The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867. Various
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as the prospects looked favorable, he went to make a call at The Poplars. He asked first for Miss Hazard.
"Bliss your soul, Mr. Bridshaw," answered Mistress Kitty Fagan, "she's been gahn nigh a wake. It's to the city, to the big school, they've sint her."
This announcement seemed to make a deep impression on Murray Bradshaw, for his feelings found utterance in one of the most energetic forms of language to which ears polite or impolite are accustomed. He next asked for Miss Silence, who soon presented herself. Mr. Bradshaw asked, in a rather excited way, "Is it possible, Miss Withers, that your niece has quitted you to go to a city school?"
Miss Silence answered, with her chief-mourner expression, and her death-chamber tone: "Yes, she has left us for a season. I trust it may not be her destruction. I had hoped in former years that she would become a missionary, but I have given up all expectation of that now. Two whole years, from the age of four to that of six, I had prevailed upon her to give up sugar,—the money so saved to go to a graduate of our institution—who was afterwards–he labored among the cannibal-islanders. I thought she seemed to take pleasure in this small act of self-denial, but I have since suspected that Kitty gave her secret lumps. It was by Mr. Gridley's advice that she went, and by his pecuniary assistance. What could I do? She was bent on going, and I was afraid she would have fits, or do something dreadful, if I did not let her have her way. I am afraid she will come back to us spoiled. She has seemed so fond of dress lately, and once she spoke of learning—yes, Mr. Bradshaw, of learning to—dance! I wept when I heard of it. Yes, I wept."
That was such a tremendous thing to think of, and especially to speak of in Mr. Bradshaw's presence,—for the most pathetic image in the world to many women is that of themselves in tears,—that it brought a return of the same overflow, which served as a substitute for conversation until Miss Badlam entered the apartment.
Miss Cynthia followed the same general course of remark. They could not help Myrtle's going if they tried. She had always maintained that, if they had only once broke her will when she was little, they would have kept the upper hand of her; but her will never was broke. They came pretty near it once, but the child wouldn't give in.
Miss Cynthia went to the door with Mr. Bradshaw, and the conversation immediately became short and informal.
"Demonish pretty business! All up for a year or more,—hey?"
"Don't blame me,—I couldn't stop her."
"Give me her address,—I'll write to her. Any young men teach in the school?"
"Can't tell you. She'll write to Olive and Bathsheba, and I'll find out all about it."
Murray Bradshaw went home and wrote a long letter to Mrs. Clymer Ketchum, of 24 Carat Place, containing many interesting remarks and inquiries, some of the latter relating to Madam Delacoste's institution for the education of young ladies.
While this was going on at Oxbow Village, Myrtle was establishing herself at the rather fashionable school to which Mr. Gridley had recommended her. Mrs. or Madam Delacoste's boarding-school had a name which on the whole it deserved pretty well. She had some very good instructors for girls who wished to get up useful knowledge in case they might marry professors or ministers. They had a chance to learn music, dancing, drawing, and the way of behaving in company. There was a chance, too, to pick up available acquaintances, for many rich people sent their daughters to the school, and it was something to have been bred in their company.
There was the usual division of the scholars into a first and second set, according to the social position, mainly depending upon the fortune, of the families to which they belonged. The wholesale dealer's daughter very naturally considered herself as belonging to a different order from the retail dealer's daughter. The keeper of a great hotel and the editor of a widely circulated newspaper were considered as ranking with the wholesale dealers, and their daughters belonged also to the untitled nobility which has the dollar for its armorial bearing. The second set had most of the good scholars, and some of the prettiest girls; but nobody knew anything about their families, who lived off the great streets and avenues, or vegetated in country towns.
Myrtle Hazard's advent made something like a sensation. They did not know exactly what to make of her. Hazard? Hazard? No great firm of that name. No leading hotel kept by any Hazard, was there? No newspaper of note edited by anybody called Hazard, was there? Came from where? Oxbow Village. O, rural district. Yes.—Still they could not help owning that she was handsome,—a concession which of course had to be made with reservations.
"Don't you think she's vurry good-lookin'?" said a Boston girl to a New York girl. "I think she's real pooty."
"I dew, indeed. I didn't think she was haäf so handsome the f[)e]eest time I saw her," answered the New York girl.
"What a pity she hadn't been bawn in Bawston!"
"Yes, and moved very young to Ne Yock!"
"And married a sarsaparilla man, and lived in Fiff Avenoo, and moved in the fust society."
"Better dew that than be strong-mainded, and dew your own cook'n, and live in your own kitch'n."
"Don't forgit to send your card when you are Mrs. Old Dr. Jacob!"
"Indeed I shaän't. What's the name of the alley, and which bell?" The New York girl took out a memorandum-book as if to put it down.
"Hadn't you better let me write it for you, dear?" said the Boston girl. "It is as well to have it legible, you know."
"Take it," said the New York girl. "There's tew York shill'ns in it when I hand it to you."
"Your wh[)o]le quarter's allowance, I bullieve,—ain't it?" said the Boston girl.
"Elegant manners, correct deportment, and propriety of language will be strictly attended to in this institution. The most correct standards of pronunciation will be inculcated by precept and example. It will be the special aim of the teachers to educate their pupils out of all provincialisms, so that they may be recognized as well-bred English scholars wherever the language is spoken in its purity."—Extract from the Prospectus of Madam Delacoste's Boarding-School.
Myrtle Hazard was a puzzle to all the girls. Striking, they all agreed, but then the criticisms began. Many of the girls chattered a little broken French, and one of them, Miss Euphrosyne De Lacy, had been half educated in Paris, so that she had all the phrases which are to social operators what his cutting instruments are to the surgeon. Her face she allowed was handsome; but her style, according to this oracle, was a little bourgeoise, and her air not exactly comme il faut. More specifically, she was guilty of contours fortement prononcés,—corsage de paysanne,—quelque chose de sauvage, etc., etc. This girl prided herself on her figure.
Miss Bella Pool, (La Belle Poule as the demi-Parisian girl had christened her,) the beauty of the school, did not think so much of Myrtle's face, but considered her figure as better than the De Lacy girl's.
The two sets, first and second, fought over her as the Greeks and Trojans over a dead hero, or the Yale College societies over a live freshman. She was nobody by her connections, it is true, so far as they could find out, but then, on the other hand, she had the walk of a queen, and she looked as if a few stylish dresses and a season or two would make her a belle of the first water. She had that air of indifference to their little looks and whispered comments which is surest to disarm all the critics of a small tattling community. On the other hand, she came to this school to learn, and not to play; and the modest and more plainly dressed girls, whose fathers did not sell by the cargo, or keep victualling establishments for some hundreds of people, considered her as rather in sympathy with them than with the daughters of the rough-and-tumble millionnaires who were grappling and rolling over each other in the golden dust of the great city markets.
She did not mean to belong exclusively to either of their sets. She came with that sense of manifold deficiencies, and eager ambition to supply them, which carries any learner upward, as if on wings, over the heads of the mechanical plodders and the indifferent routinists. She learned, therefore, in a way to surprise the experienced instructors. Her somewhat rude sketching soon began to show something of the artist's touch. Her voice, which had only been taught to warble the simplest melodies, after a little training began