As Violante became more familiar with her new home, and those around her
became more familiar with Violante, she was remarked for a certain
stateliness of manner and bearing, which, had it been less evidently
natural and inborn, would have seemed misplaced in the daughter of a
forlorn exile, and would have been rare at so early an age among
children of the loftiest pretensions. It was with the air of a little
princess that she presented her tiny hand to a friendly pressure, or
submitted her calm clear cheek to a presuming kiss. Yet withal she was
so graceful, and her very stateliness was so pretty and captivating,
that she was not the less loved for all her grand airs. And, indeed, she
deserved to be loved; for though she was certainly prouder than Mr. Dale
could approve of, her pride was devoid of egotism; and that is a pride
by no means common. She had an intuitive forethought for others; you
could see that she was capable of that grand woman-heroism, abnegation
of self; and though she was an original child, and often grave and
musing, with a tinge of melancholy, sweet, but deep in her character,
still she was not above the happy genial merriment of childhood,--only
her silver laugh was more attuned, and her gestures more composed, than
those of children habituated to many play-fellows usually are. Mrs.
Hazeldean liked her best when she was grave, and said "she would become
a very sensible woman." Mrs. Dale liked her best when she was gay, and
said "she was born to make many a heart ache;" for which Mrs. Dale was
properly reproved by the Parson. Mrs. Hazeldean gave her a little set of
garden tools; Mrs. Dale a picture-book and a beautiful doll. For a long
time the book and the doll had the preference. But Mrs. Hazeldean having
observed to Riccabocca that the poor child looked pale, and ought to be
a good deal in the open air, the wise father ingeniously pretended to
Violante that Mrs. Riccabocca had taken a great fancy to the
picture-book, and that he should be very glad to have the doll, upon
which Violante hastened to give them both away, and was never so happy
as when mamma (as she called Mrs. Riccabocca) was admiring the
picture-book, and Riccabocca with austere gravity dandled the doll. Then
Riccabocca assured her that she could be of great use to him in the
garden; and Violante instantly put into movement her spade, hoe, and
wheelbarrow.
This last occupation brought her into immediate contact with Mr. Leonard
Fairfield; and that personage one morning, to his great horror, found
Miss Violante had nearly exterminated a whole celery-bed, which she had
ignorantly conceived to be a crop of weeds.
Lenny was extremely angry. He snatched away the hoe, and said angrily,
"You must not do that, Miss. I'll tell your papa if you--"
Violante drew herself up, and never having been so spoken to before, at
least since her arrival in England, there was something comic in the
surprise of her large eyes, as well as something tragic in the dignity
of her offended mien. "It is very naughty of you, Miss," continued
Leonard in a milder tone, for he was both softened by the eyes and awed
by the mien, "and I trust you will not do it again."
"_Non capisco,_" (I don't understand,) murmured Violante, and the dark
eyes filled with tears. At that moment up came Jackeymo; and Violante,
pointing to Leonard, said, with an effort not to betray her emotion,
"_Il fanciullo e molto grossolano_," (he is a very rude boy.)
Jackeymo turned to Leonard with the look of an enraged tiger. "How you
dare, scum of de earth that you are," cried he,[T] "how you dare make
cry the signorina?" And his English not supplying familiar vituperatives
sufficiently, he poured out upon Lenny such a profusion of Italian
abuse, that the boy turned red and white in a breath with rage and
perplexity.
Violante took instant compassion upon the victim she had made, and, with
true feminine caprice, now began to scold Jackeymo for his anger, and,
finally approaching Leonard, laid her hand on his arm, and said with a
kindness at once child-like and queenly, and in the prettiest imaginable
mixture of imperfect English and soft Italian, to which I cannot pretend
to do justice, and shall therefore translate: "Don't mind him. I dare
say it was all my fault, only I did not understand you: are not these
things weeds?"
"No, my darling signorina," said Jackeymo in Italian, looking ruefully
at the celery-bed, "they are not weeds, and they sell very well at this
time of the year. But still, if it amuses you to pluck them up, I should
like to see who's to prevent it."
Lenny walked away. He had been called "the scum of the earth," by a
foreigner too! He had again been ill-treated for doing what he conceived
his duty. He was again feeling the distinction between rich and poor,
and he now fancied that that distinction involved deadly warfare, for he
had read from beginning to end those two damnable tracts which the
Tinker had presented to him. But in the midst of all the angry
disturbance of his mind, he felt the soft touch of the infant's hand,
the soothing influence of her conciliating words, and he was half
ashamed that he had spoken so roughly to a child.
Still, not trusting himself to speak, he walked away and sat down at a
distance. "I don't see," thought he, "why there should be rich and poor,
master and servant." Lenny, be it remembered, had not heard the Parson's
Political Sermon.
An hour after, having composed himself, Lenny returned to his work.
Jackeymo was no longer in the garden; he had gone to the fields; but
Riccabocca was standing by the celery-bed, and holding the red silk
umbrella over Violante as she sat on the ground looking up at her father
with those eyes already so full of intelligence, and love, and soul.
"Lenny," said Riccabocca, "my young lady has been telling me that she
has been very naughty, and Giacomo very unjust to you. Forgive them
both."
Lenny's sullenness melted in an instant: the reminiscence of tracts Nos.
1 and 2,--
"Like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Left not a wreck behind."
He raised his eyes, swimming with all his native goodness, towards the
wise man, and dropped them gratefully on the face of the infant
peacemaker. Then he turned away his head and fairly wept. The Parson was
right: "O ye poor, have charity for the rich; O ye rich, respect the
poor."