The Gilded Age by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

at any time have turned his back upon all the land in the West at sight

of a new and pretty face, and he had, it must be confessed, a facility in

love making which made it not at all an interference with the more

serious business of life. He could not, to be sure, conceive how Philip

could be interested in a young lady who was studying medicine, but he had

no objection to going, for he did not doubt that there were other girls

in Fallkill who were worth a week’s attention.

The young men were received at the house of the Montagues with the

hospitality which never failed there.

“We are glad to see you again,” exclaimed the Squire heartily, “you are

welcome Mr. Brierly, any friend of Phil’s is welcome at our house”

“It’s more like home to me, than any place except my own home,” cried

Philip, as he looked about the cheerful house and went through a general

hand-shaking.

“It’s a long time, though, since you have been here to say so,” Alice

said, with her father’s frankness of manner; and I suspect we owe the

visit now to your sudden interest in the Fallkill Seminary.”

Philip’s color came, as it had an awkward way of doing in his tell-tale

face, but before he could stammer a reply, Harry came in with,

“That accounts for Phil’s wish to build a Seminary at Stone’s Landing,

our place in Missouri, when Col. Sellers insisted it should be a

University. Phil appears to have a weakness for Seminaries.”

“It would have been better for your friend Sellers,” retorted Philip,

“if he had had a weakness for district schools. Col. Sellers, Miss

Alice, is a great friend of Harry’s, who is always trying to build a

house by beginning at the top.”

“I suppose it’s as easy to build a University on paper as a Seminary, and

it looks better,” was Harry’s reflection; at which the Squire laughed,

and said he quite agreed with him. The old gentleman understood Stone’s

Landing a good deal better than he would have done after an hour’s talk

with either of it’s expectant proprietors.

At this moment, and while Philip was trying to frame a question that he

found it exceedingly difficult to put into words, the door opened

quietly, and Ruth entered. Taking in the, group with a quick glance, her

eye lighted up, and with a merry smile she advanced and shook hands with

Philip. She was so unconstrained and sincerely cordial, that it made

that hero of the west feel somehow young, and very ill at ease.

For months and months he had thought of this meeting and pictured it to

himself a hundred times, but he had never imagined it would be like this.

He should meet Ruth unexpectedly, as she was walking alone from the

school, perhaps, or entering the room where he was waiting for her, and

she would cry “Oh! Phil,” and then check herself, and perhaps blush, and

Philip calm but eager and enthusiastic, would reassure her by his warm

manner, and he would take her hand impressively, and she would look up

timidly, and, after his’ long absence, perhaps he would be permitted to

Good heavens, how many times he had come to this point, and wondered if

it could happen so. Well, well; he had never supposed that he should be

the one embarrassed, and above all by a sincere and cordial welcome.

“We heard you were at the Sassacus House,” were Ruth’s first words; “and

this I suppose is your friend?”

“I beg your pardon,” Philip at length blundered out, “this is Mr. Brierly

of whom I have written you.”

And Ruth welcomed Harry with a friendliness that Philip thought was due

to his friend, to be sure, but which seemed to him too level with her

reception of himself, but which Harry received as his due from the other

sex.

Questions were asked about the journey and about the West, and the

conversation became a general one, until Philip at length found himself

talking with the Squire in relation to land and railroads and things he

couldn’t keep his mind on especially as he heard Ruth and Harry in an