Miss Dorcas was one of those people who sit habitually on thrones of judgment and see the children of this world pass before them, with but one idea, to determine what she should think of them. What they were likely to think of her, was no part of her concern. Her scrutinies and judgments were extremely quiet, tempered with great moderation and Christian charity, and were so seldom spoken to anybody else that they did no one any harm.
She was a spectator at the grand theater of life; it interested and amused her to watch the acting, but she kept her opinions, for the most part, to herself. The reunions at Eva's were becoming most interesting to her as widening her sphere of observation. In fact, her intercourse with her sister could hardly be called society, it was so habitually that of a nurse with a patient. She said to her, of the many things which were in her mind, only those which she thought she could bear. She was always planning to employ Mrs. Betsey's mind with varied occupations to prevent her sinking into morbid gloom, and to say only such things of everybody and everything to her as would tranquilize and strengthen her. To Miss Dorcas, the little white-haired lady was still the beautiful child of past days—the indiscreet, flighty, pretty pet, to be watched, nursed, governed, restrained and cared for. As for conversation, in the sense of an unrestricted speaking out of thoughts as they arose, it was long since Miss Dorcas had held it with any human being. The straight, tall old clock in the corner was not more lonely, more self-contained and reticent.
The next day after the re-union, Aunt Maria came at the appointed hour, with all due pomp and circumstance, to make her call upon the two sisters, and was received in kid gloves in the best parlor, properly darkened, so that the faces of the parties could scarcely be seen; and then the three remarked upon the weather, the state of the atmosphere to-day and its probable state to-morrow. Mrs. Wouvermans was properly complimented upon her niece's delightful re-unions; whereat she drew herself up with suitable modesty, as one who had been the source and originator of it all—claiming property in charming Mrs. Henderson as the girl of her bringing up, the work of her hands, the specimen of her powers, marshalled and equipped by her for the field of life; and in her delightful soirées, as in some sort a result of her management. It may be a consolation to those who are ever called to wrestle with good angels like Aunt Maria, that if they only hold on and overcome them, and hold their own independent way, the angels, so far from being angry, will immediately assume the whole merit of the result. On the whole, Aunt Maria, hearing on all sides flattering things of Mrs. Henderson's lovely house and charming evenings, was pluming herself visibly in this manner.
Now, as Eva, in one of those bursts of confidence in which she could not help pouring herself out to those who looked kindly on her, had talked over with Miss Dorcas all Aunt Maria's objections to her soirées, and her stringent advice against them, the good lady was quietly amused at this assumption of merit.
"My! how odd, Dorcas!" said Mrs. Betsey to her sister, after Mrs. Wouvermans had serenely courtesied herself out. "Isn't this the 'Aunt Maria' that dear Mrs. Henderson was telling you about, that made all those objections to her little receptions?"
"Oh, yes," said Miss Dorcas.
"But how strange; she really talks now as if she had started them."
"People usually adopt a good thing, if they find they can't hinder it," said Miss Dorcas.
"I think it is just the oddest thing in the world; in fact, I don't think it's really honest," said Mrs. Betsey.
"It's the way people always do," said Miss Dorcas; "nothing succeeds like success. Mrs. Wouvermans opposed the plan because she thought it wouldn't go. Now that she finds it goes, she is so delighted she thinks she must have started it herself."