§ 6
Miss Abercrombie’s “finishing school” was located on Fifth Avenue, immediately opposite—so the catalogue informed you—to the mansions of the oldest Knickerbocker families. It was Miss Abercrombie’s boast that she had married more than half her young ladies to millionaires, and she took occasion to drop allusions to the subject to all whom it might interest. She ran her establishment upon an ingenious plan, about half her pupils being the daughters of Western buccaneers, who paid high prices, and the other half being the daughters of Southern aristocrats, accepted at reduced rates. So the young ladies from the West got the “real thing” in refinement, and the young ladies from the South made acquaintances whose brothers were “eligible.”
Sylvia had always had everything that she wanted, and was under the impression that immense sums of money had been spent upon her upbringing. But among these new associates she found herself in the class of the poorest. She had never owned a dress which they would consider expensive, whereas the dresses of these girls were trimmed with real lace, and cost several hundreds of dollars each. It was a startling experience to many of them to discover that a girl who had so few jewels as Sylvia could be so haughty and self-possessed; which was, of course, just what they had come for—to acquire that superiority to their wealth which is the apex of culture in millionairedom.
So Sylvia became an uncrowned queen, and all the lumber princesses and copper duchesses and railroad countesses vied in entertaining her. They treated her to box-parties, where, duly chaperoned, they listened to possibly indecent musical comedies; and to midnight feasts where they imperiled their complexions with peanut butter and almond paste and chocolate creams and stuffed olives and anchovies and crackers and mustard pickles and fruit cake and sardines and plum pudding and sliced ham and salted almonds—and what other delicacies might come along in anybody’s boxes from home. To aid in the digestion of these “goodies” Sylvia was taken out twice daily, and marched in a little private parade up Fifth Avenue, wearing a hat so large that all her attention was required to keep it on in windy weather, and so heavy that it made her head ache if the air were still; a collar so high that she could not bend her head to balance the hat; high-heeled shoes upon which she toddled with her feet crowded down upon the toes; and a corset laced so tight that her lower ribs were bent out of shape and her liver endangered. About the highest testimony that I can give to the altogether superhuman wonderfulness of Sylvia is that she stayed for two years at Miss Abercrombie’s, and came home a picture of radiant health, eager, joyous—and lovely as the pearly tints of dawn.
She came home to prepare for her début; and what an outfit she brought! You may picture her unfolding the treasures in her big bedroom, which had been freshly done over in pink silk; her mother and aunts and cousins bending over the trays, and the negro servants hovering in the doorway, breathless with excitement, while the “yard-man” came panting up the stairs with new trunks. Such an array of hats and gowns and lingerie, gloves and fans, ribbons and laces, silk hose and satin slippers, beads and buckles! The “yard-man,” a negro freshly promoted from the corn-fields, went down into the kitchen with shining eyes, exclaiming, “I allus said dis house was heaven, and now I knows it, ’cause I seen dem ‘golden slippers’!”
It was not a time for a girl to do much philosophizing; but Sylvia knew that these “creations” of Paris dressmakers had cost frightful sums of money, and she wondered vaguely why the family had insisted upon them. She had heard rumors of a poor crop last year, and of worries about some notes. Glad as the Major was to see her, she thought that he looked careworn and tired.
“Papa,” she said, “I’ve been spending an awful lot of money.”
“Yes, honey,” he answered.
“I hope you don’t think I have been extravagant, Papa.”
“No, no, honey.”
“I tried to economize, but you’ve no idea how things cost in New York, and how those girls spend money. My clothes—Mamma and Aunt Nannie would have me buy them——”
“It’s all right, my child—you have only one springtime, you know.”
Sylvia paused a moment. “I feel as if I ought to marry a very rich man, after all the money you’ve spent upon me.”
Whereat the Major looked grave. “Sylvia,” he said, “I don’t want any daughter of mine to feel that she has to marry. I shall always be able to support my children, I hope.”
This was noble, and Sylvia was grateful for it; but with that serene, observing mind of hers she could not help noting that if her father by any chance called her attention to some man of her acquaintance, it was invariably a “marriageable” man; and always there was added some detail as to the man’s possessions. “Billy Harding’s a fellow with a future before him,” he would remark. “He’s one of the cleverest business men I know.”
Sylvia was also impressed with a comical phrase of her mother’s, which seemed to indicate that that good lady classified poverty with smallpox and diphtheria. The Major had suggested inviting to supper a young medical student who was honest but penniless; and “Miss Margaret” replied, “I really cannot see what we have to gain by exposing our daughters to an undesirable marriage.” Sylvia concluded that her family pinned its faith to the maxim of Tennyson’s “Northern Farmer”—
“Doän’t thou marry for munny, but goä wheer munny is!”