A LUNCHEON PARTY.
Luncheon parties were not then precisely what they are now;
nevertheless the entertainment was extremely handsome. Lois and her
friend had first a long drive from their home in the country to a house
in one of the older parts of the city. Old the house also was; but it
was after a roomy and luxurious fashion, if somewhat antiquated; and
the air of ancient respectability, even of ancient distinction, was
stamped upon it, as upon the family that inhabited it. Mrs. Wishart and
Lois were received with warm cordiality by Miss Caruthers; but the
former did not fail to observe a shadow that crossed Mrs. Caruthers'
face when Lois was presented to her. Lois did not see it, and would not
have known how to interpret it if she had seen it. She is safe, thought
Mrs. Wishart, as she noticed the calm unembarrassed air with which Lois
sat down to talk with the younger of her hostesses.
"You are making a long stay with Mrs. Wishart," was the unpromising
opening remark.
"Mrs. Wishart keeps me."
"Do you often come to visit her?"
"I was never here before."
"Then this is your first acquain'tance with New York?"
"Yes."
"How does it strike you? One loves to get at new impressions of what
one has known all one's life. Nothing strikes us here, I suppose. Do
tell me what strikes you."
"I might say, everything."
"How delightful! Nothing strikes me. I have seen it all five hundred
times. Nothing is new."
"But people are new," said Lois. "I mean they are different from one
another. There is continual variety there."
"To me there seems continual sameness!" said the other, with a half
shutting up of her eyes, as of one dazed with monotony. "They are all
alike. I know beforehand exactly what every one will say to me, and how
every one will behave."
"That is not how it is at home," returned Lois. "It is different there."
"People are _not_ all alike?"
"No indeed. Perfectly unlike, and individual."
"How agreeable! So that is one of the things that strike you here? the
contrast?"
"No," said Lois, laughing; "_I_ find here the same variety that I find
at home. People are not alike to me."
"But different, I suppose, from the varieties you are accustomed to at
home?"
Lois admitted that.
"Well, now tell me how. I have never travelled in New England; I have
travelled everywhere else. Tell me, won't you, how those whom you see
here differ from the people you see at home."
"In the same sort of way that a sea-gull differs from a land sparrow,"
Lois answered demurely.
"I don't understand. Are we like the sparrows, or like the gulls?"
"I do not know that. I mean merely that the different sorts are fitted
to different spheres and ways of life."
Miss Caruthers looked a little curiously at the girl. "I know _this_
sphere," she said. "I want you to tell me yours."
"It is free space instead of narrow streets, and clear air instead of
smoke. And the people all have something to do, and are doing it."
"And you think _we_ are doing nothing?" asked Miss Caruthers, laughing.
"Perhaps I am mistaken. It seems to me so."
"O, you are mistaken. We work hard. And yet, since I went to school, I
never had anything that I _must_ do, in my life."
"That can be only because you did not know what it was."
"I had nothing that I must do."
"But nobody is put in this world without some thing to do," said Lois.
"Do you think a good watchmaker would carefully make and finish a very
costly pin or wheel, and put it in the works of his watch to do
nothing?"
Miss Caruthers stared now at the girl. Had this soft, innocent-looking
maiden absolutely dared to read a lesson to her?--"You are religious!"
she remarked dryly.
Lois neither affirmed nor denied it. Her eye roved over the gathering
throng; the rustle of silks, the shimmer of lustrous satin, the falls
of lace, the drapery of one or two magnificent camels'-hair shawls, the
carefully dressed heads, the carefully gloved hands; for the ladies did
not keep on their bonnets then; and the soft murmur of voices, which,
however, did not remain soft. It waxed and grew, rising and falling,
until the room was filled with a breaking sea of sound. Miss Caruthers
had been called off to attend to other guests, and then came to conduct
Lois herself to the dining-room.
