"Do you suppose," said Gertrude, "that they whose houses are built on such a sandy foundation will quietly see them undermined? _Such_ a hue and cry as they will raise (all for the honor of the cause, of course!) about your 'speaking lightly of religion and its professors!'"

"Very true," said John, "it is speaking lightly of its _professors_ but not of its _possessors_. They might as well tell you to keep dumb about a gang of counterfeiters, lest it should do injury to the money-market; bah! Gertrude, I have no patience with such tampering; but to dismiss an unpleasant topic, you have plenty of employment, I see;" and John glanced round the room at Gertrude's pictures. "I am proud of you, Gertrude; I honor you for your self-reliance; but what is your fancy, with your artistic reputation, for living such a nun's life?"

"Well," said Gertrude, "in the first place, my time is too valuable to me to be thrown away on bores and idlers, and the Paul Pry family, in all its various ramifications. Autograph hunters I have found not without their use, as I never answer their communications, and they find me in letter stamps. But _entre nous_, John, I have no very exalted opinion of the s.e.x to which you belong.

"Men are so gross and unspiritual, John, so wedded to making money and promiscuous love, so selfish and unchivalric; of course there are occasionally glorious exceptions, but who would be foolish enough to wade through leagues of brambles, and briars, to find perchance one flower? Female friends, of course, are out of the question, always excepting Rose, whose t.i.tle is no misnomer. And as to general society, it is so seldom one finds a congenial circle that, having resources of my own, I feel disinclined to encounter the risk."

"This isolation is unnatural; Gertrude, you can not be happy."

"Who is?" asked Gertrude. "Are you? Is Rose? Where is the feast at which there is no skeleton? I make no complaint. I enjoyed more happiness in the five years of my first wedded life than falls to the lot of most mortals in a life-time. I know that such an experience can not be repeated, so I live on the past. You say I am not happy; I am negatively happy. If I gather no honey, I at least escape the sting."

"I wish for my sake, Gertrude, you would go into society. I can not but think you would form new ties that would brighten life. As a woman, you can not be insensible to your attractive power."

"I have no desire to exert it," replied Gertrude; "there are undoubtedly men in want of housekeepers, and plenty of widowers in want of nurses for their children. My desires do not point that way."

"You are incorrigible, Gertrude. Do you suppose there is no man who has sense enough to love you for yourself alone?"

"What if I do not want to be loved?" asked his sister.

"But you do," persisted John; "so long as there is any vitality in a women, she likes to be loved."

"Well, then, granting your proposition for the sake of the argument, please give me credit for a most martyr-like and persistent self-denial," said Gertrude, laughing.

"I will give you credit for nothing, till your heart gets thawed out a little; and I think I know a friend of mine who can do it."

"Forewarned forearmed," said his sister.

CHAPTER XLIV.

"Rose, you are not looking well, this morning. Confess, now, that you did not sleep a wink last night. I heard the pattering of your little feet over my head long after midnight."

"Very likely, for I was unaccountably restless. I will tell you what troubled me. I was trying to think of some way to support myself; I wish I had a t.i.the of your energy, Gertrude."

"Well you have not, you are just made to be loved and petted. You are too delicate a bit of porcelain to be knocked and hustled round amid the delf of the world. Your gift is decidedly wife-wise, and the sooner you let my good brother John make you one, the better for all of us."

"What do you think of my turning auth.o.r.ess?" asked Rose, adroitly turning the subject.

"Oh, do it, by all means," mocked Gertrude, "it is the easiest thing in the world to write a book. It would be just the thing for a little sensitive-plant like you. I think I see it fairly launched. I think I see you sit down with the morning paper in your hand to read a criticism on it, from some coa.r.s.e pen, dressed in a little brief authority, in the absence of some editor; a fellow who knows no difference between a sun-flower and a violet, and whose daily aspirations are bounded by an oyster supper, or a mint-julep. I think I see you thumped on the head with his butchering cleaver, every nerve quivering under the crucifixion of his coa.r.s.e scalpel."

"But surely there are those who know a good book when they see it, and I mean to write a good book."

