“Oh! I have grown so tired of this continual round of parties, calls, and theatre going; I do wish something would happen to break the monotony of my life.”
The foregoing remark was made by Mabel Miller, who spoke in a very discontented manner.
“Why, Mabel, how can you talk of monotony? There is not a girl in our acquaintance who has more delightful changes of amusement than yourself. What with your winters, a succession of gaieties, your summers at Santa Cruz or Monterey, I don’t see how you can be so discontented.” It was Mabel’s cousin, Lucy Maynard, who spoke.
“Oh, I know that is what you always say, but it does not alter the fact that I am sick of it all.”
“Well, well, what’s the trouble? What is this, that my little girl is so sick of?” Mabel turned hastily as these words of her father’s caught her ear.
“Why, papa, I didn’t know you were here or I might not have said what I did; I ought to be contented, I know, after all you do for me.”
“Come, come; this won’t do, little girl. If you are unhappy why shouldn’t your old father know all about it?”
“I am not unhappy, papa, only I am so tired of everything. I was just saying I did wish something out of the ordinary way might happen.”
“How would a trip to Australia do for novelty, Mabel?”
“Oh, papa, do you mean it? I would like it above all things. I have always wanted to go there.”
“Well, Mabel, if you think you can be ready in a week’s time you shall go. I met our old friend Captain Gray to-day, and it seems he is bound for Australia, and is going to take his wife and two daughters along with him, and he has room for one or two more on board; so there is a chance for you to go, if you like.”
“Won’t that be splendid?” cried Mabel, clapping her hands and dancing gleefully about the room like a child.
“But, Mabel, you must remember it is a sailing vessel, and not a steamer, that you are to go on, and, aren’t you afraid that the number of weeks it will take you to reach your destination, will prove as monotonous as parties and calls do now.”
“I don’t mind the length of time that we shall be in going. I shall find something amusing I feel sure; will you go too, Lucy?”
“Oh no, thank you; you will have to excuse me;” laughed Lucy. I like the present order of things very well and will try a little while longer to find amusement in balls, and so on, and then besides there is Harry, you know, I couldn’t leave him.”
“No, indeed, I do not intend to spare both of my dear girls at once; what in the world would I do with you both away,” said Mr. Miller.
“But, papa, you don’t mean to say that you are not going too,” asked Mabel.
“Why, of course, that is what I mean; did my girlie think I could drop everything and trot off to the antipodes with her at a moment’s notice? No, Mabel, I can’t go; but you will be well cared for, as Mrs. Gray, I know, will look after your welfare as closely as would your own mother if she were living. And her two daughters will prove most delightful companions if they are half as amiable as they are pretty.”
“They are lovely girls. I met them last summer at Santa Cruz, and liked them ever so much. I know we shall have a nice time.”
“All right, then; you had better begin your preparations, as young ladies are not noted for their ability to do things up well at short notice.”
“I could be ready to go to-morrow, but as long as I have a week to get ready in I expect I shall find every minute of the time taken up, so I am off to make a beginning. Lucy, will you run down to O’Brien’s with me? I shall want a dress or so, and you are such an authority on such things, I want you with me when I choose them.”
“Yes, I will go to O’Brien’s with you; that is much more to my taste than a disagreeable, tedious voyage to Australia,” answered Lucy.
The two girls left the room to don hats and wraps for their shopping tour; and as they left it Mrs. Maynard, Lucy’s mother, who had entered the room in time to catch a part of the conversation, came toward Mr. Miller with rather a troubled look on her face, saying, “James, how can you propose such a thing as this trip for Mabel; you really encourage her in her foolish notions of dislike for conventionalities. She has no mother, poor child, to explain to her, her duties and responsibilities, and I’m sure I have tried my best, if ever a woman tried, ever since I have been living here, to make her see how foolish she is to be always wishing for some new mode of life. She almost drives me to despair with her whims and her notions. You ought to help me in my efforts for her good.”
“Come, come,” broke in Mr. Miller, “you don’t mean to say I haven’t got the good of my only child as much at heart as you have, do you? Why, that girl and her happiness is my first care in life.”
“I know, you think you are doing what is best, but James, don’t you see you have spoiled her by always letting her have her own way in obtaining what she calls happiness? You ought to realize that Mabel is now twenty years old, and it is high time she thought of marriage instead of such foolish trips as this one.”
“Oh, nonsense, she has plenty of time yet; and if she don’t happen to get married I guess I’ve got money enough to keep her here with me yet awhile; hey, Kate?”
“I might almost as well talk to the girl herself as to you. Now, why can’t she settle down to take an interest in society, as Lucy does? In a few months I shall see Lucy nicely settled in an establishment of her own; and if Mr. Howard is a little wild now he will settle down after he and Lucy are married awhile, and I had hoped that when she was married and all that, I should then see Mabel as well suited.”
“I know, Kate, you are a great little matchmaker; but you see Mabel don’t want to find a husband just yet, and I don’t want to lose her yet awhile, sister; so we will just let her alone.”
Perhaps Mrs. Maynard might have felt inclined to carry the argument further, but at this moment the two girls returned, and with them Harry Howard, the young man to whom Lucy was betrothed. Of course the subject was dropped, and the few days that followed before Mabel’s departure was so fully occupied with the arrangements for her trip that the subject was not again referred to. These last days at home were made lively by a farewell afternoon tea and a round of calls, all of which Mrs. Maynard thought necessary for Mabel to make before her departure, although Mabel tried to evade making them by putting forward the plea that she was too busy; but her aunt was firm in her purpose, saying, “My dear Mabel, you do not seem to realize what you owe to society. You must make these calls or what will people in our set say?”
“Oh, auntie, I don’t care even the least little bit what people say. I don’t care for the people in our set, which means three or four hundred people that I don’t care the snap of my finger for, anyway; and who do not care at all for me. Then, what is the use of trying all the time to keep up with society? I like my friends, and I hope I have some friends who like me really in return; but I don’t care for society, as you call it, at all.”
Mabel and her aunt were not all likely ever to have the same ideas of society, as Mrs. Maynard was one of those women who all her life had lived for society, and struggled continually to be a leader, but as yet her ambition was ungratified, for, though she was a prominent figure socially, she was by no means a leader; whereas, Mabel, having lost her mother in early childhood, had been the companion, more or less, of her father, a man kindhearted and thoroughly good, but who regarded social duties as rather a bore, and consequently Mabel saw the world through his eyes and had learned, very young, the bitter lesson of disenchantment as far as the social system was concerned. It was all a sham to her, and, as she was eighteen when her aunt and cousin Lucy came to form a part of their household, the ideas of the two girls were very different.