"Hester, 'we have arrived,' as they say in France. This has been a
momentous month. We've sent out our cards and bought our first groceries
at wholesale." Julie leaned her elbows on the kitchen table and gazed
with a rapt meditative air at their first barrel of sugar.
Bridget stood in the doorway openly admiring. "It's like old times, Miss
Julie dear, to be seein' things come in quantities agen." She had
secretly harbored a grudge against the miserable little paper bags.
Peter Snooks sniffed at the unfamiliar barrel and then sat down beside
it with a comical air of importance, but Hester did not leave him long
undisturbed, for in wild exuberance of spirits she executed a war-dance
in which he joined, at the end of which she mounted the barrel and with
arms extended made a speech.
"Ladies and gentlemen (the gentlemen's _you_, Snooks);
"This is the proudest moment of my life!"
Having delivered herself of this burst of eloquence she paused a moment
dramatically, then plunged into such a torrent of nonsense that Bridget
buried her head in her apron to stifle her laughter, Peter Snooks barked
frantically in a fit of delight and Julie pulled the young orator down
ignominiously.
"Come into the other room," she said. "Daddy is asleep and I don't want
you to wake him."
Instantly subdued, Hester tip-toed down the hall, following her sister.
"Are we going to discuss affairs of state?" she whispered.
"No, but we must come to some decision about Mrs. Lennox's invitation
for Thursday night. I think we ought to go."
"Well, I don't. I object to being patronized."
"Oh! my dear, don't look at it like that; it is not kind of you. You
regard Mrs. Lennox as a friend, do you not?"
"A business friend, yes; the kindest and best we have, but that is not
knowing her socially."
"No, dear, but she wants to know us socially or she would not have
invited us to her house. Don't you see that is what it means, Hester? It
is not patronizing us, but placing us on an equal footing--"
"Where we belong," interrupted Hester, "though I don't think we need
feel overwhelmed by Radnor's recognition of the fact." She spoke
bitterly in a tone that cut her sister.
"Hester dear, it does hurt to be utterly ignored by the people who used
to know us when we were children, but there are enough outside of Radnor
who have stood by us loyally and we will make headway here eventually
when people get a little more used to us."
"Do you suppose I care a snap of my finger about these Radnor girls,"
said Hester savagely. "They're a narrow snobbish lot and I'm glad I've
escaped knowing them! Just yesterday, as I was delivering that great box
of sandwiches at Mrs. Crane's I met Jessie Davis on the steps--she'd
been calling there. Don't you remember how we always played together
when we were little tots at school? Well, of course I knew her
immediately--she hasn't changed a bit, and she knew me, but it was
surprising how absorbed she suddenly became in looking for her carriage
which was standing right under her nose! Think how disgraced she would
have been before her footman if I--nothing better than a parcel-delivery
girl--had spoken to her! She needn't have been afraid," scornfully,
giving full vent to her smothered wrath, "I wouldn't have spoken to her
to have saved her life!"
"She is not worth getting angry about, dear. You ought to pity her for
not knowing any better."
"She knows better, well enough," said the irate Hester, who rather liked
to nurse her wrath. "She's a nasty little snob!"
"Well, she is," agreed Julie, "but I can't help pitying her for all she
has missed in not knowing you."
Hester smiled. "It is wicked of me to spit out at you, Julie dear. You
did not make snobs and you have to encounter them just as much as I do.
I dare say if we go to Mrs. Lennox's we shall run up against some, but a
party does sound pleasant, doesn't it?"
"I think, dear," said Julie with that quiet little matronly air she
unconsciously assumed when she was trying to win over her sister, "I
think that even though parties are not at all in our line these days, we
should go. It is not a party, really, only an informal little musicale.
It will freshen us up tremendously to get into a different atmosphere
and it will please Mrs. Lennox, who has gone out of her way to be kind."
She looked at her sister entreatingly.
"Julie, you are a saint! Sometimes you talk just like Daddy!"
Julie's eyes moistened. "I am not a saint," she protested. "Think what
Miss Ware will say when she hears of it?"
Hester's eyes gleamed. "That settles it--I am going, and if you want to
know my honest opinion, I love Mrs. Lennox for asking us."
