Chapter IV: Part 4

"Of course--of course--well, it must rest with Eleanor. She is a good girl, and I can trust her choice. Will you not go in and see my--Mrs. Beecher?" he added with relief, as if struck with a bright idea; and I left him slashing off green bunches and doing awful havoc among his grape-vines. He did not appear so overwhelmed with delight at the prospect of an alliance with me as Eleanor had seemed to expect. Mrs. Beecher, on her part, took the tidings in rather a melancholy way; she wept, and said Eleanor was a dear good child, and she hoped we would make each other happy, but there was more despondency than joy in her manner; either she was accustomed to look at every new event in that light, or, as I suspected, this piece of good fortune was rather too overwhelming. I thought many times in the next two months of the man who received the gift of an elephant. I played the part of elephant in the Beecher _menage_, and was sometimes terribly oppressed by my own magnificence. Perhaps an engagement may be a pleasant period of one's life under some circumstances; decidedly mine was not. I insisted on its being as short as possible, thinking that the sooner it was over the better for all parties. Mr. and Mrs. Beecher might have had some comfort in getting Eleanor ready to be married to some nice young man with a rising salary and a cottage at Roxbury; but to get her ready to be married to me was a task which I was afraid would be the death of both of them. Poor Eleanor herself was worn to a shadow with it all, and I remember looking forward with some satisfaction to bringing her up again after we were married.

My mother, of course, could not interfere with their arrangements, even to offer help. She asked no questions, found no fault, but was throughout unapproachably courteous and overpoweringly civil. Once, and once only, did she speak out her mind to me. The evening after the wedding-day was fixed, she tapped late at my door, and when I opened it, she walked in in her white wrapper, candlestick in hand--for the whole house was long darkened--her long, thick, still bright brown locks hanging below her waist, and a look of determination on her features--looking like a Lady Macbeth, who had had the advantages of a good early education.

"Roger!" she began, and paused.

"Well."

"Roger," as I placed a chair for her, and she sat down as if she were at the dentist's, "there is one thing I must say to you. I hope you will not mind. I must be satisfied on one point, and then I will never trouble you again about it."

"Anything, dearest, that I can please you in."

"Roger, did you ever--did you never care for Katie Day?"

"I always liked her."

"I mean, Roger, did you ever want to marry her? And, oh, Roger! I hope, I do hope that if you did not, you have never let her have any reason to think you did."

"Never! I have never given her any reason to think I cared for her more than as a very good friend."

"I felt sure you would never wilfully deceive any girl," said my mother, with a sigh of relief; "but I am anxious about you yourself. Did you and Katie ever have any quarrel--any misunderstanding? I have heard of people marrying some one else from pique after such things. Do forgive me, Roger, dear; but I should be so glad to know." My poor mother paused, more disconcerted than she usually allowed herself to be, and her beautiful eyes brimming over with tears.

"Don't worry about me, dearest mother," I said, kissing her tenderly; for my heart was touched by her anxiety. "I can tell you truly that I have never really wanted to marry Katie, though once or twice I have thought of it. I have always admired her, as every one must. She is a lovely girl; and seeing so much of her as I have, it might have come to something in time, if it had not been for Eleanor."

"If it had not been for Eleanor!" My mother was too well-bred to repeat my words, but I saw them run through her mind like a lightning flash. She looked for a moment as if she thought I was mad, then in another moment she remembered that she had heard love to be not only mad but blind. Her own Cupid had been a particularly wide-awake deity, with all his wits about him; but she bowed to the experience of mankind. From that hour to this she has never breathed a word which could convey any idea that Eleanor was anything but her own choice and pride as a daughter-in-law.

The Beechers got up a very properly commonplace wedding, after all, though nothing to what my wedding ought to have been. Eleanor herself, like many prettier brides, was little but a peg to hang a wreath and veil on. Her younger sisters did very well as bridesmaids. The only will I showed in the matter was in refusing to ask Phil Day to act as best man, though I knew it was expected of me. I asked Herbert Riddell; and the good fellow performed his part admirably, and made the thing go off with some life. I verily believe he was the happiest person there. They only had a very small breakfast for the nearest relations, my mother remarking that we could have something larger afterwards; but the church was crammed. The thing I remember best of that day, now fifteen years ago, was the expression on Mrs. Day's and Katie's faces. It was not pique--they were too well-bred for that--nor disappointment--they were too proud for that, even had they felt it. And I don't believe that there was any deep disappointment, at least on Katie's part. I had made no undue advances; and she was far too sensible and sunny-tempered a lassie to let herself do more than indulge in a few day-dreams, or to wear the willow for any man, even if he were a good match, and had pleased her fancy. She married, as every one knows, Herbert Riddell, and made him a very good wife. But neither mother nor daughter could quite keep out of their faces, wreathed in smiles as befitted the occasion, the look of uncomprehending, unmitigated amazement, too overpowering to dissemble. I suppose it was reflected on many others, and I remembering overhearing Aunt Frances severely reproving Aunt Grace for so far forgetting herself as to utter the vulgar remark that she "would give ten thousand dollars to know what Roger was marrying that little fright for."

