IN KATIE’S HOME.
“Five o’clock, girls,” said Katie, pressing an electric button that she
could reach without leaving her seat. “Jennie will bring in the tea;
she knows what that bell means at this hour. And, Lily, do stop asking
Marion questions. She’s only been in the house half an hour, and I know
she’s all worn out with the trip.”
“Worn out! Why, it was splendid! I was sorry it wasn’t longer.”
The girls were sitting in Katie’s own pretty room, where every thing
was primrose and gold, and she and Lily were doing their best to make
Marion feel at ease in the rather embarrassing ordeal of making her
first visit. Mr. Ashley had met her at the station and was cordiality
itself. Mrs. Ashley’s greeting was heartfelt too, and the two girls
flung themselves upon her in vociferous welcome.
Perhaps they had both felt a little nervous about her; but there was no
need. Her close observation of such a good model as Mrs. Abbott and
her quick faculty of imitation had so changed her manner and speech
that there was really nothing to object to. She had benefited, too,
by the cruel ridicule of her thoughtless school-mates, which had been
lacerating while it lasted and very hard to bear.
Katie took her up to the pretty room she was to occupy after they had
finished their little cups of tea and eaten a thin slice of bread and
butter.
“We should have to put you both into the guest-chamber ordinarily,”
she said, “but brother Jim and my two unmarried sisters are traveling
in Europe with grandfather; so there’s lots of room. See, Lily’s door
opens into your room, so you needn’t feel lonesome. I am going to get
mamma to send Adèle to dress your hair. She always does mine when I am
at home.”
Marion declined the services of the French maid, but Katie laughed
and ran down again, and in a few minutes Adèle came in, having been
ordered, she said, to help the young lady. Mrs. Abbott had told Marion
to do, as far as she could, what her friends expected her to while she
was visiting them; so she submitted to having her hair dressed, and
received so many compliments from Adèle on its length, quantity, and
beautiful curliness that she was quite comforted. When she looked in
the glass after the hair-dressing was over she hardly knew herself, and
Lily, running in just then, fell into raptures.
“Where have you always hidden all that beautiful hair?” she exclaimed.
“Why, you are positively lovely with your red cheeks and that fluff on
your forehead. I wonder if Adèle could change me into a beauty. But
look here, Marion, you want to wear your best dress, the blue one, you
know, to-night, because there’s to be a Christmas-tree, and the married
son and daughter are coming, and they’re awfully swell.”
“I have a prettier dress than that, a red one;” and Marion exhibited
her new dress.
“My, but I’m glad,” said Lily; “for really, do you know, Marion, I was
wishing you had something pretty to come out in to-night?”
Truly Marion, with her hair stylishly arranged and delicate white
frilling at the neck and sleeves of the bright red dress was a pleasant
picture as she took her seat by Lily’s side at the dinner-table.
Katie explained to her mother that as life at Mrs. Abbott’s included a
two-o’clock dinner they must be excused if their appetites were feeble
at a seven-o’clock dinner. Mr. Ashley affected to consider this a great
joke, and went into little spasms of mirth every time the plates were
changed and the “feeble appetites” did not prevent the girls from
tasting every dish that was offered.
They were occupied with their dessert when the married Ashley children
came. The son had a pretty little wife, who looked nearly as young as
Katie, and a wonderfully smart little black-eyed daughter of three, who
asked, the instant she came in, where “Danpa’s Twissmus-twee” was.
Mrs. Clifford Leigh, the oldest Ashley daughter, was a tall, handsome
young woman, whose rather haughty bearing frightened Marion into
awkwardness at first, but when an exclamation of rapturous admiration
escaped her lips at the sight of two lovely children who were brought
in by their nurses the young mother’s face softened into a gratified
smile which made it charming.
Marion had a feeling that Mrs. Clifford despised her, and Lily, who
sometimes had very keen intuitions, suspected her feeling and whispered:
“Say, Marion, don’t you worry. Katie has never said any thing about you
to her brothers and sisters. Not that there’s much of any thing to say;
but you know what I mean.”
For answer Marion squeezed her hand lovingly and immediately felt more
indifferent to Mrs. Clifford’s haughty manner, which was, after all,
nothing but manner, for she was really as good-natured and friendly as
Katie herself.
Mrs. Ashley excused herself and mysteriously retired to the
drawing-room, between which and the dining-room the portieres were
closely drawn together. Presently they slid swiftly apart and the whole
company went toward the other end of the long room, where stood a
dazzling Christmas-tree lighted by a host of candles and brilliant with
silver and gilt decorations that caught and reflected the light with
glittering effect.
The little ones danced about gayly with out-cries of delight,
and Marion was dumb with admiration at her first sight of a real
Christmas-tree. She had read of them often, but never imagined they
could be so beautiful.
