“Elsie,” said Mrs. Mason the following morning, “I am going to give a reception in my brother’s honor to-morrow evening, and I shall put the dining-room and kitchen in the hands of the caterer. If you like you may assist Mary and Martha in the toilet-rooms during the evening.”
“Very well,” answered Elsie soberly; but there was a light in her eyes which made Mrs. Mason say interrogatively, “You are pleased at the change?”
“Indeed I am! I shall see a little of the pageantry of life, and I love to look at beautiful things, fair ladies, and brave men. The whole thing will be a living picture, and while I hand a pin to this one, or a fan to that, I shall be stealing something that will be neither coats nor diamonds.”
“Something less tangible, but more valuable, perhaps.”
“I am not so sure of its value as I am of its pleasure.”
“Pleasure in what way?”
“In the way that a rose is just as beautiful to my eyes as to those of a princess; in the way that this reception will be just as much for me as if I wore satins instead of a house-maid’s cap and apron.”
Elsie had been for the nonce aroused from her usual reserve, and as she caught the coldly critical glance which Mrs. Mason bestowed upon her, she exclaimed eagerly: “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Mason. I did not mean to inflict my small enthusiasms upon you.”
“I was only thinking,” replied Mrs. Mason, “that the world seems to open a vista of enjoyment for you which many apparently more fortunate would give half their years to possess. What is the secret of your happiness?”
“‘Secret?’ I have none, unless it is that I am still a child, in heart at least, and accept life as unquestioningly.”
“But by and by the heart of the child will have grown old, and you will be like the rest of us, tired, disappointed, doubting.”
There was a note of sadness in Mrs. Mason’s voice that appealed at once to Elsie’s tender sympathies. Involuntarily she reached out a hand as if to lay it upon the white jewelled one of her mistress; but with a sudden start of recollection she drew back and said simply: “There is so much in this world to hope for, so much that may be had even by the poorest, that disappointment and doubt need affect one only as externals. I hope I may never grow wise if wisdom brings only bitterness of spirit.”
Mrs. Mason made no reply; she was watching the fine mobile face before her, with its blending of pride and guilelessness. “The girl gains on one so,” she mused, “that I could almost make her friend instead of servant, if it were not for——”
At this juncture Elsie, uneasy under the prolonged scrutiny of the gray eyes, asked hesitatingly: “Do you wish anything further, Mrs. Mason? May I go now?”
“You might have gone some time since,” was the calm reply, given with all the iciness of manner she knew so well how to apply to the impulsive girl.
Elsie’s face flushed painfully as she left the room. Mrs. Mason smiled grimly as she saw it. “I treat that girl horribly sometimes; but it is the only way I can preserve the proprieties.”
The next evening, when everything had been put to rights in the kitchen, Elsie and Jenie, the little maid of the scullery, climbed the back stairs with many a ripple of laughter. They were deeply engaged in the all-important subject of dress, and were as keen in their enjoyment of the good points of attire as many a society belle who would grace the Mason parlors.
“Oh, but you are just lovely,” exclaimed enraptured Jenie as Elsie invested herself in a cheap lawn of rose pink, and fastened a coquettish lace cap above her curls in place of the frilled muslin of every day. The dress was as straight and plain as that of a Puritan maid; but the soft lace of a Martha Washington fichu and a jaunty lace-trimmed apron with pink bows on the pockets, created a costume that only needed the dark eyes and tinted cheeks of the wearer to complete it.
“I lack one thing,” said Elsie, critically surveying herself in the glass. “I wish I had one of those Bonsilene roses that the florist has massed in the parlors. I’m going to ask Mrs. Mason for one.”
“I wouldn’t,” said Jenie. “I’d just take one. It would never be missed.”
“Jenie,” laughed Elsie as she placed a hand under the little maid’s chin, “I should miss it, and that would be the worst miss of all. I like to keep my fingers clean, you know.”
“Well, it ain’t like takin’ clothes and such like.”
“Not exactly; but all the same it is taking what doesn’t belong to me.”
“It’s such a little thing I wouldn’t have minded it.”
“It is the ‘littles’ that make us, Jenie. Lookout for the little foxes and the lions will keep away. Now, let me see how you look. As sweet and clean as a whistle. Let me straighten your cap. Dear me, there’s a button off your shoe. I must sew that on right away. It doesn’t look ladylike, you know, to go with the buttons off.”
