"Hope's pet," said Kate, "and she who pets Hope, Lady Antwerp.""Is it possible?" said Malbone. "That young creature? I fancied her ladyship in spectacles, with little side curls. Men speak of her with such dismay.""Of course," said Kate, "she asks them sensible questions.""That is bad," admitted Philip. "Nothing exasperates fashionable Americans like a really intelligent foreigner. They feel as Sydney Smith says the English clergy felt about Elizabeth Fry; she disturbs their repose, and gives rise to distressing comparisons,--they long to burn her alive. It is not their notion of a countess.""I am sure it was not mine," said Hope; "I can hardly remember that she is one; I only know that I like her, she is so simple and intelligent. She might be a girl from a Normal School.""It is because you are just that," said Kate, "that she likes you. She came here supposing that we had all been at such schools. Then she complained of us,--us girls in what we call good society, I mean,--because, as she more than hinted, we did not seem to know anything.""Some of the mothers were angry," said Hope. "But Aunt Jane told her that it was perfectly true, and that her ladyship had not yet seen the best-educated girls in America, who were generally the daughters of old ministers and well-to-do shopkeepers in small New England towns, AuntJane said."
"Yes," said Kate, "she said that the best of those girls went to High Schools and Normal Schools, and learned things thoroughly, you know; but that we were only taught at boarding-schools and by governesses, and came out at eighteen, and what could we know? Then came Hope, who had been at those schools, and was the child of refined people too, and Lady Antwerp was perfectly satisfied.""Especially," said Hope, "when Aunt Jane told her that, after all, schools did not do very much good, for if people were born stupid they only became more tiresome by schooling. She said that she had forgotten all she learned at school except the boundaries of ancient Cappadocia."Aunt Jane's fearless sayings always passed current among her nieces; and they drove on, Hope not being lowered in Philip's estimation, nor raised in her own, by being the pet of a passing countess.
Who would not be charmed (he thought to himself) by this noble girl, who walks the earth fresh and strong as a Greek goddess, pure as Diana, stately as Juno? She belongs to the unspoiled womanhood of another age, and is wasted among these dolls and butterflies.
He looked at her. She sat erect and graceful, unable to droop into the debility of fashionable reclining,--her breezy hair lifted a little by the soft wind, her face flushed, her full brown eyes looking eagerly about, her mouth smiling happily. To be with those she loved best, and to be driving over the beautiful earth! She was so happy that no mob of fashionables could have lessened her enjoyment, or made her for a moment conscious that anybody looked at her. The brilliant equipages which they met each moment were not wholly uninteresting even to her, for her affections went forth to some of the riders and to all the horses. She was as well contented at that moment, on the glittering Avenue, as if they had all been riding home through country lanes, and in constant peril of being jolted out among the whortleberry-bushes.
Her face brightened yet more as they met a carriage containing a graceful lady dressed with that exquisiteness of taste that charms both man and woman, even if no man can analyze and no woman rival its effect. Shehad a perfectly high-bred look, and an eye that in an instant would calculate one's ancestors as far back as Nebuchadnezzar, and bow to them all together. She smiled good-naturedly on Hope, and kissed her hand to Kate.
"So, Hope," said Philip, "you are bent on teaching music to Mrs. Meredith's children.""Indeed I am!" said Hope, eagerly. "O Philip, I shall enjoy it so! I do not care so very much about her, but she has dear little girls. And you know I am a born drudge. I have not been working hard enough to enjoy an entire vacation, but I shall be so very happy here if I can have some real work for an hour or two every other day.""Hope," said Philip, gravely, "look steadily at these people whom we are meeting, and reflect. Should you like to have them say, 'There goes Mrs. Meredith's music teacher'?""Why not?" said Hope, with surprise. "The children are young, and it is not very presumptuous. I ought to know enough for that."Malbone looked at Kate, who smiled with delight, and put her hand on that of Hope. Indeed, she kept it there so long that one or two passing ladies stopped their salutations in mid career, and actually looked after them in amazement at their attitude, as who should say, "What a very mixed society!"So they drove on,--meeting four-in-hands, and tandems, and donkey- carts, and a goat-cart, and basket-wagons driven by pretty girls, with uncomfortable youths in or out of livery behind. They met, had they but known it, many who were aiming at notoriety, and some who had it; many who looked contented with their lot, and some who actually were so. They met some who put on courtesy and grace with their kid gloves, and laid away those virtues in their glove-boxes afterwards; while to others the mere consciousness of kid gloves brought uneasiness, redness of the face, and a general impression of being all made of hands. They met the four white horses of an ex-harness-maker, and the superb harnesses of an ex- horse-dealer. Behind these came the gayest and most plebeian equipage of all, a party of journeymen carpenters returning from their work in a four-horse wagon. Their only fit compeers were an Italian opera-troupe, who were chatting and gesticulating on the piazza of the great hotel, and planning, amid jest and laughter, their future campaigns. Their work seemed like play, while the play around them seemed like work. Indeed, most people on the Avenue seemed to be happy in inverse ratio to their income list.
As our youths and maidens passed the hotel, a group of French naval officers strolled forth, some of whom had a good deal of inexplicable gold lace dangling in festoons from their shoulders,--"topsail halyards" the American midshipmen called them. Philip looked hard at one of these gentlemen.
"I have seen that young fellow before," said he, "or his twin brother. But who can swear to the personal identity of a Frenchman?"
