Part 12 (2/2)

”Thee is restless,” said Rachel Froke, tying on her gray cloak. ”And to make us so is oftentimes the first thing the Lord does for us. It was the first thing He did for the world. Then He said, 'Let there be light!' In the meantime, thee is right; just darn thy stockings.”

And Rachel went.

They had a nice morning, after that, ”leaving frets alone,” as Diana said. Diana Ripwinkley was happy in things just as they were. If the sun shone, she rejoiced in the glory; if the rain fell, it shut her in sweetly to the heart of home, and the outside world grew fragrant for her breathing. There was never anything in her day that she could spare out of it, and there were no holes in the hours either.

”Whether she was most bird or bee, it was hard to tell,” her mother said of her; from the time she used to sweep and dust her garret baby-house along the big beams in the old house at Homesworth, and make little cheeses, and set them to press in wooden pill-boxes from which she had punched the bottoms out, till now, that she began to take upon herself the daily freshening of the new parlors in Aspen Street, and had long lessons of geometry to learn, whose dry demonstrations she set to odd little improvised recitatives of music, and chanted over while she ran up and down putting away clean linen for her mother, that Luclarion brought up from the wash.

As for Hazel, she was only another variation upon the same sweet nature. There was more of outgo and enterprise with her. Diana made the thing or the place pleasant that she was in or doing. Hazel sought out new and blessed inventions. ”There was always something coming to the child that wouldn't ever have come to no one else,”

Luclarion said. ”And besides that, she was a real 'Witch Hazel;' she could tell where the springs were, and what's more, where they warn't.”

Luclarion Grapp would never have pleaded guilty to ”dropping into poetry” in any light whatsoever; but what she meant by this was not exactly according to the letter, as one may easily see.

IX.

HAZEL'S INSPIRATION.

What was the use of ”looking,” unless things were looked at? Mrs.

Ledwith found at the end of the winter that she ought to give a party. Not a general one; Mrs. Ledwith always said ”not a general one,” as if it were an exception, whereas she knew better than ever to undertake a general party; her list would be _too_ general, and heterogeneous. It would simply be a physical, as well as a social, impossibility. She knew quant.i.ties of people separately and very cordially, in her easy have-a-good-time-when-you-can style, that she could by no means mix, or even gather together. She picked up acquaintances on summer journeys, she accepted civilities wherever she might be, she asked everybody to her house who took a fancy to her, or would admire her establishment, and if she had had a spring cleaning or a new carpeting, or a furbis.h.i.+ng up in any way, the next thing was always to light up and play it off,--to try it on to somebody. What were houses for? And there was always somebody who ought to be paid attention to; somebody staying with a friend, or a couple just engaged, or if nothing else, it was her turn to have the sewing-society; and so her rooms got aired. Of course she had to air them now! The drawing-room, with its apricot and coffee-brown furnis.h.i.+ngs, was lovely in the evening, and the crimson and garnet in the dining-room was rich and cozy, and set off brilliantly her show of silver and cut-gla.s.s; and then, there was the new, real, sea-green China.

So the party was had. There were some people in town from New York; she invited them and about a hundred more. The house lit up beautifully; the only pity was that Mrs. Ledwith could not wear her favorite and most becoming colors, buff and chestnut, because she had taken that family of tints for her furniture; but she found a lovely shade of violet that would hold by gas-light, and she wore black Fayal lace with it, and white roses upon her hair. Mrs.

Treweek was enchanted with the brown and apricot drawing-room, and wondered where on earth they had got that particular shade, for ”my dear! she had ransacked Paris for hangings in just that perfect, soft, ripe color that she had in her mind and never could hit upon.”

Mrs. MacMichael had pushed the grapes back upon her plate to examine the pattern of the bit of china, and had said how lovely the coloring was, with the purple and pale green of the fruit. And these things, and a few more like them, were the residuum of the whole, and Laura Ledwith was satisfied.

Afterward, ”while they were in the way of it,” Florence had a little _musicale_; and the first season in Shubarton Place was over.

It turned out, however, as it did in the old rhyme,--they shod the horse, and shod the mare, and let the little colt go bare. Helena was disgusted because she could not have a ”German.”

”We shall have to be careful, now that we have fairly settled down,”

said Laura to her sister; ”for every bit of Grant's salary will have been taken up with this winter's expenses. But one wants to begin right, and after that one can go on moderately. I'm good at contriving, Frank; only give me something to contrive with.”

”Isn't it a responsibility,” Frank ventured, ”to think what we shall contrive _for_?”

”Of course,” returned Mrs. Ledwith, glibly. ”And my first duty is to my children. I don't mean to encourage them to reckless extravagance; as Mrs. Megilp says, there's always a limit; but it's one's duty to make life beautiful, and one can't do too much for home. I want my children to be satisfied with theirs, and I want to cultivate their tastes and accustom them to society. I can't do _everything_ for them; they will dress on three hundred a year apiece, Agatha and Florence; and I can a.s.sure you it needs management to accomplish that, in these days!”

Mrs. Ripwinkley laughed, gently.

”It would require management with us to get rid of that, upon ourselves.”

”O, my dear, don't I tell you continually, you haven't waked up yet?

Just rub your eyes a while longer,--or let the girls do it for you,--and you'll see! Why, I know of girls,--girls whose mothers have limited incomes, too,--who have been kept plain, actually _plain_, all their school days, but who must have now six and eight hundred a year to go into society with. And really I wouldn't undertake it for less, myself, if I expected to keep up with everything. But I must treat mine all alike, and we must be contented with what we have. There's Helena, now, crazy for a young party; but I couldn't think of it. Young parties are ten times worse than old ones; there's really no _end_ to the expense, with the German, and everything. Helena will have to wait; and yet,--of course, if I could, it is desirable, almost necessary; acquaintances begin in the school-room,--society, indeed; and a great deal would depend upon it. The truth is, you're no sooner born, now-a-days, than you have to begin to keep up; or else--you're dropped out.”

”O, Laura! do you remember the dear little parties our mother used to make for us? From four till half-past eight, with games, and tea at six, and the fathers looking in?”

”And c.o.c.kles, and mottoes, and printed cambric dresses, and milk and water! Where are the children, do you suppose, you dear old Frau Van Winkle, that would come to such a party now?”

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