Lady Darinda, though esteeming herself highly bred, was much given to

direct questioning which sometimes seemed impertinent. But Tom did not

resent it in this case; he merely replied:

“My cousin will live with me when I am married, and I am happy to say

she has no further need to look for employment of any kind. I shall take

care of her.”

Lady Darinda was so glad. Nor was it a sham gladness. The intimate

friend of Miss Lucy Elliston, she had heard much of “the Mr. Gordon who

had saved Charlie’s life, and who was of the Gordon stock, and a

thorough gentleman.” She had also felt a kindly interest in the girl who

had _almost_ been Lady Cleaver, and that interest was increased when she

knew her to be a near connection of Miss Elliston’s Mr. Gordon. The time

might come when it would do to speak of her and possibly present her to

her friends, and she made many anxious inquiries concerning her, and

talked so rapidly and so loud that the head on the pillow moved as if

disturbed, and Tom was glad when the lady at last gathered herself up to

leave. She was still nervously rubbing her jeweled hands, and Tom’s

attention was attracted to a solitaire of great brilliancy, the same I

had observed the day I sat in her reception-room, and she stood talking

to me and rubbing her hands just as she was rubbing them now. Suddenly,

and as if her mind was made up, she drew off the ring, and bending over

the sick girl pushed it upon the fourth finger of the left hand, saying

to Tom as she did so:

“The ring is hers, and she ought never to have parted with it. I don’t

know why she sent it back to us, but she did, just after Archie died,

and as his cousin I kept it, but wish her to have it again, and I fancy

she is too proud to take it if she knew. I must go, now, but will come

again soon, or send to inquire. Shall I see you at Miss Elliston’s

to-night at the musicale? Lucy will be greatly disappointed, if you do

not come.”

“I shall not leave my cousin while she is so sick,” was Tom’s reply, and

with a loud spoken good-by, Lady Darinda left the little room which she

had seemed to fill so full with her large, tall person and voluminous

skirts.

Scarcely was she gone, when Tom took in his own the pale little hand

where the solitaire was sparkling, looked at it a moment, then gently

withdrew it; put it in his pocket-book, with a muttered something I

could not quite understand. Then the girl on the pillow began to grow

restless, and her fever came on, and Tom said there had been too much

talking in the room, and no one must be admitted except the Misses Keith

and Mrs. Trevyllan, and across the window they hung a heavy curtain to

exclude the light, and so to me everything became a blank, and I knew no

more of what was passing until one bright December morning, when I awoke

suddenly to find myself in the bed where the sick girl had lain.

I was very weak and languid, and very much bewildered as I tried to

recall the past, and remember what had happened. It was something like

the awakening after Archie died, only, in place of dear old Aunt Esther,

here was a tall, brown man looking down upon me, with so much kindness

and anxiety in his eyes, that without knowing at all who he was, I tried

to put out my hand as I said: “You are very, very good. I’ll tell Tom

about it.”

“Norah, Norah. I am Tom. Don’t you know me?” and his great warm hands

were laid on mine as he bent over me with his eager questioning. “Don’t

you know me, Norah? I am Tom.” I did know him then, and I said:

“Yes, I know you, and I’ve been very sick; it must have been the leaky

boots which kept my feet so cold and wet. Where are they, Tom?”

“Burned up, Norah. I did it myself in the kitchen range, and you have in

their place twelve pairs of the neatest little gaiters you ever saw,

waiting for your feet to be able to wear them. Shall I show them to you

now?”

He did not wait for me to answer, but darted into the recess adjoining,

and bringing out the boots, tumbled them all upon the bed where I could

see them. Twelve pairs of boots, of every style and make! Walking boots,

morning boots, calling boots, prunella boots, bronze boots, French

calfskin boots, and what was very strange, a dainty pair of white satin

boots, which laced so very high, and were so pretty to look at. I think

these pleased me more than all the others, though I had no idea as to

when or where I could wear them.

A handsome boot was one of my weaknesses, and lo! here were a dozen

pairs of them, and I laughed as a child would have done over a box of

toys. He let me enjoy them a few moments, and then took them away,

telling me I was not to get too tired, and how glad he was that I was

better, and able to recognize him. I had been sick three weeks, he said,

and he had been with me all the time, except when he went out for a

short time each day.

“You have been out of your head,” he said, “and insisted that you were

sitting over in the window, and that somebody else was here in bed, and

that I was a big bear. What do you think of me, now?”

I looked at him closely, and saw that the heavy overcoat and coarse sea

clothes had given place to garments of the most fashionable kind, which

fitted him admirably, and gave him quite a _distingue_ air, while his

hair and beard were cut and trimmed after the most approved style of

Hyde Park and Rotten Row at the height of the season. He was a man to be

noticed anywhere, and after inspecting him a moment, I said:

“I think you are very nice, and very handsome, and I am so glad you have

come home.”

This was a great deal to say at once in my feeble state, and he saw how

tired I was, and bade me not talk any more, and drew the covering about

me and tucked it in, and brought me a clean handkerchief, and laid it on

my pillow, and did it all as deftly and handily as any woman could have

done.

Oh, those first days of getting better, how happy they were, and how

delightful it seemed to be made much of, and petted, and waited on as if

I were a princess.

Archie’s mother called two or three times, and was very kind to me, and

said once, as she was leaving:

“You will hardly come to me now as we had agreed upon.”

“Oh, yes I shall,” I replied. “I must get to work again as soon as I am

able.”

Then Tom came forward and said in a quiet, decided way, as if he had a

right:

“My cousin will not go out any more. She is under my care now.”

That was so like Tom; and I let him have his way with Mrs. Browning, but

was nevertheless just as firm in my determination to care for myself. I

had not forgotten what he had said about being married, nor had I any

doubt that he meant to marry Miss Elliston, and if so, our lives must

necessarily drift very far apart. But it was so nice to have him all to

myself just now, and I enjoyed it to the full, and let him wait on me as

much as he liked, and took gladly what he brought me, rare flowers and

hot-house plants, and books of engravings for me to look at, and books

which he read aloud to me while I lay on my pillows, or sat in my great

arm-chair and watched him as he read, and wondered at, and rejoiced

over, and felt glad and proud of the change in his appearance. I think

he was, without exception, the finest-looking man I ever saw, and Mrs.

Trevyllan quite agreed with me, always excepting, of course, her George.

She was with me a great deal during my convalescence, and one morning,

when Tom was out, she came with a radiant face, which I knew portended

some good news. Miss Elliston had actually called—that is, she had come

to the door in her carriage, sent in her card, and with it an invitation

to a large party to be given the next week.

“And are you going?” I asked; and she replied:

“Certainly I am. I think it was real snipping in her not to call

herself, but then I can excuse something on the score of old

acquaintance, and I must wear that lovely silk before it gets quite out

of fashion. She wrote me a little note, saying it was to be a grand

affair—quite a crash. I can hardly wait to see it.”

Just then Tom came in, and the conversation ceased, though I was tempted

to tell him I knew of the party. He was going, of course, and I felt a

little hurt that he did not speak to me about it; He might have done as

much as that, I thought, but he did not until the very day, when he said

to me, late in the afternoon:

“I have an engagement for to-night, Mousey. Miss Elliston gives a large

party, and as she has deferred it until I could be present, I think I

ought to go.”

“Yes, certainly, by all means,” I said; and then, when he was gone, I

was silly enough to cry, and to think hard things of Miss Elliston, who

was so rich and happy in everything.

When Mrs. Trevyllan was dressed she came to let me look at her, and I

thought I had never seen anything as lovely as she was, in pink silk,

and lace, and pearls, with her sunny blue eyes and golden hair.

“You will be the belle of the party,” I said; but she shook her head,

laughingly, and replied:

“I’ll tell you to-morrow.”

Alas! when the morrow came, the little lady’s plumes were drooping, and

her spirits a good deal ruffled. Tom was late in his visit that morning,

and so she had ample time to tell me all about it.

“Such a jam!” she said; “and it had taken half an hour for their

carriage to get up to the house, then another half hour to push her way

to the dressing-room and down again to the drawing-room, where Miss

Elliston just touched her hand and said good-evening; and then she was

shoved on to a corner, where she and George stood, entirely surrounded

by strangers, and feeling more alone than if they had been in the

desert. When the dancing commenced, it was better, for the parlors

thinned out, and she was able to walk and look about a little; but

nobody spoke to her or noticed her in any way, and she was not

introduced to a single individual, until the lion of the evening, the

man who received so much attention from every body, accidentally

stumbled upon her, and was so kind and good. And who do you suppose it

was? I was never more astonished in my life. And they say he is to marry

Miss Elliston. It is quite a settled thing, I heard. Your cousin, Mr.

Gordon; and that was his photograph, though not very natural; at least,

I did not recognize him from it. Perhaps, because I never thought of

such a thing.”

“The picture was taken three or four years ago,” I said; “and Tom says

it was never a good one.”

“Then you did know all the time that he was Miss Elliston’s Mr. Gordon,

and you never told me?” Mrs. Trevyllan cried, in a slightly aggrieved

tone of voice.

“I knew he was her brother’s friend,” I said, “but not till after he

came home. Is she so very handsome?”

“Why, yes, I think she is, or at least she has a style and high-bred air

better than mere beauty. Last night she was all in white, with blush

roses on her dress, and in her hair, and when she walked or danced with

Mr. Gordon, everybody remarked what a splendid couple they were, she so

tall and graceful, and he so big and prince-like. Did you know they were

engaged?”

She put the question direct, and I knew my cheeks were scarlet, as I

replied:

“I supposed—yes. I—Tom told me he came home to be married; that’s all I

know.”

I was taking my breakfast, and my hand shook so that I spilled my

chocolate over the clean napkin and dropped my egg-spoon into my lap.

There was an interval of silence, and then the impulsive little lady

burst out:

“I say, Miss Burton, it’s too bad. Here I’d been building a castle for

you, and behold, Lucy Elliston is to be its mistress. I don’t like her

as well as I did, I’m free to say, for I do not think she treated me as

she should at the party; never introducing me to a person, or even

speaking to me till just as I was leaving, when she was so glad I came,

and hoped I had not found it very dull among so many strangers; and

then, Miss Burton—I despise a talebearer—but I will tell you what I

heard. I was standing by myself in a little window alcove, and Lucy came

along with a tall, large woman, whom I think she called Lady Fairfax.

They did not see me, and after the conversation commenced I dared not

show myself, so I kept still and heard them talk of you.”

“Of me?” I exclaimed; and she continued:

“Of you; yes.” Lady Fairfax said:

“‘What a splendid fellow he is, and how he wins the people. I almost

envy you, Lucy, if you do marry him. By the way, do you know his cousin,

Miss Burton? Was she invited to-night?’

“‘No,’ Lucy said. ‘I’ve never called upon her. She teaches music, you

know. I saw her in Paris, with one of her pupils; rather pretty, but no

style. You never saw her, of course!’

