A Little Journey in the World | Page 9

tune. Jack Sharpley says that she always seems to be saying, "Well, I've done it once for all." This assumption of the married must be one of the hardest things for single women to bear in their self-congratulating sisters.
I have no doubt that Georgiana Forsythe was a charming girl, spirited and handsome; for the beauty of her years, almost pathetic in its dignity and self-renunciation, could not have followed mere prettiness or a commonplace experience. What that had been I never inquired, but it had not soured her. She was not communicative nor confidential, I fancy, with any one, but she was always friendly and sympathetic to the trouble of others, and helpful in an undemonstrative way. If she herself had a secret feeling that her life was a failure, it never impressed her friends so, it was so even, and full of good offices and quiet enjoyment. Heaven only knows, however, the pathos of this apparently undisturbed life. For did a woman ever live who would not give all the years of tasteless serenity, for one year, for one month, for one hour, of the uncalculating delirium of love poured out upon a man who returned it? It may be better for the world that there are these women to whom life has still some mysteries, who are capable of illusions and the sweet sentimentality that grows out of a romance unrealized.
Although the recent books were on Miss Forsythe's table, her tastes and culture were of the past age. She admired Emerson and Tennyson. One may keep current with the news of the world without changing his principles. I imagine that Miss Forsythe read without injury to herself the passionate and the pantheistic novels of the young women who have come forward in these days of emancipation to teach their grandmothers a new basis of morality, and to render meaningless all the consoling epitaphs on the mossy New England gravestones. She read Emerson for his sweet spirit, for his belief in love and friendship, her simple Congregationalist faith remaining undisturbed by his philosophy, from which she took only a habit of toleration.
"Miss Debree has gone to church," she said, in answer to Mr. Lyon's glance around the room.
"To vespers?"
"I believe they call it that. Our evening meetings, you know, only begin at early candlelight."
"And you do not belong to the Church?"
"Oh, yes, to the ancient aristocratic church of colonial times," she replied, with a little smile of amusement. "My niece has stepped off Plymouth Rock."
"And was your religion founded on Plymouth Rock?"
"My niece says so when I rally her deserting the faith of her fathers," replied Miss Forsythe, laughing at the working of the Episcopalian mind.
"I should like to understand about that; I mean about the position of Dissenters in America."
"I'm afraid I could not help you, Mr. Lyon. I fancy an Englishman would have to be born again, as the phrase used to be, to comprehend that."
While Mr. Lyon was still unsatisfied on this point, he found the conversation shifted to the other side. Perhaps it was a new experience to him that women should lead and not follow in conversation. At any rate, it was an experience that put him at his ease. Miss Forsythe was a great admirer of Gladstone and of General Gordon, and she expressed her admiration with a knowledge that showed she had read the English newspapers.
"Yet I confess I don't comprehend Gladstone's conduct with regard to Egypt and Gordon's relief," she said.
"Perhaps," interposed my wife, "it would have been better for Gordon if he had trusted Providence more and Gladstone less."
"I suppose it was Gladstone's humanity that made him hesitate."
"To bombard Alexandria?" asked Mr. Lyon, with a look of asperity.
"That was a mistake to be expected of a Tory, but not of Mr. Gladstone, who seems always seeking the broadest principles of justice in his statesmanship."
"Yes, we regard Mr. Gladstone as a very great man, Miss Forsythe. He is broad enough. You know we consider him a rhetorical phenomenon. Unfortunately he always 'muffs' anything he touches."
"I suspected," Miss Forsythe replied, after a moment, "that party spirit ran as high in England as it does with us, and is as personal."
Mr. Lyon disclaimed any personal feeling, and the talk drifted into a comparison of English and American politics, mainly with reference to the social factor in English politics, which is so little an element here.
In the midst of the talk Margaret came in. The brisk walk in the rosy twilight had heightened her color, and given her a glowing expression which her face had not the night before, and a tenderness and softness, an unworldliness, brought from the quiet hour in the church.
"My lady comes at last, Timid and stepping fast, And hastening hither, Her modest eyes downcast."
She greeted the stranger with a