“Ah, Holyoke, I live everywhere; I see these, and others, too. That night when I came back from the factory village, I had been talking with the men, and with some of the young girls there. And I could fancy Mrs. Hay going there, good-naturedly as she might, and saying to them: ‘Don’t care for dresses, or to lure men’s love or women’s envy, or to dazzle your neighbor Jenny or break her Johnny’s heart; read books, look at pictures, enjoy the beauties of nature, seek the beauty of holiness.’—‘Does your ladyship?’ say they.—‘Well, at all events, be clean,’ answers Fannie Hay, shocked.—‘But cleanliness costs money, my fine lady.’—Christ solved the question once; but now Christ is forgotten; and the sphinx looks out unanswered over the desert sand.”
“Surely you can say nothing against Miss Farnum, at least?”
“She is caught like the others, in their web,” said he. “But come, it’s late indeed to be troubling ourselves over these two or three. What are they to the million?”
Arthur thought much of Derwent’s talk; but he seemed to him a morbid fellow, unpractical and vague. And still more morbid it all seemed in the morning, when he woke and saw the sunlight and blue sky above the mountains of the river. Dressing was a delight, with such an outlook and with such a day before him; and coming down he met Miss Farnum looking fresh as a rose with the dew on it. Caryl Wemyss was standing talking to her with that air of distinction of which he was so proud; and just after, Mrs. Hay and Miss Duval came bouncing down the staircase, arm in arm. So they went in to breakfast, without waiting for Mrs. Gower, hungry, and in high glee for want of a chaperone. “Oh, I don’t consider you a chaperone,” said Pussie Duval to Mrs. Hay. “Nor do I,” added Kill Van Kull, hastily.
Theirs was the central table in the dining-hall; and each lady found a dozen roses at her plate. These were from Lord Birmingham, who appeared late, and was duly thanked for them. Every man asked his neighbor for one rosebud as a boutonnière: and just then Flossie came in, dressed in the airiest of summer gowns; and there was a great arising and scraping of chairs among the gentlemen.
Soon they were down at the river, and crossing the river again. Such a wealth of brown sunlight as was in the air! The bold mountains rose up on either side, not soft and purple with heather, as in England, nor brown and sharp with rock, as in Italy, but green and shaggy, as in a new country, with a growth of timber; the deep, swirling waters, brown where you looked into them, shaded off to blue farther from the boat, where they gleamed smooth beneath the cloudless sky. And the sparkle and the stillness of the morning gave one the feeling of a truant school-boy.
“There is something about an American landscape that reminds one of the pictures in omnibuses,” said Wemyss. No one replied to this; for they were nearing the wharf, where the coach and four were standing, as if it were Fifth Avenue. Again there was the shifting of rugs and wraps in the body, and the courtesies of the steel ladder, and the pleasant twinkling of neat ankles as the ladies alertly mounted it. The four men hove themselves up anyhow, with Lord Birmingham and Miss Farnum on the box; and then with a swing the heavy drag was swaying under way, and the four shining chestnuts took the hill at a gallop. They were passing a row of square wooden houses where poor people lived, and Mrs. Hay turned about and called to Wemyss. “One thing I notice, Mr. Wemyss—in America you have tenements, not cottages.”
“Yes,” said he, “and ‘elegant residences’ for gentlemen’s houses!”
“Now, in Devonshire,” said Mrs. Hay, “those cottages would be smothered in roses and fuchsia vines. Don’t you have any cottage improvement societies? My cousin, Lady St. Aubyn, at Hartland (near Clovelly, you know), has been most active in them; and one of her tenants took the prize for the county!”
“These people are nobody’s tenants,” said Wemyss; “and they decorate their houses as they damn please, American fashion; with goats and tomato-cans, if they prefer.”