THORNS AND ROSES.
"What are you going to wear to-night, Nora?" asked Mrs. Blanchard, as the two still lingered in company over the breakfast-table, which the busy doctor had, as usual, quitted before them. This was always the most important question in Mrs. Blanchard's mind, when they were going to any entertainment.
"I suppose my black velvet will do, won't it?" said Nora, looking up from the newspaper in which she was, at the moment, reading a paragraph describing the miseries of poor sewing-women, and the pittance for which they are often compelled to give their long hours of toil.
"Well, I suppose so," said her sister-in-law, discontentedly, "though that black velvet certainly does seem too old for you. Why not wear that pretty écru and black lace costume?"
"But then," objected Nora, "I wore it at Mrs. Farrell's musical-party, and I don't want to wear it quite so soon again. Besides, this won't be a very big party."
"Not big, certainly, but awfully swell. Mrs. Pomeroy's dinner-parties always are. Just wait till you see! However, your black velvet does look quite elegant, and that old lace of Aunt Margaret's and her pearl cross look just lovely with it! They suit you, somehow; so perhaps you couldn't do better. But I wish you would get a new dress; crushed-strawberry satin would be so becoming, and you'll want it, for you will be going out a good deal this winter."
"No," said Nora, "I couldn't think of getting anything more now; I have all I really need, and it seems horrible to think of getting more than one needs, when some people have to live like this!" and she read aloud the paragraph that had caught her eye.
"Oh, dear!" said Mrs. Blanchard, "I wish you weren't always seeing such things. There always was and there always will be misery in the world, but what good does it do any one to make yourself miserable about it? And if you get a new dress made, doesn't that help somebody?"
Nora was always perplexed when other people's notions of political economy were arrayed on the side of selfish expenditure. Was the world built up on selfishness after all? If so, where was the place of self-sacrifice? But it did not seem as if it "helped people" very much "to wear out their lives" in return for the barest subsistence.
That afternoon, she took little Cecilia on a second visit to her mother. It was very cold, and the snow lay white on the hard, frozen streets; but Nora, well wrapped in her furs, felt the cold, keen air as exhilarating as a tonic, as they walked briskly on to the hospital, the child also wrapped warmly in the mufflings that Nora's care had provided. She had begun to be a little more communicative, but was evidently a fitful, uncertain child; in general reserved and quiet, though subject to fits of extreme excitability, in which it seemed as if nothing but music could soothe her. Both Dr. Blanchard and Nora had been studying her with much interest, the doctor declaring that under-feeding and a life of unnatural confinement and solitude must be responsible for many of her peculiarities. At the hospital, Miss Blanchard found Mrs. Travers getting on favorably. She showed more pleasure at seeing her child than on the previous occasion, and, in reply to Nora's inquiries, expressed herself as very comfortable there. "It would be strange if I were not," she added, "every one is so kind, Miss Spencer especially. She couldn't be kinder, if I were her sister."
And again Miss Blanchard was struck with her unusual refinement of tone and manner as well as of language. But she seemed rather shy and ill at ease, Nora thought, and she was about to turn aside to look up at Miss Spencer, when a gentle knock sounded, and Lizzie Mason entered. The invalid was evidently genuinely glad to see her, and held her hand, as if she could not let it go. Nora, as she watched them for a few moments, was pained to see that Lizzie looked as if she had been crying, and seemed particularly sad and depressed.
"I did not think of seeing you here," said Nora; "I thought you were engaged at this hour."
"It's Saturday, you know, miss. There's always a sort of a half-holiday on Saturday."
"Well, you look as if you needed a little fresh air," replied Nora, gently. "I'm afraid you have had some trouble."
Her kind voice and gentle words seemed too much for poor Lizzie. She bent down her head, as she sat by the bed, holding the invalid's hand, and sobbed quietly.
By degrees, Nora drew from her the cause of her grief. "Jim" had been going on badly, had been off on another "tear," incited thereto by jealousy of Nelly's flightiness, and of her mysterious admirer. He had been "run in" for drinking and disorderly conduct, and Lizzie had had to take most of the money she had been saving up for warm winter clothing, in order to pay his fine.
"Oh, Lizzie, why did you do that?" asked Miss Blanchard.
