Chapter XIII: In America (5)

What Kitty said to him when she heard of it made him doubt a little the propriety of going to a house where his wife’s existence had never yet been recognized by so much as an inquiry, and to which she would not in all human probability be invited; and when next day Lottie drove down to the office to consult with him about some new idea, he mustered courage to tell her that he wished she would find some one to take his place as now that his wife had returned he did not like being away from her evenings, as he necessarily must be if he perfected himself in the difficult passages assigned to him. Womanlike, Lottie understood him at once, and knew that some bold move on her part was requisite if she would not lose him. And she could not do that now. He was too necessary to the success of her musicale, and with a mental anathema against the offending Kitty, she exclaimed:

“Oh, Mr. Craig, you know I cannot do without you and will not. Tell your wife so, please. When did she return, and how is little Freddie Steele? By the way, I do not believe I have sent her invitation yet, have I? She was gone, you know. Suppose I write her a little note now; that will be more friendly than a card,” and snatching up a pen Lottie dashed off a half-formal, half-familiar note to Kitty, inviting her to the musicale and apologizing for not having sent the invitation earlier.

“That will settle it,” she thought, while John, who saw only the flashing eyes and beaming face, began to descend from his stilts, and in his delight at having an autograph letter for Kitty from this high-born lady, forgot that in all the two years and a half of his married life this was the first time his wife had ever been alluded to.

But Kitty did not forget, nor seem as much elated with Lottie’s autograph note as John thought she ought to be.

“She was much obliged to Mrs. Steele,” she said, “for the invitation, but she could not for a moment think of accepting it. She should feel out of place among so many strangers.”

And to this decision she firmly adhered, insisting, however, that her husband should go on with his practice, and not disappoint Mrs. Lottie. But to this John objected. There was something amiss somewhere, and his better way was to remain at home with Kitty, and so the next morning he wrote Mrs. Lottie a note, saying positively that he could not take the parts assigned to him, and mentioning as a substitute Will Archer, whose voice was quite as good as his own, and who read music even better than himself.

“Will Archer! That clown in my parlors! Never!” was Lottie’s indignant exclamation, as she threw the note aside. “Cannot spend the time! Why wasn’t he frank enough to say that obstinate wife of his would not let him? It all comes of those thoughtless words she heard me say at the sewing society. She has never been there since, and I really was sorry for it.”

“But she don’t know that,” Conscience whispered; and then Lottie began to wonder what she could do to secure John’s services.

She could not do without him, and to get him she was willing even to ask his wife’s pardon, if necessary, and at all events she would call the next day and apologize, for John’s voice she must and would have at any cost.

* * * * *

Kitty’s morning work was done. The little parlor, which did duty as sitting-room and nursery too, was nicely swept and dusted, and everything was in its place. A bright fire was blazing in the grate. Freddie was asleep in his crib, the gift of Amasa Steele, who had mostly supplied the wants of his god-child since the day he stood with him at the font, and Kitty, in her neat delaine wrapper, with faultlessly clean collar and cuffs, was just sitting down to the pile of work which lay beside her “Wilcox & Gibbs,” John’s Christmas gift to her. She was never troubled with morning calls; for, though she had some few acquaintances in the city by this time, they were not of the fashionable kind to whom one hour is as free as another, and she had no thought of the honor in store for her, and which was even then at her very door, in the shape of a handsome little coupé, satin lined, and bearing the stamp of the very latest style in all its appurtenances, from the silver-tipped harness to the driver in his livery, and the footman, whose coat came nearly to the ground as he obsequiously held the door for his mistress to alight.

“It _is_ a nutshell of a house,” was Lottie’s mental comment, as she went up the steps and rang the bell. “Poor John, with his refined instincts, he ought to have done better;” and, so low down in Lottie’s heart that it was hardly a wrong to Amasa Steele, there was the shadow of a regret that she had not thought twice before deciding not to encourage her father’s confidential clerk.