“‘Yes, I have;’ and I fancied Lady Fairfax spoke a little hotly. ‘I know

all about her, and she is as nice as she can be, and a lady too. She was

to have married Cousin Archie, who died, and if she had she would have

been Lady Cleaver, of Briarton Lodge, now. She has been very sick; did

you know that?’

“‘Yes, I should think so, for that has kept Mr. Gordon from us so much,

and Charlie was so vexed, for he needed amusing himself. I trust she

will soon be well. Is she really nice and a lady?’

“‘Yes, every whit a lady; and I advise you to cultivate her at once.’

“From where I sat I could see Miss Elliston distinctly, and saw her give

a little shrug which she picked up abroad, and which always irritates

me. Lady Fairfax must have understood its meaning, for she went on:

“‘Mr. Gordon is evidently very fond of his cousin, and looks upon her as

a sister, and——’

“‘How do you know that? How do you know he is very fond of her?’ Miss

Elliston asked, quickly; and I saw in a moment she was jealous of you.

And when Lady Fairfax told of her call when you were sick, and of his

devotion to you, and added, ‘He will undoubtedly expect her to live with

you when you are married,’ she gave another shoulder shrug and said:

“‘_Cela depend._ I have not married him yet, and, if I should, I do not

propose marrying his entire family. This girl is not of the Gordon

blood.’

“What more they would have said I do not know, for just then some

dancers came out to cool themselves, and behind them Mr. Gordon, looking

for Lucy, who took his arm with such a sweet smile and air of

possession, and I heard her say to him:

“‘Lady Fairfax has been telling me such nice things about your cousin. I

wish you would bring her to see me; I am so busy and have so many

engagements, I think she might waive ceremony with me.’”

“What did Tom reply?” I asked, and Mrs. Trevyllan said:

“I did not hear his answer; but, mark my words, she’ll make a fool of

him, and he will be asking you to call on her. But don’t you do it, and

don’t you live with them either.”

“I never shall,” was my answer; and as Tom’s step was heard in the hall

just then, Mrs. Trevyllan left me to receive his visit alone.

He looked tired and ennuied, and was absentminded and moody for him,

while I, too, was very reticent, and never once mentioned the party

until he said:

“I met Mrs. Trevyllan as I came up. She told you about the party last

night, I suppose.”

“Yes,” I answered, and he continued:

“What did she say of Miss Elliston? They are old friends, I believe.”

“Yes: they knew each other in Ireland. She said she was very pretty and

stylish, and so lovely last night in white, with blush roses——”

“Yes,” Tom replied, evidently wishing to hear something more.

“And she said everybody was talking of you, and what a fine-looking

couple you were.”

“Yes,” and this time the yes rang out rather sharply, but brought no

response from me.

I had told him all I had to tell him of Miss Elliston, and, after

waiting a few moments, he began himself:

“Miss Elliston it a very handsome girl, with fine manners and style. She

is considered a great catch, I believe. Would you like to see her—that

is, enough to call on her with me when you are able? She asked me to

bring you, as her time is so fully occupied. Will you go?”

“No, Tom, I’d rather not. I’d do much to please you, but not that. It is

her place to call on me, if she cares to know me.”

I said this faintly, and with tears gathering in my eyes, and a horrid

feeling of loneliness gathering in my heart.

I was losing Tom sure, and it made me very sad, and made the old life to

which I must return seem harder than before. Perhaps it was this, and

perhaps it was that I had no vital force with which to rally, no bank to

draw from, as the physician said, which kept me an invalid all that

winter, with barely strength to walk about my room, and drive

occasionally with Tom, who came to see me nearly every day, and who

surrounded me with every possible comfort and luxury, even to the

providing me with a maid to wait upon me. I protested against this,

knowing how hard it would be to go back to my work after so much

petting, and said so once to Tom when he was spending the evening with

me.

“Go back to your work again! What do you mean?” he asked, and I said:

“Mean just what I say. Take care of myself as soon as I am able,

and—and—you are married, as they say you are going to be.”

Since the morning after the party he had never mentioned Miss Elliston

or referred to her in any way, and his silence was beginning to annoy

me, and so I added:

“You are, are you not?”

“Are what?” he asked, with a comical gleam in his eye.

“Are going to be married?” I replied, and he continued:

“Yes, I believe I am, provided the lady will have me. Do you think she

will?”

“Have you! Of course she will,” I said, quite vehemently, and felt my

whole face burn with excitement.

“And if I do marry,” Tom added, “why should that compel you to return to

your teaching, I’d like to know? Wouldn’t you still be my care?”

“No,” I answered, emphatically. “I shall just take care of myself as I

did before you came from India. It will not be any harder.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” Tom answered, with a laugh, nor was I so sure

of it either, and after he was gone I remember that I cried bitterly

over the certainty of his marriage and the change it would bring to me.

During the next three or four weeks I did not see Tom quite as often as

usual; he was very busy, he told me; occupied, I supposed, with Miss

Elliston, whom I saw with him in the gardens where I was taking an

airing in a Bath chair one pleasant morning in April. Mrs. Trevyllan was

walking by my side, and first called my attention to them coming

straight toward us, and so near that to escape by turning into a by-path

was impossible. Tom saw me at the same moment, and I fancied there was a

look of annoyance on his face as if the meeting were one he would have

avoided. But it was too late now. We were very near each other, and

wishing to spare him the necessity of recognition, if possible, I pulled

my blue hood closely about my face and pretended to be very much

interested in a bed of crocuses; but Tom was not inclined to pass me by,

and before I quite knew what I was doing, I had been presented to Miss

Elliston, and she was looking at me, and I was looking at her, and each

was undoubtedly forming an opinion of the other not altogether

complimentary. Mine of her was: Fine-looking, stylish, very stylish, but

cold as an iceberg, selfish, smooth and deep, and if it be true that in

the case of every married couple there is one who loves and one who

permits it, Tom will be the one who loves, and she the passive

recipient. I should as soon think of receiving a caress from an iceberg

as from that calm, quiet, self-possessed woman. Poor Tom, with his warm,

loving heart, and demonstrative nature! This was my opinion of Miss

Elliston, while hers of me, I fancy, was something as follows: “That

little dowdy, faded old maid, Mr. Gordon’s cousin! and does Lady Fairfax

think I’ll ever consent to her living with me as a poor relation?”

I thought I read all this in her eyes, which scanned me so curiously,

while she tried to be agreeable and said she was glad to see me; that

she had been coming to call upon me for a long time, but really her time

was not her own, and she wished I would come to see her with Mrs.

Trevyllan, “who, naughty girl, owes me a party call,” she added,

playfully, and shaking her finger at the “naughty girl,” she made a

movement to pass on.

Tom said very little, and I felt he was glad when the interview was

over, and I was being trundled along the road further and further from

him and his _fiancee_. She was that, I almost knew, and when three weeks

later, he told me of a place on Finchley Road, Hampstead, which was for

sale, and which he meant to buy, I was sure of it, and asked him when it

was to be.

“The wedding, you mean?” and he looked so quizzically at me. “I’d like

it as soon as the middle of June. How do you suppose that would suit

her?”

I thought he could ascertain that better by asking her rather than me,

and I told him so a little pettishly, I am afraid, though he did not

seem the least bit ruffled, but held me high in his arms just as he did

the night he came from India, and said: “Mousey must manage to get back

some color in her cheeks, for I want her to look her best at the

wedding.”

Secretly I hoped I’d be sick and unable to go, but I did not say so, and

when, a few days later, he came and told me he had bought Rose Park, and

wished me to drive out with him and see it, I did not object, but put on

my hat and shawl with a feeling as if I were about to visit a grave,

instead of the charming spot which Rose Park proved to be. The house

stood in an inclosure of two acres, and we went through the grounds

first, admiring the beautiful flowers and shrubs, the velvety grass, the

statuary gleaming so white through the distant trees, the rustic seats

and gravel walks, and pretty little fountain which sent up such tiny

jets of water near the front door. How delightful it all was; just a bit

of country in the busy city, from which it was shut out by a high stone

wall, over which the English ivy was rioting so luxuriantly. And yet in

my heart there was an ache as I thought how very, very seldom I should

ever go there, and in imagination saw Miss Elliston’s tall, graceful

figure, wandering about the shaded walks with Tom, or sitting down to

rest in the rose-covered arbor, just as he and I were doing, he asking

me innumerable questions about the place, how I liked it, and if I

thought his wife would be suited with it.

“Suited!” I cried. “She ought, for I think it a little Paradise. I did

not know there was such a pretty place in London, city and country all

in one.”

“Well, then, Mousey,” he said, “if you like the grounds so much, let us

go inside and see what you think of the house, and what, if any, changes

you would suggest.”

The inside of the house took my breath away, it was so handsome, and yet

so cozy and home-like, as if made to live and be happy in. There was

nothing stiff about it, nothing too grand to be used every day, and yet

it was elegant and rich, and I felt like one in a dream as Tom led me

through room after room, some with low windows and balconies, others

opening into little conservatories, and all so charming that I could not

tell which I liked the best.

“Has Miss Elliston been here? Has she seen it?” I asked, and Tom

replied: “Not yet. I wished to bring you here first and see if there was

any alteration you could suggest.”

“I!” and I looked quickly up at him. “She would not think much of my

taste, I fancy. Neither do I think she will care to have a thing

changed, it is all so charming, especially her room.”

That was indeed the glory of the house, so large and airy, and

commanding a fine view of the town outside the garden walls. To the

south was a large bay window, fitted up just like a fairy playhouse,

with pictures and flowers, and lace curtains across the arch, and a

canary bird caroling a merry song in his handsome cage. To the west a

long balcony, with two or three easy-chairs, and at each corner an urn

full of bright flowers and drooping vines. Such a nice place to sit and

read, or work in the morning, especially as a door from it communicated

with the sleeping room, which had the tallest bedstead and bureau I had

ever seen, and was pretty enough for the queen herself. Indeed, I

doubted whether there was in Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle any

rooms as pretty and suggestive of genuine comfort as these, and I said

so to Tom as we stood in what he called “my wife’s room,” with the south

bay window and the long west balcony.

“Then you really like it, and think you could be happy here?” Tom said,

sitting down upon the blue satin couch, and drawing me beside him.

“Happy!” I repeated; “yes, perfectly happy with people whom I loved, and

I am sure you’ll be happy, Tom, and I’m so glad for you that you have so

beautiful a home.” He was silent a moment, and then he said:

“Norah, you have not selected your room yet. I know which I have

designed for you, but I want you to be suited. Can you tell me which you

would like?”

Now was the time to make an end of all the talk about my living with him

at Rose Park, and I began:

“Tom, why can’t you understand how impossible it is that I should stay

here after you are married?”

