"'My mother bore me in the southern wild,And I am black, but oh, my soul is white!'"
Blanche smiled on him as though at last she had found someone who really understood her.
After luncheon we repaired to the piazza where Zebedee and the Judge could enjoy their cigars and the family guitar was produced at the instigation of the host, hoping to persuade the Judge to give us some of his fine old ballads. The Tucker guitar was something of a joke, as none of them could really play on it; but it was always kept in perfect order if not in perfect tune and placed in a conspicuous place. "Ready for an emergency if one should arise in anyone else," explained Dum. Dee could thrum out an accompaniment, if it happened to be a very simple one with only one or two changes. Dum knew part of the Spanish Fandango, learned from a teacher who had struggled with the family once when they had determined that a musical education wasnecessary. Zebedee, who had a very good voice and a true ear, could tell when the guitar was out of tune but never could tune it to his satisfaction; but when someone else got it in tune he could put up a very good imitation of following himself in his favourite song of "Danny Deever."
The Judge jumped to the instrument as a trout to a fly and held it with a loving embrace.
"Gad, Tucker, but this is a good guitar!" and with a practiced hand and ear he quickly had it in tune.
"Sing, do sing!" we pleaded.
"All right, I'll sing to all of you five girls if you will excuse an old man's faults. My voice is not what it used to be, but the heart is the same and
"'No matter what you do if your heart be true,And his heart was true to Poll.'
"This song I am going to sing is one I have always loved and it seems to be singularly appropriate for all of you young ladies, who, last night as I peeped into the ballroom, showed promise of what you might be. But this morning I find youback 'Where the brook and river meet.' I can't tell whether it is because of the absence of the gallant swains or a mere matter of rearrangement of tresses."
Harvie and Shorty had gone to the camp for luncheon and to go crabbing with the boys, which was rather a relief, as Dum declared we could not have boys all the time without getting bored. Certainly on the morning after the hop we were glad just to be little girls again and not have to play "lady come to see" for a while at least. Dear old Judge Grayson and Zebedee were singularly restful after the friskings of the youths, and Miss Cox very calming as she sat on the piazza, an exalted expression on her good face, stitching, stitching on wedding clothes. All of us had undertaken to help her but mighty botches I am afraid we made of it, all except Annie Pore. She could take tiny stitches if shown exactly where to put them, but she was afraid to take the initiative even in sewing. Dum could design patterns for embroidery and Dee could tie wonderful bows; Mary was great on button-holes; I could not even sew carpet rags together well enough to pass muster,but I was very willing and did my poor best.
In his high, sweet old tenor the Judge began to sing:
"'My love she's but a lassie yet,A lightsome, lovely lassie yet;It scarce wad doTo sit and wooDown by the stream sae glassy yet."'But there's a braw time coming yet,When we may gang a-roaming yet;An' hint wi' gleeO' joys to be,When fa's the modest gloaming yet."'She's neither proud nor saucy yet,She's neither plump nor gaucy yet;But just a jinking,Bonny blinking,Hilty-skilty lassie yet."'But O, her artless smile's mair sweetThen hinny or than marmalete;An' right or wrang,Ere it be lang,I'll bring her to a parley yet."'I'm jealous o' what blesses her,The very breeze that kisses her,The flowery bedsOn which she treads,Though wae for ane that misses her."'Then O, to meet my lassie yetUp in yon glen sae grassy yet;For all I seeAre naught to me,Save her that's but a lassie yet.'"
All of us sat very quietly as the old man finished his quaint, sweet song. Zebedee looked very shiny-eyed and I rather guessed he was thinking of his Tweedles, although he did look at me. I fancy he knew that I understood him and his anxiety about his dear girls. It is no joke to be the father of sixteen-year-old twins and only about thirty-six yourself. Dum and Dee were developing very rapidly and they had looked so grown-up at the hop and had conducted themselves so like young ladies that their anxious parent was troubled for fear their womanhood was upon him. He would rather see them romping hoydens than the sedate young ladies they seemed to be turning into. No wonder he had tipped Blanche with the shiny fifty-cent piece. Had she not put his mind at rest for the time being at least? They were certainly girlish enough looking on that day, even boyish looking as theycrowded each other out of the hammock, both intent on getting the middle.
"That's fine, Judge, give us another!" begged Zebedee, but the bard insisted upon Miss Cox's putting down her sewing and singing; and then Annie Pore must give us Annie Laurie; and so the lazy afternoon passed with songs and many good stories drawn from our guest by the tactful Zebedee.
