Here, though, she felt her looks of small avail; she
might reign as a queen in Wellham Springs, but she felt herself a very
insignificant person in the home of her uncle, the great railway
millionaire and financier, Mr. Phineas Duge. Her courage had almost
evaporated when at last, after a very careful knock at the door, an
English footman ushered her into the small and jealously guarded sanctum
in which the great man was sitting. She passed only a few steps across
the threshold, and stood there, a timid, hesitating figure, her dark
eyes very anxiously searching the features of the man who had risen from
his seat to greet her.
"So this is my niece Virginia," he said, holding out both his hands. "I
am glad to see you. Take this chair close to me. I am getting an old
man, you see, and I have many whims. I like to have any one with whom I
am talking almost at my elbow. Now tell me, my dear, what sort of a
journey you have had. You look a little tired, or is it because
everything here is strange to you?"
All her fears seemed to be melting away. Never could she have imagined a
more harmless-looking, benevolent, and handsome old gentleman. He was
thin and of only moderate stature.
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