CHAPTER VI.
FLORA’S OUTFIT.

The two friends held a grand consultation over Flora’s scanty wardrobe, in which there were articles “old and new;” but it must be confessed that the old and the unfashionable predominated over the new and well-cut. Flora’s friends were poor, and she had been obliged to dispense with a wedding outfit. An old and very rich relation of her father had presented her with a very elegant wedding-dress, shawl, and bonnet, which was all the finery Flora possessed. Her other dresses were very plain, and composed of common materials; and if it had not been for the unexpected bounty of the said rich lady, our bride must have done without a wedding-garment at all; for she had earned the few common necessaries she took with her to housekeeping with her own hand, in painting trifles for the bazaars, and writing articles for ladies’ magazines. One small trunk contained Flora’s worldly goods and chattels, the night she entered the neatly-furnished lodgings which Lyndsay had prepared for her as his wife.

Flora felt almost ashamed of the little she possessed; but her high-minded, generous husband took her penniless as she was, and laughingly assured her that they could never quarrel on the score of riches; for his wardrobe was nearly as scanty as her own; and, beyond a great chest of books and music, he had nothing in the world but his half-pay. Many a long afternoon Flora spent during her quiet honeymoon (for the month was April, and the weather very wet) in looking over shirts and socks, and putting them into the best habitable repair. She was thus employed, when an author of some distinction called upon them, to enjoy half-an-hour’s chat. Flora hid up her work as fast as she could; but in her hurry, unfortunately, upset her work-basket on the floor, and all the objectionable garments tumbled out at her guest’s feet.

He was young, unmarried and a poet; and this certainly was not a poetical incident. “Mrs. Lyndsay,” he cried, in a tragic horror—(it would have been more in good taste to have said nothing about it)—“Are you forced to devote your valuable time to mending old socks and shirts?”

“They were meant for my private hours,” said Flora, laughing, as she collected the fallen articles, and stowed them once more into their hiding-place. “With such the public has nothing to do.”

“Well, if ever I marry, I’ll take good care to give away every old thing I have in the world. No wife of mine shall have it to say that she was forced to mend my rags.”

“Wait till the time comes,” said Flora quietly. “You don’t know what may happen yet. There are more disagreeable things in every-day life than mending old clothes. Industry and perseverance may soon replace these with new ones; but it is useless to throw away old friends until we are sure of obtaining others as good.”

Flora had often thought of this scene, and in her overflowing happiness had blessed God that she had been permitted to share Lyndsay’s poverty. Mending the old clothes had become a privilege.

Thirty pounds was all that she could now afford to lay out upon herself and her little one. A small sum, indeed, to the rich, who would have expended as much in a single article of dress, but very large in her estimation, whose wants had always been regulated more by the wants of others than her own.

Ignorant of the nature of the colony to which she was about to emigrate, and of the manners and customs of the people among whom she was to find a new home, and of whom she had formed the most laughable and erroneous notions, many of her purchases were not only useless, but ridiculous. Things were overlooked, which would have been of the greatest service; while others could have been procured in the colony for less than the expense of transportation.

Twenty years ago, the idea of anything decent being required in a barbarous desert, such as the woods of Canada, was repudiated as nonsense.

This reminds one of a gentleman who sent his son, a wild, extravagant, young fellow, with whom he could do nothing at home, to grow tame, and settle down into a quiet farmer in the Backwoods. The experiment proved, as it always does in such cases, a perfect failure. All parental restraint being removed, the young man ran wild altogether, and used his freedom as fresh occasion for licentiousness. The prudent father then wrote out to the gentleman to whose care the son had been consigned, that he had better buy him a wild farm, and a negro and his wife to keep house for him.

This, too, after the passing of the Anti-Slavery bill! But, even if slaves had been allowed in the colony, the horror of colour is as great among the native-born Canadians as it is in the United States. So much did this otherwise clever man know of the colony to which he sent his unmanageable son!

Flora had been led to imagine that settlers in the Backwoods lived twenty or thirty miles apart, and subsisted upon game and the wild fruits of the country until their own lands were brought into a state of cultivation. Common sense and reflection would have pointed this out as impossible; but common sense is very rare, and the majority of persons seldom take the trouble to think. We have known many persons just as wise as Flora in this respect. It is a fact, however, that Flora believed these reports, and fancied that her lot would be cast in one of those remote settlements, where no sounds of human life were to meet her ears, and the ringing of her husband’s axe alone awake the echoes of the forest.

She had yet to learn, that the proximity of fellow-labourers in the great work of clearing is indispensable; that man cannot work alone in the wilderness, where his best efforts require the aid of his fellow-men.

The oft-repeated assertion, that anything would do for Canada, was the cause of more blunders in the choice of an outfit, than the most exaggerated statements in its praise.

Of the fine towns and villages, and the well-dressed population of the improved districts of the Upper Province, she had not formed the slightest conception. To her fancy, it was a vast region of cheerless forests, inhabited by unreclaimed savages, or rude settlers doomed to perpetual toil,—a climate of stern vicissitudes, alternating between intense heat and freezing cold, and which presented at all seasons a gloomy picture. No land of Goshen, no paradise of fruits and flowers, rose in the distance to console her for the sacrifice she was about to make. The ideal was far worse than the reality.

Guided by these false impressions, she made choice of articles of dress too good for domestic drudgery, and not fine enough to suit the rank to which she belonged. In this case, extremes would have suited her better than a middle course.

Though fine clothes in the Backwoods may be regarded as useless lumber, and warm stuffs for winter, and good washing calicoes for summer, are more to be prized than silks and satins, which a few days’ exposure to the rough flooring of a log-cabin would effectually destroy; yet it is absolutely necessary to be well dressed when visiting the large towns, where the wealthier classes not only dress well, but expensively.

In a country destitute of an hereditary aristocracy, and where the poorest emigrant, by industry and prudence, may rise to wealth and political importance, the appearance which individuals make, and the style in which they live, determine their claims to superiority with the public, chiefly composed of the same elements with themselves. The aristocracy of England may be divided into three distinct classes,—that of family, of wealth, and of talent,—all powerful in their order. The one which ranks the last should hold its place with the first, for it originally produced it; and the second, which is far inferior to the last, is likewise able to buy the first. The heads of old families are more tolerant to the great men of genius than they are to the accumulators of riches; and a wide distinction is made by them between the purse-proud millionaire and the poor man of genius, whose refined tastes and feelings are more in unison with their own.

