The reigning belle. A society novel

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I.— THE SHOPPING PARTY 25

Chapter I. The Shopping Party

Around her were such glowing colors, in masses, or floating airily through the room, that a face less richly tinted would have seemed pale by contrast. Behind her was a pile of India shawls, in which the rays of a gorgeous sunset seemed to have mellowed down in one soft, glowing heap. By her side was a morning-dress of Oriental cashmere, with vivid palm-leaves running far 'up the skirt, which trailed down from the wire skeleton that supported it, and swept the floor like the plumage of a peacock.

In fact this vast show-room was one panorama of bright, beautiful things ; and most beautiful of all was the young girl, with her rich complexion, just verging on the brunette, and her large, blue-gray eyes, that looked out from their sweeping lashes like shadowed waters where the rushes grow thickly. Her hair, too, was lustrous and abundant, neither black, auburn, nor brown, but with a gleam of each as the light chanced to fall on it.

The face, we have so imperfectly described, was turned toward a flight of stairs that led from the more general warerooms below, and across it flew a shadow of pride or

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pain, as a party of ladies, accompanied by one gentleman, came up tlie stairs, and loitered along the show-room, where she was standing. One of the clerks went forward to meet the party, and turning, walked b} T the side of the younger lady, who came on somewhat in advance of the rest, politely attentive to business.

“ Shawls, did you say?”

t( Yes,” answered the young lady, smiling blandly in the face of the clerk, whose soft amber beard stirred almost imperceptibly with an answering smile. “I scarcely know yet what we do want ; but my friend has a perfect passion for shawls, and I dare say will add another to the variety she has stored away in her cedar-closet, where even the moths are forbidden to touch them. Oh Mrs. Lambert ! here is something lovely ! ”

The elder lady came forward, and, taking out her gold-mounted eye-glass, examined the shawl which had struck the young lady’s attention. It was, indeed, a fabric of wonderful beauty, soft, firm, and wrought in with a splendor of harmonious colors, which the most perfect taste alone could appreciate. But the lady who examined this exquisite workmanship well understood its value, and after making herself mistress of all its perfections, quietly inquired the price.

The sum named would have bought a pretty homestead for some poor family in the country. The lady seemed in no way surprised by the amount, but took the shawl from its stand, while the young lady beckoned the girl, who had withdrawn a little way off, to try it on.

This young creature came forward, not blushing under the astonished eyes turned upon her, but rather growing pale, with a keen feeling of humiliation, and submitted her queenly person to be enveloped in the rich folds of the shawl. When she felt all those strange eyes upon her the color came back to her face, while the downcast lashes swept her glow-

THE SHOPPING PARTY. 27

ing cheeks, and her lips began to quiver, as if a burst ot tears were struggling upward.

“ Mother, ” said the young gentleman, in a low voice, “ the counter would be a better place.”

“No, no!” broke in the very positive young person, whom the elder lady addressed as Miss Spicer, who leaned forward and touched the shoulder over which the shawl was draped with her parasol. “Nothing like a live person to carry off a thing like this. Please move forward and let us see how it falls upon the train. Superb, isn’t it ? ”

Eva Laurence lifted her eyelids with a sudden flash, and stepped back from the insolent touch of that parasol, with a gesture at once haughty and graceful. Then, remembering what was expected of her, she moved across the floor, displaying the shawl in every fold as it swept from her shoulders, down the long, black train of her dress. All other eyes were fixed upon the garment, but young Lambert saw that her bosom heaved, and the hands folded over the shawl trembled. He was turning away, touched by this evidence of painful embarrassment, when Mis3 Spicer darted forward, seized upon Eva’s train, and spread it out upon the floor, exclaiming,

“There now, that’s something like. Isn’t it superb?”

“It is, indeed!” answered Mrs. Lambert, surveying the tall, well-formed girl with her glass. “ What do you think, of it Ivan ? ”

“What do I think, mother? Why, that the young lady will be tired to death before you have made up your mind. Permit me r”

Here young Lambert lifted the shawl gently from Eva’s shoulders, and laid it on the counter.

