Chapter VII: Reading Character at a Glance

THE day after Julia and Eunice met in Mrs. Ray's shop, Eunice spent the afternoon with Anita Ferarra.

Mr. Ferarra was a gentleman of Spanish descent, doing business both in the neighboring city and in Mexico. He had married an American lady, daughter of one of his partners, and the family had resided in Mexico till some change in the firm to which he belonged, and also the desire to obtain better advantages for the education of his daughter, had brought Mr. Ferarra to the North.

After travelling for a while, and making trial of several different locations, he had bought a place in Rockdale, where he had established his family, going down to the city every day. Mrs. Ferarra had married young, and, living so long in a foreign land, she had almost forgotten her native tongue and spoke, as she walked and sung, like a Spanish lady. Nevertheless, she was a born New Englander, full of energy, spirit, and industry, and she threw herself at once into all the affairs of Rockdale society, teaching in Sunday-school and sewing-school. And, as she had plenty of money, as well as plenty of wit and resource, she soon became a valuable element in the church.

Mr. and Mrs. Ferarra were Protestants—the one from education, the other from conviction—but Anita had been to a convent-school, simply because there was at that time no other school for her to go to. Here she had learned a great many pretty accomplishments in the way of embroidery and the like, and she always retained an affectionate remembrance of the kindness and the sweetmeats of the good nuns. Anita had learned English mostly from books, and she often amused the girls by the preciseness of her expressions, which contrasted oddly with the childish-sounding Spanish lisp, for by no possibility could Anita learn to pronounce an English "s."

Mrs. Ferarra as well as her daughter, had been very much taken with Eunice Riker. She had been led to notice her at first by her singing in church and Sunday-school. Eunice possessed a fine and peculiar alto voice and a very correct ear, and her singing was indeed something remarkable.

"She has a fine face too," Mrs. Ferarra said to her husband as they were walking home; "I am sure she must have a great deal of character. Mr. Stanley tells me she is the only child of a widow who supports herself and her daughter by fine work and by getting up fine washing."

"It is a pity her musical powers should not be cultivated," remarked her husband.

"That is just what I was thinking," said Mrs. Ferarra eagerly. "If she only had proper instruction, she might be able to support herself and her mother."

"You say they are respectable people?"

"Oh yes. Her mother is a soldier's widow, and has a very small pension, and they live upon that and the proceeds of her work. She has quite the manners of a lady, and when I went to carry her some clear-starching, I was struck with the pleasant, cultivated look of her little room. Eunice is in the same class with Anita—Miss Ackerman's."

"That will give Anita an opportunity of getting acquainted with her. She might find some excuse for inviting her to the house, and when we see more of her, if she seems a promising subject, she might have the benefit of some of Carmen's dowry. But don't be in a hurry. There is time enough, and you know your 'geese' have not always turned out to be 'swans,'" added Mr. Ferarra, smiling.

"Well, I would rather think my 'geese' 'swans' than to think all 'swans' 'geese,'" replied his wife, smiling in her turn. "However, it will be desirable, as you say, to proceed with caution. I fancy both Eunice and her mother are very independent in their feelings."

"So much the better for them," said Mr. Ferarra; and there the discussion ended for the present.

The plan for inviting Eunice to spend the afternoon with Anita on the plea of giving instructions in crocheting had been arranged between Anita and her mother as a means of becoming better acquainted with Eunice, as well as for the sake of giving pleasure to a hard-working girl.

Mr. Ferarra's house was a handsome one and beautifully situated. It was not so expensively furnished as many houses in the neighborhood; at least the expense was bestowed in a different manner.

Mrs. Hazleton, who had a great deal of wonder and a great deal of advice at the service of her neighbors, which she was accustomed to bestow quite gratuitously, wondered that Mrs. Ferarra should be content to have her drawing-rooms matted with only a square of Turkey carpet in the middle for cold weather. She assured Mrs. Ferarra that nobody did so at the North, and advised her to buy Axminster carpets for her drawing-rooms and Brussels for her bedrooms without delay. She repeated this advice till Mrs. Ferarra grew tired of it, and gave her a somewhat cool answer, when she wondered what she could have said that Mrs. Ferarra should be so angry at.