The party was large, the table was long; and it was a mass of glitter
and glisten with plate and glass. A superb old-fashioned épergne in the
middle, great dishes of flowers sending their perfumed breath through
the room, and bearing their delicate exotic witness to the luxury that
reigned in the house. And not they alone. Before each guest's plate a
semicircular wreath of flowers stood, seemingly upon the tablecloth;
but Lois made the discovery that the stems were safe in water in
crescent-shaped glass dishes, like little troughs, which the flowers
completely covered up and hid. Her own special wreath was of
heliotropes. Miss Caruthers had placed her next herself.
There were no gentlemen present, nor expected, Lois observed. It was
simply a company of ladies, met apparently for the purpose of eating;
for that business went on for some time with a degree of satisfaction,
and a supply of means to afford satisfaction, which Lois had never seen
equalled. From one delicate and delicious thing to another she was
required to go, until she came to a stop; but that was the case, she
observed, with no one else of the party.
"You do not drink wine?" asked Miss Caruthers civilly.
"No, thank you."
"Have you scruples?" said the young lady, with a half smile.
Lois assented.
"Why? what's the harm?"
"We all have scruples at Shampuashuh."
"About drinking wine?"
"Or cider, or beer, or anything of the sort."
"Do tell me why."
"It does so much mischief."
"Among low people," said Miss Caruthers, opening her eyes; "but not
among respectable people."
"We are willing to hinder mischief anywhere," said Lois with a smile of
some fun.
"But what good does _your_ not drinking it do? That will not hinder
them."
"It does hinder them, though," said Lois; "for we will not have liquor
shops. And so, we have no crime in the town. We could leave our doors
unlocked, with perfect safety, if it were not for the people that come
wandering through from the next towns, where liquor is sold. We have no
crime, and no poverty; or next to none."
"Bless me! what an agreeable state of things! But that need not hinder
your taking a glass of champagne _here?_ Everybody here has no scruple,
and there are liquor shops at every corner; there is no use in setting
an example."
But Lois declined the wine.
"A cup of coffee then?"
Lois accepted the coffee.
"I think you know my brother?" observed Miss Caruthers then, making her
observations as she spoke.
"Mr. Caruthers? yes; I believe he is your brother."
"I have heard him speak of you. He has seen you at Mrs. Wishart's, I
think."
"At Mrs. Wishart's--yes."
Lois spoke naturally, yet Miss Caruthers fancied she could discern a
certain check to the flow of her words.
"You could not be in a better place for seeing what New York is like,
for everybody goes to Mrs. Wishart's; that is, everybody who is
anybody."
This did not seem to Lois to require any answer. Her eye went over the
long tableful; went from face to face. Everybody was talking, nearly
everybody was smiling. Why not? If enjoyment would make them smile,
where could more means of enjoyment be heaped up, than at this feast?
Yet Lois could not help thinking that the tokens of real
pleasure-taking were not unequivocal. _She_ was having a very good
time; full of amusement; to the others it was an old story. Of what
use, then?
Miss Caruthers had been engaged in a lively battle of words with some
of her young companions; and now her attention came back to Lois, whose
meditative, amused expression struck her.
"I am sure," she said, "you are philosophizing! Let me have the results
of your observations, do! What do your eyes see, that mine perhaps do
not?"
"I cannot tell," said Lois. "Yours ought to know it all."
"But you know, we do not see what we have always seen."
"Then I have an advantage," said Lois pleasantly. "My eyes see
something very pretty."
"But you were criticizing something.--O you unlucky boy!"
This exclamation, and the change of tone with it, seemed to be called
forth by the entrance of a new comer, even Tom Caruthers himself. Tom
was not in company trim exactly, but with his gloves in his hand and
his overcoat evidently just pulled off. He was surveying the company
with a contented expression; then came forward and began a series of
greetings round the table; not hurrying them, but pausing here and
there for a little talk.
"Tom!" cried his mother, "is that you?"
