Lottie

“ The sky seemed so much nearer than when one saw it from the street, that Lottie was enchanted. From the attic window, among the chimney-pots, the things which were happening in the world below seemed almost unreal. One scarcely believed in the existence of Miss Minchin and Miss Amelia and the school-room, and the roll of wheels in the square seemed a sound belonging to another existence.
"Oh, Sara!" cried Lottie, cuddling in her guarding arm. "I like this attic—I like it! It is nicer than down-stairs!"
"Look at that sparrow," whispered Sara. "I wish I had some crumbs to throw to him." ”

“ You inquired if I ever let my mind wander back to the old days, when we were homeless tramps. Ah, yes, Lottie! my mind has traveled a thousand times over every path where your dear feet have trod. I can call to mind every little trifling circumstance that was in any manner connected with you. I have seen nothing in the shape of a woman that can begin to compare with my Lottie. ”

“ Here it is,
“‘DEAR EDDIE—The welcome news of your safety received, would to Heaven it had come a week sooner—it would have saved our dear Lottie’s life; but, alas! It came too late. Put your trust in God, my unfortunate boy, and bear your great sorrow as becomes a brave man. Lottie cannot possibly live more than forty-eight hours longer. She is sinking very fast. Her mind is perfectly clear, and when your dispatch was read to her she smiled sweetly as her eyes brightened up, then closing them, the tears began to stream from them. ”

“ Every one turned to follow the direction of Lottie's suddenly fixed gaze. She was staring straight at Sadie Appleby!
There was a moment of complete silence, the silence of stupefaction. Then several of the girls turned vengefully upon Lottie Sparks.
"The sneak! Make her eat her words!"
"A ducking in the lake is what she ought to have!"
Lottie, casting one terrified glance at the unfriendly, scowling faces of her schoolmates, realized that she had gone too far and, turning, broke through the ring of outstretched hands. ”

“ But the next morning, at the fateful four o'clock, and in spite of four sleeping-drops, Lottie on the cot at the foot of her bed, and the night light burning, she awoke on the crest of such a shriek that a stiletto might have slit the silence, the end of the sheet crammed up and into her mouth, and, ignoring all of Lottie's calming, sat up on her knees, her streaming eyes on the jointure of wall and ceiling, where the open, accusing ones of Gerald looked down at her. ”

“ Lottie obeys, duly impressed by her sister's determined manner, and, when the happy suitor returns, laden with footstools and cushions, prepared for a long morning's tête-à-tête with his love, he finds the rickety bower in possession of the whole family, who linger by him all the morning, favoring him with their views, and opinions of things in general, favoring him also with diffuse reminiscences of personal biography, and systematically intercepting the faintest exchange of word, or even look, with his sweet-voiced betrothed. ”

“ Arthur were in England,” sighed Lottie.
“You earns wages,” said her brother abruptly, as if he had suddenly lighted on some fountain of wealth.
“My quarter’s wages won’t be due till next June,” replied Lottie.
“Could your master do anything?” suggested Deborah; “it is said about here that he’s rich.”
Lottie shook her head with a very significant expression. “He may have plenty of money,” she said slowly, “but I’m sure he don’t like to part with it; there’s nothing to be got out of he.”
“Here’s the baker’s cart come for you, Lottie,” cried her brother, who had sauntered up to the window. ”

“ Even Bel was growing indifferent to Lottie's course. Harcourt, who with all his faults had good and generous traits, was absent on business, and had partially forgotten the design against Hemstead, and supposed that anything definite had been given up on account of the service rendered to them all.
Lottie was drifting. She did not know what would be her action. The child of impulse, the slave of inclination, with no higher aim than to enjoy the passing hour, she could not keep a good resolve, if through some twinges of conscience she made one. ”