The Roger Greenway and Eleanor Beecher of ten years ago are so far past now that I can talk of them like other people. That Roger Greenway ranked so low in his class at college is only remembered to be cited as a comfort to the mothers of stupid sons--Roger Greenway, now the coming man in Massachusetts. Have I not made a yacht voyage round Southern California, and is not my book on the deep-sea dredgings off the coasts considered an important contribution to the Darwinian theory, having drawn, in his later days, a kind and appreciative letter from the great naturalist? Do I not bid fair to revolutionise American agriculture by my success in domesticating the bison on my stock-farm in Maine? Have I not come forward in politics, made brilliant speeches through the State, and am I not now sitting in Congress for my second term? The world would be incredulous if I told them that all this was due to Eleanor. She did not, indeed, know exactly what deep-sea dredging was; but she said I ought to do something with my yacht, and had better make a voyage, and write a book about it. She is as afraid, not only of a bison, but of a cow, as a well-principled woman ought to be; but she said I ought to do something with my stock-farm, and had better try some experiments. She is no advocate of women's going into politics; but she said I was a good speaker, and ought to attend the primary meetings. And when I said the difficulty was to think of anything to say, she said if that were all, she could think of twenty things. So she did; and when I had once begun, I could think of them myself. I have had no military training; but if Eleanor were to say that she was sure I could take a fort, I verily believe I could and should.

Not less is Eleanor Beecher of the old days lost in Mrs. Roger Greenway. As she grew older she grew stouter, which was very becoming to her, as she had always been of a good height, though no one ever gave her credit for it. Her complexion cleared up; her hair was better dressed, and looked a different shade; and she developed an original taste in dress. She developed a peculiar manner, too, very charming and quite her own. She showed an organising faculty; and after getting her household under perfect control, and starting her nursery on the most systematic basis, she grew into planning and carrying out new charities. The name of Mrs. Roger Greenway at the head of a charity committee wins public confidence at once, and, seen among the "remonstrants" against woman's suffrage, has more than once brought over half the doubtful votes in the General Court. Every one says that I am unusually fortunate in having such a wife for a public man, and my mother cannot sufficiently show her delight in the wisdom of dear Roger's choice.

Eleanor would never let me do what she called "pauperise" her family; but I found Mr. Beecher a good place on a railroad, over which I had some control, which he filled admirably, and built a new house to let to him. I helped the boys through college, letting them pay me back, and gave them employment in the lines they chose. The girls, under pleasanter auspices, turned out prettier than their eldest sister, and enjoyed society; and one is well married, and another engaged.

Katie Day, as I said before, married Herbert Riddell. She was an excellent wife, and made his means go twice as far as any one else could have done. She and Eleanor are called intimate friends with as much reason as Phil and I had been. I don't believe they ever have two words to say to each other when alone together, but then they very seldom are. Eleanor is always lending Katie the carriage, and sending her fruit and flowers when she gives one of her exquisite little dinners; and Katie looks pretty, and sings and talks at our parties, and so it goes on to mutual satisfaction.

We all have our youthful dreams, though to few of us is it given to find them realities. Perhaps we might more often do so, did we know the vision when we met it in mortal form. I had had my ideal, a shadowy one indeed--and never, certainly, did I imagine that I was chasing after it when I followed Eleanor down the fir-tree walk. "An eagerness to share the overflowing gifts of fortune with others--a respectful tenderness for those who had but little--a yearning sweetness of sympathy that should disarm even envy, and give the very inequalities of life their fitness and significance." Had I ever clothed my fancies in words like these? I hardly knew; but as I watched my wife in the early days of our married life, shyly and slowly learning to use her new powers, as the butterfly, fresh from the chrysalis, stretches its cramped wings to the sun and air, they took life and shape before me--and I felt the charm of the "ever womanly" that has ever since drawn me on, as it must draw the race.

Did Eleanor's love for me spring from gratitude for, or pleasure in, the wealth that was lavished on her with a liberal hand? Who shall say? A girl's love, if love it be, is often won by gifts of but a little higher sort. But if it be worthy of the name, it finds its earthly close in loving for love's sake alone; and then it matters not how it came, for it can never go, and the pulse of its life will be giving, not taking. To Eleanor herself, sure of my heart because so sure of her own, it would matter but little to-day if I had loved her first from pity. That I did not is my own happiness, not hers.

