Mrs. Cameron

“ Her latest additions to these entertaining works of fiction are "A Lost Wife," "Weak Woman," and "A Daughter's Heart."
It is always deeply interesting to hear about the early days of such a well-known writer. Explaining to Mrs. Cameron that not only in Europe, but also in the Colonies where her books are as largely circulated, that she has many friends and admirers who will love to hear all about her first literary efforts, she kindly consents to gratify you, and says, that "to begin at the beginning," she was sent at the early age of six to Paris, to acquire the language ”

“ Cameron, whom no one could suppose not to be a lady. But there are different degrees of lady and of gentleman, which are little heeded in the ordinary intercourse of society, but become very perceptible in questions of matrimonial alliance; and Mrs. Cameron herself says very plainly that she does not consider her niece to belong to that station in life from which Sir Peter and Lady Chillingly would naturally wish their son should select his bride. Then (holding out her hand) pardon me if I have wounded or offended you. I speak as a true friend to you and to Lily both. ”

“ Even nowadays the attempt to describe her feelings must fall far short of the reality, since few of this generation can grasp the mental position of the last, and Mrs. Cameron belonged to the generation before that. Of far better birth than many a farmer's wife who would be ashamed at being discovered engaged in household work, Mrs. Cameron would as a rule have gloried in what was to her the sole aim and object of woman's creation ”

“ Cameron was saying for awhile. Her tired, bright eyes wandered restlessly up and down the room. The pain in her head prevented her thinking.
"Deirdre darling," Mrs. Cameron said, her voice trembling, "there's not a man or woman in the country would not say you were justified. And no woman is better able to understand than I am. I'm not afraid for you ... and there's no one I'd rather have for Davey's wife than you. You were willing to sacrifice yourself. But when treachery had been proved against you, there was that within you would not let evil come near you." ”

“ Mrs. Cameron looked at him sharply, then shook her head. "Havers! that is what no mortal man can do, least of all, you, Gleneira, with your soft heart."
"Soft heart!" echoed Paul, derisively. "It is only that towards you, Mrs. Cameron; to the world in general it is hard as adamant. Don't you agree with me, Miss Carmichael?"
"Hard enough to ensure your peace of mind, I hope," she replied quietly.
Violet Vane's bright eyes were on them both, and she gave an odd little laugh. "I wonder if it is! ”

“ She must be different from Mrs. Cameron; and Helen let herself down to another degree of toleration for the man whose mother taught her daughter to mend the family socks. Still there was about her a reserve, which Mark wondered at, for it was not thus that ladies were accustomed to receive his advances. He did not guess that Wilford Cameron stood between him and Helen’s good opinion; but when, after the family came in, the conversation turned upon Katy and her life in New York, the secret came out in the sharp, caustic manner with which she spoke of New York and its people. ”

“ I know I am hard and bad, for when I was sick, Mrs. Cameron was really very kind, and I began to like her; but if she takes baby away I shall surely die.”
“Where is baby to be sent?” Helen asked, and Katy answered,
“Up the river, to a house which Father Cameron owns, and which is kept by a farmer’s family. I can’t trust Kirby. I do not like her. She keeps baby asleep too long, and acts so cross if I try to wake her, or hint that she looks unnatural. I cannot give baby to her care, with no one to look after her, though Wilford says I must.” ”

“ It was Katy’s wish, and she replied at once, going next to the nursery to talk with Mrs. Kirby. Dark were the frowns and dire the displeasure of that lady when told that, instead of going up the river, as she had hoped, she 209was free to return to the “genteel and highly respectable home on Bond street,” where Mrs. Cameron had found her.
“Wait till the Madam comes, and then we’ll see,” she thought, referring to Mrs. Cameron, and feeling delighted when, that very day, she heard that lady’s voice in the parlor. ”

“ It seems that people traveling in Europe do not need many things, but what they have must be just right, and so Mrs. Cameron wrote for Mrs. Harvey to see to my wardrobe, and if I had not exactly what was proper she was to procure it. It is very funny that she did not find a single proper garment among them all, when we thought them so nice. They were not just the style, she said, and that was very desirable in Mrs. Wilford Cameron. ”

