The Mystery of Metropolisville | Page 8

yet conquer this cool and open-minded girl by the force of his
own intelligence. He admired her intellectual self-possession all the
more that it was a quality which he lacked. Before that afternoon ride

was over, he was convinced that he sat by the supreme woman of all he
had ever known. And who was so fit to marry the supreme woman as
he, Albert Charlton, who was to do so much by advocating all sorts of
reforms to help the world forward to its goal?
He liked that word goal. A man's pet words are the key to his character.
A man who talks of "vocation," of "goal," and all that, may be laughed
at while he is in the period of intellectual fermentation. The time is sure
to come, however, when such a man can excite other emotions than
mirth.
And so Charlton, full of thoughts of his "vocation" and the world's
"goal," was slipping into an attachment for a woman to whom both
words were Choctaw. Do you wonder at it? If she had had a vocation
also, and had talked about goals, they would mutually have repelled
each other, like two bodies charged with the same kind of electricity.
People with vocations can hardly fall in love with other people with
vocations.
But now Metropolisville was coming in sight, and Albert's attention
was attracted by the conversation of Mr. Minorkey and the fat
gentleman.
"Mr. Plausaby has selected an admirable site," Charlton heard the fat
gentleman remark, and as Mr. Plausaby was his own step-father, he
began to listen. "Pretty sharp! pretty sharp!" continued the fat
gentleman. "I tell you what, Mr. Minorkey, that man Plausaby sees
through a millstone with a hole in it. I mean to buy some lots in this
place. It'll be the county-seat and a railroad junction, as sure as you're
alive. And Plausaby has saved some of his best lots for me."
"Yes, it's a nice town, or will be. I hold a mortgage on the best
eighty--the one this way--at three per cent and five after maturity, with
a waiver. I liked to have died here one night last summer. I was taken
just after supper with a violent--"
"What a beauty of a girl that is," broke in the fat gentleman, "little Katy
Charlton, Plausaby's step-daughter!" And instantly Mr. Albert Charlton

thrust his head out of the coach and shouted "Hello, Katy!" to a girl of
fifteen, who ran to intercept the coach at the hotel steps.
"Hurrah, Katy!" said the young man, as she kissed him impulsively as
soon as he had alighted.
"P'int out your baggage, mister," said Jim, interrupting Katy's raptures
with a tone that befitted a Superior Being.
In a few moments the coach, having deposited Charlton and the fat
gentleman, was starting away for its destination at Perritaut, eight miles
farther on, when Charlton, remembering again his companion on the
front seat, lifted his hat and bowed, and Miss Minorkey was kind
enough to return the bow. Albert tried to analyze her bow as he lay
awake in bed that night. Miss Minorkey doubtless slept soundly. She
always did.

CHAPTER IV.
ALBERT AND KATY.
All that day in which Albert Charlton had been riding from Red Owl
Landing to Metropolisville, sweet Little Katy Charlton had been
expecting him. Everybody called her sweet, and I suppose there was no
word in the dictionary that so perfectly described her. She was not
well-read, like Miss Minorkey; she was not even very smart at her
lessons: but she was sweet. Sweetness is a quality that covers a
multitude of defects. Katy's heart had love in it for everybody. She
loved her mother; she loved Squire Plausaby, her step-father; she loved
cousin Isa, as she called her step-father's niece; she loved--well, no
matter, she would have told you that she loved nobody more than
Brother Albert.
And now that Brother Albert was coming to the new home in the new
land he had never seen before, Katy's heart was in her eyes. She would
show him so many things he had never seen, explain how the

pocket-gophers built their mounds, show him the nestful of
flying-squirrels--had he ever seen flying-squirrels? And she would
show him Diamond Lake, and the speckled pickerel among the
water-plants. And she would point out the people, and entertain Albert
with telling him their names and the curious gossip about them. It was
so fine to know something that even Albert, with all his learning, did
not know. And she would introduce Albert to him. Would Albert like
_him_? Of course he would. They were both such dear men.
And as the hours wore on, Katy grew more and more excited and
nervous. She talked about Albert to her mother till she wearied that
worthy