Mrs. Ferarra had a beautiful garden in summer and a superb conservatory in winter; she had a great abundance of books and some beautiful and valuable pictures; and she had a well-filled purse, always ready to open to any reasonable call for help. For all these things she cared a great deal, but for Axminster carpets and brocade furniture not at all.

Anita's own room was furnished with the simplest chintz and cane furniture, but she had shelves upon shelves of valuable books of her own, and indulged in an amount of fresh towels and linen which would have scared Mrs. Hazleton from her propriety. She carried off Eunice to this room to take off her hat and arrange her hair, and when Eunice exclaimed at the before-mentioned book-shelves, Anita made her at once free of them.

The lessons in work proceeded very successfully amid a great deal of fun and laughter, and Eunice found as apt a pupil in Anita as Anita did in her. When she thought they had worked long enough, Mrs. Ferarra sent them out for a walk in the grounds. The flower-garden was beginning to show the lateness of the season, but there was a beautiful display of chrysanthemums, dahlias, and other late-blooming flowers, and Eunice exclaimed with delight over some Japanese anemones.

"Yes, they are very pretty, and they last so long, till cold weather comes," said Anita; and she shivered at the thought. "But oh, Eunice, you should see the flowers in Mexico! Such flowers! Not the pale things that grow here. And there is no winter to kill them so soon as they are come to perfection."

"There are no earthquakes here, either," said Eunice, a little jealous for the honor of her native land, "and no snakes."

"Oh, as to snakes, bah! One meets them scarcely ever. It is not one in five thousand that is ever hurt by them; and as for earthquakes, well, certainly they are not nice. But I do not know; the earthquake does endure but a little, and the winter lasts half the year!"

"But the earthquake kills people."

"Well, and does not the winter kill people too? Whence come all your consumptives but from the winter? I think it is like the cold white witch my nurse used to tell me of, who walks forth at night, and the grass and flowers wither under her tread. But you like your own land; that is but natural. I like it also, but not as my own, and not the winter."

"Shall you ever go back?" asked Eunice.

"Oh yes, some time, I suppose. It will depend upon my father's business. If we do, do you know what plan I have in my head? You know there is freedom of religion in Mexico now, and many have even become Protestants. I think I will have a little school for the Indian girls of our estate. They are very gentle, kind people and good servants, but they are very ignorant. They know not to read or write, and have never seen a Bible."

"I suppose they are Romanists," said Eunice.

"That is not so easy to tell," replied Anita. "In the cities they are so, doubtless, and in the country places they will go to confession once a year. But they know very little Spanish, and often the priests to whom they confess know nothing at all of their language. They have many strange ceremonies of their own, and some say they still worship the gods of their ancestors. They love not the Spaniard in general, but my father has ever been a friend to them; and as for my mother, I give you my word, Eunice, that these poor people would lie down in the river to make a bridge for her to pass over."

"How nice!" said Eunice, much interested. "You might be a regular missionary among them, Anita."

"That is what I am thinking."

"I always envy people who can go upon missions," said Eunice. "When I read about them, I always wonder, not that some should go, but that there are not a great many more."

"I suppose there would be more if there were more money to send them," remarked Anita. "And after all, Eunice, when one had once become accustomed to the strangeness of the ways, I suppose work and school-teaching and all that would be much the same in one place as in another. Only, one has not to need in general quite so many fleas and the like, as one reads of in Miss West's and Mrs. Wheeler's books."

"Or to sleep in the room with buffaloes, and have them get loose and fight in the night. Do you remember Miss Beecher's telling us that story?"

"That would be nearly as bad as the earthquakes of which you have such a dread," said Anita, smiling. "Come, let us go in. Tea must be nearly ready, and I have stained my hands with gathering leaves."

At the tea-table, the party was joined by Mr. Ferarra and a lady to whom Eunice was introduced as Miss Fay. Miss Fay was a little, active-looking body of an uncertain age, with good features and bright eyes, who would have been attractive but for her expression of sharpness and self-consequence. She was a lady with a small independence, which she stretched by living very economically at home and making a great many visits. She was well educated and accomplished, and people were generally glad to see her come. They were also glad to see her go, and usually remarked when she was gone that "Miss Fay was a very agreeable person, though she had her ways."

Miss Fay was a cousin of Mrs. Ferarra's, and it was with great pleasure that she heard of her settling in Rockdale. She at once wrote to her cousin, and received the expected invitation to make a long visit at her house. She had already been in the family some two months, and Mrs. Ferarra and Anita were beginning to be somewhat weary of her "ways" and to wonder when she meant to go. In fact, if they had but known it, she did not mean to go at all, at least for a year.

Miss Fay prided herself on "reading character at a glance," which, as usual, simply meant that she took likes and dislikes with no sort of reason, and attributed to people motives and plans of which they themselves had no idea. She was herself something of an invalid in reality, and a good deal more in fancy, but she had no patience with any other person's complaints, treating them all as "hysterical humbug" or "simply self-indulgence." She had her good qualities too, and when she took a liking, she was a warm and faithful friend.

Anita perceived at once that Miss Fay regarded Eunice with anything but friendly eyes. In fact, Miss Fay had heard, or fancied she had heard, some hints of a plan to take a girl of Anita's own age into the family as a companion to her young cousin, and as soon as she saw Eunice she jumped at once to the conclusion that she had been brought to the house for some such purpose. In the time she had spent at Rockdale, she had used her opportunity so well that she had learned something of the history of almost every person attending the little church. Consequently, she knew at once, on hearing the name, that Eunice was the daughter of a woman who took in fine washing and plain sewing. Her greeting to Eunice was stiffly condescending, and she took opportunity during the meal to ask her "if her mother had plenty of work," and "whether she found sewing as profitable as clear-starching."—Inquiries which Eunice answered with perfect simplicity.

"Come into the conservatory," said Anita after tea. "I want to show you the new climbing fern and a wonderful new geranium some one has sent Mother."

"I must be going pretty soon," replied Eunice. "You know I have quite a walk, and mother does not like to have me out after dark."

"It is nearly dark now," remarked Mr. Ferarra—"too late for you to go down alone.—Anita, tell James to get up the pony phaeton, and I will take you and your friend for a little drive, and so home."

When Mr. Ferarra and Anita returned, they found Mrs. Ferarra and Miss Fay in the midst of an active argument, if that could be called an argument which was all on one side.

"Mark my words, Anna," Miss Fay was saying: "if you take this step, you will repent it."

"What step?" asked Mr. Ferarra.

"That of taking this girl into the family to be a companion to Anita. I can read character at a glance, and I can see plainly that she is both ill-tempered and deceitful. And besides, the idea! A washerwoman's daughter! If you must take such a step—which is simply flying in the face of Providence, in my opinion—there are surely girls of good family—" Miss Fay paused from sheer lack of breath.

"What do you mean?" asked Mr. Ferarra in wonder. "Who has proposed such a thing?"

"Nobody, that I know of," answered Mrs. Ferarra, half vexed and half amused. "Maria has somehow taken up the idea that we mean to adopt Eunice into the family, and she has been fighting this windmill for half an hour."

"I am sure I wish I had a sister like Eunice," said Anita; "I think she is admirable."

"I am sure I don't see why you call it 'fighting a windmill,'" said Miss Fay in a tone of lofty endurance; "you said you thought it was good for Anita to have young society, and in the same breath you say this Eunice is a daughter any one might be proud to own."

"Exactly, but I never said I meant to 'own' her."

"Now, I don't say it might not be good for Anita to have a companion," pursued Miss Fay—"some one who could form her mind and manners and influence her in the right direction. But as for adopting a girl of her own age—and such a girl!—I never heard anything so absurd. The fewer companions of their own age such girls have, the better for them, in my opinion."

"Then you think Providence made a mistake in giving most people brothers and sisters?" observed Mrs. Ferarra.

"Really, Anna, I think such an irreverent remark is better unanswered," said Miss Fay with arid dignity. "But as to this girl—"

"We will drop the discussion of the young lady's character, if you please, Cousin Maria," said Mr. Ferarra: "It is hardly treating a guest courteously or kindly to talk her over in this way the moment she leaves the house.—What are you looking for, Anna?"

"My thimble, as usual," said Mrs. Ferarra. "I wish it would jump up and bite me every time I set if down out of place. Then perhaps I might learn to take some care of it."

"I read to-day of a gentleman who said if he could have but one wish, he would wish for a paper-knife which would come when he whistled for it. It would be well if mamma's thimble possessed that accomplishment," said Anita mischievously.—"Was it your little gold one, mamma?"