“Why impossible?” he asked, and I replied:

“Because there is nothing in common between me and Miss Elliston. She is

elegant, and grand, and high-born, and I am a little plain old maid of

whom she would be ashamed even as a poor relation. She loves you, and

you will be happy with her alone. I should only be an element of discord

in your household. No, Tom, don’t speak till I’m through. My mind is

fully made up. I cannot live with you, and shall resume my old work

again and so be independent. But I thank you all the same for your kind

offer, and shall be happier in the old life, knowing you are in London,

where I can reach you if anything should happen.”

I had made my speech, and when it was ended Tom began in a tone of voice

I had never heard from him before, except as I remember dimly the time I

was so sick and heard him say:

“Dear little girl, please, God, spare her to me now.”

Sitting in the window, as I fancied I sat then, and watching the man who

ministered so tenderly to the sick girl, I had thought there was love in

his voice and manner, but when the cobwebs of delirium cleared away the

past seemed very vague and misty, and sometimes I doubted if I had seen

or heard anything, or if Tom’s lips had touched mine more than once as a

brother’s lips never touch those of his sister. Now, however, there

could be no mistaking his voice, or the fact that he had wound his arm

around my waist and drawn me nearer to him.

“Norah,” he began, “do you remember that summer afternoon years ago when

you walked with me down the lane, and said good-by at the stile when the

stage stopped to take me up? Yes, you remember it, and how the boy

cried, and the wild words he spoke about having meant you for his

wife—you, who were ten months his senior, and felt yourself to be his

grandmother. Norah, I was in earnest then, and there was such a pain in

my heart as I watched you standing on the stile and waving your hand to

me, and to myself I said: ‘Please God if I can’t have her, I’ll never

have anybody.’ Then the years went by and changes came, and the boy-love

seemed to have died out, though I never saw a fair English face in India

that I did not contrast it with yours, and say to myself: ‘Norah’s is

the best, though possibly not so pretty.’ I was a man among men. I had

money and social position, and more than one mother wanted me for her

daughter, and I knew it, and, being human, was flattered by it somewhat,

but always remembered you and the summer afternoon when we said good-by

at the stile in Middlesex. Then Miss Elliston came to India. It was an

honor to be noticed by her, and I was thus honored, and as the friend of

her favorite brother was often at their rooms and came to know her well.

She is very handsome, and though she may be cold and haughty to those

whom she considers her inferiors, she is sweet and gracious to her

equals, and was the most popular girl in Calcutta. I was much in her

society, and liked her better than any girl I knew, and, as was natural,

our names came at last to be mentioned together, and I was looked upon

as a suitor for her hand; but I never was, Norah—never.”

I started then, but the arm around my waist tightened its hold, and he

continued:

“I was not a marrying man, I thought, and whenever I did dream of a home

and wife, your face came always before me as it looked that day when you

watched me going from you. ‘It is not like that now,’ I said to myself.

‘Norah must have grown old in these dozen years;’ and then I sent for

the photograph, which, when it came, astonished me so much by its sweet,

pensive beauty and girlish fairness that I changed my mind, and thought

I was a marrying man, and that no other face than that of the original

could ever satisfy me. So I came home and found you more than I had

hoped. I saw at once that you, too, associated me with Miss Elliston,

and as a means of winning you I suffered you to be deceived. Miss

Elliston is nothing to me—never can be anything to me, even if you now

refuse to select your room at Rose Park. Which shall it be, Norah? Will

you take the pretty suit, you supposed was intended for another, and

will you let me be somewhere in the vicinity, say within call, in case

you need me?”

It was a novel way of asking me to be his wife, but it was like Tom, and

I understood what it meant, and for a moment sat perfectly still, too

much overcome to speak. Then, as Tom pressed me for an answer, and said:

“Come, Norah, I am bound to marry somebody so which shall it be, Miss

Elliston or you?” I answered:

“I think it better be I; but oh, Tom, I never dreamed of such a thing,”

and then, of course, I cried, and Tom soothed and quieted me in the

usual way, and we sat and talked it over, and I found that I must have

loved him all my life, and he was certain he had loved me since the

first day of his arrival at the old home in Middlesex, when he chased me

with an apple-tree worm, which he succeeded in dropping into my neck,

and for which I rewarded him with a long scratch on his face.

It was settled that we should be married sometime in June, and that

Archie’s mother and Lady Darinda should be invited to the wedding, which

otherwise was to be void of guests, with the exception of the Misses

Keith and Mrs. Trevyllan. How surprised these last were, and how glad,

and how much they made of me as the future Mrs. Gordon, I went and told

Lady Fairfax myself, and she insisted upon giving me a wedding, and

saying that I should be married from her house in Grosvenor Square. But

to that Tom would not listen. A quiet wedding suited him better, with no

fuss and worry, and no one to criticise.

Lady Darinda was bitterly disappointed, and was not to be appeased until

Tom consented to allow her to give us a party after our return from

Switzerland, for we were going there on the bridal trip—going to see the

glorious Alps once more, with their ever-changing hues, and the silvery

lakes which sparkle in the sunshine like silver jewels on a bed of

green. Oh! that lovely June morning, when the air was filled with the

perfume of roses and violets, and not a cloud hung over Kensington. My

wedding morning, and it comes back to me so freshly now, with the song

of the robin in the tree by my window, the dewy sweetness of the air,

the deep blue of the sky, the smiles, and tears, and kisses of Mrs.

Trevyllan and the Misses Keith, the loud, decided talk of Lady Darinda,

the quiet “God bless you, child, and make you happy,” of Archie’s mother

when she was ushered into my room, for both ladies came to the house and

went with me to the church, on the street just around the corner, where

Tom met me, radiant and happy, and so handsome in his new suit “right

from Paris,” and the old saucy, teasing smile in his eyes and about his

mouth, as he looked down upon me and heard me promise to love, honor,

and obey. There were no tears at my wedding, and I trust no sorry

hearts, though Miss Lucy Elliston was there with her brother Charlie,

mere lookers-on, and when the ceremony was over and we were going down

the aisle, she confronted Tom laughingly, and said:

“I meant to see you married whether you invited me or not.”

To me she was very polite and affable, and I remembered what Tom had

said of her sweet graciousness to those whom she thought her equals. I

was that now, and she said something about seeing much of me when I

returned to England; but she has not, and we shall never be more than

mere calling acquaintances, with occasionally a dinner or a lunch.

Lady Darinda gave the promised party, and I wore white satin and pearls,

and the white boots Tom bought with the dozen, and Archie’s solitaire,

too, for Tom told me about it one night at Giessbach, where we spent two

delightful weeks, wandering through the woods and up and down the falls

to the shores of the lake.

“I did not wish to see it on your finger then,” he said, “when you were

so sick and I feared you might die; but now that you have the wedding

ring and are absolutely mine, I do not care, and you can wear it if you

choose.”

I did choose, for I had a weakness for diamonds, and this was a superb

one, handsomer even than the one Tom gave me, which chagrined him, I

think, a little.

The party was a great success, so far as numbers, and dress, and music,

and titled people were concerned; and I was, I believe, considered a

success, too, especially after it was generally known that I came near

being Lady Cleaver of Briarton Lodge, and that Tom was one of _the_

Gordons, with heaps of money and the prettiest place in St. John’s Wood.

For myself, I did not like the party at all, and felt tired, and bored,

and glad when it was over and I could come back to the beautiful home

where I have been so happy since the day Tom brought me here as his

bride.

It is _wife_ now. The bridal festivities are all in the past; the bridal

dress worn at Lady Darinda’s party is yellowed by time, and on the

terrace in front of the bow window where I am writing two children are

playing—my sweet, blue-eyed Nellie of six, and my brave, sturdy boy of

four, with light brown hair and a freck on his nose, just where Tom’s

used to be when he, too, was a boy. We called him Archie, to please the

dear old lady, whom I have learned to love so much, and who divides her

time about equally between Lady Darinda and myself. The children call

her grandma, and I heard Archie explaining to the gardener’s son, the

other day, that she was really his grandmother, because she was the

mother of his first father!

To me the past seems all a dream, and when I look about me upon my home,

and hear the voices of my children shouting on the lawn, and see their

father coming up the walk, and know that he will soon be at my side,

bending over me in the old, teasing, loving way, I cannot realize that I

am she who once plodded so drearily through the London fog and rain,

hunting for work with which to get my daily bread. God has been very

good to me, and, though I have known much of poverty and sorrow, it is

over now, and in all the United Kingdom there is not a happier home than

mine, or a happier pair, I am sure, than Tom and I—and so this quiet

story of real English life is done.

THE END.

KITTY CRAIG

Kitty Craig was just married; and the white satin and fleecy lace, in

which she had looked so much like an angel that her great, handsome

giant of a husband hardly dared to touch her, was folded and packed away

in one of the trunks which stood in the hall waiting the arrival of the

express wagon which was to take them to the train. And Kitty in her

traveling-dress looked infinitely prettier and more approachable than

she had in all that sheen of lace, and satin and flowers, which had cost

so much money and discussion, the mother and aunties saying that it was

a useless expense, as were nearly all such bridal dresses, when the

bride was neither wife nor daughter of a millionaire—that in nine cases

out of ten the costly fabric was worn only at the altar and then laid

aside to fade and grow yellow with time, or at best to be made over

after a lapse of years, when there arose some occasion which demanded

it. Kitty, on the contrary, knew she should need it, for was she not

going to New York, the very “hub” of parties, and receptions and

society, and though she did not know an individual there, and might, as

her quaint old aunt expressed it, be at first “a rat among cats,”

instead of “a cat among rats,” as she had hitherto been, she should soon

have troops of friends, for was not John the confidential clerk in a

first-class wholesale house on Broadway, and already acquainted with the

wives of his employers, Messrs. Orr, Guile and Steele, and as each of

these ladies was in her way a star, would they not be the _sesame_

through which Kitty would enter society, and eventually become a _cat_.

There was Mrs. Orr, the wife of the senior partner, a handsome matron,

who rolled in gold—name, house and person, all golden—and telling of the

dollars her husband counted by the millions. John knew her, and had once

been invited to dine with her on Sunday, and in his next letter to Kitty

had delighted her with a description of the dinner, at which Mrs. Orr

presided in satin dress of golden-brown, with diamonds in her ears, and

where her daughter, Miss Elinor Orr, wore natural camellias in her hair

and talked French to her mother all the time. Then there was Mrs. Guile,

a second wife, and a dashing brunette, whose servants did not speak a

word of English, and at whose house John had once taken tea on a Sunday

night, when his fine baritone voice was wanted in a quartette of music

which followed in the evening.

Kitty’s fancy was caught with the French servants, the camellias, and

the silver service and satin of golden-brown, but the Sunday dining, and

tea-drinking, and practicing of music shocked her keen sense of right

and wrong, and lowered the Orrs and Guiles a little in her estimation.

To her the words, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,” meant

just that, and nothing less; and not all John’s assurances that many

good, pious people in New York visited on Sunday, especially in the

evening, availed to convince her. Brought up in a New England town, she

had imbibed some of the puritanical notions of right and wrong, which,

sneer at them as we may, are the bone and sinew of that honesty of

purpose and integrity of soul which characterize so many of the New

Englanders and stamp them as different from their Western brothers.