Eva drew a deep breath and moved off to a window, resentful and hurt, she could scarcely tell why — for had she not come to that place for the very purpose that wounded her so ? Did she not receive extra compensation because

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her stately figure carried off those costly garments to such advantage ? What right had she that this patrician party had invaded?

Still the girl’s cheek burned, and her shoulders felt heavy, as if a burden more oppressive than twenty shawls bore them down.

Chapter II. The Girl Of The Times

While Mrs. Lambert was completing the purchase of her shawl, the young man moved quietly about the room, carrying his cane in one well-gloved hand, with which he manifested a little impatience, as most men do when forced into a shopping excursion with members of their own family ; but, with all his restlessness, he kept Eva Laurence well in view, wondering in his heart who she was, and how she came to be in that strange position.

Miss Spicer, too, had her curiosity. Troubled with no sensitive hesitation, she watched the girl in a bold, staring way, now and then turning a quizzical look on young Lambert, which brought the color to his face.

“ Stylish, ha!” she whispered, taking the young man’s cane from his hand. u Stop here often after this, I dare say — I would if I carried one of these things.” .

The young lady gave emphasis to her words by a dashing flourish of the cane, which, being a flexible, gold-mounted affair, she was twisting back and forth in her hands.

The young gentleman made a gesture as if to reclaim his property.

Miss Spicer gave up the cane.

Eva Laurence saw all this, though her drooping eyes seemed fixed on the floor, and the proud heart burned with-

THE GIRL OF THE TIMES.

in her ; for now and then Miss Spicer glanced across the piles of merchandise to where she stood, taking no pains to conceal that she was an object of curiosity, if not of conversation.

“ There now, don’t look so savage, my friend,” said the lady, “ and you shall see what a chance I will give you for a second survey.”

Before young Lambert could answer, tlje reckless creature had called another clerk to her side.

“This velvet cloak,” she said,. “I should like to see it tried on. Please call the young person.”

The clerk stepped over to Eva Laurence, and spoke to her. She looked up quickly, bent her head, and came across the room, almost smiling the contempt she felt for that rude girl, who only seemed the more plebeian from the fact that her coarseness was smothered in purple and fine linen.

Without a word Eva invested herself in the velvet garment, and with its rich, deep laces settling round her, stood out in the midst of the open space to be examined, looking gravely and quietly on the group that gathered around her.

Then the ladies fell to examining the cloak by detail; handling its glossy folds, criticising the pattern of the lace, and exclaiming at the perfect fit; while Spicer turned the shrinking girl round, and jerked the cloak in and out of place, as if that proud, sensitive creature were a mere layfigure, with a wooden soul, created for her amusement.

“ There now, Mr. Lambert, tell ‘me if this is not perfect?”

Miss Spicer turned as she spoke; but the gentleman, for whom all this display had been gotten up, w£^s at the other end of the room, looking diligently out of the window.

“Mr. Lambert! Mr. Lambert! Come; we want your opinion,” cried Miss Spicer, so loudly that every one in the room could hear.

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“I beg your pardon,” answered the young man, blushing with angry annoyance; “ gentlemen are no judges of such things.”

Miss Spicer walked toward him, grasping her parasol as if it had been a spear, with which she meant to pierce him through.

“Now, this is too bad, after all the pains I have taken! Come along, I say.”

Lambert turned from the window and followed his tormentor. He did not even glance at Eva Laurence.

“ Mother, I have an engagement ; pray, excuse me.”

“ An engagement — gone ! The idea ! ”

With this exclamation, Miss Spicer turned from the girl she had tortured, and the cloak she did not want, with a gesture of the hand, meant to indicate that she had done with the whole affair, and became all at once impatient to leave the establishment.

