Doctor Hathern's daughters

by Mary Jane Holmes

It was a happy winter we spent in Florence and Rome and Sorrento, going in the early spring to Venice and the Lakes, and later on to Paris. Here there were four delightful weeks, and I wanted to stay longer, but Carl hurried us on to London, where he was to be married. We all urged him to wait until we were home at The Elms, but he said No,—he had waited long enough; and so one morning in early June there was a very quiet wedding in —— church, with only a few personal friends present, and Katy was Mrs. Carl Haverleigh. There was a wedding breakfast at the Grand, where we were stopping, and where on our return from church we found a letter and package from Julina,—now the Countess de Varré! Fortune had favored her again. The brother-in-law had died and left her a good share of the money he had taken from her. The chateau at Passy was hers once more, where she was living with the Count and very happy, as a titled lady. Accompanying her letter was an individual tea set of exquisite china, with gold lined spoons and sugar tongs and silver tray,—her wedding gift to Katy and Carl conjointly, with a hope that sometimes when they were using it they would think of one who was not so bad as to American eyes she might seem to be. Katy was pleased, but Carl did not express himself, and I do not think he has ever yet taken a cup of tea from the pretty set which stands on Katy’s little tea-table in Boston and is greatly admired.

It was the middle of July when we reached New York and found Fanny waiting for us on the dock, and insisting upon our going with her to the cottage she had rented at Newport. It was too hot for either Virginia or Washington, she said, and she carried her point so far as Carl and Katy and Miss Errington were concerned. Jack said he must go home to his business, and I, of course, went with him, taking Paul, who was beginning to droop with travel and excitement. It was a lovely summer day when we drove up the avenue to our home, where Phyllis and many of our neighbors greeted us with a warmth which told us that nowhere in the world were there truer friends than in Lovering.

“And nowhere so pleasant a home,” I said, as I went all over the house, happy as a child to be back again among the Virginia hills with her blue sky over my head and the breath of the woods and pines upon my cheek.

It was better than Newport, where Katy was a great belle and where Fan had more than one offer of marriage, which she promptly declined. She was on the best of terms with her sister-in-law, and when the season was over the two went together to the house in Washington. Carl and Katy came to us and staid all through the autumn and were joined at Thanksgiving by Fan and Miss Errington. What a day that was,—and dinner, too, which Phyllis thought she superintended, although the real head was Norah, who had come with Katy, but who for once was careful of the old negress’ feelings and humored her fancies.

Towards the close of dinner Katy said, “We have no wine, but water will do as well. Let us drink to the health of the Countess de Varré.”

“Good,” Carl said, and we drank to her health and amused ourselves with reminiscences of her when she was Julina Smith and served us as our maid.

Phyllis had received the news of her advancement with a snort and a dangerous topple of her turban. She had never liked the girl, and when, as she chanced to be in the room, we drank her health, she exclaimed, “Oh, my Lord, my Lord! Ef I couldn’t drink suffin better’n July, I’d go dry a spell.”

It is many years since that day and many more since most of the incidents of this story took place. Jack and I are quite old people now, or the younger generation think us so. I am forty-seven, and have a double chin. Jack calls me a roly-poly, while a boy, who stands six feet and has eyes like Jack, says I waddle like a duck when I walk, but am the sweetest and jolliest little mother in the world. Jack is fifty-three and getting grey and stout, and is a fine type of the well-conditioned southern gentleman,—not too much pressed with business, but still with enough to do. He has been to Congress twice and there is talk of sending him as a State Senator next year. One winter we took a house in Washington, and I staid there with Jack and saw all I ever care to see of fashionable society. Fanny was on the top wave, and as Katy was with us a part of the time we were made much of and went everywhere,—sometimes to three different places in one night, and by the close of the long term I was quite worn out and glad to get back to the old home under The Elms, with only Phyllis and a bright mulatto girl to look after instead of the crew I had in Washington, who stole my handkerchiefs and collars and Jack’s socks and wore my black silk dress to one of their carousals, and who always hoped to die if they had done anything of the sort when charged with the offense.

The tall boy, with eyes like Jack, is our first-born,—our son Hathern, who is nearly seventeen, and preparing for Yale. My choice is for some other college, but only Yale will suit him and we have yielded, his father telling him, however, that if he thought to join in all the sports which have sometimes made the students of Yale a by-word as well as a terror to the towns they visited, he would be mistaken, as he had no money to spend that way,—“and without money,” he added, “you can’t be in it.”

Hathern, who is a splendid specimen of young manhood and fond of athletic sports of all kinds, looked rather blue until Fan came from Washington and he took her for a drive. That night he confided to his sisters that aunt Fan was a brick! That he intended to stand well in all his classes and with his teachers and to be graduated with honor, and never drink a drop of anything stronger than water, but—he was also going to be in it; and with the enthusiasm of a girlhood which sees more to admire in an athlete than in a student, the sisters agreed that Aunt Fan was a brick,—that the cold water and standing well in classes and graduating with honor was all right, but the athletics were more fun, and it was worth some knocks and scratches and bruises, and even a broken bone now and then, to be in it.