Queechy Volume I Part 15

"Well, I hope she will go with us, and we shall have a chance of seeing her," said Mrs. Carleton.

"If she were only a few years older, it is my belief you would see enough of her, Ma'am," said young Rossitur.

The haughty coldness of Mr. Carleton's look, at this speech, could not be surpa.s.sed.

"But she has beauty of feature, too, has she not?" Mrs.

Carleton asked again of her son.

"Yes, in very high degree. The contour of the eye and brow I never saw finer."

"It is a little odd," said Mrs. Evelyn, with the slightest touch of a piqued air, (she had some daughters at home) ?

"that is a kind of beauty one is apt to a.s.sociate with high breeding, and certainly you very rarely see it anywhere else; and Major Ringgan, however distinguished and estimable, as I have no doubt he was, ? and this child must have been brought up with no advantages, here in the country."

"My dear madam," said Mr. Carleton, smiling a little, "this high breeding is a very fine thing, but it can neither be given nor bequeathed; and we cannot entail it."

"But it can be taught, can't it?"

"If it could be taught, it is to be hoped it would be oftener learned," said the young man, drily.

"But what do we mean, then, when we talk of the high breeding of certain cla.s.ses ? and families? and why are we not disappointed when we look to find it in connection with certain names and positions in society?"

"I do not know," said Mr. Carleton.

"You don't mean to say, I suppose, Mr. Carleton," said Thorn, bridling a little, "that it is a thing independent of circ.u.mstances, and that there is no value in blood?"

"Very nearly ? answering the question as you understand it."

"May I ask how you understand it?"

"As you do, Sir."

"Is there no high breeding then in the world?" asked good- natured Mrs. Thorn, who could be touched on this point of family.

"There is very little of it. What is commonly current under the name, is merely counterfeit notes which pa.s.s from hand to hand of those who are bankrupt in the article."

"And to what serve, then," said Mrs. Evelyn, colouring, "the long lists of good old names which even you, Mr. Carleton, I know, do not disdain?"

"To endorse the counterfeit notes," said Mr. Carleton, smiling.

"Guy, you are absurd!" said his mother. "I will not sit at the table and listen to you if you talk such stuff. What do you mean?"

"I beg your pardon, mother, you have misunderstood me," said he, seriously. "Mind, I have been talking, not of ordinary conformity to what the world requires, but of that fine perfection of mental and moral const.i.tution, which, in its own natural necessary acting, leaves nothing to be desired, in every occasion or circ.u.mstance of life. It is the pure gold, and it knows no tarnish; it is the true coin, and it gives what it proffers to give; it is the living plant ever blossoming, and not the cut and art-arranged flowers. It is a thing of the mind altogether; and where nature has not curiously prepared the soil, it is in vain to try to make it grow. _This_ is not very often met with!"

"No, indeed," said Mrs. Carleton; " but you are so fastidiously nice in all your notions! ? at this rate nothing will ever satisfy you."

"I don't think it is so very uncommon," said Mrs. Thorn. "It seems to me one sees as much of it as can be expected, Mr.

Carleton."

Mr. Carleton pared his apple with an engrossed air.

"O no, Mrs. Thorn," said Mrs. Evelyn, "I don't agree with you ? I don't think you often see such a combination as Mr.

Carleton has been speaking of ? very rarely! But, Mr.

Carleton, don't you think it is generally found in that cla.s.s of society where the habits of life are constantly the most polished and refined?"

"Possibly," answered he, diving into the core of his apple.

"No, but tell me; I want to know what you think."

"Cultivation and refinement have taught people to recognize and a.n.a.lyze and imitate it; the counterfeits are most current in that society; but as to the reality, I don't know; it is nature's work, and she is a little freaky about it."

"But, Guy!" said his mother, impatiently, "this is not selling but giving away one's birthright. Where is the advantage of birth if breeding is not supposed to go along with it? Where the parents have had intelligence and refinement, do we not constantly see them inherited by the children? and in an increasing degree from generation to generation?"

"Very extraordinary!" said Mrs. Thorn.

"I do not undervalue the blessings of inheritance, mother, believe me, nor deny the general doctrine; though intelligence does not always descend, and manners die out, and that invaluable legacy, a name, may be thrown away. But this delicate thing we are speaking of is not intelligence nor refinement, but comes rather from a happy combination of qualities, together with a peculiarly fine nervous const.i.tution; the _essence_ of it may consist with an omission, even with an awkwardness, and with a sad ignorance of conventionalities."

"But even if that be so, do you think it can ever reach its full development but in the circ.u.mstances that are favourable to it?" said Mrs. Evelyn.

"Probably not often; the diamond in some instances wants the graver; ? but it is the diamond. Nature seems now and then to have taken a princess's child and dropped it in some odd corner of the kingdom, while she has left the clown in the palace."

"From all which I understand," said Mr. Thorn, "that this little chestnut girl is a princess in disguise."

"Really, Carleton!" ? Rossitur began.

Mrs. Evelyn leaned back in her chair, and quietly eating a piece of apple, eyed Mr. Carleton with a look half amused and half discontented, and behind all that, keenly attentive.

"Take for example those two miniatures you were looking at last night, Mrs. Evelyn," the young man went on; ? "Louis XVI.

and Marie Antoinette ? what would you have more unrefined, more heavy, more _animal_, than the face of that descendant of a line of kings?"

Mrs. Evelyn bowed her head acquiescingly, and seemed to enjoy her apple.

"_He_ had a pretty bad lot of an inheritance, sure enough, take it all together," said Rossitur.

"Well," said Thorn, ? "is this little stray princess as well- looking as t'other miniature?"

"Better, in some respects," said Mr. Carleton, coolly.

"Better!" cried Mrs. Carleton.

"Not in the brilliancy of her beauty, but in some of its characteristics; ? better in its promise."

"Make yourself intelligible, for the sake of my nerves, Guy,"

said his mother. "Better looking than Marie Antoinette!"

"My unhappy cousin is said to be a fairy, Ma'am," said Mr.

Rossitur; "and I presume all this may be referred to enchantment."

"That face of Marie Antoinette's," said Mr. Carleton, smiling, "is an undisciplined one ? uneducated."