The World of Chance by William Dean Howells

For Peace Hughes and her sister, the summer passed uneventfully. The / girl made up for the time she had lost earlier in the year by doing / double duty at the increased business of the publishing house. The / prosperity of _A Modern Romeo_ had itself added to her work, and the new / enterprises which its success had inspired Mr. Brandreth to consider / meant more letter-writing and more formulation of the ideas which he / struck shapelessly if boldly out. He trusted her advice as well as her / skill, and she had now become one of the regular readers for Chapley & / Co.

Ray inferred this from the number of manuscripts which he saw on her / table at home, and he could not help knowing the other things through / his own acquaintance, which was almost an intimacy, with Mr. Brandreth's / affairs. The publisher was always praising her. "Talk about men! " he / broke out one day. "That girl has a better business head than half the / business men in New York. If she were not a woman, it would be only a / question of time when we should have to offer her a partnership, or run / the risk of losing her. But there's only one kind of partnership you can / offer a woman. " Ray flushed, but he did not say anything, and Mr. / Brandreth asked, apparently from some association in his mind, "Do you / see much of them at their new place?"

"Yes; I go there every week or so."

"How are they getting on?"

"Very well, I believe. " Ray mused a moment, and then he said: "If it / were not contrary to all our preconceptions of a sort of duty in people / who have been through what they have been through, I should say they / were both happier than I ever saw them before. I don't think Mrs. Denton / cared a great deal for her children or husband, but in her father's last / days he wouldn't have anybody else about him. She strikes one like a / person who would get married again."

Mr. Brandreth listened with the air of one trying to feel shocked; but / he smiled.

"I don't blame her," Ray continued. "Perhaps old Kane's habit of not / blaming people is infectious. She once accounted for herself on the / ground that she didn't make herself; I suppose it might be rather / dangerous ground if people began to take it generally. But Miss Hughes / did care for those poor little souls and for that wretched creature, and / now the care's gone, and the relief has come. They both miss their / father; but he was doomed; he _had_ to die; and besides, his fatherhood / struck me as being rather thin, at times, from having been spread out / over a community so long. I can't express it exactly, but it seems to me / that the children of a man who is trying to bring about a millennium of / any kind do not have a good time. Still, I suppose we must have the / millenniums."

"You said that just like old Kane," Mr. Brandreth observed.

"Did I? I just owned he was infectious. If I've caught his habit of / mind, I dare say I've caught his accent. I don't particularly admire / either. But what I mean is that Miss Hughes and her sister are getting / on very comfortably and sweetly. Their place is as homelike as any I / know in New York."

"As soon as we get back in the fall, Mrs. Brandreth is going to call on / them. Now that Mr. Chapley and Mr. Hughes are out of the way, there's no / reason why we shouldn't show them some attention. Miss Hughes, at least, / is a perfect lady. I'm going to see that she doesn't overwork; the / success of _A Modern Romeo_ has killed us nearly all; I'm going to give / her a three weeks' vacation toward the end of August."

Ray called upon Peace one evening in the beginning of her vacation, and / found her with the manuscript of a book before her; Mrs. Denton was / sitting with the Simpsons on their front steps, and sent him on up to / Peace when he declined to join her there.

He said, "I supposed I should find you reading up the Adirondack / guide-books, or trying to decide between Newport and Saratoga. I don't / see how your outing differs very much from your inning."

"This was only a book I brought home because I had got interested in / it," the girl explained in self-defence. "We're not going away / anywhere."

"I think I would stay myself," said Ray, "if it were not for wanting to / see my family. My vacation begins to-morrow."

"Does it?"

"Yes; and I should be very willing to spend my fortnight excursioning / around New York. But I'm off at once to-night; I came in to say good-by. / I hope you'll miss me."

"We shall miss you very much," she said; and she added, "I suppose most / of our fashionable friends have gone out of town."

"Have they?"

"I should think you would know. We had them at second-hand from you."

"Oh! Those? " said Ray. "Yes. They're gone, and I'm going. I hate to / leave you behind. Have you any message for the country?"