University of Virginia Library

25. CHAPTER XXV.
IN WHICH HANNAH THURSTON MAKES A NEW ACQUAINTANCE.

In another week, Bute was able to dispense with the grateful
nursing which had more than reconciled him to the confinement
of his sick-room. He required no attendance at
night, and was able to sit, comfortably pillowed, for a great
part of the day. He consumed enormous quantities of chickenbroth,
and drank immoderately of Old Port and  Albany  Ale.
Miss Dilworth, therefore, made preparations to leave: she was
now obliged to sew for herself, and a proper obedience to custom
required that she should not remain at Lakeside during
the last fortnight of her betrothal.

On the morning of her departure, Woodbury called her
into the library. “You have done me a great service, Miss
Dilworth,” said he, “and I hope you will allow me to acknowledge
it by furnishing you with one article which I know will
have to be provided.” With these words he opened a paper
parcel and displayed a folded silk, of the most charming tint
of silver-gray.

The little sempstress looked at it in speechless ecstasy.
“It's heavenly!” she at last cried, clasping her hands. “I'm
obliged to you a thousand times, Mr. Woodbury. It's too
much, indeed it is!”

“Bute won't think so,” he suggested.

She snatched the parcel, and darted up-stairs in three
bounds. “Oh, Bute!” she cried, bursting into his room, “only
look at this! It's my wedding-dress! And he's just given it
to me!”

“It's the prettiest thing I ever laid my eyes on,” said Bute,
looking at the silk reverently but not daring to touch it.
“That's jist like Mr. Max.—what did I always tell you about
him?”

After Miss Dilworth's departure, the housekeeping was
conducted, somewhat indifferently, by the old negress. She
had, however, the one merit of being an admirable cook, and
Woodbury might have managed to live with her assistance,
for a fortnight, but for one awkward circumstance. He received
a letter from Mrs. Blake, saying that her husband had
completed his business in the East and they were preparing
to leave Saratoga. Would it be still convenient for him to
entertain them for a few days at Lakeside, on their return to
St. Louis? If the illness in his household, which had called
him home so suddenly, still continued, they would, of course,
forego the expected pleasure; but if not, they would be the
more delighted to visit him, as it was probable they would
not come to the East the following summer. Would he
answer the letter at once, as they were nearly ready to leave?

Woodbury was uncertain what to do in this emergency.
There was no longer the slightest fear of contagion, and he
particularly desired the offered visit; but how could he entertain
his friends without a housekeeper? He finally decided
that it must be arranged, somehow; wrote an affirmative answer,
and rode into Ptolemy to post it without delay, first
calling at the Cimmerian Parsonage to ask the advice of a
sensible female friend.

“You see,” said he, after stating the dilemma to Mrs. Waldo,
“now that my tyrant has gone, I wish her back again. A
despotism is better than no government at all.”

“Ah, but a republic is better than a despotism!” she replied.
“Do you take my meaning? I'm not certain, after all, that
the figure is quite correct. But the thing is to find a temporary
housekeeper. I know of no single disengaged woman in
Ptolemy, unless it is Miss Ruhaney Goodwin, and her mournful
countenance and habit of sighing, would be very discouraging

to your guests, even if she were willing to go. Mrs. Bue
is a complete intelligence office for Ptolemy servants. Your
only chance is to see her.”

“And if that fails?”

“Then there is no hope. I shall be vexed, for I want to see
this Mrs. Blake. If it were not for taking care of my good
husband, I should myself be willing to act as mistress of Lakeside
for a few days.”

“I knew you would be able to help me!” cried Woodbury,
joyfully. “Let me add Mr. Waldo to the number of my
guests. I shall be delighted to have him, and the change may
be refreshing to him. Besides, you will have us all at the
Cimmerian Church, if the Blakes remain over a Sunday.”

“You are mistaken, if you supposed that any thing of the
kind was in my thoughts,” said Mrs. Waldo. “But the proposal
sounds very pleasantly. I am sure we both should enjoy
it very much, but I cannot accept, you know, before consulting
with my husband.”

“Leave Mr. Waldo to me.”

The matter was very easily arranged. The clergyman, faithful
to the promise of his teeth, appreciated a generous diet.
His own table was oftentimes sparely supplied, and he was
conscious of a gastric craving which gave him discouraging
views of life. There was no likelihood of any immediate birth
or death in his congregation, and it was not the season of the
year when members were usually assailed by doubts and given
to backsliding. More fortunate clergymen went to the watering
places, or even to Europe, to rest their exhausted lungs;
why should he not go to Lakeside for a week? They had no
servant, and could shut up the parsonage during their absence:
but the old horse?

