THE END.
THE END.
THE END.
KITTY CRAIG
Kitty Craig was just married; and the white satin and fleecy lace, in which she had looked so much like an angel that her great, handsome giant of a husband hardly dared to touch her, was folded and packed away in one of the trunks which stood in the hall waiting the arrival of the express wagon which was to take them to the train. And Kitty in her traveling-dress looked infinitely prettier and more approachable than she had in all that sheen of lace, and satin and flowers, which had cost so much money and discussion, the mother and aunties saying that it was a useless expense, as were nearly all such bridal dresses, when the bride was neither wife nor daughter of a millionaire—that in nine cases out often the costly fabric was worn only at the altar and then laid aside to fade and grow yellow with time, or at best to be made over after a lapse of years, when there arose some occasion which demanded it. Kitty, on the contrary, knew she should need it, for was she not going to New York, the very “hub” of parties, and receptions and society, and though she did not know an individual there, and might, as her quaint old aunt expressed it, be at first “a rat among cats,” instead of “a cat among rats,” as she had hitherto been, she should soon have troops of friends, for was not John the confidential clerk in a first-class wholesale house on Broadway, and already acquainted with the wives of his employers, Messrs. Orr, Guile and Steele, and as each of these ladies was in her way a star, would they not be thesesamethrough which Kitty would enter society, and eventually become acat. There was Mrs. Orr, the wife of the senior partner, a handsome matron, who rolled in gold—name, house and person, all golden—and telling of the dollars her husband counted by the millions. John knew her, and had once been invited to dine with her on Sunday, and in his next letter to Kitty had delighted her with a descriptionof the dinner, at which Mrs. Orr presided in satin dress of golden-brown, with diamonds in her ears, and where her daughter, Miss Elinor Orr, wore natural camellias in her hair and talked French to her mother all the time. Then there was Mrs. Guile, a second wife, and a dashing brunette, whose servants did not speak a word of English, and at whose house John had once taken tea on a Sunday night, when his fine baritone voice was wanted in a quartette of music which followed in the evening.
Kitty’s fancy was caught with the French servants, the camellias, and the silver service and satin of golden-brown, but the Sunday dining, and tea-drinking, and practicing of music shocked her keen sense of right and wrong, and lowered the Orrs and Guiles a little in her estimation. To her the words, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,” meant just that, and nothing less; and not all John’s assurances that many good, pious people in New York visited on Sunday, especially in the evening, availed to convince her. Brought up in a New England town, she had imbibed some of the puritanical notions of right and wrong, which, sneer at them as we may, are the bone and sinew of thathonesty of purpose and integrity of soul which characterize so many of the New Englanders and stamp them as different from their Western brothers. Kitty could not fellowship Sabbath-breaking, and Madames Orr and Guile were looked upon with a shadow of distrust. But she was sure to like the young and beautiful Lottie, the only daughter of Mr. Guile, whose second marriage had been distasteful to the young girl, and hurried her into matrimony with the quiet, staid Amasa Steele, the junior partner of the firm, who was several years her senior. John knew her well, for she often drove to the store for her husband, and while waiting for him amused herself with the confidential clerk, whose young face and fresh ideas were more to her taste than the sober manners and gray hair of her spouse. Kitty had once seen a note from Lottie to John, a delicate, perfumed thing, inviting him to take part in a little musicale she was getting up, and saying so much about his splendid baritone, which she must have, that Kitty had felt a twinge of something like jealousy of the city girl, and was glad when John wrote to her that Lottie Guile was married that morning and gone on her bridal tour.
That was two years ago, and before John was as able to take a wife as he was now. An increase of salary and a few thousand dollars left him by a considerate old uncle, whose name he bore, made marriage possible, and he and Kitty were married on a lovely June morning, when the air was full of sunshine and sweet odors from the roses and the heliotropes blossoming in the garden beds. And Kitty was very happy, and her heart beat high with joyful anticipations of the future and her life in New York, where she was sure to know people through the Orrs, and Guiles, and Steeles. The firm had sent her a bridal present of a beautiful silver tea-set, and wholly ignorant of the fact that neither of the three ladies representing the firm knew anything of the gift, Kitty felt as if acquainted with them already, and had insisted upon the white satin and scores of things which her mother predicted she would never need. But Kitty knew she should. The white satin was for the possible party which might be given for her by some one of “the firm,” and the pretty light silk for calls at home and abroad; and Kitty had it all marked out in her mind just what she should wear on different occasions, and knowingbut little of the paraphernalia of a city woman’s toilet, was happy accordingly.
They were not to board; John had had enough of that, and felt sick every time he remembered the boarding-house dinners, now done with forever. A pretty little cozy house far up town, in the vicinity of the park, was to be their home, and John had furnished it with the money left him by his uncle, and in the absence of other feminine advice had ventured to ask Mrs. Lottie to “drive round some day and see if it would do.”
There was a slight elevating of Lottie’s eyebrows and a look of surprise at the boldness of the young man, and then, thinking within herself, “I have talked with him so much about music that I daresay he thinks he can take liberties,” the lady graciously signified her readiness to oblige. But she found it very inconvenient to go the day John fixed upon, very inconvenient, in fact, to go any day, and at last sent her maid, who had “exquisite taste,” and who reported “everything perfectly lovely,” to John, and “rather plain, but quite good enough” to her mistress.
There was a trip to Niagara Falls, a sail downthe St. Lawrence, a rambling about in Montreal and Quebec, a few days at the White Mountains, a week of rest in the dear old home among the Berkshire hills, and then, right in the heat of summer, when everybody was out of town, they came one night to the cozy home in Fifty-seventh street, where Susan, the maid of all work, hired in Chicopee, met them with her kindly smile, and the tea-table nicely spread stood waiting to greet them. John’s holiday was over, and he went back to his business the next morning the happiest man who rode down town either in stage, or car, or private carriage. He was married and Kitty was his wife, and he felt her kiss upon his lips and saw her as she stood looking after him with those great, sunny, blue eyes of hers, and there was a song of joy in his heart which showed itself upon his face as he entered the counting-room and took his accustomed seat at the desk.
Messrs. Orr and Guile were away doing duty at Saratoga, but Mr. Steele was at home and welcomed the young man warmly, and tried to say some smart thing with regard to the business which had kept him away so long. Then John asked for Lottie, andwas told that she was at Newport with a party of friends.
“Confounded bores those watering-places. I can’t endure them; and Lottie told me I’d better come home, she could do very well without me,” Mr. Steele said, in a weary kind of way; and John thought of Kitty and how unwilling he should be to be separated from her now she was all his own.
