ly done her very best to acquire our southern ways; she has
actually tried to make herself over, root, stem, and branch, from her
original New England sharpness to our own softer temperament, though I
always feel sure, at the same moment, that, in the core of the rock, the
old sap burns still--like the soul under the ribs of death, you know;
not that I mean that exactly (though she _is_ thin), but simply that the
leopard cannot change his spots, nor the zebra his stripes, nor," added
the good lady--altering her tone to solemnity as she perceived that her
language was becoming Biblical--"the wild _cony_ her _young_. Just to
give you an idea of what I mean, Mr. Winthrop: for a long time after she
first came to Gracias that little creature used regularly to parse
twenty-four pages of 'Paradise Lost' every day, as a sort of mental
tonic, I reckon, against what she thought the enervating tendencies of
our southern life here--like quinine, you know; and as she parsed so
much, she was naturally obliged to quote, as a sort of safety-valve,
which was very pleasant of course and very intellectual, though I never
care much for quotations myself, they are so diffuse, and besides, with
all your efforts, you cannot make 'Paradise Lost' appropriate to all the
little daily cares of life and house-keeping, which no true woman, I
think, should be above; for though Eve _did_ set a table for the angel,
that was merely poetical and not like real life in the least, for she
only had fruits, and no dishes probably but leaves, that you could throw
away afterwards, which was _very_ different from nice china, I can
assure you, for you may not know, not being a house-keeper, that as
regards china _nowadays_--our old blue sets--our servants are not in the
_least_ careful not to nick; I don't enter here into the great question
of emancipation for the slaves, _but_--nick they _will_! Mistress Thorne
speaks like 'Paradise Lost' to this day, and, what is more, she has
taught Garda to speak in the same way--just like a book; only Garda's
book is her own, you never know what she is going to say next, she
turns about in all sorts of shapes, like those kaleidoscopes they used
to give us children when I was little, only _she_ never rattles (they
did, dreadfully)--for I am sure a softer voice _I_ never heard, unless
it was that of the Old Madam, who used to say in velvet tones the most
ferocious things you ever heard. Ah, you should have seen her!--straight
as