_READING CHARACTER AT A GLANCE._
THE day after Julia and Eunice met in Mrs. Ray's shop, Eunice spent the
afternoon with Anita Ferarra.
Mr. Ferarra was a gentleman of Spanish descent, doing business both in
the neighboring city and in Mexico. He had married an American lady,
daughter of one of his partners, and the family had resided in Mexico
till some change in the firm to which he belonged, and also the desire
to obtain better advantages for the education of his daughter, had
brought Mr. Ferarra to the North.
After travelling for a while, and making trial of several different
locations, he had bought a place in Rockdale, where he had established
his family, going down to the city every day. Mrs. Ferarra had
married young, and, living so long in a foreign land, she had almost
forgotten her native tongue and spoke, as she walked and sung, like
a Spanish lady. Nevertheless, she was a born New Englander, full of
energy, spirit, and industry, and she threw herself at once into
all the affairs of Rockdale society, teaching in Sunday-school and
sewing-school. And, as she had plenty of money, as well as plenty of
wit and resource, she soon became a valuable element in the church.
Mr. and Mrs. Ferarra were Protestants—the one from education, the
other from conviction—but Anita had been to a convent-school, simply
because there was at that time no other school for her to go to.
Here she had learned a great many pretty accomplishments in the way
of embroidery and the like, and she always retained an affectionate
remembrance of the kindness and the sweetmeats of the good nuns. Anita
had learned English mostly from books, and she often amused the girls
by the preciseness of her expressions, which contrasted oddly with the
childish-sounding Spanish lisp, for by no possibility could Anita learn
to pronounce an English "s."
Mrs. Ferarra as well as her daughter, had been very much taken with
Eunice Riker. She had been led to notice her at first by her singing
in church and Sunday-school. Eunice possessed a fine and peculiar alto
voice and a very correct ear, and her singing was indeed something
remarkable.
"She has a fine face too," Mrs. Ferarra said to her husband as they
were walking home; "I am sure she must have a great deal of character.
Mr. Stanley tells me she is the only child of a widow who supports
herself and her daughter by fine work and by getting up fine washing."
"It is a pity her musical powers should not be cultivated," remarked
her husband.
"That is just what I was thinking," said Mrs. Ferarra eagerly. "If she
only had proper instruction, she might be able to support herself and
her mother."
"You say they are respectable people?"
"Oh yes. Her mother is a soldier's widow, and has a very small pension,
and they live upon that and the proceeds of her work. She has quite the
manners of a lady, and when I went to carry her some clear-starching,
I was struck with the pleasant, cultivated look of her little room.
Eunice is in the same class with Anita—Miss Ackerman's."
"That will give Anita an opportunity of getting acquainted with her.
She might find some excuse for inviting her to the house, and when we
see more of her, if she seems a promising subject, she might have the
benefit of some of Carmen's dowry. But don't be in a hurry. There is
time enough, and you know your 'geese' have not always turned out to be
'swans,'" added Mr. Ferarra, smiling.
"Well, I would rather think my 'geese' 'swans' than to think all
'swans' 'geese,'" replied his wife, smiling in her turn. "However, it
will be desirable, as you say, to proceed with caution. I fancy both
Eunice and her mother are very independent in their feelings."
"So much the better for them," said Mr. Ferarra; and there the
discussion ended for the present.
The plan for inviting Eunice to spend the afternoon with Anita on the
plea of giving instructions in crocheting had been arranged between
Anita and her mother as a means of becoming better acquainted with
Eunice, as well as for the sake of giving pleasure to a hard-working
girl.
Mr. Ferarra's house was a handsome one and beautifully situated. It was
not so expensively furnished as many houses in the neighborhood; at
least the expense was bestowed in a different manner.
Mrs. Hazleton, who had a great deal of wonder and a great deal of
advice at the service of her neighbors, which she was accustomed to
bestow quite gratuitously, wondered that Mrs. Ferarra should be content
to have her drawing-rooms matted with only a square of Turkey carpet
in the middle for cold weather. She assured Mrs. Ferarra that nobody
did so at the North, and advised her to buy Axminster carpets for her
drawing-rooms and Brussels for her bedrooms without delay. She repeated
this advice till Mrs. Ferarra grew tired of it, and gave her a somewhat
cool answer, when she wondered what she could have said that Mrs.
Ferarra should be so angry at.
