A Little Journey in the World | Page 6

have been plain, and I may have seen the loveliness of her nature,
which I knew well, in features that gave less sign of it to strangers. Yet
I noticed that Mr. Lyon gave her a quick second glance, and his manner
was instantly that of deference, or at least attention, which he had
shown to no other lady in the room. And the whimsical idea came into
my mind--we are all so warped by international possibilities--to
observe whether she did not walk like a countess (that is, as a countess
ought to walk) as she advanced to shake hands with my wife. It is so
easy to turn life into a comedy!
Margaret's great-grandmother--no, it was her great-great-grandmother,
but we have kept the Revolutionary period so warm lately that it seems
near--was a Newport belle, who married an officer in the suite of
Rochambeau what time the French defenders of liberty conquered the
women of Rhode Island. After the war was over, our officer resigned
his love of glory for the heart of one of the loveliest women and the

care of the best plantation on the Island. I have seen a miniature of her,
which her lover wore at Yorktown, and which he always swore that
Washington coveted--a miniature painted by a wandering artist of the
day, which entirely justifies the French officer in his abandonment of
the trade of a soldier. Such is man in his best estate. A charming face
can make him campaign and fight and slay like a demon, can make a
coward of him, can fill him with ambition to win the world, and can
tame him into the domesticity of a drawing-room cat. There is this
noble capacity in man to respond to the divinest thing visible to him in
this world. Etienne Debree became, I believe, a very good citizen of the
republic, and in '93 used occasionally to shake his head with
satisfaction to find that it was still on his shoulders. I am not sure that
he ever visited Mount Vernon, but after Washington's death Debree's
intimacy with our first President became a more and more important
part of his life and conversation. There is a pleasant tradition that
Lafayette, when he was here in 1784, embraced the young bride in the
French manner, and that this salute was valued as a sort of heirloom in
the family.
I always thought that Margaret inherited her New England conscience
from her great-great-grandmother, and a certain esprit or gayety--that is,
a sub-gayety which was never frivolity--from her French ancestor. Her
father and mother had died when she was ten years old, and she had
been reared by a maiden aunt, with whom she still lived. The combined
fortunes of both required economy, and after Margaret had passed her
school course she added to their resources by teaching in a public
school. I remember that she taught history, following, I suppose, the
American notion that any one can teach history who has a text-book,
just as he or she can teach literature with the same help. But it
happened that Margaret was a better teacher than many, because she
had not learned history in school, but in her father's well-selected
library.
There was a little stir at Margaret's entrance; Mr. Lyon was introduced
to her, and my wife, with that subtle feeling for effect which women
have, slightly changed the lights. Perhaps Margaret's complexion or her
black dress made this readjustment necessary to the harmony of the

room. Perhaps she felt the presence of a different temperament in the
little circle.
I never can tell exactly what it is that guides her in regard to the
influence of light and color upon the intercourse of people, upon their
conversation, making it take one cast or another. Men are susceptible to
these influences, but it is women alone who understand how to produce
them. And a woman who has not this subtle feeling always lacks charm,
however intellectual she may be; I always think of her as sitting in the
glare of disenchanting sunlight as indifferent to the exposure as a man
would be. I know in a general way that a sunset light induces one kind
of talk and noonday light another, and I have learned that talk always
brightens up with the addition of a fresh crackling stick to the fire. I
shouldn't have known how to change the lights for Margaret, although I
think I had as distinct an impression of her personality as had my wife.
There was nothing disturbing in it; indeed, I never saw her otherwise
than serene, even when her voice betrayed strong emotion. The quality
that impressed me most, however, was her sincerity, coupled with
intellectual courage and clearness that had almost the effect of
brilliancy, though