"To command. Yes, Mrs. Badger, I am just off the cars. I did not know
what I should find here."
"How did you get back so soon, Tom?"
"Had nothing to keep me longer, ma'am. Miss Farrel, I have the honour
to remind you of a _phillipoena_."
There was a shout of laughter. It bewildered Lois, who could not
understand what they were laughing about, and could as little keep her
attention from following Tom's progress round the table. Miss Caruthers
observed this, and was annoyed.
"Careless boy!" she said. "I don't believe he has done the half of what
he had to do, Tom, what brought you home?"
Tom was by this time approaching them.
"Is the question to be understood in a physical or moral sense?" said
he.
"As you understand it!" said his sister.
Tom disregarded the question, and paid his respects to Miss Lothrop.
Julia's jealous eyes saw more than the ordinary gay civility in his
face and manner.
"Tom," she cried, "have you done everything? I don't believe you have."
"Have, though," said Tom. And he offered to Lois a basket of bon-bons.
"Did you see the carpenter?"
"Saw him and gave him his orders."
"Were the dogs well?"
"I wish you had seen them bid me good morning!"
"Did you look at the mare's foot?"
"Yes."
"What is the matter with it?"
"Nothing--a nail--Miss Lothrop, you have no wine."
"Nothing! and a nail!" cried Miss Julia as Lois covered her glass with
her hand and forbade the wine. "As if a nail were not enough to ruin a
horse! O you careless boy! Miss Lothrop is more of a philosopher than
you are. She drinks no wine."
Tom passed on, speaking to other ladies. Lois had scarcely spoken at
all; but Miss Caruthers thought she could discern a little stir in the
soft colour of the cheeks and a little additional life in the grave
soft eyes; and she wished Tom heartily at a distance.
At a distance, however, he was no more that day. He made himself
gracefully busy indeed with the rest of his mother's guests; but after
they quitted the table, he contrived to be at Lois's side, and asked if
she would not like to see the greenhouse? It was a welcome proposition,
and while nobody at the moment paid any attention to the two young
people, they passed out by a glass door at the other end of the
dining-room into the conservatory, while the stream of guests went the
other way. Then Lois was plunged in a wilderness of green leafage and
brilliant bloom, warm atmosphere and mixed perfume; her first breath
was an involuntary exclamation of delight and relief.
"Ah! you like this better than the other room, don't you?" said Tom.
Lois did not answer; however, she went with such an absorbed expression
from one plant to another, that Tom must needs conclude she liked this
better than the other company too.
"I never saw such a beautiful greenhouse," she said at last, "nor so
large a one."
"_This_ is not much," replied Tom. "Most of our plants are in the
country--where I have come from to-day; this is just a city affair.
Shampuashuh don't cultivate exotics, then?"
"O no! Nor anything much, except the needful."
"That sounds rather--tiresome," said Tom.
"O, it is not tiresome. One does not get tired of the needful, you
know."
"Don't you! _I_ do," said Tom. "Awfully. But what do you do for
pleasure then, up there in Shampuashuh?"
"Pleasure? O, we have it--I have it-- But we do not spend much time in
the search of it. O how beautiful! what is that?"
"It's got some long name--Metrosideros, I believe. What _do_ you do for
pleasure up there then, Miss Lothrop?"
"Dig clams."
"Clams!" cried Tom.
"Yes. Long clams. It's great fun. But I find pleasure all over."
"How come you to be such a philosopher?"
"That is not philosophy."
"What is it? I can tell you, there isn't a girl in New York that would
say what you have just said."
Lois thought the faces around the lunch table had quite harmonized with
this statement. She forgot them again in a most luxuriant trailing
Pelargonium covered with large white blossoms of great elegance.
"But it is philosophy that makes you not drink wine? Or don't you like
it?"
"O no," said Lois, "it is not philosophy; it is humanity."
"How? I think it is humanity to share in people's social pleasures."
"If they were harmless."
