Seated, reading by a shaded study-lamp, was a young woman of what I should call the Jeanie Deans order—one whose whole personal appearance indicated that sort of compact, efficient union of energy and simplicity characteristic of the Scottish heroine. Her hair, of a pretty curly brown, was cut short, à la Rosa Bonheur; her complexion glowed with a sort of a wholesome firmness, indicative of high health; her large, serious grey eyes had an expression of quiet resolution, united with careful observation. Her figure inclined to the short, stout and well-compacted order, which gave promise of vitality and power of endurance—without pretensions to beauty. There was a wholesome, thoughtful cheerfulness and good humor in the expression of the face that made it decidedly prepossessing and attractive.
The furniture of the room, too, was in contrast with all the other appointments of the house. It was old and worn, and of that primitive kind that betokened honest and respectable mediocrity. There was a quaint, old-fashioned writing-desk, with its array of drawers and pigeon-holes; there were old slippery wooden arm-chairs, unrelieved by cushions; while the floor was bare, excepting in front of the fire, where it was covered by a large square of what New England housekeepers call rag-carpet. The room, in fact, was furnished like the sitting-room of an old New England farm-house. A cheerful, bountiful wood-fire, burning on a pair of old-fashioned brass andirons, added to the resemblance.
"You see, Mr. Henderson," said Miss Eva, when I had been introduced and seated, "you are now in the presence of Miss Van Arsdel proper. This room is Papa's and Ida's joint territory, where their own tastes and notions have supreme sway; and so you see it is sacred to the memories of the past. There is all the old furniture that belonged to papa when he was married. Poor man! he has been pushed out into grandeur, step by step, till this was all that remained, and Ida opened an asylum for it. Do you know, this is the only room in the house Papa cares much for. You see, he was born on a farm, dear gentleman, and he has an inveterate yearning after primitive simplicity—huckleberries and milk, you know, and all that. Don't this look like the old 'keeping-room' style?"
"Yes," said I, "it looks like home. I know rooms just like it."
"But I like these old primitive things," said Ida. "I like hardness and simplicity. I am sick to death of softness and perfumed cushions and ease. We women are sweltered under down beds, and smothered with luxuries, in our modern day, till all the life dies out of us. I want to live while I live, and to keep myself in such trim that I can do something—and I won't pet myself nor be petted."
"There," said Eva, laughing, "blood will tell; there's the old Puritan broken loose in Ida. She don't believe any of their doctrines, but she goes on their track. She's just like a St. Bernard dog that she brought home once. As soon as snow came, he was wild to run out and search in it, and used to run off whole days in the woods, just because his ancestors were trained to hunt travelers. Ida is as bent on testifying and going against the world as any old Covenanter."
"The world needs going against," said Ida. "By the by, Mr. Henderson, you must allow me to thank you for your article on the 'Woman of our Times,' in the Milky Way. It is bracing, and will do good."
"And I," said Eva, kindling with a sort of flame-like vivacity, "have been perfectly dying to tell you that you don't know us fashionable girls, and that we are not, after all, such poor trash as you seem to think. All the out-of-jointness of society is not our fault."