CALEB TRENCH
CALEB TRENCH
BY
MARY IMLAY TAYLOR
AUTHOR OF “THE REAPING,” “THE
IMPERSONATOR,” ETC.
WITH FRONTISPIECE BY
EMLEN McCONNELL
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1910
Copyright, 1910,
By Little, Brown, and Company.
All rights reserved
Published March, 1910
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
CALEB TRENCH
CALEB TRENCH
I
DIANA ROYALL pushed back the music-rackand rose from her seat at the piano.
“Show the person in here, Kingdom.”
The negro disappeared, and Diana moved slowlyto the table at the farther end of the long room, andstood there turning over some papers in her leisurely,graceful way.
“Who in the world is it now?” Mrs. Eaton asked,looking up from her solitaire, “a book agent?”
“Caleb Trench,” Diana replied carelessly, “theshopkeeper at Eshcol.”
“The storekeeper?” Mrs. Eaton looked as ifDiana had said the chimney-sweep. “What in theworld does he want of you, my dear?”
Diana laughed. “How should I know?” she retorted,with a slight scornful elevation of her brows;“we always pay cash there.”
“I wonder that you receive him in the drawing-room,”Mrs. Eaton remonstrated, shuffling her cardswith delicate, much be-ringed fingers, and that indefinablemanner which lingers with some old ladies,like their fine old lace and their ancestors, and is at[2]once a definition and classification. Thus, one couldsee, at a glance, that Mrs. Eaton had been a bellebefore the war, for, as we all know, the atmosphereof belledom is as difficult to dissipate and forget asthe poignant aroma of a moth-ball in an old fur coat,though neither of them may have served the purposesof preservation.
The girl made no reply, and the older woman wasinstinctively aware of her indifference to her opinions,uttered or unexpressed. There were times whenDiana’s absorption of mood, her frank inattention,affected her worldly mentor as sharply as a slap inthe face, yet, the next moment, she fell easily underthe spell of her personality. Mrs. Eaton always feltthat no one could look at her youthful relative withoutfeeling that her soul must be as beautiful as herbody, though she herself had never been able toform any estimate of that soul. Diana hid it with areserve and a mental strength which folded it awayas carefully as the calyx of a cactus guards the delicatebloom with its thorns. But the fact that Mrs.Eaton overlooked was still more apparent, the factthat a great many people never thought of Diana’ssoul at all, being quite content to admire the longand exquisite curves of her tall figure, the poise ofher graceful head, with the upward wave of its brighthair, and