"This is harmless!"
Lois shook her head. "To you, maybe."
"And to you. Then why shouldn't we take it?"
"For the sake of others, to whom it is not harmless."
"They must look out for themselves."
"Yes, and we must help them."
"We _can't_ help them. If a man hasn't strength enough to stand, you
cannot hold him up."
"O yes," said Lois gently, "you can and you must. That is not much to
do! When on one side it is life, and on the other side it is only a
minute's taste of something sweet, it is very little, I think, to give
up one for the other."
"That is because you are so good," said Tom. "I am not so good."
At this instant a voice was heard within, and sounds of the servants
removing the lunch dishes.
"I never heard anybody in my life talk as you do," Tom went on.
Lois thought she had talked enough, and would say no more. Tom saw she
would not, and gave her glance after glance of admiration, which began
to grow into veneration. What a pure creature was this! what a gentle
simplicity, and yet what a quiet dignity! what absolutely natural
sweetness, with no airs whatever! and what a fresh beauty.
"I think it must be easier to be good where you live," Tom added
presently, and sincerely.
"Why?" said Lois.
"I assure you it ain't easy for a fellow here."
"What do you mean by 'good,' Mr. Caruthers? not drinking wine?" said
Lois, somewhat amused.
"I mean, to be like you," said he softly. "You are better than all the
rest of us here."
"I hope not. Mr. Caruthers, we must go back to Mrs. Wishart, or
certainly _she_ will not think me good."
So they went back, through the empty lunch room.
"I thought you would be here to-day," said Tom. "I was not going to
miss the pleasure; so I took a frightfully early train, and despatched
business faster than it had ever been despatched before, at our house.
I surprised the people, almost as much as I surprised my mother and
Julia. You ought always to wear a white camellia in your hair!"
Lois smiled to herself. If he knew what things she had to do at her own
home, and how such an adornment would be in place! Was it easier to be
good there? she queried. It was easier to be pleased here. The guests
were mostly gone.
"Well, my dear," said Mrs. Wishart on the drive home, "how have you
enjoyed yourself?"
Lois looked grave. "I am afraid it turns my head," she answered.
"That shows your head is _not_ turned. It must carry a good deal of
ballast too, somewhere."
"It does," said Lois. "And I don't like to have my head turned."
"Tom," said Miss Julia, as Mrs. Wishart's carriage drove off and Tom
came back to the drawing-room, "you mustn't turn that little girl's
head."
"I can't," said Tom.
"You are trying."
"I am doing nothing of the sort."
"Then what _are_ you doing? You are paying her a great deal of
attention. She is not accustomed to our ways; she will not understand
it. I do not think it is fair to her."
"I don't mean anything that is not fair to her. She is worth attention
ten times as much as all the rest of the girls that were here to-day."
"But, Tom, she would not take it as coolly. She knows only country
ways. She might think attentions mean more than they do."
"I don't care," said Tom.
"My dear boy," said his mother now, "it will not do, not to care. It
would not be honourable to raise hopes you do not mean to fulfil; and
to take such a girl for your wife, would be simply ruinous."
"Where will you find such another girl?" cried Tom, flaring up.
"But she has nothing, and she is nobody."
"She is her own sweet self," said Tom.
"But not an advantageous wife for you, my dear. Society does not know
her, and she does not know society. Your career would be a much more
humble one with her by your side. And money you want, too. You need it,
to get on properly; as I wish to see you get on, and as you wish it
your self. My dear boy, do not throw your chances away!"
"It's my belief, that is just what you are trying to make me do!" said
the young man; and he went off in something of a huff.
"Mamma, we must do something. And soon," remarked Miss Julia. "Men are
such fools! He rushed through with everything and came home to-day just
to see that girl. A pretty face absolutely bewitches them." _N. B_.
Miss Julia herself did not possess that bewitching power.
"I will go to Florida," said Mrs. Caruthers, sighing.