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Lady Baltimore-Part3_Owen Wister(1860-1938)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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gentle smile.

"Certainly. I have been talking for twenty minutes." I was now presented



to Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael, also old, also charming, in widow's dress

no less in the bloom of age than Mrs. Gregory, but whiter and very



diminutive. She shyly welcomed me to Kings Port. "Take him home with

you, Julia. We pulled your bell three times, and it's too damp for you to



be out. Don't forget," Mrs. Gregory said to me, "that you haven't told me

a word about your Aunt Carola, and that I shall expect you to come and do



it." She went slowly away from us, up the East Place, tall, graceful,

sweeping into the distance like a ship. No haste about her dignified



movement, no swinging of elbows, nothing of the present hour!

"What a beautiful girl she must have been!" I murmured aloud,



unconsciously.

"No, she was not a beauty in her youth," said my new guide in her shy



voice, "but always fluent, always a wit. Kings Port has at times thought

her tongue too downright. We think that wit runs in her family, for young



John Mayrant has it; and her first-cousin-once-removed put the Earl of

Mainridge in his place at her father's ball in 1840. Miss Beaufain (as



she was then) asked the Earl how he liked America; and he replied, very

well, except for the people, who were so vulgar. 'What can you expect?'



said Miss Beaufain; 'we're descended from the English.' I am very sorry

for Maria--for Mrs. St. Michael--just at present. Her young cousin, John



Mayrant, is making an alliance deeply vexatious to her. Do you happen to

know Miss Hortense Rieppe?"



I had never heard of her.

"No? She has been North lately. I thought you might have met her. Her



father takes her North, I believe, whenever any one will invite them.

They have sometimes managed to make it extend through an unbroken year.



Newport, I am credibly informed, greatly admires her. We in Kings Port

have never (except John Mayrant, apparently) seen anything in her beauty,



which Northerners find so exceptional."

"What is her type?" I inquired.



"I consider that she looks like a steel wasp. And she has the assurance

to call herself a Kings Port girl. Her father calls himself a general,



and it is repeated that he ran away at the battle of Chattanooga. I hope

you will come to see me another day, when you can spare time from the



battle of Cowpens. I am Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael, the other lady is Mrs.

Gregory St. Michael. I wonder if you will keep us all straight?" And



smiling, the little lady, whose shy manner and voice I had found to veil

as much spirit as her predecessor's, dismissed me and went up her steps,



letting herself into her own house.

The boy in question, the boy of the cake, John Mayrant, was coming out of



the gate at which I next rang. The appearance of his boyish figure and

well-carried head struck me anew, as it had at first; from his whole



person one got at once a strangelyromanticimpression. He looked at me,

made as if he would speak, but passed on. Probably he had been hearing as



much about me as I had been hearing about him. At this house the black

servant had not gone home for the night, and if the mistress had been out



to take a look at the steam yacht, she had returned.

"My sister," she said, presenting me to a supremely fine-looking old



lady, more chiselled, more august, than even herself. I did not catch

this lady's name, and she confined herself to a distant, though perhaps



not unfriendly, greeting. She was sitting by a work-table, and she

resumed some embroidery of exquisite appearance, while my hostess talked



to me.

Both wore their hair in a simple fashion to suit their years, which must



have been seventy or more; both were dressed with the dignity that such

years call for; and I may mention here that so were all the ladies above



a certain age in this town of admirableold-fashionedpropriety. In New

York, in Boston, in Philadelphia, ladies of seventy won't be old ladies



any more; they're unwilling to wear their years avowedly, in quiet

dignity by their firesides; they bare their bosoms and gallop egregiously



to the ball-rooms of the young; and so we lose a particular graciousness

that Kings Port retains, a perspective of generations. We happen all at



once, with no background, in a swirl of haste and similarity.

One of the many things which came home to me during the conversation that



now began (so many more things came home than I can tell you!) was that

Mrs. Gregory St. Michael's tongue was assuredly "downright" for Kings



Port. This I had not at all taken in while she talked to me, and her

friend's reference to it had left me somewhat at a loss. That better



precision and choice of words which I have mentioned, and the manner in

which she announced her opinions, had put me in mind of several fine






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