University of Virginia Library

4. IV.
AUNT JANE DEFINES HER POSITION.

THE next morning had that luminous morning
haze, not quite dense enough to be
called a fog, which is often so lovely in Old-port.
It was perfectly still; the tide swelled
and swelled till it touched the edge of the green
lawn behind the house, and seemed ready to
submerge the slender pier; the water looked
at first like glass, till closer gaze revealed long
sinuous undulations, as if from unseen water-snakes
beneath. A few rags of storm-cloud
lay over the half-seen hills beyond the bay, and
behind them came little mutterings of thunder,
now here, now there, as if some wild creature
were roaming up and down, dissatisfied, in the
shelter of the clouds. The pale haze extended
into the foreground, and half veiled the schooners
that lay at anchor with their sails up. It
was sultry, and there was something in the atmosphere
that at once threatened and soothed.
Sometimes a few drops dimpled the water and
then ceased; the muttering creature in the

sky moved northward and grew still. It was a
day when every one would be tempted to go
out rowing, but when only lovers would go.
Philip and Hope went.

Kate and Harry, meanwhile, awaited their
opportunity to go in and visit Aunt Jane. This
was a thing that never could be done till near
noon, because that dear lady was very deliberate
in her morning habits, and always averred
that she had never seen the sun rise except in
a panorama. She hated to be hurried in dressing,
too; for she was accustomed to say that
she must have leisure to understand herself,
and this was clearly an affair of time.

But she was never more charming than when,
after dressing and breakfasting in seclusion,
and then vigilantly watching her handmaiden
through the necessary dustings and arrangements,
she sat at last, with her affairs in order,
to await events. Every day she expected
something entirely new to happen, and was
never disappointed. For she herself always
happened, if nothing else did; she could no
more repeat herself than the sunrise can; and
the liveliest visitor always carried away something
fresher and more remarkable than he
brought.

Her book that morning had displeased her,
and she was boiling with indignation against
its author.

“I am reading a book so dry,” she said, “it
makes me cough. No wonder there was a
drought last summer. It was printed then.
Worcester's Geography seems in my memory
as fascinating as Shakespeare, when I look
back upon it from this book. How can a man
write such a thing and live?”

“Perhaps he lived by writing it,” said Kate.

“Perhaps it was the best he could do,” added
the more literal Harry.

“It certainly was not the best he could do,
for he might have died, — died instead of dried.
O, I should like to prick that man with something
sharp, and see if sawdust did not run out
of him! Kate, ask the bookseller to let me
know if he ever really dies, and then life may
seem fresh again.”

“What is it?” asked Kate.

“Somebody's memoirs,” said Aunt Jane.
“Was there no man left worth writing about,
that they should make a biography about this
one? It is like a life of Napoleon with all the
battles left out. They are conceited enough to
put his age in the upper corner of each page
too, as if anybody cared how old he was.”

“Such pretty covers!” said Kate. “It is
too bad.”

“Yes,” said Aunt Jane. “I mean to send
them back and have new leaves put in. These
are so wretched, there is not a teakettle in the
land so insignificant that it would boil over
them. Don't let us talk any more about it.
Have Philip and Hope gone out upon the
water?”

“Yes, dear,” said Kate. “Did Ruth tell
you?”

“When did that aimless infant ever tell
anything?”

“Then how did you know it?”

“If I waited for knowledge till that sweet-tempered
parrot chose to tell me,” Aunt Jane
went on, “I should be even more foolish than
I am.”

“Then how did you know?”

“Of course I heard the boat hauled down,
and of course I knew that none but lovers
would go out just before a thunder-storm.
Then you and Harry came in, and I knew it
was the others.”

“Aunt Jane,” said Kate, “you divine everything:
what a brain you have!”

“Brain! it is nothing but a collection of

shreds, like a little girl's work-basket, — a scrap
of blue silk and a bit of white muslin.”

“Now she is fishing for compliments,” said
Kate, “and she shall have one. She was very
sweet and good to Philip last night.”

“I know it,” said Aunt Jane, with a groan.
“I waked in the night and thought about it.
I was awake a great deal last night. I have
heard cocks crowing all my life, but I never
knew what that creature could accomplish before.
So I lay and thought how good and forgiving
I was; it was quite distressing.”

“Remorse?” said Kate.

“Yes, indeed. I hate to be a saint all the
time. There ought to be vacations. Instead
of suffering from a bad conscience, I suffer
from a good one.”

“It was no merit of yours, aunt,” put in
Harry. “Who was ever more agreeable and
lovable than Malbone last night?”

