To be left
alone--_alone!_--on a squalid, wretched farm, with a dirty old woman, a
woman who had been a servant,--she, Hildegardis Graham, the idol of her
parents, the queen of her "set" among the young people, the proudest and
most exclusive girl in New York, as she had once (and not with
displeasure) heard herself called!
What would Madge Everton, what would all the girls say! How they would
laugh, to hear of Hilda Graham living on a farm among pigs and hens and
dirty people! Oh! it was intolerable; and she sprang up and paced the
floor, with burning cheeks and flashing eyes.
The thought of opposing the plan did not occur to her. Mrs. Graham's
rule, gentle though it was, was not of the flabby, nor yet of the
elastic sort. Her decisions were not hastily arrived at; but once made,
they were final and abiding. "You might just as well try to oppose the
Gulf Stream!" Mr. Graham would say. "They do it sometimes with icebergs,
and what is the result? In a few days the great clumsy things are bowing
and scraping and turning somersaults, and fairly jostling each other in
their eagerness to obey the guidance of the insidious current. Insidious
Current, will you allow a cup of coffee to drift in my direction? I
shall be only too happy to turn a somersault if it will afford
you--thanks!--the smallest gratification."
So Hildegarde's first lessons had been in obedience and in truthfulness;
and these were fairly well learned before she began her ABC.
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