The Blair house had gone up when Uncle John was a baby, and was typical, in its architecture, of the best suburban houses of those remote times. It had towers—two of them—round and shingled, with points that held lightning-rods. It had fancy cornices, too, and trimmings that were considered marvels of beauty when they were new. Now Genevieve referred to them as “ginger bread.” And it had green blinds on its many windows—blinds that had rattled in all the storms of the passing years, but were still intact, testifying to the wood and workmanship of that period of the long-ago.
But the house was “old-fashioned.” There was no concealing it—everybody in town knew it. Once, in the days when the Blair house was new, it had stood all to itself, in the center of what was known as Blair Farm. The farm had been cut up into lots later on. Then the big, lonely house had, as it were, drawn the town lovingly to it, and had taken its place as a sort of landmark, rearing its unfashionable turrets among very up-to-date structures. Genevieve and her mamma, and her papa, together with five servants, were dwellers in one of these structures. Genevieve referred to her home—carelessly—as a “chalet.”
There was nothing to be said in criticism of Miss Simpson’s—even though it was not a chalet. Genevieve declared, and other girls upheld her, that Miss Simpson’s was so unusually splendid in the way of interior woods, marbled entrance hall, frescoed ceilings and the like that the man who had put it up had “gone broke.” Genevieve said it boastfully. How much further, indeed, could any man go who was putting up a house than to go broke?
Phœbe was convinced.
She was quick to admit to herself that, interiorly at least, there was much to be desired in the way of improvements at Grandma’s. If the big Blair house was not comparable to Miss Simpson’s, it was also far from coming up to the standard of apartments in New York. For example, consider the wall-paper on Grandma’s ceilings, and the colored glass in certain of Grandma’s doors. Crayon reproductions of family photographs were not at all “the thing,” Phœbe knew and Genevieve averred. Neither were wax flowers modish—and Grandma had so many frames of them! And then there was that little item of lace curtains. Phœbe did not have to be told that nobody who really knew would, in these later and wiser times, go out and buy lace curtains.
Phœbe did not see the upper floors of Miss Simpson’s; but the street floor was proof of what might be expected at the top of the graceful stairway. How beautiful the great drawing-room was, with its satin-wood walls, carved and bracketed for silk-covered shades. How deep the great rugs were in all the big downstairs rooms! And there were velvet couches on either side of the library fire, and here, before a glowing hearth, Miss Simpson gathered her girls of an afternoon for the function of tea. The maid who served the tea wore a cap. And on no account did she ever lift her eyes to smile, as Sophie smiled. What was most important, this maid referred to Miss Simpson as “Madam.” And Phœbe knew this was most proper and desirable. For Sally had always called Mother “Madam.” If Phœbe had not known about all this, Genevieve would have been the one to teach her, Genevieve being a stickler for all that was proper and—fashionable.
Phœbe came to look upon the tea-function at Miss Simpson’s as a rare privilege. This was because only a certain very small group of girls in town might share the opportunity of attending that daily function. For Miss Simpson’s School, as Uncle John had said, and as had been borne out architecturally and otherwise—Miss Simpson’s School was most exclusive.
Freed from long weeks of loneliness, Phœbe welcomed the School with delight. She felt it rightful that she should be there, too. For was not her Uncle John the most fashionable rector in town? Was not her Uncle Bob a Judge?—that he was Judge of the new Court for Juveniles subtracting only a little from the honors that were his. And was not her father, her dear, gallant, handsome father, a mining-engineer? And were not mining-engineers in the same class, socially, as doctors, and lawyers, and bankers, and mayors of the city? Genevieve said so.
So Phœbe, welcomed to the School by Miss Simpson, received into the exclusive tea circle before that library fire, and made one of a little “set” of pupils out of well-to-do families—Phœbe began to feel at home in this small, new city, to fret less for the dear mother who was taking such a long time to get well, and to put behind her all thoughts of the something which she had not understood. In fact, Phœbe was coming to be almost patient, almost happy and contented once more.
And then, one morning, with the same suddenness that had found her free of restraint and bewildering conjectures, there came another change.