MRS. MASON AT HER STUDIES.
Several months had passed since the arrival of Mrs. Mason at the
minister's house, in Bays Hollow.
During that time she had not been idle. When she placed herself under
the quiet lady's instruction, she had announced that she wished to make
all the progress possible and turn every moment to account--truly, she
had done so.
Had the woman kept some good design in view, the assiduity with which
she labored would have done her honor--as it was, vanity took the place
of any better motive and perhaps was the strongest incentive which a
nature like hers could have felt.
The facility with which she gained a knowledge of things astonished the
minister's wife, whose education was thorough and solid, yet Mrs. Mason
made far more show with her little accomplishments than her instructress
could with all her learning. She had an excellent verbal memory, was
quick to seize every movement or expression, and as Mrs. Prior was a
true lady she could not have had a better model.
Among the gifts with which Thrasher had presented Mrs. Mason, there were
many articles of which she did not know the use or even the name, but
nobody would ever have dreamed it--she gained the knowledge so adroitly
from Mrs. Prior, that the little woman had an unpleasant feeling that
the wealthy Southerner considered her very ignorant, and desired to
enlighten her.
She did wonders in her French lessons--she promised to make a showy,
dashing performer upon the piano, and her quick ear taught her speedily
to regulate any little inaccuracies of speech by the correct, although
sometimes formal language, of her companion.
Yet she carried it all off with so lofty an air, that her teacher often
felt that she was the only person instructed. She corrected herself with
so much assurance and dignity that Mrs. Prior would color modestly,
almost inclined to believe that it was she who had been guilty of false
syntax, and that the stately lady opposite had set her right with
good-natured insolence.
In the box of books which Thrasher sent Mrs. Mason, there were a large
number of novels, principally French, and those she read with great
avidity, although there were many, after she began to read the language
with ease, which she did not think proper to display to the criticism of
her hostess.
The little parlor had assumed quite a different aspect since the
introduction of the piano and various articles of furniture which Mrs.
Mason ordered from New York. Her own rooms were furnished with a degree
of elegance she had never seen equaled, yet from her manner one would
have thought she only endured their meagreness with the condescension of
one accustomed to a very different state of affairs.
Little Rose grew prettier every day, and made herself happy, as was
natural at her age. She became a great favorite with Mrs. Prior, and
even with the dreary clergyman. But beyond a certain point, Mrs. Mason
would not permit any intimacy to extend. She was jealous of Rose's
affection for the worthy pair, as she would have been at the idea of
sharing love with any one.
Neither the minister nor his wife were able to understand the character
of their inmate, but they felt a sort of repulsion in regard to her
which it was impossible to overcome, although they reproached themselves
as if they had been guilty of a deadly sin, but after all their
struggles they sunk back into the same unpleasant state of mind.
The minister really felt uneasy while going through family worship in
her presence; not that she appeared irreverent, on the contrary, she was
as strict in her performance of such duties as the rest of the house,
but she acted all the while as if she were doing a great favor to all
concerned, even to the Being to whom she prayed.
Mrs. Prior knew very well that her pupil had not always been in
possession of the wealth which was evidently then under her control;
yet, as weeks wore on, and Mrs. Mason grew more stylish and elegant, the
little woman almost began to think that her first impressions had been
false and impertinent; that, on the whole, the lady had no need of
instruction, and only gave herself to study from the whim of the moment.
Every little graceful, lady-like way, every pretty habit of voice or
manner which the minister's wife possessed, did Mrs. Mason assume, only
she carried it off in such a showy manner that it appeared an original
grace of her own, and which Mrs. Prior was imitating in a modest fashion
and with indifferent success. In fact, it really seemed more as if the
minister's wife were a sort of humble pattern of her dashing companion
than as if Mrs. Mason had ever gained a hint from her.
One day the household was thrown into a gentle sort of confusion by the
arrival of a visitor for Mrs. Mason. He was an elegant and handsome man
as Mrs. Prior could have desired to see; but she shrunk instinctively
from him as she had always done from her guest.