Mrs. Lambert, who had concluded her purchase, and had been standing an amused spectator of her friend’s defeat, was now ready to go; and Eva saw them depart with a feeling of resentful humiliation, which brought a hot red to her cheeks, and mingled fire and tears to her eyes.

“You find it hard,” said a voice at her elbow. “We all rebel at first; but time and patience do wonders.”

The person who spoke was a slight, dark-eyed man, about thirty-five or forty years of age, whose lov^ kind voice fell gently on her disturbed senses.

“Yes, it is hard,”„answered Eva; and the tears that had been gathering in her eyes flashed over the vivid red of her cheeks, and melted there like dew upon a peach. “I did not expect this — I thought that ladies alone would claim my services.”

“You forget,” said her fellow clerk, “that money does not always fall to the wise or the refined.”

THE GIRL OF THE TIMES.

“But a person like that, coarse, unfeeling, and insolent — what right has she to money, while I have nothing?”

“ Ah ! there is the old story, restless rebellion against things as they are and must be. The law gives her a fortune which some one else has earned — it is the chance of her birth ; but nature withheld from her many things far more precious than wealth, which she has lavished on — on others, perhaps.”

Eva blushed, and a smile quivered over her lips. This half-suppressed compliment soothed her wounded pride a little, but she soon broke into impatience again.

“ Is there no way in which a poor girl can support herself without meeting these bitter insults?” she exclaimed.

The man shook his head.

“ Do intelligence, refinement, noble aspirations, go for nothing when joined with honest labor?”

“Yes, child, as they enchance the value of that labor.”

“And labor is slaver}’,” murmured the girl, looking toward the broad window, against which the sunshine was breaking in bright waves of silver. “That girl is her own mistress — can go where she will — say what she pleases — wound others if she likes, without rebuke or compunction.”

“Would you call that a privilege? ” questioned the man, who listened with a grave smile.

“No, no! I could not do it. Knowing how keenly a poor girl can feel, no amount of prosperity could induce me to wound one as — as that girl has hurt me. If I were rich—” 4 '

“ Well, if you were rich ? W4»t then ?”

“ I would think of others, use my wealth to make others prosperous. No girl with a soul should be shut up in a great room like this, to show off garments for happier woman to wear.”

“ Yet it is only a little time since you were so glad to come here.”

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Eva’s face changed and the cloud was swept from it as if by a flash of lightning. She reached forth her hand.

“ You think me impatient, and so I am ; ungrateful — hut that I am not. I was glad to come here — so glad ! The sweetest hour of my life will be that in which I carry home my first week’s wages, and see those poor, dear faces brighten with a sight of the money. How can I be so unreasonable ? Forgive me ! ”

Chapter III. A Humble Home

Up town, where vacant lots can still be found, stood a small wooden building, scarcely more than a shantie in dimensions, but perfectly finished, so far as it went, and neat in all its appointments as any palace. Two small rooms on the first floor, and a like number of sleeping chambers, with their ceilings in the roof, took up the entire length and breadth of the building. The little space of ground, not occupied by the building, was given up to turf and brightened with flowers, which climbed the fences and ran up the little portico, as leaves cluster around a bird’s-nest in the spring. Indeed, that little spot of earth was lovely. In the cool of the day, thousands of purple and pink morning glories shook the dew from their delicate bells, and, at all hours masses of scarlet beans, cypress-vines, and sweet scented clematis, kept the little enclosure bright and beautiful, week in and week out, so long as the season lasted.

The house itself contained little of value. Curtains of cheap muslin, white as snow, through which you could see a thousand delicate shadows from the flowers outside, shaded the windows.

A HUMBLE HOME.

In the front room was a pretty chintz couch, home-made, with dainty cushions, and an easy-chair to match, the workmanship of some strong, deft hand in the first construction, and finished up by the taste, still more perfect, of a woman, to whom the aesthetic influence was second nature.

Two or three really fine engravings were on the walls, and in one corner stood a straight-legged, old piano, with an embroidered stool.