In the exuberance of his new happiness and because he pitied the junior partner, who must be so lonely without his wife, he invited him to dine with himself and Kitty, and Mr. Steele accepted the invitation, and was made so welcome by the pretty bride that he went again and again, and by the time autumn hung out her gay attire and Lottie came back to her home it had become a matter of course for him to dine with the Craigs as often as twice a week; and those visits, where he saw for the first time in his life, perhaps, how pleasant a home could be with love upon the hearthstone and in the atmosphere of every room, were influencing him for good and making him a softer, more demonstrative man than he had been hitherto. And when at last Lottie came early in October, he met her at the train;a very unusual thing for him to do, and kissed her so warmly that she looked at him with surprise, wondering if he had “failed” and was trying to smooth it over to her.
“What is it? Has anything happened?” she asked.
“No, nothing,” he answered; and, chilled with his reception and a little ashamed of having kissed his wife before everybody, when she did not care two straws for it, he sank back into his old self again, and was as silent and quiet as ever during the drive from the station to his house.
Lottie was very pretty next morning in her becoming dress of drab and scarlet, and Amasa Steele admired her secretly, and thought how handsome she was as over his paper he watched her pouring his coffee, her white hands moving gracefully among the silver, and every motion indicative of fine ladyism and high breeding. It was pleasant to have her home again, and he felt better because she was there, and thought of Kitty and John and their pretty little dining-room, and cleared his throat twice to speak to Lottie about them.
The fact was that Kitty, whose thoughts andfeelings were as transparent as noon-day, had made many inquiries of Mr. Steele concerning his wife, and in so doing had shown plainly that she was anticipating a great deal of pleasure from Mrs. Lottie’s acquaintance.
“It seems so strange not to know an individual in all this great city, when at home I know everybody, and I shall be glad when Mrs. Steele returns,” she had remarked to him once in reply to something he said, which implied at least that he hoped she and his wife would see a great deal of each other.
And he did hope so, though secretly he felt doubtful with regard to the matter. Still, he meant to do his best for the little lady whom he liked so much, and after his coffee was drank and his paper finished, and he had coughed ominously a few times, he began:
“By the way, Lottie, John Craig has brought his wife to the city, and they are keeping house up in Fifty-seventh street. I’ve dined with them several times.”
“Ah-h!” and Lottie’s great black eyes looked across the table wonderingly.
“Yes, and it’s a jolly place, too; so home-likeand nice, and Kit—Mrs. Craig, I mean, is very pretty.”
“Indeed!” And Lottie was interested now. “I did not suppose Mr. Craig able to support very much style, but, perhaps, it was the pretty wife which took you there.”
“It certainly wasnotstyle, but rather the absence of it which pleased me so much,” the husband replied. “It is a little nutshell of a house. You could almost put the whole of it in one of our parlors, and they keep but one servant, a perfect gem, who makes the nicest kind of apple pie and ginger-snaps. I say, Lottie, why don’t we ever have such things? They are a thousand times better then those French dishes you get up for dessert.”
Lottie smiled derisively, but her voice was very sweet and pleasant as she said:
“I hardly think Celine is accomplished to the extent of apple pie and ginger-snaps.”
Amasa felt the rebuke and wondered at his temerity in expecting anything so common from a cook, whose name was Celine, and who sometimes took the title of Madame.
As yet he had made no headway with regard to the call, and so at last he blurted it out, and told Mrs. Lottie plainly that he wished her to call on Mrs. Craig and show her some attention.
“She is a lady, every whit,” he said, “and pretty, too, and intelligent, and well—yes—she rather expects you to call, and she would like to see a little of New York society, and she don’t know a single soul, and it’s lonesome for her, and you can show her some attention without hurting you one bit, and I hope you will do it.”
He had said a great deal more than he intended saying, for something in Lottie’s proud eyes exasperated him, and without waiting for her to answer he left the breakfast-room suddenly, and his wife heard the bang of the street door as it shut behind him.
“Expects me to call and show her some attention! How absurd,” she said to herself, as she went back to her room. “She cannot be much accustomed to the usages of society if she supposes I am to call on every clerk who happens to get married. Why, my list is so large now that I am nearly crazy and I certainly shall not add Mrs. JohnCraig’s name to it. Apple pie and ginger-snaps, and one servant! Poor John! He was a nice kind of a fellow, and ought to have been rich.”
And then Lottie fell into a fit of musing as to what might have been had John been rich instead of poor. The truth was, Lottie Guile had fancied John Craig better than any man she ever knew, and once, after a long chat with him in the office, where she was waiting for her father, she had tried to make up her mind to encourage the liking he evidently had for her, but fear of what Mrs. Grundy would say if the daughter of Richard Guile should marry her father’s clerk prevailed, and when Amasa Steele offered himself and his half-million, she accepted him, and wished he was not quite so gray, and that he looked more like the confidential clerk, who was present at the wedding, and who, she thought, seemed a little sorry.
And John was sorry that one as young and sprightly as Lottie should marry a man so wholly unlike herself as the sober, middle-aged Amasa Steele. He was sorry to have her marry at all, for he had found it very pleasant to chat and laugh and sing with her on the occasions when chance threwher in his way, but further than that he did not care. He had known and loved Kitty Clew ever since she was a child, and he drew her to school on his sled, and he expected one day to make her his wife, so foolish Lottie was mistaken when she thought there was a pang in his heart as he saw her made Mrs. Amasa Steele, and called her by that name. She knew nothing of Kitty Clew, and went on dreaming her little romance and fancying there was one joy less in John Craig’s life until she heard he was to be married. There was a shadow on her brow, and she felt somehow as if John had misused and deceived her, while to crown all she was expected to call on his wife and make a friend of her. It was a hard case and Lottie felt aggrieved, and the first time she met John Craig she was very cool toward him, and never asked for his wife or hinted that she knew there was such a creature in the world. John felt her manner keenly, but did not tell Kitty, who, knowing that Mrs. Steele had returned, began to look daily for the call she so certainly expected. One after another the dresses her aunties had pronounced useless were brought out and worn, and in the prettiest of toilets Kitty waited morning, noonand night for one who never came. Lottie did not call, neither did any one else except the clergyman to whom Kitty had brought a letter of introduction from her own rector, and who dropped in for a few moments to see his new parishioner.
Accustomed at home to be first in every good work, Kitty asked what she could do, and was told of the mission school, where teachers were always needed, and of the regular sewing society of the church, which met one day in each week. Kitty was pleased with the mission school, and entered heart and soul into the work, and found fast friends among the ragged girls and boys, who looked upon her as a kind of divinity. From the sewing society, however, she shrank at first, dreading to encounter so many strangers; but when she heard what need there was for help, she laid aside her own personal feelings and went week after week, mostly from a sense of duty, and a little, it may be, with a hope, that by some chance she might come to know those with whom she worshiped Sunday after Sunday, and with whom she had more than once knelt around the chancel on communion days.
And there, in the little sewing-room of St. ——’sshe sat, one Thursday morning, as much alone as if around her there were not twenty ladies or more talking socially together, and all unmindful of the stranger in the midst, poor little Kitty, who actually started in surprise when she heard herself addressed by a pleasant-faced, elderly woman, who sat near her, and who seemed herself to be a stranger.
“Can you tell me who that is?” she asked, nodding toward a young and dashing-looking lady, who sat near them talking and laughing merrily, and showing in all she did that she felt herself a privileged character, and could do and say what she pleased.
Kitty, too, had been watching her, and taking notes of the cut of her dress and style of her hair, but she did not know who she was, and she said so to her interlocutor; then, as if the sound of a voice speaking kindly to her upon some other topic than her work had unlocked her pent-up feelings, she continued:
“I do not know any one. I have been here week after week, too, and not a person has spoken to me except about my work.”
“Is it possible?—and they call themselves Christians,too,” was the reply of the woman, who, having once passed a similar ordeal, knew just how desolate and neglected Kitty felt.
Meantime there was a lull in the conversation of the ladies at the right, and, as Kitty’s voice was very clear, her words were distinctly heard by one of the group, at least. Swiftly the proud black eyes scanned Kitty’s face and person, and then, as if continuing an interrupted conversation, the lady said, loudly enough for Kitty to hear:
“There is one thing this society needs, and that a committee, whose business it shall be to look after the new-comers—the sensitive ones, who feel slighted if they are not noticed—and introduce them, you know.”
“An admirable idea,” said her companion. “Suppose we make you that committee.”
“No, thank you; that is not in my line. I’ve no patience with people who think to make the sewing society a stepping-stone to other society. I come from a sense of duty, and think every right-minded person should do the same;” and again the black eyes flashed sidewise at poor Kitty, who could hardly restrain her tears, and who would have criedoutright had she been alone, with no curious ones around her.
Just then there was a fresh arrival, and the newcomer greeted her of the black eyes with the exclamation:
“Why, Lottie Steele—it’s an age since you were here. I thought you had forsaken us.”
Kitty did not hear the reply, so great was her astonishment at learning that this woman, who had wounded her so cruelly, was Lottie Steele, the one for whom she had watched so long, and on whose acquaintance and friendship she had counted so much in her utter ignorance of the city and its customs. Alas, how had her idol fallen, and how were all her hopes destroyed! She had nothing whatever to expect in that quarter—nothing to expect anywhere; and, with a swelling heart as she remembered the church society at home, where she was what Lottie Steele was here, or, as her dear old auntie expressed it, “a cat among rats,” she gathered up her work, and bidding good-morning to the pleasant-faced woman at her side, who alone of all the ladies there had spoken familiarly to her, started for home, feeling more desolate and alone than shehad thought it possible for any one in the great city of New York, which had once seemed to her like an earthly paradise.
As she left the sewing-room she met the rector of the parish, who said a few friendly words to her and then passed on into the room, where he was immediately accosted by Lottie Steele, who asked him who the lady was he met with at the door.
“That was Mrs. John Craig, from Rosefield,” he replied. “She is a stranger in the city, and I wish some of my ladies would take a little pains to be polite to her. Her former clergyman speaks highly of her as a Christian and a lady of culture and education. She is very regular at church, I see, and her husband is a splendid-looking fellow.”
“Why, that must be the John Craig in our store,” chimed in Agatha Orr, a pert miss of seventeen. “Isn’t it, Mrs. Steele? You ought to know, for you and he used to be so intimate.”
A withering glance from Lottie’s eyes silenced Miss Agatha, while Lottie’s cheeks were scarlet, and her pulse throbbed faster than its wont. She was not naturally hard and cruel, and given to wounding people unnecessarily. She professed to be a Christian;perhaps she was one. She certainly was very rigid with regard to all the fasts and holy days, and no religious devotee kept Lent, so far as churchgoing was concerned, more strictly than she did; but she had been reared and trained in the school of fashion and caste until many of her better impulses were warped and deformed, and she sometimes did things thoughtlessly, of which she repented afterward. Bearing the reputation of being exceedingly exclusive, she had no idea of inviting into her charmed circle any who wished to enter, and deemed it her duty to shut and bar the door against all intruders, especially if she felt that the intruder had some claim upon her. So, when she overheard Kitty’s complaint, and felt in her heart that not only herself but many of her sisters in the church were sadly remiss in their reception of strangers, she said what she did, in a sudden fit of impatience that any one should expect to make her acquaintance at a sewing society. But she had no idea it was Kitty Craig whom she was lashing so unmercifully, and she would have given considerable for the privilege of recalling her thoughtless words. But it was too late; the mischief was done, and Kitty was gone,and, as is frequently the case when we are conscious of having injured a person in any way, Lottie, after the first pangs of self-reproach were over, found herself with a greater aversion than ever to that “nutshell of a house” which might be “put into her parlor,” and Kitty’s chances for an acquaintance with Mrs. Amasa Steele were far less than before. “A rat among cats” she certainly was, and she felt it keenly as she walked home, with Lottie’s scornful words ringing in her ears and making her heart throb so painfully.
“The sensitive ones, who feel slighted if they are not noticed.”
Had it really come to this, that she was thus designated—she, who at home had been first in everything, and had herself, perhaps, been a little hard on the sensitive ones, not knowing then just how they felt. She knew now, and, once alone in her room, wept bitter tears at the first real slight she had ever received. Then, as she remembered what Lottie had said of duty, she questioned herself closely to see how far her motives in going so regularly to the sewing-rooms had been pure and such as God would approve, and she found, alas! that they would notaltogether bear the test applied. Something beside a genuine desire to do good had drawn her thither; a hope that she might by chance make some pleasant acquaintance, had been strong in her heart, and she confessed it, amid a gush of tears, to the Friend who never failed her, and to whom she always took her sorrows, whether great or small.
Kitty’s religion was not on the surface, a mere routine of form and ceremony. She knew in whom she had believed, and she told Him all about her trouble, with the simplicity of a little child, and asked to be forgiven so far as she was wrong, and that toward Lottie Steele she might feel as kindly as before. Kitty’s face was very bright after that talk with God, and when John came home at night it was a very pretty and gay little wife which sat at his table and told him she had at last seen Mrs. Steele, and thought her very handsome and very bright. Of the insult, however, she said nothing, and John never dreamed how little cause his wife had for speaking as kindly as she did of the thoughtless lady who had wounded her so sadly.
Kitty did not go to the sewing meeting after that, but worked at home for the poor and needy, and feltfar happier alone in her quiet sitting-room, with only her singing-bird for company, than she had when surrounded by ladies whom she did not even know by name. She did not expect Lottie Steele now, and never dreamed how near that unlucky affair at the sewing-room came to bringing about the very thing she had once so greatly desired. For Lottie was disturbed and annoyed at her own rudeness and wished she could in some way atone, and half made up her mind to call upon Mrs. Craig and make friends with her. But when at the dinner-table her husband himself broached the subject and suggested that she go with him that very evening, her pride took alarm at once. It was too soon; Kitty would of course think she came to conciliate her, and she would not humble herself like that before the wife of a clerk. So she declined rather crossly, and said she was too tired, and she didn’t believe Mrs. Craig wanted her to call, and she was certain “John” did not care to have her see in what a small way he was living.
Amasa Steele never talked much, and now he only muttered something about being “so thundering proud,” and without a word as to where he wasgoing, left the house soon after dinner; and Lottie saw no more of him until the clock was striking eleven. Then he found her at her prayers, for Lottie never omitted any duty of that kind, and when her husband came home she was kneeling by the bedside with her fanciful dressing-gown sweeping the floor, and trying to ask forgiveness for having wounded Kitty Craig. Amasa had not much faith in Lottie’s religion, and without waiting for her devotions to end, he asked “where the deuce his slippers were, that he could never find them?”
This untimely interruption brought Lottie from her knees, feeling indignant and aggrieved, and as if she was persecuted for righteousness’ sake, and she would neither tell her husband where his slippers were nor ask him where he had been so long, although she was dying to know, and felt almost sure he had visited the Craigs. She knew he had the next day, for he told her so, and said so much in praise of Kitty that she felt a pang of something like jealousy, and avenged herself by driving to the store that afternoon and talking with the confidential clerk so long that her father at last suggestedthat she go home, as “women were out of place in a business office.”
When she and Kitty met again it was at the altar rail, where they knelt side by side, Lottie’s rich velvet cloak brushing against Kitty’s plainer cloth, and the glitter of her rings flashing before Kitty’s eyes. As they rose and turned away Lottie half bowed a recognition, and felt for the remainder of the day as if she were a very good and forgiving woman, inasmuch as Kitty, in her surprise, had not returned the bow.
New York was very gay that winter, and Lottie had no leisure to spare to such as Kitty Craig, who would in time have been wholly forgotten but for an event which occurred just one year from the day when John first brought Kitty home as his bride. Then a new little life came into that house; and Lottie, who chanced to be in the city for a few days, was surprised to hear from her husband that he was to stand sponsor for little Frederic Steele, who was to be baptized that afternoon. Would she go and see it?
There was a shrug of Lottie’s shoulders and alifting of her eyebrows, but she made no reply, except:
“You and the Craigs must be very intimate to warrant their taking such a liberty. Pray, where have you seen so much of them?”
Amasa did not tell her how many of his evenings when she was away were spent in that nutshell of a house, where they had apple pie and ginger-snaps for dessert, or how the sight of the little round-faced boy which John had shown him with so much pride on the occasion of his last visit had raised in his heart a vague dissatisfaction with the stillness of his grand house, where baby voices were never heard. He himself had suggested Frederic Steele, saying:
“I won’t ask you to inflict upon him such a name as Amasa, but my only brother was Fred, and I’d like the little chap called for him.”
So the baby was christened “Frederic Steele,” and Lottie was there and saw it. She had no fancy for christenings, where the children usually screamed so vigorously, she said, but she did want to see how John looked as a father and how Amasa behaved as sponsor. So she went to the church andmentally criticised Kitty’s dress and the baby’s dress, and thought her husband very awkward and John very handsome, and drove next day to Tiffany’s and selected a silver cup, which was marked, “For little Fred,” and sent it to the address of the Craigs, who wondered greatly whence it came, and wondered, too, what they should do with it, inasmuch as Amasa’s gift was also a silver cup, gold-lined, and looking as if it were the twin of the one which had come no one knew whence, and which Kitty put away as something to be looked at but never used.
And now we pass over a period of more than eighteen months, and come to a time when, wearied out with gayety and dissipation, Lottie Steele was almost glad when the first days of Lent came and put an end to the parties and receptions which had so engrossed her time, and made her grow pale and thin, with dark rings around her eyes. But she would rest now, or at least lead a different kind of life, for though she wore her second-best dresses and kept all the fasts and holy days, and never missed a service, whether on Sunday or week day, she still had a good deal of leisure time forquiet, and kept earlier hours, and hoped to come out at Easter as bright and fresh as the new bonnet which she had in her mind for that occasion. Lent was really beneficial, both to her health and her complexion, she thought, and she kept it religiously, and affected to be greatly shocked when she heard that Kitty Craig had committed the enormity of going to the opera, where a wonderful bird of song was entrancing the people with its melody. Lottie went to elaborate lunches served in darkened rooms, and went to the Philharmonics, and to concerts, and lectures but avoided the opera as if the plague had been rioting there, and felt that the example of consistency she thus set before her husband was infinitely better than that of sinful, opera-going Kitty Craig.
But Lottie grew tired at last of the same daily routine, and wanted something new, and devised a littlemusicale, which was to be held in her parlors and to be highly exclusive andrecherché. Only thecreme-de-la-cremewere to be there, and these by invitation—said invitation to be in the form of cards, for which five dollars were to be paid, and the proceeds appropriated to a new mission school, inwhich Lottie was greatly interested, and of which John Craig was superintendent. This had latterly thrown John and Lottie together again, and they were the best of friends; and Lottie’s little dainty hand had more than once rested on John’s coat sleeve, and Lottie’s eyes looked straight into his while she talked of some ragged boy, or devised some new scheme for the advancement of the school.
The musicale was her hobby now, and she must have Mr. Craig in at least three of the quartettes. And she asked if he would come to rehearsal at her house, and go with her to see the Misses Barrows, whose voices were wonderful for depth and richness, and one of whom played accompaniments remarkably well? It did not matter now that they sold bonnets and ribbons on Broadway during the week, and that Lottie would never dream of inviting them to her house except on an occasion like this, when she needed their services. She wanted them, and John must go with her and see them.
This was down in the office, and her fine face was all aglow with excitement, and her carriage was at the door, and John felt his blood stir a little as helooked at her and thought of a drive up Broadway with that fashionable turnout. Yes, he would go to see the Misses Barrows; and he went and met them that night at Mrs. Steele’s, and before Kitty came back from a visit she had made at home everything was arranged, and he had promised to sing in four pieces at least, and possibly five, and meet at Mrs. Steele’s for practice three evenings in a week.
What Kitty said to him when she heard of it made him doubt a little the propriety of going to a house where his wife’s existence had never yet been recognized by so much as an inquiry, and to which she would not in all human probability be invited; and when next day Lottie drove down to the office to consult with him about some new idea, he mustered courage to tell her that he wished she would find some one to take his place as now that his wife had returned he did not like being away from her evenings, as he necessarily must be if he perfected himself in the difficult passages assigned to him. Womanlike, Lottie understood him at once, and knew that some bold move on her part was requisite if she would not lose him. And she could not do that now. He was too necessary to the successof her musicale, and with a mental anathema against the offending Kitty, she exclaimed:
“Oh, Mr. Craig, you know I cannot do without you and will not. Tell your wife so, please. When did she return, and how is little Freddie Steele? By the way, I do not believe I have sent her invitation yet, have I? She was gone, you know. Suppose I write her a little note now; that will be more friendly than a card,” and snatching up a pen Lottie dashed off a half-formal, half-familiar note to Kitty, inviting her to the musicale and apologizing for not having sent the invitation earlier.
