"Annie has a lovely complexion, too. There are a great many pretty girls in the world. I have a curious sort of pity for those who are not a bit pretty," Margaret said sympathetically.
Steve laughed and nodded, as if the idea amused him.
If Margaret and Annie became friends, and if Dolly and Annie came to call—well, he was sure they would all fall in love with Dolly. And then the matter would go on smoothly. People thought more of being friendly with their relations by marriage in those days.
CHAPTER IV
A LOOK AT OLD NEW YORK
On a Sunday toward the end of April, Stephen took his two sisters down to the Battery for a walk. It was very warm and springlike. The cherry-tree in their yard had come out in bloom. Buds were swelling everywhere, and the gray spots were all green and shining in the soft golden atmosphere. There was the wide, magnificent expanse of the bay, the edge of Brooklyn, the hazy outline of Staten Island, the vague Narrows that seemed to lead to some unknown world. And there was the great round Castle Garden, the Castle Clinton of earlier times, where a few years later the little girl was to hear some of the world's most famous singers. And when she looked out of that weird, narrow waterway and wondered just where Europe was, and how foreign countries must look, she could not by the most vivid stretch of imagination fancy herself sailing out to that unknown country.
The short grass was so lovely and green, and the waves came lapping up with a silvery melody. There were people lounging on the seats, ladies with sunshades in their hands, mothers with some little children, fathers with a son or two, or a little girl like herself in pantalets and white stockings and low shoes. The clothes she thought were beautiful. The hats were full of flowers. She had a new straw gypsy with a wreath of buttercups, and soft yellow strings tied under her chin. Her challi de laine had small blue flowers on a white ground, with yellow-brown centres, and there was a blue ribbon tied about her waist, with a bow at the back. She had a white cape of some soft cotton goods with a satiny finish, warranted to wash as good as new. She would have liked a sunshade, but she had so many new things.
She thought quite a good deal about her pretty clothes, and how glad she should be to learn more geography. Stephen was talking about Hudson's expedition up the river to which he gave his name, and a few months later when some hovels were built to shelter the sailors, the beginning of a settlement. And how in 1614 the Dutch erected a rude fort and gave the place the name of New Amsterdam. Then the Dutch West India Company bought Manhattoes Island from the natives for goods of various kinds, amounting to sixty guilders.
"You see the Dutch were thrifty traders even then, more than two hundred years ago," says Stephen with a pleasant laugh.