FullReads

“Who could expect him to come here?” Emily replied, to the remark of her sister. “Not I, certainly.”

“I don’t believe that would make any difference with him,” Florence ventured to say, for it was little that she could say, that did not meet with opposition.

“Why don’t you?” asked Adeline.

“Because Mary Jones–“

“Mary Jones again!” ejaculated Emily. “I believe you don’t think of anybody but Mary Jones. I’m surprised that Ma lets you visit that girl!”

“As good people as I am visit her,” replied Florence. “I’ve seen those there who would be welcome here.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you had waited until I had finished my sentence, you would have known before now. Mary Jones lives in a house no better than this, and Mr. Armand goes to see her.”

“I don’t believe it!” said Emily, with emphasis.

“Just as you like about that. Seeing is believing, they say, and as I have seen him there, I can do no less than believe he was there.”

“When did you see him there?” Emily now asked with eager interest, while her face grew pale.

“I saw him there last evening–and he sat conversing with Mary in a way that showed them to be no strangers to each other.”

A long, embarrassed, and painful silence followed this announcement. At last, Emily got up and went off to her chamber, where she threw herself upon her bed and burst into tears. After these ceased to flow, and her mind had become, in some degree, tranquillized, her thoughts became busy. She remembered that Mr. Armand had called, while they were hiding away in fear lest it should be known that they were not on a fashionable visit to some watering place–how he had rung and rung repeatedly, as if under the idea that they were there, and how his countenance expressed disappointment as she caught a glimpse of it through the closed shutters. With all this came, also, the idea that he might have discovered that they were at home, and have despised the principle from which they acted, in thus shutting themselves up, and denying all visiters. This thought was exceedingly painful. It was evident to her, that it was not their changed circumstances that kept him away–for had he not visited Mary Jones?

Uncle Joseph came in a few evenings afterwards, and during his visit the following conversation took place.

“Mr. Armand visits Mary Jones, I am told,” Adeline remarked, as an opportunity for saying so occurred.

“He does? Well, she is a good girl–one in a thousand,” replied Uncle Joseph.

“She is only a watchmaker’s daughter,” said Emily, with an ill-concealed sneer.

“And you are only a merchant’s daughter. Pray, what is the difference?”

“Why, a good deal of difference!”

“Well state it.”

“Mr. Jones is nothing but a mechanic.”

“Well?”

“Who thinks of associating with mechanics?”

“There may be some who refuse to do so; but upon what grounds do they assume a superiority?”

“Because they are really above them.”

“But in what respect?”

“They are better and more esteemed in society.”

“As to their being better, that is only an assumption. But I see I must bring the matter right home. Would you be really any worse, were your father a mechanic?”

“The question is not a fair one. You suppose an impossible case.”

“Not so impossible as you might imagine. You are the daughter of a mechanic.”

“Brother, why will you talk so? I am out of all patience with you!” said Mrs. Ludlow, angrily.

“And yet, no one knows better than you, that I speak only the truth. No one knows better than you, that Mr. Ludlow served many years at the trade of a shoemaker. And that, consequently, these high-minded young ladies, who sneer at mechanics, are themselves a shoemaker’s daughters–a fact that is just as well known abroad as anything else relating to the family. And now, Misses Emily and Adeline, I hope you will hereafter find it in your hearts to be a little more tolerant of mechanics daughters.”

And thus saying, Uncle Joseph rose, and bidding them good night, left them to their own reflections, which were not of the most pleasant character, especially as the mother could not deny the allegation he had made.

During the next summer, Mr. Ludlow, whose business was no longer embarrassed, and who had become satisfied that, although he should sink a large proportion of a handsome fortune, he would still have a competence left, and that well secured–proposed to visit Saratoga, as usual. There was not a dissenting voice–no objecting on the score of meeting vulgar people there. The painful fact disclosed by Uncle Joseph, of their plebeian origin, and the marriage of Mr. Armand–whose station in society was not to be questioned–with Mary Jones, the watchmaker’s daughter, had softened and subdued their tone of feeling, and caused them to set up a new standard of estimation. The old one would not do, for, judged by that, they would have to hide their diminished heads. Their conduct at the Springs was far less objectionable than it had been heretofore, partaking of the modest and retiring in deportment, rather than the assuming, the arrogant, and the self-sufficient. Mrs. Armand was there, with her sister, moving in the first circles; and Emily Ludlow and her sister Adeline felt honored rather than humiliated by an association with them. It is to be hoped they will yet make sensible women.