THE STORY OF A WALL-FLOWER

It would never have occurred to anyone on seeing Margaret Parke for the first time, that she was born to be a wall-flower,--plainness, or at best insignificance of person, being demanded by the popular mind as an attribute necessary to acting in that capacity, whereas Margaret was five feet eight inches in height, with a straight swaying figure like a young birch tree, a head well set back upon her shoulders--as if the better to carry her masses of fair hair--an oval face, a straight nose, blue eyes so deeply set, and so shaded by long dark eyelashes, that they would have looked dark too, but for the sparkles of coloured light that came from them, an apple-blossom skin, and thirty-two sound teeth behind her ripe red lips. With all these disqualifications for the part, it was a wonder that she should ever have thought of playing it; and to do her justice, she never did,--but some have "greatness thrust upon them."

Margaret's father, too, was a man of some consequence, having a reputation great in degree, though limited in extent. He was hardly known out of medical circles, but within them everyone had heard of Dr. Parke of Royalston. His great work on "Tissues," which afterwards established his fame on a secure basis, lay tucked away in manuscript, with all its illustrations, for want of funds to publish it; but even then there were rooms in every hospital in Europe into which a king could hardly have gained admittance, where Dr. Parke might have walked in at his pleasure. So brilliant had been "Sandy" Parke's career at college, and in the Medical School, that his classmates had believed him capable of anything; and when he married Margaret's mother, a beauty in a quiet way, both young people, though neither had any money, were thought to have done excellently well for themselves. Alas! they were too young. Dr. Parke's marriage spoiled his chances of going abroad to complete his medical education. When he launched on his profession, it was found that many men were his superiors in the art of getting a lucrative practice in a large city; and, at last, he was glad to settle down in a country town, where he had a forty-mile circuit, moderate gains, and still more moderate expenses. His passion was study, which he pursued unremittingly, though time was brief and subjects were scanty.

Mrs. Parke was a devoted wife and mother, who thought her husband the greatest of men, and pitied the world for not recognising the fact. She managed his affairs wisely, and they lived very comfortably and cheaply in the pleasant semi-rural town. Could the children have remained babies forever, Mrs. Parke's wishes would never have strayed beyond the limits of her house and garden; but as they grew older, and so fast! ambition began to stir in her heart. It was the great trial of her life that with all her economy, they could not find it prudent to send the two oldest boys to Harvard, but must content themselves with Williams College. She bore it well; but when Margaret bloomed into loveliness that struck the eyes of others than her partial parents, she felt here she must make an effort. Margaret should go down to Boston to see and be seen in her own old set, or what remained of it. Mrs. Parke was an orphan, with no very near relations, but her connections were excellent, and her own first cousin, Mrs. Robert Manton, might have been a most valuable one had things been a little different. Unfortunately, Mrs. Manton, being early left a widow, with a neat little property and no children, and having to find some occupation for herself, had chosen the profession of an invalid, which she pursued with exclusive devotion. She had long ceased to follow the active side of it--that of endeavouring to do anything to regain her health; having exhausted the resources of every physician of reputation in the New England and Middle States, among them Dr. Parke, who, like the others, did not understand her case, and indeed had never been able to see that she had any. She had now passed into the passive stage, trying only to avoid anything that might do her harm. She never went to Royalston, as there was far too much noise in the house there to suit her, but she felt kindly towards her cousin's family, and when she was able would send them pretty presents at Christmas. More often she would simply order a box of confectionery to be sent them, which they ate up as fast as possible, Dr. Parke being inclined to growl when he saw it about.

Cousin Susan had rather dropped out of society, though the little she did keep up was of a very select order; and Mrs. Parke knew better than to expect her to take any trouble to introduce Margaret into it. The bare idea of having a young girl on her hands to take about would have sent her out of her senses. But she lived in her own very good house on West Cedar Street, and though she had let most of it to a physician, reserving rooms for herself and her maid, surely there was some little nook into which she could squeeze Margaret, if the girl, who had a pretty talent for drawing, could be sent to Boston to take a quarter at the Art School. Mrs. Manton assented, because refusing and excusing were too much trouble. Mrs. Parke had also written to an old school friend, now Mrs. David Underwood; a widow, too, but still better endowed, who had kept up with the world, and went out and entertained freely; the more, because her son, Ralph Underwood, a rising young stockbroker, was a distinguished member of the younger Boston society. Mrs. Underwood had visited the Parkes in her early widowhood, when Ralph was a little boy and Margaret a baby, and had been most hospitably entertained. Of course she would be only too glad to do all she could to show her friend's pretty daughter the world, and show her to it.

Now, if Mrs. Parke had sent Margaret down to Boston a year sooner or a year later, things would doubtless have taken quite another turn, and this history could never have been written. But the year before she was still feeding her family on stews and boiled rice, to lay up the money for Margaret's expenses, and working early and late to get up an outfit for her; which objects she achieved by the autumn of 188-. What baleful conjunction of planets was then occurring to make Mrs. Underwood mutter, as she read the letter, that she wished Mary Pickering had chosen any other time to fasten her girl upon them, while Ralph growled across the breakfast-table under his breath, "At any rate, don't ask her to stay with us," must be left for the future to disclose. Mrs. Underwood eagerly promised anything and everything her son chose to ask, and as he sauntered out of the house leaving his breakfast untouched, and she watched anxiously after him from the window, the important letter dropped unheeded from her hand, and out of her mind.

