savage; she had walked and driven over the mountain roads, stopping at
wayside houses and entering into conversation with the owners until she
had become comparatively well known, even in the space of a fortnight,
and she had taken notes for her brother until she had roused him to
sharing her own interest in her discoveries.
"I am sure you will find a great deal of material here," she wrote to
him. "You see how I have fallen a victim to that dreadful habit of
looking at everything in the light of material. A man is no longer a
man--he is 'material'; sorrow is not sorrow, joy is not joy--it is
'material.' There is something rather ghoulish in it. I wonder if
anatomists look at people's bodies as we do at their minds, and if to
them every one is a 'subject.' At present I am interested in a species
of girl I have discovered. Sometimes she belongs to the better
class--the farmers, who have a great deal of land and who are the rich
men of the community,--sometimes she lives in a log cabin with a mother
who smokes and chews tobacco, but in either case she is a surprise and
a mystery. She is always pretty, she is occasionally beautiful, and in
spite of her house, her people, her education or want of it, she is
instinctively a refined and delicately susceptible young person. She
has always been to some common school, where she has written
compositions on sentimental or touching subjects, and when she belongs
to the better class she takes a fashion magazine and tries to make her
dresses like those of the ladies in the colored plates, and, I may add,
frequently fails. I could write a volume about her, but I wont. When
your vacation arrives, come and see for yourself." It was of this
class Miss Ferrol was thinking when she said: "That is one of them, and
a very interesting type it is, too."
When she went in to the dining-room to partake of the six o'clock
supper, she glanced about her in search of the new arrival, but she had
not yet appeared. A few minutes later, however, she entered. She came
in slowly, looking straight before her, and trying very hard to appear
at ease. She was prettier than before, and worse dressed. She wore a
blue, much-ruffled muslin and a wide collar made of imitation lace.
She had tucked her sleeves up to her elbow with a band and bow of black
velvet, and her round, smooth young arms were adorable. She looked for
a vacant place, and, seeing none, stopped short, as if she did not know
what to do. Then some magnetic attraction drew her eye to Olivia
Ferrol's. After a moment's pause, she moved timidly toward her.
"I--I wish a waiter would come," she faltered.
At that moment one on the wing stopped in obedience to a gesture of
Miss Ferrol's--a delicate, authoritative movement of the head.
"Give this young lady that chair opposite me," she said.
The chair was drawn out with a flourish, the girl was seated, and the
bill of fare was placed in her hands.
"Thank you," she said, in a low, astonished voice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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