Kitty could not fellowship Sabbath-breaking, and Madames Orr and Guile

were looked upon with a shadow of distrust. But she was sure to like the

young and beautiful Lottie, the only daughter of Mr. Guile, whose second

marriage had been distasteful to the young girl, and hurried her into

matrimony with the quiet, staid Amasa Steele, the junior partner of the

firm, who was several years her senior. John knew her well, for she

often drove to the store for her husband, and while waiting for him

amused herself with the confidential clerk, whose young face and fresh

ideas were more to her taste than the sober manners and gray hair of her

spouse. Kitty had once seen a note from Lottie to John, a delicate,

perfumed thing, inviting him to take part in a little musicale she was

getting up, and saying so much about his splendid baritone, which she

must have, that Kitty had felt a twinge of something like jealousy of

the city girl, and was glad when John wrote to her that Lottie Guile was

married that morning and gone on her bridal tour.

That was two years ago, and before John was as able to take a wife as he

was now. An increase of salary and a few thousand dollars left him by a

considerate old uncle, whose name he bore, made marriage possible, and

he and Kitty were married on a lovely June morning, when the air was

full of sunshine and sweet odors from the roses and the heliotropes

blossoming in the garden beds. And Kitty was very happy, and her heart

beat high with joyful anticipations of the future and her life in New

York, where she was sure to know people through the Orrs, and Guiles,

and Steeles. The firm had sent her a bridal present of a beautiful

silver tea-set, and wholly ignorant of the fact that neither of the

three ladies representing the firm knew anything of the gift, Kitty felt

as if acquainted with them already, and had insisted upon the white

satin and scores of things which her mother predicted she would never

need. But Kitty knew she should. The white satin was for the possible

party which might be given for her by some one of “the firm,” and the

pretty light silk for calls at home and abroad; and Kitty had it all

marked out in her mind just what she should wear on different occasions,

and knowing but little of the paraphernalia of a city woman’s toilet,

was happy accordingly.

They were not to board; John had had enough of that, and felt sick every

time he remembered the boarding-house dinners, now done with forever. A

pretty little cozy house far up town, in the vicinity of the park, was

to be their home, and John had furnished it with the money left him by

his uncle, and in the absence of other feminine advice had ventured to

ask Mrs. Lottie to “drive round some day and see if it would do.”

There was a slight elevating of Lottie’s eyebrows and a look of surprise

at the boldness of the young man, and then, thinking within herself, “I

have talked with him so much about music that I daresay he thinks he can

take liberties,” the lady graciously signified her readiness to oblige.

But she found it very inconvenient to go the day John fixed upon, very

inconvenient, in fact, to go any day, and at last sent her maid, who had

“exquisite taste,” and who reported “everything perfectly lovely,” to

John, and “rather plain, but quite good enough” to her mistress.

There was a trip to Niagara Falls, a sail down the St. Lawrence, a

rambling about in Montreal and Quebec, a few days at the White

Mountains, a week of rest in the dear old home among the Berkshire

hills, and then, right in the heat of summer, when everybody was out of

town, they came one night to the cozy home in Fifty-seventh street,

where Susan, the maid of all work, hired in Chicopee, met them with her

kindly smile, and the tea-table nicely spread stood waiting to greet

them. John’s holiday was over, and he went back to his business the next

morning the happiest man who rode down town either in stage, or car, or

private carriage. He was married and Kitty was his wife, and he felt her

kiss upon his lips and saw her as she stood looking after him with those

great, sunny, blue eyes of hers, and there was a song of joy in his

heart which showed itself upon his face as he entered the counting-room

and took his accustomed seat at the desk.

Messrs. Orr and Guile were away doing duty at Saratoga, but Mr. Steele

was at home and welcomed the young man warmly, and tried to say some

smart thing with regard to the business which had kept him away so long.

Then John asked for Lottie, and was told that she was at Newport with a

party of friends.

“Confounded bores those watering-places. I can’t endure them; and Lottie

told me I’d better come home, she could do very well without me,” Mr.

Steele said, in a weary kind of way; and John thought of Kitty and how

unwilling he should be to be separated from her now she was all his own.

In the exuberance of his new happiness and because he pitied the junior

partner, who must be so lonely without his wife, he invited him to dine

with himself and Kitty, and Mr. Steele accepted the invitation, and was

made so welcome by the pretty bride that he went again and again, and by

the time autumn hung out her gay attire and Lottie came back to her home

it had become a matter of course for him to dine with the Craigs as

often as twice a week; and those visits, where he saw for the first time

in his life, perhaps, how pleasant a home could be with love upon the

hearthstone and in the atmosphere of every room, were influencing him

for good and making him a softer, more demonstrative man than he had

been hitherto. And when at last Lottie came early in October, he met her

at the train; a very unusual thing for him to do, and kissed her so

warmly that she looked at him with surprise, wondering if he had

“failed” and was trying to smooth it over to her.

“What is it? Has anything happened?” she asked.

“No, nothing,” he answered; and, chilled with his reception and a little

ashamed of having kissed his wife before everybody, when she did not

care two straws for it, he sank back into his old self again, and was as

silent and quiet as ever during the drive from the station to his house.

Lottie was very pretty next morning in her becoming dress of drab and

scarlet, and Amasa Steele admired her secretly, and thought how handsome

she was as over his paper he watched her pouring his coffee, her white

hands moving gracefully among the silver, and every motion indicative of

fine ladyism and high breeding. It was pleasant to have her home again,

and he felt better because she was there, and thought of Kitty and John

and their pretty little dining-room, and cleared his throat twice to

speak to Lottie about them.

The fact was that Kitty, whose thoughts and feelings were as transparent

as noon-day, had made many inquiries of Mr. Steele concerning his wife,

and in so doing had shown plainly that she was anticipating a great deal

of pleasure from Mrs. Lottie’s acquaintance.

“It seems so strange not to know an individual in all this great city,

when at home I know everybody, and I shall be glad when Mrs. Steele

returns,” she had remarked to him once in reply to something he said,

which implied at least that he hoped she and his wife would see a great

deal of each other.

And he did hope so, though secretly he felt doubtful with regard to the

matter. Still, he meant to do his best for the little lady whom he liked

so much, and after his coffee was drank and his paper finished, and he

had coughed ominously a few times, he began:

“By the way, Lottie, John Craig has brought his wife to the city, and

they are keeping house up in Fifty-seventh street. I’ve dined with them

several times.”

“Ah-h!” and Lottie’s great black eyes looked across the table

wonderingly.

“Yes, and it’s a jolly place, too; so home-like and nice, and Kit—Mrs.

Craig, I mean, is very pretty.”

“Indeed!” And Lottie was interested now. “I did not suppose Mr. Craig

able to support very much style, but, perhaps, it was the pretty wife

which took you there.”

“It certainly was _not_ style, but rather the absence of it which

pleased me so much,” the husband replied. “It is a little nutshell of a

house. You could almost put the whole of it in one of our parlors, and

they keep but one servant, a perfect gem, who makes the nicest kind of

apple pie and ginger-snaps. I say, Lottie, why don’t we ever have such

things? They are a thousand times better then those French dishes you

get up for dessert.”

Lottie smiled derisively, but her voice was very sweet and pleasant as

she said:

“I hardly think Celine is accomplished to the extent of apple pie and

ginger-snaps.”

Amasa felt the rebuke and wondered at his temerity in expecting anything

so common from a cook, whose name was Celine, and who sometimes took the

title of Madame.

As yet he had made no headway with regard to the call, and so at last he

blurted it out, and told Mrs. Lottie plainly that he wished her to call

on Mrs. Craig and show her some attention.

“She is a lady, every whit,” he said, “and pretty, too, and intelligent,

and well—yes—she rather expects you to call, and she would like to see a

little of New York society, and she don’t know a single soul, and it’s

lonesome for her, and you can show her some attention without hurting

you one bit, and I hope you will do it.”

He had said a great deal more than he intended saying, for something in

Lottie’s proud eyes exasperated him, and without waiting for her to

answer he left the breakfast-room suddenly, and his wife heard the bang

of the street door as it shut behind him.

“Expects me to call and show her some attention! How absurd,” she said

to herself, as she went back to her room. “She cannot be much accustomed

to the usages of society if she supposes I am to call on every clerk who

happens to get married. Why, my list is so large now that I am nearly

crazy and I certainly shall not add Mrs. John Craig’s name to it. Apple

pie and ginger-snaps, and one servant! Poor John! He was a nice kind of

a fellow, and ought to have been rich.”

And then Lottie fell into a fit of musing as to what might have been had

John been rich instead of poor. The truth was, Lottie Guile had fancied

John Craig better than any man she ever knew, and once, after a long

chat with him in the office, where she was waiting for her father, she

had tried to make up her mind to encourage the liking he evidently had

for her, but fear of what Mrs. Grundy would say if the daughter of

Richard Guile should marry her father’s clerk prevailed, and when Amasa

Steele offered himself and his half-million, she accepted him, and

wished he was not quite so gray, and that he looked more like the

confidential clerk, who was present at the wedding, and who, she

thought, seemed a little sorry.

And John was sorry that one as young and sprightly as Lottie should

marry a man so wholly unlike herself as the sober, middle-aged Amasa

Steele. He was sorry to have her marry at all, for he had found it very

pleasant to chat and laugh and sing with her on the occasions when

chance threw her in his way, but further than that he did not care. He

had known and loved Kitty Clew ever since she was a child, and he drew

her to school on his sled, and he expected one day to make her his wife,

so foolish Lottie was mistaken when she thought there was a pang in his

heart as he saw her made Mrs. Amasa Steele, and called her by that name.

She knew nothing of Kitty Clew, and went on dreaming her little romance

and fancying there was one joy less in John Craig’s life until she heard

he was to be married. There was a shadow on her brow, and she felt

somehow as if John had misused and deceived her, while to crown all she

was expected to call on his wife and make a friend of her. It was a hard

case and Lottie felt aggrieved, and the first time she met John Craig

she was very cool toward him, and never asked for his wife or hinted

that she knew there was such a creature in the world. John felt her

manner keenly, but did not tell Kitty, who, knowing that Mrs. Steele had

returned, began to look daily for the call she so certainly expected.

One after another the dresses her aunties had pronounced useless were

brought out and worn, and in the prettiest of toilets Kitty waited

morning, noon and night for one who never came. Lottie did not call,

neither did any one else except the clergyman to whom Kitty had brought

a letter of introduction from her own rector, and who dropped in for a

few moments to see his new parishioner.