Margaret came down in due season, bright and expectant. Cousin Susan was rather taken aback at the girl's beauty, partly frightened at the responsibilities it involved, partly relieved by the thought that it would make Mrs. Underwood the more willing to assume them all. Margaret went to the Art School, and got on very well with her drawing. She was much admired by the other girls, who were never weary of sketching her. They were nice girls, though they did not move in the sphere of society in which they seemed to take it for granted that Margaret must achieve a distinguished success; and even though she was modest in her disclaimers, she could not help feeling that she might have what they called "a good time" under Mrs. Underwood's auspices.

Mrs. Underwood for more than a week gave no sign of life; then made a very short, very formal call, apologising for her tardiness by reason of her numerous engagements, and proffering no further civilities; and when Margaret, in a day or two, returned the call, she found Mrs. Underwood "very much engaged." But in another day or two there came a note from her, asking Margaret to a small and early dance at her house, and a card for a set of Germans at Papanti's Hall, of which she was one of the lady patronesses, and which Cousin Susan knew to be the set of the season. In her note she rather curtly stated that she had settled the matter of Margaret's subscription to the latter affairs, and that she would call and take her to the first, which was to come off three days after her own dance. Margaret was pleased, but a little frightened; there was something not very encouraging in the manner of Mrs. Underwood's note; though perhaps it was silly to mind that when the matter was so satisfactory,--only she did hate to go to her first dance alone. She longed even for Cousin Susan's chaperonage, though she knew her longings were vain; Mrs. Manton never went out in the evening under any circumstances, and told Margaret that there was no need of a chaperon at so small an affair at the house of an intimate friend, and that she should have that especially desirable cab and cabman that she honoured with her own custom, whenever she could make up her mind to leave the house. It would, of course, be charged on her bill; after which piece of munificence she washed her hands of the whole affair.

Margaret set out alone. It was a formidable ordeal for her to get herself into the house and up the staircase, and glad was she when she was safely landed in the dressing-room, though there was not a soul there whom she knew. Her dress was a pink silk that had been a part of her mother's trousseau; a good gown, though not at all the shade people were wearing now; but Mrs. Parke had made it over very carefully, and veiled it with white muslin. It had looked very nice to Margaret till it came in contact with the other girls' dresses. She hoped they would not look at it depreciatingly; and they did not,--they never looked at it at all, or at her either. She stood in the midst of the gayly greeting groups, less noticed than if she were a piece of furniture, on which at least a wrap or two might have been thrown. She found it easy enough, however, to get downstairs and into the reception-room in the stream, and up to Mrs. Underwood, who looked worried and anxious, said she was glad to see her, and it was a very cold evening; and then, as the waiting crowd pushed Margaret on, she could hear the hostess tell the next comer that she was glad to see him, and that it was a very warm evening. Margaret was softly but irresistibly urged on toward the door of the larger room where the dancing was to be; but that she had not the courage to enter alone, and coming across a single chair just at the entrance, she sat down in it and sat on for two hours without stirring. The men were bustling about to ask the girls who had already the most engagements; the girls were some of them looking out for possible partners, some on the watch for the men by whom they most wished to be asked to dance; but no one asked Margaret. The music struck up, and still she sat on unheeded.

The loneliness of one in a crowd has often been dwelt upon, as greater than that of the wanderer in the desert; but all pictures of isolation are feeble compared to that of a solitary girl in a ballroom. Margaret's seat was in such a conspicuous position that it seemed as if all the couples who crushed past her in and out of the ballroom must take in the whole fact of her being neglected. There were a few older ladies in the room, but these sat together in another part of it, and talked among themselves without paying any heed to her.

At first she hardly took in the situation in all its significance; but as dance after dance began and ended, she began to feel puzzled and frightened. Did the Underwoods mean to be rude to her, or was this the way people in society always behaved, and ought she to have known it all along? Ought she to feel more indignant with them, or ashamed of herself? If she could only know what the proper sentiment for the occasion might be, it would be some relief to feel miserable in the proper way. Miserable her condition must be, since she was the only girl in it.

