Fashion and Famine. Ann S. Stephens
and fell back on the sofa; her eyes were shut, but down through the black lashes the great tears kept rolling till the silk cushion under her head was wet with them. I felt sorry to see her so troubled, and took the handkerchief from the floor—for it fell from her hand as she sunk down. With one corner that the wheel had not touched, I tried to wipe away the tears from her face, but she started up, all in a tremble, and pushed me away; but not as if she were angry with me; only as if she hated the handkerchief to touch her face.
"She walked about the room a few times, and then seemed to get quite natural again. By-and-bye the queer looking man came up with a satchel and a silver box, under his arm; and she talked with him in a low voice. He seemed not to like what she said; but she grew positive, and he went out. Then she lay down on the sofa again, as if I had not been by; her two hands were clasped under her head; she breathed very hard, and the tears now and then came in drops down her cheeks.
"It was getting dark, and I could hear the rain pattering outside. I spoke softly, and said that I must go; she did not seem to hear; so I waited and spoke again. Still she took no notice. Then I took up my basket and went out. Nobody saw me. The great house seemed empty—everything was grand, but so still that it made me afraid. Nothing but the rain dripping from the trees made the least noise. All around was a garden, and the house stood mostly alone, among the trees on the top of a hill and lifted up from the street. I had no idea where I was, for it seemed almost like the country, trees all around, and green grass and rose bushes growing all about the house!
"A long wide street stretched down the hill toward the city. I noticed the street lamp posts standing in a line each side, and just followed them till I got into the thick of the houses once more. After this I went up one street and down another, inquiring the way, till after a long, long walk, I got back to the market, quite tired out and anxious.
"The good market woman was so pleased to see me again. I gave her all my money, and she counted it, and took out pay for the flowers and strawberries. There was enough without the gold piece; she would not let me change that, but filled the basket with nice things, just to encourage me to work hard next week. There, now, grandfather, I have told you all about this wonderful day. Isn't it quite like a fairy tale?"
The old man sat gazing on the sweet and animated face of his grandchild; his hands were clasped upon the table, and his aged face grew luminous with Christian gratitude. Slowly his forehead bent downward, and he answered her in the solemn and beautiful words of Scripture, "I have been young, and now I am old; yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken, or his seed begging bread." There was pathos and fervency in the old man's voice, solemn even as the words it syllabled. The little strawberry girl bowed her head with gentle feeling, and the grandmother whispered a meek "Amen."
CHAPTER III. THE LONE MANSION.
There are some feelings all too deep,
For grief to shake, or torture numb,
Sorrows that strengthen as they sleep,
And struggle though the heart is dumb.
Little Julia Warren had given a very correct description of the house to which she had been so strangely conveyed. Grand, imposing, and unsurpassed for magnificence by anything known in our city, it was nevertheless filled with a sort of gorgeous gloom that fell like a weight upon the beholder. Most of the shutters were closed, and where the glass was not painted, rich draperies muffled and tinted the light wherever it penetrated a crevice, or struggled through the reversed fold of a blind.
As you passed through those sumptuous rooms, so vast, so still, it seemed like traversing a flower-garden by the faintest starlight; you knew that beautiful objects lay around you on every side, without the power of distinguishing them, save in shadowy masses. All this indistinctness took a strong hold on the imagination, rendered more powerful, perhaps, by the profound stillness that reigned in the dwelling.
Since the great front door had fallen softly to its latch after the little girl left the building, no sound had broken the intense hush that surrounded it. Still the lady, who had so marvelously impressed herself upon the heart of that child, lay prone upon the couch in her boudoir in the second story. She was the only living being in that whole dwelling, and but for the quick breath that now and then disturbed her bosom, she appeared lifeless as the marble Flora that seemed scattering lilies over the cushion where she rested.
After a time the stillness seemed to startle her. She lifted her head and looked around the room.
"Gone!" she said, in a tone of disappointment, which had something of impatience in it—"gone!"
The lady started up, pale and with an imperious motion, as one whose faintest wish had seldom been opposed. She approached a window, and flinging back the curtains of azure damask, cast another searching look over the room. But the pale, sweet features of the Flora smiling down upon her lilies, was the only semblance to a human being that met her eye. She dropped the curtain impatiently. The statue seemed mocking her with its cold, classic smile. It suited her better when the wind came with a sweep, dashing the rain-drops fiercely against the window.
The irritation which this sound produced on her nerves seemed to animate her with a keen wish to find the child who had disappeared so noiselessly. She went to the door, traversed the hall and the great stair-case; and her look grew almost wild when she found no signs of the little girl! Two or three times she parted her lips, as if to call out; but the name that she would have uttered clung to her heart, and the parted lips gave forth no sound.
It was strange that a name, buried in her bosom for years, unuttered, hidden as the miser hides his gold, at once the joy, and agony of his life, should have sprung to her memory there and then; but so it was, and the very attempt to syllable that name seemed to freeze up the animation in her face. She grew much paler after that, and her white fingers clung to the silver knob like ice as she opened the great hall-door and looked into the street.
The entrance to the mansion was sheltered, and though the rain was falling, it had not yet penetrated to the threshold. Up and down the broad street no object resembling the strawberry girl could be seen; and with an air of disappointment, the lady was about to close the door, when she saw upon the threshold a broken rose-bud, which had evidently fallen from the child's basket, and beside it the prints of a little, naked foot left in damp tracery on the granite. These foot-prints descended the steps, and with a sigh the lady drew back, closing the door after her gently as she had opened it.
She stood awhile musing in the vestibule, then slowly mounting the stairs, entered the boudoir again. She sat down, but it was only for a minute; the solitude of the great house might have shaken the nerves of a less delicate woman, now that the rain was beating against the windows, and the gloom thickening around her, but she seemed quite unconscious of this. Some new idea had taken possession of her mind, and it had power to arouse her whole being. She paced the room, at first gently, then with rapid footsteps, becoming more and more excited each moment; though this was only manifested by the brilliancy of her eyes, and the breathless eagerness with which she listened from time to time. No sound came to her ears, however—nothing but the rain beating, beating, beating against the plate-glass.
The lady took out her watch, and a faint, mocking smile stole over her lips. It seemed as if she had been expecting the return of her servant for hours; and lo! only half an hour had passed since he went forth.
"And this," she said, with a gesture and look of self-reproach—"this is the patience—this the stoicism which I have attained—Heaven help me!" She walked slower then, and at length sunk upon the couch with her eyes closed resolutely, as one who forced herself to wait and be still. Thus she remained, perhaps fifteen minutes, and the marble statue smiled upon her through its chill, white flowers.
She had wrestled with herself and conquered. So much time! Only fifteen minutes, but it seemed an hour. She opened her eyes, and there was that smiling face of marble peering down into hers; it seemed as if something human were scanning her heart.