“Yes, sir; indeed his nickname suited you, too, as well as his nature; for you both had wonderful manners but no hearts at all. What other gifts? Many. I remember, sir, and gratefully, that you taught me all I know of fine airs—how to walk, as if I’d never paddled on flat bare soles through the creeks and meadows; how to talk in drawing-room accents without the ill-bred emphasis of excitement. ‘Don’t rattle the milk pails, my love,’ is what you used to say, when my zest for life keyed my tones above the Mearely pitch and tempo. How you enjoyed seeing people writhe under your ridicule! It put you into a pleasant mood again, presently. You taught me what music to admire, and what to consider with pursed lips and lifted eyebrows; what books, modern and classic, should lie on a cultured woman’s table. But I remember, too, that you taught me these things by means of sarcasm that cut to the bone; and my tears you called ‘squeezing out the buttermilk.’ You had a sort of placid cruelty, sir, that always made the butter-maker’s daughter cringe. And only a few days before you died you told me you feared I was ‘irredeemably bourgeoise’—because I had ‘so much emotion.’ And the last gift?”
A tremor of rebellion went through her, and her eyes flashed.
“Villa Rose, and your small, safe fortune! Villa Rose and the Mearely money willed to me in terms that make me a prisoner all my life! So I think, on the whole, I’ve earned my right to this day. I have paid your memory the last jot of respect demanded by Roseborough. For four years I have worn hideous blackish clothes which would have caused you to swoon with horror had the angels allowed you to lean out of heaven to observe me. Now, I am going to be young and dress like a bird of paradise! And—and....”
In a trice she threw off the mood that had held her there. The grave analyst disappeared. It was a young creature thrilling with the joy of life who leaped up and threw her arms high above her head and laughed.
“Do you know what this ‘irredeemably bourgeoise’ bird of paradise is going to do now? She is going out into the hedges and the river grass and along the highways; and she is going to twirl her finery about, and shake her hair out in the sun, and call—and call—till her true mate comes to her! And he’ll jump down off his horse—or the wind, or a heron’s back—and he’ll catch me up in his arms, because he, also, is irredeemably bourgeois! And he’ll say ... he’ll say—‘Good-morning, Rosamond!’ ‘Good-morning, Rosamond!’”
The sound of her name this morning gave her exquisite delight, as if it introduced her to a new being; as if, indeed, she had discovered that this new being, herself, contained in profusion all the elements of the romance she coveted.
She sing-songed her matutinal salutation in the theme of the little minuet she had hummed, from time to time, since her pleasant interview with the Orleans mirror, and danced herself out with it to the garden.
The portrait of the late possessor of this rebellious bit of country bric-à-brac was an excellent essay in flesh painting of the realistic school. It had no psychic qualities. Therefore it did not change its tints or take on shadows when Mrs. Hibbert Mearely, renouncing the life of an art-object, wafted out on rustic love-adventure bent. The morning sun, so kind to the fresh countenance of the farmer’s daughter, dealt very sincerely with the gentleman in the picture. Its arrow rays, shot across the wall, lent neither warmth nor softness—only pointedness—to the long, thin head, and the nose, chin, and lips that were all long and thin and curved. Nor did the sunshine kindle the prominent, cold, pale eyes which looked out with condescension upon a world of humanity that mattered little, collectively or individually, to the self-contained self-sufficiency of Mr. Hibbert Mearely, aristocrat and amateur collector of antiques.
One long, thin hand held a small gold-painted box from which James II was supposed to have pecked his after-dinner comfits. With a fine impartiality, the other hand rested on the head of a cane of English oak and silver, said to have been given to William of Orange by Mary, his spouse. Indeed, she may have given it to him for, as all history knows, the intense but plain-faced lady put her Stuart pride in her pocket and wooed her dour Dutch Bill, assiduously and submissively from A to Z, before she finally convinced him—to his belated joy—that they were two souls with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one.
It may not be amiss to mention here (in whispers) that the distinguished dilettante—whose taste and knowledge of arts past and present had been that of an amateur and a gentleman without vulgar taint of professionalism—had once (only once and never again) sought the opinion of an expert on his collection. This “brutal person,” as Mr. Mearely had characterized him on the only occasion thereafter, when he permitted his name to be mentioned in his presence, found the Orleans mirror and the Louis chair to be of the periods claimed, but doubted that princesses had ever looked in the one or kings sat in the other. He approved the jade Buddha and certain bronzes, potteries, and two pictures; but as to the rest, he had said, amid detestable chuckles: