Americans -- Italy -- Fiction; New England -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
On her part, Clementina began by looking after Mrs. Lander's comforts,
large and little, like a daughter, to her own conception and to that of
Mrs. Lander, but to other eyes, like a servant. Mrs. Lander shyly shrank
from acquaintance among the other ladies, and in the absence of this,
she could not introduce Clementina, who went down to an early breakfast
alone, and sat apart with her at lunch and dinner, ministering to her in
public as she did in private. She ran back to their rooms to fetch her
shawl, or her handkerchief, or whichever drops or powders she happened
to be taking with her meals, and adjusted with closer care the hassock
which the head waiter had officially placed at her feet. They seldom sat
in the parlor where the ladies met, after dinner; they talked only to
each other; and there, as elsewhere, the girl kept her filial care of
the old woman. The question of her relation to Mrs. Lander became so
pressing among several of the guests that, after Clementina had watched
over the banisters, with throbbing heart and feet, a little dance one
night which the other girls had got up among themselves, and had fled
back to her room at the approach of one of the kindlier and bolder of
them, the landlord felt forced to learn from Mrs. Lander how Miss Claxon
was to be regarded. He managed delicately, by saying he would give the
Sunday paper she had ordered to her nurse, “Or, I beg your pardon,”
he added, as if he had made a mistake. “Why, she a'n't my nuhse,” Mrs.
Lander explained, simply, neither annoyed nor amused; “she's just a
young lady that's visiting me, as you may say,” and this put an end
to the misgiving among the ladies. But it suggested something to Mrs.
Lander, and a few days afterwards, when they came out from Boston where
they had been shopping, and she had been lavishing a bewildering waste
of gloves, hats, shoes, capes and gowns upon Clementina, she said, “I'll
tell you what. We've got to have a maid.”
“A maid?” cried the girl.
“It isn't me, or my things I want her for,” said Mrs. Lander. “It's you
and these dresses of youas. I presume you could look afta them, come to
give youa mind to it; but I don't want to have you tied up to a lot of
clothes; and I presume we should find her a comfo't in moa ways than
one, both of us. I don't know what we shall want her to do, exactly; but
I guess she will, if she undastands her business, and I want you should
go in with me, to-morror, and find one. I'll speak to some of the
ladies, and find out whe's the best place to go, and we'll get the best
there is.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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