At last Mrs. Underwood brought up her son and introduced him. He was a tall, dark, well-grown young fellow, who might have been handsome but for a look of gloomy sulkiness which made his face repulsive. He muttered something indistinguishable and held out his arm, and Margaret, understanding it as an invitation to dance, mechanically rose, and allowed herself to be conducted to the ballroom. She made one or two remarks to which he never replied, and after pushing her once or twice round the room in as perfunctory a manner as if he were moving a table, watching the door over her head, meanwhile, with an attention which made him perpetually lose the step, he suddenly dropped her a little way from her former seat, on which she was glad to take refuge. She thought she must have made a worse figure on the floor than sitting down, and then a terrible fear rushed over her like a cold chill. Was there something very much amiss with her appearance? Had anything very shocking happened to her gown? She looked at it furtively; but just then the bustle of a late arrival diverted her thoughts a little, as a short, plump, black-eyed girl came laughing in, followed by a quiet, middle-aged lady, and a rather bashful-looking young man. Margaret thought her only rather pretty, not knowing that she was Miss Kitty Chester, the beauty of Boston for the past two seasons; however, she did observe that she had the most gorgeous gown, the biggest nosegay, and the highest spirits in the room. She hastened up to Mrs. Underwood, with an effusive greeting, which that lady seemed trying, not quite successfully, to return in kind. Half of the girls in the room, and most of the men, gathered round her in a moment; and a confused rattle of lively small talk arose, of which Margaret could make out nothing. She noticed, however, that the other girls, many of them momentarily deserted, appeared to regard the sensation with something of a disparaging air, and she heard one of them say, that it was a little too bad, even for Kitty Chester. What "it" might be remained a mystery, but there was no doubt that it contributed amazingly to the success of Mrs. Underwood's dance, which went on, Margaret thought, with redoubled zest, for all but herself; nor, indeed, did Ralph Underwood appear enlivened, for she caught a glimpse of him across the room, sulkier than ever. To her surprise, as he looked her way, a sort of satisfaction, it could not be called pleasure, suddenly dawned on his face. Surely she could never be the cause! And then for the first time she perceived that someone was standing behind her; and, as one is apt to do in such a consciousness, she turned sharply and suddenly around, the confusion which came too late to check her movement coloring her face. It was a relief to find that it was a very insignificant person on whom her glance fell, a small, plain man of indefinite age, who looked, as the girls phrase it, "common." He was dressed like the other men, but his clothes had not the set of theirs, and he had the air, if not of actual ill-health, of being in poor condition. In that one glance her eyes met his, which sent back a look, not of recognition, but of response. There was nothing which she could notice as an assumption of familiarity, but if anyone else had seen it they might have thought that she had been speaking to him. Of course, she could do nothing but turn as quickly back; but she was conscious that he still kept his place, and somehow it seemed a kind of protection to have him there. He stood near, but not obtrusively so; a little to one side, in just such a position that she could have spoken to him without moving, and they might have been thought to be looking on together, too much at their ease to talk. When people paired off for supper and nobody came for her, he waited till everyone else had left the room, so that he might have been thought her escort. He then disappeared; but in a moment Margaret was amazed by the entrance of a magnificent colored waiter, who offered her a choice of refreshments with the finest manners of his race. His subordinates rushed upon each other's heels with all the delicacies she wished, and more that she had never heard of, and their chief came again to see that she was properly served. Not a young woman at the ball had so good a supper as Margaret; but that is the portion of the entertainment for which young women care the least.

Just before the crowd surged back from the supper-room, her protector, as she could not help calling him to herself, had slipped back into his old place, so naturally that he might have been there all the time during the supper, whose remains the waiters were now carrying off with as much deference as they had brought it. Margaret wondered how a person who looked, somehow, so out of his sphere, could act as if he were so perfectly in it. Very few people seemed to know him, and though when one or two of the men spoke to him it was with an air of being well acquainted, he seemed rather to discourage their advances, and Margaret was glad, for she dreaded his being drawn away from her neighbourhood. While she was puzzling over the question as to whether he were a poor relation, or Ralph's old tutor, the wished-for, yet dreaded hour of her release sounded,--dreaded, for how to say her good-by and get out of the room. But somehow the unknown was close behind her, and one or two of a party who were going at the same time were speaking to him, so she might have been of, as well as in, the group. Mrs. Underwood looked worried and tired and had hardly a word for her, but seemed to have something to say to her companion of a confidential nature, by which, however, he would not allow himself to be detained, but excused himself in a few murmured words, which seemed to satisfy his hostess, and passed on, still close behind Margaret, to the door, where they came full against Ralph Underwood, who barely returned Margaret's bow, but exclaimed: "What, Al, going? Oh, come now, don't go."

"Al" said something in a low voice, as inexpressive as the rest of him, of which Margaret could only distinguish the words "coming back," and followed her on, waiting till she came down the stairs and out of the house. He did not offer to put her into the carriage, but somehow it was done without any exertion on her part, and as she drove off, she saw him on the steps looking after her.