In Canada, the man of wealth has it all his own way; his dollars are irresistible, and the money makes the man. Fine clothes are there supposed to express the wealth of the possessor; and a lady’s gown determines her right to the title, which, after all, presents the lowest claims to gentility. A runaway thief may wear a fashionably cut coat, and a well-paid domestic flaunt in silks and satins.

Now, Flora knew nothing of all this; and she committed a great error in choosing neat and respectable every-day clothing. The handsome, and the very ordinary, would have answered her purpose much better.

If “necessity is the mother of invention,” experience is the handmaid of wisdom, and her garments fit well. Flora was as yet a novice to the world and its ways. She had much to learn from a stern and faithful preceptress, in a cold, calculating school.

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CHAPTER VII.
HOW MISS WILHELMINA CARR AND FLORA BECAME ACQUAINTED.

Flora’s means were far too limited for her to entertain company. Her visitors were confined entirely to her own family, and a few old and chosen friends, with whom she had been intimate from childhood. How, then, did she become acquainted with this lady? Oddly enough; for everything connected with Miss Carr was odd, and out of the common way.

There was a mystery, too, about Miss Carr, which had kept the gossips busy for the last four months, and clever and prying as they were—quite models in their way—not one of them had been able to come at the solution of the riddle.

One hot day during the preceding summer, Miss Wilhelmina walked into the town, wearing a man’s broad-brimmed straw hat, and carrying a cane in her hand, with a very small dog trotting at her heels. She inquired at the first hotel in the town for lodgings, and hired two very handsome apartments of Mrs. Turner, who kept very respectable lodgings, and was patronised by the best families in the neighbourhood. Miss Wilhelmina paid three months’ rent in advance; she brought no servant, and was to find her own table, engaging Mrs. Turner to cook and wait upon her.

Some days after her arrival, two large travelling trunks, and several well-filled hampers full of wine of the best quality, were forwarded to her direction, and Miss Carr became one of the lions of the little watering-place.

Who she was, or from what quarter of the world she emanated, nobody could find out. She had evidently plenty of money at her command, lived as she liked and did what she pleased, and seemed perfectly indifferent as to what others thought of her.

Her eccentric appearance attracted general attention, for she was no recluse, and spent most of her time in the open air. If your walk lay along the beach, the common, or the dusty high-road, you were sure to meet Miss Carr and her dog at every turn.

The excitement regarding her was so great, that most of the ladies called upon her in the hope of gratifying their curiosity, and learning something about her from her own lips. In this they were quite disappointed, for Miss Wilhelmina Carr, though she was sitting at the window nursing her dog, did not choose to be at home to any one, and never had the courtesy to return these ceremonious visits. An old practised propagator of news waylaid Mrs. Turner in the street, and cross-questioned her in the most dexterous manner concerning her mysterious lodger; but the good woman was either seized with a fit of unusual prudence, or, like Horace Smith’s mummy—

There was no getting anything out of her beyond the astounding facts, that Miss Carr smoked out of a long pipe, drank brandy-punch, and had her table served with all the dainties of the season. “Besides all this,” whispered the cautious Mrs. Turner, “she swears like a man.” This last piece of information might be a scandal, the ladies hoped that it was, but believed and talked about it as a shocking thing, if true, to all their acquaintance, and congratulated themselves that the dreadful woman had shown her wisdom in not returning the visits of respectable people.

The person about whom all this fuss was made, was a tall, and very stout woman of fifty years of age; but active and energetic looking for her time of life. Her appearance was eccentric enough to afford ample scope for all the odd sayings and doings in circulation respecting her. She had a satirical, laughing, jolly red face, with very obtuse features; and, in order to conceal hair of a decidedly carroty hue, she wore an elaborately curled flaxen wig, which nearly covered her large forehead, and hung over her eyes like the curly coat of a French poodle dog. This was so carelessly adjusted, that the red and flaxen formed a curious shading round her face, as their tendrils mingled and twined within each other. Her countenance, even in youth, must have been coarse and vulgar; in middle life, it was masculine and decidedly ugly, with no redeeming feature, but the large good-natured mouth, well set with brilliantly white teeth—strong, square, even teeth, that seem to express their owner’s love of good cheer; and silently intimated, that they had no light duty to perform, and were made expressly for eating.

Miss Carr, though she sported a man’s hat and carried a cane, dressed expensively, her outer garments being made of the richest materials; but she wore these so ridiculously short, that her petticoats barely reached below the middle of her legs; leaving exposed to general observation, the only beauty she possessed—a remarkably handsome and neatly made foot and ankle.

Now, we don’t believe that Miss Carr cared a fig about her handsome legs and feet. If they had belonged to the regular Mullingar breed, she would have shown them as freely to all the world; simply, because she chose to do so. She was a great pedestrian, to whom long petticoats would have been uncomfortable and inconvenient.

If she was vain of anything, it was of her powers of locomotion. She had made the tour of Europe on foot and alone, and still continued to walk her ten or fourteen miles a day, let the weather be what it would. Hail, rain, blow, or snow, it was all one to Miss Carr. “She was walking,” she said, “to keep herself in practice, as she was contemplating another long journey on foot.”

Ida Pfeiffer, the celebrated female traveller, was unknown in those days; or Miss Carr might have taken the shine out of that adventurous lady; as easily as the said Ida destroys all the romantic notions previously entertained by stay-at-home travellers, about the lands she visits, and the people who form the subjects of her entertaining matter-of-fact books.

When Miss Carr made her debût at church, with her masculine hat placed resolutely on the top of her head, and cane in hand, people could not say their prayers, or attend to the sermon, for staring and wondering at the uncouth apparition which had so unceremoniously appeared in the midst of them. This was not diminished, by her choosing to stand during those portions of the service, when pious females bend the knee. Miss Wilhelmina said, “that she was too big to kneel—that her prayers were just as good in one attitude as another. The soul had no legs or knees, that she could discover—and if the prayers did not come from the heart, they were of no use to her, or to any one else. She had not much faith in prayers of any kind. She never could find out that they had done her the least good, and if she had to go through a useless ceremony, she would do it in the most convenient manner.”