Accustomed at home to be first in every good work, Kitty asked what she

could do, and was told of the mission school, where teachers were always

needed, and of the regular sewing society of the church, which met one

day in each week. Kitty was pleased with the mission school, and entered

heart and soul into the work, and found fast friends among the ragged

girls and boys, who looked upon her as a kind of divinity. From the

sewing society, however, she shrank at first, dreading to encounter so

many strangers; but when she heard what need there was for help, she

laid aside her own personal feelings and went week after week, mostly

from a sense of duty, and a little, it may be, with a hope, that by some

chance she might come to know those with whom she worshiped Sunday after

Sunday, and with whom she had more than once knelt around the chancel on

communion days.

And there, in the little sewing-room of St. ——’s she sat, one Thursday

morning, as much alone as if around her there were not twenty ladies or

more talking socially together, and all unmindful of the stranger in the

midst, poor little Kitty, who actually started in surprise when she

heard herself addressed by a pleasant-faced, elderly woman, who sat near

her, and who seemed herself to be a stranger.

“Can you tell me who that is?” she asked, nodding toward a young and

dashing-looking lady, who sat near them talking and laughing merrily,

and showing in all she did that she felt herself a privileged character,

and could do and say what she pleased.

Kitty, too, had been watching her, and taking notes of the cut of her

dress and style of her hair, but she did not know who she was, and she

said so to her interlocutor; then, as if the sound of a voice speaking

kindly to her upon some other topic than her work had unlocked her

pent-up feelings, she continued:

“I do not know any one. I have been here week after week, too, and not a

person has spoken to me except about my work.”

“Is it possible?—and they call themselves Christians, too,” was the

reply of the woman, who, having once passed a similar ordeal, knew just

how desolate and neglected Kitty felt.

Meantime there was a lull in the conversation of the ladies at the

right, and, as Kitty’s voice was very clear, her words were distinctly

heard by one of the group, at least. Swiftly the proud black eyes

scanned Kitty’s face and person, and then, as if continuing an

interrupted conversation, the lady said, loudly enough for Kitty to

hear:

“There is one thing this society needs, and that a committee, whose

business it shall be to look after the new-comers—the sensitive ones,

who feel slighted if they are not noticed—and introduce them, you know.”

“An admirable idea,” said her companion. “Suppose we make you that

committee.”

“No, thank you; that is not in my line. I’ve no patience with people who

think to make the sewing society a stepping-stone to other society. I

come from a sense of duty, and think every right-minded person should do

the same;” and again the black eyes flashed sidewise at poor Kitty, who

could hardly restrain her tears, and who would have cried outright had

she been alone, with no curious ones around her.

Just then there was a fresh arrival, and the newcomer greeted her of the

black eyes with the exclamation:

“Why, Lottie Steele—it’s an age since you were here. I thought you had

forsaken us.”

Kitty did not hear the reply, so great was her astonishment at learning

that this woman, who had wounded her so cruelly, was Lottie Steele, the

one for whom she had watched so long, and on whose acquaintance and

friendship she had counted so much in her utter ignorance of the city

and its customs. Alas, how had her idol fallen, and how were all her

hopes destroyed! She had nothing whatever to expect in that

quarter—nothing to expect anywhere; and, with a swelling heart as she

remembered the church society at home, where she was what Lottie Steele

was here, or, as her dear old auntie expressed it, “a cat among rats,”

she gathered up her work, and bidding good-morning to the pleasant-faced

woman at her side, who alone of all the ladies there had spoken

familiarly to her, started for home, feeling more desolate and alone

than she had thought it possible for any one in the great city of New

York, which had once seemed to her like an earthly paradise.

As she left the sewing-room she met the rector of the parish, who said a

few friendly words to her and then passed on into the room, where he was

immediately accosted by Lottie Steele, who asked him who the lady was he

met with at the door.

“That was Mrs. John Craig, from Rosefield,” he replied. “She is a

stranger in the city, and I wish some of my ladies would take a little

pains to be polite to her. Her former clergyman speaks highly of her as

a Christian and a lady of culture and education. She is very regular at

church, I see, and her husband is a splendid-looking fellow.”

“Why, that must be the John Craig in our store,” chimed in Agatha Orr, a

pert miss of seventeen. “Isn’t it, Mrs. Steele? You ought to know, for

you and he used to be so intimate.”

A withering glance from Lottie’s eyes silenced Miss Agatha, while

Lottie’s cheeks were scarlet, and her pulse throbbed faster than its

wont. She was not naturally hard and cruel, and given to wounding people

unnecessarily. She professed to be a Christian; perhaps she was one. She

certainly was very rigid with regard to all the fasts and holy days, and

no religious devotee kept Lent, so far as churchgoing was concerned,

more strictly than she did; but she had been reared and trained in the

school of fashion and caste until many of her better impulses were

warped and deformed, and she sometimes did things thoughtlessly, of

which she repented afterward. Bearing the reputation of being

exceedingly exclusive, she had no idea of inviting into her charmed

circle any who wished to enter, and deemed it her duty to shut and bar

the door against all intruders, especially if she felt that the intruder

had some claim upon her. So, when she overheard Kitty’s complaint, and

felt in her heart that not only herself but many of her sisters in the

church were sadly remiss in their reception of strangers, she said what

she did, in a sudden fit of impatience that any one should expect to

make her acquaintance at a sewing society. But she had no idea it was

Kitty Craig whom she was lashing so unmercifully, and she would have

given considerable for the privilege of recalling her thoughtless words.

But it was too late; the mischief was done, and Kitty was gone, and, as

is frequently the case when we are conscious of having injured a person

in any way, Lottie, after the first pangs of self-reproach were over,

found herself with a greater aversion than ever to that “nutshell of a

house” which might be “put into her parlor,” and Kitty’s chances for an

acquaintance with Mrs. Amasa Steele were far less than before. “A rat

among cats” she certainly was, and she felt it keenly as she walked

home, with Lottie’s scornful words ringing in her ears and making her

heart throb so painfully.

“The sensitive ones, who feel slighted if they are not noticed.”

Had it really come to this, that she was thus designated—she, who at

home had been first in everything, and had herself, perhaps, been a

little hard on the sensitive ones, not knowing then just how they felt.

She knew now, and, once alone in her room, wept bitter tears at the

first real slight she had ever received. Then, as she remembered what

Lottie had said of duty, she questioned herself closely to see how far

her motives in going so regularly to the sewing-rooms had been pure and

such as God would approve, and she found, alas! that they would not

altogether bear the test applied. Something beside a genuine desire to

do good had drawn her thither; a hope that she might by chance make some

pleasant acquaintance, had been strong in her heart, and she confessed

it, amid a gush of tears, to the Friend who never failed her, and to

whom she always took her sorrows, whether great or small.

Kitty’s religion was not on the surface, a mere routine of form and

ceremony. She knew in whom she had believed, and she told Him all about

her trouble, with the simplicity of a little child, and asked to be

forgiven so far as she was wrong, and that toward Lottie Steele she

might feel as kindly as before. Kitty’s face was very bright after that

talk with God, and when John came home at night it was a very pretty and

gay little wife which sat at his table and told him she had at last seen

Mrs. Steele, and thought her very handsome and very bright. Of the

insult, however, she said nothing, and John never dreamed how little

cause his wife had for speaking as kindly as she did of the thoughtless

lady who had wounded her so sadly.

Kitty did not go to the sewing meeting after that, but worked at home

for the poor and needy, and felt far happier alone in her quiet

sitting-room, with only her singing-bird for company, than she had when

surrounded by ladies whom she did not even know by name. She did not

expect Lottie Steele now, and never dreamed how near that unlucky affair

at the sewing-room came to bringing about the very thing she had once so

greatly desired. For Lottie was disturbed and annoyed at her own

rudeness and wished she could in some way atone, and half made up her

mind to call upon Mrs. Craig and make friends with her. But when at the

dinner-table her husband himself broached the subject and suggested that

she go with him that very evening, her pride took alarm at once. It was

too soon; Kitty would of course think she came to conciliate her, and

she would not humble herself like that before the wife of a clerk. So

she declined rather crossly, and said she was too tired, and she didn’t

believe Mrs. Craig wanted her to call, and she was certain “John” did

not care to have her see in what a small way he was living.

Amasa Steele never talked much, and now he only muttered something about

being “so thundering proud,” and without a word as to where he was

going, left the house soon after dinner; and Lottie saw no more of him

until the clock was striking eleven. Then he found her at her prayers,

for Lottie never omitted any duty of that kind, and when her husband

came home she was kneeling by the bedside with her fanciful

dressing-gown sweeping the floor, and trying to ask forgiveness for

having wounded Kitty Craig. Amasa had not much faith in Lottie’s

religion, and without waiting for her devotions to end, he asked “where

the deuce his slippers were, that he could never find them?”

This untimely interruption brought Lottie from her knees, feeling

indignant and aggrieved, and as if she was persecuted for righteousness’

sake, and she would neither tell her husband where his slippers were nor

ask him where he had been so long, although she was dying to know, and

felt almost sure he had visited the Craigs. She knew he had the next

day, for he told her so, and said so much in praise of Kitty that she

felt a pang of something like jealousy, and avenged herself by driving

to the store that afternoon and talking with the confidential clerk so

long that her father at last suggested that she go home, as “women were

out of place in a business office.”

When she and Kitty met again it was at the altar rail, where they knelt

side by side, Lottie’s rich velvet cloak brushing against Kitty’s

plainer cloth, and the glitter of her rings flashing before Kitty’s

eyes. As they rose and turned away Lottie half bowed a recognition, and

felt for the remainder of the day as if she were a very good and

forgiving woman, inasmuch as Kitty, in her surprise, had not returned

the bow.

New York was very gay that winter, and Lottie had no leisure to spare to

such as Kitty Craig, who would in time have been wholly forgotten but

for an event which occurred just one year from the day when John first

brought Kitty home as his bride. Then a new little life came into that

house; and Lottie, who chanced to be in the city for a few days, was

surprised to hear from her husband that he was to stand sponsor for

little Frederic Steele, who was to be baptized that afternoon. Would she

go and see it?

There was a shrug of Lottie’s shoulders and a lifting of her eyebrows,

but she made no reply, except:

“You and the Craigs must be very intimate to warrant their taking such a

liberty. Pray, where have you seen so much of them?”

Amasa did not tell her how many of his evenings when she was away were

spent in that nutshell of a house, where they had apple pie and

ginger-snaps for dessert, or how the sight of the little round-faced boy

which John had shown him with so much pride on the occasion of his last

visit had raised in his heart a vague dissatisfaction with the stillness

of his grand house, where baby voices were never heard. He himself had

suggested Frederic Steele, saying:

“I won’t ask you to inflict upon him such a name as Amasa, but my only

brother was Fred, and I’d like the little chap called for him.”

