Between his duties at the office of the Haynton Bay Improvement Company and his earnest desire to master the mysteries of the iron trade, Philip Hayn found very little time for dropping into moody reflections. Like many another young man in business, he became convinced that a great deal of telling work might be done outside of business-hours: so he spent many evenings and occasional days in endeavoring to forward the interests of his employer, and of the Improvement Company, in which Mr. Tramlay was as largely interested as himself.

He had more than business to absorb his thoughts, for his stock of knowledge regarding human nature was at first entirely inadequate to the demands made upon it. At Haynton it was a safe rule that a man whose appearance and manner were those of a gentleman could be safely regarded as, at least, an honest man; in New York he found this assumption caused some of his plans to be utterly shattered by Tramlay’s more experienced hand. The railroad-men who wanted iron, to be paid for partly by stock in their roads, he learned to distrust if they were habitually well dressed and wore kid gloves when visiting Tramlay’s office, but he occasionally saw his employer neglect an appointment, even with his family, and devote his entire time to some insignificant, badly-dressed little fellow, and even to an occasional awkward man who seemed, as he really was, the farmer-secretary and treasurer of a lot of fellow-farmers who had planned a short road for their own benefit. The amount of cash that such a man could pay was seldom large, but not so the probable profit on the stock which Tramlay received “to boot.”

A pleasing relief from the work of his two offices was Phil’s occasional evenings at Tramlay’s home, which he had been so heartily urged to regard as his own that he no longer waited for special invitations. In spite of his pressing duties, he had devoted himself to being “nice,” as Lucia had termed the condition which made the family avail themselves of the services of Mr. Tramlay’s clerks. He improved upon his instructions so far as always to have in his pockets enough postage-stamps for the girls’ letters, and to see that boxes of candies from “the place somewhere down town” reached the house without first lying neglected for a day or two upon his employer’s desk. When Margie and Lucia were returning from a short visit out of town, he was at station, wharf, or ferry to meet them, regardless of what railway-magnate from out of town might be already accessible at a hotel, and the pang of hurrying away afterward was always sweetened by the gentle protests that no subsequent conversation could banish from his ear.

And yet, as he informed himself in occasional moments of leisure, the interest that lay closest to his heart was not being advanced visibly. Lucia seemed always glad to meet him, always sorry to part with him; but was she not so to all mere acquaintances whose society was not unpleasing? She never made an excuse to cut short his conversation, no matter if he talked on subjects of which she evidently was ignorant; but had he not always been accustomed to patient listeners? She sometimes asked questions that seemed beyond her taste, as the subjects certainly were beyond her ken; but might not ordinary human desire for knowledge prompt any girl to do the same?

Sometimes he would bitterly inform himself that of his host’s two daughters any listener might imagine Margie, instead of her sister, the object of his affection. Margie, whose feelings and manner and enthusiasm lacked the restraint which a year or two of society will impose on an observing maiden, was as artless and effusive and affectionate as if Phil were an ideal older brother, if not a lover. Of course Margie was not in love with him; for was she not continually sounding Lucia’s praises? To her the world seemed to live and move and have its being solely for Lucia. Phil had never before seen such affection between sisters, and it seemed all the more wonderful as he recalled some frequent passages of words in which the two girls had indulged at Hayn Farm, not a half-year before. Margie seemed to have adopted him as a big brother, and it was quite delightful, as well as a new sensation, he having no sisters of his own, but he did wish that the same spirit—not exactly the same, either—might be manifested by Lucia.

Another disquieting thought came from the frequency with which Marge visited the Tramlay abode. He had heard almost too much of Marge before he ever saw him, but now he saw far more. It seemed, that Phil never could visit the Tramlays without either finding Marge already there, or having him come in just as a pleasant tÊte-À-tÊte with Lucia was fairly under way. That Marge did not approve of the cordiality with which Phil was received was quite evident, in spite of his impassive demeanor, and Phil felt none the easier that Marge showed him many courtesies, and introduced him quite freely among his club acquaintances. Marge explained that many of these gentlemen had money and might be persuaded to purchase cottage-sites of the Haynton Bay Company; but if this was his purpose why did he not conduct the negotiations himself? Occasionally Phil suspected that there were dark designs hidden in Marge’s invitations to quiet little games at the club, and his rather sneering replies, to Phil’s refusals, that all gentlemen played cards sometimes; still, such games as he chanced to see were not for large sums, nor were they attended by any of the excitement that is supposed to make inexperienced players reckless.