But it was too late now. She was Mrs. Amasa Steele, and had come to call on John’s wife, who, greatly to her amazement, opened the door herself! Kitty had heard the ring, and not seeing the stylish turnout in front, and knowing that in all human probability Susan’s hands were in the bread, she went to the door, expecting to meet either a book agent or somebody inquiring if Dr. Jones lived there, he being her next neighbor, as she and John both had learned from sundry calls at all hours of the day and night. She was prepared for the agent and the patient of Dr. Jones, but not for the “grand dame” clad in velvet and Russian sable, whose big black eyes looked their surprise, but who nevertheless smiled sweetly, and asked in the blandest of tones if this were Mrs. Craig.

Lottie’s first impulse had been to suppose the lady a servant, and ask for her mistress, but she had come for an object, and it suited her to be very amiable and even familiar.

“So kind in you to let me in yourself,” she said, as she followed Kitty into the little parlor, and then apologized for not having called before.

She did not say out and out that she had intended calling, for she would not tell an absolute lie, but her manner implied as much, and she talked so fast and made herself so agreeable, that Kitty began to be drawn toward her in spite of herself, and when she praised the new Wilcox & Gibbs sewing machine, and pronounced it “the dearest plaything in the world,” and then, pouncing upon little Freddie, called him a darling, and complimented his eyes and his hair, the conquest was more than half completed. But when Lottie ventured at last to introduce the musicale, and to say how sorry she was that Mrs. Craig had declined coming, and how very badly she felt to lose Mr. Craig’s services, there was a peculiar look in Kitty’s eyes which did not bode success to Mrs. Lottie’s project. Still she was not disheartened. Her heaviest forces were still in reserve. The day was so fine and the air so bracing, would not Mrs. Craig like a drive in the Park? It would do her good, and the baby, too. Dear little fellow, he looked pale, though possibly that was his natural complexion.

Freddie had not been well for a day or two, and Kitty had wished that very morning that she was rich and could afford a drive, and now that it was so gracefully offered to her, she hesitated at first, and then finally accepted, and almost before she had time to think she was seated on the satin cushions by Mrs. Lottie’s side, and was rolling over the level roads of the beautiful Central Park. Lottie insisted upon holding Freddie herself, and was so generally charming that Kitty was sorry when the carriage stopped at last at her own door.

Up to that moment not a word had been said of the musicale, but Lottie bided her time, and just as Kitty was getting out she laughingly said:

“You do not invite me, but I mean to go in and see if I cannot coax you to reconsider your decision with regard to the musicale after all, and persuade your husband to sing. You don’t know how much I am in earnest.”

She followed Kitty into the house, and while her own fingers helped to disrobe little Freddie, she went on:

“If you do not come I shall think you have never forgiven those thoughtless words I said in your hearing the first time I ever saw you. You remember them, I am sure, but you do not know how sorry I was, especially when I learned who you were. It was wrong under any circumstances, but we had been so annoyed with commonplace people coming just to be noticed, and besides that I’d had a little ‘tiff’ that morning with Amasa about calling on the dowdiest woman you ever saw, and I was not in the best of moods. You will forgive me, won’t you, and be friends? Ah, that must be your lunch bell. I’d no idea it was so late.”

“Stay to lunch, won’t you?” Kitty faltered, devoutly hoping her visitor would decline; but she did not.

She was nearly famished, she said, and accepted the invitation graciously, and followed on to the dining-room, where the lunch-table was very neatly spread, for Kitty was particular about everything pertaining to her table, which was arranged with as much care for herself and Freddie as it was when she had company to dinner. And Susan waited nicely and suggested that she bring the fresh apple pie she had made that morning, and which looked so tempting, with its white, flaky crust, that Mrs. Lottie took a large piece, and ate a ginger-snap which Susan also brought.

Apple pie and ginger-snaps were evidently favorites in that house, and Lottie praised them both, and asked how they were made, and said her husband had told her about them. She was outdoing herself, and when at last she said good-by and went out to her cross coachman, who had driven up and down, up and down, and actually sworn about her to the footman, she had Kitty’s promise that John should sing, and that possibly she herself would attend the musicale, while to crown all there was in her pocket a receipt for ginger-snaps, which Susan had given her at the last moment, when she stood in the hall telling Kitty, “It would not be a dress affair—that anything she had would answer.”