“ Before her visit at the manse had terminated, Mrs. Cameron had come to consider her invitation to that young lady as the great mistake of her hitherto well-ordered life. For no sooner had the guest been settled than that young MacDonald, who was such a friend of Mr. Monteith, began to appear with alarming frequency. Now, though there might have been no harm in Captain Herbert's niece playing in the backwoods with Big Malcolm's grandson when they were children, Mrs. Cameron mentally declared that, now they were grown up, such a thing as intimacy between them was absolutely out of the question. ”

“ Wilford and Mark have always been like brothers.”
Mrs. Cameron could not quite bring herself to a deliberate falsehood, which, if detected, would reflect upon her character as a lady, but she could mislead Helen, and she continued, “It is not like us to bruit our affairs abroad, and were my daughters ten times engaged the world would be none the wiser. I doubt if even Katy suspects what I have admitted; but knowing how fascinating Mark can be, and that just at present he seems to be pleased with you, I have acted as I should wish a friend to act toward my own child. ”

“ You will go up now,” Mrs. Cameron continued, and a moment after Wilford stood in the dimly-lighted room, where Katy was talking of Genevra and St. Mary’s, and was only kept upon her pillow by the strong arm of Morris, who stood over her when Wilford entered, trying in vain to quiet her.
She knew him, and writhing herself away from Morris’s arms, she said to him, “Genevra is not in that grave at St. Mary’s; she is living, and you are not my husband. So you can leave the house at once. Morris will settle the estate, and no bill shall be sent in for your board and lodging.” ”

“ Braefield, impulsively,—"Why, your child must now be eighteen."
Mrs. Cameron,—"Eighteen—is it possible! How time flies! though in a life so monotonous as mine, time does not seem to fly, it slips on like the lapse of water. Let me think,—eighteen? No, she is but seventeen,—seventeen last May."
Mrs. Braefield,—"Seventeen! A very anxious age for a girl; an age in which dolls cease and lovers begin."
Mrs. Cameron, not so languidly, but still quietly,—"Lily never cared much for dolls,—never much for lifeless pets; and as to lovers, she does not dream of them." ”

“ Braefield, briskly,—"There is no age after six in which girls do not dream of lovers. And here another question arises. When a girl so lovely as Lily is eighteen next birthday, may not a lover dream of her?"
Mrs. Cameron, with that wintry cold tranquillity of manner, which implies that in putting such questions an interrogator is taking a liberty,—"As no lover has appeared, I cannot trouble myself about his dreams."
Said Elsie inly to herself, "This is the stupidest woman I ever met!" and aloud to Mrs. Cameron,—"Do you not think that your neighbour, Mr. Chillingly, is a very fine young man?" ”

“ Helen answered, “but somehow since he came after Katy, I have grown so hard, so wicked toward Mr. Cameron. He seems so proud, so unapproachable. Say, Cousin Morris, do you think him a good man, that is, good enough for Katy?”
“Most people would call him too good for her,” Morris replied. “And, in a worldly point of view, she is doing well. Cameron, I believe, is better than three-fourths of the men who marry our girls. He is very proud: but that results from his education and training. Looking only from a New York standpoint he misjudges country people, but he will appreciate you by and by. ”

“ He had reserved the bitterest drop for the last, and coming close to her he said,
“And who think you the woman is—this Genevra, Wilford’s and your divorced wife? You were too proud to acknowledge an apothecary’s daughter! See if you like better a dressmaker, a nurse to Katy’s baby, Marian Hazelton!”
He whispered the last name, and with a shriek the lady fainted. Mr. Cameron would not summon a servant; and as there was no water in the room, he walked to the window, and lifting the sash scraped from the sill a handful of the light spring snow which had been falling since morning. ”

“ In her girlhood Katy had evinced a taste for housekeeping, which now developed so rapidly that she won the respect of all the servants, from the man who answered the bell to the accomplished cook, hired by Mrs. Cameron, and who, like most accomplished cooks, was sharp and cross and opinionated, but who did not find it easy to scold the blithe little woman who every morning came flitting into her dominions, not asking what they would have for dinner, as she had been led to suppose she would, but ordering it with a matter of course air, which amused the usually overbearing Mrs. Phillips. ”

