"She is a pretty, well-behaved child. I have noticed her at Sunday-school," added councillor number two.
"She is a sweet little thing," said Mrs. Wilson, who was present, though not esteemed of any use in the matter. "My dear boys sometimes play with her, and are so fond of her, and they would not like any little girl who was not nice."
"Oh, well, she can come!" said Mrs. Reed, dashing off a hasty consenting line, and thinking, "She will do to dance with Henny and c.o.c.ky; none of the other girls will care to, I imagine, and I don"t want to hurt the old lady"s feelings. What can have made her think of asking?"
It will easily be guessed that Miss Lucy had been the instigator of this daring move. She had begun by asking her grandfather, who never refused her anything, and backed by his sanction had succeeded in persuading her grandmother, who wrote an occasional letter, but who hardly knew what a note was, to sit down and write one to Mrs. Reed. So to the dancing-school she went, alone; for neither grandmother, aunts, nor cousin ever dreamed of accompanying her. But she felt no fears. She was a pretty little girl, and took to dancing as a duck to water; but she did not presume on the popularity these qualities might have won her with the older boys, but patiently devoted herself to Henny and c.o.c.ky and the younger fry, whom Mr. Papanti was only too glad to consign to her skilful pilotage. Their mothers approved of her, especially after she had asked Mrs. Reed, with many blushes, "if she might not sit near her, when she was not dancing?" "I have to come alone," she added shyly, "for my dear grandmamma is so old, you know, and my aunt is far from strong." Both of these women could have done a good day"s washing, and slept soundly for nine hours after it; but of this Mrs. Reed knew nothing, and p.r.o.nounced Lucy a charming child, with such sweet manners, took her home when it rained, and asked her to her next juvenile party.
It was an easy step from this to Lucy Morton at one-and-twenty, where her quick backward glance next lighted, the popular favourite of the best "set" of girls in Medford, and extending her easy flight beyond under the drilling chaperonage of their mammas. She pleased all she met of whatever age or s.e.x, though to more dangerous distinctions she made no pretensions. She had early learned the great secret of popularity, so rarely understood at any age, that people do not want to admire you--they want you to admire them. No one called Lucy Morton a beauty; but it was wonderful how many beauties were numbered among her intimate friends, how many compliments they received, what hosts of admirers they had, and how brilliant, clever, and full of promise were these admirers.
Indeed, after a dance or a talk with Miss Morton, the young men could not help thinking so themselves.
As for Lucy, she was early consigned by public opinion to one or other of the Wilsons. Henny and c.o.c.ky had miraculously survived their mother"s coddling and clucking, and had kept alive through college and professional training, though looking as if it had been a hard struggle.
Henny had, at the period on which his wife was now dwelling, returned from his medical studies at Vienna, while c.o.c.ky still lingered in Paris studying architecture.
There was very little opening for Dr. Henry Wilson in his native town; but his mother would have been wretched had he gone anywhere else. He set up an office in her house, and his friends said it was a good thing he had money enough to live on, for really none of them could be expected to call him in. He practised among the poor, who seemed to like him; but of course they could not afford to be particular.
He would be a very good match for Lucy Morton, if not for any girl of his own circle. They lived close by each other and had always been intimate; and she was such a sweet, amiable girl, just the one to put up with Mrs. Wilson"s tiresome ways! If her relations were scarcely up to the Wilson claims, at least they were quiet and harmless, and would probably leave her a little money.
With such reasoning did all the neighbouring matrons allay their anxieties as to their favourite"s future. Their daughters dissented. The latter had gradually come to perceive that Lucy had no intentions of the kind. Not one of them but thought her justified in looking higher, and not one envious or grudging comment was spoken or even thought when they began to regard her as destined for Eugene Talbot--not even by those, and they were many, who themselves cherished a budding preference for Eugene, a flirt in a harmless, careless way. Everyone allowed that his attentions this time were serious. How naturally, how irresistibly, the pleasing conviction stole upon Lucy"s own heart!
Mrs. Wilson, a wife of many years, here sprang to her feet, with her heart beating hard, and her cheeks flushing scarlet with shame. So would they flush on her death-bed, if the remembrance of that time came to disturb her then--the only time when her prudence had for once failed, the only time when she had trusted any one but herself, when she had really, truly, been so sure that Eugene Talbot loved her, that she had let others see she thought so. She had disclaimed, indeed, all knowledge of his devotion, but she had disclaimed it with a blushing cheek and conscious smile, like a little--little--oh, _what_ a little fool!