"Yes, but never mind; it will come," said Mrs. Ferarra. "Bring me my netting, pet. It is better work for the evening than the lace. By the way, how did Eunice succeed with her lace-work?"

"Oh, so very nicely, mamma. She has 'finger-wit,' as Sister John-of-the-Cross * used to say. And she made me understand the other work without delay. She is 'apt to teach,' and 'apt' also to be taught."

* Such compound names are not uncommon among nuns. I have known of
"Mary of the Seven Sorrows" and others equally singular.

"And what did you talk about?" asked Mr. Ferarra.

"Oh, I told her of Mexico—the city and the country, and the flowers and trees and the volcanoes. And she was much interested to hear of the convent and the ways of the nuns, because she has some relation who makes a great grief to her friends for that she will be a nun. Then we talked about the Protestant missions, and she said she would like to be a missionary herself, only that she is her mother's only child."

"Exactly," said Miss Fay. "There shows the cloven foot."

"Does it take a 'cloven foot' to make a missionary?" asked Mr. Ferarra. "I did not know that."

Miss Fay rose with much dignity. "I am not accustomed to be treated with ridicule," said she as she sailed toward the door. "I must ask permission to withdraw."

"What ails her to-night?" asked Mr. Ferarra.

"Oh, nothing more than usual," replied his wife. "She is always that way, and her mother was so before her. If you happened to say anything about going to the moon before Aunt Cordelia, she would make you a long oration on the impossibility of such an excursion, and your folly, and even wickedness, in wishing to go. Maria is certainly a little trying, but then she is our cousin, and we may as well have her a little while as anybody else."

The next morning, Miss Fay put on her hat and went down to Mrs. Gunderson's. Mrs. Gunderson's house had been well described by Ida as a gossip-shop. Both mother and daughter resembled the Athenians of St. Paul's day, in that they "spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing;" and, like other newsgatherers and venders, they were by no means particular as to the truth of the news they retailed. Mrs. Ferarra disliked them, and kept out of their way as much as possible, much to the annoyance of Mrs. Gunderson, who would have liked to be intimate with the lady.

Both Mrs. Gunderson and Fanny welcomed Miss Fay with great warmth. To be sure, she was not the rose, but then she had been near the rose; and her talk about the "absurd spoiling of that child" and "reckless expense in buying books and plants" had already furnished the gossip-shop with some choice wares.

"I saw Mr. Ferarra driving out with his daughter and some other young lady last night," observed Fanny. "I suppose Anita has some friend from New York staying with her?"

"Young lady, indeed!" said Miss Fay. "It was that Eunice Riker, the washerwoman's daughter. She and Anita were together all the afternoon over some fancy-work, and she stayed to tea."

"How very queer!" said Fanny Gunderson. "But perhaps Mrs. Ferarra employed her to teach Anita?"

"Oh no, not all, I assure you. She was quite an honored guest, and the instruction was reciprocal. Miss Anita was teaching the girl to make Mexican lace."

Now, there was a sting of bitterness in this news that Miss Fay did not know of. Fanny Gunderson had hinted very plainly to Anita that she should like to learn this same Mexican lace, and had received no sort of encouragement.

"Humph!" said she significantly. "I hope Anita takes care of her working-materials, that's all." And she cast a meaning glance at her mother, who returned it with interest.

"What do you mean?" asked Miss Fay.

"Perhaps you had better not say anything, Fanny," said Mrs. Gunderson. "There may be some mistake, and, anyhow, Mrs. Ferarra is her own mistress, though I must say—" And here Mrs. Gunderson paused.

"Do tell me to what you allude," said Miss Fay; "I have a particular reason for wishing to know. If there is anything against this girl's character, it is of great importance that I should hear it."

"Well, they say—but of course it may not be so—that Mrs. Riker and Eunice are in the habit of appropriating a part of the stuff sent them to make up, and exchanging it at the stores for what they want."

"Stealing it, in fact," said Fanny. "People get them to knit children's stockings, you know. Well, it is very easy to take out a few knots or skeins and trade them for thread or other such things. A lady told me that Mrs. Ackerman gave Eunice a quantity of fine red yarn to knit—enough for two or three pairs, she said. She was present when Eunice brought back one pair of stockings, saying that there was not enough yarn for another pair. And afterward, this same lady saw Eunice exchanging that very yarn for Shetland wool. She said she could not be mistaken, for the yarn was of a very peculiar color and very fine."