“Lovable!” burst out Aunt Jane, who never
could be managed or manipulated by anybody
but Kate, and who often rebelled against Harry's
blunt assertions. “Of course he is lovable,
and that is why I dislike him. His father
was so before him. That is the worst of it. I
never in my life saw any harm done by a villain;

I wish I could. All the mischief in this
world is done by lovable people. Thank
Heaven, nobody ever dared to call me lovable!”

“I should like to see any one dare call you
anything else, — you dear, old, soft-hearted
darling!” interposed Kate.

“But, aunt,” persisted Harry, “if you only
knew what the mass of young men are —”

“Don't I?” interrupted the impetuous lady.
“What is there that is not known to any
woman who has common sense, and eyes
enough to look out of a window?”

“If you only knew,” Harry went on, “how
superior Phil Malbone is, in his whole tone,
to any fellow of my acquaintance.”

“Lord help the rest!” she answered.
“Philip has a sort of refinement instead of
principles, and a heart instead of a conscience,
— just heart enough to keep himself happy
and everybody else miserable.”

“Do you mean to say,” asked the obstinate
Hal, “that there is no difference between refinement
and coarseness?”

“Yes, there is,” she said.

“Well, which is best?”

“Coarseness is safer by a great deal,” said

Aunt Jane, “in the hands of a man like
Philip. What harm can that swearing coachman
do, I should like to know, in the street
yonder? To be sure it is very unpleasant,
and I wonder they let people swear so, except,
perhaps, in waste places outside the town;
but that is his way of expressing himself, and
he only frightens people, after all.”

“Which Philip does not,” said Hal.

“Exactly. That is the danger. He frightens
nobody, not even himself, when he ought
to wear a label round his neck marked `Dangerous,'
such as they have at other places
where it is slippery and brittle. When he is
here, I keep saying to myself, `Too smooth,
too smooth!' ”

“Aunt Jane,” said Harry, gravely, “I know
Malbone very well, and I never knew any man
whom it was more unjust to call a hypocrite?”

“Did I say he was a hypocrite?” she cried.
“He is worse than that; at least, more really
dangerous. It is these high-strung sentimentalists
who do all the mischief; who play on
their own lovely emotions, forsooth, till they
wear out those fine fiddlestrings, and then
have nothing left but the flesh and the D.
Don't tell me!”

“Do stop, auntie,” interposed Kate, quite
alarmed, “you are really worse than a coachman.
You are growing very profane indeed.”

“I have a much harder time than any
coachman, Kate,” retorted the injured lady.
“Nobody tries to stop him, and you are always
hushing me up.”

“Hushing you up, darling?” said Kate.
“When we only spoil you by praising and
quoting everything you say.”

“Only when it amuses you,” said Aunt
Jane. “So long as I sit and cry my eyes out
over a book, you all love me, and when I talk
nonsense, you are ready to encourage it;
but when I begin to utter a little sense, you
all want to silence me, or else run out of the
room! Yesterday I read about a newspaper
somewhere, called the `Daily Evening Voice';
I wish you would allow me a daily morning
voice.”

“Do not interfere, Kate,” said Hal. “Aunt
Jane and I only wish to understand each
other.”

“I am sure we don't,” said Aunt Jane;
“I have no desire to understand you, and you
never will understand me till you comprehend
Philip.”

“Let us agree on one thing,” Harry said.
“Surely, aunt, you know how he loves Hope?”

Aunt Jane approached a degree nearer the
equator, and said, gently, “I fear I do.”

“Fear?”

“Yes, fear. That is just what troubles me.
I know precisely how he loves her. Il se laisse
aimer. Philip likes to be petted, as much as
any cat, and, while he will purr, Hope is
happy. Very few men accept idolatry with
any degree of grace, but he unfortunately
does.”

“Unfortunately?” remonstrated Hal, as far
as ever from being satisfied. “This is really
too bad. You never will do him any justice.”

“Ah?” said Aunt Jane, chilling again, “I
thought I did. I observe he is very much
afraid of me, and there seems to be no other
reason.”

“The real trouble is,” said Harry, after a
pause, “that you doubt his constancy.”

“What do you call constancy?” said she.
“Kissing a woman's picture ten years after a
man has broken her heart? Philip Malbone
has that kind of constancy, and so had his
father before him.”

This was too much for Harry, who was

making for the door in indignation, when little
Ruth came in with Aunt Jane's luncheon, and
that lady was soon absorbed in the hopeless
task of keeping her handmaiden's pretty blue
and white gingham sleeve out of the butter-plate.