A Letter of Credit Part 26

CHAPTER VII.

MENTAL PHILOSOPHY.

The next day being again warm, Mr. Digby did not come for Rotha till the afternoon was far advanced. They took then one of the street cars, which would bring them to the Park entrance. The way was long and the drive slow. It was also silent, of necessity; and both parties had leisure for thoughts, as well as material enough.

Rotha was at first divided between the pleasure of seeing things, and a somewhat uneasy reflection upon her own appearance. She was not in general a self-conscious child; very much the reverse; but to-day she was with Mr. Digby, and she had an exalted idea of the requirements of everything even remotely connected with him. She was going in his company; under his charge; how did she look? She was not satisfied on that point. Mr. Digby himself was always so nice and perfect in his dress, she said to herself; she ought to be very nice to go with him.

Truly she had put on the best she had; a white cambrick frock; it was clean and white; but Rotha had none but her everyday brown straw hat, and she knew _that_ was not "smart"; and her dress, she pondered it as she went along, she was sure it was very old-fashioned indeed. Certainly it was not made like the dresses of other girls of her own age, whom she saw in the car or on the sidewalk. Theirs were ruffled; hers was plain; theirs generally stood out in an imposing manner; while her own clung in slim folds around her slim little person. She concluded that she could not be in any degree what Mrs. Marble called "stylish." The exact meaning of that word indeed Rotha could not define; undefinedly she felt it to be something vastly desirable. She decided in her own mind that Mr. Digby was stylish; which it is true proved that the young girl had a nice feeling for things; since the fact, which was undoubted, was entirely unaccompanied by anything in matter or manner of wearing which could take the vulgar eye. Would he dislike going in public, she wondered, with a little figure like herself? She hoped not, she thought not; but thought it with a curious independence, which I am afraid was really born of pride though it took the semblance of good sense.

Gradually the interest of other figures made Rotha forget her own. They came out from the poor part of the city where she dwelt; streets grew wide and shops lofty and imposing; equipages drove along, outstripping the slow-going car; and in them, what ladies, and what gentlemen, and what little girls now and then! This was the wonderful New York, at which she had now and then had a peep; this was something five hundred miles removed from Jane Street. What sort of human beings were these? and what sort of life did they live? and did money make all the difference, or was there some more intrinsic and essential distinction between them and their fellows in Abingdon Square? At any rate, how very, very much better off they were!

Mr. Digby's musings had much less to do with the surface of things. I doubt indeed if he saw ought that was before his eyes, all the way to the Park. Not even Rotha herself; and yet she was the main subject of his cogitations. He was feeling that his kindness to Mrs. Carpenter had brought him into difficulties. The very occasion for this journey to the Park was bad enough; so disagreeable in fact that he did not like to look at it, and hardly had looked at it until now; he was going as a man goes into battle; and a rain of bullets, he thought, would have been easier to face. How he should accomplish his task he had as yet no idea. But supposing it done; and supposing all the trouble past for which he had to prepare Rotha; what then? What was he to do with the charge he had a.s.sumed? He, a young man without a family, with no proper home in the country of his abode, what was he to do with the care of a girl like Rotha? how should he manage it? If she had been a little child it would have been a more simple affair; but fourteen years old is not at all far removed from seventeen, and eighteen. Where should _her_ home be? and her future sphere of life? and where was the promised womanly protection under which he was to place her? He gave a glance at the girl. She was good material to work upon, that was one alleviation of his task; he had had some practical proof of it, and now, more carefully than ever before, he looked for the outward signs and tokens in feature and expression. And as Rotha had once declared that Mr. Digby's eyes were handsome, he now privately returned the compliment to hers. Yes, this child, who had an awkward appearance as to her figure--he did not know then that the effect was due to her dress--she had undoubtedly fine eyes. Poor complexion, he said to himself after a second glance, but good eyes. And not merely in shape and hue; they were full of speculation, full of thought, full of the possibilities of pa.s.sion and feeling. There was character in them; and so there was in the well formed, well closed mouth. _There_ was refinement too; the lines were not those of an uncultured, low- conditioned nature; they were fine and beautiful. It had never occurred to Mr. Digby before to think how Rotha promised to be in the matter of looks; although he had many a time caught the gleam of intelligent fire in the course of her recitations and his lesson giving, and once or twice had seen that pa.s.sion of one kind or another was at work. He read now very plainly that his charge, to go back to the old philosophy of human nature which reckoned man to be composed of the four elements, had a great deal of the fire and the air in her composition, with little of the heaviness of the earth, and as little as possible of the lymphatic quality. It made his task the more interesting, and in so far lightened it; but it made it at the same time vastly more difficult. Here was a sensitive, quick, pa.s.sionate, independent nature to deal with; how ever should he deal with it? And how ever was he to execute his purpose to- day? the purpose with which he had brought her, poor child, to this walk in the Park. Was it not rather cruel, to begin a time of great pain with a taste of exquisite pleasure? Mr. Digby hardly knew what he would do, when he left the car with his charge and entered the Park.