Almost as disturbing was Mrs. Tramlay’s manner. At times she was affable and almost hearty in her manner toward Phil; again she was reserved and distant. What did it mean? Did she divine his purpose and resent it? or could it be that she was impatient that he did not pay his court with more fervor? Could he have overheard some of the conversations of which he was the subject, he would have been enlightened, yet scarcely more hopeful.

“Edgar,” said Mrs. Tramlay to her husband one evening, “young Hayn comes here so much that no one else is likely to visit Lucia with any serious intentions.”

“Well, why should they?” asked her husband. “Isn’t he good enough for a son-in-law?”

“I’m not even sure that he aspires to that position,” said Mrs. Tramlay.

“Aren’t you? I’m afraid, then, you’ll soon need to wear glasses, my dear.”

“Don’t joke about it, please: it’s a serious subject.”

“Yes,” sighed the merchant; “one’s first glasses——”

“You know very well I don’t mean glasses,” said the lady, with some petulance. “This is Lucia’s second season, and desirable young men are rare. ’Twould be unfair to her to have a man dawdling about her, acting frequently as her escort——”

“Assisted by her mother——”

“That doesn’t alter the case: it makes it all the graver in other people’s eyes.”

“Well, my dear, I see plainly enough that young Hayn has fixed intentions; and I’m as fully satisfied that they are entirely to Lu’s taste.”

“Then the question is, should it be allowed to go on?”

“Why not, if they love each other, or want to?”

“Because we want our first daughter to make as good a match as possible, and I don’t see that the young man’s prospects are very brilliant. If the Improvement Company shouldn’t succeed, he’ll be nothing but your clerk, with no certainty nor any expectations.”

“I feel entirely easy about the money I’ve put into the Improvement Company,” said the merchant, “and Phil will do as well as I, he having an equal number of shares. If worst comes to worst with him from that speculation, and he and Lu continue to like each other, I can take him into partnership. That would give him financial standing: there are plenty of young men of good families who would pay well for such an opportunity, for iron is up, and to stay.”

Mrs. Tramlay tossed her head, and replied, “I didn’t ever suppose it would be necessary to set a young man upon his feet in order to get a husband for one of our daughters.”

“Quite right: don’t suppose so yet, either, for I assure you he is fully earning whatever it might be necessary to give him. I find that he makes a very favorable impression upon the class of people who visit the iron-houses, or whom the iron-houses look after. He’s already got two or three desirable little orders, besides being on the track of others.”

“But he’s only a clerk, after all,” persisted Mrs. Tramlay.

“Say but the word, and I’ll make him my partner to-morrow,” said Tramlay.

“Don’t be hasty,” replied the lady, in some alarm. “He is not Lucia’s only chance, you know.”

Tramlay looked inquiringly; his wife appeared embarrassed, and averted her eyes.

“Oh! You mean Marge, I suppose? Well, if Lu should really want him, I wouldn’t like to make her unhappy by saying no. But really, my dear,”—here the merchant put his arm around his wife,—“really, now, don’t you think that a man who was a beau of yours a quarter of a century ago is rather mature to be the husband of an impulsive girl?”

“Young wives can’t live on impulse alone,” said Mrs. Tramlay. “Mr. Marge has means.”

“Not to any great extent, that any one has been able to discover,” interrupted the merchant.

“And he has social position, which is of more importance in New York than anything else,” continued the wife. “He knows many prominent people whom we do not, and if he were to marry Lucia it would improve Margie’s opportunities. We haven’t gone into society as much as we should, and I’m afraid our daughters will have to suffer for it.”

“Don’t trouble your head with any such fears,” said the husband, with more than his usual earnestness. “Girls like ours—bless them!—aren’t going to make bad matches.”