"You little simpleton, as if that would save you! Do you suppose you will be forgiven for writing a _good_ book? No, my dear; the editor of 'The Daily Lorgnette,' takes it up, he devours a chapter or two, he begins to fidget in his chair, he sees there is genius in it, he gets up and strides across his office, he recollects certain books of his own, which n.o.body ever read but his publishers and himself, and every word he reads irritates that old sore. The next day, under the head of book notices you will see the following in the Daily Lorgnette:--

"'Gore House, by Rose Ringdove.'

"'We have perused this book; it is unnecessary to state in its t.i.tle-page that it was written by a _female_ hand. The plot is feeble and inartistic. In dialogue, the writer utterly fails; the heroine, Effie Waters, is a stiff, artificial creation, reminding us constantly of those females painted on the pannels of omnibuses, convulsively grasping to their bosoms a posy, or a poodle. There is an indescribable and heterogeneous jumbling of characters in this volume. The auth.o.r.ess vainly endeavors to straighten out this snarl in the last chapter, which has nothing to recommend it but that it _is_ the last. We advise the auth.o.r.ess of 'Gore House' to choose some other escape-valve for her restless femininity; petticoat literature has become a drug in the market.'

"How do you like that?" said Gertrude, laughing.

"Well, the editor of the 'Christian Warrior' sits down to read 'Gore House,' he takes out his spectacles, and wipes them deliberately on his red-silk pocket-handkerchief, he adjusts them on the bridge of his sagacious nose; he reads on undisturbed until he comes to the description of 'Deacon Pendergrast,' who is very graphically sketched as a 'wolf in sheep's clothing.' Conscience holds up the mirror, and he beholds _himself_, like unto a man who sees his natural face in a gla.s.s.

Straightway he sitteth down, and writeth the following impartial critique of the book:

"'We have read "Gore House." We do not hesitate to p.r.o.nounce it a _bad_ book, unfit to lie on the table of any _religious_ family. In it, _religion_ is held up to ridicule. It can not fail to have a most pernicious influence on the minds of the young. We hope Christian editors all over the land will not hesitate, out of courtesy to the auth.o.r.ess, to warn the reading public of this locomotive poison.'

"The editor of the 'Christian Warrior' then hands the notice to his foreman for an early insertion, puts on his hat, and goes to the anniversary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, of which he is president.

"The editor of the 'John Bull' reads 'Gore House.' He is an Englishman, and pledged to his British blood, while he makes his living out of America, to abuse, underrate, and vilify, her government, inst.i.tutions, and literature, therefore he says, curtly:

"'We have received "Gore House"--they of course who wish for _literature_, especially female literature, will look the other side of the Atlantic." He then takes one of the most glowing pa.s.sages in 'Gore House,' and transposing the words slightly, pa.s.ses it off for editorial in his own columns.

"The editor of 'The Timbrel' reads Gore House. He has a female relative, Miss Clementina Clemates, whose mission she thinks is to be an auth.o.r.ess. In furtherance of this design of hers, he thinks it policy to decry all other rival books. So he says:

"'We have read "Gore House." We ought to say we have _tried_ to read it.

The fact is, the only lady book recently published that we can heartily recommend to our readers is "Sketches of the Fireside, by Clementine Clemates."'

"The editor of the 'Dinsmore Republican' reads the book. He is of the Don Quixote order, goes off like an old pistol half primed, whenever the right chord is struck. Gore House takes him captive at once. He wishes there were a tournament, or some such arrangement, by which he could manifest his devotion to and admiration of the auth.o.r.ess. He throws down the book, unties his neckcloth, which seems to be strangling him, loosens his waistband b.u.t.ton to give his breathing apparatus more play, throws up the window, runs his fingers through his hair, till each one seems as charged with electricity as a lightning-rod, and then seizing his goose-quill, piles on the commendatory adjectives till your modesty exclaims, in smothering agony, 'Save me from my friends, and I will take care of my enemies.'"

"But tell me," said Rose, "is there no bright side to this subject you can depict me?"

