They looked
wholesome and good enough, and fit to sustain their rough share of life;
but it would have been impossible to make a lady out of any one of them.
Climate, no doubt, has most to do with diffusing a slender elegance over
American young-womanhood; but something, perhaps, is also due to the
circumstance of classes not being kept apart there as they are here: they
interfuse, amid the continual ups and downs of our social life; and so,
in the lowest stations of life, you may see the refining influence of
gentle blood. At all events, it is only necessary to look at such an
assemblage of children as I saw yesterday, to be convinced that birth and
blood do produce certain characteristics. To be sure, I have seen no
similar evidence in England or elsewhere of old gentility refining and
elevating the race.
These girls were all dressed in black gowns, with white aprons and
neckerchiefs, and white linen caps on their heads,--a very dowdyish
attire, and well suited to their figures. I saw only two of their
games,--in one, they stood in a circle, while two of their number chased
one another within and without the ring of girls, which opened to let the
fugitive pass, but closed again to impede the passage of the pursuer.
The other was blind-man's-buff on a new plan: several of the girls,
sometimes as many as twenty, being blinded at once, and pursuing a single
one, who rang a hand-bell to indicate her whereabouts. This was very
funny; the bell-girl keeping just beyond their reach, and drawing them
after her in a huddled group, so that they sometimes tumbled over one
another and lay sprawling.
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