46
THE DAISY.
to her bereaved father; and of the doting fondness with which he clung to her. She dwelt on her master’s sudden death, and on Margaret’s still submission. Loud was her lamentation over the fallen fortunes of the orphan. It was very long before I could lead her to the main object of my visit, Margaret’s present abode. After much delay, she produced a little box that Margaret had left with her, in which were a number of envelopes, with her address to the care of William Devon, Bea. Boston, in which Phyllis was to enclose news of herself from time to time and forward. Wishing to do the affectionate creature a service, I offered to act as her amanuensis. She accepted my assistance, and I filled a sheet at her dictation. It closed with “love to Master James.” Involuntarily I looked up, and in answer to my inquiring glance, she observed, “Miss Margaret is engaged to him.”
Unacknowledged to myself, I had been rearing the most unsubstantial of air-built castles, and a single breath had blown it down forever. The daisy of my boyhood had struck deeper root in my maturer dreams than I had known.
Eight years passed away, with little change to me. During the first, a Boston paper announced the marriage. at the house of William Devon, of James Chase and Margaret, daughter of the late Gilbert Devon, all formerly of Newport. At the close of the last, one of the journals of the day reported the failure of the house of Chase & Co., with the addition that James Chase, the senior partner, had given up, for the debts ot the concern, an estate that had been so devised to him as to make its retention perfectly legal. I was alone in the world, with no relative or friend dependent upon me for support; and I determined to place a part of my property at the disposal of Margaret’s husband. To do this deltcately and successfully, required gome knowledge of Mr. Chase’s character; and to gain that knowledge, I set off for Newport.
Delayed by fog, it was ten o’clock in the morning, when the boat stopped at the landing. A crowd darkened the wharf, and the names of at least half a dozen hotels were shouted by uproarious hackmen, Thames street was choked by the carriages that waited at the shop doors; and hurrying express wagons clattered over the pavement of Spring street. Driving to the Atlantic House, the sole object that I recognized, was the unchangeable Stone Mill.
I paused a moment only, and then drove on to the beach. How changed was everything from my first visit! Groups of merry youths and merrier maidens, in robes of every hue, romped and screamed amid the waves. Timid valetudinarians crept upon the margin of the ea, and stout swimmers laid their “hands upon the ocean’s mane,” and rode him like a well- rained charger. Old men tottered knee-deep in the brine, and frightened infants screamed at sight of the dashing water. Emerging bathers ran shivering from door to door of the long rows of unsightly dressing huts, in the vain endeavor to recall a forgotten number. Hacks and omnibuses wheeled forward and backward in search of fares; and stray spaniels whiningly sniffed for lost masters; for the dog of Ulyssea would have failed to recognize the Greek hero if he had come back in a wet bathing-dress.
At my return, I had time to note the changes wrought elsewhere also, by twenty years. On the spot where I had once found wild flowers, withered James figured in artificial bloom; and where the bobolink then trilled his eccentric melody, the artistic notes of a German band swelled through spacious halls. An hour later, I mounted my horse and rode out. Far southward, almost to the rocky shore, the once rural hill swarmed with carriages and equestrians. Amateur jockeys tried the speed of slender- limbed trotters; and groom-attended girls displayed their grace or awkwardness. A massive granite gateway, bearing symbols of death and eternity, had risen to guard the entrance of the Jewish Cemetery. Beside it, Hay street had opened a new vista through the fields. Following its course for a time, I turned my horse westward, with the intention of seeing old Phyllis once more. Near the asylum, I met the fantastic Haytian, from whose broken English I was able to gather that she still lived. The crazy boatman’s occupation was gone, for a firm causeway now crossed the shallow channel.
Phyllis remembered me, and received me with a hearty greeting. Eloquent as ever in praise of Margaret, she prated of her constant kindness; told how she came every year to see her, and what rare, good gifts she brought; and drew from her chest of treasures many a precious token of her young mistress’s loving remembrance. I marveled inwardly that she poured forth no regrets for Margaret’s recent misfortunes; and ventured myself to speak of Mr. Chase's reverses. She shook her head and sighed, adding, quite philosophically, that it was “now all one to him.” I asked an explanation, and she told me he was dead. Dead!” I exclaimed, and said no more; but Phyllis went on to tell that Mr. William had taken his sister home again; that Miss Margaret would have her resume her old place at the head of the house; and much more, of all which I comprehended
