Mrs. Gilbert relaxed the half seriousness of her face. “Oh, it was a very pretty scene, I can tell you. They brought the sketch into my room after breakfast, with Mrs. Belle Farrell at the head of the procession, and set it down on my mantelpiece, and all crowded round it, and praised it with that enthusiasm for genius which Boston people always feel.”
Gilbert smiled insult, and his sister-in-law went on.
“It was really very touching to hear our two youngest girls rave over it in that fresh, worshiping way young Boston girls have; and we have another artist in the house (she paints cat-tail rushes, and has her whole room looking like a swamp) who hailed it with effusion. She said that Miss Woodward’s talent was God-given, and ought to be cultivated.”
“Of course.”
“Then everybody else said so, too, and wondered that they hadn’t thought of God-given before Mrs. Stevenson did. It seemed to describe it so exactly.”
“I see,” said Gilbert. “Mrs. Stevenson embodies the average Boston art feeling. How long has she left off chromos? How does her husband like the cat-tails?”
“He thinks they’re beautiful and he attributes all sorts of sentiment to them. He’s a very good man.”
Gilbert laughed aloud. “He must be. What did the Woodward family think of Blossom’s head in charcoal?”
“Nobody knows what the Woodward family think of that or of anything else,” said Mrs. Gilbert. “I hope they don’t despise us, for I respect Mrs. Woodward very much; she has character, and she looks as if she had history; but they draw the line very strictly between themselves and the boarders, all except Mrs. Farrell.”
“Ah?” said Gilbert, who had visibly not cared to hear about the Woodwards, “and why except Mrs. Farrell?”