TRAVELING A TOUCHSTONE.

A PARTY OF PLEASURE.

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BY F. E. F., AUTHOR OF “A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE,” ETC.

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A gayer party, bent on pleasure, never left the wharf than that now on board the steamer bound for Albany. It consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Castleton, Ruth Meredith and her friend Grace Fanshaw, with young Meredith, who had been coaxed by his sister to join the party, so that “they need be no trouble to Mr. Castleton.” He had consented, though voting it rather a “bore.” The presence of the pretty, winning, graceful Mrs. Castleton reconciled him, however, somewhat to the scheme, which was declared perfect in all its prospects and details, except the one drawback to the young ladies, of having been obliged to ask Mary Randall to accompany them.

There was no particular reason why Mary Randall’s being invited should have been a point so much objected to, as she appeared a quiet, inoffensive girl, by Ruth and Grace, only that she was not intimate with either, and seemed in their apprehension to spoil the ease and interfere with the excessive intimacy and familiarity of the other two. Harry Meredith, too, was put out with the prospect of “another woman to be civil to;” but, as Ruth said, “there was no help for it. Papa makes a point of it, as he wants to pay the Randalls some attention, and so does it by making me civil to Mary. It’s not pleasant, Grace, but it is better than not going at all.”

“Oh, to be sure,” replied Grace, thinking in her heart that old Mr. Meredith was a very disagreeable old gentleman; but there being no help for that either, the matter was settled.

“I dare say Mrs. Castleton will take her a good deal off our hands,” said Ruth.

“What a charming woman she is,” replied Grace.

“Mrs. Castleton? Oh, she has always been my beau ideal,” answered Ruth. “She’s lovely both in mind and person. Her manners are so graceful, and her tones so sweet—there’s altogether a charm and witchery about her that’s indescribable.”

“I hope your beau ideal will be a little more punctual another time, Ruth,” said young Meredith smiling. “Faith! I thought we had lost our passage.”

“Well, but we did not,” replied his sister.

“No,” said Meredith. “More by luck though than good management.”

“What a fuss you men always make about punctuality,” returned Ruth.

“And well we may,” replied her brother. “It’s the soul of business—and traveling, too, you’ll find. So pray have your carpet-bag ready in the morning—or —”

“Now don’t begin with scolding, Harry, because Mrs. Castleton happened to be five minutes out of the way.”

“Well, well,” replied Meredith, “that’s enough. Now go and choose your state-rooms. One of you will have to share one with a stranger.”

The girls looked at each other; Ruth and Grace wanting to be together, and yet not liking to propose it to Mary Randall, who said at once, with the almost of good nature,

“Oh, I’ll take that one. It’s the same thing to me, you know,” in a manner that quite warmed their hearts to her.

Mrs. Castleton had the first choice, of course, and so all the arrangements were made accordingly. But just when they were retiring for the night, Mrs. Castleton came to Ruth and Grace’s state-room, with a servant following her, bag in hand, saying in her usual sweet manner and soft tones,

“Girls, you’ll have to change with me. There’s such a walking overhead that I can’t sleep below.”

And so bonnets and shawls and bags were hastily gathered up, and all tumbled in confusion in the condemned state-room below.

“She might have thought of that before,” said Ruth with some little vexation. “It was her own choice.”

“Yes, I think so,” replied Grace. “She could sleep here I suppose as well as we.”

“I should think so,” said Ruth. “However, it’s no matter.” And so, full of talk of pleasure, they chatted half the night, to the great annoyance of their next neighbor, (who chanced to be a crusty bachelor, who all but cursed “those girls,”) until they fell asleep, to continue their schemes in their dreams.

“Oh, Ruth, dear, just stop and fasten my dress,” said Mrs. Castleton, looking out from her state-room in the morning, as her young friend was passing in a great hurry. “I am so late,” she continued. “Do help me pack up these things.”

Ruth looked round in despair at the floor and chair, heaped with an indescribable mass of gowns, caps, shoes, and every thing that had been quickly out of the trunk, in Mrs. Castleton’s hasty search after a particular pair of manchettes, which were deemed indispensable to her toilette, because they just matched the pattern of her collar, and answered,

“I’ll come back, Mrs. Castleton, as soon as I have fastened my own trunk. I left my room in a hurry, to speak to Harry, who wanted me, and half my things are out yet.”