There was no open wound to her pride to resent. He had never spoken out plainly, and no mere attentions from an emperor would have won a premature response from Miss Morton; nor was it possible for her to betray her preference to anyone else. How she found out, as early and as surely as she did, that his hour for speaking was never to come, was marvellous even to herself; but she was clairvoyant, so to speak, so fully did she extract from those who surrounded her all they knew, and much they did not know. Before Eugene"s engagement to Mabel Andrews was a fixed fact, before Mabel herself knew it was to come, she did, and took her measures accordingly.
One terrible, long afternoon she spent in her own room behind closed shutters, seeing even then, in the darkness, Eugene, proud and handsome, breathing words of love in the Andrews"s beautiful blossoming garden among all the flowers of May, while a glow of rapturous surprise lighted up Mabel"s sweet, impa.s.sive face. It might have been some consolation to another girl to know her own superiority, and to feel sure that Eugene was marrying the amiable, refined, utterly commonplace Miss Andrews with the view to the push her highly placed relatives could, and doubtless would, give him in his business; but the knowledge only added a sting to Lucy"s sufferings. She bore them silently, tasting their full bitterness, and then left the room, the very little bit of girlishness in her composition gone forever, but still ready to draw from life the gratifications proper to maturer years. She could imagine that revenge might not lose its taste with time, and she had already some faint conception of the form hers might take.
She walked down the lane and far enough along the street to turn about and be overtaken by Dr. Wilson on his way home. Of course he stopped to speak to her, and then walked a little way up the lane with her; and when Miss Morton once had Dr. Wilson all to herself in a _cul-de-sac_, it was impossible for him to help proposing to her if she were inclined to have him. Indeed, he was much readier at the business than she had expected. In an hour both families knew all about it; and the next day the engagement was "out," to the excitement of their whole world. It was such a romantic affair--childish attachment--Henry Wilson so deeply in love, and so hopeless of success, his feelings accidentally betrayed at last! On these details dilated all Lucy"s young friends. They did not think they could ever have loved him themselves, but they admired her for doing so. When, some time after, the grander but less interesting match between the Talbot and Andrews clans was announced, it chiefly roused excitement as having doubtless been the result of pique on Eugene"s part--an idea to which his subdued appearance gave some colour; and he was pitied accordingly.
His wedding was a quiet one, overshadowed by the glories of Lucy"s. No one would have dreamed of her grandparents doing the thing with such magnificence; but they were so surprised and pleased, for to them the Wilson connection was a lofty one; and Mrs. Wilson was so flatteringly eager and delighted, that Lucy found them pliant to her will. Her grandfather unhesitatingly put at her disposal a larger sum than his yearly expenditure had ever amounted to; and her exquisite taste in using it made her wedding a spectacle to be remembered, and conferring distinction on everyone who a.s.sisted in the humblest capacity, while still each one of these had the flattering conviction that without his or her presence the whole thing would have been a failure. The bride of ten years back could not but recall with approval her own demeanour on the occasion, when, "as one in a dream, pale and stately she went," the very personification of feeling too deep to be stirred by the unregarded trifles of her wedding pomp.
The tale of the ensuing years she ran briefly over, for it was one of uncheckered prosperity. Dr. Wilson"s reputation had steadily grown.
Hardly a year after his marriage he had successfully performed the operation of tracheotomy upon a patient almost _in articulo mortis_; and although it was only on the ninth child of an Irish labourer, it got into all the newspapers, and ran the rounds of all circles. It was wonderful how such cases came in his way after that, till no one in town dreamed of calling in anyone else for a sore throat; the other physicians being, as Mrs. Henry Wilson was wont to say, "very good general pract.i.tioners, _but_--" At thirty-five he had an established fame as a specialist, with an immense consulting practice extending all over and about Boston, his personal disadvantages forgotten in the prestige of his marvellous skill, indeed, rather enhancing it.
He took his successes very indifferently; but his wife showed a loving pride in them, too simple and too well controlled to excite envy, gently checking his mother"s more outspoken exultation, and backing him up in his refusal of all solicitations to move into Boston, well knowing his const.i.tution could never stand a town life. Money was now less of an object to him than ever. Lucy"s grandfather had died in peace and honour, leaving a much larger estate than any one had dreamed possible.
The lane had been extended into a road, and the cow pasture had been cut up into building lots. All the Morton property had risen in value, and all was one day to be Lucy"s; and on the very prettiest spot in it she now lived, in a charming house designed (with her a.s.sistance) by her brother-in-law, that rising young architect, c.o.c.kburn Wilson, so strikingly original, and so delightfully convenient, that photographs and plans of it were circulated in every direction, bringing the architect more orders than he wanted or needed; for though with not much more to boast of in the way of looks than his brother, he had made another amazing stroke of Wilson luck in marrying that great heiress, Miss Jenny Diman. She was a heavy, shy young person, who had been educated in foreign convents, and had missed her proper duty of marrying a foreign n.o.bleman by being called suddenly home to settle her estate.
