E-text prepared by Afra Ullah, Josephine Paolucci, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
By
1906
Professor De Graf was sorting the mail at the breakfast table.
"Here's a letter for you, Beth," said he, and tossed it across thecloth to where his daughter sat.
The girl raised her eyebrows, expressing surprise. It was somethingunusual for her to receive a letter. She picked up the square envelopebetween a finger and thumb and carefully read the inscription, "MissElizabeth De Graf, Cloverton, Ohio." Turning the envelope she found onthe reverse flap a curious armorial emblem, with the word "Elmhurst."
Then she glanced at her father, her eyes big and somewhat startledin expression. The Professor was deeply engrossed in a letter fromBenjamin Lowenstein which declared that a certain note must be paid atmaturity. His weak, watery blue eyes stared rather blankly from behindthe gold-rimmed spectacles. His flat nostrils extended and compressedlike those of a frightened horse; and the indecisive mouth wastremulous. At the best the Professor was not an imposing personage.He wore a dressing-gown of soiled quilted silk and linen not tooimmaculate; but his little sandy moustache and the goatee thatdecorated his receding chin were both carefully waxed into sharppoints—an indication that he possessed at least one vanity. Threedays in the week he taught vocal and instrumental music to theambitious young ladies of Cloverton. The other three days he rode toPelham's Grove, ten miles away, and taught music to all who wished toacquire that desirable accomplishment. But the towns were small andthe fees not large, so that Professor De Graf had much difficulty insecuring an income sufficient for the needs of his family.
The stout, sour-visaged lady who was half-hidden b