University of Virginia Library

27. CHAPTER XXVII.

An addition to our Montacute first circle had lately
appeared in the person of Miss Eloise Fidler, an elder
sister of Mrs. Rivers, who was to spend some months
“in this peaceful retreat,”—to borrow one of her favourite
expressions.

This young lady was not as handsome as she would
fain have been, if I may judge by the cataracts of ash-coloured
ringlets which shaded her cheeks, and the exceeding
straitness of the stays which restrained her
somewhat exuberant proportions. Her age was at a
stand; but I could never discover exactly where, for
this point proved an exception to the general communicativeness
of her disposition. I guessed it at eight-and-twenty;
but perhaps she would have judged this uncharitable,

so I will not insist. Certain it is that it
must have taken a good while to read as many novels
and commit to memory as much poetry, as lined the
head and exalted the sensibilities of our fair visitant.

Her dress was in the height of fashion, and all her
accoutrements point de vice. A gold pencil-case of the
most delicate proportions was suspended by a kindred
chain round a neck which might be called whity-brown;
and a note-book of corresponding lady-like-ness
was peeping from the pocket of her highly-useful apron
of blue silk—ever ready to secure a passing thought or
an elegant quotation. Her album—she was just the
person to have an album—was resplendent in gold and
satin, and the verses which meandered over its emblazoned
pages were of the most unexceptionable quality,
overlaid with flowers and gems—love and despair. To
find any degree of appropriateness in these various
offerings, one must allow the fortunate possessor of
the purple volume, at least all the various perfections of
an Admirable Crichton, allayed in some small measure
by the trifling faults of coldness, fickleness, and deceit;
and to judge of Miss Fidler's friends by their hand-writing,
they must have been able to offer an edifying
variety of bumps to the fingers of the phrenologist.
But here is the very book itself at my elbow, waiting
these three months, I blush to say, for a contribution
which has yet to be pumped up from my unwilling
brains; and I have a mind to steal a few specimens
from its already loaded pages, for the benefit of the distressed,
who may, like myself, be at their wits' end for
something to put in just such a book.

The first page, rich with embossed lilies, bears the

invocation, written in a great black spattering hand,
and wearing the air of a defiance. It runs thus:
Then we come to a wreath of flowers of gorgeous hues,
within whose circle appears in a miminee piminee hand,
evidently a young lady's—
This contributor I have settled in my own mind to be a
descendant of Anna Matilda, the high-priestess of the
Della Cruscan order. The next blazon is an interesting
view of a young lady, combing her hair. As she
seems not to have been long out of bed, the lines which
follow are rather appropriate, though I feel quite sure
they come from the expert fingers of a merchant's clerk
—from the finished elegance, and very sweeping tails
of the chirography.

This I transcribe for the good advice which it contains.
And what have we here? It is tastefully headed
by an engraving of Hero and Ursula in the
“pleached bower,” and Beatrice running “like a lapwing”
in the background. It begins ominously.

I find myself growing hoarse by sympathy, and I
shall venture only a single extract more, and this because
Miss Fidler declares it, without exception, the
sweetest thing she ever read. It is written with a
crow-quill, and has other marks of femininity. Its
vignette is a little girl and boy playing at battle-door.

This is not a very novel incident, but young ladies
like stories of love and murder, and Miss Fidler's tastes
were peculiarly young-lady-like. She praised Ainsworth
and James, but thought Bulwer's works “very

immoral,” though I never could discover that she had
more than skimmed the story from any of them.
Cooper she found “pretty;” Miss Sedgwick, “pretty
well, only her characters are such common sort of
people.”

Miss Fidler wrote her own poetry, so that she had
ample employment for her time while with us in the
woods. It was unfortunate that she could not walk
out much on account of her shoes. She was obliged
to make out with diluted inspiration. The nearest approach
she usually made to the study of Nature, was to
sit on the wood-pile, under a girdled tree, and there,
with her gold pencil in hand, and her “eyne, grey as
glas,” rolled upwards, poefy by the hour. Several
people, and especially one marriageable lady of a certain
age, felt afraid Miss Fidler was “kind o' crazy.”