She had taken a fancy to the clever, amusing Mrs. Wilson, had visited her, and found the little _partie carree_ at her pretty house delightful, she hardly knew why; but it was evident that her hostess"s married life was most successful, and Lucy told her that dear c.o.c.kburn had in him the making of as devoted a husband as dear Henry.
Dear c.o.c.kburn for some time showed no eagerness to exercise his latent powers; but his delicacy in addressing so great an heiress once overcome, swelled into heroic proportions, and made the love affairs of two extremely plain and quiet people into a wildly romantic drama. They seemed surprised, but well content, when they found themselves settled in their pretty home, still prettier than Dr. Wilson"s, because it showed yet newer ideas; and Mrs. c.o.c.kburn Wilson, who had never known society, developed a taste for it, which her sister-in-law well knew how to direct.
Lucy"s active mind had just run down the stream of time to the present, and was boldly projecting itself forward into the future, and the throbbing pulses her one painful memory had raised were subsiding in the soothing task of planning the decorations for a dinner party for which Jenny"s invitations were already out. She had just decided that it would make a good winter effect to fill all Jenny"s lovely Benares bra.s.s bowls with red carnations, when her husband entered the room.
The crest of sandy locks, which had won Dr. Wilson his boyish t.i.tle, had thinned and faded now. It was difficult to say of what colour it had been; and his face was of no colour at all. He had no salient points, and won attention chiefly by always looking very tired. This evening he looked doubly so. "Dear Henry, I am so glad!" cried his wife, springing up to give him an affectionate embrace. "You will have something to eat?" and, as he nodded silently, she rang the bell twice, the only signal needed at any hour to produce an appetising little meal at once; and she herself waited on him while he ate.
"How is the little boy?" she asked timidly.
"Very low."
"Are you going back?"
"Directly. I am going to operate as soon as Stevens gets there. I have telephoned for him."
"Is there any hope?"
"Can"t say."
"Can I do anything?"
"You might come and take the other children home with you--all but the baby."
"I can just as well have her too."
"I would rather have her there; her mother needs her."
"Yes, I suppose you don"t want Mabel in the room while the operation is going on."
"I don"t want her there at all. She"s of no use."
"Poor thing!"
"She can"t help it."
"Could I do anything there? If I can, Jenny will take the children, I know."
"No, there"s no need of that." The doctor threw out his sentences between mouthfuls of food automatically taken from a plate replenished by his wife.
"What nurse have they?"
"They"ve had Nelly Fuller--she is a very fair one; but of course they need two now, and one of them first rate, so I got Julia Mitch.e.l.l for them."
"Julia! but how ever could you make Mrs. Sypher give her up?"
"I had no trouble."
"And how can the Talbots ever manage to pay her?"
"That will be all right. I told them she would not expect her full price for such a short engagement, in a gap between two others. I settled it with her myself beforehand, of course."
"I am very glad you did," said Lucy, with another loving caress, which he hardly seemed to notice. He looked at his watch, and told her she had better hurry and change her dress. In five minutes they walked together down the street under the beautiful arch of leafless elms, where the snowy air brought glowing roses into Lucy"s cheeks, and an elastic spring into her tread. Her husband shrank up closer inside his fur-lined coat, and slipped a case he had taken from his study from one cold hand to another.
"I hope the children will be ready," from her; "Julia will see to that,"
from him,--were all the words that pa.s.sed between them on their way.
The Talbot house was but a few streets off. Lucy did not often enter it; but the picture of battered, faded prettiness it presented, taken in at a few glances, and heightened each time it was seen, was deeply stamped on her mind. There was no spare money to keep up appearances here.
Mabel"s father had been unfortunate in his investments and extravagant in his expenditures, and died a poor man, while her relations had grown tired of helping Eugene, whose business talents had not fulfilled their early promise. He always seemed, somehow, to miss in his calculations.
What little order there now was in the place was due to the energetic rule of Julia Mitch.e.l.l, already felt from garret to cellar. By her care the three little girls were dressed and ready, and were hanging, eager and excited, round their mother, who sat, her baby on her lap, with tear-washed cheeks and absent gaze, all pretence to the art of dress abandoned. She hardly looked up as her beautiful, richly clad visitor entered; but when she felt the tender pressure of the hand that Lucy silently extended, she gave way to a fresh burst of grief.
"Stevens here? asked Dr. Wilson, aside, of Miss Mitch.e.l.l.