lady, fond of dress and gay society, and
without a notion of domestic responsibility or duty. Like most women who
are not positively bad, she had in her heart a desire to be right, but
she didn't know how. She was all impulse, and gave way to whims and
feelings, as if helpless in any effort to manage her own waywardness. As
a natural consequence there were constant jars between the pair. Fred
took to his clubs and mingled with men of the race-course and the
billiard halls, and Lizzie beguiled herself as best she could with her
fashionable friends.

And where was Miss Van Duzen these long and tedious days? They were
never tedious to her, for she was always on the go. She would go off
alone on interminable strolls, and bring back loads of flowers and
strange plants, and she could tell all about them too. Her knowledge of
botany was wonderful, and she could make very clever sketches; she would
sit by the hour on some lonely rock, putting picturesque scenery on
paper, just for the love of it; for when the pictures were done she
would give them away or throw them away without the least compunction.
She had a fine sense of the ludicrous and was all the time seeing funny
things, which she described in a manner quite inimitable. She had grown
up in New York, before her father's death, in the most select of
Knickerbocker circles, but there was not a trace of aristocracy in her
ways. She was sociable with the ostler and the office-boy, and agreeable
to the neighboring farmers, talking with them with a spirit that quite
delighted them. And yet there was nothing free and easy in her ways that
encouraged undue familiarity. It was merely natural ease and good
nature. She inspired respect in everybody but my mother-in-law, who was
puzzled with her conduct, so different from her own ideas of propriety,
and yet so free from real vulgarity. Mrs. Pinkerton could by no means
approve of her, and yet she could accuse her of no offence which the
most rigid could seriously censure.

Miss Van was the life of the company when she was about, telling of her
adventures, getting up impromptu amusements in the parlor, and planning
excursions. She was the only person in the world, probably, who was
quite familiar with Mr. Desmond, and she would sit on his knee, pull his
whiskers, and call him an "awful glum old fogy," whereat he would laugh
and say she had gayety enough for them both. He admired and loved her
for the very qualities that he lacked.