Part 13 (1/2)
The indefatigable ”pump” changed his position, held the widow by his glittering eye once more, and propounded one more query, in a lower tone, with his head slightly inclined forward, over the back of the seat,--
”Was you calculating to get married again?”
”Sir,” said the widow, indignantly, ”you are impertinent!” And she left her seat and took another on the other side of the car.
”'Pears to be a little huffy?” said the ineffable bore. Turning to our narrator behind him, ”What did they make you pay for that umbrella you've got in your hand?”
A person more remarkable for inquisitiveness than good-breeding--one of those who, devoid of delicacy and reckless of rebuff, pry into everything--took the liberty to question Alexander Dumas rather closely concerning his genealogical tree.
”You are a quadroon, Mr. Dumas?” he began.
”I am, sir,” replied M. Dumas, who had seen enough not to be ashamed of a descent he could not conceal.
”And your father?”
”Was a mulatto.”
”And your grandfather?”
”A negro,” hastily answered the dramatist, whose patience was waning.
”And may I inquire what your great-grandfather was?”
”An ape, sir,” thundered Dumas, with a fierceness that made his impertinent interrogator shrink into the smallest possible compa.s.s. ”An ape, sir; my pedigree commences where yours terminates.”
”Where have you been, Helen?” asked Caroline Swift of her sister, as Helen, with a package in one hand and some letters in the other, entered the parlour one severe winter's day.
Caroline had been seated near the fire, sewing; but as her sister came in with the package, up the little girl sprang; and, allowing cotton, thimble, and work to find whatever resting-place they could, she hurried across the room; and, without so much as ”By your leave, sister,” she caught hold of the letters and commenced asking questions as fast as her nimble tongue could move.
”Which question shall I answer first?” asked Helen, good-humouredly, trying, as she spoke, to slip a letter out of sight.
”Tell me whose letter you are trying to hide there,” cried Caroline, making an effort to thrust her hand into her sister's pocket.
Helen held the pocket close, saying gravely, ”Suppose I should tell you that this letter concerns no one but myself, and that I prefer not to name the writer?”
”Oh dear! some mighty mystery, no doubt. I didn't suppose there was any harm in asking you a question.”
Caroline's look and tone plainly indicated displeasure.
”There is harm, Caroline, in trying to pry into anything that you see that another person wishes to keep to herself; for it shows a meddling disposition, and is a breach of the command to do as you would be done by.”
”You're breaking that command yourself,” retorted Caroline, ”for you won't let me see what I want to see.”
”G.o.d's commands do not require us to forget our own rights. I am not bound to do to you what you have no right to require of me. We have all a perfect right to request of each other whatever is perfectly conducive to our welfare and happiness, provided it does not improperly infringe upon that of the person of whom the request is made. You trespa.s.s upon _my rights_ when you attempt to pry into my private affairs.”
”Mercy, Helen! don't preach any more. I guess I'm not the only meddlesome person in the world. One half the people I know need nothing more to make them take all possible pains to learn about a thing than to know the person whom it concerns wishes it kept secret. But where have you been, pray? and what have you in that bundle?” and Caroline tore off the paper cover from the package which Helen had laid upon the table.