They went in at the great Fifth Avenue entrance; and for a few minutes he was engaged in piloting himself and her through the crowd of coming and going carriages; but when they reached quiet going and a secure footpath, he looked at her. It smote him. Such an expression of awakened delight was in her face; such keen curiosity, such simplicity and fulness of enjoyment. Rotha was at a self-conscious age, but she had forgotten herself; two years old is not more free from self-recollection. They walked along slowly, the girl reviewing everything in the lively show before her; lips parting sometimes for a smile, but with no leisure for a word. Her companion watched her. They walked on and on; turned now hither and now thither; Rotha remained in a maze, only mechanically following where she was led.

It was a fine afternoon, and all the world was out. Carriages, riders, foot travellers; everywhere crowds of people. Where was Mr. Digby going to make the communication he had come here to make? He doubted about it now, but if he spoke, where should it be? Not in this crowd, where any minute some acquaintance might see him and speak to him. With some trouble he sought out a resting place for Rotha from whence she could have a good view of one angle of a much travelled drive, and at the same time both of them were in a sort hid away from observation. Here they sat down; but if Rotha's feet might rest, her companion's mind was further and further from any such point of comfort. They had exchanged hardly any words since they set out; and now the difficulty of beginning what he had to say seemed greater than ever. There was a long silence. Rotha broke it; she did not know that it had been long.

"Mr. Digby--there are a great many things I do not understand."

"My case too, Rotha."

"Yes, but you understand a great many things that I don't."

"What is troubling you now, with a sense of ignorance?"

"I see in a great many carriages two gentlemen dressed just alike, sitting together; they are on the back seat always, and they always have their arms folded, just alike; what are they?"

"Not gentlemen, Rotha; they are footmen, or grooms."

"What's the difference?"

"Between footmen and grooms?"

"No, no; between a gentleman and a man that isn't a gentleman?"

"You asked me that once before, didn't you?"

"Yes; but I don't make it out."

"Why do you try?"

"Why Mr. Digby, I like to understand things."

"Quite right, too, Rotha. Well--the difference is more in the feelings and manners than in anything else."

"Not in the dress?"

"Certainly not. Though it is not like a gentleman to be improperly dressed."

"What is 'improperly dressed.'"

"Not nice and neat."

"Nice and neat--_clean_ and neat, you mean?"

"Yes."

"Then a gentleman may have poor clothes on?"

"Of course."

"Can anybody be _poor_ and be a gentleman?"

"Not _anybody_, but a gentleman may be poor, certainly, without ceasing to be a gentleman."

"But if he was poor to begin with--could he be a gentleman then?"

"Yes, Rotha," said her friend smiling at her; "money has nothing to do with the matter. Except only, that without money it is difficult for a boy to be trained in the habits and education of a gentleman."

"Education?" said Rotha.

"Yes."

"You said, 'feeling and manners.'"

"Well, yes. But you can see for yourself, that without education it would be hardly possible that manners should be exactly what they ought to be.

A gentleman should give to everybody just that sort of attention and respect which is due; just the right words and the right tone and the fitting manner; how can he, if he does not understand his own position in the world and that of other people? and why the one and the other are what they are."

"Then I don't see how poor people can be ladies and gentlemen," said Rotha discontentedly.

"Being poor has nothing to do with it, except so far."

"But that's far enough, Mr. Digby."

He heard the disappointed ambition in the tone of the girl's words.

"Rotha," he said kindly, "whoever will follow the Bible rules of good manners, will be sure to be right, as far as that goes."

"Can one follow them without being a Christian?"

"Well no, hardly. You see, the very root of them is love to one's neighbour; and one cannot have that, truly and universally, without loving Christ first."

"Then are all gentlemen Christians?"

The young man laughed a little at her pertinacity.