Flora had heard so much about this strange woman, that she had not called upon her on her first arrival in the town, though it must be confessed, that her curiosity was as much excited as her neighbours’. In her walks to and fro from her mother’s house, who resided within a short distance of the town, Flora had often encountered the sturdy pedestrian stumping along at full speed, and she had laughed heartily with her husband at her odd appearance; at her short petticoats, and the resolute manner in which she swung her cane, and planted it down upon the ground. She had often wondered how such an elephant of a woman could move so rapidly upon such small feet, which looked as if she had lost her own, and borrowed a pair of some child by the way.

She was always followed in all her rambles by a diminutive nondescript kind of dog—a tiny, long-haired, silky looking creature, the colour of coffee freshly ground, no bigger than a large squirrel, with brilliant black eyes, bushy tail, and a pert little face, which greatly resembled that animal.

Often, when moving at full speed along the dusty highway, its mistress would suddenly stop, vociferating at the top of her voice—“Muff! Muff! where are you, my incomparable Muff?” when the queer pet would bound up her dress like a cat, and settle itself down upon her arm, poking its black nose into her hand, or rearing up on its hind legs, to lick her face. They were an odd pair, so unlike, so widely disproportioned in size and motion, that Flora delighted in watching all their movements, and in drawing contrasts between the big woman and her small four-footed companion.

By some strange freak of fancy, Lyndsay and his wife had attracted the attention of Miss Carr, who never passed them in her long rambles without bestowing upon them a gracious bow and a smile, which displayed, at one gesture, all her glittering store of large, white teeth.

“I do believe, John, the strange woman means to pick acquaintance with us,” said Flora to her husband, one fine afternoon during the previous summer, as they were on their way to spend the evening with her mother at —— Hall. “Instead of passing us at her usual brisk trot, she has loitered at our pace for the last half-hour, smiling at us, and showing her white teeth, as if she were contemplating the possibility of an introduction. I wish she would break the ice; for I am dying with curiosity to know something about her.”

“You are very foolish,” said Lyndsay, who was not one of Miss Carr’s admirers, “to trouble your head about her. These eccentric people are often great bores; and, if you get acquainted with them, it is not easy to shake them off. She may be a very improper character. I hate mystery in any shape.”

“Oh, bless you!” said Flora, laughing: “she is too old and ugly for scandal of that sort. I should think, from her appearance, that she never had had a sweetheart in her life.”

“There’s no telling,” returned Lyndsay. “She may be lively and witty. Odd people possess an attraction in themselves. We are so much amused with them, that they fascinate us before we are aware. She has a good figure for her very voluminous proportions, and splendid trotters, which always possess charms for some men.”

“Now, don’t be censorious, husband dear. If she should speak to us—what then?”

“Answer her civilly, of course.”

“And if she should take it into her head to call upon us?”

“Return it, and let the acquaintance drop.”

Flora’s love of the ridiculous was her besetting sin. She continued to watch the movements of Miss Carr with mischievous interest, and was as anxious for an interview as Lyndsay was that she should keep her distance. Flora pressed her hand tightly on her husband’s arm, scarcely able to keep her delight in due bounds, while she whispered, in a triumphant aside, “John, I was right. She is shaping her course to our side of the road. She means to speak to us,—and now for it!”

Lyndsay looked annoyed. Flora with difficulty repressed her inclination to laugh out, as Miss Carr came alongside, and verified Mrs. Lyndsay’s prediction, by commencing the conversation in a loud-toned, but rather musical voice,

“A bright afternoon for your walk.”

“Beautiful for the time of year,” said Flora.

“Rather hot for stout people like me. You seem to enjoy it amazingly.”

“I am fond of walking. I do not find the heat oppressive.”

“Ah, yes; you are thin. Have not much bulk to carry; one of Pharaoh’s lean kine. It requires a warm day to make your blood circulate freely. I like winter and spring best for long rambles.”

“I should think you would prefer riding,” said Lyndsay; “yet I see you out every day on foot.”

“I never ride: I hate and detest riding. I never could be dependent upon the motions of an animal. Horses are my aversion; jackasses I despise. God, when He gave us legs of our own, doubtless intended us to make use of them. I have used mine ever since I was a baby, and they are not worn out yet. I got upon my feet sooner than most children, and have kept them to their duty ever since. I am a great walker; I have been walking all my life. Do you know that I have walked over Europe alone, and on foot?”

“So I have heard,” said Lyndsay. “It must have been an arduous undertaking for a lady.”

“Far easier than you imagine. Women are just as able to shift for themselves as men, if they would follow my example, and make the trial. I have scarcely sat still for the last twenty years. There is not a remarkable spot in Europe that I have not visited, or mountain but what I have climbed, or cavern that I have left unexplored. Three years ago I commenced a pedestrian tour through Great Britain, which I accomplished greatly to my own satisfaction. When I take a fancy to a place, I stay in it until I have explored all the walks in the neighbourhood. Directly I grow tired, I am off. ’Tis a happy, independent sort of life I lead. Confinement would soon kill me.”

“Your friends must feel very anxious about you,” said Flora, “during your absence.”

“Friends! Fiddlesticks! Who told you I had any friends who care a fig for me or my movements? I am gloriously independent, and mean to remain so. There is but one person in the world who is related to me in the most remote degree, or who dares to trouble their head about me or my doings, and he is only a half brother. He has opposed himself against my freedom of thought and action; but I don’t care that”—(snapping her fingers vigorously)—“for him or his opinions. He has made war upon my roaming propensities all his life. As if a woman has not as much right to see the world as a man, if she can pay her own expenses, and bear her own burthen, without being a trouble to any one. It is certainly no business of his how I spend my money, or where and how I pass my life. Not long ago I heard that he was going to issue a writ of lunacy against me, in order to get me and my property into his possession. This is mean; for he very well knows that I am not mad; and he is very rich, so that there is no excuse for his avarice. Fortunately, he don’t know me personally—never saw me since I was a child—and as I never go by my real name, it is not a very easy matter for him to discover me. I don’t like this place, but it is quiet and out of the way. I think I shall remain where I am, till he gets tired of hunting me out. I trust to your honour, young people; you must not betray my secret.”