There were many orders that week and their working capacity was taxed to
its utmost to meet the demand. Had it not been for their systematic
arrangement of everything it would have been impossible to accomplish so
much. They had learned that the early hours of the morning are the best
and got to work by six, continuing on through the day as long as there
was anything to do. They had laid down stringent rules for work hours
and strenuously endeavored to live by them.
By Thursday they were absorbed in the largest order they had yet
received, embracing as it did croquettes, patties and other elaborate
things which in an unguarded moment they had agreed to send hot to some
club-rooms in the neighborhood. Hester thought they could do this by
packing the things in a big steamer they had recently purchased. The
steamer was a large tin affair built in sections of trays and would pack
to great advantage, besides holding a considerable amount of boiling
water at the bottom whereby the things could be kept hot. They had
engaged an expressman to deliver this promptly at quarter past eight and
it was with anxious hearts and nervous fingers they made the final
preparations for packing. The cooking of all these elaborate things had
been in itself no light achievement, but even that was as nothing to
their fear lest the steamer should not reach its destination safely.
They had been at work since five that morning and wrapped and boxed and
packed securely was the last thing when the clock struck eight that
evening. Five minutes past eight and no expressman! Quarter after, and
two excited girls stared at each other across the steamer! Then Hester
fled to the basement. The janitor was out but she pounced upon the
engineer and got him upstairs before he realized what it was all about.
"You're to go on an errand," was all she had vouchsafed him, leaving
Julie to explain the rest.
The man when he reached their kitchen eyed the big steamer curiously and
said he could carry it. Whereupon Julie wanted to fall upon his neck
with joy, but showed him the address tied to the cover instead.
"Be'gorra miss," he said in evident embarrassment, "I ain't been in the
city a week. Not the name of a street am I after knowin' entirely."
Here was a dilemma.
"I'll go with him," said Bridget.
"You'll do nothing of the sort," said Julie, "you have been half dead
with rheumatism for two days and it is pouring in torrents. We'll go,
Hester and I--we can get there in fifteen minutes. Hustle, Hester!"
It was an incongruous little procession that went out into the storm,
the girls leading, the man keeping close to his guides, who encouraged
him by a word now and then. He walked firmly and with head erect, not
because this was his habitual gait, but because he had been warned that
any undue motion of his body would bring showers of scalding water down
his back. An admonition like this was not to be disregarded and he
picked his way gingerly to the basement door of the club where the girls
rang the bell and the supper was safely left in the hands of the
housekeeper. Then having lavishly rewarded their cavalier two
light-hearted girls rushed home through the night to Bridget.
She welcomed them as if they had returned from some great peril, petted
and scolded them because of their wet things and fussed about like a hen
whose goslings have swam safely back to shore.
"I've made you a pot of coffee to warm your blessed selves," she said.
"It's a wonder you don't kill yourselves entirely."
"You Bridget!" said Julie affectionately as she kicked off her wet
shoes, "won't you put me to bed just as if I were a little bit of a
girl?" With those tired eyes and that pathetic droop to her mouth she
did not look much of anything else as she said it.
"Julie Dale! are you crazy! Mrs. Lennox's carriage is coming at nine
o'clock to take us to the musicale! You've ten minutes to dress!" Hester
made this announcement with a high tragedy air.
Julie jumped as if she had been shot. "I had completely forgotten it,
Hester. Oh! my dear, I am so dead tired I don't feel as if I could
move."
"Well, you've got to," remarked Hester, who, having made up her mind to
do a thing, was not easily turned from her purpose; "you got me into
this thing and we'll go if it kills us! I know I just about struck it
when I called this place 'The Hustle'" she ruminated. "I am sure I don't
feel as if I'd drawn a long breath since we came here!"
"What shall we wear?" asked Julie who scrambled after her sister,
shedding her wet things as she went.
"I got out your light silks, dearie," came from Bridget.
"Do you suppose we ought to wear hats?" This from Hester, who was
wishing they had planned their costumes the night before.
"Perhaps we ought," ruefully. "Good gracious! I haven't any--not a small
one, Hester."
"A trifle inconvenient, isn't it? I might lend you the rose toque I
bought in Paris."
