“Like them! I detest them! If Mr. Erwin were a real Englishman, I think I should go crazy; but he's been so little in his own country—all his life in India, nearly, and the rest on the Continent,—that he's quite human; and no American husband was ever more patient and indulgent; and that's saying a good deal. He would be glad to have nothing but Americans around; he has an enthusiasm for them,—or for what he supposes they are. Like the English! You ought to have heard them during our war; it would have made your blood boil! And then how they came crawling round after it was all over, and trying to pet us up! Ugh!”
“If you feel so about them,” said Lydia, as before, “why do you want to go with them so much?”
“My dear,” cried her aunt, “to beat them with their own weapons on their own ground,—to show them that an American can be more European than any of them, if she chooses! And now you've come here with looks and temperament and everything just to my hand. You're more beautiful than any English girl ever dreamt of being; you're very distinguished-looking; your voice is perfectly divine; and you're colder than an iceberg. Oh, if I only had one winter with you in Rome, I think I should die in peace!” Mrs. Erwin paused, and drank her chocolate, which she had been letting cool in the eagerness of her discourse. “But, never mind,” she continued, “we will do the best we can here. I've seen English girls going out two or three together, without protection, in Rome and Florence; but I mean that you shall be quite Italian in that respect. The Italians never go out without a chaperone of some sort, and you must never be seen without me, or your uncle, or Veronica. Now I'll tell you how you must do at parties, and so on. You must be very retiring; you're that, any way; but you must always keep close to me. It doesn't do for young people to talk much together in society; it makes scandal about a girl. If you dance, you must always hurry back to me. Dear me!” exclaimed Mrs. Erwin, “I remember how, when I was a girl, I used to hang on to the young men's arms, and promenade with them after a dance, and go out to supper with them, and flirt on the stairs,—such times! But that wouldn't do here, Lydia. It would ruin a girl's reputation; she could hardly walk arm in arm with a young man if she was engaged to him.” Lydia blushed darkly red, and then turned paler than usual, while her aunt went on. “You might do it, perhaps, and have it set down to American eccentricity or under-breeding, but I'm not going to have that. I intend you to be just as dull and diffident in society as if you were an Italian, and more than if you were English. Your voice, of course, is a difficulty. If you sing, that will make you conspicuous, in spite of everything. But I don't see why that can't be turned to advantage; it's no worse than your beauty. Yes, if you're so splendid-looking and so gifted, and at the same time as stupid as the rest, it's so much clear gain. It will come easy for you to be shy with men, for I suppose you've hardly ever talked with any, living up there in that out-of-the-way village; and your manner is very good. It's reserved, and yet it isn't green. The way,” continued Mrs. Erwin, “to treat men in Europe is to behave as if they were guilty till they prove themselves innocent. All you have to do is to reverse all your American ideas. But here I am, lecturing you as if you had been just such a girl as I was, with half a dozen love affairs on her hands at once, and no end of gentlemen friends. Europe won't be hard for you, my dear, for you haven't got anything to unlearn. But some girls that come over!—it's perfectly ridiculous, the trouble they get into, and the time they have getting things straight. They take it for granted that men in good society are gentlemen,—what we mean by gentlemen.”
Lydia had been letting her coffee stand, and had scarcely tasted the delicious French bread and the sweet Lombard butter of which her aunt ate so heartily. “Why, child,” said Mrs. Erwin, at last, “where is your appetite? One would think you were the elderly invalid who had been up late. Did you find it too exciting to sit at home looking at a novel? What was it? If it's a new story I should like to see it. But you didn't bring a novel from South Bradfield with you?”
“No,” said Lydia, with a husky reluctance. “One of the—passengers gave it to me.”
“Had you many passengers? But of course not. That was what made it so delightful when I came over that way. I was newly married then, and with spirits—oh dear me!—for anything. It was one adventure, the whole way; and we got so well acquainted, it was like one family. I suppose your grandfather put you in charge of some family. I know artists sometimes come out that way, and people for their health.”
“There was no family on our ship,” said Lydia. “My state-room had been fixed up for the captain's wife—”
“Our captain's wife was along, too,” interposed Mrs. Erwin. “She was such a joke with us. She had been out to Venice on a voyage before, and used to be always talking about the Du-cal Palace. And did they really turn out of their state-room for you?”
“She was not along,” said Lydia.
“Not along?” repeated Mrs. Erwin, feebly. “Who—who were the other passengers?”