Judge Grayson just naturally loved horses and next to being with them was talking about them. He had many delightful stories to tell of horses he had known and horses he had owned. He insisted that no horse was naturally vicious but always ruined in some way by its trainer, and no horse was irretrievably ruined if just the right person could get hold of it and by kindness bring it to reason. I had always felt that and of course this theory appealed to Dee, who thought much worse of humanity than animality, as she called it.
"The first horse I ever owned was the first horse I ever loved and he was in a way the best horse I ever owned," said the Judge, addressing his remarks to Dee who was all attention. "Dobbinwas the very ordinary name for a very extraordinary horse. My father gave him to me when I was six years old. I say gave him to me but what really occurred was that I was presented to Dobbin. For if ever man was owned by an animal, Dobbin owned me. He was an old circus horse and his intelligence was far beyond that of the average human. He was milk white with pink nostrils and eyes, a real Albino, in fact. His legs were perfectly formed, his head small and very well shaped, his back broad and flat as though especially made for bare-back riding. If you fell off him it was your own fault, and no more was he to be blamed than a bed that you happen to roll out of. Indeed his gaits were so smooth that you might easily go to sleep on him. His temper was perfect and his character very decided and firm. He knew exactly what he wanted to do and he also knew that his judgment was much better than a child's. I shall never forget the first time I got on his back. My father was going to have me taught to ride by our old coachman, but in the meantime I was given the duty and pleasure of feeding my horse myself. Ihad only owned him a day and already I would have foundered him on oats if it had not been for his own superior intelligence and judgment. He ate what he considered proper and then deliberately turned over the bucket and puffed and blew and pawed until even the chickens had a hard time pecking up the scattered grain."
And here the old man laughed and took another cigar Zebedee offered him, pausing in his narrative while he bit off the end and lit it.
"But how about the first time you rode him?" demanded Dee.
"I'm coming to that. He was a very high horse, was Dobbin, so high that it was a tall mount for a grown man and of course it was seemingly impossible for a little boy to climb up on such a mountain, but get up I did. My father came out on the gallery and there I was as proud as Punch perched on the broad back of my snow-white steed. 'You rascal!' he shouted. 'Who put you up there?' 'Dobbin put me here,' I answered, and so he had, but my father could not believe it until Dobbin and I demonstrated the fact for him. I slid down the shapely leg of my circus horseand then he lowered his head and I nimbly climbed up his neck and landed safely on his back. I can still hear my father laugh and then all the household was called out to witness this great feat, and my mother brought out sugar to feed my pet. She pulled down his head and whispered in his ear, 'Be careful of my boy, Dobbin! I am going to trust him to you, do you understand?' and Dobbin whinnied an answer and blew in my mother's hair with his pink nostrils. After that he felt that he was a kind of nurse for me and he certainly did make me walk chalk," and the old man chuckled in delighted memory.
"Tell us more about him," pleaded Dee. "He must have been darling."
"Well, sometimes he was right annoying. For instance, he saw to it that I minded my black mammy. One of Mammy's rules was that I could play in the mud all I wanted to in the morning, but in the afternoon when I was dressed in my clean linen shirt and little white piquet pants, I had to keep clean. The mud attracted me as much in the afternoon as morning, and sometimes I would lose track of time and would begin tomix my delectable pies in spite of my spotless attire. Do you know that old horse many and many a time has come up behind me and gently but firmly caught me by my collar or the seat of my breeches, whichever presented itself handiest, and after giving me a little shake put me out of temptation? He never was known to do it in the morning when I was in my blue jean jumpers. Why, that horse knew morning from afternoon and jeans from white linen. He was a great disciplinarian, I can tell you. My mother would let me go anywhere just so Dobbin was of the party. She knew perfectly well he would take care of me. Had he not told her so as plainly as a horse could speak, and that is pretty plain to those who understand horse talk."
Dee nodded approval and muttered: "Dog talk, too!"
"We had an old basket phaeton with a rumble (they don't make them now-a-days) and in the afternoon in summer my sister and I would hitch up old Dobbin and go off for a picnic in the beech woods. Sam, my body servant and private property, perched in the rumble and Dilsey, mysister's maid, crouched at our feet. Dobbin would jog along until he found what he considered a suitable spot for a picnic and then he would stop, and no matter how we felt about it, out we had to get. Nothing would budge Dobbin. He would look at us and whinny as much as to say that he had forgotten more about picnic places than we could ever hope to know and no doubt he was right.