Both promised to say nothing about what she had so frankly communicated.

“I take you at your word,” continued Miss Carr; “I like your appearance, and would willingly improve my acquaintance. I often watched you from my windows; and yesterday I asked Mrs. Turner who you were. Her account was so much in your favour, that I determined to introduce myself the first time we accidentally encountered each other. I know your names and where you live. May I come and occasionally enjoy an hour’s chat?”

“We shall only be too happy,” said Flora, in spite of a warning pinch from Lyndsay, which said, as plainly as words could have done, “She’s mad; as mad as a March hare.” But Flora would not understand the hint. She felt flattered by the confidence so unexpectedly reposed in them by the odd creature; and vanity is a great enemy to common sense.

“Mind,” said Miss Wilhelmina, turning abruptly to Lyndsay, “I don’t want to see you at my house. I’m a single woman, and, though not very young, I’m very particular about my character. I never allow a male creature to enter my doors. I’m not fond of men—I have no reason to be fond of them. They never were commonly civil to me; and I hate them generally and individually. When I come to see your wife of course I don’t expect you to hide out of the way, or peep at me through crannies, as if I were a wild beast. I shall call to-morrow morning, and so, good day.

“Muff! Muff!—My incomparable! my perfect!—What are you doing? Frisking beside that ugly black cur! He’s no companion for a dog of your breeding and degree. Away, you vulgar-looking brute.” And running across the road, she seized hold of a pedlar’s dog, who was having a great game of romps with her favourite, and gave it a most unjust and unmerciful belabouring with her cane.

The pedlar, who was by no means pleased with this outrage against his cur, now interfered.

“Don’t lick my dorrg, ma’am, in that ere sort o’ fashun. What harm can that hanimal ha’ done to you, or that whiskered cat-like thing o’ yourn?”

“Hold your impertinent tongue, fellow! or I’ll thrash you, too,” cried Miss Wilhelmina, flourishing aloft her cane.

The man eyed her sullenly. “Maybe, you’d beest not try. If you warn’t a ’uman I’d give it to ’un.”

“A lady, sir,” with great dignity, and drawing herself up to her full height.

“Ladies don’t act in that ere way. You be but a ’uman, and a mad yun, too; that be what you be’s.”

The next moment Lyndsay expected the cane to descend upon the pedlar’s head, and was ready to rush to the rescue of the fair Wilhelmina. But no; the lady dropped her cane, burst into a loud fit of laughter, stooped down, patted the offended cur, and, slipping a shilling into the hand of the angry countryman, snatched Muff to her capacious bosom, and walked off at full trot.

The pedlar, looking after her for a minute, with his eyes and mouth wide open in blank astonishment, and then down at the silver glittering in his hand, cried out,—

“I knows you bees a lady now. If you delights in licking o’ do’rrgs, ma’am, you ma’ thrash Bull as much as you please for sixpence a licking. That’s fair, I thinks.”

He might as well have shouted to the winds; Miss Wilhelmina was out of hearing, and Flora and her husband pursued their walk to the hall.

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CHAPTER VIII.
MISS WILHELMINA CALLS UPON FLORA.

“Too early? Just speak the truth plainly out. Why the deuce do people tell so many stories, when it would be far easier to speak the truth? I assure you, that you look so neat and comfortable in your morning costume, that you have no reason to be ashamed. I like to come upon people unawares,—to see them as they really are. You are welcome to come and see me in my night-cap, when the spirit moves me. When I’m not out walking, I’m always at home. Busy at work, too?” she continued, putting a tiny cap upon her fist. “That looks droll, and tells tales.”

“Oh, don’t!—do spare me,” cried Flora, snatching the article from her odd companion, and hiding it away in the table-drawer. “I did not mean that any one should catch me at this work.”

“Don’t think, my dear, that I am going to criticise you. I am no judge of sewing,—never set a stitch in my life. It must be a dull way of spending time. Can’t you put your needle-work out?”

Flora shook her head.

“Too poor for that? Mrs. Turner’s daughter takes in all such gimcracks. Send what you’ve got over to her, and I’ll pay for the making.”

“Miss Carr!” said Flora, greatly distressed.

“What, angry again?”

“No, not exactly angry; but you wound my pride.”

“It would do you no harm to kill it outright,” said Miss Carr, laughing—such a loud, jovial peal of merriment, which rang so clearly from her healthy lungs, that Flora, in spite of her offended dignity, was forced to laugh too.

“You feel better now. I hope the proud fit is going off, and we can enjoy a reasonable chat. These clothes—what a bore they are, to both poor and rich,—the rich setting their heart too much upon them, and the poor despised because they have not enough to keep them warm,—and those mean and old. Then, this is not all. There are the perpetual changes of the fashions, which oblige people to put on what does not suit them, and to make monstrous frights of themselves to dress in the mode. You must have a morning-gown, a dinner-dress, and an evening costume; all to be shifted and changed in the same day, consuming a deal of time, which might be enjoyed in wholesome exercise. I have no patience with such folly. The animals, let me tell you, are a great deal better off than their masters. Nature has provided them with a coat which never wants changing but once a-year; and that is done so gradually, that they experience no inconvenience. No need of their consulting the fashions, or patching and stitching to keep up a decent appearance. It is a thousand pities that clothes were ever invented. People would have been much healthier, and looked much better without them.”

“My dear madam, did not God himself instruct our first parents to make garments of the skins of animals?”

“They were not necessary in a state of innocence, or He would have created them like cows and horses, with clothes upon their backs,” said Wilhelmina, sharply. “It was their own fault that they ever required such trumpery, entailing upon their posterity a curse as bad as the thorns and thistles. For I always consider it as such, when sweltering under the weight of gowns and petticoats on a hot day; and I rate Mother Eve roundly, and in no measured terms, for her folly in losing the glorious privilege of walking in buff.”

“You must have been thinking of that,” said Flora, rather mischievously, and glancing down at Miss Wilhelmina’s legs, “when you cut your petticoats so short.”

