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HENRY JAMES 
 
 TALES OF THREE CITIES 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY 
 1884 
 
Copyright, 1883 and 1884, 
 BY HENRY JAMES. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 mnifacrsttg 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
THE 
 
 IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 PART I. 
 
 NEW YORK, April 3, 1873. There are moments 
 when I feel that she has asked too much of me 
 especially since our arrival in this country. These 
 three months have not done much toward making 
 me happy here. I don't know what the difference is 
 or rather I do; and I say this only because it 's less 
 trouble. It is no trouble, however, to say that I like 
 New York less than Eome : that, after all, is the differ- 
 ence. And then there 's nothing to sketch ! For ten 
 years I have been sketching, and I really believe I do 
 it very well. But how can I sketch Fifty-third Street ? 
 There are times when I even say to myself, How can 
 I even endure Fifty-third Street ? When I turn into 
 it from the Fifth Avenue the vista seems too hideous : 
 the narrow, impersonal houses, with the dry, hard tone 
 of their brown-stone, a surface as uninteresting as that 
 of sand-paper; their steep, stiff stoops, giving you 
 such a climb to the door; their lumpish balustrades, 
 porticoes, and cornices, turned out by the hundred and 
 
4 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 adorned with heavy excrescences such an eruption 
 of ornament and such a poverty of effect ! I suppose 
 my superior tone would seem very pretentious if any- 
 body were to read this shameless record of personal 
 emotion ; and I should be asked why an expensive up- 
 town residence is not as good as a slimy Italian pa- 
 lazzo. My answer, of course, is that I can sketch the 
 palazzo and can do nothing with the up-town resi- 
 dence. I can live in it, of course, and be very grate- 
 ful for the shelter ; but that does n't count. Putting 
 aside that odious fashion of popping into the " par- 
 lors " as soon as you cross the threshold no in- 
 terval, no approach these places are wonderfully 
 comfortable. This one of Eunice's is perfectly ar- 
 ranged; and we have so much space that she has 
 given me a sitting-room of my own an immense 
 luxury. Her kindness, her affection, are the most 
 charming, delicate, natural thing I ever conceived. 
 I don't know what can have put it into her head to 
 like me so much ; I suppose I should say into her 
 heart, only I don't like to write about Eunice's heart 
 that tender, shrinking, shade-loving, and above all 
 fresh and youthful, organ. There is a certain self- 
 complacency, perhaps, in my assuming that her gen- 
 erosity is mere affection; for her conscience is so 
 inordinately developed that she attaches the idea of 
 duty to eveiything even to her relations to a poor, 
 plain, unloved and unlovable third-cousin. Whether 
 she is fond of me or not, she thinks it right to be 
 fond of me ; and the effort of her life is to do what 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 5 
 
 is right. In matters of duty, in short, she is a real 
 little artist; and her masterpiece (in that way) is 
 coming back here to live. She can't like it ; her 
 tastes are not here. If she did like it, 1 am sure she 
 would never have invented such a phrase as the one 
 of which she delivered herself the other day, "I 
 think one's life has more dignity in one's own coun- 
 try." That 's a phrase made up after the fact. No 
 one ever gave up living in Europe because there is a 
 want of dignity in it. Poor Eunice talks of " one's 
 own country " as if she kept the United States in the 
 back-parlor. I have yet to perceive the dignity of 
 living in Fifty-third Street. This, I suppose, is very 
 treasonable ; but a woman is n't obliged to be patri- 
 otic. I believe I should be a good patriot if I could 
 sketch my native town. But I can't make a picture 
 of the brown-stone stoops in the Fifth Avenue, or 
 the platform of the elevated railway in the Sixth. 
 Eunice has suggested to me that I might find some 
 subjects in the Park, and I have been there to look 
 for them. But somehow the blistered sentiers of as- 
 phalt, the rock-work caverns, the huge iron bridges 
 spanning little muddy lakes, the whole crowded, 
 cockneyfied place, making up so many faces to look 
 pretty, don't appeal to me have n't, from beginning 
 to end, a discoverable " bit." Besides, it 's too cold 
 to sit on a campstool under this clean-swept sky, 
 whose depths of blue air do very well, doubtless, for 
 the floor of heaven, but are quite too far away for the 
 ceiling of earth. The sky over here seems part of 
 
6 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 the world at large ; in Europe it 's part of the par- 
 ticular place. In summer, I dare say, it will be bet- 
 ter ; and it will go hard with me if I don't find some- 
 where some leafy lane, some cottage-roof, something 
 in some degree mossy or mellow. Nature here, of 
 course, is very fine, though I am afraid only in large 
 pieces ; and with my little yard-measure (it used to 
 serve for the Eoman Campagna ! ) I don't know what 
 I shall be able to do. I must try to rise to the occa- 
 sion. 
 
 The Hudson is beautiful ; I remember that well 
 enough ; and Eunice tells me that when we are in 
 villeggiatura we shall be close to the loveliest part 
 of it. Her cottage or villa, or whatever they call 
 it (Mrs. Ermine, by the way, always speaks of it as 
 a "country-seat,") is more or less opposite to West 
 Point, where it makes one of its grandest sweeps. 
 Unfortunately, it has been let these three years that 
 she has been abroad, and will not be vacant till the 
 first of June. Mr. Caliph, her trustee, took upon 
 himself to do that; very impertinently, I think, for 
 certainly if I had Eunice's fortune I shouldn't let 
 my houses I mean, of course, those that are so per- 
 sonal. Least of all should I let my " country-seat." 
 It 's bad enough for people to appropriate one's sofas 
 and tables, without appropriating one's flowers and 
 trees and even one's views. There is nothing so 
 personal as one's horizon, the horizon that one 
 commands, whatever it is, from one's window. No- 
 body else has just that one. Mr. Caliph, by the 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 1 
 
 way, is apparently a person of the incalculable, irre- 
 sponsible sort It would have been natural to sup- 
 pose that having the greater part of my cousin's 
 property in his care, he would be in New York to 
 receive her at the end of a long absence and a bois- 
 terous voyage. Common civility would have sug- 
 gested that, especially as he was an old friend, or 
 rather a young friend, of both her parents. It was 
 an odd thing to make him sole trustee ; but that was 
 Cousin Letitia's doing : " she thought it would be so 
 much easier for Eunice to see only one person." I 
 believe she had found that effort the limit of her own 
 energy; but she might have known that Eunice 
 would have given her best attention, every day, to 
 twenty men of business, if such a duty had been 
 presented to her. I don't think poor Cousin Letitia 
 knew very much; Eunice speaks of her much less 
 than she speaks of her father, whose death would 
 have been the greater sorrow if she dared to admit 
 to herself that she preferred one of her parents to the 
 other. The number of things that the poor girl 
 doesn't dare to admit to herself! One of them, I 
 am sure, is that Mr. Caliph is acting improperly in 
 spending three months in Washington, just at the 
 moment when it would be most convenient to her to 
 see him. He has pressing business there, it seems 
 (he is a good deal of a politician not that I know 
 what people do in Washington), and he writes to 
 Eunice every week or two that he will " finish it up " 
 in ten days more, and then will be completely at her 
 
8 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 service ; but he never finishes it up, never arrives. 
 She has not seen him for three years ; he certainly, 
 I think, ought to have come out to her in Europe. 
 She does n't know that, and I have n't cared to sug- 
 gest it, for she wishes (very naturally) to think that 
 he is a pearl of trustees. Fortunately he sends her 
 all the money she needs ; and the other day he sent 
 her his brother, a rather agitated (though not in the 
 least agitating) youth, who presented himself about 
 lunch-time, Mr. Caliph having (as he explained) 
 told him that this was the best hour to call. What 
 does Mr. Caliph know about it, by the way ? It 's 
 little enough he has tried ! Mr. Adrian Frank had 
 of course nothing to say about business; he only 
 came to be agreeable, and to tell us that he had just 
 seen his brother in Washington as if that were 
 any comfort ! They are brothers only in the sense 
 that they are children of the same mother; Mrs. 
 Caliph having accepted consolations in her widow- 
 hood, and produced this blushing boy, who is ten 
 years younger than the accomplished Caliph. (I say 
 accomplished Caliph for the phrase. I haven't the 
 least idea of his accomplishments. Somehow, a man 
 with that name ought to have a good many.) Mr. 
 Frank, the second husband, is dead as well as herself, 
 and the young man has a very good fortune. He 
 is shy and simple, colors immensely and becomes 
 alarmed at his own silences ; but is tall and straight 
 and clear-eyed, and is, I imagine, a very estimable 
 youth. Eunice says that he is as different as pos- 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 9 
 
 sible from his step-brother ; so that perhaps, though 
 she doesn't mean it in that way, his step-brother 
 is not estimable. I shall judge of that for myself, if 
 he ever gives me a chance. 
 
 Young Frank, at any rate, is a gentleman, and in 
 spite of his blushes has seen a great deal of the world. 
 Perhaps that is what he is blushing for : there are so 
 many things we have no reason to be proud of. He 
 stayed to lunch, and talked a little about the far East, 
 
 Babylon, Palmyra, Ispahan, and that sort of thing 
 
 from which he is lately returned. He also is a 
 sketcher, though evidently he does n't show. He 
 asked to see my things, however ; and I produced a 
 few old water-colors, of other days and other climes, 
 which I have luckily brought to America produced 
 them with my usual cairn assurance. It was clear 
 he thought me very clever ; so I suspect that in not 
 showing he himself is rather wise. When I said 
 there was nothing here to sketch, that rectangular 
 towns won't do, etc., he asked me why I did n't try 
 people. What people ? the people in the Fifth Ave- 
 nue ? They are even less pictorial than their houses. 
 I don't perceive that those in the Sixth are any 
 better, or those in the Fourth and Third, or in the 
 Seventh and Eighth. Good heavens! what a no- 
 menclature ' The city of New York is like a tall 
 sum in addition, and the streets are like columns of 
 figures. What a place for me to live, who hate arith- 
 metic ! I have tried Mrs. Ermine, but that is only 
 because she asked me to : Mrs. Ermine asks for what- 
 
10 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 ever she wants. I don't think she cares for it much, 
 for though it 's bad, it 's not bad enough to please her. 
 I thought she would be rather easy to do, as her 
 countenance is made up largely of negatives no 
 color, no form, no intelligence ; I should simply have 
 to leave a sort of brilliant blank. I found, however, 
 there was difficulty in representing an expression 
 which consisted so completely of the absence of that 
 article. With her large, fair, featureless face, unillu- 
 mined by a ray of meaning, she makes the most inco- 
 herent, the most unexpected, remarks. She asked 
 Eunice, the other day, whether she should not bring 
 a few gentlemen to see her she seemed to know so 
 few, to be so lonely. Then when Eunice thanked 
 her, and said she need n't take that trouble : she was 
 not lonely, and in any case did not desire her solitude 
 to be peopled in that manner, Mrs. Ermine declared 
 blandly that it was all right, but that she supposed 
 this was the great advantage of being an orphan, that 
 you might have gentlemen brought to see you. " I 
 don't like being an orphan, even for that," said Eu- 
 nice ; who indeed does not like it at all, though she 
 will be twenty-one next month, and has had several 
 years to get used to it. Mrs. Ermine is very vulgar, 
 yet she thinks she has high distinction. I am very 
 glad our cousinship is not on the same side. Except 
 that she is an idiot and a bore, however, I think there 
 is no harm in her. Her time is spent in contemplat- 
 ing the surface of things, and for that I don't blame 
 her, for I myself am very fond of the surface. But 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 11 
 
 she does n't see what she looks at, and in short is very 
 tiresome. That is one of the things poor Eunice 
 won't admit to herself, that Lizzie Ermine will end 
 by boring us to death. Now that both her daughters 
 are married, she has her time quite on her hands ; for 
 the sons-in-law, I am sure, can't encourage her visits. 
 She may, however, contrive to be with them as well 
 as here, for, as a poor young husband once said 
 to me, a lelle-mere, after marriage, is as inevitable 
 as stickiness after eating honey. A fool can do 
 plenty of harm without deep intentions. After all, 
 intentions fail ; and what you know an accident by is 
 that it does n't. Mrs. Ermine does n't like me ; she 
 thinks she ought to be in my shoes that when 
 Eunice lost her old governess, who had remained with 
 her as " companion," she ought, instead of picking me 
 up in Home, to have come home and thrown herself 
 upon some form of kinship more cushiony. She is 
 jealous of me, and vexed that I don't give her more 
 opportunities ; for I know she has made up her mind 
 that I ought to be a Bohemian : in that case she could 
 persuade Eunice that I am a very unfit sort of person. 
 I am single, not young, not pretty, not well off, and 
 not very desirous to please ; I carry a palette on rny 
 thumb, and very often have stains on my apron 
 though except for those stains I pretend to be im- 
 maculately neat. What right have I not to be a 
 Bohemian, and not to teach Eunice to make cigar- 
 ettes ? I am convinced Mrs. Ermine is disappointed 
 
 that I don't smoke. Perhaps, after all, she is right, 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
12 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 and that I am too much a creature of habits, of rules. 
 A few people have been good enough to call me an 
 artist ; but I am not. I am only, in a small way, a 
 worker. I walk too straight; it's ten years since any 
 one asked me to dance ! I wish I could oblige you, 
 Mrs. Ermine, by dipping into Bohemia once in a 
 while. But one can't have the defects of the qualities 
 one does n't possess. I am not an artist, I am too 
 much of a critic. I suppose a she-critic is a kind of 
 monster ; women should only be criticised. That 's 
 why I keep it all to myself myself being this little 
 book. I grew tired of myself some months ago, and 
 locked myself up in a desk. It was a kind of pun- 
 ishment, but it was also a great rest, to stop judging, 
 to stop caring, for a while. Now that I have come 
 out, I suppose I ought to take a vow not to be ill- 
 natured. 
 
 As I read over what I have written here, I wonder 
 whether it was worth while to have reopened my 
 journal. Still, why not have the benefit of being 
 thought disagreeable, the luxury of recorded obser- 
 vation ? If one is poor, plain, proud and in this 
 very private place I may add, clever there are cer- 
 tain necessary revenges ! 
 
 April 10. Adrian Frank has been here again, 
 and we rather like him. (That will do for the first 
 note of a more genial tone.) His eyes are very blue, 
 and his teeth very white two things that always 
 please me. He became rather more communicative, 
 and almost promised to show me his sketches in 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 13 
 
 spite of the fact that he is evidently as much as ever 
 struck with my own ability. Perhaps he has dis- 
 covered that I am trying to be genial ! He wishes to 
 take us to drive that is, to take Eunice; for of course 
 I shall go only for propriety. She does n't go with 
 young men alone ; that element was not included 
 in her education. She said to me yesterday, "The 
 only man I shall drive alone with will be the one I 
 marry." She talks so little about marrying, that this 
 made an impression on me. That subject is supposed 
 to be a girl's inevitable topic; but no young women 
 could occupy themselves with it less than she and I 
 do. I think I may say that we never mention it at 
 all. I suppose that if a man were to read this, he 
 would be greatly surprised and not particularly edified. 
 As there is no danger of any man's reading it, I may 
 add that I always take tacitly for granted that Eunice 
 will marry. She does n't in the least pretend that she 
 won't; and if I am not mistaken, she is capable of con- 
 jugal affection. The longer I live with her, the more 
 I see that she is a dear girl. Now that I know her 
 better, I perceive that she is perfectly natural. I 
 used to think that she tried too much that she 
 watched herself, perhaps, with a little secret admira- 
 tion. But that was because I could n't conceive of a 
 girl's motives being so simple. She only wants not 
 to suffer she is immensely afraid of that. There- 
 fore, she wishes to be universally tender to mitigate 
 the general sum of suffering, in the hope that she her- 
 self may come off easily. Poor thing ! sho does n't 
 
14 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 know that we can diminish the amount of suffering 
 
 o 
 
 for others only by taking to ourselves a part of their 
 share. The amount of that commodity in the world 
 is always the same ; it is only the distribution that 
 varies. We all try to dodge our portion ; and some of 
 us succeed. I find the best way is not to think about 
 it, and to make little water-colors. Eunice thinks 
 that the best way is to be very generous, to condemn 
 no one unheard. 
 
 A great many things happen that I don't men- 
 tion here; incidents of social life, I believe they 
 call them. People come to see us, and sometimes 
 they invite us to dinner. We go to certain concerts, 
 many of which are very good. We take a walk 
 every day; and I read to Eunice, and she plays to me. 
 Mrs. Ermine makes her appearance several times a 
 week, and gives us the news of the town a great 
 deal more of it than we have any use for. She thinks 
 we live in a hole ; and she has more than once ex- 
 pressed her conviction that I can do nothing socially 
 for Eunice. As to that, she is perfectly right ; I am 
 aware of my social insignificance. But I am equally 
 aware that my cousin has no need of being pushed. I 
 know little of the people and things of this place ; but 
 I know enough to see that whatever they are, the best 
 of them are at her service. Mrs. Ermine thinks it a 
 great pity that Eunice should have come too late in 
 the season to " go out " with her ; for after this, there 
 are few entertainments at which my protecting pres- 
 ence is not sufficient. Besides, Eunice isn't eager; I 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 15 
 
 often wonder at her indifference. She never thinks 
 of the dances she has missed, nor asks about those at 
 which she still may figure. She is n't sad, and it 
 doesn't amount to melancholy; but she certainly 
 is rather detached. She likes to read, to talk with me, 
 to make music, and to dine out when she supposes 
 there will be "real conversation." She is extremely 
 fond of real conversation; and we natter ourselves 
 that a good deal of it takes place between us. We 
 talk about life and religion and art and George Eliot ; 
 all that, I hope, is sufficiently real Eunice under- 
 stands everything, and has a great many opinions; she 
 is quite the modern young woman, though she has n't 
 modern manners. But all this does n't explain to me 
 why, as Mrs. Ermine says, she should wish to be so 
 dreadfully quiet. That lady's suspicion to the contrary 
 notwithstanding, it is not I who make her so. I 
 would go with her to a party every night if she should 
 wish it, and send out cards to proclaim that we "re- 
 ceive." But her ambitions are not those of the usual 
 girl ; or at any rate, if she is waiting for what the 
 usual girl waits for, she is waiting very patiently. As 
 I say, I can't quite make out the secret of her patience. 
 However, it is not necessary I should ; it was no part 
 of the bargain on which I came to her that we were 
 to conceal nothing from each other. I conceal a great 
 deal from Eunice ; at least I hope I do : for instance, 
 how fearfully I am bored. I think I am as patient 
 as she ; but then I have certain things to help me 
 my age, my resignation, my ability, and, I suppose I 
 
16 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 may add, iny conceit. Mrs. Ermine does n't bring the 
 young men, but she talks about them, and calls them 
 Harry and Freddy. She wants Eunice to marry, 
 though I don't see what she is to gain by it. It is 
 apparently a disinterested love of matrimony, or 
 rather, I should say, a love of weddings. She lives 
 in a world of " engagements," and announces a new 
 one every time she comes in. I never heard of so 
 much marrying in all my life before. Mrs. Ermine 
 is dying to be able to tell people that Eunice is en- 
 gaged : that distinction should not be wanting to a 
 cousin of hers. Whoever marries her, by the way, 
 will come into a very good fortune. Almost for the 
 first time, three days ago, she told me about her 
 affairs. 
 
 She knows less about them than she believes, I 
 could see that; but she knows the great matter; 
 which is that in the course of her twenty-first year, 
 by the terms of her mother's will, she becomes mis- 
 tress of her property, of which for the last seven years 
 Mr. Caliph has been sole trustee. On that day Mr. 
 Caliph is to make over to her three hundred thousand 
 dollars, which he has been nursing and keeping safe. 
 So much on every occasion seems to be expected of 
 this wonderful man! I call him so because I think it 
 was wonderful of him to have been appointed sole de- 
 positary of the property of an orphan by a very anxious, 
 scrupulous, affectionate mother, whose one desire, when 
 she made her will, was to prepare for her child a fruit- 
 ful majority, and whose acquaintance with him had 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 17' 
 
 not been of many years, though her esteem for him 
 was great. He had been a friend a very good friend 
 of her husband, who, as he neared his end, asked 
 him to look after his widow. Eunice's father did n't 
 however make him trustee of his little estate; he put 
 that into other hands, and Eunice has a very good ac- 
 count of it. It amounts, unfortunately, but to some 
 fifty thousand dollars. Her mother's proceedings 
 with regard to Mr. Caliph were very feminine so I 
 may express myself in the privacy of these pages. 
 But I believe all women are very feminine in their 
 relations with Mr. Caliph. " Haroun-al-Baschid " I 
 call him to Eunice ; and I suppose he expects to find 
 us in a state of Oriental prostration. She says, how- 
 ever, that he is not the least of a Turk, and that nothing 
 could be kinder or more considerate than he was three 
 years ago, before she went to Europe. He was con- 
 stantly with her at that time, for many months; and 
 his attentions have evidently made a great impression 
 on her. That sort of thing naturally would, on a girl 
 of seventeen ; and I have told her she must be pre- 
 pared to think him much less brilliant a personage 
 to-day. I don't know what he will think of some of 
 her plans of expenditure, laying out an Italian 
 garden at the house on the river, founding a cot at 
 the children's hospital, erecting a music-room in the 
 rear of this house. Next winter Eunice proposes to 
 receive ; but she wishes to have an originality, in the 
 shape of really good music. She will evidently be 
 rather extravagant, at least at first. Mr. Caliph of 
 
 2 
 
18 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 course will have no more authority ; still, he may ad- 
 vise her as a friend. 
 
 April 23. This afternoon, while Eunice was out, 
 Mr. Frank made his appearance, having had the civ- 
 ility, as I afterwards learned, to ask for me, in spite 
 of the absence of the padronina. I told him she was 
 at Mrs. Ermine's, and that Mrs. Ermine was her 
 cousin. 
 
 " Then I can say what I should not be able to say 
 if she were here," he said, smiling that singular smile 
 which has the effect of showing his teeth and draw- 
 ing the lids of his eyes together. If he were a young 
 countryman, one would call it a grin. It is not ex- 
 actly a grin, but it is very simple. 
 
 "And what may that be ? " I asked, with encourage- 
 ment. 
 
 He hesitated a little, while I admired his teeth, 
 which I am sure he has no wish to exhibit; and 
 I expected something wonderful. " Considering that 
 she is fair, she is really very pretty," he said at last. 
 
 I was rather disappointed, and I went so far as to 
 say to him that he might have made that remark in 
 her presence. 
 
 This time his blue eyes remained wide open : " So 
 you really think so ? " 
 
 " ' Considering that she's fair/ that part of it, per- 
 haps, might have been omitted ; but the rest surely 
 would have pleased her." 
 
 " Do you really think so ? " 
 
 " Well, ' really very pretty ' is, perhaps, not quite 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 19 
 
 right ; it seems to imply a kind of surprise. You 
 might have omitted the ' really.' " 
 
 " You want me to omit everything," he said, laugh- 
 ing, as if he thought me wonderfully amusing. 
 
 " The gist of the thing would remain, ' You are 
 very pretty ; ' that would have been unexpected and 
 agreeable." 
 
 " I think you are laughing at me ! " cried poor 
 Mr. Frank, without bitterness. "I have no right 
 to say that till I know she likes me." 
 
 " She does like you ; I see no harm in telling you 
 so." He seemed to me so modest, so natural, that I 
 felt as free to say this to him as I would have been 
 to a good child : more, indeed, than to a good child, 
 for a child to whom one would say that would be 
 rather a prig; and Adrian Frank is not a prig. I 
 could see that by the way he answered; it was 
 rather odd. 
 
 " It will please my brother to know that ! " 
 
 " Does he take such an interest in the impressions 
 you make ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ; he wants me to appear well." This was 
 said with the most touching innocence; it was a 
 complete confession of inferiority. It was, perhaps, 
 the tone that made it so ; at any rate, Adrian Frank 
 has renounced the hope of ever appearing as well as 
 his brother. I wonder if a man must be really in- 
 ferior, to be in such a state of mind as that. He 
 must at all events be very fond of his brother, and 
 even, I think, have sacrificed himself a good deal. 
 
20 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 This young man asked me ever so many questions 
 about my cousin; frankly, simply, as if when one 
 wanted to know, it was perfectly natural to ask. So 
 it is, I suppose ; but why should he want to know ? 
 Some of his questions were certainly idle. What 
 can it matter to him whether she has one little dog 
 or three, or whether she is an admirer of the music 
 of the future ? " Does she go out much, or does she 
 like a quiet evening at home ? " " Does she like living 
 in Europe, and what part of Europe does she prefer ? " 
 " Has she many relatives in New York, and does she 
 see a great deal of them ? " On all these points I was 
 obliged to give Mr. Frank a certain satisfaction ; and 
 after that, I thought I had a right to ask why he 
 wanted to know. He was evidently surprised at 
 being challenged, blushed a good deal, and made me 
 feel for a moment as if I had asked a vulgar question. 
 I saw he had no particular reason ; he only wanted 
 to be civil, and that is the way best known to him of 
 expressing an interest. He was confused ; but he was 
 not so confused that he took his departure. He sat 
 half an hour longer, and let me make up to him by 
 talking very agreeably for the shock I had admin- 
 istered. I may mention here for I like to see it 
 in black and white that I can talk very agreeably. 
 He listened with the most flattering attention, show- 
 ing me his blue eyes and his white teeth in alterna- 
 tion, and laughing largely, as if I had a command 
 of the comical, I am not conscious of that. At 
 last, after I had paused a little, he said to me, apropos 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 21 
 
 of nothing : " Do you think the realistic school are 
 a to be admired?" Then I saw that he had 
 already forgotten my earlier check, such was the 
 effect of my geniality, and that he would ask me as 
 many questions about myself as I would let him. I 
 answered him freely, but I answered him as I chose. 
 There are certain things about myself I never shall 
 tell, and the simplest way not to tell is to say the 
 contrary. If people are indiscreet, they must take 
 the consequences. I declared that I held the realistic 
 school in horror ; that I found New York the most 
 interesting, the most sympathetic of cities ; and that 
 I thought the American girl the finest result of civ- 
 ilization. I am sure I convinced him that I am a 
 most remarkable woman. He went away before 
 Eunice returned. He is a charming creature a 
 kind of Yankee Donatello. If I could only be his 
 Miriam, the situation would be almost complete, 
 for Eunice is an excellent Hilda. 
 
 April 26. Mrs. Ermine was in great force to-day ; 
 she described all the fine things Eunice can do when 
 she gets her money into her own hands. A set of 
 Mechlin lace, a rivibre of diamonds which she saw the 
 other day at Tiffany's, a set of Russian sables that she 
 knows of somewhere else, a little English phaeton with 
 a pair of ponies and a tiger, a family of pugs to waddle 
 about in the drawing-room all these luxuries Mrs. 
 Ermine declares indispensable. "I should like to 
 know that you have them it would do me real 
 good," she said to Eunice. " I like to see people with 
 
22 TEE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 handsome things. It would give nie more pleasure to 
 know you have that set of Mechlin than to have it 
 myself. I can't help that it 's the way I am made. 
 If other people have handsome things I see them 
 more; and then I do want the good of others I 
 don't care if you think me vain for saying so. I 
 shan't be happy till I see you in an English phaeton. 
 The groom ought n't to be more than three foot six. 
 I think you ought to show for what you are." 
 
 " How do you mean, for what I am ? " Eunice 
 asked. 
 
 " Well, for a charming girl, with a very handsome 
 fortune." 
 
 " I shall never show any more than I do now." 
 
 "I will tell you what you do you show Miss 
 Condit." And Mrs. Ermine presented me her large, 
 foolish face. " If you don't look out, she '11 do you 
 up in Morris papers, and then all the Mechlin lace in 
 the world won't matter ! " 
 
 " I don't follow you at all I never follow you," I 
 said, wishing I could have sketched her just as she 
 sat there. She was quite grotesque. 
 
 " I would rather go without you," she repeated. 
 
 "I think that after I come into my property I 
 shall do just as I do now," said Eunice. " After all, 
 where will the difference be ? I have to-day every- 
 thing I shall ever have. It 's more than enough." 
 
 "You won't have to ask Mr. Caliph for every- 
 thing." 
 
 " I ask him for nothing now." 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 23 
 
 "Well, my dear," said Mrs. Ermine, "you don't 
 deserve to be rich." 
 
 " I am not rich," Eunice remarked. 
 
 " Ah, well, if you want a million ! " 
 
 " I don't want anything/' said Eunice. 
 
 That's not exactly true. She does want some- 
 thing, but I don't know what it is. 
 
 May 2. Mr. Caliph is really very delightful. 
 He made his appearance to-day and carried every- 
 thing before him. When I say he carried everything, 
 I mean he carried me ; for Eunice had not my pre- 
 judices to get over. When I said to her after he had 
 gone, " Your trustee is a very clever man," she only 
 smiled a little, and turned away in silence. I sup- 
 pose she was amused with the air of importance 
 with which I announced this discovery. Eunice had 
 made it several years ago, and could not be excited 
 about it. I had an idea that some allusion would be 
 made to the way he has neglected her some apol- 
 ogy at least for his long absence. But he did some- 
 thing better than this. He made no definite apol- 
 ogy ; he only expressed, in his manner, his look, his 
 voice, a tenderness, a kind of charming benevolence, 
 which included and exceeded all apologies. He 
 looks rather tired and preoccupied; he evidently 
 has a great many irons of his own in the fire, and 
 has been thinking these last weeks of larger ques- 
 tions than the susceptibilities of a little girl in New 
 York who happened several years ago to have an 
 exuberant mother. He is thoroughly genial, and is 
 
24 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 the best talker I have seen since my return. A 
 totally different type from the young Adrian. He is 
 not in the least handsome is, indeed, rather ugly ; 
 but with a fine, expressive, pictorial ugliness. He is 
 forty years old, large and stout, may even be pro- 
 nounced fat ; and there is something about him that 
 I don't know how to describe except by calling it a 
 certain richness. I have seen Italians who have it 
 but this is the first American. He talks with his 
 eyes, as well as with his lips, and his features are 
 wonderfully mobile. His smile is quick and delight- 
 ful; his hands are well-shaped, but distinctly fat; 
 he has a pale complexion and a magnificent brown 
 beard the beard of Haroun-al-Easchid. I suppose 
 I must write it very small ; but I have an intimate 
 conviction that he is a Jew, or of Jewish origin. I 
 see that in his plump, white face, of which the tone 
 would please a painter, and which suggests fatigue 
 but is nevertheless all alive ; in his remarkable eye, 
 which is full of old expressions expressions which 
 linger there from the past, even when they are not 
 active to-day ; in his profile, in his anointed beard, in 
 the very rings on his large pointed fingers. There is 
 not a touch of all this in his step-brother; so I sup- 
 pose the Jewish blood is inherited from his father. 
 I don't think he looks like a gentleman ; he is some- 
 thing apart from all that. If he is not a gentleman, 
 he is not in the least a bourgeois neither is he of 
 the artist type. In short, as I say, he is a Jew ; and 
 Jews of the upper class have a style of their own. He 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 25 
 
 is very clever, and I think genuinely kind. Nothing 
 could be more charming than his way of talking to 
 Eunice a certain paternal interest mingled with an 
 air of respectful gallantry (he gives her good advice, 
 and at the same time pays her compliments) ; the 
 whole thing being not in the least overdone. I 
 think he found her changed "more of a person," 
 as Mrs. Ermine says ; I even think he was a little 
 surprised. She seems slightly afraid of him, which 
 rather surprised me she was, from her own account, 
 so familiar with him of old. He is decidedly florid, and 
 was very polite to me that was a part of the floridity. 
 He asked if we had seen his step- brother ; begged us 
 to be kind to him and to let him come and see us 
 often. He does n't know many people in New York, 
 and at that age it is everything (I quote Mr. Caliph) 
 for a young fellow to be at his ease with one or two 
 charming women. "Adrian takes a great deal of know- 
 ing ; is horribly shy ; but is most intelligent, and has 
 one of the sweetest natures f I 'm very fond of him 
 he 's all I 've got. Unfortunately the poor boy is 
 cursed with a competence. In this country there is 
 nothing for such a young fellow to do ; he hates busi- 
 ness, and has absolutely no talent for it. I shall send 
 him back here the next time I see him." Eunice 
 made no answer to this, and, in fact, had little an- 
 swer to make to most of Mr. Caliph's remarks, only 
 sitting looking at the floor with a smile. I thought 
 it proper therefore to reply that we had found Mr. 
 Frank very pleasant, and hoped he would soon come 
 
26 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 again. Then I mentioned that the other day I had 
 had a long visit from him alone ; we had talked for 
 an hour, and become excellent friends. Mr. Caliph, 
 as I said this, was leaning forward with his elbow 
 on his knee and his hand uplifted, grasping his 
 thick beard. The other hand, with the elbow out, 
 rested on the other knee ; his head was turned to- 
 ward me, askance. He looked at me a moment with 
 his deep bright eye the eye of a much older man 
 than he ; he might have been posing for a water- 
 color. If I had painted him, it would have been in 
 a high-peaked cap, and an amber-colored robe, with a 
 wide girdle of pink silk wound many times round 
 his waist, stuck full of knives with jewelled handles. 
 Our eyes met, and we sat there exchanging a glance. 
 I don't know whether he 's vain, but I think he must 
 see I appreciate him; I am sure he understands 
 everything. 
 
 " I like you when you say that," he remarked at 
 the end of a minute. 
 
 " I 'm glad to hear you like me ! " This sounds 
 horrid and pert as I relate it. 
 
 " I don't like every one," said Mr. Caliph. 
 
 " Neither do Eunice and I ; do we, Eunice ? " 
 
 " I am afraid we only try to," she answered, smil- 
 ing her most beautiful smile. 
 
 " Try to ? Heaven forbid ! I protest against that," 
 I cried. I said to Mr. Caliph that Eunice was too good. 
 
 " She comes honestly by that. Your mother was 
 an angel, my child," he said to her. 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 27 
 
 Cousin Letitia was not an angel, but I have men- 
 tioned that Mr. Caliph is florid. "You used to be 
 very good to her," Eunice murmured, raising her 
 eyes to him. 
 
 He had got up ; he was standing there. He bent 
 his head, smiling like an Italian. " You must be the 
 same, my child." 
 
 " What can I do ? " Eunice asked. 
 
 " You can believe in me you can trust me." 
 
 " I do, Mr. Caliph. Try me and see ! " 
 
 This was unexpectedly gushing, and I instinctively 
 turned away. Behind my back, I don't know what 
 he did to her I think it possible he kissed her. 
 When you call a girl " my child," I suppose you may 
 kiss her ; but that may be only my bold imagination. 
 When I turned round he had taken up his hat and 
 stick, to say nothing of buttoning a very tightly-fitting 
 coat round a very spacious person, and was ready to 
 offer me his hand in farewell. 
 
 " I am so glad you are with her. I am so glad she 
 has a companion so accomplished so capable." 
 
 " So capable of what ? " I said, laughing ; for the 
 speech was absurd, as he knows nothing about my 
 accomplishments. 
 
 There is nothing solemn about Mr. Caliph; but 
 he gave me a look which made it appear to me that 
 my levity was in bad taste. Yes, humiliating as it is 
 to write it here, I found myself rebuked by a Jew 
 witli fat hands ! " Capable of advising her well ! " he 
 said, softly. 
 
28 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 " Ah, don't talk about advice," Eunice exclaimed. 
 " Advice always gives an idea of trouble* and I am 
 very much afraid of trouble." 
 
 " You ought to get married," he said, with his 
 smile corning back to him. 
 
 Eunice colored and turned aw r ay, and I observed 
 
 to say something that this was just what Mrs. 
 Ermine said. 
 
 " Mrs. Ermine ? ah, I hear she 's a charming 
 woman ! " And shortly after that he went away. 
 
 That was almost the only weak thing he said 
 the only thing for mere form, for of course no one 
 can really think her charming ; least of all a clever 
 man like that. I don't like Americans to resemble 
 Italians, or Italians to resemble Americans ; but 
 putting that aside, Mr. Caliph is very prepossessing. 
 He is wonderfully good company ; he will spoil us for 
 other people. He made no allusion to business, 
 and no appointment with Eunice for talking over cer- 
 tain matters that are pending ; but I thought of this 
 only half an hour after he had gone. I said nothing 
 to Eunice about it, for she would have noticed the 
 omission herself, and that was enough. The only 
 other point in .Mr. Caliph that was open to criticism 
 is his asking Eunice to believe in him to trust him. 
 Why shouldn't she, pray ? If that speech was curious 
 
 and, strange to say, it almost appeared so it 
 was incredibly naif. But this quality is insupposable 
 of Mr. Caliph ; who ever heard of a naif Jew ? After 
 he had gone I was on the point of saying to Eunice, 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 29 
 
 " By the way, why did you never mention that he is 
 a Hebrew ? That 's an important detail." But an 
 impulse that I am not able to define stopped me, 
 and now I am glad I did n't speak. I don't believe 
 Eunice ever made the discovery, and I don't think 
 she would like it if she did make it. That I should 
 have done so on the instant only proves that I am in 
 the habit of studying the human profile ! 
 
 May 9. Mrs. Ermine must have discovered that 
 Mr. Caliph has heard she is charming, for she is per- 
 petually coming in here with the hope of meeting 
 him. She appears to think that he comes every day ; 
 for when she misses him, which she has done three 
 times (that is, she arrives just after he goes), she 
 says that if she does n't catch him on the morrow she 
 will go and call upon him. She is capable of that, I 
 think ; and it makes no difference that he is the 
 busiest of men and she the idlest of women. He has 
 been here four times since his first call, and has the 
 air of wishing to make up for the neglect that pre- 
 ceded it. His manner to Eunice is perfect ; he con- 
 tinues to call her "my child," but in a superficial, 
 impersonal way, as a Catholic priest might do it. He 
 tells us stories of Washington, describes the people 
 there, and makes us wonder whether we should care 
 for K Street and 14J Street. As yet, to the best of 
 my knowledge, not a word about Eunice's affairs ; he 
 behaves as if he had simply forgotten them. It was, 
 after all, not out of place the other day to ask her to 
 " believe in him ; " the faith would n't come as a mat- 
 
30 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 ter of course. On the other hand he is so pleasant 
 that one would believe in him just to oblige him. 
 He has a great deal of trust-business, and a great 
 deal of law-business of every kind. So at least he 
 says ; we really know very little about him but what 
 he tells us. When I say " we," of course I speak 
 mainly for myself, as I am perpetually forgetting 
 that he is not so new to Eunice as he is to me. She 
 knows what she knows, but I only know what I see. 
 I have been wondering a good deal what is thought 
 of Mr. Caliph " down-town," as they say here, but 
 without much result, for naturally I can't go down- 
 town and see. The appearance of the thing prevents 
 my asking questions about him ; it would be very 
 compromising to Eunice, and make people think that 
 she complains of him which is so far from being 
 the case. She likes him just as he is, and is appar- 
 ently quite satisfied. I gather, moreover, that he is 
 thought very brilliant, though a little peculiar, and 
 that he has made a great deal of money. He has a 
 way of his own of doing things, and carries imagina- 
 tion and humor, and a sense of the beautiful, into 
 Wall Street and the Stock Exchange. Mrs. Ermine 
 announced the other day that he is " considered the 
 most fascinating man in New York ; " but that is the 
 romantic up-town view of him, and not what I want. 
 His brother has gone out of town for a few days, but 
 he continues to recommend the young Adrian to our 
 hospitality. There is something really touching in 
 his relation to that rather limited young man. 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 31 
 
 May 11. Mrs. Ermine is in high spirits; she has 
 met Mr. Caliph I don't know where and she 
 quite confirms the up-town view. She thinks him 
 the most fascinating man she has ever seen, and she 
 wonders that we should have said so little about him. 
 He is so handsome, so high-bred ; his manners are so 
 perfect ; he 's a regular old dear. I think, of course 
 ill-naturedly, several degrees less well of him since I 
 have heard Mrs. Ermine's impressions. He is not 
 handsome, he is not high-bred, and his manners are 
 not perfect. They are original, and they are expres- 
 sive ; and if one likes him there is an interest in 
 looking for what he will do and say. But if one 
 should happen to dislike him, one would detest his 
 manners and think them familiar and vulgar. As 
 for breeding, he has about him, indeed, the marks 
 of antiquity of race ; yet I don't think Mrs. Ermine 
 would have liked me to say, " Oh, yes, all Jews 
 have blood ! " Besides, I could n't before Eunice. 
 Perhaps I consider Eunice too much ; perhaps I am 
 betrayed by my old habit of trying to see through 
 mill-stones ; perhaps I interpret things too richly 
 just as (I know) when I try to paint an old wall I 
 attempt to put in too much " character ; " character 
 being in old walls, after all, a finite quantity. At 
 any rate she seems to me rather nervous about Mr. 
 Caliph: that appeared after a little when Mrs. 
 Ermine came back to the subject. She had a great 
 deal to say about the oddity of her never having seen 
 him before, of old, " for after all," as she remarked, 
 
32 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 "we move in the same society he moves in the 
 very best." She used to hear Eunice talk about her 
 trustee, but she supposed a trustee must be some 
 horrid old man with a lot of papers in his hand, sit- 
 ting all day in an office. She never supposed he was 
 a prince in disguise. " We 've got a trustee some- 
 where, only I never see him ; my husband does all 
 the business. No wonder he keeps him out of the 
 way if he resembles Mr. Caliph." And then suddenly 
 she said to Eunice, "My dear, why don't you marry 
 him ? I should think you would want to." Mrs. 
 Ermine does n't look through mill-stones ; she con- 
 tents herself with giving them a poke with her 
 parasol. Eunice colored, and said she had n't been 
 asked ; she was evidently not pleased with Mrs. 
 Ermine's joke, which was of course as flat as you 
 like. Then she added in a moment "I should be 
 very sorry to marry Mr. Caliph, even if he were to 
 ask me. I like him, but I don't like him enough for 
 that." 
 
 " I should think he would be quite in your style, 
 he 's so literary. They say he writes," Mrs. Ermine 
 went on. 
 
 " Well, I don't write," Eunice answered, laugh- 
 ing. 
 
 " You could if you would try. I 'm sure you could 
 make a lovely book." Mrs. Ermine's amiability is 
 immense. 
 
 " It's safe for you to say that you never read." 
 
 " I have no time," said Mrs. Ermine, " but I like 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 33 
 
 literary conversation. It saves time, when it comes 
 in that way. Mr. Caliph has ever so much." 
 
 " He keeps it for you. With us he is very frivo- 
 lous," I ventured to observe. 
 
 " Well, what you call frivolous ! I believe you 
 think the prayer-book frivolous." 
 
 "Mr. Caliph will never marry any one," Eunice 
 said, after a moment. " That I am very sure of." 
 
 Mrs. Ermine stared; there never is so little ex- 
 pression in her face as when she is surprised. But 
 she soon recovered herself. " Don't you believe that ! 
 He will take some quiet little woman, after you have 
 all given him up." 
 
 Eunice was sitting at the piano, but had wheeled 
 round on the stool when her cousin came in. She 
 turned back to it and struck a few vague chords, as 
 if she were feeling for something. " Please don't 
 speak that way ; I don't like it," she said, as she 
 went on playing. 
 
 " I will speak any way you like ! " Mrs. Ermine 
 cried, with her vacant laugh. 
 
 " I think it very low." For Eunice this was se- 
 vere. " Girls are not always thinking about marriage. 
 They are not always thinking of people like Mr. Caliph 
 that way." 
 
 " They must have changed then, since my time ! 
 Was n't it so in yours, Miss Condit ? " She 's so stu- 
 pid that I don't think she meant to make a point. 
 
 " I had no ' time,' Mrs. Ermine. I was born an 
 old maid." 
 
 3 
 
34 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 " Well, the old inaids are the worst. I don't see 
 why it 's low to talk about marriage. It 's thought 
 very respectable to marry. You have only to look 
 round you." 
 
 " I don't want to look round me ; it 's not always 
 so beautiful, what you see," Eunice said, with a small 
 laugh and a good deal of perversity, for a young 
 woman so reasonable. 
 
 " I guess you read too much," said Mrs. Ermine, 
 getting up and setting her bonnet-ribbons at the 
 mirror. 
 
 " I should think he would hate them ! " Eunice ex- 
 claimed, striking her chords. 
 
 " Hate who ? " her cousin asked. 
 
 " Oh, all the silly girls." 
 
 " Who is ' he,' pray ? " This ingenious inquiry was 
 mine. 
 
 "Oh, the Grand Turk!" said Eunice, with her 
 voice covered by the sound of her piano. Her piano 
 is a great resource. 
 
 May 12. This afternoon, while we were having 
 our tea, the Grand Turk was ushered in, carrying the 
 most wonderful bouquet of Boston roses that seraglio 
 ever produced. (That image, by the way, is rather 
 mixed ; but as I write for myself alone, it may stand.) 
 At the end of ten minutes he asked Eunice if he 
 might see her alone " on a little matter of business." 
 I instantly rose to leave them, but Eunice said that 
 she would rather talk with him in the library ; so she 
 led him off to that apartment. I remained in the 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 35 
 
 drawing-room, saying to myself that I had at last 
 discovered the fin mot of Mr. Caliph's peculiarities, 
 which is so very simple that I am a great goose not 
 to have perceived it before. He is a man with a 
 system; and his system is simply to keep business 
 and entertainment perfectly distinct. There may be 
 pleasure for him in his figures, but there are no fig- 
 ures in his pleasure which has hitherto been to 
 call upon Eunice as a man of the world. To-day he 
 was to be the trustee ; I could see it in spite of his 
 bouquet, as soon as he came in. The Boston roses 
 did n't contradict that, for the excellent reason that 
 as soon as he had shaken hands with Eunice, who 
 looked at the flowers and not at him, he presented 
 them to Catherine Condit. Eunice then looked at 
 this lady; and as I took the roses I met her eyes, 
 which had a charming light of pleasure. Tt would 
 be base in me, even in this strictly private record, to 
 suggest that she might possibly have been displeased ; 
 but if I cannot say that the expression of her face 
 was lovely without appearing in some degree to point 
 to an ignoble alternative, it is the fault of human 
 nature. Why Mr. Caliph should suddenly think it 
 necessary to offer flowers to Catherine Condit that 
 is a line of inquiry by itself. As I said some time 
 back, it 's a part of his floridity. Besides, any pres- 
 entation of flowers seems sudden ; I don't know why, 
 but it 's always rather a gmtp de theatre. I am writing 
 late at night ; they stand on my table, and their fra- 
 grance is in the air. I don't say it for the flowers, but 
 
36 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 no one has ever treated poor Miss Condit with such 
 consistent consideration as Mr. Caliph. Perhaps she 
 is morbid: this is probably the Diary of a Morbid 
 Woman ; but in such a matter as that she admires 
 consistency. That little glance of Eunice comes 
 back to me as I write ; she is a pure, enchanting 
 soul. Mrs. Ermine came in while she was in the 
 library with Mr. Caliph, and immediately noticed the 
 Boston roses, which effaced all the other flowers in 
 the room. 
 
 " Were they sent from her seat ? " she asked. Then, 
 before I could answer, "I am going to have some 
 people to dinner to-day; they would look very well 
 in the middle." 
 
 "If you wish me to offer them to you, I really 
 can't; I prize them too much." 
 
 " Oh, are they yours ? Of course you prize them ! 
 I don't suppose you have many." 
 
 " These are the first I have ever received from 
 Mr. Caliph." 
 
 " From Mr. Caliph ? Did he give them to you ? " 
 Mrs. Ermine's intonations are not delicate. That 
 "you" should be in enormous capitals. 
 
 " With his own hand a quarter of an hour ago." 
 Tli is sounds triumphant, as I write it ; but it was no 
 great sensation to triumph over Mrs. Ermine. 
 
 She laid down the bouquet, looking almost thought- 
 ful. " He does want to marry Eunice," she declared 
 in a moment. This is the region in which, after a 
 flight of fancy, she usually alights. I am sick of the 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 37 
 
 irrepressible verb ; just at that moment, however, it 
 was unexpected, and I answered that I did n't under- 
 stand. 
 
 " That 's why he gives you flowers," she explained. 
 But the explanation made the matter darker still, and 
 Mrs. Ermine went on: "Isn't there some French 
 proverb about paying one's court to the mother in 
 order to gain the daughter ? Eunice is the daughter, 
 and you are the mother." 
 
 " And you are the grandmother, I suppose ! Do 
 you mean that he wishes me to intercede ? " 
 
 " I can't imagine why else ! " and smiling, with her 
 wide lips, she stared at the flowers. 
 
 "At that rate you too will get your bouquet," I 
 said. 
 
 " Oh, I have no influence ! ' You ought to do some- 
 thing in return to offer to paint his portrait." 
 
 " I don't offer that, you know ; people ask me. Be- 
 sides, you have spoiled rne for common models !" 
 
 It strikes me, as I write this, that we had gone 
 rather far farther than it seemed at the time. We 
 might have gone farther yet, however, if at this mo- 
 ment Eunice had not come back with Mr. Caliph, who 
 appeared to have settled his little matter of business 
 briskly enough. He remained the man of business to 
 the end, and, to Mrs. Ermine's evident disappointment, 
 declined to sit down again. He was in a hurry ; he 
 had an engagement. 
 
 " Are you going up or down ? I have a carriage at 
 the door," she broke in. 
 
38 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 " At Fifty-third Street one is usually going down ; " 
 and he gave his peculiar smile, which always seems 
 so much beyond the scope of the words it accom- 
 panies. " If you will give me a lift I shall be very 
 grateful." 
 
 He went off with her, she being much divided 
 between the prospect of driving with him and her 
 loss of the chance to find out what he had been say- 
 ing to Eunice. She probably believed he had been 
 proposing to her, and I hope he mystified her well in 
 the carriage. 
 
 He had not been proposing to Eunice; he had 
 given her a cheque, and made her sign some papers. 
 The cheque was for a thousand dollars, but I have no 
 knowledge of the papers. When I took up my abode 
 with her, I made up my mind that the only way to 
 preserve an appearance of disinterestedness was to 
 know nothing whatever of the details of her pecuniary 
 affairs. She has a very good little head of her own, 
 and if she should n't understand them herself it would 
 be quite out of my power to help her. I don't know 
 why I should care about appearing disinterested, 
 when I have in quite sufficient measure the con- 
 sciousness of being so ; but in point of fact I do, and 
 I value that purity as much as any other. Besides, 
 Mr. Caliph is her supreme adviser arid of course 
 makes everything clear to her. At least I hope he 
 does. I couldn't help saying as much as this to 
 Eunice. 
 
 " My dear child, I suppose you understand what 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 39 
 
 you sign. Mr. Caliph ought to be what shall I 
 call it ? crystalline." 
 
 She looked at me with the smile that had come 
 into her face when she saw him give me the flowers. 
 "Oh, yes, I think so. If I didn't, it's my own 
 fault. He explains everything so beautifully that 
 it's a pleasure to listen. I always read what I 
 sign." 
 
 " Je 1'espere bien ! " I said, laughing. 
 
 She looked a little grave. " The closing up a trust 
 is very complicated." 
 
 " Yours is not closed yet ? It strikes me as very 
 slow." 
 
 "Everything can't be done at once. Besides, he 
 has asked for a little delay. Part of my affairs, in- 
 deed, are now in my own hands; otherwise I should n't 
 have to sign." 
 
 " Is that a usual request for delay ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, perfectly. Besides, I don't want every- 
 thing in my own control. That is, I want it some day, 
 because I think I ought to accept the responsibilities, 
 as I accept all the pleasures ; but I am not in a 
 hurry. This way is so comfortable, and Mr. Caliph 
 takes so much trouble for me." 
 
 " I suppose he has a handsome commission," I 
 said, rather crudely. 
 
 "He has no commission at all; he would never 
 take one." 
 
 "In your place, I would much rather he should 
 take one." 
 
40 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 " I have asked him to, but he won't ! " Eunice said, 
 looking now extremely grave. 
 
 Her gravity indeed was so great that it made me 
 smile. " He is wonderfully generous ! " 
 
 " He is indeed." 
 
 " And is it to be indefinitely delayed the termi- 
 nation of his trust ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ; only a few months, ( till he gets things 
 into shape,' as he says." 
 
 " He has had several years for that, has n't he ? " 
 
 Eunice turned away ; evidently our talk was pain- 
 ful to her. But there was something that vaguely 
 alarmed me in her taking, or at least accepting, 
 the sentimental view of Mr. Caliph's services. " I 
 don't think you are kind, Catherine ; you seem to 
 suspect him," she remarked, after a little. 
 
 " Suspect him of what ? " 
 
 " Of not wishing to give up the property." 
 
 "My dear Eunice, you put things into terrible 
 words ! Seriously, I should never think of suspect- 
 ing him of anything so silly. What could his wishes 
 count for ? Is not the thing regulated by law 
 by the terms of your mother's will ? The trust ex- 
 pires of itself at a certain period, does n't it ? Mr. 
 Caliph, surely, has only to act accordingly." 
 
 " It is just what he is doing. But there are more 
 papers necessary, and they will not be ready for a few 
 weeks more." 
 
 " Don't have too many papers ; they are as bad as 
 too few. And take advice of some one else say of 
 
THE L}fPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 41 
 
 your cousin Ermine, who is so much more sensible 
 than his wife." 
 
 " I want no advice," said Eunice, in a tone which 
 showed me that I had said enough. And presently 
 she went on, " I thought you liked Mr. Caliph." 
 " So I do, immensely. He gives beautiful flowers." 
 " Ah, you are horrid ! " she murmured. 
 "Of course I am horrid. That 's my business to 
 be horrid." And I took the liberty of being so again, 
 half an hour later, when she remarked that she must 
 take good care of the cheque Mr. Caliph had brought 
 her, as it would be a good while before she should 
 have another. "Why should it be longer than 
 usual ? " I asked. " Is he going to keep your in- 
 come for himself ? " 
 
 " I am not to have any till the end of the year 
 any from the trust, at least. Mr. Caliph has been 
 converting some old houses into shops, so that they 
 will bring more rent. But the alterations have to be 
 paid for and he takes part of my income to do it." 
 " And pray what are you to live on meanwhile ? " 
 " I have enough without that ; and I have savings." 
 " It strikes me as a cool proceeding, all the same." 
 " He wrote to me about it before we came home, 
 and I thought that way was best." 
 
 " I don't think he ought to have asked you," I said. 
 " As your trustee, he acts in his discretion." 
 " You are hard to please," Eunice answered. 
 TJ at is perfectly true; but I rejoined that I could n't 
 make out whether he consulted her too much or too 
 
42 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 little. And I don't know that my failure to make it 
 out in the least matters ! 
 
 May 13. Mrs. Ermine turned up to-day at an 
 earlier hour than usual, and I saw as soon as she got 
 into the room that she had something to announce. 
 This time it was not an engagement. " He sent me a 
 bouquet Boston roses quite as many as yours ! 
 They arrived this morning, before I had finished 
 breakfast." This speech was addressed to me, and 
 Mrs. Ermine looked almost brilliant. Eunice scarcely 
 followed her. 
 
 " She is talking about Mr. Caliph," I explained. 
 
 Eunice stared a moment ; then her face melted into 
 a deep little smile. " He seems to give flowers to 
 every one but to me." I could see that this reflection 
 gave her remarkable pleasure. 
 
 " Well, when he gives them, he 's thinking of you," 
 said Mrs. Ermine. "He wants to get us on his side." 
 
 " On his side ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ; some day he will have need of us !" And 
 Mrs. Ermine tried to look sprightly and insinuating. 
 But she is too utterly fade, and I think it is not 
 worth while to talk any more to Eunice just now 
 about her trustee. So, to anticipate Mrs. Ermine, I 
 said to her quickly, but very quietly 
 
 " He sent you flowers simply because you had 
 taken him into your carriage last night. It was an 
 acknowledgment of your great kindness." 
 
 She hesitated a moment. " Possibly. We had a 
 charming drive ever so far down -town." Then, 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIX. 43 
 
 turning to Eunice, she exclaimed, "My dear, you 
 don't know that man till you have had a drive with 
 him ! " When does one know Mrs. Ermine ? Every 
 day she is a surprise ! 
 
 May 19. Adrian Frank has come back to Xew 
 York, and has been three times at this house once 
 to dinner, and twice at tea-time. After his brother's 
 strong expression of the hope that we would take an 
 interest in him, Eunice appears to have thought 
 that the least she could do was to ask him to dine. 
 She appears never to have offered this privilege to 
 Mr. Caliph, by the way; I think her view of his 
 cleverness is such that she imagines she knows no 
 one sufficiently brilliant to be invited to meet him. 
 She thought Mrs. Ermine good enough to meet Mr. 
 Frank, and she had also young Woodley Willie 
 Woodley, as they call him and Mr. Latrobe. It 
 was not very amusing. Mrs. Ermine made love to 
 Mr. Woodley, who took it serenely ; and the dark 
 Latrobe talked to me about the Seventh Regiment 
 an impossible subject. Mr. Frank made an occa- 
 sional remark to Eunice, next whom he was placed ; 
 but he seemed constrained and frightened, as if he 
 knew that his step-brother had recommended him 
 highly and felt it was impossible to come up to the 
 mark. He is really very modest; it is impossible 
 not to like him. Every now and then he looked at 
 me, with his clear blue eye conscious and expanded, 
 as if to beg me to help him on with Eunice ; and 
 then, when I threw in a word, to give their conversa- 
 
44 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 tion a push, he looked at her in the same way, as if 
 to express the hope that she would not abandon him. 
 There was no danger of this, she only wished to be 
 agreeable to him ; but she was nervous and preoccu- 
 pied, as she always is when she has people to dinner 
 : she is so afraid they may be bored and I think 
 that half the time she didn't understand what he 
 said. She told me afterwards that she liked him 
 more even than she liked him at first ; that he has, in 
 her opinion, better manners, in spite of his shyness, 
 than any of the young men ; and that he must have a 
 nice nature to have such a charming face ; all this 
 she told me, and she added that, notwithstanding all 
 this, there is something in Mr. Adrian Frank that 
 makes her uncomfortable. It is perhaps rather heart- 
 less, but after this, when he called two days ago, I 
 went out of the room and left them alone together. 
 The truth is, there is something in this tall, fair, 
 vague, inconsequent youth, who would look like a 
 Prussian lieutenant if Prussian lieutenants ever hesi- 
 tated, and who is such a singular mixture of confu- 
 sion and candor there is something about him that 
 is not altogether to my own taste, and that is why 
 I took the liberty of leaving him. Oddly enough, 
 I don't in the least know what it is ; I usually know 
 why I dislike people. I don't dislike the blushing 
 Adrian, however that is, after all, the oddest part. 
 No, the oddest part of it is that I think I have a feel- 
 ing of pity for him ; that is probably why (if it were 
 not my duty sometimes to remain) I should always 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 45 
 
 depart when he comes. I don't like to see the people 
 I pity ; to be pitied by me is too low a depth. Why 
 I should lavish my compassion on Mr. Frank of 
 course passes my comprehension. He is young, in- 
 telligent, in perfect health, master of a handsome 
 fortune, and favorite brother of Haroun-al-Easchid. 
 Such are the consequences of being a woman of im- 
 agination. When, at dinner, I asked Eunice if he 
 had been as interesting as usual, she said she would 
 leave it to me to judge ; he had talked altogether 
 about Miss Condit ! He thinks her very attractive ! 
 Poor fellow, when it is necessary he does n't hesitate, 
 though I can't imagine why it should be necessary. 
 I think that au fond he bores Eunice a little ; like 
 many girls of the delicate, sensitive kind, she likes 
 older, more confident men. 
 
