Julia Edwards

“ Knocking at the door, it was opened by Hattie quickly, who, with her wealth of jet-black hair, glossy as silk, all let down over her shoulders, looked, if possible, tenfold more beautiful than she had below, with her hair neatly bound up so as not to be in the way when she was at her work.
Hattie had been reading, for on her little stand, near the bed, was a lamp and an open book. ”

“ Legare sat in his magnificent library, talking with Frank and Lizzie, his only children. Where the large room was not lined with book-cases filled from ceiling to floor with choice works, paintings by the masters of art filled every space.
To a scholar and an artist that library would seem a fairy region where taste and fancy, roaming hand in hand, could live forever. And Mr. Legare had tastes which fed on the artistic beauty of his paintings, and enjoyed the worth of his valuable books. ”

“ Locking himself in his private office, he quickly opened the letter on which he felt all his future life depended. With pallor on his face he read those words, written so kindly, yet blasting the brightest hope he had ever cherished.
“It is even as I feared,” he murmured. “The flush in her face when I returned that sketch which she said had been sent to her by a dear friend, should have told me not to hope, had I not been too blind. The occupant of that wild mountain home—he who is pictured as kneeling there above that rushing river—is the happy man, and I—I have nothing on earth to hope for.” ”

“ The children, or rather young people—they were rather too old to be called children—loved their Aunt Louisa very much, for she was all tenderness to them, and though often sad, as if a secret sorrow lay heavily on her heart, she was ever ready to join them in any festive movement, any pleasure-giving excursion, and seemed to strive to be doubly cheerful to add to their happiness on such occasions. ”

“ To her he had said Miss Hattie. The foreman always called her Hattie—nothing more—and she was used to it. Some girls would have been pleased at this mark of preference. Not so our heroine. She knew enough of the cold heartlessness of the world to look with distrust upon any advances made by those who were above her in position or fortune.
A sigh broke from her lips, and she almost wished she was back at her sewing-bench at four dollars a week, with no one aware of her talents as a linguist; though her advanced wages would add much to her comfort and enable her to add to her small savings. ”

“ Little Jessie Albemarle always had the door-bell to answer, even if she was making beds in the top story of the house, when she heard it, for Miss Scrimp considered it beneath her dignity to go to the door when she was able to keep a cook and a house-servant. Moreover, she was seldom dressed for appearance at the door except when ready to go to market or the time arrived when she could watch her hungry boarders from the accustomed seat at the head of the long table in her dining-room. ”

“ But now, with a pride he had no wish to control, he told them it was their Hattie Butler—that she had been suddenly called away to the bedside of a sick relative in Boston, and that she was on the boat when she played the heroine so grandly.
It was a wonder to see how proud those poor shop-workers felt. That one of their own class, as they regarded her, should suddenly become so famous, seemed like an individual triumph to each of them. ”

“ I had read the dream, had my pencil in my pocket, saw the blank page, and made the sketch without a thought that any one would ever notice it. I often draw little fancies like that when I have nothing else to do. I have a portfolio of them at my room.”
“I will buy every one of them at your own price, young lady. I conceive myself to be a connoisseur in art, and I assure you that you draw like a master. You have talent, great talent.” ”

“ But she is an old coward, Miss Hattie. No one but a coward would beat a helpless girl as she used to beat me.”
“That is true, and were it not for publicity, I would make her suffer for it to the full extent of the law,” said Mrs. Emory. “But, Miss Hattie, you ought not to stay another day in that house. Do come here to stay with us. You need never work again. If you will only come and be Jessie’s sister you will overflow the cup of joy already full.” ”

“ But he had also, with his almost unlimited wealth, given them access to all fashionable pleasures, and the consequence was that both son and daughter found more pleasure in the outside world than in the solid realities of their palace-like home. The opera and its circle of fashion, theatrical spectacles, not the grand old plays of Shakespeare, balls, routes, and club pastimes suited them far better than to gaze on those noble works of art, or pore over the grand array of books which filled the hundreds of shelves in the best private library in the great city. ”

“ As Hattie made no further remark, the usual clatter of knives and forks on slenderly-filled plates was alone heard for a time.
But when Hattie, as usual, arose earliest of all, and went to her room, quite an unusual rush of conversation, and all about her, commenced.
“Such luck! From four dollars a week to ten, and all because she can talk Dutch!” said one—a very plain and a very ignorant girl.
“Ten dollars? How she’ll shine out in silk on Sundays, I’ll bet, and look for a beau as fast as the best of us,” said another. “She couldn’t do it in ten-cent calico. Oh, no, the proud thing!” ”

“ Miss Hattie:—Friends who feel a deep interest in your welfare, who appreciate your clear intellect, your excellent education, your talent, and your graces of person and manner, have deputed me to make a proposition alike honorable to you and nobly generous in them—a proposition which will remove [78] you from the world of toil and care to a position of affluence and independence, without compromising your dignity or lessening you in your esteem. ”

“ Legare, who has a wealthy, widowed sister-in-law, a Mrs. Louisa Emory, residing in a neighboring city, who is childless and lonely. She is a lady in every sense, of a sweet and loving disposition, and a companion like yourself would be a treasure to her. If you will consent, Mr. Legare, who, like myself, is truly and sincerely your friend, and deeply interested in your welfare, will propose to her that she adopt you as a daughter—to receive all a daughter’s love and privileges. ”

