"Ah, but this isn't the worst yet; that's the clever 'new daughter' kind that sticks by her ma, who was herself once a particular housekeeper, and takes charge of her long before there's any need; regulates her clothes and her food and her callers, drags her around Europe to rheumatism doctors, and pushes her into mud baths; jerks her south in winter and north in summer, for her 'health and amusement,' so she needn't grow narrow, when all the poor soul needs and asks is to be let stay in her nice old-fashioned country house, and have the village children in to make flannel petticoats; entertain the bishop when he comes to confirm, with a clerical dinner the same as she used to; spoil a lot of grandchildren, of which there aren't any; and once in a while to be allowed to go into the pantry between meals, when the butler isn't looking, and eat something out of the refrigerator with her fingers to make sure she's got them!
"No, my dear, rather than that, I choose the lap dog and poor relation, who is generally too dejected to object to anything. Besides, lap dogs are much better now than in the days when the choice lay only between sore-eyed white poodles and pugs. Boston bulls are such darlings that for companions they beat half the people one knows!"
I am doubly glad that the twins are boys! Well, so be it, for women do often frighten me and I misunderstand them, but men are so easy to comprehend and love. While now, when Richard and Ian puzzle me, all I need to do is to point to father and Evan, and say, "Look! ask them, for they can tell you all you need to know!"
* * * * *
Almost sunset, the boys climbing up stairs, and Effie bringing a letter? Yes, and from Lavinia Dorman, pages and pages—the dear soul! I must wait for a light. What is this?—she wishes to see me—will make me a long visit—in May—if I like—has no longer the conscience to ask me to leave the twins to come to her—boys of their age need so much care—then something about Josephus! Yes, Sylvia Latham is the daughter of the new house on the Bluffs, etc. You blessed twins! here is another advantage I owe to you—at last a promised visit from Lavinia Dorman!
Ah, as I push my book into the desk the reason for its title turns up before me, worded in Martin Cortright's precise language:—
"Everything, my dear Barbara, has a precedent in history or the basis of it. It is well known that the Indian tribes have taken their distinctive names chiefly from geographical features, and these often in turn control the pace of the people. The name for the island since called New Amsterdam and York was Mon-ah-tan-uk, a phrase descriptive of the rushing waters of Hell Gate that separated them from their Long Island neighbours, the inhabitants themselves being called by these neighbours Mon-ah-tans, anglice Manhattans, literally, People of the Whirlpool, a title which, even though the termagant humour of the waters be abated, it beseems me as aptly fits them at this day."
II
MISS LAVINIA'S LETTERS TO BARBARA
NEW YORK, "GREENWICH VILLAGE," January 20, 19—.