"Indeed you won't, it exactly matches your gown and you look dear in it.
I'll wear a bow in my hair or something." A bow, to Julie, always filled
any discrepancy.
Hester arrested her in the act of trying this effect before the mirror
and sat her down brusquely in a chair.
"Give me that bow," she commanded, "and keep still. _I'll make a hat on
your head!_ Bridget, you get down her picture hat quick, and rip off the
tips and the band of jet and some lace and we'll fix her up in a jiffy!"
It was a wonderful creation--just a bit of lace and jet and ribbon with
never a stitch in it, all fastened with hairpins to Julie's curly head.
Two white ostrich tips stood up saucily at the side, a few violets were
coquettishly stuck in the back and the effect was immensely modish and
becoming.
"Hold your head high all the evening and don't toss it about for your
life!" warned Hester. "If you do, the whole thing will fall to pieces."
"That's a cheerful prospect," commented Julie, surveying herself in the
glass. "Can't you put in more hairpins?"
"You've got about a million now." Hester's imagination never failed her.
"Shure you look beautiful, Miss Julie, dear," said Bridget, "and it
ain't goin' to come to pieces--Miss Hester's only teasin' yer."
Five minutes later they were rolling through the storm in Mrs. Lennox's
brougham.
"Hester," whispered Julie from the depths of her luxurious corner, "_I_
never tramped out in the wet to-night to deliver a club supper, did
you?"
"Certainly not," squeezing her hand hard, "who ever heard of such a
thing!"
Something very like a tremor of nervous excitement pervaded the girls as
their names were announced on the threshold of Mrs. Lennox's
drawing-room. Their entrance attracted immediate attention. Mrs. Lennox
received them as Mrs. Lennox would, with most charming cordiality, yet
not too pronounced lest they be made to feel that their coming was not a
matter of common occurrence. She made a mental note of the fact that her
protégés had never looked prettier and was immensely pleased with their
poise and perfect self-possession under what she knew must be for them
something of an ordeal. If she could have looked into Julie's heart she
would have discovered a shyness in coming among these people that
amounted to positive pain; but who would ever have suspected it from
that smiling exterior and that proud tilt of the head?
As for Hester, from the moment a woman who was one of their customers
bowed to her in a puzzled sort of way and then whispered so loud that
every one about her could hear, "Why it's those Dale girls!"--from that
moment Hester's spirit of deviltry awoke and she determined to outshine
every girl in the room.
Mrs. Lennox immediately presented half a dozen men who formed a little
group about them and presently she steered them all toward some chairs
preparatory to settling down to hear the music. As they crossed the room
several women with whom they had had business dealings, bowed to them
cordially. In a corner on a tête-à-tête seat sat Jessie Davis with
Kenneth Landor. Both looked up as the party approached and Landor gave a
half-stifled exclamation. Hester's luminous eyes swept by the girl and
into the man's face with such a distracting smile that he was on his
feet in a second.
"How do you do?" she said sweetly, just the suspicion of a smile still
lurking about the corners of her mouth while she extended her hand
cordially.
The man took it in an eager clasp and blessed the Fates for this
propitious moment. "This is charming," he said. "It is a great pleasure
to see you."
"Yes, is it not?" naïvely. "Julie, here is Mr. Landor," bringing him
into the circle quite as if he were an old friend.
Genuinely glad to see him, Julie showed it unreservedly. All the men
knew him and envied him his luck as the little party found seats
together.
"You must not let us break up your tête-à-tête," remonstrated the wicked
Hester with a glance in the direction of the divan where Miss Davis sat
deserted.
Miss Davis, gazing into space, heard and bit her lip with vexation. She
thought the airs the little upstart gave herself were intolerable. What
could Mrs. Lennox be thinking of to bring those Dale girls into society?
But Landor did not go back to her. Man fashion, he pleased himself by
becoming Hester's shadow during the remainder of the evening, though he
was not allowed to monopolize her--far from it. He had to content
himself with scraps of conversation, for every man in the room wanted to
be presented and each found her so diverting and original that there was
constantly a little crowd about her, while in the intervals of the music
peals of merry laughter came from her corner of the room.
