MRS. JASPER KING’S RECEPTION.
“We’re in an awful hole,” gasped Bella, pulling Grace off to the
farthest corner of the dressing-room. “Er--do get away from that maid;
you don’t want her sharp eyes all over you. No, we don’t either of us
want any help;” over her shoulder at that functionary. “Now, Grace,
er--Angela, you’ve gone and got me into this scrape, and I shall never
hold up my head again in all this world.”
Poor Grace’s head couldn’t droop any more than it did, as she mumbled
miserably, “I know it. Oh, dear me!”
This was worse than all, and Bella took fresh alarm. “For mercy’s sake,
hold up your head and look big, as if you were somebody.” It was now
her turn to pinch Grace.
“I can’t; because I’m not somebody,” sighed Grace. The frizzes even
seemed to droop miserably on her brow; and she looked like a wilted
flower, all her smart hired glory gone suddenly out of her.
“What a horrible scrape!” cried Bella between her teeth. “Oh, dear me,
Grace, you _must_ behave! Dear, dear!” as some ladies hovered near.
“I think your mother wants to go down now,” said one; “she is trying to
signal you. Introduce your young friend to me, will you?”
“Oh, I can’t go down-stairs!” cried Grace in a spasm of terror, and
catching Bella’s arm in a way to make her faint, as that young lady
looked over to the knot of ladies by the door, one of whom was waving
her fan frantically.
The lady who had requested the introduction, extending her hand in a
winning way, Bella twitched away from the clutch, and said quickly,
“Miss Grace Strange--I mean Miss Angela Tupper. Oh, dear me! I don’t
feel very well, and mamma wants me. Come on.” She fairly hauled Grace
out through the ranks of elegant women, regardless of their dismay at
her haste. “See what you have done,” her black looks said when at last
she permitted Grace a glimpse of her face.
“You young ladies must attend to my movements, and not expect me to
signal you,” said Mrs. Drysdale, her face only sweetly black, like a
becoming thunder-cloud, as Miss Willoughby’s parlor boarder was one
of the offenders. She could scold Bella easier at home. Just then a
stout lady trying to get by, with a good deal of jet trimming about her
person, sent out one of the octopus threads, and hooked Mrs. Drysdale
in the most vulnerable point,--the choice old lace on her sleeves.
“Excuse me,” panted the stout lady, pulling at the entanglement.
“There, break it, I’m sure I don’t care.”
“I’ll get it out,” cried Mrs. Drysdale in a terror, laying a quick hand
on it.
“Step out of the doorway, please,” said some one. And the stout lady
and Mrs. Drysdale edged off as one person, and everybody in the
vicinity fell to helping; even Grace was brought out of her misery
enough to take her turn. As she bent over her task, some one’s elbow
gave her French bonnet a knock. Out fell a hair-pin from her frizzes,
and she felt rather than saw the curious eyes of the lady next to her
upon her hair. So she deserted the jet and lace, making Mrs. Drysdale
say with some asperity, “I think you have not bettered it any, Miss
Strange.” Then she looked up into the face of her next neighbor. She
was the lady who had asked Bella to introduce her.
[Illustration: Grace darted behind a tall fern, and hid her hot,
distressed face.]
Grace fled out into the wide upper hall, fragrant with its wealth
of blossoms, and darted behind a tall fern, where she hid her hot,
distressed face, and tried to stop the throbbing of her heart.
“Well, now get Miss Strange,” Mrs. Drysdale was saying as she emerged
into the hall. “It is the last time I shall ever allow you to ask a
friend to go with you, Bella. Where in the world is she?” peering about.
Bella flew back into the room. “Grace, Grace,” she cried in a loud
voice.
“Here I am,” said Grace miserably, and creeping out from behind the
fern. “I was so hot, and it’s cool out here,” feeling the necessity for
words with the audience that now hung on the scene, and the throng of
ladies coming and going to the dressing-room, and whose passage they
were blocking up.
Mrs. Drysdale did not vouchsafe a word, only gave her one look, stepped
back, and called her daughter in a tone that scared Bella more than all
the rest, and the three sailed down-stairs. That is, the lady sailed;
but Bella went with the tread of an angry young lion, while the parlor
boarder at Miss Willoughby’s slipped after as best she could.