The minister's wife left this strange man in the little parlor, and went
up to tell Mrs. Mason that some one desired to see her.
"Who, if you please?" the lady asked, negligently turning from her book,
as if troops of visitors had been an every-day occurrence in her life,
and were rather a bore than otherwise.
"Mr. Thrasher," replied the little person, still in a flutter.
"I will be down presently," was the answer; but still Mrs. Mason did not
rise from her seat, or lift her eyes from the book upon which they had
again fallen.
The door closed behind the bewildered lady; then Mrs. Mason sprang from
her seat and began a hasty, but careful toilet.
At the beginning of her residence in that house, Mrs. Mason would have
obscured and vulgarized her beauty by dress and ornaments unsuitable to
the hour or place. Mrs. Prior's remarks and her own observations had
already made her much wiser.
When she turned from the glass, there was an expression of triumph upon
her face which plainly betrayed a consciousness of her own surpassing
beauty.
She went down-stairs, opened the door of the room where Thrasher sat,
and glided in as self-possessed and elegant as any city belle of three
seasons, and a more dashingly beautiful woman you would not find in a
day's journey.
He started forward to meet her, his face flushed and lighted up with
excitement.
He caught Mrs. Mason's hand between both his own and faltered out an
almost timid greeting, very unlike the usual boldness of his manner.
"Are you well?" he asked. "Have you been well and contented?"
"A fine question, truly!" she replied, putting aside his eagerness with
a sort of unconcern very well assumed, and which evidently displeased
and pained him.
"As if any one could be contented shut up in a bird-cage."
"Have you been anxious to go away?" he questioned, as if hoping to
derive some comfort from her answer.
"I have not thought much about it; I find one thing which pleases me
greatly."
"And that?"
"Nobody interferes with me; I can do just what I like."
He frowned, although he appeared more troubled than annoyed.
"Good gracious!" she exclaimed, with an affected laugh. "What a face of
greeting for a man to wear--one might think you were a jailor, come to
announce that the day of my execution was at hand."
He dropped her wrist and turned away; she sank negligently into a chair,
in the very attitude she had admired in a picture of some forgotten
French marchioness, which embellished one of her favorite novels.
"I did not expect a welcome like this," he said, bitterly.
Mrs. Mason looked at him with an expression of surprise which an actress
might have envied, and laughed again, not the hearty, ringing merriment
of old time, but a low, subdued sound, which did her infinite credit.
"In what have I been amiss?" she asked, coolly.
"I thought, at least, you would be glad to see me."
"Oh, did you? Upon my word, the vanity of mankind is beyond all belief!
Certainly, I am glad to see you"--he brightened at that--"quite so," she
added, with such carelessness that he looked more annoyed than before.
"This is abominable!" he exclaimed. "Ellen, I would not have believed
that you could treat me so."
"Have you come here to lecture and find fault?" she asked, gayly. "Are
you sure that you have not made a mistake--wasn't it Rose you wished to
scold?"
"I did not come to find fault, Ellen. For weeks I have been crazy to see
you; nothing but your express commands kept me away; at last you wrote
that I might come; I hurried here, and now you are as cold and distant
as if I were a stranger."
"Poor boy, poor boy!"
She patted the hand which he had laid upon the arm of her chair, very
much as if it had been a pet lapdog.
Thrasher looked at her, overpowered by astonishment. Where had she
learned those arts--that playful manner? He had desired her to educate
and improve herself in every way; but here was a change beyond any thing
he could have expected.
"How handsome you have grown," he said, suddenly.
"You might as well tell me at once that I was a plain person before."
"You know I always thought you handsomer than any woman I had ever seen;
but you are really beautiful now."
Mrs. Mason smiled; her insatiable vanity was gratified by his words and
the glance of admiration that enforced them.
"Would you like to see Rose?" she asked.
"Certainly; very much."