"He usually stopped at a very nice spot where there was plenty of shade and a spring and maybe some luscious blue grass for him to nibble at. He was never tied but allowed to roam at his own sweet will. When the shadows lengthened, he would turn the phaeton around, with his nose headed for home, and as the sun touched the horizon he would send forth a warning neigh, gentle at first but if his voice was not hearkened to, more peremptory and then quite sharp. He would give us about five minutes and then he would start for home. I tell you there would be scrambling then to get in the phaeton, as none of us relished the thought of walking home, getting in late to supper and making the necessary explanations tothe grown-ups. One time Dilsey almost got left, having loitered behind in a fit of stubbornness. 'I's plum wo' out wif dis here brute beas' a bossin' er me!' she panted as she clambered over the wheel and sank on the floor of the phaeton. 'Ef'n he was mine I'd lay him out.' With that ole Dobbin turned his head around in the shafts, looked sternly at the girl, and deliberately switched her with his tail until she cried out for mercy, 'Lawsamussy, Marse Dobbin, I's jes a foolin',' and then that old horse gave a whinny more like laughing than anything you ever heard and trotted peacefully home."
The old man stopped and shook the ashes from his cigar. "Yes, yes, I loved that old horse as much as I did Mammy, and God knows Mammy was next to my parents in my affection. Not have souls! Why, I as firmly believe I am going to meet Dobbin when I cross the river as I am Mammy."
At that, Dee Tucker got up out of the hammock and went over and hugged and kissed the old Judge, and Zebedee and Dum both wiped the tears from their eyes. I felt like it, too, but thentears are not mine to command as they are the Tuckers'.
Certainly the Judge had touched us all with his story. I wanted to ask him more about Dobbin but I was afraid the next thing would be Dobbin's death, as he must have been old when he was presented to the little boy, and somehow I felt none of us could bear up over the dear old horse's death. It must have been more than sixty years since those picnics in the beech woods, but you felt that in Judge Grayson's mind it was but as yesterday.
AN AXE TO GRIND.
Harvie and Shorty came in that afternoon with a great basket of crabs for supper and countenances like boiled lobsters. Sunburn is as much a part of the seashore as sand and water, and sometimes it is even more in evidence. You can escape from the sand and water by going indoors and pulling down the blinds, but your sunburned nose you have to take with you.
The boys also brought the mail, a letter for Annie and one for me. My letter contained the bad news that my dear father could not come to the beach, after all, as Sally Winn was trying in dead earnest to die, and could not do it without Dr. Allison. Annie's letter had, I am ashamed to say, not such very good news, either, as it said that Mr. Pore had decided to come to Willoughby for a few days. We girls secretly dreaded this visit. We could not help knowingthat Mr. Pore was very stiff and strait-laced, and we feared the effect he might have on poor little Annie. Annie was having such a good time and it did seem a pity to interrupt it.
"I do wish Zebedee would not be so promiscuous with his invitations," stormed Dum, who was escorting me as far as the hotel where I was going to pay a duty call on Cousin Park. "He was certainly not called on to ask this old dried-up Englishman down here. He could have been polite without being so effusive. It is going to ruin things for Annie, I just know."
"Maybe it won't," I suggested, speaking for moderation that I did not feel. "Harvie Price says he is a very cultivated, interesting man."
"Oh, yes, I know the kind! I bet you he says position for job; and rabble for mob; retires when he goes to bed; and arises when he gets up; calls girls, maidens; women, females; ladies, gentlewomen; birds, feathered songsters; and dogs, canines. Ugh! I just know he is going to be a wet blanket."
"Well, Dum, your father got on with him andseemed to like him very much. Maybe we can hit it off with him, too."
"Oh, that's nothing! Zebedee can get on with human oysters and clams and make animated pokers unbend. Why, that young father of ours is such a mixer he could even make ice cream and crabs agree. But that's no sign that Annie's paternal parent is not going to be a difficult guest. If it only had been dear Dr. Allison coming instead!"
I agreed with her there, but I tried to make impulsive, hot-headed Dum feel that the best thing we could do was to try to see the good in Mr. Pore for Annie's sake if not for his own. I was dying to tell her of the interesting things that Annie had divulged to me about her family, but a confidence is a confidence and must be respected as such. For my part, it seemed foolish to keep such an item as being kin to the nobility so strictly a secret. I don't believe that many Virginians would feel that being granddaughter to a baronet and great-granddaughter to an earl, something to be hid under a bushel. I fancy that Annie felt her clothes and general mannerof living to be rather incongruous to such greatness.