Margaret had a fine spirit of her own, and could have borne the downfall of her illusions and hopes as well as ninety-nine young women out of a hundred. She could even, when her distresses were well over, have laughed at them herself, and turned over the leaf in hopes of a better. But what was she to write home about it? how satisfy her father, mother, and Winnie, eager for news of her? how bear their disappointment? There lay the sting. "If it were not for them," she thought, "I should not mind so very much." She was strictly truthful both by nature and education, and though she did feel that if ever a few white lies were justifiable, they would be here, she dismissed the notion as foolish, as well as wicked, and lay awake most of the night, trying to diplomatically word a letter which should keep to the facts and still give a cheerful impression. "Mrs. Underwood's dance was very pretty," she said, and she described the decorations and dresses. She had "rather a quiet time" herself, not knowing many people, and did not dance more than "once or twice." Here was a long pause, until she decided that "once or twice" might literally stand for one as well as more. She did not see much of Mrs. Underwood or Ralph, as they were busy receiving, but "some of the men were very kind." Here again conscience pricked her; but to say one man would sound so pointed and particular--it would draw attention and perhaps inquiry which she could but ill sustain; and then luckily the devotion of the black waiters darted into her mind, and she went off peacefully to sleep, her difficulties conquered for the present, and a feeling of gratitude toward the unknown warm at her heart. Of course "a man like that" could only have acted out of pure good-nature, and couldn't have expected that she should dream of its being anything else. She wished she could have thanked him for it.

The lesser trial of having to tell Cousin Susan about it was fortunately averted. Mrs. Manton never left her room the next day, and when Margaret saw her late the day after, the party was an old story, and Margaret could say carelessly that it had been rather slow, and her host not particularly attentive, without exciting too much comment. Cousin Susan said it was a pity, but that it would be better at the next, as she would know a few people to start with. Margaret did not feel so sure of that, and wished she could stay away; but she had no excuse to give without telling more of the truth than she could bring herself to do; and then, she reasoned, things might be different next time. Mrs. Underwood might have more time or inclination to attend to her, when she was not occupied with her other guests; and there were other matrons, some of whom might be good-natured,--perhaps some of the men might notice her at a second view, and ask her to dance; at any rate, she thought, it could not well be worse than the first. She wished she had another gown to wear than that pink silk, which might be unlucky, but the white muslin prepared as an alternative was by no means smart enough. So she put on the gown of Monday, trying to improve it in various little ways, and waited with something that might be called heroism.

Mrs. Underwood called at the appointed hour. She bade Margaret good evening, and asked if she minded taking a front seat, as she was going to take up Mrs. Thorndike Freeman; and that, and Margaret's acquiescence, was about all that passed between them till the carriage stopped, and a faded-looking, though youngish woman, plain, but with an air of some distinction got in, and acknowledged her introduction to Margaret with a few muttered indistinguishable words.

"Dear Katharine, I am so glad!" said Mrs. Underwood; "I thought you would certainly have some girl to take, and I should have to go alone."

"I'm not quite such a fool, thank you," said Mrs. Freeman, in a quick little incisive voice that somehow brought her words out; "I told them I'd be a patroness, if I need have no trouble, and no responsibilities; but you needn't expect to see me with a girl on my hands."

"Oh, but any girl with you would be sure to take."

"You can never tell--unless a girl happens to hit, or her people are willing to entertain handsomely, you can't do much for her. A girl may be pretty enough, and nice enough, and have good connections, too, and she may fall perfectly flat. I had such a horrid time last winter with Nina Turner; I couldn't well refuse them. Well, thank Heaven, she's going _in_ this winter;--going to set up a camera and take to photography."

"I wish more of them would go in," said Mrs. Underwood with a groan. "Here has Bella Manning accepted, if you will believe it. I should think she had had enough of sitting out the German. Well--I shan't trouble myself about her this winter. She ought to go in and be done with it."

"The mistake was in her ever coming out," said Mrs. Freeman, with a laugh at her own wit.

"It is a mistake a good many of them have made this year. Did you ever see a plainer set of debutantes?"

"Never, really; it seems to have given Mabel Tufts courage to hold on another year. I hear she's coming."

"Yes," said Mrs. Underwood scornfully. "It's too absurd. Why, her own nephews are out in society! They go about asking the other fellows, 'Have you met my aunt?' Ned Winship has made a song with those words for a chorus, and the boys all sing it. And yet, Mabel is very pretty still--I wonder no one has married her."

"Mabel Tufts was never the sort of girl men care to marry."

Margaret wondered in her own mind at the sort of girl Mr. Thorndike Freeman had cared to marry. She tried to keep her courage up, but it grew weaker as she followed the other ladies upstairs and took off her wraps and pulled on her gloves as fast as she could, while Mrs. Underwood stood impatiently waiting, and Mrs. Freeman looked Margaret over beginning with her feet and working upward.

"Have you a partner engaged, Miss Parke?" asked Mrs. Underwood suddenly.

"No"--faltered Margaret, unable to add anything to the bare fact.

"I am afraid you won't get one then, there are so many more girls than men."

