This exclamation might naturally have fallen from any quick-sighted and
sympathetic person. The solitary passenger of the second stage stood
among the crowd, hesitating, and plainly overwhelmed with timorousness.
Three waiters were wrestling with an ugly shawl, a dreadful shining
valise, and a painted wooden trunk, such as is seen in country stores.
In their enthusiastic desire to dispose creditably of these articles
they temporarily forgot the owner, who, after one desperate, timid
glance at them, looked round her in vain for succor. She was very
pretty and very young and very ill-dressed--her costume a bucolic
travesty on prevailing modes. She did not know where to go, and no one
thought of showing her; the loungers about the office stared at her;
she began to turn pale with embarrassment and timidity. Olivia Ferrol
left her chair and crossed the gallery. She spoke to a servant a
little sharply:
"Why not show the young lady into the parlor?" she said.
The girl heard, and looked at her helplessly, but with gratitude. The
waiter darted forward with hospitable rapture.
"Dis yeah's de way, miss," he said, "right inter de 'ception-room.
Foller me, ma'am."
Olivia returned to her seat. People were regarding her with curiosity,
but she was entirely oblivious of the fact.
"That is one of them," she was saying, mentally. "That is one of them,
and a very interesting type it is, too."
To render the peculiarities of this young woman clearer, it may be well
to reveal here something of her past life and surroundings. Her father
had been a literary man, her mother an illustrator of books and
magazine articles. From her earliest childhood she had been surrounded
by men and women of artistic or literary occupations, some who were
drudges, some who were geniuses, some who balanced between the two
extremes, and she had unconsciously learned the tricks of the trade.
She had been used to people who continually had their eyes open to
anything peculiar and interesting in human nature, who were enraptured
by the discovery of new types of men, women, and emotions. Since she
had been left an orphan she had lived with her brother, who had been
reporter, editor, contributor, critic, one after the other, until at
last he had established a very enviable reputation as a brilliant,
practical young fellow, who knew his business, and had a fine career
open to him. So it was natural that, having become interested in the
general friendly fashion of dissecting and studying every scrap of
human nature within reach, she had followed more illustrious examples,
and had become very critical upon the subject of "types" herself.
During her sojourn at Oakvale she had studied the North Carolinian
mountaineer "type" with the enthusiasm of an amateur. She had talked
to the women in sunbonnets who brought fruit to the hotel, and sat on
the steps and floor of the galleries awaiting the advent of customers
with a composure only to be equaled by the calmness of the noble
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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