“Wife, we must get somebody to look after Dobbin,” he
said, thoughtfully.

“Bring Dobbin along,” Woodbury laughed, “my old Dick
will be glad to see him.”

Although neither he nor the Waldos were aware that they

had spoken to any one on the subject, the arrangement that
had been made was whispered to everybody in Ptolemy before
twenty-four hours were over. Nothing was known of
the Blakes, except that they were “fashionable,” and those
who would have been delighted to be in the place of the poor
clergyman and his wife, expressed their astonishment at the
conduct of the latter.

“It's what I call very open communion,” said the Rev. Mr.
Pinchman, of the Campbellite Church.

Miss Ruhaney Goodwin heaved three of her most mournful
sighs, in succession, but said nothing.

“Merry-makings so soon after a death in the house,” remarked
Mrs. Hamilton Bue: “it's quite shocking to think of.”

“Our friend is getting very select,” said the Hon. Zeno
Harder, in his most pompous manner, thereby implying that
he should not have been overlooked.

Mr. Grindle, of course, improved the opportunity on every
possible occasion, and before the Blakes had been two days
at Lakeside, it was reported, in temperance circles, that they
had already consumed one hundred dollars' worth of wine.

Had these rumors been known to the pleasant little community
of Lakeside, they would have added an additional
hilarity to the genial atmosphere which pervaded the house.
But it was quite removed from the clatter of the village gossip,
and by the time such news had gone its rounds, and been
conveyed to the victim by sympathizing friends, the occasion
which gave rise to it had entirely passed away. In our small
country communities, nothing is so much resented as an indirect
assumption of social independence. A deviation from the
prevailing habits of domestic life—a disregard for prevailing
prejudices, however temporary and absurd they may be—a
visit from strangers who excite curiosity and are not made common
social property: each of these circumstances is felt as an
act of injustice, and constitutes a legitimate excuse for assault.
Since the railroad had reached Tiberius, and the steamer on
Atauga Lake began to bring summer visitors to Ptolemy,

this species of despotism had somewhat relaxed, but it now
and then flamed up with the old intensity, and Woodbury
was too cosmopolitan in his nature not to provoke its exercise.

Mr. and Mrs. Waldo reached Lakeside the day before the
arrival of the Blakes, and the latter took immediate and easy
possession of her temporary authority. In addition to Melinda,
than whom no better cook, in a limited sphere of dishes,
could have been desired, Woodbury had hit upon the singular
expedient of borrowing a chamber-maid from the Ptolemy
House. Mrs. Waldo's task was thus rendered light and
agreeable—no more, in fact, than she would have voluntarily
assumed in any household rather than be idle. It was more
than a capacity—it was almost a necessity of her nature, to
manage something or direct somebody. In the minor details
her sense of order may have been deficient; but in regulating
departments and in general duties she was never at fault.
Her subordinates instantly felt the bounds she had drawn for
them, and moved instinctively therein.

The Blakes were charmed with Lakeside and the scenery
of the Atauga Valley. Between the boy George and Bute,
who was now able to sit on the shaded veranda on still, dry
days, there grew up an immediate friendship. Miss Josephine
was beginning to develop an interest in poetry and romances,
and took almost exclusive possession of the library. Mr.
Blake walked over the farm with Woodbury in the forenoons,
each developing theories of agriculture equally original and
impracticable, while the Mesdames Waldo and Blake improved
their acquaintance in house and garden. The two ladies understood
each other from the start, and while there were some
points, in regard to which—as between any two women that
may be selected—each commiserated the other's mistaken views,
they soon discovered many reasons for mutual sympathy and
mutual appreciation. Mrs. Blake had the greater courage,
Mrs. Waldo the greater tact. The latter had more natural
grace and pliancy, the former more acquired refinement of

manner. They were alike in the correctness of their instincts,
but in Mrs. Blake the faculty had been more exquisitely developed,
through her greater social experience. It was the
same air, in the same key, but played an octave higher. Mrs.
Waldo was more inclined to receive her enjoyment of life
through impulse and immediate sensation; Mrs. Blake through
a philosophic discrimination. Both, perhaps, would have
borne misfortune with like calmness; but the resignation of
one would have sprung from her temperament, and of the
other from her reason. The fact that the resemblances in their
matured womanhood were developed from different bases of
character, increased the interest and respect which they
mutually felt.

