From Jest to Earnest

by Edward Payson Roe

"And, like all despots, very unreasonable; and wrong at times, I perceive."

"When you have seen more of society, Mr. Hemstead," she said, a little patronizingly, "you will modify your views. Ideas imported in the Mayflower are scarcely in vogue now."

He was a little nettled by her tone, and said with a tinge of dignity, "My ideas on this subject were not imported in the Mayflower. They are older than the world, and will survive the world."

Lottie became provoked, for she was not one to take criticism of her personal appearance kindly, and then it was vexatious that the one whom she chiefly expected to dazzle should at once begin to find fault; and she said with some irritation, "And what are your long-lived ideas."

"I fear they would not have much weight with you were I able to express them plainly. I can only suggest them, but in such a way that you can understand me in a sentence. I should not like a sister of mine to appear in company as you are dressed."

Lottie flushed deeply and resentfully, but said, in a frigid tone, "I think we had better change the subject I consider myself a better judge of these matters than you are."

He quietly bowed and resumed his book. She shot an angry glance at him and left the room.

This was a new experience to her,—the very reverse of what she had anticipated. This was a harsh and discordant break in the honeyed strains of flattery to which she had always been accustomed, and it nettled her greatly. Moreover, the criticism she received had a delicate point, and touched her to the very quick; and to her it seemed unjust and uncalled for. What undoubtedly is wrong in itself, and what to Hemstead, unfamiliar with society and its arbitrary customs, seemed strangely indelicate, was to her but a prevailing mode among the ultra-fashionable, in which class it was her ambition to shine.

"The great, verdant boor!" she said in her anger, as she paced restlessly up and down the hall. "What a fool I am to care what he thinks, with his backwoods ideas! Nor shall I any more. He shall learn to-night that I belong to a different world."

De Forrest joined her soon and somewhat re-assured her by his profuse compliments. Not that she valued them as coming from him, but she felt that he as a society man was giving the verdict of society in distinction from Hemstead's outlandish ideas. She had learned from her mother—indeed it was the faith of her childhood, earliest taught and thoroughly accepted—that the dictum of their wealthy circle was final authority, from which there was no appeal.