Two persons sat in this room, at nightfall, on the day Eva Laurence made her little outburst of pride in that fashionable establishment down town. One was a tall, spare woman, about fifty years of age, perhaps, originally from New England, as you might detect from a certain peculiarity of speech, and the constant occupation she found for her hands, even while seated in that roomy easy-chair. The other was a young girl, seemingly about fourteen at a first glance ; but on a second look, you saw traces of thought and of pain on that noble face, which took your judgment in a few years. The girl was near the age of her sister Eva ; in fact, there was not a year between them, and if that had been all, they might have passed for twins. But there the resemblance ended. Nothing could be more unlike the rich coloring and perfect figure of Eva than the pale delicacy and wonderful expression of this girl on the couch.

“ Mother ! ”

How sweet and low that voice was! This one incomparable word seemed rippling off into music, full of tenderness and gentle pathos.

“ Well, Ruth, what is it ? Shall I move the cushions?”

“No, mother; but you seem thoughtful. Has anything gone wrong that I do not know of?”

“Wrong ? No ! It is only the one old trouble I ”

“ The house ? w

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“Yes. I am afraid, Rath, that we shall have to give it up. The mortgage will be due this year ”

“ But Eva thought ”

“Yes, dear, I know. If she had only got her situation a little earlier, there might have been some chance; but the lot is growing more valuable all the time, and Mr. Clapp is a grasping man.”

Ruth Laurence clasped her hands, and turned her eyes upon the wall.

“ Oh ! how helpless I am!” she said, with a thrill of pathetic pain in her voice. “ If we could both work now.”

“But that is impossible. Besides, what would the house be without you — a cage without its bird ? ”

That moment, a brave, young voice came singing up to the front-door of that tiny house, and a bright face leaned through the open window, under which Ruth was lying, and shook some ripe leaves from the vines upon her.

“All right — both here,” cried as fine a school-boy as you ever sat eyes on, swinging a package of books down from his shoulder, and coming through the little hall. “I’ve got along famously, mother : not a demerit. But what makes you look so sober ? ”

The lad seemed to lose something of his bright animation as he entered that humble parlor and saw his mother’s anxious face, his large grey eyes clouded over with anxiety and he stood a moment gazing mutely upon her.

“Well, mother,” he said at last, “has Eva come home yet? She promised us a famous supper when those people paid her, and I’m on hand for it, if ever a little chap was. Not here yet, you say! Now that's what I call rough! Isn’t it, sister Ruth ?”

“She will be home soon,” answered sister Ruth, returning the boy’s kiss with a gentle sigh.

“ How cold your lips are ! ” exclaimed the boy, and a look of tender trouble came into his eyes. “ Is it because you

A HUMBLE HOME.

are hungry, sister Ruth ? If it is, I’ll — I’ll go and sell my school-books, and play hookey after it, to get you something to eat. As for me, I was only in fun. A chap of my age don’t want much, you know.”

“But the books are not yours, dear,” answered the sweet, sad voice from the couch ; “they belong to the city.”

The boy stood still a moment while the slow color mounted to his face.

“I know that,” he answered, almost crying; “but just then they seemed to be mine, dear old friends, ready to go anywhere for my good. Anyway, if I was a fairy now, every one of them should turn into something good to eat; bread for me, and pound-cake for mother, and — and ”

“ Beef-steak for us all ! ” said the mother, joining in the conversation.

The boy drew in his breath and smacked his lips, as if the very idea of a warm beef-steak were a delicious morsel to be tasted and lingered over.

“ Oh, that ! but then one must not be extravagant. Who knows ! Eva may come back with a whole pocket full of rocks!” the boy broke forth, after a moment of dull despondency. “ Come, mother, cheer up, something good is going to happen. I feel it in my bones.”

Mrs. Laurence arose feebly from her chair, took the boy’s head between her hands and kissed him, with a sort of slow restrained passion, half a dozen times, as if she thought each kiss could be coined into food for his hungry lips.

