I wonder what that is! If Ephraim would tell me, I might take some care of it too. I should not like anything he cared for to be spoiled.
As I sat in a corner afterwards, I was looking at him, and comparing him in my own mind with all the fine gentlemen in the chamber. Ephraim was quite as handsome as any of them; but his clothes certainly had a country cut, and he did not show as easy manners as they. I am afraid Grandmamma would say he had no manners. He actually put his hand out to save a tray when Grandmamma’s black boy, Caesar, stumbled at the tiger-skin mat: and I am sure no other gentleman in the room would have condescended to see it. There are many little things by which it is easy to tell that Ephraim has not been used to the best society. And yet, I could not help feeling that if I were ill and wanted to be helped up-stairs, or if I were wretched and wanted comforting, it would be Ephraim to whom I should appeal, and not one of these fine gentlemen. They seemed only to be made for sunshine. He would wear, and stand rain. If Hatty’s “men” were all Ephraims, there might be some sense in caring for their opinions. But these fellows—I really can’t afford a better word—these “chiels with glasses in their e’en,” as Sam says, who seem to have no opinions beyond the colour of their coats and paying compliments to everything they see with a petticoat on—do they expect sensible women to care what they think? Let them have a little more sense themselves first—that’s what I say!
I said so, one morning as we were dressing: and to my surprise, Annas replied,—
“I fancy they have sense enough, Cary, when there are no women in the room. They think we only care for nonsense.”
“Yes, I expect that is it,” added Flora.
I flew out. I could not stand that. What sort of women must their mothers and sisters be?
“Card-playing snuff-takers and giddy flirts,” said Annas. “Be just to them, Cary. If they never see women of any other sort, how are they to know that such are?”
“Poor wretches! do you think that possible. Annas?” said I.
“Miserably possible,” she said, very seriously. “In every human heart, Cary, there is a place where the man or the woman dwells inside all the frippery and mannerism; the real creature itself, stripped of all disguises. Dig down to that place if you want to see it.”
“I should think it takes a vast deal of digging!”