"That is not how it is at home," returned Lois. "It is different there."
"People are _not_ all alike?"
"No indeed. Perfectly unlike, and individual."
"How agreeable! So that is one of the things that strike you here? the contrast?"
"No," said Lois, laughing; "_I_ find here the same variety that I find at home. People are not alike to me."
"But different, I suppose, from the varieties you are accustomed to at home?"
Lois admitted that.
"Well, now tell me how. I have never travelled in New England; I have travelled everywhere else. Tell me, won"t you, how those whom you see here differ from the people you see at home."
"In the same sort of way that a sea-gull differs from a land sparrow,"
Lois answered demurely.
"I don"t understand. Are we like the sparrows, or like the gulls?"
"I do not know that. I mean merely that the different sorts are fitted to different spheres and ways of life."
Miss Caruthers looked a little curiously at the girl. "I know _this_ sphere," she said. "I want you to tell me yours."
"It is free s.p.a.ce instead of narrow streets, and clear air instead of smoke. And the people all have something to do, and are doing it."
"And you think _we_ are doing nothing?" asked Miss Caruthers, laughing.
"Perhaps I am mistaken. It seems to me so."
"O, you are mistaken. We work hard. And yet, since I went to school, I never had anything that I _must_ do, in my life."
"That can be only because you did not know what it was."
"I had nothing that I must do."
"But n.o.body is put in this world without some thing to do," said Lois.
"Do you think a good watchmaker would carefully make and finish a very costly pin or wheel, and put it in the works of his watch to do nothing?"
Miss Caruthers stared now at the girl. Had this soft, innocent-looking maiden absolutely dared to read a lesson to her?--"You are religious!"
she remarked dryly.
Lois neither affirmed nor denied it. Her eye roved over the gathering throng; the rustle of silks, the shimmer of l.u.s.trous satin, the falls of lace, the drapery of one or two magnificent camels"-hair shawls, the carefully dressed heads, the carefully gloved hands; for the ladies did not keep on their bonnets then; and the soft murmur of voices, which, however, did not remain soft. It waxed and grew, rising and falling, until the room was filled with a breaking sea of sound. Miss Caruthers had been called off to attend to other guests, and then came to conduct Lois herself to the dining-room.
The party was large, the table was long; and it was a ma.s.s of glitter and glisten with plate and gla.s.s. A superb old-fashioned epergne in the middle, great dishes of flowers sending their perfumed breath through the room, and bearing their delicate exotic witness to the luxury that reigned in the house. And not they alone. Before each guest"s plate a semicircular wreath of flowers stood, seemingly upon the tablecloth; but Lois made the discovery that the stems were safe in water in crescent-shaped gla.s.s dishes, like little troughs, which the flowers completely covered up and hid. Her own special wreath was of heliotropes. Miss Caruthers had placed her next herself.
There were no gentlemen present, nor expected, Lois observed. It was simply a company of ladies, met apparently for the purpose of eating; for that business went on for some time with a degree of satisfaction, and a supply of means to afford satisfaction, which Lois had never seen equalled. From one delicate and delicious thing to another she was required to go, until she came to a stop; but that was the case, she observed, with no one else of the party.
"You do not drink wine?" asked Miss Caruthers civilly.
"No, thank you."
"Have you scruples?" said the young lady, with a half smile.
Lois a.s.sented.
"Why? what"s the harm?"
"We all have scruples at Shampuashuh."
"About drinking wine?"
"Or cider, or beer, or anything of the sort."
"Do tell me why."
"It does so much mischief."
"Among low people," said Miss Caruthers, opening her eyes; "but not among respectable people."
"We are willing to hinder mischief anywhere," said Lois with a smile of some fun.
"But what good does _your_ not drinking it do? That will not hinder them."
"It does hinder them, though," said Lois; "for we will not have liquor shops. And so, we have no crime in the town. We could leave our doors unlocked, with perfect safety, if it were not for the people that come wandering through from the next towns, where liquor is sold. We have no crime, and no poverty; or next to none."
"Bless me! what an agreeable state of things! But that need not hinder your taking a gla.s.s of champagne _here?_ Everybody here has no scruple, and there are liquor shops at every corner; there is no use in setting an example."
But Lois declined the wine.
"A cup of coffee then?"
Lois accepted the coffee.
"I think you know my brother?" observed Miss Caruthers then, making her observations as she spoke.
"Mr. Caruthers? yes; I believe he is your brother."
"I have heard him speak of you. He has seen you at Mrs. Wishart"s, I think."
"At Mrs. Wishart"s--yes."
Lois spoke naturally, yet Miss Caruthers fancied she could discern a certain check to the flow of her words.
"You could not be in a better place for seeing what New York is like, for everybody goes to Mrs. Wishart"s; that is, everybody who is anybody."
This did not seem to Lois to require any answer. Her eye went over the long tableful; went from face to face. Everybody was talking, nearly everybody was smiling. Why not? If enjoyment would make them smile, where could more means of enjoyment be heaped up, than at this feast?
Yet Lois could not help thinking that the tokens of real pleasure-taking were not unequivocal. _She_ was having a very good time; full of amus.e.m.e.nt; to the others it was an old story. Of what use, then?