“ There’s your scarf, dear, in that drawer, and Miss Bruce will play for you. You dance so nicely that it is a pleasure to see it.”
Lottie blushed with pleasure at such words of praise, and took her place in the centre of the room with smiling alacrity, and the watchers whispered admiringly to each other as they looked at the dainty, satin-clad figure. Lottie was not really pretty, but she was always so charmingly dressed that she gave the effect of beauty, and to-night in her gala frock she certainly looked her best. ”

“ It had taken him years to realise that Lottie also felt herself first and single: under all her whimsicalness and fretfulness was a conviction as firm as steel: that she, as woman, was the centre of creation, the man was but an adjunct. She, as woman, and particularly as mother, was the first great source of life and being, and also of culture. ”

“ Mrs. Durand had met with many disappointments and a great deal of trouble in her life, of which Lottie knew [103] nothing, and which had embittered her disposition, making her crabbed and disagreeable. As she now was, Lottie supposed she had ever been.
For some moments Lottie had looked in the glass, musingly. Now, as her thoughts returned to herself and her surroundings, she saw a dreary, woe-begone face looking at her from the quaint, cracked, old-fashioned mirror on her bureau. ”

“ Lottie had listened as she always listened when Percival spoke, but she had not attached any peculiar meaning to his words. But an hour or so later, when he was gone and she was loitering in the garden just outside the window, Addie, who was within, made some remark in a laughing tone. Lottie did not catch the words, but Mrs. Blake's reply was distinct and not to be mistaken: "William Pickering, indeed! No: with your looks and your expectations you girls ought to marry really well." Lottie stood aghast. They would have money, then? She had never thought about money. She would be an heiress? ”

“ They apparently became so absorbed in each other's words as to think of no one else, and Lottie grew pale and quiet, feeling, in the mean time, an unreasonable resentment towards Miss Martell. If Lottie has received a little grace, she is, and ever will be, the natural possessor of abundance of human nature. Is this pale and silent girl the one whose cheeks, a little before, were aflame, and every nerve tingling with the most unwonted sensations, and for no better reason apparently than that Hemstead had seen her tugging at a fibrous spray of hemlock, and had severed it with his knife? ”

“ With her sleeves rolled up above her elbows, her round white arms looking very pretty, a clean white apron tied with a pink ribbon about her waist, Lottie was busy broiling some slices of ham on the coals, while Harry was trying to make the water in the coffee-pot boil. As I sat on the turf leaning against the tree, watching the operation with intense interest, my eyes followed Lottie in all her movements; and I am not now ashamed to confess it—I mentally asked myself, whose wife will she be when she becomes a grown lady? ”

“ Lottie looked up with a nervous blinking of her eyes. She had paled slightly and she leaned over and drew an eiderdown quilt across her knees.
"It—it's not about Bernard?" she asked in a whisper.
"Yes, it is about Bernard. You may go to him and bring him home. You may go to-morrow. Oh, Lottie, doesn't it make you happy?"
Lottie drew the eiderdown quilt still higher. She was not looking at Eugenia, and her mouth had grown sullen. "I don't see why you send me," she said. "Why can't Jack Tucker bring him home? He's with him." ”

“ Lottie, when she wants to tease me, calls them my waifs and strays. But they are no such things. This is my family. I lead two lives, Annette. When things go wrong with me, and I get out of harmony with my surroundings, I take refuge with Mother Midge and her children. Nothing does me so much good. Hush! not a word of this at Redfern House. No one knows of the Dove-cote but Lottie. Ah! here come our refreshments. Mind you praise the cake, for if there be one thing on which Mother Midge prides herself it is her seed-cake. ”

“ When they had been to nearly all, Lottie said to her now beaming companion, "Go and get Mrs. Dlimm, and seat her in the large rocking-chair in the parlor."
The poor little woman, having witnessed all the earlier scenes from the stairs with strong and varying feelings, had, during the last few moments, seen Lottie pass with such a profusion of greenbacks in her husband's hat that in a bewildering sense of joy and gratitude she had fled to the little nursery sanctuary, and when found by some of the ladies was crying over the baby in the odd contradictoriness of feminine action. ”