"Oh, yes," said Gertrude, "there are editors who can read a book and deal fairly and conscientiously by it and its author, who neither underrate nor overrate from fear or favor, who find fault, not as an escape-valve for their own petulance or indigestion, but gently, kindly, as a wise parent would rebuke his child--editors on whose faith you can rely, whose book reviews are, and can be, depended upon, who feel themselves accountable to other than a _human_ tribunal for their discharge of so important a public trust."

"Well," said Rose, in despair, "if I might be Sappho herself I could not run such a gauntlet of criticism as you have described."

"Far happier to be Cornelia with her jewels," said Gertrude, s.n.a.t.c.hing up the beautiful Charley (I take it Cornelia had a glorious husband).

"Fame is a great unrest to a true woman's heart. The fret, and tumult, and din of battle are not for her. The vulgar sneer for which there is no preventive, save the unrecognized one of _honor_; the impertinent tone of familiarity, supposed to be acceptable by those to whom a woman's heart is yet a sealed book; what are tears to oppose to such bludgeon weapons? No, the fret and din of battle are not for her; but if, at the call of trumpet-tongued necessity, she buckle on the armor, let her fight with what good courage her G.o.d may give her, valuing far above the laurel crown, when won, the loving hearts for which she toils--which beat glad welcome home."

CHAPTER XLV.

Miss Anne Cooper was a maiden lady of forty-two; a satellite who was well contented to revolve year after year round Madame Vincent, and reflect her _golden_ rays. Madame Vincent had been a beauty in her day, and was still tenacious of her claims to that t.i.tle. It was Miss Anne's constant study to foster this b.u.mp of self-conceit, and so cunningly did she play her part, so indignantly did she deny the advances of Old Time, that madame was flattered into the belief that he had really given her a quit claim.

Miss Anne's disinterested care of the silver, linen, and store-room was quite praiseworthy to those who did not know that she supplied a family of her relatives with all necessary articles from the Vincent resources.

It was weary waiting for the expected codicil, and Miss Anne thought "a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush;" so if she occasionally abducted a pound or two of old Hyson or loaf-sugar, or a loaf of cake, or a pair of pies, she reasoned herself into the belief that they were, after all, only her lawful perquisites.

Yes, it was weary waiting for the codicil. Madame Vincent was an invalid, 'tis true; but so she had been these twenty years, having one of those india-rubber const.i.tutions, which seem to set all medical precedents at defiance. She might last along for ten years to come--who knew?

Ten years! Miss Anne looked in the gla.s.s; the crow's-feet were planted round her own eyes, and it needed no microscope to see the silver threads in her once luxuriant black locks. Not that Miss Anne did not smile just as sweetly on her patroness as if she would not at any time have welcomed a call upon her from the undertaker. Miss Anne's voice, as she glided through the house with her bunch of keys, had that oily, hypocritical whine which is inseparable from your genuine toady, be it man or woman.

Miss Anne sat in the "blue chamber" of the Vincent mansion--a chamber that had once been occupied by young Master Vincent. Whether this gave it a charm in the lady's eyes or no, Miss Anne never had said. It was true that young Master Vincent, when he had nothing else to do, amused himself with irritating Miss Anne up to the snapping-point. They scarce met without a war of words, half jest, half earnest; but for all that, young Vincent's every wish was antic.i.p.ated by Miss Anne. It was she who reinserted the enameled b.u.t.tons in his vests, when they came from the laundress; it was she who righted his room, and kept all his little dandy apparatus (in the shape of perfumes, gold shirt-b.u.t.tons, hair-oil, watch-guards, rings, etc.) in their appropriate places.

Your D'Orsay abroad, is generally a brute at home; selfish, sarcastic, ill-tempered, and exacting where he thinks it does not pay to be otherwise. All this Miss Anne turned aside with the skill and tact of a woman; occasionally quite quenching him with her witty replies, and forcing him to laugh even in his most diabolical moods. To be sure he would mutter some uncanonical words after it, and tell her to go to the torrid zone; and Miss Anne would smile as usual, drop a low courtesy, and glide from his presence; sometimes to go round making all sorts of housekeeping blunders; sometimes to sit down in her room, with her hands folded in her lap, and her great black eyes fixed immovably on the carpet, for all the world just as if Miss Anne were in love.