Daisy

"If ye were of the world, the world would love his own. But because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you."

I shut the book. The issue could not be more plainly set forth. I must choose between the one party and the other. Nay, I had chosen; – but I must agree to belong but to one.

Would anybody say that a child could not have such a struggle? that fourteen years do not know yet what "the world" means? Alas, it is a relative term; and a child's "world" may be as mighty for her to face, as any other she will ever know. I think I never found any more formidable. Moreover, it is less unlike the big world than some would suppose.

On the corner of the street, just opposite to our windows, stood a large handsome house which we always noticed for its flowers. The house stood in a little green courtyard exquisitely kept, which at one side and behind gave room for several patches of flower beds, at this time filled with bulbous plants. I always lingered as much as I could in passing the iron railings, to have a peep at the beauty within. The grass was now of a delicious green, and the tulips and hyacinths and crocuses were in full bloom, in their different oval-shaped beds, framed in with the green. Besides these, from the windows of a greenhouse that stretched back along the street, there looked over a brilliant array of other beauty; I could not tell what; great bunches of scarlet and tufts of white and gleamings of yellow, that made me long to be there.

"Who lives in that house?" Miss Bentley asked one evening. It was the hour before tea, and we were all at our room windows gazing down into the avenue.

"Why, don't you know?" said slow Miss Macy. "That's Miss Cardigan's house."

"I wonder who she is?" said Miss Lansing. "It isn't a New York name."

"Yes, it is," said Macy. "She's lived there for ever. She used to be there, and her flowers, when I was four years old."

"I guess she isn't anybody, is she?" said Miss Bentley. "I never see any carriages at the door. Hasn't she a carriage of her own, I wonder, or how does she travel? Such a house ought to have a carriage."

"I'll tell you," said the St. Clair, coolly as usual. "She goes out in a wagon with an awning to it. She don't know anything about carriages."

"But she must have money, you know," urged Miss Bentley. "She couldn't keep up that house, and the flowers, and the greenhouse and all, without money."

"She's got money," said the St. Clair. "Her mother made it selling cabbages in the market. Very likely she sold flowers too."

There was a general exclamation and laughter at what was supposed to be one of St. Clair's flights of mischief; but the young lady stood her ground calmly, and insisted that it was a thing well known. "My grandmother used to buy vegetables from old Mrs. Cardigan when we lived in Broadway," she said. "It's quite true. That's why she knows nothing about carriages."

"That sort of thing don't hinder other people from having carriages," said Miss Lansing. "There's Mr. Mason, next door to Miss Cardigan, – his father was a tailor; and the Steppes, two doors off, do you know what they were? They were millers, a little way out of town; nothing else; had a mill and ground flour. They made a fortune I suppose, and now here they are in the midst of other people."

"Plenty of carriages, too," said Miss Macy; "and everything else."

"After all," said Miss Bentley, after a pause, "I suppose everybody's money had to be made somehow, in the first instance. I suppose all the Millers in the world came from real millers once; and the Wheelrights from wheelwrights."

"And what a world of smiths there must have been first and last," said Miss Lansing. "The world is full of their descendants."

"Everybody's money wasn't made, though," said the St. Clair, with an inexpressible attitude of her short upper lip.

"I guess it was, – if you go back far enough," said Miss Macy, whom nothing disturbed. But I saw that while Miss Lansing and Miss St. Clair were at ease in the foregoing conversation, Miss Bentley was not.

"You can't go back far enough," said the St. Clair, haughtily.

"How then?" said the other. "How do you account for it? Where did their money come from?"

"It grew," said the St. Clair ineffably. "They were lords of the soil."

"Oh! – But it had to be dug out, I suppose?" said Miss Macy.

"There were others to do that."

"After all," said Miss Macy, "how is money that grew any better than money that is made? it is all made by somebody, too."

"If it is made by somebody else, it leaves your hands clean," the St. Clair answered, with an insolence worthy of maturer years; for Miss Macy's family had grown rich by trade. She was of a slow temper however and did not take fire.

"My grandfather's hands were clean," she said; "yet he made his own money. Honest hands always are clean."

"Do you suppose Miss Cardigan's were when she was handling her cabbages?" said St Clair. "I have no doubt Miss Cardigan's house smells of cabbages now."

"O St. Clair!" Miss Lansing said, laughing.

"I always smell them when I go past," said the other, ele vating her scornful little nose; it was a handsome nose too.

"I don't think it makes any difference," said Miss Bentley, "provided people have money, how they came by it. Money buys the same thing for one that it does for another."

"Now, my good Bentley, that is just what it don't," said St. Clair, drumming up the window-pane with the tips of her fingers.

