Patty's Perversities

"Jacob Wentworth."

It was to meet this appointment that Miss Sturtevant passed leisurely down Milk Street about noon Saturday. The signal-ball upon the Equitable Building fell just as she passed the Old South Church; but she seemed not disposed to quicken her steps.

"Uncle Jacob will be cross if he has to wait; but I think I like him best a little cross. I wonder how he'll act. I must make my cards tell: I never shall hold a better hand, and the stake is worth playing for. How tremendously hot it is! How do people live in the city in August! Next summer I'll be at the seashore, if this goes through all straight. I shall be independent of everybody then."

Musing in this agreeable fashion, Miss Flora turned the corner of Congress Street, and walked on until she entered one of those noble buildings which have sprung up since the great fire, making Boston's business streets among the finest in the world. Miss Sturtevant adjusted her dress a little in the elevator, looked to the buttons of her gloves, and glanced over her general trigness, as might an admiral about to go into action. An inward smile softened her lips without disturbing their firmness, as she entered an office upon the glass of whose door was inscribed her uncle's name.

"Good-morning, uncle Jacob," she said brightly.

A white-haired man, with small, shrewd eyes which twinkled beneath bushy brows, looked up from the letter he was writing. His forehead was high and retreating, his nose suggestive of good dinners; and his whole bearing had that firmness only obtained by the use as a tonic of the elixir of gold. Flora had been from childhood forbidden to address him as uncle, and he understood at once that she felt sure of her ground to-day, or she would not have ventured upon the term. The lawyer paused almost perceptibly before he answered her salutation.

"Good-morning," he said. "Sit down."

"Thanks," answered the visitor, leisurely seating herself. "This office is so much nicer than your old one! I hope you are well, uncle."

"I am well enough," he returned gruffly. "What is this wonderful business which brings you to Boston?"

"You know I always do you a good turn when I can," remarked Miss Sturtevant by way of introduction.

"Yes," he assented. "You find it pays."

"You may or may not remember," she went on with great deliberation, "that you once requested me to discover for you – or for a client, you said – what became of certain papers which you drew up for Mr. Mullen of Montfield."

"I remember," the other said, his eyes twinkling more than ever.

"I had hard work enough," Flora continued, "to trace them as far as I did, and little gratitude I got for my pains."

"You did not discover where the papers were?"

"I found that they had been in the possession of Mrs. Smithers."

"Her name," Mr. Wentworth remarked, pressing softly together the tips of his plump fingers, "is not Mrs. Smithers. She never married. It is best to be exact."

"Miss Clemens, then," said Flora. "I know now where those papers are."

"You do?" the old lawyer cried, at last showing some excitement. "Where are they?"

"That is my secret," she answered, with the faintest smile, and a nod of her head. "When is that directors' meeting?"

"Next Tuesday," replied Mr. Wentworth.

He knew his interlocutor well enough to allow her to take her own way in the conversation, fully aware that she would not idly turn from the subject in hand.

"And you then decide whether to buy the Samoset and Brookfield Branch?"

"Yes," he said. "Do you object to telling me how you discovered that?"

"I have my living to earn," she answered, smiling, "and it is necessary that I keep my eyes and ears open. Could you promise me, if you chose, that the decision should be to buy the Samoset and Brookfield Branch?"

"If I chose, I dare say I could," the lawyer affirmed. "My own vote, and others upon which I can count, will turn the scale."

"Very well. Do you accept my terms?"

"By George!" exclaimed Wentworth, slapping his palm upon his knee. "What a long head you have, Flora! You are like your mother, and she was a devilish smart woman, or she wouldn't have married my brother."

"It would have been to my advantage," Flora said, "if she had taken him for her first husband, instead of her second. Those precious half-sisters of mine would hardly hold their heads so high now, if she had. But do you agree?"

"If I understand," he said, "you offer me your information for my vote."

"For your assurance," she corrected, "that the vote is affirmative."

"What is your game?" demanded the old man. "What assurance have I that your information is correct?"

"Only my word," she said coolly. "I will tell you the name of the person having those papers, and where that person is to be found, the day I have proof that the affirmative vote is passed. You do as you like about accepting my terms."

It is needless to narrate further the conversation between the two: suffice it to say that Miss Flora was in the end triumphant. The wily lawyer determined to find his own account in the purposed vote, by the immediate purchase of Samoset and Brookfield Railroad stocks. One question Miss Sturtevant asked before she left the office.

"Had these papers any relation to Mr. Breck or his property?" she asked.

"No," Mr. Wentworth answered, evidently surprised. "What put that into your head?"

"Nothing," she said. "Good-morning."

And the enterprising woman, going to the bank, drew every dollar she could raise, and then hastened to catch the afternoon train to Montfield.

"Frank Breck," she said to herself, as she rolled along, "you are hardly a match for me, after all."

Within the next few days Miss Flora was very busy. She astonished the business-men of Samoset, a village half a dozen miles west of Montfield, by going about, purchasing the old Samoset and Brookfield stock, which everybody knew to be worthless, and which was to be had for a song. The lady was full of a thousand affectations and kittenish wiles in her leisure hours; but, when attending to business, she showed the hard, shrewd nature which lay beneath this soft exterior. She drove sharp bargains, and when, at last, the vote of the directors of the great Brookfield Valley Railroad to purchase the Branch became known, Miss Sturtevant's name was in every mouth, not always uncoupled with curses. Many a man and woman whose all had been sunk in the Branch found it hard to forgive this woman for the advantage she had taken; and she was accused of a sharpness not to be clearly distinguished from dishonesty; for country people see stock operations in a light very different from that of Wall Street. That Flora was not without consideration for the property of others, however, is proved by the following note, which she wrote the Sunday after her interview with Mr. Wentworth: —

Dear Mr. Putnam, – My interest in your welfare is too deep for me to stop to consider how you will regard my writing you. I heard in Boston yesterday, that the stock of the Samoset and Brookfield is likely to increase in value very soon. I tell you this in strictest confidence, as I have heard it intimated that you own some of the stock.

    Very sincerely yours,
    Flora Sturtevant.

CHAPTER VIII

ON THE PIAZZA

The life of Bathalina Clemens was one long wail in the past-potential tense. "I might have been" was the refrain of all her days.

"I might ha' been Peter Mixon's wife, if my sinful pride hadn't a made me high-minded," she said continually. "How'd I know he'd give up so easily, 'cause I said I wouldn't let him lick the ground I walked on?"

The nasal melancholy of camp-meeting minors floated after her angular form like the bitter odor from wormwood or tansy. She reproved the levity of those about her with an inner satisfaction at having "borne testimony;" and particularly did she labor with Patty, whose high spirits were a continual thorn to Bathalina.

"It's so like the Amorites and the Hittites and Hivites," she groaned, "to be always singing and laughing and dancing about! How'll you feel when you come to your latter end? Would you dance on your dying-bed?"

"Probably not," Patty answered, laughing more than ever; "but I can't tell."