A Foregone Conclusion | Page 7

mother rustled into the parlor.
Mrs. Vervain was gracefully, fragilely unlike her daughter. She entered
with a gentle and gliding step, peering near-sightedly about through her
glasses, and laughing triumphantly when she had determined Mr.
Ferris's exact position, where he stood with a smile shaping his full
brown beard and glancing from his hazel eyes. She was dressed in
perfect taste with reference to her matronly years, and the lingering
evidences of her widowhood, and she had an unaffected naturalness of
manner which even at her age of forty-eight could not be called less
than charming. She spoke in a trusting, caressing tone, to which no man
at least could respond unkindly.
"So very good of you, to take all this trouble, Mr. Ferris," she said,
giving him a friendly hand, "and I suppose you are letting us encroach
upon very valuable time. I'm quite ashamed to take it. But isn't it a
heavenly day? What I call a perfect day, just right every way; none of
those disagreeable extremes. It's so unpleasant to have it too hot, for
instance. I'm the greatest person for moderation, Mr. Ferris, and I carry

the principle into everything; but I do think the breakfasts at these
Italian hotels are too light altogether. I like our American breakfasts,
don't you? I've been telling Florida I can't stand it; we really must make
some arrangement. To be sure, you oughtn't to think of such a thing as
eating, in a place like Venice, all poetry; but a sound mind in a sound
body, I say. We're perfectly wild over it. Don't you think it's a place
that grows upon you very much, Mr. Ferris? All those associations,--it
does seem too much; and the gondolas everywhere. But I'm always
afraid the gondoliers cheat us; and in the stores I never feel safe a
moment--not a moment. I do think the Venetians are lacking in
truthfulness, a little. I don't believe they understand our American
fairdealing and sincerity. I shouldn't want to do them injustice, but I
really think they take advantages in bargaining. Now such a thing even
as corals. Florida is extremely fond of them, and we bought a set
yesterday in the Piazza, and I know we paid too much for them.
Florida," said Mrs. Vervain, for her daughter had reentered the room,
and stood with some shawls and wraps upon her arm, patiently waiting
for the conclusion of the elder lady's speech, "I wish you would bring
down that set of corals. I'd like Mr. Ferris to give an unbiased opinion.
I'm sure we were cheated."
"I don't know anything about corals, Mrs. Vervain," interposed Mr.
Ferris.
"Well, but you ought to see this set for the beauty of the color; they're
really exquisite. I'm sure it will gratify your artistic taste."
Miss Vervain hesitated with a look of desire to obey, and of doubt
whether to force the pleasure upon Mr. Ferris. "Won't it do another
time, mother?" she asked faintly; "the gondola is waiting for us."
Mrs. Vervain gave a frailish start from the chair, into which she had
sunk, "Oh, do let us be off at once, then," she said; and when they stood
on the landing-stairs of the hotel: "What gloomy things these gondolas
are!" she added, while the gondolier with one foot on the gunwale of
the boat received the ladies' shawls, and then crooked his arm for them
to rest a hand on in stepping aboard; "I wonder they don't paint them
some cheerful color."
"Blue, or pink, Mrs. Vervain?" asked Mr. Ferris. "I knew you were
coming to that question; they all do. But we needn't have the top on at
all, if it depresses your spirits. We shall be just warm enough in the

open sunlight."
"Well, have it off, then. It sends the cold chills over me to look at it.
What did Byron call it?"
"Yes, it's time for. Byron, now. It was very good of you not to mention
him before, Mrs. Vervain. Bat I knew he had to come. He called it a
coffin clapped in a canoe."
"Exactly," said Mrs. Vervain. "I always feel as if I were going to my
own funeral when I get into it; and I've certainly had enough of funerals
never to want to have anything to do with another, as long as I live."
She settled herself luxuriously upon the feather-stuffed leathern
cushions when the cabin was removed. Death had indeed been near her
very often; father and mother had been early lost to her, and the
brothers and sisters orphaned with her had faded and perished one after
another, as they ripened to men and women; she had seen four of her
own children die; her husband had been dead six years. All these
bereavements