Lottie was in a very pleasant frame of mind when she reached home that day. She had accomplished her object, as she felt that she deserved to do, for had she not called on Kitty Craig and apologized for her rudeness, and taken her to drive, and lunched with her in that “under-ground” dining-room, not much longer than her butler’s pantry, and lunched, too, on apple pie and ginger-snaps, food which heretofore she had thought only fit for those made of coarser clay than herself, and was there not in her pocket a receipt for those same snaps, which poor, deluded Susan, who had taken a great fancy to the grand lady, thought maybe her cook might like, as Mr. Steele was so fond of them! Celine and ginger-snaps! and Lottie laughed merrily as she took out the receipt and began to read, “One cup of molasses; half-a-cup of butter; and half-a-cup of lard——”

“Lard! Horrors, I can never insult her dignity with that. Amasa must go elsewhere for his snaps,” and turning to the grate the little bit of paper was soon blackening upon the coals, and Amasa’s chance for snaps at home was lost.

* * * * *

Kitty had said that John should sing, and she did not find it at all hard to keep her word. He was fond of music, and only too glad of an opportunity to serve Mrs. Lottie, who had been and who continued to be so very kind to Kitty. Lottie never did anything by halves, and now she had taken up the Craigs she meant to keep them up till after the musicale at least, and she frequently sent to Kitty flowers and fruit, and even her carriage for the dear little boy to take the air, and Kitty, though she in a measure understood it all, wisely concluded to accept the good the gods provided, and submitted patiently to John’s absence three nights in a week, and when he was home, played the music for him, accompanying him with her voice until she was almost as familiar with it as he was himself, and, as he declared, played better than the Misses Barrows, who did not always keep perfect time or give the best expression.

Kitty was going to the musicale, too, and she began to look forward to it with a great deal of pleasure, although she dreaded it somewhat, inasmuch as “she had nothing to wear.” All those pretty silks made at the time of her marriage were out of style. The sleeves were too large, the waists too small, and “they had not a bit of a stuck-up behind,” Susan said, when she tried them on one after another to see if they would do. Only one was at all “_au fait_” in that respect, and that a plain black silk, which, having been made over the summer previous, was nearly enough “_bouffant_” in appearance to suit the fastidious Susan.

“Some do take a newspaper,” she said, as she tried to make the overskirt stand out as far as Mrs. Steele’s had done. “Some do take a newspaper and tie on, and if you was to do that you’d bunch out beautiful.”

But Kitty declined the newspaper, and when the night of the musicale came she looked very pretty and modest in her black silk, with her coral and real lace, and John kissed her proudly and told her she was sure “to pass muster.” They were among the first arrivals, and they found the house ablaze with light and full of flowers, while Lottie herself was splendid in silk, and lace, and jewels, and in a high state of excitement. The last rehearsal had been very satisfactory and she had reason to expect a great success. But where were the Misses Barrows, her pianist and soprano? They had promised to be early, and it lacked but half an hour of the time appointed for the first piece, and they had not yet appeared.

“Dressing, probably, as if anybody will care what they wear,” she said to Kitty, thus showing the estimate in which she held them outside the services she desired.

There was a sharp ring at the door and a servant brought a note to Lottie, who, feeling intuitively that it in some way concerned her greatly, tore it open at once, her face flushing and then turning pale as she read that the Misses Barrows had just received news that their mother was dying, and they must start for home that night if they would see her alive. It was a bitter disappointment, and Lottie felt as if that poor woman dying in that little village in Ohio had somehow injured her. But there was no help for it now. The Barrowses were out of the question, and in her utter helplessness and distress, she turned to John to know what they should do.

“It is a failure, of course,” she said, and the great tears stood in her fine eyes.

John hesitated a moment and glanced toward his wife, and then to her utter dismay replied:

“Not necessarily an entire failure, perhaps. I think it just possible that Mrs. Craig can play the accompaniments and, possibly, sing as well.”

“Oh, John,” Kitty gasped, while Lottie’s black eyes flashed a curiously doubtful glance at her and Lottie’s voice said:

“_She—your wife_,” as if even to her the idea was preposterous.

“Yes, my wife,” John answered, proudly. “She has a fine voice and was accounted a good musician at home.”

