The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 10 March 1910, Page 363

The Storyteller

YOUNG MRS. RICHARD There are few people who can look unmoved at a bride on her wedding day; But Richard Hazelton stood grimly by while his favorite grandson, Richard, was married to the girl of his choice, and nobody detected the least softening of his keen black eyes or the slightest relaxation of the stern lines around his close-set mouth. When congratulations became. necessary he marched slowly up to the young pair, standing flushed and. smiling among flowers, bowed stiffly to the new Mrs. Richard Hazelton, and looked coldly over her head, shook his grandson s hand without a word, and turned away, a proud, unrelenting figure. Then he vanished from the house and nobody saw him again that day. Richard Hazelton, his smooth cheek glowing an indignant red, looked down at his bride with a tender light in his eyes. & ‘Never mind, dear,’ he whispered; ‘you’ll win him yet.’ She smiled back, with the least suspicion of wet lashes to intensify the beauty of her violet eyes. The look said: I will, and Richard believed it and stood straight again with a lift of the head singularly like that of Mr. Hazelton. hor it mattered much what Grandfather Hazelton thought of Richard’s marriage. The boy had lost both father and mother at an early age, and he and his brother. Archer, had been brought up by their paternal grandfather. Archer had finished his college course and gone away to the other side of the world several years before Richard had come to maturity. The younger brother had been Mr. Hazelton’s dearest treasure, whom he loved with a love as deep as it was reticent. When at twenty-six, Richard, on a successful footing of his own in the world, had announced to his grandfather his intention to marry the fair-haired girl with the eyes like blue violets, who had grown up in the house next door, and whose father was Mr. Hazelton’s special aversion,- the old gentleman had been excessively displeased. But he had not been able to advance a reason for his displeasure, beyond the insufficient one of his dislike to his neighbor and political rival, so the marriage had proceeded. For Richard, while loyal to his grandfather, was also loyal to the violet eyes, and knew no just cause ,why anyone should forbid the banns. •- Mr. Hazelton himself did not forbid them, but he did all that he felt called upon to do in the' matter when he went to the house of General Andrews during the brief period following the marriage ceremony. ‘ Grandfather,’ said Richard, coming in one evening, when he and Evelyn had returned from their wedding trip and had taken up a temporary abode next door, we’ve decided on a house —if we can get it. Will you sell us one of yours ? ’ His tone was precisely as if nothing unusual had happened. The Judge eyed him severely over his gold-rimmed spectacles. / ‘ Which one ? The Singleton place, I suppose ? ’ ‘No, sir; Aunt Martha’s old house.’ The Judge took off his glasses and wiped them. ‘ May I inquire why you have selected that ? ’ ‘ It is within my meansl hope,’ explained Richard promptly. The Singleton place is not. We' don’t care to start off with a pretence of style beyond our income. Besides, Evelyn prefers the old house.’ * Judge Hazelton grunted— could be called nothing else. Then he replaced his spectacles, took up his pen, and went on with the writing Richard had interrupted. The young man waited silently, but with a peculiar curve at the corners of his mouth. He had not lived for twenty years with the head of the State Supreme Court without learning that there is a time for withholding speech. The old gentleman finished his page, blotted it, and said without looking up: * I will rent the house to you. Ido not wish to sell it. It would not be worth your while to buy it. Your bird will demand a cage with more gilding before very long. She’s too young to know her own mind yet.’ His grandson’s eyes sparkled with the .quick retort which he did not allow to reach his lips. He rose with a quiet Very well, sir; thank you,’ and left the room. Outside on the street he rejoined his young wife with a smothered whoop of delight. ‘We can rent it,’ he told her gleefully. ‘I did not dare expect as much as that.’ ‘I hoped he would be pleased that we wanted it, she said, with a shadow of disappointment in her eyes. • ‘Don’t you flatter yourself he’d show it; not he. that’ll come later, when we’ve carried out your little schemes. That is, I hope it will. It will take a long storming of the citadel and a tremendous battering of the fortifications to carry off the enemy into our country. But we’ll do it. He shall own some day that ,my —— ’ He finished the sentence with a look more eloquent than the words he could not find. Then the two walked over to Albemarle street to go by the quaint little house