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Sir Clement, on the other side, expressed himself with equal warmth; and protested he had been so eager to pay his respects to Captain Mirvan, that he had left London in its full lustre, and a thousand engagements unanswered, merely to give himself that pleasure. "We shall have rare sport," said the Captain; "for, do you know, the old French-woman is among us?
A German by birth, a French-woman by intellectual tastes and tendencies she was above all else a Russian, and bent all the resources of her powerful personality to the enlightenment and advancement of the land of her adoption. Her people were not "knouted into civilization," but invited and drawn into it. Her touch was terribly firm but elastic.
That he was an interesting and promising artist she knew; that on subjects connected with his art he could talk copiously and well, that also, she knew; but that he could write, with such pleasant life, detail, and ingenuity, was a surprise, and it attracted her, as it would have attracted a French-woman of the eighteenth century.
Apropos of this inability of the Europeans to appreciate our fine social distinctions, I have been told of a well-born New Yorker who took a French noblewoman rather to task for receiving an American she thought unworthy of notice, and said: "How can you receive her? Her husband keeps a hotel!" "Is that any reason?" asked the French-woman; "I thought all Americans kept hotels."
"While I was up-stairs, with Louisa, yesterday," said Elinor, "we talked over Paris all the morning, Aunt Agnes. I was amused with a great deal she told me. Louisa says, there is a fitness in all that a French-woman does and says, and even in everything she wears that her dress is always consistent always appropriate to the occasion."
"She gabbled away most eloquently to the Maire, almost as fluently as a born French-woman," said Ivinghoe, "and persuaded him at last that it was not necessary to come on board to inspect us, nor even to detain us till he had sent for instructions to St. Malo." "As Ivy managed matters, I thought we might be kept as hostages," said Phyllis.
And then, like a true French-woman of business, she brought back the conversation to the one important point: since money was not in question, upon what consideration would Monsieur accord his preference to the Toison d' Or instead of to the Croix de Malte? Müller bowed, laid his hand upon his heart, and said: "I will do it, pour les beaux yeux de Madame."
She had taken up again the threads of housekeeping, cheering her father, helping the old French-woman cook a huge creature who moved like a small mountain, and was a tyrant in her way to the old cheerful avocat, whose life had been a struggle for existence, yet whose one daughter had married a rich lumberman, and whose other daughter could marry wealth, handsomeness and youth, if she chose.
The air was dark with Davises, and many Joneses gamboled like a flock of young giraffes. The golden secretary darted through the room like a meteor with a dashing French-woman who carpeted the floor with her pink satin train. The serene Teuton found the supper-table and was happy, eating steadily through the bill of fare, and dismayed the garcons by the ravages he committed.
"Louisa maintains that the French-women have a great deal of common sense; she says, that is the foundation of their good taste; and, I suppose, after all, good taste is only good sense refined." "I suppose it is, my dear. Louisa seems to have come back even more of a French-woman than you, Jane," observed Miss Agnes. "Oh! I like the French very well, Aunt Agnes."
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