Part 7 (2/2)
”Well; I should be willing to pay twenty dollars a quarter to any lady who would bring Lily forward to where you are; if you can do it, I will pay it to you. If Mrs. Hadden will do the same, you will have two thirds of Viertelnote's price.”
”O, that is so nice!” said Ruth, gratefully. ”Then in half a quarter I could begin. And perhaps in that time I might get another.”
”I shall be exceedingly interested in your getting on,” said Mrs.
Marchbanks, as Ruth arose to go. She said it very much as she might have said it to anybody who was going to try to earn money, and whom she meant to patronize. But Ruth took it singly; she was not two persons,--one who asked for work and pay, and another who expected to be treated as if she were privileged above either. She was quite intent upon her purpose.
If Mrs. Marchbanks had been patron kind, Mrs. Hadden was motherly so.
”You're a dear little thing! When will you begin?” said she.
Ruth's morning was a grand success. She came home with a rapid step, springing to a soundless rhythm.
She found Rosamond and Barbara and Harry Goldthwaite on the piazza, winding the rope rings with blue and scarlet and white and purple, and tying them with knots of ribbon.
Harry had been prompt enough. He had got the rope, and spliced it up himself, that morning, and had brought the ten rings over, hanging upon his arms like bangles.
They were still busy when dinner was ready; and Harry stayed at the first asking.
It was a scrub-day in the kitchen; and Katty came in to take the plates with her sleeves rolled up, a smooch of stove-polish across her arm, and a very indiscriminate-colored ap.r.o.n. She put one plate upon another in a hurry, over knives and forks and remnants, clattered a good deal, and dropped the salt-spoons.
Rosamond colored and frowned; but talked with a most resolutely beautiful repose.
Afterward, when it was all over, and Harry had gone, promising to come next day and bring a stake, painted vermilion and white, with a little gilt ball on the top of it, she sat by the ivied window in the brown room with tears in her eyes.
”It is dreadful to live so!” she said, with real feeling. ”To have just one wretched girl to do everything!”
”Especially,” said Barbara, without much mercy, ”when she always _will_ do it at dinner-time.”
”It's the betwixt and between that I can't bear,” said Rose. ”To have to do with people like the Penningtons and the Marchbankses, and to see their ways; to sit at tables where there is noiseless and perfect serving, and to know that they think it is the 'mainspring of life'
(that's just what Mrs. Van Alstyne said about it the other day); and then to have to hitch on so ourselves, knowing just as well what ought to be as she does,--it's too bad. It's double dealing. I'd rather not know, or pretend any better. I do wish we _belonged_ somewhere!”
Ruth felt sorry. She always did when Rosamond was hurt with these things. She knew it came from a very pure, nice sense of what was beautiful, and a thoroughness of desire for it. She knew she wanted it _every day_, and that n.o.body hated shams, or company contrivances, more heartily. She took great trouble for it; so that when they were quite alone, and Rosamond could manage, things often went better than when guests came and divided her attention.
Ruth went over to where she sat.
”Rose, perhaps we _do_ belong just here. Somebody has got to be in the shading-off, you know. That helps both ways.”
”It's a miserable indefiniteness, though.”
”No, it isn't,” said Barbara, quickly. ”It's a good plan, and I like it. Ruth just hits it. I see now what they mean by 'drawing lines.'
You can't draw them anywhere but in the middle of the stripes. And people that are _right_ in the middle have to 'toe the mark.' It's the edge, after all. You can reach a great deal farther by being betwixt and between. And one girl needn't _always_ be black-leaded, nor drop all the spoons.”
CHAPTER IV.
NEXT THINGS.
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