responded Mrs. Thorne, with enthusiasm. "Do you know, Mr. Winthrop, that Mrs. Harold quite fills my idea of a combination of our own Margaret Fuller and Madame de Staël."
"Yet she can hardly be called talkative, can she?" said Winthrop, smiling.
"It is her face, the language of her eye, that give me my impression. Her silence seems to me but a fulness of intellect, a fulness at times almost throbbing; she is a Corinne mute, a Margaret dumb."
"Were they ever mute, those two?" asked Winthrop.
Mrs. Thorne glanced at him. "I see you do not admire lady conversationalists," she murmured, relaxing into her guarded little smile.
Dr. Kirby, conversing with Mrs. Rutherford, had brought forward General Lafayette. On the rare occasions of late years when the Doctor had found himself called upon to conduct a conversation with people from the North, he was apt to resort to Lafayette.
The Rev. Mr. Moore, stimulated by Mrs. Carew's excellent coffee, advanced the opinion that Lafayette was, after all, "very French."
"Ah! but Frenchmen can be so agreeable," said Mrs. Carew. "There was Talleyrand, you know; when he was over here he wrote a sonnet to my aunt, beginning 'Aimable Anne.' And then there was little Dumont, Katrina; you remember him? – how well he danced! As for Lafayette, when he made his triumphal tour through the country afterwards, he grew so tired, they say, of the satin sheets which Gratitude had provided for him at every town that he was heard to exclaim, 'Satan de satin!' Not that I believe it, because there are those beautiful memoirs and biographies of all his lady-relatives who were guillotined, you know, poor things! – though, come to think of it, one of them must have been saved of course to write the memoirs, since naturally they couldn't have written them beforehand themselves with all those touching descriptions of their own dying moments and last thoughts thrown in; well – what I was going to say was that I don't believe he ever swore in the least, because they were all so extremely pious; he couldn't – in that atmosphere. What a singular thing it is that when the French do take to piety they out-Herod Herod himself! – and I reckon the reason is that it's such a novelty to them that they're like the bull in the china shop, or rather like the new boy at the grocer's, who is not accustomed to raisins, and eats so many the first day that he is made seriously ill in consequence, for clear raisins are very trying."
"The French," remarked Dr. Kirby, "have often, in spite of their worldliness, warm enthusiasms in other directions which take them far, very far indeed. It was an enthusiasm, and a noble one, that brought Lafayette to our shores."
"Such a number of children as were named after him, too," said Mrs. Carew, starting off again. "I remember one of them; he had been baptized Marquis de Lafayette (Marquis de Lafayette Green was his full name), and I didn't for a long time comprehend what it was, for his mother always called him 'Marquisdee,' and I thought perhaps it was an Indian name, like Manatee, you know; for some people do like Indian names so much, though I can't say I care for them, but it's a matter of taste, of course, like everything else, and I once knew a dear sweet girl who had been named Ogeechee, after our Southern river, you remember; Ogeechee – do you like that, Katrina?"
"Heavens! no," said Mrs. Rutherford, lifting her beautiful hands in protest against such barbarism.
"Yet why, after all, is it not as melodious as Beatrice?" remarked Mr. Moore, meditatively, his eyes on the ceiling.
Gracias society was proud of Mr. Moore; his linguistic accomplishments it regarded with admiration. Mrs. Carew, divining the Italian pronunciation of Beatrice, glanced at Katrina to see if she were properly impressed.
Garda, upon leaving Evert Winthrop, had joined Mrs. Harold, at whose feet Manuel still remained, guitar in hand. "Do you sing, Mrs. Harold?" the young girl said, seating herself beside the northern lady, and looking at her with her usual interest – an interest which appeared to consist, in part, of a sort of expectancy that she would do or say something before long which would be a surprise. Nothing could be more quiet, more unsurprising, so most persons would have said, than Margaret Harold's words and manner. But Garda had her own stand-point; to her, Mrs. Harold was a perpetual novelty. She admired her extremely, but even more than she admired, she wondered.
"No," Mrs. Harold had answered, "I do not sing; I know something of instrumental music."
"I am afraid we have no good pianos here," pursued Garda; "that is, none that you would call good. – I wish you would go and talk to Mr. Torres," she continued, turning to Manuel.
The young Cuban occupied a solitary chair on the other side of the room, his method apparently having allowed him to seat himself for a while; he had not even his ivory puzzle, but sat with his hands folded, his eyes downcast.
"You ask impossibilities," said Manuel. "What! leave this heavenly place at Mrs. Harold's feet – and yours – for the purpose of going to talk to that tiresome Adolfo? Never!"
"But I wish to talk to Mrs. Harold myself; you have already had that pleasure quite too long. Besides, if you are very good, I will tell you what you can do; cards will be brought out presently, and then it will be seen that there are ten persons present, and as but eight are required for the two tables, I shall be the one left out to talk to Adolfo, as he can neither play nor speak English; in this state of things you can, if you are watchful, arrange matters so as to be at the same table with Mrs. Harold; perhaps even her partner."
"I will be more than watchful," Manuel declared; "I will be determined!"
"I play a wretched game," said the northern lady, warningly.
"And if you should play the best in the world, I should never know it, absorbed as I should be in your personal presence," replied the youth, with ardor.
Mrs. Harold laughed. Winthrop (listening to Mrs. Thorne's remarks upon Emerson) glanced towards their little group.
"People do not talk in that way at the North. That is why she laughs," said Garda, explanatorily.
"And do I care how they talk in their frozen North!" cried Manuel. "I talk as my heart dictates."
"Do so," said Garda, "but later. At present, go and cheer up poor Mr. Torres; he is fairly shivering with loneliness over there in his corner."
Manuel, who, in spite of his studied attitude at the feet of Mrs. Harold, was evidently the slave of whatever whim Garda chose to express, rose to obey. "But do not in the least imagine that Adolfo needs cheering," he explained, still posing a little as he stood before them with his guitar. "He entertains himself perfectly, always; he is never lonely, he has only to think of his ancestors. Adolfo is, in fact, a very good ancestor already. As to his shivering – that shows how little you know him; he is a veritable volcano, that silent one! Still, I obey your bidding, I go."
"What do you think of him?" said Garda, as he crossed the room towards the solitary Cuban.
"Mr. Torres?"
"No; Mr. Ruiz."
"I know him so slightly, I cannot say I have formed an opinion."
Garda looked at the two young men for a moment; then, "They are both boys," she said, dismissing them with a little wave of her hand.
"But Mr. Winthrop is not a boy," she went on, her eyes returning to the northern lady's face. "How old is Mr. Winthrop?"
"I don't know."
"Isn't he your cousin?"
"Mr. Winthrop is the nephew of Mrs. Rutherford, who is only my aunt by marriage."
