William Dean Howells: 27 Novels in One Volume (Illustrated). William Dean Howells
so odd. But really, in an Armenian convent it's very misleading. I don't think you ought to leave it there; it certainly does throw people off the track," she added, subduing the expression to something very lady-like, by the winning appeal with which she used it.
"Oh, but if they put up Armenian paintings in Chinese convents?" said Mr. Ferris.
"You're joking!" cried Mrs. Vervain, looking at him with a graciously amused air. "There are no Chinese convents. To be sure those rebels are a kind of Christians," she added thoughtfully, "but there can't be many of them left, poor things, hundreds of them executed at a time, that way. It's perfectly sickening to read of it; and you can't help it, you know. But they say they haven't really so much feeling as we have—not so nervous."
She walked by the side of the young friar as he led the way to such parts of the convent as are open to visitors, and Mr. Ferris came after with her daughter, who, he fancied, met his attempts at talk with sudden and more than usual hauteur. "What a fool!" he said to himself. "Is she afraid I shall be wanting to make love to her?" and he followed in rather a sulky silence the course of Mrs. Vervain and her guide. The library, the chapel, and the museum called out her friendliest praises, and in the last she praised the mummy on show there at the expense of one she had seen in New York; but when Padre Girolamo pointed out the desk in the refectory from which one of the brothers read while the rest were eating, she took him to task. "Oh, but I can't think that's at all good for the digestion, you know,—using the brain that way whilst you're at table. I really hope you don't listen too attentively; it would be better for you in the long run, even in a religious point of view. But now—Byron! You must show me his cell!" The monk deprecated the non-existence of such a cell, and glanced in perplexity at Mr. Ferris, who came to his relief. "You couldn't have seen his cell, if he'd had one, Mrs. Vervain. They don't admit ladies to the cloister."
"What nonsense!" answered Mrs. Vervain, apparently regarding this as another of Mr. Ferris's pleasantries; but Padre Girolamo silently confirmed his statement, and she briskly assailed the rule as a disrespect to the sex, which reflected even upon the Virgin, the object, as he was forced to allow, of their high veneration. He smiled patiently, and confessed that Mrs. Vervain had all the reasons on her side. At the polyglot printing-office, where she handsomely bought every kind of Armenian book and pamphlet, and thus repaid in the only way possible the trouble their visit had given, he did not offer to take leave of them, but after speaking with Ferris, of whom he seemed an old friend, he led them through the garden environing the convent, to a little pavilion perched on the wall that defends the island from the tides of the lagoon. A lay-brother presently followed them, bearing a tray with coffee, toasted rusk, and a jar of that conserve of rose-leaves which is the convent's delicate hospitality to favored guests. Mrs. Vervain cried out over the poetic confection when Padre Girolamo told her what it was, and her daughter suffered herself to express a guarded pleasure. The amiable matron brushed the crumbs of the baicolo from her lap when the lunch was ended, and fitting on her glasses leaned forward for a better look at the monk's black-bearded face. "I'm perfectly delighted," she said. "You must be very happy here. I suppose you are."
"Yes," answered the monk rapturously; "so happy that I should be content never to leave San Lazzaro. I came here when I was very young, and the greater part of my life has been passed on this little island. It is my home—my country."
"Do you never go away?"
"Oh yes; sometimes to Constantinople, sometimes to London and Paris."
"And you've never been to America yet? Well now, I'll tell you; you ought to go. You would like it, I know, and our people would give you a very cordial reception."
"Reception?" The monk appealed once more to Ferris with a look.
Ferris broke into a laugh. "I don't believe Padre Girolamo would come in quality of distinguished foreigner, Mrs. Vervain, and I don't think he'd know what to do with one of our cordial receptions."
"Well, he ought to go to America, any way. He can't really know anything about us till he's been there. Just think how ignorant the English are of our country! You will come, won't you? I should be delighted to welcome you at my house in Providence. Rhode Island is a small State, but there's a great deal of wealth there, and very good society in Providence. It's quite New-Yorky, you know," said Mrs. Vervain expressively. She rose as she spoke, and led the way back to the gondola. She told Padre Girolamo that they were to be some weeks in Venice, and made him promise to breakfast with them at their hotel. She smiled and nodded to him after the boat had pushed off, and kept him bowing on the landing-stairs.
"What a lovely place, and what a perfectly heavenly morning you have given us, Mr. Ferris I We never can thank you enough for it. And now, do you know what I'm thinking of? Perhaps you can help me. It was Byron's studying there put me in mind of it. How soon do the mosquitoes come?"
"About the end of June," responded Ferris mechanically, staring with helpless mystification at Mrs. Vervain.
"Very well; then there's no reason why we shouldn't stay in Venice till that time. We are both very fond of the place, and we'd quite concluded, this morning, to stop here till the mosquitoes came. You know, Mr. Ferris, my daughter had to leave school much earlier than she ought, for my health has obliged me to travel a great deal since I lost my husband; and I must have her with me, for we're all that there is of us; we haven't a chick or a child that's related to us anywhere. But wherever we stop, even for a few weeks, I contrive to get her some kind of instruction. I feel the need of it so much in my own case; for to tell you the truth, Mr. Ferris, I married too young. I suppose I should do the same thing over again if it was to be done over; but don't you see, my mind wasn't properly formed; and then following my husband about from pillar to post, and my first baby born when I was nineteen—well, it wasn't education, at any rate, whatever else it was; and I've determined that Florida, though we are such a pair of wanderers, shall not have my regrets. I got teachers for her in England,—the English are not anything like so disagreeable at home as they are in traveling, and we stayed there two years,—and I did in France, and I did in Germany. And now, Italian. Here we are in Italy, and I think we ought to improve the time. Florida knows a good deal of Italian already, for her music teacher in France was an Italian, and he taught her the language as well as music. What she wants now, I should say, is to perfect her accent and get facility. I think she ought to have some one come every day and read and converse an hour or two with her."
Mrs. Vervain leaned back in her seat, and looked at Ferris, who said, feeling that the matter was referred to him, "I think—without presuming to say what Miss Vervain's need of instruction is—that your idea is a very good one." He mused in silence his wonder that so much addlepatedness as was at once observable in Mrs. Vervain should exist along with so much common-sense. "It's certainly very good in the abstract," he added, with a glance at the daughter, as if the sense must be hers. She did not meet his glance at once, but with an impatient recognition of the heat that was now great for the warmth with which she was dressed, she pushed her sleeve from her wrist, showing its delicious whiteness, and letting her fingers trail through the cool water; she dried them on her handkerchief, and then bent her eyes full upon him as if challenging him to think this unlady-like.
"No, clearly the sense does not come from her," said Ferris to himself; it is impossible to think well of the mind of a girl who treats one with tacit contempt.
"Yes," resumed Mrs. Vervain, "it's certainly very good in the abstract. But oh dear me! you've no idea of the difficulties in the way. I may speak frankly with you, Mr. Ferris, for you are here as the representative of the country, and you naturally sympathize with the difficulties of Americans abroad; the teachers will fall in love with their pupils."
"Mother!" began Miss Vervain; and then she checked herself.
Ferris gave a vengeful laugh. "Really, Mrs. Vervain, though I sympathize with you in my official capacity, I must own that as a man and a brother, I can't help feeling a little sorry for those poor fellows, too."
"To be sure, they are to be pitied, of course, and I feel for them; I did when I was a girl; for the same thing used to happen then. I don't know why Florida should be subjected to such embarrassments, too. It does seem sometimes as