Her favours were general, not
particular; she was civil enough to every one, but not in any case
endearing, and perfectly genial without being confiding, as people were
in Boston when (in moments of exaltation) they wished to mark that they
were not suspicious. There was something in her whole manner which
seemed to say to Olive that she belonged to a larger world than hers;
and our young lady was vexed at not hearing that she had lived for a
good many years in Europe, as this would have made it easy to classify
her as one of the corrupt. She learned, almost with a sense of injury,
that neither the mother nor the son had been longer beyond the seas than
she herself; and if they were to be judged as triflers they must be
dealt with individually. Was it an aid to such a judgement to see that
Mrs. Burrage was very much pleased with Boston, with Harvard College,
with her son's interior, with her cup of tea (it was old Sevres), which
was not half so bad as she had expected, with the company he had asked
to meet her (there were three or four gentlemen, one of whom was Mr.
Gracie), and, last, not least, with Verena Tarrant, whom she addressed
as a celebrity, kindly, cleverly, but without maternal tenderness or
anything to mark the difference in their age? She spoke to her as if
they were equals in that respect, as if Verena's genius and fame would
make up the disparity, and the girl had no need of encouragement and
patronage.
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