Part 4

And then we were invited to visit Tom's Aunt Elizabeth in Boston and meet the whole family. I was sick with dread. I begged Tom to tell me some of the things I should and should not do.

“Be your own sweet self and they 'll love you,” he promised, kissing me. He meant it, dear soul; but I knew better.

From the very first minute, Tom's Aunt Elizabeth made me conscious of her disapproval. In after years I won the old lady's affection and real respect, but I never spent a completely happy hour in her presence.

The night we arrived she gave me a formal dinner. Some dozen additional guests dropped in later, and I was bewildered by new faces and strange names. Later in the evening I noticed a distinguished-looking middle-aged gentleman standing alone just outside the drawing-room door. Hurrying out, I invited him to come in. He inquired courteously if there was anything he could do for me.

“Yes, indeed,” I assured him. “Come in and talk to me.” He looked shy and surprised. I insisted. Then Tom's aunt called me and, drawing me hastily into a corner, demanded why I was inviting a servant into her drawing-room.

“Servant! He looks like a senator,” I protested. “He's dressed exactly like every other man at the party and he looks twice as important as most of them.”

“Didn't you notice he addressed you as 'Madam'?” pursued Aunt Elizabeth.

“But it 's perfectly proper to call a married woman 'Madam.' Foreigners always do,” I defended.

“Can't you tell a servant when you see one?” inquired the old lady icily.

I begged to know how one could. All Boston was summed up in her answer: “You are supposed to know the other people.”

Tom's wife could have drowned in a thimble.

The third day of our visit, we were at the dinner table, when I saw Aunt Elizabeth's face change--for the worse. Her head went up higher and her upper lip drew longer. Finally she turned to me.

“Why do you cut your meat like a dog's dinner?” she snapped.

Tom's protesting exclamation did not stop her.

I laid my knife and fork on my plate and folded my hands in my lap to hide their trembling.

Time may dim many hurts, but with the last flicker of intelligence I shall remember that scene. Even then, in a flash, I saw the symbolism of it.

On one side--rare mahogany, shining silver, deft servants, napkins to rumple, leisure for the niceties of life. On the other hand--a log cabin, my tired mother with new babies always coming, father slaving to homestead a claim and push civilization a little farther over our American continent.

A great tenderness for my parents filled my heart and overflowed in my eyes. I have, I confess, had moments of bitterness toward them. But that was not one of them.

“I think I can tell you,” I answered, as quietly as I could. “It 's very simple. I was the first baby, and mother cut up my food for me. After a while she cut up food for two babies. By the time the third came, I had to do my own cutting. Naturally, I did it just as mother had. Then I began to help cut up food for the other babies. It 's a baby habit. And I must now learn to cut one bite at a time like a civilized grown person.”

Even Aunt Elizabeth was silenced. But Tom rose from the table, swearing. My father would not have permitted a cowpuncher to use such language before my mother. But I loved Tom for it.

However, I did not sleep that night. Next morning Tom's Aunt Elizabeth apologized, and for Back Bay was really unbending.

Some days later we returned to New York, and I thought my troubles were over for a time. But the first night Tom came home full of excitement. He had been appointed to the diplomatic corps, and we were to sail for England within a month!

The news struck chill terror to my heart. With so much still to learn in my native America, what on earth should I do in English society?

II.

More than two months passed after the night my husband announced his foreign appointment before we sailed for England.

I planned to study and to have long talks with him about the customs of fashionable and diplomatic Europe, but alas! I reckoned without the friends and pretended friends who claim the time of a man of Tom's importance. Besides, he and I had so many other things to discuss.

So the sailing time approached, and then he announced that we were to be presented at court! I was thrilled half with fear and half with joy.

I remembered from my reading of history that some of England's kings had not spoken English and that French had been the court language. I visited a bookstore and purchased what was recommended as an easy road to French, and spent all morning learning to say, “l'orange est un fruit.” I read the instructions for placing the tongue and puckering the lips and repeated les and las until I was dizzy. Then I looked through our bookcases for a life of Benjamin Franklin. I knew he had gone to court and “played with queens.”