although there was still the rare beauty of cloud scenery in the
steel-blue sky, and the sudden return of quick but transient showers.
It was on a Sunday of weather like this that the nature-loving Randolph
extended his usual holiday excursion as far as Contra Costa by the
steamer after his dutiful round of the wharves and shipping. It was with
a gayety born equally of his youth and the weather that he overcame his
constitutional shyness, and not only mingled without restraint among
the pleasure-seekers that thronged the crowded boat, but, in the
consciousness of his good looks and a new suit of clothes,
even penetrated into the aristocratic seclusion of the "ladies'
cabin"--sacred to the fair sex and their attendant swains or chaperones.
But he found every seat occupied, and was turning away, when he suddenly
recognized Miss Avondale sitting beside her little escort. She appeared,
however, in a somewhat constrained attitude, sustaining with one hand
the boy, who had clambered on the seat. He was looking out of the cabin
window, which she was also trying to do, with greater difficulty on
account of her position. He could see her profile presented with such
marked persistency that he was satisfied she had seen him and was
avoiding him. He turned and left the cabin.
Yet, once on the deck again, he repented his haste. Perhaps she had not
actually recognized him; perhaps she wished to avoid him only because
she was in plainer clothes--a circumstance that, with his knowledge of
her changed fortunes, struck him to the heart. It seemed to him that
even as a humble employee of the bank he was in some way responsible for
it, and wondered if she associated him with her humiliation. He longed
to speak with her and assure her of his sympathy, and yet he was equally
conscious that she would reject it.
When the boat reached the Alameda wharf she slipped away with the other
passengers. He wandered about the hotel garden and the main street in
the hope of meeting her again, although he was instinctively conscious
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