AN ERROR OF JUDGMENT.
Despite the fact that Persis triumphed in such decided measure over the
members of the club, as well as her sisters, she was not always wise in
her judgments.
“Persis is so awfully set up because Annis Brown turned out to be
a lady of quality, that there is no living with her,” Mellicent
complained.
“She will be making all sorts of queer acquaintances after this, you
see if she doesn’t,” remarked Lisa. “Now, I say that money and society
bring certain refinements, and that we are bound to acknowledge it. But
Persis pooh-poohs the whole thing, and is becoming a regular socialist.”
“Socialist yourself,” retorted Persis. “Mamma, I leave it to you if I
am not a greater respecter of property than either Mell or Lisa. Why,
mamma, they think nothing of helping themselves to my belongings, and
half the time when I go to get a ribbon or a handkerchief I find that
what I want has been taken. I think that it doesn’t make any difference
if we are sisters, that we have our individual rights, and I never
know what is really my own, for they use my things as if they were
common property. I believe they look upon a loan as an actual gift, for
they never think of returning anything they borrow.”
“I wouldn’t be so selfish,” Lisa retorted.
“I’m not selfish, I am perfectly willing to loan, or even to give you
my things, but I do like to know what to depend upon; and you haven’t
any right to possess yourself of my property without so much as a by
your leave.”
“Persis is entirely right,” Mrs. Holmes asserted, after a moment’s
reflection. “I think you, Lisa, and Mellicent too, do impose upon her
generosity, and it is only fair that you should return her property
promptly when you borrow it. It is a poor return, when she is kind
enough to allow you the use of what is hers, for you to be ungracious
in letting her have her own again. You should reflect that the
obligation is on your side. I have seen you look as if Persis had
offered you a personal injury when she asked you to return something
of hers, when it was she who had a right to feel aggrieved by being
deprived of the rightful use of her special possession.”
Lisa did not look very well pleased at the turn the conversation was
taking, and hastened to change the subject.
“Well, however that may be,” she said, “to return to the subject of
acquaintances, I heard Connie Steuart ask Persis to go home with her at
Thanksgiving, and mamma, we don’t know anything about those Steuarts.
Connie is simply a boarding pupil, and no one knows how she lives or
anything about her people.”
“She is one of your fine Colonial Maids,” returned Persis.
“Well, suppose she is; that doesn’t alter the matter.”
“I thought you were such an advocate of heredity that Connie’s claim
would give her a high seat in your opinion, on account of the colonel
she has for a great-great-grandfather, or whatever he is.”
“Girls! girls!” warned Mrs. Holmes. “How you do like to bicker! Sisters
should not be always so ready to argue and contend.”
“But mamma, we have to, or else one of us would have no mind of her
own,” maintained Persis. “And I do want to go home with Connie at
Thanksgiving. Mayn’t I?”
“I shall have to think that over,” returned Mrs. Holmes. “Connie seems
rather a nice girl, but it is true that we do not know her people, and
I do not care to have you make acquaintances about whom I know nothing.”
“Connie knows the Dixons,” responded Persis, eagerly, “and I am sure
they are nice people.”
“Yes, they are. How well does she know them?”
“Why, she must be quite intimate there; she visits the house often, and
Mrs. Dixon gives her a lovely Christmas-gift every year.”
“Very well, we will leave the question for the present. I will think it
over.”
In the end, however, Persis had her way, for after Connie had spent a
couple of days with the Holmes girls, Mrs. Holmes yielded.
“There is nothing to condemn in Connie that I can see,” she said to
Mrs. Estabrook. “I do not see but that she is as well behaved as most
girls; so, as Persis seems to have set her heart upon this visit, we
may as well consent to her going. Any friends of Mrs. Dixon’s must be
all right.”
“Now, dear,” she charged Persis, “remember one or two things: always
be prompt to your meals; it is a discourtesy to your hostess to be
otherwise. Do not expect to be entertained every moment. Have some
consideration for the convenience of your entertainers, and help when
you see that your assistance would be acceptable. Don’t demand of the
maids more than is your share of service. You have never been away from
home alone until now, and I want you to be as courteous and kind as you
can, in return for the hospitality offered you. In other words, do as
you would have others do to you; that, after all, is the best rule for
etiquette.” And Persis set off in high glee.
