The Lady of the Aroostook
W >>
W. D. Howells >> The Lady of the Aroostook
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 | 14 |
15 |
16 |
17
She hobbled away without waiting for an answer, and Lydia and her aunt
got into their gondola. "_Oh_! How glad I am!" cried Mrs. Erwin,
in a joyful flutter. "She's the very tip-top of the English here; she
has a whole palace, and you meet the very best people at her house.
I was afraid when you were singing, Lydia, that they would think your
voice was too good to be good form,--that's an expression you must
get; it means everything,--it sounded almost professional. I wanted
to nudge you to sing a little lower, or different, or something; but
I couldn't, everybody was looking so. No matter. It's all right now.
If _she_ liked it, nobody else will dare to breathe. You can see
that she has taken a fancy to you; she'll make a great pet of you."
"Who is she?" asked Lydia, bluntly.
"Lady Fenleigh. Such a character,--so eccentric! But really, I
suppose, very hard to live with. It must have been quite a release
for poor Sir Fenleigh."
"She didn't seem in mourning," said Lydia. "Has he been dead long?"
"Why, he isn't dead at all! He is what you call a grass-widower.
The best soul in the world, everybody says, and very, very fond of
her; but she couldn't stand it; he was _too_ good, don't you
understand? They've lived apart a great many years. She's lived a
great deal in Asia Minor,--somewhere. She likes Venice; but of course
there's no telling how long she may stay. She has another house in
Florence, all ready to go and be lived in at a day's notice. I wish
I had presented you! It did go through my head; but it didn't seem
as if I _could_ get the Blood out. It _is_ a fearful name,
Lydia; I always felt it so when I was a girl, and I was _so_
glad to marry out of it; and it sounds so terribly American. I think
you must take your mother's name, my dear. Latham is rather flattish,
but it's worlds better than Blood."
"I am not ashamed of my father's name," said Lydia.
"But you'll have to change it some day, at any rate,--when you get
married."
Lydia turned away. "I will be called Blood till then. If Lady
Fenleigh--"
"Yes, my dear," promptly interrupted her aunt, "I know that sort of
independence. I used to have whole Declarations of it. But you'll get
over that, in Europe. There was a time--just after the war--when the
English quite liked our sticking up for ourselves; but that's past
now. They like us to be outlandish, but they don't like us to be
independent. How did you like the sermon? Didn't you think we had
a nicely-dressed congregation?"
"I thought the sermon was very short," answered Lydia.
"Well, that's the English way, and I like it. If you get in all
the service, you _must_ make the sermon short."
Lydia did not say anything for a little while. Then she asked,
"Is the service the same at the evening meeting?"
"Evening meeting?" repeated Mrs. Erwin.
"Yes,--the church to-night."
"Why, child, there isn't any church to-night! What _are_ you
talking about?"
"Didn't uncle--didn't Mr. Erwin say he would go with us to-night?"
Mrs. Erwin seemed about to laugh, and then she looked embarrassed.
"Why, Lydia," she cried at last, "he didn't mean church; he meant
--opera!"
"Opera! Sunday night! Aunt Josephine, do you go to the theatre
on Sabbath evening?"
There was something appalling in the girl's stern voice. Mrs. Erwin
gathered herself tremulously together for defense. "Why, of course,
Lydia, I don't approve of it, though I never _was_ Orthodox.
Your uncle likes to go; and if everybody's there that you want to see,
and they will give the best operas Sunday night, what are you to do?"
Lydia said nothing, but a hard look came into her face, and she shut
her lips tight.
"Now you see, Lydia," resumed her aunt, with an air of deductive
reasoning from the premises, "the advantage of having a bonnet on,
even if it's only a make-believe. I don't believe a soul knew it.
All those Americans had hats. You were the only American girl there
with a bonnet. I'm sure that it had more than half to do with Lady
Fenleigh's speaking to you. It showed that you had been well
brought up."
"But I never wore a bonnet to church at home," said Lydia.
