Pink and White Tyranny Part 21

"Over! I wish you would look at the bills. Why, Gracie! I had not the least idea, when I gave Lillie leave to get what she chose, what it would come to, with those people at her elbow, to put things into her head. I could not interfere, you know, after the thing was started; and I thought I would not spoil Lillie's pleasure, especially as I had to stand firm in not allowing wine. It was well I did; for if wine had been given, and taken with the reckless freedom that all the rest was, it might have ended in a general riot."

"As some of the great fas.h.i.+onable parties do, where young women get merry with champagne, and young men get drunk," said Grace.

"Well," said John, "I don't exactly like the whole turn of the way things have been going at our house lately. I don't like the influence of it on others. It is not in the line of the life I want to lead, and that we have all been trying to lead."

"Well," said Gracie, "things will be settled now quietly, I hope."

"I say," said John, "could not we start our little reading sociables, that were so pleasant last year? You know we want to keep some little pleasant thing going, and draw Lillie in with us. When a girl has been used to lively society, she can't come down to mere nothing; and I am afraid she will be wanting to rush off to New York, and visit the Follingsbees."

"Well," said Grace, "Let.i.tia and Rose were speaking the other day of that, and wanting to begin. You know we were to read Froude together, as soon as the evenings got a little longer."

"Oh, yes! that will be capital," said John.

"Do you think Lillie will be interested in Froude?" asked Grace.

"I really can't say," said John, with some doubting of heart; "perhaps it would be well to begin with something a little lighter at first."

"Any thing you please, John. What shall it be?"

"But I don't want to hold you all back on my account," said John.

"Well, then again, John, there's our old study-club. The Fergusons and Mr. Mathews were talking it over the other night, and wondering when you would be ready to join us. We were going to take up Lecky's 'History of Morals,' and have our sessions Tuesday evenings,--one Tuesday at their house, and the other at mine, you know."

"I should enjoy that, of all things," said John; "but I know it is of no use to ask Lillie: it would only be the most dreadful bore to her."

"And you couldn't come without her, of course," said Grace.

"Of course not; that would be too cruel, to leave the poor little thing at home alone."

"Lillie strikes me as being naturally clever," said Grace; "if she only would bring her mind to enter into your tastes a little, I'm sure you would find her capable."

"But, Gracie, you've no conception how very different her sphere of thought is, how entirely out of the line of our ways of thinking. I'll tell you," said John, "don't wait for me. You have your Tuesdays, and go on with your Lecky; and I will keep a copy at home, and read up with you. And I will bring Lillie in the evening, after the reading is over; and we will have a little music and lively talk, and a dance or charade, you know: then perhaps her mind will wake up by degrees."

SCENE.--_After tea in the Seymour parlor. John at a table, reading.

Lillie in a corner, embroidering_.

_Lillie_. "Look here, John, I want to ask you something."

_John_,--putting down his book, and crossing to her, "Well, dear?"

_Lillie_. "There, would you make a green leaf there, or a brown one?"

_John_,--endeavoring to look wise, "Well, a brown one."

_Lillie_. "That's just like you, John; now, don't you see that a brown one would just spoil the effect?"

"Oh! would it?" said John, innocently. "Well, what did you ask me for?"

"Why, you tiresome creature! I wanted you to say something. What are you sitting moping over a book for? You don't entertain me a bit."

"Dear Lillie, I have been talking about every thing I could think of,"

said John, apologetically.

"Well, I want you to keep on talking, and put up that great heavy book. What is it, any way?"

"Lecky's 'History of Morals,'" said John.

"How dreadful! do you really mean to read it?"

"Certainly; we are all reading it."

"Who all?"

"Why, Gracie, and Let.i.tia and Rose Ferguson."

"Rose Ferguson? I don't believe it. Why, Rose isn't twenty yet! She cannot care about such stuff."

"She does care, and enjoys it too," said John, eagerly.

"It is a pity, then, you didn't get her for a wife instead of me,"

said Lillie, in a tone of pique.

Now, this sort of thing does well enough occasionally, said by a pretty woman, perfectly sure of her ground, in the early days of the honey-moon; but for steady domestic diet is not to be recommended.

Husbands get tired of swearing allegiance over and over; and John returned to his book quietly, without reply. He did not like the suggestion; and he thought that it was in very poor taste. Lillie embroidered in silence a few minutes, and then threw down her work pettishly.

"How close this room is!"

John read on.

"John, do open the door!"

John rose, opened the door, and returned to his book.

"Now, there's that draft from the hall-window. John, you'll have to shut the door."

John shut it, and read on.

"Oh, dear me!" said Lillie, throwing herself down with a portentous yawn. "I do think this is dreadful!"

"What is dreadful?" said John, looking up.

"It is dreadful to be buried alive here in this gloomy town of Springdale, where there is nothing to see, and nowhere to go, and nothing going on."

"We have always flattered ourselves that Springdale was a most attractive place," said John. "I don't know of any place where there are more beautiful walks and rambles."

"But I detest walking in the country. What is there to see? And you get your shoes muddy, and burrs on your clothes, and don't meet a creature! I got so tired the other day when Grace and Rose Ferguson would drag me off to what they call 'the glen.' They kept oh-ing and ah-ing and exclaiming to each other about some stupid thing every step of the way,--old pokey nutgalls, bare twigs of trees, and red and yellow leaves, and ferns! I do wish you could have seen the armful of trash that those two girls carried into their respective houses. I would not have such stuff in mine for any thing. I am tired of all this talk about Nature. I am free to confess that I don't like Nature, and do like art; and I wish we only lived in New York, where there is something to amuse one."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "But I detest walking in the country."]