A Little Girl in Old Washington. Douglas Amanda M.
little girl of your mother's? – I was sorry not to see her. Is she like her mother?"
"She is a shy, dainty little thing, with a sweet temper and a kind of homesick way now and then, as if she longed to fly away somewhere with her mother. Of course we all like her, and father has taken her to his heart. Charles thinks her a nonesuch, since she is never weary of hearing him read aloud. And though Charles is the youngest, Varina has always been the baby, and I think she is jealous. It is very amusing at times."
"I am glad you get along so well together. It must be a great pleasure to your father to have a companion of his very own. And you girls will presently marry."
"I mean to have a good, merry time first. What a pity the winter is gone just as we have a new President! Congress will soon be adjourned, and Jane says Washington is dismal in the summer."
She opened a box, where the garment had lain many a year, being taken out at the annual cleaning, brushed carefully, and laid away again. It had a high collar and lapels worked with veritable gold thread that had not tarnished.
"Yes – many people do go away. The town has not improved as we all hoped it would. But there is an old adage that Rome was not built in a day. And we are a comparatively new country. Oh, here is the jacket!"
"Oh, how lovely!" cried Jaqueline.
"The buttons want rubbing up. We will take it to Betty, who can tell if it needs altering. I keep the sleeves stuffed out with cotton so it will not wrinkle or mat. A London tailor made it, yet it looks fresh as if it had just been sent over."
They found Betty, who was supervising some of the sewing girls. Most of the ordinary wearing clothes of the family and the servants' belongings were made in the house. There was fine mending and darning, and much drawn work done by some of the better-class house slaves.
Jaqueline tried on the pretty jacket, and there was not much alteration to be made in it. The young girl felt curiously gratified as she studied her slim figure in the mirror. She had never owned anything so fine, and certainly it was most becoming.
"Then, Betty, alter the band of my black cloth skirt. That is the best we can do just now."
"Oh, you are most kind!" and Jaqueline took both hands in a warm clasp, while the glancing eyes were suffused with delight.
"And now if you both like we will go out for an airing, as I have some errands to do."
Jaqueline was ready for any diversion. Ralph proposed to drive them, as he had a little business to attend to.
There were several attractive shops in Georgetown, and the hairdressing seemed to be brisk, judging from numerous signs. In one window were wigs of various colors from fair to dark. Indeed, there had been a great era of wigs for both men and women, and especially among the fair sex, who thought even two wigs much cheaper than the continual bills of the hairdresser, when they were crisped into curls, pinned up in puffs, and a great crown laid on top of the head, built up in the artifices known to fashion, to be surmounted by feathers. The wide hoop was diminishing as well, and graceful figures were likely to be once more the style.
The dinner-hour in most society families was at two, and at the Carringtons' it was quite a stately meal, with often an unexpected guest, made just as welcome as if by invitation. And to-day a Mr. and Mrs. Hudson had driven up from Alexandria – old friends who had many things to inquire about after a winter of seclusion, and most eager to learn how the new President had been received, and whether there would really be war.
No one was in a hurry. People truly lived then. Patricia thought it rather stupid, as no one referred to her with any question or comment; even Mr. Ralph, who had proved so entertaining all the morning, scarcely noticed her, as he had to play the host. But Jaqueline quite shone. When Mrs. Hudson heard she had been at the reception, she must describe not only the ladies and their gowns, but whether Mr. Jefferson was as ready to lay down the cares of state as most people said, and if Mrs. Madison had not aged by the continual demands that had been made upon her.
"For she is coming quite to middle life," said Mrs. Hudson.
"And could discount fully ten years," returned Ralph.
"They all paint and powder, I have heard. So much dissipation cannot be good for women. But, then, she has no children to look after. Her son is at school. It does make a difference if one brings up half a dozen children and has to think of getting them settled in life."
She had had her share, good Mistress Hudson. Three daughters to marry, which she had done well; one son to bury; one rambling off, whether dead or alive no one knew; and one still left, a prop for declining years, but his mother was as anxious to keep him single as Mrs. Carrington was that her sons should marry.
They had risen from the table, and the horses had been ordered when Mr. Carrington came in. He saw how Jaqueline's face lighted up.
"The days are a little longer, and we will have our ride yet," he said in a whispered aside. But there was still some talking to do. Jaqueline made her adieus and went to put on her habit. Standing in the hall above, she waited until patience was a lost virtue.
Then Roger Carrington called to her.
"I thought they would never go, they prosed and prosed so!"
"We shall be old ourselves some day," he returned with a smile, "and perhaps prose while young people are waiting."
Then he turned her around with gentlemanly grace, admiration in his eyes.
"Is it the jackdaw that appears in borrowed plumes – some bird I have heard tell of. Why birds should borrow plumes – I am shamefully ignorant, am I not?" raising her eyes with a spice of mischief.
"Let us go and ask Ralph," he said with assumed gravity. "It will not take him long to run through two or three tomes."
"And ride by moonlight?"
"There is no moon."
"Does she not look well, Roger? A tailor could not have fitted the habit better. Do not go very far, for the air might grow chilly again."
"We will go up the creek a short distance."
Then he mounted her upon the pretty mare, his brother's favorite, for Ralph had not cared to ride. Patricia looked on a little disappointed, yet she did not really wish to go, for Madam Carrington had been telling her a curious love story about a little maid who had been sent over with a number of redemptioners, as those who were bound for a number of years were called. She had attracted the pity of a kindly man, who had purchased her years of service for his wife. Then the son had fallen in love with her, which had roused the mother's anger, when she sent her son to England to be educated and perhaps fall in love with a cousin. The little maid was rather hardly treated, when someone came to the colony in search of her, and it turned out that she was well born and heiress to a grand estate, held by a relative who had formed a villainous plot against her and reported her dead. Now that he was dying without heirs, he was desirous of making tardy reparation.
There were few story books to fall into girls' hands in those days. Swift and Sterne and Smollett were kept out of reach. Miss Burney was hardly considered proper, and Miss Austen had not been heard of in the Colonies.
Patricia was fond of old legends and ghost stories, with which the plantation was rife, and which had grown up about old houses. Unhappy lovers had a weird, fascinating interest for young girls, even if the lives of the day were the reverse of sentimental. All through the dinner she had been wondering if the little maid met her lover again; but that she came back to America, she knew, for her portrait hung in the hall among the Carrington ladies.
Ajax and Daphne rubbed noses, flung up their heads, and started off. Tame enough now is the winding creek, which was rough and rapid then, and which traveled from the upper edge of Maryland, gathering in many a little stream, rushing along in some places over great stones, winding about placidly in others, and then joining the Potomac.
CHAPTER VI.
A TOUCH OF NATURE
There had been a breath of spring in the air for a day or two, and all nature welcomed the softness, with the numerous sounds of awakening life. Wild bees