"That has nothing to do with it, if they thought you did. And Lydia,"
she continued, "I was thinking while you were singing there that I
wouldn't say anything at once about your coming over to cultivate your
voice. That's got to be such an American thing, now. I'll let it out
little by little,--and after Lady Fenleigh's quite taken you under
her wing. Perhaps we may go to Milan with you, or to Naples,--there's
a conservatory there, too; and we can pull up stakes as easily as
not. Well!" said Mrs. Erwin, interrupting herself, "I'm glad Henshaw
wasn't by to hear _that_ speech. He'd have had it down among
his Americanisms instantly. I don't know whether it _is_ an
Americanism; but he puts down all the outlandish sayings he gets
hold of to Americans; he has no end of English slang in his book.
Everything has opened _beautifully_, Lydia, and I intend you
shall have the _best_ time!" She looked fondly at her brother's
child. "You've no idea how much you remind me of your poor father.
You have his looks exactly. I always thought he would come out to
Europe before he died. We used to be so proud of his looks at home!
I can remember that, though I was the youngest, and he was ten years
older than I. But I always did worship beauty. A perfect Greek, Mr.
Rose-Black calls me: you'll see him; he's an English painter staying
here; he comes a _great_ deal."
"Mrs. Erwin, Mrs. Erwin!" called a lady's voice from a gondola
behind them. The accent was perfectly English, but the voice entirely
Italian. "Where are you running to?"
"Why, Miss Landini!" retorted Mrs. Erwin, looking back over her
shoulder. "Is that you? Where in the world are _you_ going?"
"Oh, I've been to pay a visit to my old English teacher. He's awfully
ill with rheumatism; but awfully! He can't turn in bed."
"Why, poor man! This is my niece whom I told you I was expecting!
Arrived last night! We've been to church!" Mrs. Erwin exclaimed
each of the facts.
The Italian girl stretched her hand across the gunwales of the boats,
which their respective gondoliers had brought skillfully side by side,
and took Lydia's hand. "I'm glad to see you, my dear. But my God, how
beautiful you Americans are! But you don't look American, you know;
you look Spanish! I shall come a great deal to see you, and practice
my English."
"Come home with, us now, Miss Landini, and have lunch," said
Mrs. Erwin.
"No, my dear, I can't. My aunt will be raising the devil if I'm not
there to drink coffee with her; and I've been a great while away now.
Till tomorrow!" Miss Landini's gondolier pushed his boat away, and
rowed it up a narrow canal on the right.
"I suppose," Mrs. Erwin explained, "that she's really her mother,--
everybody says so; but she always calls her aunt. Dear knows who her
father was. But she's a very bright girl, Lydia, and you'll like her.
Don't you think she speaks English wonderfully for a person who's
never been out of Venice?"
"Why does she swear?" asked Lydia, stonily.
"_Swear_? Oh, I know what you mean. That's the funniest thing
about Miss Landini. Your uncle says it's a shame to correct her; but
I do, whenever I think of it. Why, you know, such words as God and
devil don't sound at all wicked in Italian, and ladies use them quite
commonly. She understands that it isn't good form to do so in English,
but when she gets excited she forgets. Well, you can't say but what
_she_ was impressed, Lydia!"
After lunch, various people came to call upon Mrs. Erwin. Several
of them were Italians who were learning English, and they seemed to
think it inoffensive to say that they were glad of the opportunity
to practice the language with Lydia. They talked local gossip with
her aunt, and they spoke of an approaching visit to Venice from the
king; it seemed to Lydia that the king's character was not good.
Mr. Rose-Black, the English artist, came. He gave himself the effect
of being in Mrs. Erwin's confidence, apparently without her authority,
and he bestowed a share of this intimacy upon Lydia. He had the
manner of a man who had been taken up by people above him, and the
impudence of a talent which had not justified the expectations formed
of it. He softly reproached Mrs. Erwin for running away after service
before he could speak to her, and told her how much everybody had been
enchanted by her niece's singing. "At least, they said it was your
niece."
"Oh, yes, Mr. Rose-Black, let me introduce you to Miss--" Lydia
looked hard, even to threatening, at her aunt, and Mrs. Erwin added,
"Blood."
"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Rose-Black, with his picked-up
politeness, "I didn't get the name."
"Blood," said Mrs. Erwin, more distinctly.
"Aoh!" said Mr. Rose-Black, in a cast-off accent of jaded
indifferentism, just touched with displeasure. "Yes," he added,
dreamily, to Lydia, "it was divine, you know. You might say it needed
training; but it had the _naive_ sweetness we associate with
your countrywomen. They're greatly admired in England now, you know,
for their beauty. Oh, I assure you, it's quite the thing to admire
American ladies. I want to arrange a little lunch at my studio for
Mrs. Erwin and yourself; and I want you to abet me in it, Miss Blood."