 May 24 He has just made me a remarkable 
 communication ! This morning I went into the Park 
 in quest of a " bit," with some colors and brushes in 
 a small box, and that wonderfully compressible camp- 
 stool which I can carry in my pocket. I wandered 
 vaguely enough, for half an hour, through the care- 
 fully-arranged scenery, the idea of which appears to 
 be to represent the earth's surface en raccourci, and 
 at last discovered a small clump of birches which, 
 with their white stems and their little raw green 
 bristles, were not altogether uninspiring. The place 
 was quiet there were no nurse-maids nor bicycles ; 
 so I took up a position and enjoyed an hour's suc- 
 cessful work. At last I heard some one say behind 
 
46 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 me, " I think I ought to tell you I 'm looking ! " It 
 was Adrian Frank, who had recognized rne at a dis- 
 tance, and, without my hearing him, had walked 
 across the grass to where I sat. This time I could n't 
 leave him, for I had n't finished my sketch. He sat 
 down near me, on an artistically-preserved rock, and 
 we ended by having a good deal of talk in which, 
 however, I did the listening, for I can't express my- 
 self in two ways at once. What I listened to was 
 this that Mr. Caliph wishes his step-brother to 
 " make up " to Eunice, and that the candid Adrian 
 wishes to know what I think of his chances. 
 " Are you in love with her ? " I asked. 
 " Oh dear, no ! If I were in love with her I 
 should go straight in, without without this sort 
 of thing." 
 
 " You mean without asking people's opinion ? " 
 " Well, yes. Without asking even yours." 
 I told him that he need n't say " even " mine ; for 
 mine would not be worth much. His announcement 
 rather startled me at first, but after I had thought of 
 it a little, I found in it a good deal to admire. I 
 have seen so many " arranged " marriages that have 
 been happy, and so many " sympathetic " unions that 
 have been wretched, that the political element does n't 
 altogether shock me. Of course I can't imagine 
 Eunice making a political marriage, and I said to Mr. 
 Frank, very promptly, that she might consent if she 
 could be induced to love him, but would never be 
 governed in her choice by his advantages. I said 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 47 
 
 " advantages " in order to be polite ; the singular num- 
 ber would have served all the purpose. His only 
 advantage is his fortune; for he has neither looks, 
 talents, nor position that would dazzle a girl who is 
 herself clever and rich. This, then, is what Mr. 
 Caliph has had in his head all this while this is 
 what has made him so anxious that we should like 
 his step-brother. I have an idea that I ought to be 
 rather scandalized, but I feel my pulse and find that 
 I am almost pleased. I don't mean at the idea of 
 her marrying poor Mr. Frank ; I mean at such an in- 
 dication that Mr. Caliph takes an interest in her. I 
 don't know whether it is one of the regular duties of 
 a trustee to provide the trustful with a husband; 
 perhaps in that case his merit may be less. I sup- 
 pose he has said to himself, that if she marries his 
 step-brother she won't marry a worse man. Of course 
 it is possible that he may not have thought of Eunice 
 at all, and may simply have wished the guileless 
 Adrian to do a good thing without regard to Eunice's 
 point of view. I am afraid that even this idea 
 does n't shock me. Trying to make people marry is, 
 under any circumstances, an unscrupulous game ; but 
 the offence is minimized when it is a question of an 
 honest man marrying an angel. Eunice is the angel, 
 and the young Adrian has all the air of being honest. 
 It would, naturally, not be the union of her secret 
 dreams, for the hero of those pure visions would have 
 to be clever and distinguished. Mr. Frank is neither 
 of these things, but I believe he is perfectly good. Of 
 
48 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 course he is weak to come and take a wife simply 
 because his brother has told him to or is he doing 
 it simply for form, believing that she will never have 
 him, that he consequently does n't expose himself, 
 and that he will therefore have on easy terms, since 
 he seems to value it, the credit of having obeyed Mr. 
 Caliph? Why he should value it is a matter be- 
 tween themselves, which I am not obliged to know. 
 I don't think I care at all for the relations of men 
 between themselves. Their relations with women 
 are bad enough, but when there is no woman to save 
 it a little merci ! I should n't think that the young 
 Adrian would care to subject himself to a simple 
 refusal, for it is not gratifying to receive the cold 
 shoulder, even from a woman you don't want to 
 marry. After all, he may want to marry her ; there 
 are all sorts of reasons in things. I told him I 
 wouldn't undertake to do anything, and the more 
 I think of it the less I am willing. It would be a 
 weight off my mind to see her comfortably settled in 
 life, beyond the possibility of marrying some highly 
 varnished brute a fate in certain circumstances 
 quite open to her. She is perfectly capable with 
 her folded angel's wings of bestowing herself upon 
 the baker, upon the fishmonger, if she was to take 
 a fancy to him. The clever man of her dreams might 
 beat her or get tired of her ; but I am sure that Mr. 
 Frank, if he should pronounce his marriage-vows, 
 would keep them to the letter. From that to pushing 
 her into his arms, however, is a long way. I went so 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 49 
 
 far as to tell him that he had my good wishes ; but I 
 made him understand that I can give him no help. He 
 sat for some time poking a hole in the earth with his 
 stick and watching the operation. Then he said, with 
 his wide, exaggerated smile the one thing in his face 
 that recalls his brother, though it is so different " I 
 think I should like to try." I felt rather sorry for 
 him, and made him talk of something else ; and we 
 separated without his alluding to Eunice, though at 
 the last he looked at me for a moment intently, with 
 something on his lips which was probably a return to 
 his idea. I stopped him ; I told him I always re- 
 quired solitude for my finishing-touches. He thinks 
 me lyrusque, and queer, but he went away. I don't 
 know what he means to do; I am curious to see 
 whether he will begin his siege. It can scarcely be 
 said, as yet, to have begun Eunice, at any rate, is 
 all unconscious. 
 
 June 6. Her unconsciousness is being rapidly 
 dispelled ; Mr. Frank has been here every day since 
 I last wrote. He is a singular youth, and I don't 
 make him out ; I think there is more in him than I 
 supposed at first. He does n't bore us, and he has 
 become, to a certain extent, one of the family. I 
 like him very much, and he excites my curiosity. 
 I don't quite see where he expects to come out. I 
 mentioned some time back that Eunice had told me 
 he made her uncomfortable; and now, if that con- 
 tinues, she appears to have resigned herself. He has 
 asked her repeatedly to drive with him, and twice 
 
 4 
 
50 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 she has consented ; he has a very pretty pair of 
 horses, and a vehicle that holds but two persons. I 
 told him I could give him no positive help, but I do 
 leave them together. Of course Eunice has noticed 
 this it is the only intimation I have given her that 
 I am aware of his intentions. I have constantly ex- 
 pected her to say something, but she has said nothing, 
 and it is possible that Mr. Frank is making an im- 
 pression. He makes love very reasonably ; evidently 
 his idea is to be intensely gradual. Of course it 
 is n't gradual to come every day ; but he does very 
 little on any one occasion. That, at least, is my im- 
 pression ; for when I talk of his making love I don't 
 mean that I see it. When the three of us are to- 
 gether he talks to me quite as much as to her, and 
 there is no difference in his manner from one of us 
 to the other. His shyness is wearing off, and he 
 blushes so much less that I have discovered his nat- 
 ural hue. It has several shades less 1 of crimson than 
 I supposed. I have taken care that he should not 
 see me alone, for T don't wish him to talk to me of 
 what he is doing I wish to have nothing to say 
 about it. He has looked at rne several times in the 
 same way in which he looked just before we parted, 
 that day he found me sketching in the park ; that is, 
 as if he wished to have some special understanding 
 with me. But I don't want a special understanding, 
 and I pretend not to see his looks. I don't exactly 
 see why Eunice does n't speak to me, and why she 
 expresses no surprise at Mr. Frank's sudden devotion. 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 51 
 
 Perhaps Mr. Caliph has notified her, aud she is pre-' 
 pared for everything prepared even to accept the 
 young Adrian. I have an idea he will be rather 
 taken in if she does. Perhaps the day will come 
 soon when I shall think it well to say : " Take care, 
 take care ; you may succeed ! " He improves on ac- 
 quaintance ; he knows a great many things, and he is 
 a gentleman to his finger-tips. We talk very often 
 about Rome ; he has made out every inscription for 
 himself, and has got them all written down in a little 
 book. He brought it the other afternoon and read 
 some of them out to us, and it was more amusing 
 than it may sound. I listen to such things because I 
 can listen to anything about Rome ; and Eunice listens 
 possibly because Mr. Caliph has told her to. She 
 appears ready to do anything he tells her ; he has been 
 sending her some more papers to sign. He has not^ 
 been here since the day he gave me the flowers ; we 
 went back to Washington shortly after that. She has 
 received several letters from him, accompanying docu- 
 ments that look very legal She has said nothing 
 to me about them, and since I uttered those words of 
 warning which I noted here at the time, I have 
 asked no questions and offered no criticism. Some- 
 times I wonder whether I myself had not better 
 speak to Mr. Ermine ; it is only the fear of being 
 idiotic and meddlesome that restrains me. It seems 
 to me so odd there should be no one else ; Mr. Caliph 
 appears to have everything in his own hands. We 
 are to go down to our " seat," as Mrs. Ermine says, 
 
52 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 next week. That brilliant woman has left town her- 
 self, like many other people, and is staying with 
 one of her daughters. Then she is going to the 
 other, and then she is coming to Eunice, at Corner- 
 ville. 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 53 
 
 PAKT II. 
 
 June 8. Late this afternoon about an hour before 
 dinner Mr. Frank arrived with what Mrs. Ermine 
 calls his equipage, and asked her to take a short drive 
 with him. At first she declined said it was too 
 hot, too late, she was too tired ; but he seemed very 
 much in earnest, and begged her to think better of it. 
 She consented at last, and when she had left the room 
 to arrange herself, he turned to me with a little grin 
 of elation. I saw he was going to say something 
 about his prospects, and I determined, this time, to 
 give him a chance. Besides, I was curious to know 
 how he believed himself to be getting on. To my 
 surprise, he disappointed my curiosity ; he only said, 
 with his timid brightness, " I am always so glad when 
 I carry my point." 
 
 " Your point ? Oh, yes. I think I know what you 
 mean." 
 
 "It's what I told you that day." He seemed 
 slightly surprised that I should be in doubt as to 
 whether he had really presented himself as a lover. 
 
 " Do you mean to ask her to marry you ? " 
 
 He stared a little, looking graver. " Do you mean 
 to-day ? " 
 
54 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 " "Well, yes, to-day, for instance ; you have urged 
 her so to drive." 
 
 " I don't think I will do it to-day ; it 's too soon." 
 
 His gravity was natural enough, I suppose ; but it 
 had suddenly become so intense that the effect was 
 comical, and I could not help laughing. " Very good ; 
 whenever you please." 
 
 " Don't you think it 's too soon ? " he asked. 
 
 " Ah, I know nothing about it." 
 
 "I have seen her alone only four or five times." 
 
 " You must go on as you think best," I said. 
 
 " It 's hard to tell. My position is very difficult." 
 And then he began to smile again. He is certainly 
 very odd. 
 
 It is my fault, I suppose, that I am too impatient 
 of what I don't understand ; and I don't understand 
 this odd mixture of the perfunctory and the pas- 
 sionate, or the singular alternation of Mr. Frank's 
 confessions and reserves. " I can't enter into your 
 position," I said ; " I can't advise you or help you in 
 any way." Even to myself my voice sounded a little 
 hard as I spoke, and he was evidently discomposed 
 by it. 
 
 He blushed as usual, and fell to putting on his 
 gloves. " I think a great deal of your opinion, and 
 for several days I have wanted to ask you." 
 
 " Yes, I have seen that." 
 
 " How have you seen it ? " 
 
 " By the way you have looked at me." 
 
 He hesitated a moment. "Yes, I have looked at 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 55 
 
 you I know that. There is a great deal in your 
 face to see." 
 
 This remark, under the circumstances, struck me 
 as absurd ; I began to laugh again. " You speak of 
 it as if it were a collection of curiosities." He looked 
 away now, he would n't meet my eye, and I saw that 
 I had made him feel thoroughly uncomfortable. To 
 lead the conversation back into the commonplace, I 
 asked him where he intended to drive. 
 
 " It does n't matter much where we go it 's so 
 pretty everywhere now." He was evidently not 
 thinking of his drive, and suddenly he broke out, " I 
 want to know whether you think she likes me." 
 
 " I have n't the least idea. She has n't told me." 
 
 " Do you think she knows that I mean to propose 
 to her?" 
 
 "You ought to be able to judge of that better 
 than I." 
 
 " I am afraid of taking too much for granted ; also 
 of taking her by surprise." 
 
 " So that in her agitation she might accept 
 you ? Is that what you are afraid of ? " 
 
 " I don't know what makes you say that. I wish 
 her to accept me." 
 
 " Are you very sure ? " 
 
 "Perfectly sure. Why not? She is a charming 
 creature." 
 
 " So much the better, then ; perhaps she will." 
 
 " You don't believe it," he exclaimed, as if it were 
 very clever of him to have discovered that. 
 
56 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 " You think too much of what I believe. That has 
 nothing to do with the matter." 
 
 " No, I suppose not," said Mr. Frank, apparently 
 wishing very much to agree with me. 
 
 " You had better find out as soon as possible from 
 Eunice herself," I added. 
 
 " I have n't expected to know for some time." 
 
 " Do you mean for a year or two ? She will be 
 ready to tell you before that." 
 
 " Oh no not a year or two ; but a few weeks." 
 
 "You know you come to the house every day. 
 You ought to explain to her." 
 
 " Perhaps I had better not come so often." 
 
 " Perhaps not ! " 
 
 " I like it very much," he said, smiling. 
 
 I looked at him a moment ; I don't know what he 
 has got in his eyes. " Don't change ! You are such 
 a good young man that I don't know what we should 
 do without you." And I left him to wait alone for 
 Eunice. 
 
 From my window, above, I saw them leave the 
 door ; they make a fair, bright young couple as they 
 sit together. They had not been gone a quarter of 
 an hour when Mr. Caliph's name was brought up to 
 me. He had asked for me me alone ; he begged 
 that I would do him the favor to see him for ten 
 minutes. I don't know why this announcement 
 should have made me nervous ; but it did. My 
 heart beat at the prospect of entering into direct re- 
 lations with Mr. Caliph. He is very clever, much 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. . 57 
 
 thought of, and talked of; and yet I had vaguely 
 suspected him of I don't know what ! I became 
 conscious of that, and felt the responsibility of it; 
 though I didn't foresee, and indeed don't think I 
 foresee yet, any danger of a collision between us. It 
 is to be noted, moreover, that even a woman who is 
 both plain and conceited must feel a certain agitation 
 at entering the presence of Haroun-al-Easchid. I 
 had begun to dress for dinner, and I kept him wait- 
 ing till I had taken my usual time to finish. I al- 
 ways take some such revenge as that upon men who 
 make me nervous. He is the sort of man who feels 
 immediately whether a woman is well-dressed or not ; 
 but I don't think this reflection really had much to 
 do with my putting on the freshest of my three little 
 French gowns. 
 
 He sat there, watch in hand ; at least he slipped it 
 into his pocket as I came into the room. He was 
 not pleased at having had to wait, and when I apolo- 
 gized, hypocritically, for having kept him, he an- 
 swered, with a certain dryness, that he had come to 
 transact an important piece of business in a very 
 short space of time. I wondered what his business 
 could be, and whether he had come to confess to me 
 that he had spent Eunice's money for his own pur- 
 poses. Did he wish me to use my influence with her 
 not to make a scandal ? He did n't look like a man 
 who has come to ask a favor of that kind ; but I am 
 sure that if he ever does ask it he will not look at 
 all as he might be expected to look. He was clad in 
 
58 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 white garments, from head to foot, in recognition of 
 the hot weather, . and he had half a dozen roses in his 
 button-hole. This time his flowers were for himself. 
 His white clothes made him look as big as Henry 
 VIII. ; but don't tell me he is not a Jew! He's a 
 Jew of the artistic, not of the commercial, type ; and 
 as I stood there I thought him a very strange person 
 to have as one's trustee. It seemed to me that he 
 would carry such an office into transcendental re- 
 gions, out of all common jurisdictions ; and it was a 
 comfort to me to remember that I have no property 
 to be taken care of. Mr. Caliph kept a pocket-hand- 
 kerchief, with an enormous monogram, in his large 
 tapering hand, and every other moment he touched 
 his face with it. He evidently suffers from the heat. 
 With all that, il est lien beau. His business was not 
 what had at first occurred to me ; but I don't know 
 that it was much less strange. 
 
 " I knew I should find you alone, because Adrian 
 told me this morning that he meant to come and ask 
 our young friend to drive. I was glad of that ; I 
 have been wishing to see you alone, and I did n't 
 know how to manage it." 
 
 "You see it's very simple. Did n't you send your 
 brother ? " I asked. In another place, to another 
 person, this might have sounded impertinent ; but 
 evidently, addressed to Mr. Caliph, things have a 
 special measure, and this I instinctively felt. He 
 will take a great deal, and he will give a great deal. 
 
 He looked at me a moment, as if he were trying to 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 59 
 
 measure what I would take. " I see you are going 
 to be a very satisfactory person to talk with," he 
 answered. " That 's exactly what I counted on. I 
 want you to help rne." 
 
 " I thought there was some reason why Mr. Frank 
 should urge Eunice so to go," I went on ; refreshed a 
 little, I admit, by these words of commendation. " At 
 first she was unwilling." 
 
 " Is she usually unwilling and does he usually 
 have to be urgent ? " he asked, like a man pleased to 
 come straight to the point. 
 
 " What does it matter, so long as she consents in 
 the end ? " I responded, with a smile that made him 
 smile. There is a singular stimulus, even a sort of 
 excitement, in talking with him ; he makes one wish 
 to venture. And this not as women usually venture, 
 because they have a sense of impunity, but, on the 
 contrary, because one has a prevision of penalties 
 those penalties which give a kind of dignity to 
 sarcasm. He must be a dangerous man to irritate. 
 
 " Do you think she will consent, in the end ? " he 
 inquired; and though I had now foreseen what he 
 was coming to, I felt that, even with various precau- 
 tions which he had plainly decided not to take, there 
 would still have been a certain crudity in it when, a 
 moment later, he put his errand into words. " I want 
 my little brother to marry her, and I want you to 
 help me bring it about." Then he told me that he 
 knew his brother had already spoken to me, but that 
 he believed I had not promised him much counte- 
 
60 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 nance. He wished me to think well of the plan ; it 
 would be a delightful marriage. 
 
 "Delightful for your brother, yes. That's what 
 strikes me most." 
 
 " Delightful for him, certainly ; but also very pleas- 
 ant for Eunice, as things go here. Adrian is the 
 best fellow in the world; he's a gentleman; he has n't 
 a vice or a fault ; he is very well educated ; and he 
 has twenty thousand a year. A lovely property." 
 
 " Not in trust ? " I said, looking into Mr. Caliph's 
 extraordinary eyes. 
 
 " Oh, no ; he has full control of it. But he is won- 
 derfully careful" 
 
 " He does n't trouble you with it ? " 
 
 " Oh, dear, no ; why should he ? Thank God, I 
 have n't got that on my back. His property comes 
 to him from his father, who had nothing to do with 
 me ; did n't even like me, I think. He has capital 
 advisers presidents of banks, overseers of hospitals, 
 and all that sort of thing. They have put him in 
 the way of some excellent investments." 
 
 As I write this, I am surprised at my audacity ; 
 but, somehow, it did n't seem so great at the time, 
 and he gave absolutely no sign of seeing more in what 
 I said than appeared. He evidently desires the mar- 
 riage immensely, and he was thinking only of put- 
 ting it before me so that I too should think well of 
 it ; for evidently, like his brother, he has the most 
 exaggerated opinion of my influence with Eunice. 
 On Mr. Frank's part this does n't surprise me so 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 61 
 
 much ; but I confess it seems to me odd that a man 
 of Mr. Caliph's acuteness should make the mistake 
 of taking me for one of those persons who covet in- 
 fluence and like to pull the wires of other people's 
 actions. I have a horror of influence, and should never 
 have consented to come and live with Eunice if I 
 had not seen that she is at bottom much stronger 
 than I, who am not at all strong, in spite of my grand 
 airs. Mr. Caliph, I suppose, cannot conceive of a 
 woman in my dependent position being indifferent to 
 opportunities for working in the dark ; but he ought 
 to leave those vulgar imputations to Mrs. Ermine. 
 He ought, with his intelligence, to see one as one is ; 
 or do I possibly exaggerate that intelligence ? " Do 
 you know I feel as if you were asking me to take 
 part in a conspiracy ? " I made that announcement 
 with as little delay as possible. 
 
 He stared a moment, and then he said that he did n't 
 in the least repudiate that view of his proposal. He 
 admitted that he was a conspirator in an excellent 
 cause. All match-making was conspiracy. It was 
 impossible that as a superior woman I should enter 
 into his ideas, and he was sure that I had seen too 
 much of the world to say anything so banal as that 
 the young people were not in love with each other. 
 That was only a basis for marriage when better things 
 were lacking. It was decent, it was fitting, that 
 Eunice should be settled in life ; his conscience would 
 not be at rest about her until he should see that well 
 arranged. He was not in the least afraid of that 
 
62 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 word " arrangement ; " a marriage was an eminently 
 practical matter, and it could not be too much ar- 
 ranged. He confessed that he took the European 
 view. He thought that a young girl's elders ought 
 to see that she marries in a way in which certain 
 definite proprieties are observed. He was sure of his 
 brother ; he knew how faultless Adrian was. He 
 talked for some time, and said a great deal that I had 
 said to myself the other day, after Mr. Frank spoke 
 to me ; said, in particular, very much what I had 
 thought, about the beauty of arrangements that 
 there are far too few among Americans who marry ; 
 that we are the people in the world who divorce and 
 separate most ; that there would be much less of that 
 sort of thing if young people were helped to choose, if 
 marriages were, as one might say, presented to them. 
 I listened to Mr. Caliph with my best attention, think- 
 ing it was odd that, on his lips, certain things which 
 I had phrased to myself in very much the same way 
 should sound so differently. They ought to have 
 sounded better, uttered as they were with the energy, 
 the authority, the lucidity, of a man accustomed to 
 making arguments ; but somehow they did n't. I am 
 afraid I am very perverse. I answered I hardly 
 remember what ; but there was a taint of that per- 
 versity in it. As he rejoined, I felt that he was grow- 
 ing urgent very urgent ; he has an immense desire 
 that something may be done. I remember saying at 
 last, " What I don't understand is why your brother 
 should wish to marry my cousin. He has told me 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 63 
 
 he is not in love with her. Has your presentation 
 of the idea, as you call it has that been enough ? 
 Is he acting simply at your request ? " 
 
 I saw that his reply was not perfectly ready, and 
 for a moment those strange eyes of his emitted a ray 
 that I had not seen before. They seemed to say, 
 " Are you really taking liberties with me ? Be on 
 your guard; I may be dangerous." But he always 
 smiles. Yes, I think he is dangerous, though I don't 
 know exactly what he could do to me. I believe he 
 would smile at the hangman, if he were condemned 
 to meet him. He is very angry with his brother for 
 having admitted to me that the sentiment he enter- 
 tains for Eunice is not a passion ; as if it would have 
 been possible for him, under my eyes, to pretend that 
 he is in love ! I don't think I am afraid of Mr. 
 Caliph ; I don't desire to take liberties with him (as 
 his eyes seemed to call it) or with any one ; but, de- 
 cidedly, I am not afraid of him. If it came to pro- 
 tecting Eunice, for instance ; to demanding justice 
 But what extravagances am I writing ? He answered, 
 in a moment, with a good deal of dignity, and even a 
 good deal of reason, that his brother has the greatest 
 admiration for my cousin, that he agrees fully and 
 cordially with everything he (Mr. Caliph) has said 
 to him about its being an excellent match, that 
 he wants very much to marry, and wants to marry 
 as a gentleman should. If he is not in love with 
 Eunice, moreover, he is not in love with any one 
 else. 
 
64 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 " I hope not ! " I said, with a laugh ; whereupon 
 Mr. Caliph got up, looking, for him, rather grave. 
 
 "I can't imagine why you should suppose that 
 Adrian is not acting freely. I don't know what you 
 imagine my means of coercion to be." 
 
 " I don't imagine anything. I think I only wish 
 he had thought of it himself." 
 
 " He would never think of anything that is for his 
 good. He is not in the least interested." 
 
 "Well, I don't know that it matters, because I 
 don't think Eunice will see it as we see it." 
 
 " Thank you for saying ' we/ Is she in love with 
 some one else ? " 
 
 " Not that I know of ; but she may expect to be, 
 some day. And better than that, she may expect 
 very justly some one to be in love with her." 
 
 " Oh, in love with her ! How you women talk ! 
 You all of you want the moon. If she is not content 
 to be thought of as Adrian thinks of her, she is a very 
 silly girl. What will she have more than tenderness ? 
 That boy is all tenderness." 
 
 "Perhaps he is too tender," I suggested. "I think 
 he is afraid to ask her." 
 
 " Yes, I know he is nervous at the idea of a re- 
 fusal. But I should like her to refuse him once." 
 
 " It is not of that he is afraid it is of her accept- 
 ing him." 
 
 Mr. Caliph smiled, as if he thought this very inge- 
 nious. " You don't understand him. I 'm so sorry ! 
 I had an idea that with your knowledge of human 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 65 
 
 nature, your powers of observation you would have 
 perceived how he is made. In fact, I rather counted 
 on that." He said this with a little tone of injury 
 which might have made me feel terribly inadequate 
 if it had not been accompanied with a glance that 
 seemed to say that, after all, he was generous and he 
 forgave me. " Adrian's is one of those natures that 
 are inflamed by not succeeding. He does n't give 
 up; he thrives on opposition. If she refuses him 
 three or four times he will adore her ! " 
 
 " She is sure then to be adored though I am not 
 sure it will make a difference with her. I have n't 
 yet seen a sign that she cares for him." 
 
 " Why then does she go out to drive with him ? " 
 There was nothing brutal in the elation with which 
 Mr. Caliph made this point ; still, he looked a little as 
 if he pitied me for exposing myself to a refutation so 
 prompt. 
 
 " That proves nothing, I think. I would go to 
 drive with Mr. Frank, if he should ask me, and I 
 should be very much surprised if it were regarded as 
 an intimation that I am ready to marry him." 
 
 Mr. Caliph had his hands resting on his thighs, 
 and in this position, bending forward a little, with 
 his smile he said, "Ah, but he doesn't want to 
 marry you \ " 
 
 That was a little brutal, I think ; but I should have 
 appeared ridiculous if I had attempted to resent it. 
 I simply answered that I had as yet seen no sign 
 even that Eunice is conscious of Mr. Frank's inten- 
 
66 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 tions. I think she is, but I don't think so from any- 
 thing she has said or done. Mr. Caliph maintains 
 that she is capable of going for six months without 
 betraying herself, all the while quietly considering 
 and making up her mind. It is possible he is right 
 he has known her longer than I. He is far from 
 wishing to wait for six months, however ; and the part 
 I must play is to bring matters to a crisis. I told 
 him that I did n't see why he did not speak to her di- 
 rectly why he should operate in this roundabout 
 way. Why should n't he say to her all that he had 
 said to me tell her that she would make him very 
 happy by marrying his little brother ? He answered 
 that this is impossible, that the nearness of the rela- 
 tionship would make it unbecoming ; it would look 
 like a kind of nepotism. The thing must appear to 
 come to pass of itself and I, somehow, must be the 
 author of that appearance ! I was too much a woman 
 of the world, too acquainted with life, not to see the 
 force of all this. He had a great deal to say about my 
 being a woman of the world; in one sense it is not all 
 complimentary ; one would think me some battered 
 old dowager who had married off fifteen daughters. 
 I feel that I am far from all that when Mr. Caliph 
 leaves me so mystified. He has some other reason 
 for wishing these nuptials than love of the two young 
 people, but I am unable to put my hand on it. 
 Like the children at hide-and-seek, however, I think 
 I " burn." I don't like him, I mistrust him ; but he is 
 a very charming man. His geniality, his richness, his 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 67 
 
 magnetism, I suppose I should say, are extraordinary ; 
 he fascinates me, in spite of my suspicions. The truth 
 is, that in his way he is an artist, and in my little 
 way I am also one ; and the artist in me recognizes 
 the artist in him, and cannot quite resist the tempta- 
 tion to foregather. What is more than this, the artist 
 in him has recognized the artist in me it is very 
 good of him and would like to establish a cer- 
 tain freemasonry. " Let us take together the artis- 
 tic view of life ; " that is simply the meaning of his 
 talking so much about my being a woman of the 
 world. That is all very well ; but it seems to me there 
 would be a certain baseness in our being artists to- 
 gether at the expense of poor little Eunice. I should 
 like to know some of Mr. Caliph's secrets, but I don't 
 wish to give him any of mine in return for them. 
 Yet I gave him something before he departed; I 
 hardly know what, and hardly know how he extracted 
 it from me. It was a sort of promise that I would 
 after all speak to Eunice, "as I should like to have 
 you, you know." He remained there for a quarter of 
 an hour after he got up to go ; walking about the room 
 with his hands on his hips ; talking, arguing, laughing, 
 holding me with his eyes, his admirable face as 
 natural, as dramatic, and at the same time as diplo- 
 matic, as an Italian. I am pretty sure he was trying 
 to produce a certain effect, to entangle, to magnetize 
 me. Strange to say, Mr. Caliph compromises him- 
 self, but he does n't compromise his brother. He 
 has a private reason, but his brother has nothing 
 
68 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 to do with his privacies. That was my last word 
 to him. 
 
 " The moment I feel sure that I may do something 
 for your brother's happiness your brother's alone 
 by pleading his cause with Eunice that moment I 
 will speak to her. But I can do nothing for yours." 
 
 In answer to this, Mr. Caliph said something very 
 unexpected. " I wish I had known you five years 
 ago!" 
 
 There are many meanings to that; perhaps he 
 would have liked to put me out of the way. But I 
 could take only the polite meaning. " Our acquaint- 
 ance could never have begun too soon." 
 
 " Yes, I should have liked to know you," he went on, 
 " in spite of the fact that you are not kind, that you 
 are not just. Have I asked you to do anything for 
 my happiness ? My happiness is nothing. I have 
 nothing to do with happiness. 1 don't deserve it. 
 It is only for my little brother and for your charm- 
 ing cousin." 
 
 I was obliged to admit that he was right ; that he 
 had asked nothing for himself. " But I don't want 
 to do anything for you even by accident ! " I said 
 laughing, of course. 
 
 This time he was grave. He stood looking at me a 
 moment, then put out his hand. " Yes, I wish I had 
 known you ! " 
 
 There was something so expressive in his voice, so 
 handsome in his face, so tender and respectful in his 
 manner, as he said this, that for an instant I was 
 
TEE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 69 
 
 really moved, and I was on the point of saying with 
 feeling, " I wish indeed you had I " But that in- 
 stinct of which I have already spoken checked me 
 the sense that somehow, as things stand, there can be 
 no rapprochement between Mr. Caliph and me that 
 will not involve a certain sacrifice of Eunice. So I 
 only replied, " You seem to me strange, Mr. Caliph. 
 I must tell you that I don't understand you." 
 
 He kept my hand, still looking at me, and went on 
 as if he had not heard me. " I am not happy I 
 am not wise nor good." Then suddenly, in quite a 
 different tone, " For God's sake, let her marry my 
 brother ! " 
 
 There was a quick passion in these words which 
 made me say, " If it is so urgent as that, you cer- 
 tainly ought to speak to her. Perhaps she '11 do it to 
 oblige you ! " 
 
 We had walked into the hall together, and the last 
 I saw of him he stood in the open doorway, looking 
 back at me with his smile. " Hang the nepotism I 
 I will speak to her ! " 
 
 Comerville, July 6. A whole month has passed 
 since I have made an entry; but I have a good excuse 
 for this dreadful gap. Since we have been in the 
 country I have found subjects enough and to spare, 
 and I have been painting so hard that my hand, of 
 an evening, has been glad to rest. This place is very 
 lovely, and the Hudson is as beautiful as the Rhine. 
 There are the words, in black and white, over my 
 signature ; I can't do more than that. I have said it 
 
70 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 a dozen times, in answer to as many challenges, and 
 now I record the opinion with all the solemnity I can 
 give it. May it serve for the rest of the summer ! 
 This is an excellent old house, of the style that was 
 thought impressive, in this country, forty years ago. 
 It is painted a cheerful slate-color, save for a multi- 
 tude of pilasters and facings which are picked out in 
 the cleanest and freshest white. It has a kind of 
 clumsy gable or apex, on top ; a sort of roofed ter- 
 race, below, from which you may descend to a lawn 
 dotted with delightful old trees ; and between the two, 
 in the second story, a deep verandah, let into the 
 body of the building, and ornamented with white 
 balustrades, considerably carved, and big blue stone 
 jars. Add to this a multitude of green shutters and 
 striped awnings, and a mass of Virginia creepers and 
 wisterias, and fling over it the lavish light of the 
 American summer, and you have a notion of some of 
 the conditions of our mlleggiatura. The great condi- 
 tion, of course, is the splendid river lying beneath 
 our rounded headland in vast silvery stretches, and 
 growing almost vague on the opposite shore. It is a 
 country of views ; you are always peeping down an 
 avenue, or ascending a mound, or going round a corner, 
 to look at one. They are rather too shining, too high- 
 pitched, for my little purposes ; all nature seems 
 glazed with light and varnished with freshness. But 
 I manage to scrape something off. Mrs. Ermine is 
 here, as brilliant as her setting; and so, strange to 
 say, is Adrian Frank. Strange for this reason, that 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 71 
 
 the night before we left town I went into Eunice's 
 room and asked her whether she knew, or rather 
 whether she suspected, what was going on. A sudden 
 impulse came to me ; it seemed to me unnatural that 
 in such a situation I should keep anything from her. 
 I don't want to interfere, but I think I want even 
 less to carry too far my aversion to interference, and 
 without pretending to advise Eunice, it was revealed 
 to me that she ought to know that Mr. Caliph had 
 come to see me on purpose to induce me to work upon 
 her. It was not till after he was gone that it oc- 
 curred to me he had sent his brother in advance, on 
 purpose to get Eunice out of the way, and that this 
 was the reason the young Adrian would take no re- 
 fusal. He was really in excellent training. It was a 
 very hot night. Eunice was alone in her room, with- 
 out a lamp; the windows were wide open, and the 
 dusk was clarified by the light of the street. She 
 sat there, among things vaguely visible, in a white 
 wrapper, with her fair hair on her shoulders, and I 
 could see her eyes move toward me when I asked her 
 whether she knew that Mr. Frank wished to marry 
 her. I could see her smile, too, as she answered 
 that she knew he thought he did, but also knew he 
 didn't. 
 
 " Of course I have only his word for it," I said. 
 
 " Has he told you ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, and his brother, too." 
 
 " His brother ? " And Eunice slowly got up. 
 
 " It 's an idea of Mr. Caliph's as well. Indeed Mr. 
 
72 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 Caliph may have been the first. He came here to-day, 
 while you were out, to tell me how much he should 
 like to see it come to pass. He has set his heart 
 upon it, and he wished me to engage to do all in 
 my power to bring it about. Of course I can't do 
 anything, can I ? " 
 
 She had sunk into her chair again as I went on ; 
 she sat there looking before her, in the dark. Before 
 she answered me she gathered up her thick hair with 
 her hands, twisted it together, and holding it in place, 
 on top of her head, with one hand, tried to fasten a 
 comb into it with the other. I passed behind her 
 to help her; I could see she was agitated. " Oh, no, 
 you can't do anything," she said, after a moment, with 
 a laugh that was not like her usual laughter. "I 
 know all about it; they have told me, of course." 
 Her tone was forced, and I could see that she had 
 not really known all about it had not known that 
 Mr. Caliph is pushing his brother. I went to the 
 window and looked out a little into the hot, empty 
 street, where the gas-lamps showed me, up and down, 
 the hundred high stoops, exactly alike and as ugly as 
 a bad dream. While I stood there a thought sud- 
 denly dropped into my mind, which has lain ever since 
 where it fell. But I don't wish to move it, even to 
 write it here. I stayed with Eunice for ten minutes ; 
 I told her everything that Mr. Caliph had said to me. 
 She listened in perfect silence I could see that she 
 was glad to listen. When I related that he did n't 
 wish to speak to her himself on behalf of his brother, 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 73 
 
 because that would seem indelicate, she broke in, with 
 a certain eagerness, " Yes, that is very natural ! " 
 
 " And now you can marry Mr. Frank without my 
 help ! " I said, when I had done. 
 
 She shook her head sadly, though she was smiling 
 again. " It 's too late for your help. He has asked 
 me to marry him, and I have told him he can hope 
 for it never ! " 
 
 I was surprised to hear he had spoken, and she 
 said nothing about the time or place. It must have 
 been that afternoon, during their drive. I said that 
 I was rather sorry for our poor young friend, he was 
 such a very nice fellow. She agreed that he was re- 
 markably nice, but added that this was not a sufficient 
 reason for her marrying him ; and when I said that 
 he would try again, that I had Mr. Caliph's assurance 
 that he would not be easy to get rid of and that a re- 
 fusal would only make him persist, she answered 
 that he might try as often as he liked, he was so little 
 disagreeable to her that she would take even that 
 from him. And now, to give him a chance to try 
 again, she has asked him down here to stay, thinking 
 apparently that Mrs. Ermine's presence puts us en 
 regie with the proprieties. I should add that she 
 assured me there was no real danger of his trying 
 again ; he had told her he meant to, but he had said 
 it only for form. Why should he, since he was not 
 in love with her ? It was all an idea of his brother's, 
 and she was much obliged to Mr. Caliph, who took 
 his duties much too seriously and was not in the least 
 
74 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 bound to provide her with a husband. Mr. Frank 
 and she had agreed to remain friends, as if nothing 
 had happened ; and I think she then said something 
 about her intending to ask him to this place. A few 
 days after we got here, at all events, she told me that 
 she had written to him, proposing his coming ; where- 
 upon I intimated that I thought it a singular overture 
 to make to a rejected lover whom one did n't wish to 
 encourage. He would take it as encouragement, or 
 at all events Mr. Caliph would. She answered that 
 she did n't care what Mr. Caliph thinks, and that she 
 knew Mr. Frank better than I, and knew therefore 
 that he had absolutely no hope. But she had a 
 particular reason for wishing him to be here. That 
 sounded mysterious, and she could n't tell me more ; 
 but in a month or two I would guess her reason. As 
 she said this she looked at me with a brighter smile 
 than she has had for weeks ; for I protest that she 
 is troubled Eunice is greatly troubled. Nearly a 
 month has elapsed, and I have n't guessed that reason. 
 Here is Adrian Frank, at any rate, as I say ; and I 
 can't make out whether he persists or renounces. 
 His manner to Eunice is just the same ; he is always 
 polite and always shy, never inattentive and never un- 
 mistakable. He has not said a word more to me about 
 his suit. Apart from this he is very sympathetic, and 
 we sit about sketching together in the most frater- 
 nal manner. He made to me a day or two since a 
 very pretty remark ; viz., that he would rather copy a 
 sketch of mine than try, himself, to do the place from 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 75 
 
 nature. This perhaps does not look so galant as I 
 repeat it here; but with the tone and glance with 
 which he said it, it really almost touched ine. I was 
 glad, by the way, to hear from Eunice the night before 
 we left town that she does n't care what Mr. Caliph 
 thinks ; only, I should be gladder still if I believed 
 it. I don't, unfortunately; among other reasons 
 because it does n't at all agree with that idea which 
 descended upon me with a single jump from heaven 
 knows where while I looked out of her window at 
 the stoops. I observe with pleasure, however, that 
 he does n't send her any more papers to sign. These 
 days pass softly, quickly, but with a curious, an un- 
 natural, stillness. It is as if there were something in 
 the air a sort of listening hush. That sounds very 
 fantastic, and I suppose such remarks are only to be 
 justified by my having the artistic temperament 
 that is, if I have it ! If I have n't, there is no excuse ; 
 unless it be that Eunice is distinctly uneasy, and that 
 it takes the form of a voluntary, exaggerated calm, of 
 which I feel the contact, the tension. She is as quiet 
 as a mouse and yet as restless as a flame. She is 
 neither well nor happy ; she does n't sleep. It is true 
 that I asked Mr. Frank the other day what impres- 
 sion she made on him, and he replied, with a little 
 start, and a smile of alacrity, "Oh, delightful, as 
 usual ! " so that I saw he did n't know what he was 
 talking about. He is tremendously sunburnt, and 
 as red as a tomato. I wish he would look a little 
 less at my daubs and a little more at the woman he 
 
76 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 wishes to marry. In summer I always suffice to my- 
 self, and I am so much interested in my work that if 
 I hope, devoutly, as I do, that nothing is going to 
 happen to Eunice, it is probably quite as much from 
 selfish motives as from others. If anything were to 
 happen to her I should be immensely interrupted. 
 Mrs. Ermine is bored, par exemple ! She is dying to 
 have a garden-party, at which she can drag a long 
 train over the lawn ; but day follows day and this en- 
 tertainment does not take place. Eunice has promised 
 it, however, for another week, and I believe means to 
 send out invitations immediately. Mrs. Ermine has 
 offered to write them all ; she has, after all, du Ion. 
 But the fatuity of her misunderstandings of everything 
 that surrounds her passes belief. She sees nothing that 
 really occurs, and gazes complacently into the void. 
 Her theory is always that Mr. Caliph is in love with 
 Eunice, she opened up to me on the subject only 
 yesterday, because with no one else to talk to but the 
 young Adrian, who dodges her, she does n't in the 
 least mind that she hates me, and that I think her 
 a goose that Mr. Caliph is in love with Eunice, 
 but that Eunice, who is queer enough for anything, 
 does n't like him, so that he has sent down his 
 step-brother to tell stories about the good things he 
 has done, and to win over her mind to a more favor- 
 able view. Mrs. Ermine believes in these good 
 things, and appears to think such action on Mr. 
 Caliph's part both politic and dramatic. She has not 
 the smallest suspicion of the real little drama that 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 77 
 
 has been going on under her nose. I wish I had that 
 absence of vision ; it would be a great rest. Heaven 
 knows I see more than I want for instance when I 
 see that my poor little cousin is pinched with pain 
 and yet that I can't relieve her, can't even advise her. 
 I could n't do the former even if I would, and she 
 would n't let me do the latter even if I could. It 
 seems too pitiful, too incredible, that there should be 
 no one to turn to. Surely, if I go up to town for a 
 day next week, as seems probable, I may call upon 
 William Ermine. Whether I may or not, I will. 
 
 July 11. She has been getting letters, and they 
 have made her worse. Last night I spoke to her 
 I asked her to come into my room. I told her that 
 I saw she was in distress ; that it was terrible to me 
 to see it ; that I was sure that she has some miserable 
 secret. Who was making her suffer this way ? No 
 one had the right not even Mr. Caliph, if Mr. 
 Caliph it was, to whom she appeared to have con- 
 ceded every right. She broke down completely, burst 
 into tears, confessed that she is troubled about money. 
 Mr. Caliph has again requested a delay as to his 
 handing in his accounts, and has told her that she 
 will have no income for another year. She thinks 
 it strange ; she is afraid that everything is n't right. 
 She is not afraid of being poor ; she holds that it 's 
 vile to concern one's self so much about money. But 
 there is something that breaks her heart in thinking 
 that Mr. Caliph should be in fault. She had always 
 admired him, she had always believed in him, she 
 
78 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 had always What it was, in the third place, that 
 she had always done I did n't learn, for at this point 
 she buried her head still deeper in my lap and sobbed 
 for half an hour. Her grief was melting. I was 
 never more troubled, and this in spite of the fact that 
 I was furious at her strange air of acceptance of a 
 probable calamity. She is afraid that everything 
 isn't right, forsooth! I should think it was not, 
 and should think it had n't been for heaven knows 
 how long. This is what has been in the air ; this is 
 what was hanging over us. But Eunice is simply 
 amazing. She declines to see a lawyer ; declines to 
 hold Mr. Caliph accountable, declines to complain, 
 to inquire, to investigate in any way. I am sick, 
 I am terribly perplexed I don't know what to 
 do. Her tears dried up in an instant as soon as I 
 made the very obvious remark that the beautiful, 
 the mysterious, the captivating Caliph is no better 
 than a common swindler ; arid she gave me a look 
 which might have frozen me if when I am angry I 
 were freezable. She took it de lien haut ; she inti- 
 mated to me that if I should ever speak in that way 
 again of Mr. Caliph we must part company forever. 
 She was distressed ; she admitted that she felt injured. 
 I had seen for myself how far that went. But she 
 did n't pretend to judge him. He had been in trouble, 
 he had told her that ; and his trouble was worse 
 than hers, inasmuch as his honor was at stake, and it 
 had to be saved. 
 
 " It 's charming to hear you speak of his honor," 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A CO V SIX. 79 
 
 I cried, quite regardless of the threat she had just 
 uttered. "Where was his honor when he violated the 
 most sacred of trusts ? "Where was his honor when 
 he went off with your fortune ? Those are questions, 
 my dear, that the courts will make him answer. He 
 shall make up to you every penny that he has stolen, 
 or iny name is not Catherine Condit ! " 
 
 Eunice gave me another look, which seemed meant 
 to let me know that I had suddenly become in her 
 eyes the most indecent of women; and then she swept 
 out of the room. I immediately sat down and wrote 
 to Mr. Ermine, in order to have my note ready to 
 send up to town at the earliest hour the next morning. 
 I told him that Eunice was in dreadful trouble about 
 her money-matters, and that I believed he would 
 render her a great service, though she herself had no 
 wish to ask it, by coming down to see her at his first 
 convenience. I reflected, of course, as I wrote, that 
 he could do her no good if she should refuse to see 
 him ; but I made up for this by saying to myself that 
 I at least should see him, and that he would do me 
 good. I added in my note that Eunice had been 
 despoiled by those who had charge of her property ; 
 but I did n't mention Mr. Caliph's name. I was just 
 closing my letter when Eunice came into my room 
 again. I saw in a moment that she was different 
 from anything she had ever been before or at 
 least had ever seemed. Her excitement, her passion, 
 had gone down ; even the traces of her tears had van- 
 ished. She was perfectly quiet, but all her softness 
 
80 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 had left her. She was as solemn and impersonal as 
 the priestess of a cult. As soon as her eyes fell upon 
 my letter, she asked me to be so good as to inform 
 her to whom I had been writing. I instantly satis- 
 fied her, telling her what I had written ; and she 
 asked me to give her the document. " I must let 
 you know that I shall immediately burn it up," she 
 added; and she went on to say that if I should send 
 it to Mr. Ermine she herself would write to him by 
 the same post that he was to heed nothing I had said. 
 I tore up my letter, but I announced to Eunice that 
 I would go up to town and see the person to whom I 
 had addressed it. " That brings us precisely to what 
 I came in to say," she answered ; and she proceeded 
 to demand of me a solemn vow that I would never 
 speak to a living soul of what I had learned in regard 
 to her affairs. They were her affairs exclusively, and 
 no business of mine or of any other human being; 
 and she had a perfect right to ask and to expect this 
 promise. She has. indeed more 's the pity ; but it 
 was impossible to me to admit just then indignant 
 and excited as I was that I recognized the right. 
 I did so at last, however, and I made the promise. 
 It seems strange to me to write it here ; but I am 
 pledged by a tremendous vow, taken in this " inti- 
 mate " spot, in the small hours of the morning, never 
 to lift a finger, never to speak a word, to redress any 
 wrong that Eunice may have received at the hands 
 of her treacherous trustee, to bring it to the knowl- 
 edge of others, or to invoke justice, compensation, or 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 81 
 
 pity. How she extorted this promise from me is 
 more than I can say : she did so by the force of her 
 will, which, as I have already had occasion to note, 
 is far stronger than mine ; and by the vividness of her 
 passion, which is none the less intense because it 
 burns inward and makes her heart glow while her 
 face remains as clear as an angel's. She seated her- 
 self with folded hands, and declared she would n't 
 leave the room until I had satisfied her. She is in a 
 state of extraordinary exaltation, and from her own 
 point of view she was eloquent enough. She returned 
 again and again to the fact that she did not judge 
 Mr. Caliph ; that what he may have done is between 
 herself and him alone ; and that if she had not been 
 betrayed to speaking of it to me in the first shock of 
 finding that certain allowances would have to be 
 made for him, no one need ever have suspected it. 
 She was now perfectly ready to make those allow- 
 ances. She was unspeakably sorry for Mr. Caliph. 
 He had been in urgent need of money, and he had 
 used hers : pray, whose else would I have wished 
 him to use ? Her money had been an insupportable 
 bore to him from the day it was thrust into his 
 hands. To make him her trustee had been in the 
 worst possible taste ; he was not the sort of person 
 to make a convenience of, and it had been odious to 
 take advantage of his good nature. She had always 
 been ashamed of owing him so much. He had been 
 perfect in all his relations with her, though he must 
 have hated her and her wretched little investments 
 
 6 
 
80 TEE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 had left her. She was as solemn and impersonal as 
 the priestess of a cult. As soon as her eyes fell upon 
 my letter, she asked me to be so good as to inform 
 her to whom I had been writing. I instantly satis- 
 fied her, telling her what I had written ; and she 
 asked me to give her the document. " I must let 
 you know that I shall immediately burn it up," she 
 added ; and she went on to say that if I should send 
 it to Mr. Ermine she herself would write to him by 
 the same post that he was to heed nothing I had said. 
 I tore up my letter, but I announced to Eunice that 
 I would go up to town and see the person to whom I 
 had addressed it. " That brings us precisely to what 
 I came in to say," she answered ; and she proceeded 
 to demand of me a solemn vow that I would never 
 speak to a living soul of what I had learned in regard 
 to her affairs. They were her affairs exclusively, and 
 no business of mine or of any other human being; 
 and she had a perfect right to ask and to expect this 
 promise. She has. indeed more 's the pity ; but it 
 was impossible to me to admit just then indignant 
 and excited as I was that I recognized the right. 
 I did so at last, however, and I made the promise. 
 It seems strange to me to write it here ; but I am 
 pledged by a tremendous vow, taken in this " inti- 
 mate " spot, in the small hours of the morning, never 
 to lift a finger, never to speak a word, to redress any 
 wrong that Eunice may have received at the hands 
 of her treacherous trustee, to bring it to the knowl- 
 edge of others, or to invoke justice, compensation, or 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 81 
 
 pity. How she extorted this promise from me is 
 more than I can say : she did so by the force of her 
 will, which, as I have already had occasion to note, 
 is far stronger than mine ; and by the vividness of her 
 passion, which is none the less intense because it 
 burns inward and makes her heart glow while her 
 face remains as clear as an angel's. She seated her- 
 self with folded hands, and declared she would n't 
 leave the room until I had satisfied her. She is in a 
 state of extraordinary exaltation, and from her own 
 point of view she was eloquent enough. She returned 
 again and again to the fact that she did not judge 
 Mr. Caliph ; that what he may have done is between 
 herself and him alone ; and that if she had not been 
 betrayed to speaking of it to me in the first shock of 
 finding that certain allowances would have to be 
 made for him, no one need ever have suspected it. 
 She was now perfectly ready to make those allow- 
 ances. She was unspeakably sorry for Mr. Caliph. 
 He had been in urgent need of money, and he had 
 used hers : pray, whose else would I have wished 
 him to use ? Her money had been an insupportable 
 bore to him from the day it was thrust into his 
 hands. To make him her trustee had been in the 
 worst possible taste ; he was not the sort of person 
 to make a convenience of, and it had been odious to 
 take advantage of his good nature. She had always 
 been ashamed of owing him so much. He had been 
 perfect in all his relations with her, though he must 
 have hated her and her wretched little investments 
 
 6 
 
82 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 from the first. If she had lost money, it was not his 
 fault ; he had lost a great deal more for himself than 
 he had lost for her. He was the kindest, the most 
 delightful, the most interesting of men. Eunice 
 brought out all this with pure defiance ; she had 
 never treated herself before to the luxury of saying 
 it, and it was singular to think that she found her 
 first pretext, her first boldness, in the fact that he 
 had ruined her. All this looks almost grotesque as I 
 write it here ; but she imposed it upon me last night 
 with all the authority of her passionate little person. 
 I agreed, as I say, that the matter was none of my 
 business ; that is now definite enough. Two other 
 things are equally so. One is that she is to be 
 plucked like a chicken ; the other is that she is in 
 love with the precious Caliph, and has been so for 
 years ! I did n't dare to write that the other night, 
 after the beautiful idea had suddenly flowered in my 
 mind ; but I don't care what I write now. I am so 
 horribly tongue-tied that I must at least relieve 
 myself here. Of course I wonder now that I never 
 guessed her secret before ; especially as I was per- 
 petually hovering on the edge of it. It explains many 
 things, and it is very terrible. In love with a pick- 
 pocket ! Merci ! I am glad fate has n't played me 
 that trick. 
 
 July 14 I can't get over the idea that lie is to 
 go scot-free. I grind my teeth over it as I sit at 
 work, and I find myself using the most livid, the 
 most brilliant colors. I have had another talk with 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 83 
 
 Eunice, but I don't in the least know what she is to 
 live on. She says she has always her father's prop- 
 erty, and that this will be abundant; but that of course 
 she cannot pretend to live as she has lived hitherto. 
 She will have to go abroad again and economize ; and 
 she will probably have to sell this place that is, if 
 she can. " If she can " of course means, if there is 
 anything to sell ; if it is n't devoured with mortgages. 
 What I want to know is, whether Justice, in such a 
 case as this, will not step in, notwithstanding the 
 silence of the victim. If I could only give her a 
 hint the angel of the scales and sword in spite 
 of my detestable promise ! I can't find out about 
 Mr. Caliph's impunity, as it is impossible for me to 
 allude to the matter to any one who would be able to 
 tell me. Yes, the more I think of it the more reason 
 I see to rejoice that fate has n't played me that trick 
 of making me fall in love with a pickpocket ! Suf- 
 fering keener than my poor little cousin's I cannot 
 possibly imagine, or a power of self-sacrifice more 
 awful. Fancy the situation, when the only thing one 
 can do for the man one loves, is to forgive him for 
 thieving ! What a delicate attention, what a touching 
 proof of tenderness ! This Eunice can do ; she has 
 waited all these years to do something. I hope she 
 is pleased with her opportunity. And yet when I 
 say she has forgiven him for thieving, I lose myself 
 in the mystery of her exquisite spirit. Who knows 
 what it is she has forgiven does she even know 
 herself? She consents to being injured, despoiled, 
 
86 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 have invited a thousand people. I can't imagine who 
 they all are. It is an extraordinary time for Eunice 
 to be giving a party the day after she discovers 
 that she is penniless ; but of course it is n't Eunice, 
 it 's Mrs. Ermine. I said to her yesterday that if she 
 was to change her mode of life simple enough 
 already, poor thing she had better begin at once ; 
 and that her garden-party under Mrs. Ermine's 
 direction would cost her a thousand dollars. She 
 answered that she must go on, since it had already 
 been talked about; she wished no one to know any- 
 thing to suspect anything. This would be her 
 last extravagance, her farewell to society. If such 
 resources were open to us poor heretics, I should 
 suppose she meant to go into a convent. She exas- 
 perates me too every one exasperates me. It is 
 some satisfaction, however, to feel that my exaspera- 
 tion clears up my mind. It is Caliph who is " sold," 
 after all. He would not have invented this alliance 
 for his brother if he had known if he had faintly 
 suspected that Eunice was in love with him, inas- 
 much as in this case he had assured impunity. 
 Fancy his not knowing it the idiot! 
 
 July 10. They are still directing cards, and Mrs. 
 Ermine has taken the whole thing on her shoul- 
 ders. She has invited people that Eunice has never 
 heard of a pretty rabble she will have made of it ! 
 She has ordered a band of music from New York, 
 and a new dress for the occasion something in the 
 last degree champetre. Eunice is perfectly indifferent 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 87 
 
 to what she does ; I have discovered that she is think- 
 ing only of one thing. Mr. Caliph is coining, and the 
 bliss of that idea fills her mind. The more people 
 the better ; she will not have the air of making petty 
 economies to afflict him with the sight of what he 
 has reduced her to ! 
 
 " This is the way Eunice ought to live," Mrs. Er- 
 mine said to me this afternoon, rubbing her hands, 
 after the last invitation had departed. When I say 
 the last, I mean the last till she had remembered 
 another that was highly important, and had floated 
 back into the library to scribble it off. She writes a 
 regular invitation-hand a vague, sloping, silly hand, 
 that looks as if it had done nothing all its days but 
 write, " Mr. and Mrs. Ermine request the pleasure ; " 
 or, " Mr. and Mrs. Ermine are delighted to accept." 
 She told me that she knew Eunice far better than 
 Eunice knew herself, and that her line in life was 
 evidently to " receive." No one better than she would 
 stand in a doorway and put out her hand with a smile ; 
 no one would be a more gracious and affable hostess, 
 or make a more generous use of an ample fortune. 
 She is really very trying, Mrs. Ermine, with her ample 
 fortune ; she is like a clock striking impossible hours. 
 I think she must have engaged a special train for her 
 guests a train to pick up people up and down the 
 river. Adrian Frank went to town to-day ; he comes 
 back on the 23d, and the festival takes place the next 
 day. The festival, Heaven help us ! Eunice is evi- 
 dently going to be ill ; it 's as much as I can do to 
 
88 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 keep from adding that it serves her right ! It 's a 
 great relief to me that Mr. Frank has gone ; this has 
 ceased to be a place for him. It is ever so long since 
 he has said anything to me about his " prospects." 
 They are charming, his prospects ! 
 
 July 26. The garden-party has taken place, and 
 a great deal more besides. I have been too agitated, 
 too fatigued and bewildered, to write anything here ; 
 but I can't sleep to-night I 'm too nervous and 
 it is better to sit and scribble than to toss about. 
 I may as well say at once that the party was very 
 pretty Mrs. Ermine may have that credit. The 
 day was lovely ; the lawn was in capital order ; the 
 music was good, and the buffet apparently inexhaust- 
 ible. There was an immense number of people; 
 some of them had come even from Albany many 
 of them strangers to Eunice, and proteges only of 
 Mrs. Ermine ; but they dispersed themselves* on the 
 grounds, and I have not heard as yet that they stole 
 the spoons or plucked up the plants. Mrs. Ermine, 
 who was exceedingly champetre white muslin and 
 corn-flowers told me that Eunice was " receiving 
 adorably;" was in her native element. She evi- 
 dently inspired great curiosity ; that was why every 
 one had come. I don't mean because every one sus- 
 pects her situation, but because as yet, since her re- 
 turn, she has been little seen and known, and is 
 supposed to be a distinguished figure clever, beau- 
 tiful, rich, and a parti. I think she satisfied every 
 one ; she was voted most interesting, and except that 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 89 
 
 she was deadly pale, she was prettier than any one 
 else. Adrian Frank did not come back on the 23d, 
 and did not arrive for the festival. So much I note 
 without as yet understanding it. His absence from 
 the garden-party, after all his exertions under the 
 orders of Mrs. Ermine, is in need of an explanation. 
 Mr. Caliph could give none, for Mr. Caliph was there. 
 He professed surprise at not finding his brother ; said 
 he had not seen him in town, that he had no idea 
 what had become of him. This is probably perfectly 
 false. I am bound to believe that everything he says 
 and does is false ; and I have no doubt that they met 
 in New York, and that Adrian told him his reason 
 whatever it was for not coming back. I don't 
 know how to relate what took place between Mr. 
 Caliph and me ; we had an extraordinary scene, a 
 scene that gave my nerves the shaking from which 
 they have not recovered. He is truly a most amaz- 
 ing personage. He is altogether beyond me ; I don't 
 pretend to fathom him. To say that he has no moral 
 sense is nothing. I have seen other people who have 
 had no moral sense; but I have seen no one with 
 that impudence, that cynicism, that remorseless cru- 
 elty. We had a tremendous encounter; I thank 
 heaven that strength was given me ! When I found 
 myself face to face with him, and it came over me 
 that, blooming there in his diabolical assurance, it 
 was he he with his smiles, his bows, his gorgeous 
 lontonniere, the wonderful air he has of being anointed 
 and gilded he that had ruined my poor Eunice, 
 
90 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 who grew whiter than ever as he approached : when 
 I felt all this my blood began to tingle, and if I were 
 only a handsome woman I might believe that my 
 eyes shone like those of an avenging angel. He 
 was as fresh as a day in June, enormous, and more 
 than ever like Haroun-al-Raschid. I asked him to 
 take a walk with me; and just for an instant, before 
 accepting, he looked at me, as the French say, in the 
 white of the eyes. But he pretended to be delighted, 
 and we strolled away together to the path that leads 
 down to the river. It was difficult to get away from 
 the people they were all over the place ; but I 
 made him go so far that at the end of ten minutes 
 we were virtually alone together. It was delicious 
 to see how he hated it. It was then that I asked 
 him what had become of his step-brother, and that 
 he professed, as I have said, the utmost ignorance 
 of Adrian's whereabouts. I hated him ; it was odious 
 to me to be so close to him ; yet I could have endured 
 this for hours in order to make him feel that I de- 
 spised him. To make him feel it without saying it 
 there was an inspiration in that idea ; but it is very 
 possible that it made me look more like a demon 
 than like the angel I just mentioned. I told him in 
 a moment, abruptly, that his step-brother would do 
 well to remain away altogether in future ; it was a 
 farce his pretending to make my cousin reconsider 
 her answer. 
 