It was late on Wednesday evening that she arrived with Connie Steuart
at her home, something less than a hundred miles distant from where
the Holmes family lived. It was bleak, chilly weather, and Persis
looked forward to a cosey evening at a comfortable fireside. The
house was one of a long row in a crowded street, the dreariness of
which was increased by the season. A few leafless trees, sparse and
unhealthy-looking, were seen along the sidewalk; the houses were
dingy; dust-heaps were collected before the doors; bits of paper blew
hither and thither upon the unswept pavement. Up the wooden steps,
which showed signs of having needed paint for many a day, the two
girls went. They were met in the hall by Mrs. Steuart in a rusty black
dress, elaborately trimmed with what had once been showy jet trimming.
Following her came Connie’s sisters, Imogene and Oriana. A fit of
homesickness overcame Persis the moment she entered the house, and she
felt as if she must rush out and take the next train home.
They were ushered into a room full of odors of cooking, mingled with
the faint remains of cheap perfume. It seemed to Persis that the place
could not have been aired since summer. There was a perfect hodge-podge
of trumpery ornamentation to be seen; gaudily upholstered furniture
was crowded into the small space; an open piano was littered with
music; the carpet showed the gayest colors, impossible flowers stiffly
set upon a sickly yellow-green ground. The walls were adorned with
low-priced lithographs in ornate frames, and the chairs were decked
with coarse lace squares. Taking this all in at a glance, Persis turned
her eyes curiously upon the family.
Mrs. Steuart stood with a welcoming smile upon her good-natured, florid
face. By her side was Imogene, who looked “just like a hair-dresser’s
dummy,” was Persie’s inward comment. The young woman’s bleached
hair was arranged carefully; a light-blue silk waist, spotted and
streaked, and trimmed plentifully with soiled lace, adorned her buxom
figure, while her skirt was of a cut intended to be fashionable, but
so ill-hanging as to show only its pretence. Persis wondered at
the strongly marked eyebrows, brilliant color, and white skin. “She
uses cosmetics as though she were on the stage,” she told herself,
in disgust. “How vulgar her tastes must be!” And she turned to Miss
Oriana, who was rather an improvement upon her elder sister, for she
allowed her hair to retain its natural color, and her pretty dark eyes
did not display a smeary black line under them. She, however, had
not given proper attention to her teeth, and showed, as Persis said
afterward, “a yawning chasm of darkness when she opened her mouth.” She
was attired scarcely less gaudily than her sister, in a frayed cheap
silk. Both young women greeted Persis effusively, and in high-pitched
nasal tones chattered on unceasingly.
“Bud will be home directly,” said Oriana. “Connie, you ought to see
Bud: he has an up-to-date suit. My, but he’s a swell! We’ve been
teasing him about you, Miss Holmes, and he’s all in a quiver over your
coming. I hope you dance or sing. Bud’s awfully fond of singing. He
gets all the new songs, and we have lots of fun when the neighbors come
in.”
“Come, girls, help me get in the supper,” interrupted Mrs. Steuart,
getting up heavily. She had a ponderous tread, and as she walked from
the room the floor of the unsubstantial dwelling trembled beneath her
feet.
Persis looked at Connie. She could not understand how she could be so
very different from the others. “For she is,” decided Persis. “Oh,
dear, I wish they’d let us go up-stairs by ourselves!” But, Miss
Imogene having left the room, Miss Oriana kept up the conversation,
relating all sorts of gossip, and evidently considering herself most
agreeably entertaining.
“There’s Bud,” cried Miss Oriana. “I hear his latch-key.” And in a
moment a young man entered. He was quite young,—not more than nineteen
or twenty,—and was dressed in the style described as “loud.” His
entrance brought with it an overpowering odor of cheap perfume mixed
with bad tobacco, and to Persis, who loathed such a combination, this
was almost sickening.
“He has the manner of a floor-walker in a third-rate dry-goods shop,”
thought Persis. “Oh, dear, why did I come?” She hardly heard what young
Stewart was saying, and waited anxiously the summons to supper, which
was presently made by means of a clanging bell, rung vigorously by
Imogene.
The meal was good, plentiful, and well cooked, and hungry Persis
appreciated this fact. “Now, if Connie and I can only go up-stairs and
be alone after supper, I shall not mind it so much,” she thought. But
she at once remembered that it was Connie’s first evening at home, and
of course she would want to remain with the family. Hearty laughter and
unlimited jesting made the meal a merry one. Immediately after they all
again adjourned to the drawing-room, where they were joined later by a
party of young people from the neighborhood, themselves as frolicsome
as the Stewarts.
Mr. Bud sang variety songs with more vigor than melody, while Oriana
pounded out an accompaniment upon the piano, with her foot on the
loud pedal. Then followed a romping game in which Bud insisted upon
receiving a kiss as a forfeit, while Persis, with all her dignity so
defied, vehemently protested.
