The Gilded Age by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

the novels, and I suppose that is reformed.”

“I’m sure I don’t know where the reform is to begin. I’ve seen a

perfectly capable, honest man, time and again, run against an illiterate

trickster, and get beaten. I suppose if the people wanted decent members

of congress they would elect them. Perhaps,” continued Philip with a

smile, “the women will have to vote.”

“Well, I should be willing to, if it were a necessity, just as I would go

to war and do what I could, if the country couldn’t be saved otherwise,”

said Alice, with a spirit that surprised Philip, well as he thought he

knew her. “If I were a young gentleman in these times–”

Philip laughed outright. “It’s just what Ruth used to say, ‘if she were

a man.’ I wonder if all the young ladies are contemplating a change of

sex.”

“No, only a changed sex,” retorted Alice; “we contemplate for the most

part young men who don’t care for anything they ought to care for.”

“Well,” said Philip, looking humble, “I care for some things, you and

Ruth for instance; perhaps I ought not to. Perhaps I ought to care for

Congress and that sort of thing.”

“Don’t be a goose, Philip. I heard from Ruth yesterday.”

“Can I see her letter?”

“No, indeed. But I am afraid her hard work is telling on her, together

with her anxiety about her father.”

“Do you think, Alice,” asked Philip with one of those selfish thoughts

that are not seldom mixed with real love, “that Ruth prefers her

profession to–to marriage?”

“Philip,” exclaimed Alice, rising to quit the room, and speaking

hurriedly as if the words were forced from her, “you are as blind as a

bat; Ruth would cut off her right hand for you this minute.”

Philip never noticed that Alice’s face was flushed and that her voice was

unsteady ; he only thought of the delicious words he had heard. And the

poor girl, loyal to Ruth, loyal to Philip, went straight to her room,

locked the door, threw herself on the bed and sobbed as if her heart

world break. And then she prayed that her Father in Heaven would give

her strength. And after a time she was calm again, and went to her

bureau drawer and took from a hiding place a little piece of paper,

yellow with age. Upon it was pinned a four-leaved clover, dry and yellow

also. She looked long at this foolish memento. Under the clover leaf

was written in a school-girl’s hand–“Philip, June, 186-.”

Squire Montague thought very well of Philip’s proposal. It would have

been better if he had begun the study of the law as soon as he left

college, but it was not too late now, and besides he had gathered some

knowledge of the world.

“But,” asked the Squire, “do you mean to abandon your land in

Pennsylvania?” This track of land seemed an immense possible fortune to

this New England lawyer-farmer. Hasn’t it good timber, and doesn’t the

railroad almost touch it?”

“I can’t do anything with it now. Perhaps I can sometime.”

“What is your reason for supposing that there is coal there?”

“The opinion of the best geologist I could consult, my own observation

of the country, and the little veins of it we found. I feel certain it

is there. I shall find it some day. I know it. If I can only keep the

land till I make money enough to try again.”

Philip took from his pocket a map of the anthracite coal region, and

pointed out the position of the Ilium mountain which he had begun to

tunnel.

“Doesn’t it look like it?”

“It certainly does,” said the Squire, very much interested. It is not

unusual for a quiet country gentleman to be more taken with such a

venture than a speculator who, has had more experience in its

uncertainty. It was astonishing how many New England clergymen, in the

time of the petroleum excitement, took chances in oil. The Wall street

brokers are said to do a good deal of small business for country

clergymen, who are moved no doubt with the laudable desire of purifying

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