"I cannot do Miss Anstice," Brady confessed one evening. It was October then, and the two friends were sitting together in Flint"s room. "She has too much humor. The more humor there is in an original poem, for instance, the harder it is to parody, and so with people.
The grand, gloomy, and peculiar are easy enough, let them be ever so august; but the light, delicately ironical manner is a difficult thing to exaggerate."
"Yes," a.s.sented Flint, "the heaviness of touch necessary to caricature spoils the effect."
"Precisely," said Brady, "and it is as difficult to take off her looks as her manner. Her expression is too changeable to leave any characteristic fixed in the mind. The fact is, Miss Anstice is almost a beauty at times."
"You think so?" responded Flint, with half-closed eyes.
"Yes, I do really--in a way--not like that Madonna-type of Nora Costello."
"No, certainly not like her."
"But still she has a style of her own."
"Oh, yes, quite so--as you say, she has a style of her own."
"You are very cool on the subject; but you should have heard a man at the club go on about her, when he heard that we had spent our vacation at Nepaug."
"I should scarcely think," said Flint, opening and closing his match-box with a quick, nervous movement, "that you would have allowed her name to come up at the club."
"Oh, hang it, Flint, that is going pretty far! I don"t know that Miss Anstice"s name is too sacred to be mentioned in general society; and as for the club,--why, if it is not made up of gentlemen, what did you put me up for?"
It was seldom that Brady got off so much of a speech, and he felt a little elated by seeing his friend without an answer for the moment.
"Besides," he continued, "nothing was said, except about what a stunning girl she was. "Handsomer than ever," Livingston said, "since she came home.""
"So the Anstices are at home?"
"Yes, and Cousin Susan is coming down next week to visit them. She wrote me to be sure to call."
"I shall try to go before Miss Standish arrives."
Brady laughed.
"You and Cousin Susan never did hit it off very well."
"Excuse me, I think she hit me off very well; the fact is, the _femme sole_ after fifty becomes either pious or pugnacious. Miss Standish is both."
"You are prejudiced, as usual, and malicious, too, under the guise of impartiality. Miss Standish is a benevolent woman, with an irresistible bent towards doing people good even against their will."
Flint groaned a.s.sent. "Alas, yes," he muttered.
"She is a fine woman," continued Brady, "and a fine-looking one too, as Dr. Cricket will testify, for on my soul I think the old duffer wants to marry her."
"I wish he would, and rid the world of an officious old maid."
""Old maid" is an opprobrious term. Miss Standist is a well-preserved single woman."
"Hold there, Brady! She is really not sugary enough for a preserve; I should say rather well canned. But never mind, I can forgive her some acidity toward myself, in consideration of her sweetness to Nora Costello. She has really been good to that girl."
"Who could help it!" exclaimed Brady, unguardedly. Then he cleared his throat with a nervous little cough, and began again with would-be unconcern: "By the way, I don"t know whether I told you, that the day after you left Nepaug, Jimmy Anstice picked up a gold brooch on the beach, just where you came ash.o.r.e after the wreck. It was a homely, old-fashioned thing, with a gold-stone centre big enough for a tombstone; but Jim brought it to me with all the pride of a discoverer. I turned it over, and on the back I saw engraved in the gold, "To Nora from her Mother, on her birthday, November tenth," Of course I knew in an instant that it belonged to Nora Costello. Then it came to me how the girl spent most of the day while she was at Nepaug wandering up and down on the beach. Of course she was looking for her brooch; but she was afraid, if she said anything, it would look like accusing somebody; and besides, very likely with her queer ideas she felt that she ought not to have kept any piece of jewelry, even if it was her mother"s."
"You seem to have studied her feelings rather closely."
"Why, of course, when one meets a pretty girl like that--and really you know she is the prettiest I ever saw--"
"How long is it since you said the same of Miss Anstice?"
"Ah! that was before I met Nora Costello. "Time"s n.o.blest offspring is his last." But if you will keep still and listen, instead of interrupting all the time, you will hear something about the little plot which Miss Anstice and Cousin Susan and I have laid among us."
"Well--"
"I should say it was well. Just you wait and see. Cousin Susan is to write to Nora."
"Nora?" commented Flint, with raised eyebrows.
"Yes, Nora," repeated Brady, somewhat defiantly. "If I said Captain Costello you would not know whether I was talking of her or her brother."
"Oh, yes, I should," said Flint, "for you never talk of him at all; but never mind that--go on with your revelations of this deep conspiracy."
"You don"t deserve to hear; but as it gives me pleasure to tell you, I will. Cousin Susan writes to the Costellos to come to the Anstices"
house on the evening of November tenth. They arrive. We are there already. Tableau--old Nepaug minus Dr. Cricket and Ben Bradford--and a bouquet for Mistress Nora, with her brooch hanging from it in a little bag which Miss Standish was manufacturing when I came away. Now isn"t that a scheme?"
"The tenth of November," responded Flint, as though the latter part of the sentence had escaped him--"and am I to be invited?"
"Why, of course!" exclaimed Brady, impatiently. "Weren"t you the one to save her life? Worse luck to you for having the honor fall to your share!"
"Then," said Flint, with that curious obliviousness of the important parts of his companion"s remarks,--"then in common civility I ought to call there beforehand."
"Ah! Flint, I"m glad to see you waking up to some decent sense of social observances."
"What time is it?" asked his friend, absently, oblivious of the watch in his pocket.
"Quarter before eight," Brady answered.
"Then out of my room with you, for I have just time to dress and get down there. If one must do these things, the sooner they are out of the way the better."
CHAPTER XV
A BIRTHDAY
_An Extract from the Journal of Miss Susan Standish, New York, November 12._
It is nearly two weeks since I left Oldburyport, and in spite of the Anstices" hospitality I have been homesick ever since. When we reach middle age nothing suits us so well as village life. The small events occupy and divert our minds without wearying them with the bewildering whirl of the city. The interest of our neighbors in us and our affairs, which is annoying in youth, becomes more grateful as life goes on, and we discover how little real thoughtfulness and interest in others the world contains. As for the narrowing influences of village life, I don"t see that people in Oldburyport are any more provincial or prejudiced than they are in New York,--not so much so, I really think, for they are forced by the very smallness of their circle to find their interests in the affairs of the great world, and the lack of social excitements gives them so much more time for reading. To be sure, when people are unhappy there is less to divert their minds, and when they are irritable they feel more at liberty to vent their tempers, because they know folks cannot get away from them so easily. I confess I was not sorry to take leave of Cousin John, though I did feel sorry for him, as he sat there all alone with his gouty foot up on the chair in front of the Franklin stove in the sitting-room. He is not satisfied with Philip, and seems to hold me responsible. He would like to have Phil come home to live and be cashier of the bank.