“You are welcome to laugh at any short petticoats,” said Wilhelmina, “as long as I feel the comfort of wearing them. Now do tell me, candidly,—what impropriety is there in a woman showing her leg and foot, more than in another woman showing her hand and arm? The evil lies in your own thoughts. You see the Bavarian buy-a-broom girls passing before your windows every day, with petticoats cut three or four inches shorter than mine. You perceive no harm in that. ‘It is the fashion of her country,’ you cry. Custom banishes from our minds the idea of impropriety; and the naked savage of the woods is as modest as the closely covered civilian. Now, why am I compelled to wear long petticoats drabbling in the mud, when a Bavarian may wear hers up to the knees, and nobody think the worse of her? I am as much a free agent as she is; have as much right to wear what I please. I like short petticoats—I can walk better in them—they neither take up the dust or the mud, and leave my motions free and untrammelled—and what’s more, I mean to wear them.

“I have tried trowsers; but they fettered me. It is difficult to stow a large figure like mine away into trowsers. I felt as if my legs were in the stocks, and kicked them off in disdain—simply remarking—‘what fools men are!’ So, you don’t like my short petticoats? and I hate your long ones. First, because they are slatternly and inconvenient; secondly, because they make your stockings dirty; and thirdly, because they give you the idea that they are intended to conceal crooked legs. So don’t say one word in their favour.”

“It is but a matter of taste and opinion,” said Flora; “we will not quarrel about it. I think it wiser, however, in order to avoid singularity, to conform to existing fashions.”

“Mrs. Lyndsay, I can prove to you in less than two minutes, that you transgress daily your own rules.” Flora looked incredulous.

“You do not wear a bustle, which is now considered by all ladies an indispensable article of dress.”

“You are right: it is a disgusting fashion, which destroys the grace and just proportions of the female form. A monstrous piece of absurdity, that I have never adopted, and never will.”[A]

“Bravo! Bravo!” shouted Miss Wilhelmina, clapping her hands in an ecstasy of delight. “I have conquered you with your own weapons. There is no slipping past the horns of that dilemma. You refuse to wear a hump on your back, and I decline the honour of the long petticoats. Let us hear how you can justify yourself?”

“You have gained an advantage by my own admission,” said Flora; “but I can’t consider myself beat.”

“Fairly out of the field, my dear—fairly out of the field. Acknowledge the defeat with a good grace. Let us shake hands, and drink a glass of wine together in token of peace.”

“I never keep wine in the house,” said Flora, rather embarrassed, at the request, particularly at such an early hour of the day.

“Never keep wine in your house! Why, how do you contrive to keep up your spirits, without a glass of wine now and then?”

“We are young, and require no artificial stimulants, to render us cheerful and happy.”

“Well, I require stimulants,” said Miss Wilhelmina, “with the violent exercise I take. I do not object to a glass of brandy-and-water, or even of gin, when I feel exhausted.”

“If you feel ill, Miss Carr, I will send out and get some.”

“Ill! Lord bless you! I never was ill for an hour in my life. So, you cannot afford a little luxury like wine? My child, I pity you: I am sure you require it. I wish you were better off.”

“I shall never quarrel with Providence, from whom we have received so many blessings, on that account,” said Flora; “I am very grateful for the real comforts we enjoy.”

“Poor comfort!” quoth Miss Wilhelmina. “My ideas of comfort are always associated with wealth. I maintain, that no one can really be comfortable without it. What should I be, without money? An antiquated, despised old maid—and with all my expensive habits, and queer notions, the very boys in the village would hold me in derision. For even boys know the importance of money, and let me pass unmolested through the midst of them.”

“I perceive that you are very popular with the young folks,” said Flora.

“All bribery and corruption, my dear. Boys are but men abridged and cramped down into skeleton jackets. When I come to a town, I throw a handful of small silver coin into the middle of the first group of boys I find in my path. The next time they see me coming they cry out lustily, ‘Off with your hats, boys: here comes the rich lady!’ Off go the tattered hats and caps, and my small coin pays for the compliment.”

“Your plan is an expensive one,” said Flora; “no wonder the boys regard you with such favour.”

“I never found money fail but in one instance,” said Miss Wilhelmina thoughtfully. “Mind, it is not to every one that I would communicate my experience. People like to talk of themselves—to tell portions of their history; it relieves their minds. There are very few to whom I have ever told mine; but I think it will amuse you. The follies of others are always entertaining.

“My father was Scotch—my mother Irish. The two nations don’t amalgamate very well together. The children of such an union are apt to inherit the peculiar national failings of both. My father united to a love of science a great deal of mechanical genius. He was a clever, prudent, enterprising man, and amassed a large fortune. My mother I never knew—she died when I was an infant. My father hired a good-natured, easy kind of woman, to be nurse. She was a widow, without children, whom he afterwards promoted to the head of his table. She was his third wife. He had one son by his first marriage, who had been born in Scotland, and adopted by a rich uncle. He afterwards got an appointment in India; and I never saw him above half-a-dozen times in my life—and only when a child. He was a handsome, proud man, very Scotch in all his words and ways. We never took to one another. He thought me a spoilt, disagreeable, pert child; and I considered him a cross, stern man; and never could be induced to call him brother.

“I inherited a good property from my mother, which made me a very independent little lady, in my own conceit. I knew, that the moment I became of age, I was my own mistress. Perhaps it was this consciousness of power which made me the queer being I am.

“My step-mother was very fond of me. She spoilt me shockingly—more than most mothers indulge their brats. She always seemed to retain a sense of the inferior position she had held. Not a common failing, by-the-by: persons raised unexpectedly to wealth, from the lower class, generally measure their presumption by their ignorance. She always treated me as a superior. My father was very fond of her. These passive women are always great favourites with men. They have no decided character of their own, and become the mere echoes of superior minds. A vain man loves to see his own reflection in one of these domestic magnifying glasses: it is so gratifying to be the Alpha and Omega in his own house. His former wives were both handsome, conceited women, who thought so much of themselves that they could reflect no perfections but their own. In this respect I resembled my mother—from a baby I thought fit to have a will and opinions of my own.

“My step-mother always yielded to my masterly disposition when a child, generally ending the brief contest with the remark, ‘What a pity Willie was not a boy! What a fine spirited boy she would have made!’ When I grew a tall girl, I became more independent still, and virtually was mistress of the house. My father sent me to school. I learnt quickly enough; but I was expelled from half a dozen for striking my teacher whenever she dared to raise her hand to correct me. At length my education was finished, and I returned home for good, as wild and as fierce as an untamed colt.

