INTRODUCTION. LEAVING SCHOOL. "Up springs, at every step, to claim a tear, ISABELLA, CLARA, GERALDINE SCENE.-A room, with dresses, bonnets, books, music, &c., scattered about in dire confusion; the three young ladies employed in packing their travelling-boxes and portmanteaus. Isabella. Home! home! Done with school for ever! Delightful! Is it not, girls, perfectly delightful to be free as air? I will not carry home these hateful, humdrum books. They take up too much room. How many bitter tears they have cost me! I hope never to see their ugly faces again. Clara. But, Isabella, are you going to give up study entirely? What will you do with yourself when you get home? Isabella. Make the most of my little self-create a sensation-make a dashing début. You know I am eighteen, and I am coming out as soon as I get home. Clara Wilton, that reproving look does not become you, dear! You have toiled for the gold medal, and have gained it. What good will it do you, pray? Clara. Isabella, I value a good education for its own sake. The medal may testify to my parents that I have appreciated the advantages they have generously bestowed. I shall give it to my mother. Isabella. Well, my parents do not care a sous about all these sober studies that Goody Blue has bored us with; they know it gives one a sort of reputation to be educated by Mrs. Z., so here I have been these four years. They expect me to come out with éclat, and I do mean to produce a wonderful sensation. I believe I shall throw the rest of these books overboard to-day, on my way home, just out of spite for the trouble they have given me. Geraldine. I shall be half-inclined to join you, for I do not know what good they will ever do me. What use shall I ever make of mathematics and philosophy? Clara. You will not find them useless; you may be disposed to resume them by yourself, after you have been home a while. Geraldine. J'en doute. I am going abroad with my father and mother, to finish my education. We shall reside a year or two in Paris, and I shall come home parfaitement Française. Clara. Parfaitement Française, to reside in this country, and be a good, useful woman too! Geraldine (laughing). A good, useful woman! How that sounds to "ears polite;" absolutely vulgar. I seek for something more recherché, more elegant than that. I go abroad to obtain that retenue, that abandon of manner, that cannot be acquired in this half-civilized land. Isabella. And to be laughed at for your abandong, as you call it, which will sound very droll to French "ears polite." Geraldine. That is another object in going to Paris, to acquire a true Parisian accent. I shall not venture to speak in foreign society until I have had a master some months. When I return, two years hence, you shall have no occasion to laugh at my French. Isabella. The French are so ridiculous they are enough to make a milestone laugh. What are you going to do, Clara? Clara. I expect to continue my studies, that I may more perfectly understand them. I hope to be useful to my mother, who has kindly promised to teach me domestic economy; so long as life lasts, there will be knowledge to which I have not attained, virtues to be perfected, and good to be done; "vulgar" as it sounds, my highest aim is to be a good, useful woman. Isabella. Spoken like our old country schoolmistress herself! Pity you could not have mounted her high cap and green spectacles for the occasion. Really, she never made a better address in her life. Clara. Well, girls, be merry if you will at my sober notions, but let us part kindly; we may never meet again. Geraldine. You will both write me, will you not? Clara. I will, with pleasure, if you will let me know your father's foreign address before you go. Isabella. I doubt if I shall have time to write to any one. I have formed a thousand plans for next winter. I am still to have a music-master, and must practise at least three hours a-day, or I shall never rival the Hamiltons and the Moores, who, papa writes me, play so exquisitely that all the world are in love with them. Here comes an Atlas in the midst of my music-books, like a clown in genteel society; stay where you are, I am not going to take you to town with your betters. Shall I put up my French Testament? No; I'll make you a present of it, Clara, and one of these days you may give it, with my compliments, to—you know who—that ministerial personage who often glides before your imagination. Clara. That personage is all in your own imagination, Isabella; but I thank you for the gift, and if I ever have the opportunity, shall present it, with your compliments, if you will promise to officiate as bride'smaid on that occasion. Isabella. Delightful! I shall come, unless I am led to the hymeneal altar before you. Geraldine. Invite me too, Clara; I shall perhaps have just returned from abroad. Clara. And will then be, I fear, un peu trop Française. Geraldine (coldly). C'est possible. |