The reigning belle

“Mother! mother! come here!”

Ruth lifted her sweet voice a little, and spoke with some excitement, for she was taken quite by surprise by the appearance of a magnificent carriage before the gate; a carriage that seemed half made of translucent glass. Two pretentious menials in livery sat between the glittering lamps on each side the coachman’s seat, and a pair of chestnut horses arched their necks, tossed their heads, and made their gold-mounted harness rattle again with their proud, impatient movements, while one of those solemn personages let himself to the ground and opened the carriage-door.

“This is the place, ma’am. It doesn’t seem possible, but this is the place. I only hope Battles will be able to hold the hosses; but they don’t like it.”

“Just stand aside, keep my dress from the wheels, and mind your own business, Jacob,” said Mrs. Carter, with an imperious wave of her hand, as she rolled herself through the door of the carriage, and lighted heavily on the pavement. “If I know myself intimately you were hired to open doors, and shut your own mouth. So this is the place, is it? And a lovely place it is! Quite a rustic cottage! There, now you may open the gate!”

While she was delivering this reprimand to her servant, Mrs. Carter shook out her flounces, drew the lace shawl more jauntily over her shoulder, and swept through the gate with all the magnificence and glory of an empress about to honor some subject by her presence. Half way up the path she remembered what was due to herself, and stepped back into a flower-bed, waving Jacob forward with her hand.

The tall footman cast a look of unutterable disgust at his fellow-servant on the box, and, striding up the path, gave a pull at the humble little bell that filled the whole house with its tinkling. Mrs. Laurence came to the door, grim and gaunt, but neat in her dress, and composed in manner.

“Does Mrs. Laurence live here?” inquired the tall footman, striking his gloves together, as if the bell-handle had left offensive dust on them.

“I am Mrs. Laurence.”

“Ah, indeed! This is the lady, marum.”

Mrs. Carter came forward, smiling blandly, and holding out her straw-colored glove with an air of sublime condescension.

Mrs. Laurence took the tightly-gloved hand stiffly enough, and let it fall from her clasp without a smile. She had suffered, this poor widow, and smiles did not come easily to her face; but if cold, she was well-bred, and stood aside that her strange guest might enter the little passage-way, and pass through the open parlor-door.

“How cozy—how exquisite!” exclaimed Mrs. Carter, glancing around at the snow white muslin curtains and the neat furniture, which would have been poverty-stricken in other houses. “No wonder my dear brother was so charmed. ‘Such a contrast!’ he said, when he found me in my ‘boudoir bower chamber,’ he says, they used to call it, in old times. ‘Such a contrast,’ says he, ‘between you and them—between this and that! You with everything grand and sumptuous; they nothing but taste—pure, aesthetic taste! Their little room is a bijou!’ Just as I find it!”

Mrs. Carter seated herself as she spoke, and turned her full-blown, smiling face on Ruth, who answered her appeal with a look of gentle welcome; while her mother stood by, evidently waiting to learn why her humble home had been so grandly invaded.

Mrs. Carter observed this, and waved her hand benignly.

“Sit down! sit down, Mrs. Laurence; have no hesitation about it. I have been a poor woman myself; so, never mind the apron, but sit down. My call is for you as well as the young people!”

Mrs. Laurence took a seat near the door, and muttered something about being “a hard-working woman,” which Mrs. Carter took up at once.

“‘Hard-working!’ Don’t mention it, my dear madam! Your little housework here is nothing to what I have thrown upon me. What with receptions, shopping, promiscuous calls, regulating servants, the torment of dress-makers, and entertaining Carter’s friends, I am just worn out. Sometimes I think the happiest time of a woman’s life is when she lives in two rooms, and carries her baby about on one arm, while she does her work with the other!”

“Still,” said Ruth, with a quiet smile, “we seldom find ladies willing to give up prosperity and go back to that life.”

“Well, n—no!” answered Mrs. Carter, glancing through the window at her two servants perched high upon the carriage, and softly pluming herself under the thought of all they represented, “one can’t quite expect that. When a dog gets his day he likes to keep it, of course. Besides, it’s awful hard to come down.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Laurence, in her dull, low tone, “it is hard.”

“But this young lady is not all your family? My brother spoke of another.”

“That is Eva,” said Ruth, with animation. “She is busy in the day-time.”

“Yes, yes!—now I remember: of course, she could not be here now. An awful bright girl. I saw her once: pretty as a pictur! took a fancy to the turn of her head. My! how she does carry off a shawl! That girl is what I call superb!”

“She is good!” said Mrs. Laurence, with hard emphasis.

“Yes, good as gold, I haven’t no doubt,” chimed in Mrs. Carter. “That is why I have called. ‘That girl is a born lady,’ says I to Carter, when we were making out a list of invitations for my great party, ‘and I am bound to have her come.’ So here is the invitation! Brought it myself, because brother Ross said a call was necessary, and I want to do everything comme il fou!”

Here Mrs. Carter took a squarely-folded envelope from her pocket, on which was a flaming monogram in red and gold, which she held out to Mrs. Laurence, who took it gingerly, as if she feared the fiery letters would burn her.

“If this young lady ever goes out, I have another for her,” said the visitor, beaming with satisfaction.

“I never do,” said Ruth, with a faint quiver of pain in her voice.

“Spine?” questioned her visitor.

Ruth bent her head a little from the pillow, and a look of sadness came into her eyes.

“Don’t look down-hearted about it, my dear; you’ll soon get about again. I feel sure that I’ve got a receipt for spine complaint somewhere, and I’ll send it to you.”

Ruth smiled very mournfully, but thanked her.

“It’s you, I suppose, that’s beginning to make picters. Ross told me about it, and I promised to have some done for my boudoir. Those I have cost ever-so-much, but he don’t seem to like ’em. ‘Something small and delicate,’ he says; such as you can do beautifully if I’ll only give you time—which I’m bound to do.”

The warm, pure blood flashed over that gentle face, and Ruth half rose from her pillow in overwhelming surprise.

“You do not mean it! Did the gentleman in truth think anything of the little things I sent to him. He asked me, or I would not have dared.”

“‘Think anything!’ Of course he did; ‘gems,’ he said, ‘they would be, with a little touching-up,’ which he meant to show you about. Though how a bit of canvas can be turned into ‘gems,’—which are rubys, and diamonds, and such like, I take it, beats me. But that was what he said; and where picters is concerned, Ross aint to be disputed, let me tell you. It was all I could do to keep him from turning half of my picters out of doors; though mercy knows the frames alone cost Carter enough to break a common man; for we bought such as took up the most gold, meaning to have enough for our money.”

Ruth lay on her couch while the woman was speaking, lost in a soft glow of gratitude. The one dream of her life gave promise of realization. How diligently she had worked out the little knowledge of drawing and color, which had been a part of her education, when she was able to study, and before the great affliction fell upon her. How much thought she had given, how earnestly she had toiled when this one pursuit became the passion and forlorn hope of her life. Oh, it was heavenly! God had given some power even to her! Those delicate fingers which she clasped over her bosom in a sudden rush of gratitude, had the subtle craft of creating beautiful objects, which, in their turn, melted into gold. Could this be? Was the woman yonder with all that flutter of lace and fringe about her, a reality?

The girl lifted herself slowly from her cushions, and looked around the room. Mrs. Laurence had left it. Something in the kitchen required her presence, and she was getting restive under the infliction of that kind-hearted woman’s conversation; so she had glided out like a shadow, scarcely caring whether she was missed or not.