Julie, who was holding a little court of her own, could hear her and
rejoice, and she was especially glad that this should be so when later
in the evening Miss Ware, escorted by her brother, entered the room. She
recognized the girls and was conscious of their success five minutes
after her arrival and there was within her something like envy of Mrs.
Lennox who had been the first to take into the elect these social
renegades.
As for Dr. Ware, he threw himself with enthusiasm into the gayety of
Hester's corner, vying with the younger men in jests and laughter. Later
he sauntered down the room, stopping on the way to chat with this person
and that, and sought out Julie, who, though she greeted him so smilingly
seemed to him suddenly remote. It was as if she had slipped away into a
younger world than his and an indefinable sensation awoke within him,
filling him with unrest. Partly because of this and partly because the
pleasure in her evident pleasure was so great, he lingered near her,
giving her that quiet, unobtrusive attention which his old friendship
warranted. And Julie liked to have him near. She was glad that he smiled
so approvingly upon her, happy that this little frivolity was given the
additional delight of his presence. For it was all delightfully
frivolous and gay, though Julie's excitement and animation were
naturally somewhat tempered by her headgear, especially as every now and
then when she forgot herself and nodded her head emphatically over
something, Hester would give her a warning glance. Poor Julie! the
"proud and haughty" tilt became very trying, but it _was_ distinguished
and caused Mr. Lennox, who was most critical, likewise somewhat horsey,
to confide to his wife afterward that she was a thoroughbred.
"I hope you'll have them often," he said, when the last guest had
departed and they had settled down before the library fire to talk it
over. "After the cut-and-dried young people one usually meets they are
perfectly refreshing. I had a long talk with the blonde one--is she
Julie?--during supper about Arizona. Found myself telling her all about
my irrigation schemes out there. Fancy finding a young girl who
understands such things! She knows that country well and gave me an idea
or two worth considering."
"I should like to have them often, John, but they won't come. Their work
engrosses them to the exclusion of everything; it has to be so--they
need all their strength to get through the days. I understand it
perfectly. Did you notice how people were all in a flutter about them? I
fancy I have given Radnor something to talk about!"
"Oh! well, that is not unusual. Do you mean to say people have cut them?
It seems incredible in these enlightened days."
"It is true, nevertheless, though Julie told me the other day that their
customers were showing the kindest possible interest in their work and
encouraging them by renewed orders; that every one showed them courtesy
and consideration in a business way, but I happen to know, though she
did not say so, that there it stops. The line is distinctly drawn. None
of the daughters of those women show any inclination to renew their
acquaintance with the girls, though many of them were their playfellows
years ago."
"Well, they're a disgrace to their sex, that is all I've got to
say--I've no patience with that sort of thing!" Mr. Lennox put down a
half-smoked cigar and pushed back his chair. "They were the success of
the evening, Mabel, and I am proud to know them. It strikes me," slyly,
"there were others who succumbed to their fascinations. Landor, for
instance, and Dr. Ware--"
"Oh, he is their father's oldest friend."
"And Renshawe, who displayed surprising interest in Arizona when he
found us talking about it. Have you ever known him to care a hang about
Arizona before?"
"No," laughed his wife, "but Sidney Renshawe always rises to the
occasion when he is interested. Principally it is Virginia he talks
about now. By the way, he is expecting Monsieur Grémond back from
California any day. Did you know?"
"I was glad to have a chance to speak to her of her father, too," said
Mr. Lennox, who apparently had not heeded his wife's last remarks. "I
knew Mr. Dale somewhat at the club and regretted his collapse as we all
did. She had such a pretty proud look when I spoke of him, as if I
couldn't say too much. I felt as if I would like to take her off to some
quiet corner and talk to her by the hour together."
"So you shall, my dear. Together we will lay siege and capture them
again. I should like to give a dinner for them soon.
"Oh! ask them informally when we are not entertaining," remonstrated her
husband who evidently desired to monopolize them.
"Very well, dear, and if it pleases you to watch Julie's eloquent
face--and I assure you Hester's is equally so--Mr. Dale shall be the
chief topic of conversation. I never knew him, but it is a great deal to
know his daughters, John."
Which sentiment being shared by the master of the house the mistress
called the midnight session off and they went upstairs.