Esmeralda | Page 2

her brush again, and was touching up her work here and there.
"They have been here two hours," she said. "They are waiting for some one. At first they tried to look about them as others did. They wandered from seat to seat, and sat down, and looked as you see them doing now. What do you think of them? To what nation should you ascribe them?"
"They are not French," I answered. "And they are not English."
"If she were English," said Clélie, "the girl would be more conscious of herself, and of what we might possibly be saying. She is only conscious that she is out of place and miserable. She does not care for us at all. I have never seen Americans like them before, but I am convinced that they are Americans."
She laid aside her working materials and proceeded to draw on her gloves.
"We will go and look at that 'Tentation de St. Antoine' of Teniers," she said, "and we may hear them speak. I confess I am devoured by an anxiety to hear them speak."
According, a few moments later an amiable young couple stood before "La Tentation," regarding it with absorbed and critical glances.
But the father and daughter did not seem to see us. They looked disconsolately about them, or at the picture before which they sat. Finally, however, we were rewarded by hearing them speak to each other. The father addressed the young lady slowly and deliberately, and with an accent which, but for my long residence in England and familiarity with some forms of its patois, I should find it impossible to transcribe.
"Esmeraldy," he said, "your ma's a long time acomin'."
"Yes," answered the girl, with the same accent, and in a voice wholly listless and melancholy, "she's a long time."
Clélie favored me with one of her rapid side glances. The study of character is her grand passion, and her special weakness is a fancy for the singular and incongruous. I have seen her stand in silence, and regard with positive interest one of her former patronesses who was overwhelming her with contumelious violence, seeming entirely unconscious of all else but that the woman was of a species novel to her, and therefore worthy of delicate observation.
"It is as I said," she whispered. "They are Americans, but of an order entirely new."
Almost the next instant she touched my arm.
"Here is the mother!" she exclaimed. "She is coming this way. See!"
A woman advanced rapidly toward our part of the gallery,--a small, angry woman, with an un graceful figure, and a keen brown eye. She began to speak aloud while still several feet distant from the waiting couple.
"Come along," she said. "I've found a place at last, though I've been all the morning at it,--and the woman who keeps the door speaks English.
"They call 'em," remarked the husband, meekly rising, "con-ser-ges. I wonder why."
The girl rose also, still with her hopeless, abstracted air, and followed the mother, who led the way to the door. Seeing her move forward, my wife uttered an admiring exclamation.
"She is more beautiful than I thought," she said. "She holds herself marvelously. She moves with the freedom of some fine wild creature."
And, as the party disappeared from view, her regret at losing them drew from her a sigh. She discussed them with characteristic enthusiasm all the way home. She even concocted a very probable little romance. One would always imagine so many things concerning Americans. They were so extraordinary a people; they acquired wealth by such peculiar means; their country was so immense; their resources were so remarkable. These persons, for instance, were evidently persons of wealth, and as plainly had risen from the people. The mother was not quite so wholly untaught as the other two, but she was more objectionable.
"One can bear with the large simplicity of utter ignorance," said my fair philosopher. "One frequently finds it gentle and unworldly, but the other is odious because it is always aggressive and narrow."
She had taken a strong feminine dislike to Madame la Mère.
"She makes her family miserable," she said. "She drags them from place to place. Possibly there is a lover,--more possibly than not. The girl's eyes wore a peculiar look,--as if they searched for something far away."
She had scarcely concluded her charming little harangue when we reached our destination; but, as we passed through the entrance, she paused to speak to the curly-headed child of the concierge whose mother held him by the hand.
"We shall have new arrivals to-morrow," said the good woman, who was always ready for friendly gossip. "The apartment upon the first floor," and she nodded to me significantly, and with good-natured encouragement. "Perhaps you may get pupils," she added. "They are Americans, and speak only English, and there is a young lady, Madame says."
"Americans!" exclaimed Clélie, with sudden interest.
"Americans,"