As Violante became more familiar with her new home, and those around
her became more familiar with Violante, she was remarked for a certain
stateliness of manner and bearing, which, had it been less evidently
natural and inborn, would have seemed misplaced in the daughter of
a forlorn exile, and would have been rare at so early an age among
children of the loftiest pretensions. It was with the air of a little
princess that she presented her tiny hand to a friendly pressure, or
submitted her calm clear cheek to a presuming kiss. Yet withal she was
so graceful, and her very stateliness was so pretty and captivating,
that she was not the less loved for all her grand airs. And, indeed,
she deserved to be loved; for though she was certainly prouder than
Mr Dale could approve of, her pride was devoid of egotism; and that
is a pride by no means common. She had an intuitive forethought for
others; you could see that she was capable of that grand woman-heroism,
abnegation of self; and though she was an original child, and often
grave and musing, with a tinge of melancholy, sweet, but deep in her
character, still she was not above the happy genial merriment of
childhood,--only her silver laugh was more attuned, and her gestures
more composed, than those of children habituated to many play-fellows
usually are. Mrs Hazeldean liked her best when she was grave, and said
"she would become a very sensible woman." Mrs Dale liked her best
when she was gay, and said "she was born to make many a heart ache;"
for which Mrs Dale was properly reproved by the Parson. Mrs Hazeldean
gave her a little set of garden tools; Mrs Dale a picture-book and
a beautiful doll. For a long time the book and the doll had the
preference. But Mrs Hazeldean having observed to Riccabocca that the
poor child looked pale, and ought to be a good deal in the open air,
the wise father ingeniously pretended to Violante that Mrs Riccabocca
had taken a great fancy to the picture-book, and that he should be
very glad to have the doll, upon which Violante hastened to give them
both away, and was never so happy as when mamma (as she called Mrs
Riccabocca) was admiring the picture-book, and Riccabocca, with austere
gravity dandled the doll. Then Riccabocca assured her that she could
be of great use to him in the garden; and Violante instantly put into
movement her spade, hoe, and wheel-barrow.
This last occupation brought her into immediate contact with Mr Leonard
Fairfield; and that personage one morning, to his great horror, found
Miss Violante had nearly exterminated a whole celery-bed, which she had
ignorantly conceived to be a crop of weeds.
Lenny was extremely angry. He snatched away the hoe, and said angrily,
"You must not do that, Miss. I'll tell your papa if you--"
Violante drew herself up, and never having been so spoken to before, at
least since her arrival in England, there was something comic in the
surprise of her large eyes, as well as something tragic in the dignity
of her offended mien. "It is very naughty of you, Miss," continued
Leonard in a milder tone, for he was both softened by the eyes and awed
by the mien, "and I trust you will not do it again."
"_Non capisco_," (I don't understand,) murmured Violante, and the dark
eyes filled with tears. At that moment up came Jackeymo; and Violante,
pointing to Leonard, said, with an effort not to betray her emotion,
"_Il fanciullo e molto grossolano_," (he is a very rude boy.)
Jackeymo turned to Leonard with the look of an enraged tiger. "How
you dare, scum of de earth that you are," cried he,[20] "how you
dare make cry the signorina?" And his English not supplying familiar
vituperatives sufficiently, he poured out upon Lenny such a profusion
of Italian abuse, that the boy turned red and white in a breath with
rage and perplexity.
[20] It need scarcely be observed, that Jackeymo, in his conversations
with his master or Violante, or his conferences with himself, employs
his native language, which is therefore translated without the blunders
that he is driven to commit when compelled to trust himself to the
tongue of the country in which he is a sojourner.
Violante took instant compassion upon the victim she had made, and,
with true feminine caprice, now began to scold Jackeymo for his anger,
and, finally approaching Leonard, laid her hand on his arm, and said
with a kindness at once childlike and queenly, and in the prettiest
imaginable mixture of imperfect English and soft Italian, to which I
cannot pretend to do justice, and shall therefore translate: "Don't
mind him. I dare say it was all my fault, only I did not understand
you: are not these things weeds?"
"No, my darling signorina," said Jackeymo in Italian, looking ruefully
at the celery-bed, "they are not weeds, and they sell very well at
this time of the year. But still, if it amuses you to pluck them up, I
should like to see who's to prevent it."
Lenny walked away. He had been called "the scum of the earth," by
a foreigner too! He had again been ill-treated for doing what he
conceived his duty. He was again feeling the distinction between rich
and poor, and he now fancied that that distinction involved deadly
warfare, for he had read from beginning to end those two damnable
tracts which the Tinker had presented to him. But in the midst of
all the angry disturbance of his mind, he felt the soft touch of the
infant's hand, the soothing influence of her conciliating words, and he
was half ashamed that he had spoken so roughly to a child.
Still, not trusting himself to speak, he walked away and sat down at
a distance. "I don't see," thought he, "why there should be rich and
poor, master and servant." Lenny, be it remembered, had not heard the
Parson's Political Sermon.
An hour after, having composed himself, Lenny returned to his work.
Jackeymo was no longer in the garden; he had gone to the fields; but
Riccabocca was standing by the celery-bed, and holding the red silk
umbrella over Violante as she sat on the ground looking up at her
father with those eyes already so full of intelligence, and love, and
soul.
"Lenny," said Riccabocca, "my young lady has been telling me that she
has been very naughty, and Giacomo very unjust to you. Forgive them
both."
Lenny's sullenness melted in an instant: the reminiscence of tracts
Nos. 1 and 2,--
"Like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Left not a wreck behind."
He raised eyes, swimming with all his native goodness, towards the wise
man, and dropped them gratefully on the face of the infant peace-maker.
Then he turned away his head and fairly wept. The Parson was right: "O
ye poor, have charity for the rich; O ye rich, respect the poor."