Mr. Ashley, with a tiny hand in each of his, began dancing his little
granddaughters about to the waltz which was trilled out by an immense
music-box, till Mrs. Clifford reminded him that they were all pining
for a view of their presents. So he put on an absurdly serious manner
and began to gather the fruit that Santa Claus had raised in his own
private hot-house, as he expressed it.
The first fruit plucked was a beautiful doll, which was handed to
little Hilda Ashley, who received it enthusiastically. Its twin was
given to her oldest little cousin, and small Master Clifford received
a box that stood under the tree, being too heavy to hang upon it.
The young gentleman was immediately lost to sight behind the box,
but his approval of the contents, as his nurse took them out, was
distinctly audible. Horses and their attachments had been his craze
all of his short life, and the majestic pair of bays with a big, solid
express-wagon that filled the box, were almost large enough for actual
service.
There were many other presents for the children, which were taken in
charge by their mothers, and then Mr. Ashley said Santa Claus owed them
an apology for entirely forgetting to provide any thing for the grown
folks. Katie whispered to Marion that he had made that same remark
every year since she could remember; but even if it was not strictly
original on the present occasion it was thought irresistibly funny, for
while he was sadly shaking his head over the misfortune he was untying
the blue ribbon which held a morocco box to the tree. This he handed
mournfully to young Mrs. Ashley, whose eyes sparkled as she opened it
and discovered an opal ring with a brilliant setting of diamonds. She
flashed an appreciative look at her husband, who was watching her, and
Marion felt sure the ring had been presented by him.
Mrs. Clifford had from her husband a reminder that the day was also the
anniversary of their wedding, in the shape of a lovely pin modeled from
an antique Swedish wedding-gift.
The young men received a collection of umbrellas, canes, pins, and
sleeve-buttons, and then more boxes with gifts from father and mother
and friends were taken down and given to their wives. Then Mr. Ashley,
in a puzzled way, declared it seemed astonishing that three young
and interesting girls should be left out when every one else was
remembered. Even Mrs. Ashley, he said, had her pile, and a goodly pile
it was. Katie abused him roundly as he slowly inspected parcels and
boxes on the tree and on the table behind it, and declared she would
jump over the ribbon that was stretched across that end of the room for
a dividing-line. At last he slowly took down a square flat box, then
laid it on the table, remarking in a hopeless way that the writing was
upside-down.
“Turn it the other way,” cried Katie, stamping her foot in mock anger.
“What a head you have!” said her father, and he frisked around to
the other side of the table as if the little box itself could not be
turned. “Why, it’s your own name,” he added, in great surprise.
“So it is, but you didn’t read it all;” and Katie handed the box to
Lily, pointing to the inscription, “From Katherine Stowe Ashley to Lily
Dart.”
There was a beautiful handkerchief with an embroidered edge in it, and
another box, handed then to Marion, held one just like it.
From Mrs. Ashley Lily received a gold bangle, and Marion a simple but
extremely pretty gold and garnet breastpin, which quite took her breath
away, it seemed so magnificent.
Mr. Ashley kept up the farce of not being able to discover any
remembrances for Katie till that young lady became quite impatient.
Then he handed her a carefully wrapped-up diary with an elegant
exterior and hopelessly blank interior. She received it with a comical
little gesture, for it meant that her mother expected her to continue
the daily record that she had pursued for four years.
There was a gold thimble for Katie from her sister-in-law, a bewitching
fan from Mrs. Clifford, and lovely “bits of travel,” as Mr. Ashley
called the gifts from the absent sisters and brothers, who sent
carvings from Sorrento, silver from Nuremberg, laces from Paris, and
specialties from other points to all at home.
Then Mr. Ashley ceremoniously presented his youngest daughter with the
prettiest pocket-book his researches among the shops could unearth.
“It would have been a diamond ring, Katie. I mean to say it was a
diamond ring,” he said, mournfully, “but your mother made me take it
back to Tiffany, because you are too young, she says. So try to get
older, my child, and I will reward you with precious stones.”
Katie laughed and admired her father’s gift, remarking with some
philosophy that she’d rather have it than a ring, for she could have
the comfort of using it, and if she had had the ring mamma would not
have let her wear it till she was out of school.
“But you haven’t examined the lining,” Mr. Ashley said, anxiously,
after nodding approvingly at her manner of receiving his gift.
The “lining” was a check, and Katie, seeing its highly respectable
amount, flew at her father in a transport. He retreated before her rush
in mock terror, but on being caught returned her hug with interest,
begging her in a loud whisper not to reveal the amount of her check to
any one.
Katie’s good sense was getting the better of the vanity and bragging
that the girls at school used to find objectionable in her, and, true
to some new resolutions she had been making, she followed her father’s
jocose request and told no one but her mother the amount of her gift.
“I knew I should get some money,” she said that night after the girls
had gone up to her room, “so I ran pretty deeply in debt for things for
mamma’s tree to-morrow.”
“Another tree!” exclaimed the girls, in chorus.
“Same one dressed over; but wait and see. It’s twice the fun this was.”