Clemence. Retta Babcock
Mrs. Brown," drawled a voice which had before been silent, "your husband made his money in a vulgar grocery; your father was a poor man, while your fair neighbor inherited her vast wealth. That splendid mansion was a gift from papa, those well-trained servants have been in the service of her family since my lady was a mere child, and have been accustomed to wait upon and obey the slightest wish of their imperious mistress, until they have grown to regard her as of a higher order of being from themselves—a sort of delicate porcelain, while they are only common crockery for kitchen service. All perfectly proper, you know!"
The last speaker was a languid blonde, with a profusion of airy ringlets fluttering around her thin face, which, judging by appearances, must have been fanned by the zephyrs of innumerable May-days, equally as bright and beautiful as the one that on the present occasion had aroused her to the unwonted exertion of dressing and appearing in the parlor of her dearest friend, to display a new, tasteful spring suit, of a delicate blue, suitable to the complexion of the lady it adorned.
A self-complacent smile curled her thin lips, as she quietly noted the effects of her somewhat lengthy speech. Like all efforts of an unexpected and startling nature it produced a decided sensation. The little lady in brocade and diamonds glared at her like a fury—her stately hostess bridled, tossed her head, and gave one or two short, sharp, hysterical giggles.
"Why, Cynthia," she exclaimed, "you are in charming spirits! Mr. Underwitte must have proposed at last."
Miss Cynthia playfully held up her parasol to conceal her blushes.
"As if I were going to tell if he did! Now, really, Mrs. Brown, what would you say to having me for a neighbor at some not distant day in the place of those insufferable Graystones? Do you think I could do the honors of the mansion gracefully, or should I suffer from the comparison with the fair descendant of the Leveridges? By the way, do you think she will continue to pride herself upon her lofty descent in the future, as she has done in the past? She must have enough of the subject by this time, I think! he! he! he!"
There was a shrill chorus of laughter, which a deep, tragic voice interrupted with the question—
"What are you all so merry about?" and a figure, in bombazine and rusty crape, stood before them, which was hailed successively by three voices, a cracked soprano, Mrs. Crane—a high-keyed treble, Miss Cynthia, and a little gasp or gurgle from Mrs. Brown, the lady in brocade, as, "Mrs. Linden!" "My dear creature!" and "That angel Alicia!" and any amount of kissing and shaking of hands, then a general resuming of seats, and the question again asked, "What were you all so merry about, that you did not hear me ring?"
"One of Cynthia's witty speeches," replied the lady of the house, and after they had had another laugh, and Miss Cynthia had simpered and shook her curls affectedly, the new-comer proceeded to give the latest version of the Graystone's downfall and subsequent misfortunes.
"All gone by the board, a regular crash, and nothing left to tell the tale."
"A clear, out and out failure."
"And all come from signing for that rascally Sanderson."
"I knew he was a slippery rogue."
"Good enough for Graystone."
"Served him right for being such a fool."
These, and similar uncomplimentary epithets, indiscriminately applied by the assembled ladies, proved what a choice morsel this was considered that had so unexpectedly fallen to their share.
"What will become of the family, I wonder?" queried Mrs. Crane. "It was bad enough to lose the money, but now that Graystone's gone, I do not see what them two helpless women are going to do?"
"Live on their connections, most likely," snapped little Mrs. Brown, "of course they won't work."
"No, I do not believe that," was the reply. "They are too independent. At present, I believe, they have taken rooms in an obscure part of the city. I guess they do not know what to do themselves."
"It must have been hard to part with everything that was dear to them by association, for I hear that they gave up everything, even Clemence's piano, to pay debts."
There was a pitying tone in the speaker's voice. Alicia Linden, for all her tragic accents, her deep-set eyes, with their beetling brows, and her generally almost repulsive exterior, had more real heart than any of the women present. Perhaps she remembered that time in the vanished past, when she had stood by the coffin that contained the loved of her youth, he who had made her girlhood one dream of happiness, but over whose calm face the grass had greened and faded for many a weary year; perhaps this remembrance touched a chord of her better nature. Life, with its cares, and sorrows, and disappointments, had hardened her, till she had almost lost faith in humanity. Moreover, she was a woman, homely, and old and common, and with feminine malice and spite she could not readily forgive another of her own sex for being beautiful, refined and attractive. She said emphatically, that "it was well that, in this world, pride could sometimes be humbled;" but for all that, the memory of that day so long ago, passed alone in her desolation and sorrowful widowhood, lent a pitying sadness to her voice that placed her infinitely above these other soulless ones of her sex, with their cold eyes and unsympathetic tones.
Vixenish Mrs. Brown detected the weakness at once, and pounced upon it with avidity. She was blessed with a good memory, and one or two well remembered slights from the unconscious objects of her animadversions, rankled bitterly, and she hungered for revenge. She exulted now without stint, and took no pains to conceal it. The lady had a blooming daughter, Melinda. If the mother's early life had been one of privation and toil, the young lady in question had had, thus far, a totally different experience. Mrs. Brown's educational advantages had been limited to a knowledge of reading, writing and ciphering, with a something of grammar. Miss Brown's childhood had passed under the tutilage of accomplished masters. She could dance, execute a few showy pieces upon the piano without a blunder, utter glibly French and Italian phrases, and had, with the help of her teacher, finished, creditably, a landscape, a gorgeous sunset, of amber and crimson, and purple-tinted clouds, which hung in the most conspicuous position in her mother's drawing-room. Melinda read novels, frequented theatres, and talked slang, like the "girl of the period," and was the idol of her weak mother, whom she ruled like a queen. Unfortunately, "my lady Graystone," as she was called in the clique over which Mrs. Crane presided, had an innate love for the pure and beautiful, and a thorough contempt for vulgarity in every form. The gorgeous Melinda, therefore, was not a person calculated to inspire a lady of her high-toned mind with any deep feeling of regard or esteem. The elder woman, who, from her long probation at service, before she was fortunate enough to secure William Brown, the grocer's apprentice, had caught that cringing obsequiousness that we so often see in those accustomed to serve, and could have borne patiently, any slights or rebuffs that opposed her entrance into the charmed circle which she had determined to invade at all hazards. Meek and fawning, where she desired to gain favor, as she was insolent and overbearing to her inferiors, she was willing to commence at the lowest round of the social ladder, and creep up slowly to a position that suited her ambition, in the same manner in which she had won her way to wealth out of the depth of poverty. But, when the blooming daughter of the retired grocer returned from boarding school, all things were changed. "Melinda was a lady," "entitled to a proud position in society, by virtue of her lady-like acquirements," and she demanded an instant recognition of her claims by said society. The exclusive circle of which the beautiful wife of Grosvenor Graystone had long been an acknowledged leader, politely, but firmly repulsed the overtures of the ladies of the Brown family, in such a way that they were not again repeated, and the result, as we have seen, was their cordial dislike, and even more, a vindictive hatred.
"Hard to part with everything," hissed Mrs. Brown, "and you pity them, I suppose, Alicia! You, who have been snubbed by them so repeatedly, that you have come to expect nothing better at their hands! You, a daughter of the people, so to speak;" (Mrs. Brown, since her signal defeat by the Graystone clique, had been at no little pains to air her democratic principles, much in the way we have seen some of our politicians do in the present day.) However, she was not so good a sensational speaker as Mrs. Crane, and like every one who attempts to imitate anything