And, standing marvel of Montacute, no guest at
morning or night ever found the fair Eloise ungloved.
Think of it! In the very wilds to be always like a cat
in nutshells, alone useless where all are so busy! I
do not wonder our good neighbours thought the damsel
a little touched. And then her shoes! “Saint
Crispin Crispianus” never had so self-sacrificing a votary.
No shoemaker this side of New-York could
make a sole papery enough; no tannery out of France
could produce materials for this piece of exquisite feminine
foppery. Eternal imprisonment within doors,
except in the warmest and driest weather, was indeed
somewhat of a price to pay, but it was ungrudged.
The sofa and its footstool, finery and novels, would
have made a delicious world for Miss Eloise Fidler,
if—

But, alas! “all this availeth me nothing,” has been
ever the song of poor human nature. The mention of
that unfortunate name includes the only real, personal,
pungent distress which had as yet shaded the lot of my
interesting heroine. Fidler! In the mortification adhering
to so unpoetical, so unromantic, so inelegant a
surname—a name irredeemable even by the highly
classical elegance of the Eloise, or as the fair lady herself
pronounced it, “Elovees;” in this lay all her wo;
and the grand study of her life had been to sink this
hated cognomen in one more congenial to her taste.
Perhaps this very anxiety had defeated itself; at any
rate, here she was at—I did not mean to touch on
the ungrateful guess again, but at least at mateable
years; neither married, nor particularly likely to be
married.

Mrs. Rivers was the object of absolute envy to the
pining Eloise. “Anna had been so fortunate,” she
said; “Rivers was the sweetest name! and Harley
was such an elegant fellow!”

We thought poor Anna had been any thing but fortunate.
She might better have been Fidler or Fiddle-string
all her life than to have taken the name of an
indifferent and dissipated husband. But not so thought
Miss Fidler. It was not long after the arrival of the
elegant Eloise, that the Montacute Lyceum held its
first meeting in Mr. Simeon Jenkins's shop, lighted by
three candles, supported by candelabra of scooped potatoes;
Mr. Jenkins himself sitting on the head of a
barrel, as president. At first the debates of the institute
were held with closed doors; but after the youthful
or less practised speakers had tried their powers for

a few evenings, the Lyceum was thrown open to the
world every Tuesday evening, at six o'clock. The list
of members was not very select as to age, character,
or standing; and it soon included the entire gentility
of the town, and some who scarce claimed rank elsewhere.
The attendance of the ladies was particularly
requested; and the whole fair sex of Montacute made
a point of showing occasionally the interest they undoubtedly
felt in the gallant knights who tilted in this
field of honour.

But I must not be too diffuse—I was speaking of
Miss Fidler. One evening—I hope that beginning
prepares the reader for something highly interesting—
one evening the question to be debated was the equally
novel and striking one which regards the comparative
mental capacity of the sexes; and as it was expected
that some of the best speakers on both sides
would be drawn out by the interesting nature of the
subject, every body was anxious to attend.

Among the rest was Miss Fidler, much to the surprise
of her sister and myself, who had hitherto been so
unfashionable as to deny ourselves this gratification.

“What new whim possesses you, Eloise?” said Mrs.
Rivers; “you who never go out in the day-time.”

“Oh, just per passy le tong,” said the young lady,
who was a great French scholar; and go she would
and did.

The debate was interesting to absolute breathlessness,
both of speakers and hearers, and was gallantly
decided in favour of the fair by a youthful member who
occupied the barrel as president for the evening. He
gave it as his decided opinion, that if the natural and social

disadvantages under which woman laboured and
must ever continue to labour, could be removed; if their
education could be entirely different, and their position
in society the reverse of what it is at present, they
would be very nearly, if not quite, equal to the nobler
sex, in all but strength of mind, in which very useful
quality it was his opinion that man would still have
the advantage, especially in those communities whose
energies were developed by the aid of debating societies.