 " Why, then, did she ask him to come down here ? " 
 He launched this inquiry with confidence. 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 91 
 
 " Because she thought it would be pleasant to have 
 a man in the house ; and Mr. Frank is such a harm- 
 less, discreet, accommodating one." 
 
 " Why, then, do you object to his coming back ? " 
 
 He had made me contradict myself a little, and of 
 course he enjoyed that. I was confused confused 
 by my agitation ; and I made the matter worse. I 
 was furious that Eunice had made me promise not to 
 speak, and my anger blinded me, as great anger always 
 does, save in organizations as fine as Mr. Caliph's. 
 
 " Because Eunice is in no condition to have com- 
 pany. She is very ill ; you can see for yourself." 
 
 "Very ill? with a garden-party and a band of 
 music ! Why, then, did she invite us all ? " 
 
 " Because she is a little crazy, I think." 
 
 " You are very consistent ! " he cried with a laugh. 
 " I know people who think every one crazy but them- 
 selves. I have had occasion to talk business with 
 her several times of late, and I find her mind as clear 
 as a belL" 
 
 " I wonder if you will allow me to say that you 
 talk business too much ? Let me give you a word of 
 advice : wind up her affairs at once without any more 
 procrastination, and place them in her own hands. 
 She is very nervous ; she knows this ought to have 
 been done already. I recommend you strongly to 
 make an end of the matter." 
 
 I had no idea I could be so insolent, even in con- 
 versation with a swindler. I confess I did n't do it 
 so well as I might, for my voice trembled perceptibly 
 
92 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 in the midst of my efforts to be calm. He had 
 picked up two or three stones and was tossing them 
 into the river, making them skim the surface for a 
 long distance. He held one poised a moment, turn- 
 ing his eye askance on me ; then he let it fly, and it 
 danced for a hundred yards. I wondered whether in 
 what I had just said I broke my vow to Eunice ; and 
 it seemed to me that I didn't, inasmuch as I ap- 
 peared to assume that no irreparable wrong had been 
 done her. 
 
 " Do you wish yourself to get control of her prop- 
 erty ? " Mr. Caliph inquired, after he had made his 
 stone skim. It was magnificently said, far better 
 than anything I could do ; and I think I answered it 
 though it made my heart beat fast almost with 
 a smile of applause. 
 
 " Are n't you afraid ? " I asked in a moment, very 
 gently. 
 
 " Afraid of what, of you ? " 
 
 "Afraid of justice of Eunice's friends ? " 
 
 "That means you, of course. Yes, I am very 
 much afraid. When was a man not, in the presence 
 of a clever woman ? " 
 
 " I am clever ; but I am not clever enough. If I 
 were, you should have no doubt of it." 
 
 He folded his arms as he stood there before me, 
 looking at me in that way I have mentioned more 
 than once like a genial Mephistopheles. " I must 
 repeat what I have already told you, that I wish I had 
 known you ten years ago ! " 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 93 
 
 " How you must hate me to say that ! " I exclaimed. 
 "That's some comfort, just a little your hating 
 me." 
 
 " I can't tell you how it makes me feel to see you 
 so indiscreet," he went on, as if he had not heard me. 
 "Ah, my dear lady, don't meddle a woman like 
 you ! Think of the bad taste of it." 
 
 " It 's bad if you like ; but yours is far worse." 
 
 " Mine ! What do you know about mine ? What 
 do you know about me? See how superficial it 
 makes you." He paused a moment, smiling almost 
 compassionately ; and then he said, with an abrupt 
 change of tone and manner, as if our conversation 
 wearied him and he wished to sum up and return to 
 the house, " See that she marries Adrian ; that 's all 
 you have to do ! " 
 
 " That 's a beautiful idea of yours ! You know you 
 don't believe in it yourself!" These words broke 
 from me as he turned away, and we ascended the hill 
 together. 
 
 " It 's the only thing I believe in," he answered, 
 very gravely. 
 
 " What a pity for you that your brother does n't ! 
 For he doesn't I persist in that!" I said this 
 because it seemed to me just then to be the thing I 
 could think of that would exasperate him most. The 
 event proved I was right. 
 
 He stopped short in the path gave me a very 
 bad look. " Do you want him for yourself ? Have 
 you been making love to him ? " 
 
94 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 "Ah, Mr. Caliph, for a man who talks about taste ! " 
 I answered. 
 
 " Taste be damned ! " cried Mr. Caliph, as we went 
 on again. 
 
 " That 's quite my idea ! " He broke into an un- 
 expected laugh, as if I had said something very 
 amusing, and we proceeded in silence to the top of 
 the hill. Then I suddenly said to him, as we emerged 
 upon the lawn, " Are n't you really a little afraid ? " 
 
 He stopped again, looking toward the house and 
 at the brilliant groups with which the lawn was 
 covered. We had lost the music, but we began to 
 hear it again. "Afraid ? of course I am ! I 'in im- 
 mensely afraid. It comes over me in such a scene 
 as this. But I don't see what good it does you to 
 know." 
 
 " It makes me rather happy." That was a fib ; for 
 it did n't, somehow, when he looked and talked in 
 that way. He has an absolutely bottomless power 
 of mockery; and really, absurd as it appears, for 
 that instant I had a feeling that it was quite mag- 
 nanimous of him not to let me know what he thought 
 of my idiotic attempt to frighten him. He feels strong 
 and safe somehow, somewhere ; but I can't discover 
 why he should, inasmuch as he certainly does n't 
 know Eunice's secret, and it is only her state of mind 
 that gives him impunity. He believes her to be 
 merely credulous ; convinced by his specious argu- 
 ments that everything will be right in a few months ; 
 a little nervous, possibly to justify my account 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 95 
 
 of her but for the present, at least, completely at 
 his mercy. The present, of course, is only what now 
 concerns him ; for the future he has invented Adrian 
 Frank. How he clings to this invention was proved 
 by the last words he said to me before we separated 
 on the lawn ; they almost indicate that he has a 
 conscience, and this is so extraordinary 
 
 "She must marry Adrian! She must marry 
 Adrian!" 
 
 With this he turned away and went to talk to 
 various people whom he knew. He talked to every 
 one ; diffused his genial influence all over the place, 
 and contributed greatly to the brilliancy of the occa- 
 sion. I had n't therefore the comfort of feeling that 
 Mrs. Ermine was more of a waterspout than usual, 
 when she said to me afterwards that Mr. Caliph was 
 a man to adore, and that the party would have been 
 quite " ordinary " without him. " I mean in compari- 
 son, you know." And then she said to me suddenly, 
 with her blank impertinence: "Why don't you set 
 your cap at him ? I should think you would !" 
 
 " Is it possible you have not observed my frantic 
 efforts to captivate him ? " I answered. " Did n't you 
 notice how I drew him away and made him walk 
 with me by the river ? It 's too soon to say, but I 
 really think I am gaining ground." For so mild a 
 pleasure it really pays to mystify Mrs. Ermine ! I 
 kept away from Eunice till almost every one had 
 gone. I knew that she would look at me in a certain 
 way, and I did n't wish to meet her eyes. I have a 
 
96 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 bad conscience, for turn it as I would I had broken 
 my vow. Mr. Caliph went away without my meet- 
 ing him again ; but I saw that half an hour before he 
 left he strolled to a distance with Eunice. I instantly 
 guessed what his business was ; he had made up his 
 mind to present to her directly, and in person, the 
 question of her marrying his step-brother. What a 
 happy inspiration, and what a well-selected occasion ! 
 When she came back I saw that she had been crying, 
 though I imagine no one else did. I know the signs 
 of her tears, even when she has checked them as 
 quickly as she must have done to-day. Whatever 
 it was that had passed between them, it diverted her 
 from looking at me, when we were alone together, in 
 that way I was afraid of. Mrs. Ermine is prolific ; 
 there is no end to the images that succeed each other 
 in her mind. Late in the evening, after the last car- 
 riage had rolled away, we went up the staircase to- 
 gether, and at the top she detained me a moment. 
 
 " I have been thinking it over, and I am afraid that 
 there is no chance for you. I have reason to believe 
 that he proposed to-day to Eunice ! " 
 
 August 19. Eunice is very ill, as I was sure she 
 would be, after the effort of her horrible festival. 
 She kept going for three days more ; then she broke 
 down completely, and for a week now she has been 
 in bed. I have had no time to write, for I have been 
 constantly with her in alternation with Mrs. Ermine. 
 Mrs. Ermine was about to leave us after the garden- 
 party, but when Eunice gave up she announced that 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 97 
 
 she would stay and take care of her. Eunice tells 
 me that she is a good nurse, except that she talks too 
 much, and of course she gives me a chance to rest. 
 Eunice's condition is strange ; she has no fever, but 
 her life seems to have ebbed away. She lies with her 
 eyes shut, perfectly conscious, answering when she 
 is spoken to, but immersed in absolute rest. It is 
 as if she had had some terrible strain or fatigue, 
 and wished to steep herself in oblivion. I am not 
 anxious about her am much less frightened than 
 Mrs. Ermine or the doctor, to whom she is appar- 
 ently dying of weakness. I tell the doctor I under- 
 stand her condition I have seen her so before. It 
 will last probably a month, and then she will slowly 
 pull herself together. The poor man accepts this 
 theory for want of a better, and evidently depends 
 upon me to see her through, as he says. Mrs. 
 Ermine wishes to send for one of the great men from 
 New York, but I have opposed this idea, and shall 
 continue to oppose it. There is (to my mind) a kind 
 of cruelty in exhibiting the poor girl to more people 
 than are absolutely necessary. The dullest of them 
 would see that she is in love. The seat of her illness 
 is in her mind, in her soul, and no rude hands must 
 touch her there. She herself has protested she 
 has murmured a prayer that she may be forced to 
 see no one else. " I only want to be left alone to 
 be left alone." So we leave her alone that is, we 
 simply watch and wait. She will recover people 
 don't die of these things ; she will live to suffer 
 
 7 
 
98 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 to suffer always. I am tired to-night, but Mrs. 
 Ermine is with her, and I shall not be wanted till 
 morning ; therefore, before I lie down, I will repair 
 in these remarkable pages a serious omission. I 
 scarcely know why I should have written all this, 
 except that the history of things interests me, and I 
 find that it is even a greater pleasure to write it than 
 to read it. If what I have committed to this little 
 book hitherto has not been profitless, I must make a 
 note of an incident which I think more curious than 
 any of the scenes I have described. 
 
 Adrian Frank reappeared the day after the garden- 
 party late in the afternoon, while I sat in the ve- 
 randah and watched the sunset, and Eunice strolled 
 down to the river with Mrs. Ermine. I had heard 
 no sound of wheels, and there was no evidence of a 
 vehicle or of luggage. He had not come through the 
 house, but walked round it from the front, having 
 apparently been told by one of the servants that we 
 were in the grounds. On seeing me he stopped, hesi- 
 tated a moment, then came up to the steps, shook 
 hands in silence, seated himself near me and looked 
 at me through the dusk. This was all tolerably 
 mysterious, and it was even more so after he had 
 explained a little. I told him that he was a " day 
 after the fair ; " that he had been considerably missed, 
 and even that he was slightly wanting in respect to 
 Eunice. Since he had absented himself from her 
 party, it was not quite delicate to assume that she 
 was ready to receive him at his own time. I don't 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 99 
 
 know what made me so truculent as if there were 
 any danger of his having really not considered us, or 
 his lacking a good reason. It was simply, I think, 
 that my talk with Mr. Caliph the evening before had 
 made me so much bad blood, and left me in a savage 
 mood. Mr. Frank answered that he had not stayed 
 away by accident he had stayed away on purpose ; 
 he had been for several days at Saratoga, and on re- 
 turning to Cornerville had taken quarters at the inn 
 in the village. He had no intention of presuming 
 further on Eunice's hospitality, and had walked over 
 from the hotel simply to bid us good-evening and 
 give an account of himself. 
 
 " My dear Mr. Frank, your account is not clear ! " I 
 said, laughing. " What in the world were you doing 
 at Saratoga ? " I must add that his humility had 
 completely disarmed me ; I was ashamed of the bru- 
 tality with which I had received him, and convinced 
 afresh that he was the best fellow in the world. 
 
 "What was I doing at Saratoga? I was trying 
 hard to forget you ! " 
 
 This was Mr. Frank's rejoinder ; and I give it ex- 
 actly as he uttered it ; or rather not exactly, inasmuch 
 as I cannot give the tone the quick, startling 
 tremor of his voice. But those are the words with 
 which he answered my superficially-intended ques- 
 tion. I saw in a moment that he meant a great deal 
 by them I became aware that we were suddenly 
 in deep waters; that he was, at least,, and that he 
 was trying to draw me into the stream. My surprise 
 
100 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 was immense, complete ; I had absolutely not sus- 
 pected what he went on to say to me. He said 
 many things but I need n't write them here. It 
 is not in detail that I see the propriety of narrating 
 this incident ; I suppose a woman may be trusted to 
 remember the form of such assurances. Let me 
 simply say that the poor dear young man has an 
 idea that he wants to marry me. For a moment, 
 just a moment I thought he was jesting; then 
 I saw, in the twilight, that he was pale with seri- 
 ousness. He is perfectly sincere. It is strange, but 
 it is real, and, moreover, it is his own affair. For 
 myself, when I have said I was amazed, I have said 
 everything ; en Ute-a-iSte with myself I need n't blush 
 and protest. I was not in the least annoyed or 
 alarmed ; I was filled with kindness and consideration, 
 and I was extremely interested. He talked to me for a 
 quarter of an hour ; it seemed a very long time. I 
 asked him to go away; not to wait till Eunice and 
 Mrs. Ermine should come back. Of course I refused 
 him, by the way. 
 
 It was the last thing I was expecting at this 
 time of day, and it gave me a great deal to think 
 of. I lay awake that night ; I found I was more agi- 
 tated than I supposed, and all sorts of visions came 
 and went in my head. I shall not marry the young 
 Adrian : I am bound to say thaj; vision was not one 
 of them ; but as I thought over what he had said to 
 me it became more clear, more conceivable. I began 
 now to be a little surprised at my surprise. It ap- 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 101 
 
 pears that I have had the honor to please him from 
 the first ; when he began to come to see us it was 
 not for Eunice, it was for me. He made a general 
 confession on this subject. He was afraid of me ; he 
 thought me proud, sarcastic, cold, a hundred horrid 
 things ; it did n't seem to him possible that we should 
 ever be on a footing of familiarity which would 
 enable him to propose to me. He regarded me, in 
 short, as unattainable, out of the question, and made 
 up his mind to admire me forever in silence. (In 
 plain English, I suppose, he thought I was too old, and 
 he has simply got used to the difference in our years.) 
 But he wished to be near me, to see me, and hear me 
 (I am really writing more details than seem worth 
 while) ; so that when his step-brother recommended 
 him to try and marry Eunice, he jumped at the oppor- 
 tunity to make good his place. This situation recon- 
 ciled everything. He could oblige his brother, he 
 could pay a high compliment to my cousin, and he 
 could see me every day or two. He was convinced 
 from the first that he was in no danger ; he was mor- 
 ally sure that Eunice would never smile upon his 
 suit. He didn't know why, and he doesn't know 
 why yet; it was only an instinct. That suit was 
 avowedly perfunctory; still the young Adrian has 
 been a great comedian. He assured me that if he 
 had proved to be wrong, and Eunice had suddenly 
 accepted him, he would have gone with her to the 
 altar and made her an excellent husband; for he 
 would have acquired in this manner the certainty of 
 
102 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 seeing for the rest of his life a great deal of ine ! To 
 think of one's possessing, all unexpected, this miracu- 
 lous influence ! When he came down here, after 
 Eunice had refused him, it was simply for. the pleas- 
 ure of living in the house with me ; from that mo- 
 ment there was no comedy everything was clear 
 and comfortable betwixt him and Eunice. I asked 
 him if he meant by this that she knew of the senti- 
 ments he entertained for her companion, and he an- 
 swered that he had never breathed a word on this sub- 
 ject, and flattered himself that lie had kept the thing 
 dark. He had no reason to believe that she guessed 
 his motives, and I may add that I have none either ; 
 they are altogether too extraordinary ! As I have 
 said, it was simply time, and the privilege of seeing 
 more of me, that had dispelled his hesitation. I 
 did n't reason with him, and though once I was fairly 
 enlightened I gave him the most respectful attention, 
 I did n't appear to consider his request too. seriously. 
 But I did touch upon the fact that I am five or six 
 years older than he : I suppose I need n't mention that 
 it was not in a spirit of coquetry. His rejeinder was 
 very gallant; but it belongs to the class of details. 
 He is really in love, heaven forgive him ! but I 
 shall not marry him. How strange are the passions 
 of men! 
 
 I saw Mr. Frank the next day ; I had given him 
 leave to come back at noon. He joined me in the 
 grounds, where as usual I had set up my easel. I 
 left it to his discretion to call first at the house and 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 103 
 
 explain both his absence and his presence to Eunice 
 and Mrs. Ermine the latter especially ignorant 
 as yet of his visit the night before, of which I had not 
 spoken to them. He sat down beside me on a garden- 
 chair and watched me as I went on with my work. 
 For half an hour very few words passed between us ; 
 I felt that he was happy to sit there, to be near me, 
 to see me strange as it seems! and for myself 
 tli ere was a certain sweetness in knowing it, though 
 it was the sweetness of charity, not of elation or tri- 
 umph. He must have seen I was only pretending to 
 paint if he followed my brush, which I suppose he 
 did n't. My mind was full of a determination I had 
 arrived at after many waverings in the hours of the 
 night. It had come to me toward morning as a kind 
 of inspiration. I could never marry him, but was 
 there not some way in which I could utilize his de- 
 votion ? At the present moment, only forty-eight 
 hours later, it seems strange, unreal, almost gro- 
 tesque ; but for ten minutes I thought I saw the light. 
 As we sat there under the great trees, in the still- 
 ness of the noon, I suddenly turned and said to 
 him 
 
 "I thank you for everything you have told me; 
 it gives me very nearly all the pleasure you could 
 wish. I believe in you; I accept every assurance 
 of your devotion. I think that devotion is capable 
 of going very far ; and I am going to put it to a tre- 
 mendous test, one of the greatest, probably, to which 
 a man was ever subjected." 
 
104 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 He stared, leaning forward, with his hands on his 
 knees. " Any test any test " he murmured. 
 
 " Don't give up Eunice, then ; make another trial ; 
 I wish her to marry you ! " 
 
 My words may have sounded like an atrocious 
 joke, but they represented for me a great deal of hope 
 and cheer. They brought a deep blush into Adrian 
 Frank's face ; he winced a little, as if he had been 
 struck by a hand whose blow he could not return, 
 and the tears suddenly started to his eyes. "Oh, 
 Miss Condit!" he exclaimed. 
 
 What I saw before me was bright and definite ; his 
 distress seemed to me no obstacle, and I went on with 
 a serenity of which I longed to make him perceive 
 the underlying support. " Of course what I say seems 
 to you like a deliberate insult ; but nothing would in- 
 duce me to give you pain if it were possible to spare 
 you. But it is n't possible, my dear friend ; it is n't 
 possible. There is pain for you in the best thing I 
 can say to you ; there are situations in life in which 
 we can only accept our pain. I can never marry 
 you ; I shall never marry any one. I am an old maid, 
 and how can an old maid have a husband ? I will be 
 your friend, your sister, your brother, your mother, 
 but I will never be your wife. I should like im- 
 mensely to be your brother ; for I don't like the 
 brother you have got, and I think you deserve a 
 better one. I believe, as I tell you, in everything you 
 have said to me in your affection, your tenderness, 
 your honesty, the full consideration you have given 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 105 
 
 to the whole matter. I am happier and richer for 
 knowing it all ; and I can assure you that it gives 
 something to life which life did n't have before. We 
 shall be good friends, dear friends, always, whatever 
 happens. But I can't be your wife I want you 
 for some one else. You will say I have changed 
 that I ought to have spoken in this way three months 
 ago. But I haven't changed it is circumstances 
 that have changed. I see reasons for your marrying 
 my cousin that I did n't see then. I can't say that 
 she will listen to you now, any more than she did 
 then ; I don't speak of her ; I speak only of you and of 
 myself. I wish you to make another attempt ; and I 
 wish you to make it, this time, with my full confi- 
 dence and support. Moreover, I attach a condition to 
 it, a condition I will tell you presently. Do you 
 think me slightly demented, malignantly perverse, 
 atrociously cruel ? If you could see the bottom of my 
 heart you would find something there which, I think, 
 would almost give you joy. To ask you to do some- 
 thing you don't want to do as a substitute for some- 
 thing you desire, and to attach to the hard achieve- 
 ment a condition which will require a good deal of 
 thinking of and will certainly make it harder you 
 may well believe I have some extraordinary reason 
 for taking such a line as this. For remember, to 
 begin with, that I can never marry you." 
 
 " Never never never ? " 
 
 " Never, never, never." 
 
 " And what is your extraordinary reason ? " 
 
106 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 " Simply that I wish Eunice to have your protec- 
 tion, your kindness, your fortune." 
 
 " My fortune ? " 
 
 " She has lost her own. She will be poor." 
 
 " Pray, how has she lost it ? " the poor fellow asked, 
 beginning to frown, and more and more bewildered. 
 
 "I can't tell you that, and you must never ask. 
 But the fact is certain. The greater part of her 
 property has gone ; she has known it for some little 
 time." 
 
 " For some little time ? Why, she never showed 
 any change." 
 
 " You never saw it, that was all ! You were think- 
 ing of me," and I believe I accompanied this remark 
 with a smile a smile which was most inconsiderate, 
 for it could only mystify him more. 
 
 I think at first he scarcely believed me. " What a 
 singular time to choose to give a large party ! " he ex- 
 claimed, looking at me with eyes quite unlike his old 
 or rather his young ones; eyes that, instead of 
 overlooking half the things before them (which was 
 their former habit), tried to see a great deal more in 
 rny face, in my words, than was visible on the surface. 
 I don't know what poor Adrian Frank saw I shall 
 never know all that he saw. 
 
 "I agree with you that it was a very singular 
 time," I said. "You don't understand me you 
 can't I don't expect you to ; " I went on. " That 
 is what I mean by devotion, and that is the kind of 
 appeal I make to you : to take me on trust, to act 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 107 
 
 in the dark, to do something simply because I wish 
 it." 
 
 He looked at me aa_if he would fathom the depths 
 of my soul, and my soul had never seemed to myself 
 so deep. " To marry your cousin, that 's all ? " he 
 said, with a strange little laugh. 
 
 " Oh, no, it 's not all : to be very kind to her as 
 well." 
 
 " To give her plenty of money, above all ? " 
 
 " You make me feel very ridiculous ; but I should 
 not make this request of you if you had not a fortune." 
 
 " She can have my money without marrying me." 
 
 " That 's absurd. How could she take your 
 money ? " 
 
 " How, then, can she take me ? " 
 
 " That 's exactly what I wish to see. I told you 
 with my own lips, weeks ago, that she would only 
 marry a man she should love ; and I may seem to 
 contradict myself in taking up now a supposition 
 so different. But, as I tell you, everything has 
 changed." 
 
 " You think her capable, in other words, of marry- 
 ing for money." 
 
 " For money ? Is your money all there is of you ? 
 Is there a better fellow than you is there a more 
 perfect gentleman ? " 
 
 He turned away his face at this, leaned it in his 
 hands, and groaned. I pitied him, but I wonder now 
 that I should n't have pitied him more ; that my pity 
 should not have checked me. But I was too full of 
 
108 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 my idea. " It 's like a fate," he murmured ; " first 
 my brother, and then you. I can't understand." 
 
 "Yes, I know your brother wants it wants it 
 now more than ever. But I don't care what your 
 brother wants ; and my idea is entirely independent 
 of his. I have not the least conviction that you will 
 succeed at first any better than you have done already. 
 But it may be only a question of time, if you will 
 wait and watch, and let me help you. You know 
 you asked me to help you before, and then I would n't. 
 But I repeat it again and again, at present everything 
 is changed. Let me wait with you, let me watch 
 with you. If you succeed, you will be very dear to 
 me ; if you fail, you will be still more so. You see 
 it 's an act of devotion, if there ever was one. I am 
 quite aware that I ask of you something unprece- 
 dented and extraordinary. Oh, it may easily be too 
 much for you. I can only put it before you that 's 
 all ; and as I say, I can help you. You will both be 
 my children I shall be near you always. If you 
 can't marry me, perhaps you will make up your mind 
 that this is the next best thing. You know you said 
 that last night, yourself." 
 
 He had begun to listen to me a little, as if he were 
 being persuaded. " Of course, I should let her know 
 that I love you." 
 
 " She is capable of saying that you can't love me 
 more than she does." 
 
 " I don't believe she is capable of saying any such 
 folly. But we shall see." 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 109 
 
 "Yes; but not to-day, not to-morrow. Not at 
 all for the present. You must wait a great many 
 months." 
 
 " I will wait as long as you please." 
 
 " And you must n't say a word to me of the kind 
 you said last night." 
 
 " Is that your condition ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ; my condition is a very different matter, 
 and very difficult. It will probably spoil everything." 
 
 " Please, then, let me hear it at once." 
 
 " It is very hard for me to mention it ; you must 
 give me time." I turned back to my little easel and 
 began to daub again ; but I think my hand trembled, 
 for my heart was beating fast. There was a silence 
 of many moments ; I could n't make up my mind to 
 speak. 
 
 " How in the world has she lost her money ? " Mr. 
 Frank asked, abruptly, as if the question had just 
 come into his mind. " Has n't my brother the charge 
 of her affairs ? " 
 
 " Mr. Caliph is her trustee. I can't tell you how 
 the losses have occurred." 
 
 He got up quickly. " Do you mean that they have 
 occurred through him ? " 
 
 I looked up at him, and there was something in 
 his face which made me leave my work and rise also. 
 " I will tell you my condition now," I said. " It is 
 that you should ask no questions not one ! " This 
 was not what I had had in my mind ; but I had not 
 courage for more, and this had to serve. 
 
110 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 He had turned very pale, and I laid my hand on 
 his arm, while he looked at me as if he wished to 
 wrest my secret out of my eyes. My secret, I call it, 
 by courtesy ; God knows I had come terribly near 
 telling it. God will forgive me, but Eunice probably 
 will not. Had I broken my vow, or had I kept it ? 
 I asked myself this, and the answer, so far as I read 
 it in Mr. Frank's eyes, was not reassuring. I dreaded 
 his next question ; but when it came it was not what 
 I had expected. Something violent took place in his 
 own mind something I could n't follow. 
 
 "If I do what you ask me, what will be my 
 reward ? " 
 
 " You will make me very happy." 
 
 " And what shall I make your cousin ? God 
 help us!" 
 
 " Less wretched than she is to-day." 
 
 " Is she ' wretched ' ? " he asked, frowning as he did 
 before a most distressing change in his fair coun- 
 tenance. 
 
 "Ah, when I think that I have to tell you that 
 that you have never noticed it I despair!" I ex- 
 claimed with a laugh. 
 
 I had laid my hand on his arm, and he placed his 
 right hand upon it, holding it there. He kept it 
 a moment in his grasp, and then he said, "Don't 
 despair ! " 
 
 "Promise me to wait," I answered. "Everything 
 is in your waiting." 
 
 "I promise you!" After which he asked me to 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. Ill 
 
 kiss him, and I did so, on the lips. It was as if he were 
 starting on a journey leaving me for a long time. 
 
 " Will you come when I send for you ? " I asked. 
 
 "I adore you!" he said; and he turned quickly 
 away, to leave the place without going near the 
 house. I watched him, and in a moment he was 
 gone. He has not reappeared ; and when I found, 
 at lunch, that neither Eunice nor Mrs. Ermine alluded 
 to his visit, I determined to keep the matter to my- 
 self. I said nothing about it, and up to the moment 
 Eunice was taken ill the next evening he was 
 not mentioned between us. I believe Mrs. Ermine 
 more than once gave herself up to wonder as to his 
 whereabouts, and declared that he had not the perfect 
 manners of his step-brother, who was a religious ob- 
 server of the convenances ; but I think I managed to 
 listen without confusion. Nevertheless, I had a bad 
 conscience, and I have it still It throbs a good deal 
 as I sit there with Eunice in her darkened room. I 
 have given her away ; I have broken my vow. But 
 what I wrote above is not true ; she will forgive me ! 
 I sat at my easel for an hour after Mr. Frank left me, 
 and then suddenly I found that I had cured myself 
 of my folly by giving it out. It was the result of a 
 sudden passion of desire to do something for Eunice. 
 Passion is blind, and when I opened my eyes I saw 
 ten thousand difficulties ; that is, I saw one, which 
 contained all the rest. That evening I wrote to Mr. 
 Frank, to his New York address, to tell him that I 
 had had a fit of madness, and that it had passed away; 
 
112 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 but that I was sorry to say it was not any more pos- 
 sible for ine to marry him. I have had no answer to 
 this letter ; but what answer can he make to that last 
 declaration ? He will continue to adore me. How 
 strange are the passions of men ! 
 
 New York, November 20. I have been silent 
 for three months, for good reasons. Eunice was ill 
 for many weeks, but there was never a moment when 
 I was really alarmed about her ; 1 knew she would 
 recover. In the last days of October she was strong 
 enough to be brought up to town, where she had busi- 
 ness to transact, and now she is almost herself again. 
 I say almost, advisedly ; for she will never be herself, 
 her old, sweet, trustful self, as far as I am con- 
 cerned. She has simply not forgiven me ! Strange 
 things have happened things that I did n't dare to 
 consider too closely, lest I should not forgive myself. 
 Eunice is in complete possession of her property ! 
 Mr. Caliph has made over to her everything every- 
 thing that had passed away ; everything of which, 
 three months ago, he could give no account whatever. 
 He was with her in the country for a long day before 
 we came up to town (during which I took care not 
 to meet her), .and after our return he was in and out 
 of this house repeatedly. I once asked Eunice what 
 he had to say to her, and she answered that he was 
 " explaining." A day or two later she told me that 
 he had given a complete account of her affairs ; every- 
 thing was in order ; she had been wrong in what she 
 told me before. Beyond this little statement, how- 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 113 
 
 ever, she did no further penance for the impression 
 she had given of Mr. Caliph's earlier conduct. She 
 does n't yet know what to think ; she only feels that 
 if she has recovered her property there has been some 
 interference ; and she traces, or at least imputes, such 
 interference to me. If I have interfered, I have broken 
 my vow ; and for this, as I say, the gentle creature 
 can't forgive me. If the passions of men are strange, 
 the passions of women are stranger still ! It was 
 sweeter for her to suffer at Mr. Caliph's hands than 
 to receive her simple dues from them. She looks at 
 me askance, and her coldness shows through a con- 
 scientious effort not to let me see the change in her 
 feeling. Then she is puzzled and mystified ; she 
 can't tell what has happened, or how and why it has 
 happened. She has waked up from her illness into 
 a different world a world in which Mr. Caliph's 
 accounts were correct after all; in which, with the 
 washing away of his stains, the color has been quite 
 washed out of his rich physiognomy. She vaguely 
 feels that a sacrifice, a great effort of some kind, 
 has been made for her, whereas her plan of life 
 was to make the sacrifices and efforts herself. Yet 
 she asks me no questions ; the property is her right, 
 after all, and I think there are certain things she is 
 afraid to know. But I am more afraid than she, for 
 it comes over me that a great sacrifice has indeed 
 been made. I have not seen Adrian Frank since he 
 parted from me under the trees three months ago. 
 He has gone to Europe, and the day before he left I 
 
 8 
 
114 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 got a note from him. It contained only these words : 
 " When you send for me I will come. I am wait- 
 ing, as you told me." It is my belief that up to the 
 moment I spoke of Eunice's loss of money and re- 
 quested him to ask no questions, he had not definitely 
 suspected his noble kinsman, but that my words kin- 
 dled a train that lay all ready. He went away then 
 to his shame, to the intolerable weight of it, and to 
 heaven knows what sickening explanations with his 
 step-brother ! That gentleman has a still more brill- 
 iant bloom ; he looks to my mind exactly as people 
 look who have accepted a sacrifice ; and he has n't 
 had another word to say about Eunice's marrying Mr. 
 Adrian Frank. Mrs. Ermine sticks to her idea that 
 Mr. Caliph and Eunice will make a match ; but my 
 belief is that Eunice is cured. Oh, yes, she is cured ! 
 But I have done more than I meant to do, and I have 
 not done it as I meant to do it ; and I am very weary, 
 and I shall write no more. 
 
 November 27. Oh, yes, Eunice is cured ! And that 
 is what she has not forgiven me. Mr. Caliph told 
 her yesterday that Mr. Frank meant to spend the 
 winter in Rome. 
 
 December 3, I have decided to return to Europe, and 
 have written about my apartment in Rome. I shall 
 leave New York, if possible, on the 10th. Eunice tells 
 me she can easily believe I shall be happier there. 
 
 December 7. I must note something I had the 
 satisfaction to-day to say to Mr. Caliph. He has not 
 been here for three weeks, but this afternoon he came 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 115 
 
 to call He is no longer the trustee ; he is only the 
 visitor. I was alone in the library, into which he was 
 ushered; and it was ten minutes before Eunice ap- 
 peared. We had some talk, though my disgust for 
 him is now unspeakable. At first it was of a very 
 perfunctory kind; but suddenly he said, with more 
 than his old impudence, " That was a most extraor- 
 dinary interview of ours, at Cornerville ! " I was sur- 
 prised at his saying only this, for I expected him to 
 take his revenge on me by some means or other for 
 having put his brother on the scent of his misdeeds. 
 I can only account for his silence on that subject by 
 the supposition that Mr. Frank has been able to 
 extract from him some pledge that I shall not be 
 molested. He was, however, such an image of un- 
 righteous success that the sight of him filled me with 
 gall, and I tried to think of something which would 
 make him smart. 
 
 " I don't know what you have done, nor how you 
 have done it," I said ; " but you took a very round- 
 about way to arrive at certain ends. There was a 
 time when you might have married Eunice." 
 
 It was of course nothing new that we were frank 
 with each other, and he only repeated, smiling, " Mar- 
 ried Eunice ? " 
 
 " She was very much in love with you last spring." 
 
 " Very much in love with me ? " 
 
 " Oh, it 's over now. Can't you imagine that ? 
 She's cured." 
 
 He broke into a laugh, but I felt I had startled him. 
 
116 THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 
 
 " You are the most delightful woman ! " he cried. 
 
 " Think how much simpler it would have been 
 I mean originally, when things were right, if they 
 ever were right. Don't you see my point ? But now 
 it 's too late. She has seen you when you were not 
 on show. I assure you she is cured ! " 
 
 At this moment Eunice came in, and just after- 
 wards I left the room. I am sure it was a revelation, 
 and that I have given him a mauvais quart (Tlieure. 
 
 Rome, February 23. When I came back to this 
 dear place Adrian Frank was not here, and I learned 
 that he had gone to Sicily. A week ago I wrote to 
 him : " You said you would come if I should send 
 for you. I should be glad if you would come now." 
 Last evening he appeared, and I told him that I could 
 no longer endure my suspense in regard to a certain 
 subject. Would he kindly inform me what he had 
 done in New York after he left me under the trees at 
 Cornerville ? Of what sacrifice had he been guilty ; 
 to what high generosity terrible to me to think 
 of had he committed himself? He would tell me 
 very little ; but he is almost a poor man. He has 
 just enough income to live in Italy. 
 
 May 9. Mrs. Ermine has taken it into her head 
 to write to me. I have heard from her three times ; 
 and in her last letter, received yesterday, she returns 
 to her old refrain that Eunice and Mr. Caliph will 
 soon be united. I don't know what may be going 
 on; but can it be possible that I put it into his 
 head ? Truly, I have a felicitous touch ! 
 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN. 117 
 
 May 15. I told Adrian yesterday that I would 
 marry him if ever Eunice should marry Mr. Caliph. 
 It was the first time I had mentioned his step- 
 brother's name to him since the explanation I had 
 attempted to have with him after he came back to 
 Eome ; and he evidently did n't like it at all 
 
 In the Tyrol, August. I sent Mrs. Ermine a 
 little water-color in return for her last letter, for I 
 can't write to her, and that is easier. She now writes 
 me again, in order to get another water-color. She 
 speaks of course of Eunice and Mr. Caliph, and for 
 the first time there appears a certain reality in what 
 she says. She complains that Eunice is very slow in 
 coming to the point, and relates that poor Mr. Caliph, 
 who has taken her into his confidence, seems at times 
 almost to despair. Nothing would suit him better 
 of course than to appropriate two fortunes : two are 
 so much better than one. But however much he 
 may have explained, he can hardly have explained 
 everything. Adrian Frank is in Scotland ; in writing 
 to him three days ago I had occasion to repeat that I 
 will marry him on the day on which a certain other 
 marriage takes place. In that way I am safe. I 
 shall send another water-color to Mrs. Ermine. 
 Water-colors or no, Eunice does n't write to me. It 
 is clear that she has n't forgiven me ! She regards 
 me as perjured ; and of course I am. Perhaps she 
 will marry him after alL 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 PART L 
 
 IT is well known that there are few sights in the 
 world more brilliant than the main avenues of Hyde 
 Park of a tine afternoon in June. This was quite the 
 opinion of two persons, who on a beautiful day at 
 the beginning of that month, four years ago, had 
 established themselves under the great trees in a 
 couple of iron chairs (the big ones with arms, for 
 which, if I mistake not, you pay twopence), and sat 
 there with the slow procession of the Drive behind 
 them, while their faces were turned to the more vivid 
 agitation of the Row. They were lost in the multi- 
 tude of observers, and they belonged, superficially, 
 at least, to that class of persons who, wherever they 
 may be, rank rather with the spectators than with 
 the spectacle. They were quiet, simple, elderly, of 
 aspect somewhat neutral ; you would have liked them 
 extremely, but you would scarcely have noticed them. 
 Nevertheless, in all that shining host, it is to them, 
 
122 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 obscure, that we must give our attention. The reader 
 is begged to have confidence ; he is not asked to make 
 vain concessions. There was that in the faces of our 
 friends which indicated that they were growing old to- 
 gether, and that they were fond enough of each other's 
 company not to object (if it was a condition), even 
 to that. The reader will have guessed that they were 
 husband and wife ; and perhaps while he is about it, 
 he will have guessed that they were of that nation- 
 ality for which Hyde Park at the height of the season 
 is most completely illustrative. They were familiar 
 strangers, as it were ; and people at once so initiated 
 and so detached could only be Americans. This re- 
 flection, indeed, you would have made only after some 
 delay ; for it must be admitted that they carried few 
 patriotic signs on the surface. They had the Ameri- 
 can turn of mind, but that was very subtle ; and to 
 your eye if your eye had cared about it they 
 might have been of English, or even of Continental, 
 parentage. It was as if it suited them to be color- 
 less ; their color was all in their talk. They were not 
 in the least verdant ; they were gray, rather, of mon- 
 otonous hue. If they were interested in the riders, 
 the horses, the walkers, the great exhibition of Eng- 
 lish wealth and health, beauty, luxury, and leisure, it 
 was because all this referred itself to other impres- 
 sions, because they had the key to almost everything 
 that needed an answer, because, in a word, they 
 were able to compare. They had not arrived, they had 
 only returned ; and recognition much more than sur- 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 123 
 
 prise was expressed in their quiet gaze. It may as 
 well be said outright that Dexter Freer and his wife 
 belonged to that class of Americans who are con- 
 stantly " passing through " London. Possessors of a 
 fortune of which, from any standpoint, the limits 
 were plainly visible, they were unable to command 
 that highest of luxuries, a habitation in their own 
 country. They found it much more possible to 
 economize at Dresden or Florence than at Buffalo or 
 Minneapolis. The economy was as great, and the 
 inspiration was greater. From Dresden, from Flor- 
 ence, moreover, they constantly made excursions 
 which would not have been possible in those other 
 cities ; and it is even to be feared that they had some 
 rather expressive methods of saving. They came to 
 London to buy their portmanteaus, their toothbrushes, 
 their writing-paper; they occasionally even crossed 
 the Atlantic to assure themselves that prices over 
 there were still the same. They were eminently a 
 social pair; their interests were mainly personal. 
 Their point of view, always, was so distinctly human, 
 that they passed for being fond of gossip ; and they 
 certainly knew a good deal about the affairs of other 
 people. They had friends in every country, in every 
 town ; and it was not their fault if people told them 
 their secrets. Dexter Freer was a tall, lean man, with 
 an interested eye, and a nose that rather drooped than 
 aspired, yet was salient withal. He brushed his hair, 
 which was streaked with white, forward over his ears, 
 in those locks which are represented in the portraits 
 
124 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 of clean-shaven gentlemen who flourished fifty years 
 ago, and wore an old-fashioned neckcloth and gaiters. 
 His wife, a small, plump person, of superficial fresh- 
 ness, with a white face, and hair that was still per- 
 fectly black, smiled perpetually, but had never 
 laughed since the death of a son whom she had lost 
 ten years after her marriage. Her husband, on the 
 other hand, who was usually quite grave, indulged on 
 great occasions in resounding mirth. People con- 
 fided in her less than in him; but that mattered 
 little, as she confided sufficiently in herself. Her 
 dress, which was always black or dark gray, was so 
 harmoniously simple, that you could see she was fond 
 of it ; it was never smart by accident. She was full of 
 intentions of the most judicious sort ; and though she 
 was perpetually moving about the world, she had the 
 air of being perfectly stationary. She was celebrated 
 for the promptitude with which she made her sitting- 
 room at an inn, where she might be spending a night 
 or two, look like an apartment long inhabited. With 
 books, flowers, photographs, draperies, rapidly dis- 
 tributed, she had even a way, for the most part, of 
 having a piano, the place seemed almost hereditary. 
 The pair were just back from America, where they 
 had spent three months, and now were able to face 
 the world with something of the elation which people 
 feel who have been justified in a prevision. They 
 had found their native land quite ruinous. 
 
 " There he is again ! " said Mr. Freer, following 
 with his eyes a young man who passed along the 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 125 
 
 Kow, riding slowly. "That's a beautiful thorough- 
 bred!" 
 
 Mrs. Freer asked idle questions only when she 
 wished for time to think. At present she had simply 
 to look and see who it was her husband meant " The 
 horse is too big," she remarked, in a moment. 
 
 " You mean that the rider is too small," her hus- 
 band rejoined ; " he is mounted on his millions." 
 
 "Is it really millions ?" 
 
 " Seven or eight, they tell me." 
 
 "How disgusting!" It was in this manner that 
 Mrs. Freer usually spoke of the large fortunes of the 
 day. " I wish he would see us," she added. 
 
 " He does see us, but he does n't like to look at us. 
 He is too conscious ; he is n't easy." 
 
 " Too conscious of his big horse ? " 
 
 " Yes, and of his big fortune ; he is rather ashamed 
 of it." 
 
 " This is an odd place to come, then," said Mrs. Freer. 
 
 " I am not sure of that. He will find people here 
 richer than himself, and other big horses in plenty, 
 and that will cheer him up. Perhaps, too, he is look- 
 ing for that girl." 
 
 " The one we heard about ? He can't be such a fool." 
 
 "He isn't a fool," said Dexter Freer. "If he is 
 thinking of her, he has some good reason." 
 
 " I wonder what Mary Lemon would say." 
 
 " She would say it was right, if he should do it. 
 She thinks he can do no wrong. He is exceedingly 
 fond of her." 
 
126 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 " I sha'n't be sure of that if he takes home a wife 
 that will despise her." 
 
 " Why should the girl despise her ? She is a de- 
 lightful woman." 
 
 " The girl will never know it, and if she should, it 
 would make no difference ; she will despise everything." 
 
 " I don't believe it, my dear ; she will like some 
 things very much. Every one will be very nice to 
 her." 
 
 " She will despise them all the more. But we are 
 speaking as if it were all arranged ; I don't believe 
 in it at all," said Mrs. Freer. 
 
 " Well, something of the sort in this case or in 
 some other is sure to happen sooner or later," her 
 husband replied, turning round a little toward the 
 part of the delta which is formed, near the entrance 
 to the Park, by the divergence of the two great vistas 
 of the Drive and the Eow. 
 
 Our friends had turned their backs, as I have said, 
 to the solemn revolution of wheels and the densely- 
 packed mass of spectators who had chosen that part 
 of the show. These spectators were now agitated by 
 a unanimous impulse: the pushing back of chairs, 
 the shuffle of feet, the rustle of garments, and the 
 deepening murmur of voices sufficiently expressed it. 
 Koyalty was approaching royalty was passing 
 royalty had passed. Freer turned his head and his 
 ear a little ; but he failed to alter his position further, 
 and his wife took no notice of the flurry. They had 
 seen royalty pass, all over Europe, and they knew that 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 127 
 
 it passed very quickly. Sometimes it came back; 
 sometimes it did n't ; for more than once they had 
 seen it pass for the last time. They were veteran 
 tourists, and they knew perfectly when to get up and 
 when to remain seated. Mr. Freer went on with his 
 proposition : " Some young fellow is certain to do it, 
 and one of these girls is certain to take the risk. 
 They must take risks, over here, more and more." 
 
 " The girls, I have no doubt, will be glad enough ; 
 they have had very little chance as yet. But I don't 
 want Jackson to begin." 
 
 " Do you know I rather think I do/' said Dexter 
 Freer ; " it will be very amusing." 
 
 " For us, perhaps, but not for him ; he will repent 
 of it, and be wretched. He is too good for that." 
 
 " Wretched, never ! He has no capacity for wretch- 
 edness ; and that 's why he can afford to risk it." 
 
 "He will have to make great concessions," Mrs. 
 Freer remarked. 
 
 " He won't make one." 
 
 " I should like to see." 
 
 " You admit, then, that it will be amusing, which is 
 all I contend for. But, as you say, we are talking as 
 if it were settled, whereas there is probably nothing 
 in it after all. The best stories always turn out false. 
 I shall be sorry in this case." 
 
 They relapsed into silence, while people passed and 
 repassed them continuous, successive, mechanical, 
 with strange sequences of faces. They looked at the 
 people, but no one looked at them, though every one 
 
128 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 was there so admittedly to see what was to be seen. 
 It was all striking, all pictorial, and it made a great 
 composition. The wide, long area of the Eow, its 
 red-brown surface dotted with bounding figures, 
 stretched away into the distance and became suffused 
 and misty in the bright, thick air. The deep, dark 
 English verdure that bordered and overhung it, looked 
 rich and old, revived and refreshed though it was by 
 the breath of June. The mild blue of the sky was 
 spotted with great silvery clouds, and the light 
 drizzled down in heavenly shafts over the quieter 
 spaces of the Park, as one saw them beyond the Eow. 
 All this, however, was only a background, for the 
 scene was before everything personal: superbly so, 
 and full of the gloss and lustre, the contrasted tones, 
 of a thousand polished surfaces. Certain things were 
 salient, pervasive, the shining flanks of the perfect 
 horses, the twinkle of bits and spurs, the smoothness 
 of fine cloth adjusted to shoulders and limbs, the 
 sheen of hats and boots, the freshness of complexions, 
 the expression of smiling, talking faces, the flash and 
 flutter of rapid gallops. Faces were everywhere, and 
 they were the great effect, above all, the fair faces 
 of women on tall horses, flushed a little under their 
 stiff black hats, with figures stiffened, in spite of 
 much definition of curve, by their tight-fitting habits. 
 Their hard little helmets, their neat, compact heads, 
 their straight necks, their firm, tailor-made armor, 
 their blooming, competent physique, made them look 
 doubly like amazons about to ride a charge. The 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 129 
 
 men, with their eyes before them, with hats of undu- 
 lating brim, good profiles, high collars, white flowers 
 on their chests, long legs and long feet, had an air 
 more elaboratively decorative, as they jolted beside 
 the ladies, always out of step. These were youthful 
 types ; but it was not all youth, for many a saddle was 
 surmounted by a richer rotundity, and ruddy faces, 
 with short white whiskers or with matronly chins, 
 looked down comfortably from an equilibrium which 
 was moral as well as physical. The walkers differed 
 from the riders only in being on foot, and in looking 
 at the riders more than these looked at them; for 
 they would have done as well in the saddle and rid- 
 den as the others ride. The women had tight little 
 bonnets and still tighter little knots of hair; their 
 round chins rested on a close swathing of lace, or, in 
 some -cases, of silver chains and circlets. They had 
 flat backs and small waists, they walked slowly, with 
 their elbows out, carrying vast parasols, and turning 
 their heads very little to the right or the left. They 
 were amazons unmounted, quite ready to spring into 
 the saddle. There was a great deal of beauty and a 
 suffused look of successful development, which came 
 from clear, quiet eyes and from well-cut lips, on which 
 syllables were liquid and sentences brief. Some of 
 the young men, as well as the women, had the happiest 
 proportions and oval faces, in which line and color 
 were pure and fresh, and the idea of the moment was 
 not very intense. 
 
 "They are very good-looking," said Mr. Freer, at 
 9 
 
130 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 the end of ten minutes; "they are the finest 
 whites." 
 
 " So long as they remain white they do very well ; 
 but when they venture upon color ! " his wife replied. 
 She sat with her eyes on a level with the skirts of 
 the ladies who passed her ; and she had been follow- 
 ing the progress of a green velvet robe, enriched with 
 ornaments of steel and much gathered up in the 
 hands of its wearer, who, herself apparently in her 
 teens, was accompanied by a young lady draped in 
 scanty pink muslin, embroidered, aesthetically, with 
 flowers that simulated the iris. 
 
 " All the same, in a crowd, they are wonderfully 
 well turned out," Dexter Freer went on ; " take the 
 men, and women, and horses together. Look at that 
 big fellow on the light chestnut : what could be more 
 perfect? By the way, it's Lord Canterville," he 
 added in a moment, as if the fact were of some 
 importance. 
 
 Mrs. Freer recognized its importance to the degree 
 of raising her glass to look at Lord Canterville. 
 " How do you know it 's he ? " she asked, with her 
 glass still up. 
 
 " I heard him say something the night I went to 
 the House of Lords. It was very few words, but I 
 remember him. A man who was near me told me 
 who he was." 
 
 " He is not so handsome as you," said Mrs. Freer, 
 dropping her glass. 
 
 " Ah, you 're too difficult ! " her husband murmured. 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 131 
 
 " What a pity the girl is n 't with him," he went on ; 
 " we might see something." 
 
 It appeared in a moment that the girl was with him. 
 The nobleman designated had ridden slowly forward 
 from the start, hut just opposite our friends he pulled 
 up to look behind him, as if he had been waiting for 
 some one. At the same moment a gentleman in the 
 Walk engaged his attention, so that he advanced to 
 the barrier which protects the pedestrians, and halted 
 there, bending a little from his saddle and talking 
 with his friend, who leaned against the rail. Lord 
 Canterville was indeed perfect, as his American ad- 
 mirer had said. Upwards of sixty, and of great stat- 
 ure and great presence, he was really a splendid 
 apparition. In exquisite preservation, he had the 
 freshness of middle life, and would have been young 
 to the eye if the lapse of years were not needed to 
 account for his considerable girth. He was clad from 
 head to foot in garments of a radiant gray, and his 
 fine florid countenance was surmounted with a white 
 hat, of which the majestic curves were a triumph of 
 good form. Over his mighty chest was spread a beard 
 of the richest growth, and of a color, in spite of a few 
 streaks, vaguely grizzled, to which the coat of his ad- 
 mirable horse appeared to be a perfect match. It left 
 no opportunity, in his uppermost button-hole, for the 
 customary gardenia; but this was of comparatively 
 little consequence, as the vegetation of the beard it- 
 self was tropical. Astride his great steed, with his 
 big fist, gloved in pearl-gray, on his swelling thigh, his 
 
132 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 face lighted up with good-humored indifference, and 
 all his magnificent surface reflecting the mild sun- 
 shine, he was a very imposing man indeed, and visibly, 
 incontestably, a personage. People almost lingered 
 to look at him as they passed. His halt was brief, 
 however, for he was almost immediately joined by 
 two handsome girls, who were as well turned-out, in 
 Dexter Freer's phrase, as himself. They had been 
 detained a moment at the entrance to the Eow, and 
 now advanced side by side, their groom close behind 
 them. One was taller and older than the other, and 
 it was apparent at a glance that they were sisters. 
 Between them, with their charming shoulders, con- 
 tracted waists, and skirts that hung without a wrinkle, 
 like a plate of zinc, they represented in a singularly 
 complete form the pretty English girl in the position 
 in which she is prettiest. 
 
 " Of course they are his daughters," said Dexter 
 
 Freer, as they rode away with Lord Canterville ; " and 
 
 'in that case one of them must be Jackson Lemon's 
 
 sweetheart. Probably the bigger; they said it was 
 
 the eldest. She is evidently a fine creature." 
 
 " She would hate it over there," Mrs. Freer re- 
 marked, for all answer to this cluster of inductions. 
 
 " You know I don't admit that. But granting she 
 should, it would do her good to have to accommodate 
 herself." 
 
 "She wouldn't accommodate herself." 
 
 " She looks so confoundedly fortunate, perched up 
 on that saddle/' Dexter Freer pursued, without heed- 
 ing his wife's rejoinder. 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 133 
 
 " Are n't they supposed to be very poor ? " 
 
 " Yes, they look it ! " And his eyes followed the 
 distinguished trio, as, with the groom, as distinguished 
 in his way as any of them, they started on a canter. 
 
 The air was full of sound, but it was low and dif- 
 fused ; and when, near our friends, it became articu- 
 late, the words were simple and few. 
 
 " It 's as good as the circus, is n't it, Mrs. Freer ? " 
 These words correspond to that description, but they 
 pierced the air more effectually than any our friends 
 had lately heard. They were uttered by a young 
 man who had stopped short in the path, absorbed by 
 the sight of his compatriots. He was short and 
 stout, he had a round, kind face, and short, stiff-look- 
 ing hair, which was reproduced in a small bristling 
 beard. He wore a double-breasted walking-coat, 
 which was not, however, buttoned, and on the sum- 
 mit of his round head was perched a hat of exceed- 
 ing smallness, and of the so-called " pot " category. 
 It evidently fitted him, but a hatter himself would 
 not have known why. His hands were encased in 
 new gloves, of a dark-brown color, and they hung 
 with an air of unaccustomed inaction at his sides. 
 He sported neither umbrella nor stick. He ex- 
 tended one of his hands, almost with eagerness, to 
 Mrs. Freer, blushing a little as he became aware that 
 he had been eager. 
 
 " Oh, Dr. Feeder ! " she said, smiling at him. Then 
 she repeated to her husband, " Dr. Feeder, my dear ! " 
 and her husband said, " Oh, Doctor, how d' ye do ? " 
 
134 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 I have spoken of the composition of his appear- 
 ance; but the items were not perceived by these 
 two. They saw only one thing, his delightful 
 face, which was both simple and clever, and unre- 
 servedly good. They had lately made the voyage 
 from New York in his company, and it was plain 
 that he would be very genial at sea. After he had 
 stood in front of them a moment, a chair beside Mrs. 
 Freer became vacant, on which he took possession of 
 it, and sat there telling her what he thought of the 
 Park, and how he liked London. As she knew every 
 one, she had known many of his people at home ; 
 and while she listened to him she remembered how 
 large their contribution had been to the virtue and 
 culture of Cincinnati. Mrs. Freer's social horizon 
 included even that city ; she had been on terms al- 
 most familiar with several families from Ohio, and 
 was acquainted with the position of the Feeders 
 there. This family, very numerous, was interwoven 
 into an enormous cousinship. She herself was quite 
 out of such a system, but she could have told you 
 whom Dr. Feeder's great-grandfather had married. 
 Every one, indeed, had heard of the good deeds of 
 the descendants of this worthy, who were generally 
 physicians, excellent ones, and whose name ex- 
 pressed not inaptly their numerous acts of charity. 
 Sidney Feeder, who had several cousins of this name 
 established in the same line at Cincinnati, had trans- 
 ferred himself and his ambition to New York, where 
 his practice, at the end of three years, had begun to 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 135 
 
 grow. He had studied his profession at Vienna, and 
 was impregnated with German science ; indeed, if he 
 had only worn spectacles, he might perfectly, as he 
 sat there watching the riders in Eotten Row as if 
 their proceedings were a successful demonstration, 
 have passed for a young German of distinction. He 
 had come over to London to attend a medical con- 
 gress which met this year in the British capital ; for 
 his interest in the healing art was by no means 
 limited to the cure of his patients, it embraced 
 every form of experiment ; and the expression of his 
 honest eyes would almost have reconciled you to 
 vivisection. It was the first time he had come to 
 the Park ; for social experiments he had little leisure. 
 Being aware, however, that it was a very typical, and 
 as it were symptomatic, sight, he had conscientiously 
 reserved an afternoon, and had dressed himself care- 
 fully for the occasion. " It 's quite a brilliant show," 
 he said to Mrs. Freer; "it makes me wish I had a 
 mount." Little as he resembled Lord Canterville, he 
 rode very well. 
 
 "Wait till Jackson Lemon passes again, and you 
 can stop him and make him let you take a turn." 
 This was the jocular suggestion of Dexter Freer. 
 
 " Why, is he here ? I have been looking out for 
 him ; I should like to see him." 
 
 " Does n't he go to your medical congress ? " asked 
 Mrs. Freer. 
 
 " Well yes, he attends ; but he is n't very regular. 
 I guess he goes out a good deal." 
 
136 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 " I guess he does," said Mr. Freer ; " and if lie is n't 
 very regular, I guess he has a good reason. A beauti- 
 ful reason, a charming reason/' he went on, bending 
 forward to look down toward the beginning of the 
 Row. " Dear me, what a lovely reason ! " 
 
 Dr. Feeder followed the direction of his eyes, and 
 after a moment understood his allusion. Little Jack- 
 son Lemon, on his big horse, passed along the avenue 
 again, riding beside one of the young girls who 
 had come that way shortly before in the company 
 of Lord Canterville. His lordship followed, in con- 
 versation with the other, his younger daughter. As 
 they advanced, Jackson Lemon turned his eyes to- 
 ward the multitude under the trees, and it so hap- 
 pened that they rested upon the Dexter Freers. He 
 smiled, and raised his hat with all possible friend- 
 liness; and his three companions turned to see to 
 whom he was bowing with so much cordiality. As 
 he settled his hat on his head, he espied the young 
 man from Cincinnati, whom he had at first over- 
 looked ; whereupon he smiled still more brightly, and 
 waved Sidney Feeder an airy salutation with his hand, 
 reining in a little at the same time just for an instant, 
 as if he half expected the Doctor to come and speak 
 to him. Seeing him with strangers, however, Sidney 
 Feeder hung back, staring a little as he rode away. 
 
 It is open to us to know that at this moment the 
 young lady by whose side he was riding said to 
 him familiarly enough : " Who are those people you 
 bowed to ? " 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 137 
 
 " Some old friends of mine, Americans," Jackson 
 Lemon answered. 
 
 " Of course they are Americans ; there is nothing 
 but Americans nowadays." 
 
 " Oh, yes, our turn 's coming round ! " laughed the 
 young man. 
 