The next thing she knew, she was being introduced to a radiant vision,
and feeling the warm touch of a kind hand, and looking into clear
brown eyes, and hearing Mrs. Jasper King say, “I am very glad to see
you, Miss Strange.” And then, despite the crowd pressing her, and
that Bella was picking her by the sleeve, the kind hand retained her
trembling one, “I want to see more of you. Come up and speak to me
later,” said Mrs. King, and she smiled; and that cut deepest of all.
Grace broke away from her friends, and made a dive for oblivion.
Anywhere--perhaps behind a sheltering palm, till the Drysdales were
ready to go home; she could watch and slip out then. Instead, however,
of reaching such a haven, she ran against a tall young man in the hall,
and not stopping to beg pardon, rushed on.
“Hello!” exclaimed Mr. Charley Swan startled out of his politeness,
and following her after the rebound, “anything I can do for you, Miss
Strange?”
The sound of this name only added to Grace’s terror, and he had some
difficulty in gaining her side.
“If you please, I’d advise you to stop. People don’t run about in this
way, you know, at receptions; knocking folks down, and all that. Now,
what’s the trouble?” He stood squarely in front of her, and between
annihilating with his looks a curious youth who was taking this all
in, and preserving a calm exterior for the rest of the throng surging
through the hall, he still gave her a penetrating glance.
“Oh, I’m so wretched!” gasped Grace, all caution thrown to the winds,
and clasping her hands.
“Not altogether festive,” said Charley Swan, “that’s a fact. Well, now
that orchestra’s going to play, thank Heaven for that. You just take my
arm--Miss--Miss Strange, and we’ll get out of this mob.”
He had to slip Grace’s hand himself within his arm. There it lay, and
shook like a leaf. Charley piloted her into the large conservatory
opening into the library, and somehow she found herself in a quiet
corner with just room enough for another person on the rattan seat.
“Now, that’s what I call comfort,” he said, not looking at her, to
give her time to recover herself. “Mrs. King is a perfect marvel in
the flower line, and her music. Did you know that all these orchids
are given her by Mr. King the father? Gracious! don’t I wish some old
gentleman would take a fancy to me, and pet me with bank-notes and
smother me in orchids. Look around a bit, Miss Strange.”
“I can’t,” said Grace in a low voice; “I’ve no right to.”
“Hush! here comes a perfect old harpy for news, I know by her
pinched-up nose, and the way she sets her lorgnette. Hold your tongue,
Miss Strange,--beg your pardon, but it’s a desperate case,--till she
gets away. Yes, as I was saying, these orchids are surely the rarest
specimens I’ve ever seen.”
The “old harpy” drew near, and levelled her glances behind her
lorgnette at Grace. It was the lady who had asked Bella to introduce
her young friend.
“Are you ill, Miss”--she hesitated, and then laughed unpleasantly,
“Tupper--or--Strange?” she asked sweetly, and drawing near till she
stood over the two.
Charley Swan surveyed her coolly as Grace stammered out something.
“Thanks,” he drawled. “Miss Strange was faint; but as she is a great
friend of our family and came with us, I believe I can take care of
her. Anything I can do for you, Miss--” he hesitated, just as she had
done, looking her squarely in the face; so that, without supplying the
name, she murmured something about the beauty of the flowers, and moved
off.
[Illustration: “Are you ill, Miss Tupper--or--Strange?” and she laughed
unpleasantly.]
“Old reptile,” said Charley between his teeth.
“Oh, don’t!” protested Grace, with a little shiver; “she’s right. She
sees I’m a humbug.”
Mr. Swan did not seem to be at all surprised at this confession, but
stood up suddenly.
“Look here,” he said; “you keep your seat. Don’t say a word; _she_
won’t come back, and you don’t know any one else, I’ll be bound.
Anyway, don’t talk. I’m going to get you an ice.”
“No, no,” cried Grace, the color flooding her face; “not a single
thing; I won’t take it. I can’t. Why, I’ve come here all dressed up as
one of Mrs. Willoughby’s parlor boarders. I’m only Grace Tupper--you
don’t know. It would choke me.”
“It’s pretty bad, I’ll not deny,” said Charley, sitting down; “but if
everybody told how they got to receptions, you wouldn’t be alone in
humbuggery, I’ll venture to say.”
