第38章 High Walk and the Ladies(7)

And John Mayrant?Why,then,had he tarried here himself?That is a hard saying about crabbed age and youth,but are not most of the sayings hard that are true?What was this young man doing in Kings Port with his brains,and his pride,and his energetic adolescence?If the Custom House galled him,the whole country was open to him;why not have tried his fortune out and away,over the hills,where the new cities lie,all full of future and empty of past?Was it much to the credit of such a young man to find himself at the age of twenty-three or twenty-four,sound and lithe of limb,yet tied to the apron strings of Miss Josephine,and Miss Eliza,and some thirty or forty other elderly female relatives?

With these thoughts I looked at the ladies and wondered how I might lead them to answer me about John Mayrant,without asking questions which might imply something derogatory to him or painful to them.I could not ever say to them a word which might mean,however indirectly,that I thought their beautiful,cherished town no place for a young man to go to seed in;this cut so close to the quick of truth that discourse must keep wide away from it.What,then,could I ask them?As I pondered,Mrs.

Weguelin solved it for me by what she was saying to Mrs.Gregory,of which,in my preoccupation,I had evidently missed a part:--"--if he should share the family bad taste in wives.""Eliza says she has no fear of that."

"Were I Eliza,Hugh's performance would make me very uneasy.""Julia,John does not resemble Hugh."

"Very decidedly,in coloring,Maria."

"And Hugh found that girl in Minneapolis,Julia,where there was doubtless no pick for the poor fellow.And remember that George chose a lady,at any rate."Mrs.Weguelin gave to this a short assent."Yes."It portended something more behind,which her next words duly revealed."A lady;but do--any--ladies ever seem quite like our own?

"Certainly not,Julia."

You see,they were forgetting me again;but they had furnished me with a clue.

"Mr.John Mayrant has married brothers?"

"Two,"Mrs.Gregory responded."John is the youngest of three children.""I hadn't heard of the brothers before."

"They seldom come here.They saw fit to leave their home and their delicate mother.""Oh!"

"But John,"said Mrs.Gregory,"met his responsibility like a Mayrant.""Whatever temptations he has yielded to,"said Mrs.Weguelin,"his filial piety has stood proof.""He refused,"added Mrs.Gregory,"when George (and I have never understood how George could be so forgetful of their mother)wrote twice,offering him a lucrative and rising position in the railroad company at Roanoke.""That was hard!"I exclaimed.