"Why not?"

"Because! – people that have always had money know how to use it; and people who have just come into their money don't know. You can tell the one from the other as far off as the head of the avenue."

"But what is to hinder their going to the same milliner and mantua-maker, for instance, or the same cabinet-maker, – and buying the same things?"

"Or the same jeweller, or the same – anything? So they could if they knew which they were."

"Which what were? It is easy to tell which is a fashionable milliner, or mantua-maker; everybody knows that."

"It don't do some people any good," said St. Clair, turning away. "When they get in the shop they do not know what to buy; and if they buy it they can't put it on. People that are not fashionable can't be fashionable."

I saw the glance that fell, scarcely touching, on my plain plaid frock. I was silly enough to feel it too. I was unused to scorn. St. Clair returned to the window, perhaps sensible that she had gone a little too far.

"I can tell you now," she said, "what that old Miss Cardigan has got in her house – just as well as if I saw it."

"Did you ever go in?" said Lansing eagerly.

"We don't visit," said the other. "But I can tell you just as well; and you can send Daisy Randolph some day to see if it is true."

"Well, go on, St. Clair – what is there?" said Miss Macy.

"There's a marble hall, of course; that the mason built; it isn't her fault. Then in the parlours there are thick carpets, that cost a great deal of money and are as ugly as they can be, with every colour in the world. The furniture is red satin, or may be blue, staring bright, against a light green wall panelled with gold. The ceilings are gold and white, with enormous chandeliers. On the wall there are some very big picture frames, with nothing in them – to speak of; there is a table in the middle of the floor with a marble top, and the piers are filled with mirrors down to the floor: and the second room is like the first and the third is like the second, and there is nothing else in any of the rooms but what I have told you."

"Well, it is a very handsome house, I should think, if you have told true," said Miss Bentley.

St. Clair left the window with a scarce perceptible but most wicked smile at her friend Miss Lansing; and the group scattered. Only I remained to think it over and ask myself, could I let go my vantage ground? could I make up my mind to do for ever without the smile and regard of that portion of the world which little St. Clair represented? It is powerful even in a school!

I had seen how carelessly this undoubted child of birth and fashion wielded the lash of her tongue; and how others bowed before it. I had seen Miss Bentley wince, and Miss Macy bite her lip; but neither of them dared affront the daughter of Mrs. St. Clair. Miss Lansing was herself of the favoured class, and had listened lightly. Fashion was power, that was plain. Was I willing to forego it? Was I willing to be one of those whom fashion passes by as St. Clair had glanced on my dress – as something not worthy a thought.

I was not happy, those days. Something within me was struggling for self assertion. It was new to me; for until then I had never needed to assert my claims to anything. For the first time, I was looked down upon, and I did not like it. I do not quite know why I was made to know this so well. My dress, if not showy or costly, was certainly without blame in its neatness and niceness, and perfectly becoming my place as a schoolgirl. And I had very little to do at that time with my schoolmates, and that little was entirely friendly in its character. I am obliged to think, looking back at it now, that some rivalry was at work. I did not then understand it. But I was taking a high place in all my classes. I had gone past St. Clair in two or three things. Miss Lansing was too far behind in her studies to feel any jealousy on that account; but besides that, I was an unmistakable favourite with all the teachers. They liked to have me do anything for them or with them; if any privilege was to be given, I was sure to be one of the first names called to share it; if I was spoken to for anything, the manner and tone were in contrast with those used towards almost all my fellows. It may have been partly for these reasons that there was a little positive element in the slight which I felt. The effect of the whole was to make a long struggle in my mind. "The world knoweth us not" – gave the character and condition of that party to which I belonged. I was feeling now what those words mean, – and it was not pleasant.

This struggle had been going on for several weeks, and growing more and more wearying, when Mrs. Sandford came one day to see me. She said I did not look very well, and obtained leave for me to take a walk with her. I was glad of the change. It was a pleasant bright afternoon; we strolled up the long avenue, then gay and crowded with passers to and fro in every variety and in the height of the mode; for our avenue was a favourite and very fashionable promenade. The gay world nodded and bowed to each other; the sun streamed on satins and laces, flowers and embroidery; elegant toilets passed and repassed each other, with smiling recognition; the street was a show. I walked by Mrs. Sandford's side in my chinchilla cap, for I had not got a straw hat yet, though it was time; thinking – "The world knoweth us not" – and carrying on the struggle in my heart all the while. By and by we turned to come down the avenue.

"I want to stop a moment here on some business," said Mrs. Sandford, as we came to Miss Cardigan's corner; "would you like to go in with me, Daisy?"