On one point, at least, they were heartily in accord; namely,
their friendship for Woodbury. Mrs. Blake was familiar,
as we have already described, with his early manhood in New
York, and furnished Mrs. Waldo many interesting particulars
in return for the description which the latter gave of his life
at Lukeside. They were also agreed that there was too much
masculine sweetness in him to be wasted on the desert air, and
that the place, beautiful as it was, could never be an actual
home until he had brought a mistress to it.

“He was already chafing under Mrs. Babb's rule,” said Mrs.
Waldo, as they walked up and down the broad garden-alley,
“and he will be less satisfied with the new housekeeper.
Bute's wife—as she will be—is a much more agreeable person,
and will no doubt try to do her best, but he will get very
tired of her face and her silly talk. It will be all the worse
because she has not a single characteristic strong enough for
him to seize upon and say: This offends me! You know what
I mean?”

“Perfectly; and your remark is quite correct. Mr. Woodbury
is one of those men who demand positive character, of
some kind, in the persons with whom they associate. He likes
fast colors, and this new housekeeper, from your description,
must be a piece that will fade the longer it is used. In that

case, she will become intolerable to him, though she may not
possess one serious fault.”

“That characteristic of his,” said Mrs. Waldo, “is the very
reason, I think, why it will be difficult for him to find a wife.”

“By the by,” asked Mrs. Blake, pausing in her walk, “he
spoke to me, when we met on the Saguenay, of one woman,
here, in your neighborhood, who seems to have made a strong
impression upon his mind.”

“It was certainly Hannah Thurston!”

“He did not give me her name. He seemed to admire her
sincerely, except in one fatal particular—she is strong-minded.”

“Yes, it is Hannah!” exclaimed Mrs. Waldo. “She is a
noble girl, and every way worthy of such a man as he—that is,
if she were not prejudiced against all men.”

“You quite interest me about her. I heard Bessie Stryker
once, when she lectured in St. Louis, and must confess that,
while she did not convince me, I could see very well how
she had convinced herself. Since then, I have been rather tolerant
towards the strong-minded class. The principal mistakes
they make arise from the fact of their not being married, or of
having moral and intellectual milksops for husbands. In either
case, no woman can understand our sex, or the opposite.”

“I have said almost the same thing to Hannah Thurston,”
Mrs. Waldo remarked. “If she would only take one step,
the true knowledge would come. But she won't.”

“I suspect she has not yet found her Fate,” said Mrs. Blake.
“Was she ever in love, do you think?”

“No, I am sure of it. She has refused two good offers
of marriage to my knowledge, and one of them was from a
man who believed in the doctrine of Women's Rights. I can't
understand her, though I love her dearly, and we have been
intimate for years.”

“Can you not contrive a way for me to make her acquaintance?”

“Whenever you please. I have no doubt she remembers
the story Mr. Woodbury told us last winter. I am hostess,

now, you know, and I can invite her to dinner to-morrow, only
I must ask somebody else. I have it! Mr. Woodbury must
invite Mr. and Mrs. Styles. It will not do for him to show too
much partiality to our little sect, and that will keep up the balance
of civility.”

Woodbury accepted the proposition with more satisfaction
than he judged proper to express. It was the very object he
desired to accomplish, yet which he could not himself mention
without exciting suspicions in the minds of both the ladies.
He had not seen Hannah Thurston since his return, and felt a
strange curiosity to test his own sensations when they should
meet again. Under the circumstances, the invitation could be
given and accepted without in the least violating the social
propriety of Ptolemy.

The disturbing emotion which had followed her last interview
with Woodbury had entirely passed away from Hannah
Thurston's mind. Her momentary resolution to avoid seeing
him again, presented itself to her as a confession of weakness.
A studied avoidance of his society would be interpreted as
springing from a hostility which she did not feel. On the contrary,
his culture attracted her: his bearing towards her was
gratefully kind and respectful, and she acknowledged a certain
intellectual pleasure in his conversation, even when it assailed
her dearest convictions. Her mother's health, always fluctuating
with the season and the weather, had somewhat improved
in the last calm, warm days of August, and she could safely
leave her for a few hours in Miss Dilworth's charge. The latter,
indeed, begged her to go, that she might bring back a
minute account of Bute's grade of convalescence. In short,
there was no plausible excuse for declining the invitation, had
she been disposed to seek one.

It was a quiet but very agreeable dinner-party. Mr. and Mrs.
Styles were both amiable and pleasantly receptive persons, and
Mrs. Waldo took care that they should not be overlooked in
the lively flow of talk. Hannah Thurston, who was seated beside
Mr. Blake and opposite his wife, soon overcame her first timidity,

and conversed freely and naturally with her new acquaintances.
Woodbury's reception of her had been frank and kind,
but he had said less to her than on former occasions. Nevertheless,
she occasionally had a presentiment that his eyes were
upon her—that he listened to her, aside, when he was engaged
in conversing with his other guests. It was an absurd fancy, of
course, but it constantly returned.

