The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1903-01-23
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A.. By VIOLA
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young ladies whom she now called
/ cher girls was the object of venera-
| ton that must be considered to have
had it's rise in the romantic, the high
er side of Miss Nancy's nature. She
had known her since she was in long
clothes, but not till about a year be-
fore this conversation with Mrs. Gar
ner did she honor her with more notice
than lay in that general amiable pat
ronage of which l have spoken and
which she constantly dispensed about
her like a acknowledgement, say.
This girl was, of course, the heroine
of Mrs. Garner's speculations, so you
already know that she had genius, an
art and a lover-a decent equipment,
take it, for her position as my heroine
A little more than year before Miss
Nancy had visited Beulah's mother,
and during that visit she had con-
ceived an entirely new idea of Beulah.
Beulah, like every other southern girl
at home, was generally-according to
the formula-voted mighty sweet and
right pretty-that is, pretty a little
but it was only recently that she had
developed any special claims to
distinction. Now Miss Nancy found
that she was an artist, not fully f1edged
perhaps-oh, no; to be sure not-but
Enthusiastically an artist, and to that
title, which Miss Nancy gave only to
painters and sculptors, she bowed with
the most curious and common blind
reverence in the world. 1t would be
impossible to eXaggerate the simplicity
of Miss Nancy's attitude toward these
arts; in word, it was of that familiar
sort which feels an oil painting to be
an oil painting and a very imposing
thing too. OF course Beulah did not
make oil paintings; with all her genius
she had not yet arrived at that stage.
But let us go back for moment to the
beginning of her artistic career.
When the Baptist Female college of
her town added a new drawing master
to it's faculty" several young ladies
of society, Beulah among the number,
had been moved by the fame of it's ac-
complishments so far to renew their
connection with the school as to take
a course of lessons from him. Beulah
| always had clever fingers. She had
done beautiful "tatting" when she was
only little girl, and now she distin-
guished herself in the drawing class.
She was soon drawing her own en-
broidery patterns and beginning her
ascent of that pinnacle of fame on
which ere long she was to sit en-
| throned.
0ho II; 1o4 l.
abundant energies, and in the nature of
things she enjoyed the new considera-
ton she won. She began to feel a
certain tradition born awe of her own
gifts. Her position toward art was ex-
actly Miss Nancy's own. She felt for
it or, rather, for the name the supersti-
tious, unsympathetic veneration which
some philosophers explain as a result
Of arts dependence on religion in the
middle ages. At any rate, when Beu-
lah found herself making a recogni-
| gable sketch of the water pitcher-for
the new master was very advanced
and insisted on study from the object
her heart palpitated with the magni-
tude of the dreams of glory that fioated
in upon her mind. Then came Miss
Nancy. Miss Nancy gazed upon the
water pitcher and the flower embroid-
cry patterns with profound emotion.
She urged Beulah to come to New York
and have the best instruction, and
finally Beulah came. By chance she
fell upon the plan of going to the Art
Students league, and now she had had
one seasons instruction there and was
beginning her second year.
Naturally within this year her ideas
had undergone some changes, but for
| the greatest change of all-the deter
mination not to marry Tom McGrath-
the league could hardly be held DIRECT
~ responsible. Southerners have q
pleasant reputation for friendliness
with strangers, because they so readily
suppose others to be "nice people,"
various evidences of niceness being
more conclusive in the old southern
world than they are at present in New
York; but if southerners do not feel
sure that you are of their own kind, if
they are even puzzled as to where you
belong according to their remarkably
simple ideas of classification, they are
little likely to be friendly, not being
apt to care for social experiments. All
this is but a preface to the statement
that Beulah had scant acquaintance
with her fellow students. She thought
the young women generally given to
queer clothes and that the young men
lacked what she called ':polish;''
polish in her language meaning,
though perhaps she had never thought
of it, Difference to women. So the
dear girl let her social chances for
league associations, with all their edu-
eational influences, slip by her in the
gentlest, firmest little way in the world
lin exactly a nice nineteen-year-old
way, in fact. She was a dear girl, and
she showed it in failing to become ut
terly insufferable under the adulation
that now, away from the league,
surged around her. This it was that
might be said to have brought about
the momentous change l have men,
tioned-this adulation and Miss
Nancy's hearty and insistent fostering
of all the dreams it excited. Miss
Nancy had just been explaining Beu-
lah's present position to Mrs. Garner