We found Cousin Park ensconsed on the porch in a steamer chair, knitting an ugly grey shawl with purple scallops, while Mabel Binks, who had returned from her expedition to Newport News with Wink, danced attendance on the pompous lady.
"I bet she's got an axe to grind!" muttered Dum. "What do you fancy Mabel wants to get out of your cousin?"
"I can't imagine, but I'll take my hat off to her if she gets it," I laughed. "Please come on and call with me. I can't face Mabel and Cousin Park at the same time," I begged Dum, and she good-naturedly complied, although I know she hated it.
Cousin Park greeted us with what was meant to be a cordial manner, and Mabel was almost effusive as she got us chairs and took upon herself to do the honours of the hotel porch.
"I rather expected you this morning, Page," said Cousin Park, looking over her spectacles at me. This habit of my relative of looking overher spectacles at you would have made a person as mild as a May morning appear fierce, and its effect on Cousin Park's far from mild countenance was disconcerting in the extreme; but I did not feel nearly so uncomfortable with her as I had heretofore. Had I not seen her tap Judge Grayson with her turkey-tail fan, and listen with a pleasure that seemed almost human to the old man's recitation of the poem?
"We slept so late after the dance that there was no time to do anything this morning, and then Judge Grayson came to luncheon and that kept us all the early part of the afternoon. I also had a letter to write today."
"Ah, a very pleasant, well-mannered man, the Judge," said Cousin Park. "The legal profession should be proud of such a representative." Dum and I smothered a giggle at this, as Zebedee had confided to us that our charming old friend was only judge by courtesy. We said nothing, however. Far be it from us to lessen his dignity by one jot or tittle.
"We are to have another guest tomorrow," broke in Dum, in order to change the subjectfrom Judge Grayson's doubtful legal rights. "Mr. Pore, Annie's father, is coming to visit us."
Mrs. Garnett snorted and Mabel's lip curled, but they said nothing to Dum. However, the minute my friend left us, which she did after a moment to speak to an acquaintance she spied at the other end of the long porch, their eloquence was opened up on me.
"I can't see why Jeffry Tucker should ask such a man to stay in the house with an Allison. I am told he is nothing but a little country store-keeper, just the commonest kind of Englishman, lower middle class, no doubt. It is bad enough to have his daughter, although she is very pretty and seems well mannered; but such acquaintances that cannot be continued in later life should be discouraged. I never did approve of your going to Gresham, but Sue Lee, with the democratic notions that she has picked up in Washington, insisted that it would be best for you to make a wide acquaintance. I thought a select home school where there were accommodations for very few girls would be much more desirable. One would at least know who the persons wereyou were meeting and you would be spared such embarrassing situations as you are now finding yourself in. I think you had better excuse yourself and come to the hotel and visit me. I could take you in my room without much inconvenience to myself."
"Thank you, Cousin Park! I would not inconvenience you even a little bit for the world, nor would I leave my friends until my visit with them is finished. Annie Pore is as much my friend as she is the Tuckers', and I love her dearly and have found her a perfect lady on all occasions. Mr. Tucker is acquainted with Mr. Pore and his judgment as to who is a suitable person to introduce to us is to be relied on implicitly. Mr. Pore is not a common Englishman at all but a very cultivated, highly-educated gentleman." How I did long to spring Sir Isaac Pore and the Earl of Garth on them! There are times when I wish I did not have such a keen sense of honour. It certainly does restrict your actions and words at very inconvenient moments.
"He may be educated but hardly a gentleman," said Cousin Park, dropping stitches in her indignation."One would hardly find a gentleman weighing out lard and drawing kerosene from a barrel for his darkey customers, and that is what Miss Binks tells me this Pore is accustomed to do."
"Ah!" I thought, "I fancied I could see Mabel Binks' fine Italian hand in this. She has never forgiven Annie since the Seniors gave her a cheer when she arrived at Gresham, all because the shy little English girl stood up for herself and downed the dashing Mabel with the retort courteous."
"I quite agree with you, Mrs. Garnett, about Gresham's being entirely too democratic. My mother was shocked when I told her of some of the ordinary looking, badly dressed girls Miss Peyton had allowed to enter. It used to be quite select. I am glad I am through. I am dying to come out this next winter," continued Mabel. "Richmond society is so charming. I envy these girls who can come out there. I have a cousin who lives there but she is not one bit sociable and it is not very much fun to visit her." I was beginning to see Mabel's axe as her grinding was quite evident.