After dinner, the company passed out upon the veranda, or
seated themselves under the old oaks, to enjoy the last mellow
sunshine of the afternoon. Mrs. Blake and Hannah Thurston
found themselves a little apart from the others—an opportunity
which the former had sought. Each was attracted towards
the other by an interest which directed their thoughts to the
same person, and at the same time restrained their tongues
from uttering his name. Hannah Thurston had immediately
recognized in her new acquaintance the same mental poise and
self-possession, which, in Woodbury, had extorted her unwilling
respect, while it so often disconcerted her. She knew
that the two were natives of the same social climate, and was
curious to ascertain whether they shared the same views of
life—whether, in fact, those views were part of a conventional
creed adopted by the class to which they belonged, or, in each
case, the mature conclusions of an honest and truth-seeking
nature. With one of her own sex she felt stronger and better
armed to defend herself. Mrs. Blake was not a woman of unusual
intellect, but what she did possess was awake and active,
to its smallest fibre. What she lacked in depth, she made up
in quickness and clearness of vision. She did not attempt to follow
abstract theories, or combat them, but would let fall, as if
by accident, one of the sharp, positive truths, with which both
instinct and experience had stored her mind, and which never
failed to prick and let the wind out of every bubble blown towards
her. This faculty, added to the advantage of sex, made
her the most dangerous antagonist Hannah Thurston could
have met. But the latter, unsuspecting, courted her fate.

The conversation, commencing with the beauties of the

landscape, branching thence to Ptolemy and its inhabitants, to
their character, their degree of literary cultivation, and the
means of enlightenment which they enjoyed, rapidly and
naturally approached the one important topic. Hannah Thurston
mentioned, among other things, the meetings which were
held in the interest of Temperance, Anti-Slavery, Non-Resistance,
and Women's Rights; Mrs. Blake gave her impressions
of Bessie Stryker's lecture: Hannah Thurston grasped the
whole gauntlet where only the tip of a finger had been presented,
and both women were soon in the very centre of the
debatable ground.

“What I most object to,” said Mrs. Blake, “is that women
should demand a sphere of action for which they are incapacitated—understand
me, not by want of intellect, but by sex.”

“Do you overlook all the examples which History furnishes?”
cried Hannah Thurston. “What is there that Woman
has not done?”

“Commanded an army.”

“Zenobia!”

“And was brought in chains to Rome. Founded an empire?”

“She has ruled empires!”

“After they were already made, and with the help of men.
Established a religion? Originated a system of philosophy?
Created an order of architecture? Developed a science? Invented
a machine?”

“I am sure I could find examples of her having distinguished
herself in all these departments of intellect,” Hannah
Thurston persisted.

“Distinguished herself! Ah! yes, I grant it. After the
raw material of knowledge has been dug up and quarried out,
and smelted, and hewn into blocks, she steps in with her fine
hand and her delicate tools, and assists man in elaborating the
nicer details. But she has never yet done the rough work,
and I don't believe she ever will.”

“But with the same education—the same preparation—the

same advantages, from birth, which man possesses? She is
taught to anticipate a contracted sphere—she is told that these
pursuits were not meant for her sex, and the determination to
devote herself to them comes late, when it comes at all. Those
intellectual muscles which might have had the same vigor as
man's, receive no early training. She is thus cheated out of
the very basis of her natural strength: if she has done so
much, fettered, what might she not do if her limbs were free?”
Hannah Thurston's face glowed: her eyes kindled, and her
voice came sweet and strong with the intensity of a faith that
would not allow itself to be shaken. She was wholly lost in
her subject.

After a pause, Mrs. Blake quietly said: “Yes, if we had
broad shoulders, and narrow hips, we could no doubt wield
sledge-hammers, and quarry stone, and reef sails in a storm.”

Again the same chill as Woodbury's conversation had sometimes
invoked, came over Hannah Thurston's feelings. Here
was the same dogged adherence to existing facts, she thought,
the same lack of aspiration for a better order of things! The
assertion, which she would have felt inclined to resent in a
man, saddened her in a woman. The light faded from her
face, and she said, mournfully: “Yes, the physical superiority
of man gives him an advantage, by which our sex is overawed
and held in subjection. But the rule of force cannot last forever.
If woman would but assert her equality of intellect,
and claim her share of the rights belonging to human intelligence,
she would soon transform the world.”

