“Good-by, good-by, good-by! O my mother! If I had your arms about me just this minute! After all I have left a blank page. That is for you to fill up with kisses and love, love, love—to you, and Ned, and every single body on that dear Sobrante ranch. Oh! why did old Pedro ever show us that copper mine? If he hadn’t I wouldn’t have been one of ‘the richest girls’ nor have had an education! I should have just stayed happily at home and been only a loving
Daughter Jessica.”
There was a tap at the door and the girl carefully folded and sealed the envelope, while a small colored girl, one of the various “emergencies” as Ephraim called the shifting “extra help” summoned almost daily, announced:
“The Madam she done want you-all to come right along downstairs and go a-ridin’ with her. She says you-all must ha’ heerd the big clock strike an’ should ha’ paid your own attention, miss.”
Jessica sprang up, tripped in the skirt of her riding habit, and fell on the floor, while the messenger first stared then burst into a loud guffaw. That was a sort of noise not permitted in that old mansion and both she and Jessica were frightened as if they had committed some misdemeanor, as the latter got upon her feet again and held the offending skirt high out of the way.
She looked curiously upon the little maid, with whom she would far rather have stayed and played than to have ridden in solemn state beside the great carriage of her cousin. Girls were the greatest novelty of all these many new things which had come into her life; and the one redeeming feature about that forthcoming “education” was that it would be prosecuted in company with many other “girls.” However, she dared not tarry, and in a few moments was in her saddle, with Ephraim riding a hired hack at the prescribed distance behind her, and Buster vainly trying to accommodate his paces to her will and those of the sedate blacks drawing the old barouche.
For a little time all went well. Jessica was an experienced mistress of this exercise and felt her spirits rise as they had not before since reaching the great city. Mrs. Dalrymple watched her with pride, which had at first been anxiety, but soon saw that she had no need to fear for any awkwardness on her young cousin’s part.
“Why, my dear, you do well. You might have been trained in our best riding academy,” commended the Madam, with satisfaction. “It is the characteristic of a gentlewoman to be an accomplished equestrienne.”
Jessica smiled and cast a meaning glance backward into Ephraim’s face, which he was trying to compose into that impassive stolidity of Mrs. Dalrymple’s own coachman and footman. But he failed and the most he could accomplish was an ignominious wink. Tipkins had duly instructed him as to the “correct” behavior on this his appearance as “groom,” but that teacher would have been shocked through all his English soul had he seen that contorted wink.
Then they found their way into Fifth Avenue, and this seemed to Jessica the prettiest part of the town that she had seen, with its aristocratic, comparative quiet; and here Mrs. Dalrymple explained: