The reigning belle

While Mrs. Lambert was completing the purchase of her shawl, the young man moved quietly about the room, carrying his cane in one well-gloved hand, with which he manifested a little impatience, as most men do when forced into a shopping excursion with members of their own family; but, with all his restlessness, he kept Eva Laurence well in view, wondering in his heart who she was, and how she came to be in that strange position.

Miss Spicer, too, had her curiosity. Troubled with no sensitive hesitation, she watched the girl in a bold, staring way, now and then turning a quizzical look on young Lambert, which brought the color to his face.

“Stylish, ha!” she whispered, taking the young man’s cane from his hand. “Stop here often after this, I dare say—I would if I carried one of these things.”

The young lady gave emphasis to her words by a dashing flourish of the cane, which, being a flexible, gold-mounted affair, she was twisting back and forth in her hands.

The young gentleman made a gesture as if to reclaim his property.

Miss Spicer gave up the cane.

Eva Laurence saw all this, though her drooping eyes seemed fixed on the floor, and the proud heart burned with in her; for now and then Miss Spicer glanced across the piles of merchandise to where she stood, taking no pains to conceal that she was an object of curiosity, if not of conversation.

“There now, don’t look so savage, my friend,” said the lady, “and you shall see what a chance I will give you for a second survey.”

Before young Lambert could answer, the reckless creature had called another clerk to her side.

“This velvet cloak,” she said, “I should like to see it tried on. Please call the young person.”

The clerk stepped over to Eva Laurence, and spoke to her. She looked up quickly, bent her head, and came across the room, almost smiling the contempt she felt for that rude girl, who only seemed the more plebeian from the fact that her coarseness was smothered in purple and fine linen.

Without a word Eva invested herself in the velvet garment, and with its rich, deep laces settling round her, stood out in the midst of the open space to be examined, looking gravely and quietly on the group that gathered around her.

Then the ladies fell to examining the cloak by detail; handling its glossy folds, criticising the pattern of the lace, and exclaiming at the perfect fit; while Spicer turned the shrinking girl round, and jerked the cloak in and out of place, as if that proud, sensitive creature were a mere lay-figure, with a wooden soul, created for her amusement.

“There now, Mr. Lambert, tell me if this is not perfect?”

Miss Spicer turned as she spoke; but the gentleman, for whom all this display had been gotten up, was at the other end of the room, looking diligently out of the window.

“Mr. Lambert! Mr. Lambert! Come; we want your opinion,” cried Miss Spicer, so loudly that every one in the room could hear.

“I beg your pardon,” answered the young man, blushing with angry annoyance; “gentlemen are no judges of such things.”

Miss Spicer walked toward him, grasping her parasol as if it had been a spear, with which she meant to pierce him through.

“Now, this is too bad, after all the pains I have taken! Come along, I say.”

Lambert turned from the window and followed his tormentor. He did not even glance at Eva Laurence.

“Mother, I have an engagement; pray, excuse me.”

“An engagement—gone! The idea!”

With this exclamation, Miss Spicer turned from the girl she had tortured, and the cloak she did not want, with a gesture of the hand, meant to indicate that she had done with the whole affair, and became all at once impatient to leave the establishment.

Mrs. Lambert, who had concluded her purchase, and had been standing an amused spectator of her friend’s defeat, was now ready to go; and Eva saw them depart with a feeling of resentful humiliation, which brought a hot red to her cheeks, and mingled fire and tears to her eyes.

“You find it hard,” said a voice at her elbow. “We all rebel at first; but time and patience do wonders.”

The person who spoke was a slight, dark-eyed man, about thirty-five or forty years of age, whose low, kind voice fell gently on her disturbed senses.

“Yes, it is hard,” answered Eva; and the tears that had been gathering in her eyes flashed over the vivid red of her cheeks, and melted there like dew upon a peach. “I did not expect this—I thought that ladies alone would claim my services.”

“You forget,” said her fellow clerk, “that money does not always fall to the wise or the refined.”

“But a person like that, coarse, unfeeling, and insolent—what right has she to money, while I have nothing?”

“Ah! there is the old story, restless rebellion against things as they are and must be. The law gives her a fortune which some one else has earned—it is the chance of her birth; but nature withheld from her many things far more precious than wealth, which she has lavished on—on others, perhaps.”

Eva blushed, and a smile quivered over her lips. This half-suppressed compliment soothed her wounded pride a little, but she soon broke into impatience again.

“Is there no way in which a poor girl can support herself without meeting these bitter insults?” she exclaimed.

The man shook his head.

“Do intelligence, refinement, noble aspirations, go for nothing when joined with honest labor?”

“Yes, child, as they enchance the value of that labor.”

“And labor is slavery,” murmured the girl, looking toward the broad window, against which the sunshine was breaking in bright waves of silver. “That girl is her own mistress—can go where she will—say what she pleases—wound others if she likes, without rebuke or compunction.”

“Would you call that a privilege?” questioned the man, who listened with a grave smile.

“No, no! I could not do it. Knowing how keenly a poor girl can feel, no amount of prosperity could induce me to wound one as—as that girl has hurt me. If I were rich—”

“Well, if you were rich? What then?”

“I would think of others, use my wealth to make others prosperous. No girl with a soul should be shut up in a great room like this, to show off garments for happier woman to wear.”

“Yet it is only a little time since you were so glad to come here.”

Eva’s face changed and the cloud was swept from it as if by a flash of lightning. She reached forth her hand.

“You think me impatient, and so I am; ungrateful—but that I am not. I was glad to come here—so glad! The sweetest hour of my life will be that in which I carry home my first week’s wages, and see those poor, dear faces brighten with a sight of the money. How can I be so unreasonable? Forgive me!”