"I shall be glad to have you visit me," said Cousin Park. "I have not chaperoned a girl for some years, but no doubt I could make you have a very nice time."
"Oh, how lovely of you!" and Mabel's expression was indeed triumphant as she picked up Cousin Park's ball of purple yarn and restored it to that lady's rather precarious lap. I could have told Mabel that it was not such a sweet boon as she fancied: to visit the grand Garnett mansion. I thought of Jeremiah, the blue-gummed butler, with his solemn air of officiating at a funeral; of the oiled walnut furniture with its heavy uncomfortable carving, sure to hit you in the small of the back if you sought repose in one of the stiff hair cloth covered chairs, or to find a tender place on your shins when you passed a bureau or bed. I thought of the interminable, heavy dinners: roast mutton and starchy vegetables topped off with plum pudding or something equally rich and filling. I could fancy the line of family portraits, hung high against the ceiling, looking their disapproval at the far from dignified Mabel and plainly showing their wondermentthat she should have found her way into their august presence.
Those old portraits will little dream how much Mabel had fetched and carried for that invitation; how many cushions she had arranged and rearranged behind the plump back of the present owner of the portraits; how many tiresome moments she had spent holding the skeins of grey and purple yarn for Mrs. Garnett to wind her fat knitting balls. She had also gathered bits of pleasing gossip to retail to the willing ear of my relative. Cousin Park was the type ever ready and delighted to be scandalized. The day after the sail that we had spent in dough masks, Mabel had evidently spent in the mask of a lively, agreeable, obliging girl, doing everything in her power to make herself attractive to her possible hostess. Success was hers! A long visit in Richmond in her debutante winter with one of the wealthiest members of society meant a good deal to that young lady. Mabel's mother belonged to a very good family but her father's name, Binks, is enough to show that at least he was not of the F. F. V's. Wink White, who was a cousin ofMrs. Binks, had confided to me that he rather preferred Mr. Binks to Mrs.
"The fact that she married old Binks for his money and now is ashamed of him shows about what kind Cousin Florence is," he had said.
Having said all I could say in defense of Mr. Pore, and having played so well into Mabel's hands that, by giving her a chance to agree so readily and heartily with Cousin Park, her invitation had come much more easily than she had dared to hope, I felt sure, I now took my departure with Dum. It should have made no difference to me how many visits Mabel Binks would pay in Richmond, but it did. I well knew what her game was there: she was determined to attract Mr. Jeffry Tucker, and had been from the moment she had seen him at Gresham, when he took Tweedles there to enter them at school. I well knew that Zebedee gave her not a moment's thought, but if she pursued him enough he might change his mind about her. She was certainly handsome and quite bright and entertaining. Tweedles would not be there to protect their young father and he was but human, very human,in fact. I felt depressed on the way back to our cottage, so much so that Dum noticed it and begged me to cheer up.
"Your cousin is enough to make you blue, but remember that everyone has some scrubby kin. Just think of poor Annie and what oceans of spirits we will have to produce to drown her sorrow and depression when her respected parent arrives!"
I threw off my gloom the best I could and let Dum go on thinking it was Cousin Park who had cast the spell over me. I knew quite well that if I even hinted at Mabel and her machinations, Tweedles would refuse to go back to Gresham but stay in Richmond all winter to guard their precious Zebedee.
MR. ARTHUR PONSONBY PORE.
Mr. Pore was much more attractive than we had expected. Things in this life hardly ever come up to your expectations, either good or bad, which sounds as though I were still brooding over Mabel's proposed visit to Cousin Park and the possible enthralling of Zebedee. I remind myself of the Irishman who had raised a particularly fat pig from which he expected to realize great wealth. He took it to town on market day to sell. On the way home he met a neighbour who genially inquired:
"And how mooch did your pig be after weighing, Paddy?"
"Not as mooch as I thart it would,—and I thart it wouldn't," added Paddy pessimistically.
In the first place, Mr. Pore was handsome. He had a stately dignity and an aristocratic bearing that all the weighing of lard and drawing ofmolasses in the world could not lessen. His forehead was intellectual; his eyes piercing; his nose aquiline and rather haughty; his mouth a little petulant with a pathetic droop at the corners; and his chin (rather indicative of his character, I fancy, and explaining why he was keeping a country store at Price's Landing instead of taking that place in the world to which by birth and education he was entitled), his chin decidedly receded. In doing so, however, it gave you to understand that it retreated in good order and was unconvinced. I mean that it had that stubborn look that receding chins sometimes do have. After all, stubbornness was the key-note of Mr. Pore's character, rather than weakness. I had gathered that much from what Annie had divulged to me that night at Gresham when she had opened the box with her dead mother's dress in it and found the note from her mother, with the twenty-five dollars pinned in the sleeve.