“That will settle it,” she thought, while John, who saw only the flashing eyes and beaming face, began to descend from his stilts, and in his delight at having an autograph letter for Kitty from this high-born lady, forgot that in all the two years and a half of his married life this was the first time his wife had ever been alluded to.
But Kitty did not forget, nor seem as much elated with Lottie’s autograph note as John thought she ought to be.
“She was much obliged to Mrs. Steele,” she said, “for the invitation, but she could not for a momentthink of accepting it. She should feel out of place among so many strangers.”
And to this decision she firmly adhered, insisting, however, that her husband should go on with his practice, and not disappoint Mrs. Lottie. But to this John objected. There was something amiss somewhere, and his better way was to remain at home with Kitty, and so the next morning he wrote Mrs. Lottie a note, saying positively that he could not take the parts assigned to him, and mentioning as a substitute Will Archer, whose voice was quite as good as his own, and who read music even better than himself.
“Will Archer! That clown in my parlors! Never!” was Lottie’s indignant exclamation, as she threw the note aside. “Cannot spend the time! Why wasn’t he frank enough to say that obstinate wife of his would not let him? It all comes of those thoughtless words she heard me say at the sewing society. She has never been there since, and I really was sorry for it.”
“But she don’t know that,” Conscience whispered; and then Lottie began to wonder what she could do to secure John’s services.
She could not do without him, and to get him she was willing even to ask his wife’s pardon, if necessary, and at all events she would call the next day and apologize, for John’s voice she must and would have at any cost.
Kitty’s morning work was done. The little parlor, which did duty as sitting-room and nursery too, was nicely swept and dusted, and everything was in its place. A bright fire was blazing in the grate. Freddie was asleep in his crib, the gift of Amasa Steele, who had mostly supplied the wants of his god-child since the day he stood with him at the font, and Kitty, in her neat delaine wrapper, with faultlessly clean collar and cuffs, was just sitting down to the pile of work which lay beside her “Wilcox & Gibbs,” John’s Christmas gift to her. She was never troubled with morning calls; for, though she had some few acquaintances in the city by this time, they were not of the fashionable kind to whom one hour is as free as another, and she had no thought of the honor in store for her, and which was even then at her very door, in the shape of a handsome little coupé, satin lined, and bearing thestamp of the very latest style in all its appurtenances, from the silver-tipped harness to the driver in his livery, and the footman, whose coat came nearly to the ground as he obsequiously held the door for his mistress to alight.
“Itisa nutshell of a house,” was Lottie’s mental comment, as she went up the steps and rang the bell. “Poor John, with his refined instincts, he ought to have done better;” and, so low down in Lottie’s heart that it was hardly a wrong to Amasa Steele, there was the shadow of a regret that she had not thought twice before deciding not to encourage her father’s confidential clerk.
But it was too late now. She was Mrs. Amasa Steele, and had come to call on John’s wife, who, greatly to her amazement, opened the door herself! Kitty had heard the ring, and not seeing the stylish turnout in front, and knowing that in all human probability Susan’s hands were in the bread, she went to the door, expecting to meet either a book agent or somebody inquiring if Dr. Jones lived there, he being her next neighbor, as she and John both had learned from sundry calls at all hours of the day and night. She was prepared for the agentand the patient of Dr. Jones, but not for the “grand dame” clad in velvet and Russian sable, whose big black eyes looked their surprise, but who nevertheless smiled sweetly, and asked in the blandest of tones if this were Mrs. Craig.
Lottie’s first impulse had been to suppose the lady a servant, and ask for her mistress, but she had come for an object, and it suited her to be very amiable and even familiar.
“So kind in you to let me in yourself,” she said, as she followed Kitty into the little parlor, and then apologized for not having called before.
She did not say out and out that she had intended calling, for she would not tell an absolute lie, but her manner implied as much, and she talked so fast and made herself so agreeable, that Kitty began to be drawn toward her in spite of herself, and when she praised the new Wilcox & Gibbs sewing machine, and pronounced it “the dearest plaything in the world,” and then, pouncing upon little Freddie, called him a darling, and complimented his eyes and his hair, the conquest was more than half completed. But when Lottie ventured at last to introduce the musicale, and to say how sorryshe was that Mrs. Craig had declined coming, and how very badly she felt to lose Mr. Craig’s services, there was a peculiar look in Kitty’s eyes which did not bode success to Mrs. Lottie’s project. Still she was not disheartened. Her heaviest forces were still in reserve. The day was so fine and the air so bracing, would not Mrs. Craig like a drive in the Park? It would do her good, and the baby, too. Dear little fellow, he looked pale, though possibly that was his natural complexion.
Freddie had not been well for a day or two, and Kitty had wished that very morning that she was rich and could afford a drive, and now that it was so gracefully offered to her, she hesitated at first, and then finally accepted, and almost before she had time to think she was seated on the satin cushions by Mrs. Lottie’s side, and was rolling over the level roads of the beautiful Central Park. Lottie insisted upon holding Freddie herself, and was so generally charming that Kitty was sorry when the carriage stopped at last at her own door.
Up to that moment not a word had been said of the musicale, but Lottie bided her time, and just as Kitty was getting out she laughingly said:
“You do not invite me, but I mean to go in and see if I cannot coax you to reconsider your decision with regard to the musicale after all, and persuade your husband to sing. You don’t know how much I am in earnest.”
She followed Kitty into the house, and while her own fingers helped to disrobe little Freddie, she went on:
“If you do not come I shall think you have never forgiven those thoughtless words I said in your hearing the first time I ever saw you. You remember them, I am sure, but you do not know how sorry I was, especially when I learned who you were. It was wrong under any circumstances, but we had been so annoyed with commonplace people coming just to be noticed, and besides that I’d had a little ‘tiff’ that morning with Amasa about calling on the dowdiest woman you ever saw, and I was not in the best of moods. You will forgive me, won’t you, and be friends? Ah, that must be your lunch bell. I’d no idea it was so late.”
“Stay to lunch, won’t you?” Kitty faltered, devoutly hoping her visitor would decline; but she did not.
She was nearly famished, she said, and accepted the invitation graciously, and followed on to the dining-room, where the lunch-table was very neatly spread, for Kitty was particular about everything pertaining to her table, which was arranged with as much care for herself and Freddie as it was when she had company to dinner. And Susan waited nicely and suggested that she bring the fresh apple pie she had made that morning, and which looked so tempting, with its white, flaky crust, that Mrs. Lottie took a large piece, and ate a ginger-snap which Susan also brought.
Apple pie and ginger-snaps were evidently favorites in that house, and Lottie praised them both, and asked how they were made, and said her husband had told her about them. She was outdoing herself, and when at last she said good-by and went out to her cross coachman, who had driven up and down, up and down, and actually sworn about her to the footman, she had Kitty’s promise that John should sing, and that possibly she herself would attend the musicale, while to crown all there was in her pocket a receipt for ginger-snaps, which Susan had given her at the last moment, when shestood in the hall telling Kitty, “It would not be a dress affair—that anything she had would answer.”
