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Page 4
Answering with a smile, I waited patiently while he talked terms
and other equally necessary details, then dropping all these
considerations, somewhat in his own grand manner, I made this
remark:
"If your wife likes me, which very possibly she may fail to do, I
shall have a few questions to ask you before I settle down to my
duties. Will you see that an opportunity is given me for doing
this?"
His assent was as frank as all the rest, and the next moment he
left the room.
As he passed out I heard him remark to Miss Davies:
"I expect Miss Saunders at my house before nightfall. I shall
reserve some minutes between half-past five and six in which to
introduce her to Mrs. Packard."
CHAPTER II
QUESTIONS
I knew all the current gossip about Mrs. Packard before I had
parted with Miss Davies. Her story was a simple one. Bred in
the West, she had come, immediately after her mother's death, to
live with that mother's brother in Detroit. In doing this she
had walked into a fortune. Her uncle was a rich man and when he
died, which was about a year after her marriage with Mr. Packard
and removal to C--, she found herself the recipient of an
enormous legacy. She was therefore a woman of independent means,
an advantage which, added to personal attractions of a high
order, and manners at once dignified and winning, caused her to
be universally regarded as a woman greatly to be envied by all
who appreciated a well-founded popularity.
So much for public opinion. It differs materially from that just
given me by her husband.
The mayor lived on Franklin Street in a quarter I had seldom
visited. As I entered this once aristocratic thoroughfare from
Carlton Avenue, I was struck as I had been before by its
heterogeneous appearance. Houses of strictly modern type
neighbored those of a former period, and it was not uncommon to
see mansion and hovel confronting each other from the opposite
side of the street. Should I find the number I sought attached
to one of the crude, unmeaning dwellings I was constantly
passing, or to one of mellower aspect and possibly historic
association?
I own that I felt a decided curiosity on this point, and
congratulated myself greatly when I had left behind me a
peculiarly obnoxious monstrosity in stone, whose imposing
proportions might reasonably commend themselves to the
necessities, if not to the taste of the city's mayor.
A little shop, one story in height and old enough for its simple
wooden walls to cry aloud for paint, stood out from the middle of
a row of cheap brick houses. Directly opposite it were two
conspicuous dwellings, neither of them new and one of them
ancient as the street itself. They stood fairly close together,
with an alley running between. From the number I had now reached
it was evident that the mayor lived in one of these. Happily it
was in the fresher and more inviting one. As I noted this, I
paused in admiration of its spacious front and imposing doorway.
The latter was in the best style of Colonial architecture, and
though raised but one step from the walk, was so distinguished by
the fan-tailed light overhead and the flanking casements glazed
with antique glass, that I felt myself carried back to the days
when such domiciles were few and denoted wealth the most solid,
and hospitality the most generous.
A light wall, painted to match the house, extended without break
to the adjoining building, a structure equal to the other in age
and dimensions, but differing in all other respects as much as
neglect and misuse could make it. Gray and forbidding, it
towered in its place, a perfect foil to the attractive dwelling
whose single step I now amounted with cheerful composure.
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