"I don't believe that's elegant, mamma," said Etty demurely; "and there isn't Tom, Dick, nor Harry; only Dakie Thayne, and that nice, nice Miss Craydocke! And—I hate the Haughtleys!" This with a sudden explosiveness at the last, after the demureness.
"Etty!"—and Mrs. Thoresby intoned an indescribable astonishment of displeasure in her utterance of her daughter's name,—"remember yourself. You are neither to be impertinent to me, nor to speak rudely of persons whom I choose for your acquaintance. When you are older, you will come to understand how these chance meetings may lead to the most valuable friendships, or, on the contrary, to the most mortifying embarrassments. In the mean time, you are to be guided." After which little sententious homily out of the Book of the World, Mrs. Thoresby ruffled herself with dignity, and led her brood away with her.
Next day, Tom, Dick, and Harry—that is to say, Miss Craydocke, Susan and Martha Josselyn, and Leslie Goldthwaite—were gathered in the first-named lady's room, to make the great green curtain. And there Sin Saxon came in upon them,—ostensibly to bring the curtain-rings, and explain how she wanted them put on; but after that she lingered.
"It's like the Tower of Babel upstairs," she said, "and just about as likely ever to get built. I can't bear to stay where I can't hear myself talk. You're nice and cosy here, Miss Craydocke." And with that, she settled herself down on the floor, with all her little ruffles and flounces and billows of muslin heaping and curling themselves about her, till her pretty head and shoulders were like a new and charming sort of floating-island in the midst.
And it came to pass that presently the talk drifted round to vanities and vexations,—on this wise.
"Everybody wants to be everything," said Sin Saxon. "They don't say so, of course. But they keep objecting, and unsettling. Nothing hushes anybody up but proposing them for some especially magnificent part. And you can't hush them all at once in that way. If they'd only say what they want, and be done with it! But they're so dreadfully polite! Only finding out continual reasons why nobody will do for this and that, or have time to dress, or something, and waiting modestly to be suggested and shut up! When I came down they were in full tilt about 'The Lady of Shalott.' It's to be one of the crack scenes, you know,—river of blue cambric, and a real, regular, lovely property-boat. Frank Scherman sent for it, and it came up on the stage yesterday,—drivers swearing all the way. Now they'll go on for half an hour, at least; and at the end of that time I shall walk in, upon the plain of Shinar, with my hair all let down,—it's real, every bit of it, not a tail tied on anywhere,—and tell them I—myself—am to be the Lady of Shalott! I think I shall relish flinging in that little bit of honesty, like a dash of cold water into the middle of a fry. Won't it sizzle?"
She sat twirling the cord upon which the dozens of great brass rings were strung, watching the shining ellipse they made as they revolved,—like a child set down upon the carpet with a plaything,—expecting no answer, only waiting for the next vagrant whimsicality that should come across her brain,—not altogether without method, either,—to give it utterance.
"I don't suppose I could convince you of it," she resumed; "but I do actually have serious thoughts sometimes. I think that very likely some of us—most of us—are going to the dogs. And I wonder what it will be when we get there. Why don't you contradict, or confirm, what I say, Miss Craydocke?"
"You haven't said out, yet, have you?"
Sin Saxon opened wide her great, wondering, saucy blue eyes, and turned them full upon Miss Craydocke's face. "Well, you are a oner! as somebody in Dickens says. There's no such thing as a leading question for you. It's like the rope the dog slipped his head out of, and left the man holding fast at the other end, in touching confidence that he was coming on. I saw that once on Broadway. Now I experience it. I suppose I've got to say more. Well, then, in a general way, do you think living amounts to anything, Miss Craydocke?"