“Oh, you’ll have plenty of time,” urged Mrs. Castleton persuasively, but still pertinaciously, “and my husband will be so angry if I am late. He can’t scold you, you know,” she added, with one of those playful smiles Ruth usually thought so bewitching, but which she was in no mood to admire now, as she thought—“And so you mean to throw your unpunctuality on me”—but hardly knowing how to refuse, she was beginning to toss things in helter-skelter, venting her pet upon helpless frocks and caps, when Mary Randall coming by, saw her through the half opened door on her knees before the trunk, (for Mrs. Castleton was twining her long curls round her fingers at the glass,) said,

“Can I help you, Ruth? I am all ready.” So, to her inexpressible relief, she took Ruth’s place, saying in a low voice, “Go and finish your own packing—I’ll get Mrs. Castleton ready.”

“What a dear, good girl you are,” said Ruth, in a perfect effervescence of gratitude—for it is not always the magnitude of the favor, that produces the greatest amount of gratitude. “I declare, Grace,” she said afterward to Miss Fanshaw, “that Mary Randall is the nicest girl I know. I would rather have her with us than not.”

The hurry and skurry of getting ashore was hardly over, when it was discovered that Mrs. Castleton’s bag had been left in her state room, and to avoid an explosion of vexation on the part of the provoked husband, Harry Meredith had to start off poste haste to get it, having scarcely time to spring back to shore ere the boat pushed off for Troy, and thinking, as he did so, that if the lady had not been so pretty he would not have interfered to prevent her getting the scolding she so richly deserved. Heated and panting he returned in time for a cold cup of coffee, as the rest of the party had already breakfasted during his absence. But Mrs. Castleton said so gracefully, “I am afraid my carelessness has made you lose your breakfast, Mr. Meredith,” that he could not but answer,

“Oh, not at all. I have had a capital breakfast.”

The pleasant ride however to Utica restored the travelers to their usual high spirits. Mary Randall was discovered to have as keen a sense of enjoyment as any of them, with a fund of good temper that seemed inexhaustible.

“And so punctual,” as young Meredith said most approvingly. Her shawl was never missing, and her carpet-bag was always ready, (two great points, young ladies, if you would win a gentleman’s heart in traveling,) but graceful, charming Mrs. Castleton was forever forgetting something, and they never stopped any where that they did not hear Mr. Castleton’s voice saying, in a tone of mixed vexation and despair,

“Now, Julia, have you got your bag? and where is your shawl?” To which she generally answered

“Yes—no—is not this mine? No, dear, I believe I left it in the car—or perhaps its only in the carriage. Just call the driver back, wont you?”

“The stage starts at six in the morning for Trenton, ladies,” said Meredith at night as they parted. “So you must be bright and early. There’s no danger of your not being ready,” he said, turning to Mary Randall with a smile. “You are a capital traveler, I see.”

Mrs. Castleton did not look pleased. She thought the compliment to Mary was an implied reproof to herself—and she was not used to any thing but admiration, except, indeed, from her husband; but she seemed used to his scolding, for somehow she did not appear to mind, if indeed she heard it, which seemed doubtful. Meredith often thought him downright cross.

“How he does scold that pretty wife of his,” he said to Ruth. “And how sweetly she bears it. I declare I can hardly keep from answering for her sometimes.”

“She does not seem to care for it though,” replied Ruth, who was beginning to be a little disenchanted of her beau ideal; “and she is provoking.”

“If she were not such a beauty, I suppose she would be,” he replied.

“Are you ready, Mrs. Castleton?” said Ruth, in her animated voice, at her door the next morning.

“Ready!” exclaimed Mrs. Castleton, who was standing before the glass, as she stroked her glossy hair. “Ready!”

“Yes,” said Ruth, looking aghast at the trunk which was open as usual with half its contents on the floor. “Yes, Mr. Castleton sent me up to say that the stage starts in ten minutes.”

“Oh dear! then we can’t go in this one,” she replied, quietly. “I can’t get ready in that time. We must take the next one going.”

“But no other goes to-day,” said Ruth, in despair.

“Then we must wait until to-morrow,” replied Mrs. Castleton, calmly. “I would just as leave stay here a day as not.”

But Ruth would not, nor Grace, nor any of them; and as Mrs. Castleton continued, “I’ve been to Trenton before—so I don’t care about staying there more than a day.”