Lottie was in a very pleasant frame of mind when she reached home that day. She had accomplished her object, as she felt that she deserved to do, for had she not called on Kitty Craig and apologized for her rudeness, and taken her to drive, and lunched with her in that “under-ground” dining-room, not much longer than her butler’s pantry, and lunched, too, on apple pie and ginger-snaps, food which heretofore she had thought only fit for those made of coarser clay than herself, and was there not in her pocket a receipt for those same snaps, which poor, deluded Susan, who had taken a great fancy to the grand lady, thought maybe her cook might like, as Mr. Steele was so fond of them! Celine and ginger-snaps! and Lottie laughed merrily as she took out the receipt and began to read, “One cup of molasses; half-a-cup of butter; and half-a-cup of lard——”
“Lard! Horrors, I can never insult her dignity with that. Amasa must go elsewhere for his snaps,” and turning to the grate the little bit of paper wassoon blackening upon the coals, and Amasa’s chance for snaps at home was lost.
Kitty had said that John should sing, and she did not find it at all hard to keep her word. He was fond of music, and only too glad of an opportunity to serve Mrs. Lottie, who had been and who continued to be so very kind to Kitty. Lottie never did anything by halves, and now she had taken up the Craigs she meant to keep them up till after the musicale at least, and she frequently sent to Kitty flowers and fruit, and even her carriage for the dear little boy to take the air, and Kitty, though she in a measure understood it all, wisely concluded to accept the good the gods provided, and submitted patiently to John’s absence three nights in a week, and when he was home, played the music for him, accompanying him with her voice until she was almost as familiar with it as he was himself, and, as he declared, played better than the Misses Barrows, who did not always keep perfect time or give the best expression.
Kitty was going to the musicale, too, and she began to look forward to it with a great deal ofpleasure, although she dreaded it somewhat, inasmuch as “she had nothing to wear.” All those pretty silks made at the time of her marriage were out of style. The sleeves were too large, the waists too small, and “they had not a bit of a stuck-up behind,” Susan said, when she tried them on one after another to see if they would do. Only one was at all “au fait” in that respect, and that a plain black silk, which, having been made over the summer previous, was nearly enough “bouffant” in appearance to suit the fastidious Susan.
“Some do take a newspaper,” she said, as she tried to make the overskirt stand out as far as Mrs. Steele’s had done. “Some do take a newspaper and tie on, and if you was to do that you’d bunch out beautiful.”
But Kitty declined the newspaper, and when the night of the musicale came she looked very pretty and modest in her black silk, with her coral and real lace, and John kissed her proudly and told her she was sure “to pass muster.” They were among the first arrivals, and they found the house ablaze with light and full of flowers, while Lottie herself was splendid in silk, and lace, and jewels, and in ahigh state of excitement. The last rehearsal had been very satisfactory and she had reason to expect a great success. But where were the Misses Barrows, her pianist and soprano? They had promised to be early, and it lacked but half an hour of the time appointed for the first piece, and they had not yet appeared.
“Dressing, probably, as if anybody will care what they wear,” she said to Kitty, thus showing the estimate in which she held them outside the services she desired.
There was a sharp ring at the door and a servant brought a note to Lottie, who, feeling intuitively that it in some way concerned her greatly, tore it open at once, her face flushing and then turning pale as she read that the Misses Barrows had just received news that their mother was dying, and they must start for home that night if they would see her alive. It was a bitter disappointment, and Lottie felt as if that poor woman dying in that little village in Ohio had somehow injured her. But there was no help for it now. The Barrowses were out of the question, and in her utter helplessness and distress, she turned to John to know what they should do.
“It is a failure, of course,” she said, and the great tears stood in her fine eyes.
John hesitated a moment and glanced toward his wife, and then to her utter dismay replied:
“Not necessarily an entire failure, perhaps. I think it just possible that Mrs. Craig can play the accompaniments and, possibly, sing as well.”
“Oh, John,” Kitty gasped, while Lottie’s black eyes flashed a curiously doubtful glance at her and Lottie’s voice said:
“She—your wife,” as if even to her the idea was preposterous.
“Yes, my wife,” John answered, proudly. “She has a fine voice and was accounted a good musician at home.”
“And will she—will you try?” Lottie asked, willing, now that her first feeling of surprise was over, to grasp at a straw. “Dear Mrs. Craig, will you try? It is a positive failure if you do not. I might ask that horrid Mrs. Banks, but her voice is like a peacock’s. Do. Mrs. Craig, and I will love you forever.”
She had her arm around Kitty’s waist and was drawing her toward the piano where in a momentpoor, bewildered Kitty found herself seated with piles of music before her and a crowd of strange people staring at her and asking each other who that little nun-like woman was, and where the Misses Barrows were. Very softly Kitty played over a few of the more difficult places, and Lottie, who was a judge of fine playing, began to feel confidence in her new performer, and whispered encouragingly:
“You are doing splendidly,” while to herself she groaned: “Oh, if I only knew what her voice was.”
She did know ere long, and as Kitty’s clear, birdlike tones began to fill the room, growing sweeter, and clearer and stronger as Kitty became more confident of herself, she could have hugged the little woman in her joy, and did kiss her when the musicale was over and pronounced a perfect success.
“You are a darling, a second Nilsson. I shall never forget this, never,” she said, while many of her friends crowded around Kitty, asking for an introduction and thanking her for the treat she had given them. “And to think she never tried the music before! It is wonderful,” Lottie kept sayingwhile others, too, expressed their surprise that she could play such difficult music at sight.
For a few moments Kitty sat irresolute; then her love of truth prevailed over every other feeling, and crossing to where John stood, she put her hand on his arm and said: “Please let me speak a word to you all.”
In an instant there was a hush throughout the room, and every eye was fixed upon the brave little woman who would not even act a lie, and whose voice was very clear and distinct, as she said: “It would be wrong for me to leave an impression on your minds that I never tried that music before. I have played it many times at home for my husband, and sang it with him when he was practicing. I cannot play at sight like that. I am not a very fine musician.”
“But you are a good, conscientious, little darling!” was Lottie’s impulsive exclamation, while a murmur of admiration for this unexpected frankness ran through the room. “I could never have done that, I know I could not. I should just let them think it was my first effort, but somehow I love you better for it,” Lottie whispered to Kitty, when for amoment they stood together alone, and as she said it, the fashionable woman of the world felt that she had learned a lesson of good from plain, simple-hearted Kitty, who found herself the belle of the evening, and received so much attention that when at last she was put into Lottie’s carriage and sent home, with Lottie’s kiss warm on her lips, and Lottie’s assurance that she should see a great deal of her now that she knew her, she felt herself to be in a bewildered, dazed kind of state, sure of nothing except that the door of society, so long locked and barred against her, was open now, and that if she chose, she could enter the charmed circle she had once thought so desirable.
