"Here's news, girls; we are going back to Maine!" and Georgie rushed into
the sitting-room where his sisters and their girl friends were chatting
together. "Papa says we are going back _for sure_, in just a few weeks,
too! Isn't that jolly?" and he manifested his delight in a series of
handsprings that would have charmed the heart of an acrobat.
"Yes, I heard something of it, but hoped it would not come to pass," said
Dexie.
"It is the best news I've heard for a long time, the sooner we leave this
horrid place the better I'll be pleased," was Gussie's comment.
Elsie was quite depressed at the thought of parting from her friends; but
the intervening weeks were full of pleasure and excitement, and drives and
parties seemed to follow one another in quick succession.
One day Dexie came in from a shopping expedition in great excitement,
saying:
"Oh, girls, I have met my double; met her down in a store on Granville
Street, and I actually followed her until she entered a house on Spring
Garden Road. If she had worn one of my suits, I should have expected her to
walk home instead of me. I began to think 'this could not be I.' Whom do
you think she can be?"
Nobody knew; but a few days after, Lancy related the fact that he had
hurried after a lady, supposing her to be Dexie, and found he had been
following a stranger.
"I am going to find out who this young person is," said Dexie, laughing.
"Who knows, perhaps it is my only chance to 'see myself as others see me.'"
After a few inquiries, it was found that Dexie's double was a Nina Gordon,
only daughter of a widow lately arrived in Halifax, and residing with a
bachelor brother who was travelling for a city firm.
Cora Gurney happened to meet both mother and daughter while making a round
of calls with a friend, and she ran in to tell Dexie of the meeting.
"Your double is not very much like you after all, Dexie," she said. "Her
figure and style of walking are remarkably like yours, even to the poise of
her head; her hair, too, is almost the same shade; the eyes and upper part
of the face are similar: but the mouth and chin are her own--they have no
resemblance whatever to the true Dexie. It is the first sight that strikes
one. When you look for the resemblance, it really seems slight enough, and
when she begins to talk, my! the illusion vanishes at once, for really I do
not think I ever met a person who irritated me as she did. She is a girl
after the 'china doll' pattern, and can only use her brains at the
direction of her mother. I do not think she ventured a remark of her own
all the time I was there."
"Perhaps she did not have the chance," said Dexie, eager to champion the
cause of her double. "Some girls are not allowed to have an opinion apart
from the maternal idea of the fitness of things, and are kept down."
"Nonsense! If you had heard her talking, Dexie, I'm sure you would have
felt like shaking her. It is only when her face is in repose that she
resembles you in the least, for the moment she begins to talk, or even
listen--or try to listen, one might say--she has the most senseless
expression I ever saw on a woman's face."
"Goodness sake! bring me a looking-glass, quick! do, till I see what I look
like when I talk. Does my face assume an idiotic expression when I am
conversing? Be honest and tell me, for sweet charity's sake."
"Ease your mind, Dexie," said Cora, laughing. "Did I not say that there the
resemblance ends? It is only when her face is at rest that the likeness can
be seen at all. If you ask her the simplest question, she must refer to her
mother for advice before she replies. For instance, I asked her if she
liked Halifax. 'Do I like Halifax, mamma, do you think?' and she turned to
her mother with such an affected simper. Really, I almost disliked her the
moment she opened her mouth."
"I hope I shall get a chance to see her before we leave Halifax," said
Dexie.
"Well, I asked her and her mother to call on mamma next week, almost on
purpose for your benefit. Hugh is getting along so well I think mamma can
receive some friends. I will let you know when they come."
A further acquaintance corroborated Cora's idea of Nina Gordon's brains.
She seemed to have no mind of her own; a good thing, perhaps, in some
cases, but a more spiritless person to talk to never vexed the heart of man
or woman either. She had no answer for the simplest question without first
asking it from her mother, and away from her mother's side she was uneasy
and almost dumb.
The mother's idiosyncrasy was always to do "the correct thing." The fear of
not doing it, or the dread of having done it unknowingly, was constantly
before her--the bugbear that troubled her daily. Perhaps the daughter
inherited the mother's dread, and her fear of doing or saying something
that was not just "the correct thing" made her put all the responsibility
of conversation on her mother's shoulder. Dexie was amused, as well as
provoked, as she listened to the efforts at conversation which Cora vainly
endeavored to sustain with her double, and it was evident that Mrs. Gurney
also was surprised as well as amused at Mrs. Gordon's remarks.
"However do you manage with such a large family, Mrs. Gurney?" she was
saying. "Why, with only Nina I am wearied to death; for from the time she
wakes up I must see to everything for her until she goes to bed again at
night. How you manage it for so many, I can't see, I am sure. I should die
of fatigue."
"Oh! the children soon get big enough to help themselves, and the younger
ones, too," Mrs. Gurney replied, with a smile. "I seldom see my girls in
the morning until I meet them at the breakfast table."
"Is it possible! Do you not have to superintend their dressing?" she asked,
in surprise.
"Why, no, Mrs. Gordon! Girls of that age," waving her hand toward the group
by the window, "are supposed to have judgment of their own in such things,
and with some to spare for the little ones."
"Dear me! I should be so afraid they would not do the correct thing if I
was not by."
"Perhaps you are by when she ought to rely on herself," was the smiling
answer. "My girls are relieving me of much of the burden of household
cares."
"Well, well!" and Mrs. Gordon looked across at the girls in surprise. "I
wonder you are not in constant dread that some of them might not do the
correct thing when you are not near with your instructions. How wonderful
that you can trust them alone so much! Nina seems a child in comparison."
Dexie was mentally comparing Nina to a big, useless doll; for she had to
conclude that Nina cared for nothing but "to be dressed up and wait in the
parlor for callers."
The girls coaxed Nina away from her mother's side while the latter was
talking to Mrs. Gurney; but directly she was asked a question she wanted to
rush back to her mother, and see how she should answer it.
"But don't you know yourself whether you like music or not?" Dexie asked
her, as Nina vainly endeavored to catch her mother's eye. "Do you not play
or sing, Miss Gordon?"
Nina picked at her gloves in embarrassment as she replied, with a simper:
"Well, I play scales on the piano sometimes."
"Then you _are_ fond of music, I suppose," said Cora, pleasantly.
"Well, I think I am. I will ask mamma; she knows if I like it. Is it quite
correct to like music, do you think?"
The silly look which accompanied this speech made Dexie almost disgusted
with her, but she turned to Cora and smiled significantly.
"Well," said Dexie, when her double had taken her departure, "she has tired
me out; but with that chin what can anyone expect? It tells her character
at a glance."
"Tell us your opinion of her," said Cora. "Do _you_ see the great
difference there is between you?"
"Why, she is different every way. First in importance is temper; there she
has the best of me, for she is as mild as milk-and-water, and I own it
certainly is not the 'correct thing' to get into such rages as I do. She
gives the impression that she is never determined about anything, and
anyone can persuade her that this, or that is right, as she has no mind to
solve the matter for herself. She will go through life depending on
another's conscience to keep her straight; but with that chin what else
could she do?"
"What does her chin say?" said Cora, smiling.
"'Unstable as water; unstable as water.' I saw the words every time I
glanced at her."
For the next few days Dexie endured much teasing about her intelligent
_double_; but she bore it all so good-naturedly that it soon died away.
Much to everyone's surprise, Dexie endeavored to see Nina frequently, and
tried to induce her to visit them often; and Dexie laughingly gave as her
reason that she would like to knock a little common-sense into her _double_
before she left Halifax, for fear people might think that Nina was her
exact counterpart in everything.