FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97  
98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   >>   >|  
e to give that impression. When Wyckoff mentioned marriage, the reason David blushed was because, although no one in the office suspected it, he wished to marry the person in whom the office took the greatest pride. This was Miss Emily Anthony, one of Burdett and Sons' youngest, most efficient, and prettiest stenographers, and although David did not cut as dashing a figure as did some of the firm's travelling men, Miss Anthony had found something in him so greatly to admire that she had, out of office hours, accepted his devotion, his theatre tickets, and an engagement ring. Indeed, so far had matters progressed, that it had been almost decided when in a few months they would go upon their vacations they also would go upon their honeymoon. And then a cloud had come between them, and from a quarter from which David had expected only sunshine. The trouble befell when David discovered he had a great-great-grandfather. With that fact itself Miss Anthony was almost as pleased as was David himself, but while he was content to bask in another's glory, Miss Anthony saw in his inheritance only an incentive to achieve glory for himself. From a hard-working salesman she had asked but little, but from a descendant of a national hero she expected other things. She was a determined young person, and for David she was an ambitious young person. She found she was dissatisfied. She found she was disappointed. The great-great-grandfather had opened up a new horizon--had, in a way, raised the standard. She was as fond of David as always, but his tales of past wars and battles, his accounts of present banquets at which he sat shoulder to shoulder with men of whom even Burdett and Sons spoke with awe, touched her imagination. "You shouldn't be content to just wear a button," she urged. "If you're a Son of Washington, you ought to act like one." "I know I'm not worthy of you," David sighed. "I don't mean that, and you know I don't," Emily replied indignantly. "It has nothing to do with me! I want you to be worthy of yourself, of your grandpa Hiram!" "But HOW?" complained David. "What chance has a twenty-five dollar a week clerk--" It was a year before the Spanish-American War, while the patriots of Cuba were fighting the mother country for their independence. "If I were a Son of the Revolution," said Emily, "I'd go to Cuba and help free it." "Don't talk nonsense," cried David. "If I did that I'd lose my job, and we'd n
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97  
98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Anthony
 

person

 

office

 
content
 

worthy

 

expected

 
shoulder
 

Burdett

 

grandfather

 
Washington

raised

 

shouldn

 

banquets

 
present
 
battles
 

accounts

 

standard

 

button

 
imagination
 

touched


mother

 

fighting

 

country

 

independence

 

Revolution

 

patriots

 

Spanish

 

American

 

nonsense

 

indignantly


replied

 

sighed

 
chance
 

twenty

 

dollar

 
complained
 

grandpa

 

greatly

 

admire

 

travelling


dashing

 

figure

 
Indeed
 

matters

 

progressed

 
engagement
 

accepted

 
devotion
 
theatre
 
tickets