How I Came To Town. "My father walked between Mary 'Liza and myself, each of us holding to one of his arms, as gentlemen and ladies walked."
I smile, as fancy reconstructs the group that turned the corner into this street, a block away, on the fifth of October of that memorable year in the forties. My father walked between Mary 'Liza and myself, each of us holding to one of his arms, as gentlemen and ladies in the country walked together then. He was a well-built, clear-eyed, clean-lived, upright gentleman, whom God had made and whom the world had not spoiled. My cousin and I were dressed exactly alike. Into every detail of daily life my mother carried her principle of treating the orphan as her own child. Our country-made frocks were of dark-green merino, becoming to my blond companion, and anything but becoming to my sun-browned skin. Over the frocks were neat black silk aprons with pockets. White linen-cambric frills, hemstitched by hand, and carefully crimped, were at our throats and wrists, and sunbonnets upon our heads, or rather, "slatted" hoods that could be folded at pleasure. These were of dark-green silk, to match the merinos, and ribbon of the same color was quilled around the capes, crowns, and brims. Our silk gloves were also dark green, and my mother had knit them herself.
Every item of our school costume was prescribed by her before we left home. I comprehend now, why the water stood in Cousin Molly Belle's eyes, while dancing lights played under the water, when we presented ourselves at breakfast-time, dressed for the important first day in the Seminary. I appreciate, furthermore, as it was not possible I should then, the tact and delicacy with which she gradually modified our everyday and Sunday attire into something more in accordance with that of our school-fellows.
As we found out for ourselves, before the day was over, we were little girls in the midst of young ladies, so far as dress and carriage went. We were imbued with the idea—gathered from the talk of friends and acquaintances, and our much reading of English story-books—that we were to be "polished" by our city associations. It was a shock and a down-topple of our expectations to be thrown, without preparation, into the society of girls whose manners were very little, if at all, more refined than those of the quartette who with us constituted Miss Davidson's home school. We were even more confounded at the discovery that our home-education had so rooted and grounded us in the rudiments of learning that we were classed, after the preliminary examination, with girls older than we by four and five years. The circumstance did not make us popular with our comrades.
As if my cheeks had tingled under the assault but to-day, I recall the exclamation of a girl of fifteen who sat next to me while the examination in history was held. Her father was a distinguished citizen of Richmond, and her mother a leader in fashionable society.
"Lord, child! how smart you think yourself, to be sure!" she said aloud, turning squarely about to look into my face.
I had answered as quietly and briefly as I could, the questions put to me, and tried politely not to look scandalized at her flippant failures.
"I'm sure I don't know!" "Never heard of him!" "If I ever knew, I've forgotten all about it!"—were, to my notion, a disgrace, and her cool effrontery would have been severely rebuked by our governess, and have met with still sterner judgment from my mother.
At recess this offensive young person headed a coterie that surrounded us, criticised our clothes, and catechised us as to our home, our family, and our mode of home living. Among other choice bon mots from the Honorable Member's daughter was the inquiry—"if we got the pattern of our wagon-cover hoods from Mrs. Noah?"
I told Cousin Molly Belle that night, that "the whole pack were ill-bred, rude, and unbearable."