The reigning belle

James received the basket, and carried it off manfully, but began to drag in his walk, and set the heavy load down for a moment’s rest after he had carried it a block or two, for his spirit ran far beyond his strength, poor fellow! When he entered the spacious kitchen in Mrs. Lambert’s dwelling, the perspiration was standing in drops on his forehead and he staggered in his walk.

Two or three servants were in the kitchen, gathered in a group around a sallow and highly dressed young lady, whose French cap was in a flutter from the active movement of her head, and whose hands were now and then taken from the pockets in her apron to illustrate what she was saying with peculiar emphasis.

So occupied and interested was this group that no one observed the tired boy, who stood panting over the basket he had placed upon the floor, waiting for some one to claim its contents. Even the cook, whose duty it was, stood by her table with the rolling-pin resting motionless on a half-formed pie-crust, her hands white with flour, and her mouth open with eager curiosity, listening to the female in that French cap so intently that she had no eyes nor ears for anything else.

“I tell you the man was a total stranger. Old Storms can’t remember ever seeing him before—and he remembers every one that ever came here since the deluge. He protested against the man’s coming into the garden, and held the gate to with all his might; but the stranger just pushed him aside, and tramping across the garden, made straight for the conservatory without a word, as if everything belonged to him.”

“Did you ever see such impudence,” said a jaunty footman whose eyes were bent admiringly on the speaker. She nodded an assent, and proceeded with her narrative.

“Old Storms followed after just as fast as he could hobble. First he heard a little scream, then a dead silence, and through the glass he could see the tall acacia-tree bending and fluttering as if a storm had struck it. Then came quick words. The man spoke low and steadily, but madam’s voice rose high and sharp as no one ever heard it before; and when old Storms looked in, she was white as a ghost, and shaking like a leaf. She saw his face peeping through the door, and lifting her arms, motioned-him away, while her eyes seemed to shine right through him like burning stars.”

“But who was the man? Why didn’t the madam order him out?” exclaimed the cook, grasping her rolling-pin with all the force of a large, heavy hand. “I only wish it had a been me.”

“But it was madam who ordered old Storms out; she that stands everything from him, even to being snubbed about picking her own flowers,” answered the maid. “I don’t understand it. She must have known the man, yet she was afraid of him, she was white as a sheet.”

“And quivering all over like a jelly,” broke in the cook. “Wasn’t that what you said, Ellen?”

“I said nothing of the kind, cook,” answered the maid, with infinite disdain. “No one was talking of jellies, that I know of, so please to keep such comparisons for the kitchen.”

The cook turned her back on the exasperated maid, and began rolling out her pie-crust with vigor, muttering to herself,

“Sich airs! Just as if wearing a high-flying cap made some people better than other people.”

“But you didn’t tell, Miss Ellen, what came of it all; which of the madam’s people was it who showed that strange person into the street?” inquired the dashing footman, who had listened so eagerly to Ellen’s story.

“Which of ’em? Not you, Robert, by any manner of means. The truth was, old Storms kept guard over the conservatory a full half hour. Then the man came out, looking stern and white, as if he had been committing murder. He passed right by the old man without so much as looking at him, and tramped off through the garden-gate, wading right through a bed of heliotropes in full blossom, and coming up against that old white rose-bush, with the wren’s-nest over it. Then he stopped as if some one had shot him, and leaning his head against the post, shook till the leaves trembled and the branches rustled.

“Old Storms could not wait to see anything more, for looking through the glass, he saw madam lying in a heap, with her head against the marble of the fountain, not a mite of color in her face, her hands, or her neck. At first he thought she was dead, and began to wring his old hands over her, and cry out so loud that the under-gardener heard him. Dropping everything he ran into the green-house and lifted her up while old Storms came in after me.

“Of course, I went out with a flask of hartshorn in one hand, and aromatic vinegar in the other. That poor old fellow went before, with great round tears rolling down his cheek; but I was too frightened to cry, you may believe that. Why Mr. Robert there could have knocked me down with a feather.”

“As if I could be hired to do anything so exceedingly unmanly,” said the footman, bowing low, with one hand on his heart, “the bare idea is wounding to—to—— Yes, wounding, Miss Ellen.”

“But I didn’t mean it as such. The feathery idee was a comparison, not an actuality, Mr. Robert. Excuse me, I meant no harm; there isn’t a girl living who appreciates your superfluous qualities better than I do. Pray forgive me!”

Robert allowed himself to be appeased, and took Miss Ellen’s hand affectionately in his, while he besought her to go on with her touching narrative.

“There isn’t much more to tell,” said Ellen, leaving her hand rather longer than was necessary in the footman’s clasp. “I found her what seemed to me stone-dead, her hands cold as ice, her face white as the marble over which the water dripped, her hair wet with the spray of the fountain. Old Storms began to cry, and the under-gardener—”

“Well, Miss Ellen, what of him?” demanded the footman, tossing the clinging hand away indignantly. “What of that cretur? Did he have the cheek to offer to help, and lift the madam up, and, perhaps, touch that hand in doing of it—that hand which mine—— Speak, Ellen, what did that wretched being presume to do?”

“Why, Robert, he only lifted her up from the cold marble of the floor, and laid her on a garden-sofa.”

“He did? That is enough. I understand the rest. Perfidious woman! You helped him! Your hands met—your eyes——”

“No, Robert, no! I hardly looked at him. But what could we do? Old Storms hasn’t the strength of a baby, and I was so frightened!”

“But you talked with him?”

“Only to get all the particulars which the crabbed old man wouldn’t talk about. In fact, he tried to make me believe that nothing out of the common had happened; that no strange man had been there; and he was awful huffy with the under-gardener for coming in after me. In fact, if I had depended on old Storms, not a soul in this house would have known anything about it.”

“We don’t know much as it is,” muttered the cook, kneading handsful of butter into her pie-crust, while Ellen made the most of her story.

“Well, you may know this, if you’ll take the trouble to understand,” answered Ellen, with a toss of her head. “It was full ten minutes before the madam came out of her fainting fit, and when she did, it was to sit up like a ghost and look around with frightened eyes, as if she dreaded something, and there old Storms stood half crying. When she saw me the color came back to her face with a rush, and in her grand way, she asked what I was doing there. When I attempted to answer, she pointed to the door and said,

“Go, leave me. There was nothing the matter, that you should be called. The heavy perfume of the flowers made me faint; but Storms was enough.”

“Then she arose with her haughtiest air and swept by me like a queen.”

“Rather hard on you, Ellen. I should say it all meant that you wasn’t wanted,” said the cook, dusting the flour from her hands with a sort of glee, for she had made that a pretence for clapping them.

“I wasn’t addressing my conversation to you,” replied Ellen, with lofty disdain, and was about to say to Mr. Robert “that when I went into the house madam passed me without a word, and shut herself up in her own room where she has been these two hours without ringing her bell once. Now I say that looks mysterious.”

“Sensationing, at least,” answered the footman.