He was dressed in what books call decent black. Certainly there was nothing about him to make anyone doubt he was a perfect gentleman, even had they been unaware of the fact that only onelife stood between him and a title. He was so excessively English that it was hard to believe that he had spent the last fifteen years in a little settlement on the James River, never hearing his native tongue in all that time, perhaps. Our spoken language was very different from his, although I have heard it said that Virginians and Kentuckians and Bostonians come nearer to speaking the real English than any other Americans. We may come nearer than others but we are still far off from the kind of English that Mr. Arthur Ponsonby Pore spoke. I thought of Cousin Park and her "lower middle class" to which she had consigned the gentleman, and wished that he might just once look at her and Mabel through the goldpince nezthat straddled his aristocratic, aquiline nose!
Zebedee had gone over to Norfolk to meet his guest, and under his genial influence I fancy Mr. Pore had somewhat melted; but his demeanor was still rather icy. He went through the introduction to Miss Cox and all of us girls as though it had been a court ceremony, and then turning to Annie, he gave her a little Arthur Ponsonby peckin lieu of a kiss. Shaking his hand, Dee declared was like grasping an old pump handle when the sucker is worn out. You take hold thinking you are to meet with some resistance, but instead, the handle flies up and you find yourself foolishly shaking it up and down with no chance of getting any returns for your trouble. The Tuckers were famous hand-shakers, as all their friends knew, but doubtless Mr. Pore was unprepared for such a vigorous grasp from young ladies.
I found nothing to complain of in his manner of greeting me. Not being such a hearty hand-shaker as Tweedles, I put my hand in his and left him to do the shaking. This he did not do, but he gave my hand a slight pressure and gazed earnestly into my eyes. So earnest and burning was his glance that I felt almost confused, but I thought that no doubt Annie had told him of her confiding in me about her birth and he felt some interest because of her affection for me.
As we took our seats on the porch, Mr. Pore's chair was by mine and still he gazed at me with his piercing, melancholy eyes.
"Did I hear your name aright? Was it not Miss Page Allison?"
"Yes, sir! I am Annie's friend from Gresham. We have been intimate from the day we entered school."
"Yes, yes! I know much of you and your courtesy. But tell me, Miss Allison, are you American?" (His American was so different from ours one could almost spell it A-m-e-h-r-i-k-e-n.)
"Yes, Mr. Pore, I am American, but my mother was English."
"Ah! I thought as much. Her name was Lucy Page, was it not?"
"Yes," I answered, wondering at his knowledge of my mother's name.
"Oh, Page! Page! Only think of it!" exclaimed Annie impulsively. "Lucy Page was my mother's little friend, the one who lent her the slippers to wear to the Charity Bazaar," and her enthusiasm went unrebuked by her father. Indeed, he seemed almost as excited as Annie. The poor man had been a long time away from persons who knew him and whom he knew and he had the absurd notion that very few "Amehrikens" werehis social equal; now he found that his daughter had made friends with the child of his wife's old friend.
"To think of it, to think of it! My word, but it is strange! I knew the moment I saw you that I had seen either you or your counterpart before. Tell me, child, all about your mother, and your grandfather, Major Page. What a fine old soldier he was!"
And so I sat on the porch by this strange, stiff Englishman, no longer stiff, but positively limber, Dum declared, and told all I knew of my poor little mother and the fine old soldier, her father. They had come to America to look up some investments made by the retired Army officer, had settled near Warrenton and there had met my father,—and the marriage had ensued.
"All I have left of my old English grandfather is his hat-tub, which I still use when I am at Bracken," I said.
"My word, how I should like to own one! I have not seen a hat-tub for twenty years," he sighed. "But tell me, Miss Allison, do you neversee nor hear from your mother's family in England?"
"I think all correspondence with them died a natural death many years ago. Father used to write once a year to a great-aunt, Gwendoline was her name, but she died; after that some of her daughters wrote once or twice and then stopped. I don't even know whether they are alive and I fancy they neither know nor care whether I am."
