“Sure thing, I did. I’m not narrow-minded, and I like to be obliging. Then she tried what she called slummin’, which, as near as I can see, means walkin’ in where you ’aint wanted, because people are poorer than you are, and leavin’ little tracts that nobody reads, and currant jelly that nobody eats, and clothes that nobody can wear. But an Irishman shied a cabbage at her head while she was tryin’ to convince him that the bath-tub wasn’t really a coal bin, and that his mental attitude was hindside before.
“Then she got to be a Theosophist, and used to sit in her room upstairs projecting her astral body out of the window into the back yard, and pulling it in again like a ball on a rubber string—just for practice, 48 you know. But that attack didn’t last long.”
“She seems to be a very versatile young woman; but she doesn’t stick to one thing very long.”
“A rolling stone gathers no moss, you know,” Mrs. Burke replied. “That’s one of the advantages of bein’ a rolling stone. It must be awful to get mossy; and there isn’t any moss on Virginia Bascom, whatever faults she may have—not a moss.”
For a moment Mrs. Burke was silent, and then she began:
“Once Virginia got to climbin’ her family tree, to find out where her ancestors came from. She thought that possibly they might be noblemen. But I guess there wasn’t very much doin’ up the tree until she got down to New York, and paid a man to tell her. She brought back an illuminated coat of arms with a lion rampantin’ on top; but she was the same old Virginia still. What do I care about my ancestors! It doesn’t make no difference to me. I’m just myself anyway, no matter how you figure; and I’m a lot more worried about where I’m goin’ to, than where I came from. Virginia’s got a book called ‘Who’s Who,’ that she’s always studying. But the only thing that matters, it seems to me, is Who’s What.”
“I wonder she hasn’t married,” remarked Donald, innocently. 49
“Ah, that’s the trouble. She’s like a thousand others without no special occupation in life. She’s wastin’ a lot of bottled up interest and sympathy on foolish things. If she’d married and had seven babies, they would have seen to it that she didn’t make a fool of herself. However, it isn’t her fault. She’s volunteered to act as Deaconess to every unmarried parson we’ve had; and it’s a miracle of wonders one of ’em didn’t succumb; parsons are such—oh, do excuse me! I mean so injudicious on the subject of matrimony.”
“But, Mrs. Burke, don’t you think a clergyman ought to be a married man?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, t’aint me that’s been doin’ the thinkin’ along those lines, for most of the parsons we’ve had. I’ve been more of a first aid to the injured, in the matrimonial troubles of our parish, and the Lord only knows when love-making has got as far as actual injury to the parties engaged,—well thinkin’ ’aint much use. But there’s Ginty for example. She’s been worryin’ herself thin for the last five years, doin’ matrimonial equations for the clergy. She’s a firm believer in the virtue of patience, and if the Lord only keeps on sendin’ us unmarried rectors, Ginty is goin’ to have her day. It’s just naturally bound to come. I ’aint sure whether 50 she’s got a right to be still runnin’ with the lambs or not, but that don’t matter much,—old maids will rush in where angels fear to tread.”