 " But that does n't say who they are," his companion 
 continued. " It 's so difficult to say who Americans 
 are," she added, before he had time to answer her. 
 
 " Dexter Freer and his wife, there is nothing 
 difficult about that ; every one knows them." 
 
 " I never heard of them," said the English girl. 
 
 " Ah, that 's your fault. I assure you everybody 
 knows them." 
 
 " And does everybody know the little man with the 
 fat face whom you kissed your hand to ? " 
 
 " I did n't kiss my hand ; but I would if I had 
 thought of it. He is a great chum of mine, a fel- 
 low student at Vienna." 
 
 " And what 's his name ? " 
 
 " Dr. Feeder." 
 
 Jackson Lemon's companion was silent a moment. 
 " Are all your friends doctors ? " she presently in- 
 quired. 
 
 " No ; some of them are in other businesses." 
 
 " Are they all in some business ? " 
 
 "Most of them; save two or three, like Dexter 
 Freer." 
 
 " Dexter Freer ? I thought you said Dr. Freer." 
 
 The young man gave a laugh. "You heard me 
 
138 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 wrong. You have got doctors on the brain, Lady 
 Barb." 
 
 "I am rather glad," said Lady Barb, giving the 
 rein to her horse, who bounded away. 
 
 " Well yes, she 's very handsome, the reason," Dr. 
 Feeder remarked, as he sat under the trees. 
 
 " Is he going to marry her ? " Mrs. Freer inquired. 
 
 " Marry her ? I hope not." 
 
 " Why do you hope not ? " 
 
 " Because I know nothing about her. I want to 
 know something about the woman that man marries." 
 
 " I suppose you would like him to marry in Cin- 
 cinnati," Mrs. Freer rejoined, lightly. 
 
 " Well, I am not particular where it is ; but I want 
 to know her first." Dr. Feeder was very sturdy. 
 
 " We were in hopes you would know all about it," 
 said Mr. Freer. 
 
 " No ; I have n't kept up with him there." 
 
 " We have heard from a dozen people that he has 
 been always with her for the last month ; and that 
 kind of thing, in England, is supposed to mean some- 
 thing. Hasn't he spoken of her when you have 
 seen him ? " 
 
 " No, he has only talked about the new treatment 
 of spinal meningitis. He is very much interested 
 in spinal meningitis." 
 
 " I wonder if he talks about it to Lady Barb," said 
 Mrs. Freer. 
 
 " Who is she, any way ? " the young man inquired. 
 
 " Lady Barberina Clement." 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 139 
 
 " And who is Lady Barberina Clement ? " 
 
 " The daughter of Lord Canterville." 
 
 " And who is Lord Canterville ? " 
 
 " Dexter must tell you that," said Mrs. Freer. 
 
 And Dexter accordingly told him that the Marquis 
 of Canterville had been in his day a great sporting 
 nobleman and an ornament to English society, and 
 had held more than once a high post in her Majesty's 
 household. Dexter Freer knew all these things, how 
 his lordship had married a daughter of Lord Treherne, 
 a very serious, intelligent, and beautiful woman, who 
 had redeemed him from the extravagance of his 
 youth and presented him in rapid succession with a 
 dozen little tenants for the nurseries at Pasterns, 
 this being, as Mr. Freer also knew, the name of the 
 principal seat of the Cantervilles. The Marquis was 
 a Tory, but very liberal for a Tory, and very popular 
 in society at large ; good-natured, good-looking, know- 
 ing how to be genial, and yet to remain a grand sei- 
 gneur, clever enough to make an occasional speech, 
 and much associated with the fine old English pur- 
 suits, as well as with many of the new improvements, 
 the purification of the Turf, the opening of the 
 museums on Sunday, the propagation of coffee-taverns, 
 the latest ideas on sanitary reform. He disapproved 
 of the extension of the suffrage, but he positively had 
 drainage on the brain. It had been said of him at 
 least once (and I think in print) that he was just the 
 man to convey to the popular mind the impression 
 that the British aristocracy is still a living force. 
 
140 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 He was not very rich, unfortunately (for a man who 
 had to exemplify such truths), and of his twelve chil- 
 dren, no less than seven were daughters. Lady Bar- 
 berina, Jackson Lemon's friend, was the second ; the 
 eldest had married Lord Beauchemin. Mr. Freer had 
 caught quite the right pronunciation of this name : 
 he called it Bitumen. Lady Lucretia had done very 
 well, for her husband was rich, and she had brought 
 him nothing to speak of; but it was hardly to be ex- 
 pected that the others would do as well. Happily 
 the younger girls were still in the schoolroom; and 
 before they had come up, Lady Canterville, who was 
 a woman of resources, would have worked off the two 
 that were out. It was Lady Agatha's first season; 
 she was not so pretty as her sister, but she was 
 thought to be cleverer. Half-a-dozen people had 
 spoken to him of Jackson Lemon's being a great 
 deal at the Cantervilles. He was supposed to be 
 enormously rich. 
 
 "Well, so he is," said Sidney Feeder, who had 
 listened to Mr. Freer's little recital with attention, 
 with eagerness even, but with an air of imperfect 
 apprehension. 
 
 " Yes, but not so rich as they probably think." 
 
 " Do they want his money ? Is that what they 're 
 after?" 
 
 " You go straight to the point," Mrs. Freer mur- 
 mured. 
 
 " I have n't the least idea," said her husband. " He 
 is a very nice fellow in himself." 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 141 
 
 " Yes, but he 's a doctor," Mrs. Freer remarked. 
 
 " What have they got against that ? " asked Sid- 
 ney Feeder. 
 
 " Why, over here, you know, they only call them 
 in to prescribe," said Dexter Freer ; " the profession 
 is n't a what you 'd call aristocratic." 
 
 " Well, I don't know it, and I don't know that I 
 want to know it. How do you mean, aristocratic ? 
 What profession is ? It would be rather a curious 
 one. Many of the gentlemen at the congress there 
 are quite charming." 
 
 " I like doctors very much," said Mrs. Freer ; " my 
 father was a doctor. But they don't many the 
 daughters of marquises." 
 
 " I don't believe Jackson wants to marry that one." 
 
 " Very possibly not people are such asses," said 
 Dexter Freer. " But he will have to decide. I wish 
 you would find out, by the way ; you can if you will" 
 
 " I will ask him up at the congress ; I can do 
 that. I suppose he has got to marry some one." 
 Sidney Feeder added, in a moment, " And she may 
 be a nice girl." 
 
 " She is said to be charming." 
 
 " Very well, then ; it won't hurt him. I must say, 
 however, I am not sure I like all that about her 
 family." 
 
 " What I told you ? It 's all to their honor and 
 glory." 
 
 " Are they quite on the square ? It 's like those 
 people in Thackeray." 
 
142 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 " Oh, if Thackeray could have done this ! " Mrs, 
 Freer exclaimed, with a good deal of expression. 
 
 " You mean all this scene ? " asked the young man. 
 
 " No ; the inarria.ge of a British noblewoman and 
 an American doctor. It would have been a subject 
 for Thackeray." 
 
 " You see you do want it, my dear," said Dexter 
 Freer, quietly. 
 
 " I want it as a story, but I don't want it for Dr. 
 Lemon." 
 
 " Does he call himself ' Doctor ' still ?" Mr. Freer 
 asked of young Feeder. 
 
 " I suppose he does ; I call him so. Of course he 
 does n't practise. But once a doctor, always a doctor." 
 
 " That 's doctrine for Lady Barb ! " 
 
 Sidney Feeder stared. " Has n't she got a title 
 too ? What would she expect him to be ? President 
 of the United States ? He 's a man of real ability ; 
 he might have stood at the head of his profession. 
 When I think of that, I want to swear. What did his 
 father want to go and make all that money for ! " 
 
 " It must certainly be odd to them to see a ' medi- 
 cal man ' with six or eight millions," Mr. Freer ob- 
 served. 
 
 " They use the same term as the Choctaws," said 
 his wife. 
 
 " Why, some of their own physicians made im- 
 mense fortunes," Sidney Feeder declared. 
 
 " Could n't he be made a. baronet by the Queen ? " 
 This suggestion came from Mrs. Freer. 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 143 
 
 " Yes, then he would be aristocratic," said the 
 young man. " But I don't see why he should want 
 to marry over here ; it seems to me to be going out 
 of his way. However, if he is happy, I don't care. 
 I like him very much ; he has got lots of ability. If 
 it had n't been for his father he would have made 
 a splendid doctor. But, as I say, he takes a great in- 
 terest in medical science, and I guess he means to 
 promote it all he can with his fortune. He will 
 always be doing something in the way of research. 
 He thinks we do know something, and he is bound 
 we shall know more. I hope she won't prevent him, 
 the young marchioness is that her rank ? And 
 I hope they are really good people. He ought to be 
 very useful. I should want to know a good deal 
 about the family I was going to marry into." 
 
 " He looked to me, as he rode there, as if he knew 
 a good deal about the Clements," Dexter Freer said, 
 rising, as his wife suggested that they ought to be 
 going ; " and he looked to me pleased with the 
 knowledge. There they come, down on the other side. 
 Will you walk away with us, or will you stay ? " 
 
 " Stop him and ask him, and then come and tell 
 us in Jermyn Street." This was Mrs. Freer's part- 
 ing injunction to Sidney Feeder. 
 
 "He ought to come himself tell him that," her 
 husband added. 
 
 " Well, I guess I '11 stay," said the young man, as 
 his companions merged themselves in the crowd that 
 now was tending toward the gates. He went and 
 
144 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 stood by the barrier, and saw Dr. Lemon and his 
 friends pull up at the entrance to the Bow, where 
 they apparently prepared to separate. The separation 
 took some time, and Sidney Feeder became interested. 
 Lord Canterville and his younger daughter lingered 
 to talk with two gentlemen, also mounted, who looked 
 a good deal at the legs of Lady Agatha's horse. Jack- 
 son. Lemon and Lady Barberina were face to face, 
 very near each other; and she, leaning forward a 
 little, stroked the overlapping neck of his glossy bay. 
 At a distance he appeared to be talking, and she to 
 be listening and saying nothing. " Oh, yes, he 's 
 making love to her," thought Sidney Feeder. Sud- 
 denly her father turned away to leave the Park, and 
 she joined him and disappeared, while Dr. Lemon 
 came up on the left again, as if for a final gallop. He 
 had not gone far before he perceived his confrere, who 
 awaited him at the rail; and he repeated the gesture 
 which Lady Barberina had spoken of as a kissing 
 of his hand, though it must be added that, to his 
 friend's eyes, it had not quite that significance. 
 When he reached the point where Feeder stood, 
 he pulled up. 
 
 " If I had known you were coming here, I would 
 have given you a mount," he said. There was not 
 in his person that irradiation of wealth and distinc- 
 tion which made Lord Canterville glow like a pic- 
 ture ; but as he sat there with his little legs stuck out, 
 he looked very bright, and sharp, and happy, wearing 
 in his degree the aspect of one of Fortune's favorites. 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 145 
 
 He had a thin, keen, delicate face, a nose very care- 
 fully finished, a rapid eye, a trifle hard in expression, 
 and a small mustache, a good deal cultivated. He 
 was not striking, but he was very positive, and it was 
 easy to see that he was full of purpose. 
 
 " How many horses have you got about forty ? " 
 his compatriot inquired, in response to his greeting. 
 
 " About five hundred," said Jackson Lemon. 
 
 "Did you mount your friends the three you 
 were riding with ? " 
 
 " Mount them ? They have got the best horses 
 in England." 
 
 " Did they sell you this one ? " Sidney Feeder con- 
 tinued, in the same humorous strain. 
 
 " What do you think of him ? " said his friend, not 
 deigning to answer this question. 
 
 "He's an awful old screw; I wonder he can 
 carry you." 
 
 " Where did you get your hat ? " asked Dr. 
 Lemon, in return. 
 
 "I got it in New York. What's the matter 
 with it?" 
 
 "It's very beautiful; I wish I had bought one 
 like it," 
 
 "The head's the thing not the hat. I don't 
 mean yours, but mine. There is something very 
 deep in your question ; I must think it over." 
 
 " Don't don't," said Jackson Lemon ; " you will 
 never get to the bottom of it Are you having a good 
 time?" 
 
 10 
 
146 LADY BAEBER1NA. 
 
 " A glorious time. Have you been up to-day ? " 
 
 " Up among the doctors ? No ; I have had a lot of 
 things to do." 
 
 "We had a very interesting discussion. I made 
 a few remarks." 
 
 "You ought to have told me. What were they 
 about ? " 
 
 " About the intermarriage of races, from the point 
 of view ." And Sidney Feeder paused a mo- 
 ment, occupied with the attempt to scratch the nose 
 of his friend's horse. 
 
 "From the point of view of the progeny, I 
 suppose ? " 
 
 "Not at all; from the point of view of the old 
 friends." 
 
 " Damn the old friends ! " Dr. Lemon exclaimed, 
 with jocular crudity. 
 
 " Is it true that you are going to marry a young 
 marchioness ? " 
 
 The face of the young man in the saddle became 
 just a trifle rigid, and his firm eyes fixed themselves 
 on Dr. Feeder. 
 
 " Who has told you that ? " 
 
 " Mr. and Mrs. Freer, whom I met just now." 
 
 " Mr. and Mrs. Freer be hanged ! And who told 
 them ? " 
 
 " Ever so many people ; I don't know who." 
 
 " Gad, how things are tattled ! " cried Jackson 
 Lemon, with some asperity. 
 
 " I can see it 's true, by the way you say that." 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 147 
 
 " Do Freer and his wife believe it ? " Jackson 
 Lemon went on, impatiently. 
 
 "They want you to go and see them: you can 
 judge for yourself." 
 
 " I will go and see them, and tell them to mind 
 their business." 
 
 " In Jermyn Street ; but I forget the number. I 
 am sorry the marchioness is n't American," Sidney 
 Feeder continued. 
 
 " If I should marry her, she would be," said his 
 friend. " But I don't see what difference it can 
 make to you." 
 
 " Why, she 11 look down on the profession ; and I 
 don't like that from your wife." 
 
 " That will touch me more than you." 
 " Then it is true ? " cried Feeder, more seriously, 
 looking up at his friend. 
 
 " She won't look down ; I will answer for that/* 
 " You won't care ; you are out of it aD now." 
 " No, I am not ; I mean to do a great deal of work." 
 "I will believe that when I see it," said Sidney 
 Feeder, who was by no means perfectly incredulous, 
 but who thought it salutary to take that tone. " I 
 am not sure that you have any right to work, you 
 oughtn't to have everything; you ought to leave 
 the field to us. You must pay the penalty of being 
 so rich. You would have been celebrated if you had 
 continued to practise, more celebrated than any 
 one. But you won't be now, you can't be. Some 
 one else will be, in your place." 
 
148 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 Jackson Lemon listened to this, but without meet- 
 ing the eyes of the speaker ; not, however, as if he 
 were avoiding them, but as if the long stretch of the 
 Eide, now less and less obstructed, invited him, and 
 made his companion's talk a little retarding. Never- 
 theless, he answered, deliberately and kindly enough : 
 " I hope it will be you ; " and he bowed to a lady 
 who rode past. 
 
 "Very likely it will. I hope I make you feel 
 badly, that's what I'm trying to do." 
 
 " Oh, awfully ! " cried Jackson Lemon ; " all the 
 more that I am not in the least engaged." 
 
 " Well, that 's good. Won't you come up to-mor- 
 row ? " Dr. Feeder went on. 
 
 "I'll try, my dear fellow; I can't be sure. By 
 by!" 
 
 " Oh, you 're lost anyway ! " cried Sidney Feeder, 
 as the other started away. 
 
 n. 
 
 IT was Lady Marmaduke, the wife of Sir Henry 
 Marmaduke, who had introduced Jackson Lemon to 
 Lady Beauchemin ; after which Lady Beauchemin 
 had made him acquainted with her mother and sis- 
 ters. Lady Marmaduke was also transatlantic; she 
 had been for her conjugal baronet the most permanent 
 consequence of a tour in the United States. At pres^ 
 ent, at the end of ten years, she knew her London as 
 she had never known her New York, so that it had 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 149 
 
 been easy for her to be, as she called herself, Jackson 
 Lemon's social godmother. She had views with re- 
 gard to his career, and these views fitted into a social 
 scheme which, if our space permitted, I should be glad 
 to lay before the reader in its magnitude. She wished 
 to add an arch or two to the bridge on which she had 
 effected her transit from America ; and it was her be- 
 lief that Jackson Lemon might furnish the materials. 
 This bridge, as yet a somewhat sketchy and rickety 
 structure, she saw (in the future) boldly stretching 
 from one solid pillar to another. It would have to go 
 both ways, for reciprocity was the keynote of Lady 
 Marmaduke's plan. It was her belief that an ulti- 
 mate fusion was inevitable, and that those who were 
 the first to understand the situation would gain the 
 most. The first time Jackson Lemon had dined with 
 her, he met Lady Beauchemiu, who was her intimate 
 friend. Lady Beauchemin was remarkably gracious ; 
 she asked him to come and see her as if she really 
 meant it. He presented himself, and in her drawing- 
 room met her mother, who happened to be calling at 
 the same moment. Lady Canterville, not less friendly 
 than her daughter, invited him down to Pasterns for 
 Easter week; and before a month had passed it 
 seemed to him that, though he was not what he 
 would have called intimate at any house in Lon- 
 don, the door of the house of Clement opened to 
 him pretty often. This was a considerable good for- 
 tune, for it always opened upon a charming picture. 
 The inmates were a blooming and beautiful race, and 
 
150 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 their interior had an aspect of the ripest comfort. It 
 was not the splendor of New York (as New York had 
 lately begun to appear to the young man), but a 
 splendor in which there was an unpurchasable ingre- 
 dient of age. He himself had a great deal of money, 
 and money was good, even when it was new ; but old 
 money was the best. Even after he learned that 
 Lord Canterville's fortune was more ancient than 
 abundant, it was still the mellowness of the golden 
 element that struck him. It was Lady Beauchemin 
 who had told him that her father was not rich ; hav- 
 ing told him, besides this, many surprising things, 
 things that were surprising in themselves, or surpris- 
 ing on her lips. This struck him afresh later that 
 evening the day he met Sidney Feeder in the 
 Park. He dined out, in the company of Lady Beau- 
 chemin, and afterward, as she was alone, her hus- 
 band had gone down to listen to a debate, she offered 
 to " take him on." She was going to several places, 
 and he must be going to some of them. They com- 
 pared notes ; and it was settled that they should pro- 
 ceed together to the Trumpington's, whither, also, it 
 appeared at eleven o'clock that all the world was 
 going, the approach to the house being choked for 
 half a mile with carriages. It was a close, muggy 
 night ; Lady Beauchemin's chariot, in its place in the 
 rank, stood still for long periods. In his corner be- 
 side her, through the open window, Jackson Lemon, 
 rather hot, rather oppressed, looked out on the moist, 
 greasy pavement, over which was flung, a considerable 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 151 
 
 distance up and down, the flare of a public-house. 
 Lady Beauchemin, however, was not impatient, for 
 she had a purpose in her mind, and now she could 
 say what she wished. 
 
 "Do you really love her?" That was the first 
 thing she said. 
 
 " Well, I guess so," Jackson Lemon answered, as 
 if he did not recognize the obligation to be serious. 
 
 Lady Beauchemin looked at him a moment in 
 silence ; he felt her gaze, and turning his eyes, saw 
 her face, partly shadowed, with the aid of a street- 
 lamp. She was not so pretty as Lady Barberina ; her 
 countenance had a certain sharpness ; her hair, very 
 light in color and wonderfully frizzled, almost cov- 
 ered her eyes, the expression of which, however, 
 together with that of her pointed nose, and the glitter 
 of several diamonds, emerged from the gloom. " You 
 don't seem to know. I never saw a man in such an 
 odd state," she presently remarked. 
 
 "You push me a little too much; I must have 
 time to think of it," the young man went on. " You 
 know in my country they allow us plenty of time." 
 He had several little oddities of expression, of which 
 he was perfectly conscious, and which he found con- 
 venient, for they protected him in a society in which 
 a lonely American was rather exposed ; they gave him 
 the advantage which corresponded with certain draw- 
 backs. He had very few natural Americanisms, but 
 the occasional use of one, discreetly chosen, made him 
 appear simpler than he really was, and he had his 
 
152 LADY BARBER1NA. 
 
 reasons for wishing this result. He was not simple ; 
 he was subtle, circumspect, shrewd, and perfectly 
 aware that he might make mistakes. There was a 
 danger of his making a mistake at present, a mis- 
 take which would be immensely grave. He was de- 
 termined only to succeed. It is true that for a great 
 success he would take a certain risk ; but the risk 
 was to be considered, and he gained time while he 
 multiplied his guesses and talked about his country. 
 
 " You may take ten years if you like," said Lady 
 Beauchemin. " I am in no hurry whatever to make 
 you my brother-in-law. Only you must remember 
 that you spoke to me first." 
 
 "What did I say?" 
 
 "You told me that Barberina was the finest girl 
 you had seen in England." 
 
 "Oh, I am willing to stand by that; I like her 
 type." 
 
 " I should think you might ! " 
 
 "Hike her very much, with all her peculiarities." 
 
 " What do you mean by her peculiarities ? " 
 
 " Well, she has some peculiar ideas," said Jackson 
 Lemon, in a tone of the sweetest reasonableness, 
 " and she has a peculiar way of speaking." 
 
 " Ah, you can't expect us to speak as well as you ! " 
 cried Lady Beauchemin. 
 
 " I don't know why not ; you do some things much 
 better." 
 
 " We have our own ways, at any rate, and we think 
 them the best in the world. One of them is not to 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 153 
 
 let a gentleman devote himself to a girl for three or 
 four months without some sense of responsibility. If 
 you don't wish to marry my sister, you ought to go 
 away." 
 
 " I ought never to have come," said Jackson Lemon. 
 
 " I can scarcely agree to that ; for I should have 
 lost the pleasure of knowing you." 
 
 " It would have spared you this duty, which you 
 dislike very much." 
 
 " Asking you about your intentions ? I don't dis- 
 like it at all ; it amuses me extremely." 
 
 " Should you like your sister to marry me ? " asked 
 Jackson Lemon, with great simplicity. 
 
 If he expected to take Lady Beauchemin by sur- 
 prise he was disappointed; for she was perfectly pre- 
 pared to commit herself. " I should like it very much. 
 I think English and American society ought to be but 
 one I mean the best of each a great whole." 
 
 " Will you allow me to ask whether Lady Marma- 
 duke suggested that to you ? " 
 
 "We have often talked of it." 
 
 " Oh yes, that 's her aim." 
 
 " Well, it 's my aim too. I think there 's a great 
 deal to be done." 
 
 " And you would like me to do it ? " 
 
 " To begin it, precisely. Don't you think we ought 
 to see more of each other ? I mean the best in each 
 country." 
 
 Jackson Lemon was silent a moment. "I am 
 afraid I have n't any general ideas. If I should 
 
154 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 marry an English girl, it would n't be for the good of 
 the species." 
 
 " Well, we want to be mixed a little ; that I am 
 sure of," Lady Beauchemin said. 
 
 " You certainly got that from Lady Marmaduke." 
 
 " It 's too tiresome, your not consenting to be 
 serious ! But my father will make you so," Lady 
 Beauchemin went on. " I may as well let you know 
 that he intends in a day or two to ask you your in- 
 tentions. That 's all I wished to say to you. I think 
 you ought to be prepared." 
 
 " I am much obliged to you ; Lord Canterville will 
 do quite right." 
 
 There was, to Lady Beauchemin, something really 
 unfathomable in this little American doctor, whom 
 she had taken up on grounds of large policy, and 
 who, though he was assumed to have sunk the medi- 
 cal character, was neither handsome nor distinguished, 
 but only immensely rich arid quite original, for he 
 was not insignificant. It was unfathomable, to begin 
 with, that a medical man should be so rich, or that 
 so rich a man should be a doctor ; it was even, to an 
 eye which was always gratified by suitability, rather 
 irritating. Jackson Lemon himself could have ex- 
 plained it better than any one else, but this was an 
 explanation that one could scarcely ask for. There 
 were other things : his cool acceptance of certain 
 situations ; his general indisposition to explain; his 
 way of taking refuge in jokes, which at times had 
 not even the merit of being American ; his way, too, 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 155 
 
 of appearing to be a suitor without being an aspirant. 
 Lady Beauchemin, however, was, like Jackson Lemon, 
 prepared to run a certain risk. His reserves made 
 him slippery ; but that was only when one pressed. 
 She flattered herself that she could handle people 
 lightly. " My father will be sure to act with perfect 
 tact," she said ; " of course, if you should n't care to 
 be questioned, you can go out of town." She had 
 the air of really wishing to make everything easy 
 for him. 
 
 " I don't want to go out- of town ; I am enjoying it 
 far too much here," her companion answered. " And 
 would n't your father have a right to ask me what I 
 meant by that ? " 
 
 Lady Beauchemin hesitated ; she was slightly per- 
 plexed. But in a moment she exclaimed: "He is 
 incapable of saying anything vulgar i " 
 
 She had not really answered his inquiry, and he 
 was conscious of that ; but he was quite ready to say 
 to her, a little later, as he guided her steps from the 
 brougham to the strip of carpet which, between 
 a somewhat rickety border of striped cloth and a 
 double row of waiting footmen, policemen, and dingy 
 amateurs of both sexes, stretched from the curbstone 
 to the portal of the Trumpingtons, "Of course I shall 
 not wait for Lord Canterville to speak to me." 
 
 He had been expecting some such announcement 
 as this from Lady Beauchemin, and he judged that 
 her father would do no more than his duty. He 
 knew that he ought to be prepared with an answer 
 
156 LADY BARBER1NA. 
 
 to Lord Canterville, and he wondered at himself for 
 not yet having come to the point. Sidney Feeder's 
 question in the Park had made him feel rather point- 
 less ; it was the first allusion that had been made to 
 his possible marriage, except on the part of Lady 
 Beauchemin. None of his own people were in Lon- 
 don ; he was perfectly independent, and even if his 
 mother had been within reach he could not have 
 consulted her on the subject. He loved her dearly, 
 better than any one ; but she was not a woman to 
 consult, for she approved of whatever he did : it was 
 her standard. He was careful not to be too serious 
 when he talked with Lady Beauchemin ; but he was 
 very serious indeed as he thought over the matter 
 within himself, which he did even among the diver- 
 sions of the next half hour, while he squeezed ob- 
 liquely and slowly through the crush in Mrs. Trump- 
 ington's drawing-room. At the end of the half-hour 
 he came away, and at the door he found Lady Beau- 
 chemin, from whom he had separated on entering 
 the house, and who, this time with a companion of 
 her own sex, was awaiting her carriage and still 
 " going on." He gave her his arm into the street, 
 and as she stepped into the vehicle she repeated that 
 she wished he would go out of town for a few days. 
 
 " Who, then, would tell me what to do ? " he asked, 
 for answer, looking at her through the window. 
 
 She might tell him what to do, but he felt free, 
 all the same; and he was determined this should 
 continue. To prove it to himself he jumped into a 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 157 
 
 hansom and drove back to Brook Street to his hotel, 
 instead of proceeding to a bright- windowed house in 
 Portland Place, where he knew that after midnight 
 he should find Lady Canterville and her daughters. 
 There had been a reference to the subject between 
 Lady Barberina and himself during their ride, and 
 she would probably expect him ; but it made him 
 taste his liberty not to go, and he liked to taste his 
 liberty. He was aware that to taste it in perfection 
 he ought to go to bed ; but he did not go to bed, he 
 did not even take off his hat. He walked up and 
 down his sitting-room, with his head surmounted by 
 this ornament, a good deal tipped back, and his hands 
 in his pockets. There were a good many cards stuck 
 into the frame of the mirror over his chimney-piece, 
 and every time he passed the place he seemed to see 
 what was written on one of them, the name of the 
 mistress of the house in Portland Place, his own 
 name, and, in the lower left-hand corner, the words : 
 ''A small Dance." Of course, now, he must make 
 up his mind ; he would make it up to the next day : 
 that was what he said to himself as he walked up 
 and down ; and according to his decision he would 
 speak to Lord Canterville, or he would take the 
 night-express to Paris. It was better meanwhile 
 that he should not see Lady Barberina. It was vivid 
 to him, as he paused occasionally, looking vaguely at 
 that card in the chimney-glass, that he had come 
 pretty far ; and he had come so far because he was 
 under the charm, yes, he was in love with Lady 
 
158 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 Barb. There was no doubt whatever of that ; he had 
 a faculty for diagnosis, and he knew perfectly well 
 what was the matter with him. He wasted no time 
 in musing upon the mystery of this passion, in won- 
 dering whether he might not have escaped it by a 
 little vigilance at first, or whether it would die out 
 if he should go away. He accepted it frankly, for 
 the sake of the pleasure it gave him, the girl was 
 the delight of his eyes, and confined himself to 
 considering whether such a marriage would square 
 with his general situation. This would not at all 
 necessarily follow from the fact that he was in love ; 
 too many other things would come in between. The 
 most important of these was the change, not only of 
 the geographical, but of the social, standpoint for his 
 wife, and a certain readjustment that it would involve 
 in his own relation to things. He was not inclined 
 to readjustments, and there was no reason why he 
 should be ; his own position was in most respects so 
 advantageous. But the girl tempted him almost irre- 
 sistibly, satisfying his imagination both as a lover 
 and as a student of the human organism ; she was so 
 blooming, so complete, of a type so rarely encoun- 
 tered in that degree of perfection. Jackson Lemon 
 was not an Anglo-maniac, but he admired the physi- 
 cal conditions of the English, their complexion, 
 their temperament, their tissue ; and Lady Bar- 
 berina struck him in flexible, virginal form, as a won- 
 derful compendium of these elements. There was 
 something simple and robust in her beauty; it had 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 159 
 
 the quietness of an old Greek statue, without the 
 vulgarity of the modern simper or of contemporary 
 prettiness. Her head was antique ; and though her 
 conversation was quite of the present period, Jackson 
 Lemon had said to himself that there was sure to be 
 in her soul a certain primitive sincerity which would 
 match with the outline of her brow. He saw her as 
 she might be in the future, the beautiful mother of 
 beautiful children, in whom the look of race should 
 be conspicuous. He should like his children to have 
 the look of race, and he was not unaware that he 
 must take his precautions accordingly. A great many 
 people had it in England ; and it was a pleasure to 
 him to see it, especially as no one had it so unmis- 
 takably as the second daughter of Lord Canterville. 
 It would be a great luxury to call such a woman 
 one's own ; nothing could be more evident than that, 
 because it made no difference that she was not strik- 
 ingly clever. Striking cleverness was not a part of 
 harmonious form and the English complexion; it 
 was associated with the modern simper, which was 
 a result of modern nerves. If Jackson Lemon had 
 wanted a nervous wife, of course he could have found 
 her at home ; but this tall, fair girl, whose character, 
 like her figure, appeared mainly to have been formed 
 by riding across country, was differently put together. 
 All the same, would it suit his book, as they said in 
 London, to marry her and transport her to New York ? 
 He came back to this question ; came back to it with 
 a persistency which, had she been admitted to a view 
 
160 LADY BARBER1NA. 
 
 of it, would have tried the patience of Lady Beau- 
 chemin. She had been irritated, more than once, at 
 his appearing to attach himself so exclusively to this 
 horn of the dilemma, as if it could possibly fail to 
 be a good thing for a little American doctor to marry 
 the daughter of an English peer. It would have 
 been more becoming, in her ladyship's eyes, that he 
 should take that for granted a little more, and the 
 consent of her ladyship's of their ladyships' 
 family a little less. They looked at the matter so 
 differently ! Jackson Lemon was conscious that if 
 he should marry Lady Barberina Clement, it would 
 be because it suited him, and not because it suited 
 his possible sisters-in-law. He believed that he acted 
 in all things by his own will, an organ for which 
 he had the highest respect. 
 
 It would have seemed, however, that on this occa- 
 sion it was not working very regularly, for though 
 he had come home to go to bed, the stroke of half- 
 past twelve saw him jump, not into his couch, but 
 into a hansom which the whistle of the porter had 
 summoned to the door of his hotel, and in which he 
 rattled off to Portland Place. Here he found in a 
 very large house an assembly of three hundred 
 people, and a band of music concealed in a bower of 
 azaleas. Lady Canterville had not arrived ; he wand- 
 ered through the rooms and assured himself of that. 
 He also discovered a very good conservatory, where 
 there were banks and pyramids of azaleas. He 
 watched the top of the staircase, but it was a long 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 161 
 
 time before he saw what he was looking for, and 
 his impatience at last was extreme. The reward, 
 however, when it came, was all that he could have 
 desired. It was a little smile from Lady Barberina, 
 who stood behind her mother while the latter ex- 
 tended her finger-tips to the hostess. The entrance 
 of this charming woman, with her beautiful daugh- 
 ters always a noticeable incident was effected 
 with a certain brilliancy, and just now it was agree- 
 able to Jackson Lemon to think that it concerned 
 him more than any one else in the house. Tall, daz- 
 zling, indifferent, looking about her as if she saw very 
 little, Lady Barberina was certainly a figure round 
 which a young man's fancy might revolve. She was 
 very quiet and simple, had little manner and little 
 movement ; but her detachment was not a vulgar art. 
 She appeared to efface herself, to wait till, in the nat- 
 ural course, she should be attended to ; and in this 
 there was evidently no exaggeration, for she was too 
 proud not to have perfect confidence. Her sister, 
 smaller, slighter, with a little surprised smile, which 
 seemed to say that in her extreme innocence she was 
 yet prepared for anything, having heard, indirectly, 
 such extraordinary things about society, was much 
 more impatient and more expressive, and projected 
 across a threshold the pretty radiance of her eyes and 
 teeth before her mother's name was announced. Lady 
 Canterville was thought by many persons to be very 
 superior to her daughters : she had kept even more 
 beauty than she had given them ; and it was a beauty 
 
 11 
 
162 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 which had been called intellectual. She had extra- 
 ordinary sweetness, without any definite professions ; 
 her manner was mild almost to tenderness ; there was 
 even a kind of pity in it. Moreover, her features 
 were perfect, and nothing could be more gently gra- 
 cious than a way she had of speaking, or rather, of 
 listening, to people, with her head inclined a little 
 to one side. Jackson Lemon liked her very much, 
 and she had certainly been most kind to him. He 
 approached Lady Barberina as soon as he could do so 
 without an appearance of precipitation, and said to 
 her that he hoped very much she would not dance. 
 He was a master of the art which flourishes in New 
 York above every other, and he had guided her through 
 a dozen waltzes with a skill which, as she felt, left 
 absolutely nothing to be desired. But dancing was 
 not his business to-night. She smiled a little at the 
 expression of his hope. 
 
 "That is what mamma has brought us here for," 
 she said ; " she does n't like it if we don't dance." 
 
 " How does she know whether she likes it or not ? 
 You have always danced." 
 
 " Once I did n't," said Lady Barberina. 
 
 He told her that, at any rate, he would settle it 
 with her mother, and persuaded her to wander with 
 him into the conservatory, where there were colored 
 lights suspended among the plants, and a vault of 
 verdure overhead. In comparison with the other 
 rooms the conservatory was dusky and remote. But 
 they were not alone; half a dozen other couples 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 163 
 
 were in possession. The gloom was rosy with the 
 slopes of azalea, and suffused with mitigated music, 
 which made it possible to talk without consideration 
 of one's neighbors. Nevertheless, though it was only 
 in looking back on the scene later that Lady Barberina 
 perceived this, these dispersed couples were talking 
 very softly. She did not look at them ; it seemed to 
 her that, virtually, she was alone with Jackson Lemon. 
 She said something about the flowers, about the fra- 
 grance of the air ; for all answer to which he asked 
 her, as he stood there before her, a question by which 
 she might have been exceedingly startled. 
 
 " How do people who marry in England ever know 
 each other before marriage ? They have no chance." 
 
 " I am sure I don't know," said Lady Barberina ; 
 " I never was married." 
 
 " It 's very different in my country. There a man 
 may see much of a girl ; he may come and see her, 
 he may be constantly alone with her. I wish you 
 allowed that over here." 
 
 Lady Barberina suddenly examined the less orna- 
 mental side of her fan, as if it had never occurred to 
 her before to look at it " It must be so very odd, 
 America," she murmured at last. 
 
 " Well, I guess in that matter we are right ; over 
 here it 's a leap in the dark." 
 
 " I am sure I don't know," said the girl. She had 
 folded her fan ; she stretched out her arm mechani- 
 cally, and plucked a sprig of azalea. 
 
 "I guess it doesn't signify, after all," Jackson 
 
164 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 Lemon remarked. " They say that love is blind at the 
 best." His keen young face was bent upon hers ; his 
 thumbs were in the pockets of his trousers ; he smiled 
 a little, showing his fine teeth. She said nothing, but 
 only pulled her azalea to pieces. She was usually so 
 quiet, that this small movement looked restless. 
 
 " This is the first time I have seen you in the least 
 without a lot of people," he went on. 
 
 " Yes, it 's very tiresome," she said. 
 
 " I have been sick of it ; I did n't want to come 
 here to-night." 
 
 She had not met his eyes, though she knew they 
 were seeking her own. But now she looked at him a 
 moment. She had never objected to his appearance, 
 and in this respect she had no repugnance to over- 
 come. She liked a man to be tall and handsome, and 
 Jackson Lemon was neither ; but when she was six- 
 teen, and as tall herself as she was to be at twenty, 
 she had been in love (for three weeks) with one of 
 her cousins, a little fellow in the Hussars, who was. 
 shorter even than the American, shorter, consequently, 
 than herself. This proved that distinction might be 
 independent of stature not that she ever reasoned 
 it out. Jackson Lemon's facial spareness, his bright 
 little eye, which seemed always to be measuring 
 things, struck her as original, and she thought them 
 very cutting, which would do very well for a husband 
 of hers. As she made this reflection, of course it 
 never occurred to her that she herself might be cut ; 
 she was not a sacrificial lamb. She perceived that 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 165 
 
 his features expressed a mind a mind that would 
 be rather superior. She would never have taken him 
 for a doctor ; though, indeed, when all was said, that 
 was very negative, and did n't account for the way he 
 imposed himself. 
 
 " Why, then, did you come ? " she asked, in answer 
 to his last speech. 
 
 " Because it seems to me after all better to see you 
 in this way than not to see you at all ; I want to 
 know you better." 
 
 " I don't think I ought to stay here," said Lady 
 Barberina, looking round her. 
 
 " Don't go till I have told you I love you," mur- 
 mured the young man. 
 
 She made no exclamation, indulged in no start ; he 
 could not see even that she changed color. She took 
 his request with a noble simplicity, with her head 
 erect and her eyes lowered. 
 
 " I don't think you have a right to tell me that." 
 
 " Why not ? " Jackson Lemon demanded. " I wish 
 to claim the right ; I wish you to give it to me." 
 
 " I can't I don't know you. You have said it 
 yourself." 
 
 " Can't you have a little faith ? That will help us 
 to know each other better. It 's disgusting, the want 
 of opportunity ; even at Pasterns I could scarcely 
 get a walk with you. But I have the greatest faith 
 in you. I feel that I love you, and I could n't do 
 more than that at the end of six months. I love your 
 beauty I love you from head to foot. Don't move, 
 
166 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 please don't move." He lowered his tone ; but it 
 went straight to her ear, and it must be believed that 
 it had a certain eloquence. For himself, .after he had 
 heard himself say these words, all his being was in 
 a glow. It was a luxury to speak to her of her 
 beauty; it brought him nearer to her than he had 
 ever been. But the color had come into her face, 
 and it seemed to remind him that her beauty was 
 not all. " Everything about you is sweet and noble," 
 he went on ; " everything is dear to me. I am sure 
 you are good. I don't know what you think of me ; 
 I asked Lady Beauchemin to tell me, and she told 
 me to judge for myself. Well, then, I judge you like 
 me. Haven 't I a right to assume that till the con- 
 trary is proved ? May I speak to your father ? That 's 
 what I want to know. I have been waiting ; but now 
 what should I wait for longer ? I want to be able 
 to tell him that you have given me some hope. I 
 suppose I ought to speak to him first. I meant to, 
 to-morrow, but meanwhile, to-night, I thought I 
 would just put this in. In my country it would n't 
 matter particularly. You must see all that over 
 there for yourself. If you should tell me not to 
 speak to your father, I wouldn't; I would wait. 
 But I like better to ask your leave to speak to him 
 than to ask his to speak to you." 
 
 His voice had sunk almost to a whisper ; but, 
 though it trembled, his emotion gave it peculiar in- 
 tensity. He had the same attitude, his thumbs in 
 his trousers, his attentive head, his smile, which was 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 167 
 
 a matter of course; no one would have imagined 
 what he was saying. She had listened without mov- 
 ing, and at the end she raised her eyes. They rested 
 on his a moment, and he remembered, a good while 
 later, the look which passed her lids. 
 
 "You may say anything that you please to my 
 father, but I don't wish to hear any more. You have 
 said too much, considering how little idea you have 
 given me before." 
 
 " I was watching you," said Jackson Lemon. 
 
 Lady Barberina held her head higher, looking 
 straight at him. Then, quite seriously, " I don't like 
 to be watched," she remarked. 
 
 " You shouldn't be so beautiful, then. Won't you 
 give me a word of hope ? " he added. 
 
 "I have never supposed I should marry a for- 
 eigner," said Lady Barberiua. 
 
 " Do you call me a foreigner ? " 
 
 "I think your ideas are very different, and your 
 country is different ; you have told me so yourself." 
 
 " I should like to show it to you ; I would make 
 you like it." 
 
 " I am not sure what you would make me do," said 
 Lady Barberina, very honestly. 
 
 "Nothing that you don't want." 
 
 "I am sure you would try," she declared, with 
 a smile. 
 
 "Well," said Jackson Lemon, "after all, I am 
 trying now." 
 
 To this she simply replied she must go to her 
 
168 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 mother, and he was obliged to lead her out of the 
 conservatory. Lady Canterville was not immediately 
 found, so that he had time to murmur as they went, 
 " Now that I have spoken, I am very happy." 
 
 " Perhaps you are happy too soon," said the girl. 
 
 " Ah, don't say that, Lady Barb." 
 
 " Of course I must think of it." 
 
 " Of course you must ! " said Jackson Lemon ; " I 
 will speak to your father to-morrow." 
 
 " I can't fancy what he will say." 
 
 " How can he dislike me ? " the young man asked, 
 in a tone which Lady Beauchemin, if she had heard 
 him, would have been forced to attribute to his gen- 
 eral affectation of the jocose. What Lady Beauche- 
 min's sister thought of it is not recorded ; but there 
 is perhaps a clue to her opinion in the answer she 
 made him after a moment's silence : " Eeally, you 
 know, you are a foreigner ! " With this she turned 
 her back upon him, for she was already in her 
 mother's hands. Jackson Lemon said a few words 
 to Lady Canterville ; they were chiefly about its 
 being very hot. She gave him her vague, sweet 
 attention, as if he were saying something ingenious, 
 of which she missed the point. He could see that 
 she was thinking of the doings of her daughter 
 Agatha, whose attitude toward the contemporary 
 young man was wanting in the perception of differ- 
 ences, a madness without method; she was evi- 
 dently not occupied with Lady Barberina, who was 
 more to be trusted. This young woman never met 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 169 
 
 her suitor's eyes again ; she let her own rest, rather 
 ostentatiously, upon other objects. At last he was 
 going away without a glance from her. Lady Can- 
 terville had asked him to come to lunch on the 
 morrow, and he had said he would do so if she would 
 promise him he should see his lordship. "I can't 
 pay you another visit until I have had some talk 
 with him," he said. 
 
 "I don't see why not; but if I speak to him, I 
 dare say he will be at home," she answered. 
 
 " It will be worth his while ! " 
 
 Jackson Lemon left the house reflecting that as he 
 had never proposed to a girl before, he could not be 
 expected to know how women demean themselves in 
 this emergency. He had heard, indeed, that Lady 
 Barb had had no end of offers ; and though he thought 
 it probable that the number was exaggerated, as it 
 always is, it was to be supposed that her way of 
 appearing suddenly to have dropped him was but 
 the usual behavior for the occasion. 
 
 ni. 
 
 AT her mother's the next day she was absent from 
 luncheon, and Lady Canterville mentioned to him (he 
 did n't ask) that she had gone to see a dear old great- 
 aunt, who was also her godmother, and who lived at 
 Eoehampton. Lord Canterville was not present, but 
 our young man was informed by his hostess that he 
 
170 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 had promised her he would come in exactly at three 
 o'clock. Jackson Lemon lunched with Lady Canter- 
 ville and the children, who appeared in force at this 
 repast, all the younger girls being present, and two 
 little boys, the juniors of the two sons who were in 
 their teens. Jackson, who was very fond of children, 
 and thought these absolutely the finest in the world, 
 magnificent specimens of a magnificent brood, such 
 as it would be so satisfactory in future days to see 
 about his own knee, Jackson felt that he was being 
 treated as one of the family, but was not frightened 
 by what he supposed the privilege to imply. Lady 
 Canterville betrayed no consciousness whatever of 
 his having mooted the question of becoming her son- 
 in-law, and he believed that her eldest daughter had 
 not told her of their talk the night before. This 
 idea gave him pleasure ; he liked to think that Lady 
 Barb was judging him for herself. Perhaps, indeed, she 
 was taking counsel of the old lady at Eoehampton : 
 he believed that he was the sort of lover of whom a 
 godmother would approve. Godmothers in his mind 
 were mainly associated with fairy-tales (he had had 
 no baptismal sponsors of his own) ; and that point of 
 view would be favorable to a young man with a great 
 deal of gold who had suddenly arrived from a foreign 
 country, an apparition, surely, sufficiently elfish. 
 He made up his mind that he should like Lady Can- 
 terville as a mother-in-law ; she would be too well- 
 bred to meddle. Her husband came in at three 
 o'clock, just after they had left the table, and said to 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 171 
 
 Jackson Lemon that it was very good in him to have 
 waited. 
 
 " I have n't waited," Jackson replied, with his watch 
 in his hand ; " you are punctual to the minute." 
 
 I know not how Lord Canterville may have judged 
 his young friend, but Jackson Lemon had been told 
 more than once in his life that he was a very good 
 fellow, but rather too literal. After he had lighted a 
 cigarette in his lordship's " den," a large brown apart- 
 ment on the ground-floor, which partook at once of 
 the nature of an office and of that of a harness-room 
 (it could not have been called in any degree a library), 
 he went straight to the point in these terms : " Well 
 now, Lord Canterville, I feel as if I ought to let you 
 know without more delay that I am in love with 
 Lady Barb, and that I should like to marry her." So 
 he spoke, puffing his cigarette, with his conscious but 
 unextenuating eye fixed on his host. 
 
 No man, as I have intimated, bore better being 
 looked at than this noble personage; he seemed to 
 bloom in the envious warmth of human contempla- 
 tion, and never appeared so faultless as when he was 
 most exposed. " My dear fellow, my dear fellow," 
 he murmured, almost in disparagement, stroking his 
 ambrosial beard from before the empty fireplace. 
 He lifted his eyebrows, but he looked perfectly good- 
 natured. 
 
 " Are you surprised, sir ? " Jackson Lemon asked. 
 
 " Why, I suppose any one is surprised at a man 
 wanting one of his children. He sometimes feels the 
 
172 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 weight of that sort of thing so much, you know. He 
 wonders what the devil another man wants of them." 
 And Lord Canterville laughed pleasantly out of the 
 copious fringe of his lips. 
 
 " I only want one of them," said Jackson Lemon, 
 laughing too, but with a lighter organ. 
 
 " Polygamy would be rather good for the parents. 
 However, Lucy told me the other night that she 
 thought you were looking the way you speak of." 
 
 " Yes, I told Lady Beauchemin that I love Lady 
 Barb, and she seemed to think it was natural." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I suppose there 's no want of nature in 
 it ! But, my dear fellow, I really don't know what 
 to say." 
 
 " Of course you 11 have to think of it." Jackson 
 Lemon, in saying this, felt that he was making the 
 most liberal concession to the point of view of his 
 interlocutor ; being perfectly aware that in his own 
 country it was not left much to the parents to 
 think of. 
 
 " I shall have to talk it over with my wife." 
 
 " Lady Canterville has been very kind to me ; I 
 hope she will continue." 
 
 " My dear fellow, we are excellent friends. No 
 one could appreciate you more than Lady Canter- 
 ville. Of course we can only consider such a question 
 on the a the highest grounds. You would never 
 want to marry without knowing, as it were, exactly 
 what you are doing. I, on my side, naturally, you 
 know, am bound to do the best I can for my own 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 173 
 
 child. At the same time, of course, we don't want 
 to spend our time in a walking round the horse. 
 We want to keep to the main lines." It was settled 
 between them after a little that the main lines were 
 that Jackson Lemon knew to a certainty the state of 
 his affections, and was in a position to pretend to the 
 hand of a young lady who Lord Canterville might 
 say of course, you know, without swaggering about 
 it had a right to expect to do well, as the women 
 call it. 
 
 " I should think she had," Jackson Lemon said ; 
 " she 's a beautiful type." 
 
 Lord Canterville stared a moment. "She is a 
 clever, well-grown girl, and she takes her fences like 
 a grasshopper. Does she know all this, by the way ? " 
 he added. 
 
 " Oh yes, I told her last night." 
 
 Again Lord Canterville had the air, unusual with 
 him, of returning his companion's regard. " I am not 
 sure that you ought to have done that, you know." 
 
 " I could n't have spoken to you first I could n't," 
 said Jackson Lemon. " I meant to ; but it stuck in 
 my crop." 
 
 " They don't in your country, I guess," his lordship 
 returned, smiling. 
 
 " Well, not as a general thing ; however, I find it 
 very pleasant to discuss with you now." And in 
 truth it was very pleasant. Nothing could be easier, 
 friendlier, more informal, than Lord Canterville's 
 manner, which implied all sorts of equality, especially 
 
174 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 that of age and fortune, and made Jackson Lemon 
 feel at the end of three minutes almost as if he too 
 were a beautifully preserved and somewhat strait- 
 ened nobleman of sixty, with the views of a man of 
 the world about his own marriage. The young Amer- 
 ican perceived that Lord Canterville waived the point 
 of his having spoken first to the girl herself, and saw 
 in this indulgence a just concession to the ardor of 
 young affection. For Lord Canterville seemed per- 
 fectly to appreciate the sentimental side, at least 
 so far as it was embodied in his visitor, when he 
 said without deprecation: "Did she give you any 
 encouragement ? " 
 
 " Well, she did n't box my ears. She told me that 
 she would think of it, but that I must speak to you. 
 But naturally I should n't have said what I did to 
 her if I had n't made up my mind during the last fort- 
 night that I am not disagreeable to her." 
 
 " Ah, my dear young man, women are odd cattle ! " 
 Lord Canterville exclaimed, rather unexpectedly. 
 " But of course you know all that," he added in an 
 instant; "you take the general risk." 
 
 " I am perfectly willing to take the general risk ; 
 the particular risk is small." 
 
 "Well, upon my honor I don't really know my 
 girls. You see a man's time, in England, is tremen- 
 dously taken up; but I dare say it's the same in 
 your country. Their mother knows them I think 
 I had better send for their mother. If you don't 
 mind I '11 just suggest that she join us here." 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 175 
 
 " I 'm rather afraid of you both together, but if it 
 will settle it any quicker " said Jackson Lenion. 
 Lord Canterville rang the bell, and, when a servant 
 appeared, despatched him with a message to her lady- 
 ship. While they were waiting, the young man 
 remembered that it was in his power to give a more 
 definite account of his pecuniary basis. He had 
 simply said before that he was abundantly able to 
 marry ; he shrank from putting himself forward as a 
 billionnaire. He had a fine taste, and he wished to 
 appeal to Lord Canterville primarily as a gentleman. 
 But now that he had to make a double impression, 
 he bethought himself of his millions, for millions were 
 always impressive. " I think it only fair to let you 
 know that my fortune is really very considerable," he 
 remarked. 
 
 " Yes, I dare say you are beastly rich," said Lord 
 Canterville. 
 
 " I have about seven millions." 
 
 " Seven millions ? " 
 
 " I count in dollars ; upwards of a million and a 
 half sterling." 
 
 Lord Canterville looked at him from head to foot, 
 with an air of cheerful resignation to a form of gross- 
 ness which threatened to become common. Then he 
 said, with a touch of that inconsequence of which he 
 had already given a glimpse : " What the deuce, then, 
 possessed you to turn doctor ? " 
 
 Jackson Lemon colored a little, hesitated, and then 
 said quickly : " Because I had the talent for it." 
 
176 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 "Of course, I don't for a moment doubt of your 
 ability ; but don't you find it rather a bore ? " 
 
 " I don't practise much. I am rather ashamed to 
 say that." 
 
 " Ah, well, of course, in your country it 's different. 
 I dare say you Ve got a door-plate, eh ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, and a tin sign tied to the balcony ! " said 
 Jackson Lemon, smiling. 
 
 " What did your father say to it ? " 
 
 " To my going into medicine ? He said he would 
 be hanged if he 'd take any of my doses. He did n't 
 think I should succeed ; he wanted me to go into the 
 house." 
 
 "Into the House a " said Lord Canterville, 
 hesitating a little. "Into your Congress yes, ex- 
 actly." 
 
 " Ah, no, not so bad as that. Into the store," Jack- 
 son Lemon replied, in the candid tone in which he 
 expressed himself when, for reasons of his own, he 
 wished to be perfectly national. 
 
 Lord Canterville stared, not venturing, even for the 
 moment, to hazard an interpretation ; and before a 
 solution had presented itself, Lady Canterville came 
 into the room. 
 
 " My dear, I thought we had better see you. Do 
 you know he wants to marry our second girl ? " It 
 was in these simple terms that her husband acquainted 
 her with the question. 
 
 Lady Canterville expressed neither surprise nor 
 elation; she simply stood there, smiling, with her 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 177 
 
 head a little inclined to the side, with all her custo- 
 mary graciousness. Her charming eyes rested on 
 those of Jackson Lemon ; and though they seemed to 
 show that she had to think a little of so serious a 
 proposition, his own discovered in them none of the 
 coldness of calculation. " Are you talking about Bar- 
 berina ? " she asked in a moment, as if her thoughts 
 had been far away. 
 
 Of course they were talking about Barberina, and 
 Jackson Lemon repeated to her ladyship what he had 
 said to the girl's father. He had thought it all over, 
 and his mind was quite made up. Moreover, he had 
 spoken to Lady Barb. 
 
 "Did she tell you that, my dear?" asked Lord 
 Canterville, while he lighted another cigar. 
 
 She gave no heed to this inquiry, which had been 
 vague and accidental on his lordship's part, but sim- 
 ply said to Jackson Lemon that the thing was very 
 serious, and that they had better sit down for a mo- 
 ment. In an instant he was near her on the sofa on 
 which she had placed herself, still smiling and looking 
 up at her husband with an air of general meditation, 
 in which a sweet compassion for every one concerned 
 was apparent. 
 
 "Barberina has told me nothing," she said after 
 a little. 
 
 " That proves she cares for me J " Jackson Lemon 
 exclaimed, eagerly. 
 
 Lady Canterville looked as if she thought this almost 
 too ingenious, almost professional ; but her husband 
 
 12 
 
178 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 said cheerfully, jovially : " Ah well, if she cares for 
 you, I don't object." 
 
 This was a little ambiguous; but before Jackson 
 Lemon had time to look into it, Lady Canterville 
 asked, gently: "Should you expect her to live in 
 America ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ; that 's my home, you know." 
 
 "Shouldn't you be living sometimes in England?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, we 11 come over and see you." The young 
 man was in love, he wanted to marry, he wanted to 
 be genial, and to commend himself to the parents of 
 Lady Barb ; at the same time it was in his nature 
 not to accept conditions, save in so far as they exactly 
 suited him, to tie himself, or, as they said in New 
 York, to give himself away. In any transaction he 
 preferred his own terms to those of any one else. 
 Therefore, the moment Lady Canterville gave signs 
 of wishing to extract a promise, he was on his guard. 
 
 "She'll find it very different; perhaps she won't 
 like it," her ladyship suggested. 
 
 "If she likes me, she'll like my country," said Jack- 
 son Lernon, with decision. 
 
 " He tells me he has got a plate on his door," Lord 
 Canterville remarked, humorously. 
 
 " We must talk to her, of course ; we must under- 
 stand how she feels," said his wife, looking more 
 serious than she had done as yet. 
 
 "Please don't discourage her, Lady Canterville," 
 the young man begged; "and give me a chance to 
 talk to her a little more myself. You have n't given 
 me much chance, you know." 
 
LADY BARBER1NA. 179 
 
 "We don't offer our daughters to people, Mr. 
 Lemon." Lady Canterville was always gentle, but 
 now she was a little majestic. 
 
 " She is n't like some women in London, you know," 
 said Jackson Lemon's host, who seemed to remember 
 that to a discussion of such importance he ought 
 from time to time to contribute a word of wisdom. 
 And Jackson Lemon, certainly, if the idea had been 
 presented to him, would have said that, No, decidedly, 
 Lady Barberina had not been thrown at him. 
 
 "Of course not," he declared, in answer to her 
 mother's remark. " But, you know, you must n't 
 refuse them too much, either ; you must n't make a 
 poor fellow wait too long. I admire her, I love her, 
 more than I can say ; I give you my word of honor 
 for that." 
 
 " He seems to think that settles it," said Lord 
 Canterville, smiling down at the young American, 
 very pleasantly, from his place before the cold chim- 
 ney-piece. 
 
 "Of course that's what we desire, Phillip," her 
 ladyship returned, very nobly. 
 
 " Lady Barb believes it ; I am sure she does ! " 
 Jackson Lemon exclaimed. " Why should I pretend 
 to be in love with her if I am not ? " 
 
 Lady Canterville received this inquiry in silence, 
 and her husband, with just the least air in the world 
 of repressed impatience, began to walk up and down 
 the room. He was a man of many engagements, and 
 he had been closeted for more than a quarter of an 
 
180 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 hour with the young American doctor. "Do you 
 imagine you should come often to England ? " Lady 
 Canterville demanded, with a certain abruptness, 
 returning to that important point. 
 
 " I 'm afraid I can't tell you that ; of course we 
 shall do whatever seems best." He was prepared to 
 suppose they should cross the Atlantic every summer : 
 that prospect was by no means displeasing to him; 
 but he was not prepared to give any such pledge to 
 Lady Canterville, especially as he did not believe it 
 would really be necessary. It was in his mind, not 
 as an overt pretension, but as a tacit implication that 
 he should treat with Barberina's parents on a footing 
 of perfect equality; and there would somehow be 
 nothing equal if he should begin to enter into engage- 
 ments which did n't belong to the essence of the 
 matter. They were to give their daughter, and he 
 was to take her : in this arrangement there would be 
 as much on one side as on the other. But beyond 
 this he had nothing to ask of them ; there was noth- 
 ing he wished them to promise, and his own pledges, 
 therefore, would have no equivalent. Whenever his 
 wife should wish it, she should come over and see her 
 people. Her home was to be in New York ; but he 
 was tacitly conscious that on the question of absences 
 he should be very liberal. Nevertheless, there was 
 something in the very grain of his character which 
 forbade that he should commit himself at present in 
 respect to times and dates. 
 
 Lady Canterville looked at her husband, but her 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 181 
 
 husband was not attentive ; he was taking a peep at 
 his watch. In a moment, however, he threw out a 
 remark to the effect that he thought it a capital 
 thing that the two countries should become more 
 united, and there was nothing that would bring it 
 about better than a few of the best people on both 
 sides pairing off together. The English, indeed, had 
 begun it ; a lot of fellows had brought over a lot of 
 pretty girls, and it was quite fair play that the 
 Americans should take their pick. They were all 
 one race, after all ; and why should n't they make one 
 society, the best on both sides, of course ? Jack- 
 son Lemon smiled as he recognized Lady Marma- 
 duke's philosophy, and he was pleased to think that 
 Lady Beauchemin had some influence with her father ; 
 for he was sure the old gentleman (as he mentally 
 designated his host) had got all this from her, though 
 he expressed himself less happily than the cleverest 
 of his daughters. Our hero had no objection to make 
 to it, especially if there was anything in it that would 
 really help his case. But it was not in the least on 
 these high grounds that he had sought the hand of 
 Lady Barb. He wanted her not in order that her 
 people and his (the best on both sides !) should make 
 one society ; he wanted her simply because he wanted 
 her. Lady Canterville smiled; but she seemed to 
 have another thought. 
 
