WATCHING FROM THE PAVEMENT.
Meantime, Boyce and Kate Gorman were enjoying themselves in a most
aristocratic fashion, in front of Mrs. Carter’s dwelling. They had taken
a good position, and saw the whole company, as carriage after carriage
set down its load. Once, for a very brief time, Kate missed her
companion, who had stepped back into the shadow of a neighboring
building, and spoke to a young man, who took something from his hand
then slunk cautiously away. Directly he disappeared entirely and was
lost in the crowd of curious persons, who had gathered to see what
fashionable life was like, when viewed from the side-walk, and by
gaslight.
“What, me!” said Boyce, when Kate reproached him for leaving her. “I
haven’t been six feet away from you all the evening. It was that big
woman who stood between me and you. I could have took hold of your dress
any minute; only you were enjoying yourself so much with them last two
carriage-loads, that I didn’t have the heart to disturb you by saying
I’m here, Miss Gorman, which I was, though, not being the fellow to
leave a lovely and defenceless female alone in a crowd.”
“Of course you’re not, Mr. Boyce,” said Kate, fully satisfied that he
had been close by her elbow all the time. “I only did not see you just
then, and, being a little timmersome at night, the thought of your
leaving me alone set me all in a trimble.”
“But the moment you spoke I was here.”
“Of course you were; only I didn’t observe it just at the minute. But,
oh! what has come over us now? Look there! If she hasn’t brought down a
handful of stars for her head! Why, sure, it’s the queen herself!”
“Not a bit of it,” answered Boyce, with supreme contempt of the idea.
“She’s only a customer of ours. I’ve had to carry home her groceries
more than once, when that boy Jim was out. That’s Mrs. Lambert.”
“Mrs. Lambert,” repeated Kate, who had never heard the name before, but
was still wonderfully impressed by the splendor of that lady’s dress.
“Well, of course, you know; only, if it was not for that, I should take
her for something a great deal more particular. Dear me! what a blaze
the house is in. How the curtains shake and tremble. To think of Mr. and
Mrs. Smith being in there, with the cream of the country, and I dressing
her for the same! It’s beyond belief, if we didn’t know it?”
“Miss Kate!”
“Well, Boyce, that’s me!”
“After the carriages get a little thinner, suppose you and I go down to
the theatre?”
“The theatre, Mr. Boyce, wouldn’t that make us late home?”
“Well, no. We could just drop into the Bowery, see some of them fellows
die fighting like fury, and then get back time enough to see all this
company come out and go home. They’ve been having a good time; why
shouldn’t we?”
“True for ye: but the child!”
“Haven’t we left that boy Jim in full charge, and isn’t he a capital
nuss. Come now, what’s the odds! While this swell-crowd is enjoying of
itself with dancing and champagne, oysters and ice cream, boned-turkey,
and what not, you and I are human creatures, with a right to live, and
have fun as well as them.”
“That is the truth, anyhow.”
“So, having the funds in my pocket, I am ready to stand that amount, if
you’re conformable.”
“Well, Boyce, I can’t say but I am willing.”
With this, Kate Gorman took the clerk’s arm, and crossing over to a
street car, proceeded with him to the theatre.
An hour or two later, the couple stood in front of Mr. Carter’s dwelling
again. The crowd had dispersed then, and there seemed little to interest
any person in the carriages that crept up to the door, and, taking in a
sleepy freight of revelers, moved away. Still Boyce insisted that the
sight was one that he would not lose for the world, and kept the weary
girl standing there, until Mrs. Smith appeared at the door, and, with
fussy attention to her dress, entered the hack that waited for her.
When this carriage drove away, Boyce expressed great willingness to go
home; and Kate, who had dropped half asleep, moved away with him,
heartily wishing herself in bed.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith drove, in a dreary, fatigued state, toward their
home. The occasion had been a proud one; but even that could not make
them quite insensible to the late hour, and the discomfort of full
dress, when the desire for sleep lay heavy upon both.
When the carriage stopped, Smith let himself out, and waited to see his
wife safe on the pavement. Then he gave a heavy blow on the door with
his clenched hand, waiting afterward with some impatience for it to be
opened.
A full minute went by, and there was no sign of life in the building.
Then he gave another impatient blow, and stepped back to see if any one
was stirring in the second story.
A dim light shone through the blinds; but it seemed stationary, and no
one moved. Then Smith shouted, and, taking up a block of wood, flung it
viciously at his own window. Evidently late hours did not agree with
him.
At last, the light began to waver, and finally disappeared.
Just then Boyce and Kate Gorman came up, much to the astonishment of
their employers.
“Why, Kate Gorman, Jared Boyce! What does this mean?”
“Oh! nothing,” said Boyce, almost airily. “Only Kate and I have been out
on a little bender of our own. The store and baby are all right; we left
Jim Laurence locked in with them.”
Before Mrs. Smith could reply, the grocery door was opened, and James
stood in the entrance with a lamp in his hand.