FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT.
FAMOUS AUTHOR OF “LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY.”
F Mrs. Burnett were not a native of England, she might be called a typical American woman. As all Americans, however, are descended at very few removes from foreign ancestors, it may, nevertheless, be said of the young English girl, who crossed the ocean with her widowed mother at the age of sixteen, that she has shown all the pluck, energy and perseverance usually thought of as belonging to Americans. She settled with her mother and sisters on a Tennessee farm; but soon began to write short stories, the first of which was published in a Philadelphia magazine in 1867. Her first story to achieve popularity was “That Lass o’ Lowrie’s,” published in “Scribner’s Magazine” in 1877. It is a story of a daughter of a miner, the father a vicious character, whose neglect and abuse render all the more remarkable the virtue and real refinement of the daughter. Mrs. Burnett delights in heroes and heroines whose characters contrast strongly with their circumstances, and in some of her stories, especially in “A Lady of Quality,” published in 1895, she even verges on the sensational.
In 1873 Miss Hodgson was married to Doctor Burnett, of Knoxville, Tennessee. After a two years’ tour in Europe, they took up their residence in the city of Washington, where they have since lived.
Mrs. Burnett’s longest novel, “Through One Administration,” is a story of the political and social life of the Capital. “Pretty Polly Pemberton,” “Esmeralda,” “Louisiana,” “A Fair Barbarian,” and “Haworth’s” are, after those already mentioned, her most popular stories. “That Lass o’ Lowrie’s” has been dramatized. Mrs. Hodgson is most widely known, however, by her Children Stories, the most famous of which, “Little Lord Fauntleroy,” appeared as a serial in “St. Nicholas” in 1886, and has since been dramatized and played in both England and America.
Since 1885 her health has not permitted her to write so voluminously as she had previously done, but she has, nevertheless, been a frequent contributor to periodicals. Some of her articles have been of an auto-biographical nature, and her story “The One I Knew Best of All” is an account of her life. She is very fond of society and holds a high place in the social world. Her alert imagination and her gift of expression have enabled her to use her somewhat limited opportunity of observation to the greatest advantage, as is shown in her successful interpretation of the Lancashire dialect and the founding of the story of Joan Lowrie on a casual glimpse, during a visit to a mining village, of a beautiful young woman followed by a cursing and abusive father.
PRETTY POLLY P.[¹]
FROM “PRETTY POLLY PEMBERTON.”
[¹] Copyright, T. B. Peterson & Bros.
RAMLEIGH,” ventured little Popham, “you haven’t spoken for half an hour, by Jupiter!”
Framleigh—Captain Gaston Framleigh, of the Guards—did not move. He had been sitting for some time before the window, in a position more noticeable for ease than elegance, with his arms folded upon the back of his chair; and he did not disturb himself, when he condescended to reply to his youthful admirer and ally.
“Half an hour?” he said, with a tranquil half-drawl, which had a touch of affectation in its coolness, and yet was scarcely pronounced enough to be disagreeable, or even unpleasant. “Haven’t I?”
“No, you have not,” returned Popham, encouraged by the negative amiability of his manner. “I am sure it is half an hour. What’s up?”
“Up?” still half-abstractedly. “Nothing! Fact is, I believe I have been watching a girl!”
Little Popham sprang down, for he had been sitting on the table, and advanced toward the window, hurriedly, holding his cigar in his hand.
“A girl!” he exclaimed. “Where? What sort of a girl?”
“As to sort,” returned Framleigh, “I don’t know the species. A sort of girl I never saw before. But, if you wait, you may judge for yourself. She will soon be out there in the garden again. She has been darting in and out of the house for the last twenty minutes.”
“Out of the house?” said Popham, eagerly, “Do you mean the house opposite?”
“Yes.”
“By Jupiter!” employing his usual mild expletive, “look here, old fellow, had she a white dress on, and geranium-colored bows, and—”
“Yes,” said Framleigh. “And she is rather tall for such a girl; and her hair is cut, on her round white forehead, Sir Peter Lely fashion (they call it banging, I believe), and she gives you the impression, at first, of being all eyes, great dark eyes, with—”
“Long, curly, black lashes,” interpolated Popham, with enthusiasm. “By Jupiter! I thought so! It’s pretty Polly P.”
He was so evidently excited that Framleigh looked up with a touch of interest, though he was scarcely a man of enthusiasm himself.
“Pretty Polly P.!” he repeated. “Rather familiar mode of speech, isn’t it? Who is pretty Polly P.?”
Popham, a good-natured, sensitive little fellow, actually colored.
“Well,” he admitted, somewhat confusedly, “I dare say it does sound rather odd, to people who don’t know her; but I can assure you, Framleigh, though it is the name all our fellows seem to give her with one accord, I am sure there is not one of them who means it to appear disrespectful, or—or even cheeky,” resorting, in desperation, to slang. “She is not the sort of a girl a fellow would ever be disrespectful to, even though she is such a girl—so jolly and innocent. For my part, you know, I’d face a good deal, and give up a good deal any day, for pretty Polly P.; and I’m only one of a many.”