 " I quite appreciate what my husband says ; but I 
 don't see why poor Barb should be the one to begin." 
 
 " I dare say she '11 like it," said Lord Canterville, 
 
182 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 as if he were attempting a short cut. " They say you 
 spoil your women awfully." 
 
 " She 's not one of their women yet," her ladyship 
 remarked, in the sweetest tone in the world; and 
 then she added, without Jackson Lemon's knowing 
 exactly what she meant, " It seems so strange." 
 
 He was a little irritated ; and perhaps these simple 
 words added to the feeling. There had been no posi- 
 tive opposition to his suit, and Lord and Lady Can- 
 terville were most kind ; but he felt that they held 
 back a little ; and though he had not expected them 
 to throw themselves on his neck, he was rather dis- 
 appointed ; his pride was touched. Why should they 
 hesitate ? He considered himself such a good parti. 
 It was not so much the old gentleman, it was Lady 
 Canterville. As he saw the old gentleman look, 
 covertly, a second time at his watch, he could have 
 believed he would have been glad to settle the matter 
 on the spot. Lady Canterville seemed to wish her 
 daughter's lover to come forward more, to give cer- 
 tain assurances and guaranties. He felt that he was 
 ready to say or do anything that was a matter of 
 proper form ; but he could n't take the tone of trying 
 to purchase her ladyship's consent, penetrated as he 
 was with the conviction that such a man as he could 
 be trusted to care for his wife rather more than an 
 impecunious British peer and his wife could be sup- 
 posed (with the lights he had acquired in English 
 society) to care even for the handsomest of a dozen 
 children. It was a mistake on Lady Canterville's 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 183 
 
 part not to recognize that. He humored her mistake 
 to the extent of saying, just a little dryly, " My wife 
 shall certainly have everything she wants/' 
 
 " He tells me he is disgustingly rich," Lord Canter- 
 ville added, pausing before their companion with his 
 hands in his pockets. 
 
 " I am glad to hear it ; but it is n't so much that," 
 she answered, sinking back a little on her sofa. If it 
 was not that, she did not say what it was, though she 
 had looked for a moment as if she were going to. She 
 only raised her eyes to her husband's face, as if to 
 ask for inspiration. I know not whether she found 
 it, but in a moment she said to Jackson Lemon, 
 seeming to imply that it was quite another point: 
 " Do you expect to continue your profession ? " 
 
 He had no such intention, so far as his profession 
 meant getting up at three o'clock in the morning to 
 assuage the ills of humanity ; but here, as before, the 
 touch of such a question instantly stiffened him. 
 " Oh, my profession ! I am rather ashamed of that 
 matter. I have neglected my work so much, I don't 
 know what I shall be able to do, once I am really 
 settled at home." 
 
 Lady Canterville received these remarks in silence ; 
 fixing her eyes again upon her husband's face. But 
 this nobleman was really not helpful ; still with his 
 hands in his pockets, save when he needed to remove 
 his cigar from his lips, he went and looked out of the 
 window. "Of course we know you don't practise, 
 and when you 're a married man you will have less 
 
184 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 time even than now. But I should really like to 
 know if they call you Doctor over there." 
 
 " Oh, yes, universally. We are nearly as fond of 
 titles as your people." 
 
 "I don't call that a title." . 
 
 "It's not so good as duke or marquis, I admit; 
 but we have to take what we have got." 
 
 " Oh, bother, what does it signify ? " Lord Canter- 
 ville demanded, from his place at the window. "I 
 used to have a horse named Doctor, and a devilish 
 good one too." 
 
 " You may call me bishop, if you like," said Jack- 
 son Lemon, laughing. 
 
 Lady Canterville looked grave, as if she did not en- 
 joy this pleasantry. "I don't care for any titles," she 
 observed; "I don't see why a gentleman shouldn't 
 be called Mr." 
 
 It suddenly appeared to Jackson Lemon that there 
 was something helpless, confused, and even slightly 
 comical, in the position of this noble and amiable 
 lady. The impression made him feel kindly; he too, 
 like Lord Canterville, had begun to long for a short 
 cut. He relaxed a moment, and leaning toward his 
 hostess, with a smile and his hands on his little 
 knees, he said, softly, " It seems to me a question of 
 no importance ; all I desire is that you should call 
 me your son-in-law." 
 
 Lady Canterville gave him her hand, and he pressed 
 it almost affectionately. Then she got up, remarking 
 that before anything was decided she must see her 
 
LADY BARBER1NA. 185 
 
 daughter, she must learn from her own lips the state 
 of her feelings. " I don't like at all her not having 
 spoken to me already," she added. 
 
 " Where has she gone to Eoehampton ? I dare 
 say she has told it all to her godmother," said Lord 
 Canterville. 
 
 " She won't have much to tell, poor girl ! " Jackson 
 Lemon exclaimed. " I must really insist upon seeing 
 with more freedom the person I wish to marry." 
 
 " You shall have all the freedom you want, in two 
 or three days," said Lady Canterville. She smiled 
 with all her sweetness; she appeared to have accepted 
 him, and yet still to be making tacit assumptions. 
 " Are there not certain things to be talked of first ? " 
 
 " Certain things, dear lady ? " 
 
 Lady Canterville looked at her husband, and though 
 he was still at his window, this time he felt it in her 
 silence, and had to come away and speak. " Oh, she 
 means settlements, and that kind of thing." This 
 was an allusion which came with a much better grace 
 from him. 
 
 Jackson Lemon looked from one of his companions 
 to the other; he colored a little, and gave a smile 
 that was perhaps a trifle fixed. " Settlements ? We 
 don't make them in the United States. You may be 
 sure I shall make a proper provision for my wife." 
 
 "My dear fellow, over here in our class, you 
 know, it 's the custom," said Lord Canterville, with a 
 richer brightness in his face at the thought that the 
 discussion was over. 
 
186 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 " I have my own ideas," Jackson answered, smiling. 
 
 " It seems to me it 's a question for the solicitors to 
 discuss," Lady Canterville suggested. 
 
 " They may discuss it as much as they please," said 
 Jackson Lemon, with a laugh. He thought he saw 
 his solicitors discussing it ! He had indeed his own 
 ideas. He opened the door for Lady Canterville, and 
 the three passed out of the room together, walking 
 into the hall in a silence in which there was just a 
 tinge of awkwardness. A note had been struck which 
 grated and scratched a little. A pair of brilliant 
 footmen, at their approach, rose from a bench to a 
 great altitude, and stood there like sentinels present- 
 ing arms. Jackson Lemon stopped, looking for a 
 moment into the interior of his hat, which he had in 
 his hand. Then, raising his keen eyes, he fixed them 
 a moment on those of Lady Canterville, addressing 
 her, instinctively, rather than her husband. " I guess 
 you and Lord Canterville had better leave it to me ! " 
 
 "We have our traditions, Mr. Lemon," said her 
 ladyship, with nobleness. "I imagine you don't 
 know " she murmured. 
 
 Lord Canterville laid his hand on the young man's 
 shoulder. "My dear boy, those fellows will settle 
 it in three minutes." 
 
 "Very likely they will!" said Jackson Lemon. 
 Then he asked of Lady Canterville when he might 
 see Lady Barb. 
 
 She hesitated a moment, in her gracious way. " I 
 will write you a note." 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 187 
 
 One of the tall footmen, at the end of the impres- 
 sive vista, had opened wide the portals, as if even he 
 were aware of the dignity to which the little visi- 
 tor had virtually been raised. But Jackson lingered 
 a moment ; he was visibly unsatisfied, though appar- 
 ently so little unconscious that he was unsatisfying. 
 " I don't think you understand me." 
 
 "Your ideas are certainly different," said Lady 
 Canterville. 
 
 " If the girl understands you, that 's enough ! " Lord 
 Canterville exclaimed in a jovial, detached, irrelevant 
 way. 
 
 " May not she write to me ? " Jackson asked of her 
 mother. " I certainly must write to her, you know, if 
 you won't let me see her." 
 
 " Oh, yes, you may write to her, Mr. Lemon." 
 
 There was a point for a moment in the look that 
 he gave Lady Canterville, while he said to himself 
 that if it were necessary he would transmit his notes 
 through the old lady at Eoehampton. "All right, 
 good by ; you know what I want, at any rate." Then, 
 as he was going, he turned and added : " You need n't 
 be afraid that I won't bring her over in the hot 
 weather ! " 
 
 " In the hot weather ? " Lady Canterville mur- 
 mured, with vague visions of the torrid zone, while 
 the young American quitted the house with the sense 
 that he had made great concessions. 
 
 His host and hostess passed into a small morning- 
 room, and (Lord Canterville having taken up his hat 
 
188 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 and stick to go out again) stood there a moment, face 
 to face. 
 
 "It's clear enough he wants her," said his lordship, 
 in a summary manner. 
 
 " There 's something so odd about him," Lady Can- 
 terville answered. "Fancy his speaking so about 
 settlements ! " 
 
 "You had better give him his head; he '11 go 
 much quieter." 
 
 " He 's so obstinate very obstinate ; it 's easy to 
 see that. And he seems to think a girl in your 
 daughter's position can be married from one day to 
 the other with a ring and a new frock like a 
 housemaid." 
 
 " Well, of course, over there, that 's the kind of 
 thing. But he seems really to have a most extraor- 
 dinary fortune ; and every one does say their women 
 have carte blanche" 
 
 " Carte blanche is not what Barb wishes ; she wishes 
 a settlement. She wants a definite income ; she wants 
 to be safe." 
 
 Lord Canterville stared a moment. " Has she told 
 
 you so? I thought you said ." And then he 
 
 stopped. " I beg your pardon," he added. 
 
 Lady Canterville gave no explanation of her incon- 
 sistency. She went on to remark that American for- 
 tunes were notoriously insecure ; one heard of nothing 
 else ; they melted away like smoke. It was their 
 duty to their child to demand that something should 
 be fixed. 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 189 
 
 " He lias a million and a half sterling," said Lord 
 Canterville. " I can't make out what he does with 
 it." 
 
 " She ought to have something very handsome," his 
 wife remarked. 
 
 " Well, my dear, you must settle it : you must con- 
 sider it ; you must send for Hilary. Only take care 
 you don't put him off; it may be a very good open- 
 ing, you know. There is a great deal to be done out 
 there ; I believe in all that," Lord Canterville went 
 on, in the tone of a conscientious parent. 
 
 " There is no doubt that he is a doctor in those 
 places," said Lady Canterville, musingly. 
 
 " He may be a pedler for all I care." 
 
 " If they should go out, I think Agatha might go 
 with them," her ladyship continued, in the same tone, 
 a little disconnectedly. 
 
 " You may send them all out if you like. Good 
 by ! " And Lord Canterville kissed his wife. 
 
 But she detained him a moment, with her hand on 
 his arm. "Don't you think he is very much in 
 love?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, he 's very bad ; but he 's a clever little 
 beggar." 
 
 " She likes him very much," Lady Canterville an- 
 nounced, rather formally, as they separated. 
 
190 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 PAET SECOND. 
 
 IV. 
 
 JACKSON LEMON had said to Sidney Feeder in the 
 Park that he would call on Mr. and Mrs. Freer ; but 
 three weeks elapsed before he knocked at their door 
 in Jermyn Street. In the meantime he had met 
 them at dinner, and Mrs. Freer had told him that she 
 hoped very much he would find time to come and see 
 her. She had not reproached him, nor shaken her 
 finger at him; and her clemency, which was calcu- 
 lated, and very characteristic of her, touched him so 
 much (for he was in fault; she was one of his 
 mother's oldest and best friends), that he very soon 
 presented himself. It was on a fine Sunday after- 
 noon, rather late, and the region of Jermyn Street 
 looked forsaken and inanimate ; the native dulness of 
 the landscape appeared in all its purity. Mrs. Freer, 
 however, was at home, resting on a lodging-house 
 sofa an angular couch, draped in faded chintz 
 before she went to dress for dinner. She made the 
 young man very welcome ; she told him she had 
 been thinking of him a great deal ; she had wished 
 to have a chance to talk with him. He immediately 
 perceived what she had in mind, and then he remem- 
 bered that Sidney Feeder had told him what it was 
 
LADY BARBER1NA. 191 
 
 that Mr. and Mrs. Freer took upon themselves to say. 
 This had provoked him at the time, but he had for- 
 gotten it afterward ; partly because he became aware, 
 that same evening, that he did wish to marry the 
 rt young marchioness," and partly because since then 
 he had had much greater annoyances. Yes, the poor 
 young man, so conscious of liberal intentions, of a 
 large way of looking at the future, had had much to 
 irritate and disgust him. He had seen the mistress 
 of his affections but three or four times, and he had 
 received letters from Mr. Hilary, Lord Canterville's 
 solicitor, asking him, in terms the most obsequious, it 
 is true, to designate some gentleman of the law with 
 whom the preliminaries of his marriage to Lady Bar- 
 berina Clement might be arranged. He had given 
 Mr. Hilary the name of such a functionary, but he 
 had written by the same post to his own solicitor 
 (for whose services in other matters he had had much 
 occasion, Jackson Lemon being distinctly conten- 
 tious), instructing him that he was at liberty to meet 
 Mr. Hilary, but not at liberty to entertain any pro- 
 posals as to this odious English idea of a settlement. 
 If marrying Jackson Lemon were not settlement 
 enough, then Lord and Lady Canterville had better 
 alter their point of view. It was quite out of the 
 question that he should alter his. It would perhaps 
 be difficult to explain the strong aversion that he 
 entertained to the introduction into his prospective 
 union of this harsh diplomatic element; it was as 
 if they mistrusted him, suspected him ; as if his 
 
192 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 hands were to be tied, so that he could not handle 
 his own fortune as he thought best. It was not the 
 idea of parting with his money that displeased him, 
 for he flattered himself that he had plans of expendi- 
 ture for his wife beyond even the imagination of her 
 distinguished parents. It struck him even that they 
 were fools not to have perceived that they should 
 make a much better thing of it by leaving him per- 
 fectly free. This intervention of the solicitor was 
 a nasty little English tradition totally at variance 
 with the large spirit of American habits to which 
 he would not submit. It was not his way to submit 
 when he disapproved : why should he change his way 
 on this occasion, when the matter lay so near him ? 
 These reflections, and a hundred more, had flowed 
 freely through his mind for several days before he 
 called in Jermyn Street, and they had engendered a 
 lively indignation and a really bitter sense of wrong. 
 As may be imagined, they had infused a certain awk- 
 wardness into his relations with the house of Canter- 
 ville, and it may be said of these relations that they 
 were for the moment virtually suspended. His first 
 interview with Lady Barb, after his conference with 
 the old couple, as he called her august elders, had 
 been as tender as he could have desired. Lady Can- 
 terville, at the end of three days, had sent him an 
 invitation five words on a card asking him to 
 dine with them to-morrow, quite en famille. This 
 had been the only formal intimation that his engage- 
 ment to Lady Barb was recognized ; for even at the 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 193 
 
 family banquet, which included half a dozen outsid- 
 ers, there had been no allusion on the part either of 
 his host or his hostess to the subject of their conver- 
 sation in Lord Canterville's den. The only allusion 
 was a wandering ray, once or twice, in Lady Barber- 
 ina's eyes. When, however, after dinner, she strolled 
 away with him into the music-room, which was lighted 
 and empty, to play for him something out of Carmen, 
 of which he had spoken at table, and when the young 
 couple were allowed to enjoy for upwards of an hour, 
 unmolested, the comparative privacy of this rich 
 apartment, he felt that Lady Canterville definitely 
 counted upon him. She did n't believe in any seri- 
 ous difficulties. Neither did he, then ; and that was 
 why it was a nuisance there should be a vain ap- 
 pearance of them. The arrangements, he supposed 
 Lady Canterville would have said, were pending, and 
 indeed they were ; for he had already given orders in 
 Bond Street for the setting of an extraordinary num- 
 ber of diamonds. Lady Barb, at any rate, during 
 that hour he spent with her, had had nothing to say 
 about arrangements ; and it had been an hour of pure 
 satisfaction. She had seated herself at the piano and 
 had played perpetually, in a soft, incoherent manner, 
 while he leaned over the instrument, very close to 
 her, and said everything that came into his head. 
 She was very bright and serene, and she looked at 
 him as if she liked him very much. 
 
 This was all he expected of her, for it did not be- 
 long to the cast of her beauty to betray a vulgar 
 
 13 
 
194 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 infatuation. That beauty was more delightful to him 
 than ever ; and there was a softness about her which 
 seemed to say to him that from this moment she was 
 quite his own. He felt more than ever the value of 
 such a possession ; it came over him more than ever 
 that it had taken a great social outlay to produce such 
 a mixture. Simple and girlish as she was, and not 
 particularly quick in the give and take of conversa- 
 tion, she seemed to him to have a part of the history 
 of England in her blood ; she was a r&umtf of genera- 
 tions of privileged people, and of centuries of rich 
 country-life. Between these two, of course, there 
 was no allusion to the question which had been put 
 into the hands of Mr. Hilary, and the last thing that 
 occurred to Jackson Lemon was that Lady Barb had 
 views as to his settling a fortune upon her before 
 their marriage. It may appear singular, but he 
 had not asked himself whether his money operated 
 upon her in any degree as a bribe ; and this was be- 
 cause, instinctively, he felt that such a speculation 
 was idle, the point was not to be ascertained, 
 and because he was willing to assume that it was 
 agreeable to her that she should continue to live in 
 luxury. It was eminently agreeable to him that he 
 might enable her to do so. He was acquainted with 
 the mingled character of human motives, and he was 
 glad that he was rich enough to pretend to the hand 
 of a young woman who, for the best of reasons, would 
 be very expensive. After that happy hour in the 
 music-room he had ridden with her twice; but he 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 195 
 
 had not found her otherwise accessible. She had let 
 him know, the second time they rode, that Lady 
 Canterville had directed her to make, for the moment, 
 no further appointment witk him ; and on his present- 
 ing himself, more than once at the house, he had been 
 told that neither the mother nor the daughter was at 
 home ; it had been added that Lady Barberina was 
 staying at Eoehampton. On giving him that infor- 
 mation in the Park, Lady Barb had looked at him 
 with a mute reproach, there was always a certain 
 superior dumbness in her eyes, as if he were expos- 
 ing her to an annoyance that she ought to be spared ; 
 as if he were taking an eccentric line on a question 
 that all well-bred people treated in the conventional 
 way. His induction from this was not that she 
 wished to be secure about his money, but that, like 
 a dutiful English daughter, she received her opinions 
 (on points that were indifferent to her) ready-made 
 from a mamma whose fallibility had never been 
 exposed. He knew by this that his solicitor had 
 answered Mr. Hilary's letter, and that Lady Canter- 
 ville's coolness was the fruit of this correspondence. 
 The effect of it was not in the least to make him 
 come round, as he phrased it ; he had not the small- 
 est intention of doing that. Lady Canterville had 
 spoken of the traditions of her family ; but he had no 
 need to go to his family for his own. They resided 
 within himself ; anything that he had definitely made 
 up his mind to, acquired in an hour the force of a 
 tradition. Meanwhile, he was in the detestable posi- 
 
196 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 tion of not knowing whether or no he were engaged. 
 He wrote to Lady Barb to inquire, it being so 
 strange that she should not receive him; and she 
 answered, in a very pretty little letter, which had to 
 his mind a sort of bygone quality, an old-fashioned 
 freshness, as if it might have been written in the last 
 century by Clarissa or Amelia : she answered that 
 she did not in the least understand the situation; 
 that, of course, she would never give him up ; that 
 her mother had said that there were the best reasons 
 for their not going too fast ; that, thank God, she was 
 yet young, and could wait as long as he would ; but 
 that she begged he would n't write her anything about 
 money-matters, as she could never comprehend them. 
 Jackson felt that he was in no danger whatever of 
 making this last mistake ; he only noted how Lady 
 Barb thought it natural that there should be a dis- 
 cussion ; and this made it vivid to him afresh that 
 he had got hold of a daughter of the Crusaders. His 
 ingenious mind could appreciate this hereditary as- 
 sumption perfectly, at the same time that, to light 
 his own footsteps, it remained entirely modern. He 
 believed or he thought he believed that in the 
 end he should marry Barberina Clement on his own 
 terms ; but in the interval there was a sensible in- 
 dignity in being challenged and checked. One effect 
 of it, indeed, was to make him desire the girl more 
 keenly. When she was not before his eyes in the 
 flesh, she hovered before him as an image ; and this 
 image had reasons of its own for being a radiant pic- 
 
LADY BARBER1NA. 197 
 
 ture. There were moments, however, when he wearied 
 of looking at it ; it was so impalpable and thankless, 
 and then Jackson Lemon, for the first time in his 
 life, was melancholy. He *felt alone in London, and 
 very much out of it, in spite of all the acquaintances 
 he had made, and the bills he had paid ; he felt the 
 need of a greater intimacy than any he had formed 
 (save, of course, in the case of Lady Barb). He 
 wanted to vent his disgust, to relieve himself, from 
 the American point of view. He felt that in enga- 
 ging in a contest with the great house of Canterville, 
 he was, after all, rather single. That singleness was, 
 of course, in a great measure an inspiration ; but it 
 pinched him a little at moments. Then he wished 
 his mother had been in London, for he used to talk 
 of his affairs a great deal with this delightful parent, 
 who had a soothing way of advising him in the sense 
 he liked best. He had even gone so far as to wish 
 he had never laid eyes on Lady Barb, and had fallen 
 in love with some transatlantic maiden of a similar 
 composition. He presently came back, of course, to 
 the knowledge that in the United States there was 
 and there could be nothing similar to Lady Barb ; 
 for was it not precisely as a product of the English 
 climate and the British constitution that he valued 
 her ? He had relieved himself, from his American 
 point of view, by speaking his mind to Lady Beau- 
 chemin, who confessed that she was very much vexed 
 with her parents. She agreed with him that they 
 had made a great mistake ; they ought to have left 
 
198 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 him free ; and she expressed her confidence that 
 that freedom would be for her family, as it were, 
 like the silence of the sage, golden. He must excuse 
 them; he must remember that what was asked of 
 him had been their custom for centuries. She did 
 not mention her authority as to the origin of customs, 
 but she assured him that she would say three words 
 to her father and mother, which would make it all 
 right. Jackson answered that customs were all very 
 well, but that intelligent people recognized, when 
 they saw it, the right occasion for departing from 
 them ; and with this he awaited the result of Lady 
 Beauchemin's remonstrance. It had not as yet been 
 perceptible, and it must be said that this charming 
 woman was herself much bothered. When, on her 
 venturing to say to her mother that she thought a 
 wrong line had been taken with regard to her sister's 
 pr&endant, Lady Canterville had replied that Mr. 
 Lemon's unwillingness to settle anything was in it- 
 self a proof of what they had feared, the unstable 
 nature of his fortune (for it was useless to talk 
 this gracious, lady could be very decided there 
 could be no serious reason but that one ) on meet- 
 ing this argument, as I say, Jackson's protectress felt 
 considerably baffled. It was perhaps true, as her 
 mother said, that if they did n't insist upon proper 
 guaranties, Barberina might be left in a few years 
 with nothing but the stars and stripes (this odd 
 phrase was a quotation from Mr. Lemon) to cover her. 
 Lady Beauchemin tried to reason it out with Lady 
 
LADY BARBER1NA. 199 
 
 Marmaduke ; but these were complications unforeseen 
 by Lady Marmaduke in her project of an Anglo- 
 American society. She was obliged to confess that 
 Mr. Lemon's fortune could not have the solidity of 
 long-established things ; it was a very new fortune 
 indeed. His father had made the greater part of it 
 all in a lump, a few years before his death, in the 
 extraordinary way in which people made money in 
 America ; that, of course, was why the son had those 
 singular professional attributes. He had begun to 
 study to be a doctor very young, before his expecta- 
 tions were so great. Then he had found he was very 
 clever, and very fond of it ; and he had kept on, be- 
 cause, after all, in America, where there were no 
 country gentlemen, a young man had to have some- 
 thing to do, don't you know ? And Lady Marma- 
 duke, like an enlightened woman, intimated that in' 
 such a case she thought it in much better taste not 
 to try to sink anything. "Because, in America, don't 
 you see," she reasoned, " you can't sink it nothing 
 will sink. Everything is floating about in the 
 newspapers." And she tried to console her friend by 
 remarking that if Mr. Lemon's fortune was precari- 
 ous, it was at all events so big. That was just the 
 trouble for Lady Beauchemin ; it was so big, and yet 
 they were going to lose it. He was as obstinate as 
 a mule ; she was sure he would never come round. 
 Lady Marmaduke declared that he would come round ; 
 she even offered to bet a dozen pair of gants de Suede 
 on it ; and she added that this consummation lay 
 
200 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 quite in the hands of Barberina. Lady Beauchemin 
 promised herself to converse with her sister; for it 
 was not for nothing that she herself had felt the 
 international contagion. 
 
 Jackson Lemon, to dissipate his chagrin, had re- 
 turned to the sessions of the medical congress, where, 
 inevitably, he had fallen into the hands of Sidney 
 Feeder, who enjoyed in this disinterested assembly 
 a high popularity. It was Dr. Feeder's earnest 
 desire that his old friend should share it, which was 
 all the more easy as the medical congress was really, 
 as the young physician observed, a perpetual sym- 
 posium. Jackson Lemon entertained the whole body 
 entertained it profusely, and in a manner befitting 
 one of the patrons of science rather than its humbler 
 votaries ; but these dissipations only made him for- 
 get for a moment that his relations with the house 
 of Canterville were anomalous. His great difficulty 
 punctually came back to him, and Sidney Feeder saw 
 it stamped upon his brow. Jackson Lemon, with his 
 acute inclination to open himself, was on the point, 
 more than once, of taking the sympathetic Sidney 
 into his confidence. His friend gave him easy oppor- 
 tunity; he asked him what it was he was thinking 
 of all the time, and whether the young marchioness 
 had concluded .she could n't swallow a doctor. These 
 forms of speech were displeasing to Jackson Lemon, 
 whose fastidiousness was nothing new; but it was 
 for even deeper reasons that he said to himself that, 
 for such complicated cases as his, there was no 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 201 
 
 assistance in Sidney Feeder. To understand his situ- 
 ation one must know the world; and the child of 
 Cincinnati didn't know the world, at least the 
 world with which his friend was now concerned. 
 
 " Is there a hitch in your marriage ? Just tell me 
 that," Sidney Feeder had said, taking everything for 
 granted, in a manner which was in itself a proof of 
 great innocence. It is true he had added that he 
 supposed he had no business to ask ; hut he had been 
 anxious about it ever since hearing from Mr. and Mrs. 
 Freer that the British aristocracy was down on the 
 medical profession. "Do they want you to give it 
 up ? Is that what the hitch is about ? Don't desert 
 your colors, Jackson. The repression of pain, the 
 mitigation of misery, constitute surely the noblest 
 profession in the world." 
 
 "My dear fellow, you don't know what you are 
 talking about," Jackson observed, for answer to this. 
 " I have n't told any one I was going to be married ; 
 still less have I told any one that any one objected 
 to my profession. I should like to see them do it. 
 I have got out of the swim to-day, but I don't regard 
 myself as the sort of person that people object to. 
 And I do expect to do something, yet." 
 
 " Come home, then, and do it. And excuse me if 
 I say that the facilities for getting married are much 
 greater over there." 
 
 " You don't seem to have found them very great." 
 
 " I have never had time. Wait till my next vaca- 
 tion, and you will see." 
 
202 LADY DARDERINA. 
 
 " The facilities over there are too great. Nothing 
 is good but what is difficult," said Jackson Lemon, in 
 a tone of artificial sententiousness that quite tor- 
 mented his interlocutor. 
 
 "Well, they have got their backs up, I can see that. 
 I 'm glad you like it. Only if they despise your pro- 
 fession, what will they say to that of your friends ? 
 If they think you are queer, what would they think 
 of me ? " asked Sidney Feeder, the turn of whose 
 mind was not, as a general thing, in the least sarcas- 
 tic, but who was pushed to this sharpness by a con- 
 viction that (in spite of declarations which seemed 
 half an admission and half a denial) his friend was 
 suffering himself to be bothered for the sake of a 
 good which might be obtained elsewhere without 
 bother. It had come over him that the bother was 
 of an unworthy kind. 
 
 "My dear fellow, all that is idiotic." That had 
 been Jackson Lemon's reply ; but it expressed but a 
 portion of his thoughts. The rest was inexpressible, 
 or almost ; being connected with a sentiment of rage 
 at its having struck even so genial a mind as Sidney 
 Feeder's, that in proposing to marry a daughter of the 
 highest civilization he was going out of his way 
 departing from his natural line. Was he then so 
 ignoble, so pledged to inferior things, that when he 
 saw a girl who (putting aside the fact that she had 
 not genius, which was rare, and which, though he 
 prized rarity, he didn't want) seemed to him the 
 most complete feminine nature he had known, he 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 203 
 
 was to think himself too different, too incongruous, 
 to mate with her? He would mate with whom 
 he chose; that was the upshot of Jackson Lemon's 
 reflections. Several days elapsed, during which 
 everybody even the pure-minded, like Sidney 
 Feeder seemed to him very abject. 
 
 I relate all this to show why it was that in going 
 to see Mrs. Freer he was prepared much less to be 
 angry with people who, like the Dexter Freers, a 
 month before, had given it out that he was engaged 
 to a peer's daughter, than to resent the insinuation 
 that there were obstacles to such a prospect He sat 
 with Mrs, Freer alone for half an hour, in the sabbat- 
 ical stillness of Jermyn Street Her husband had 
 gone for a walk in the Park ; he always walked in 
 the Park on Sunday. All the world might have been 
 there, and Jackson and Mrs. Freer in sole possession 
 of the district of St James's, This perhaps had some- 
 thing to do with making him at last rather confiden- 
 tial; the influences were conciliatory, persuasive. 
 Mrs, Freer was extremely sympathetic; she treated 
 him like a person she had known from the age of ten ; 
 asked his leave to continue recumbent ; talked a great 
 deal about his mother ; and seemed almost, for a while, 
 to perform the kindly functions of that lady. It had 
 been wise of her from the first not to allude, even 
 indirectly, to his having neglected so long to call ; her 
 silence on this point was in the best taste. Jackson 
 Lemon had forgotten that it was a habit with her, 
 and indeed a high accomplishment, never to reproach 
 
204 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 people with these omissions. You might have left 
 her alone for two years, her greeting was always the 
 same ; she was never either too delighted to see you, 
 or not delighted enough. After a while, however, he 
 perceived that her silence had been to a certain ex- 
 tent a reference ; she appeared to take for granted that 
 he devoted all his hours to a certain young lady. It 
 came over him, for a moment, that his country peo- 
 ple took a great deal for granted; but when Mrs. 
 Freer, rather abruptly, sitting up on her sofa, said to 
 him, half simply, half solemnly, u And now, my dear 
 Jackson, I want you to tell me something ! " he 
 perceived that, after all, she did n't pretend to know 
 more about the impending matter than he himself 
 did. In the course of a quarter of an hour so ap- 
 preciatively she listened he had told her a good 
 deal about it. It was the first time he had said so 
 much to any one, and the process relieved him even 
 more than he would have supposed. It made certain 
 things clear to him, by bringing them to a point 
 above all, the fact that he had been wronged. He 
 made no allusion whatever to its being out of the 
 usual way that, as an American doctor, he should sue 
 for the hand of a marquis's daughter ; and this reserve 
 was not voluntary, it was quite unconscious. His 
 mind was too full of the offensive conduct of the Can- 
 tervilles, and the sordid side of their want of confi- 
 dence. He could not imagine that while he talked 
 to Mrs. Freer and it amazed him afterward that 
 he should have chattered so ; he could account for it 
 
LADY BARBERINA. . 205 
 
 only by the state of his nerves she should be think- 
 ing only of the strangeness of the situation he sketched 
 for her. She thought Americans as good as other 
 people, but she did n't see where, in American life, 
 the daughter of a marquis would, as she phrased it, 
 work in. To take a simple instance, they coursed 
 through Mrs.Freer's mind with extraordinary speed, 
 would she not always expect to go in to dinner first ? 
 As a novelty, over there, they might like to see her 
 do it, at first ; there might be even a pressure for 
 places for the spectacle. But with the increase of 
 every kind of sophistication that was taking place in 
 America, the humorous view to which she would owe 
 her safety might not continue to be taken ; and then 
 where would Lady Barberina be ? This was but a 
 small instance ; but Mrs. Freer's vivid imagination 
 much as she had lived in Europe, she knew her native 
 land so well saw a host of others massing them- 
 selves behind it. The consequence of all of which 
 was that after listening to him in the most engaging 
 silence, she raised her clasped hands, pressed them 
 against her breast, lowered her voice to a tone of 
 entreaty, and, with her perpetual little smile, uttered 
 three words : " My dear Jackson, don't don't 
 don't." 
 
 " Don't what ? " he asked, staring. 
 
 " Don't neglect the chance you have of getting out 
 of it ; it would never do." 
 
 He knew what she meant by his chance of getting 
 out of it ; in his many meditations he had, of course, 
 
206 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 not overlooked that. The ground the old couple had 
 taken about settlements (and the fact that Lady Beau- 
 chemin had not come back to him to tell him, as she 
 promised, that she had moved them, proved how firmly 
 they were rooted) would have offered an all-sufficient 
 pretext to a man who should have repented of his 
 advances. Jackson Lemon knew that ; but he knew 
 at the same time that he had not repented. The old 
 couple's want of imagination did not in the least alter 
 the fact that Barberina was, as he had told her father, 
 a beautiful type. Therefore he simply said to Mrs. 
 Freer that he did n't in the least wish to get out of it ; 
 he was as much in it as ever, and he intended to re- 
 main there. But what did she mean, he inquired in 
 a moment, by her statement that it would never do ? 
 Why wouldn't it do ? Mrs. Freer replied by another 
 inquiry, Should he really like her to tell him ? It 
 would n't do, because Lady Barb would not be satis- 
 fied with her place at dinner. She would not be con- 
 tent in a society of commoners with any but the 
 best ; and the best she could not expect (and it was 
 to be supposed that he did not expect her) always to 
 have. 
 
 " What do you mean by commoners ? " Jackson 
 Lemon demanded, looking very serious. 
 
 " I mean you, and me, and my poor husband, and 
 Dr. Feeder," said Mrs. Freer. 
 
 " I don't see how there can be commoners where 
 there are not lords. It is the lord that makes the 
 commoner ; and vice versd" 
 
LADY BARBER1NA. 207 
 
 " Won't a lady do as well ? Lady Barberina a 
 single English girl can make a million inferiors." 
 
 " She will be, before anything else, my wife ; and 
 she will not talk about inferiors any more than I do. 
 I never do ; it 's very vulgar." 
 
 " I don't know what she 11 talk about, my dear 
 Jackson, but she will think ; and her thoughts won't 
 be pleasant, I mean for others. Do you expect to 
 sink her to your own rank ? " 
 
 Jackson Lemon's bright little eyes were fixed more 
 brightly than ever upon his hostess. " I don't under- 
 stand you ; and I don't think you understand your- 
 self." This was not absolutely candid, for he did 
 understand Mrs. Freer to a certain extent; it has 
 been related that before he asked Lady Barb's hand 
 of her parents there had been moments when he him- 
 self was not very sure that the flower of the British 
 aristocracy would flourish in American soil. But an 
 intimation from another person that it was beyond 
 his power to pass off his wife whether she were the 
 daughter of a peer or of a shoemaker set all his 
 blood on fire. It quenched on the instant his own 
 perception of difficulties of detail, and made him feel 
 only that he was dishonored he, the heir of all the 
 ages, by such insinuations. It was his belief 
 though he had never before had occasion to put it for- 
 ward that his position, one of the best in the world, 
 was one of those positions that make everything pos- 
 sible. He had had the best education the age could 
 offer, for if he had rather wasted his time at Harvard, 
 
208 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 where he entered very young, he had, as he believed, 
 been tremendously serious at Heidelberg and at Vi- 
 enna. He had devoted himself to one of the noblest 
 of professions, a profession recognized as such every- 
 where but in England, and he had inherited a for- 
 tune far beyond the expectation of his earlier years, 
 the years when he cultivated habits of work, which 
 alone or rather in combination with talents that he 
 neither exaggerated nor minimized -would have con- 
 duced to distinction. He was one of the most fortu- 
 nate inhabitants of an immense, fresh, rich country, a 
 country whose future was admitted to be incalculable, 
 and he moved with perfect ease in a society in which 
 he was not overshadowed by others. It seemed to 
 him, therefore, beneath his dignity to wonder whether 
 he could afford, socially speaking, to marry according 
 to his taste. Jackson Lemon pretended to be strong ; 
 and what was the use of being strong if you were not 
 prepared to undertake things that timid people might 
 find difficult ? It was his plan to marry the woman 
 he liked, and not to be afraid of her afterward. The 
 effect of Mrs. Freer's doubt of his success was to 
 represent to him that his own character would not 
 cover his wife's ; she could n't have made him feel 
 otherwise if she had told him that he was marrying 
 beneath him, and would have to ask for indulgence. 
 " I don't believe you know how much I think that 
 any woman who marries me will be doing very well," 
 he added, directly. 
 
 " I am very sure of that ; but it is n't so simple 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 209 
 
 one's being an American/' Mrs. Freer rejoined, with 
 a little philosophic sigh. 
 
 " It 's whatever one chooses to make it." 
 
 " Well, you 11 make it what no one has done yet, 
 if you take that young lady to America and make her 
 happy there." 
 
 " Do you think it 's such a very dreadful place ? " 
 
 " No, indeed ; hut she will." 
 
 Jackson Lemon got up from his chair, and took up 
 his hat and stick. He had actually turned a little 
 pale, with the force of his emotion ; it had made him 
 really quiver that his marriage to Lady Barberina 
 should be looked at as too high a flight. He stood a 
 moment leaning against the mantelpiece, and very 
 much tempted to say to Mrs. Freer that she was a 
 vulgar-minded old woman. But he said something 
 that was really more to the point : " You forget that 
 she will have her consolations." 
 
 " Don't go away, or I shall think I have offended 
 you. You can't console a wounded marchioness." 
 
 "How will she be wounded? People will be 
 charming to her." 
 
 "They will be charming to her charming to 
 her!" These words fell from the lips of Dexter 
 Freer, who had opened the door of the room and stood 
 with the knob in his hand, putting himself into rela- 
 tion to his wife's talk with their visitor. This was 
 accomplished in an instant. " Of course I know 
 whom you mean," he said, while he exchanged greet- 
 ings with Jackson Lemon. "My wife and I of 
 
 14 
 
210 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 course you know we are great busy bodies have 
 talked of your affair, and we differ about it com- 
 pletely: she sees only the dangers, and I see the 
 advantages." 
 
 " By the advantages he means the fun for us," Mrs. 
 Freer remarked, settling her sofa- cushions. 
 
 Jackson looked with a certain sharp blankness 
 from one of these disinterested judges to the other ; 
 and even yet they did not perceive how their misdi- 
 rected familiarities wrought upon him. It was hardly 
 more agreeable to him to know that the husband 
 wished to see Lady Barb in America, than to know 
 that the wife had a dread of such a vision ; for there 
 was that in Dexter Freer's face which seemed to say 
 that the thing would take place somehow for the 
 benefit of the spectators. " I think you both see too 
 much a great deal too much," he answered, rather 
 coldly. 
 
 " My dear young man, at my age I can take certain 
 liberties," said Dexter Freer. "Do it I beseech 
 you to do it ; it has never been done before." And 
 then, as if Jackson's glance had challenged this last 
 assertion, he went on : " Never, I assure you, this 
 particular thing. Young female members of the 
 British aristocracy have married coachmen and fish- 
 mongers, and all that sort of thing ; but they have 
 never married you and me." 
 
 "They certainly haven't married you," said Mrs. 
 Freer. 
 
 " I am much obliged to you for your advice." It 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 211 
 
 may be thought that Jackson Lemon took himself 
 rather seriously; and indeed I am afraid that if he 
 had not done so there would have been no occasion 
 for my writing this little history. But it made him 
 almost sick to hear his engagement spoken of as a 
 curious and ambiguous phenomenon. He might have 
 his own ideas about it one always had about one's 
 engagement ; but the ideas that appeared to have 
 peopled the imagination of his friends ended by kind- 
 ling a little hot spot in each of his cheeks. " I would 
 rather not talk any more about my little plans," he 
 added to Dexter Freer. " I have been saying all sorts 
 of absurd things to Mrs. Freer." 
 
 " They have been most interesting," that lady de- 
 clared. " You have been very stupidly treated." 
 
 "May she tell me when you go?" her husband 
 asked of the young man. 
 
 " I am going now ; she may tell you whatever she 
 likes." 
 
 "I am afraid we have displeased you," said Mrs. 
 Freer; "I have said too much what I think. You 
 must excuse me, it's all for your mother." 
 
 " It 's she whom I want Lady Barberina to see ! " 
 Jackson Lemon exclaimed, with the inconsequence of 
 filial affection. 
 
 " Deary me ! " murmured Mrs. Freer. 
 
 " We shall go back to America to see how you get 
 on," her husband said; "and if you succeed, it will 
 be a great precedent." 
 
 " Oh, I shall succeed ! " And with this he took his 
 
212 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 departure. He walked away with the quick step of 
 a man laboring under a certain excitement ; walked 
 up to Piccadilly and down past Hyde Park Corner. 
 It relieved him to traverse these distances, for he was 
 thinking hard, under the influence of irritation ; and 
 locomotion helped him to think. Certain suggestions 
 that had been made him in the last half-hour rankled 
 in his mind, all the more that they seemed to have 
 a kind of representative value, to be an echo of the 
 common voice. If his prospects wore that face to 
 Mrs. Freer, they would probably wear it to others ; 
 and he felt a sudden need of showing such others that 
 they took a pitiful measure of his position. Jackson 
 Lemon walked and walked till he found himself on 
 the highway of Hammersmith. I have represented 
 him as a young man of much strength of purpose, 
 and I may appear to undermine this plea when I 
 relate that he wrote that evening to his solicitor that 
 Mr. Hilary was to be informed that he would agree to 
 any proposals for settlements that Mr. Hilary should 
 make. Jackson's strength of purpose was shown in 
 his deciding to marry Lady Barberina on any terms. 
 It seemed to him, under the influence of his desire to 
 prove that he was not afraid so odious was the 
 imputation that terms of any kind were very 
 superficial things. What was fundamental, and of 
 the essence of the matter, would be to marry Lady 
 Barb and carry everything out. 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 213 
 
 V. 
 
 " ON Sundays, now, you might be at home," Jack- 
 son Lemon said to his wife in the following month of 
 March, more than six months after his marriage. 
 
 " Are the people any nicer on Sundays than they 
 are on other days ? " Lady Barberina replied, from 
 the depths of her chair, without looking up from a 
 stiff little book. 
 
 He hesitated a single instant before answering : 
 " I don't know whether they are, but I think you 
 might be." 
 
 "I'm as nice as I know how to be. You must 
 take me as I am. You knew when you married me 
 that I was not an American." 
 
 Jackson Lemon stood before the fire, towards 
 which his wife's face was turned and her feet were 
 extended; stood there some time, with his hands 
 behind him and his eyes dropped a little obliquely 
 upon the bent head and richly-draped figure of Lady 
 Barberina. It may be said without delay that he 
 was irritated, and it may be added that he had a 
 double cause. He felt himself to be on the verge of 
 the first crisis that had occurred between himself 
 and his wife, the reader will perceive that it had 
 occurred rather promptly, and he was annoyed at 
 his annoyance. A glimpse of his state of mind be- 
 fore his marriage has been given to the reader, who 
 will remember that at that period Jackson Lemon 
 
214 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 somehow regarded himself as lifted above possibilities 
 of irritation. When one was strong, one was not irri- 
 table ; and a union with a kind of goddess would of 
 course be an element of strength. Lady Barb was a 
 goddess still, and Jackson Lemon admired his wife as 
 much as the day he led her to the altar ; but I am 
 not sure that he felt as strong. 
 
 " How do you know what people are ? " he said in 
 a moment. " You have seen so few ; you are perpet- 
 ually denying yourself. If you should leave New 
 York to-morrow, you would know wonderfully little 
 about it." 
 
 "It's all the same," said Lady Barb; "the people 
 are all exactly alike." 
 
 " How can you tell ? You never see them." 
 
 " Did n't I go out every night for the first two 
 months we were here ? " 
 
 " It was only to about a dozen houses, always 
 the same ; people, moreover, you had already met in 
 London. You have got no general impressions." 
 
 "That's just what I have got; I had them before 
 I came. Every one is just the same ; they have just 
 the same names just the same manners." 
 
 Again, for an instant, Jackson Lemon hesitated ; 
 then he said, in that apparently artless tone of which 
 mention has already been made, and which he some- 
 times used in London during his wooing : " Don't you 
 like it over here ? " 
 
 Lady Barb raised her eyes from her book. " Did 
 you expect me to like it ? " 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 215 
 
 "I hoped you would, of course. I think I told 
 you so." 
 
 " I don't remember. You said very little about it ; 
 you seemed to make a kind of mystery. I knew, of 
 course, you expected me to live here, but I didn't 
 know you expected me to like it." 
 
 " You thought I asked of you the sacrifice, as it 
 were." 
 
 " I am sure I don't know," said Lady Barb. She 
 got up from her chair and tossed the volume she had 
 been reading into the empty seat " I recommend 
 you to read that book," she added. 
 
 " Is it interesting ? " 
 
 " It 's an American novel" 
 
 " I never read novels." 
 
 "You had better look at that one; it will show 
 you the kind of people you want me to know." 
 
 " I have no doubt it 's very vulgar," said Jackson 
 Lemon ; " I don't see why you read it." 
 
 " What else can I do ? I can't always be riding in 
 the Park ; I hate the Park," Lady Barb remarked. 
 
 " It 's quite as good as your own," said her hus- 
 band. 
 
 She glanced at him with a certain quickness, her 
 eyebrows slightly lifted. " Do you mean the park at 
 Pasterns ? " 
 
 " No ; I mean the park in London." 
 
 "I don't care about London. One was only in 
 London a few weeks." 
 
 " I suppose you miss the country," said Jackson 
 
216 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 Lemon. It was his idea of life that he should not 
 be afraid of anything, not be afraid, in any situation, 
 of knowing the worst that was to be known about it ; 
 and the demon of a courage with which discretion 
 was not properly commingled prompted him to take 
 soundings which were perhaps not absolutely neces- 
 sary for safety, and yet which revealed unmistakable 
 rocks. It was useless to know about rocks if he 
 could n't avoid them ; the only thing was to trust to 
 the wind. 
 
 " I don't know what I miss. I think I miss every- 
 thing ! " This was his wife's answer to his too- 
 curious inquiry. It was not peevish, for that is not 
 the tone of a goddess ; but it expressed a good deal 
 a good deal more than Lady Barb, who was rarely 
 eloquent, had expressed before. Nevertheless, though 
 his question had been precipitate, Jackson Lemon 
 said to himself that he might take his time to think 
 over what his wife's little speech contained ; he could 
 not help seeing that the future would give him abun- 
 dant opportunity for that. He was in no hurry to 
 ask himself whether poor Mrs. Freer, in Jermyn 
 Street, might not, after all, have been right in saying 
 that, in regard to marrying the product of an English 
 caste, it was not so simple to be an American doctor 
 might avail little even, in such a case, to be the 
 heir of all the ages. The transition was complicated, 
 but in his bright mind it was rapid, from the brush 
 of a momentary contact with such ideas to certain 
 considerations which led him to say, after an instant, 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 217 
 
 to his wife, " Should you like to go down into Con- 
 necticut ? " 
 
 " Into Connecticut ? " 
 
 " That 's one of our States ; it 's about as large as 
 Ireland. I '11 take you there if you like." 
 
 " What does one do there ? " 
 
 " We can try and get some hunting." 
 
 "You and I alone?" 
 
 " Perhaps^ we can get a party to join us." 
 
 "The people in the State ?" 
 
 " Yes ; we might propose it to them." 
 
 " The tradespeople in the towns ? " 
 
 " Very true ; they will have to mind their shops," 
 said Jackson Lemon. " But we might hunt alone." 
 
 " Are there any foxes ? " 
 
 " No ; but there are a few old cows." 
 
 Lady Barb had already perceived that her husband 
 took it into his head once in a while to laugh at her, 
 and she was aware that the present occasion was 
 neither worse nor better than some others. She did n't 
 mind it particularly now, though in England it would 
 have disgusted her ; she had the consciousness of vir- 
 tue, an immense comfort, and nattered herself that 
 she had learned the lesson of an altered standard of 
 fitness ; there were, moreover, so many more disagree- 
 able things in America than being laughed at by 
 one's husband. But she pretended to mind it, because 
 it made him stop, and above all it stopped discussion, 
 which with Jackson was so often jocular, and none 
 the less tiresome for that. " I only want to be left 
 
218 LADY BARBERLNA. 
 
 alone," she said, in answer though, indeed, it had 
 not the manner of an answer to his speech about 
 the cows. With this she wandered away to one of 
 the windows which looked out in the Fifth Avenue. 
 She was very fond of these windows, and she had 
 taken a great fancy to the Fifth Avenue, which, in 
 the high-pitched winter weather, when everything 
 sparkled, was a spectacle full of novelty. It will be 
 seen that she was not wholly unjust to her adoptive 
 country : she found it delightful to look out of the 
 window. This was a pleasure she had enjoyed in 
 London only in the most furtive manner; it was not 
 the kind of thing that girls did in England. Besides, 
 in London, in Hill Street, there was nothing partic- 
 ular to see ; but in the Fifth Avenue everything and 
 every one went by, and observation was made con- 
 sistent with dignity by the quantities of brocade and 
 lace in which the windows were draped, which, some- 
 how, would not have been tidy in England, and which 
 made an ambush, without concealing the brilliant 
 day. Hundreds of women the curious women of 
 New York, who were unlike any that Lady Barb had 
 hitherto seen passed the house every hour ; and her 
 ladyship was infinitely entertained and mystified by 
 the sight of their clothes. She spent a good deal 
 more time than she was aware of in this amusement ; 
 and if she had been addicted to returning upon her- 
 self, or asking herself for an account of her conduct 
 an inquiry which she did not, indeed, completely 
 neglect, but treated very cursorily, it would have 
 
LADY BARBER1NA. 219 
 
 made her smile sadly to think what she appeared 
 mainly to have come to America for, conscious though 
 she was that her tastes were very simple, and that so 
 long as she did n't hunt, it did n't much matter what 
 she did. 
 
 Her husband turned about to the fire, giving a push 
 with his foot to a log that had fallen out of its place. 
 Then he said, and the connection with the words 
 she had just uttered was apparent enough, " You 
 really must be at home on Sundays, you know. I 
 used to like that so much in London. All the best 
 women here do it. You had better begin to-day. I 
 am going to see my mother ; if I meet any one I will 
 tell them to come." 
 
 "Tell them not to talk so much," said Lady Barb, 
 among her lace curtains. 
 
 " Ah, my dear," her husband replied, " it is n't every 
 one that has your concision." And he went and 
 stood behind her in the window, putting his arm 
 round her waist. It was as much of a satisfaction to 
 him as it had been six months before, at the time the 
 solicitors were settling the matter, that this flower of 
 an ancient stem should be worn upon his own breast ; 
 he still thought its fragrance a thing quite apart, and 
 it was as clear as day to him that his wife was the 
 handsomest woman in New York. He had begun, 
 after their arrival, by telling her this very often ; but 
 the assurance brought no color to her cheek, no light 
 to her eyes ; to be the handsomest w^oman in New 
 York evidently did not seem to her a position in life. 
 
220 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 Moreover, the reader may be informed that, oddly 
 enough, Lady Barb did not particularly believe this 
 assertion. There were some very pretty women in 
 New York, and without in the least wishing to be 
 like them she had seen no woman in America 
 whom she desired to resemble she envied some of 
 their looks. It is probable that her own finest points 
 were those of which she was most unconscious. But 
 her husband was aware of all of them ; nothing could 
 exceed the minuteness of his appreciation of his wife. 
 It was a sign of this that after he had stood behind 
 her a moment he kissed her very tenderly. " Have 
 you any message for my mother ? " he asked. 
 
 " Please give her my love. And you might take 
 her that book." 
 
 " What book ? " 
 
 " That nasty one I have been reading." 
 
 " Oh, bother your books," said Jackson Lemon, 
 with a certain irritation, as he went out of the room. 
 
 There had been a good many things in her life in 
 New York that cost Lady Barb an effort ; but send- 
 ing her love to her mother-in-law was not one of 
 these. She liked Mrs. Lemon better than any one 
 she had seen in America ; she was the only person 
 who seemed to Lady Barb really simple, as she under- 
 stood that quality. Many people had struck her as 
 homely and rustic, and many others as pretentious 
 and vulgar ; but in Jackson's mother she had found 
 the golden mean of a simplicity which, as she would 
 have said, was really nice. Her sister, Lady Agatha, 
 
LADY BARBER1NA. 221 
 
 was even fonder of Mrs. Lemon; but then Lady 
 Agatha had taken the most extraordinary fancy to 
 every one and everything, and talked as if America 
 were the most delightful country in the world. She 
 was having a lovely time (she already spoke the most 
 beautiful American), and had been, during the win- 
 ter that was just drawing to a close, the most promi- 
 nent girl in New York. She had gone out at first 
 with her sister ; but for some weeks past Lady Barb 
 had let so many occasions pass, that Agatha threw 
 herself into the arms of Mrs. Lemon, who found her 
 extraordinarily quaint and amusing, and was de- 
 lighted to take her into society. Mrs. Lemon, as an 
 old woman, had given up such vanities ; but she only 
 wanted a motive, and in her good nature she ordered 
 a dozen new caps, and sat smiling against the wall 
 while her little English maid, on polished floors, to 
 the sound of music, cultivated the American step as 
 well as the American tone. There was no trouble, 
 in New York, about going out, and the winter was 
 not half over before the little English maid found 
 herself an accomplished diner, rolling about, without 
 any chaperon at all, to banquets where she could 
 count upon a bouquet at her plate. She had had a 
 great deal of correspondence with her mother on this 
 point, and Lady Canterville at last withdrew her pro- 
 test, which in the meantime had been perfectly use- 
 less. It was ultimately Lady Canterville's feeling 
 that if she had married the handsomest of her daugh- 
 ters to an American doctor, she might let another 
 
222 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 become a professional raconteuse (Agatha had written 
 to her that she was expected to talk so much), strange 
 as such a destiny seemed for a girl of nineteen. Mrs. 
 Lemon was even a much simpler woman than Lady 
 Barberina thought her ; for she had not noticed that 
 Lady Agatha danced much oftener with Herman 
 Longstraw than with any one else. Jackson Lemon, 
 though he went little to balls, had discovered this 
 truth, and he looked slightly preoccupied when, after 
 he had sat five minutes with his mother on the Sun- 
 day afternoon through which I have invited the 
 reader to trace so much more than (I am afraid) is 
 easily apparent of the progress of this simple story, 
 he learned that his sister-in-law was entertaining 
 Mr. Longstraw in the library. He had called half 
 an hour before, and she had taken him into the other 
 room to show him the seal of the Cantervilles, which 
 she had fastened to one of her numerous trinkets (she 
 was adorned with a hundred bangles and chains), and 
 the proper exhibition of which required a taper and 
 a stick of wax. Apparently he was examining it 
 very carefully, for they had been absent a good while. 
 Mrs. Lemon's simplicity was further shown by the 
 fact that she had not measured their absence; it 
 was only when Jackson questioned her that she 
 remembered, 
 
 Herman Longstraw was a young Califoruian who 
 had turned up in New York the winter before, and 
 who travelled on his mustache, as they were under- 
 stood to say in his native State. This mustache, 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 223 
 
 and some of the accompanying features, were very 
 ornamental; several ladies in New York had been 
 known to declare that they were as beautiful as a 
 dream. Taken in connection with his tall stature, 
 his familiar good-nature, and his remarkable Western 
 vocabulary, they constituted his only social capital ; 
 for of the two great divisions, the rich Californians 
 and the poor Californians, it was well known to 
 which he belonged. Jackson Lemon looked at him 
 as a slightly mitigated cowboy, and was somewhat 
 vexed at his dear mother, though he was aware that 
 she could scarcely figure to herself what an effect 
 such an account as that would produce in the halls 
 of Canterville. He had no desire whatever to play 
 a trick on the house to which he was allied, and 
 knew perfectly that Lady Agatha had not been sent 
 to America to become entangled with a Californian 
 of the wrong denomination. He had been perfectly 
 willing to bring her ; he thought, a little vindictively, 
 that this would operate as a hint to her parents as to 
 what he might have been inclined to do if they had 
 not sent Mr. Hilary after him. Herman Longstraw, 
 according to the legend, had been a trapper, a squat- 
 ter, a miner, a pioneer, had been everything that 
 one could be in the romantic parts of America, and 
 had accumulated masses of experience before the age 
 of thirty. He had shot bears in the Rockies and buf- 
 faloes on the plains ; and it was even believed that 
 he had brought down animals of a still more danger- 
 ous kind, among the haunts of men. There had been 
 
224 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 a story that he owned a cattle-ranch in Arizona ; but 
 a later and apparently more authentic version of it, 
 though it represented him as looking after the cattle, 
 did not depict him as their proprietor. Many of the 
 stories told about him were false ; but there is no 
 doubt that his mustache, his good-nature, and his 
 accent were genuine. He danced very badly; but 
 Lady Agatha had frankly told several persons that 
 that was nothing new to her ; and she liked (this, 
 however, she did not tell) Mr. Herman Longstraw. 
 "What she enjoyed in America was the revelation of 
 freedom ; and there was no such proof of freedom as 
 conversation with a gentleman who dressed in skins 
 when he was not in New York, and who, in his usual 
 pursuits, carried his life (as well as that of other 
 people) in his hand. A gentleman whom she had 
 sat next to at dinner in the early part of her stay in 
 New York, remarked to her that the United States 
 were the paradise of women and mechanics ; and this 
 had seemed to her at the time very abstract, for she 
 was not conscious, as yet, of belonging to either class. 
 In England she had been only a girl ; and the princi- 
 pal idea connected with that was simply that, for 
 one's misfortune, one was not a boy. But presently 
 she perceived that New York was a paradise ; and this 
 helped her to know that she must be one of the peo- 
 ple mentioned in the axiom of her neighbor people 
 who could do whatever they wanted, had a voice in 
 everything, and made their taste and their ideas felt. 
 She saw that it was great fun to be a woman in 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 225 
 
 America, and that that was the best way to enjoy 
 the New York winter, the wonderful, brilliant New 
 York winter, the queer, long-shaped, glittering city, 
 the heterogeneous hours, among which you could n't 
 tell the morning from the afternoon, or the night 
 from either of them, the perpetual liberties and walks, 
 the rushings-out and the droppings-in, the intimacies, 
 the endearments, the comicalities, the sleigh-bells, the 
 cutters, the sunsets on the snow, the ice-parties in 
 the frosty clearness, the bright, hot, velvety houses, 
 the bouquets, the bonbons, the little cakes, the big 
 cakes, the irrepressible inspirations of shopping, the 
 innumerable luncheons and dinners that were offered 
 to youth and innocence, the quantities of chatter of 
 quantities of girls, the perpetual motion of the Ger- 
 man, the suppers at restaurants after the play, the 
 way in which life was pervaded by Delmonico and 
 Delmonico by the sense that though one's hunting 
 was lost, and this so different, it was almost as good 
 and in all, through all, a kind of suffusion of 
 bright, loud, friendly sound, which was very local, 
 but very human. 
 
