CHAPTER VII.SUNSHINE.
Eva Laurence was radiant that day as she walked down to the wareroom, which scarcely seemed to her like a place of toil. For the first time in weeks she had left a really cheerful home. The few days which intervened between her and the time her first wages would be paid were bridged over, and she no longer trembled with a wild fear of starvation for those she loved. Trouble might come, but nothing quite so dreadful as that. The heroism of her little brother had worked marvels, for which her heart swelled with tender gratitude.
The young man, who wore that soft, amber beard, was struck by her brilliant color, and deigned, in a careless way, to compliment her upon it as she passed him. This she scarcely noticed, being so occupied with pleasant thoughts, that his condescension passed unheeded; but when Harold came up, she reached forth both hands, and, looking in his earnest face, said,
“Good morning! What a lovely day it is!”
“Yes, very lovely—a great change,” he murmured, pressingher hands one instant; then dropping them with a gentle sigh.
“Yesterday was so gloomy,” she said; “but this——”
She broke off with a faint laugh, for the sky was, in fact, clouded; and she remembered the floods of silvery light that had come through the windows the day before, mocking her anxiety, and turning her heart sick with a thought of the dear ones at home.
Harold looked at her a moment in a grave, questioning way. He had seen the young clerk address her, and gave the smile on her lip, and the glow in her cheek, an interpretation that made his own greeting constrained and formal. Eva did not heed this either, the warmth at her heart was not to be chilled by a cold glance just then, even from the man who had been kindest to her. She went to a mirror, in which customers were expected to admire themselves, and stood before it smoothing her hair, graceful as a bird, and quite as unconscious of her own beauty.
Just then a party came into the show-room, and Harold turned his attention on them, while Eva stole away from the mirror, and stood ready to be called, without one trace of the shrinking pride which had made her so sensitive the day before.
The lady, who soon required her attention, was a stout, full-featured dame, arrayed in costly silk, flounced, looped, and puffed, until the rich material was lost in a confusion of trimmings, which fluttered, like the plumage of an angry bird, as she walked.
Up and down the vast show-room this person wandered, touching first one article, then another, with a heavy hand, so tightly incased in canary kid gloves, that the delicate fabric seemed ready to burst at each incautious movement of the imprisoned fingers. Now and then she would toss the fabric aside with a scornful little sniff, and ask the obsequious clerk if he had nothing better than that to show alady who did not stand on prices, but must have the best of everything when she went a shopping. What would she please to look at, indeed? Why just what happened to take her fancy; as for wanting anything particular, she was a long way beyond that. If the young man had anything veryrechercher, and out of the common, she didn’t mind looking at it; but, goodness gracious! “Who was that young woman?”
Here the new customer lifted both hands, and parted her lips with an expression of growing amazement, while her eyes, deepening from blue to pale gray, were fastened on Eva Laurence.
“That young lady,” answered the clerk, “is Miss Laurence, just engaged. You are not the first person who has been struck with her good looks. Haven’t a more genteel girl in the establishment.”
The customer dropped her hands, and turning abruptly from the clerk, walked to the stair-case, where an elderly man stood waiting for her with the patient indifference of a person impressed into service he did not like.
“Herman! Herman Ross!” she exclaimed, in an eager voice, “come here this minute and see for yourself. Did you ever in your born days! Look there! Isn’t that the loveliest creature you ever set eyes on?”
Eva was standing at a far-off counter, looking thoughtfully into the distance, with that soft, happy smile brightening her whole face, as the full light from a neighboring window fell upon it.
The man paused as he saw the face, and drew back with a sudden recoil from the eager hand still pressing his arm.
“What is this? What does it mean?” he demanded, turning white, and looking forward with a wild stare. “It is twenty years. I cannot go back to that, but—but—be quiet! Leave me alone!”
The man walked forward unsteadily, and, like one impelledto an action against his own consciousness, until he came close to Eva, but with such noiseless action that she did not heed him.
“Will you tell me your name?”
Eva started. The voice that addressed her was so low and hoarse that surprise became almost terror in her.
“My name? My—my name? Did you ask that?”
“Yes—yes!”
Eva turned her eyes on the white face which was reading hers with such pathetic earnestness, and all the angry surprise his abrupt address had kindled, died out under the sad penetration of his glance.
“My name is Laurence—Eva Laurence,” she answered, with gentle courtesy. “Pray, why do you care to know?”
“I can scarcely tell you, young lady. Excuse me, there must be some mistake. Laurence—did you say Laurence?”
“That is my name.”
“And your father?”
“My father is dead,” answered the girl, with a flush about her drooping eyelids, under which quick tears were springing.
“Dead? But your mother?”
“She is living.”
“Ah! But you have other relatives—brothers, sisters, perhaps?”
“Yes, I have a brother and one sister.”
“Like you? Is she beautiful like you?”
“I do not suppose any one could think of me, looking at her,” answered Eva, speaking her honest conviction.
“I should like to see your sister and your mother,” said the man, “Might I? Would it be unpardonable if I called on them?”
“I do not know, we have seen few people since my father was killed.”
“Killed, did you say? Killed?”
“Yes,” answered Eva, almost in a whisper; “my father was shot down in the street by a man he was arresting.”
“Shot down! That was terrible! Forgive me, young lady, if I have made you cry. Nothing was further from my thoughts.”