Page:A Princetonian.djvu/120

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
100
A Princetonian.

inherit the name of Heaphy. It would not have been so bad, Patrick's father reasoned within himself, if he were poor, but along with the red hair and the much-despised name, his son would one day inherit wealth, real estate, and the sole ownership of the Pliny Mills, where the elder Heaphy had begun his own successful career at the age of twelve.

Patrick's father had another secret also. He had envied the appearance of those members of the near-by country club, men of his own age, who rode stockily built little horses and drove tandems. Mr. Heaphy had sense enough to know that he would look ridiculous dressed in loose breeches and tight boots, and he felt sure that, if he ever drove a tandem, the leader would turn around and laugh at him; but he envied these people nevertheless, and would have given worlds to have been one of them. Of this of course he said nothing, not even to his wife. In fact Patrick's father had been a somewhat sensible, shrewd, uneducated snob.

Patrick's mother had become accustomed to her life of luxury only by degrees. Before little Patrick was born she had sat looking out of the window at a laundry-maid hanging up the