The "so many more" turned out, in fact, to be two or three, but Margaret had no hope. She felt that whoever got a partner, it would not be she. The dancers paired off, the seats were drawn, the music began, and she found herself sitting by Mrs. Underwood on the back row of raised benches, with a quarter view of that lady's face, as she chatted with Mrs. Thorndike Freeman on the other side. There were only two other girls, as far as Margaret could make out, among the chaperons. Some of the latter were young enough, no doubt, but their dress and careless easy manner marked the difference. A pretty, thin, very fashionable-looking elderly young lady sat near Margaret;--perhaps the luckless Mabel Tufts; but she seemed to know plenty of people, and was perpetually being taken out for turns. She laughed and talked freely, as if defying her position, and Margaret wished she could carry it off so well, little guessing how fiercely the other was envying her for the simplicity that might not know how bad her plight was, and the youth that had still such boundless possibilities in store. Another small, pale girl in a dark silk sat far back, and perhaps had only come to look on,--too barefaced a pretence for Margaret in her terribly obtrusive pink gown. She could not even summon resolution to refuse young Underwood when he asked her for a turn, though she wished she had after he had deposited her in her chair again and stalked off with the air of one who has done his duty.

The griefs of a young woman who has no partner for the German, though perhaps not so lasting as those of one who lacks bread and shelter, are worse while they do last, for there may be no shame in lacking bread, and one can, and generally does, take to begging before starving. As the giraffe is popularly supposed to suffer exceptionally from sore throat, owing to the length of that portion of his frame, so did Margaret, as she sat through one figure, and then through another, feel her torture through every nerve of her five feet, eight inches. What would she not have given to be smaller, perhaps even plainer,--somehow less conspicuous. Man after man strolled past her, and lounged in front of her, chatting and laughing with Mrs. Thorndike Freeman; but it was not possible they could help seeing her, however they might ignore her.

"_Le jour sera dur, mais il se passera._"

Margaret could have looked forward to all this being over at last, and to night and darkness, and bed for relief; but--here rose again the spectre--what could she write home about it? She could not devise another evasive letter; she must tell the whole truth, and had better have done so at first--for of course she should never, never come to one of these things again. The hands of the great clock crept slowly on; would they never hurry to midnight before the big ball in her throat swelled to choking, and her quivering, burning, throbbing pulses drove her to do something, she could not tell what, to get away and out of it all?

The second figure was over, and she looked across the great hall, wondering if she could not truthfully plead a headache, and go to the cloak-room. But how was she to get there? and what could she do there alone? She would have died on the spot rather than make any appeal to Mrs. Underwood. No, she must go through with it; and then as she looked again, a great, sudden sense of relief came over her, for she saw in the doorway the slouching figure of her friend of Monday. He did not look at her, and she doubted if he saw her; but it was something to have him in the room. In a moment more, however, she saw him speak to Ralph Underwood; and then the latter came up to her and asked if he might present a friend of his, and at her acquiescence, moved away and came up again with "Miss Parke, let me introduce Mr. Smith."

"I am very sorry to say I don't dance," Mr. Smith began, "but I hear that there are more ladies than men to-night; so perhaps if you have not a partner already, you won't mind doing me the favour of sitting it out with me."

Margaret hardly knew what he meant, but she would have accepted, had he asked her to dance a _pas de deux_ with him in the middle of the hall. She took his arm and they walked far down to a place at the very end of the line of chairs; but it did not matter; it was in the crowd.

Mr. Smith did not say much at first; he hung her opera cloak over the back of her chair carefully, so that she could draw it up if she needed it, and somehow the way he did so made her feel quite at home with him, and as if she had known him for a long time; even though she perceived, now that she had the opportunity to look more closely at him, that he was by no means so old as she had at first taken him to be. His hair was thin, and there were one or two deeply-marked lines on his face, but there was something about his figure and motions that gave an impression of youthfulness. Without knowing his age, you would have said that he looked old for it. He was rather undersized than small, having none of the trim compactness that we associate with the latter word, and his face had the dull, thick, sodden skin that indicates unhealthy influences in childhood.

"That was a pleasant party at Mrs. Underwood's the other evening," he began at last.

"Was it?" said Margaret, "I never was at a party before--I mean a party like that."

"And I have been to very few; parties are not much in my line, and when I do go I am generally satisfied with looking on; but I like that very well, sometimes."

"Perhaps," said Margaret ingenuously, "if I had gone only to look on, I should have thought it pleasant too; but I did not suppose one went to a party for that."

"You do not know many people in Boston?"

"Oh, no! I live in the country--at Royalston. I don't know anyone here but Mrs. Underwood; but I thought--mamma said, that she would probably introduce me to some of her friends; but she didn't--not to one. Don't people do so now?"

"Well, it depends on circumstances. I certainly think she might have; but then she has so much to think about, you know."

