The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1890-12-11
She Ran The Hotel.

She Ran The Hotel.
a little story which is going about
ls worth telling in print if only be-
cause it illustrates the fact thatla
girl who has money may possibly
have good sense also. Not far out
OF New York is a sleepy little town
Wher e the members of a certain fami-
~ of many dollars have been in the
hablt of rusticating for some months
every summer. This year their
stately old frame house, famous
Tor its revolutionary memories, was
untenanted. The roses ran wild
and the box hedges went untrimmed.
IN October the tall blonde daughter
who in previous seasons had aston,
lshed the whole countryside with her
rocks and her pony trap and her
head of curls, alighted quietly one
day from the afternoon train. In
stead however, Of opening the famil
lar door and taking down the lar
red shutters, the gossips were lifted
OFT their feet by the intelligence that
she had come to manage the village
MOTEL. This not very prosperous
place of entertainment underwent,
in fact, in the next Jew days such
process ofscouring and scrubbing and
curtain hanging that not a passer
but rubbed his eyes. Could it be the
fortune had gone down inv all
street and was the belle and beauty
thus reduced to earn her living? All
sorts of rumors affecting the family
finances became current, and few of
the holder spirits among the women
found erraDds to take them to the
quaint little parlor OF the hostelry
to condole with the young innkeeper,
If so they found opportunity. They
reported her calm, selt-possessed,
uncommunicative. Neither to the
ladies who had been on calling terms
with her mother, nor to the village
girls with whom she had played tene
mis-, would she say anything. She
had brought with her slight, pale
faced woman to he her bookkeeper,
and these two soon had the estab-
lishment running az if they had been
used all their lives to making travel
ers comfortable.
The young landlady's lover heard
of her occupation, ran out from the
city, reasoned with her: quarreled.
A second young man, penniless, who
had despaired Of her moneyed favor,
came to ask if she wanted help that
he could render. Three villages and
a city circle whispered of the family
smash-up and the girls quixotism.
In two or three weeks came the ia
Their. He took the hotels best
chamber. He was seen about the
streets but he said nothing. Pres
emily the village became aware that
invitations were outtor a halloween
party. These included such house.
holds as had been entertained in
former seasons at the great shut-up
mansion. The chestnut roasting
and the fortune-te telling came off in
the freshened and furnished hotel
dining-room. Every body felt awk.
ward and nothing went with merri-
ment until the tall, soldierly father
of the little hotel mistress rose, pat
ted her shoulder, offered a health to
the house and bowed-to quiet,
middle-aged lady who was stranger
to the entire assembly.
The secret was a simple one. The
hotel had fallen by foreclosure of a
mortgage to the soldierly father.
The little landlady had begged him
to put in her former governess, a
woman of considerable executive
ability, as manager. He had an
swered that a woman could not rup
hotel. She had urged the contrary,
and had challenged her father to let
her prove her proposition. In jest
he had consented, in earnest she had
set out next morning, in consterna.
ton he had written after her, but in
pride of possession she had kept on
the even tenor of her way. In wrath
he had pursued, In gentleness she
had conquered. With her fathers
hard won consent she had cleaned
anu painted and made ready to turn
over spick and span house to the
friend whose eyes were failing and
who must give up books or become
blind.