"Indeed, miss, how could I let Jim go to jail, and have mother fretting to break her heart? I'd rather starve!"
And Nora knew, in her heart, that the girl could not have done otherwise.
But that was not all. The manager had threatened to dismiss "Jim" unless he should behave better, and meantime had put him at lower work for lower wages.
"Perhaps I might ask young Mr. Pomeroy to speak a good word for him," Nora said. "I know him very well."
"Oh, no, miss, don't!" cried Lizzie, nervously; "it wouldn't do no good! The manager does as he thinks best, and they never interfere with him. Why, he cut down nearly all the girls' wages lately, and they knew they durstn't say a word! He'd discharge the first one that did! An' all that makes it so much harder now to get on."
Nora did all she could to console the poor girl, talked of "trust" and "patience," till the words, coming from one in her position, to one in Lizzie's, seemed almost to die on her tongue, and she wondered they were not thrown back in her face.
But Lizzie had learned her lesson of "patience" better, and when Mrs. Travers said, rather bitterly, "Ah, yes, it's a poor world for us poor women," Lizzie only said, wiping away her tears:
"Oh, well, we must make the best of it! Tain't no good frettin'!"
Nora offered, rather hesitatingly, to go to see Lizzie next afternoon, if she liked, and the offer was gratefully accepted.
"And maybe you could say a good word to Jim; he'll be at home then, and though I never can get Jim to go to church, I guess he would listen to you!—and p'raps Nelly might be there, too. I do wish you could get to know Nelly! She'd mind what you would say, a sight better than anything I can tell her."
Nora walked silently homeward, with a new sorrowful image before her. As she dressed for the dinner-party, the pale tear-stained face seemed still before her, and she was calculating how much it would cost to buy a good warm winter jacket for the half-clad girl.
Little Cecilia had begged to be allowed to help her to dress, and eagerly did all she was permitted to do, admiring with silent intentness the rich soft folds of the velvet that showed to such advantage the straight, graceful, rounded figure, and the white neck and arms that gleamed out of the fine old lace; and, what seemed to the child the most beautiful of all, the cross of pure, translucent pearls which so fitly adorned the white throat above the square-cut corsage. This old pearl cross, Aunt Margaret's parting gift, and a prized relic of her long-past girlhood, was Nora's favorite ornament. Its form was symbolical of a thousand tender, sacred associations, and the purity of the pearls seemed emblematic of a higher purity, divine and human. She liked to wear it as a reminder to herself of many things that she desired never to forget, even in the gladdest and most festive moment. And to-night it seemed connected in her thoughts with Lizzie's pale pathetic face, and her life of perpetual self-sacrifice.
"Well, you look very nice!" said Mrs. Blanchard, approvingly, as she came in to make an inspection—"only you're pale—you want some roses."
And as she spoke, she produced a lovely cluster of pink and blush roses, which she fastened on the creamy lace of Nora's corsage; while deftly twisting an opening bud among her silky coils of hair, to Cecilia's manifest delight.
"There," she said, "that lights it up a good deal!" and she walked back, casting critical glances at the general effect. "The severe style does suit you—that can't be denied!" she added.
"Oh, what lovely roses!" exclaimed Nora, bending her graceful head, to inhale their delicate fragrance. "It was so good of you to get them for me!"
"Well, I didn't get them, to tell the truth! I meant to get some, though; but this morning I got a little box from Mr. Chillingworth, with a note, begging that you and I would oblige him by wearing the contents. See, here are mine," pointing to a cluster of tea-roses on her own blue satin. "So you see I kept them for a surprise, sort of coup de grâce; now, I think that was quite a clever idea."
"But ought I really to wear them?" asked Nora, doubtfully. The "roses" had come to her face, now, as well as her dress, giving just the one touch which her sister-in-law had thought she lacked.
"Why, of course you can," replied Mrs. Blanchard, quickly. "Just as well as I can wear mine! It was so nice of the dear man to think of us both!"
"It was very kind, and there's nothing I like so well as roses," said Nora, again breathing in their fragrance; "and these made me think so much of summer and Rockland."
But it is doubtful whether it would have given her so much pleasure to wear them, in her present mood, had she known just what they cost!