“And will she—will you try?” Lottie asked, willing, now that her first feeling of surprise was over, to grasp at a straw. “Dear Mrs. Craig, will you try? It is a positive failure if you do not. I might ask that horrid Mrs. Banks, but her voice is like a peacock’s. Do. Mrs. Craig, and I will love you forever.”

She had her arm around Kitty’s waist and was drawing her toward the piano where in a moment poor, bewildered Kitty found herself seated with piles of music before her and a crowd of strange people staring at her and asking each other who that little nun-like woman was, and where the Misses Barrows were. Very softly Kitty played over a few of the more difficult places, and Lottie, who was a judge of fine playing, began to feel confidence in her new performer, and whispered encouragingly:

“You are doing splendidly,” while to herself she groaned: “Oh, if I only knew what her voice was.”

She did know ere long, and as Kitty’s clear, birdlike tones began to fill the room, growing sweeter, and clearer and stronger as Kitty became more confident of herself, she could have hugged the little woman in her joy, and did kiss her when the musicale was over and pronounced a perfect success.

“You are a darling, a second Nilsson. I shall never forget this, never,” she said, while many of her friends crowded around Kitty, asking for an introduction and thanking her for the treat she had given them. “And to think she never tried the music before! It is wonderful,” Lottie kept saying while others, too, expressed their surprise that she could play such difficult music at sight.

For a few moments Kitty sat irresolute; then her love of truth prevailed over every other feeling, and crossing to where John stood, she put her hand on his arm and said: “Please let me speak a word to you all.”

In an instant there was a hush throughout the room, and every eye was fixed upon the brave little woman who would not even act a lie, and whose voice was very clear and distinct, as she said: “It would be wrong for me to leave an impression on your minds that I never tried that music before. I have played it many times at home for my husband, and sang it with him when he was practicing. I cannot play at sight like that. I am not a very fine musician.”

“But you are a good, conscientious, little darling!” was Lottie’s impulsive exclamation, while a murmur of admiration for this unexpected frankness ran through the room. “I could never have done that, I know I could not. I should just let them think it was my first effort, but somehow I love you better for it,” Lottie whispered to Kitty, when for a moment they stood together alone, and as she said it, the fashionable woman of the world felt that she had learned a lesson of good from plain, simple-hearted Kitty, who found herself the belle of the evening, and received so much attention that when at last she was put into Lottie’s carriage and sent home, with Lottie’s kiss warm on her lips, and Lottie’s assurance that she should see a great deal of her now that she knew her, she felt herself to be in a bewildered, dazed kind of state, sure of nothing except that the door of society, so long locked and barred against her, was open now, and that if she chose, she could enter the charmed circle she had once thought so desirable.

“Guess what I’ve brought you, little woman? An invitation to dine with Mrs. Steele! What think you of that?” John said to Kitty one night, about a week after the drawing-room musicale. “The Guiles and Orrs are to be there, too. Quite an affair! You don’t suppose there would be time for you to get a new dress made, do you?”

John was a good deal excited, and, if the truth was told, a little proud of being invited to a company dinner with the old and haughty members of the firm.

“Just our own people, you know—papa’s family and the Orrs,” Lottie had said to him, and John felt that he was recognized as one of “our own people,” and was flattered accordingly, and said he knew no reason why he should not accept; and thought to himself that Kitty should have a new dress, made with puffs, and ruffles, and bows, and which should stand out like Lottie Steele’s, and have a New York look.

Of the cost of such a dress, and the time and trouble to get it up, he knew nothing. He only thought Kitty should have one, and put a fifty dollar bill in his pocket for the emergency, and went home half an hour earlier than usual to tell Kitty of the honor in store for her. And Kitty was pleased, too, and her face flushed a little as she said she guessed the old black silk would have to do duty again, as a new one, such as he had in his mind, was far beyond their means.

“When is it?” she asked, and then John felt again a little twinge he had experienced when Mrs. Lottie named Sunday as the most convenient time for getting “all the family,” as she termed them, together.

“Sunday, at six o’clock,” she had said, adding when she saw the questioning look on John’s face: “You know it is dark now at six, and the Sabbath ends at sundown; besides that, I mean to have some sacred music in the evening, so be prepared, please.”

