The next boarder I have to mention is the one who sits between the Young Girl and the Landlady.In a little chamber into which a small thread of sunshine finds its way for half an hour or so every day during a month or six weeks of the spring or autumn, at all other times obliged to content itself with ungilded daylight, lives this boarder, whom, without wronging any others of our company, I may call, as she is very generally called in the household, The Lady.In giving her this name it is not meant that there are no other ladies at our table, or that the handmaids who serve us are not ladies, or to deny the general proposition that everybody who wears the unbifurcated garment is entitled to that appellation.Only this lady has a look and manner which there is no mistaking as belonging to a person always accustomed to refined and elegant society.Her style is perhaps a little more courtly and gracious than some would like.
The language and manner which betray the habitual desire of pleasing, and which add a charm to intercourse in the higher social circles, are liable to be construed by sensitive beings unused to such amenities as an odious condescension when addressed to persons of less consideration than the accused, and as a still more odious--you know the word--when directed to those who are esteemed by the world as considerable person ages.But of all this the accused are fortunately wholly unconscious, for there is nothing so entirely natural and unaffected as the highest breeding.
>From an aspect of dignified but undisguised economy which showed itself in her dress as well as in her limited quarters, I suspected a story of shipwrecked fortune, and determined to question our Landlady.That worthy woman was delighted to tell the history of her most distinguished boarder.She was, as I had supposed, a gentlewoman whom a change of circumstances had brought down from her high estate.
--Did I know the Goldenrod family?--Of course I did.---Well, the Lady, was first cousin to Mrs.Midas Goldenrod.She had been here in her carriage to call upon her,--not very often.---Were her rich relations kind and helpful to her?--Well, yes; at least they made her presents now and then.Three or four years ago they sent her a silver waiter, and every Christmas they sent her a boquet,--it must cost as much as five dollars, the Landlady thought.
--And how did the Lady receive these valuable and useful gifts?
--Every Christmas she got out the silver waiter and borrowed a glass tumbler and filled it with water, and put the boquet in it and set it on the waiter.It smelt sweet enough and looked pretty for a day or two, but the Landlady thought it wouldn't have hurt 'em if they'd sent a piece of goods for a dress, or at least a pocket-handkercher or two, or something or other that she could 'a' made some kind of use of; but beggars must n't be choosers; not that she was a beggar, for she'd sooner die than do that if she was in want of a meal of victuals.There was a lady I remember, and she had a little boy and she was a widow, and after she'd buried her husband she was dreadful poor, and she was ashamed to let her little boy go out in his old shoes, and copper-toed shoes they was too, because his poor little ten--toes--was a coming out of 'em; and what do you think my husband's rich uncle,--well, there now, it was me and my little Benjamin, as he was then, there's no use in hiding of it,--and what do you think my husband's uncle sent me but a plaster of Paris image of a young woman, that was,--well, her appearance wasn't respectable, and I had to take and wrap her up in a towel and poke her right into my closet, and there she stayed till she got her head broke and served her right, for she was n't fit to show folks.You need n't say anything about what I told you, but the fact is I was desperate poor before I began to support myself taking boarders, and a lone woman without her--her--The sentence plunged into the gulf of her great remembered sorrow, and was lost to the records of humanity.
--Presently she continued in answer to my questions: The Lady was not very sociable; kept mostly to herself.The Young Girl (our Scheherezade) used to visit her sometimes, and they seemed to like each other, but the Young Girl had not many spare hours for visiting.
The Lady never found fault, but she was very nice in her tastes, and kept everything about her looking as neat and pleasant as she could.
---What did she do?--Why, she read, and she drew pictures, and she did needlework patterns, and played on an old harp she had; the gilt was mostly off, but it sounded very sweet, and she sung to it sometimes, those old songs that used to be in fashion twenty or thirty years ago, with words to 'em that folks could understand.
Did she do anything to help support herself ?--The Landlady couldn't say she did, but she thought there was rich people enough that ought to buy the flowers and things she worked and painted.
All this points to the fact that she was bred to be an ornamental rather than what is called a useful member of society.This is all very well so long as fortune favors those who are chosen to be the ornamental personages; but if the golden tide recedes and leaves them stranded, they are more to be pitied than almost any other class."Icannot dig, to beg I am ashamed."
I think it is unpopular in this country to talk much about gentlemen and gentlewomen.People are touchy about social distinctions, which no doubt are often invidious and quite arbitrary and accidental, but which it is impossible to avoid recognizing as facts of natural history.Society stratifies itself everywhere, and the stratum which is generally recognized as the uppermost will be apt to have the advantage in easy grace of manner and in unassuming confidence, and consequently be more agreeable in the superficial relations of life.