Mrs. Ferarra had a beautiful garden in summer and a superb conservatory
in winter; she had a great abundance of books and some beautiful and
valuable pictures; and she had a well-filled purse, always ready to
open to any reasonable call for help. For all these things she cared a
great deal, but for Axminster carpets and brocade furniture not at all.
Anita's own room was furnished with the simplest chintz and cane
furniture, but she had shelves upon shelves of valuable books of her
own, and indulged in an amount of fresh towels and linen which would
have scared Mrs. Hazleton from her propriety. She carried off Eunice
to this room to take off her hat and arrange her hair, and when Eunice
exclaimed at the before-mentioned book-shelves, Anita made her at once
free of them.
The lessons in work proceeded very successfully amid a great deal of
fun and laughter, and Eunice found as apt a pupil in Anita as Anita did
in her. When she thought they had worked long enough, Mrs. Ferarra sent
them out for a walk in the grounds. The flower-garden was beginning to
show the lateness of the season, but there was a beautiful display of
chrysanthemums, dahlias, and other late-blooming flowers, and Eunice
exclaimed with delight over some Japanese anemones.
"Yes, they are very pretty, and they last so long, till cold weather
comes," said Anita; and she shivered at the thought. "But oh, Eunice,
you should see the flowers in Mexico! Such flowers! Not the pale things
that grow here. And there is no winter to kill them so soon as they are
come to perfection."
"There are no earthquakes here, either," said Eunice, a little jealous
for the honor of her native land, "and no snakes."
"Oh, as to snakes, bah! One meets them scarcely ever. It is not one in
five thousand that is ever hurt by them; and as for earthquakes, well,
certainly they are not nice. But I do not know; the earthquake does
endure but a little, and the winter lasts half the year!"
"But the earthquake kills people."
"Well, and does not the winter kill people too? Whence come all your
consumptives but from the winter? I think it is like the cold white
witch my nurse used to tell me of, who walks forth at night, and the
grass and flowers wither under her tread. But you like your own land;
that is but natural. I like it also, but not as my own, and not the
winter."
"Shall you ever go back?" asked Eunice.
"Oh yes, some time, I suppose. It will depend upon my father's
business. If we do, do you know what plan I have in my head? You know
there is freedom of religion in Mexico now, and many have even become
Protestants. I think I will have a little school for the Indian girls
of our estate. They are very gentle, kind people and good servants, but
they are very ignorant. They know not to read or write, and have never
seen a Bible."
"I suppose they are Romanists," said Eunice.
"That is not so easy to tell," replied Anita. "In the cities they are
so, doubtless, and in the country places they will go to confession
once a year. But they know very little Spanish, and often the priests
to whom they confess know nothing at all of their language. They have
many strange ceremonies of their own, and some say they still worship
the gods of their ancestors. They love not the Spaniard in general, but
my father has ever been a friend to them; and as for my mother, I give
you my word, Eunice, that these poor people would lie down in the river
to make a bridge for her to pass over."
"How nice!" said Eunice, much interested. "You might be a regular
missionary among them, Anita."
"That is what I am thinking."
"I always envy people who can go upon missions," said Eunice. "When I
read about them, I always wonder, not that some should go, but that
there are not a great many more."
"I suppose there would be more if there were more money to send
them," remarked Anita. "And after all, Eunice, when one had once
become accustomed to the strangeness of the ways, I suppose work and
school-teaching and all that would be much the same in one place as in
another. Only, one has not to need in general quite so many fleas and
the like, as one reads of in Miss West's and Mrs. Wheeler's books."
"Or to sleep in the room with buffaloes, and have them get loose and
fight in the night. Do you remember Miss Beecher's telling us that
story?"
"That would be nearly as bad as the earthquakes of which you have such
a dread," said Anita, smiling. "Come, let us go in. Tea must be nearly
ready, and I have stained my hands with gathering leaves."
At the tea-table, the party was joined by Mr. Ferarra and a lady
to whom Eunice was introduced as Miss Fay. Miss Fay was a little,
active-looking body of an uncertain age, with good features and
bright eyes, who would have been attractive but for her expression
of sharpness and self-consequence. She was a lady with a small
independence, which she stretched by living very economically at home
and making a great many visits. She was well educated and accomplished,
and people were generally glad to see her come. They were also glad to
see her go, and usually remarked when she was gone that "Miss Fay was a
very agreeable person, though she had her ways."
Miss Fay was a cousin of Mrs. Ferarra's, and it was with great pleasure
that she heard of her settling in Rockdale. She at once wrote to her
cousin, and received the expected invitation to make a long visit at
her house. She had already been in the family some two months, and Mrs.