John would rather the dinner had been on some other day, but what people like the Guiles and Steeles did must be right, and he had not a thought that Kitty would object. But she did—firmly and decidedly.

“God never meant that His day should be remembered by giving dinner parties,” she said. “That was not keeping it holy, and she could not go to Mrs. Steele’s, much as she would like to.” And to this decision she stood firm; and when John met Mr. Steele next day in the office, he told him to say to Mrs. Steele that he regretted it exceedingly, but he must decline her kind invitation to dinner.

“The fact is,” he said, “my wife was brought up in New England, where I guess they are more strict about some things than the people in New York, and she thinks she——”

John hesitated as if fearful that to give Kitty’s reason would sound too much like a reproof, but Mr. Steele understood him and said, “She does not believe in Sunday dinner parties; that is what you mean. Well, well, I’ve seen the day when I did not, but that time seems to me ages and ages ago. Somehow here in New York first we know we get to doing things which once we would not have done for the world, and Sunday visiting is one of them I’ll tell Lottie. She will be terribly disappointed, for she wanted you badly, but I guess your wife is right. I’m sure she is. Remember the Sabbath—I’ve most forgotten how it goes, though I used to say it the best of any of them, when I was a boy at home;” and folding his hands behind him, Amasa Steele walked up and down his office, thinking of the summers years ago, when he sat in the old-fashioned pew in that little church at the foot of the mountain, and saw the sunshine lighting up the cross behind the chancel, and felt upon his cheek the air sweet with the fragrance of the hay cut yesterday in the meadow by the woods, and said his catechism to the white-haired rector, whose home was now in Heaven.

That time seemed long, long ago—ay, was long ago, before he was the city millionaire and husband of the dashing, self-willed Lottie, who, while professing to believe just what Kitty did, practiced a far different creed. All the tithes of anise, and mint and cumin she brought, but she neglected the weightier matters, and her dark eyes flashed angrily for a moment when she heard Kitty’s reason for declining her Sunday dinner.

“As if she were so much better than anybody else,” she said, and she was going on to say more when her husband cut her short with, “I suppose she does not feel like going straight from the altar to a dinner party. Isn’t it communion next Sunday in your church?”

Yes, it was, but Lottie had forgotten that, and her face flushed as her husband thus reminded her of it. The two did not seem to be wholly congruous, and so she staid home the next Sunday, and felt a strange feeling of disquiet, and thought more of Kitty Craig, and how she would look with that expression of peace on her face when she turned away from the altar than she did of the grand dinner which was being prepared in her kitchen, and which, though pronounced a success by those of her guests who cared nothing for the fourth commandment, seemed to her a failure. Nothing suited her; everything was wrong, from the color of the gravy to the flower in her step-mother’s hair, and the fit of Mrs. Orr’s dress; and when all was over, and the company gone, and she was alone with her thoughts and the Bible she tried to read, and, which by some chance she opened at the words. “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy,” she said to herself, “I don’t believe I’ll ever try to have another dinner party on Sunday.”

She went to see Kitty the next day and chided her for her absence, and called her a little Methodist and a Puritan, and asked how she came to be so strait-laced, and ended with: “But I believe you are right after all, only here in the city people do differently, and you will be like us in time.”

“I trust I never may forget that God is in the city as well as in the country,” was Kitty’s reply, which Lottie pondered long in her heart, and which at last bore the fruit which ripens on the everlasting hills of glory.

* * * * *

It is two years since the night of the musicale, and more than one carriage with servants in livery and ladies gayly dressed has stopped at Kitty’s door, and Kitty has the _entree_ to many a fashionable house. But having tasted the once coveted apple and found how unsatisfying it was, she has put it from her and sees but little of the _beau monde_ save such as she sometimes meets at the house of Lottie Steele, who is now her best friend, and whose carriage stands at her door on the night of which we write. There was a message from Mr. Steele to John and Kitty Craig, telling them to come immediately, for Lottie, he feared, was dying.

There were tears in Kitty’s eyes, and a throb of pain in her heart, as she read the note and then prepared for the drive. There was a hushed air about the house as if death had already entered there, and the servant who opened the door spoke in a low whisper, as in reply to Kitty’s questions she said, “Very low, and asking for you. Will you go up now?”

