“Ambition then cried, ‘On, on,’ and drew the young lady up the steep side of the mountain. And the dear girl noticed that the flowers of Friendship and Truth were much tramped upon and pulled up by the roots, and she spoke in wonder at it. And Ambition said, ‘Oh, those are only flowers. They who have gone before have used them to pull themselves up by.’ But the beautiful, young lady said to herself that she would not so treat the flowers of Friendship and Truth; but Ambition urged her on and on, and soon she found that she, too, was destroying the flowers of Friendship and Truth. And whenever she would speak Ambition would say, ‘On, on, hurry, hurry!’ and so the beautiful, young lady did not know what she did. And the beautiful, young lady noticed that the higher she climbed, the fewer were the flowers of Friendship and Truth, and the higher she climbed the more were the flowers of Friendship and Truth uprooted and torn, and the more wearied looked the faces of those she met.
“But Ambition still called ‘On, on,’ and the beautiful, young lady climbed up and up till there were no more flowers of Friendship and Truth, and those who sat about were old and wizened, and ugly. Up and up, and up, the young lady climbed, leaving all others behind until she stood on the very top of the mountain called Society. Here she looked down upon the beautiful world; but she was so far above it, that she could not see the green fields, or the gay meadows, or the woods, the flowers, or anything; and she sighed and turned towards Ambition, but Ambition had fled; Ambition was nowhere to be seen. And the wind that blew against her was chill and cold, and the beautiful, young lady felt very, very sad.”
I don’t know if I may be called a beautiful, young lady, but I believe that Mr. Bang was telling this tale for my ears. He must be troubling his head a great deal about me. He has not shown me much attention lately, but I know I am continually in his mind. I’m sure I could never support being called “Mrs. Bang.”
At dinner Uncle announced that he had to go to Ottawa on the ninth; and then Mr. Bang electrified us all by inviting Mumsie and me to go too as his guests, for the opening of Parliament on the thirteenth, and the Drawing-room on the evening of the following Saturday. He had made two hundred and fifty dollars he said, in a little speculation for the decline in Poverty, Distress and Want Railway Stock, and he would enjoy “blowing it in.” Such an expression!
“Just for a few days at the ‘Boardin’[[3]] House’ ” I thought it very strange that Mr. Bang, with his general broadness, had decided to take us to a Boarding House. If he wished to spend two hundred and fifty dollars in a few days, I should think a hotel was the proper place.
I have never been to Ottawa, so I asked Uncle what the city was like.
“Ottawa is a very pretty place, and its winter climate good—if you ask about the city as a city. If you ask about it socially ———”
“It is best described as the re-incarnation of the home of the original snob,” broke in Mr. Bang.
What else was said, I shall not here set down. I think it will be much better to set down my own ideas of Ottawa.
And then the conversation drifted to comparisons of the men of these and other days. Uncle was of the opinion that the general code of honour was higher now than it was at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Mr. Bang agreed with this but stated it was unwise to lean too heavily upon any man’s sense of honour.