Ruth Hall Part 14

If I didn't make my husband's money fly, his second wife would; so I will save her ladys.h.i.+p that trouble;" and with an arch toss of her plumed head, the speaker and her companion entered the famous saloon of La Temps, where might be seen any sunny day, between the hours of twelve and three, the disgusting spectacle of scores of ladies devouring, _ad infinitum_, brandy-drops, Roman punch, Charlotte Russe, pies, cakes, and ices; and sipping "parfait amour," till their flushed cheeks and emanc.i.p.ated tongues prepared them to listen and reply to any amount of questionable nonsense from their attendant roue cavaliers.

CHAPTER XLII.

"Some folks' pride runs in queer streaks," said Betty, as she turned a beefsteak on the gridiron; "if I lived in such a grand house as this, and had so many fine clothes, I wouldn't let my poor cousin stand every Monday in my kitchen, bending over the wash-tub, and rubbing out her clothes and her children's, with my servants, till the blood started from her knuckles."

"Do you know what dis chil' would do, if she were Missis Ruth Hall?"

asked Gatty. "Well, she'd jess go right up on dat shed fronting de street, wid 'em, and hang 'em right out straight before all de grand neighbors, and shame Missus Millet; dat's what _dis_ chil' would do."

"Poor Mrs. Ruth, she knows too much for that," replied Betty; "she shoulders that great big basket of damp clothes and climbs up one, two, three, four flights of stairs to hang them to dry in the garret. Did you see her sit down on the stairs last Monday, looking so pale about the mouth, and holding on to her side, as if she never would move again?"

"Yes, yes," said Gatty, "and here now, jess look at de fust peaches of de season, sent in for dessert; de Lor' he only knows what dey cost, but n.i.g.g.e.rs musn't see noffing, not dey, if dey wants to keep dere place.

But white folks _is_ stony-hearted, Betty."

"Turn that steak over," said Betty; "now get the pepper; work and talk too, that's _my_ motto. Yes, Gatty, I remember when Mrs. Ruth's husband used to ride up to the door of a fine morning, and toss me a large bouquet for Mrs. Millet, which Mrs. Ruth had tied up for her, or hand me a box of big strawberries, or a basket of plums, or pears, and how all our folks here would go out there and stay as long as they liked, and use the horses, and pick the fruit, and the like of that."

"Whar's her brudder, Ma.s.sa Hyacinth? Wonder if _he_ knows how tings is gwyin on?" asked Gatty.

"_He_ knows fast enough, only he _don't_ know," replied Betty, with a sly wink. "I was setting the table the other day, when Mrs. Millet read a letter from him to her husband. It seems he's got a fine place in the country, where he lives with his new bride. Poor thing, I hope he won't break her heart, as he did his first wife's. Well, he told how beautiful his place was, and how much money he had laid out on his garden, and hot-house, and things, and invited Mrs. Millet to come and see him; and then he said, 'he 'sposed Mrs. Ruth was getting on; he didn't know anything about her.'"

"Know about de debbel!" exclaimed Gatty, throwing down the pepper castor; "wonder whose fault dat is, Betty? 'Spose all dese folks of ours, up stairs, will go to de bressed place? When I heard Ma.s.sa Millet have prayers dis morning, I jess wanted to ask him dat. You 'member what our minister, Mr. s...o...b..ll, said las' Sunday, 'bout de parabola of Dives and Lazarus, hey?"

"Parable," said Betty contemptuously; "Gatty, you are as ignorant as a hippopotamus. Come, see that steak now, done to a crisp; won't you catch it when you take it into breakfast. It is lucky I can cook and talk too."

CHAPTER XLIII.

"Something for you, ma'am," said the maid-of-all-work to Ruth, omitting the ceremony of a premonitory knock, as she opened the door. "A bunch of flowers! handsome enough for Queen Victory; and a basket of apples all done up in green leaves. It takes widders to get presents," said the girl, stowing away her tongue in her left cheek, as she partially closed the door.

"Oh, how pretty!" exclaimed little Nettie, to whom those flowers were as fair as Eve's first view of Paradise. "Give me _one_ posy, mamma, only _one_;" and the little chubby hands were outstretched for a tempting rose-bud.

"But, Nettie, dear, they are not for me," said Ruth; "there must be some mistake."

"Not a bit, ma'am," said the girl, thrusting her head into the half-open door; "the boy said they were 'for Mrs. Ruth Hall,' as plain as the nose on my face; and that's plain enough, for I reckon I should have got married long ago, if it hadn't been for my big nose. He was a country boy like, with a ploughman's frock on, and was as spotted in the face as a tiger-lily."

"Oh! I know," replied Ruth, with a ray of her old suns.h.i.+ny smile flitting over her face; "it was Johnny Galt; he comes into market every day with vegetables. Don't you remember him, Katy? He used to drive our old Brindle to pasture, and milk her every night. You know dear papa gave him a suit of clothes on the Fourth of July, and a new hat, and leave to go to Plymouth to see his mother? Don't you remember, Katy, he used to catch b.u.t.terflies for you in the meadow, and pick you nosegays of b.u.t.tercups, and let you ride the pony to water, and show you where the little minnies lived in the brook? Have you forgotten the white chicken he brought you in his hat, which cried 'peep--peep,' and the cunning little speckled eggs he found for you in the woods, and the bright scarlet partridge berries he strung for a necklace for your throat, and the glossy green-oak-leaf-wreath he made for your hat?"

"Tell more--tell more," said Katy, with eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with joy; "smile more, mamma."