So the baby was christened “Frederic Steele,” and Lottie was there and

saw it. She had no fancy for christenings, where the children usually

screamed so vigorously, she said, but she did want to see how John

looked as a father and how Amasa behaved as sponsor. So she went to the

church and mentally criticised Kitty’s dress and the baby’s dress, and

thought her husband very awkward and John very handsome, and drove next

day to Tiffany’s and selected a silver cup, which was marked, “For

little Fred,” and sent it to the address of the Craigs, who wondered

greatly whence it came, and wondered, too, what they should do with it,

inasmuch as Amasa’s gift was also a silver cup, gold-lined, and looking

as if it were the twin of the one which had come no one knew whence, and

which Kitty put away as something to be looked at but never used.

And now we pass over a period of more than eighteen months, and come to

a time when, wearied out with gayety and dissipation, Lottie Steele was

almost glad when the first days of Lent came and put an end to the

parties and receptions which had so engrossed her time, and made her

grow pale and thin, with dark rings around her eyes. But she would rest

now, or at least lead a different kind of life, for though she wore her

second-best dresses and kept all the fasts and holy days, and never

missed a service, whether on Sunday or week day, she still had a good

deal of leisure time for quiet, and kept earlier hours, and hoped to

come out at Easter as bright and fresh as the new bonnet which she had

in her mind for that occasion. Lent was really beneficial, both to her

health and her complexion, she thought, and she kept it religiously, and

affected to be greatly shocked when she heard that Kitty Craig had

committed the enormity of going to the opera, where a wonderful bird of

song was entrancing the people with its melody. Lottie went to elaborate

lunches served in darkened rooms, and went to the Philharmonics, and to

concerts, and lectures but avoided the opera as if the plague had been

rioting there, and felt that the example of consistency she thus set

before her husband was infinitely better than that of sinful,

opera-going Kitty Craig.

But Lottie grew tired at last of the same daily routine, and wanted

something new, and devised a little _musicale_, which was to be held in

her parlors and to be highly exclusive and _recherché_. Only the

_creme-de-la-creme_ were to be there, and these by invitation—said

invitation to be in the form of cards, for which five dollars were to be

paid, and the proceeds appropriated to a new mission school, in which

Lottie was greatly interested, and of which John Craig was

superintendent. This had latterly thrown John and Lottie together again,

and they were the best of friends; and Lottie’s little dainty hand had

more than once rested on John’s coat sleeve, and Lottie’s eyes looked

straight into his while she talked of some ragged boy, or devised some

new scheme for the advancement of the school.

The musicale was her hobby now, and she must have Mr. Craig in at least

three of the quartettes. And she asked if he would come to rehearsal at

her house, and go with her to see the Misses Barrows, whose voices were

wonderful for depth and richness, and one of whom played accompaniments

remarkably well? It did not matter now that they sold bonnets and

ribbons on Broadway during the week, and that Lottie would never dream

of inviting them to her house except on an occasion like this, when she

needed their services. She wanted them, and John must go with her and

see them.

This was down in the office, and her fine face was all aglow with

excitement, and her carriage was at the door, and John felt his blood

stir a little as he looked at her and thought of a drive up Broadway

with that fashionable turnout. Yes, he would go to see the Misses

Barrows; and he went and met them that night at Mrs. Steele’s, and

before Kitty came back from a visit she had made at home everything was

arranged, and he had promised to sing in four pieces at least, and

possibly five, and meet at Mrs. Steele’s for practice three evenings in

a week.

What Kitty said to him when she heard of it made him doubt a little the

propriety of going to a house where his wife’s existence had never yet

been recognized by so much as an inquiry, and to which she would not in

all human probability be invited; and when next day Lottie drove down to

the office to consult with him about some new idea, he mustered courage

to tell her that he wished she would find some one to take his place as

now that his wife had returned he did not like being away from her

evenings, as he necessarily must be if he perfected himself in the

difficult passages assigned to him. Womanlike, Lottie understood him at

once, and knew that some bold move on her part was requisite if she

would not lose him. And she could not do that now. He was too necessary

to the success of her musicale, and with a mental anathema against the

offending Kitty, she exclaimed:

“Oh, Mr. Craig, you know I cannot do without you and will not. Tell your

wife so, please. When did she return, and how is little Freddie Steele?

By the way, I do not believe I have sent her invitation yet, have I? She

was gone, you know. Suppose I write her a little note now; that will be

more friendly than a card,” and snatching up a pen Lottie dashed off a

half-formal, half-familiar note to Kitty, inviting her to the musicale

and apologizing for not having sent the invitation earlier.

“That will settle it,” she thought, while John, who saw only the

flashing eyes and beaming face, began to descend from his stilts, and in

his delight at having an autograph letter for Kitty from this high-born

lady, forgot that in all the two years and a half of his married life

this was the first time his wife had ever been alluded to.

But Kitty did not forget, nor seem as much elated with Lottie’s

autograph note as John thought she ought to be.

“She was much obliged to Mrs. Steele,” she said, “for the invitation,

but she could not for a moment think of accepting it. She should feel

out of place among so many strangers.”

And to this decision she firmly adhered, insisting, however, that her

husband should go on with his practice, and not disappoint Mrs. Lottie.

But to this John objected. There was something amiss somewhere, and his

better way was to remain at home with Kitty, and so the next morning he

wrote Mrs. Lottie a note, saying positively that he could not take the

parts assigned to him, and mentioning as a substitute Will Archer, whose

voice was quite as good as his own, and who read music even better than

himself.

“Will Archer! That clown in my parlors! Never!” was Lottie’s indignant

exclamation, as she threw the note aside. “Cannot spend the time! Why

wasn’t he frank enough to say that obstinate wife of his would not let

him? It all comes of those thoughtless words she heard me say at the

sewing society. She has never been there since, and I really was sorry

for it.”

“But she don’t know that,” Conscience whispered; and then Lottie began

to wonder what she could do to secure John’s services.

She could not do without him, and to get him she was willing even to ask

his wife’s pardon, if necessary, and at all events she would call the

next day and apologize, for John’s voice she must and would have at any

cost.

* * * * *

Kitty’s morning work was done. The little parlor, which did duty as

sitting-room and nursery too, was nicely swept and dusted, and

everything was in its place. A bright fire was blazing in the grate.

Freddie was asleep in his crib, the gift of Amasa Steele, who had mostly

supplied the wants of his god-child since the day he stood with him at

the font, and Kitty, in her neat delaine wrapper, with faultlessly clean

collar and cuffs, was just sitting down to the pile of work which lay

beside her “Wilcox & Gibbs,” John’s Christmas gift to her. She was never

troubled with morning calls; for, though she had some few acquaintances

in the city by this time, they were not of the fashionable kind to whom

one hour is as free as another, and she had no thought of the honor in

store for her, and which was even then at her very door, in the shape of

a handsome little coupé, satin lined, and bearing the stamp of the very

latest style in all its appurtenances, from the silver-tipped harness to

the driver in his livery, and the footman, whose coat came nearly to the

ground as he obsequiously held the door for his mistress to alight.

“It _is_ a nutshell of a house,” was Lottie’s mental comment, as she

went up the steps and rang the bell. “Poor John, with his refined

instincts, he ought to have done better;” and, so low down in Lottie’s

heart that it was hardly a wrong to Amasa Steele, there was the shadow

of a regret that she had not thought twice before deciding not to

encourage her father’s confidential clerk.

But it was too late now. She was Mrs. Amasa Steele, and had come to call

on John’s wife, who, greatly to her amazement, opened the door herself!

Kitty had heard the ring, and not seeing the stylish turnout in front,

and knowing that in all human probability Susan’s hands were in the

bread, she went to the door, expecting to meet either a book agent or

somebody inquiring if Dr. Jones lived there, he being her next neighbor,

as she and John both had learned from sundry calls at all hours of the

day and night. She was prepared for the agent and the patient of Dr.

Jones, but not for the “grand dame” clad in velvet and Russian sable,

whose big black eyes looked their surprise, but who nevertheless smiled

sweetly, and asked in the blandest of tones if this were Mrs. Craig.

Lottie’s first impulse had been to suppose the lady a servant, and ask

for her mistress, but she had come for an object, and it suited her to

be very amiable and even familiar.

“So kind in you to let me in yourself,” she said, as she followed Kitty

into the little parlor, and then apologized for not having called

before.

She did not say out and out that she had intended calling, for she would

not tell an absolute lie, but her manner implied as much, and she talked

so fast and made herself so agreeable, that Kitty began to be drawn

toward her in spite of herself, and when she praised the new Wilcox &

Gibbs sewing machine, and pronounced it “the dearest plaything in the

world,” and then, pouncing upon little Freddie, called him a darling,

and complimented his eyes and his hair, the conquest was more than half

completed. But when Lottie ventured at last to introduce the musicale,

and to say how sorry she was that Mrs. Craig had declined coming, and

how very badly she felt to lose Mr. Craig’s services, there was a

peculiar look in Kitty’s eyes which did not bode success to Mrs.

Lottie’s project. Still she was not disheartened. Her heaviest forces

were still in reserve. The day was so fine and the air so bracing, would

not Mrs. Craig like a drive in the Park? It would do her good, and the

baby, too. Dear little fellow, he looked pale, though possibly that was

his natural complexion.

Freddie had not been well for a day or two, and Kitty had wished that

very morning that she was rich and could afford a drive, and now that it

was so gracefully offered to her, she hesitated at first, and then

finally accepted, and almost before she had time to think she was seated

on the satin cushions by Mrs. Lottie’s side, and was rolling over the

level roads of the beautiful Central Park. Lottie insisted upon holding

Freddie herself, and was so generally charming that Kitty was sorry when

the carriage stopped at last at her own door.

Up to that moment not a word had been said of the musicale, but Lottie

bided her time, and just as Kitty was getting out she laughingly said:

“You do not invite me, but I mean to go in and see if I cannot coax you

to reconsider your decision with regard to the musicale after all, and

persuade your husband to sing. You don’t know how much I am in earnest.”

She followed Kitty into the house, and while her own fingers helped to

disrobe little Freddie, she went on:

“If you do not come I shall think you have never forgiven those

thoughtless words I said in your hearing the first time I ever saw you.

You remember them, I am sure, but you do not know how sorry I was,

especially when I learned who you were. It was wrong under any

circumstances, but we had been so annoyed with commonplace people coming

just to be noticed, and besides that I’d had a little ‘tiff’ that

morning with Amasa about calling on the dowdiest woman you ever saw, and

I was not in the best of moods. You will forgive me, won’t you, and be

friends? Ah, that must be your lunch bell. I’d no idea it was so late.”

“Stay to lunch, won’t you?” Kitty faltered, devoutly hoping her visitor

would decline; but she did not.

She was nearly famished, she said, and accepted the invitation

graciously, and followed on to the dining-room, where the lunch-table

was very neatly spread, for Kitty was particular about everything

pertaining to her table, which was arranged with as much care for

herself and Freddie as it was when she had company to dinner. And Susan

waited nicely and suggested that she bring the fresh apple pie she had

made that morning, and which looked so tempting, with its white, flaky

crust, that Mrs. Lottie took a large piece, and ate a ginger-snap which

Susan also brought.