“My step-mother had a nephew—a lad whom my father had befriended very much. He had paid for his education, had bound him to an eminent surgeon, and, when his term expired, had enabled him, from the same source, to walk the hospitals and attend the necessary lectures. Henry was attending the last course which was to fit him for entering upon his profession; and during that period he made our house his home.

“He was not handsome, but a well-grown, high-spirited, clever young fellow. Not at all a sentimental person, but abounding in frolic and fun, full of quaint, witty sayings, and the very incarnation of mischief. We took amazingly to each other; and he enjoyed all my odd freaks and fancies, and encouraged me in all my masculine propensities.

“I grew very fond of him: he was the only creature of his sex I ever loved;—but I did love him, and I thought that he loved me. I considered myself handsome and fascinating. All young people think so, if they are ever so ordinary. It belongs to the vanity of the age, which believes all things—hopes for all things, and entertains no fears for the result.

“The girls at school had told me, that ‘I was a perfect fright;’ but I did not believe them. They laughed at my snub nose and carrotty locks, and said ‘that it would take all my money to buy me a husband.’

“Now, by way of digression, I’m a great talker, Mrs. Lyndsay, and love to ramble from one subject to another. Do just tell me, why a snub nose should be reckoned vulgar, and red hair disgraceful?”

This was an awkward question. It was, however, put point blank. Flora could not avoid giving something in the shape of an answer.

“It is impossible to account for these things,” she said. “Any deviation from a recognised standard of taste and beauty is always open to objections. But there are a great many modifications of these rules. Elegance of form, grace of manner, charms of expression, and even sweetness of voice, will render plain persons not only agreeable, but highly so.”

“You reconcile me to my snub nose and red hair,” said the odd woman. “But few people possess a nice sense of discrimination; they are quick at finding out defects, slow at discovering graces. The world is full of unjust partialities. My snub nose would have been considered a beauty in Africa. My red hair would have been admired in Italy; but there is no struggling against national prejudices; and these bull-headed English are the most prejudiced animals under the sun—and I was remorselessly branded as a fright by a pack of sneering girls, half of whom had noses as bad as my own. I had my private opinion on the subject, in which I flattered myself my cousin (as I called Henry), would perfectly agree.

“He never told me he loved me. I felt certain that he did, and that it was gratitude to my father, for all that he had done for him, which kept him silent. This was a foolishly romantic notion of mine. But there was a touch of romance about me in those days. I was green—very green. I can laugh at myself now. But it has always been rather a sore subject.

“Henry did not speak himself. So I thought I would break the ice, and speak for him. You look surprised. Well, I know it is not exactly according to the general rules observed in such matters, which ties a woman’s tongue, and obliges her to wait with all humility, until she is asked by some man, whom perhaps she does not care a fig for, to be his wife. I never lived within rules, and I thought I had as much right to please myself, and ask a man to marry me, as a man had to ask me to be his wife.

“I made Henry an offer of my hand, heart, and fortune—and—it is no use being ashamed at my time of life, of a thing which happened such a long time ago—I was refused!—without any softening of the matter—down right, positively refused.

“The ungrateful varlet did not even thank me for the honour. He briefly told me, ‘That I was a very amusing girl, but the last woman on earth he should wish to make his wife; that as to money, it was certainly a great inducement, but not enough to compensate for the sacrifice of his principles. He had a good profession, and hoped to earn by it wealth and independence.’

“Ah! how I hated him while he told me all this. How I have hated all his sex from that hour, for his sake!

“However, my dear, it had this good effect,—it cured me of all such ridiculous weakness then and for ever. I shook off the love fit, and Wilhelmina was herself again.

“My step-mother died shortly after this, and I became the mistress of my father’s house. He was old and very infirm, and completely wrapped up in his scientific studies. I only saw him occasionally, and then my nonsense amused him. He pined after my step-mother; and very shortly followed her to the grave. I had just attained my majority when he died, and I came into a fine property, and found myself at my own disposal.

“Nobody cared for me, and I cared for nobody. I wished to take a peep at the world, and determined to travel over as much of its surface as I possibly could; and please myself as to the method I employed to effect my object.

“I have been in a great many foreign countries, and seen a great many strange people; and been an actor in many extraordinary scenes; and I have come to the conclusion, that the world after all is not such a terrible bad world to live in, and that the very worst of its inhabitants are not entirely without some good.”

As she finished this sentence, the church clock proclaimed to the whole town the hour of one. Miss Wilhelmina sprang from her chair, exclaiming, “Holloa! that’s my dinner-hour. It will take me ten minutes to get home, and the fish will be quite spoilt. Excuse me, Mrs. Lyndsay, and come and take tea with me, like a good soul, to-morrow evening. I never take tea later than six.”

Miss Wilhelmina vanished. Flora laughed over the interview until her husband came home, and then they had a good laugh together.

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CHAPTER IX.
FLORA GOES TO TEA WITH MISS CARR.

“You are late,” said Wilhelmina, drawing a small sofa up to the fire, and placing it opposite to Flora’s easy chair, so that a pretty work-table stood conveniently between them; “I told you to come early, and I have been waiting for you this hour.”

“I am sorry for that. I thought I had come unfashionably early.”

“Fashion! What have you or I to do with anything so absurd as fashion? You are too poor to attend to the whims and caprices which sway the mind of the multitude, from which I presume emanate the fashions of the world; and I am too independent to be swayed by any will but my own. We will therefore set the fashion for ourselves. This is liberty hall while I am mistress of it. I do as I please; I give you full permission to do the same. But what kept you so late?”

“A thousand little domestic duties, too numerous and too trifling to dwell upon,” said Flora, drawing her work from her bag; “since you give me the privilege of doing as I please, I will resume my work, while I listen to your lively conversation.”

“You will do no such thing,” returned Wilhelmina, twitching a frill which Flora had commenced hemming, from her hand, “I will have no stitching and sewing here, but as much conversation as you please.” Then ringing the bell, she handed over the frill to Mrs. Turner, “Give that to your daughter, Mrs. T., to hem for me, and tell her to do it in her very best style.

”“Why, la, ma’am, ’tis a very small affair,” said Mrs. Turner, with a meaning smile.

“A nightcap frill for Muff,” said Miss Carr. “The cold weather is coming. I mean Muff to wear caps in the winter.”

