, of
course, in these five years, but less so than I had expected. His is one of
those smooth, unwrinkled souls that keep their bodies fair and fresh. As
tall as ever, moreover, and as lean and clean. How short and fat and
dark and debauched he makes one feel! By nothing he says or means,
of course, but merely by his old unconscious purity and simplicity--that
slender straightness which makes him remind you of the spire of an
English abbey. He greeted me with smiles, and stares, and alarming
blushes. He assures me that he never would have known me, and that
five years have altered me--_sehr_! I asked him if it were for the better?
He looked at me hard for a moment, with his eyes of blue, and then, for
an answer, he blushed again.
On my arrival we agreed to walk over from the village. He dismissed
his wagon with my luggage, and we went arm-in-arm through the dusk.
The town is seated at the foot of certain mountains, whose names I
have yet to learn, and at the head of a big sheet of water, which, as yet,

too, I know only as "the Lake." The road hitherward soon leaves the
village and wanders in rural loveliness by the margin of this expanse.
Sometimes the water is hidden by clumps of trees, behind which we
heard it lapping and gurgling in the darkness: sometimes it stretches out
from your feet in shining vagueness, as if it were tired of making, all
day, a million little eyes at the great stupid hills. The walk from the
tavern takes some half an hour, and in this interval Theodore made his
position a little more clear. Mr. Sloane is a rich old widower; his age is
seventy-two, and as his health is thoroughly broken, is practically even
greater; and his fortune--Theodore, characteristically, doesn't know
anything definite about that. It's probably about a million. He has lived
much in Europe, and in the "great world;" he has had adventures and
passions and all that sort of thing; and now, in