 Lady Agatha at present was staying, for a little 
 change, with Mrs. Lemon, and such adventures as 
 that were part of the pleasure of her American season. 
 The house was too close; but, physically, the girl 
 could bear anything, and it was all she had to com- 
 plain of ; for Mrs. Lemon, as we know, thought her a 
 quaint little damsel, and had none of those old-world 
 scruples in regard to spoiling young people to which 
 
 15 
 
226 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 Lady Agatha now perceived that she herself, in the 
 past, had been unduly sacrificed. In her own way 
 it was not at all her sister's way she liked to be of 
 importance ; and this was assuredly the case when 
 she saw that Mrs. Lemon had apparently nothing in 
 the world to do (after spending a part of the morning 
 with her servants) but invent little distractions (many 
 of them of the edible sort) for her guest. She ap- 
 peared to have certain friends, but she had no society 
 to speak of, and. the people who came into her house 
 came principally to see Lady Agatha. This, as we 
 have seen, was strikingly the case with Herman 
 Longstraw. The whole situation gave Lady Agatha 
 a great feeling of success, success of a new and un- 
 expected kind. Of course, in England, she had been 
 born successful, in a manner, in coming into the 
 world in one of the most beautiful rooms at Pasterns ; 
 but her present triumph was achieved more by her 
 own effort (not that she had tried very hard) and by 
 her merit. It was not so much what she said (for 
 she could never say half as much as the girls in New 
 York), as the spirit of enjoyment that played in her 
 fresh young face, with its pointless curves, and shone 
 in her gray English eyes. She enjoyed everything, 
 even the street-cars, of which she made liberal use ; 
 and more than everything she enjoyed Mr. Long- 
 straw and his talk about buffaloes and bears. Mrs. 
 Lemon promised to be very careful, as soon as her 
 son had begun to warn her ; and this time she had 
 a certain understanding of what she promised. She 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 227 
 
 thought people ought to make the matches they 
 liked ; she had given proof of this in her late be- 
 havior to Jackson, whose own union was, in her 
 opinion, marked with all the arbitrariness of pure 
 love. Nevertheless, she could see that Herman Long- 
 straw would probably be thought rough in England ; 
 and it was not simply that he was so inferior to 
 Jackson, for, after all, certain things were not to be 
 expected. Jackson Lemon was not oppressed with 
 his mother-in-law, having taken his precautions 
 against such a danger ; but he was aware that he should 
 give Lady Canterville a permanent advantage over 
 him if while she was in America, her daughter 
 Agatha should attach herself to a mere mustache. 
 
 It was not always, as I have hinted, that Mrs, 
 Lemon entered completely into the views of her son, 
 though in form she never failed to subscribe to them 
 devoutly. She had never yet, for instance, appre- 
 hended his reason for marrying Lady Barberina 
 Clement. This was a great secret, and Mrs. Lemon 
 was determined that no one should ever know it. 
 For herself, she was sure that, to the end of time, she 
 should not discover Jackson's reason. She could 
 never ask about it, for that, of course, would betray 
 her. From the first she had told him she was de- 
 lighted ; there being no need of asking for explana- 
 tions then, as the young lady herself when she should 
 come to know her, would explain. But the young 
 lady had not yet explained ; and after this, evidently, 
 she never would. She was very tall, very handsome, 
 
228 LADY BARBER1NA. 
 
 she answered exactly to Mrs. Lemon's prefigurement 
 of the daughter of a lord, and she wore her clothes, 
 which were peculiar, but, to her, remarkably becom- 
 ing, very well. But she did not elucidate ; we know 
 ourselves that there was very little that was explana- 
 tory about Lady Barb. So Mrs. Lemon continued to 
 wonder, to ask herself, " Why that one, more than so 
 many others, who would have been more natural ? " 
 The choice appeared to her, as I have said, very 
 arbitrary. She found Lady Barb very different from 
 other girls she had known, and this led her almost 
 immediately to feel sorry for her daughter-in-law. 
 She said to herself that Barb was to be pitied if she 
 found her husband's people as peculiar as his mother 
 found her ; for the result of that would be to make 
 her very lonesome. Lady Agatha was different, be- 
 cause she seemed to keep nothing back ; you saw all 
 there was of her, and she was evidently not home- 
 sick. Mrs. Lemon could see that Barberina was rav- 
 aged by this last passion, and that she was too proud 
 to show it. She even had a glimpse of the ultimate 
 truth ; namely, that Jackson's wife had not the com- 
 fort of crying, because that would have amounted to 
 a confession that she had been idiotic enough to 
 believe in advance that, in an American town, in the 
 society of doctors, she should escape such pangs. 
 Mrs. Lemon treated her with the greatest gentleness, 
 all the gentleness that was due to a young woman 
 who was in the unfortunate position of having been 
 married one could n't tell why. The world, to Mrs. 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 229 
 
 Lemon's view, contained two great departments, 
 that of people, and that of things ; and she believed 
 that you must take an interest either in one or the 
 other. The incomprehensible thing in Lady Barb 
 was that she cared for neither side of the show. Her 
 house apparently inspired her with no curiosity and no 
 enthusiasm, though it had been thought magnificent 
 enough to be described in successive columns of the 
 American newspapers; and she never spoke of her 
 furniture or her domestics, though she had a prodi- 
 gious quantity of such possessions. She was the same 
 with regard to her acquaintance, which was immense, 
 inasmuch as every one in the place had called on her. 
 Mrs. Lemon was the least critical woman in the 
 world ; but it had sometimes exasperated her just a 
 little that her daughter-in-law should receive every 
 one in New York in exactly the same way. There 
 were differences, Mrs. Lemon knew, and some of them 
 were of the highest importance ; but poor Lady Barb 
 appeared never to suspect them. She accepted every 
 one and everything, and asked no questions. She 
 had no curiosity about her fellow citizens, and as 
 she never assumed it for a moment, she gave Mrs. 
 Lemon no opportunity to enlighten her. Lady Barb 
 was a person with whom you could do nothing unless 
 she gave you an opening ; and nothing would have 
 been more difficult than to enlighten her against her 
 will. Of course she picked up a little knowledge; 
 but she confounded and transposed American attri- 
 butes in the most extraordinary way. She had a 
 
230 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 way of calling every one Doctor; and Mrs. Lemon 
 could scarcely convince her that this distinction was 
 too precious to be so freely bestowed. She had once 
 said to her mother-in-law that in New York there 
 was nothing to know people by, their names were 
 so very monotonous; and Mrs. Lemon had entered 
 into this enough to see that there was something that 
 stood out a good deal in Barberina's own prefix. It 
 is probable that during her short stay in New York 
 complete justice was not done Lady Barb ; she never 
 got credit, for instance, for repressing her annoyance 
 at the aridity of the social nomenclature, which 
 seemed to her hideous. That little speech to her 
 mother was the most reckless sign she gave of it ; 
 and there were few things that contributed more to 
 the good conscience she habitually enjoyed, than her 
 self-control on this particular point. 
 
 Jackson Lemon was making some researches, just 
 now, which took up a great deal of his time ; and, for 
 the rest, he passed his hours abundantly with his 
 wife. For the last three months, therefore, he had 
 seen his mother scarcely more than once a week. In 
 spite of researches, in spite of medical societies, 
 where Jackson, to her knowledge, read papers, Lady 
 Barb had more of her husband's company than she 
 had counted upon at the time she married. She had 
 never known a married pair to be so much together 
 as she and Jackson ; he appeared to expect her to sit 
 with him in the library in the morning. He had 
 none of the occupations of gentlemen and noblemen 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 231 
 
 in England, for the element of politics appeared to 
 be as absent as tbe hunting. There were politics in 
 Washington, she had been told, and even at Albany, 
 and Jackson had proposed to introduce her to these 
 cities ; but the proposal, made to her once at dinner 
 before several people, had excited such cries of horror 
 that it fell dead on the spot. " We don't want you 
 to see anything of that kind," one of the ladies had 
 said, and Jackson had appeared to be discouraged, 
 that is if, in regard to Jackson, she could really tell. 
 
 u Pray, what is it you want me to see ? " Lady 
 Barb had asked on this occasion. 
 
 "Well, New York; and Boston, if you want to 
 very much but not otherwise ; and Niagara ; and, 
 more than anything, Newport." 
 
 Lady Barb was tired of their eternal Newport ; she 
 had heard of it a thousand times, and felt already as 
 if she had lived there half her life ; she was sure, 
 moreover, that she should hate it. This is perhaps 
 as near as she came to having a lively conviction on 
 any American subject. She asked herself whether 
 she was then to spend her life in the Fifth Avenue, 
 with alternations of a city of villas (she detested 
 villas), and wondered whether that was all the great 
 American country had to offer her. There were times 
 when she thought that she should like the back- 
 woods, and that the Far West might be a resource ; 
 for she had analyzed her feelings just deep enough 
 to discover that when she had hesitating a good 
 deal turned over the question of marrying Jackson 
 
232 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 Lemon, it was not in the least of American barbarism 
 that she was afraid ; her dread was of American civ- 
 ilization. She believed the little lady I have just 
 quoted was a goose; but that did not make New 
 York any more interesting. It would be reckless to 
 say that she suffered from an overdose of Jackson's 
 company, because she had a view of the fact that he 
 was much her most important social resource. She 
 could talk to him about England; about her own 
 England, and he understood more or less what she 
 wished to say, when she wished to say anything, 
 which was not frequent. There were plenty of other 
 people who talked about England ; but with them the 
 range of allusion was always the hotels, of which she 
 knew nothing, and the shops, and the opera, and the 
 photographs : they had a mania for photographs. 
 There were other people who were always wanting 
 her to tell them about Pasterns, and the manner of 
 life there, and the parties ; but if there was one 
 thing* Lady Barb disliked more than another, it was 
 describing Pasterns. She had always lived with 
 people who knew, of themselves, what such a place 
 would be, without demanding these pictorial efforts, 
 proper only, as she vaguely felt, to persons belonging 
 to the classes whose trade was the arts of expression. 
 Lady Barb, of course, had never gone into it ; but she 
 knew that in her own class the business was not to 
 express, but to enjoy; not to represent, but to be 
 represented, though, indeed, this latter liability 
 might convey offence ; for it may be noted that even 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 233 
 
 for an aristocrat Jackson Lemon's wife was aristo- 
 cratic. 
 
 Lady Agatha and her visitor came back from the 
 library in course of time, and Jackson Lemon felt it 
 his duty to be rather cold to Herman Longstraw. It 
 was not clear to him what sort of a husband his sis- 
 ter-in-law would do well to look for in America, if 
 there were to be any question of husbands ; but as 
 to this he was not bound to be definite, provided he 
 should rule out Mr. Longstraw. This gentleman, 
 however, was not given to perceive shades of man- 
 ner ; he had little observation, but very great con- 
 fidence. 
 
 "I think you had better come home with me," 
 Jackson said to Lady Agatha ; " I guess you have 
 stayed here long enough." 
 
 " Don't let him say that, Mrs. Lemon ! " the girl 
 cried. " I like being with you so very much/' 
 
 " I try to make it pleasant," said Mrs. Lemon. 
 " I should really miss you now ; but perhaps it 's 
 your mother's wish." If it was a question of defend- 
 ing her guest from ineligible suitors, Mrs. Lemon felt, 
 of course, that her son was more competent than she ; 
 though she had a lurking kindness for Herman Long- 
 straw, and a vague idea that he was a gallant, genial 
 specimen of young America. 
 
 " Oh, mamma would n't see any difference ! " Lady 
 Agatha exclaimed, looking at Jackson with pleading 
 blue eyes. " Mamma wants me to see eveiy one ; 
 you know she does. That's what she sent me to 
 
234 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 America for ; she knew it was not like England. 
 She would n't like it if I did n't sometimes stay 
 with people ; she always wanted us to stay at other 
 houses. And she knows all about you, Mrs. Lemon, 
 and she likes you immensely. She sent you a mes- 
 sage the other day, and I am afraid I forgot to give 
 it you, to thank you for being so kind to me and 
 taking such a lot of trouble. Eeally she did, but I 
 forgot it. If she wants me to see as much as pos- 
 sible of America, it 's much better I should be here 
 than always with Barb, it 's much less like one's 
 own country. I mean it 's much nicer for a girl," 
 said Lady Agatha, affectionately, to Mrs. Lemon, who 
 began also to look at Jackson with a kind of tender 
 argumentativeness. 
 
 " If you want the genuine thing, you ought to come 
 out on the plains," Mr. Longs traw interposed, with 
 smiling sincerity. " I guess that was your mother's 
 idea. Why don't you all come out ? " He had been 
 looking intently at Lady Agatha while the remarks 
 I have just repeated succeeded each other on her 
 lips, looking at her with a kind of fascinated appro- 
 bation, for all the world as if he had been a slightly 
 slow-witted English gentleman, and the girl had been 
 a flower of the West, a flower that knew how to talk. 
 He made no secret of the fact that Lady Agatha's 
 voice was music to him, his ear being much more 
 susceptible than his own inflections would have indi- 
 cated. To Lady Agatha those inflections were not 
 displeasing, partly because, like Mr. Herman him- 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 235 
 
 self, in general, she bad not a perception of shades ; 
 and partly because it never occurred to her to com- 
 pare them with any other tones. He seemed to her 
 to speak a foreign language altogether, a romantic 
 dialect, through which the most comical meanings 
 gleamed here and there. 
 
 " I should like it above all things," she said, in an- 
 swer to his last observation. 
 
 "The scenery's superior to anything round here," 
 Mr. Longstraw went on. 
 
 Mrs. Lemon, as we know, was the softest of women ; 
 but, as an old New Yorker, she had no patience with 
 some of the new fashions. Chief among these was 
 the perpetual reference, which had become common 
 only within a few years, to the outlying parts of the 
 country, the States and Territories of which children, 
 in her time, used to learn the names, in their order, 
 at school, but which no one ever thought of going to 
 or talking about. Such places, in Mrs. Lemon's opin- 
 ion, belonged to the geography-books, or at most to 
 the literature of newspapers, but not to society 
 nor to conversation ; and the change which, so 
 far as it lay in people's talk, she thought at bottom 
 a mere affectation threatened to make her native 
 land appear vulgar and vague. For this amiable 
 daughter of Manhattan, the normal existence of man, 
 and, still more, of woman, had been " located," as she 
 would have said, between Trinity Church and the 
 beautiful Reservoir at the top of the Fifth Avenue, 
 monuments of which she was personally proud ; 
 
236 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 and if we could look into the deeper parts of her 
 mind, I am afraid we should discover there an im- 
 pression that both the countries of Europe and the 
 remainder of her own continent were equally far from 
 the centre and the light. 
 
 "Well, scenery isn't everything," she remarked, 
 mildly, to Mr. Longstraw ; " and if Lady Agatha 
 should wish to see anything of that kind, all she has 
 got to do is to take the boat up the Hudson." 
 
 Mrs. Lemon's recognition of this river, I should 
 say, was all that it need have been; she thought 
 that it existed for the purpose of supplying New 
 Yorkers with poetical feelings, helping them to face 
 comfortably occasions like the present, and, in gen- 
 eral, meet foreigners with confidence, part of the 
 oddity of foreigners being their conceit about their 
 own places. 
 
 " That 's a good idea, Lady Agatha ; let 's take the 
 boat," said Mr. Longstraw. " I 've had great times on 
 the boats." 
 
 Lady Agatha looked at her cavalier a little with 
 those singular, charming eyes of hers, eyes of 
 which it was impossible to say, at any moment, 
 whether they were the shyest or the frankest in 
 the world ; and she was not aware, while this con- 
 templation lasted, that her brother-in-law was ob- 
 serving her. He was thinking of certain things while 
 he did so, of things he had heard about the English ; 
 who still, in spite of his having married into a family 
 of that nation, appeared to him very much through 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 237 
 
 the medium of hearsay. They were more passionate 
 than the Americans, and they did things that would 
 never have been expected ; though they seemed 
 steadier and less excitable, there was much social 
 evidence to show that they were more impulsive. 
 
 " It 's so very kind of you to propose that," Lady 
 Agatha said in a moment to Mrs. Lemon. " I think 
 I have never been in a ship, except, of course, com- 
 ing from England. I am sure mamma would wish me 
 to see the Hudson. We used to go in immensely for 
 boating in England." 
 
 " Did you boat in a ship ? " Herman Longstraw 
 asked, showing his teeth hilariously, and pulling his 
 mustaches. 
 
 "Lots of my mother's people have been in the 
 navy." Lady Agatha perceived vaguely and good- 
 naturedly that she had said something which the 
 odd Americans thought odd, and that she must just- 
 ify herself. Her standard of oddity was getting 
 dreadfully dislocated. 
 
 " I really think you had better come back to us," 
 said Jackson; "your sister is very lonely without 
 you." 
 
 " She is much more lonely with me. We are per- 
 petually having differences. Barb is dreadfully vexed 
 because I like America, instead of instead of " 
 And Lady Agatha paused a moment; for it just 
 occurred to her that this might be a betrayal. 
 
 " Instead of what ? " Jackson Lemon inquired. 
 
 " Instead of perpetually wanting to go to England, 
 
238 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 as she does," she went on, only giving her phrase a 
 little softer turn ; for she felt the next moment that 
 her sister could have nothing to hide, and must, of 
 course, have the courage of her opinions. " Of course 
 England 's best, but I dare say I like to be bad," said 
 Lady Agatha, artlessly. 
 
 " Oh, there 's no doubt you are awfully bad," Mr. 
 Longstraw exclaimed, with joyous eagerness. Of 
 course he could not know that what she had prin- 
 cipally in mind was an exchange of opinions that 
 had taken place between her sister and herself just 
 before she came to stay with Mrs. Lemon. This inci- 
 dent, of which Longstraw was the occasion, might 
 indeed have been called a discussion, for it had car- 
 ried them quite into the realms of the abstract. 
 Lady Barb had said she did n't see how Agatha could 
 look at such a creature as that, an odious, familiar, 
 vulgar being, who had not about him the rudiments 
 of a gentleman. Lady Agatha had replied that Mr. 
 Longstraw was familiar and rough, and that he had 
 a twang, and thought it amusing to talk of her as 
 "the Princess;" but that he was a gentleman for all 
 that, and that at any rate he was tremendous fun. Her 
 sister to this had rejoined that if he was rough and 
 familiar he couldn't be a gentleman, inasmuch as that 
 was just what a gentleman meant, a man who was 
 civil, and well-bred, and well-born. Lady Agatha 
 had argued that this was just where she differed ; that 
 a man might perfectly be a gentleman, and yet be 
 rough, and even ignorant, so long as he was really 
 
LADY BARBEP1NA. 239 
 
 nice. The only thing was that he should be really 
 nice, which was the case with Mr. Longstraw, who, 
 moreover, was quite extraordinarily civil as civil as 
 a man could be. And then Lady Agatha made the 
 strongest poiot she had ever made in her life, she had 
 never been so inspired, in saying that Mr. Longstraw 
 was rough, perhaps, but not rude, a distinction alto- 
 gether wasted on her sister, who declared that she 
 had not come to America, of all places, to learn what 
 a gentleman was. The discussion, in short, had been 
 lively. I know not whether it was the tonic effect on 
 them, too, of the fine winter weather, or, on the other 
 hand, that of Lady Barb's being bored and having 
 nothing else to do ; but Lord Canterville's daughters 
 went into the question with the moral earnestness of 
 a pair of Bostonians. It was part of Lady Agatha's 
 view of her admirer that he, after all, much resembled 
 other tall people, with smiling eyes and mustaches, 
 who had ridden a good deal in rough countries, and 
 whom she had seen in other places. If he was more 
 familiar, he was also more alert ; still, the difference 
 was not in himself, but in the way she saw him, the 
 way she saw everybody in America. If she should 
 see the others in the same way, no doubt they would 
 be quite the same ; and Lady Agatha sighed a little 
 over the possibilities of life ; for this peculiar way, es- 
 pecially regarded in connection with gentlemen, had 
 become very pleasant to her. 
 
 She had betrayed her sister more than she thought, 
 even though Jackson Lemon did not particularly 
 show it in the tone in which he said : " Of course 
 
240 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 she knows that she is going to see your mother in the 
 summer." His tone, rather, was that of irritation at 
 the repetition of a familiar idea. 
 
 " Oh, it is n't only mamma," replied Lady Agatha. 
 
 " I know she likes a cool house," said Mrs. Lemon, 
 suggestively. 
 
 " When she goes, you had better bid her good-by," 
 the girl went on. 
 
 "Of course I shall bid her good-by," said Mrs. 
 Lemon, to whom, apparently, this remark was ad- 
 dressed. 
 
 " I shall never bid you good-by, Princess," Her- 
 man Longstraw interposed. " I can tell you that 
 you never will see the last of me." 
 
 " Oh, it does n't matter about me, for I shall come 
 back; but if Barb once gets to England, she will 
 never come back." 
 
 " Oh, niy dear child," murmured Mrs. Lemon, ad- 
 dressing Lady Agatha, but looking at her son. 
 
 Jackson looked at the ceiling, at the floor ; above 
 all, he looked very conscious. 
 
 " I hope you don't mind my saying that, Jackson 
 dear," Lady Agatha said to him, for she was very 
 fond of her brother-in-law. 
 
 " Ah, well, then, she sha'n't go, then," he remarked, 
 after a moment, with a dry little laugh. 
 
 " But you promised mamma, you know/' said the 
 girl, with the confidence of her affection. 
 
 Jackson looked at her with an eye which expressed 
 none even of his very moderate hilarity. "Your 
 mother, then, must bring her back." 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 241 
 
 " Get some of your navy people to supply an iron- 
 clad ! " cried Mr. Longstraw. 
 
 "It would be very pleasant if the Marchioness 
 could come over," said Mrs. Lemon. 
 
 "Oh, she would hate it more than poor Barb," 
 Lady Agatha quickly replied. It did not suit her 
 mood at all to see a marchioness inserted into the 
 field of her vision. 
 
 " Does n't she feel interested, from what you have 
 told her ? " Herman Longstraw asked of Lady Agatha. 
 But Jackson Lemon did not heed his sister-in-law's 
 answer ; he was thinking of something else. He 
 said nothing more, however, about the subject of his 
 thought, and before ten minutes were over, he took 
 his departure, having, meanwhile, neglected also to 
 revert to the question of Lady Agatha's bringing her 
 visit to his mother to a close. It was not to speak 
 to him of this (for, as we know, she wished to keep 
 the girl, and, somehow, could not bring herself to be 
 afraid of Herman Longstraw) that when Jackson 
 took leave she went with him to the door of the 
 house, detaining him a little, while she stood on the 
 steps, as people had always done in New York in her 
 time, though it was another of the new fashions she 
 did not like, not to come out of the parlor. She 
 placed her hand on his arm to keep him on the 
 " stoop," and looked up and down into the brilliant 
 afternoon and the beautiful city, its chocolate- 
 colored houses, so extraordinarily smooth, in which 
 it seemed to her that even the most fastidious people 
 
 16 
 
242 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 ought to be glad to live. It was useless to attempt 
 to conceal it; her son's marriage had made a dif- 
 ference, had put up a kind of barrier. It had 
 brought with it a problem much more difficult than 
 his old problem of how to make his mother feel that 
 she was still, as she had been in his childhood, the 
 dispenser of his rewards. The old problem had been 
 easily solved ; the new one was a visible preoccupa- 
 tion. Mrs. Lemon felt that her daughter-in-law did 
 not take her seriously ; and that was a part of the 
 barrier. Even if Barberina liked her better than any 
 one else, this was mostly because she liked every one 
 else so little. Mrs. Lemon had not a grain of resent- 
 ment in her nature ; and it was not to feed a sense of 
 wrong that she permitted herself to criticise her son's 
 wife. She could not help feeling that his marriage 
 was not altogether fortunate if his wife did n't take 
 his mother seriously. She knew she was not other- 
 wise remarkable than as being his mother ; but that 
 position, which was no merit of hers (the merit was 
 all Jackson's, in being her son), seemed to her one 
 which, familiar as Lady Barb appeared to have been 
 in England with positions of various kinds, would 
 naturally strike the girl as a very high one, to be ac- 
 cepted as freely as a fine morning. If she didn't 
 think of his mother as an indivisible part of him, 
 perhaps she did n't think of other things either ; and 
 Mrs. Lemon vaguely felt that, remarkable as Jackson 
 was, he was made up of parts, and that it would 
 never do that these parts should be rated lower one 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 243 
 
 by one, for there was no knowing what that might 
 end in. She feared that things were rather cold for 
 him at home when he had to explain so much to his 
 wife, explain to her, for instance, all the sources of 
 happiness that were to be found in New York. This 
 struck her as a new kind of problem altogether for 
 a husband. She had never thought of matrimony 
 without a community of feeling in regard to religion 
 and country; one took those great conditions for 
 granted, just as one assumed that one's food was to 
 be cooked; and if Jackson should have to discuss 
 them with his wife, he might, in spite of his great 
 abilities, be carried into regions where he would get 
 entangled and embroiled, from which, even, possibly, 
 he would not come back at all Mrs. Lemon had a 
 horror of losing him in some way ; and this fear was 
 in her eyes as she stood on the steps of her house, 
 and, after she had glanced up and down the street, 
 looked at him a moment in silence. He simply 
 kissed her again, and said she would take cold. 
 
 " I am not afraid of that, I have a shawl ! " Mrs. 
 Lemon, who was very small and very fair, with 
 pointed features and an elaborate cap, passed her life 
 in a shawl, and owed to this habit her reputation for be- 
 ing an invalid, an idea which she scorned, naturally 
 enough, inasmuch as it was precisely her shawl that 
 (as she believed) kept her from being one. " Is it true 
 Barberina won't come back ? " she asked of her son. 
 
 " I don't know that we shall ever find out ; I don't 
 know that I shall take her to England." 
 
244 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 " Did n't you promise, dear ? " 
 
 " I don't know that I promised ; not absolutely." 
 
 " But you would n't keep her here against her 
 will ? " said Mrs. Lemon, inconsequently. 
 
 " I guess she '11 get used to it," Jackson answered, 
 with a lightness he did not altogether feel. 
 
 Mrs. Lemon looked up and down the street again, 
 and gave a little sigh. " What a pity she is n't Amer- 
 ican ! " She did not mean this as a reproach, a hint 
 of what might have been ; it was simply embarrass- 
 ment resolved into speech. 
 
 " She could n't have been American," said Jackson, 
 with decision. 
 
 " Could n't she, dear ? " Mrs. Lemon spoke with 
 a kind of respect; she felt that there were imper- 
 ceptible reasons in this. 
 
 "It was just as she is that I wanted her," Jackson 
 added. 
 
 "Even if she won't come back?" his mother asked, 
 with a certain wonder. 
 
 " Oh, she has got to come back ! " Jackson said, 
 going down the steps. 
 
 VI. 
 
 LADY BARB, after this, did not decline to see her 
 New York acquaintances on Sunday afternoons, though 
 she refused for the present to enter into a project of 
 her husband's, who thought it would be a pleasant 
 thing that she should entertain his friends on the 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 245 
 
 evening of that day. Like all good Americans, Jack- 
 son Lemon devoted much consideration to the great 
 question how, in his native land, society should be 
 brought into being. It seemed to him that it would 
 help the good cause, for which so many Americans 
 are ready to lay down their lives, if his wife should, 
 as he jocularly called it, open a saloon. He believed, 
 or he tried to believe, the salon now possible in New 
 York, on condition of its being reserved entirely for 
 adults; and in having taken a wife out of a country 
 in which social traditions were rich and ancient, he 
 had done something towards qualifying his own 
 house so splendidly qualified in all strictly mate- 
 rial respects to be the scene of such an effort. A 
 charming woman, accustomed only to the best in each 
 country, as Lady Beauchemin said, what might she 
 not achieve by being at home (to the elder gen- 
 eration) in an easy, early, inspiring, comprehensive 
 way, on the evening in the week on which worldly 
 engagements were least numerous ? He laid this 
 philosophy before Lady Barb, in pursuance of a the- 
 ory that if she disliked New York on a short acquain- 
 tance, she could not fail to like it on a long one. 
 Jackson Lemon believed in the New York mind, 
 not so much, indeed, in its literary, artistic, or politi- 
 cal achievements, as in its general quickness and 
 nascent adaptability. He clung to this belief, for it 
 was a very important piece of material in the struc- 
 ture that he was attempting to rear. The New York 
 mind would throw its glamour over Lady Barb if she 
 
246 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 would only give it a chance ; for it was exceedingly 
 bright, entertaining, and sympathetic. If she would 
 only have a salon, where this charming organ might 
 expand, and where she might inhale its fragrance in 
 the most convenient and luxurious way, without, as 
 it were, getting up from her chair ; if she would only 
 just try this graceful, good-natured experiment (which 
 would make every one like her so much, too), he 
 was sure that all the wrinkles in the gilded scroll of 
 his fate would be smoothed out. But Lady Barb did 
 not rise at all to his conception, and had not the least 
 curiosity about the New York mind. She thought it 
 would be extremely disagreeable to have a lot of peo- 
 ple tumbling in on Sunday evening without being 
 invited ; and altogether her husband's sketch of the 
 Anglo-American saloon seemed to her to suggest 
 familiarity, high-pitched talk (she had already made 
 a remark to him about " screeching women " ), and 
 exaggerated laughter. She did not tell him for this, 
 somehow, it was not in her power to express, and, 
 strangely enough, he never completely guessed it, 
 that she was singularly deficient in any natural, or 
 indeed acquired, understanding of what a saloon 
 might be. She had never seen one, and for the most 
 part she never thought of things she had not seen. 
 She had seen great dinners, and balls, and meets, and 
 runs, and races ; she had seen garden-parties, and a 
 lot of people, mainly women (who, however, did n't 
 screech), at dull, stuffy teas, and distinguished com- 
 panies collected in splendid castles ; but all this gave 
 
IADY BARBERINA. 247 
 
 her no idea of a tradition of conversation, of a social 
 agreement that its continuity, its accumulations from 
 season to season, should not be lost. Conversation, 
 in Lady Barb's experience, had never been continuous ; 
 in such a case it would surely have been a bore. It 
 had been occasional and fragmentary, a trifle jerky, 
 with allusions that were never explained ; it had a 
 dread of detail ; it seldom pursued anything very far, 
 or kept hold of it very long. 
 
 There was something else that she did not say 
 to her husband in reference to his visions of hospi- 
 tality, which was, that if she should open a saloon 
 (she had taken up the joke as well, for Lady Barb 
 was eminently good-natured), Mrs. Vanderdecken 
 would straightway open another, and Mrs. Vander- 
 decken's would be the more successful of the two. 
 This lady, for reasons that Lady Barb had not yet 
 explored, was supposed to be the great personage in 
 New York; there were legends of her husband's 
 family having behind them a fabulous antiquity. 
 When this was alluded to, it was spoken of as some- 
 thing incalculable, and lost in the dimness of time. 
 Mrs. Vanderdecken was young, pretty, clever, incre- 
 dibly pretentious (Lady Barb thought), and had a 
 wonderfully artistic house. Ambition, also, was ex- 
 pressed in every rustle of her garments ; and if she 
 was the first person in America (this had an im- 
 mense sound), it was plain that she intended to re- 
 main so. It was not till after she had been several 
 months in New York that it came over Lady Barb 
 
248 LADY BARBERINA." 
 
 that this brilliant native had flung down the glove ; 
 and when the idea presented itself, lighted up by an 
 incident which I have no space to relate, she simply 
 blushed a little (for Mrs. Vanderdecken), and held 
 her tongue. She -had not come to America to bandy 
 words about precedence with such a woman as that. 
 She had ceased to think about it much (of course 
 one thought about it in England) ; but an instinct of 
 self-preservation led her not to expose herself to 
 occasions on which her claim might be tested. This, 
 at bottom, had much to do with her having, very 
 soon after the first flush of the honors paid her on 
 her arrival, and which seemed to her rather grossly 
 overdone, taken the line of scarcely going out. 
 " They can't keep that up ! " she had said to herself ; 
 and, in short, she would stay at home. She had a 
 feeling that whenever she should go forth she would 
 meet Mrs. Yanderdecken, who would withhold, or 
 deny, or contest something, poor Lady Barb could 
 never imagine what. She did not try to, and gave 
 little thought to all this ; for she was not prone to 
 confess to herself fears, especially fears from which 
 terror was absent. But, as I have said, it abode 
 within her as a presentiment, that if she should set 
 up a drawing-room in the foreign style (it was 
 curious, in New York, how they tried to be for- 
 eign), Mrs. Vanderdecken would be beforehand with 
 her. The continuity of conversation, oh ! that idea 
 she would certainly have ; there was no one so con- 
 tinuous as Mrs. Vanderdecken. Lady Barb, as I 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 249 
 
 have related, did not give her husband the surprise 
 of telling him of these thoughts, though she had 
 given him some other surprises. He would have 
 been very much astonished, and perhaps, after a bit, 
 a little encouraged, at finding that she was liable to 
 this particular form of irritation. 
 
 On the Sunday afternoon she was visible ; and on 
 one of these occasions, going into her drawing-room 
 late, he found her entertaining two ladies and a gen- 
 tleman. The gentleman was Sidney Feeder, and one 
 of the ladies was Mrs. Vanderdecken, whose osten- 
 sible relations with Lady Barb were of the most cor- 
 dial nature. If she intended to crush her (as two or 
 three persons, not conspicuous for a narrow accuracy, 
 gave out that she privately declared), Mrs. Vander- 
 decken wished at least to study the weak points of 
 the invader, to penetrate herself with the character 
 of the English girl. Lady Barb, indeed, appeared to 
 have a mysterious fascination for the representative 
 of the American patriciate. Mrs. Vanderdecken 
 could not take her eyes off her victim ; and whatever 
 might be her estimate of her importance, she at least 
 could not let her alone. " Why does she come to 
 see me ? " poor Lady Barb asked herself. " I am sure 
 I don't want to see her; she has done enough for 
 civility long ago." Mrs. Vanderdecken had her own 
 reasons ; and one of them was simply the pleasure of 
 looking at the Doctor's wife, as she habitually called 
 the daughter of the Cantervilles. She was not guilty 
 of the folly of depreciating this lady's appearance, 
 
250 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 and professed an unbounded admiration for it, de- 
 fending it on many occasions against superficial peo- 
 ple, who said there were fifty women in New York 
 that were handsomer. Whatever might have been 
 Lady Barb's weak points, they were not the curve of 
 her cheek and chin, the setting of her head on her 
 throat, or the quietness of her deep eyes, which were 
 as beautiful as if they had been blank, like those of 
 antique busts. " The head is enchanting perfectly 
 enchanting," Mrs. Vanderdecken used to say irrel- 
 evantly, as if there were only one head in the place. 
 She always used to ask about the Doctor ; and that 
 was another reason why she came. She brought up 
 the Doctor at every turn; asked if he were often 
 called up at night ; found it the greatest of luxuries, 
 in a word, to address Lady Barb as the wife of a 
 medical man, more or less au courant of her hus- 
 band's patients. The other lady, on this Sunday 
 afternoon, was a certain little Mrs. Chew, who had 
 the appearance of a small, but very expensive doll, 
 and was always asking Lady Barb about England, 
 which Mrs. Vanderdecken never did. The latter 
 visitor conversed with Lady Barb on a purely Amer- 
 ican basis, with that continuity (on her own side) of 
 which mention has already been made, while Mrs. 
 Chew engaged Sidney Feeder on topics equally 
 local. Lady Barb liked Sidney Feeder ; she only 
 hated his name, which was constantly in her ears 
 during the half-hour the ladies sat with her ; Mrs. 
 Chew having the habit, which annoyed Lady Barb, 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 251 
 
 of repeating perpetually the appellation of her inter- 
 locutor. 
 
 Lady Barb's relations with Mrs. Vanderdecken 
 consisted mainly in wondering, while she talked, 
 what she wanted of her, and in looking, with her 
 sculptured eyes, at her visitor's clothes, in which 
 there was always much to examine. " Oh, Dr. 
 Feeder!" "Now, Dr. Feeder!" " Well, Dr. Feeder," 
 these exclamations, on the lips of Mrs. Chew, 
 were an undertone in Lady Barb's consciousness. 
 When I say that she liked her husband's confrere, 
 as he used to call himself, I mean that she smiled 
 at him when he came, and gave him her hand, 
 and asked him if he would have some tea. There 
 was nothing nasty (as they said in London) in Lady 
 Barb, and she would have been incapable of inflicting 
 a deliberate snub upon a man who had the air of 
 standing up so squarely to any work that he might 
 have in hand. But she had nothing to say to Sid- 
 ney Feeder. He apparently had the art of making 
 her shy, more shy than usual ; for she was always a 
 little so ; she discouraged him, discouraged him com- 
 pletely. He was not a man who wanted drawing 
 out, there was nothing of that in him, he was re- 
 markably copious ; but Lady Barb appeared unable 
 to follow him, and half the time, evidently, did not 
 know what he was saying. He tried to adapt his 
 conversation to her needs ; but when he spoke of the 
 world, of what was going on in society, she was more 
 at sea even than when he spoke of hospitals and 
 
252 LADY BARBER1NA. 
 
 laboratories, and the health of the city, and the prog- 
 ress of science. She appeared, indeed, after her first 
 smile, when he came in, which was always charming, 
 scarcely to see him, looking past him, and above him, 
 and below him, and everywhere but at him, until he 
 got up to go again, when she gave him another smile, 
 as expressive of pleasure and of casual acquaintance 
 as that with which she had greeted his entry ; it 
 seemed to imply that they had been having delight- 
 ful talk for an hour. He wondered what the deuce 
 Jackson Lemon could find interesting in such a 
 woman, and he believed that his perverse, though 
 gifted, colleague was not destined to feel that she 
 illuminated his life. He pitied Jackson, he saw that 
 Lady Barb, in New York, would neither assimilate 
 nor be assimilated ; and yet he was afraid to betray 
 his incredulity, thinking it might be depressing to 
 poor Lemon to show him how his marriage now 
 so dreadfully irrevocable struck others. Sidney 
 Feeder was a man of a strenuous conscience, and he 
 did his duty overmuch by his old friend and his wife, 
 from the simple fear that he should not do it enough. 
 In order not to appear to neglect them, he called upon 
 Lady Barb heroically, in spite of pressing engage- 
 ments, week after week, enjoying his virtue himself 
 as little as he made it fruitful for his hostess, who 
 wondered at last what she had done to deserve these 
 visitations. She spoke of them to her husband, who 
 wondered also what poor Sidney had in his head, 
 and yet was unable, of course, to hint to him that 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 253 
 
 he need not think it necessary to come so often. 
 Between Dr. Feeder's wish not to let Jackson see 
 that his marriage had made a difference, and Jack- 
 son's hesitation to reveal to Sidney that his standard 
 of friendship was too high, Lady Barb passed a good 
 many of those numerous hours during which she 
 asked herself if she had come to America for that. 
 Very little had ever passed between her and her 
 husband on the subject of Sidney Feeder; for an 
 instinct told her that if they were ever to have 
 scenes, she must choose the occasion well ; and this 
 odd person was not an occasion. Jackson had tacitly 
 admitted that his friend Feeder was anything he 
 chose to think him ; he was not a man to be guilty, 
 in a discussion, of the disloyalty of damning him 
 with praise that was faint. If Lady Agatha had 
 usually been with her sister, Dr. Feeder would 
 have been better entertained ; for the younger of the 
 English visitors prided herself, after several months 
 of New York, on understanding everything that was 
 said, and catching every allusion, it mattered not 
 from what lips it fell. But Lady Agatha was never 
 at home ; she had learned how to describe herself 
 perfectly by the time she wrote to her mother that 
 she was always " on the go." None of the innumer- 
 able victims of old-world tyranny who have fled to 
 the United States as to a land of freedom, have ever 
 offered more lavish incense to that goddess than this 
 emancipated London debutante. She had enrolled 
 herself in an amiable band which was known by the 
 
254 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 humorous name of " the Tearers," a dozen young 
 ladies of agreeable appearance, high spirits, and good 
 wind, whose most general characteristic was that, 
 when wanted, they were to be sought anywhere in 
 the world but under the roof that was supposed to 
 shelter them. They were never at home ; and when 
 Sidney Feeder, as sometimes happened, met Lady 
 Agatha at other houses, she was in the hands of 
 the irrepressible Longstraw. She had come back to 
 her sister, but Mr. Longstraw had followed her to the 
 door. As to passing it, he had received direct dis- 
 couragement from her brother-in-law ; but he could 
 at least hang about and wait for her. It may be 
 confided to the reader, at the risk of diminishing the 
 effect of the only incident which in the course of this 
 very level narrative may startle him, that he never 
 had to wait very long. 
 
 When Jackson Lemon came in, his wife's visitors 
 were on the point of leaving her ; and he did not ask 
 even Sidney Feeder to remain, for he had something 
 particular to say to Lady Barb. 
 
 " I have n't asked you half what I wanted I 
 have been talking so much to Dr. Feeder," the 
 dressy Mrs. Chew said, holding the hand of her 
 hostess in one of her own, and toying with one of 
 Lady Barb's ribbons with the other. 
 
 " I don't think I have anything to tell you ; I 
 think I have told people everything," Lady Barb 
 answered, rather wearily. 
 
 " You have n't told me much ! " Mrs. Yander- 
 decken said, smiling brightly. 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 255 
 
 "What could one tell you? you know every- 
 thing," Jackson Lemon interposed. 
 
 "Ah, no; there are some things that are great 
 mysteries for me," the lady returned. " I hope you 
 are coming to me on the 17th/' she added, to Lady 
 Barb. 
 
 " On the 17th ? I think we are going somewhere." 
 
 " Do go to Mrs. Vanderdecken's," said Mrs. Chew ; 
 " you '11 see the cream of the cream." 
 
 "Oh, gracious ! " Mrs. Vanderdecken exclaimed. 
 
 " Well, I don't care ; she will, won't she, Dr. Feed- 
 er ? the very pick of American society." Mrs. Chew 
 stuck to her point. 
 
 " Well, I have no doubt Lady Barb will have a 
 good time," said Sidney Feeder. "I'm afraid you 
 miss the bran," he went on, with irrelevant jocosity, 
 to Lady Barb. He always tried the jocose, when 
 other elements had failed. 
 
 "The bran ?" asked Lady Barb, staring. 
 
 "Where you used to ride in the Park." 
 
 " My dear fellow, you speak as if it were the cir- 
 cus," Jackson Lemon said, smiling ; " I have n't mar- 
 ried a mountebank ! " 
 
 " Well, they put some stuff on the road," Sidney 
 Feeder explained, not holding much to his joke. 
 
 " You must miss a great many things," said Mrs. 
 Chew, tenderly. 
 
 " I don't see what," Mrs. Vanderdecken remarked, 
 " except the fogs and the Queen. New York is getting 
 more and more like London. It 's a pity ; you ought 
 to have known us thirty years ago." 
 
256 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 " You are the queen, here," said Jackson Lemon ; 
 "but I don't know what you know about thirty 
 years ago." 
 
 " Do you think she does n't go back ? she goes 
 back to the last century ! " cried Mrs. Chew. 
 
 " I dare say I should have liked that," said Lady 
 Barb ; " but I can't imagine." And she looked at 
 her husband a look she often had as if she 
 vaguely wished him to do something. 
 
 He was not called upon, however, to take any 
 violent steps, for Mrs. Chew presently said : " Well, 
 Lady Barberina, good-by ;" and Mrs. Vanderdecken 
 smiled in silence at her hostess, and addressed a fare- 
 well, accompanied very audibly with his title, to her 
 host ; and Sidney Feeder made a joke about stepping 
 on the trains of the ladies' dresses as he accompanied 
 them to the door. Mrs. Chew had always a great 
 deal to say at the last ; she talked till she was in the 
 street, and then she did not cease. But at the end of 
 five minutes Jackson Lemon was alone with his wife ; 
 and then he told her a piece of news. He prefaced 
 it, however, by an inquiry as he came back from the 
 hall. 
 
 " Where is Agatha, my dear ? " 
 
 " I have n't the least idea. In the streets some- 
 where, I suppose." 
 
 " I think you ought to know a little more." 
 
 "How can I know about things here? I have 
 given her up ; I can do nothing with her. I don't 
 care what she does." 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 257 
 
 " She ought to go back to England," Jackson Lemon 
 said, after a pause. 
 
 " She ought never to have come." 
 
 " It was not my proposal, God knows ! " Jackson 
 answered, rather sharply. 
 
 " Mamma could never know what it really is," said 
 his wife. 
 
 " No, it has not been as yet what your mother sup- 
 posed ! Herman Longstraw wants to marry her. He 
 has made me a formal proposal. I met him half an 
 hour ago in Madison Avenue, and he asked me to 
 come with him into the Columbia Club. There, in 
 the billiard-room, which to-day is empty, he opened 
 himself thinking evidently that in laying the mat- 
 ter before me he was behaving with extraordinary 
 propriety. He tells me he is dying of love, and that 
 she is perfectly willing to go and live in Arizona." 
 
 " So she is," said Lady Barb. " And what did you 
 tell him?" 
 
 " I told him that I was sure it would never do, 
 and that at any rate I could have nothing to say to 
 it. I told him explicitly, in short, what I had told 
 him virtually before. I said that we should send 
 Agatha straight back to England, and that if they 
 had the courage they must themselves broach the 
 question over there." 
 
 "When shall you send her back?" asked Lady 
 Barb. 
 
 " Immediately ; by the very first steamer." 
 
 " Alone, like an American girl ? * 
 
258 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 " Don't be rough, Barb," said Jackson Lemon. " I 
 shall easily find some people ; lots of people are sail- 
 ing now." 
 
 " I must take her myself," Lady Barb declared in 
 a moment. " I brought her out, and I must restore 
 her to my mother's hands." 
 
 Jackson Lemon had expected this, and he believed he 
 was prepared for it. But when it came he found his 
 preparation was not complete ; for he had no answer 
 to make none, at least, that seemed to him to go 
 to the point. During these last weeks it had come 
 over him, with a quiet, irresistible, unmerciful force, 
 that Mrs. Dexter Freer had been right when she said 
 to him, that Sunday afternoon in Jermyn Street, the 
 summer before, that he would find it was not so sim- 
 ple to be an American. Such an identity was com- 
 plicated, in just the measure that she had foretold, by 
 the difficulty of domesticating one's wife. The diffi- 
 culty was not dissipated by his having taken a high 
 tone about it ; it pinched him from morning till night, 
 like a misfitting shoe. His high tone had given him 
 courage when he took the great step ; but he began 
 to perceive that the highest tone in the world cannot 
 change the nature of tilings. His ears tingled when 
 he reflected that if the Dexter Freers, whom he had 
 thought alike abject in their hopes and their fears, 
 had been by ill-luck spending the winter in New 
 York, they would have found his predicament as en- 
 tertaining as they could desire. Drop by drop the 
 conviction had entered his mind the first drop had 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 259 
 
 come in the form of a word from Lady Agatha 
 that if his wife should return to England she would 
 never again cross the Atlantic to the west. That 
 word from Lady Agatha had been the touch from the 
 outside, at which, often, one's fears crystallize. What 
 she would do, how she would resist, this he was not 
 yet prepared to tell himself ; but he felt, every time 
 he looked at her, that this beautiful woman whom he 
 had adored was filled with a dumb, insuperable, inera- 
 dicable purpose. He knew that if she should plant 
 herself, no power on earth would move her ; and her 
 blooming, antique beauty, and the general loftiness of 
 her breeding, came to seem to him rapidly but 
 the magnificent expression of a dense, patient, imper- 
 turbable obstinacy. She was not light, she was not 
 supple, and after six months of marriage he had made 
 up his mind that she was not clever ; but neverthe- 
 less she would elude him. She had married him, she 
 had come into his fortune and his consideration 
 for who was she, after all ? Jackson Lemon was once 
 so angry as to ask himself, reminding himself that in 
 England Lady Claras and Lady Florences were as 
 thick as blackberries but she would have nothing 
 to do, if she could help it, with his country. She had 
 gone in to dinner first in every house in the place, 
 but this had not satisfied her. It had been simple to 
 be an American, in this sense, that no one else in 
 New York had made any difficulties ; the difficulties 
 had sprung from her peculiar feelings, which were 
 after all what he had married her for, thinking they 
 
260 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 would be a fine temperamental heritage for his brood. 
 So they would, doubtless, in the coming years, after 
 the brood should have appeared ; but meanwhile they 
 interfered with the best heritage of all the nation- 
 ality of his possible children. Lady Barb would do 
 nothing violent; he was tolerably certain of that. 
 She would not return to England without his con- 
 sent ; only, when she should return, it would be once 
 for all. His only possible line, then, was not to take 
 her back, a position replete with difficulties, because, 
 of course, he had, in a manner, given his word, while 
 she had given no word at all, beyond the general 
 promise she murmured at the altar. She had been 
 general, but he had been specific; the settlements he 
 had made were a part of that. His difficulties were 
 such as he could not directly face. He must tack in 
 approaching so uncertain a coast. He said to Lady 
 Barb presently that it would be very inconvenient 
 for him to leave New York at that moment : she must 
 remember that their plans had been laid for a later 
 departure. He could not think of letting her make 
 the voyage without him, and, on the other hand, they 
 must pack her sister off without delay. He would 
 therefore make instant inquiry for a chaperon, and 
 he relieved his irritation by expressing considerable 
 disgust at Herman Longstraw. 
 
 Lady Barb did not trouble herself to denounce this 
 gentleman ; her manner was that of having for a long 
 time expected the worst. She simply remarked dryly, 
 after having listened to her husband for some minutes 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 261 
 
 in silence : " I would as lief she should marry Dr. 
 Feeder ! " 
 
 The day after this, Jackson Lemon closeted himself 
 for an hour with Lady Agatha, taking great pains to 
 set forth to her the reasons why she should not marry 
 her Californian. Jackson was kind, he was affection- 
 ate ; he kissed her and put his arm round her waist, 
 he reminded her that he and she were the best of 
 friends, and that she had always been awfully nice 
 to him ; therefore he counted upon her. She would 
 break her mother's heart, she would deserve her 
 father's curse, and she would get him, Jackson, into 
 a pickle from which no human power could ever dis- 
 embroil him. Lady Agatha listened and cried, and 
 returned his kiss very affectionately, and admitted 
 that her father and mother would never consent to 
 such a marriage ; and when he told her that he had 
 made arrangements for her to sail for Liverpool (with 
 some charming people) the next day but one, she em- 
 braced him again and assured him that she could 
 never thank him enough for all the trouble he had 
 taken about her. He flattered himself that he had 
 convinced, and in some degree comforted her, and 
 reflected with complacency that even should his wife 
 take it into her head, Barberina would never get ready 
 to embark for her native land between a Monday and 
 a Wednesday. The next morning Lady Agatha did 
 not appear at breakfast ; but as she usually rose very 
 late, her absence excited no alarm. She had not rung 
 her bell, and she was supposed still to be sleeping. 
 
262 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 But she had never yet slept later than mid-day ; and 
 as this hour approached her sister went to her room. 
 Lady Barb then discovered that she had left the house 
 at seven o'clock in the morning, and had gone to 
 meet Herman Longstraw at a neighboring corner. A 
 little note on the table explained it very succinctly, 
 and put beyond the power of Jackson Lemon and his 
 wife to doubt that by the time this news reached 
 them their wayward sister had been united to the 
 man of her preference as closely as the laws of the 
 State of New York could bind her. Her little note 
 set forth that as she knew she should never be per- 
 mitted to marry him, she had determined to marry 
 him without permission, and that directly after the 
 ceremony, which would be of the simplest kind, they 
 were to take a train for the Far West. Our history 
 is concerned only with the remote consequences of 
 this incident, which made, of course, a great deal of 
 trouble for Jackson Lemon. He went to the Far 
 West in pursuit of the fugitives, and overtook them 
 in California ; but he had not the audacity to propose 
 to them to separate, as it was easy for him to see that 
 Herman Longstraw was at least as well married as 
 himself. Lady Agatha was already popular in the 
 new States, where the history of her elopement, em- 
 blazoned in enormous capitals, was circulated in a 
 thousand newspapers. This question of the news- 
 papers had been for Jackson Lemon one of the most 
 definite results of his sister-in-law's coup de tete. His 
 first thought had been of the public prints, and his 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 263 
 
 first exclamation a prayer that they should Dot get 
 hold of the story. But they did get hold of it, and 
 they treated the affair with their customary energy 
 and eloquence. Lady Barb never saw them ; but an 
 affectionate friend of the family, travelling at that 
 time in the United States, made a parcel of some of 
 the leading journals, and sent them to Lord Canter- 
 ville. This missive elicited from her ladyship a letter 
 addressed to Jackson Lernon which shook the young 
 man's position to the base. The phials of an unnam- 
 able vulgarity had been opened upon the house of 
 Canterville, and his mother-in-law demanded that in 
 compensation for the affronts and injuries that were 
 being heaped upon her family, and bereaved and dis- 
 honored as she was, she should at least be allowed to 
 look on the face of her other daughter. " I suppose 
 you will not, for very pity, be deaf to such a prayer 
 as that," said Lady Barb ; and though shrinking from 
 recording a second act of weakness on the part of a man 
 who had such pretensions to be strong, I must relate 
 that poor Jackson, who blushed dreadfully over the 
 newspapers, and felt afresh, as he read them, the force 
 of Mrs. Freer's terrible axiom, poor Jackson paid a 
 visit to the office of the Cunarders. He said to him- 
 self afterward that it was the newspapers that had done 
 it ; he could not bear to appear to be on their side ; 
 they made it so hard to deny that the country was 
 vulgar, at a time when one was in such need of all 
 one's arguments. Lady Barb, before sailing, definitely 
 refused to mention any week or month as the date of 
 
264 LADY BARBERINA. 
 
 their pre-arranged return to New York. Very many 
 weeks and months have elapsed since then, and she 
 gives no sign of coming back. She will never fix a 
 date. She is much missed by Mrs. Vanderdecken, 
 who still alludes to her still says the line of the 
 shoulders was superb; putting the statement, pen- 
 sively, in the past tense. Lady Beauchemin and Lady 
 Marmaduke are much disconcerted ; the international 
 project has not, in their view, received an impetus. 
 
 Jackson Lemon has a house in London, and he 
 rides in the Park with his wife, who is as beautiful as 
 the day, and a year ago presented him with a little 
 girl, with features that Jackson already scans for the 
 look of race, whether in hope or fear, to-day, is more 
 than my muse has revealed. He has occasional scenes 
 with Lady Barb, during which the look of race is very 
 visible in her own countenance ; but they never termi- 
 nate in a visit to the Cunarders. He is exceedingly 
 restless, and is constantly crossing to the Continent ; 
 but he returns with a certain abruptness, for he can- 
 not bear to meet the Dexter Freers, and they seem 
 to pervade the more comfortable parts of Europe. 
 He dodges them in every town. Sidney Feeder feels 
 very badly about him ; it is months since Jackson has 
 sent him any " results." The excellent fellow goes 
 very often, in a consolatory spirit, to see Mrs. Lemon ; 
 but he has not yet been able to answer her standing 
 question: "Why that girl more than another?" Lady 
 Agatha Longstraw and her husband arrived a year 
 ago in England, and Mr. Longstraw's personality had 
 
LADY BARBERINA. 265 
 
 immense success during the last London season. It 
 is not exactly known what they live on, though it is 
 perfectly known that he is looking for something to 
 do. Meanwhile it is as good as known that Jackson 
 Lemon supports them. 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER 
 
 MRS. DAINTRY stood on her steps a moment, to 
 address a parting injunction to her little domestic, 
 whom she had induced a few days before, by earnest 
 and friendly argument, the only coercion or persua- 
 sion this enlightened mistress was ever known to use, 
 to crown her ruffled tresses with a cap ; and then, 
 slowly and with deliberation, she descended to the 
 street. As soon as her back was turned, her maid- 
 servant closed the door, not with violence, but inaudi- 
 bly, quickly, and firmly ; so that when she reached 
 the bottom of the steps and looked up again at the 
 front, as she always did before leaving it, to assure 
 herself that everything was well, the folded wings of 
 her portal were presented to her, smooth and shining, 
 as wings should be, and ornamented with the large 
 silver plate on which the name of her late husband 
 was inscribed, which she had brought with her 
 when, taking the inevitable course of good Bostonians, 
 she had transferred her household goods from the 
 
270 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 " hill " to the " new land," and the exhibition of which, 
 as an act of conjugal fidelity, she preferred how 
 much, those who knew her could easily understand 
 to the more distinguished modern fashion of suppress- 
 ing the domiciliary label. She stood still for a min- 
 ute on the pavement, looking at the closed aperture of 
 her dwelling and asking herself a question ; not that 
 there was anything extraordinary in that, for she 
 never spared herself in this respect. She would 
 greatly have preferred that her servant should not 
 shut the door till she had reached the sidewalk, and 
 dismissed her, as it were, with that benevolent, that 
 almost maternal, smile with which it was a part of 
 Mrs. Daintry's religion to encourage and reward her 
 domestics. She liked to know that her door was be- 
 ing held open behind her until she should pass out 
 of sight of the young woman standing in the hall. 
 There was a want of respect in shutting her out so 
 precipitately ; it was almost like giving her a push 
 down the steps. What Mrs. Daintry asked herself 
 was, whether she should not do right to ascend the 
 steps again, ring the bell, and request Beatrice, the 
 parlor-maid, to be so good as to wait a little longer. 
 She felt that this would have been a proceeding of 
 some importance, and she presently decided against it. 
 There were a good many reasons, and she thought 
 them over as she took her way slowly up Newbury 
 Street, turning as soon as possible into Common- 
 wealth Avenue ; for she was very fond of the south 
 side of this beautiful prospect, and the autumn sun- 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 271 
 
 shine to-day was delightful. During the moment 
 that she paused, looking up at her house, she had 
 had time to see that everything was as fresh and 
 bright as she could desire. It looked a little too 
 new, perhaps, and Florimond would not like that ; 
 for of course his great fondness was for the antique, 
 which was the reason for his remaining year after 
 year in Europe, where, as a young painter of consid- 
 erable, if not of the highest, promise, he had oppor- 
 tunities to study the most dilapidated buildings. It 
 was a comfort to Mrs. Daintry, however, to be able 
 to say to herself that he would be struck with her 
 living really very nicely, more nicely, in many 
 ways, than he could possibly be accommodated 
 that she was sure of in a small dark appartement 
 de garden in Paris, 011 the uncomfortable side of the 
 Seine. Her state of mind at present was such that 
 she set the highest value on anything that could pos- 
 sibly help to give Florimond a pleasant impression. 
 Nothing could be too small to count, she said to her- 
 self; for she knew that Florimond was both fastid- 
 ious and observant. Everything that would strike 
 him agreeably would contribute to detain him, so 
 that if there were only enough agreeable things he 
 would perhaps stay four or five months, instead of 
 three, as he had promised, the three that were to 
 date from the day of his arrival in Boston, not from 
 that (an important difference) of his departure from 
 Liverpool, which was about to take place. 
 