“Guess what I’ve brought you, little woman? An invitation to dine with Mrs. Steele! What think you of that?” John said to Kitty one night, about a week after the drawing-room musicale. “The Guiles and Orrs are to be there, too. Quite an affair! You don’t suppose there would be time for you to get a new dress made, do you?”
John was a good deal excited, and, if the truth was told, a little proud of being invited to a companydinner with the old and haughty members of the firm.
“Just our own people, you know—papa’s family and the Orrs,” Lottie had said to him, and John felt that he was recognized as one of “our own people,” and was flattered accordingly, and said he knew no reason why he should not accept; and thought to himself that Kitty should have a new dress, made with puffs, and ruffles, and bows, and which should stand out like Lottie Steele’s, and have a New York look.
Of the cost of such a dress, and the time and trouble to get it up, he knew nothing. He only thought Kitty should have one, and put a fifty dollar bill in his pocket for the emergency, and went home half an hour earlier than usual to tell Kitty of the honor in store for her. And Kitty was pleased, too, and her face flushed a little as she said she guessed the old black silk would have to do duty again, as a new one, such as he had in his mind, was far beyond their means.
“When is it?” she asked, and then John felt again a little twinge he had experienced when Mrs. Lottie named Sunday as the most convenient timefor getting “all the family,” as she termed them, together.
“Sunday, at six o’clock,” she had said, adding when she saw the questioning look on John’s face: “You know it is dark now at six, and the Sabbath ends at sundown; besides that, I mean to have some sacred music in the evening, so be prepared, please.”
John would rather the dinner had been on some other day, but what people like the Guiles and Steeles did must be right, and he had not a thought that Kitty would object. But she did—firmly and decidedly.
“God never meant that His day should be remembered by giving dinner parties,” she said. “That was not keeping it holy, and she could not go to Mrs. Steele’s, much as she would like to.” And to this decision she stood firm; and when John met Mr. Steele next day in the office, he told him to say to Mrs. Steele that he regretted it exceedingly, but he must decline her kind invitation to dinner.
“The fact is,” he said, “my wife was brought up in New England, where I guess they are more strictabout some things than the people in New York, and she thinks she——”
John hesitated as if fearful that to give Kitty’s reason would sound too much like a reproof, but Mr. Steele understood him and said, “She does not believe in Sunday dinner parties; that is what you mean. Well, well, I’ve seen the day when I did not, but that time seems to me ages and ages ago. Somehow here in New York first we know we get to doing things which once we would not have done for the world, and Sunday visiting is one of them I’ll tell Lottie. She will be terribly disappointed, for she wanted you badly, but I guess your wife is right. I’m sure she is. Remember the Sabbath—I’ve most forgotten how it goes, though I used to say it the best of any of them, when I was a boy at home;” and folding his hands behind him, Amasa Steele walked up and down his office, thinking of the summers years ago, when he sat in the old-fashioned pew in that little church at the foot of the mountain, and saw the sunshine lighting up the cross behind the chancel, and felt upon his cheek the air sweet with the fragrance of the hay cut yesterday in the meadow by the woods, and said hiscatechism to the white-haired rector, whose home was now in Heaven.
That time seemed long, long ago—ay, was long ago, before he was the city millionaire and husband of the dashing, self-willed Lottie, who, while professing to believe just what Kitty did, practiced a far different creed. All the tithes of anise, and mint and cumin she brought, but she neglected the weightier matters, and her dark eyes flashed angrily for a moment when she heard Kitty’s reason for declining her Sunday dinner.
“As if she were so much better than anybody else,” she said, and she was going on to say more when her husband cut her short with, “I suppose she does not feel like going straight from the altar to a dinner party. Isn’t it communion next Sunday in your church?”
Yes, it was, but Lottie had forgotten that, and her face flushed as her husband thus reminded her of it. The two did not seem to be wholly congruous, and so she staid home the next Sunday, and felt a strange feeling of disquiet, and thought more of Kitty Craig, and how she would look with that expression of peace on her face when she turnedaway from the altar than she did of the grand dinner which was being prepared in her kitchen, and which, though pronounced a success by those of her guests who cared nothing for the fourth commandment, seemed to her a failure. Nothing suited her; everything was wrong, from the color of the gravy to the flower in her step-mother’s hair, and the fit of Mrs. Orr’s dress; and when all was over, and the company gone, and she was alone with her thoughts and the Bible she tried to read, and, which by some chance she opened at the words. “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy,” she said to herself, “I don’t believe I’ll ever try to have another dinner party on Sunday.”
She went to see Kitty the next day and chided her for her absence, and called her a little Methodist and a Puritan, and asked how she came to be so strait-laced, and ended with: “But I believe you are right after all, only here in the city people do differently, and you will be like us in time.”
“I trust I never may forget that God is in the city as well as in the country,” was Kitty’s reply, which Lottie pondered long in her heart, and whichat last bore the fruit which ripens on the everlasting hills of glory.
It is two years since the night of the musicale, and more than one carriage with servants in livery and ladies gayly dressed has stopped at Kitty’s door, and Kitty has theentreeto many a fashionable house. But having tasted the once coveted apple and found how unsatisfying it was, she has put it from her and sees but little of thebeau mondesave such as she sometimes meets at the house of Lottie Steele, who is now her best friend, and whose carriage stands at her door on the night of which we write. There was a message from Mr. Steele to John and Kitty Craig, telling them to come immediately, for Lottie, he feared, was dying.
There were tears in Kitty’s eyes, and a throb of pain in her heart, as she read the note and then prepared for the drive. There was a hushed air about the house as if death had already entered there, and the servant who opened the door spoke in a low whisper, as in reply to Kitty’s questions she said, “Very low, and asking for you. Will you go up now?”
Without waiting to throw aside her wrappings Kitty followed up the stairs, past the room where Lottie’s week-old baby girl was sleeping, and on to the chamber where the young mother lay. There was the pallor of death on her face, and her eyes seemed larger and blacker than ever. But they lighted up suddenly and her white cheek flushed when she saw Kitty come in.
“Oh, Mrs. Craig, I am so glad. I wanted to tell you how much I owe you, and that but for you I could not be as happy lying here right in the face of death—for I am going to die, I know it and feel it—but first I want to see baby baptized, and you and your husband must be her sponsors. Please, Am, tell them to bring her in.”
The child was brought, and the clergyman, who had been waiting for the Craigs, was summoned from the parlor below.
“I would call her Kitty,” Lottie said, as she laid her hand on the silken curls of the little one, “but Am wants her named for me. Poor Am! I didn’t think he’d care so much. I’m sorry I have not done better,” she continued, looking up into the face of her husband, who gave one great choking sob as hewhispered “Don’t, Lottie, don’t. Youhavedone well;” then taking the little girl in his arms he held it so low that Lottie’s hand rested as in blessing on its head all through the first of the service, until the clergyman took the little one himself and baptized it “Charlotte Maude.”