“Besides,” said Mrs. Tramlay, retracing her thoughts, “Mr. Marge doesn’t look the least bit old: he is not the kind of man to grow old. I can’t see that he appears a day older than he did years ago.”

“Bless your sentimental heart!” said the merchant. “He doesn’t, eh? Well, it does you credit to think so, and it doesn’t make me jealous in the least.”

“If the Company succeeds,” continued Mrs. Tramlay, “Mr. Marge will be as much the gainer as you or young Hayn, won’t he?”

“Certainly.”

“Then he’ll be that much better off than this young man you’re so fond of?”

“Yes, if he does nothing foolish in the mean time; but I have my doubts of the financial stability of any man who can’t pass a stock-ticker without looking at it. Wall Street exists solely for the purpose of absorbing such men’s money.”

“Mr. Marge is no fool,” said Mrs. Tramlay.

“He’s no wiser than some veterans who have had to leave their millions in the street and live on their children for ever after.”

“The Improvement Company has only about forty acres, I believe you said?”

“Just forty.”

“And two thousand an acre is the most you hope for?”

“Yes.”

“That would be eighty thousand dollars: four into eighty goes twenty times, and——”

“If I’d known you’d such a head for business I would have asked you to put a housekeeper in charge of the family, so I could have your services at the office,” said Tramlay.

“Twenty thousand dollars would be very little for a young man to marry on in New York,—and in our set.”

“Twenty thousand, and a salary which I must soon increase in simple justice; also, expectations from his father’s estate in the course of time. I don’t remember to have told you, though, that the young man was long-headed enough to suggest that his father should buy options on the continuation of the ridge,—there are several hundred acres in all, distributed among different farms,—and the old fellow has worked it so skilfully that we have the refusal of it all, for a year, at a trifling outlay in money. There’s genuine city business capacity in that young man’s head,—he?”

“It appears so,” Mrs. Tramlay admitted.

This admission might have been of great comfort to Phil could he have heard it, but, as he never received any information, except through his alternating hopes and suspicions, he was obliged to remain in doubt. His principal hope, aside from that based on Lucia’s willingness to devote any amount of time to him, was obtained through the manner of the head of the family. Tramlay was communicative as wise merchants usually are to their employees; he was also confidential: evidently he trusted Phil implicitly, for he told the new clerk all his business expectations and hopes, instructed him carefully regarding every one whom the young man was to see for business-purposes, and threw much important work upon him. It seemed impossible to misconstrue the purpose of all this: at the very least, it implied a high order of respect; and the respect of a possible father-in-law was not an ally to be underrated. Besides, Tramlay frequently put Lucia in his charge when she was out for an evening; and this implied a still higher order of trust.

But, after all, the hopes that were strongest and most abiding were formed in the Tramlay parlor, while Lucia was apparently only acting the part of a listener. The young man occasionally found himself expressing his own opinion freely, and to great extent, on subjects that interested him, and the flow of language was interrupted only by badly-concealed yawns from Mrs. Tramlay and Margie. Where to them could be the interest in the latest campaign against the Indians, or methods of ventilating schoolrooms, or the supposed moral purpose underlying England’s continued occupation of Egypt? Such questions were fit only for men, thought Mrs. Tramlay and her second daughter: the mother sometimes said, after excusing herself from impromptu lectures on these or kindred topics, that the young man from the country loved to hear himself talk, and Margie half believed that Phil only began what she denominated “harangues” in order to clear the room, so that he might have Lucia to himself.

But to all that Phil said, no matter how heavy the subject, Lucia listened patiently, attentively, and often with an air of interest. Sometimes she attained sufficient grasp of a statement to reconstruct it, in words, though not in facts, and return it to the original maker, who, in the blindness of bliss, immediately attributed it to Lucia’s mental superiority to the remainder of the family. Had he seen her afterward perplexedly pinching her brow as she appealed to cyclopÆdia or dictionary to make his meaning clearer, he might have revised his opinion as to her intellect, yet he would have been the surer of what to him, just then, was more desirable than the collective intellect of the world.