“Bud likes the girls,” laughed Mrs. Steuart, to whom her guest finally
appealed. And Persis, with one wild look around, fled from the room
followed by Connie. As she sank, sobbing, upon the first chair she
found in the nearest room her friend began to apologize.
“Don’t, Persis,” she said. “Bud didn’t mean any harm.”
“I don’t care,” replied Persis, between her sobs. “I won’t stand such
things. I can’t help it, Connie, if he is your brother.”
“He isn’t,” Connie answered, hesitatingly. “They don’t like me to say
so, but he is only my step-brother. He is used to romping about with
the girls who come here; he had no idea of offending you. I’ll go down
and tell him that you are really angry.”
“No, don’t do that. Just let me stay up here, and then they can have
their game without me.”
Connie stood uncertain just what to do. She was vaguely conscious that
although she and Persis met upon common ground where their studies were
concerned, in some other matters they were far apart. “I want you to
have a good time,” she said, regretfully. “I don’t want you to mope up
here.”
“I won’t mope,” assured Persis, earnestly, twisting her damp
handkerchief nervously around her fingers. “I can’t go down with these
red eyes. You go, Connie. I shall not mind; indeed I shall not. I am
tired, and would rather go to bed.”
So Connie reluctantly piloted her to the room they were to share in
company with Oriana, and there left her.
There was a lack of the little home comforts to which Persis had been
accustomed, and this added to her homesick feeling. The dressing-bureau
was littered with curl-papers and white with face-powder. Searching in
vain for a match-safe, she finally discovered two or three matches in a
pasteboard box on one end of the mantel. She did not know where to put
her own little belongings or where to go for hot water, and with the
feeling that in some way she had failed of acting as became a courteous
guest Persis went heavy-hearted to bed.
In spite of her disturbed feelings, she soon fell asleep, but was
awakened an hour later by the flaring up of a bright light, and turning
over she saw that Connie and Oriana were preparing for bed. Then
followed a long chatter of what “he” said and what “she” said, poor
Persis, so unused to such disquiet, longing for a darkened room and
solitude. How could she stand it till Monday? she questioned. What sort
of people were these for the Dixons to know? What was she to do about
that dreadful Bud, who reeked so of bad cologne and cigarettes, pared
his nails in her presence, and walked out of the dining-room chewing a
toothpick? What would Lisa say if she were to know of it? And in sober
humility Persis hid her head in the pillow vainly longing for Monday to
come.
“Mamma wanted me to be sure to see Mrs. Dixon,” she said to Connie the
next day.
Connie’s eyes fell. “We’ll see her at church,” she returned. “She—she
is my Sunday-school teacher.” And Persis understood. Of course, then,
she has received gifts from Mrs. Dixon, has been to entertainments at
her house, she reflected. But I am sure Mrs. Dixon could never be a
friend of Mrs. Steuart’s; yet Connie told me she was a friend of her
mother’s.
There was much manœuvring on the part of Bud to walk to church with
the guest. He was not altogether a bad fellow, although underbred and
lacking in delicate sensibility. Persis, however, clung closely to
Mrs. Steuart, and managed to keep Connie by her most of the way. But a
little ingenuity on the part of the others threw Bud into her company,
and she had to make the best of it.
“Tell me about that general who was your ancestor, Mr. Stewart,” she
said, hoping to start up a congenial topic.
Bud stared. “I’ve no ancestor like that,” he replied. “He must be one
of Con’s folks. Yes, I remember. I’ve heard ma speak of him.”
“Yes; but—why, wasn’t he on the Stewart side?”
“Yes; but you know Con’s no kin of ours, really. Ma was a widow with us
three children when she married Con’s father, who was a widower with
only Con. My father was named Stewart too, only we spell ours S-t-e-w
and they spell theirs S-t-e-u. That’s the difference.”
“Oh!” replied Persis. She was solving several mysteries that morning.
“And do you know the Dixons? Connie said Mrs. Dixon was a friend of her
mother’s. Did she mean this mother?”
“No; she meant her own mother. Ma doesn’t know Mrs. Dixon at all. Mrs.
Dixon used to know Con’s mother.”
“Her father is living?”
“Yes; he’s a travelling man, you know. He’s away most of the time. He
failed in business before ma married him. He used to be right well off.
We don’t see much of him nowadays. You know he boarded with ma, and
he was sick with typhoid fever and ma nursed him. That’s how he got
acquainted with her. I don’t believe he cares much for us; but we’re
awful fond of Con,” he added, eagerly. And Persis began to feel more
kindly disposed toward this youth, who had so jarred upon her at first.
[Illustration: Decoration]