 It was Florimond that Mrs. Daintry had had in 
 
272 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 inind when, on emerging from the little vestibule, she 
 gave the direction to Beatrice about the position of 
 the door-mat, in which the young woman, so care- 
 fully selected, as a Protestant, from the British 
 Provinces, had never yet taken the interest that her 
 mistress expected from such antecedents. It was 
 Florimond also that she had thought of in putting 
 before her parlor-maid the question of donning a 
 badge of servitude in the shape of a neat little 
 muslin coif, adorned with pink ribbon and stitched 
 together by Mrs. Dain try's own beneficent fingers. 
 Naturally there was no obvious connection between 
 the parlor-maid's coiffure and the length of Flori- 
 mond's stay ; that detail was to be only a part of the 
 general effect of American life. It was still Flori- 
 mond that was uppermost as his mother, on her way 
 up the hill, turned over in her mind that question of 
 the ceremony of the front-door. He had been living 
 in a country in which servants observed more forms, 
 and he would doubtless be shocked at Beatrice's 
 want of patience. An accumulation of such anoma- 
 lies would at last undermine his loyalty. He would 
 not care for them for himself, of course, but he would 
 care about them for her ; coining from France, where, 
 as she knew by his letters, and indeed by her own read- 
 ing, for she made a remarkably free use of the Athe- 
 naeum, that the position of a mother was one of the 
 most exalted, he could not fail to be froisse at any 
 want of consideration for his surviving parent. As 
 an artist, he could not make up his mind to live in 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 273 
 
 Boston ; but he was a good son for all that. He had 
 told her frequently that they might easily live to- 
 gether if she would only come to Paris ; but of course 
 she could not do that, with Joanna and her six chil- 
 dren round in Clarendon Street, and her responsibili- 
 ties to her daughter multiplied in the highest degree. 
 Besides, during that winter she spent in Paris, when 
 Florimond was definitely making up his mind, and 
 they had in the evening the most charming conver- 
 sations, interrupted only by the repeated care of 
 winding up the lamp or applying the bellows to the 
 obstinate little fire, during that winter she had felt 
 that Paris was not her element. She had gone to 
 the lectures at the Sorbonne, and she had visited the 
 Louvre as few people did it, catalogue in hand, tak- 
 ing the catalogue volume by volume; but all the 
 while she was thinking of Joanna and her new baby, 
 and how the other three (that was the number then) 
 were getting on while their mother was so much 
 absorbed with the last. Mrs. Daintry, familiar as 
 she was with these anxieties, had not the step of a 
 grandmother ; for a mind that was always intent had 
 the effect of refreshing and brightening her years. 
 Eesponsibility with her was not a weariness, but a 
 joy, at least it was the nearest approach to a joy that 
 she knew, and she did not regard her life as especially 
 cheerless ; there were many others that were more 
 denuded than hers. She moved with circumspection, 
 but without reluctance, holding up her head and 
 looking at every one she met with a clear, unaccus- 
 
 18 
 
274 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 ing gaze. This expression showed that she took an 
 interest, as she ought, in everything that concerned 
 her fellow-creatures ; but there was that also in her 
 whole person which indicated that she went no far- 
 ther than Christian charity required. It was only 
 with regard to Joanna and that vociferous houseful, 
 so fertile in problems, in opportunities for devotion, 
 that she went really very far. And now to-day, of 
 course, in this matter of Florimond's visit, after an 
 absence of six years; which was perhaps more on 
 her mind than anything had ever been. People who 
 met Mrs. Daintry after she had traversed the Public 
 Garden she always took that way and begun to 
 ascend the charming slope of Beacon Street, would 
 never, in spite of the relaxation of her pace as she 
 measured this eminence, have mistaken her for a 
 little old lady who should have crept out, vaguely 
 and timidly, to inhale one of the last mild days. It 
 was easy to see that she was not without a duty, or 
 at least a reason, and indeed Mrs. Daintry had never 
 in her life been left in this predicament. People 
 who knew her ever so little would have felt that 
 she was going to call on a relation ; and if they had 
 been to the manner born they would have added a 
 mental hope that her relation was prepared for her 
 visit. No one would have doubted this, however, 
 who had been aware that her steps were directed to 
 the habitation of Miss Lucretia Daintry. Her sister- 
 in-law, her husband's only sister, lived in that com- 
 modious nook which is known as Mount Vernon 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 275 
 
 Place ; and Mrs. Daintry therefore turned off at Joy 
 Street. By the time she did so, she had quite 
 settled in her mind the question of Beatrice's be- 
 havior in connection with the front-door. She had 
 decided that it would never do to make a formal re- 
 monstrance, for it was plain that, in spite of the Old- 
 World training which she hoped the girl might have 
 imbibed in Nova Scotia (where, until lately, she 
 learned, there had been an English garrison), she 
 would in such a case expose herself to the danger of 
 desertion ; Beatrice would not consent to stand there 
 holding the door open for nothing. And after all, in 
 the depths of her conscience Mrs. Daintry was not 
 sure that she ought to ; she was not sure that this 
 was an act of homage that one human being had 
 a right to exact of another, simply because this 
 other happened to wear a little muslin cap with pink 
 ribbons. It was a service that ministered to her im- 
 portance, to her dignity, not to her hunger or thirst ; 
 and Mrs. Daintry, who had had other foreign advan- 
 tages besides her winter in Paris, was quite aware 
 that in the United States the machinery for that 
 former kind of tribute was very undeveloped. It 
 was a luxury that one ought not to pretend to enjoy, 
 it was a luxury, indeed, that she probably ought not to 
 presume to desire. At the bottom of her heart Mrs. 
 Daintry suspected that such hankerings were crimi- 
 nal. And yet, turning the thing over, as she turned 
 everything, she could not help coming back to the 
 idea that it would be very pleasant, it would be really 
 
276 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 delightful, if Beatrice herself, as a result of the grow- 
 ing refinement of her taste, her transplantation to a 
 society after all more elaborate than that of Nova 
 Scotia, should perceive the fitness, the felicity, of 
 such an attitude. This perhaps was too much to 
 hope ; but it did not much matter, for before she had 
 turned into Mount Vernon Place Mrs. Daintry had 
 invented a compromise. She would continue to talk 
 to her parlor-maid until she should reach the bottom 
 of her steps, making earnestly one remark after the 
 other over her shoulder, so that Beatrice would be 
 obliged to remain on the threshold. It is true that 
 it occurred to her that the girl might not attach much 
 importance to these Parthian observations, and would 
 perhaps not trouble herself to wait for their natural 
 term ; but this idea was too fraught with embarrass- 
 ment to be long entertained. It must be added that 
 this was scarcely a moment for Mrs. Daintry to go 
 much into the ethics of the matter, for she felt that 
 her call upon her sister-in-law was the consequence 
 of a tolerably unscrupulous determination. 
 
 II. 
 
 LUCRETIA DAINTRY was at home, for a wonder; 
 but she kept her visitor waiting a quarter of an 
 hour, during which this lady had plenty of time to 
 consider her errand afresh. She was a little ashamed 
 of it ; but she did not so much mind being put to 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 277 
 
 shame by Lucretia, for Lucretia did things that were 
 much more ambiguous than any she should have 
 thought of doing. It was even for this that Mrs. 
 Dai 11 try had picked her out, among so many relations, 
 as the object of an appeal in its nature somewhat 
 precarious. Nevertheless, her heart beat a little 
 faster than usual as she sat in the quiet parlor, 
 looking about her for the thousandth time at Lucre- 
 tia's "things," and observing that she was faithful 
 to her old habit of not having her furnace lighted 
 until long after every one else. Miss Daintry had 
 her own habits, and she was the only person her 
 sister-in-law knew who had more reasons than her- 
 self. Her taste was of the old fashion, and her 
 drawing-room embraced neither festoons nor Persian 
 rugs, nor plates and plaques upon the wall, nor 
 faded stuffs suspended from unexpected projections. 
 Most of the articles it contained dated from the 
 year 1830; and a sensible, reasonable, rectangular 
 arrangement of them abundantly answered to their 
 owner's conception of the decorative. A rosewood 
 sofa against the wall, surmounted by an engraving 
 from Kaulbach; a neatly drawn carpet, faded, but 
 little worn, and sprigged with a floral figure ; a 
 chimney-piece of black marble, veined with yellow, 
 garnished with an empire clock and antiquated 
 lamps ; half a dozen large mirrors, with very narrow 
 frames ; and an immense glazed screen representing 
 in the livid tints of early worsted-work a ruined 
 temple overhanging a river, these were some of the 
 
278 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 more obvious of Miss Daintry's treasures. Her sister- 
 in-law was a votary of the newer school, and had 
 made sacrifices to have everything in black and gilt ; 
 but she could not fail to see that Lucretia had some 
 very good pieces. It was a wonder how she made 
 them last, for Lucretia had never been supposed to 
 know much about the keeping of a house, and no one 
 would have thought of asking her how she treated 
 the marble floor of her vestibule, or what measures 
 she took in the spring with regard to her curtains. 
 Her work in life lay outside. She took an interest 
 in questions and institutions, sat on committees, and 
 had views on Female Suffrage, a movement which 
 she strongly opposed. She even wrote letters some- 
 times to the " Transcript," not " chatty " and jocular, 
 and signed with a fancy name, but "over" her 
 initials, as the phrase was, every one recognized 
 them, and bearing on some important topic. She 
 was not, however, in the faintest degree slipshod or 
 dishevelled, like some of the ladies of the newspaper 
 and the forum ; she had no ink on her fingers, and 
 she wore her bonnet as scientifically poised as the 
 dome of the State House. When you rang at her 
 door-bell you were never kept waiting, and when 
 you entered her dwelling you were not greeted with 
 those culinary odors which, pervading halls and 
 parlors, had in certain other cases been described 
 as the right smell in the wrong place. If Mrs. 
 Daintry was made to wait some time before her 
 hostess appeared, there was nothing extraordinary 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 279 
 
 in this, for none of her friends came down directly, 
 and she never did herself. To come down directly 
 would have seemed to her to betray a frivolous 
 eagerness for the social act. The delay, moreover, 
 not only gave her, as I have said, opportunity to 
 turn over her errand afresh, but enabled her to say 
 to herself, as she had often said before, that though 
 Lucretia had no taste, she had some very good things, 
 and to wonder both how she had kept them so well, 
 and how she had originally got them. Mrs. Daintry 
 knew that they proceeded from her mother and her 
 aunts, who had been supposed to distribute among 
 the children of the second generation the accumula- 
 tions of the old house in Federal Street, where 
 many Daintrys had been born in the early part of 
 the century. Of course she knew nothing of the 
 principles on which the distribution had been made, 
 but all she could say was that Lucretia had evidently 
 been first in the field. There was apparently no 
 limit to what had come to her. Mrs. Daintry was 
 not obliged to look, to assure herself that there was 
 another clock in the back parlor, which would seem 
 to indicate that all the clocks had fallen to Lucretia. 
 She knew of four other timepieces in other parts 
 of the house, for of course in former years she had 
 often been up stairs ; it was only in comparatively 
 recent times that she had renounced that practice. 
 There had been a period when she ascended to 
 the second story as a matter of course, without 
 asking leave. On seeing that her sister-in-law was 
 
280 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 in neither of the parlors, she mounted and talked with 
 Lucretia at the door of her bedroom, if it happened 
 to be closed. And there had been another season 
 when she stood at the foot of the staircase, and, 
 lifting her voice, inquired of Miss Daintry who 
 called down with some shrillness in return whether 
 she might climb, while the maid-servant, wandering 
 away with a vague cachinnation, left her to her own 
 devices. But both of these phases belonged to the 
 past. Lucretia never came into her bedroom to-day, 
 nor did she presume to penetrate into Lucretia's ; 
 so that she did not know for a long time whether 
 she had renewed her chintz, nor whether she had 
 hung in that bower the large photograph of Flor- 
 imond, presented by Mrs. Daintry herself to his aunt, 
 which had been placed in neither of the parlors. 
 Mrs. Daintry would have given a good deal to know 
 whether this memento had been honored with a 
 place in her sister-in-law's " chamber," it was by 
 this name, on each side, that these ladies designated 
 their sleeping-apartment ; but she could not bring 
 herself to ask directly, for it would be embarrassing 
 to learn what was possible that Lucretia had not 
 paid the highest respect to Florimond's portrait. 
 The point was cleared up by its being revealed to 
 her accidentally that the photograph, an expensive 
 and very artistic one, taken in Paris, had been 
 relegated to the spare-room, or guest-chamber. Miss 
 Daintry was very hospitable, and constantly had 
 friends of her own sex staying with her. They were 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 281 
 
 very apt to be young women in their twenties ; and 
 one of them had remarked to Mrs. Daintry that her 
 son's portrait he must be wonderfully handsome 
 was the first thing she saw when she woke up in the 
 morning. Certainly Florimond was handsome ; but 
 his mother had a lurking suspicion that, in spite of 
 his beauty, his aunt was not fond of him. She doubt- 
 less thought he ought to come back and settle down 
 in Boston ; he was the first of the Daintrys who had 
 had so much in common with Paris. Mrs. Daintry 
 knew as a fact that, twenty-eight years before, Lucre- 
 tia, whose opinions even at that period were already 
 wonderfully formed, had not approved of the roman- 
 tic name which, in a moment of pardonable weak- 
 ness, she had conferred upon her rosy babe. The 
 spinster (she had been as much of a spinster at 
 twenty as she was to-day) had accused her of mak- 
 ing a fool of the child. Every one was reading old 
 ballads in Boston then, and Mrs. Daintry had found 
 the name in a ballad. It doubled any anxiety she 
 might feel with regard to her present business to 
 think that, as certain foreign newspapers which her 
 son sent her used to say about ambassadors, Flori- 
 mond was perhaps not a persona grata to his aunt. 
 She reflected, however, that if his fault were in his 
 absenting himself, there was nothing that would 
 remedy it so effectively as his coming home. She 
 reflected, too, that if she and Lucretia no longer 
 took liberties with each other, there was still some- 
 thing a little indiscreet in her purpose this morning. 
 
282 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 But it fortified and consoled her for everything to 
 remember, as she sat looking at the empire clock, 
 which was a very handsome one, that her husband 
 at least had been disinterested. 
 
 Miss Daintry found her visitor in this attitude, and 
 thought it was an expression of impatience ; which 
 led her to explain that she had been on the roof of 
 her house with a man who had come to see about 
 repairing it. She had walked all over it, and peeped 
 over the cornice, and not been in the least dizzy ; and 
 had come to the conclusion that one ought to know a 
 great deal more about one's roof than was usual. 
 
 "I am sure you have never been over yours," she 
 said to her sister-in-law. 
 
 Mrs. Daintry confessed with some embarrassment 
 that she had not, and felt, as she did so, that she was 
 superficial and slothful. It annoyed her to reflect 
 that while she supposed, in her new house, she had 
 thought of everything, she had not thought of this 
 important feature. There was no one like Lucretia 
 for giving one such reminders. 
 
 "I will send Florimond up when he comes," she 
 said ; " he will tell me all about it." 
 
 " Do you suppose he knows about roofs, except 
 tumbledown ones, in his little pictures ? I am 
 afraid it will make him giddy." This had been 
 Miss Daintry's rejoinder, and the tone of it was not 
 altogether reassuring. She was nearly fifty years 
 old ; she had a plain, fresh, delightful face, and in 
 whatever part of the world she might have been met, 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 283 
 
 an attentive observer of American life would not 
 have had the least difficulty in guessing what phase 
 of it she represented. She represented the various 
 and enlightened activities which cast their rapid 
 shuttle in the comings and goings of eager workers 
 from one side to the other of Boston Common. 
 She had in an eminent degree the physiognomy, 
 the accent, the costume, the conscience, and the 
 little eye-glass, of her native place. She had never 
 sacrificed to the graces, but she inspired unlimited 
 confidence. Moreover, if she was thoroughly in 
 sympathy with the New England capital, she re- 
 served her liberty ; she had a great charity, but she 
 was independent and witty ; and if she was as earnest 
 as other people, she was not quite so serious. Her 
 voice was a little masculine ; and it had been said of 
 her that she didn't care in the least how she looked. 
 This was far from true, for she would not for the 
 world have looked better than she thought was right 
 for so plain a woman. 
 
 Mrs. Daintry was fond of calculating consequences ; 
 but she was not a coward, and she arrived at her 
 business as soon as possible. 
 
 " You know that Floriniond sails on the 20th of 
 this month. He will get home by the 1st of 
 December." 
 
 " Oh, yes, my dear, I know it ; everybody is talking 
 about it. I have heard it thirty times. That 's where 
 Boston is so small," Lucretia Daintry remarked. 
 
 "Well, it's big enough for me," said her sister-in- 
 
284 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 law. "And of course people notice his coming 
 back ; it shows that everything that has been said 
 is false, and that he really does like us." 
 
 " He likes his mother, I hope ; about the rest I 
 don't know that it matters." 
 
 " Well, it certainly will be pleasant to have him," 
 said Mrs. Daintry, who was not content with her 
 companion's tone, and wished to extract from her 
 some recognition of the importance of Florimond's 
 advent. " It will prove how unjust so much of the 
 talk has been." 
 
 " My dear woman, I don't know anything about the 
 talk. We make too much fuss about everything. 
 Florimond was an infant when I last saw him." 
 
 This was open to the interpretation that too much 
 fuss had been made about Florimond, an idea 
 that accorded ill with the project that had kept Mrs. 
 Daintry waiting a quarter of an hour while her 
 hostess walked about on the roof. But Miss Dain- 
 try continued, and in a moment gave her sister-in- 
 law the best opportunity she could have hoped for. 
 " I don't suppose he will bring with him either salva- 
 tion or the other thing ; and if he has decided to 
 winter among the bears, it will matter much more to 
 him than to any one else. But I shall be very glad 
 to see him if he behaves himself ; and I need n't tell 
 you that if there is anything I can do for him " 
 and Miss Daintry, tightening her lips together a 
 little, paused, suiting her action to the idea that 
 professions were usually humbug. 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 285 
 
 " There is indeed something you can do for him," 
 her sister-in-law hastened to respond; "or some- 
 thing you can do for me, at least/' she added, more 
 discreetly. 
 
 " Call it for both of you. What is it ? " and Miss 
 Daintry put on her eyeglass. 
 
 " I know you like to do kindnesses, when they 
 are real ones ; and you almost always have some one 
 staying with you for the winter." 
 
 Miss Daintry stared. " Do you want to put him 
 to live with me ? " 
 
 " No, indeed ! Do you think I could part with 
 him ? It 's another person, a lady ! " 
 
 " A lady ! Is he going to bring a woman with 
 him?" 
 
 "My dear Lucretia, you won't wait. I want to 
 make it as pleasant for him as possible. In that 
 case he may stay longer. He has promised three 
 months ; but I should so like to keep him till the 
 summer. It would make me very happy." 
 
 " Well, my dear, keep him, then, if you can." 
 
 " But I can't, unless I am helped." 
 
 " And you want me to help you ? Tell me what I 
 must do. Should you wish me to make love to 
 him?" 
 
 Mrs. Daintry's hesitation at this point was almost 
 as great as if she had found herself obliged to say 
 yes. She was well aware that what she had come to 
 suggest was very delicate; but it seemed to her at 
 the present moment more delicate than ever. Still, 
 
286 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 her cause was good, because it was the cause of mater- 
 nal devotion. " What I should like you to do would 
 be to ask Eachel Torrance to spend the winter with 
 you." 
 
 Miss Daintry had not sat so much on committees 
 without getting used to queer proposals, and she had 
 long since ceased to waste time in expressing a vain 
 surprise. Her method was Socratic ; she usually en- 
 tangled her interlocutor in a net of questions. 
 
 " Ah, do you want her to make love to him ? " 
 
 "No, I don't want any love at all. In such a 
 matter as that I want Floriinond to be perfectly free. 
 But Kachel is such an attractive girl; she is so 
 artistic and so bright." 
 
 " I don't doubt it ; but I can't invite all the 
 attractive girls in the country. Why don't you ask 
 her yourself ? " 
 
 " It would be too marked. And then Florimond 
 might not like her in the same house ; he would 
 have too much of her. Besides, she is no relation of 
 mine, you know ; the cousinship such as it is, it is 
 not very close is on your side. I have reason to 
 believe she would like to come ; she knows so little 
 of Boston, and admires it so much. It is astonishing 
 how little idea the New York people have. She 
 would be different from any one here, and that 
 would make a pleasant change for Florimond. She 
 was in Europe so much when she was young. She 
 speaks French perfectly, and Italian, I think, too ; 
 and she was brought up in a kind of artistic way. 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 287 
 
 Her father never did anything; but even when he 
 had n't bread to give his children, he always arranged 
 to have a studio, and they gave musical parties. 
 That 'a the way Eachel was brought up. But they 
 tell me that it hasn't in the least spoiled her; it 
 has only made her very familiar with life." 
 
 "Familiar with humbug!" Miss Dain try ejacu- 
 lated. 
 
 "My dear Lucretia, I assure you she is a very 
 good girl, or I never would have proposed such a 
 plan as this. She paints very well herself, and tries 
 to sell her pictures. They are dreadfully poor, I 
 don't mean the pictures, but Mrs. Torrance and the 
 rest, and they live in Brooklyn, in some second-rate 
 boarding-house. With that, Rachel has everything 
 about her that would enable her to appreciate Boston. 
 Of course it would be a real kindness, because there 
 would be one less to pay for at the boarding-house. 
 You haven't a son, so you can't understand how a 
 mother feels. I want to prepare everything, to have 
 everything pleasantly arranged. I want to deprive 
 him of every pretext for going away before the sum- 
 mer; because in August I don't know whether I 
 have told you I have a kind of idea of going back 
 with him myself. I am so afraid he will miss the ar- 
 tistic side. I don't mind saying that to you, Lucretia, 
 for I have heard you say yourself that you thought it 
 had been left out here. Floriinond might go and see 
 Eachel Torrance every day if he liked ; of course, be- 
 ing his cousin, and calling her Eachel, it couldn't 
 
288 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 attract any particular attention. I should n't much 
 care if it did," Mrs. Daintry went on, borrowing a cer- 
 tain bravado, that in calmer moments was eminently 
 foreign to her nature, from the impunity with which 
 she had hitherto proceeded. Her project, as she heard 
 herself unfold it, seemed to hang together so well that 
 she felt something of the intoxication of success. " I 
 should n't care if it did," she repeated, " so long as 
 Florimond had a little of the conversation that he is 
 accustomed to, and I was not in perpetual fear of his 
 starting off." 
 
 Miss Daintry had listened attentively while her 
 sister-in-law spoke, with eager softness, passing from 
 point to point with a crescendo of lucidity, like a 
 woman who had thought it all out, and had the con- 
 sciousness of many reasons on her side. There had 
 been momentary pauses, of which Lucretia had not 
 taken advantage, so that Mrs. Daintry rested at last 
 in the enjoyment of a security that was almost com- 
 plete, and that her companion's first question was not 
 of a nature to dispel. 
 
 " It 's so long since I have seen her. Is she pretty ?" 
 Miss Daintry inquired. 
 
 "She is decidedly striking; she has magnificent 
 hair ! " her visitor answered, almost with enthusiasm. 
 
 " Do you want Florimond to marry her ? " 
 
 This, somehow, was less pertinent. " Ah, no, my 
 dear," Mrs. Daintry rejoined, very judicially. " That 
 is not the kind of education the kind of milieu 
 one would wish for the wife of one's son." She knew, 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 289 
 
 moreover, that her sister-in-law knew her opinion 
 about the marriage of young people. It was a sac- 
 rament more high and holy than any words could 
 express, the propriety and timeliness of which lay 
 deep in the hearts of the contracting parties, below 
 all interference from parents and friends ; it was an 
 inspiration from above, and she would no more have 
 thought of laying a train to marry her son, than she 
 would have thought of breaking open his letters. 
 More relevant even than this, however, was the fact 
 that she did not believe he would wish to make a 
 wife of a girl from a slipshod family in Brooklyn, 
 however little he might care to lose sight of the artis- 
 tic side. It will be observed that she gave Flori- 
 mond the credit of being a very discriminating young 
 man ; and she indeed discriminated for him in cases 
 in which she would not have presumed to discrimi- 
 nate for herself. 
 
 " My dear Susan, you are simply the most im- 
 moral woman in Boston ! " These were the words of 
 which, after a moment, her sister-in-law delivered 
 herself. 
 
 Mrs. Daintry turned a little pale. "Don't you 
 think it would be right ? " she asked quickly. 
 
 " To sacrifice the poor girl to Florimond's amuse- 
 ment ? What has she done that you should wish 
 to play her such a trick ? " Miss Daintry did not 
 look shocked: she never looked shocked, for even 
 when she was annoyed she was never frightened ; 
 but after a moment she broke into a loud, uncompro- 
 
 19 
 
290 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 mising laugh, a laugh which her sister-in-law knew 
 of old, and regarded as a peculiarly dangerous form 
 of criticism. 
 
 " I don't see why she should be sacrificed. She 
 would have a lovely time if she were to come on. 
 She would consider it the greatest kindness to be 
 asked." 
 
 " To be asked to come and amuse Florimond ? " 
 
 Mrs. Daintry hesitated a moment. "I don't see 
 why she should object to that. Florimond is cer- 
 tainly not beneath a person's notice. Why, Lucretia, 
 you speak as if there were something disagreeable 
 about Florimond." 
 
 " My dear Susan," said Miss Daintry, " I am will- 
 ing to believe that he is the first young man of his 
 time ; but, all the same, it is n't a thing to do." 
 
 " Well, I have thought of it in every possible way, 
 and I haven't seen any harm in it. It isn't as if 
 she were giving up anything to come." 
 
 " You have thought of it too much, perhaps. Stop 
 thinking for a while. I should have imagined you 
 were more scrupulous." 
 
 Mrs. Daintry was silent a moment ; she took her 
 sister-in-law's asperity very meekly, for she felt that 
 if she had been wrong in what she proposed, she de- 
 served a severe judgment. But why was she wrong ? 
 She clasped her hands in her lap and rested her eyes 
 with extreme seriousness upon Lucretia's little pince- 
 nez, inviting her to judge her, and too much inter- 
 ested in having the question of her culpability 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 291 
 
 settled to care whether or no she were hurt. "It 
 is very hard to know what is right," she said pres- 
 ently. " Of course it is only a plan ; I wondered 
 how it would strike you." 
 
 "You had better leave Florimond alone," Miss 
 Daintry answered. "I don't see why you should 
 spread so many carpets for him. Let him shift for 
 himself. If he doesn't like Boston, Boston can 
 spare him." 
 
 "You are not nice about him; no, you are not, 
 Lucretia ! " Mrs. Daintry cried, with a slight tremor 
 in her voice. 
 
 " Of course I am not as nice as you, he is not 
 my son ; but I am trying to be nice about Eachel 
 Torrance." 
 
 " I am sure she would like him, she would de- 
 light in him," Mrs. Daintry broke out. 
 
 " That 's just what I 'm afraid of; I could n't stand 
 that." 
 
 " Well, Lucretia, I am not convinced," Mrs. Dain- 
 try said, rising, with perceptible coldness. " It is very 
 hard to be sure one is not unjust. Of course I shall 
 not expect you to send for her ; but I shall think of 
 her with a good deal of compassion, all winter, in 
 that dingy place in Brooklyn. And if you have some 
 one else with you and I am sure you will, because 
 you always do, unless you remain alone on purpose, 
 this year, to put me in the wrong, if you have some 
 one else I shall keep saying to myself: 'Well, after 
 all, it might have been Eachel ! ' " 
 
292 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 Miss Daiutry gave another of her loud laughs at 
 the idea that she might remain alone " on purpose." 
 " I shall have a visitor, but it will be some one who 
 will not amuse Florimond in the least. If he wants 
 to go away, it won't be for anything in this house 
 that he will stay." 
 
 "I really don't see why you should hate him." 
 said poor Mrs. Daintry. 
 
 "Where do you find that? On the contrary, I 
 appreciate him very highly. That 's just why I think 
 it very possible that a girl like Eachel Torrance 
 an odd, uninstructed girl, who has n't had great ad- 
 vantages may fall in love with him and break her 
 heart." 
 
 Mrs. Daintry's clear eyes expanded. "Is that 
 what you are afraid of?" 
 
 " Do you suppose my solicitude is for Florimond ? 
 An accident of that sort if she were to show him 
 her heels at the end might perhaps do him good. 
 But I am thinking of the. girl, since you say you 
 don't want him to marry her." 
 
 " It was not for that that I suggested what I did. 
 I don't want him to marry any one I have no plans 
 for that," Mrs. Daintry said, as if she were resenting 
 an imputation. 
 
 " Eachel Torrance least of all ! " and Miss Daintry 
 indulged still again in that hilarity, so personal to 
 herself, which sometimes made the subject look so 
 little jocular to others. " My dear Susan, I don't 
 blame you," she said; "for I suppose mothers are 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 293 
 
 necessarily unscrupulous. But that is why the rest 
 of us should hold them in check." 
 
 "It's merely an assumption, that she would fall 
 in love with him," Mrs. Daintry continued, with a 
 certain majesty ; " there is nothing to prove it, and I 
 am not bound to take it for granted." 
 
 "In other words, you don't care if she should! 
 Precisely; that, I suppose, is your rdle. I am glad 
 I haven't any children; it's very sophisticating. 
 For so good a woman, you are very bad. Yes, you 
 are good, Susan; and you are bad." 
 
 "I don't know that I pretend to be particularly 
 good," Susan remarked, with the warmth of one who 
 had known something of the burden of such a 
 reputation, as she moved toward the door. 
 
 "You have a conscience, and it will wake up," 
 her companion returned. "It will come over you 
 in the watches of the night that your idea was as 
 I have said immoral." 
 
 Mrs. Daintry paused in the hall, and stood there 
 looking at Lucretia. It was just possible that she 
 was being laughed at, for Lucretia's deepest mirth was 
 sometimes silent, that is, one heard the laughter 
 several days later. Suddenly she colored to the roots 
 of her hair, as if the conviction of her error had come 
 over her. Was it possible she had been corrupted by 
 an affection in itself so pure ? "I only want to do 
 right," she said, softly. "I would rather he should 
 never come home, than that I should go too far." 
 
 She was turning away, but her sister-in-law held 
 
294 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 her a moment and kissed her. " You are a delightful 
 woman, but I won't ask Eachel Torrance ! " This 
 was the understanding on which they separated. 
 
 III. 
 
 Miss DAINTRY, after her visitor had left her, recog- 
 nized that she had been a little brutal ; for Susan's 
 proposition did not really strike her as so heinous. 
 Her eagerness to protect the poor girl in Brooklyn 
 was not a very positive quantity, inasmuch as she 
 had an impression that this young lady was on the 
 whole very well able to take care of herself. What 
 her talk with Mrs. Daintry had really expressed was 
 the lukewarmness of her sentiment with regard to 
 Florimond. She had no wish to help his mother 
 lay carpets for him, as she said. Eightly or wrongly, 
 she had a conviction that he was selfish, that he was 
 spoiled, that he was conceited ; and she thought 
 Lucretia Daintry meant for better things than the 
 service of sugaring for the young man's lips the pill 
 of a long-deferred visit to Boston. It was quite 
 indifferent to her that he should be conscious, in 
 that city, of unsatisfied needs. At bottom, she had 
 never forgiven him for having sought another way 
 of salvation. Moreover she had a strong sense of 
 humor, and it amused her more than a little that her 
 sister-in-law of all women in Boston should have 
 come to her on that particular errand. It completed 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 295 
 
 the irony of the situation that one should frighten 
 Mrs. Daintry just a little about what she had 
 undertaken; and more than once that day Lucretia 
 had, with a smile, the vision of Susan's countenance 
 as she remarked to her that she was immoral. In 
 reality, and speaking seriously, she did not consider 
 Mrs. Daintry's inspiration unpardonable; what was 
 very positive was simply that she had no wish to 
 invite Eachel Torrance for the benefit of her nephew. 
 She was by no means sure that she should like the 
 girl for her own sake, and it was still less apparent 
 that she should like her for that of Florimond. 
 With all this, however, Miss Daintry had a high 
 love of justice ; she revised her social accounts from 
 time to time, to see that she had not cheated any one. 
 She thought over her interview with Mrs. Daintry 
 the next day, and it occurred to her that she had 
 been a little unfair. But she scarcely knew what 
 to do to repair her mistake, by which Eachel Tor- 
 rance also had suffered, perhaps ; for after all, if it 
 had not been wicked of her sister-in-law to ask such 
 a favor, it had at least been cool ; and the penance 
 that presented itself to Lucretia Daintry did not 
 take the form of despatching a letter to Brooklyn. 
 An accident came to her help, and four days after 
 the conversation I have narrated she wrote her a 
 note, which explains itself, and which I will presently 
 transcribe. Meanwhile Mrs. Daiutry, on her side, 
 had held an examination of her heart; and though 
 she did not think she had been very civilly treated, 
 
296 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 the result of her reflections was to give her a fit of 
 remorse. Lucretia was right: she had been any- 
 thing but scrupulous ; she had skirted the edge of 
 an abyss. Questions of conduct had long been 
 familiar to her ; and the cardinal rule of life in her 
 eyes was that before one did anything which in- 
 volved in any degree the happiness or the interest 
 of another, one should take one's motives out of the 
 closet in which they are usually laid away and give 
 them a thorough airing. This operation, undertaken 
 before her visit to Lucretia, had been cursory and 
 superficial; for now that she repeated it, she dis- 
 covered among the recesses of her spirit a number 
 of nut-like scruples which she was astonished to 
 think she should have overlooked. She had really 
 been very wicked, and there was no doubt about her 
 proper penance. It consisted of a letter to her sister- 
 in-law, in which she completely disavowed her little 
 project, attributing it to a momentary intermission of 
 her reason. She saw it would never do, and she was 
 quite ashamed of herself. She did not exactly thank 
 Miss Daintry for the manner in which she had ad- 
 monished her, but she spoke as one saved from a 
 great danger, and assured her relative of Mount Yer- 
 non Place that she should not soon again expose 
 herself. This letter crossed with Miss Daintry's 
 missive, which ran as follows : 
 
 "My DEAR SUSAN, I have been thinking over 
 our conversation of last Tuesday, and I am afraid I 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 297 
 
 went rather too far in my condemnation of your idea 
 with regard to Rachel Torrance. If I expressed 
 myself in a manner to wound your feelings, I can 
 assure you of my great regret. Nothing could have 
 been farther from my thoughts than the belief that 
 you are wanting in delicacy. I know very well that 
 you were prompted by the highest sense of duty. It 
 is possible, however, I think, that your sense of duty 
 to poor Florimond is a little too high. You think of 
 him too much as that famous dragon of antiquity, 
 was n't it in Crete, or somewhere ? to whom young 
 virgins had to be sacrificed. It may relieve your 
 mind, however, to hear that this particular virgin 
 will probably, during the coming winter, be provided 
 for. Yesterday, at Doll's, where I had gone in to 
 look at the new pictures (there is a striking Appleton 
 Brown) I met Pauline Mesh, whom I had not seen 
 for ages, and had half an hour's talk with her. She 
 seems to me to have come out very much this winter, 
 and to have altogether a higher tone. In short, she 
 is much enlarged, and seems to want to take an in- 
 terest in something. Of course you will say : Has she 
 not her children ? But, somehow, they don't seem to 
 fill her life. You must remember that they are very 
 small as yet, to fill anything. Anyway, she men- 
 tioned to me her great disappointment in having had 
 to give up her sister, who was to have come on from 
 Baltimore to spend the greater part of the winter. 
 Eosalie is very pretty, and Pauline expected to give 
 a lot of Germans, and make things generally pleasant. 
 
298 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 I should n't wonder if she thought something might 
 happen that would make Eosalie a fixture in our 
 city. She would have liked this immensely; for, 
 whatever Pauline's faults may be, she has plenty of 
 family feeling. But her sister has suddenly got en- 
 gaged in Baltimore (I believe it 's much easier than 
 here), so that the visit has fallen through. Pauline 
 seemed to be quite in despair, for she had made all 
 sorts of beautifications in one of her rooms, on pur- 
 pose for Eosalie ; and not only had she wasted her 
 labor (you know how she goes into those things, 
 whatever we may think, sometimes, of her taste), but 
 she spoke as if it would make a great difference in 
 her winter ; said she should suffer a great deal from 
 loneliness. She says Boston is no place for a mar- 
 ried woman, standing on her own merits ; she can't 
 have any sort of time unless she hitches herself to 
 some attractive girl who will help her to pull the 
 social car. You know that is ri't what every one 
 says, and how much talk there has been the last two 
 or three winters about the frisky young matrons. 
 "Well, however that may be, I don't pretend to know 
 much about it, not being in the married set. Pauline 
 spoke as if she were really quite high and dry, and I 
 felt so sorry for her that it suddenly occurred to me 
 to say something about Rachel Torrance. I remem- 
 bered that she is related to Donald Mesh in about 
 the same degree as she is to me, a degree nearer, 
 therefore, than to Florimond. Pauline did n't seem 
 to think much of the relationship, it 's so remote ; 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 299 
 
 but when I told her that Eachel (strange as it might 
 appear) would probably be thankful for a season in 
 Boston, and might be a good substitute for Eosalie, 
 why she quite jumped at the idea. She has never 
 seen her, but she knows who she is, fortunately, 
 for I could never begin to explain. She seems to 
 think such a girl will be quite a novelty in this 
 place. I don't suppose Pauline can do her any par- 
 ticular harm, from what you tell me of Miss Torrance, 
 and, on the other hand, I don't know that she could 
 injure Pauline. She is certainly very kind (Pauline, 
 of course), and I have no doubt she will immediately 
 write to Brooklyn, and that Eachel will come on. 
 Florimond won't, of course, see as much of her as if 
 she were staying with me, and I don't know that he 
 will particularly care about Pauline Mesh, who, you 
 know, is intensely American ; but they will go out a 
 great deal, and he will meet them (if he takes the 
 trouble), and I have no doubt that Eachel will take 
 the edge off the east wind for him. At any rate I 
 have perhaps done her a good turn. I must confess 
 to you and it won't surprise you that I was 
 thinking of her, and not of him, when I spoke to 
 Pauline. Therefore I don't feel that I have taken a 
 risk, but I don't much care if I have. I have my 
 views, but I never worry. I recommend you not to 
 do so either, for you go, I know, from one extreme 
 to the other. I have told you my little story ; it 
 was on my mind. Are n't you glad to see the lovely 
 snow ? Ever affectionately yours, L. D. 
 
300 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 " P. S. The more I think of it, the more con- 
 vinced I am that you will worry now about the 
 danger for Rachel. Why did I drop the poison into 
 your mind ? Of course I did n't say a word about 
 you or Florimond." 
 
 This epistle reached Mrs. Daintry, as I have inti- 
 mated, about an hour after her letter to her sister- 
 in-law had, been posted ; but it is characteristic of 
 her that she did not for a moment regret having 
 made a retractation rather humble in form, and 
 which proved, after all, scarcely to have been 
 needed. The delight of having done that duty- 
 carried her over the sense of having given herself 
 away. Her sister-in-law spoke from knowledge 
 when she wrote that phrase about Susan's now be- 
 ginning to worry from the opposite point of view. 
 Her conscience, like the good Homer, might some- 
 times nod ; but when it woke, it woke with a start ; 
 and for many a day afterward its vigilance was 
 feverish. For the moment, her emotions were 
 mingled. She thought Lucretia very strange, and 
 that she was scarcely in a position to talk about 
 one's going from one extreme to the other. It 
 was good news to her that Rachel Torrance would 
 probably be on the ground after all, and she was 
 delighted that on Lucretia the responsibility of 
 such a fact should rest. This responsibility she 
 now already, after her revulsion, as we know, re- 
 garded as grave ; she exhaled an almost luxurious 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 301 
 
 sigh, when she thought of having herself escaped 
 from it. What she did not quite understand was 
 Lucretia's "apology, and her having, even if Flori- 
 mond's happiness were not her motive, taken almost 
 the very step which three days before she had so 
 severely criticised. This was puzzling, for Lucretia 
 was usually so consistent. But all the same Mrs. 
 Daintry did not repent of her own penance ; on 
 the contrary, she took more and more comfort in 
 it. If, with that, Eachel Torrance should be really 
 useful, it would be delightful. 
 
 IY. 
 
 FLORIMOND DAINTRY had stayed at home for three 
 days after his arrival ; he had sat close to the fire 
 in his slippers, every now and then casting a glance 
 over his shoulders at the hard white world which 
 seemed to glare at him from the other side of the 
 window-panes. He was very much afraid of the 
 cold, and he was not in a hurry to go out and meet 
 it. He had met it, on disembarking in New York, 
 in the shape of a wave of frozen air, which had 
 travelled from some remote point in the west (he 
 was told) on purpose, apparently, to smite him in 
 the face. That portion of his organism tingled 
 yet with it, though the gasping, bewildered look 
 which sat upon his features during the first few 
 hours had quite left it. I am afraid it will be 
 
302 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 thought he was a young man of small courage ; 
 and on a point so delicate I do not hold myself 
 obliged to pronounce. It is only fair to add that 
 it was delightful to him to be with his mother, and 
 that they easily spent three days in talking. More- 
 over he had the company of Joanna and her chil- 
 dren, who, after a little delay, occasioned apparently 
 by their waiting to see whether he would not first 
 come to them, had arrived in a body and had spent 
 several hours. As regards the majority of them, 
 they had repeated this visit several times in the 
 three days, Joanna being obliged to remain at home 
 with the two younger ones. There were four older 
 ones, and their grandmother's house was open to 
 them as a second nursery. The first day, their 
 Uncle Florimond thought them charming; and as 
 he had brought a French toy for each, it is probable 
 that this impression was mutual. The second day, 
 their little ruddy bodies and woollen clothes seemed 
 to him to have a positive odor of the cold, it 
 was disagreeable to him, and he spoke to his mother 
 about their " wintry smell." The third day they had 
 become very familiar; they called him "Florry;" 
 and he had made up his mind that, to let them 
 loose in that way on his mother, Joanna must be 
 rather wanting in delicacy, not mentioning this 
 deficiency, however, as yet, for he saw that his 
 mother was not prepared for it. She evidently 
 thought it proper, or at least it seemed inevitable, 
 either that she should be round at Joanna's, or the 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 303 
 
 children should be round in Newbury Street; for 
 "Joanna's" evidently represented primarily the 
 sound of small, loud voices, and the hard breathing 
 that signalized the intervals of romps. Florimond 
 was rather disappointed in his sister, seeing her 
 after a long separation ; he remarked to his mother 
 that she seemed completely submerged. As Mrs. 
 Daintry spent most of her time under the waves 
 with her daughter, she had grown to regard this 
 element as sufficiently favorable to life, and was 
 rather surprised when Florimond said to her that 
 he was sorry to see she and his sister appeared to 
 have been converted into a pair of bonnes d'enfants. 
 Afterward, however, she perceived what he meant ; 
 she was not aware, until he called her attention to it, 
 that the little Merrimans took up an enormous place 
 in the intellectual economy of two households. " You 
 ought to remember that they exist for you, and not 
 you for them," Florimond said to her in a tone of 
 friendly admonition ; and he remarked on another 
 occasion that the perpetual presence of children was 
 a great injury to conversation, it kept it down so 
 much ; and that in Boston they seemed to be present 
 even when they were absent, inasmuch as most of 
 the talk was about them. Mrs. Daintry did not stop 
 to ask herself what her son knew of Boston, leaving 
 it years before as a boy, and not having so much as 
 looked out of the window since his return ; she was 
 taken up mainly with noting certain little habits of 
 speech which he evidently had formed, and in won- 
 
304 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 dering how they would strike his fellow-citizens. 
 He was very definite and trenchant; he evidently 
 knew perfectly what he thought; and though his 
 manner was not defiant, he had, perhaps, even too 
 many of the forms of politeness, as if sometimes, for 
 mysterious reasons, he were playing upon you, the 
 tone in which he uttered his opinions did not appear 
 exactly to give you the choice. And then appar- 
 ently he had a great many; there was a moment 
 when Mrs. Daintry vaguely foresaw that the little 
 house in Newbury Street would be more crowded 
 with Florimond's views than it had ever been 'with 
 Joanna's children. She hoped very much people 
 would like him, and she hardly could see why they 
 should fail to find him agreeable. To herself he was 
 sweeter than any grandchild ; he was as kind as if 
 he had been a devoted parent. Florimond had but a 
 small acquaintance with his brother-in-law ; but after 
 he had been at home forty-eight hours he found that 
 he bore Arthur Merriman a grudge, and was ready to 
 think rather ill of him, having a theory that he 
 ought to have held up Joanna and interposed to save 
 her mother. Arthur Merriman was a young and 
 brilliant commission-merchant, who had not married 
 Joanna Daintry for the sake of Florimond, and, doing 
 an active business all day in East Boston, had a 
 perfectly good conscience in leaving his children's 
 mother and grandmother to establish their terms of 
 intercourse. 
 
 Florimond, however, did not particularly wonder 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 305 
 
 why his brother-in-law had not been round to bid 
 him welcome. It was for Mrs. Daintry that this 
 anxiety was reserved ; and what made it worse was 
 her uncertainty as to whether she should be justified 
 in mentioning the subject to Joanna. It might 
 wound Joanna to suggest to her that her husband 
 was derelict, especially if she did not think so, and 
 she certainly gave her mother no opening ; and on 
 the other hand, Florimond might have ground for 
 complaint if Arthur should continue not to notice 
 him. Mrs. Daintry earnestly desired that nothing of 
 this sort should happen, and took refuge in the hope 
 that Florimond would have adopted the foreign 
 theory of visiting, in accordance with which the new- 
 comer was to present himself first. Meanwhile the 
 young man, who had looked upon a meeting with his 
 brother-in-law as a necessity rather than a privilege, 
 was simply conscious of a reprieve ; and up in Claren- 
 don Street, as Mrs. Daintry said, it never occurred to 
 Arthur Merriman to take this social step, nor to his 
 wife to propose it to him. Mrs. Merriman simply 
 took for granted that her brother would be round 
 early some morning to see the children. A day or 
 two later the couple dined at her mother's, and that 
 virtually settled the question. It is true that Mrs. 
 Daintry, in later days, occasionally recalled the fact 
 that, after all, Joanna's husband never had called 
 upon Florimond ; and she even wondered why Flori- 
 mond, who sometimes said bitter things, had not 
 made more of it. The matter came back at mo- 
 
 20 
 
306 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 ments when, under the pressure of circumstances 
 which, it must be confessed, were rare, she found 
 herself giving assent to an axiom that sometimes 
 reached her ears. This axiom, it must be added, did 
 not justify her in the particular case I have men- 
 tioned, for the full purport of it was that the queer- 
 ness of Bostonians was collective, not individual. 
 
 There was no doubt, however, that it was Mori- 
 mond's place to call first upon his aunt, and this was 
 a duty of which she could not hesitate to remind 
 him. By the time he took his way across the long 
 expanse of the new land and up the charming hill, 
 which constitutes as it were, the speaking face of 
 Boston, the temperature either had relaxed, or he had 
 got used, even in his mother's hot little house, to his 
 native air. He breathed the bright cold sunshine 
 with pleasure; he raised his eyes to the arching 
 blueness, and thought he had never seen a dome so 
 magnificently painted. He turned his head this way 
 and that, as he walked (now that he had recovered 
 his legs, he foresaw that he should walk a good deal), 
 and freely indulged his most valued organ, the organ 
 that had won him such reputation as he already 
 enjoyed. In the little artistic circle in which he 
 moved in Paris, Florimond Daintry was thought to 
 have a great deal of eye. His power of rendering 
 was questioned, his execution had been called pre- 
 tentious and feeble ; but a conviction had somehow 
 been diffused that he saw things with extraordinary 
 intensity. No one could tell better than he what to 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 307 
 
 paint, and what not to paint, even though his inter- 
 pretation were sometimes rather too sketchy. It 
 will have been guessed that he was an impressionist ; 
 and it must be admitted that this was the character 
 in which he proceeded on his visit to Miss Daintry. 
 He was constantly shutting one eye, to see the better 
 with the other, making a little telescope by curving 
 one of his hands together, waving these members 
 in the air with vague pictorial gestures, pointing at 
 things which, when people turned to follow his direc- 
 tion, seemed to mock the vulgar vision by eluding it. 
 I do not mean that he practised these devices as he 
 walked along Beacon Street, into which he had crossed 
 shortly after leaving his mother's house; but now 
 that he had broken the ice, he acted quite in the 
 spirit of the reply he had made to a friend in Paris, 
 shortly before his departure, who asked him why 
 he was going back to America, "I am going to see 
 how it looks." He was of course very conscious of 
 his eye ; and his effort to cultivate it was both intui- 
 tive and deliberate. He spoke of it freely, as he 
 might have done of a valuable watch or a horse. He 
 was always trying to get the visual impression ; ask- 
 ing himself, with regard to such and such an object 
 or a place, of what its " character " would consist. 
 There is no doubt he really saw with great intensity ; 
 and the reader will probably feel that he was wel- 
 come to this ambiguous privilege. It was not impor- 
 tant for him that things should be beautiful ; what 
 he sought to discover was their identity, the signs 
 
308 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 by which he should know them. He began this in- 
 quiry as soon as he stepped into Newbury Street 
 from his mother's door, and he was destined to con- 
 tinue it for the first few weeks of his stay in Boston. 
 As time went on, his attention relaxed; for one 
 could n't do more than see, as he said to his mother 
 and another person ; and he had seen. Then the nov- 
 elty wore off, the novelty which is often so ab- 
 surdly great in the eyes of the American who returns 
 to his native land after a few years spent in the for- 
 eign element, an effect to be accounted for only on 
 the supposition that in the secret parts of his mind 
 he recognizes the aspect of life in Europe as, through 
 long heredity, the more familiar ; so that superficially, 
 having no interest to oppose it, it quickly supplants 
 the domestic type, which, upon his return, becomes 
 supreme, but with its credit in many cases apprecia- 
 bly and permanently diminished. Florimond painted 
 a few things while he was in America, though he 
 had told his mother he had come home to rest ; but 
 when, several months later, in Paris, he showed his 
 "notes," as he called them, to a friend, the young 
 Frenchman asked him if Massachusetts were really 
 so much like Andalusia. 
 
 There was certainly nothing Andalusian in the 
 prospect as Florimond traversed the artificial bosom 
 of the Back Bay. He had made his way promptly 
 into Beacon Street, and he greatly admired that vista. 
 The long straight avenue lay airing its newness in 
 the frosty day, and all its individual facades, with 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 309 
 
 their neat, sharp ornaments, seemed to have been 
 scoured, with a kind of friction, by the hard, salutary 
 light. Their brilliant browns and drabs, their rosy 
 surfaces of brick, made a variety of fresh, violent 
 tones, such as Florimond liked to memorize, and the 
 large clear windows of their curved fronts faced each 
 other, across the street, like candid, inevitable eyes. 
 There was something almost terrible in the windows ; 
 Florimond had forgotten how vast and clean they 
 were, and how, in their sculptured frames, the New 
 England air seemed, like a zealous housewife, to 
 polish and preserve them. A great many ladies were 
 looking out, and groups of children, in the drawing- 
 rooms, were flattening their noses against the trans- 
 parent plate. Here and there, behind it, the back 
 of a statuette or the symmetry of a painted vase, 
 erect on a pedestal, presented itself to the street, and 
 enabled the passer to construct, more or less, the 
 room within, its frescoed ceilings, its new silk sofas, 
 its untarnished fixtures. This continuity of glass 
 constituted a kind of exposure, within and with- 
 out, and gave the street the appearance of an enor- 
 mous corridor, in which the public and the private 
 were familiar and intermingled. But it was all very 
 cheerful and commodious, and seemed to speak of 
 diffused wealth, of intimate family life, of comfort 
 constantly renewed. All sorts of things in the region 
 of the temperature had happened during the few 
 days that Florimond had been in the country. The 
 cold wave had spent itself, a snowstorm had come 
 
310 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 and gone, and the air, after this temporary relaxa- 
 tion, had renewed its keenness. The snow, which 
 had fallen in but moderate abundance, was heaped 
 along the side of the pavement ; it formed a radiant 
 cornice on the housetops, and crowned the windows 
 with a plain white cap. It deepened the color of 
 everything else, made all surfaces look ruddy, and 
 at a distance sent into the air a thin, delicate mist, 
 a tinted exhalation, which occasionally softened 
 an edge. The upper part of Beacon Street seemed to 
 Florimond charming, the long, wide, sunny slope, 
 the uneven line of the older houses, the contrasted, 
 differing, bulging fronts, the painted bricks, the tidy 
 facings, the immaculate doors, the burnished silver 
 plates, the denuded twigs of the far extent of the 
 Common, on the other side ; and to crown the emi- 
 nence and complete the picture, high in the air, poised 
 in the right place, over everything that clustered be- 
 low, the most felicitous object in Boston, the gilded 
 dome of the State House. It was in the shadow of 
 this monument, as we know, that Miss Daintry lived ; 
 and Florimond, who was always lucky, had the good 
 fortune to find her at home. 
 
 V. 
 
 IT may seem that I have assumed on the part of 
 the reader too great a curiosity about the impressions 
 of this young man, who was not very remarkable, 
 and who has not even the recommendation of being 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 311 
 
 the hero of our perhaps too descriptive tale. The 
 reader will already have discovered that a hero fails 
 us here ; but if I go on at all risks to say a few words 
 about Florimond, he will perhaps understand the 
 better why this part has not been filled. Miss 
 Daintry's nephew was not very original ; it was his 
 own illusion that he had in a considerable degree 
 the value of rareness. Even this youthful conceit 
 was not rare, for it was not of heroic proportions, 
 and was liable to lapses and discouragements. He 
 was a fair, slim, civil young man, and you would 
 never have guessed from his appearance that he 
 was an impressionist. He was neat and sleek and 
 quite anti-Bohemian, and in spite of his looking 
 about him as he walked, his figure was much more 
 in harmony with the Boston landscape than he 
 supposed. He was a little vain, a little affected, a 
 little pretentious, a little good-looking, a little amus- 
 ing, a little spoiled, and at times a little tiresome. If 
 he was disagreeable, however, it was also only a little ; 
 he did not carry anything to a very high pitch ; he 
 was accomplished, industrious, successful, all in the 
 minor degree. He was fond of his mother and fond 
 of himself ; he also liked the people who liked him. 
 Such people could belong only to the class of good 
 listeners, for Floriniond, with the least encourage- 
 ment (he was very susceptible to that), would chatter 
 by the hour. As he was very observant, and knew 
 a great many stories, his talk was often entertaining, 
 especially to women, many of whom thought him 
 
312 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 wonderfully sympathetic. It may be added that he 
 was still very young and fluid, and neither his defects 
 nor his virtues had a great consistency. He was 
 fond of the society of women, and had an idea that 
 he knew a great deal about that element of human- 
 ity. He believed himself to know everything about 
 art, and almost everything about life, and he ex- 
 pressed himself as much as possible in the phrases 
 that are current in studios. He spoke French very 
 well, and it had rubbed off on his English. 
 
 His aunt listened to him attentively, with her 
 nippers on her nose. She had been a little restless 
 at first, and, to relieve herself, had vaguely punched 
 the sofa-cushion which lay beside her, a gesture 
 that her friends always recognized ; they knew it 
 . to express a particular emotion. Florimond, whose 
 egotism was candid and confiding, talked for an hour 
 about himself, about what he had done, and what 
 he intended to do, what he had said and what had 
 been said to him ; about his habits, tastes, achieve- 
 ments, peculiarities, which were apparently so num- 
 erous ; about the decorations of his studio in Paris ; 
 about the character of the French, the works of Zola, 
 the theory of art for art, the American type, the 
 " stupidity " of his mother's new house, though of 
 course it had some things that were knowing, the 
 pronunciation of Joanna's children, the effect of the 
 commission business on Arthur Merriman's conver- 
 sation, the effect of everything on his mother, Mrs. 
 Daintry, and the effect of Mrs. Daintry on her son 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 313 
 
 Florimond. The young man had an epithet, which 
 he constantly introduced, to express disapproval; 
 when he spoke of the architecture of his mother's 
 house, over which she k had taken great pains (she 
 remembered the gabled fronts of Nuremberg), he 
 said that a certain effect had been dreadfully missed, 
 that the character of the doorway was simply " crass." 
 He expressed, however, a lively sense of the bright 
 cleanness of American interiors. " Oh, as for that," 
 he said, "the place is kept, it's kept;" and, to 
 give an image of this idea, he put his gathered fingers 
 to his lips an instant, seemed to kiss them or blow 
 upon them, and then opened them into the air. 
 Miss Daintry had never encountered this gesture be- 
 fore ; she had heard it described by travelled persons ; 
 but to see her own nephew in the very act of it led 
 her to administer another thump to the sofa-cushion. 
 She finally got this article under control, and sat 
 more quiet, with her hands clasped upon it, while 
 her visitor continued to discourse. In pursuance of 
 his character as an impressionist, he gave her a great 
 many impressions ; but it seemed to her that as he 
 talked, he simply exposed himself, exposed his egot- 
 ism, his little pretensions. Lucretia Daintry, as we 
 know, had a love of justice, and though her opinions 
 were apt to be very positive, her charity was great 
 and her judgments were not harsh ; moreover, there 
 was in her composition not a drop of acrimony. 
 Nevertheless, she was, as the phrase is, rather hard 
 on poor little Florimond ; and to explain her severity 
 
314 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 we are bound to assume that in the past he had 
 in some way offended her. To-day, at any rate, it 
 seemed to her that he patronized his maiden aunt. 
 He scarcely asked about her health, but took for 
 granted on her part an unlimited interest in his 
 own sensations. It came over her afresh that his 
 mother had been absurd in thinking that the usual 
 resources of Boston would not have sufficed to main- 
 tain him ; and she smiled a little grimly at the idea 
 that a special provision should have been made. This 
 idea presently melted into another, over which she 
 was free to regale herself only after her nephew had 
 departed. For the moment she contented herself 
 with saying to him, when a pause in his young 
 eloquence gave her a chance, " You will have a 
 great many people to go and see. You pay the pen- 
 alty of being a Bostonian ; you have several hundred 
 cousins. One pays for everything." 
 
 Florimond lifted his eyebrows. "I pay for that 
 every day of my life. Have I got to go and see them 
 all?" 
 
 " All every one," said his aunt, who in reality 
 did not hold this obligation in the least sacred. 
 
 " And to say something agreeable to them all ? " 
 the young man went on. 
 
 " Oh, no, that is not necessary," Miss Daintry re- 
 joined, with more exactness. "There are one or two, 
 however, who always appreciate a pretty speech." 
 She added in an instant, " Do you remember Mrs. 
 Mesh?" 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER 315 
 
 " Mrs. Mesh ? " Florimond apparently did not re- 
 member. 
 
 "The wife of Donald Mesh; your grandfathers 
 were first cousins. I don't mean her grandfather, 
 but her husband's. If you don't remember her, I 
 suppose he married her after you went away." 
 
 " I remember Donald ; but I never knew he was 
 a relation. He was single then, I think." 
 
 " Well, he 's double now," said Miss Daintry ; " he 's 
 triple, I may say, for there are two ladies in the house." 
 
 " If you mean he 's a polygamist are there Mor- 
 mons even here ? " Florimond, leaning back in his 
 chair, with his elbow on the arm, and twisting with 
 his gloved fingers the point of a small fair mustache, 
 did not appear to have been arrested by this account 
 of Mr. Mesh's household; for he almost immedi- 
 ately asked, in a large, detached way, " Are there 
 any nice women here ? " 
 
 "It depends on what you mean by nice women; 
 there are some very sharp ones." 
 
 " Oh, I don't like sharp ones," Florimond remarked, 
 in a tone which made his aunt long to throw her 
 sofa-cushion at his head. "Are there any pretty 
 ones ? " 
 
 She looked at him a moment, hesitating. "Eachel 
 Torrance is pretty, in a strange, unusual way, black 
 hair and blue eyes, a serpentine figure, old coins in 
 her tresses ; that sort of thing." 
 
 "I have seen a good deal of that sort of thing," 
 said Florimond, a little confusedly. 
 
316 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 " That I know nothing about. I mention Pauline 
 Mesh's as one of the houses that you ought to go 
 to, and where I know you are expected." 
 
 " I remember now that my mother has said some- 
 thing about that. But who is the woman with coins 
 in her hair? what has she to do with Pauline 
 Mesh?" 
 
 " Eachel is staying with her ; she came from New 
 York a week ago, and I believe she means to spend 
 the winter. She isn't a woman, she's a girl." 
 
 " My mother did n't speak of her," said Florimond ; 
 " but I don't think she would recommend me a girl 
 with a serpentine figure." 
 
 " Very likely not," Miss Daintry answered, dryly. 
 "Eachel Torrance is a far-away cousin of Donald 
 Mesh, and consequently of mine and of yours. She 's 
 an artist, like yourself; she paints flowers on little 
 panels and plaques" 
 
 " like myself ? I never painted a plaque in my 
 life!" exclaimed Florimond, staring. 
 
 "Well, she's a model also; you can paint her if 
 you like ; she has often been painted, I believe." 
 
