Home as Found, James Fenimore Cooper [bookreader txt] 📗

that, did the school to which she

belonged infinite credit,--

 

"You speak, sir, like one having experience."

 

"Certainly, Miss; I have been in love ever since I was ten years old;

I may say I was born in love, and hope to die in love."

 

This a little out-Heroded Herod, but the _belle_ was not a person to

be easily daunted on such a subject. She smiled graciously,

therefore, and continued the conversation with renewed spirit.

 

"You travelled gentleman get odd notions," she said, "and more

particularly on such subjects. I always feel afraid to discuss them

with foreigners, though with my own countrymen I have few reserves.

Pray, Mr. Truck, are you satisfied with America?--Do you find it the

country you expected to see?"

 

"Certainly, marm;" for so they pronounced this word in the river, and

the captain cherished his first impressions; "when we sailed from

Portsmouth. I expected that the first land we should make would be

the Highlands of Navesink; and, although a little disappointed, I

have had the satisfaction of laying eyes on it at last."

 

"Disappointment, I fear, is the usual fate of those who come from the

other side. Is this dwelling of Mrs. Houston's equal to the residence

of an English nobleman, Mr. Bragg?"

 

"Considerably better, Miss, especially in the way of republican

comfort."

 

Miss Ring, like all _belles_, detested the word republican, their

vocation being clearly to exclusion, and she pouted a little

affectedly.

 

"I should distrust the quality of such comfort, sir," she said, with

point; "but, are the rooms at all comparable with the rooms in Apsley

House, for instance?"

 

"My dear Miss, Apsley House is a toll-gate lodge, compared to this

mansion! I doubt if there be a dwelling in all England half as

magnificent--indeed, I cannot imagine any thing more brilliant and

rich."

 

Aristabulus was not a man to do things by halves, and it was a point

of honour with him to know something of every thing. It is true he no

more could tell where Apsley House is, or whether it was a tavern or

a gaol, than he knew half the other things on which he delivered

oracular opinions; but when it became necessary to speak, he was not

apt to balk conversation from any ignorance, real or affected. The

opinion he had just given, it is true, had a little surpassed Miss

Ring's hopes; for the next thing, in her ambition to being a _belle_,

and of "entertaining" gentlemen, was to fancy she was running her

brilliant career in an orbit of fashion that lay parallel to that of

the "nobility and gentry" of Great Britain.

 

"Well, this surpasses my hopes," she said, "although I was aware we

are nearly on a level with the more improved tastes of Europe: still,

I thought we were a little inferior to that part of the world, yet."

 

"Inferior, Miss! That is a word that should never pass your lips; you

are inferior to nothing, whether in Europe or America, Asia or

Africa."

 

As Miss Ring had been accustomed to do most of the flattering

herself, as behoveth a _belle_, she began to be disconcerted with the

directness of the compliments of Aristabulus, who was disposed to

'make hay while the sun shines;' and she turned, in a little

confusion, to the captain, by way of relief; we say confusion, for

the young lady, although so liable to be misunderstood, was not

actually impudent, but merely deceived in the relations of things;

or, in other words, by some confusion in usages, she had hitherto

permitted herself to do that in society, which female performers

sometimes do on the stage; enact the part of a man.

 

"You should tell Mr. Bragg, sir," she said, with an appealing look at

the captain, "that flattery is a dangerous vice, and one altogether

unsuited to a Christian."

 

"It is, indeed, marm, and one that I never indulge in. No one under

my orders, can accuse me of flattery."

 

By 'under orders,' Miss Ring understood curates and deacons; for she

was aware the church of England had clerical distinctions of this

sort, that are unknown in America.

 

"I hope, sir, you do not intend to quit this country without

favouring us with a discourse."

 

"Not I, marm--I am discoursing pretty much from morning till night,

when among my own people, though I own that this conversing rather

puts me out of my reckoning. Let me get my foot on the planks I love,

with an attentive audience, and a good cigar in my mouth, and I'll

hold forth with any bishop in the universe."

 

"A cigar!" exclaimed Miss Ring, in surprise. "Do gentlemen of your

profession use cigars when on duty!"

 

"Does a parson take his fees? Why, Miss, there is not a man among us,

who does not smoke from morning till night."

 

"Surely not on Sundays!"

 

"Two for one, on those days, more than on any other."

 

"And your people, sir, what do they do, all this time?'

 

"Why, marm, most of them chew; and those that don't, if they cannot

find a pipe, have a dull time of it. For my part, I shall hardly

relish the good place itself, if cigars are prohibited."

 

Miss Ring was surprised; but she had heard that the English clergy

were more free than our own, and then she had been accustomed to

think every thing English of the purest water. A little reflection

reconciled her to the innovation; and the next day, at a dinner

party, she was heard defending the usage as a practice that had a

precedent in the ancient incense of the altar. At the moment,

however, she was dying to impart her discoveries to others; and she

kindly proposed to the captain and Aristabulus to introduce them to

some of her acquaintances, as they must find it dull, being

strangers, to know no one. Introductions and cigars were the

captain's hobbies, and he accepted the offer with joy, Aristabulus

uniting cordially in the proposition, as, he fancied he had a right,

under the Constitution of the United States of America, to be

introduced to every human being with whom he came in contact.

