We and Our Neighbors: or, The Records of an Unfashionable Street

"And so am I, ma'am; and if my cake box was open it is because somebody has been to it since I shut it. It may be that Mrs. Henderson has taken something out."

"I noticed, Mary, a broom in the parlor closet not hung up; it ruins brooms to set them down in that way."

By this time the hot, combative blood of Ireland rose in Mary's cheek, and she turned and stood at bay.

"Mrs. Wouvermans, you are not my mistress, and this is not your house; and I am not going to answer to you, but to Mrs. Henderson, about my matters."

"Mary, don't you speak to me in that way," said Mrs. Wouvermans, drawing herself up.

"I shall speak in just that way to anybody who comes meddling with what they have no business with. If you was my mistress, I'd tell you to suit yourself to a better girl; and I shall ask Mrs. Henderson if I am to be overlooked in this way. No lady would ever do it," said Mary, with a hot emphasis on the word lady, and tears of wrath in her eyes.

"There's no use in being impertinent, Mary," said Mrs. Wouvermans, with stately superiority, as she turned and sailed up stairs, leaving Mary in a tempest of impotent anger.

Just about this time Eva returned from her walk with a basket full of cut flowers, and came singing into the kitchen and began arranging flower vases; not having looked into the parlor on her way, she did not detect the traces of Aunt Maria's presence.

"Well, Mary," she called, in her usual cheerful tone, "come and look at my flowers."

But Mary came not, although Eva perceived her with her back turned in the pantry.

"Why, Mary, what is the matter?" said Eva, following her there and seeing her crying. "Why, you dear soul, what has happened? Are you sick?"

"Your Aunt Maria has been here."

"Oh, the horrors, Mary. Poor Aunt Maria! you mustn't mind a word she says. Don't worry, now —don't– you know Aunt Maria is always saying things to us girls, but we don't mind it, and you mustn't; we know she means well, and we just let it pass for what it's worth."

"Yes; you are young ladies, and I am only a poor woman, and it comes hard on me. She's been round looking into every crack and corner, and picked up those old cabbage leaves, and talked to me about keeping a cellar that would give you all a fever – it's too bad. You know yesterday I hurried and cut up that cabbage to help make out the dinner when those gentlemen came in and we had only the cold mutton, and I was going to clear them away this very morning."

"I know it, Mary; and you do the impossible for us all twenty times a day, if you did drop cabbage leaves once; and Aunt Maria has no business to be poking about my house and prying into our management; but, you see, Mary, she's my aunt, and I can't quarrel with her. I'm sorry, but we must just bear it as well as we can – now promise not to mind it – for my sake."

"Well, for your sake, Miss Eva," said Mary, wiping her eyes.

"You know we all think you are a perfect jewel, Mary, and couldn't get along a minute without you. As to Aunt Maria, she's old, and set in her way, and the best way is not to mind her."

And Mary was consoled, and went on her way with courage, and with about as much charity for Mrs. Wouvermans as an average good Christian under equal provocation.

Eva went on singing and making up her vases, and carried them into the parlor, and was absorbed in managing their respective positions, when Aunt Maria came down from her tour in the chambers.

"Seems to me, Eva, that your hired girl's room is furnished up for a princess," she began, after the morning greetings had been exchanged.

"What, Mary's? Well, Mary has a great deal of neatness and taste, and always took particular pride in her room when she lived at mamma's, and so I have arranged hers with special care. Harry got her those pictures of the Madonna and infant Jesus, and I gave the bénitier for holy water, over her bed. We matted the floor nicely, and I made that toilet table, and draped her looking-glass out of an old muslin dress of mine. The pleasure Mary takes in it all makes it really worth while to gratify her."

"I never pet servants," said Mrs. Wouvermans, briefly. "Depend on it, Eva, when you've lived as long as I have, you'll find it isn't the way. It makes them presumptuous and exacting. Why, at first, when I blundered into Mary's room, I thought it must be yours – it had such an air."

"Well, as to the air, it's mostly due to Mary's perfect neatness and carefulness. I'm sorry to say you wouldn't always find my room as trimly arranged as hers, for I am a sad hand to throw things about when I am in a hurry. I love order, but I like somebody else to keep it."

"I'm afraid," said Aunt Maria, returning with persistence to her subject, "that you are beginning wrong with Mary, and you'll have trouble in the end. Now I saw she had white sugar in the kitchen sugar-bowl, and there was the tea caddy for her to go to. It's abominable to have servants feel that they must use such tea as we do."

"Oh, well, aunty, you know Mary has been in the family so long I don't feel as if she were a servant; she seems like a friend, and I treat her like one. I believe Mary really loves us."

"It don't do to mix sentiment and business," said Aunt Maria, with sententious emphasis. "I never do. I don't want my servants to love me – that is not what I have them for. I want them to do my work, and take their wages. They understand that there are to be no favors – everything is specifically set down in the bargain I make with them; their work is all marked out. I never talk with them, or encourage them to talk to me, and that is the way we get along."

"Dear me, Aunt Maria, that may be all very well for such an energetic, capable housekeeper as you are, who always know exactly how to manage, but such a poor little thing as I am can't set up in that way. Now I think it's a great mercy and favor to have a trained girl that knows more about how to get on than I do, and that is fond of me. Why, I know rich people that would be only too glad to give Mary double what we give, just to have somebody to depend on."

"But, Eva, child, you're beginning wrong – you ought not to leave things to Mary as you do. You ought to attend to everything yourself. I always do."