"I knew there was something wrong about her," exclaimed Miss Fay in triumph. "I can read character at a glance, and I said to myself at once, 'That girl has a false mouth and eye. Such eyebrows as hers are a sure sign of dishonesty and hypocrisy.' That accounts for Anna's thimble, then."

"What about the thimble?" asked Mrs. Gunderson and Fanny together.

"Oh, nothing; only Mrs. Ferarra lost her gold thimble last evening. She missed it directly after this girl went away. She says she presumes she shall find it again, but I have very serious doubts."

"No indeed, it is not very likely," said Mrs. Gunderson, delighted. "Well, I hope she will have had enough of her, that's all."

"But don't say anything about it," said Miss Fay. "The thimble may come, you know."

"Oh yes, it may, but things lost in that way are not apt to come. The last time the sewing-circle met at Mrs. Barnard's, I lost a spool of thread in the most singular way. Mrs. Barnard gave me another, and said the missing spool would come, but it never did, and I have no doubt that that little Irish Norah got it."

"So, Anna—" said Miss Fay, coming into Mrs. Ferarra's morning-room, where that lady was busily engaged in basting work for the sewing-school. And then she added with a curious change of tone, "Where did you find your thimble?"

"Just where I left it—in the Wedgwood dish on the back drawing-room table," replied Mrs. Ferarra. "Flynn called me to see some new plants, and, fearing to lose my thimble entirely if I wore it out of doors, I put it in a safe place, and of course forgot where it was. I remembered the moment I went into the back drawing-room this morning. Where have you been?"

"Down to Mrs. Gunderson's," answered Miss Fay, rather shortly.

She did not tell the story about the yarn, which had been, so to speak, on her tongue's end when she came in, but went away to her own room, feeling very uncomfortable.

"I wish I had not said anything about the thimble," said she to herself as she put away her hat. "Just the way with such careless people as Anna—always getting one into trouble. I must tell Mrs. Gunderson that the thimble is found; I will go this very afternoon."

But that afternoon there came on a violent storm which kept Miss Fay in the house for two days, and then came a summons home on important business. To do Miss Fay justice, she wrote to Mrs. Gunderson as soon as she was able, but meantime the story had been told to twenty different people. "The slander" says an old French proverb, "has twelve legs—the denial has but one." Before the end of the week, twenty people had heard that Eunice Riker had stolen both from Mrs. Ackerman and Mrs. Ferarra, but the ladies had talked it over and agreed not to prosecute, because Eunice and her mother were both church-members.

Meantime, Eunice and Anita, totally unconscious that anything was wrong, exchanged lessons in lace-making and crochet-work. The lace-making was very easy, requiring only neatness and care, and Anita soon pronounced Eunice's work as good as her own.

"I shall show it to mamma's friend who wishes the pillow-covers worked," said she. "I hope she will give you all the work you can do. But come; you have remained still long enough. Let us go and visit the bear. I think you have not yet seen him."

"A bear?" said Eunice. "What do you do with a bear?"

"We do nothing with him, only feed him," replied Anita, seriously. "He was here when we came, and Mr. Brown was to sell him to some person who had a show, but the man never came. Papa says he will give him to the Park menagerie, for the poor beast will be happier there than in a travelling show, and mamma likes not to have him on the place."

"Why? Is he savage?"

"No, he is quite gentle to appearance, but bears are not very trustworthy creatures, you know, and he has got out once or twice. Once he went into the conservatory and climbed to the highest shelf, and there he sat grinning when mamma went in. I give you my word, mamma was alarmed when she saw him."

"I don't wonder," said Eunice. "Fancy finding a full-grown bear among one's geraniums! What did she do?"

"She called James, who tempted him home to his house with a dish of sugar. He will do anything for sugar. We will carry him some, and also some cake. I shall be sorry to have him go away; I have become fond of him. Do you not think one becomes fond of anything by feeding it and doing it good?"

"Almost always," answered Eunice. "I dare say you will become fond of me by teaching me lace-work."

"I am that now," returned Anita. "I do not pretend to read character at a glance like Cousin Maria, but I liked you the first minute I saw you."