 Florimond had begun to caress the other tip of 
 his mustache. " I don't care for women^who have 
 been painted before. I like to find them out. Be- 
 sides, I want to rest this winter." 
 
 His aunt was disappointed; she wished to put 
 him into relation with Eachel Torrance, and his in- 
 difference was an obstacle. The meeting was sure 
 to take place sooner or later, but she would have him 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 317 
 
 glad to precipitate it, and, above all, to quicken her 
 nephew's susceptibilities. " Take care you are not 
 found out yourself!" she exclaimed, tossing away 
 her sofa-cushion and getting up. 
 
 Florimond did not see what she meant, and he 
 accordingly bore her no rancor ; but when, before he 
 took his leave, he said to her, rather irrelevantly, 
 that if he should find himself in the mood during his 
 stay in Boston, he should like to do her portrait, 
 she had such a delightful face, she almost thought 
 the speech a deliberate impertinence. "Do you 
 mean that you have discovered me, that no one 
 has suspected it before ? " she inquired with a laugh, 
 and a little flush in the countenance that he was so 
 good as to appreciate. 
 
 Florimond replied, with perfect coolness and good- 
 nature, that he did n't know about this, but that he 
 was sure no one had seen her in just the way he saw 
 her ; and he waved his hand in the air with strange 
 circular motions, as if to evoke before him the image 
 of a canvas, with a figure just rubbed in. He re- 
 peated this gesture, or something very like it, by way 
 of farewell, when he quitted his aunt, and she 
 thought him insufferably patronizing. 
 
 This is why .she wished him, without loss of time, 
 to make the acquaintance of Rachel Torrance, whose 
 treatment of his pretensions she thought would be 
 salutary. It may now be communicated to the 
 reader after a delay proportionate to the momen- 
 tousness of the fact that this had been the idea 
 
318 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 which suddenly flowered in her brain as she sat face 
 to face with her irritating young visitor. It had 
 vaguely shaped itself after her meeting with that 
 strange girl from Brooklyn, whom Mrs. Mesh, all 
 gratitude, for she liked strangeness, promptly 
 brought to see her ; and her present impression of her 
 nephew rapidly completed it. She had not expected 
 to take an interest in Eachel Torrance, and could not 
 see why, through a freak of Susan's, she should have 
 been called upon to think so much about her ; but, 
 to her surprise, she perceived that Mrs. Daintry's 
 proposed victim was not the usual forward girl. She 
 perceived at the same time that it had been ridicu- 
 lous to think of Eachel as a victim, to suppose that 
 she was in danger of vainly fixing her affections upon 
 Florimond. She was much more likely to triumph 
 than to suffer ; and if her visit to Boston were to pro- 
 duce bitter fruits, it would not be she who should 
 taste them. She had a striking, oriental head, a 
 beautiful smile, a manner of dressing which carried 
 out her exotic type, and a great deal of experience 
 and wit. She evidently knew the world, as one 
 knows it when one has to live by its help. If she 
 had an aim in life, she would draw her bow well 
 above the tender breast of Florimond Daintry. With 
 all this, she certainly was an honest, obliging girl, 
 and had a sense of humor which was a fortunate 
 obstacle to her falling into a pose. Her coins and 
 amulets and seamless garments were, for her, a part 
 of the general joke of one's looking like a Circassian 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 319 
 
 or a Smyrniote, an accideut for which Nature was 
 responsible ; and it may be said of her that she took 
 herself much less seriously than other people took 
 her. This was a defect for which Lucretia Daintry 
 had a great kindness ; especially as she quickly saw 
 that Eachel was not of an insipid paste, as even 
 triumphant coquettes sometimes are. In spite of her 
 poverty and the opportunities her beauty must have 
 brought her, she had not yet seen fit to marry, which 
 was a proof that she was clever as well as disinter- 
 ested. It looks dreadfully cold-blooded as I write it 
 here, but the notion that this capable creature might 
 administer poetic justice to Florimond gave a meas- 
 urable satisfaction to Miss Daintry. He was in 
 distinct need of a snub, for down in Newbury Street 
 his mother was perpetually swinging the censer ; and 
 no young nature could stand that sort of thing, least 
 of all such a nature as Florimond's. She said to 
 herself that such a " putting in his place " as he 
 might receive from Eachel Torrance would probably 
 be a permanent correction. She wished his good, as 
 she wished the good of every one; and that desire 
 was at the bottom of her vision. She knew perfectly 
 what she should like : she should like him to fall in 
 love with Rachel, as he probably would, and to have 
 no doubt of her feeling immensely honored. She 
 should like Rachel to encourage him just enough 
 just so far as she might, without being false. A little 
 would do, for Florimond would always take his suc- 
 cess for granted. To this point did the study of her 
 
320 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 nephew's moral regeneration bring the excellent 
 woman, who a few days before had accused his 
 mother of a lack of morality. His mother was think- 
 ing only of his pleasure ; she was thinking of his 
 immortal spirit. She should like Eachel to tell him 
 at the end that he was a presumptuous little boy, 
 and that since it was his business to render " impres- 
 sions," he might see what he could do with that of 
 having been jilted. This extraordinary flight of fancy 
 on Miss Daintry's part was caused in some degree by 
 the high spirits which sprang from her conviction, 
 after she met the young lady, that Mrs. Mesh's com- 
 panion was not in danger ; for even when she wrote 
 to her sister-in-law in the manner the reader knows, 
 her conscience was not wholly at rest. There was 
 still a risk, and she knew not why she should take 
 risks for Florimond. Now, however, she was pre- 
 pared to be perfectly happy when she should hear 
 that the young man was constantly in Arlington 
 Street ; and at the end of a little month she enjoyed 
 this felicity. 
 
 VI. 
 
 MRS. MESH sat on one side of the fire, and Flori- 
 mond on the other; he had by this time acquired 
 the privilege of a customary seat. He had taken a 
 general view of Boston. It was like a first introduc- 
 tion, for before his going to live in Paris he had been 
 too young to judge ; and the result of this survey was 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 321 
 
 the conviction that there was nothing better than 
 Mrs. Mesh's drawing-room. She was one of the few 
 persons whom one was certain to find at home after 
 five o'clock ; and the place itself was agreeable to 
 Florimond, who was very fastidious about furniture 
 and decorations. He was willing to concede that 
 Mrs. Mesh (the relationship had not yet seemed 
 close enough to justify him in calling her Pauline) 
 knew a great deal about such matters ; though it 
 was clear that she was indebted for some of her 
 illumination to Rachel Torrance, who had induced her 
 to make several changes. These two ladies, between 
 them, represented a great fund of taste ; with a 
 difference that was a result of Rachel's knowing 
 clearly beforehand what she liked (Florimond called 
 her, at least, by her baptismal name), and Mrs. 
 Mesh's only knowing it after a succession of experi- 
 ments, of transposings and drapings, all more or less 
 ingenious and expensive. If Florimond liked Mrs. 
 Mesh's drawing-room better than any other corner 
 of Boston, he also had his preference in regard to 
 its phases and hours. It was most charming in the 
 winter twilight, by the glow of the fire, before the 
 lamps had been brought in. The ruddy flicker 
 played over many objects, making them look more 
 mysterious than Florimond had supposed anything 
 could look in Boston, and, among others, upon 
 Rachel Torrance, who, when she moved about the 
 room in a desultory way (never so much enfoncte, as 
 Florimond said, in a chair as Mrs. Mesh was) cer- 
 
 21 
 
322 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 tainly attracted and detained the eye. The young 
 man, from his corner (he was almost as much 
 enfonct as Mrs. Mesh), used to watch her ; and he 
 could easily see what his aunt had meant by saying 
 she had a serpentine figure. She was slim and 
 flexible, she took attitudes which would have been 
 awkward in other women, but which her charming 
 pliancy made natural. She reminded him of a cele- 
 brated actress in Paris, who was the ideal of tortuous 
 thinness. Miss Torrance used often to seat herself 
 for a short time at the piano ; and though she never 
 had been taught this art (she played only by ear), 
 her musical feeling was such that she charmed the 
 twilight hour. Mrs. Mesh sat on one side of the fire, 
 as I have said, and Florimoud on the other ; the two 
 might have been found in this relation, listening, 
 face to face, almost any day in the week. Mrs. 
 Mesh raved about her new friend, as they said in 
 Boston, I mean about Eachel Torrance, not about 
 Florimond Daintry. She had at last got hold of a 
 mind that understood her own (Mrs. Mesh's mind 
 contained depths of mystery), and she sacrificed her- 
 self, generally, to throw her companion into relief. 
 Her sacrifice was rewarded, for the girl was uni- 
 versally liked and admired ; she was a new type 
 altogether ; she was the lioness of the winter. Flori- 
 mond had an opportunity to see his native town in 
 one of its fits of enthusiasm. He had heard of the 
 infatuations of Boston, literary and social; of its 
 capacity for giving itself with intensity to a tempo- 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 323 
 
 rary topic; and he was now conscious, on all sides, 
 of the breath of New England discussion. Some one 
 had said to him, or had said to some one, who 
 repeated it, that there was no place like Boston 
 for taking up with such seriousness a second-rate 
 spinster from Brooklyn. But Florimond himself 
 made no criticism ; for, as we know, he speedily fell 
 under the charm of Kachel Torrance's personality. 
 He was perpetually talking with Mrs. Mesh about 
 it; and when Mrs. Mesh herself descanted on the 
 subject, he listened with the utmost attention. At 
 first, on his return, he rather feared the want of 
 topics; he foresaw that he should miss the talk of 
 the studios, of the theatres, of the boulevard, of a 
 little circle of " naturalists " (in literature and art) to 
 which he belonged, without sharing all its views. 
 But he presently perceived that Boston, too, had its 
 actualities, and that it even had this in common with 
 Paris, that it gave its attention most willingly to a 
 female celebrity. If he had had any hope of being 
 himself the lion of the winter, it had been dissipated 
 by the spectacle of his cousin's success. He saw 
 that while she was there, he could only be a subject 
 of secondary reference. He bore her no grudge for 
 this. I must hasten to declare that from the petti- 
 ness of this particular jealousy poor Florimond was 
 quite exempt. Moreover, he was swept along by the 
 general chorus ; and he perceived that when one 
 changes one's sky, one inevitably changes, more or 
 less, one's standard. Rachel Torrance was neither 
 
324 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 an actress, nor a singer, nor a beauty, nor one of the 
 ladies who were chronicled in the " Figaro," nor the 
 author of a successful book, nor a person of the great 
 world ; she had neither a future, nor a past, nor a 
 position, nor even a husband, to make her identity 
 more solid ; she was a simple American girl, of the 
 class that lived in pensions (a class of which Flori- 
 inond had ever entertained a theoretic horror) ; and 
 yet she had profited to the degree of which our 
 young man was witness, by those treasures of sym- 
 pathy constantly in reserve in the American public 
 (as has already been intimated) for the youthful- 
 feminine. If Florimond was struck with all this, it 
 may be imagined whether or no his mother thought 
 she had been clever when it occurred to her (before 
 any one else) that Eachel would be a resource for the 
 term of hibernation. She had forgotten all her scru- 
 ples and hesitations ; she only knew she had seen 
 very far. She was proud of her prescience, she was 
 even amused with it ; and for the moment she held her 
 head rather high. No one knew of it but Lucretia, 
 for she had never confided it to Joanna, of whom 
 she would have been more afraid in such a connec- 
 tion even than of her sister-in-law ; but Mr. and 
 Mrs. Merriman perceived an unusual lightness in her 
 step, a fitful sparkle in her eye. It was of course 
 easy for them to make up their mind that she was 
 exhilarated to this degree by the presence of her son ; 
 especially as he seemed to be getting on beautifully 
 in Boston. 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 325 
 
 " She stays out longer every day ; she is scarcely 
 ever home to tea," Mrs. Mesh remarked, looking up 
 at the clock on the chimney-piece. 
 
 Florimond could not fail to know to whom she 
 alluded, for it has been intimated that between these 
 two there was much conversation about Eachel Tor- 
 ranee. "It's funny, the way the girls run about 
 alone here," he said, in the amused, contemplative 
 tone in which he frequently expressed himself on the 
 subject of American life. "Eachel stays out after 
 dark, and no one thinks any the worse of her." 
 
 " Oh, well, she 's old enough," Mrs. Mesh rejoined, 
 with a little sigh, which seemed to suggest that 
 Eachel's age was really affecting. Her eyes had 
 been opened by Morimond to many of the peculiari- 
 ties of the society that surrounded her ; and though 
 she had spent only as many months in Europe as 
 her visitor had spent years, she now sometimes spoke 
 as if she thought the manners of Boston more odd 
 even than he could pretend to do. She was very 
 quick at picking up an idea, and there was nothing 
 she desired more than to have the last on every 
 subject. This winter, from her two new friends, 
 Florimond and Eachel, she had extracted a great 
 many that were new to her; the only trouble was 
 that, coming from different sources, they sometimes 
 contradicted each other. Many of them, however, 
 were very vivifying ; they added a new zest to that 
 prospect of life which had always, in winter, the de- 
 nuded bushes, the solid pond, and the plank-covered 
 
326 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 walks, the exaggerated bridge, the patriotic statues, 
 the dry, hard texture of the Public Garden for its 
 foreground, and for its middle distance, the pale, 
 frozen twigs, stiff in the windy sky, that whistled 
 over the Common, the domestic dome of the State 
 House, familiar in the untinted air, and the competi- 
 tive spires of a liberal faith. Mrs. Mesh had an active 
 imagination, and plenty of time on her hands. Her 
 two children were young, and they slept a good deal ; 
 she had explained to Florimond, who observed that 
 she was a great deal less in the nursery than his 
 sister, that she pretended only to give her attention 
 to their waking hours. " I have people for the rest 
 of the time," she said ; and the rest of the time was 
 considerable; so that there were very few obstacles 
 to her cultivation of ideas. There was one in her 
 mind now, and I may as well impart it to the reader 
 without delay. She was not quite so delighted with 
 Eachel Torrance as she had been a month ago ; it 
 seemed to her that the young lady took up socially 
 speaking too much room in the house; and she 
 wondered how long she intended to remain, and 
 whether it would be possible, without a direct re- 
 quest, to induce her to take her way back to Brooklyn. 
 This last was the conception with which she was at 
 present engaged ; she was at moments much pressed 
 by it, and she had thoughts of taking Florimond 
 Daintry into her confidence. This, however, she 
 determined not to do, lest he should regard it as a 
 sign that she was jealous of her companion. I know 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 327 
 
 not whether she was, but this I know, that Mrs. 
 Mesh was a woman of a high ideal, and would not 
 for the world have appeared so. If she was jealous, 
 this would imply that she thought Florimond was in 
 love with Eachel ; and she could only object to that 
 on the ground of being in love with him herself. 
 She was not in love with him, and had no intention 
 of being ; of this the reader, possibly alarmed, may 
 definitely rest assured. Moreover, she did not think 
 him in love with Rachel ; as to her reason for this 
 reserve, I need not, perhaps, be absolutely outspoken. 
 She was not jealous, she would have said ; she was 
 only oppressed she was a little over-ridden. Rachel 
 pervaded her house, pervaded her life, pervaded Bos- 
 ton ; every one thought it necessary to talk to her 
 about Rachel, to rave about her in the Boston man- 
 ner, which seemed to Mrs. Mesh, in spite of the 
 Puritan tradition, very much more unbridled than 
 that of Baltimore. They thought it would give her 
 pleasure; but by this time she knew everything 
 about Rachel. The girl had proved rather more of a 
 figure than she expected ; and though she could not 
 be called pretentious, she had the air, in staying with 
 Pauline Mesh, of conferring rather more of a favor 
 than she received. This was absurd for a person 
 who was, after all, though not in her first youth, only 
 a girl, and who, as Mrs. Mesh was sure, from her 
 biography, for Rachel had related every item, 
 had never before had such unrestricted access to the 
 fleshpots. The fleshpots were full, under Donald 
 
328 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 Mesh's roof, and his wife could easily believe that 
 the poor girl would not be in a hurry to return to 
 her boarding-house in Brooklyn. For that matter 
 there were lots of people in Boston who would be 
 delighted that she should come to them. It was 
 doubtless an inconsistency on Mrs. Mesh's part that 
 if she was overdone with the praises of Kachel 
 Torrance which fell from every lip, she should not 
 herself have forborne to broach the topic. But I 
 have sufficiently intimated that it had a perverse 
 fascination for her ; it is true she did not speak of 
 Eachel only to praise her. Florimond, in truth, was 
 a little weary of the young lady's name; he had 
 plenty of topics of his own, and he had his own 
 opinion about Eachel Torrance. He did not take 
 up Mrs. Mesh's remark as to her being old enough. 
 "You must wait till she comes in. Please ring 
 
 o 
 
 for tea," said Mrs. Mesh, after a pause. She had 
 noticed that Florimond was comparing his watch 
 with her clock ; it occurred to her that he might be 
 going. 
 
 " Oh, I always wait, you know ; I like to see her 
 when she has been anywhere. She tells one all 
 about it, and describes everything so well." 
 
 Mrs. Mesh looked at him a moment. " She sees 
 a great deal more in things than I am usually able 
 to discover. She sees the most extraordinary things 
 in Boston." 
 
 " Well, so do I," said Florimond, placidly. 
 
 "Well, I don't, I must say!" She asked him to 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 329 
 
 ring again ; and then, with a slight irritation, accused 
 him of not ringing hard enough ; but before he could 
 repeat the operation, she left her chair and went her- 
 self to the bell. After this she stood before the fire 
 a moment, gazing into it ; then suggested to Flori- 
 mond that he should put on a log. 
 
 " Is it necessary, when your servant is coming 
 in a moment ? " the young man asked, unexpectedly, 
 without moving. In an instant, however, he rose ; 
 and then he explained that this was only his little 
 joke. 
 
 " Servants are too stupid," said Mrs. Mesh. " But 
 I spoil you. What would your mother say ? " She 
 watched him while he placed the log. She was 
 plump, and she was not tall ; but she was a very 
 pretty woman. She had round brown eyes, which 
 looked as if she had been crying a little, she had 
 nothing in life to cry about ; and dark, wavy hair, 
 which, here and there, in short, crisp tendrils, escaped 
 artfully from the form in which it was dressed. 
 When she smiled, she showed very pretty teeth; and 
 the combination of her touching eyes and her parted 
 lips was at such moments almost bewitching. She 
 was accustomed to express herself in humorous 
 superlatives, in pictorial circumlocutions; and had 
 acquired in Boston the rudiments of a social dialect 
 which, to be heard in perfection, should be heard 
 on the lips of a native. Mrs. Mesh had picked it 
 up ; but it must be confessed that she used it with- 
 out originality. It was an accident that on this 
 
330 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 
 
 occasion she had not expressed her wish for her tea 
 by saying that she should like a pint or two of that 
 Chinese fluid. 
 
 " My mother believes I can't be spoiled," said 
 Florimond, giving a little push with his toe to the 
 stick that he had placed in the embers ; after which 
 he sank back into his chair, while Mrs. Mesh re- 
 sumed possession of her own. " I am ever fresh, 
 ever pure." 
 
 "You are ever conceited. I don't see what you 
 find so extraordinary in Boston," Mrs. Mesh added, 
 reverting to his remark of a moment before. 
 
 " Oh, everything ! the ways of the people, their 
 ideas, their peculiar cachet. The very expression of 
 their faces amuses me." 
 
 " Most of them have no expression at all." 
 
 " Oh, you are used to it," Florimond said. " You 
 have become one of themselves ; you have ceased 
 to notice." 
 
 " I am more of a stranger than you ; I was born 
 beneath other skies. Is it possible that you don't 
 know yet that I am a native of Baltimore ? ' Mary- 
 land, my Maryland ! ' ' 
 
 " Have they got so much expression in Maryland ? 
 No, I thank you ; no tea. Is it possible ! " Flori- 
 mond went on, with the familiarity of pretended 
 irritation, " is it possible that you have n't noticed 
 yet that I never take it ? Boisson fade, ecceurante, as 
 Balzac calls it." 
 
 "Ah, well, if you don't take it on account of 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 331 
 
 Balzac ! " said Mrs. Mesh. " I never saw a man who 
 had such fantastic reasons. Where, by the way, is 
 the volume of that depraved old author which you 
 promised to bring me ? " 
 
 " When do you think he flourished ? You call 
 everything old, in this country, that is n't in the 
 morning paper. I have n't brought you the volume, 
 because I don't want to bring you presents," Flori- 
 mond said ; " I want you to love me for myself, as 
 they say in Paris." 
 
 " Don't quote what they say in Paris ! Don't 
 sully this innocent bower with those fearful words ! " 
 Mrs. Mesh rejoined, with a jocose intention. " Dear 
 lady, your son is not everything we could wish ! " 
 she added in the same mock dramatic tone, as the 
 curtain of the door was lifted, and Mrs. Daintry 
 rather timidly advanced. Mrs. Daintry had come 
 to satisfy a curiosity, after all quite legitimate ; she 
 could no longer resist the impulse to ascertain for 
 herself, so far as she might, how Eachel Torrance 
 and Florimond were getting on. She had had no defi- 
 nite expectation of finding Florimond at Mrs. Mesh's ; 
 but she supposed that at this hour of the afternoon, 
 it was already dark, and the ice, in many parts of 
 Beacon Street, had a polish which gleamed through 
 the dusk, she should find Eachel. " Your son has 
 lived too long in far-off lands ; he has dwelt among 
 outworn things," Mrs. Mesh went on, as she con- 
 ducted her visitor to a chair. " Dear lady, you are 
 not as Balzac was ; do you start at the mention of 
 
332 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 his name ? therefore you will have some tea in a 
 little painted cup." 
 
 Mrs. Daintry was not bewildered, though it may 
 occur to the reader that she might have been ; she 
 was only a little disappointed. She had hoped she 
 might have occasion to talk about Florimond; but 
 the young man's presence was a denial of this privi- 
 lege. " I am afraid Kachel is not at home," she 
 remarked. " I am afraid she will think I have not 
 been very attentive." 
 
 " She will be in in a moment ; we are waiting for 
 her," Florimond said. "It's impossible she should 
 think any harm of you. I have told her too much 
 good." 
 
 " Ah, Mrs. Daintry, don't build too much on what 
 he has told her ! He 's a false and faithless man !" 
 Pauline Mesh interposed ; while the good lady from 
 Newbury Street, smiling at this adjuration, but look- 
 ing a little grave, turned from one of her companions 
 to the other. Florimond had relapsed into his chair 
 by the fireplace; he sat contemplating the embers, 
 and fingering the tip of his mustache. Mrs. Daintry 
 imbibed her tea, and told how often she had slipped 
 coming down the hill. These expedients helped her 
 to wear a quiet face ; but in reality she was nervous, 
 and she felt rather foolish. It came over her that 
 she was rather dishonest ; she had presented herself 
 at Mrs. Mesh's in the capacity of a spy. The reader 
 already knows she was subject to sudden revul- 
 sions of feeling. There is an adage about repenting at 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 333 
 
 leisure ; but Mrs Daintry always repented in a hurry. 
 There was something in the air something impal- 
 pable, magnetic that told her she had better not 
 have come ; and even while she conversed with Mrs. 
 Mesh she wondered what this mystic element could 
 be. Of course she had been greatly preoccupied, 
 these last weeks ; for it had seemed to her that her 
 plan with regard to Eachel Torrance was succeeding 
 only too well. Florimond had frankly accepted her 
 in the spirit in which she had been offered, and it 
 was very plain that she was helping him to pass his 
 winter. He was constantly at the house, Mrs. Dain- 
 try could not tell exactly how often; but she knew 
 very well that in Boston, if one saw anything of a 
 person, one saw a good deal At first he used to 
 speak of it ; for two or three weeks, he had talked a 
 good deal about Rachel Torrance. More lately, his 
 allusions had become few; yet to the best of Mrs. 
 Daintry's belief his step was often in Arlington 
 Street. This aroused her suspicions, and at times it 
 troubled her conscience ; there were moments when 
 she wondered whether, in arranging a genial winter 
 for Florimond, she had also prepared a season of tor- 
 ment for herself. Was he in love with the girl, or 
 had he already discovered that the girl was in love 
 with him? The delicacy of either situation would 
 account for his silence. Mrs. Daintry said to herself 
 that it would be a grim joke if she should prove to 
 have plotted only too well. It was her sister-in-law's 
 warning in especial that haunted her imagination, 
 
334 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 and she scarcely knew, at times, whether more to 
 hope that Florimond might have been smitten, or to 
 pray that Eachel might remain indifferent. It was 
 impossible for Mrs. Daintry to shake off the sense of 
 responsibility; she could not shut her eyes to the 
 fact that she had been the prime mover. It was all 
 very well to say that the situation, as it stood, was of 
 Lucretia's making ; the thing never would have come 
 into Luc'retia's head if she had not laid it before her. 
 Unfortunately, with the quiet life she led, she had 
 very little chance to observe ; she went out so little, 
 that she was reduced to guessing what the manner of 
 the two young persons might be to each other when 
 they met in society, and she should have thought 
 herself wanting in delicacy if she had sought to be 
 intimate with Eachel Torrance. Now that her plan 
 was in operation, she could make no attempt to foster 
 it, to acknowledge it in the face of Heaven. Fortu- 
 nately, Rachel had so many attentions, that there was 
 no fear of her missing those of Newbury Street. She 
 had dined there once, in the first days of her sojourn, 
 without Pauline and Donald, who had declined, and 
 with Joanna and Joanna's husband for all " com- 
 pany." Mrs. Daintry had noticed nothing particular 
 then, save that Arthur Merriman talked rather more 
 than usual, though he was always a free talker, 
 and had bantered Rachel rather more familiarly than 
 was perhaps necessary (considering that he, after all, 
 was not her cousin) on her ignorance of Boston, and 
 her thinking that Pauline Mesh could tell her any- 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 235 
 
 thing about it. On this occasion Florimond talked 
 very little ; of course he could not say much when 
 Arthur was in such extraordinary spirits. She knew 
 by this time all that Florimond thought of his 
 brother-in-law, and she herself had to confess that 
 she liked Arthur better in his jaded hours, even 
 though then he was a little cynical. Mrs. Daintry 
 had been perhaps a little disappointed in Kachel, 
 whom she saw for the first time in several years. 
 The girl was less peculiar than she remembered her 
 being, savored less of the old studio, the musical 
 parties, the creditors waiting at the door. However, 
 people in Boston found her unusual, and Mrs. Dain- 
 try reflected, with a twinge at her depravity, that 
 perhaps she had expected something too dishevelled. 
 At any rate, several weeks had elapsed since then, 
 and there had been plenty of time for Miss Torrance 
 to attach herself to Floriinond. It was less than 
 ever Mrs. Daintry's wish that he should (even in this 
 case) ask her to be his wife. It seemed to her less 
 than ever the way her son should marry, because 
 he had got entangled with a girl in consequence of 
 his mother's rashness. It occurred to her, of course, 
 that she might warn the young man ; but when it 
 came to the point she could not bring herself to 
 speak. She had never discussed the question of love 
 with him, and she did n't know what ideas he might 
 have brought with him from Paris. It was too delicate ; 
 it might put notions into his head. He might say 
 something strange and French, which she should n't 
 
336 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 like ; and then perhaps she should feel bound to warn 
 Rachel herself, a complication from which she ab- 
 solutely shrank. It was part of her embarrassment 
 now, as she sat in Mrs. Mesh's drawing-room, that she 
 should probably spoil Florimond's entertainment for 
 this afternoon, and that such a crossing of his inclina- 
 tion would make him the more dangerous. He had 
 told her that he was waiting for Eachel to come in ; 
 and at the same time, in view of the lateness of the 
 hour and her being on foot, when she herself should 
 take her leave he would be bound in decency to ac- 
 company her. As for remaining after Eachel should 
 come in, that was an indiscretion which scarcely 
 seemed to her possible. Mrs. Daintry was an Ameri- 
 can mother, and she knew what the elder generation 
 owes to the younger. If Florimond had come there 
 to call on a young lady, he did n't, as they used to 
 say, want any mothers round. She glanced covertly 
 at her son, to try and find some comfort in his counte- 
 nance ; for her perplexity was heavy. But she was 
 struck only with his looking very handsome, as he 
 lounged there in the firelight, and with his being 
 very much at home. This did not lighten her bur- 
 den, and she expressed all the weight of it in the 
 midst of Mrs. Mesh's flights of comparison in an 
 irrelevant little sigh. At such a time her only com- 
 fort could be the thought that at all events she had 
 not betrayed herself to Lucretia. She had scarcely 
 exchanged a word with Lucretia about Eachel since 
 that young lady's arrival ; and she had observed in 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 337 
 
 silence that Miss Daintry now had a guest in the 
 person of a young woman who had lately opened a 
 kindergarten. This reticence might surely pass for 
 natural. 
 
 Eachel came in before long, but even then Mrs. 
 Daintry ventured to stay a little. The visitor from 
 Brooklyn embraced Mrs. Mesh, who told her that, 
 prodigal as she was, there was no fatted calf for her 
 return ; she must content herself with cold tea. Noth- 
 ing could be more charming than her manner, which 
 was full of native archness; and it seemed to Mrs. 
 Daintry that she directed her pleasantries at Flori- 
 mond with a grace that was intended to be irresis- 
 tible. The relation between them was a relation of 
 "chaff," and consisted, on one side and the other, 
 in alternations of attack and defence. Mrs. Daintry 
 reflected that she should not wish her son to have a 
 wife who should be perpetually turning him into a 
 joke ; for it seemed to her, perhaps, that Rachel Tor- 
 ranee put in her thrusts rather faster than Florimond 
 could parry them. She was evidently rather wanting 
 in the faculty of reverence, and Florimond panted a 
 little. They presently went into an adjoining room, 
 where the lamplight was brighter ; Rachel wished to 
 show the young man an old painted fan, which she 
 had brought back from the repairer's. They re- 
 mained there ten minutes. Mrs. Daiutry, as she sat 
 with Mrs. Mesh, heard their voices much inter- 
 mingled. She wished very much to confide herself 
 a little to Pauline, to ask her whether she thought 
 
 22 
 
338 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 Rachel was in love with. Florimond. But she had 
 a foreboding that this would not be safe; Pauline 
 was capable of repeating her question to the others, 
 of calling out to Eachel to come back and answer it. 
 She contented herself, therefore, with asking her host- 
 ess about the little Meshes, and regaling her with 
 anecdotes of Joanna's progeny. 
 
 "Don't you ever have your. little ones with you at 
 this hour ? " she inquired. " You know this is what 
 Longfellow calls the children's hour. " 
 
 Mrs. Mesh hesitated a moment. " Well, you know, 
 one can't have everything at once. I have my social 
 duties now ; I have my guests. I have Miss Tor- 
 ranee, you see she is not a person one can over- 
 look." 
 
 " I suppose not," said poor Mrs. Daintry, remem- 
 bering how little she herself had overlooked her. 
 
 "Have you done brandishing that superannuated 
 relic?" Mrs. Mesh asked of Rachel and Florimond, 
 as they returned to the fireside. " I should as soon 
 think of fanning myself with the fire-shovel ! " 
 
 "He has broken my heart," Rachel said. "He 
 tells me it is not a Watteau." 
 
 " Do you believe everything he tells you, my dear ? 
 His word is the word of the betrayer." 
 
 " Well, I know Watteau did n't paint fans," Flori- 
 inond remarked, "any more than Michael Angelo." 
 
 "I suppose you think he painted ceilings," said 
 Rachel Torrance. "I have painted a great many 
 myself." 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 339 
 
 " A great many ceilings ? I should like to see 
 that ! " Florimond exclaimed. 
 
 Eachel Torrance, with her usual promptness, ad- 
 opted this fantasy. "Yes, I have decorated half 
 the churches in Brooklyn; you know how many 
 there are." 
 
 " If you mean fans, I wish men carried them," the 
 young man went on ; "I should like to have one de 
 votre fagon" 
 
 " You 're cool enough as you are ; I should be sorry 
 to give you anything that would make you cooler ! " 
 
 This retort, which may not strike the reader by its 
 originality, was pregnant enough for Mrs. Daintry ; 
 it seemed to her to denote that the situation was criti- 
 cal ; and she proposed to retire. Florimond walked 
 home with her ; but it was only as they reached their 
 door that she ventured to say to him what had been 
 on her tongue's end since they left Arlington Street. 
 
 "Florimond, I want to ask you something. I 
 think it is important, and you must n't be surprised. 
 Are you in love with Kachel Torrance ? " 
 
 Florimond stared, in the light of the street-lamp. 
 The collar of his overcoat was turned up ; he stamped 
 a little as he stood still ; the breath of the February 
 evening pervaded the empty vistas of the "new 
 land." "In love with Rachel Torrance? Jamais 
 de la vie ! What put that into your head ? " 
 
 "Seeing you with her, that way, this evening. 
 You know you are very attentive." 
 
 " How do you mean, attentive ? " 
 
340 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 " You go there very often. Is n't it almost every 
 day?" 
 
 Florimond hesitated, and, in spite of the frigid 
 dusk, his mother could see that there was irritation 
 in his eye. " Where else can I go, in this precious 
 place ? It 's the pleasantest house here." 
 
 " Yes, I suppose it 's very pleasant," Mrs. Daintry 
 murmured. "But I would rather have you return 
 to Paris than go there too often," she added, with 
 sudden energy. 
 
 " How do you mean, too often ? Qu'est-ce qui vous 
 prend, ma mere ? " said Florimond. 
 
 " Is Eachel Eachel in love with you ? " she in- 
 quired solemnly. She felt that this question, though 
 her heart beat as she uttered it, should not be 
 mitigated by a circumlocution. 
 
 " Good heavens ! mother, fancy talking about 
 love in this temperature ! " Florimond exclaimed. 
 "Let one at least get into the house." 
 
 Mrs. Daintry followed him reluctantly ; for she 
 always had a feeling that if anything disagreeable 
 were to be done, one should not make it less drastic 
 by selecting agreeable conditions. In the draw- 
 ing-room, before the fire, she returned to her in- 
 quiry. " My son, you have not answered me about 
 Eachel." 
 
 " Is she in love with me ? Why, very possibly ! " 
 
 " Are you serious, Florimond ? " 
 
 " Why should n't I be ? I have seen the way 
 women go off." 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 341 
 
 Mrs. Daintry was silent a moment. " Florimond, 
 is it true?" she said, presently. 
 
 " Is what true ? I don't see where you want to 
 come out ? " 
 
 " Is it true that that girl has fixed her affections " 
 and Mrs. Daintry's voice dropped. 
 
 " Upon me, ma mire ? I don't say it 's true, but 
 I say it 's possible. You ask me, and I can only 
 answer you. I am not swaggering, I am simply 
 giving you decent satisfaction. You would n't have 
 me think it impossible that a woman should fall in 
 love with me ? You know what women are, and 
 how there is nothing, in that way, too queer for 
 them to do." 
 
 Mrs. Daintry, in spite of the knowledge of her sex 
 that she might be supposed to possess, was not pre- 
 pared to rank herself on the side of this axiom. " I 
 wished to warn you," she simply said; "do be 
 very careful." 
 
 "Yes, I'll be careful; but I can't give up the 
 house." 
 
 " There are other houses, Florimond." 
 
 "Yes, but there is a special charm there." 
 
 "I would rather you should return to Paris than 
 do any harm." 
 
 " Oh, I sha' n't do any harm ; don't worry, ma 
 m&re," said Florimond. 
 
 It was a relief to Mrs. Daintry to have spoken, 
 and she endeavored not to worry. It was doubtless 
 this effort that, for the rest of the winter, gave .her 
 
342 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 a somewhat rigid, anxious look. People who met 
 her in Beacon Street missed something from her 
 face. It was her usual confidence in the clearness 
 of human duty ; and some of her friends explained 
 the change by saying that she was disappointed 
 about Florimond, she was afraid he was not 
 particularly liked. 
 
 VII. 
 
 BY the first of March this young man had received 
 a good many optical impressions, and had noted in 
 water-colors several characteristic winter effects. He 
 had perambulated Boston in every direction, he had 
 even extended his researches to the suburbs ; and if 
 his eye had been curious, his eye was now almost 
 satisfied. He perceived that even amid the simple 
 civilization of New England there was material for 
 the naturalist ; and in Washington Street of a win- 
 ter's afternoon, it came home to him that it was a 
 fortunate thing the impressionist was not exclusively 
 preoccupied with the beautiful. He became familiar 
 with the slushy streets, crowded with thronging 
 pedestrians and obstructed horse-cars, bordered with 
 strange, promiscuous shops, which seemed at once 
 violent and indifferent, overhung with snowbanks 
 from the housetops ; the avalanche that detached 
 itself at intervals, fell with an enormous thud amid 
 the dense processions of women, made for a moment 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 343 
 
 a clear space, splashed with whiter snow, on the 
 pavement, and contributed to the gayety of the Puri- 
 tan capital. Supreme in the thoroughfare was the 
 rigid groove of the railway, where oblong receptacles, 
 of fabulous capacity, governed by familiar citizens, 
 jolted and jingled eternally, close on each other's 
 rear, absorbing and emitting innumerable specimens 
 of a single type. The road on either side, buried in 
 mounds of pulverized, mud-colored ice, was ploughed 
 across by laboring vehicles, and traversed periodi- 
 cally by the sisterhood of " shoppers," laden with 
 satchels and parcels, and protected by a round-backed 
 policeman. Florimond looked at the shops, saw the 
 women disgorged, surging, ebbing, dodged the aval- 
 anches, squeezed in and out of the horse-cars, made 
 himself, on their little platforms, where flatness was 
 enforced, as perpendicular as possible. The horses 
 steamed in the sunny air, the conductor punched the 
 tickets and poked the passengers, some of whom were 
 under and some above, and all alike stabled in 
 trampled straw. They were precipitated, collec- 
 tively, by stoppages and starts ; the tight, silent 
 interior stuffed itself more and more, and the whole 
 machine heaved and reeled in its interrupted course. 
 Florimond had forgotten the look of many things, 
 the details of American publicity ; in some cases, in- 
 deed, he only pretended to himself that he had for- 
 gotten them, because it helped to entertain him. The 
 houses a bristling, jagged line of tails and shorts, a 
 particolored surface, expressively commercial were 
 
344 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 spotted with staring signs, with labels and pictures, 
 with advertisements familiar, colloquial, vulgar ; the 
 air was traversed with the tangle of the telegraph, 
 with festoons of bunting, with banners not of war ? 
 with inexplicable loops and ropes ; the shops, many 
 of them enormous, had heterogeneous fronts, with 
 queer juxtapositions in the articles that peopled 
 them, an incompleteness of array, the stamp of the 
 latest modern ugliness. They had pendent stuffs in 
 the doorways, and flapping tickets outside. Every 
 fifty yards there was a " candy store ; " in the inter- 
 vals was the painted panel of a chiropodist, represen- 
 ting him in his professional attitude. Behind the 
 plates of glass, in the hot interiors, behind the coun- 
 ters, were pale, familiar, delicate, tired faces of 
 women, with polished hair and glazed complexions. 
 Florimond knew their voices ; he knew how women 
 would speak when their hair was " treated," as they 
 said in the studios, like that. But the women that 
 passed through the streets were the main spectacle. 
 Florimond had forgotten their extraordinary numer- 
 osity, and the impression that they produced of a 
 deluge of petticoats. He could see that they were 
 perfectly at home on the road ; they had an air of 
 possession, of perpetual equipment, a look, in the 
 eyes, of always meeting the gaze of crowds, always 
 seeing people pass, noting things in shop-windows, 
 and being on the watch at crossings ; many of them 
 evidently passed most of their time in these condi- 
 tions, and Florimond wondered what sort of intdr- 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 345 
 
 ieurs they could have. He felt at moments that he 
 was in a city of women, in a country of women. 
 The same impression came to him dans le monde, as 
 he used to say, for he made the most incongruous 
 application of his little French phrases to Boston. 
 The talk, the social life, were so completely in the 
 hands of the ladies, the masculine note was so sub- 
 ordinate, that on certain occasions he could have 
 believed himself (putting the brightness aside) in a 
 country stricken by a war, where the men had all 
 gone to the army, or in a seaport half depopulated by 
 the absence of its vessels. This idea had intermis- 
 sions ; for instance, when he walked out to Cam- 
 bridge. In this little excursion he often indulged ; 
 he used to go and see one of his college mates, who 
 was now a tutor at Harvard. He stretched away 
 across the long, mean bridge that spans the mouth 
 of the Charles, a mile of wooden piles, supporting 
 a brick pavement, a roadway deep in mire, and 
 a rough timber fence, over which the pedestrian 
 enjoys a view of the frozen bay, the backs of many 
 new houses, and a big brown marsh. The horse-cars 
 bore him company, relieved here of the press of the 
 streets, though not of their internal congestion, and 
 constituting the principal feature of the wide, blank 
 avenue, where the puddles lay large across the bound- 
 ing rails. He followed their direction through a 
 middle region, in which the small wooden houses 
 had an air of tent-like impermanence, and the Feb- 
 ruary mornings, splendid and indiscreet, stared into 
 
346 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 bare windows and seemed to make civilization trans- 
 parent. Further, the suburb remained wooden, but 
 grew neat, and the painted houses looked out on 
 the car-track with an expression almost of superior- 
 ity. At Harvard, the buildings were square and 
 fresh; they stood in a yard planted with slender 
 elms, which the winter had reduced to spindles ; 
 the town stretched away from the horizontal pal- 
 ings of the collegiate precinct, low, flat, and immense, 
 with vague, featureless spaces and the air of a clean 
 encampment. Florimond remembered that when the 
 summer came in, the whole place was transformed. 
 It was pervaded by verdure and dust, the slender 
 elms became profuse, arching over, the unpaved 
 streets, the green shutters bowed themselves before 
 the windows, the flowers and creeping-plants bloomed 
 in the small gardens, and on the piazzas, in the gaps 
 of dropped awnings, light dresses arrested the eye. 
 At night, in the warm darkness, for Cambridge is 
 not festooned with lamps, the bosom of nature would 
 seem to palpitate, there would be a smell of earth 
 and vegetation, a smell more primitive than the 
 odor of Europe, and the air would vibrate with the 
 sound of insects. All this was in reserve, if one 
 would have patience, especially from March to June ; 
 but for the present the seat of the University struck 
 our poor little critical Florimond as rather hard and 
 bare. As the winter went on, and the days grew 
 longer, he knew that Mrs. Daintry often believed 
 him to be in Arlington Street when he was walking 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 347 
 
 out to see his friend the tutor, who had once spent 
 a winter in Paris and who never tired of talking 
 about it It is to be feared that he did not undeceive 
 her so punctually as he might ; for, in the first place, 
 he was at Mrs. Mesh's very often ; in the second, he 
 failed to understand how worried his mother was ; 
 and in the third, the idea that he should be thought 
 to have the peace of mind of a brilliant girl in his 
 keeping was not disagreeable to him. 
 
 One day his Aunt Lucre tia found him in Arlington 
 Street ; it occurred to her about the middle of the win- 
 ter that, considering she liked Eachel Torrance so 
 much, she had not been to see her very often. She had 
 little time for such indulgences ; but she caught a mo- 
 ment in its flight, and was told at Mrs. Mesh's door 
 that this lady had not yet come in, but that her com- 
 panion was accessible. Florimond was in his custom- 
 ary chair by the chimney corner (his aunt perhaps 
 did not know quite how customary it was), and 
 Rachel, at the piano, was regaling him with a com- 
 position of Schubert. Florimond, up to this time, 
 had not become very intimate with his aunt, who had 
 not, as it were, given him the key of her house, and 
 in whom he detected ft certain want of interest in 
 his affairs. He had a limited sympathy with people 
 who were interested only in their own, and perceived 
 that Miss Daintry belonged to this preoccupied and 
 ungraceful class. It seemed to him that it would 
 have been more becoming in her to feign at least a 
 certain attention to the professional and social pros- 
 
348 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 pects of the most promising of her nephews. If 
 there was one thing thSt Florimond disliked more 
 than another, it was an eager self-absorption ; and he 
 could not see that it was any better for people to im- 
 pose their personality upon committees and charities 
 than upon general society. He would have modified 
 this judgment of his kinswoman, with whom he had 
 dined but once, if he could have guessed with what 
 anxiety she watched for the symptoms of that salu- 
 tary change which she expected to see wrought in 
 him by the fascinating independence of Rachel Tor- 
 ranee. If she had dared, she would have prompted 
 the girl a little ; she would have confided to her this 
 secret desire. But the matter was delicate ; and Miss 
 Daintry was shrewd enough to see that everything 
 must be spontaneous. When she paused at the 
 threshold of Mrs. Mesh's drawing-room, looking from 
 one of her young companions to the other, she felt 
 a slight pang, for she feared they were getting on 
 too well. Rachel was pouring sweet music into the 
 young man's ears, and turning to look at him over 
 her shoulder while she played ; and he with his head 
 tipped back and his eyes on the ceiling hummed an 
 accompaniment which occasionally became an artic- 
 ulate remark. Harmonious intimacy was stamped 
 upon the scene; and poor Miss Daintry was not 
 struck with its being in any degree salutary. She 
 was not reassured when, after ten minutes, Florimond 
 took his departure ; she could see that he was irrita- 
 ted by the presence of a third person; and this was a 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 349 
 
 proof that Eachel had not yet begun to do her duty 
 by him. It is possible that Vhen the two ladies were 
 left together, her disappointment would have led her 
 to betray her views, had not Eachel almost immedi- 
 ately said to her : " My dear cousin, I am so glad you 
 have come ; I might not have seen you again. I go 
 away in three days." 
 
 " Go away ? Where do you go to ? " 
 
 " Back to Brooklyn," said Eachel, smiling sweelly. 
 
 " Why on earth I thought you had come here to 
 stay for six months ? " 
 
 " Oh, you know, six months would be a terrible 
 visit for these good people ; and of course no time was 
 fixed. That would have been very absurd. I have 
 been here an immense time already. It was to be as 
 things should go." 
 
 " And have n't they gone well ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, they have gone beautifully." 
 
 " Then why in the world do you leave ? " 
 
 "Well, you know, I have duties at home. My 
 mother coughs a good deal, and they write me dismal 
 letters." 
 
 " They are ridiculous, selfish people. You are going 
 home because your mother coughs ? I don't believe 
 a word of it ! " Miss Daintry cried. " You have some 
 other reason. Something has happened here ; it has 
 become disagreeable. Be so good as to tell me the 
 whole story." 
 
 Eachel answered that there was not any story to 
 tell, and that her reason consisted entirely of consci- 
 
350 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 entious scruples as to absenting herself so long from 
 her domestic circle. Miss Daintry esteemed consci- 
 entious scruples when they were well placed, but she 
 thought poorly on the present occasion of those of 
 Mrs. Mesh's visitor; they interfered so much with her 
 own sense of fitness. "Has Florimond been making 
 love to you ? " she suddenly inquired. " You must n't 
 mind that beyond boxing his ears." 
 
 Her question appeared to amuse Miss Torrance 
 exceedingly ; and the girl, a little inarticulate with 
 her mirth, answered very positively that the young 
 man had done her no such honor. 
 
 " I am very sorry to hear it," said Lucretia ; " I was 
 in hopes he would give you a chance to take him 
 down. He needs it very much. He's dreadfully 
 puffed up." 
 
 " He 's an amusing little man ! " 
 
 Miss Daintry put on her nippers. " Don't tell me 
 it 's you that are in love ! " 
 
 " Oh, dear no ! I like big, serious men, not small, 
 Frenchified gentlemen, like Florimond. Excuse me 
 if he 's your nephew, but you began it. Though I am 
 fond of art/' the girl added, " I don't think I am fond 
 of artists." 
 
 " Do you call Florimond an artist ? " 
 
 Rachel Torrance hesitated a little, smiling. " Yes, 
 when he poses for Pauline Mesh." 
 
 This rejoinder for a moment left Miss Daintry in 
 visible perplexity ; then a sudden light seemed to come 
 to her. She flushed a little ; what she found was more 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 351 
 
 than she was looking for. She thought of many things 
 quickly, and among others she thought that she had 
 accomplished rather more than she intended. " Have 
 you quarrelled with Pauline ? " she said presently. 
 
 "No, but she is tired of me." 
 
 " Everything has not gone well, then, and you have 
 another reason for going home than your mother's 
 cough ? " 
 
 " Yes, if you must know, Pauline wants me to go. 
 I didn't feel free to tell you that; but since you 
 guess it " said Eachel, with her rancorless smile. 
 
 " Has she asked you to decamp ? " 
 
 " Oh, dear no ! for what do you take us ? But she 
 absents herself from the house ; she stays away all 
 day. I have to play to Florimond to console him." 
 
 " So you have been fighting about him ? " Miss 
 Daintry remarked, perversely. 
 
 " Ah, my dear cousin, what have you got in your 
 head ? Fighting about sixpence ! if you knew how 
 Florimond bores me ! I play to him to keep him 
 silent. I have heard everything he has to say, fifty 
 times over ! " 
 
 Miss Daintry sank back in her chair; she was 
 completely out of her reckoning. " I think he might 
 have made love to you a little ! " she exclaimed, 
 incoherently. 
 
 " So do I ! but he did n't not a crumb. He is 
 afraid of me thank Heaven ! " 
 
 " It is n't for you he comes, then ? " Miss Daintry 
 appeared to cling to her theory. 
 
352 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 " No, my dear cousin, it is n't ! " 
 
 " Just now, as lie sat there, one could easily have 
 supposed it. He didn't at all like my interrup- 
 tion." 
 
 "That was because he was waiting for Pauline 
 to come in. He will wait that way an hour. You 
 may imagine whether he likes me for boring her 
 so that, as I tell you, she can't stay in the house. 
 I am out myself as much as possible. But there are 
 days when I drop with fatigue ; then I must rest. I 
 can assure you that it 's fortunate that I go so soon." 
 
 "Is Pauline in love with him?" Miss Daintry 
 asked, gravely. 
 
 "Not a grain. She is the best little woman in 
 the world." 
 
 "Except for being a goose. Why, then, does she 
 object to your company after being so enchanted 
 with you?" 
 
 " Because even the best little woman in the world 
 must object to something. She has everything in 
 life, and nothing to complain of. Her children sleep 
 all day, and her cook is a jewel. Her husband 
 adores her, and she is perfectly satisfied with Mr. 
 Mesh. I act on her nerves, and I think she believes 
 I regard her . as rather silly to care so much for 
 Florimond. Excuse me again ! " 
 
 " You contradict yourself. She does care for him, 
 then?" 
 
 " Oh, as she would care for a new coupt ! She likes 
 to have a young man of her own fresh from Paris 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 353 
 
 quite to herself. She has everything else why 
 should n't she have that ? She thinks your nephew 
 very original, and he thinks her what she is, the 
 prettiest woman in Boston, They have an idea that 
 they are making a 'celebrated friendship/ like 
 Horace Walpole and Madame du Deffand. They 
 sit there face to face they are as innocent as the 
 shovel and tongs. But, all the same, I am in the 
 way, and Pauline is provoked that I am not 
 jealous." 
 
 Miss Daintry got up with energy. " She 's a vain, 
 hollow, silly little creature, and you are quite right 
 to go away ; you are worthy of better company. 
 Only you will not go back to Brooklyn, in spite 
 of your mother's cough ; you will come straight 
 to Mount Vernon Place." 
 
 Rachel hesitated to agree to this. She appeared 
 to think it was her duty to quit Boston altogether ; 
 and she gave as a reason that she had already re- 
 fused other invitations. But Miss Daintry had a 
 better reason than this, a reason that glowed in 
 her indignant breast. It was she who had been the 
 cause of the girl's being drawn into this sorry adven- 
 ture ; it was she who should charge herself with the 
 reparation. The conversation I have related took 
 place on a Tuesday ; and it was settled that on the 
 Friday Miss Torrance should take up her abode for 
 the rest of the winter under her Cousin Lucretia's 
 roof, This lady left the house without having seen 
 Mrs. Mesh. 
 
 23 
 
354 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 On Thursday she had a visit from her sister-in-law, 
 the motive of which was not long in appearing. All 
 winter Mrs. Daintry had managed to keep silent on 
 the subject of her doubts and fears. Discretion and 
 dignity recommended this course ; and the topic was 
 a painful one to discuss with Lucretia, for the bruises 
 of their primary interview still occasionally throbbed. 
 But at the first sign of alleviation the excellent 
 woman overflowed, and she lost no time in announ- 
 cing to Lucretia, as a Heaven-sent piece of news, that 
 Eachel had been called away by the illness of poor 
 Mrs. Torrance, and was to leave Boston from one day 
 to the other. Florirnond had given her this infor- 
 mation the evening before ; and it had made her so 
 happy, that she could n't help coining to let Lucretia 
 know that they were safe. Lucretia listened to her 
 announcement in silence, fixing her eyes on her 
 sister-in-law with an expression that the latter 
 thought singular ; but when Mrs. Daintry, expanding 
 still further, went on to say that she had spent a 
 winter of misery, that the harm the two together 
 (she and Lucretia) might have done was never out 
 of her mind, for Florimond's assiduity in Arlington 
 Street had become notorious, and she had been told 
 that the most cruel things were said, when Mrs. 
 Daintry, expressing herself to this effect, added that 
 from the present moment she breathed, the danger 
 was over, the sky was clear, and her conscience 
 might take a holiday, her hostess broke into the 
 most prolonged, the most characteristic, and most 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 355 
 
 bewildering fit of laughter in which she had ever 
 known her to indulge. They were safe, Mrs. Daintry 
 had said ? For Lucretia this was true, now, of her- 
 self, at least ; she was secure from the dangers of her 
 irritation; her sense of the whole affair had turned 
 to hilarious music. The contrast that rose before 
 her between her visitor's anxieties and the real posi- 
 tion of the parties, her quick vision of poor Susan's 
 dismay in case that reality should meet her eyes, 
 among the fragments of her squandered scruples, 
 
 these things smote the chords of mirth in Miss 
 Daintry's spirit, and seemed to her in their high 
 comicality to offer a sufficient reason for everything 
 that had happened. The picture of her sister-in-law 
 sitting all winter with her hands clasped and her 
 eyes fixed on the wrong object was an image that 
 would abide with her always ; and it would render 
 her an inestimable service, it would cure her of 
 the tendency to worry. As may be imagined, it was 
 eminently open to Mrs. Daintry to ask her what on 
 earth she was laughing at ; and there was a color in 
 the cheek of Florimond's mother that brought her 
 back to propriety. She suddenly kissed this lady 
 very tenderly to the latter's great surprise, there 
 having been no kissing since her visit in November 
 
 and told her that she would reveal to her some 
 day, later, the cause of so much merriment. She 
 added that Miss Torrance was leaving Arlington 
 Street, yes ; but only to go as far as Mount Vernon 
 Place. She was engaged to spend three months in 
 
356 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 that very house. Mrs. Daintry's countenance, at 
 this, fell several inches, and her joy appeared com- 
 pletely to desert her. She gave her sister-in-law a 
 glance of ineffable reproach, and in a moment she 
 exclaimed : " Then nothing is gained ! it will all go 
 on here!" 
 
 "Nothing will go on here. If you mean that 
 Floriniond will pursue the young lady into this 
 mountain fastness, you may simply be quiet. He 
 is not fond enough of me to wear out my threshold." 
 
 " Are you very sure ? " Mrs. Daintry murmured, 
 dubiously. 
 
 " I know what I say. Has n't he told you he 
 hates me ? " 
 
 Mrs. Daintry colored again, and hesitated. " I don't 
 know how you think we talk," she said. 
 
 " Well, he does, and he will leave us alone." 
 
 Mrs. Daintry sprang up with an elasticity that 
 was comical. " That 's all I ask ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 " I believe you hate me too ! " Lucretia said, laugh- 
 ing; but at any risk, she kissed her sister-in-law 
 again before they separated. 
 
 Three weeks later Mrs. Daintry paid her another 
 visit ; and this time she looked very serious. " It 's 
 very strange. I don't know what to think. But 
 perhaps you know it already ? " This was her entree 
 en mati&re, as the French say. "Eachel's leaving 
 Arlington Street has made no difference. He goes 
 there as much as ever. I see no change at all. Lu- 
 cretia, I have not the peace that I thought had 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 357 
 
 come," said poor Mrs. Daintry, whose voice had 
 failed below her breath. 
 
 " Do you mean that he goes to see Pauline 
 Mesh?" 
 
 "I'm afraid so, every day." 
 
 " Well, my dear, what 's the harm ? " Miss Daintry 
 asked. " He can 't hurt her by not marrying her." 
 
 Mrs. Daintry stared ; she was amazed at her sister- 
 in-law's tone. " But it makes one suppose that all 
 winter, for so many weeks, it has been for her that 
 he has gone ! " and the image of the tete-db-tete in 
 which she had found them immured that day, rose 
 again before her; she could interpret it now. 
 
 " You wanted some one ; why may not Pauline 
 have served ? " 
 
 Mrs. Daintry was silent, with the same expanded 
 eyes. " Lucretia, it is not right ! " 
 
 "My dear Susan, you are touching," Lucretia 
 said. 
 
 Mrs. Daintry went on without heeding her. " It 
 appears that people are talking about it ; they have 
 noticed it for ever so long. Joanna never hears any- 
 thing, or she would have told me. The children are 
 too much. I have been the last to know." 
 
 " I knew it a month ago," said Miss Daintry, 
 smiling. 
 
 " And you never told me ? " 
 
 " I knew that you wanted to detain him. Paul- 
 ine will detain him a year." 
 
 Mrs. Daintry gathered herself together. "Not a 
 
358 A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 
 
 day, not an hour, that I can help ! He shall go, if 
 I have to take him." 
 
 " My dear Susan," murmured her sister-in-law on 
 the threshold. Miss Daintry scarcely knew what to 
 say; she was almost frightened at the rigidity of 
 her face. 
 
 " My dear Lucretia, it is not right ! " This ejacu- 
 lation she solemnly repeated, and she took her 
 departure as if she were decided upon action. 
 
 She had found so little sympathy in her sister- 
 in-law, that she made no answer to a note Miss 
 Daintry wrote her that evening, to remark that she 
 was really unjust to Pauline, who was silly, vain, 
 and flattered by the development of her ability to 
 monopolize an impressionist, but a perfectly inno- 
 cent little woman and incapable of a serious flirta- 
 tion. Miss Daintry had been careful to add to 
 these last words no comment that could possibly 
 shock Florimond's mother. Mrs. Daintry announced, 
 about the 10th of April, that she had made up her 
 mind she needed a change, and had determined to go 
 abroad for the summer ; and she looked so tired that 
 people could see there was reason in it. Her summer 
 began early ; she embarked on the 20th of the month, 
 accompanied by Florimond. Miss Daintry, who had 
 not been obliged to dismiss the young lady of the 
 kindergarten to make room for Eachel Torrance, 
 never knew what had passed between the mother 
 and the son, and she was disappointed at Mrs. Mesh's 
 coolness in the face of this catastrophe. She dis- 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 359 
 
 approved of her flirtation with Florimond, and yet 
 she was vexed at Pauline's pert resignation ; it proved 
 her to be so superficial. She disposed of everything 
 with her absurd little phrases, that were half slang 
 and half quotation. Mrs. Daintry was a native of 
 Salem, and this gave Pauline, as a Baltimorean and a 
 descendant of the Cavaliers, an obvious opportunity. 
 Rachel repeated her words to Miss Daintry, for she 
 had spoken to Rachel of Florimond's departure, the 
 day after he embarked. " Oh yes, he 's in the midst 
 of the foam, the cruel, crawling foam ! I ' kind of ' 
 miss him, afternoons; he was so useful round the 
 fire. It 's his mother that charmed him away ; she 's 
 a most uncanny old party. I don't care for Salem 
 witches, anyway ; she has worked on him with 
 philters and spells ! " Lucretia was obliged to rec- 
 ognize a grain of truth in this last assertion ; she 
 felt that her sister-in-law must indeed have worked 
 upon Florimond, and she smiled to think that the 
 conscientious Susan should have descended, in the 
 last resort, to an artifice, to a pretext. She had 
 probably persuaded him she was tired of Joanna's 
 children. 
 
l 
 
m 
 
 
 
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