Miriam Monfort | Page 6

so, papa?" and she put me aside superciliously. Dirt and Nature
were synonymous terms with her.
My father smiled and laid down his newspaper, then looked at me a
little gravely as I stood downcast by Evelyn.
"You are getting very much sunburnt, Miriam, there is no doubt of that.
A complexion like yours needs greater care for its preservation than if
ten shades fairer. Little daughter, you must wear your bonnet, or give
up running in the garden in the heat of the day."
"I try to impress this on Miriam all the time," said Mrs. Austin, coming
as usual to aid in the assault, "but she is so hard-headed, it is next to
impossible to make her mindful of what I tell her. Miss Glen is the only
one that seems to have any influence over her nowadays." She said this
with a slight, impatient toss of the head, as she paused in her progress
through the room with a huge jar of currant-jelly, she had been sunning

in the dining-room window, poised on the palm of either hand, jelly
that looked like melted rubies, now to be consigned to the store-room.
"Well, well, we must have patience," was the rejoinder. "She is
young--impulsive (I wish she were more like you, Evelyn, my dear!),
her mother over again in temperament, without the saving clauses of
beauty and refinement; these she will never attain, I fear, and with
much of the characteristic persistence of that singular race, which in my
wife, however, I never detected, though so much nearer the
fountain-head!" This was said half in soliloquy, but Evelyn replied to it
as if it had been addressed to her--replied, as she often did, by an
interrogatory.
"What tribe did her mother belong to, papa?"
"The tribe of Judah, I believe, my love, was that her family traced their
lineage from; but you question as if it were Pocahontas there was
reference to instead of a high-bred Jewish lady!" speaking with
asperity.
"I meant no offence, papa, I assure you," said Evelyn, quietly; "I only
asked for information. Certainly there is something very grand in being
related to King David."
"There is, indeed," said a gentle voice close at hand. Miss Glen had
entered silently as they were speaking. "There was genius in that strain
of blood, Evelyn, nay, more, divinity. Christ claimed such descent. Let
us never forget that! He, the universal brother." She spoke with feeling
and dignity, and led me away, lecturing me greatly as she did so for not
obeying Mrs. Austin as to the sun-bonnet bondage, which she promised;
to make as light as possible by purchasing for me a new French
contrivance called a _calêche_, light and airy and sheltering all at once.
I was seven years old then, and the understanding was complete
between us that endured to the end, but as yet there was no
foreshadowing of her marriage with my father.
She had been engaged, when she came to us, to a gentleman, who must

have perished at sea soon afterward--a young naval officer who had
gone out on board of the United States sloop-of-war Hornet, the fate of
which vessel is still wrapped in mystery, though that it foundered
suddenly seemed then, as now, the universal opinion. Miss Glen some
time before had made up her mind to this, and was stemming a tide of
grief with great fortitude and resolution, while she was laying the
foundations of character and education in her two very opposite pupils,
both of whom she guided with equal ability.
My father was not unaware of her sufferings, I think, indeed, this
community of sorrow first attracted him toward her, and later he was
confirmed in his admiration of her womanly self-control and beauty of
character, by the development he saw in his children, the work of her
hand. That he was ever profoundly in love with her I do not believe,
nor did she pretend to any passionate regard for him. Respect,
friendship, confidence, mutual esteem, were the foundations of their
union, which certainly promised enduring happiness to all concerned,
and which was looked on with favor by the whole household, not
excepting Mrs. Austin herself.
"If any successor of your dear mother must come, Evelyn," I heard her
say one day to my sister, "we had better have her we know, to be sure,
than a mere stranger, but I must say I can't see why your papa does not
content himself as he is. I am sure he seems very happy in his library
and his greenhouse, and driving out in his Tilbury, or with you two
young ladies in the coach of afternoons, and chatting and smoking of
evenings with Mr. Bainrothe or old Mr. Stanbury. I should think he
might have