I
watched these girls, and, beginning to understand, wondered if I had
grown old before my time, or if I were too young to comprehend their
point of view, for, to their strange enlightenment I was practically as
yet unborn.
Lavinia Dorman says caustically that I really belong with her in the
middle of the last century, and she, born to what father says was really
the best society and privilege of New York life, like his college chum
Martin Cortright, is now swept quite aside by the swirl.
"Yes, dear child," she insists (how different this use of the word
sounds from when the Lady of the Bluffs uses the universal "my dear"
impartially to mistress and maid, shopgirl and guest), "you not only
belong to the last century, but as far back in it as myself, and I am
fifty-five, full measure.
"The new idea among the richer and consequently more privileged classes
is, that girls are to be fitted not only to go out into the world and
shine in different ways unknown to their grandmothers, but to be
superior to home, which of necessity unfits them for a return trip if the
excursion is unsuccessful.
"What with high ideas, high rents, and higher education, the home myth is
speedily following Santa Claus out of female education, and, argue as one
may, New York is the social pace-maker 'East of the Rockies,' as the free
delivery furniture companies advertise. I congratulate you anew that the
twins are boys!"
I laughed to myself over Miss Lavinia's letter; she is always so
deliciously in earnest and so perturbed over any change in the social
ways of her dearly beloved New York, that I'm wondering how she finds it,
on her return after two years or more abroad (she was becoming agitated
before she left), and whether she will ask me down for another of those
quaint little visits, where she so faithfully tours me through the shops
and a few select teas, when, to wind it up, Evan buys opera box seats so
that she may have the satisfaction of having her hair dressed, wearing
her point lace bertha and aigret, and showing us who is who, and the
remainder who are not.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25