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Page 47
"Mamma had neuralgia," said Beatrix, "and went to bed, or I couldn't
have come. It's dreadfully hot at that horrid old inn. But we hadn't
the money to go anywhere else this summer."
"Last night," said the hermit, "I climbed to the top of that big rock
above us. I could see the lights of the inn and hear a strain or two
of the music when the wind was right. I imagined you moving
gracefully in the arms of others to the dreamy music of the waltz amid
the fragrance of flowers. Think how lonely I must have been!"
The youngest, handsomest, and poorest of the famous Trenholme sisters
sighed.
"You haven't quite hit it," she said, plaintively. "I was moving
gracefully at the arms of another. Mamma had one of her periodical
attacks of rheumatism in both elbows and shoulders, and I had to rub
them for an hour with that horrid old liniment. I hope you didn't
think that smelled like flowers. You know, there were some West Point
boys and a yachtload of young men from the city at last evening's
weekly dance. I've known mamma to sit by an open window for three
hours with one-half of her registering 85 degrees and the other half
frostbitten, and never sneeze once. But just let a bunch of
ineligibles come around where I am, and she'll begin to swell at the
knuckles and shriek with pain. And I have to take her to her room and
rub her arms. To see mamma dressed you'd be surprised to know the
number of square inches of surface there are to her arms. I think it
must be delightful to be a hermit. That--cassock-- gabardine, isn't
it?--that you wear is so becoming. Do you make it--or them--of course
you must have changes- yourself? And what a blessed relief it must be
to wear sandals instead of shoes! Think how we must suffer--no matter
how small I buy my shoes they always pinch my toes. Oh, why can't
there be lady hermits, too!"
The beautifulest and most adolescent Trenholme sister extended two
slender blue ankles that ended in two enormous blue-silk bows that
almost concealed two fairy Oxfords, also of one of the forty-seven
shades of blue. The hermit, as if impelled by a kind of reflex-
telepathic action, drew his bare toes farther beneath his gunny-
sacking.
"I have heard about the romance of your life," said Miss Trenholme,
softly. "They have it printed on the back of the menu card at the
inn. Was she very beautiful and charming?"
"On the bills of fare!" muttered the hermit; "but what do I care for
the world's babble? Yes, she was of the highest and grandest type.
Then," he continued, "then I thought the world could never contain
another equal to her. So I forsook it and repaired to this mountain
fastness to spend the remainder of my life alone--to devote and
dedicate my remaining years to her memory."
"It's grand," said Miss Trenholme, "absolutely grand. I think a
hermit's life is the ideal one. No bill-collectors calling, no
dressing for dinner--how I'd like to be one! But there's no such luck
for me. If I don't marry this season I honestly believe mamma will
force me into settlement work or trimming hats. It isn't because I'm
getting old or ugly; but we haven't enough money left to butt in at
any of the swell places any more. And I don't want to marry--unless
it's somebody I like. That's why I'd like to be a hermit. Hermits
don't ever marry, do they ?"
"Hundreds of 'em," said the hermit, "when they've found the right
one."
"But they're hermits," said the youngest and beautifulest, "because
they've lost the right one, aren't they?"
"Because they think they have," answered the recluse, fatuously.
"Wisdom comes to one in a mountain cave as well as to one in the world
of 'swells,' as I believe they are called in the argot."
"When one of the 'swells' brings it to them," said Miss Trenholme.
"And my folks are swells. That's the trouble. But there are so many
swells at the seashore in the summer-time that we hardly amount to
more than ripples. So we've had to put all our money into river and
harbor appropriations. We were all girls, you know. There were four
of us. I'm the only surviving one. The others have been married off.
All to money. Mamma is so proud of my sisters. They send her the
loveliest pen-wipers and art calendars every Christmas. I'm the only
one on the market now. I'm forbidden to look at any one who hasn't
money."
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