 

It is scarcely necessary to say how much the party with whom the two

neophytes in fashion had come, enjoyed all this, though they

concealed their amusement under the calm exterior of people of the

world. From Mr. Effingham the mystification was carefully concealed

by his cousin, as the former would have felt it due to Mrs. Houston,

a well-meaning, but silly woman, to put an end to it. Eve and Grace

laughed, as merry girls would be apt to laugh, at such an occurrence,

and they danced the remainder of the evening with lighter hearts than

ever. At one, the company retired in the same informal manner, as

respects announcements and the calling of carriages, as that in which

they had entered; most to lay their drowsy heads on their pillows,

and Miss Ring to ponder over the superior manners of a polished young

Englishman, and to dream of the fragrance of a sermon that was

preserved in tobacco.

Chapter V. ("So turns she every man the wrong side out; And never gives to)

 

truth and virtue, that Which simpleness and merit purchaseth."

 

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

 

Mrs. Houston was what is termed a fashionable woman in New-York. She,

too, was of a family of local note, though of one much less elevated

in the olden time than that of Mrs. Hawker. Still her claims were

admitted by the most fastidious on such points, for a few do remain

who think descent indisputable to gentility; and as her means were

ample, and her tastes perhaps superior to those of most around her,

she kept what was thought a house of better tone than common, even in

the highest circle. Eve had but a slight acquaintance with her; but

in Grace's eyes, Mrs. Houston's was the place of all others that she

thought might make a favourable impression on her cousin. Her wish

that this should prove to be the case was so strong, that, as they

drove towards the door, she could not forbear from making an attempt

to prepare Eve for what she was to meet.

 

"Although Mrs. Houston has a very large house for New-York, and lives

in a uniform style, you are not to expect ante-chambers, and vast

suites of rooms, Eve," said Grace; "such as you have been accustomed

to see abroad."

 

"It is not necessary, my dear cousin, to enter a house of four or

five windows in front, to see it is not a house of twenty or thirty.

I should be very unreasonable to expect an Italian palazzo, or a

Parisian hotel, in this good town."

 

"We are not old enough for that yet, Eve; a hundred years hence,

Mademoiselle Viefville, such things may exist here."

 

"_Bien sur. C'est naturel._"

 

"A hundred years hence, as the world tends, Grace, they are not

likely to exist any where, except as taverns, or hospitals, or

manufactories. But what have we to do, coz, with a century ahead of

us? young as we both are, we cannot hope to live that time."

 

Grace would have been puzzled to account satisfactorily to herself,

for the strong desire she felt that neither of her companions should

expect to see such a house as their senses so plainly told them did

not exist in the place; but her foot moved in the bottom of the

carriage, for she was not half satisfied with her cousin's answer.

 

"All I mean. Eve," she said, after a pause, "is, that one ought not

to expect in a town as new as this, the improvements that one sees in

an older state of society."

 

"And have Mademoiselle Viefville, or I, ever been so weak as to

suppose, that New-York is Paris, or Rome, or Vienna?"

 

Grace was still less satisfied, for, unknown to herself, she _had_

hoped that Mrs. Houston's ball might be quite equal to a ball in

either of those ancient capitals; and she was now vexed that her

cousin considered it so much a matter of course that it should not

But there was no time for explanations, as the carriage now

stopped.

 

The noise, confusion, calling out, swearing, and rude clamour before

the house of Mrs. Houston, said little for the out-door part of the

arrangements. Coachmen are nowhere a particularly silent and civil

class; but the uncouth European peasants, who have been preferred to

the honours of the whip in New-York, to the usual feelings of

competition and contention, added that particular feature of humility

which is known to distinguish "the beggar on horseback." The imposing

equipages of our party, however, had that effect on most of these

rude brawlers, which a display of wealth is known to produce on the

vulgar-minded; and the ladies got into the house, through a lane of

coachmen, by yielding a little to a _chevau de frise_ of whips,

without any serious calamity.

 

"One hardly knows which is the most terrific," said Eve,

involuntarily, as soon as the door closed on them--"the noise within,

or the noise without!"

 

This was spoken rapidly, and in French, to Mademoiselle Viefville,

but Grace heard and understood it, and for the first time in her

life, she perceived that Mrs. Houston's company was not composed of

nightingales. The surprise is that the discovery should have come so

late.

 

"I am delighted at having got into this house," said Sir George, who,

having thrown his cloak to his own servant, stood with the two other

gentlemen waiting the descent of the ladies from the upper room,

where the bad arrangements of the house compelled them to uncloak and

to put aside their shawls, "as I am told it is the best house in town

to see the other sex."

 

"To _hear them_, would be nearer the truth, perhaps," returned John

Effingham. "As for pretty women, one can hardly go amiss in New-York;

and your ears now tell you, that they do not come into the world to

be seen only."

 

The baronet smiled, but he was too well bred to contradict or to

assent. Mademoiselle Viefville, unconscious that she was violating

the proprieties, walked into the rooms by herself, as soon as she

descended, followed by Eve; but Grace