Without waiting to throw aside her wrappings Kitty followed up the stairs, past the room where Lottie’s week-old baby girl was sleeping, and on to the chamber where the young mother lay. There was the pallor of death on her face, and her eyes seemed larger and blacker than ever. But they lighted up suddenly and her white cheek flushed when she saw Kitty come in.

“Oh, Mrs. Craig, I am so glad. I wanted to tell you how much I owe you, and that but for you I could not be as happy lying here right in the face of death—for I am going to die, I know it and feel it—but first I want to see baby baptized, and you and your husband must be her sponsors. Please, Am, tell them to bring her in.”

The child was brought, and the clergyman, who had been waiting for the Craigs, was summoned from the parlor below.

“I would call her Kitty,” Lottie said, as she laid her hand on the silken curls of the little one, “but Am wants her named for me. Poor Am! I didn’t think he’d care so much. I’m sorry I have not done better,” she continued, looking up into the face of her husband, who gave one great choking sob as he whispered “Don’t, Lottie, don’t. You _have_ done well;” then taking the little girl in his arms he held it so low that Lottie’s hand rested as in blessing on its head all through the first of the service, until the clergyman took the little one himself and baptized it “Charlotte Maude.”

Then, when all was over and the clergyman gone, Lottie said, “Hold me, Am; raise me up and let me lay my head on your arm while I talk to Mrs. Craig and tell her how much good she has done me, and how her speaking the truth so frankly that night of the musicale, and her refusing to come to my dinner on Sunday, set me to thinking that she possessed something which I did not; and the more I thought about it, and the more I saw of her consistent life, the more I was convinced that my religion was one of mere form, and that my heart had never been touched. I had been confirmed, it is true, but I did not know what for, except that it was the proper thing to do, and was expected of me. There is too much of that kind of thing done, and young people need more instruction, more personal talks than they get oftentimes, and so the church is harmed. I meant to do right, and I kept all the fasts and holy days, and denied myself many things in Lent, and thought I was a saint to do it, and all the while was just as selfish and proud as I could be, and felt above every body, and was bad to Am——”

“No, Lottie, never bad,” and Mr. Steele pressed the hand he held in his, while Kitty wondered to see this grave, quiet man so tender and loving when she had heretofore thought him cold and indifferent.

“Yes, I was bad,” Lottie said. “I’ve never been the wife I ought to have been, and I’m so sorry now, and when I’m gone I want you to think as kindly of me as you can and bring baby up to be just such a woman as Kitty Craig. Not fashionable, Am, though she might be even that and a good woman, too. There are many such, I know, but do not let her put fashion before God. Don’t let her be what I have been. Mrs. Craig will see to her and tell her of her mother, who was a better woman before she died; for I do believe I am, and that the Saviour is with me, and has forgiven even me. I’d like to live for baby’s sake, and show Am that I could be good, but I am willing to die, and ready, I trust; and maybe if I get well I should be bad again; so it is right, and Heaven knows best. Lay me down now, husband, and let Kitty Craig kiss me good-by, and tell me she forgives the cruel words I said when I first saw her, and my neglect after that.”

She seemed like a little child in her weakness and contrition, and Kitty’s tears fell like rain as she gave the farewell kiss, and said that she had long ago forgotten the insult offered her.

“Now go: I breathe better when there is no one here but Am,” Lottie said. “And when you come again, maybe I shall be gone, but I hope I shall be at peace where there is no more pain or temptation to be bad.”

So John and Kitty went out together, and left her alone with her husband, who drew the covering about her, and, smoothing her tumbled pillow, bade her sleep if she could. And Lottie slept at last, while her husband watched beside her with his eyes fixed upon her white face, and a heavy crushing pain in his heart as he thought of losing her now, just as he had a glimpse of what she might be to him, and as he hoped, just as she was beginning to love him.

He had always loved her in his quiet, awkward way—always been proud of her; and though her frivolities and inconsistencies had roused his temper at times, and made him say harsh things to her and of the religion she professed, he had through all been fond of her and believed in God—that in, believed in the God he had learned about in the New England Sunday-school at the foot of the mountain, and he thought of Him now, and for the first time in years his lips moved with the precious words:

“Our Father.”

