A Letter of Credit Part 34

"Muslin like that!" cried the little mantua-maker with an expression of strong distaste. "Why that _never_ cost less than fifty cents, Mrs. Cord!

My word, it didn't."

"Just think of it! And for that girl, who never wore anything but sixpenny calico if she could get it. Men are the stupidest!--"

"That ashes-of-roses lawn is the prettiest thing I've seen yet. Mrs.

Cord, she don't want all these?"

"So I say," returned the nurse; "but I wasn't consulted. That aint all; you should have seen the ruffles, and the ribbands, and the pockethandkerchiefs; and then he took her somewhere, Stewart's, I shouldn't wonder, and got her gloves and gloves; and then a lovely Leghorn hat, with a brim wide enough to swallow her up. And now you must make up these muslins, and let us have one soon; for my master is in a hurry."

The little mantua-maker contemplated the muslins, and things generally.

"There's not the first sign o' black among 'em all! Not a line, nor a sprig, nor a dot."

"Maybe that's English ways," returned the nurse; "but if it is, I never heerd so before."

"Well I like to see mournin' put on, if it's only respect," went on the dress-maker; "and a girl hadn't ought to be learnt to forget her own mother, before she's well out of sight. I'd ha' dressed her in black, poor as I am, and not a sign o white about her, for one year at least. I think it looks sort o' rebellious, to do without it. Why I've known folks that would put on mourning if they hadn't enough to eat; and I admire that sort o' sperit."

The nurse nodded.

"Just look here, now! What's he thinkin' about, Mrs. Cord?"

"Just that question I've been askin' myself, Mrs. Marble; and I can't get no answer to it."

"What's he goin' to do with her?"

"He says, send her to school."

"These aint for school dresses."

"O no; these are to go ridin' about in, with him."

"Well _I_ think, somebody ought to take charge of her. A young man like that, aint the person to do it Taint likely he's goin' to bring her up to marry her, I suppose."

"She's too young for such thoughts," said the nurse.

"She's young, but she aint far from bein' older," Mrs. Marble went on significantly. "When a girl's once got to fifteen, she's seventeen before you can turn round."

"There'll have to be somebody else to wait upon her, I know, besides me,"

returned the nurse. "That aint my business. And it's all I'm wanted for now. n.o.body can say a word to my young lady if it isn't the gentleman hisself; and she's with him all the while, and not with me. I aint goin'

to put up with it long, I can tell 'em."

Mr. Digby's pay was good however, and Mrs. Cord did not find it convenient to give notice immediately; and also the muslin dresses were made and well made, and sent home to the day.

All these her new possessions and equipments were regarded by Rotha herself with a mixture of pleasure and mortification. The pleasure was undeniable; the girl had a nice sense of the fitness of things, inborn and natural and only needing cultivation. It was getting cultivation fast. She had a subtle perception that the new style of living into which she had come was superior to the old ways in which she had been brought up; not merely in the vulgar item of costliness, but in the far higher qualities of refinement and propriety and beauty. Her mother and father had been indeed essentially refined people, of good sense and good taste as far as their knowledge went. Rotha began to perceive that it had stopped short a good deal below the desirable point. Also she felt herself thoroughly in harmony with the new life, little as she had known of it hitherto; and was keen to discern and quick to adopt every fresh point of greater refinement in habits and manners. Mr. Digby now and then at table would say quietly, "This is the better way, Rotha,"--or, "Suppose you try it _so_."--He never had to give such a hint a second time. He never had to tell her anything twice. What he did, Rotha held to be "wisest, discreetest, best," the supreme model in everything; and she longed with a kind of pa.s.sion to be like him in these, and in all matters. So it was with a gush of great satisfaction that the girl for the first time saw herself well and nicely dressed. She knew the difference between her old and her new garments, knew it correctly; did not place the advantage of the latter in their colour or fineness; but recognized quite well that now she looked as if she belonged to Mr.

Digby, while before, n.o.body could have thought so for a moment. The pleasure was keen. Yet it mingled, as I said, with a sting of mortification. Not simply that her new things were his gift and came to her out of his bounty, though she felt that part of the whole business; but it pained her to feel that her own father and mother had stood below anybody in knowledge of the world and use of its elegant proprieties.

Rotha was perfectly clear-sighted, and knew it, from the very keen delight with which she herself accepted and welcomed this new initiation.

The prevailing feeling however was the pleasure; though in Rotha's face and manner I may say there was no trace of it, the first day she was what Mr. Digby would have called "properly dressed," and met him in their little sitting room. She came in gravely, (she was already trying to imitate his quietness of manner) and came straight up to Mr. Digby where he was standing in the window. Rotha waited a minute, and then looked up at him, blus.h.i.+ng.

"Do you like it?" she asked frankly.

His eye caught the new muslin, and he stepped back a step to take a view.

"Yes," he said smiling. "That's very well. Is it comfortable?"

"O yes."

"That's well," he said. "I always think it the prime question in a coat, whether it is comfortable."

He came back to his place in the window, so making an end of the subject; but Rotha had not said all that she wished to say.

"Mrs. Cord wanted me to put this on to-day, though it was not Sunday; was she right?"

"Eight? certainly. Why should one be better dressed Sunday than any other day?"

"I thought people did--" said Rotha, much confused in her ideas.

"And right enough," said Mr. Digby, recollecting himself, "in the cases where the work to be done in the week would injure or soil a good dress.

But in other cases?--"

"On Sunday one goes to church," said Rotha.

"Well,--what then?"

"Oughtn't one to be better dressed to go to church?"

"Why should you?"

Rotha was so much confounded that she had nothing to say. This was overturning all her traditions.

"What do you go to church for, Rotha?"

"I _ought_ to go--to think about G.o.d, I suppose."

"Well, and would much dressing help you?"

Rotha considered. "I don't think it helps much," she confessed.

"You say, you ought to go for such a reason;--what is your real reason?"

"For going? Because mother took me; or made me go without her."

"You are honest," said Mr. Digby smiling. "You will agree with me that that is a poor reason; but I am glad you understand yourself, and are not deceived about it."

"I don't think I understand myself, Mr. Digby."

"Why not?"

"Because, sometimes I am in great confusion, and can _not_ understand myself."