11. CHAPTER XI.
The company is `mixed,' (the phrase I quote is
As much as saying, they're below your notice.)
—Byron.
On reaching New Baden, towards night, they learned that
there was to be a dance that evening, in the hall.
“The deuse!” ejaculated Meredith, as they entered; “have
we come all this distance to find old faces again at New Baden?
Look at that corner.”
Morton looked, and beheld a solemn group taking no part
in the amusements, but scrutinizing the scene with the air of
superior beings. He recognized the familiar countenance of
Mrs. Primrose, with her daughter, Miss Constance Primrose,
and her daughter's friend, Miss Wallflower. There, too, was
Mr. Benjamin Stubb, Morton's classmate, and Miss Primrose's
reputed admirer, with several other kindred spirits.
Stubb was a tall and very slender young man, with a grave
and pallid visage, and an uncompromising rigidity of cravat.
Though his brain was unfurnished, his morals were reasonably
good, and he went regularly to church, believing that there
was, he could not tell how, an inseparable connection between
good society and the ritual of the English church. He
prided himself on his gentlemanly deportment, and regarded
a lady as a being who is under no circumstances to be approached,
except through the medium of certain prescribed
forms and ceremonies. He seldom noticed those whom he
thought his inferiors, and was very formal and exact towards
the select few whom he acknowledged as his equals. As to
superiors, he confessed none, except in the highest ranks of
the English aristocracy, upon whom he looked with great
reverence. He thought that there was no really good society
in America, except the society of Boston, of which he regarded
himself and his connections as the
crême de la crême.
He cherished a just hereditary scorn of upstarts and parvenus;
for already nearly half a century had expired since
the Stubbs began to rise on golden wings from their native
mud. Nor was this their only claim to ancestral eminence;
since a judicious investment of a little surplus income at the
College of Heralds had revealed the gratifying truth that the
Stubbs of Boston were lineal descendants of King Arthur.
Mrs. Primrose was a very benevolent and estimable person,
who knew nothing of the world beyond her own circle, and
looked with dire reprehension on any deviation from the standard
of morals and manners which she had been accustomed
to regard as the correct and proper one. Miss Constance
Primrose realized Stubb's most exalted ideal of a young lady.
She was very pretty, but with a face cold and unchanging as
marble. She carried an unquestionable air of good, not to
say of high breeding; having in this point an advantage over
her mother, whose style savored a little of the simplicity of
her early surroundings. The material, indeed, was very slender;
but it had received a creditable polish; and though she
had nothing to say, she said it with an undeniable grace.
Morton and Meredith paid their compliments to the group,
the former hastening to mingle with the crowd again, while
Meredith remained to exchange a few words with the pretty,
modest, and too-much-neglected Miss Wallflower.
“Upon my word, Mr. Meredith,” said Mrs. Primrose,
“Mr. Morton has found a singular pair of acquaintances.”
“O, yes,” said Meredith; “those are particular friends of
his.”
“Very singular!” murmured Mrs. Primrose.
Morton was walking slowly up the hall, conversing with an
odd-looking couple — a heavy, thick set man, in the fantastic
finery of a Broadway swell, and a woman of five feet ten,
thin and gaunt, with a yellow complexion, and a pair of fierce,
glittering eyes, like an Indian squaw in ill humor. She was
gorgeous in silk, brocade, and diamonds, and her huge,
gloveless, bony fingers sparkled with jewelry. Her husband,
on his part, displayed a mighty breastpin, in the shape of a
war horse rampant, in diamond frostwork.
“Mr. Meredith,” murmured the horrified Mrs. Primrose,
“pray who are those persons?”
“Aborigines from Red River. Mr. and Mrs. Major Orson,
of Natchitoches. He is a speculator, I believe, of more
wealth than reputation.”
“And are they friends of Mr. Morton?”
“O, Morton is a student of humanity. He met them at
the tea table, and thinks them remarkable specimens of natural
history.”