“ Are you so very ”

“Hot a bit of it,” cried the lad, shaking his head free, and making a dive at his books, that the poor mother might not see his hard struggle to keep from .crying. “Hungry, oh, no ! Didn’t one of the big boys give me half his lunch ? That’s a roundabout whopper, I know,” he muttered to himself; “but them eyes, I couldn’t stand ’em, and she been sick so long. Capital lunch it was, too :

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corned beef sandwiches and pickles — famous! So just think of yourself, mother, not me. But here comes Eva. Hurra ! ”

Sure enough, that moment Eva Laurence came through the little gate, sad, weary, and despondent, moving through the dusky flowers like a spirit of night. She entered the little sitting-room, and going directly up to her mother, kissed her in silence. Then she sat down on an edge of the couch, looked tenderly upon her invalid sister, and whispered to her,

“ Have you had nothing ? Has no raven or dove from Heaven come to feed you, my poor darling?”

Ruth shook her head, and tried to smile.

“ It is mother who needs it most,” she said. “ She is not used to being ill, poor darling, and did without so long herself before she would own that we were getting short. Have you brought nothing for her?”

Eva shook her head, and whispered, “ I did ask. Don’t think me a coward, Ruth, but they will not break their rules, down there, for anyone.”

“ What can we do ? ” cried the sick girl, clasping her hands. “I can wait, but mother and poor Jim? Then you will break down.”

“Ho,” answered Eva, almost bitterly. “Mr. Harald has insisted on sharing his lunch with me every day — that is the worst of it. I am kept strong and rosy, while you and mother, who need wholesome food much more, are left here to suffer. You don’t know, Ruthy, dear, how I have longed for an opportunity to hide some of his nice things away, and bring them home; but he always eats with me, and I have no courage to speak. So I feast like a princess, and feel guilty as a thief.”

“ But you need strength so much more than we do,” answered Ruth, clasping her pale hands over Eva’s neck, and kissing her beautiful face. “ It would break my heart to see you growing pale and thin like the rest of us.”

A HUMBLE HOME.

Eva sprang to her feet, stung with unreasonable contrition for having tasted the food she could not share with those she loved.

“What can I do? Is there nothing left? If we could only bridge over the next two days — but how ? ”

“ J ust you hold on,” said little Jim, pitching his pile of books into the next room, and shutting the door upon them with a bang, as if nothing less than a great effort could free him from temptation. “ Just you hold on. This is a free country, and every American has a right to have something to eat; yes, and be President of the United States, if the whole people want him to — not to speak of women who haven’t got their inalienable rights to be men just yet, but are hungry and thirsty just the same. Give me a chance, now.”

Out of the house James Laurence went, putting on his thread-bare cap as he ran. The women he left looked at each other, and almost smiled, his enthusiasm was so contagious.

“Where can he have gone, what is the boy thinking of,” said Eva, untying her shabby little bonnet, and sitting down in helpless expectation. Ruth looked up, smiling. She had great faith in little Jim, and, spite of all the sweet patience which made her character so lovely, thought, with keen physical longing, of the good which might possibly come out of his sudden resolution.

“We never know what ideas our blessed Lord may give to a child,” she said ; “ besides, it does seem impossible that, in a country like this, God’s innocent creatures can be left to starve. I think Jim will come back at least with a loaf of bread; the man who refused us may trust him. Let us wait and see.”

This sweet prophecy fell so tranquilly on the soft, summer air that, spite of themselves, these women began to hope.

S8

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Chapter IV. Little Jimmy Goes After Work

Little James Laurence gave himself no time for cowardly thoughts, but ran bravely towards a grocery store, where the family provisions had been bought in better times, but where all credit for their present necessities was now curtty refused.