"I suppose I was foolish to expect anything different, but I had read about parties, and I thought--I was very silly--but I thought I didn't look so very badly. I thought I should dance a little--that everybody did. Perhaps my gown doesn't look right. Mamma made it, and took a great deal of pains with it. Of course, it isn't so new or nice as the others here, but I can't see that it looks so very different; do you?"

"It looks very nice to me," said Mr. Smith, smiling. He had a pleasant, rather melancholy smile, which gave his face the sole physical attraction it possessed, and would have given it more, if he had had better teeth. "It looks very nice to me, and as you are my partner, I am the one you should wish most to please."

"Oh, thank you! it was so kind in you to ask me. I can tell them when I write home that I had a partner at any rate; and you can tell me who some of the others are."

"I am afraid not many," said Mr. Smith, "I go out but very little. I only went to the Underwoods because Ralph is an old friend of mine, and I came here because--" He checked himself suddenly.

"I am sorry, since he is your friend, but I must say that I do think him very disagreeable. I did not know a man could be so unpleasant. I had rather he had not danced with me at all than to do it in that terribly dreary way, as if he were doing it because he had to."

"You mustn't be hard on poor Ralph. He's a very good fellow, really, but he's almost beside himself just now. The very day of their dance, Kitty Chester's engagement came out. She had been keeping him hanging on for more than a year, and at one time he really thought she was going to have him; and not only that, but she and Frank Thomas actually came to his party, and they are here to-night. Ralph acts as if he had lost his senses, and his mother is almost wild about him. Why, after their dance, I was up all the rest of the night with him. He can't make any fight about it, and I think it would be better if he were to go away; but he won't--he just hangs about wherever she is to be seen. We all do all we can to get him to pluck up some spirit, but it's no go--yet."

"I am very sorry for him," said Margaret, with all a girl's interest in a love story; and she cast an awe-struck glance toward the spot where Miss Chester was keeping half a dozen young men in conversation; "but he need not make everyone else so uncomfortable on account of it--need he?"

"He needn't make himself so uncomfortable, you might say, for a girl who could treat him in that way; but it doesn't do to tell a man that. It doesn't seem to me that I should give up everything in the way he is doing; but then I was never in his place; of course, things are different for Ralph and me."

"Yes, I am sure, you are different. I don't believe you would ever have behaved so ill to one girl in your own mother's house, because another hadn't treated you well."

"I have had such a different experience of life; that was what I meant. It made me sympathise with you when you felt a little strange; though of course, it was only a mere accident that things happened so with you. Now, I was never brought up in society, and always feel a little out of place in it."

"I don't know much about society either; we live very quietly at home, and when we do go out, why it is at home, you know, and that makes it different."

"I suppose you live in a pretty place when you are at home?"

"Oh, Royalston is lovely!" said Margaret, eagerly; "there are beautiful walks and drives all round it, and the streets have wide grass borders, and great elms arching over them, and every house has a garden, and our garden is one of the prettiest there. The place was an old one when father bought it, and the flower-beds have great thick box edges and they are so full of flowers; and there is a long walk up to the front door, between lilac bushes as big as trees, some purple and some white; and inside it is so pleasant, with rooms built on here and there, all in and out, and stairs up and down between them. Of course we are not rich at all, and things are very plain, but mamma has so much taste; and then there are all the old doors and windows, and the big fireplaces with carved mantel-pieces, and so much old panelling and queer little cupboards in the rooms--mamma says it is the kind of house that furnishes itself."

"I see--it is a good thing to have such a home to care about. Now I was born in the ugliest village you can conceive of in the southern part of Illinois; dust all summer, and mud all winter, and in one of the ugliest houses in it; and yet, do you know, I am fond of the place; it was home. We were very poor then--poorer than you can possibly conceive of--and I was very sickly when I was a boy, and had to stay in most of the time. I was fond of reading, though I hadn't many books, but I never saw any society--what you would call society. When I was old enough to go to college, father had got along a little, and sent me to Harvard. I liked it there, and some of the fellows were very kind to me, especially Ralph Underwood, though you might not think it. I tried to learn what I could of their ways and customs, but it was rather late for me, and I never cared to go out much; and then--there were other reasons." A faint flush rose on his sallow face and he paused. Margaret fancied he alluded to his poverty, and felt sorry for him. She hoped he was getting on in the world, though he did not look very well fitted for it. By this time they were on a footing of easy comradeship, such as two people of the same sex and on the same plane of thought sometimes fall into at their first meeting. It is not often that a young man and a girl of such different antecedents slide so easily into it; but as Margaret said to herself, this was a peculiar case. He had told his little story with an apparent effort to be strictly truthful and put things in their proper position at the outset. There could be no intentions on his part, or foolish consciousness or any reason for it on hers, and she asked him with undisguised interest:

"Where do you live now,--in Illinois?"