Lydia stared at him, but he was not troubled. "I'm going to ask to
sketch you. Really, you know, there's a poise--something bird-like--
a sort of repose in movement--" He sat in a corner of the sofa, with
his head fallen back, and abandoned to an absent enjoyment of Lydia's
pictorial capabilities. He was very red; his full beard, which started
as straw color, changed to red when it got a little way from his face.
He wore a suit of rough blue, the coat buttoned tightly about him,
and he pulled a glove through his hand as he talked. He was scarcely
roused from his reverie by the entrance of an Italian officer, with
his hussar jacket hanging upon one shoulder, and his sword caught up
in his left hand. He ran swiftly to Mrs. Erwin, and took her hand.
"Ah, my compliments! I come practice my English with you a little.
Is it well said, a little, or do you say a small?"
"A little, cavaliere," answered Mrs. Erwin, amiably. "But you must
say a good deal, in this case."
"Yes, yes,--good deal. For what?"
"Let me introduce you to my niece. Colonel Pazzelli," said Mrs. Erwin.
"Ah! Too much honor, too much honor!" murmured the cavaliere. He
brought his heels together with a click, and drooped towards Lydia
till his head was on a level with his hips. Recovering himself, he
caught up his eye-glasses, and bent them on Lydia. "Very please, very
honored, much--" He stopped, and looked confused, and Lydia turned
pale and red.
"Now, won't you play that pretty _barcarole_ you played the other
night at Lady Fenleigh's?" entreated Mrs. Erwin.
Colonel Pazzelli wrenched himself from the fascination of Lydia's
presence, and lavished upon Mrs. Erwin the hoarded English of a week.
"Yes, yes; very nice, very good. With much pleasure. I thank you.
Yes, I play." He was one of those natives who in all the great Italian
cities haunt English-speaking societies; they try to drink tea without
grimacing, and sing for the ladies of our race, who innocently pet
them, finding them so very like other women in their lady-like
sweetness and softness; it is said they boast among their own
countrymen of their triumphs. The cavaliere unbuckled his sword,
and laying it across a chair sat down at the piano. He played not
one but many barcaroles, and seemed loath to leave the instrument.
"Now, Lydia," said Mrs. Erwin, fondly, "won't you sing us something?"
"Do!" called Mr. Rose-Black from the sofa, with the intonation of
a spoiled first-cousin, or half-brother.
"I don't feel like singing to-day," answered Lydia, immovably. Mrs.
Erwin was about to urge her further, but other people came in,--some
Jewish ladies, and then a Russian, whom Lydia took at first for an
American. They all came and went, but Mr. Rose-Black remained in his
corner of the sofa, and never took his eyes from Lydia's face. At last
he went, and then Mr. Erwin looked in.
"Is that beast gone?" he asked. "I shall be obliged to show him the
door, yet, Josephine. You ought to snub him. He's worse than his
pictures. Well, you've had a whole raft of folks today,--as your
countrymen say."
"Yes, thank Heaven," cried Mrs. Erwin, "and they're all gone. I don't
want Lydia to think that I let everybody come to see me on Sunday.
Thursday is my day, Lydia, but a few privileged friends understand
that they can drop in Sunday afternoon." She gave Lydia a sketch of
the life and character of each of these friends. "And now I must tell
you that your manner is very good, Lydia. That reserved way of yours
is quite the thing for a young girl in Europe: I suppose it's a gift;
I never could get it, even when I _was_ a girl. But you mustn't
show any _hauteur_, even when you dislike people, and you refused
to sing with _rather_ too much _aplomb_. I don't suppose it
was noticed though,--those ladies coming in at the same time. Really,
I thought Mr. Rose-Black and Colonel Pazzelli were trying to outstare
each other! It was certainly amusing. I never saw such an evident
case, Lydia! The poor cavaliere looked as if he had seen you somewhere
before in a dream, and was struggling to make it all out."
Lydia remained impassive. Presently she said she would go to her room,
and write home before dinner. When she went out Mrs. Erwin fetched a
deep sigh, and threw herself upon her husband's sympathy.