“But I’ve disobeyed my Au--Aunt Ath--Atherton,” said Grace, battling
with her sobs, and twisting her fingers to keep from crying like a
baby, “and--I--hired this bonnet, and--and”--
“And you’ve spoiled yourself with those horrid eyebrows,” finished
Charley; “and if I were you, I’d take off that monstrosity of a frizz,
and put the thing in your pocket.”
“Oh, I can’t!” gasped Grace, raising her blue eyes in terror to his
face; “why, Aunt will know me then.”
“Is she here?” demanded Charley with a whistle. He couldn’t help it;
this last was too much even for him.
“Yes--that is, she was coming. Oh, dear me! and I suppose I’ll be
expelled from Miss Willoughby’s school, and I’ll go home, and it’ll
kill father and mother and Jimmy and the baby. I never thought of that.”
“At least I believe we’ll save Jimmy and the baby,” said Charley in a
tone of encouragement.
“And Mrs. King smi--smiled at me.” Grace broke down, and cried into her
handkerchief, so that Charlie jumped up. “See here,” he said abruptly,
“I want to take you down to see some of the greenhouses; they’re
wonders.” He made her get up, and take his arm again, while he hurried
her off over the grounds. But they hadn’t gone far, when she saw a lady
in advance walking with two gentlemen.
“There’s Aunt!” she cried; and before Charley could say anything, she
broke away from him, and rushed down a side path.
It was worse than useless to follow her, as the attention thus drawn
to her would be disastrous. So Charley sauntered along, first getting
a good view of “Aunt” in her lavender bonnet, so he would know her
again, and then hastening to the mansion, if perchance he might
befriend Grace once more.
“Charley Swan!” exclaimed Bella, running up, “where _is_--er--Angela
Strange?”
“Miss Tupper has just left me,” said Charley gravely, and pausing
abruptly.
“Miss Tupper? Oh, my good gracious!” cried Bella with a little laugh,
“you mean Miss Strange.”
“She says her name is Tupper,” said Charley. “I really suppose she
ought to know.”
“Oh, dear, dear! then she has told you,” said Bella with a long sigh.
“Well, I’m glad. Such an afternoon as I’ve had!”
“See here, Bella,” said Charley. “You get her; she’s run down that
path,” nodding in the direction of Grace’s flight; “and you and I will
take her home. She took fright because she saw her aunt. Be lively now.”
“Dear, dear!” cried Bella in vexation and alarm. “Well, I’m sure,
precious little comfort I’ve had at this reception!”
“Hurry up, now. I’ll go in and make our excuses to Aunt Isabel.”
But when Bella reached a turn in the shrubbery, she found a little heap
on the ground, a group of people bending over it, conspicuous in the
front being the lady who had asked her to introduce Grace, now using a
lorgnette most vigorously.
What happened next, Bella never could tell. She only knew that the
gardeners lifted Grace, and carried her into one of the back doors,
giving her up to the care of the housekeeper, whom they called Mrs.
Higby, and that some of the ladies and gentlemen followed, proposing
various remedies, the lady with the lorgnette pressing after most
assiduously.
“She tripped on her gown and fell just as we were coming along,” said
this lady sweetly. “She seems somehow unused to a long gown. Let me
bathe her face.”
“Here comes Miss Phronsie,” said Mrs. Higby. “Now that blessed dear has
heard of the accident. Make way for Miss Phronsie.”
Phronsie came softly up in her beautiful white gown. She laid down her
bunch of lilies-of-the-valley on the table, and bent over the young
girl, laying a quiet hand on the cold one. “Poor thing,” she said, and
she dropped a kiss on the white cheek.
To everybody’s surprise, two tears gushed out and rolled down the white
face. “Leave her to me,” said Phronsie gently. “Now, if everybody will
please go out, Mrs. Higby and I will take care of her.”
“You would better let me stay,” the lorgnette lady had the temerity to
say.
“We do not need you,” said Phronsie, coolly regarding her. “Will you
please go out with the others?”
When Charley Swan came stalking in by the back door, it was to see Miss
Phronsie Pepper with her arms around Grace as they sat on the lounge
in the housekeeper’s dining-room, and Bella Drysdale crouched on the
floor, with her hands clasped in Phronsie’s lap.