Ruth thought she should have exploded. To be cut short of a day at Trenton, she and Grace, who had talked and dreamed of nothing else all summer. And Mary, too, who wanted to take sketches there—it was more than her patience, or rather impatience could bear; but she saw that the only thing to be done, was to get her ready herself—so she said with the energy of desperation.

“Dress yourself, and I’ll pack your trunk. You have plenty of time.” And so she turned to and rapidly folded dresses, and packed and locked the trunk, and then seized the carpet-bag, and stuffed every thing in it she came across in an incredibly short time; and ere Mrs. Castleton had calmly put her bonnet on, she came panting down stairs, dragging the bag after her, and loaded with shawls and cloaks, heated and out of breath. She was just in time to hear Mr. Castleton call out,

“All ready, ladies?” to which his wife answered in the sweetest tones of bright alacrity,

“Yes, all ready!” to his infinite satisfaction and approving surprise, for he answered,

“Ah, that’s right!” as he handed her in the carriage, and as poor Ruth jumped in after her, she exclaimed,

“Why Ruth, dear, how heated you look!”

Now if any thing is provoking, it is to be told when you are heated, that you look so. But Mrs. Castleton, feeling fresh and cool, seemed quite amused as well as surprised at her friend’s looking so flushed and flurried.

Two stylish young men, strangers, who were to be their fellow-travelers to Trenton, turned their eyes on Ruth at this exclamation of Mrs. Castleton; and poor Ruth, who really was a pretty girl, when not flushed, feeling that she was appearing to no advantage, only colored the more, and grew the hotter for the attention she attracted, while she longed to say, “If I am hot, it’s packing your trunk that has made me so;” but as that would not do very well, she had no alternative but silence, while she saw the strangers glance from her to the delicate, fair, tranquil-looking Mrs. Castleton with looks of admiration that did not tend to pacify her. She had, however, to grow cool in temper and temperament the best way she could. And off the stage started for Trenton.

Two delightful days were passed at the Falls. The stylish young strangers had made Harry Meredith’s acquaintance, and been by him introduced to the party, which they joined. So the girls were in ecstasies. They could have staid there willingly for a month; but their time was limited, as they wanted to be back in time for the ball at West Point; and the young men being, like themselves, bound for Niagara, they were somewhat reconciled at leaving Trenton, which was declared to be the most perfect spot under heaven. “They could live there forever,” etc.; and so the whole party, with its new made addition, returned to Utica again.

“Oh, my bouquet! I left it on the table in the drawing-room!” exclaimed Mrs. Castleton, the next morning, just as they were all seated in the cars. “Do, dear,” turning to her husband, “go and get it for me.”

“It’s of no consequence, Julia,” he replied; “and I have not time.”

“Oh yes, indeed it is,” she urged. “You have plenty of time. Tell the conductor to wait a minute for you.”

“Nonsense, Julia,” he replied, impatiently. “Do you suppose he’d stop if I were to ask him—and I certainly would not ask him if he would.”

But she looked so imploringly, and at the same time so very pretty, that Mr. Sutherland (one of the strangers before mentioned) thought her husband a brute to refuse her, and darted out of the cars, which the next minute were starting off.

“There! Sutherland has lost his place!” some one exclaimed, as the bouquet was thrown in at the window, and fell into Mrs. Castleton’s lap; but a gentleman, putting his head out of the window, said, “No! there he is, jumping on the outside!” “Oh, how dangerous!” cried out two or three voices at once. And one old gentleman drew in his gray head with the quiet remark, “Young men will do these mad things. I only wonder more accidents don’t happen;” and in another minute, Mr. Sutherland, animated and laughing, was making his way through the centre of the car, and as he took his seat, said,

“I was afraid you would lose your flowers, Mrs. Castleton. I quite gave you all up as I saw the cars starting.”

“I am very much indebted to you,” she said, gracefully. “I am so fond of flowers. Their fragrance is really refreshing,” she said, as she raised the large bouquet to her delicate face, not less fair and soft than the beautiful flowers that almost hid it.

The young man looked at her most admiringly, as if it was a beautiful and refined taste, just suited to so lovely and graceful a creature.

The little party passed so pleasant a day together, and the young men were so captivated with Mrs. Castleton’s grace and beauty, and the high spirits and general good looks of the three girls, that it was proposed that they should join parties, and take an “extra” together for the next stage of their journey.

