OUR TALKS WITH UNCLE JOHN.
TALK NUMBER ONE.
We were happy children, Alice and I, when, on Alice's sixteenth birthday, we persuaded our father, the most indulgent parent in Cincinnati, that there was no need of our going to school any longer; not that our education was finished,—we did not even put up such a preposterous plea as that,—but because Mrs. C. did not intend to send Laura, and we did not believe any of our set of girls would go back after the holidays.
There is no being so facile as an American father, especially where his daughters are concerned; and our dear father was no exception to the general rule. So our school education was finished. For the rest, for the real education of our minds and hearts, we took care of ourselves.
How could it be otherwise? Our father, a leading merchant in Cincinnati, spent his days in his counting-room, and his evenings buried in his newspapers or in his business calculations, on the absorbing nature of which we had learned to build with such certainty, that, when his consent was necessary to some scheme of pleasure, we preferred our requests with such a nice adjustment of time, that the answer generally was, "January 3d,—two thousand bales,—yes, my dear,—and twelve are sixteen,—yes, Alice, don't bother me, child!" and, armed with that unconscious assent, we sought our mother.
"Papa says that we may go. Do you think, mamma, that Miss D. can have our dresses in time?"
Our dear mother, most faithful and indefatigable in her care for our bodily wants, what time had she for aught else? With feeble health, with poor servants, with a large house crowded with fine furniture, and with the claims of a numerous calling and party-giving acquaintance,—claims which both my father and herself imagined his business and her social position made imperative,—what could she do more than to see that our innumerable white skirts were properly tucked, embroidered, washed, and starched, that our party dresses were equal to those which Mrs. C. and Mrs. D. provided for their girls, and that our bonnets were fashionable enough for Fourth Street? Could she find time for anything more? Yes,—on our bodily ailments she always found time to bestow motherly care, watchfulness, and sympathy; of our mental ills she knew nothing.
So we cared for ourselves, Alice and I, through those merry, thoughtless two years that followed,—merry (not happy) in our Fourth-Street promenades, our Saturday-afternoon assignations at the dancing-school rooms, our parties and picnics; and merry still, but thoughtless always, in our eager search for excitement in the novels, whose perusal was our only literary enjoyment.
Somehow we woke up,—somehow we groped our way out of our frivolity. First came weariness, then impatience, and last a passing-away of all things old and a putting-on of things new.
I remember well the day when Alice first spoke out her unrest. My pretty Alice! I see her now, as she flung herself across the foot of the bed, and, her chin on her hand, watched me combing and parting my hair. I see again those soft, dark brown eyes, so deep in their liquid beauty that you lost yourself gazing down into them; again I see falling around her that wealth of auburn hair of the true Titian color, the smooth, low forehead, and the ripe, red lips, whose mobility lent such varying expression to her face.
At that moment the eyes drooped and the lips trembled with weariness.
"Must we go to that tiresome party, Kate? We have been to three this week; they are all alike."
