“I am sorry for that. I thought I had come unfashionably early.”
“Fashion! What have you or I to do with anything so absurd as fashion? You are too poor to attend to the whims and caprices which sway the mind of the multitude, from which I presume emanate the fashions of the world; and I am too independent to be swayed by any will but my own. We will therefore set the fashion for ourselves. This is liberty hall while I am mistress of it. I do as I please; I give you full permission to do the same. But what kept you so late?”
“A thousand little domestic duties, too numerous and too trifling to dwell upon,” said Flora, drawing her work from her bag; “since you give me the privilege of doing as I please, I will resume my work, while I listen to your lively conversation.”
“You will do no such thing,” returned Wilhelmina, twitching a frill which Flora had commenced hemming, from her hand, “I will have no stitching and sewing here, but as much conversation as you please.” Then ringing the bell, she handed over the frill to Mrs. Turner, “Give that to your daughter, Mrs. T., to hem for me, and tell her to do it in her very best style.
”“Why, la, ma’am, ’tis a very small affair,” said Mrs. Turner, with a meaning smile.
“A nightcap frill for Muff,” said Miss Carr. “The cold weather is coming. I mean Muff to wear caps in the winter.”
“You are a droll lady,” said Mrs. Turner retreating; “it’s a pity you had not something better to make an idol of, than a dog.”
While Miss Carr was speaking to Mrs. Turner, Flora glanced round the room, and was not a little surprised to find a pianoforte making part of the furniture, an open drawing-box, of a very expensive kind, with card-board and other drawing materials, occupied a side-table. These were articles of refinement she had not expected from a man-like woman of Miss Carr’s character.
“Are you fond of drawing?” she asked, when they were once more alone.
“Passionately, my dear: I am a self-taught genius. Other people drew, and I was determined that I would draw too. What should hinder me? I have eyes to see, and hands to copy what pleases me; and the school from which I derive instruction is the best in the world, and furnishes the most perfect models—that of Nature. I never bent my mind to anything that I wished to accomplish, and failed. But you shall judge for yourself.”