Framleigh half smiled, and then looked out of the window again, in the direction of the house opposite.
“Daresay,” he commented, placidly. “And very laudably, too. But you have not told me what the letter P. is intended to signify. ‘Pretty Polly P.’ is agreeable and alliterative, but indefinite. It might mean Pretty Polly Popham.”
“I wish it did, by Jupiter!” cordially, and with more color; “but it does not. It means Pemberton?”
“Pemberton!” echoed Framleigh, with an intonation almost savoring of disgust. “You don’t mean to say she is that Irish fellow’s daughter?”
“She is his niece,” was the answer, “and that amounts to the same thing, in her case. She has lived with old Pemberton ever since she was four years old, and she is as fond of him as if he was a woman, and her mother; and he is as fond of her as if she was his daughter; but he couldn’t help that. Every one is fond of her.”
“Ah!” said Framleigh. “I see. As you say, ‘She is the sort of girl.’”
“There she is, again!” exclaimed Popham, suddenly.
And there she was, surely enough, and they had a full view of her, geranium-colored bows and all. She seemed to be a trifle partial to the geranium-colored bows. Not too partial, however, for they were very nicely put on. Here and there, down the front of her white morning dress, one prettily adjusted on the side of her hair, one on each trim, slim, black kid slipper. If they were a weakness of hers, they were by no means an inartistic one. And as she came down the garden-walk, with a little flower-pot in her hands—a little earthen-pot, with some fresh gloss-leaved little plant in it—she was pleasant to look at, pretty Polly P.—very pleasant; and Gaston Framleigh was conscious of the fact.
It was only a small place, the house opposite and the garden was the tiniest of gardens, being only a few yards of ground, surrounded by iron railings. Indeed, it might have presented anything but an attractive appearance, had pretty Polly P. not so crowded it with bright blooms. Its miniature-beds were full of brilliantly-colored flowers, blue-eyed lobelia, mignonette, scarlet geraniums, a thrifty rose or so, and numerous nasturtiums, with ferns, and much pleasant, humble greenery. There were narrow boxes of flowers upon every window-ledge, a woodbine climbed round the door, and, altogether, it was a very different place from what it might have been, under different circumstances.
And down the graveled path, in the midst of all this flowery brightness, came Polly with her plant to set out, looking not unlike a flower herself. She was very busy in a few minutes, and she went about her work almost like an artist, flourishing her little trowel, digging a nest for her plant, and touching it, when she transplanted it, as tenderly as if it had been a day-old baby. She was so earnest about it, that, before very long, Framleigh was rather startled by hearing her begin to whistle, softly to herself, and, seeing that the sound had grated upon him, Popham colored and [♦]laughed half-apologetically.
[♦] ‘langhed’ replaced with ‘laughed’
“It is a habit of hers,” he said. “She hardly knows when she does it. She often does things other girls would think strange. But she is not like other girls.”
Framleigh made no reply. He remained silent, and simply looked at the girl. He was not in the most communicative of moods, this morning; he was feeling gloomy and depressed, and not a little irritable, as he did, now and then. He had good reason, he thought, to give way to these fits of gloom, occasionally; they were not so much an unamiable habit as his enemies fancied; he had some ground for them, though he was not prone to enter into particulars concerning it. Certainly he never made innocent little Popham, “Lambkin Popham,” as one of his fellow-officers had called him, in a brilliant moment, his confidant. He liked the simple, affectionate little fellow, and found his admiration soothing; but the time had not yet arrived, when the scales not yet having fallen from his eyes, he could read such guileless, almost insignificant problems as “Lambkin” Popham clearly.
So his companion, only dimly recognizing the outward element of his mood, thought it signified a distaste for that soft, scarcely unfeminine, little piping of pretty Polly’s, and felt bound to speak a few words in her favor.
“She is not a masculine sort of a girl at all, Framleigh,” he said. “You would be sure to like her. The company fairly idolize her.”
“Company!” echoed Framleigh. “What company?”
“Old Buxton’s company,” was the reply. “The theatrical lot at the Prince’s, you know, where she acts.”
Framleigh had been bending forward, to watch Polly patting the mould daintily, as she bent over her flower-bed; but he drew back at this, conscious of experiencing a shock, far stronger and more disagreeable than the whistling had caused him to feel.
“An actress!” he exclaimed, in an annoyed tone.
“Yes, and she works hard enough, too, to support herself, and help old Pemberton,” gravely.
“The worse for her,” with impatience. “And the greater rascal old Pemberton, for allowing it.”
It was just at this moment that Polly looked up. She raised her eyes carelessly to their window, and doing so, caught sight of them both. Young Popham blushed gloriously, after his usual sensitive fashion, and she recognized him at once. She did not blush at all herself, however; she just gave him an arch little nod, and a delightful smile, which showed her pretty white teeth.
