Chapter 21 - Page 2

the fête.

"My child, this is a strange proposition to come from a young lady of
twenty," said her father.

"Why strange, dear sir?--We always mingled in the village fêtes in
Europe."

"_Certainement_" cried the delighted Mademoiselle Viefville; "_c'est
de rigueur, même_"

"And it is _de rigueur_, here, Mademoiselle, for young ladies to keep
out of them," put in John Effingham. "I should be very sorry to see
either of you three ladies in the streets of Templeton to-day."

Why so, cousin Jack? Have we any thing to fear from the rudeness of
our countrymen? I have always understood, on the contrary, that in no
other part of the world is woman so uniformly treated with respect
and kindness, as in this very republic of ours; and yet, by all these
ominous faces, I perceive that it will not do for her to trust
herself in the streets of a village on a _festa_"

"You are not altogether wrong, in what you now say, Miss Effingham,
nor are you wholly right. Woman, as a whole, is well treated in
America; and yet it will not do for a _lady_ to mingle in scenes like
these, as ladies may and do mingle with them in Europe."

"I have heard this difference accounted for," said Paul Powis, "by
the fact that women have no legal rank in this country. In those
nations where the station of a lady is protected by legal ordinances,
it is said she may descend with impunity; but, in this, where all are
equal before the law, so many misunderstand the real merits of their
position, that she is obliged to keep aloof from any collisions with
those who might be disposed to mistake their own claims."

"But I wish for no collisions, no associations, Mr. Powis, but simply
to pass through the streets, with my cousin and Mademoiselle
Viefville, to enjoy the sight of the rustic sports, as one would do
in France, or Italy, or even in republican Switzerland, if you insist
on a republican example."

"Rustic sports!" repeated Aristabulus with a frightened look--"the
people will not bear to hear their sports called rustic, Miss
Effingham."

"Surely, sir,"--Eve never spoke to Mr. Bragg, now, without using a
repelling politeness--"surely, sir, the people of these mountains
will hardly pretend that their sports are those of a capital."

"I merely mean, ma'am, that the _term_ would be monstrously
unpopular; nor do I see why the sports in a city"--Aristabulus was
much too peculiar in his notions, to call any place that had a mayor
and aldermen a town,--"should not be just as rustic as those of a
village. The contrary supposition