Peter: A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero

by Francis Hopkinson Smith

And then her Southern speech, indescribable and impossible in cold type. The softening of the consonants, the slipping away of the terminals, the slurring of vowels, and all in that low, musical voice born out side of the roar and crash of city streets and crowded drawing-rooms with each tongue fighting for mastery.

All this Jack had taken in, besides a thousand other charms visible only to the young enthusiast, before he had been two minutes in her presence. As to her voice, he knew she was one of his own people when she had finished pronouncing his name. Somebody worthwhile had crossed his path at last!

And with this there had followed, even as he talked to her, the usual comparisons made by all young fellows when the girl they don't like is placed side by side with the girl they do. Miss MacFarlane was tall and Corinne was short; Miss MacFarlane was dark, and he adored dark, handsome people—and Corinne was light; Miss MacFarlane's voice was low and soft, her movements slow and graceful, her speech gentle—as if she were afraid she might hurt someone inadvertently; her hair and dress were simple to severity. While Corinne—well, in every one of these details Corinne represented the exact opposite. It was the blood! Yes, that was it—it was her blood! Who was she, and where did she come from? Would Corinne like her? What impression would this high bred Southern beauty make upon the pert Miss Wren, whose little nose had gone down a point or two when her mother had discovered, much to her joy, the week before, that it was the REAL Miss Grayson and not an imitation Miss Grayson who had been good enough to invite her daughter and any of her daughter's friends to tea; and it had fallen another point when she learned that Miss Felicia had left her card the next day, expressing to the potato-bug how sorry she was to hear that the ladies were out, but that she hoped it would only be a matter of a few days before “she would welcome them” to her own apartments, or words to that effect, Frederick's memory being slightly defective.

It was in answer to this request that Mrs. Breen, after consulting her husband, had written three acceptances before she was willing that Frederick should leave it with his own hands in Fifteenth Street—one beginning, “It certainly is a pleasure after all these years”—which was discarded as being too familiar; another, “So good of you, dear Miss Grayson,” which had a similar fate; and the third, which ran, “My daughter will be most happy, dear Miss Grayson, to be with you,” etc., which was finally sealed with the Breen crest—a four-legged beastie of some kind on its hind legs, with a motto explanatory of the promptness of his ancestors in times of danger. Even then Corinne had hesitated about accepting until Garry said: “Well, let's take it in, anyhow—we can skip out if they bore us stiff.”

Knowing these things, therefore, and fearing that after all something would happen to mar the pleasant relations he had established with Peter, and with the honor of his uncle's family in his keeping, so to speak, Jack had awaited the arrival of Corinne and Garry with considerable trepidation. What if, after all, they should stay away, ignoring the great courtesy which this most charming of old ladies—never had he seen one so lovable or distinguished—had extended to them; and she a stranger, too, and all because her brother Peter had asked her to be kind to a boy like himself.

The entrance of Corinne and Garry, therefore, into the crowded room half an hour after his own had brought a relief to Jack's mind (he had been watching the door, so as to be ready to present them), which Miss Felicia's gracious salutation only intensified.

“I remember your dear mother perfectly,” he heard the old lady say as she advanced to Corinne and took both her hands. “And she was quite lovely. And this I am very sure is Mr. Breen's friend, Mr. Minott, who has carried off all the honors. I am delighted to see you both. Peter, do you take these dear young people and present them to Ruth.”

The two had thereupon squeezed through to Ruth's side; Peter in his formal introduction awarding to Garry all the honors to which he was entitled, and then Ruth, remembering her duties, said how glad she was to know them; and would they have lemon or sugar?—and Corinne, with a comprehensive glance of her rival, declined both, her excuse being that she was nearly dead now with the heat and that a cup of tea would finish her. Jack had winced when his ears caught the flippant answer, but it was nothing to the way in which he shrivelled up when Garry, after shaking Miss MacFarlane's hand as if it had been a pump-handle instead of a thing so dainty that no boy had a right to touch it except with reverence in his heart, had burst out with: “Glad to see you. From the South, I hear—” as if she was a kangaroo or a Fiji Islander. He had seen Miss MacFarlane give a little start at Garry's familiar way of speaking, and had noticed how Ruth shrank behind the urn as if she were afraid he would touch her again, although she had laughed quite good-naturedly as she answered:

“Not very far South; only from Maryland,” and had then turned to Jack and continued her talk with the air of one not wishing to be further interrupted.

The Scribe does not dare to relate what would have become of one so sensitive as our hero could he have heard the discussion going on later between the two young people when they were backed into one of Peter's bookcases and stood surveying the room. “Miss MacFarlane isn't at all my kind of a girl,” Corinne had declared to Garry. “Really, I can't see why the men rave over her. Pretty?—yes, sort of so-so; but no style, and SUCH clothes! Fancy wearing a pink lawn and a sash tied around her waist like a girl at a college commencement—and as to her hair—why no one has ever THOUGHT of dressing her hair that way for AGES and AGES.”