“ When he told them that he had been sent by Miss Hattie Butler to tell them she had been called away suddenly by the illness of a near relative, and that even then she was on her way to Boston by the night boat, every one of the family joined him in his expressed anxiety about the storm—a wild, sleety north-easter, which could be heard in its fury even inside the marble walls of the grand mansion.
“Alone, without any escort; she’ll be just scared to death,” said Frank. “I wish I was there.”
“You’d be worse frightened than she’ll be,” said Lizzie. “She is brave—very brave, I know.” ”

“ Hattie entered her room, set her lamp alight, took off her things, and sat down by her bedside to think.
She took the letter from her pocket which Mr. W—— had given her at the bindery, and put it down on the table, unopened, and there it lay for full a quarter of an hour, while she was lost in her meditation.
And yet men say a woman is made up of curiosity. And that is all men know about it. They can say so, but it doesn’t make it so.
At last she took up the letter, looked again at her name written in a bold, handsome hand on a business envelope of the firm, and then she broke the seal. ”

“ He could talk of nothing else when he came home to lunch on the day he discovered her.”
“Perhaps we will go to see her some day!” said her Aunt Louisa, in a kindly tone. “It is not often we find refinement and the proof of education among those who toil for their daily bread. No matter how gifted the toiler may be by nature, he or she has but little time to improve the gifts of nature.”
“That is only too true!” said Mr. Legare. “And so much the more it becomes the duty of us, who have been blessed with wealth, to use that wealth in helping these rough jewels to see the light. ”

“ A nobler use for surplus wealth could not be found,” said the lady, warmly. “I am glad to hear you say this. When I see a man pass away, leaving millions on millions, only to be increased by souls as sordid as his own, I think that he who forgets God’s poor on earth will himself be unknown in heaven. Good words go a great way, but good works go ever so much farther.”
“There! Hear that music!” cried Lizzie; “it is the bell for lunch. Frank will join us at table. Come, Aunt Louisa—come, papa, dear; I am as hungry as a——I don’t know what.” ”

“ It was just supper-time at Miss Scrimp’s when she got to the boarding-house, but the old spinster was at the door when the carriage stopped, her eyes fairly green with hate and envy.
Had not Saturday night been so close at hand, and the money for the silk dress expected, there is small room to doubt she would have had a “pick” at Hattie in spite of the fear in which she held her. As it was, she said, as Hattie passed her:
“Some folks ought to feel terrible proud to ride in other folks’ carriages. For me, I’d rather go afoot, when it’s my own shoes I walk in.” ”

“ We know why. When you had the measles so bad she lost three days work sitting up with you and waiting on you.”
“Thank Heaven she did,” cried Sally, earnestly. “I might have died before one of you would have done as much for me. She is a living angel if ever there was one. So there now. I’ll never speak to a girl that breathes a word against her so long as I live.”
“Good for Sally Perkins,” cried a dozen in a breath, for more than one in that crowd of girls had received kindness from Hattie Butler when kindness was so much needed. ”

“ All day, creeping slowly along narrow trails, now on a ledge barely wide enough for the mule-path, overhanging the wild rushing river a thousand feet below—then pressing through chaparral so thick the animals could just get ahead—now shivering just below the snow range on a wind-swept ridge, then pitching down into a mining gulch full of busy men all grimy with yellow dirt—on they went the entire day long, halting but an hour at noon to give the mules a little barley and themselves a scanty lunch. ”

“ Edward is too much engrossed in business to fall in love in good earnest. He hasn’t leisure for that. Besides, he has too much sense to ever think of marrying for beauty, and out of his own sphere, too. There are rich girls who would snap at him for the asking.”
“Flotie, love—real love—laughs at riches.”
“May be so, Anna; but love—real love, as you call it—never—scorns a diamond engagement-ring, [28] nor refuses to wear satin and Valenciennes lace for a wedding suit. Where would the bindery girl on four, or even ten dollars a week, find them?” ”

“ Emory, as he spread out the drawings all over the table.
“Sketches from the pencil of that wonderful girl in the book-bindery—the one I have already talked to you about. Look at this caricature—a fashionable belle and a poor street-sweeper. Is it not almost a speaking sketch? See the abject, almost hopeless look in the face of the poor girl. Who would believe a pencil, without color, could give so much expression?”
“Your protege has wonderful talent,” said Mrs. Emory, her interest awakened. “Here is a portrait—merely a face—that of a young girl? Is it that of the artist herself?” ”

“ Some people are always havin’ luck,” she said. “Here have I been a-makin’ and a-savin’, a-scrimpin’ and a-studyin’ all the time for forty years or more, and I haven’t had a bit o’ luck. It’s all been hard, stupid work. And that baby-faced thing will jump right into a fortune, I’ll bet, and like as not marry that handsome book-bindery man right before my face and eyes. Sakes alive! it chokes me to think of it. If I wasn’t afraid of what might happen I’d spoil her beauty for her. I’d put arsenic into her tea, or pison her some way. ”

“ By the light in the pilot-house, which shone on the pale faces of the two pilots who stood at the wheel, she also saw the calm but stern face of Captain Smith, the commander of the boat, a veteran in the navigation of the Sound, and she felt that he knew his peril, and would do all that man could do to save the lives of those intrusted to his care.
But it is not man who brings, or rules, or allays the storm. The winds are in the hands of the Almighty, and He is able to save when all else are powerless. ”