Mrs. Blake instantly interpreted the change in countenance
and tone; it went far towards giving her the key to Hannah
Thurston's nature. Dropping the particular question which
had been started, she commenced anew. “When I lived in
New York,” said she, “I had many acquaintances among the
artists, and what I learned of them and their lives taught me
this lesson—that there can be no sadder mistake than to miscalculate
one's powers. There is very little of the ideal and
imaginative element in me, as you see, but I have learned its

nature from observation. I have never met any man who inspired
me with so much pity as a painter whom I knew, who
might have produced admirable tavern-signs, but who persisted
in giving to the world large historical pictures, which
were shocking to behold. No recognition came to the man,
for there was nothing to be recognized. If he had moderated
his ambition, he might at least have gained a living, but he
was ruined before he could be brought to perceive the truth,
and then died, I am sure, of a broken heart.”

“And you mean,” said Miss Thurston, slowly, “that I—
that we who advocate the just claims of our sex, are making
the same mistake.”

“I mean,” Mrs. Blake answered, “that you should be very
careful not to over-estimate the capacity of our sex by your
own, as an individual woman. You may be capable—under
certain conditions—of performing any of the special intellectual
employments of Man, but to do so you must sacrifice
your destiny as a woman—you must seal up the wells from
which a woman draws her purest happiness.”

“Why?”

“Ah, my dear,” said Mrs. Blake, tenderly, “if your hair
were as gray as mine, and you had two such creatures about
you as Josey and George yonder, you would not ask. There
are times when a woman has no independent life of her own
—when her judgment is wavering and obscured—when her
impulses are beyond her control. The business of the world
must go on, in its fixed order, whether she has her share in it
or not. Congresses cannot be adjourned nor trials postponed,
nor suffering patients neglected, to await her necessities. The
prime of a man's activity is the period of her subjection. She
must then begin her political career in the decline of her
faculties, when she will never be able to compete successfully
with man, in any occupation which he has followed from
youth.”

Hannah Thurston felt that there must be truth in these
words. At least it was not for her, in her maiden ignorance,

to contradict them. But she was sure, nevertheless, that Mrs.
Blake's statement was not sufficient to overthrow her theory
of woman's equality. She reflected a moment before she
spoke again, and her tone was less earnest and confident than
usual.

“The statesmen and jurists, the clergymen, physicians, and
men of science,” she said, “comprise but a small number of
the men. Could not our sex spare an equal number? Would
not some of us sacrifice a part of our lives, if it were
necessary?”

“And lose the peace and repose of domestic life, which
consoles and supports the public life of man!” exclaimed Mrs.
Blake. “It is not in his nature to make this sacrifice—still
less is it in ours. You do not think what you are saying.
There is no true woman but feels at her bosom the yearning
for a baby's lips. The milk that is never sucked dries into a
crust around her heart. There is no true woman but longs,
in her secret soul, for a man's breast to lay her head on, a
man's eyes to give her the one look which he gives to nobody
else in the world!”

Hannah Thurston's eyes fell before those of Mrs. Blake.
She painfully felt the warm flush that crept over neck, and
cheek, and brow, betraying her secret, but betraying it, fortunately,
to a noble and earnest-hearted woman. A silence
ensued, which neither knew how to break.

“What are you plotting so seriously?” broke in Woodbury's
voice, close behind them. “I must interrupt this têteà-tête,
Mrs. Blake. See what you are losing?”

They both rose and turned, in obedience to the movement
of his hand. The sun had sunk so low that the shade of the
western hill filled all the bed of the valley, and began to creep
up the eastern side. A light blue film was gathering over the
marsh at the head of the lake, where it divided into two lines,
pointing up the creeks. But the patches of woodland on the
East Atauga hill, the steep fields of tawny oat-stubble, and the
fronts of white farm-houses and barns in the distance, were

drowned in a bath of airy gold, slowly deepening into flame-color
as its tide-mark rose higher on the hills. Over Ptolemy
a mountain of fire divided the forking valleys, which receded
on either hand, southward, into dim depths of amethyst.
Higher and higher crept the splendor, until it blazed like a
fringe on the topmost forests and fields: then it suddenly went
out and was transferred to a rack of broken cloud, overhead.

Mrs. Styles presently made her appearance, bonneted for
the return to Ptolemy. Hannah Thurston was to accompany
her. But as they drove homewards through the cool evening
air, through the ripe odors of late-flowering grasses, and the
golden-rods on the road-banks and the eupatoriums in the
meadows, it was the passionate yearning of the woman, not
the ambition of the man, which had entire possession of her
heart.