“You are a droll lady,” said Mrs. Turner retreating; “it’s a pity you had not something better to make an idol of, than a dog.”

While Miss Carr was speaking to Mrs. Turner, Flora glanced round the room, and was not a little surprised to find a pianoforte making part of the furniture, an open drawing-box, of a very expensive kind, with card-board and other drawing materials, occupied a side-table. These were articles of refinement she had not expected from a man-like woman of Miss Carr’s character.

“Are you fond of drawing?” she asked, when they were once more alone.

“Passionately, my dear: I am a self-taught genius. Other people drew, and I was determined that I would draw too. What should hinder me? I have eyes to see, and hands to copy what pleases me; and the school from which I derive instruction is the best in the world, and furnishes the most perfect models—that of Nature. I never bent my mind to anything that I wished to accomplish, and failed. But you shall judge for yourself.”

Miss Wilhelmina sprang from her seat, and bouncing into a closet, soon returned with a large portfolio, which she placed on the table before Flora. “There are my treasures; you can examine them at your leisure.”

Flora did not expect anything delicate or beautiful, but she was perfectly astonished, not at the skill and taste displayed in these drawings, but at the extraordinary want of it—nothing could be worse, or indeed so eccentrically bad. The first specimen of Miss Carr’s talents as an artist which she drew from the splendid velvet-covered portfolio puzzled her not a little. What the picture was meant for, Flora, for the life of her, could not tell, until glancing down to the bottom of the sheet, she read with great difficulty the following explanation, written in a vile hand:—

“Portrait of the Incomparable Muff, taken while picking her bone at breakfast.”

It was a good thing she had discovered a key to the hieroglyphic, for Miss Carr’s keen eyes were fixed intently upon her, as if they were reading her inmost soul.

“Is it not beautiful?” she cried, anticipating Flora’s admiration.

“Muff is a very pretty animal,” said Flora evasively.

“Muff pretty!” exclaimed Miss Carr indignantly, “who ever thought of insulting Muff by calling her pretty! She is exquisite—the perfection of her species. I have, in that spirited picture, hit her off to the life. Look at the action of that tail—the life-like grasp of those paws. You might almost fancy you heard her growl over the delicious broiled mutton-bone.”

Flora thought the picture would have suited the Ornithorhyncus paradoxus quite as well as the incomparable Muff. The drawing was too bad to praise; she could not flatter, and she abhorred quizzing.

Miss Carr waited for her answer. Flora was dumb-foundered; fortunately the offended vanity of the artist soon relieved her from the painful and embarrassing silence.

“I perceive that you are no judge of good paintings, Mrs. Lyndsay, or you must see some merit in the one before you. I showed that sketch to an Italian artist of celebrity when I was at Rome; he said, ‘That it was worthy of the original,’ which I considered no mean praise.”

“Doubtless, he was right,” said Flora. “His judgment must be more correct than mine. Muff is so unlike the generality of dogs, that it is difficult to recognise her as such.”

“She’s a fairy!” cried Wilhelmina, forgetting her anger, and hugging Muff to her breast.

“A Brownie,” suggested Flora, delighted to find the conversation taking a turn.

“Brownies belong to an inferior order of immortals,” quoth Wilhelmina, still caressing her dog. “My Muff is among the aristocrats of her species. But you have not seen the rest of my sketches. You will find a great many original pieces in the portfolio.”

Flora wished them all behind the fire, and turning with a rueful seriousness to the sacred repository of genius, she drew forth several daubs that were meant for landscapes, the contemplation of which would have provoked the most indifferent person to mirth; but it was no laughing matter to examine them while a being so odd as Miss Carr was regarding you with a fixed gaze, hungry for applause and admiration.

Flora thought she had discovered the maddest point in Miss Carr’s character. At length she stumbled upon a portrait. The figure was meant for that of a boy, but the head was as big as the head of a man, and covered with a forest of red curling hair, and he held in his hand a bunch of blue flowers as big as himself. “What an odd looking creature!” burst involuntarily from her lips.

“Ah, my beautiful Adolphe!” cried Wilhelmina. “He was odd like myself—he stood alone in the world in my estimation. I must tell you the history of that child while you have his charming face before you.”

Flora quietly slipped the portrait back into the portfolio. Her inclination to laugh became almost irrepressible. Miss Wilhelmina laid her right foot over her left knee, and, patting it almost as complacently as she would have done the silky brown back of her pet dog, gave Mrs Lyndsay the following passage from her history:—

“That boy, with the education I meant to bestow upon him, would have become a great man—a second William Tell, or Andrew Hoffer—and I should have been the foster-mother of a man of genius. But it was not to be—there is a fate in these things.”

“Did he die?” asked Flora.

“Die! that would have been nothing out of the common way; everybody must die, some time or other. Oh, no, he may be living yet for what I know—it was far worse than that.”

Flora became interested.

“First—I like to begin at the beginning—I must tell you how I came by Adolphe. I passed the summer of ’28 in a small village among the Alps. Every fine day I rambled among the mountains,—sometimes with a guide, sometimes alone. About half a mile from the village I daily encountered, upon the rocky road, a red-headed little boy of eight years of age, who never failed to present me with a bunch of the blue flowers which grow just below the regions of ice and snow. He presented his offering in such a pretty, simple manner, that I never accepted his flowers without giving him a kiss and a few small coins. We soon became great friends, and he often accompanied me on my exploring expeditions. Whether it was his red head—God bless the mark! or a likeness I fancied I saw between him and me, I cannot tell; but at last I grew so fond of the child that I determined to adopt him as my own. His father was one of the mountain guides, and resided in a small cabin among the hills. I followed Adolphe to his romantic home, and disclosed my wishes to his parents. They were very poor people, with a very large family, Adolphe being number twelve of the domestic group.

“For a long time they resisted all my entreaties to induce them to part with the child. The woman, like the mother of the Gracchi, thought fit to look upon her children as her jewels,—Adolphe, in particular, she considered the gem in the maternal crown. Her opposition only increased my desire to gain possession of the boy; indeed, I was so set upon having him that, had she remained obstinate, I determined to carry him off without asking her leave a second time. My gold, and the earnest request of the child himself, at last overcame her scruples; and after binding me by a solemn promise to let them see him at least once a-year, she gave him into my charge with many tears.