Mrs. Primrose did not hear this explanation. The trio had
now approached within a few yards; and her whole attention
was absorbed in listening to the high, penetrating voice of
the female ogre.
“There's one great and glorious thing about Natchitoches,”
remarked Mrs. Orson.
“What's that?” asked Morton.
“You can get every thing there to eat that heart can wish.”
“That's a fact,” said the major; “there ain't no discount
on that.”
“Game, and fish, and fruit, and vegetables,” pursued the
lady; “any thing and every thing. The north can't compete
with if, I tell you. There's the pompano! O, my! Did
you ever eat a pompano?”
“Never.”
“Then you have got something to look forward to. That's
a fish that is a fish. Why, sir, you can begin at the tail, and
eat him clean away to the head, and the bones is just like
marrow! It makes my mouth water to think of it!”
“O, hush!” cried the major, with sympathetic emotion.
“And then the fruit! Think of the peaches! They beat
your nasty little northern peaches all holler!”
“Yes,” added the major, and to have your own boys to
shin up the tree and throw 'em down to you; and to sit under
the shade all the afternoon eating 'em; — that's the way
to live!”
“It's all the little niggers is good for, just to pick fruit.”
“Troublesome animals, I should think,” observed Morton.
“Well, they be; and the growed-up niggers ain't much
better. To think of that girl, Cynthy, major. My! wasn't
she one of 'em! The major is, out of all account, too tender
to his niggers, and if it warn't for me, they wouldn't get a
speck of justice done. Why, what are all those folks moving
for? My! supper's ready. I'll go in with this gentleman,
major, and you may foller with any pretty gal that you can
get to come with you. I ain't a jealous woman” — turning
to Morton — “I let the major do pretty much what he
pleases.”
Mrs. Primrose drew a deep breath. “There must be” —
thus she communed with herself — “something essentially
vulgar in the mind of that young man, if he can neglect a
cultivated and refined young lady like Constance, and at the
same time find pleasure in the conversation of a person like
that.” And she considered within herself whether it would
not be best to warn Constance not to encourage any advances
which he might in future make. On second thoughts, reflecting
that his position was unquestionable, his wealth great,
and that she had never heard any thing against his morals,
she determined to suspend all action for the present, keeping
a close watch, meanwhile, on his behavior.
While Morton was thus brought to the bar in the matronly
breast of Mrs. Primrose, while the jury were bringing in a
verdict of guilty, joined to a recommendation to mercy, the
unconscious young man was leading his companion to the
supper room; where, furnishing her with a huge plate of
oysters, he left her in perfect contentment.
Not long after, he encountered Meredith.
“How do you like your friend in the diamonds?”
“She's a superb specimen; about as civilized, with all her
jewelry, as a Pawnee squaw. She has a vein of womanhood,
though. I saw her, in the tea room, fondle a kitten whose
foot had been trodden upon, as tenderly as if it had been a
child.”
“If you had not been so busy with her, you would have
met a person much better worth your time.”
“Who's that?”
“Miss Fanny Euston.”
“Do you mean that she is here?”
“She was here, — in that room adjoining. But she has
gone; you'll see nothing of her to-night.”
“Will not her being here induce you to stay?”
The question, as he spoke it, had a sound of frankness;
but the shameful truth must be confessed, that, in spite of his
friendship for Meredith, and his admiration of Miss Leslie, he
was a little jealous of his friend.
“No,” replied Meredith, “it's out of the question. I must
be off the day after to-morrow. By the way, you never told
me how you liked Miss Euston.”
“A rough diamond, needing nothing but to be cut, polished,
and set!”
“It's too late, I think, for that. The polishing should have
begun before eighteen. She is quite unformed, and quite
unconscious of being so. I'll leave you here to fall in love
with her, if you like; but if you do, colonel, you'll be a good
deal younger than I take you for.”
There was something in his friend's tone which led Morton
half to suspect the truth. Meredith had himself a penchant
for Miss Fanny Euston, held in abeyance by a very lively perception
of her faults.