Jenie laughed. “Me a lady!” she exclaimed as if the idea were preposterous.
“To be sure,” said Elsie seriously. “You can be just as much a lady in your work as Mrs. Mason in hers.”
“Humph! She’d laugh at me.”
“That wouldn’t affect the fact, and nobody will laugh at you for respecting yourself. Only you must lookout that you don’t think so much of yourself that you neglect your duty. People would have a right to laugh at you then. Now I’m going for the rose;” and having seen that Jenie’s belongings were in order, she opened the door and started for the lower hall, humming a gay chansonette and emphasizing its tune with a step as graceful as if art, not nature, had prompted it. Herbert Lynn’s door stood open, and unseen by Elsie, he watched the lively patter of a pair of bronze slippers along the hall with a light that was somewhat deeper than amusement in his eyes.
“Good-evening!” he exclaimed as Elsie neared his door. “These buttons on my glove are a trifle refractory. May I beg you to fasten them?”
The song on her lips met instant suppression as she glanced up with heightened color into the blue eyes that were smiling down at her. It seemed to Elsie that it was rare good fortune which sent James at that moment across the hall.
“James,” she called, “Mr. Lynn would like to have you button his glove,” and without pausing a second Elsie walked soberly along the hall to Mrs. Mason’s room. Herbert bit his lips in vexation, and re-entering his room, he slammed the door in no very amiable frame of mind.
“The witch!” he exclaimed, throwing himself into a chair and scowling like a thunder-cloud. “How cavalierly she does treat me! Jove! isn’t she lovely in that cheap finery! She ought to ‘walk in silk attire and siller hae to spare’ instead of being doomed to the round of Helen’s pots and pans. How unequally the good things of life seem to be distributed, and how singular it is to find such pride of character in a girl occupying her position in life. Well, I’d give ‘Jupiter and his power to thunder’ to break that stubborn pride of hers, and I’ll do it or die in the attempt.”
A look of resolute will settled over the bright, almost boyish, face and gave it an added strength and beauty, which struck Elsie wonderingly as a moment later she encountered him in the hall with her hands full of roses. He bestowed upon her only the slightest nod as he passed rapidly down the stairs, and Elsie climbed to her room and pinned the roses at throat and belt with a feeling that something had taken the glamor from the evening’s enjoyment.
“I don’t care,” said she defiantly. “I knew my hands would tremble if I tried to fasten those buttons; besides, I don’t thank him for noticing me in the least. I’m only ‘Elsie the cook’ and he knows it, for all of his pleadings to the contrary. I just want him to let me alone, and there’s all there is of it.”
This stalwart enunciation of wishes was not wholly borne out by the misty eyes that greeted her from the glass, and it required several little pattings of her handkerchief to clear them so that she dare trust herself in the waiting-room below. The guests were already arriving as Elsie entered the dressing-rooms, and her services were at once called into requisition in undoing trains, buttoning gloves and slippers, making up faces and arms, and arranging dishevelled coiffures. More than one quick glance was bestowed by the guests upon the pretty maid in pink who so deftly ministered to their various needs, and one tall, statuesque girl of superb grace and unusual elegance of costume attempted to slip a dollar into Elsie’s hands as she was about to leave the room.
“I beg your pardon,” said Elsie, flushing. “I—I cannot accept the money. Mrs. Mason pays me for my work.”
The lady laughed as she tapped Elsie’s cheek with her fan. “You must be a new acquisition of Helen’s. I do not remember to have seen you before, and as for the money, my dear child, I always bestow it upon those who serve and please me.”
“It doesn’t seem right for me to take it,” replied Elsie; “and I hope you won’t think me ungrateful if I refuse.”
“Why, if you will be so quixotic I will not urge it upon you, of course; but you are the first of your class I ever remember to refuse a gift. I must congratulate Helen on her rare good fortune. Your action is quite unusual, I assure you.”
At the first opportunity Elsie turned to Martha and Mary, who had smiled audibly behind their handkerchiefs at witnessing the little scene. “Did I do anything wrong?” she asked pitifully.
