One afternoon Mrs. Leland called on Mrs. Sherman. She very often
called--this fat, sentimental woman, moving in the midst of a cloud
of scent. The day was warm, and she carried her too elaborate and
heavy dress as a large caddis-fly drags its case with much labour and
patience. She sat down on the sofa with obvious relief, leaning so
heavily among the cushions that a clothes-moth fluttered out of an
antimacassar, to be knocked down and crushed by Mrs. Sherman, who was
very quick in her movements.
As soon as she found her breath, Mrs. Leland began a long history of
her sorrows. Her daughter Margaret had been jilted and was in despair,
had taken to her bed with every resolution to die, and was growing
paler and paler. The hard-hearted man, though she knew he had heard,
did not relent. She knew he had heard because her daughter had told his
sister all about it, and his sister had no heart, because she said it
was temper that ailed Margaret, and she was a little vixen, and that
if she had not flirted with everybody the engagement would never have
been broken off. But Mr. Sims had no heart clearly, as Miss Marriot and
Mrs. Eliza Taylor, her daughter’s friends, said, when they heard, and
Lock, the butler, said the same too, and Mary Young, the housemaid,
said so too--and she knew all about it, for Margaret used to read his
letters to her often when having her hair brushed.
‘She must have been very fond of him,’ said Mrs. Sherman.
‘She is so romantic, my dear,’ answered Mrs. Leland, with a sigh. ‘I am
afraid she takes after an uncle on her father’s side, who wrote poetry
and wore a velvet jacket and ran away with an Italian countess who used
to get drunk. When I married Mr. Leland people said he was not worthy
of me, and that I was throwing myself away--and he in business, too!
But Margaret is so romantic. There was Mr. Walters, a gentleman-farmer,
and Simpson who had a jeweller’s shop--I never approved of him!--and
Mr. Samuelson, and the Hon. William Scott. She tired of them all except
the Hon. William Scott, who tired of her because someone told him she
put belladonna in her eyes--and it is not true; and now there is Mr.
Sims!’ She then cried a little, and allowed herself to be consoled by
Mrs. Sherman.
‘You talk so intelligently and are so well informed,’ she said at
parting. ‘I have made a very pleasant call,’ and the caddis-worm toiled
upon its way, arriving in time at other cups of tea.