“ Wilford groaned and Katy’s chance for being Mrs. Cameron was growing constantly less and less as he saw more and more how vast was the difference between the Barlows and himself. Helen, he acknowledged, was passable, though she was not one whom he could ever introduce into New York society ”

“ But Katy knew she shouldn’t, and Helen could not overcome the exultation with which she saw her little sister put the Camerons to rout and remain master of the field.
“After all it does not matter,” Mrs. Cameron said to her daughters, when, after Mrs. Wilford was gone, she sat talking of Katy’s queer fancy and her obstinacy in adhering to it. “It does not matter, and on the whole I had as soon the christening would be postponed until the child is more presentable than now. It will be prettier by and by, and the dress will become it better. We can afford to wait.” ”

“ Emlyn began to speak about Mrs. Cameron and Lily. Of the first he said, “She is one of those women in whom quiet is so predominant that it is long before one can know what undercurrents of good feeling flow beneath the unruffled surface. I wish, however, she was a little more active in the management and education of her niece,—a girl in whom I feel a very anxious interest, and whom I doubt if Mrs. Cameron understands. Perhaps, however, only a poet, and a very peculiar sort of poet, can understand her: Lily Mordaunt is herself a poem.”
“I like your definition of her,” said Kenelm. ”

“ Cameron.
'And a half,' said Challis, 'and Mr. Brooks told me the captain says we may be two whole days late, so we'll count seventeen, darling, and not disappoint ourselves.'
'There is the captain now, talking to Mrs. Macgregor and Lady Millbourne,' said Mrs. Cameron. 'Run and ask him, dear, if it is true. I can't bear the thought.'
'Oh, mother,' said the little girl, and hung back, looking with nervous eyes at the group.
'Girlie, you must get over this silly shyness,' said Mrs. Cameron. 'I think you get worse every day, instead of better. ”

“ Mrs. Cameron displaying a bright, girl-like interest in everything, till called away to give some instructions to her servants.
"How Mrs. Cameron must help you, Doctor!" said Harry. "I did not know that she was so clever at pinning out moths."
"Look here," said the doctor sternly, "have you been saying anything to her about what you told your father you heard said in that boat?"
"Not a word, sir."
"That's right. I'm glad of it; but I was afraid."
"Oh, I shouldn't have thought of telling her."
"I'm glad you have so much discretion, my boy. You see, ladies are easily made nervous ”

“ Cameron deciding finally that 194it should bear her own, Margaret Augusta, while Juno advocated that of Rose Marie, inasmuch as their new clergyman would Frenchify the pronunciation so perfectly, rolling the r, and placing so much accent on the last syllable. At this the father Cameron swore as “cussed nonsense.” “Better call it Jemima, a grand sight, than saddle it with such a silly name as Rose Mah-ree, with a roll to the r,” and with another oath the disgusted old man departed, while Bell suggested that Katy might wish to have a voice in naming her own child. ”

“ Cameron's reply to her interrogatories. "I can do nothing with her. She is as stubborn as a mule, and we shall either have to conjure up for some reason why the engagement was broken off, or else run the [pg 187] risk of being well laughed at among our circle in New York."
A few days after this, Lida Gibson started for the South, promising Fanny that she would see Julia as soon as possible after her return home. Ere long Mrs. Cameron too was seized with a desire to return to the city. ”

“ They have been the instigators of every sorrow I have known since 205I left Silverton. Oh, Helen! never, never marry anybody who has folks, if you wish to be happy.”
Helen could not repress a smile, though she pitied her sister, who continued,
“I don’t mean father Cameron, nor Bell, for I believe they love me. Father does, I know, and Bell has helped me so often; but Mrs. Cameron and Juno, oh, Helen, you will never know what they have been to me.”
Since Helen came to New York there had been so much else to talk about that Katy had said comparatively little of the Camerons. ”