The dreaded interview came at last. Mrs. Ready had been absent on a visit to London; and the moment she heard of the intended emigration of the Lyndsays to Canada, she put on her bonnet and shawl, and rushed to the rescue. The loud, double rat-tat-tat at the door, announced an arrival of more than ordinary consequence.
“O!” sighed Flora, pushing away her desk, at which she was writing letters of importance, “I know that knock!—that disagreeable Mrs. Ready is come at last!”
Before Mrs. Ready enters the room, I may as well explain to the reader, what sort of an intimacy existed between Flora Lyndsay and Harriet Ready, and why the former had such a repugnance to a visit from the last-mentioned lady.
Without the aid of animal magnetism (although we have no doubt that it belongs to that mysterious science) experience has taught us all, that there are some natures that possess certain repellent qualities, which never can be brought into affinity with our own—persons, whom we like or dislike at first sight, with a strong predilection for the one almost amounting to love, with a decided aversion to the other, which in some instances almost merges into downright hate.
These two ladies had no attraction for each other: they had not a thought or feeling in common; and they seldom met without a certain sparring, which, to the looker-on, must have betrayed how matters stood between them.
But why did they meet, if such were the case?
It would be true wisdom in all such repellent natures to keep apart. Worldly prudence, and the conventional rules of society, compel persons to hide these secret antipathies—nay, even to present the most smiling exterior to those whom they often least respect.
The fear of making enemies, of being thought ill-natured and capricious, or even of making the objects of their aversion persons of too much consequence, by keeping them aloof, are some of the reasons we have heard alleged for these acts of mental cowardice.
Mrs. Ready was a low-born woman, and Flora belonged to a very old and respectable family. Mrs. Ready wished to rise a step higher in the social scale, and, thinking that Flora might aid her ambitious views, she had, after the first calls of ceremony had been exchanged, clung to her with a pertinacity which all Mrs. Lyndsay’s efforts to free herself had been unable to shake off.
Mrs. Ready was a woman of great pretensions, and had acquired an influence among her own set by assuming a superiority to which, in reality, she had not the slightest claim. She considered herself a beauty—a wit—a person of extraordinary genius, and possessed of great literary taste. The knowledge of a few botanical names and scientific terms, which she sported on all occasions, had conferred upon her the title of a learned woman; while she talked with the greatest confidence of her acquirements. Her paintings—her music—her poetry, were words constantly in her mouth. A few wretched daubs, some miserable attempts at composition, and various pieces of music, played without taste, and in shocking bad time, constituted all her claims to literary distinction. Her confident boasting had so imposed upon the good credulous people among whom she moved, that they really believed her to be the talented being she pretended.