Well, she got a Western divorce and married Mr. Ebenezer Smith, and spozed that the Tweedle eppisode wuz over. But after lettin’ her alone for years, Tweedle, bein’ base clear to his toes, and havin’ run through his property and had reverses, wuz botherin’ Miss Green Smythe, and demandin’ money of her. He said there wuz some legal error in the divorce papers, and he wuz threatenin’ her bad.
Well, she wuz in a hard place and I felt sorry for her. And then her girls had had sights of trouble, too, the two girls, Eudora Francesca and Medora Francina Warn, that wuz their right name, but their Ma thought that Green Smythe sounded fur more genteel, so she called ’em by that name, they have had dretful bad luck. Eudora’s nurse wuz a good faithful creeter (that wuz after her Ma had married old Green, good land! she nussed ’em herself till then). But as I was sayin’, Eudora’s nurse wuz a valuable woman but had one fault; she would drink once in a while, and it wuz when she had one of her drunken fits that she dropped the little girl onto the marble hearth and hurt her spine, she suffered dretful and went to a private hospital the year her Ma wuz in Europe for the fifteenth time, the nurse stayin’ with her and cryin’ over her lots of times, they say, for she had a good heart.
Well, she stayed there for years till she got to be a young woman, while Miss Green Smythe took Medora Francina round with her considerable. She had a great-aunt on her Pa’s side, Karen Happuck Warn, who wuz as rich as Creshus, her husband havin’ made his money in a coal mine discovered on his rocky old farm up in Maine.
Well, this old lady bein’ left without chick or child of her own, what should Miss Green Smythe do but take Medora Francina up there visitin’! And I spoze she done it from pure ambition and wantin’ to advance her child’s interests, she told her aunt that Medora’s name wuz Karen Happuck Warn, and she called her all the time she wuz there Karen Happuck. Well, that tickled the old lady dretfully, and she seemed to like Medora first rate, and her Ma left her there most a year, while she went off, I believe it wuz to Algeria that time, or Cairo or somewhere.
The Warns wuz dretful religious folks, and Medora wuz under better influences that year than she ever wuz before or since, I spoze, and she enjoyed herself first rate, and realized the beauty of a good honest life, of duty and labor and simple pleasures and domestic happiness. She fell in love up there with a handsome young lumberman, Hatevil White, and would have liked to married him, he wuz a distant, a very distant relation to old Miss Warn, though she didn’t have much to do with him then.
Well, they fell in love with each other, and I guess it would made a match, but Miss Green Smythe couldn’t bear to have Medora marry a common Mr. and a lumberman at that, she hankered after a title in her family, so she took her home to New York and there she met her titled man. You know that in one of the big hotels there you can always see a hull row of ’em settin’ in the hall, lookin’ out for rich wives; they write their letters from that hotel and hang round there, but sleep, it is spozed, in some hall bedroom downtown, and eat where they can, but they are real lucky in findin’ pardners, and there Medora found hern. He wuz quite good lookin’, and, owin’ to his title, a great pet amongst the four hundred. Why, they all wanted to marry him, the hull four hundred, or all of ’em that hadn’t got some husbands, mebby three hundred or so. But Medora carried off the prize, her Ma wanted the title in the family, and he wanted Medora’s money; she wuz spozed then, besides her own money, to be the heiress of her aunt.
But he turned out, as so many titled men do that hang round that 400 in New York, to be a imposter. He wuzn’t a Baron, he wuz formerly a valley, or that is what they call it, to a real titled man, and from him he had got the ways of high life, good dressin’, flowery, flattering language, drinkin’, billiard playin’, etc., etc. Well, he spent Medora’s money, and broke her heart, and I believe a few of her bones; he wuz a low brute, and I don’t blame her for wantin’ a divorce.
She left the sham Baron after her bones wuz sot and went up to Maine agin, and some say she made overtoors to that Hatevil White, but he wuz true to his name and wouldn’t marry the fickle creeter who had deceived him once. And then by that time (men’s hearts are so elastic) he had got in love with a pretty young school teacher, and married her the next year after these overtoors, and her aunt, having found out how she wuz deceived in regard to Medora’s name, left her hull property when she died to this distant relation, Hatevil White.
So poor Medora Francina felt that her Ma had ondone her for the second time. She has got a high temper, and her tongue is the worst scourge Miss Green Smythe has to stand, they fight perfectly fearful, so they say. Well, to resoom backwards a spell. About the time Medora wuz married Eudora’s disease seemed to take another form, it kinder went to her head, but she appeared well enough, and could walk round as well as anybody. So, as she wuz very beautiful, the handsomest one in the family, her mother took her home and had teachers and learnt her what she could and made of her. And it wuz the next winter after she went home to live that she ran away with the coachman.
Her mother had to go to Europe agin that winter, ’twas the twenty-fourth time, I believe; but, ’tennyrate, she wuz there. But she left Eudora in the care of a very accomplished and fashionable French governess. Miss Green Smythe didn’t have time to learn much about this governess, she wuz so busy gittin’ her trueso ready for her journey, and in givin’ a big fancy ball before she sailed, so she couldn’t take the time to find out much about this woman, and she wuz dretful romantick and kinder mean, and Eudora wuz completely under her influence.