Then, when all was over and the clergyman gone, Lottie said, “Hold me, Am; raise me up and let me lay my head on your arm while I talk to Mrs. Craig and tell her how much good she has done me, and how her speaking the truth so frankly that night of the musicale, and her refusing to come to my dinner on Sunday, set me to thinking that she possessed something which I did not; and the more I thought about it, and the more I saw of her consistent life, the more I was convinced that my religion was one of mere form, and that my heart had never been touched. I had been confirmed, it is true, but I did not know what for, except that it was the proper thing to do, and was expected of me. There is too much of that kind of thing done, and young people need more instruction, more personal talks than they get oftentimes, and so the church is harmed. I meant to do right, and I kept all the fasts and holydays, and denied myself many things in Lent, and thought I was a saint to do it, and all the while was just as selfish and proud as I could be, and felt above every body, and was bad to Am——”
“No, Lottie, never bad,” and Mr. Steele pressed the hand he held in his, while Kitty wondered to see this grave, quiet man so tender and loving when she had heretofore thought him cold and indifferent.
“Yes, I was bad,” Lottie said. “I’ve never been the wife I ought to have been, and I’m so sorry now, and when I’m gone I want you to think as kindly of me as you can and bring baby up to be just such a woman as Kitty Craig. Not fashionable, Am, though she might be even that and a good woman, too. There are many such, I know, but do not let her put fashion before God. Don’t let her be what I have been. Mrs. Craig will see to her and tell her of her mother, who was a better woman before she died; for I do believe I am, and that the Saviour is with me, and has forgiven even me. I’d like to live for baby’s sake, and show Am that I could be good, but I am willing to die, and ready, I trust; and maybe if I get well I should be bad again; so it is right, and Heaven knows best. Lay me down now, husband, and let Kitty Craig kissme good-by, and tell me she forgives the cruel words I said when I first saw her, and my neglect after that.”
She seemed like a little child in her weakness and contrition, and Kitty’s tears fell like rain as she gave the farewell kiss, and said that she had long ago forgotten the insult offered her.
“Now go: I breathe better when there is no one here but Am,” Lottie said. “And when you come again, maybe I shall be gone, but I hope I shall be at peace where there is no more pain or temptation to be bad.”
So John and Kitty went out together, and left her alone with her husband, who drew the covering about her, and, smoothing her tumbled pillow, bade her sleep if she could. And Lottie slept at last, while her husband watched beside her with his eyes fixed upon her white face, and a heavy crushing pain in his heart as he thought of losing her now, just as he had a glimpse of what she might be to him, and as he hoped, just as she was beginning to love him.
He had always loved her in his quiet, awkward way—always been proud of her; and though her frivolities and inconsistencies had roused his temperat times, and made him say harsh things to her and of the religion she professed, he had through all been fond of her and believed in God—that in, believed in the God he had learned about in the New England Sunday-school at the foot of the mountain, and he thought of Him now, and for the first time in years his lips moved with the precious words:
“Our Father.”
That prayer had once been so familiar to him, and as he said it now the past came back again, and he was a boy once more, with all the glow and fervor of youth, and Lottie was to him all she had been when he first called her his wife, only he seemed to love her more; and with a choking sob he cried:
“I can’t let Lottie die. Oh, Father, save her for me, and I’ll be a better man.”
Softly he kissed the white hand he held, and his tears dropped upon it, and then a feeble voice said, in some surprise:
“Am, are you crying, or was it a dream? and did you pray for me, and do you love me sure, and want me to get well?”
“Yes, darling, I do,” and the sobs were loud now, and the strong man’s tears fell fast upon the face turned so wonderingly and joyfully toward him.
“Then I will get well,” Lottie said; “or at least I’ll try. I really thought you would be happier without me. I’ve been such a bother, and it was not worth while to make an effort, but, if you do love me and want me, it’s different, and I feel better already. Kiss me, Am, and if I live we’ll both start new and be good—won’t we?”
Lottie did not die, and when Kitty went to inquire for her next morning she found her better and brighter, with an expression of happiness on her face which she had never seen there before.
“I almost went over the river,” she said; “and felt sure I was dying when Am’s voice called me back. Dear old Am, do you think he actually prayed for me, that I might get well, and I thought once he did not believe in praying. Any way he used sometimes to say that my prayers were all humbug, and I guess they were; some of those long ones I used to make when I came from a dancing party at two in the morning, and he was tiredand sleepy, and wanted me to turn off the gas. But he is different now, and says he loves me after all I’ve been. Why, I never gave him a speck of love, or kissed him of my own accord. But I’m going to do better; and I guess God let me live to prove to Am that there is a reality in our church as well as in others. He says he believes in the Methodist—his grandmother was one—and when we were first married he used to want me to play those funny hymns about ‘Traveling Home,’ and ‘Bound for the Land of Canaan,’—and he believes a little in the Presbyterians, and some in the Baptists, but not a bit in the Episcopalians—that is, he didn’t till he knew you, who, he thinks, are most as good as a Methodist; and I am going to try and convince him that I am sincere, and mean to do right and care for something besides fashion and dress. I have baby now to occupy my time, and I am glad, for when the spring bonnets and styles come out, my head might be turned again, for I do dote on lace and French flowers. Do you think I ought to wear a mob cap and a serge dress to mortify myself?”
Kitty did not think so; and when two months later she met, down in one of the miserable alleys inthe city where want, and misery, and vice reigned supreme, “a love of a” French chip hat, trimmed with a bunch of exquisite pansies and blonde lace, she did not believe that the kindness paid to the poor old paralytic woman who died with her shriveled hand clasped in Lottie Steele’s, and her lips whispering the prayer Lottie had taught her, was less acceptable to God than it would have been had Lottie’s face and form been disfigured by the garb with which some well-meaning women make perfect frights of themselves.
Lottie’s heart was right at last, and Amasa never muttered now nor swore if he could not find his slippers while she was saying her prayers. On the contrary he said them with her, and tried to be a better man, just as he said he would, and at last one morning in June, when even the heated city seemed to laugh in the glorious summer sunshine, he knelt before the altar and himself received the rite of which he had once thought so lightly.
“We are so happy now,” Lottie said to Kitty one day. “And I am so glad of Maudie, though I did not believe in babies once; and Am is just like a young lover and I’d rather have him than all themen in the world if he was fifty his last birth-day, and I am only twenty-five; and do you know I charge it all to you, who have influenced me for good ever since I first saw you, and made that atrocious speech.”
“Let us rather both ascribe to Heaven every aspiration after a holier, better life which we may have,” was Kitty’s reply, but her heart was very happy that day, as she felt that she might perhaps have been an instrument of good to one household at least, and that to have been so was infinitely of more value and productive of more real happiness than getting into society, which she had once thought so desirable, and which, now that she was or could be in it if she chose, seemed so utterly worthless and unsatisfactory.