Short Stories for English Courses

, who had so confidently counted on jumping into it when he left the train at Northridge Junction, fo

loak and now planting his darts. This analogy brought home to the young man the fact that he himself had no cloak, and that the overcoat in which he had faced the relatively temperate airs of Boston seemed no thicker than a sheet of paper on the bleak heights of Northridge. George Faxon said to himself that the place was uncommonly well named. It clung to an exposed ledge over

afford to hire a carriage are almost always those whom their hosts forget to send for. Yet to say Mrs. Culme had forgotten him was perhaps too crude a way of putting it. Similar incidents led him to think that she had probably told her maid to

st? That, again, was one of the contingencies he had expensively learned to look out for, and the perspicacity so acquired told him it would be cheaper to spend the night at the Northridge inn, and advise Mrs. Culme of his presence the

the station, and from the foremost th

ese are not the

tures to be in the pleasantest harmony with his voice. He was very fair and very young-hardly in the twenties, Faxon thought-but his face, though full of a morning freshness, was a trifle too thin and fine-drawn, as though a vivid spirit contended in him wi

" the youth continued, standing besi

er brushed it aside with a contemptuous "Oh, Mrs. Culme!" that

The youth broke off with

answered this evening." Faxon's laugh deepened the sense of sol

ng at my uncle's today, and she said you were due this evening. Bu

's one of the reasons why she needs a secretary. An

was at the age when predic

't, though! It bur

His life, for years past, had been mainly a succession of resigned adaptations, and he had learned, befor

to be somebody in the

sture of self-introduction. "My name's Frank Rainer, and I'm staying with my uncle at Overdale. I've driven over to meet two friends of his, who are due in a few minutes from New York. I

d sense, through his embarrassment, that it would be ma

swer for HIM! I dare say you'v

res, his politics, his charities and his hospitality, was as difficult to escape as the roar of a cataract in a mountain solitude. It might almost have been said that the one place in which one would not have expect

ve heard of

Rainer urged, in the tone that dispels scruples by ignoring them; and

's suggestion. It was because Frank Rainer was one of the privileged beings who simplify human intercourse by the atmosphere of confidence and good humor they diffuse. He produced this effect, Faxon noted, by the exercise of no

etected. Young Rainer had been threatened with a disease of the lungs which, according to the highest authorities, made banishment to Arizona or New Mexico inevitable. "But luckily my uncle didn't pack me off, as most people would have done, without getting another opinion. Whose? Oh, an awfully clever chap, a young doctor with a lot of new ideas, who simply laughed at my being sent away, and said I'd do perfectly well in New York if I didn't dine out too much, and if

elder brotherly concern that forced the words from Faxon made h

ive pressure. "Oh, I AM: awfully, awfully.

ou, what does he say to your swallowing

careless gesture. "It's not that t

humoredly insisted; to which his companion answered with a laugh: "W

r breath that made Faxon, still holding his arm, guide h

ap and drew the handkerchief across his forehead, which was intensely white, and beaded with moisture, though his face retained a healthy glow. But

nds," the secretary mused; he somehow w

breasting the rigor of the night. Frank Rainer introduced them as Mr. Grisben and Mr. Balch, and Faxon, while their luggage was being lifted into t

a genial-"and many many more of them, dear boy!" which suggested to Faxon that their arrival coincided with an anniversary. But he could n

he avenue the long house loomed through trees, its principal bulk dark but one wing sending out a ray of welcome; and the next moment Faxon was receiving a violent impression of warmth and light, of hothouse plants, hurrying servant

public personality into his host's contracted frame and manner. Mr. Lavington, to whom Faxon's case had been rapidly explained by young Rainer, had welcomed him with a sort of dry and stilted cordiality that exactly matched his narrow face, his stiff hand, the whiff of