"She's terribly unresponsive," she began. "I supposed she'd be in
raptures with the place, at least, but you wouldn't know there was
anything at all remarkable in Venice from anything she's said. We have
met ever so many interesting people to-day,--the Countess Tatocka,
and Lady Fenleigh, and Miss Landini, and everybody, but I don't really
think she's said a word about a soul. She's too queer for anything."
"I dare say she hasn't the experience to be astonished from,"
suggested Mr. Erwin easily. "She's here as if she'd been dropped
down from her village."
"Yes, that's true," considered his wife. "But it's hard, with Lydia's
air and style and self-possession, to realize that she _is_
merely a village girl."
"She may be much more impressed than she chooses to show," Mr. Erwin
continued. "I remember a very curious essay by a French writer about
your countrymen: he contended that they were characterized by a savage
stoicism through their contact with the Indians."
"Nonsense, Henshaw! There hasn't been an Indian _near_ South
Bradfield for two hundred years. And besides that, am _I_
stoical?"
"I'm bound to say," replied her husband, "that so far as you go,
you're a complete refutation of the theory."
"I hate to see a young girl so close," fretted Mrs. Erwin. "But
perhaps," she added, more cheerfully, "she'll be the easier managed,
being so passive. She doesn't seem at all willful,--that's one
comfort."
She went to Lydia's room just before dinner, and found the girl
with her head fallen on her arms upon the table, where she had been
writing. She looked up, and faced her aunt with swollen eyes.
"Why, poor thing!" cried Mrs. Erwin. "What is it, dear? What is it,
Lydia?" she asked, tenderly, and she pulled Lydia's face down upon
her neck.
"Oh, nothing," said Lydia. "I suppose I was a little homesick;
writing home made me."
She somewhat coldly suffered Mrs. Erwin to kiss her and smooth her
hair, while she began to talk with her of her grandfather and her aunt
at home. "But this is going to be home to you now," said Mrs. Erwin,
"and I'm not going to let you be sick for any other. I want you to
treat me just like a mother, or an older sister. Perhaps I shan't be
the wisest mother to you in the world, but I mean to be one of the
best. Come, now, bathe your eyes, my dear, and let's go to dinner.
I don't like to keep your uncle waiting." She did not go at once, but
showed Lydia the appointments of the room, and lightly indicated what
she had caused to be done, and what she had done with her own hands,
to make the place pretty for her. "And now shall I take your letter,
and have your uncle post it this evening?" She picked up the letter
from the table. "Hadn't you any wax to seal it? You know they don't
generally mucilage their envelopes in Europe."
Lydia blushed. "I left it open for you to read. I thought you ought
to know what I wrote."
Mrs. Erwin dropped her hands in front of her, with the open letter
stretched between them, and looked at her niece in rapture. "Lydia,"
she cried, "one would suppose you had lived all your days in Europe!
Showing me your letter, this way,--why, it's quite like a Continental
girl."
"I thought it was no more than right you should see what I was writing
home," said Lydia, unresponsively.
"Well, no matter, even if it _was_ right," replied Mrs. Erwin.
"It comes to the same thing. And now, as you've been quite a European
daughter, I'm going to be a real American mother." She took up the
wax, and sealed Lydia's letter without looking into it. "There!" she
said, triumphantly.
She was very good to Lydia all through dinner, and made her talk
of the simple life at home, and the village characters whom she
remembered from her last summer's visit. That amused Mr. Erwin, who
several times, when, his wife was turning the talk upon Lydia's voyage
over, intervened with some new question about the life of the queer
little Yankee hill-town. He said she must tell Lady Fenleigh about
it,--she was fond of picking up those curios; it would make any
one's social fortune who could explain such a place intelligibly
in London; when they got to having typical villages of the different
civilizations at the international expositions,--as no doubt they
would,--somebody must really send South Bradfield over. He pleased
himself vastly with this fancy, till Mrs. Erwin, who had been eying
Lydia critically from time to time, as if making note of her features
and complexion, said she had a white cloak, and that in Venice, where
one need not dress a great deal for the opera, Lydia could wear it
that night.
Lydia looked up in astonishment, but she sat passive during her aunt's
discussion of her plans. When they rose from table, she said, at her
stiffest and coldest, "Aunt Josephine, I want you to excuse me from
going with you to-night. I don't feel like going."