The proprietor of this store had fortunately gone out, and his wife stood behind the counter, serving a customer. She was a stout, matronly body, with clear, light -blue eyes, and a pleasant smile, which was turned with more than usual kindness on the boy as he entered almost upon the run. Something in that young face, in the large, eager eyes, and restless mouth, struck her with a vague idea of commiseration. When her customer went out, carrying a brown paper parcel, she folded her plump, round arms on the counter, and leaning over them in a luxuriously cozy position, accosted the boy.

“ Well, Jimmy, what shall we put up for you? One never sees any of your folks lately. Seem to have took their trade somewhere else?” %

James went close up to the counter, and fixed his great, hungry eyes on hers : the light from a swinging lamp overhead fell upon his face, and the kind woman read something there that made her heart ache.

“Why, Jimmy, my dear boy, what is it ? No trouble, I hope, beyond the great loss?”

Had the woman been cold or angry, that brave boy would have faced both without a tear ; but now, sudden moisture sparkled in his eyes, and he winked his long, black lashes over and over again to break it up while be was speaking.

LITTLE JIMMY GOES AFTER WORK. 39

“ We haven’t traded here lately, Mrs. Smith, because we had no money, and your husband got tired of trusting.”

“ Who told you so ? ”

“ He did.”

“Then he Well, he’s one of the best fellows that

ever lived. Does it all for the sake of me and the children — 3 T ou must understand that, youngster. He’s generous as the day, is my husband. How what is it you want just at present? ”

“Mrs. Smith, we haven’t had anything to eat in our house these three days.”

The boy’s voice broke as he said this, and tears fell from the eyes he lifted to that woman’s face, whose kindness he could only see through a mist.

“ Hot had anything to eat in three days, and I here ! Oh, Jimmy Laurence! what were you all thinking about? It’s too bad, there ! ”

Mrs. Smith drew a plump arm across her eyes as she spoke, then seizing the lad by both hands, she fell to kissing him over the counter, then gave him a box on the ear, and pushed him away.

“Why didn’t you come to me? Why didn’t your mother just step over and tell vie about it? Business is business,

but this I’ve no patience with you, Jimmy Laurence,

nor none of your tribe.”

“ But we did not know. He said ”

“ He said. He can say anything he likes when there’s no woman by with a will of her own. How come round here this very minute and tell me what you want,”

“ Oh, Mrs. Smith, you are so good ! I didn’t mean to beg for things, or run in debt more than we have ; but we must have something to eat, or — or more of us will be down sick ; but I mean to work for it — that is what I came for. There is a load of coal coming to-morrow morning. I want to bring it in for you.”

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“You, Jimmy! You bring in coal, poor, slender, palefaced darling ! ”

Little Jim flushed all over at this insinuation against his manliness, and rolling up the sleeve of his jacket, exposed a delicate, white arm, with the little hand clenched, and blue veins thus forced to notice on the wrist. ;

“ See, Mrs. Smith,” he said, “ there’s muscle for a boy ; lean, but tough — just feel it.”

Mrs. Smith did span the delicate wrist with her thumb and finger, feeling the quick pulse stir feebly to the touch, and turned away her face to keep the boy from seeing how close she was to tears — an unusual thing with her.

“Yes, I see; not much flesh to spare.”

“No; some fellows have lots, you know — but that don’t make ’em powerful. Mrs. Smith, just look at the boys that ride circus horses, and jump through hoops, how lean they keep ’em. Just let me feed up a little, and I shall be in prime working order.”

“Well,” answered the woman, laughing away the tears that had actually begun to float in her blue eyes, “ we will feed you up and try.”

“ That’s splendid,” cried the boy, pulling down his jacketsleeve, which was far too short, and woefully threadbare. “Then I was thinking of another thing. Saturday nights you are so busy, and have lots of things to carry home — couldn’t I do some of that just as well as the bigger boys? You don’t know how spry I am. Now a basket like that is nothing to me.”

Here the noble little fellow lifted down a basket of groceries that stood on the counter, ready to be carried home, and dragged it, staggering and breathless, across the floor, where he gave way and fell across it, utterly insensible.