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But to return to the less abstract topic of the bloomers, I often tease Luccia and Irene about them, seeking for further information as to why they ever came to retrograde from a position so heroically taken, one of such serious import to human progress, and to condescend once more to don the livery of feminine servitude, and appear, as they do today, in delicate draperies which the eye searches in vain for any hint of sanguinary revolution.
How we laughed together, as we sped away in our taxicab. "It's as well to live up to one's reputation with such people," she said, that dear, fantastic Luccia. À propos that early Parisian adventure, Rosa Bonheur had been one of Luccia's and Irene's great exemplars, and one might say, in one particular connection, heroes. I refer to the great painter's adoption of masculine costume.
She only says it, of course, for the fun of seeming "naughty"; which recalls to my mind her shocking behaviour one day when I went with her to call on some very prim cousins in New York. It was a household of an excessively brown-stone respectability, just the atmosphere to rouse the wickedness in Luccia.
Luccia, however, has been a radical and a rebel since her girlhood, and, years before the word "feminist" was invented, was fighting the battle of the freedom of woman. And what a splendid Democrat she is, and how thoroughly she understands and fearlessly faces the problems and developments of the moment!
As a reminiscence of George Sand, Luccia to this day pretends that she prefers to smoke cigars to cigarettes, though, as a matter of fact, she has never smoked either, and has, indeed, an ultra-feminine detestation of tobacco even in the form of her husband's pipe.
"Cousin Luccia!" cried out the three outraged mummies; the brother with actual sternness, and the sisters in plain fear. Had their eccentric cousin really gone out of her mind at last? "Never feel that way?" she added, delighting in the havoc she was making. "You should. It's a wonderful feeling." Then she drained her second glass, and to the evident relief of all three, rose to go.
As we sat together in an upright conversation that sounded like the rustling of dried leaves in a cemetery, why! Luccia, for all her eighty years, seemed like a young wild-rose bush filling the tomb-like room with living light and fragrance. I could see the wickedness in her surging for an outburst.
Luccia married Irene's brother for they allow me the privilege of calling them by their Christian names and they have been friends all their lives.
"Of course, why not?" asks Luccia with perfect seriousness. "I dance it with my grandsons. My husband doesn't care to dance it. He prefers the polka."
Not knowing what to think, the poor old maid actually "old" compared with Luccia looked from her to the beautiful venerable figure of her polka-dancing husband seemingly meditating over his pipe, a little withdrawn from them on the veranda, but inwardly shaken with mirth at the darling nonsense of her who is still the same madcap girl he first fell in love with so many years ago.
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