Apple pie and ginger-snaps were evidently favorites in that house, and

Lottie praised them both, and asked how they were made, and said her

husband had told her about them. She was outdoing herself, and when at

last she said good-by and went out to her cross coachman, who had driven

up and down, up and down, and actually sworn about her to the footman,

she had Kitty’s promise that John should sing, and that possibly she

herself would attend the musicale, while to crown all there was in her

pocket a receipt for ginger-snaps, which Susan had given her at the last

moment, when she stood in the hall telling Kitty, “It would not be a

dress affair—that anything she had would answer.”

Lottie was in a very pleasant frame of mind when she reached home that

day. She had accomplished her object, as she felt that she deserved to

do, for had she not called on Kitty Craig and apologized for her

rudeness, and taken her to drive, and lunched with her in that

“under-ground” dining-room, not much longer than her butler’s pantry,

and lunched, too, on apple pie and ginger-snaps, food which heretofore

she had thought only fit for those made of coarser clay than herself,

and was there not in her pocket a receipt for those same snaps, which

poor, deluded Susan, who had taken a great fancy to the grand lady,

thought maybe her cook might like, as Mr. Steele was so fond of them!

Celine and ginger-snaps! and Lottie laughed merrily as she took out the

receipt and began to read, “One cup of molasses; half-a-cup of butter;

and half-a-cup of lard——”

“Lard! Horrors, I can never insult her dignity with that. Amasa must go

elsewhere for his snaps,” and turning to the grate the little bit of

paper was soon blackening upon the coals, and Amasa’s chance for snaps

at home was lost.

* * * * *

Kitty had said that John should sing, and she did not find it at all

hard to keep her word. He was fond of music, and only too glad of an

opportunity to serve Mrs. Lottie, who had been and who continued to be

so very kind to Kitty. Lottie never did anything by halves, and now she

had taken up the Craigs she meant to keep them up till after the

musicale at least, and she frequently sent to Kitty flowers and fruit,

and even her carriage for the dear little boy to take the air, and

Kitty, though she in a measure understood it all, wisely concluded to

accept the good the gods provided, and submitted patiently to John’s

absence three nights in a week, and when he was home, played the music

for him, accompanying him with her voice until she was almost as

familiar with it as he was himself, and, as he declared, played better

than the Misses Barrows, who did not always keep perfect time or give

the best expression.

Kitty was going to the musicale, too, and she began to look forward to

it with a great deal of pleasure, although she dreaded it somewhat,

inasmuch as “she had nothing to wear.” All those pretty silks made at

the time of her marriage were out of style. The sleeves were too large,

the waists too small, and “they had not a bit of a stuck-up behind,”

Susan said, when she tried them on one after another to see if they

would do. Only one was at all “_au fait_” in that respect, and that a

plain black silk, which, having been made over the summer previous, was

nearly enough “_bouffant_” in appearance to suit the fastidious Susan.

“Some do take a newspaper,” she said, as she tried to make the overskirt

stand out as far as Mrs. Steele’s had done. “Some do take a newspaper

and tie on, and if you was to do that you’d bunch out beautiful.”

But Kitty declined the newspaper, and when the night of the musicale

came she looked very pretty and modest in her black silk, with her coral

and real lace, and John kissed her proudly and told her she was sure “to

pass muster.” They were among the first arrivals, and they found the

house ablaze with light and full of flowers, while Lottie herself was

splendid in silk, and lace, and jewels, and in a high state of

excitement. The last rehearsal had been very satisfactory and she had

reason to expect a great success. But where were the Misses Barrows, her

pianist and soprano? They had promised to be early, and it lacked but

half an hour of the time appointed for the first piece, and they had not

yet appeared.

“Dressing, probably, as if anybody will care what they wear,” she said

to Kitty, thus showing the estimate in which she held them outside the

services she desired.

There was a sharp ring at the door and a servant brought a note to

Lottie, who, feeling intuitively that it in some way concerned her

greatly, tore it open at once, her face flushing and then turning pale

as she read that the Misses Barrows had just received news that their

mother was dying, and they must start for home that night if they would

see her alive. It was a bitter disappointment, and Lottie felt as if

that poor woman dying in that little village in Ohio had somehow injured

her. But there was no help for it now. The Barrowses were out of the

question, and in her utter helplessness and distress, she turned to John

to know what they should do.

“It is a failure, of course,” she said, and the great tears stood in her

fine eyes.

John hesitated a moment and glanced toward his wife, and then to her

utter dismay replied:

“Not necessarily an entire failure, perhaps. I think it just possible

that Mrs. Craig can play the accompaniments and, possibly, sing as

well.”

“Oh, John,” Kitty gasped, while Lottie’s black eyes flashed a curiously

doubtful glance at her and Lottie’s voice said:

“_She—your wife_,” as if even to her the idea was preposterous.

“Yes, my wife,” John answered, proudly. “She has a fine voice and was

accounted a good musician at home.”

“And will she—will you try?” Lottie asked, willing, now that her first

feeling of surprise was over, to grasp at a straw. “Dear Mrs. Craig,

will you try? It is a positive failure if you do not. I might ask that

horrid Mrs. Banks, but her voice is like a peacock’s. Do. Mrs. Craig,

and I will love you forever.”

She had her arm around Kitty’s waist and was drawing her toward the

piano where in a moment poor, bewildered Kitty found herself seated with

piles of music before her and a crowd of strange people staring at her

and asking each other who that little nun-like woman was, and where the

Misses Barrows were. Very softly Kitty played over a few of the more

difficult places, and Lottie, who was a judge of fine playing, began to

feel confidence in her new performer, and whispered encouragingly:

“You are doing splendidly,” while to herself she groaned: “Oh, if I only

knew what her voice was.”

She did know ere long, and as Kitty’s clear, birdlike tones began to

fill the room, growing sweeter, and clearer and stronger as Kitty became

more confident of herself, she could have hugged the little woman in her

joy, and did kiss her when the musicale was over and pronounced a

perfect success.

“You are a darling, a second Nilsson. I shall never forget this, never,”

she said, while many of her friends crowded around Kitty, asking for an

introduction and thanking her for the treat she had given them. “And to

think she never tried the music before! It is wonderful,” Lottie kept

saying while others, too, expressed their surprise that she could play

such difficult music at sight.

For a few moments Kitty sat irresolute; then her love of truth prevailed

over every other feeling, and crossing to where John stood, she put her

hand on his arm and said: “Please let me speak a word to you all.”

In an instant there was a hush throughout the room, and every eye was

fixed upon the brave little woman who would not even act a lie, and

whose voice was very clear and distinct, as she said: “It would be wrong

for me to leave an impression on your minds that I never tried that

music before. I have played it many times at home for my husband, and

sang it with him when he was practicing. I cannot play at sight like

that. I am not a very fine musician.”

“But you are a good, conscientious, little darling!” was Lottie’s

impulsive exclamation, while a murmur of admiration for this unexpected

frankness ran through the room. “I could never have done that, I know I

could not. I should just let them think it was my first effort, but

somehow I love you better for it,” Lottie whispered to Kitty, when for a

moment they stood together alone, and as she said it, the fashionable

woman of the world felt that she had learned a lesson of good from

plain, simple-hearted Kitty, who found herself the belle of the evening,

and received so much attention that when at last she was put into

Lottie’s carriage and sent home, with Lottie’s kiss warm on her lips,

and Lottie’s assurance that she should see a great deal of her now that

she knew her, she felt herself to be in a bewildered, dazed kind of

state, sure of nothing except that the door of society, so long locked

and barred against her, was open now, and that if she chose, she could

enter the charmed circle she had once thought so desirable.

“Guess what I’ve brought you, little woman? An invitation to dine with

Mrs. Steele! What think you of that?” John said to Kitty one night,

about a week after the drawing-room musicale. “The Guiles and Orrs are

to be there, too. Quite an affair! You don’t suppose there would be time

for you to get a new dress made, do you?”

John was a good deal excited, and, if the truth was told, a little proud

of being invited to a company dinner with the old and haughty members of

the firm.

“Just our own people, you know—papa’s family and the Orrs,” Lottie had

said to him, and John felt that he was recognized as one of “our own

people,” and was flattered accordingly, and said he knew no reason why

he should not accept; and thought to himself that Kitty should have a

new dress, made with puffs, and ruffles, and bows, and which should

stand out like Lottie Steele’s, and have a New York look.

Of the cost of such a dress, and the time and trouble to get it up, he

knew nothing. He only thought Kitty should have one, and put a fifty

dollar bill in his pocket for the emergency, and went home half an hour

earlier than usual to tell Kitty of the honor in store for her. And

Kitty was pleased, too, and her face flushed a little as she said she

guessed the old black silk would have to do duty again, as a new one,

such as he had in his mind, was far beyond their means.

“When is it?” she asked, and then John felt again a little twinge he had

experienced when Mrs. Lottie named Sunday as the most convenient time

for getting “all the family,” as she termed them, together.

“Sunday, at six o’clock,” she had said, adding when she saw the

questioning look on John’s face: “You know it is dark now at six, and

the Sabbath ends at sundown; besides that, I mean to have some sacred

music in the evening, so be prepared, please.”

John would rather the dinner had been on some other day, but what people

like the Guiles and Steeles did must be right, and he had not a thought

that Kitty would object. But she did—firmly and decidedly.

“God never meant that His day should be remembered by giving dinner

parties,” she said. “That was not keeping it holy, and she could not go

to Mrs. Steele’s, much as she would like to.” And to this decision she

stood firm; and when John met Mr. Steele next day in the office, he told

him to say to Mrs. Steele that he regretted it exceedingly, but he must

decline her kind invitation to dinner.

“The fact is,” he said, “my wife was brought up in New England, where I

guess they are more strict about some things than the people in New

York, and she thinks she——”

John hesitated as if fearful that to give Kitty’s reason would sound too

much like a reproof, but Mr. Steele understood him and said, “She does

not believe in Sunday dinner parties; that is what you mean. Well, well,

I’ve seen the day when I did not, but that time seems to me ages and

ages ago. Somehow here in New York first we know we get to doing things

which once we would not have done for the world, and Sunday visiting is

one of them I’ll tell Lottie. She will be terribly disappointed, for she

wanted you badly, but I guess your wife is right. I’m sure she is.

Remember the Sabbath—I’ve most forgotten how it goes, though I used to

say it the best of any of them, when I was a boy at home;” and folding

his hands behind him, Amasa Steele walked up and down his office,

thinking of the summers years ago, when he sat in the old-fashioned pew

in that little church at the foot of the mountain, and saw the sunshine

lighting up the cross behind the chancel, and felt upon his cheek the

air sweet with the fragrance of the hay cut yesterday in the meadow by

the woods, and said his catechism to the white-haired rector, whose home

was now in Heaven.