"Not feel like going!" exclaimed her aunt in dismay. "Why, your uncle
has taken a box!"
Lydia opposed nothing to this argument. She only said, "I would
rather not go."
"Oh, but you _will_, dear," coaxed her aunt. "You would enjoy
it so much."
"I thought you understood from what I said to-day," replied Lydia,
"that I could not go."
"Why, no, I didn't! I knew you objected; but if I thought it was
proper for you to go--"
"I should not go at home," said Lydia, in the same immovable fashion.
"Of course not. Every place has its customs, and in Venice it has
_always_ been the custom to go to the opera on Sunday night."
This fact had no visible weight with Lydia, and after a pause her
aunt added, "Didn't Paul himself say to do in Rome as the Romans do?"
"No, aunt Josephine," cried Lydia, indignantly, "he did _not_!"
Mrs. Erwin turned to her husband with a face of appeal, and he
answered, "Really, my dear, I think you're mistaken. I always had
the impression that the saying was--an Americanism of some sort."
"But it doesn't matter," interposed Lydia decisively. "I couldn't
go, if I didn't think it was right, whoever said it."
"Oh, well," began Mrs. Erwin, "if you wouldn't mind what _Paul_
said--" She suddenly checked herself, and after a little silence she
resumed, kindly, "I won't try to force you, Lydia. I didn't realize
what a very short time it is since you left home, and how you still
have all those ideas. I wouldn't distress you about them for the
world, my dear. I want you to feel at home with me, and I'll make it
as like home for you as I can in everything. Henshaw, I think you
must go alone, this evening. I will stay with Lydia."
"Oh, no, no! I couldn't let you; I can't let you! I shall not know
what to do if I keep you at home. Oh, don't leave it that way,
please! I shall feel so badly about it--"
"Why, we can both stay," suggested Mr. Erwin, kindly.
Lydia's lips trembled and her eyes glistened, and Mrs. Erwin said,
"I'll go with you, Henshaw. I'll be ready in half an hour. I won't
dress _much_." She added this as if not to dress a great deal
at the opera Sunday night might somehow be accepted as an observance
of the Sabbath.
XXIV.
The next morning Veronica brought Lydia a little scrawl from her aunt,
bidding the girl come and breakfast with her in her room at nine.
"Well, my dear," her aunt called to her from her pillow, when she
appeared, "you find me flat enough, this morning. If there was
anything wrong about going to the opera last night, I was properly
punished for it. Such wretched stuff as _I_ never heard! And
instead of the new ballet that they promised, they gave an old thing
that I had seen till I was sick of it. You didn't miss much, I can
tell you. How fresh and bright you _do_ look, Lydia!" she
sighed. "Did you sleep well? Were you lonesome while we were gone?
Veronica says you were reading the whole evening. Are you fond of
reading?"
"I don't think I am, very," said Lydia. "It was a book that I began
on the ship. It's a novel." She hesitated. "I wasn't reading it; I
was just looking at it."
"What a queer child you are! I suppose you were dying to read it, and
wouldn't because it was Sunday. Well!" Mrs. Erwin put her hand under
her pillow, and pulled out a gossamer handkerchief, with which she
delicately touched her complexion here and there, and repaired with
an instinctive rearrangement of powder the envious ravages of a slight
rash about her nose. "I respect your high principles beyond anything,
Lydia, and if they can only be turned in the right direction they will
never be any disadvantage to you." Veronica came in with the breakfast
on a tray, and Mrs. Erwin added, "Now, pull up that little table, and
bring your chair, my dear, and let us take it easy. I like to talk
while I'm breakfasting. Will you pour out my chocolate? That's it, in
the ugly little pot with the wooden handle; the copper one's for you,
with coffee in it. I never could get that repose which seems to come
perfectly natural to you. I was always inclined to be a little rowdy,
my dear, and I've had to fight hard against it, without any help from
_either_ of my husbands; men like it; they think it's funny. When
I was first married, I was very young, and so was he; it was a real
love match; and my husband was very well off, and when I began to be
delicate, nothing would do but he must come to Europe with me. How
little I ever expected to outlive him!"
"You don't look very sick now," began Lydia.
"Ill," said her aunt. "You must say ill. Sick is an Americanism."
"It's in the Bible," said Lydia, gravely.
"Oh, there are a great many words in the _Bible_ you can't use,"
returned her aunt. "No, I don't look ill now, and I'm worlds better.
