THE ADOPTION.
Eva, whose face had changed from red to white, with a swift transition
of feeling, came forward suddenly, and threw her arms around Mrs.
Carter’s neck.
“Oh, how good you are! How I love you! Can we do anything—anything on
earth to repay all this?” she cried, in a warm outburst of gratitude.
“It seems to me that I could fall down and worship you!”
“There! there! That’s all nonsense, my dear. Just remember that there is
only one thing you can do, and having once refused, I can never ask you
again after this, not wanting to buy love.”
“Oh, don’t say that, Mrs. Carter. It was because they could not spare
me—because they were in such trouble, and needed help so much. Even
now——”
“Stop a minute, dear. Does your heart go with me?”
“Yes! yes!”
“Will you go with me now? That is, will you let me arrange this with
your mother. The people down yonder don’t want your help. I do. My life
in that grand mansion is lonely. I haven’t been brought up to reading,
and music, and such things. I want some one to write my notes, do my
spelling, and sing to Carter—and am ready to pay for it. If you are
willing to work for men that sell goods, why not work for me at double
the price? I don’t mean to keep you away from home; there needn’t be a
day that you can’t come here. Besides, I have an idea about Ruthy. You
shall learn to drive the pony-carriage, and take her out every morning.
I’ll have an elevator put up in the house, and she shall just be lifted
up to Herman’s studio—in fact there’ll be no break up about it. Say now,
once for all, will you come?”
“Oh, if you knew how I wish it; but poor Ruthy!”
“She don’t look so terribly troubled,” said Mrs. Carter, glancing at the
gentle girl.
“I shall like the rides _so_ much,” said Ruthy. “Then, perhaps, I might
see what the Park is like.”
“Of course you shall, with plenty of cushions, and a gentle horse. There
can be nothing like it. There now, you see, Eva.”
Eva went close to her sister, knelt down, and laying her cheek against
the pale, tremulous face, whispered,
“Sister, darling, could _you_ let me go.”
“We should not be much apart,” answered Ruth. “And she is so good.”
While the girls were consulting together, Mrs. Carter went into the
kitchen, where she found Mrs. Laurence pressing the mortgage down with
the poker into a flaming bed of coals. The scarlet light shone on her
face, giving it the glow of long-banished smiles. She closed the stove
as Mrs. Carter came up, beaming with good nature, and spoke eagerly.
“You needn’t ask me; I have no right to keep her from you. Eva has been
a good girl, take her; but let her come home sometimes for Ruthy’s
sake.”
After this there was a passionate clinging of arms, warm kisses, and a
tearful face, looking wistfully through the carriage window, as Mrs.
Carter drove away with her adopted daughter, for the whole affair
amounted to that, under the guise of an agreement.
In less than a week it was known throughout the fashionable world that
the wealthy Carters had adopted that beautiful girl, Eva Laurence, and
intended to make her an heiress. It was also known that the whole
Laurence family had been benefited by the change—that a delicate, lovely
girl, who had been a great sufferer from childhood, had developed such
wonderful talent for painting, that Mr. Ross had taken her for a pupil.
This was all true. From that humble cottage Eva had passed into a life
so luxurious and pleasant, that it realized all her ideas of paradise.
No more work, no walking up and down town in drifting snow or driving
rain. Warmth, beauty and kindness, surrounded her on every hand. Her
love of the beautiful was gratified to the full. It seemed to her that
there was hardly a thing on earth which was not given to her wishes.
“Yes, one.”
But she would not think of that; Fate had forbidden her to love; in
giving her everything else, that great first boon of womanhood had been
withheld. But she had in exchange that sweet, pure, fatherly affection,
which seemed to have been taken away forever when Laurence died. No one
could be more generally kind than Mr. Carter, but it was on the artist
Ross that her heart rested with more than filial affection; his loving
patience, his tender assiduity, sometimes won tears of gratitude from
the girl.
Was this love? Yes, but oh how different to that which lay buried deep
in her heart for the man she could not marry.
In a few weeks from this the season was at its full, and the Carters
plunged into all its gayeties with a zest and brilliancy hitherto
unknown to them. To own and introduce a creature so lovely, and so
exquisitely refined, into fashionable life, was a crowning glory to the
ambition which had urged these new people into society. They accepted
invitations—they gave parties—they occupied the most prominent box at
the opera, and had the glory of knowing that their protegée, in spite of
her humble origin, in spite of envy and persecution, was in fact the
Reigning Belle of society.
It would be false to say that Eva did not feel this change in her life
as a transition into something like fairy land.