It is snowing fast and furious to-day. It's grand to watch it. I love
miracles, and it's a miracle to see an ugly place turn into a palace of
marble and silver with diamond decorations. That's what the Asylum is
to-day. I certainly would like to have seen the Reagan ball. Miss Webb
says it was the best show ever given in Yorkburg, and she enjoyed it,
being particular fond of freaks.
Miss Katherine didn't want to go, but Miss Webb made her. For weeks that
Reagan ball had been talked about, and Yorkburg knew things about it
that had never been known about parties before, money not often being
mentioned here.
Everybody knew what this ball was going to cost. Knew the supper was
coming from New York, with white waiters and kid gloves. And what Mrs.
Reagan and her daughters were going to wear. That their dresses had been
made in Europe, and that Mrs. Hamner hadn't been invited, and that more
money was coming to Yorkburg in the shape of one man than had ever been
in it altogether before.
If I just could have put myself invisible on a picture-frame and looked
down on that fleeting show I would have done it. But not being able to
work that miracle, I just heard what was going round, and it was very
interesting, the things I heard.
Miss Webb and Miss Katherine and I think just alike about Mrs. Reagan. I
know, for I heard them talking one night just before the ball.
"But why in the name of Heaven should I go if I don't want to?" said
Miss Katherine, and she put her feet on the fender and lay back in her
big rose-covered chair. "I don't like her, or her family, the English
she speaks, or the books she reads. Why, then, should I go to her
parties? I'm not going!"
"Oh yes, you are." And Miss Webb put some more coal on the fire and made
it blaze. "Knowledge of life requires a knowledge of humanity In all its
subdivisions. Mrs. Reagan is a new sub. As a curio, she's worth the
price. You couldn't keep me from her show."
"But she's such a snob. When a woman does not know her grandfather's
first name on her mother's side and talks of people not being in her
set, Christian charity does not require you to visit her. I agree with
Mrs. Rodman. People like that ought to be let alone."
"But Mrs. Rodman isn't going to let them alone. Not for a minute. The
only thing that goes on among them that she doesn't know is what she
can't find out. She met me this morning, and asked me if I'd heard how
many people had gotten here, and when I said no, she made me come in
Miss Patty's store, and told me all she'd been able to discover.
"'There are eighteen guests already,' she said, 'and nearly all have
rooms to themselves. They tell me it's the fashion now for husbands and
wives not to see each other until breakfast, and not then if the wife
wants hers in bed.' And the way she lifted her chin and eyebrows would
be dangerous for you to try.
"'I tell you it's a reflection on Yorkburg's mode of life,' she went on.
'For two hundred years people have come and gone in this town, and
rooms have never been mentioned. But this is a degenerate age.
Degenerate! Scandalous wealth shouldn't be recognized, and I don't
intend to countenance it myself!'
"But she will." And Miss Webb took up her muff to go. "She bought a pair
of cream-colored kid gloves from Miss Patty, and she's going to wear
them at that ball. You couldn't keep her away."
And she was there. The first one, they say. She had on the dress her
Grandmother wore when her great-grandfather was minister to something in
Europe; and when she sailed around the rooms with the big, high comb in
her hair that was her great-great-grandmother's, Miss Webb says she was
the best side-show on the grounds.
But if you were to take a gimlet and bore a hole in Mrs. Rodman's head,
you couldn't make her believe anybody would smile at Her.
She was Mrs. General Rodman, born Mason, and the best blood in Virginia
was in her veins. Also in her father's, as she put on his tombstone.
Outside of Virginia she didn't think anybody was really anything. Of
course, she knew there were other states where things were done that
made money, but she'd just wave her hand if you mentioned them.
As for a Yankee! I wouldn't like to put in words what she does think of
a Yankee.
She lost a husband and two brothers and a father and four nephews and an
uncle in the war; and all her money; and her house had to be sold; and
her baby died before its father saw it; and, of course, that makes a
difference. It makes a Yankee real personal.
But Miss Katherine don't feel that way about Yankees. Each of her
brothers married one, and she don't seem to mind.
Miss Katherine went to the ball, too. She gave in, after all, and went.
I wish you could have seen her when she was dressed and all ready to go.
She had on a long, white satin dress, low neck and short sleeves, with
little trimming and no jewelry. And she looked so tall and beautiful,
and so something I didn't have a name for, that I was afraid, and my
heart beat so thick and fast I thought she'd hear.
I hated it. Hated that satin dress, and the places where she wore it
when away from the Asylum; and I sat up in bed, for lying down it was
hard to breathe.
Presently she turned from the fire where she had been standing, looking
in, and came toward me and kissed me good-night.
In her face was something I had never seen before--something so quiet
and proud that I couldn't sleep for a long time after she went away.
It wasn't just the same as the remembrance look I had seen several times
before, when she forgot she wasn't by herself. It was prouder than that,
and it meant something that didn't get better--just worse.
What was it? If it's a man, who is he? He must be living, for it isn't
the look that means something is dead. It means something that won't
die, but is never, never going to be told.