CHAPTER VIII

THE COLONEL IS WARNED

It is difficult to refrain from mention of the leave-taking of Miss Virginia Carvel from the Monticello “Female Seminary,” so called in the ‘Democrat’.  Most young ladies did not graduate in those days.  There were exercises.  Stephen chanced to read in the ‘Republican’ about these ceremonies, which mentioned that Miss Virginia Carvel, “Daughter of Colonel Comyn Carvel, was without doubt the beauty of the day.  She wore —­” but why destroy the picture?  I have the costumes under my hand.  The words are meaningless to all males, and young women might laugh at a critical time.  Miss Emily Russell performed upon “that most superb of all musical instruments the human voice.”  Was it ‘Auld Robin Gray’ that she sang?  I am sure it was Miss Maude Catherwood who recited ‘To My Mother’, with such effect.  Miss Carvel, so Stephen learned with alarm, was to read a poem by Mrs. Browning, but was “unavoidably prevented.”  The truth was, as he heard afterward from Miss Puss Russell, that Miss Jinny had refused point blank.  So the Lady Principal, to save her reputation for discipline, had been forced to deceive the press.

There was another who read the account of the exercises with intense interest, a gentleman of whom we have lately forborne to speak.  This is Mr. Eliphalet Hopper.  Eliphalet has prospered.  It is to be doubted if that somewhat easy-going gentleman, Colonel Carvel, realized the full importance of Eliphalet to Carvel & Company.  Mr. Hood had been superseded.  Ephum still opened the store in the mornings, but Mr. Hopper was within the ground-glass office before the place was warm, and through warerooms and shipping rooms, rubbing his hands, to see if any were late.  Many of the old force were missed, and a new and greater force were come in.  These feared Eliphalet as they did the devil, and worked the harder to please him, because Eliphalet had hired that kind.  To them the Colonel was lifted high above the sordid affairs of the world.  He was at the store every day in the winter, and Mr. Hopper always followed him obsequiously into the ground-glass office, called in the book-keeper, and showed him the books and the increased earnings.

The Colonel thought of Mr. Hood and his slovenly management, and sighed, in spite of his doubled income.  Mr. Hopper had added to the Company’s list of customers whole districts in the growing Southwest, and yet the honest Colonel did not like him.  Mr. Hopper, by a gradual process, had taken upon his own shoulders, and consequently off the Colonel’s, responsibility after responsibility.  There were some painful scenes, of course, such as the departure of Mr. Hood, which never would have occurred had not Eliphalet proved without question the incapacity of the ancient manager.  Mr. Hopper only narrowed his lids when the Colonel pensioned Mr. Hood.  But the Colonel had a will before which, when roused, even Mr. Hopper trembled.  So that Eliphalet was always polite to Ephum, and careful never to say anything in the darkey’s presence against incompetent clerks or favorite customers, who, by the charity of the Colonel, remained on his books.