“Having accomplished this business, greatly to my own satisfaction, I set off with Adolphe, on a tour on foot through Germany. He was not only a great comfort to me, but useful withal. He was sturdy and strong, a real son of the hills, and he carried my small valise, and enlivened the length of the road with his agreeable prattle.

“When we put up for the night, the people always took him for my son; a fact I thought it useless to dispute in a foreign country. It would have had a more significant meaning in England. A red-headed, single lady could not have travelled alone, with a red-headed child, without disagreeable insinuations. Abroad I always passed myself off as a widow, and Adolphe of course was my orphan son.

“Matters went off very pleasantly, until we arrived at Vienna, and I hired a neat lodging in a quiet part of the city, where I determined to spend the winter. The next morning I went out, accompanied by Adolphe, to examine the lions of the place. By accident we got entangled in a crowd, which had collected in one of the principal thoroughfares, to witness a fire. While striving to stem my way through the heaving mass of human forms that hedged us in on every side, I suddenly missed my child. To find him among such a multitude, was, indeed, to look for a needle in a waggon of hay; yet I commenced the search in utter desperation.

“I ran hither and thither, wherever I could find an opening, frantically calling upon Adolphe. I asked every person whom I met—‘If they had seen my boy?’ Some pitied—some laughed; but the greater number bade me stand out of their way. I was mad with fear and excitement, and returned to my lodgings late in the evening, starving with hunger, and worn out with fatigue of mind and body. I hoped that the child might have found his way home, and was waiting me there. Alas! Adolphe had not been seen, and I went to bed too much vexed to eat my supper.

“Early the next morning I resumed my search. I hired the public cryer to proclaim my loss; I borrowed a large bell from my landlady, and went through all the streets crying him myself, hoping that he would recognise my voice. Alas! alas! I never saw my child again!”

“Never?” said Flora. “Was he irrevocably lost?”

“Lost, lost, lost!” said Wilhelmina, shaking her head. “This comes of adopting other people’s brats. Had he been a worthless, spoilt imp of my own, I should have been more successful. I stayed in Vienna all the winter. I advertised him in the papers. I had placards, offering a large reward for his discovery, pasted on the walls of the principal streets; but I failed in recovering my poor Adolphe. To console myself for his loss, I painted that portrait of him from memory. ’Tis an admirable likeness. No one who had ever seen the original, could mistake it for another. It was just a week after I lost my child, that the mistress of the house, in compassion for my distress, presented me with my incomparable Muff. Fortune owed me a good turn, for the ill-natured trick she had played me. It would not have been difficult for me to have found another red-headed boy, as amiable as Adolphe; but such a prize as Muff is only to be met with once in a life.”

“And the parents of the poor child,—how did they bear his loss?”

“To tell you the truth, my dear, I never knew. I never wish to know; for, without Adolphe, I never mean to venture into their neighbourhood again.”

“Let us hope,” said Flora, “that the child found his way back to his native mountains.”

“Hurra!” cried Miss Wilhelmina, starting from her seat, and giving Flora such a hearty embrace that she nearly choked her. “I never thought of that possibility before. Yes—yes; he had money in his little purse. I have no doubt that, on missing me, he returned by the road we had travelled to his native place. That demon won’t haunt my dreams again. But here comes the coffee, and Miss Turner’s delicious cakes and home-made bread and butter. I hope you are fond of coffee, my dear? I detest tea;—it is a sort of nervous, maudlin, sick-chamber trash, only fit for old maids and milk-and-water matrons.”

“I prefer coffee,” said Flora. “I have quite an Asiatic taste in that respect.”

“Don’t talk of Asiatic coffee,” said Wilhelmina: “wait till you have tasted it. The nauseous stuff! I have drank enough of it at Constantinople, but never could get it down without a grimace. I have it made in the French style.”

The coffee and cakes were served on a small silver tray, which was placed on the table between them. The coffee was fragrant and exhilarating; the bread and butter and cakes richly deserved the praise Miss Wilhelmina had bestowed upon them. Flora had dined early, and did justice to them.

“I like to see a person enjoy their meals,” said Miss Carr. “I hate affectation in eating, as much as I hate affectation in speech. Some mince with their food as if they were ashamed of putting a morsel into their mouths before people. They ask for the least piece of this, and for an imaginary crumb of that; and make their entertainers uncomfortable by their ridiculous fastidiousness; while, if we could see these very delicate masticators in their own homes, perhaps we should find them grumbling for Benjamin’s share of the daily meal. For my own part, I always eat in public as if no eye was upon me, and do it in a hearty, natural way. You may be sure, when you see persons, whether male or female, give themselves great airs at table, that they have never been used to good society at home.”

Flora thought there was a great deal of truth in some of Wilhelmina’s remarks. But she felt that it would be dangerous to take the doings of such an odd mortal for precedents in any case; and she was justified in her opinion by Miss Carr, the moment the table was cleared, calling for hot water, brandy, and wine.

“Do you smoke?” she cried, producing a box of cigars from the closet, and a long Turkish pipe. Then, drawing down the window-curtains, she tucked her legs under her upon the sofa, and commenced filling, from a beautiful inlaid silver box, her hooker, with its finely-ornamented bowl and amber mouthpiece.

Flora looked her astonishment, as she said,—

“Miss Carr, do you really smoke?”

“Do I know what is good?” said Wilhelmina. “Did you never see a woman smoke before?”

“Yes, Irish barrow-women in London; and I thought it odd, even for them.”

“They were wise women, my dear, and knew how to appreciate the merits of the weed. The Irish are a clever people—a very clever people. You remember, that I am Irish by the mother’s side, and have retained one of the national tastes. But it was not in Ireland, nor in the streets of London, sitting upon a fruit-woman’s barrow, that I learned the pleasures of smoking. It was in the East, with all its pretended romance, and real humbug, that I acquired what you consider an unfeminine accomplishment. I saw fat, turbaned men sitting cross-legged in every bazaar, dozing over their huge pipes, in a sort of dreamy helplessness; and I determined to fathom the mystery of their enjoyment, and find out the grand secret.

“The first few whiffs I took made me very sick and stupid. ‘Courage,’ said I, not in the least disheartened—