Ferarra and Anita were beginning to be somewhat weary of her "ways" and
to wonder when she meant to go. In fact, if they had but known it, she
did not mean to go at all, at least for a year.
Miss Fay prided herself on "reading character at a glance," which,
as usual, simply meant that she took likes and dislikes with no sort
of reason, and attributed to people motives and plans of which they
themselves had no idea. She was herself something of an invalid in
reality, and a good deal more in fancy, but she had no patience with
any other person's complaints, treating them all as "hysterical humbug"
or "simply self-indulgence." She had her good qualities too, and when
she took a liking, she was a warm and faithful friend.
Anita perceived at once that Miss Fay regarded Eunice with anything but
friendly eyes. In fact, Miss Fay had heard, or fancied she had heard,
some hints of a plan to take a girl of Anita's own age into the family
as a companion to her young cousin, and as soon as she saw Eunice she
jumped at once to the conclusion that she had been brought to the
house for some such purpose. In the time she had spent at Rockdale,
she had used her opportunity so well that she had learned something
of the history of almost every person attending the little church.
Consequently, she knew at once, on hearing the name, that Eunice was
the daughter of a woman who took in fine washing and plain sewing. Her
greeting to Eunice was stiffly condescending, and she took opportunity
during the meal to ask her "if her mother had plenty of work," and
"whether she found sewing as profitable as clear-starching."—Inquiries
which Eunice answered with perfect simplicity.
"Come into the conservatory," said Anita after tea. "I want to show you
the new climbing fern and a wonderful new geranium some one has sent
Mother."
"I must be going pretty soon," replied Eunice. "You know I have quite a
walk, and mother does not like to have me out after dark."
"It is nearly dark now," remarked Mr. Ferarra—"too late for you to go
down alone.—Anita, tell James to get up the pony phaeton, and I will
take you and your friend for a little drive, and so home."
When Mr. Ferarra and Anita returned, they found Mrs. Ferarra and Miss
Fay in the midst of an active argument, if that could be called an
argument which was all on one side.
"Mark my words, Anna," Miss Fay was saying: "if you take this step, you
will repent it."
"What step?" asked Mr. Ferarra.
"That of taking this girl into the family to be a companion to Anita.
I can read character at a glance, and I can see plainly that she is
both ill-tempered and deceitful. And besides, the idea! A washerwoman's
daughter! If you must take such a step—which is simply flying in the
face of Providence, in my opinion—there are surely girls of good
family—" Miss Fay paused from sheer lack of breath.
"What do you mean?" asked Mr. Ferarra in wonder. "Who has proposed such
a thing?"
"Nobody, that I know of," answered Mrs. Ferarra, half vexed and half
amused. "Maria has somehow taken up the idea that we mean to adopt
Eunice into the family, and she has been fighting this windmill for
half an hour."
"I am sure I wish I had a sister like Eunice," said Anita; "I think she
is admirable."
"I am sure I don't see why you call it 'fighting a windmill,'" said
Miss Fay in a tone of lofty endurance; "you said you thought it was
good for Anita to have young society, and in the same breath you say
this Eunice is a daughter any one might be proud to own."
"Exactly, but I never said I meant to 'own' her."
"Now, I don't say it might not be good for Anita to have a companion,"
pursued Miss Fay—"some one who could form her mind and manners and
influence her in the right direction. But as for adopting a girl of her
own age—and such a girl!—I never heard anything so absurd. The fewer
companions of their own age such girls have, the better for them, in my
opinion."
"Then you think Providence made a mistake in giving most people
brothers and sisters?" observed Mrs. Ferarra.
"Really, Anna, I think such an irreverent remark is better unanswered,"
said Miss Fay with arid dignity. "But as to this girl—"
"We will drop the discussion of the young lady's character, if you
please, Cousin Maria," said Mr. Ferarra: "It is hardly treating a guest
courteously or kindly to talk her over in this way the moment she
leaves the house.—What are you looking for, Anna?"
"My thimble, as usual," said Mrs. Ferarra. "I wish it would jump up and
bite me every time I set if down out of place. Then perhaps I might
learn to take some care of it."
"I read to-day of a gentleman who said if he could have but one wish,
he would wish for a paper-knife which would come when he whistled for
it. It would be well if mamma's thimble possessed that accomplishment,"
said Anita mischievously.—"Was it your little gold one, mamma?"
