Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/148



"I do not pretend to be wise or simple, Sarah; but I didn't think Cousin Josephine had so much vanity."

"You certainly shall have a preacher-bonnet, Letty. How do you know it was vanity, my dear? I saw you show Mr. Stepel your embroidery with the serenest satisfaction; now you made your crewel cherries, and I didn't make my hair; which was vain?"

Letty was astounded. "Thee has a gift of speech, certainly, Jo."

"I have a gift of honesty, you mean. My hair is very handsome, and I knew Mr. Stepel would admire it with real pleasure, for it is a rare color. I took down those curls with quite as simple an intention as you brought him that little picture of Cole's to see."

Josephine was right,--partly, at least. Her hair was perfect; its tint the exact hue of a new chestnut-skin, with golden lights, and shadows of deep brown; not a tinge of red libelled it as auburn; and the light broke on its glittering waves as it does on the sea, tipping the undulations with sunshine, and scattering rays of gold through the long, loose curls, and across the curve of the massive coil, that seemed almost too heavy for her proud and delicate head to bear. Mr. Stepel was excusably enthusiastic about its beauty, and Jo as cool as if it had been a wig. Sometimes I thought this peculiar hair was an expression of her own peculiar character.

Letty said truly that Jo had a gift of speech; and she, having said her say about the hair, dismissed the matter, with no uneasy recurring to it, and took up a book from the table, declaring she was tired of her seam;-- she always was tired of sewing! Presently she laughed.

"What is it, Jo?" said I.

"Why, it is 'Jane Eyre,' with Letty Allis's name on the blank leaf. That is what I call an anachronism, spiritually. What do you think about the book, Letty?" said she, turning her lithe figure round in the great chair toward the little Quakeress, whose pretty red head and apple-blossom of a face bloomed out of her gray attire and prim collar with a certain fascinating contrast.

"I think it has a very good moral tendency, Cousin Jo."

The clear, hazel eyes flashed a most amused comment at me.

"Well, what do you call the moral, Letty?"

"Why,--I should think,--I do not quite know that the moral is stated, Josephine,--but I think thee will allow it was a great triumph of principle for Jane Eyre to leave Mr. Rochester when she discovered that he was married."

Jo flung herself back impatiently in the chair, and began an harangue.

"That is a true world's judgment! And you, you innocent little Quaker girl! think it is the height of virtue not to elope with a married man, who has entirely and deliberately deceived you, and adds to the wrong of deceit the insult of proposing an elopement! Triumph of principle! I should call it the result of common decency, rather,--a thing that the instinct of any woman would compel her to do. My only wonder is how Jane Eyre could continue to love him."

"My dear young friend," said I, rather grimly, "when a woman loves a man, it is apt, I regret to say, to become a fact, not a theory; and facts are stubborn things, you know. It is not easy to set aside a real affection."

"I know that, ma'am," retorted Jo, in a slightly sarcastic tone; "it is a painful truth; still, I do think a deliberate deceit practised on me by any man would decapitate any love I had for him, quite inevitably."

"So it might, in your case," replied I; "for you never will love a man, only your idea of one. You will go on enjoying your mighty theories and dreams till suddenly the juice of that 'little western flower' drips on your eyelids, and then I shall have the pleasure of seeing you caress 'the fair large ears' of some donkey, and hang rapturously upon its bray, till you perhaps discover that he has pretended, on your account