But I couldn't live a year in any other climate, I suppose. You seem
to take after your mother's side. Well, as I was saying, the European
ways didn't come natural to me, at all. I used to have a great deal
of gayety when I was a girl, and I liked beaux and attentions; and I
had very free ways. I couldn't get their stiffness here for years and
years, and all through my widowhood it was one wretched failure with
me. Do what I would, I was always violating the most essential rules,
and the worst of it was that it only seemed to make me the more
popular. I do believe it was nothing but my rowdiness that attracted
Mr. Erwin; but I determined when I had got an Englishman I would make
one bold strike for the proprieties, and have them, or die in the
attempt. I determined that no Englishwoman I ever saw should outdo
me in strict conformity to all the usages of European society. So I
cut myself off from all the Americans, and went with nobody but the
English."
"Do you like them better?" asked Lydia, with the blunt, child-like
directness that had already more than once startled her aunt.
"_Like_ them! I detest them! If Mr. Erwin were a real Englishman,
I think I should go crazy; but he's been so little in his own country
--all his life in India, nearly, and the rest on the Continent,--that
he's quite human; and no American husband was ever more patient and
indulgent; and _that_'s saying a good deal. He would be glad to
have nothing but Americans around; he has an enthusiasm for them,--or
for what he supposes they are. Like the English! You ought to have
heard them during our war; it would have made your blood boil! And
then how they came crawling round after it was all over, and trying
to pet us up! Ugh!"
"If you feel so about them," said Lydia, as before, "why do you want
to go with them so much?"
"My dear," cried her aunt, "_to beat them with their own weapons
on their own ground_,--to show them that an American can be more
European than any of them, if she chooses! And now you've come here
with looks and temperament and everything just to my hand. You're more
beautiful than any English girl ever dreamt of being; you're very
distinguished-looking; your voice is perfectly divine; and you're
colder than an iceberg. _Oh_, if I only had one winter with you
in Rome, I think I should die in peace!" Mrs. Erwin paused, and drank
her chocolate, which she had been letting cool in the eagerness of
her discourse. "But, never mind," she continued, "we will do the best
we can here. I've seen English girls going out two or three together,
without protection, in Rome and Florence; but I mean that you shall
be quite Italian in that respect. The Italians never go out without a
chaperone of some sort, and you must never be seen without me, or your
uncle, or Veronica. Now I'll tell you how you must do at parties, and
so on. You must be very retiring; you're that, any way; but you must
always keep close to me. It doesn't do for young people to talk much
together in society; it makes scandal about a girl. If you dance,
you must always hurry back to me. Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Erwin, "I
remember how, when I was a girl, I used to hang on to the young men's
arms, and promenade with them after a dance, and go out to supper with
them, and flirt on the stairs,--_such_ times! But that wouldn't
do here, Lydia. It would ruin a girl's reputation; she could hardly
walk arm in arm with a young man if she was engaged to him." Lydia
blushed darkly red, and then turned paler than usual, while her aunt
went on. "You might do it, perhaps, and have it set down to American
eccentricity or under-breeding, but I'm not going to have that. I
intend you to be just as dull and diffident in society as if you were
an Italian, and _more_ than if you were English. Your voice, of
course, is a difficulty. If you sing, that will make you conspicuous,
in spite of everything. But I don't see why that can't be turned to
advantage; it's no worse than your beauty. Yes, if you're so splendid-
looking and so gifted, and at the same time as stupid as the rest,
it's so much clear gain. It will come easy for you to be shy with men,
for I suppose you've hardly ever talked with any, living up there
in that out-of-the-way village; and your manner is very good. It's
reserved, and yet it isn't green. The way," continued Mrs. Erwin,
"to treat men in Europe is to behave as if they were guilty till they
prove themselves innocent. All you have to do is to reverse all your
American ideas. But here I am, lecturing you as if you had been just
such a girl as I was, with half a dozen love affairs on her hands at
once, and no end of gentlemen friends. Europe won't be hard for you,
my dear, for you haven't got anything to unlearn. But _some_
girls that come over!--it's perfectly ridiculous, the trouble they
get into, and the time they have getting things straight. They take
it for granted that men in good society are gentlemen,--what we mean
by gentlemen."
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 | 14 |
15 |
16 |
17