"Yes, but never mind; it will come," said Mrs. Ferarra. "Bring me my
netting, pet. It is better work for the evening than the lace. By the
way, how did Eunice succeed with her lace-work?"
"Oh, so very nicely, mamma. She has 'finger-wit,' as Sister
John-of-the-Cross * used to say. And she made me understand the other
work without delay. She is 'apt to teach,' and 'apt' also to be taught."
* Such compound names are not uncommon among nuns. I have known of
"Mary of the Seven Sorrows" and others equally singular.
"And what did you talk about?" asked Mr. Ferarra.
"Oh, I told her of Mexico—the city and the country, and the flowers and
trees and the volcanoes. And she was much interested to hear of the
convent and the ways of the nuns, because she has some relation who
makes a great grief to her friends for that she will be a nun. Then we
talked about the Protestant missions, and she said she would like to be
a missionary herself, only that she is her mother's only child."
"Exactly," said Miss Fay. "There shows the cloven foot."
"Does it take a 'cloven foot' to make a missionary?" asked Mr. Ferarra.
"I did not know that."
Miss Fay rose with much dignity. "I am not accustomed to be treated
with ridicule," said she as she sailed toward the door. "I must ask
permission to withdraw."
"What ails her to-night?" asked Mr. Ferarra.
"Oh, nothing more than usual," replied his wife. "She is always that
way, and her mother was so before her. If you happened to say anything
about going to the moon before Aunt Cordelia, she would make you a long
oration on the impossibility of such an excursion, and your folly, and
even wickedness, in wishing to go. Maria is certainly a little trying,
but then she is our cousin, and we may as well have her a little while
as anybody else."
The next morning, Miss Fay put on her hat and went down to Mrs.
Gunderson's. Mrs. Gunderson's house had been well described by Ida as
a gossip-shop. Both mother and daughter resembled the Athenians of St.
Paul's day, in that they "spent their time in nothing else, but either
to tell, or to hear some new thing;" and, like other newsgatherers and
venders, they were by no means particular as to the truth of the news
they retailed. Mrs. Ferarra disliked them, and kept out of their way as
much as possible, much to the annoyance of Mrs. Gunderson, who would
have liked to be intimate with the lady.
[Illustration: _The Mission Box._
Both Mrs. Gunderson and Fanny welcomed
Miss Fay with great warmth.]
Both Mrs. Gunderson and Fanny welcomed Miss Fay with great warmth.
To be sure, she was not the rose, but then she had been near the
rose; and her talk about the "absurd spoiling of that child" and
"reckless expense in buying books and plants" had already furnished the
gossip-shop with some choice wares.
"I saw Mr. Ferarra driving out with his daughter and some other young
lady last night," observed Fanny. "I suppose Anita has some friend from
New York staying with her?"
"Young lady, indeed!" said Miss Fay. "It was that Eunice Riker, the
washerwoman's daughter. She and Anita were together all the afternoon
over some fancy-work, and she stayed to tea."
"How very queer!" said Fanny Gunderson. "But perhaps Mrs. Ferarra
employed her to teach Anita?"
"Oh no, not all, I assure you. She was quite an honored guest, and the
instruction was reciprocal. Miss Anita was teaching the girl to make
Mexican lace."
Now, there was a sting of bitterness in this news that Miss Fay did
not know of. Fanny Gunderson had hinted very plainly to Anita that she
should like to learn this same Mexican lace, and had received no sort
of encouragement.
"Humph!" said she significantly. "I hope Anita takes care of her
working-materials, that's all." And she cast a meaning glance at her
mother, who returned it with interest.
"What do you mean?" asked Miss Fay.
"Perhaps you had better not say anything, Fanny," said Mrs. Gunderson.
"There may be some mistake, and, anyhow, Mrs. Ferarra is her own
mistress, though I must say—" And here Mrs. Gunderson paused.
"Do tell me to what you allude," said Miss Fay; "I have a particular
reason for wishing to know. If there is anything against this girl's
character, it is of great importance that I should hear it."
"Well, they say—but of course it may not be so—that Mrs. Riker and
Eunice are in the habit of appropriating a part of the stuff sent them
to make up, and exchanging it at the stores for what they want."
"Stealing it, in fact," said Fanny. "People get them to knit children's
stockings, you know. Well, it is very easy to take out a few knots or
skeins and trade them for thread or other such things. A lady told
me that Mrs. Ackerman gave Eunice a quantity of fine red yarn to
knit—enough for two or three pairs, she said. She was present when
Eunice brought back one pair of stockings, saying that there was not
enough yarn for another pair. And afterward, this same lady saw Eunice
exchanging that very yarn for Shetland wool. She said she could not be
mistaken, for the yarn was of a very peculiar color and very fine."
