Louisiana. Burnett Frances Hodgson
straight before her, and trying very hard to appear at ease. She was prettier than before, and worse dressed. She wore a blue, much-ruffled muslin and a wide collar made of imitation lace. She had tucked her sleeves up to her elbow with a band and bow of black velvet, and her round, smooth young arms were adorable. She looked for a vacant place, and, seeing none, stopped short, as if she did not know what to do. Then some magnetic attraction drew her eye to Olivia Ferrol's. After a moment's pause, she moved timidly toward her.
"I – I wish a waiter would come," she faltered.
At that moment one on the wing stopped in obedience to a gesture of Miss Ferrol's – a delicate, authoritative movement of the head.
"Give this young lady that chair opposite me," she said.
The chair was drawn out with a flourish, the girl was seated, and the bill of fare was placed in her hands.
"Thank you," she said, in a low, astonished voice.
Olivia smiled.
"That waiter is my own special and peculiar property," she said, "and I rather pride myself on him."
But her guest scarcely seemed to comprehend her pleasantry. She looked somewhat awkward.
"I – don't know much about waiters," she ventured. "I'm not used to them, and I suppose they know it. I never was at a hotel before."
"You will soon get used to them," returned Miss Ferrol.
The girl fixed her eyes upon her with a questioning appeal. They were the loveliest eyes she had ever seen, Miss Ferrol thought – large-irised, and with wonderful long lashes fringing them and curling upward, giving them a tender, very wide-open look. She seemed suddenly to gain courage, and also to feel it her duty to account for herself.
"I shouldn't have come here alone if I could have got father to come with me," she revealed. "But he wouldn't come. He said it wasn't the place for him. I haven't been very well since mother died, and he thought I'd better try the Springs awhile. I don't think I shall like it."
"I don't like it," replied Miss Ferrol, candidly, "but I dare say you will when you know people."
The girl glanced rapidly and furtively over the crowded room, and then her eyes fell.
"I shall never know them," she said, in a depressed undertone.
In secret Miss Ferrol felt a conviction that she was right; she had not been presented under the right auspices.
"It is rather clever and sensitive in her to find it out so quickly," she thought. "Some girls would be more sanguine, and be led into blunders."
They progressed pretty well during the meal. When it was over, and Miss Ferrol rose, she became conscious that her companion was troubled by some new difficulty, and a second thought suggested to her what its nature was.
"Are you going to your room?" she asked.
"I don't know," said the girl, with the look of helpless appeal again. "I don't know where else to go. I don't like to go out there" (signifying the gallery) "alone."
"Why not come with me?" said Miss Ferrol. "Then we can promenade together."
"Ah!" she said, with a little gasp of relief and gratitude. "Don't you mind?"
"On the contrary, I shall be very glad of your society," Miss Ferrol answered. "I am alone, too."
So they went out together and wandered slowly from one end of the starlit gallery to the other, winding their way through the crowd that promenaded, and, upon the whole, finding it rather pleasant.
"I shall have to take care of her," Miss Ferrol was deciding; "but I do not think I shall mind the trouble."
The thing that touched her most was the girl's innocent trust in her sincerity – her taking for granted that this stranger, who had been polite to her, had been so not for worldly good breeding's sake, but from true friendliness and extreme generosity of nature. Her first shyness conquered, she related her whole history with the unreserve of a child. Her father was a farmer, and she had always lived with him on his farm. He had been too fond of her to allow her to leave home, and she had never been "away to school."
"He has made a pet of me at home," she said. "I was the only one that lived to be over eight years old. I am the eleventh. Ten died before I was born, and it made father and mother worry a good deal over me – and father was worse than mother. He said the time never seemed to come when he could spare me. He is very good and kind – is father," she added, in a hurried, soft-voiced way. "He's rough, but he's very good and kind."
Before they parted for the night Miss Ferrol had the whole genealogical tree by heart. They were an amazingly prolific family, it seemed. There was Uncle Josiah, who had ten children, Uncle Leander, who had fifteen, Aunt Amanda, who had twelve, and Aunt Nervy, whose belongings comprised three sets of twins and an unlimited supply of odd numbers. They went upstairs together and parted at Miss Ferrol's door, their rooms being near each other.
The girl held out her hand.
"Good-night!" she said. "I'm so thankful I've got to know you."
Her eyes looked bigger and wider-open than ever; she smiled, showing her even, sound, little white teeth. Under the bright light of the lamp the freckles the day betrayed on her smooth skin were not to be seen.
"Dear me!" thought Miss Ferrol. "How startlingly pretty, in spite of the cotton lace and the dreadful polonaise!"
She touched her lightly on the shoulder.
"Why, you are as tall as I am!" she said.
"Yes," the girl replied, depressedly; "but I'm twice as broad."
"Oh no – no such thing." And then, with a delicate glance down over her, she said – "It is your dress that makes you fancy so. Perhaps your dressmaker does not understand your figure," – as if such a failing was the most natural and simple thing in the world, and needed only the slightest rectifying.
"I have no dressmaker," the girl answered. "I make my things myself. Perhaps that is it."
"It is a little dangerous, it is true," replied Miss Ferrol. "I have been bold enough to try it myself, and I never succeeded. I could give you the address of a very thorough woman if you lived in New York."
"But I don't live there, you see. I wish I did. I never shall, though. Father could never spare me."
Another slight pause ensued, during which she looked admiringly at Miss Ferrol. Then she said "good-night" again, and turned away.
But before she had crossed the corridor she stopped.
"I never told you my name," she said.
Miss Ferrol naturally expected she would announce it at once, but she did not. An air of embarrassment fell upon her. She seemed almost averse to speaking.
"Well," said Miss Ferrol, smiling, "what is it?"
She did not raise her eyes from the carpet as she replied, unsteadily:
"It's Louisiana."
Miss Ferrol answered her very composedly:
"The name of the state?"
"Yes. Father came from there."
"But you did not tell me your surname."
"Oh! that is Rogers. You – you didn't laugh. I thought you would."
"At the first name?" replied Miss Ferrol. "Oh no. It is unusual – but names often are. And Louise is pretty."
"So it is," she said, brightening. "I never thought of that. I hate Louisa. They will call it 'Lowizy,' or 'Lousyanny.' I could sign myself Louise, couldn't I?"
"Yes," Miss Ferrol replied.
And then her protégée said "good-night" for the third time, and disappeared.
CHAPTER II.
WORTH
She presented herself at the bed-room door with a timid knock the next morning before breakfast, evidently expecting to be taken charge of. Miss Ferrol felt sure she would appear, and had, indeed, dressed