This suited the ladies extremely well, who were not less (only not so openly) charmed with the gentlemen. And the next day a later hour was named for their starting than usual, as the conveyance was their own.

“Is Mrs. Castleton ready?” said Harry Meredith, in a tone of suppressed impatience, the next morning. “It’s most nine o’clock, and we were to have been off at eight.”

“Oh, no!” replied Ruth, in a low voice. “I doubt whether we get off to-day, Harry. She says there’s no hurry as we have an “extra.” I do think with all her pretty ways, she is the most provoking woman!”

“Where is Mary Randall?” he asked.

“Helping her,” continued his sister. “I came away in perfect vexation and despair. As to her husband’s being cross to her, I think he’s a perfect marvel of patience.”

“I declare I am beginning to think so too,” said Harry. “Well, to-morrow we take the boat on the lake, thank fortune! so there’ll be no more running back for flowers and bags.”

In spite of little drawbacks, however, the pretence of the two young strangers, who kept Mrs. Castleton in high good-humor, made the two days stage-traveling very delightful; and now they had reached the boat, and were on the broad and beautiful Ontario.

“Do, Ruth, put on your cloak,” said Meredith, to his sister. “The morning air is very keen.”

“I can’t find it, Harry,” she replied.

“How could you mislay it!” he said, quite provoked. “You will catch your death of cold.” And a great stir was made for the missing cloak, everybody getting up and looking under chairs and behind benches; and poor Ruth, quite disconcerted at discomposing so many persons, was saying all the time, “Oh, it’s no matter, Harry.” But he only replied, “It is matter, Ruth. You’ll be ill.” When the general move having reached Mrs. Castleton, she said,

“What are you looking for, Mr. Meredith?”

“Ruth’s cloak,” he answered.

“Oh, I have it on,” she calmly replied. “I could not find mine. It’s somewhere in the lady’s cabin,” she continued, looking up at Ruth, without, however, making any offer of returning Ruth her own.

“Go and get it, Ruth,” said her brother.

She went, and in a few minutes returned without the cloak; and in answer to Mr. Meredith’s remonstrance, said, in a low voice,

“I cannot help it, Harry; the air is so bad down there that I could not stand it; and there’s such a confusion, it’s impossible to find any thing.”

Meredith insisted, however, again. “You are coughing already;” and this time he accompanied his sister, and presently they returned with the cloak, which it took all his good breeding to hand to Mrs. Castleton politely, who took it as quietly as if it had been quite a matter of course, and as she returned Ruth her own, said,

“I hope you have not taken cold. You look quite blue,” and she continued to gaze at her, with an air of surprise, at anybody’s being so cold and looking so ugly.

“Sutherland,” said his friend a few days after, “your pretty Mrs. Castleton’s a bore, with her sweet manner and dilatory selfishness. I mean to cut the party and travel off for Niagara by myself. I don’t ask you, however, to do so too, if you prefer remaining with them.”

“No,” replied Sutherland, “I believe you are right. Pretty women are very charming at home, and in ball-rooms, but it is, as you say, a bore to be tied to them in traveling.”

“The girls are nice girls,” pursued the other. “If it were not for this spoilt beauty, I would rather remain with them than not.” So it was determined between them that they should go on in the night train, and so free themselves from the rest of the party, who they would meet again at Niagara.

“How strange,” said Mrs. Castleton, as her husband conveyed to her the adieux of the young men, who affected a sudden haste that must carry them immediately on. “I declare it’s quite rude,” she continued, somewhat offended.

“I am not at all surprised,” said Harry Meredith, quietly.

“It’s very provoking,” said Ruth, who knew what her brother meant, and all the ladies were for the first time quite sulky. Mrs. Castleton, for she missed the admiration of the two handsome, fashionable, agreeable young men; Ruth, because she was angry with Mrs. Castleton as being the cause of their being driven away, and Grace, not less put out than the other two at losing the society of their agreeable traveling companions—all but Mary, were in thorough bad humor.

“You seem to bear the loss of our new friends very philosophically,” said Harry Meredith.

“They were very pleasant additions to our party,” she replied, good-humoredly, “but as we started without them, and without any idea or knowledge of them, I do not think they are at all essential to our having quite as agreeable a journey as we anticipated.”

“What a sweet tempered creature she is,” said Harry, pleased with the calmness with which she regarded the loss of the two heroes.

“Oh,” replied Ruth, “it is easy enough for her to keep her temper. You have not left the party.”

