The Wife of his Youth | Page 3

had taken place in past years, and what
must be done to surpass them. His ball must be worthy of the lady in
whose honor it was to be given, and must, by the quality of its guests,
set an example for the future. He had observed of late a growing
liberality, almost a laxity, in social matters, even among members of
his own set, and had several times been forced to meet in a social way
persons whose complexions and callings in life were hardly up to the
standard which he considered proper for the society to maintain. He

had a theory of his own.
"I have no race prejudice," he would say, "but we people of mixed
blood are ground between the upper and the nether millstone. Our fate
lies between absorption by the white race and extinction in the black.
The one does n't want us yet, but may take us in time. The other would
welcome us, but it would be for us a backward step. 'With malice
towards none, with charity for all,' we must do the best we can for
ourselves and those who are to follow us. Self-preservation is the first
law of nature."
His ball would serve by its exclusiveness to counteract leveling
tendencies, and his marriage with Mrs. Dixon would help to further the
upward process of absorption he had been wishing and waiting for.

II
The ball was to take place on Friday night. The house had been put in
order, the carpets covered with canvas, the halls and stairs decorated
with palms and potted plants; and in the afternoon Mr. Ryder sat on his
front porch, which the shade of a vine running up over a wire netting
made a cool and pleasant lounging place. He expected to respond to the
toast "The Ladies" at the supper, and from a volume of Tennyson--his
favorite poet--was fortifying himself with apt quotations. The volume
was open at "A Dream of Fair Women." His eyes fell on these lines,
and he read them aloud to judge better of their effect:----
"At length I saw a lady within call, Stiller than chisell'd marble,
standing there; A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, And most divinely
fair."
He marked the verse, and turning the page read the stanza
beginning,----
"O sweet pale Margaret, O rare pale Margaret."
He weighed the passage a moment, and decided that it would not do.

Mrs. Dixon was the palest lady he expected at the ball, and she was of a
rather ruddy complexion, and of lively disposition and buxom build. So
he ran over the leaves until his eye rested on the description of Queen
Guinevere:----
"She seem'd a part of joyous Spring; A gown of grass-green silk she
wore, Buckled with golden clasps before; A light-green tuft of plumes
she bore Closed in a golden ring.
* * * * *
"She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd The rein with dainty finger-tips, A
man had given all other bliss, And all his worldly worth for this, To
waste his whole heart in one kiss Upon her perfect lips."
As Mr. Ryder murmured these words audibly, with an appreciative
thrill, he heard the latch of his gate click, and a light footfall sounding
on the steps. He turned his head, and saw a woman standing before his
door.
She was a little woman, not five feet tall, and proportioned to her
height. Although she stood erect, and looked around her with very
bright and restless eyes, she seemed quite old; for her face was crossed
and recrossed with a hundred wrinkles, and around the edges of her
bonnet could be seen protruding here and there a tuft of short gray wool.
She wore a blue calico gown of ancient cut, a little red shawl fastened
around her shoulders with an old-fashioned brass brooch, and a large
bonnet profusely ornamented with faded red and yellow artificial
flowers. And she was very black,--so black that her toothless gums,
revealed when she opened her mouth to speak, were not red, but blue.
She looked like a bit of the old plantation life, summoned up from the
past by the wave of a magician's wand, as the poet's fancy had called
into being the gracious shapes of which Mr. Ryder had just been
reading.
He rose from his chair and came over to where she stood.
"Good-afternoon, madam," he said.

"Good-evenin', suh," she answered, ducking suddenly with a quaint
curtsy. Her voice was shrill and piping, but softened somewhat by age.
"Is dis yere whar Mistuh Ryduh lib, suh?" she asked, looking around
her doubtfully, and glancing into the open windows, through which
some of the preparations for the evening were visible.
"Yes," he replied, with an air of kindly patronage, unconsciously
flattered