are you going?" demanded his wife.
"Why, to the hotel. That's where you wanted to go, wasn't it?"
"Certainly; but how were you going? You don't know where it is."
"No, so I don't. But I can hail one of those electrics and ask the conductor to stop when he got to it. He'd know where 'twas, most likely."
"Electric" is the Down East term for trolley car, lines of which were passing and repassing the station. Daniel waved his disengaged hand to the conductor of the nearest. The car stopped.
"Wait a minute," said Serena quickly. "How do you know that car is going the right way?"
"Hey? Well, of course I don't know, but--"
"Of course you don't. Besides, we don't want to go in an electric. We must take a carriage."
"A carriage? A hack, you mean. What do we want to do that for?"
"Because it's what everyone does."
"No, they don't. Look at all the folks on that electric now. Besides, we--"
"Hi there!" shouted the conductor of the car angrily. "Brace up! Get a move on, will you?"
Mrs. Dott regarded him with dignity.
"We're not coming," she said. "You can go right along."
The car proceeded, the conductor commenting freely and loudly, and the passengers on the broad grin.
"Now, Daniel," said Serena, "you get one of those carriages and we'll go as we ought to. I know we've always gone in the electrics when we were in Boston, but then we didn't feel as if we could afford anything else. Now we can. And don't stop to bargain about the fare. What is fifty cents more or less to US?"
The captain shook his head, but he obeyed orders. A few minutes later they were seated in a cab, drawn by a venerable horse and driven by a man with a hooked nose, and were moving toward the Palatine House, the hostelry recommended by Mrs. Black as the finest in Scarford.
"There!" said Serena, leaning back against the shabby cushions, "this is better than an electric, isn't it? And when we get to the hotel you'll see the difference it will make in the way they treat us. Mrs. Black says there is everything in a first impression. If people judge by your looks that you're no account they'll treat you that way. But what were you and the driver having such a talk about?"
Captain Dan grinned. "I got the name of the hotel wrong at first," he admitted. "I called it the Palestine House instead of the other thing. The driver thought I was makin' fun of him. It ain't safe to mention Palestine to a feller with a nose like that."
The Palatine House was new and gorgeous; built in the hope of attracting touring automobilists, it was that dreary mistake, a cheap imitation of the swagger metropolitan article. Scarford was not a metropolis, and the imitation in this case was a particularly poor one. However, to the Dotts, its marble-floored lobby and gilded pillars and cornices were grand and imposing. Their room on the third floor looked out upon the street below, and if the view of shops and signs and trucks and trolleys was not beautiful it was, at least, distinctly different from any view in Trumet.
Serena gloried in it.
"Ah!" she sighed, "this is something like. THIS is life! There's something going on here, Daniel. Don't you feel it?"
Daniel was counting his small change.
"What say?" he asked.
His wife repeated her question, raising her voice to carry above the noises of the street.
"Feel it! Yes, yes; and hear it, too. How we're ever goin' to sleep with all that hullabaloo outside I don't know. Don't you suppose we could get a quieter room than this, Serena?"
"I don't want a quiet room. I don't want to sleep. I feel as if I'd been asleep all my life. Now, thank goodness, I am where people are really awake. What are you doing with that money?"
"Oh, just lookin' at it, while I can. I shan't have the chance very long, if the other folks in this town are like that hack driver. A dollar to drive half a mile in that hearse! Why, the whole shebang wa'n't worth more than two dollars, to buy. And then he had the cheek to ask me to give him 'a quarter for himself.'"
"Yes, that was his tip. We must expect that. Gertrude says she always has to tip the servants and drivers and such at college. Did you give it to him?"
"Who? Me? I told him I was collectin' for a museum, and I'd give him a quarter for the horse, just as it stood--or WHILE it stood. I said he'd better take the offer pretty quick because the critter looked as if 'twould lay down most any minute."
He chuckled. Serena, however, was very solemn.
"Daniel," she said, "I must speak to you again about your language. You've lived in Trumet so long that you talk just like Azuba, or pretty nearly as bad. You mustn't say 'critter' and 'wa'n't' and 'cal'late.' Do try, won't you, to please me?"
"I'll try, Serena. But I don't see what difference it makes. We DO live in Trumet, don't we?"
"We HAVE lived there. How long we shall--But there, never mind. Just remember as well as you can and get ready now for dinner."
Her husband muttered that he didn't see where the "getting ready" came in; he had on the best he'd got. But he washed his hands and brushed his hair and they descended to the dining-room, where they ate a 'table d'hote' meal, beginning with lukewarm soup and ending with salty ice cream.
They had left Trumet the previous evening, spending the night at Centreboro and taking the early morning train for Scarford. Two weeks had passed since the fateful visit of young Mr. Farwell, and, though the wondrous good fortune which had befallen the Dott family was still wonderful, they were beginning to accept it as a real and established fact. All sorts of things had happened during those two weeks. They had gone to Boston, where they spent the better part of two days with the lawyers, going over the lists of securities, signing papers, and arranging all sorts of business matters. Serena and the attorneys did the most of the arranging. Captain Dan looked on, understanding very little, saying "Yes" or "No" as commanded by his wife, and signing his name whenever and wherever requested.
After another day, spent in the Boston shops, where the new clothes were purchased or ordered, a process which Serena enjoyed hugely and her husband endured with a martyr's patience, they had paid a flying visit to the college town and Gertrude. They found the young lady greatly excited and very happy, but her happiness was principally on their account.
"I'm so glad for you both, Daddy," she told her father. "When I got Mother's letter with the news the very first thing I thought was: 'There! now Father won't have to worry any more about the old store or anything else. He can be comfortable and carefree and happy, as he deserves to be.' And you won't worry, will you, Dad?"
The captain seemed oddly doubtful.
"I shan't if I can help it," he said. "But I'm the most foolish chap that ever lived, in some ways, seems so. When the business was so I had to worry about it all the time I used to set up nights wishin' I didn't own it. Now that we're fixed so it don't make much difference whether I get a profit or not, I find myself frettin' and wonderin' how Nathaniel and Sam are gettin' along. I wake up guessin' how much they've sold since I've been away, and whether we're stuck on those canvas hats and those middy blouses and one thing or 'nother, same as I was afraid we'd be. I've only been away three days altogether, but it seems about a year."
Gertrude smiled and shook her head.
"Why don't you sell out?" she asked. "Or would no one buy? I presume that's it."
"No-o, that ain't it. I don't wonder you think so, but it ain't. Cohen--the fellow that owns the Emporium--was in only the day afore we left, hintin' around