Part 16 (1/2)

Shall I ever work thus like a slave, With the scorn of the rich and the proud?

For they think that a seamstress must crave For the work that is making her shroud.

Walter justified, apologised, for he was bound in the iron fetters, ”polite custom.”

”I found,” says he, ”when I came home, a beautiful, well-dressed, well-behaved girl, to all appearance a young lady, at your tea table.”

”Well, she shall never come there again. I always told mother that she might know better than to bring her to the table; and the pert minx, if she knew her place, would never try to stick herself into genteel company. So much for having a dress-maker in the house.”

”Elsie, Elsie, I am ashamed of you.”

”I think you had better be ashamed of yourself, mother.”

”I found her,” resumed Walter, ”at your table, and I took the only vacant seat, by her side. I did not find her pert, but on the contrary, I must say it, better behaved, better spoken, than my sister Elsie, when speaking of or to her mother.”

”You had better insult me, by your comparison, Sir Walter.”

”No; I do not intend that. But I was only explaining why I paid attention to the lady.”

”The lady--lady! That to a sewing girl who goes out to work by day's work. Did you learn that at college or at Saratoga?”

”I have learned to call every female lady, who looks, acts, and talks like one. I hope my sister Elsie will not unlearn me. I found the lady at your table. I found her polite and diffident. She is not a forward minx. I walked with her to the parlor.”

”Yes, and she should have known better than to go there. Why did she not go back to her work?”

”Elsie, she had done her work, and was waiting for your father to come home, so I could get some money to pay her; for I should be ashamed to keep her out of her money, or oblige her to call again. You had spent all the change I had in the house in your afternoon shopping. It was me that asked her to stay. It was me that asked her into the parlor. It was me, your mother, that asked her to sing one of those plaintive, sweet songs, I had heard her sing to the children while at work. It was you that urged her. What for? That she might fail. Elsie, Elsie, there is envy in your heart.”

”And she did sing. Was ever anything sweeter? I can repeat every word, for every note went down into my soul, and printed itself like the magnetic telegraph. Listen:

”Oh, I was born where waters leaping, Cascade down the green, green hill; Oh, I was born where lambkins bleating, Leap along the clear, clear rill.

Oh, I was born where lightning flashes, 'Luminate the green, green trees; Oh, I was born where the wild wind dashes, Raging o'er the deep, deep seas.

”Oh, now I live amid confusion, Commerce wears an ugly frown; Oh, who would give that sweet seclusion, For all the pleasures of the town?

Oh, how I love my native mountain, Hills and glens and all their flocks, Oh, how I love that sweet sweet fountain, Every tree, and all the rocks.”

”Smitten--smitten--my brother Walter smitten with my dress-maker! Faugh!

I wonder if he went home with her, for he went out at the same time?”

Yes, he did go home with her. It was her first false step. But ye that stand fast, do not censure this first step of her fall. She was young and handsome; so was he. Theirs were such hearts as nature sports with.

Both were touched. He went home with her. They got into a stage at Seventeenth street to ride to Broome, for there was the home of the sewing girl. At Broome street he forgot to pull the check string. She did not notice it till the crowd of cars, carriages, and swarms of human beings, which fill up that great wide thoroughfare, Ca.n.a.l street, awakened her, from her reverie of wild thoughts, to the fact that they were already too far down. Before he could stop her she had pulled the string, and the driver held up and looked down through his little peep hole at his pa.s.sengers, ready for his sixpenny fare, which he will contrive to make seven cents, if he makes change for you.

Walter acknowledged that he did not mean to stop the stage; he wanted Athalia to go to Taylor's, and take an ice cream with him. But she was inexorable. He plead, she said, no; she said it sweetly, and, finally, they compromised by her agreeing to go to-morrow evening.

The second false step!

Then he walked home with her. She said, good night, at the door, he said, ”Oh, let me see you up these dim stairs.”

”Oh, no, I am used to them, I can find my room in the dark. If Jeannette is at home, she will hear a little signal upon the wall, and open the door, then it will be light.”