It was what you would call a quiet affair; quite out of season, and difficult to furnish with even this little handful of guests; but it was a proper and necessary attention to the colonel; conversation not too dull, nor yet too bright for ease, but pa.s.sing gracefully from one agreeable topic to another without earnestness, a restless virtue, or frivolity, which also goes against serenity. Now it touched upon the prospects of young A. B. in the demise of his uncle; now upon the probable seriousness of C. D. in his attentions to E. F.; now upon G."s amusing mishaps during a late tour in Switzerland, which had--"how unfortunately!"--got into the papers. Now it was concerning the admirable pulpit manners and easily pardoned vocal defects of a certain new rector. Now it turned upon Stephen A. Douglas"s last speech; pa.s.sed to the questionable merits of a new-fangled punch; and now, a.s.suming a slightly explanatory form from the gentlemen to the ladies, showed why there was no need whatever to fear a financial crisis--which came soon afterward.
The colonel inquired after an old gentleman whom he had known in earlier days in Kentucky.
"It"s many a year since I met him," he said. "The proudest man I ever saw. I understand he was down here last season."
"He was," replied the host, in a voice of native kindness, and with a smile on his high-fed face. "He was; but only for a short time. He went back to his estate. That is his world. He"s there now."
"It used to be considered one of the finest places in the State," said the colonel.
"It is still," rejoined the host. "Doctor, you know him?"
"I think not," said Dr. Sevier; but somehow he recalled the old gentleman in b.u.t.ton gaiters, who had called on him one evening to consult him about his sick wife.
"A good man," said the colonel, looking amused; "and a superb gentleman. Is he as great a partisan of the church as he used to be?"
"Greater! Favors an established church of America."
The ladies were much amused. The host"s son, a young fellow with sprouting side-whiskers, said he thought he could be quite happy with one of the finest plantations in Kentucky, and let the church go its own gait.
"Humph!" said the father; "I doubt if there"s ever a happy breath drawn on the place."
"Why, how is that?" asked the colonel, in a cautious tone.
"Hadn"t he heard?" The host was surprised, but spoke low. "Hadn"t he heard about the trouble with their only son? Why, he went abroad and never came back!"
Every one listened.
"It"s a terrible thing," said the hostess to the ladies nearest her; "no one ever dares ask the family what the trouble is,--they have such odd, exclusive ideas about their matters being n.o.body"s business. All that can be known is that they look upon him as worse than dead and gone forever."
"And who will get the estate?" asked the banker.
"The two girls. They"re both married."
"They"re very much like their father," said the hostess, smiling with gentle significance.
"Very much," echoed the host, with less delicacy. "Their mother is one of those women who stand in terror of their husband"s will. Now, if he were to die and leave her with a will of her own she would hardly know what to do with it--I mean with her will--or the property either."
The hostess protested softly against so harsh a speech, and the son, after one or two failures, got in his remark:--
"Maybe the prodigal would come back and be taken in."
But n.o.body gave this conjecture much attention. The host was still talking of the lady without a will.
"Isn"t she an invalid?" Dr. Sevier had asked.
"Yes; the trip down here last season was on her account,--for change of scene. Her health is wretched."
"I"m distressed that I didn"t call on her," said the hostess; "but they went away suddenly. My dear, I wonder if they really did encounter the young man here?"
"Pshaw!" said the husband, softly, smiling and shaking his head, and turned the conversation.
In time it settled down with something like earnestness for a few minutes upon a subject which the rich find it easy to discuss without the least risk of undue warmth. It was about the time when one of the graciously murmuring mulattoes was replenishing the gla.s.ses, that remark in some way found utterance to this effect,--that the company present could congratulate themselves on living in a community where there was no poor cla.s.s.
"Poverty, of course, we see; but there is no misery, or nearly none,"
said the ambitious son of the host.
Dr. Sevier differed with him. That was one of the Doctor"s blemishes as a table guest: he would differ with people.
"There is misery," he said; "maybe not the gaunt squalor and starvation of London or Paris or New York; the climate does not tolerate that,--stamps it out before it can a.s.sume dimensions; but there is at least misery of that sort that needs recognition and aid from the well-fed."
The lady who had been beautiful so many years had somewhat to say; the physician gave attention, and she spoke:--
"If sister Jane were here, she would be perfectly triumphant to hear you speak so, Doctor." She turned to the hostess, and continued: "Jane is quite an enthusiast, you know; a sort of Dorcas, as husband says, modified and readapted. Yes, she is for helping everybody."
"Whether help is good for them or not," said the lady"s husband, a very straight and wiry man with a garrote collar.
"It"s all one," laughed the lady. "Our new rector told her plainly, the other day, that she was making a great mistake; that she ought to consider whether a.s.sistance a.s.sists. It was really amusing. Out of the pulpit and off his guard, you know, he lisps a little; and he said she ought to consider whether "aththithtanth aththithtth.""
There was a gay laugh at this, and the lady was called a perfect and cruel mimic.
""Aththithtanth aththithtth!"" said two or three to their neighbors, and laughed again.
"What did your sister say to that?" asked the banker, bending forward his white, tonsured head, and smiling down the board.
"She said she didn"t care; that it kept her own heart tender, anyhow.
"My dear madam," said he, "your heart wants strengthening more than softening." He told her a pound of inner resource was more true help to any poor person than a ton of a.s.sistance."
The banker commended the rector. The hostess, very sweetly, offered her guarantee that Jane took the rebuke in good part.
"She did," replied the time-honored beauty; "she tried to profit by it.
But husband, here, has offered her a wager of a bonnet against a hat that the rector will upset her new schemes. Her idea now is to make work for those whom n.o.body will employ."
"Jane," said the kind-faced host, "really wants to do good for its own sake."
"I think she"s even a little Romish in her notions," said Jane"s wiry brother-in-law. "I talked to her as plainly as the rector. I told her, "Jane, my dear, all this making of work for the helpless poor is not worth one-fiftieth part of the same amount of effort spent in teaching and training those same poor to make their labor intrinsically marketable.""
"Yes," said the hostess; "but while we are philosophizing and offering advice so wisely, Jane is at work--doing the best she knows how. We can"t claim the honor even of making her mistakes."
""Tisn"t a question of honors to us, madam," said Dr. Sevier; "it"s a question of results to the poor."
The brother-in-law had not finished. He turned to the Doctor.
"Poverty, Doctor, is an inner condition"--
"Sometimes," interposed the Doctor.
"Yes, generally," continued the brother-in-law, with some emphasis. "And to give help you must, first of all, "inquire within"--within your beneficiary."