"I knew there was something wrong about her," exclaimed Miss Fay in
triumph. "I can read character at a glance, and I said to myself at
once, 'That girl has a false mouth and eye. Such eyebrows as hers are
a sure sign of dishonesty and hypocrisy.' That accounts for Anna's
thimble, then."
"What about the thimble?" asked Mrs. Gunderson and Fanny together.
"Oh, nothing; only Mrs. Ferarra lost her gold thimble last evening. She
missed it directly after this girl went away. She says she presumes she
shall find it again, but I have very serious doubts."
"No indeed, it is not very likely," said Mrs. Gunderson, delighted.
"Well, I hope she will have had enough of her, that's all."
"But don't say anything about it," said Miss Fay. "The thimble may
come, you know."
"Oh yes, it may, but things lost in that way are not apt to come. The
last time the sewing-circle met at Mrs. Barnard's, I lost a spool of
thread in the most singular way. Mrs. Barnard gave me another, and said
the missing spool would come, but it never did, and I have no doubt
that that little Irish Norah got it."
"So, Anna—" said Miss Fay, coming into Mrs. Ferarra's morning-room,
where that lady was busily engaged in basting work for the
sewing-school. And then she added with a curious change of tone, "Where
did you find your thimble?"
"Just where I left it—in the Wedgwood dish on the back drawing-room
table," replied Mrs. Ferarra. "Flynn called me to see some new plants,
and, fearing to lose my thimble entirely if I wore it out of doors, I
put it in a safe place, and of course forgot where it was. I remembered
the moment I went into the back drawing-room this morning. Where have
you been?"
"Down to Mrs. Gunderson's," answered Miss Fay, rather shortly.
She did not tell the story about the yarn, which had been, so to speak,
on her tongue's end when she came in, but went away to her own room,
feeling very uncomfortable.
"I wish I had not said anything about the thimble," said she to herself
as she put away her hat. "Just the way with such careless people as
Anna—always getting one into trouble. I must tell Mrs. Gunderson that
the thimble is found; I will go this very afternoon."
But that afternoon there came on a violent storm which kept Miss Fay
in the house for two days, and then came a summons home on important
business. To do Miss Fay justice, she wrote to Mrs. Gunderson as
soon as she was able, but meantime the story had been told to twenty
different people. "The slander" says an old French proverb, "has twelve
legs—the denial has but one." Before the end of the week, twenty people
had heard that Eunice Riker had stolen both from Mrs. Ackerman and Mrs.
Ferarra, but the ladies had talked it over and agreed not to prosecute,
because Eunice and her mother were both church-members.
Meantime, Eunice and Anita, totally unconscious that anything was
wrong, exchanged lessons in lace-making and crochet-work. The
lace-making was very easy, requiring only neatness and care, and Anita
soon pronounced Eunice's work as good as her own.
"I shall show it to mamma's friend who wishes the pillow-covers
worked," said she. "I hope she will give you all the work you can do.
But come; you have remained still long enough. Let us go and visit the
bear. I think you have not yet seen him."
"A bear?" said Eunice. "What do you do with a bear?"
"We do nothing with him, only feed him," replied Anita, seriously. "He
was here when we came, and Mr. Brown was to sell him to some person
who had a show, but the man never came. Papa says he will give him to
the Park menagerie, for the poor beast will be happier there than in a
travelling show, and mamma likes not to have him on the place."
"Why? Is he savage?"
"No, he is quite gentle to appearance, but bears are not very
trustworthy creatures, you know, and he has got out once or twice. Once
he went into the conservatory and climbed to the highest shelf, and
there he sat grinning when mamma went in. I give you my word, mamma was
alarmed when she saw him."
"I don't wonder," said Eunice. "Fancy finding a full-grown bear among
one's geraniums! What did she do?"
"She called James, who tempted him home to his house with a dish of
sugar. He will do anything for sugar. We will carry him some, and also
some cake. I shall be sorry to have him go away; I have become fond of
him. Do you not think one becomes fond of anything by feeding it and
doing it good?"
"Almost always," answered Eunice. "I dare say you will become fond of
me by teaching me lace-work."
"I am that now," returned Anita. "I do not pretend to read character at
a glance like Cousin Maria, but I liked you the first minute I saw you."