"I have never seen a more striking likeness than you have to your mother. She was much younger than my wife when I knew her. We had all been visiting at the home of the Earl of Garth, my wife's uncle. Little Lucy Page was really not old enough to be out of the nursery, certainly should have been in charge of a governess; but Major Page had his own ideas about such things and took his daughter wherever he went. She was about sixteen, I fancy."
"Just your age!" tweedled the Tuckers, who had been listening, with open mouths and eyes, in speechless silence to Mr. Pore's revelations. When he spoke of the Earl of Garth as his wife'suncle they looked, as poor dear Blanche expressed it, "fittin' to bust." And then when in the most casual manner he let drop that his own father was a baronet, I know it was a relief to them that the hammock rope broke at the crucial moment and they were precipitated to the floor with Mary Flannagan who was between them.
"If something had not happened and happened pretty quick 'a kersplosion was eminent,'" whispered Dee to me. "And now I am going to beat it to the hotel as fast as my legs can carry me and let that hateful Mabel Binks know that she has been nasty to the nobility. Oh, I am going to be tactful and not let her know I came for the express purpose. I am going to ask her to tea and be generally sweet, and then just casually let it drop that Mr. Pore knew your mother while all of them were visiting at an earl's, and that said earl was Mrs. Pore's uncle. I'll rub in that it means that our modest, little English friend, called by Mabel and her ilk Orphan Annie, is the great-granddaughter of an earl on her mother's side and the granddaughter of a baronet on her father's."
All this Dee whispered to me while the hammock was being tied up more securely by Zebedee. The solemn Englishman was evidently much amused by the mishap, as he laughed in a manner almost hilarious for one so dignified and sober. I have always heard an accident like that spoken of as an English joke, and truly it did seem to strike him as very funny.
Harvie Price and Shorty made their appearance soon after. Harvie greeted Mr. Pore with great respect and in a few moments they were conversing most affably about Harvie's grandfather, General Price, and news of the settlement.
Mr. Pore seemed to like the boy and Harvie evidently liked him. Once he had told me that he admired Mr. Pore greatly as one who could think in Latin.
It was easy to see that Mr. Pore was not going to be such a difficult visitor, after all. He had evidently decided that we were good enough socially for him, because of my mother's having been at the Earl of Garth's. He had already admitted Harvie to his exclusive circle since he hadpermitted Annie to play with him when they were children. He liked Zebedee and Zebedee's cigars and Zebedee's children, who cracked such delicious jokes in falling out of hammocks. Altogether he intended to have a very pleasant weekend. I fancied he was a little sorry that he had spoken of his connections, as it was a subject he evidently had not touched on to strangers, but it had slipped out in his delight in meeting someone he considered of his world, that world that he had turned his back on so many years before but the world to which he still belonged. He had never identified himself with his "Amehriken" neighbours and had always held himself as an alien among them.
Annie looked a little startled and very happy. This was a new father to her, a genial gentleman who actually talked to her friends and admitted having titled connections in the old country. He had not censured her once and now he was talking to Harvie with actual affability.
"Oh, Page," she whispered to me, "how glad I am I accepted your slippers that night of the musicale at Gresham. You remember I said toyou that my mother had borrowed slippers, too, when she had worn that dress, and that she did not mind borrowing them because she knew her friend loved her. To think of that friend's being your mother! Oh, Page, I am so happy!"
THE MACHINATIONS OF MABEL.
Dee must have laid it on rather thick with Mabel Binks, as anything like that young woman's change of manner towards Annie could not have been brought about by a light touch. I am afraid Dee represented Mr. Pore's brother, the present baronet, as in the last stages of some wasting disease, and by some juggling of facts in regard to English titles gave the impression that Annie was in a fair way to become the Duchess of Marlborough or at least the Honourable Anne. She afterwards told Dum and me when we accused her of not having drawn it mild, that she had neglected to tell Mabel the exact connection with the earl, but had hinted that it was very close and one likely to lead to untold honours to our little friend.
"I saw to it that your haughty relative, Mrs. Garnett, was informed of the coincidence of Annie'smother and your mother being friends and of their being at the house party of the big bugs together. Mrs. Garnett was duly impressed and somewhat astonished, intimating that her cousin, Dr. Allison, had picked up an English wife with no connections to speak of. She will evidently have a higher opinion of you now that she knows that your mother and grandfather were on visiting terms with an earl."
Dee pretended to be in jest about Cousin Park, but it was the truth that she had always rather looked down on my mother for not being Virginian. She never lost the chance to inform any stranger when I was introduced that my name was not the Virginia Pages. With her, F. F. V's were the first and last and only families worth considering in the Union or out of it. Of course, English nobility was in a way admirable, since it had given birth to F. F. V.dom, but the claim of inhabitants of any other state to aristocracy was brushed aside with scornful disdain.