“Don’t know as it’s very wrong,” answered Martha, “but it’s awful silly, and you’ll find out that the tips the rich folks give you’ll buy lots o’ nice things.”
“If that’s all I don’t care,” said Elsie. “I don’t want to be rude.”
“Why didn’t you want it?” asked Mary curiously.
“Because I am paid by Mrs. Mason for my work, and because somehow it touched my pride to be offered money for nothing.”
Martha and Mary laughed. “That’s a queer pride of your’n, Elsie. I never seen none like it before,” exclaimed Martha.
“It is a pride I hope that harms no one; not even myself.”
“I don’t know about that! You’ll always get left if you stand too much on your dignity.”
“Not if I am faithful in my work, and that I mean to be.”
The evening was after all a great delight to Elsie, who never allowed any misgiving to long cloud her skies. The beautiful costumes, the light laughter, the gay banter, the strains of music that floated up-stairs from the mandolin orchestra stationed in the library behind banks of ferns and roses, all seemed a dream from the fairyland of the imagination. She hovered over the balusters in the hall, and watched the moving panorama below with all the intoxication of youth in bright and beautiful things. Later in the evening she crept down-stairs with the other maids, and hiding herself behind a screen of palms in the hall, could see in the drawing-room beyond the bevy of belles and beaux in the exercise of all the graces of refined intercourse. She could see that Herbert Lynn was everywhere welcomed by bright eyes and cordial words, and a little pang of regret shot through her heart at the injustice of fate. But it was only for a moment, and then, with an effort of will so strong that it sent the blood out of her face, she trampled the rising regret to death.
“I will not, I will not,” she said between set teeth, as she walked wearily along the hall to her room when the last guest had departed.
“You’ve dropped your roses,” said Herbert’s voice behind her just as she reached the foot of the stairs.
“No matter,” she said, half-turning. “A withered rose is valueless.”
“Not to me,” he replied emphatically, as he gathered them up and deliberately placed them inside his vest.
A look of innocent wonder swept over Elsie’s face, that was not altogether successful in its effort to appear natural. “A wilted rose, I suppose, will answer for a rose-jar! There are oceans in the parlors, and I can bring you a panful if you wish.”
Herbert took a quick step that brought him to Elsie’s side. “Elsie Murchison,” he exclaimed half-savagely, “do you know I never was baffled in my life?”
“First times have come to a good many of the world’s conquerors. Mr. Lynn would be a most notable exception if he continued an unbroken line of victories.”
“You may mock me as you choose. I have been candid to the verge of bluntness with you, and you know very well I am desirous of obtaining your friendship.”
“And you know very well,” answered Elsie, all the brightness dying out of her face and leaving it gray and cold, “that there is no friendship possible between us. I resolutely refuse to consider the slightest chance of such a thing.”
Stung to the quick, Herbert turned on his heel, saying vehemently, “Very well. So emphatic a statement as that must be heeded; but I am very much mistaken if you do not some day regret it.”
Elsie had never known such a weariness of body as she carried up the long flight of stairs to her room, and it was with a feeling of having been hunted and driven to bay that she threw herself across the bed and burst into tears. All the pent-up feeling of years seemed to burst its bonds as sob after sob shook the slight frame and floods of tears rolled their tempestuous way over her cheeks. At last the force of the storm was spent and she sat up in bed, weak but relieved.
“I couldn’t have been fiercer if I’d been Vesuvius in action,” she said ruefully as she tried to collect her scattered senses. “But I’ve done one virtuous act, anyway! ‘Regret it!’ Ah, if he only knew the silly little heart I carry here, and how heavy it is and always will be! Meg, dear, duty didn’t find your little Elsie on the coward’s side, after all, and yet how I should have enjoyed saying ‘Thank you, sir,’ after the regulation order. He’ll forget all about me in a day or two, and it is a good deal better than if I had tried the miserable farce of friendship only to have it surely end in trouble. Now I’m the only one to suffer, and henceforth I shall look upon myself as quite a heroine. I don’t think there’s much fun in being one, though,” and with this doleful reflection Elsie, like a sensible girl, turned off the gas and went to bed. If her sleep had not the peace of the care-free, it was yet sufficiently healthy to bring back the color to her cheeks and the lustre to her eyes, and no one dreamed of the tempest of pain that had swept over her the night before.