My Palestine holiday lasted, in some measure, all the way of
our journey home; and left me at the very moment when we
entered our Parisian hotel and met mamma. It left me then. All
the air of the place, much more all the style of mamma's dress
and manner, said at once that we had come into another world.
She was exquisitely dressed; that was usual; it could not have
been only that, nor the dainty appointments around her; - it
was something in her bearing, an indescribable something even
as she greeted us, which said, You have played your play - now
you will play mine. And it said, I cannot tell how, The cards
are in my hands.
Company engaged her that evening. I saw little of her till the
next day. At our late breakfast then we discussed many things.
Not much of Palestine; mamma did not want to hear much of
that. She had had it in our letters, she said. American
affairs were gone into largely; with great eagerness and
bitterness by both mamma and Aunt Gary; with triumphs over the
disasters of the Union army before Richmond, and other lesser
affairs in which the North had gained no advantage; invectives
against the President's July proclamation, his impudence and
his cowardice; and prophecies of ruin to him and his cause.
Papa listened and said little. I heard and was silent; with
throbbing forebodings of trouble.
"Daisy is handsomer than ever," my aunt remarked, when even
politics had exhausted themselves. But I wondered what she was
thinking of when she said it. Mamma lifted her eyes and
glanced me over.
"Daisy has a rival, newly appeared," she said. "She must do
her best."
"There cannot be rivalry, mamma, where there is no
competition," I said.
"Cannot there?" said mamma. "You never told us, Daisy, of your
successes in the North."
I do not think I flushed at all in answer to this remark; the
blood seemed to me to go all to my heart.
"Who has been Daisy's trumpeter?" papa asked.
"There is a friend of hers here," mamma said, slowly sipping
her coffee. I do not know how I sat at the table; things
seemed to swim in a maze before my eyes; then mamma went on, -
"What have you done with your victim, Daisy?"
"Mamma," I said, "I do not at all know of whom you are
speaking."
"Left him for dead, I suppose," she said. "He has met with a
good Samaritan, I understand, who carried oil and wine."
Papa's eye met mine for a moment.
"Felicia," he said, "you are speaking very unintelligibly. I
beg you will use clearer language, for all our sakes."
"Daisy understands," she said.
"Indeed I do not, mamma."
"Not the good Samaritan's part, of course. That has come since
you were away. But you knew once that a Northern Blue-coat had
been pierced by the fire of your eyes?"