"But you see, aunty, the case is very different with you and me. You are so very capable and smart, and know so exactly how everything ought to be done, you can make your own terms with everybody. And, now I think of it, how lucky that you came in! I want you to give me your judgment as to two pieces of linen that I've just had sent in. You know, Aunty, I am such a perfect ignoramus about these matters."

And Eva tripped up stairs, congratulating herself on turning the subject, and putting her aunt's busy advising faculties to some harmless and innocent use. So, when she came down with her two pieces of linen, Aunt Maria tested and pulled them this way and that, in the approved style of a domestic expert, and gave judgment at last with an authoritative air.

"This is the best, Eva – you see it has a round thread, and very little dressing."

"And why is the round thread the best, Aunty?"

"Oh, because it always is – everybody knows that, child; all good judges will tell you to buy the round threaded linen, that's perfectly well understood."

Eva did not pursue the inquiry farther, and we must all confess that Mrs. Wouverman's reply was about as satisfactory as those one gets to most philosophical inquiries as to why and wherefore. If our reader doubts that, let him listen to the course of modern arguments on some of the most profound problems; so far as can be seen, they consist of inflections of Aunt Maria's style of statement – as, "Oh, of course everybody knows that, now;" or, negatively, "Oh, nobody believes that, now-a-days." Surely, a mode of argument which very wise persons apply fearlessly to subjects like death, judgment and eternity, may answer for a piece of linen.

"Oh, by-the-by, Eva, I see you have cards there for Mrs. Wat Sydney's receptions this winter," said Aunt Maria, turning her attention to the card plate. "They are going to be very brilliant, I'm told. They say nothing like their new house is to be seen in this country."

"Yes," said Eva, "Sophie has been down here urging me to come up and see her rooms, and says they depend on me for their receptions, and I'm going up some day to lunch with her, in a quiet way; but Harry and I have about made up our minds that we sha'n't go to parties. You know, Aunty, we are going in for economy, and this sort of thing costs so much."

"But, bless your soul, child, what is money for?" said Aunt Maria, innocently. "If you have any thing you ought to improve your advantages of getting on in society. It's important to Harry in his profession to be seen and heard of, and to push his way among the notables, and, with due care and thought and economy, a person with your air and style, and your taste, can appear as well as anybody. I came down here, among other things, to look over your dresses, and see what can be done with them."

"Oh, thank you a thousand times, Aunty dear, but what do you think all my little wedding finery would do for me in an assemblage of Worth's spick-and-span new toilettes? In our own little social circles I am quite a leader of the mode, but I should look like an old last night's bouquet among all their fresh finery!"

"Well, now, Eva, child, you talk of economy and all that, and then go spending on knick-knacks and mere fancies what would enable you to make a very creditable figure in society."

"Really, Aunty, is it possible now, when I thought we were being so prudent?"

"Well, there's your wood fire, for instance; very cheerful, I admit, but it's a downright piece of extravagance. I know that the very richest and most elegant people, that have everything they can think of, have fallen back on the fancy of having open wood fires in their parlors, just for a sort of ornament to their rooms, but you don't really need it – your furnace keeps you warm enough."

"But, Aunty, it looks so bright and cheerful, and Harry is so fond of it! We only have it evenings, when he comes home tired, and he says the very sight of it rests him."

"There you go, now, Eva – with wood at fifteen dollars a cord! – going in for a mere luxury just because it pleases your fancy, and you can't go into society because it's so expensive. Eva, child, that's just like you. And there are twenty other little things that I see about here," said Aunt Maria, glancing round, "pretty enough, but each costs a little. There, for instance, those cut flowers in the vases cost something."

"But, Aunty, I got them of a poor little man just setting up a green-house, and Harry and I have made up our minds that it's our duty to patronize him. I'm going up to Sophie's to get her to take flowers for her parties of him."

"It's well enough to get Sophie to do it, but you oughtn't to afford it," said Aunt Maria; "nor need you buy a new matting and pictures for your servant's room."

"Oh, Aunty, mattings are so cheap; and those pictures didn't cost much, and they make Mary so happy!"

"Oh, she'd be happy enough any way. You ought to look out a little for yourself, child."

"Well, I do. Now, just look at the expense of going to parties. To begin with, it annihilates all your dresses, at one fell swoop. If I make up my mind, for instance, not to go to parties this winter, I have dresses enough and pretty enough for all my occasions. The minute I decide I must go, I have nothing, absolutely nothing, to wear. There must be an immediate outlay. A hundred dollars would be a small estimate for all the additions necessary to make me appear with credit. Even if I take my old dresses as the foundation, and use my unparalleled good taste, there are trimmings, and dressmaker's bills, and gloves, and slippers, and fifty things; and then a carriage for the evening, at five dollars a night, and all for what? What does anybody get at a great buzzing party, to pay for all this? Then Harry has to use all his time, and all his nerves, and all his strength on his work. He is driven hard all the time with writing, making up the paper, and overseeing at the office. And you know parties don't begin till near ten o'clock, and if he is out till twelve he doesn't rest well, nor I either – it's just so much taken out of our life – and we don't either of us enjoy it. Now, why should we put out our wood fire that we do enjoy, and scrimp in our flowers, and scrimp in our home comforts, and in our servant's comforts, just to get what we don't want after all?"

"Oh, well, I suppose you are like other new married folks, you want to play Darby and Joan in your chimney-corner," said Aunt Maria, "but, for all that, I think there are duties to society. One cannot go out of the world, you know; it don't do, Eva."

"I don't know about that," said Eva. "We are going to try it."'