Julia The Apostate | Page 2

source. Later she dealt with the problem of subsisting from eight till one on two rolls and a cup of coffee; successfully, in the ultimate issue, as surreptitious bits of fried ham and buckwheat cakes, with suspicious odors, winked at discreetly by her nieces, witnessed. It would have been unkind, as Elise suggested, to criticise Aunt Ju-ju's performances at the ungodly hour of seven in the morning, when their own correctly Continental repast, flanked by a chrysanthemum in a tall vase, not only tallied so accurately with their digestive and aesthetic necessities, but appeared, moreover, with such gratifying regularity one hour later.
Both Carolyn and her sister had inherited from their mother, Miss True-man's older sister, a real gift for teaching, and this, rather than their respective abilities in art and music, enabled them to impart very successfully the elements of these necessary branches to the young ladies of a fashionable boarding-school just outside the city.
It was politely regretted by their friends that they were unable to give themselves unreservedly to the exercise of their art without the cramping necessity for teaching; but it is probable that both the girls estimated their not too extraordinary talents very sensibly, though far from displeased by a more flattering judgment.
Miss Trueman, who possessed the characteristic veneration of the bred and born New Englander for his native or imported school-ma'am, resented persistently their somewhat patronizing attitude toward the profession second only to the ministry in her stanch respect. A little of the simple grandeur of those childhood days when "the teacher boarded with them" clung with the ineradicable force of habit to her mind, and she could not understand their restive attitude at "the fine positions as teachers Hattie's girls have got."
"I'm sure you make more money than that Miss Seymour that gets her own meals in her room--she said so herself."
"Oh, well, there are other things to be considered, Aunt Ju; and, anyway, she's a real bohemian, Polly Seymour. There's a fascination in it."
"There's no fascination in being hungry that I can see, and she admitted that, L--Elise," Miss Trueman insisted severely. "I don't understand how she could have done it--I would have died first. And she seemed to think it was a great joke to have her friends give her a dinner--I think it was terrible."
"Why, Aunt Jule, how ridiculous! We were delighted to do it--it was perfectly dear of her to let us, too. And think of the people we met there--Rawlins and Mr. Ware! You don't mind being poor if such men will come just out of interest in you, I tell you. Do you remember, Elise, how Mr. Rawlins called her 'little girl'? Mr. Ware lets her use his models whenever she likes, too," Carolyn added respectfully.
"Oh, she's bound to arrive!" Elise agreed.
Aunt Ju-ju sniffed uncontrolledly.
"I should hope she'd arrive at the point where she could buy her own dinners," she remarked. "To be beholden for your bread"...
Here were two points of view as little likely to coincide as the parallel lines of science, and at some such stage as this the discussions were wont to cease.
To-day the apartment was swept and garnished for a social function long planned by the nieces. Carnations leaned from tall glass vases, intricate little cakes jostled carefully piled sandwiches, and a huge brass samovar, borrowed for the occasion, gave dignity to the small parlor. Miss Trueman had learned by now the unwritten law that prevented the various objects in the once proudly segregated "drawing-room set" from association with each other, and made no attempt to correct their intentional isolation. The samovar she refused utterly to meddle with, assuring them that she would as soon think of running a locomotive.
As the guests began to arrive Miss Trueman found herself regarding them even more critically than usual; an argumentative spirit rose in her, and her calm contradiction of Mrs. Ranger, who discussed with great subtlety the notable advantages--even from the artistic point of view--of the approaching spring when experienced in the city, in comparison with that be-rhymed season's vaunted country beauties, startled more than one person.
"Just because they're more delicate, just because you must look harder to discover them, just because you must get as much from a pot of hyacinths on the Avenue as from a whole field of primroses in the backwoods, you know," she concluded, and the little circle nodded sagely and congratulated themselves on an unpublished paragraph.
"I don't agree with you, Mrs. Ranger," said Aunt Ju-ju flatly, to the absolute amazement of her nieces and the tolerant amusement of the assembly. "I guess you haven't lived in the country much, or you wouldn't talk so. And primroses don't grow in fields here, anyway. If you could see my hyacinths and crocuses in round beds at home, you wouldn't mention those poor little