Aye, "Smile more, mamma." Earth has its bright spots; there must have been suns.h.i.+ne to make a shadow. All hearts are not calloused by selfishness; from the lips of the honest little donor goeth up each night and morning a prayer, sincere and earnest, for "the widow and the fatherless." The noisome, flaunting weeds of earth have not wholly choked the modest flower of grat.i.tude. "Smile more, mamma!"

How cheap a thing is happiness! Golconda's mines were dross to that simple bunch of flowers! They lit the widow's gloomy room with a celestial brightness. Upon the dingy carpet Ruth placed the little vase, and dimpled limbs hovered about their brilliant petals; poising themselves daintily as the epicurean b.u.t.terfly who circles, in dreamy delight, over the rose's heart, longing, yet delaying to sip its sweets.

A simple bunch of flowers, yet oh, the tale they told with their fragrant breath! "Smile, mamma!" for those gleeful children's sake; send back to the source that starting tear, ere like a lowering cloud it o'ercasts the suns.h.i.+ne of those beaming faces.

CHAPTER XLIV.

"My dear," said Mrs. Millet as the servant withdrew with the dessert, "Walter has an invitation to the Hon. David Greene's to-night."

No response from Mr. Millet, "the wooden man," one of whose pleasant peculiarities it was never to answer a question till the next day after it was addressed to him.

Mrs. Millet, quite broken in to this little conjugal eccentricity, proceeded; "It will be a good thing for John, Mr. Millet; I am anxious that all his acquaintances should be of the right sort. Hyacinth has often told me how much it made or marred a boy's fortune, the set he a.s.sociated with. Herbert Greene has the air of a thorough-bred man already. You see now, Mr. Millet, the importance of Hyacinth's advice to us about five years ago, to move into a more fas.h.i.+onable neighborhood; to be sure rents are rather high here, but I am very sure young Snyder would never have thought of offering himself to Leila had not we lived at the court-end of the town. Hyacinth considers it a great catch in point of family, and I have no doubt Snyder is a nice fellow. I wish before you go, Mr. Millet, you would leave the money to buy Leila a velvet jacket; it will not cost more than forty dollars (lace, tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, and all); it will be very becoming to Leila. What, going?

oh, I forgot to tell you, that Ruth's father was here this morning, bothering me just as I was dressing my hair for dinner. It seems that he is getting tired of furnis.h.i.+ng the allowance he promised to give Ruth, and says that it is _our_ turn now to do something. He is a great deal better off than we are, and so I told him; and also, that we were obliged to live in a certain style for the dear children's sake; beside, are we _not_ doing something for her? I allow Ruth to do her was.h.i.+ng in our kitchen every week, provided she finds her own soap. Stop a minute, Mr. Millet; _do_ leave the forty dollars for Leila's jacket before you go. Cicchi, the artist, wants her to sit for a Madonna,--quite a pretty tribute to Leila's beauty; he only charges three hundred dollars; his study is No. 1, Clive street."

"S-t-u-d-i-o," said Mr. Millet, (slowly and oracularly, who, being on several school committees, thought it his duty to make an extra exertion, when the king's English was misapplied;) "s-t-u-d-i-o, Mrs.

Millet;" and b.u.t.toning the eighth b.u.t.ton of his overcoat, he moved slowly out the front door, and down the street to his counting-room, getting over the ground with about as much flexibility and grace of motion as the wooden horses on the stage.

CHAPTER XLV.

"Come here, Katy," said Ruth, "do you think you could go _alone_ to your grandfather Ellet's for once? My board bill is due to-day, and my head is so giddy with this pain, that I can hardly lift it from the pillow.

Don't you think you can go without me, dear? Mrs. Skiddy is very particular about being paid the moment she sends in her bill."

"I'll try, mamma," replied little Katy, unwilling to disoblige her mother.

"Then bring your bonnet, dear, and let me tie it; be very, very careful crossing the streets, and don't loiter on the way. I have been hoping every moment to be better, but I cannot go."

"Never mind, mother," said Katy, struggling bravely with her reluctance, as she kissed her mother's cheek, and smiled a good-bye; but when she gained the crowded street, the smile faded away from the little face, her steps were slow, and her eyes downcast; for Katy, child as she was, knew that her grandfather was never glad to see them now, and his strange, cold tone when he spoke to her, always made her s.h.i.+ver; so little Katy threaded her way along, with a troubled, anxious, care-worn look, never glancing in at the shopkeepers' tempting windows, and quite forgetting Johnny Galt's pretty bunch of flowers, till she stood trembling with her hand on the latch of her grandfather's counting-room door.

"That _you_!" said her grandfather gruffly, from under his bent brows; "come for money _again_? Do you think your grandfather is made of money?

people have to _earn_ it, did you know that? I worked hard to earn mine.

Have you done any thing to earn this?"

"No, Sir," said Katy, with a culprit look, twisting the corner of her ap.r.o.n, and struggling to keep from crying.

"Why don't your mother go to work and earn something?" asked Mr. Ellet.

"She cannot get any work to do," replied Katy; "she tries very hard, grandpa."

"Well, tell her to _keep on_ trying, and you must grow up quick, and earn something too; money don't grow on trees, or bushes, did you know that? What's the reason your mother didn't come after it herself, hey?"

"She is sick," said Katy.

"Seems to me she's always sick. Well, there's a dollar," said her grandfather, looking at the bill affectionately, as he parted with it; "if you keep on coming here at this rate, you will get all my money away. Do you think it is right to come and get all my money away, hey?