Part 9 (2/2)
”Father was a country lawyer,” I retorted.
”Fudge! Cousin Horace was a judge and a man whose writings had given him a wide reputation. Don't outrage his memory by calling him a rustic. For my part I never had any patience with him for burying himself in the country like a clodhopper.”
”You forget that Mother's health”--I began; but with Cousin Mehitable one is never sure of being allowed to complete a sentence.
”Oh, yes,” she interrupted, ”of course I forgot. Well, if there could be an excuse, Aunt Martha would serve for excusing anything. I beg your pardon, Ruth. But now all that is past and gone, and fortunately the family is still well enough remembered in Boston for you to take up life there with very little trouble. That's what I had in mind ten years ago, when I insisted on your coming out.”
”People who saw me then will hardly remember me.”
”The folks that knew your father and mother,” she went on serenely, ”are of course old people like me; but they will help you to know the younger generation. Besides, those you know will not have forgotten you. A Privet is not so easily forgotten, and you were an uncommonly pretty bud, Ruth. What a fool you were not to marry Hugh Colet! You always were a fool.”
Cousin Mehitable generally tempers a compliment in this manner, and it prevents me from being too much elated by her praise.
She was interrupted here by the necessity of going to prepare for supper. Miss Charlotte did not come over to-day, so we were alone together. No sooner were we seated at the supper-table than she returned to the attack.
”When you live in Boston,” she said, ”I shall”--
”Suppose I should not live in Boston?” I interrupted.
”But you will. What else should you do?”
”I might go on living here.”
”Living here!” she cried out explosively. ”You don't call this living, do you? How long is it since you heard any music, or saw a picture, or went to the theatre, or had any society?”
I was forced to confess that music and painting and acting were all entirely lacking in Tuskamuck; but I remarked that I had all the books that attracted me, and I protested against her saying I hadn't any society.
”Oh, you see human beings now and then,” Cousin Mehitable observed coolly; ”and I dare say they are very worthy creatures. But you know yourself they are not society. You haven't forgotten the year I brought you out.”
I have not forgotten it, of course; and I cannot deny that when I think of that winter in Boston, the year I was nineteen, I do feel a little mournful sometimes. It was all so delightful, and it is all so far away now. I hardly heard what Cousin Mehitable said next. I was thinking how enchanting a home in Boston would be, and how completely alone as for family I am. Cousin Mehitable is the only near relative I have in the world, and why should I not be with her? It would be delightful. Perhaps I may manage to get in a week or two in town now and then; but I cannot go away for long. There would be n.o.body to start the reading-room, or keep up the Shakespeare Club; and what would become of Kathie and Peggy Cole, or of all that dreadful Spearin tribe? I dare say I am too proud of my consequence, and that if I went away somebody would be found to look after things. Still I know I am useful here; and it seems to me I am really needed. Besides, I love the place and the people, and I think my friends love me.
March 23. Cousin Mehitable went home to-day. Easter is at hand, and she has a bonnet from Paris,--”a perfect dream of a bonnet,” she said with the enthusiasm of a girl, ”dove-colored velvet, and violets, and steel beads, and two or three white ostrich tips; a bonnet an angel couldn't resist, Ruth!”--and this bonnet must form part of the church service on Easter. The connection between Paris bonnets and the proper observance of the day is not clear in my mind; but when I said something of this sort to Cousin Mehitable she rebuked me with great gravity.
”Ruth, there is nothing in worse form than making jokes about sacred subjects.”
”Your bonnet isn't sacred,” I retorted, for I cannot resist sometimes the temptation to tease her; ”or at least it can't be till it's been to church on Easter.”
”You know what I mean,” was her answer. ”When you live with me I shall insist upon your speaking respectfully of the church.”
”I wasn't speaking of the church,” I persisted, laughing at the gravity with which she always takes up its defense; ”I was speaking of your bonnet, your Paris bonnet, your Easter bonnet, your ecclesiastical, frivolous, giddy, girlish bonnet.”
”Oh, you may think it too young for me,” she said eagerly, forgetting the church in her excitement, ”but it isn't really. It's as modest and appropriate as anything you ever saw; and so becoming and _chic_!”
”Oh, I can always trust your taste, Cousin Mehitable,” I told her, ”but you know you're a worldly old thing. You'd insist upon having your angelic robes fitted by a fas.h.i.+onable tailor.”
Again she looked grave and shocked in a flash.
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