I remember a story my father used to tell of an old gentleman who said he considered it very bad taste to ask any man where he came from."If he is a Virginian, he is sure to let you know it without your asking, and if he is not, there is no use in rubbing it in on the poor fellow by making him own up to it."
Mabel's being invited to supper was a question that had been discussed up and down by the Tuckers, principally down; but they had finally determined that it was on the whole up to them. Dee had been appointed inviter as being the tactful member of the team, and Mabel naturally jumped at the chance, overlooking the fact that she did not consider us properly chaperoned.
Her politeness and cordiality to Annie were entirely unlooked for by that shy maiden, who almost fainted from astonishment; and she actually gushed over Mr. Pore. He looked at her for a moment through his ultra gold glasses and then, deciding that she was nothing but a vulgar "Amehriken," he never seemed to see her again, although he was forced to hear her very often. She addressed many remarks to him and tried in every way to make him notice her, but an "Aw, reahly!" was about all she could get from him.
"I simply adore the English!" she exclaimed."They have so much reserve. Do you know, my grandfather Binks was English, and indeed he never lost his accent although he lived in this country for a great many years. I remember so well how he dropped his aitches and put them on in the most unexpected places."
"Aw, reahly now!"
"Aren't you and your sweet daughter going back to England soon? You don't know how we dote on your little Annie," and so on and so on, until it was indeed sickening. It was easy to see that Miss Binks was as anxious to get an invitation to England as she had been to Richmond, while Mr. Pore was entirely unconscious of what she was driving at. He looked upon her as some kind of escaped lunatic and Annie sat in open-eyed wonderment, expecting every moment to be insulted as of yore.
They did not dream of Dee's having turned the tables on Mabel Binks as she had done. Mr. Pore was still the country store-keeper and Annie was the same shy girl with her wardrobe as limited as ever, but the wily Dee had turned them into dukes and duchesses in Mabel's eyes, and thesnobbish creature was grovelling at the feet of the nobility. I have never seen two persons have as much fun as Tweedles did that evening. They were very quiet but spent the time "sicking Mabel on," as Dee expressed it.
I was pleased to see that Annie did not unbend in the least to her one-time persecutor. In spite of Annie's shyness she had a dignity that was most admirable; and while she was perfectly polite to Mabel, she permitted no advances. Getting invitations to England to visit in grand country houses that still belong to older brothers was certainly up-hill work. Winding purple and grey yarn for Mrs. Garnett and fetching and carrying for her, even agreeing with her at every point, was child's play to this thing of flattering a middle-aged Englishman who seemed to have no conversation at his command but "Aw, reahly!" or "My word!" and trying to undo the work of the last year and make a little English girl forget all the rudeness she had suffered at the hands of her persistent tormentor.
I kept wondering how about the lard and molasses that the middle-aged Englishman wouldperhaps spend the rest of his life weighing out and drawing from the barrel for his negro customers as well as white; also if Mrs. Binks would still think Gresham too democratic in the class of pupils it enrolled. I so naturally hate a snob that I did not have a pleasant evening at all, and I could not quite see the fun in it that Tweedles did.
I was glad when it was over and we could stretch out on our cots with the pure sea air blowing on us, and, lulled by the soothing sound of the waves lapping the shore, sleep the sleep of the just. We could be thankful, at least, that Mabel Binks was, after all, none of us and when we left Willoughby Beach we might never have to see her again.
As we lay side by side, all of us so quiet that one would have thought sleep held us fast, there was a sudden upheaval from Mary's cot and a sound that might have been sobbing.
"Mary! Mary! What is it?" we demanded. "Are you ill?" And then the possible sobs turned into unmistakable giggles.
"Oh! Oh! Oh! I can't get to sleep for thinkingof Mr. Pore's countenance when Mabel told him of her Binks grandfather who dropped his aitches." Then we all went off into shrieks of laughter that very little would have turned into hysterics, if Zebedee had not knocked sternly on our dressing-room door and bade us remember that we had other guests. Of course he meant we must not do anything to make Mr. Pore think we were not perfect ladies, so we subsided with only an occasional upheaval and a smothered snicker.
And while we lay there I thought of a title for a short story and almost got a plot worked out; but I went to sleep before it was quite clear. The title was: "The Machinations of Mabel."