The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1880-01-08
THI PROFESSORS DECLARATION.
CHAPTER I-(CoNTINUED.)


Often the Professor, aghast at her
heresies, would push his spectacles Che
wore gold-rimmed ones now) high ON his
forehead, and gaze at his presumptuous
little adversary in dumb despair. She
knew nothing, he told her, of the mys-
tieism of the "Trecento," and he brought
armfuls of dusty authorities to convince
her that quaint conceits were hidden in
the simplest seeming of the poets lines.
Bnt even when Miss Nelly was con-
vinced, she never gave in, never ac-
knowledged her defeat. Instead, she
would shift her ground with lightning
rapidity, and fairly bewilder the Profess
sor's orderly and logical intellect by all
manner of unexpected thrusts at side
points.
Sometimes these literary discussions
grew so stormy that placid Mrs. Peel
Knitting by the fire, and the invalid girl
on the sofa languidly scribbling angels
heads and arabesgues on scraps OF paper,
often expected to see the Professor rush
from the room in whirlwind ofpasslon.
However, Nelly always knew when
concession was inevitable; the storm
would die away as quickly as it had
arisen; and presently the books would
be put aside, Nelly would 60 to the piano,
or the Professor on special request would
produce roll of manuscript and read
few pages of his last finished chapter.
Sometimes-not often, for the elder
sister had then to be left alone at home
Nelly and her mother would spend a
Tuesday evening at Marchesa C.'s or a
Saturday evening at Countess rs, and
would be received with great affability
by either hostess and hear many polite
speeches from gentlemen, old and young.
Having no knowledge of Italian politics,
the ladies found the Marchesa's house
the more amusing of the two. Nelly
would have liked it still better had she
met there any girls of her own age with
whom to laugh and chat in English-girl
fashion. The married danes she could
not get on with. They asked so many
questions, and expressed such extraor-
dinary notions about English and the
English, that Nelly was divided between
desire to laugh and to fall into fury.
And she was painfully conscious that
every item of her own and her mothers
dress was passed in review, in much the
same fashion that martinez officer sur
veys the pipe-clay and buttons Of his
men.
But the Marchesa herself was, as Nelly
rudely phrased it, splendid fun"
Having been more than eccentric"
IN her youth-so at least her detract-
ors said-she was very devout and strait
laced in her old age, though occasionally,
after series of grandiloquently uttered
moral platitudes, she would come out
with some daredevil remark which was
strangely discordant with what had gone
before. The same contrast was observ-
able in her attire. 1t was one OF her
most soIemnly pronounced maxims tn at
elderly ladies should wear nothing but
black, and in accordance with that theory
she covered her head with a hemlet-like
erection of black lace Yet she did not
disdain to veil the wrinkled surface of
her forehead with a juvelile fringe of
intensely dark hair. She was distressed
by the frivolity of poor Mrs. Fee's dainty
white caps and delicately tinted ribbons;
though with an air of sweet candor she
would wind up her remarks by saying
that perhaps, by the time her own hair
turned white, she too would feel that
she might wear anything.
The Marchesa's great hobby was dra-
matte recreation, and in moments of ex-
pansion, she would lament that Provi-
dence, in giving her noble birth, had
prevented her from filling the throne of
tragedy.
She had herself composed rhymed
translation of the sleep-walking scene in
Macbeth and this she would occasionally
deliver with immense effect in the center
of her own drawing-room.
Then, too, as one OF the ladies OF
society in the sleepy University town,
she considered it incumbent upon her to
hold strong ideas regarding all that took
place in the world. In political matters
she was outsthone by the Countess q.
but on other topics her vehemence was
unequaled She was very Hotspur Of
debate, and always preferred attack to
defense. Nothing that savored OF inno-
walton met with quarrel from her hands