“Kings Port is ever ready to discuss strangers,”
she further explained. “The Exchange has
been going on five years, and the resident families
have discussed each other so thoroughly here that everything
is known; therefore a stranger is a perfect boon.”
Her gayety for a moment interrupted her, before she
continued, always mocking and always sweet: “Kings
Port cannot boast intelligence offices for servants;
but if you want to know the character and occupation
of your friends, come to the Exchange!” How
I wish I could give you the raciness, the contagion,
of her laughter! Who would have dreamed that
behind her primness all this frolic lay in ambush?
“Why,” she said, “I’m only
a plantation girl; it’s my first week here,
and I know every wicked deed everybody as done since
1812!”
She went back to her counter. It had been very
merry; and as I was settling the small debt for my
lunch I asked: “Since this is the proper
place for information, will you kindly tell me whose
wedding that cake is for?”
She was astonished. “You don’t know?
And I thought you were quite a clever Ya—
I beg your pardon—Northerner.
“Please tell me, since I know you’re quite
a clever Reb—I beg your pardon—Southerner.”
“Why, it’s his own! Couldn’t
you see that from his bashfulness?”
“Ordering his own wedding cake?” Amazement
held me. But the door opened, one of the elderly
ladies entered, the girl behind the counter stiffened
to primness in a flash, and I went out into Royal Street
as the curly dog’s tail wagged his greeting
to the newcomer.
III: Kings Port Talks
Of course I had at once left the letters of introduction
which Aunt Carola had given me; but in my ignorance
of Kings Port hours I had found everybody at dinner
when I made my first round of calls between half-past
three and five—an experience particularly
regrettable, since I had hurried my own dinner on
purpose, not then aware that the hours at my boarding-house
were the custom of the whole town. (These hours even
since my visit to Kings Port, are beginning to change.
But such backsliding is much condemned.) Upon an afternoon
some days later, having seen in the extra looking-glass,
which I had been obliged to provide for myself, that
the part in my back hair was perfect, I set forth again,
better informed.
As I rang the first doorbell, another visitor came
up the steps, a beautiful old lady in widow’s
dress, a cardcase in her hand.
“Have you rung, sir?” said she, in a manner
at once gentle and voluminous.
“Yes, madam.”
Nevertheless she pulled it again. “It doesn’t
always ring,” she explained, “unless one
is accustomed to it, which you are not.”
Copyrights
Lady Baltimore from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
