“She thinks even worse of you than of me,” said Carl, with a faint smile.
“I have no doubt Peter shares her sentiments. I didn’t make many friends in your family, it must be confessed.”
“You did me a service, Gilbert, and I shall not soon forget it.”
“Where did your stepmother come from?” asked Gilbert, thoughtfully.
“I don’t know. My father met her at some summer resort. She was staying in the same boarding house, she and the angelic Peter. She lost no time in setting her cap for my father, who was doubtless reported to her as a man of property, and she succeeded in capturing him.”
“I wonder at that. She doesn’t seem very fascinating.”
“She made herself very agreeable to my father, and was even affectionate in her manner to me, though I couldn’t get to like her. The end was that she became Mrs. Crawford. Once installed in our house, she soon threw off the mask and showed herself in her true colors, a cold-hearted, selfish and disagreeable woman.”
“I wonder your father doesn’t recognize her for what she is.”
“She is very artful, and is politic enough to treat him well. She has lost no opportunity of prejudicing him against me. If he were not an invalid she would find her task more difficult.”
“Did she have any property when your father married her?”
“Not that I have been able to discover. She is scheming to have my father leave the lion’s share of his property to her and Peter. I dare say she will succeed.”
“Let us hope your father will live till you are a young man, at least, and better able to cope with her.”
“I earnestly hope so.”
“Your father is not an old man.”
“He is fifty-one, but he is not strong. I believe he has liver complaint. At any rate, I know that when, at my stepmother’s instigation, he applied to an insurance company to insure his life for her benefit, the application was rejected.”
“You don’t know anything of Mrs. Crawford’s antecedents?”
“No.”
“What was her name before she married your father?”
“She was a Mrs. Cook. That, as you know, is Peter’s name.”
“Perhaps, in your travels, you may learn something of her history.”
“I should like to do so.”
“You won’t leave us to-morrow?”
“I must go to-day. I know now that I must depend wholly upon my own exertions, and I must get to work as soon as possible.”
“You will write to me, Carl?”
“Yes, when I have anything agreeable to write.”
“Let us hope that will be soon.”
CHAPTER VII.
ENDS IN A TRAGEDY.
CARL obtained permission to leave his trunk at the Vance mansion, merely taking out what he absolutely needed for a change.
“When I am settled I will send for it,” he said. “Now I shouldn’t know what to do with it.”
There were cordial good-bys, and Carl started once more on the tramp. He might, indeed, have traveled by rail, for he had ten dollars and thirty-seven cents; but it occurred to him that in walking he might meet with some one who would give him employment. Besides, he was not in a hurry to get on, nor had he any definite destination. The day was fine, there was a light breeze, and he experienced a hopeful exhilaration as he walked lightly on, with the world before him, and any number of possibilities in the way of fortunate adventures that might befall him.
He had walked five miles, when, to the left, he saw an elderly man hard at work in a hay field. He was leaning on his rake, and looking perplexed and troubled. Carl paused to rest, and as he looked over the rail fence, attracted the attention of the farmer.
“I say, young feller, where are you goin’?” he asked.
“I don’t know–exactly.”
“You don’t know where you are goin’?” repeated the farmer, in surprise.
Carl laughed. “I am going out in the world to seek my fortune,” he said.
“You be? Would you like a job?” asked the farmer, eagerly.
“What sort of a job?”
“I’d like to have you help me hayin’. My hired man is sick, and he’s left me in a hole. It’s goin’ to rain, and—-”