“I,” he ejaculated, looking amazed.

“Yes,” pursued his sister. “You are almost as much of a stranger to her, and quite as agreeable as either of the other two.”

“Thank you,” said he, laughing. “Then how comes it that you and Grace do not value me as highly?”

“You are my brother,” she replied, “and Grace has known you since she was a baby. There is no throwing the light of imagination round a man so circumstanced.”

Harry laughed, and he did not like Mary the less for his sister’s explanation of her good temper.

“Mrs. Castleton,” he said, “I’ve been to look at the rooms. There’s only one on the second story, and another in the third. I presume you’ll take the one on the second.”

“Oh, yes,” she replied, “I never mount more stairs than necessary.”

“So I presumed,” he replied; and presently he came back with a smiling expression in his eyes, that made his sister ask him once or twice what was the matter, to which he replied each time, “nothing.”

But she knew better. Something evidently pleased him very much.

“It’s excessively cold,” said Mrs. Castleton, as she drew herself up in her shawl. “I wish we had a little fire.”

“You had better go up stairs as soon as your room is ready,” said her husband. And presently, when the housekeeper came to show them to their rooms, shivering and blue, she bid the girls good night.

“Let me carry your shawls for you,” said Harry, as he gathered up his sister’s and friends’ “things,” and following them up, he heard one of the girls exclaim, as she opened the door, “Oh, charming! How comfortable!” It was a large room, and a nice wood-fire was blazing most cheerfully.

“Now, Ruth,” he said, “you see what amused me.”

“How?” she asked.

“Why, Mrs. Castleton chose, as usual, what she supposed was the best; but her room has no fire-place in it; and I really enjoyed her selfishness being for once at fault.”

“Oh, I am sorry,” said Mary, “for she seemed really suffering. I did not know it. If I had —”

“Yes,” said Harry, with an admiring look, “I thought you would offer to change with her if you knew it, so I said nothing about it.”

“You were right, Harry; I am glad of it,” said Ruth. “There’s no reason why we should not be comfortable too. So good-night to you.” And as she shut the door, she continued with, “A very bright idea of Harry’s; and now girls don’t let us go to bed this hour yet. Let us enjoy this fire.” And they did enjoy it, abusing Mrs. Castleton.

It was quite amusing to hear them. One would scarcely think she could be the same person they started with. But young girls are always equally enthusiastic in either liking or disliking.

Mrs. Castleton had been an angel because she was pretty and graceful. She was now, if not quite a devil, at least, detestable, because she was discovered to be spoilt. And “that cross Mr. Castleton,” was now “poor Mr. Castleton.” So much for moods and tenses. Traveling is a magic glass.

A few days at Niagara, in equal ecstasies, when Mr. Sutherland and his agreeable friend were met again. Then they turned their faces once more toward home. The gentlemen pursuing their original plan, separated to travel by themselves, but were to meet the ladies again at West Point.

At Albany, however, Mrs. Castleton said to her husband:

“We’ll take the night boat, my dear, I am tired.”

“But you want to stop at West Point, don’t you?” he asked.

“Oh, no,” she replied, “I am tired, and want to get home.”

“Not stop at West Point!” exclaimed the three girls in a breath.

“No,” she replied. “Those balls are stupid things.”

“But, dear Mrs. Castleton,” said Grace, and “Oh, Mrs. Castleton do,” said Ruth, in every accent of imploring urgency.

But Mrs. Castleton, though very gentle, could be very firm, when her own wishes were concerned, and as she did not care to meet Mr. Sutherland again, who had quite devoted himself to Grace the last few days at Niagara, and as his friend had been indifferent from the first, she saw no reason why she should stop there. As for the ball, she quite laughed at the girls for even wanting to go at all.

“It’s useless to say any thing more, Ruth,” said Harry, in a loud tone. “She’s a selfish creature—that’s the end of it.”

But that was not the “end of it,” for the three girls did not meet for a month that at least half an hour was not devoted to a lively abuse of their once beau ideal, “that lovely Mrs. Castleton.” And we are mistaken if Mary Randall, to whose joining the party Harry Meredith had so warmly objected, because he’d have to be civil to her, has not made a conquest of the same Mr. Harry Meredith. And there is every appearance of Trenton reminiscences leading to something with Grace and Mr. Sutherland; and so I rather think there’ll be two weddings next winter, at which Ruth will be bridemaid.