That prayer had once been so familiar to him, and as he said it now the past came back again, and he was a boy once more, with all the glow and fervor of youth, and Lottie was to him all she had been when he first called her his wife, only he seemed to love her more; and with a choking sob he cried:

“I can’t let Lottie die. Oh, Father, save her for me, and I’ll be a better man.”

Softly he kissed the white hand he held, and his tears dropped upon it, and then a feeble voice said, in some surprise:

“Am, are you crying, or was it a dream? and did you pray for me, and do you love me sure, and want me to get well?”

“Yes, darling, I do,” and the sobs were loud now, and the strong man’s tears fell fast upon the face turned so wonderingly and joyfully toward him.

“Then I will get well,” Lottie said; “or at least I’ll try. I really thought you would be happier without me. I’ve been such a bother, and it was not worth while to make an effort, but, if you do love me and want me, it’s different, and I feel better already. Kiss me, Am, and if I live we’ll both start new and be good—won’t we?”

Lottie did not die, and when Kitty went to inquire for her next morning she found her better and brighter, with an expression of happiness on her face which she had never seen there before.

“I almost went over the river,” she said; “and felt sure I was dying when Am’s voice called me back. Dear old Am, do you think he actually prayed for me, that I might get well, and I thought once he did not believe in praying. Any way he used sometimes to say that my prayers were all humbug, and I guess they were; some of those long ones I used to make when I came from a dancing party at two in the morning, and he was tired and sleepy, and wanted me to turn off the gas. But he is different now, and says he loves me after all I’ve been. Why, I never gave him a speck of love, or kissed him of my own accord. But I’m going to do better; and I guess God let me live to prove to Am that there is a reality in our church as well as in others. He says he believes in the Methodist—his grandmother was one—and when we were first married he used to want me to play those funny hymns about ‘Traveling Home,’ and ‘Bound for the Land of Canaan,’—and he believes a little in the Presbyterians, and some in the Baptists, but not a bit in the Episcopalians—that is, he didn’t till he knew you, who, he thinks, are most as good as a Methodist; and I am going to try and convince him that I am sincere, and mean to do right and care for something besides fashion and dress. I have baby now to occupy my time, and I am glad, for when the spring bonnets and styles come out, my head might be turned again, for I do dote on lace and French flowers. Do you think I ought to wear a mob cap and a serge dress to mortify myself?”

Kitty did not think so; and when two months later she met, down in one of the miserable alleys in the city where want, and misery, and vice reigned supreme, “a love of a” French chip hat, trimmed with a bunch of exquisite pansies and blonde lace, she did not believe that the kindness paid to the poor old paralytic woman who died with her shriveled hand clasped in Lottie Steele’s, and her lips whispering the prayer Lottie had taught her, was less acceptable to God than it would have been had Lottie’s face and form been disfigured by the garb with which some well-meaning women make perfect frights of themselves.

Lottie’s heart was right at last, and Amasa never muttered now nor swore if he could not find his slippers while she was saying her prayers. On the contrary he said them with her, and tried to be a better man, just as he said he would, and at last one morning in June, when even the heated city seemed to laugh in the glorious summer sunshine, he knelt before the altar and himself received the rite of which he had once thought so lightly.

“We are so happy now,” Lottie said to Kitty one day. “And I am so glad of Maudie, though I did not believe in babies once; and Am is just like a young lover and I’d rather have him than all the men in the world if he was fifty his last birth-day, and I am only twenty-five; and do you know I charge it all to you, who have influenced me for good ever since I first saw you, and made that atrocious speech.”

“Let us rather both ascribe to Heaven every aspiration after a holier, better life which we may have,” was Kitty’s reply, but her heart was very happy that day, as she felt that she might perhaps have been an instrument of good to one household at least, and that to have been so was infinitely of more value and productive of more real happiness than getting into society, which she had once thought so desirable, and which, now that she was or could be in it if she chose, seemed so utterly worthless and unsatisfactory.

THE END.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling. 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.