This decision was hailed with acclamations, and as
soon as the question for the ensuing debate,” which is
the more useful animal the ox or the ass?” was announced,
Miss Eloise Fidler returned home to rave of
the elegant young man who sat on the barrel, whom
she had decided to be one of “Nature's aristocracy,”
and whom she had discovered to bear the splendid appellative
of Dacre. “Edward Dacre,” said she, “for
I heard the rude creature Jenkins call him Ed.”

The next morning witnessed another departure from
Miss Fidler's usual habits. She proposed a walk; and
observed that she had never yet bought an article at
the store, and really felt as if she ought to purchase
something. Mrs. Rivers chancing to be somewhat occupied,
Miss Fidler did me the honour of a call, as she
could not think of walking without a chaperon.

Behind the counter at Skinner's I saw for the first
time a spruce clerk, a really well-looking young man,
who made his very best bow to Miss Fidler, and served
us with much assiduity. The young lady's purchases
occupied some time, and I was obliged gently to hint
home-affairs before she could decide between two pieces

of muslin, which she declared to be so nearly alike,
that it was almost impossible to say which was the
best.

When we were at length on our return, I was closely
questioned as to my knowledge of “that gentleman,”
and on my observing that he seemed to be a very decent
young man, Miss Fidler warmly justified him
from any such opinion, and after a glowing eulogium
on his firm countenance, his elegant manners and
his grace as a debater, concluded by informing me, as
if to cap the climax, that his name was Edward Dacre.

I had thought no more of the matter for some time,
though I knew Mr. Dacre had become a frequent visitor
at Mr. Rivers', when Mrs. Rivers came to me one morning
with a perplexed brow, and confided to me her sisterly
fears that Eloise was about to make a fool of herself,
as she had done more than once before.

“My father,” she said, “hoped in this remote corner
of creation Eloise might forget her nonsense and act
like other people; but I verily believe she is bent upon
encouraging this low fellow, whose principal charm in
her bewildered eyes is his name.

“His name?” said I, “pray explain;” for I had
not then learned all the boundless absurdity of this new
Cherubina's fancies.”

“Edward Dacre?” said my friend, “this is what
enchants my sister, who is absolutely mad on the subject
of her own homely appellation.”

“Oh, is that all?” said I, “send her to me, then;
and I engage to dismiss her cured.”

And Miss Fidler came to spend the day. We talked
of all novels without exception, and all poetry of all

magazines, and Miss Fidler asked me if I had read
the “Young Duke.” Upon my confessing as much, she
asked my opinion of the heroine, and then if I had
ever heard so sweet a name. “May Dacre—May
Dacre,” she repeated, as if to solace her delighted
ears.

“Only think how such names are murdered in this
country,” said I, tossing carelessly before her an account
of Mr. Skinner's which bore, “Edkins Daker”
below the receipt. I never saw a change equal to that
which seemed to “come o'er the spirit of her dream.”
I went on with my citations of murdered names, telling
how Rogers was turned into Rudgers, Conway into
Coniway, and Montague into Montaig, but poor Miss
Fidler was no longer in talking mood; and, long before
the day was out, she complained of a head-ache
and returned to her sister's. Mr. Daker found her
“not at home” that evening; and when I called next
morning, the young lady was in bed, steeping her
long ringlets in tears, real tears.

To hasten to the catastrophe: it was discovered ere
long that Mr. Edkins Daker's handsome face, and
really pleasant manners, had fairly vanquished Miss
Fidler's romance, and she had responded to his professions
of attachment with a truth and sincerity,
which while it vexed her family inexpressibly, seemed
to me to atone for all her follies. Mr. Daker's prospects
were by no means despicable, since a small capital
employed in merchandize in Michigan, is very apt
to confer upon the industrious and fortunate possesser
that crowning charm, without which handsome faces,

and even handsome names, are quite worthless in our
Western eyes.

Some little disparity of age existed between Miss
Fidler and her adorer; but this was conceded by all
to be abundantly made up by the superabounding gentility
of the lady; and when Mr. Daker returned from
New-York with his new stock of goods and his stylish
bride, I thought I had seldom seen a happier or better
mated couple. And at this present writing, I do not
believe Eloise, with all her whims, would exchange
her very nice Edkins for the proudest Dacre of the
British Peerage.