That time seemed long, long ago—ay, was long ago, before he was the city

millionaire and husband of the dashing, self-willed Lottie, who, while

professing to believe just what Kitty did, practiced a far different

creed. All the tithes of anise, and mint and cumin she brought, but she

neglected the weightier matters, and her dark eyes flashed angrily for a

moment when she heard Kitty’s reason for declining her Sunday dinner.

“As if she were so much better than anybody else,” she said, and she was

going on to say more when her husband cut her short with, “I suppose she

does not feel like going straight from the altar to a dinner party.

Isn’t it communion next Sunday in your church?”

Yes, it was, but Lottie had forgotten that, and her face flushed as her

husband thus reminded her of it. The two did not seem to be wholly

congruous, and so she staid home the next Sunday, and felt a strange

feeling of disquiet, and thought more of Kitty Craig, and how she would

look with that expression of peace on her face when she turned away from

the altar than she did of the grand dinner which was being prepared in

her kitchen, and which, though pronounced a success by those of her

guests who cared nothing for the fourth commandment, seemed to her a

failure. Nothing suited her; everything was wrong, from the color of the

gravy to the flower in her step-mother’s hair, and the fit of Mrs. Orr’s

dress; and when all was over, and the company gone, and she was alone

with her thoughts and the Bible she tried to read, and, which by some

chance she opened at the words. “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it

holy,” she said to herself, “I don’t believe I’ll ever try to have

another dinner party on Sunday.”

She went to see Kitty the next day and chided her for her absence, and

called her a little Methodist and a Puritan, and asked how she came to

be so strait-laced, and ended with: “But I believe you are right after

all, only here in the city people do differently, and you will be like

us in time.”

“I trust I never may forget that God is in the city as well as in the

country,” was Kitty’s reply, which Lottie pondered long in her heart,

and which at last bore the fruit which ripens on the everlasting hills

of glory.

* * * * *

It is two years since the night of the musicale, and more than one

carriage with servants in livery and ladies gayly dressed has stopped at

Kitty’s door, and Kitty has the _entree_ to many a fashionable house.

But having tasted the once coveted apple and found how unsatisfying it

was, she has put it from her and sees but little of the _beau monde_

save such as she sometimes meets at the house of Lottie Steele, who is

now her best friend, and whose carriage stands at her door on the night

of which we write. There was a message from Mr. Steele to John and Kitty

Craig, telling them to come immediately, for Lottie, he feared, was

dying.

There were tears in Kitty’s eyes, and a throb of pain in her heart, as

she read the note and then prepared for the drive. There was a hushed

air about the house as if death had already entered there, and the

servant who opened the door spoke in a low whisper, as in reply to

Kitty’s questions she said, “Very low, and asking for you. Will you go

up now?”

Without waiting to throw aside her wrappings Kitty followed up the

stairs, past the room where Lottie’s week-old baby girl was sleeping,

and on to the chamber where the young mother lay. There was the pallor

of death on her face, and her eyes seemed larger and blacker than ever.

But they lighted up suddenly and her white cheek flushed when she saw

Kitty come in.

“Oh, Mrs. Craig, I am so glad. I wanted to tell you how much I owe you,

and that but for you I could not be as happy lying here right in the

face of death—for I am going to die, I know it and feel it—but first I

want to see baby baptized, and you and your husband must be her

sponsors. Please, Am, tell them to bring her in.”

The child was brought, and the clergyman, who had been waiting for the

Craigs, was summoned from the parlor below.

“I would call her Kitty,” Lottie said, as she laid her hand on the

silken curls of the little one, “but Am wants her named for me. Poor Am!

I didn’t think he’d care so much. I’m sorry I have not done better,” she

continued, looking up into the face of her husband, who gave one great

choking sob as he whispered “Don’t, Lottie, don’t. You _have_ done

well;” then taking the little girl in his arms he held it so low that

Lottie’s hand rested as in blessing on its head all through the first of

the service, until the clergyman took the little one himself and

baptized it “Charlotte Maude.”

Then, when all was over and the clergyman gone, Lottie said, “Hold me,

Am; raise me up and let me lay my head on your arm while I talk to Mrs.

Craig and tell her how much good she has done me, and how her speaking

the truth so frankly that night of the musicale, and her refusing to

come to my dinner on Sunday, set me to thinking that she possessed

something which I did not; and the more I thought about it, and the more

I saw of her consistent life, the more I was convinced that my religion

was one of mere form, and that my heart had never been touched. I had

been confirmed, it is true, but I did not know what for, except that it

was the proper thing to do, and was expected of me. There is too much of

that kind of thing done, and young people need more instruction, more

personal talks than they get oftentimes, and so the church is harmed. I

meant to do right, and I kept all the fasts and holy days, and denied

myself many things in Lent, and thought I was a saint to do it, and all

the while was just as selfish and proud as I could be, and felt above

every body, and was bad to Am——”

“No, Lottie, never bad,” and Mr. Steele pressed the hand he held in his,

while Kitty wondered to see this grave, quiet man so tender and loving

when she had heretofore thought him cold and indifferent.

“Yes, I was bad,” Lottie said. “I’ve never been the wife I ought to have

been, and I’m so sorry now, and when I’m gone I want you to think as

kindly of me as you can and bring baby up to be just such a woman as

Kitty Craig. Not fashionable, Am, though she might be even that and a

good woman, too. There are many such, I know, but do not let her put

fashion before God. Don’t let her be what I have been. Mrs. Craig will

see to her and tell her of her mother, who was a better woman before she

died; for I do believe I am, and that the Saviour is with me, and has

forgiven even me. I’d like to live for baby’s sake, and show Am that I

could be good, but I am willing to die, and ready, I trust; and maybe if

I get well I should be bad again; so it is right, and Heaven knows best.

Lay me down now, husband, and let Kitty Craig kiss me good-by, and tell

me she forgives the cruel words I said when I first saw her, and my

neglect after that.”

She seemed like a little child in her weakness and contrition, and

Kitty’s tears fell like rain as she gave the farewell kiss, and said

that she had long ago forgotten the insult offered her.

“Now go: I breathe better when there is no one here but Am,” Lottie

said. “And when you come again, maybe I shall be gone, but I hope I

shall be at peace where there is no more pain or temptation to be bad.”

So John and Kitty went out together, and left her alone with her

husband, who drew the covering about her, and, smoothing her tumbled

pillow, bade her sleep if she could. And Lottie slept at last, while her

husband watched beside her with his eyes fixed upon her white face, and

a heavy crushing pain in his heart as he thought of losing her now, just

as he had a glimpse of what she might be to him, and as he hoped, just

as she was beginning to love him.

He had always loved her in his quiet, awkward way—always been proud of

her; and though her frivolities and inconsistencies had roused his

temper at times, and made him say harsh things to her and of the

religion she professed, he had through all been fond of her and believed

in God—that in, believed in the God he had learned about in the New

England Sunday-school at the foot of the mountain, and he thought of Him

now, and for the first time in years his lips moved with the precious

words:

“Our Father.”

That prayer had once been so familiar to him, and as he said it now the

past came back again, and he was a boy once more, with all the glow and

fervor of youth, and Lottie was to him all she had been when he first

called her his wife, only he seemed to love her more; and with a choking

sob he cried:

“I can’t let Lottie die. Oh, Father, save her for me, and I’ll be a

better man.”

Softly he kissed the white hand he held, and his tears dropped upon it,

and then a feeble voice said, in some surprise:

“Am, are you crying, or was it a dream? and did you pray for me, and do

you love me sure, and want me to get well?”

“Yes, darling, I do,” and the sobs were loud now, and the strong man’s

tears fell fast upon the face turned so wonderingly and joyfully toward

him.

“Then I will get well,” Lottie said; “or at least I’ll try. I really

thought you would be happier without me. I’ve been such a bother, and it

was not worth while to make an effort, but, if you do love me and want

me, it’s different, and I feel better already. Kiss me, Am, and if I

live we’ll both start new and be good—won’t we?”

Lottie did not die, and when Kitty went to inquire for her next morning

she found her better and brighter, with an expression of happiness on

her face which she had never seen there before.

“I almost went over the river,” she said; “and felt sure I was dying

when Am’s voice called me back. Dear old Am, do you think he actually

prayed for me, that I might get well, and I thought once he did not

believe in praying. Any way he used sometimes to say that my prayers

were all humbug, and I guess they were; some of those long ones I used

to make when I came from a dancing party at two in the morning, and he

was tired and sleepy, and wanted me to turn off the gas. But he is

different now, and says he loves me after all I’ve been. Why, I never

gave him a speck of love, or kissed him of my own accord. But I’m going

to do better; and I guess God let me live to prove to Am that there is a

reality in our church as well as in others. He says he believes in the

Methodist—his grandmother was one—and when we were first married he used

to want me to play those funny hymns about ‘Traveling Home,’ and ‘Bound

for the Land of Canaan,’—and he believes a little in the Presbyterians,

and some in the Baptists, but not a bit in the Episcopalians—that is, he

didn’t till he knew you, who, he thinks, are most as good as a

Methodist; and I am going to try and convince him that I am sincere, and

mean to do right and care for something besides fashion and dress. I

have baby now to occupy my time, and I am glad, for when the spring

bonnets and styles come out, my head might be turned again, for I do

dote on lace and French flowers. Do you think I ought to wear a mob cap

and a serge dress to mortify myself?”

Kitty did not think so; and when two months later she met, down in one

of the miserable alleys in the city where want, and misery, and vice

reigned supreme, “a love of a” French chip hat, trimmed with a bunch of

exquisite pansies and blonde lace, she did not believe that the kindness

paid to the poor old paralytic woman who died with her shriveled hand

clasped in Lottie Steele’s, and her lips whispering the prayer Lottie

had taught her, was less acceptable to God than it would have been had

Lottie’s face and form been disfigured by the garb with which some

well-meaning women make perfect frights of themselves.

Lottie’s heart was right at last, and Amasa never muttered now nor swore

if he could not find his slippers while she was saying her prayers. On

the contrary he said them with her, and tried to be a better man, just

as he said he would, and at last one morning in June, when even the

heated city seemed to laugh in the glorious summer sunshine, he knelt

before the altar and himself received the rite of which he had once

thought so lightly.

“We are so happy now,” Lottie said to Kitty one day. “And I am so glad

of Maudie, though I did not believe in babies once; and Am is just like

a young lover and I’d rather have him than all the men in the world if

he was fifty his last birth-day, and I am only twenty-five; and do you

know I charge it all to you, who have influenced me for good ever since

I first saw you, and made that atrocious speech.”

“Let us rather both ascribe to Heaven every aspiration after a holier,

better life which we may have,” was Kitty’s reply, but her heart was

very happy that day, as she felt that she might perhaps have been an

instrument of good to one household at least, and that to have been so

was infinitely of more value and productive of more real happiness than

getting into society, which she had once thought so desirable, and

which, now that she was or could be in it if she chose, seemed so

utterly worthless and unsatisfactory.

THE END.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

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------------------------------------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in

spelling.

2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.

3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.