Every chair was in its
appointed place, large, gilt-edged, illustrated books lay upon the
tables.... There was not much light in her rooms; heavy curtains clung
about the windows, and tapestries covered the walls. In the passage
there were oak chests, and you can imagine, reader, this woman waiting
for me by an oak table, a little ashamed of her thoughts, but unable
to overcome them. Once I heard her playing the piano, and it struck me
as an affectation. As I let my thoughts run back things forgotten
emerge; here comes one of her gowns! a dark-green gown, the very same
olive green as the man's cloak. She wore her hair short like a boy's,
and though it ran all over her head in little curls, it did not
detract at all from the New England type, the woman in whose speech
Biblical phraseology still lingers. Lizzie was a miraculous survival
of the Puritans who crossed the Atlantic in the _Mayflower_ and
settled in New England. Paris had not changed her. She was _le grave
Puritan du tableau_. The reader will notice that I write _le
grave Puritan_, for of his submissive, childlike wife there was
nothing in Lizzie except her sex. As her instinct was in conflict with
her ideals, her manner was studied, and she affected a certain
cheerfulness which she dared not allow to subside.
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