“ The old woman looked surprised, and, at first, seemed a little afraid to let Lottie take the basket. Perhaps she thought she might run away with the pieces she had already collected; for some children are wicked enough to do such things. But, when she looked in the little girl’s pleasant face, all her fear went away; and she gladly rested herself upon the boards, while Lottie’s busy hands and feet worked briskly until the basket was well loaded with the nice dry chips. ”

“ All of a sudden, a merry laugh startled us both, and in another minute Lottie found herself flat on the floor, being tickled and kissed and laughed over all at once. I don't think she quite liked it, though she couldn't help laughing, too, but her cheeks were very red, when Miss Grant raised her own head. She kept Lottie flat on her back, and looked down at her, the most thorough amusement all over her face.
"Cross enough, do you think? Oh, yes, to be sure I can! Cross enough to eat you up at one mouthful, and little Sissy after you!" ”

“ It was not only in the mind of young Purcell that Lottie’s circumstances and prospects were the subject of thought. Rollo Ridsdale had not watched and worshipped as the young musician had done. Nor had he, even on his first introduction to her, looked upon Lottie as anything but the possessor of a beautiful voice, of which use might be made, for her benefit no doubt in the long run, but primarily for his own. She was not a divinity; she was not even a woman; she was a valuable stock-in-trade, a most important implement with which to work. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At last, in sudden transition to one of her mirthful, piquant expressions, Lottie turned to her companion and said: "Frank, you are on the mountain-top of exalted thought and sentiment: Your face is as rapt as if you saw a vision."
"Can you wonder?"
"Well, I'm going to give you an awful tumble,—worse than the one you feared last night when the sleigh tipped. I'm hungry as any wolf that ever howled in these mountains."
"What a comparison!" said the student, laughing heartily. Then, his face becoming all solicitude, he queried, "What shall I do?" ”

“ Thus conscience, that had been skirmishing all day, appeared to gain one point of advantage, and Lottie, having made this virtuous resolve, gained in mental serenity, while the mirror that reflected her fair face helped to bring back her complacency.
"Bel," said Lottie, as they were leaving their room, "not a whisper of all this to any one, as you value my friendship."
But before they reached the supper-room her resolution failed, as is often the case when one acts from impulse rather than principle. She found that she could not so lightly throw away Hemstead's good opinion. ”

“ He simply raves about her like a schoolboy. She's everything that is beautiful and angelic. Oh! he is most completely gone, my dear Lottie."
Lottie bit her lip.
"The nicest and handsomest fellow in London," she murmured. "To be picked up by a—a slavey! What a beastly shame it is! What a fool he must be! What's her name?"
"Margaret Hale," said Austin Ambrose, instantly. "You understand, Lottie, that I am telling you what I would tell to no one else."
She nodded.
"And it's about this you came to see me?" she said.
"Yes," he said; "I want you to help me save Blair from this folly. ”

“ I think there is a movement of her eyelids."
Lottie rose from her knees and looked eagerly in that worn face. "Yes, yes, she is alive; she is coming to herself. Oh, my mistress! my mistress! I will never, never leave you again. I'll sleep on the floor at the foot of your bed, like a dog, before anybody reaches you!"
Tears rained down poor Lottie's face, and her voice was so full of grief that no one had the heart to chide her, though it seemed to disturb the invalid, who was slowly recovering consciousness. ”

“ Mr. Eardley crossed the road, and did not, as Lottie earnestly hoped, pass the door of the cobbler’s shop. She heard his foot on the stair, his tap at the door of the room. Lottie laid down her iron, courtesied on the entrance of the clergyman, and remained with her eyes fixed on the ground, her fingers nervously twitching the linen which lay on the table beside her. She was not sufficiently collected to think of offering her pastor a chair. ”