“Yes, I do mean to say just that, and could say more. Only think, Ellen Post, of taking that girl’s leavings, a creature with hair like ink, and eyes hid away under her lashes like a brook sleeping under rushes. Then the impudence of her air, walking like an empress, and she a shawl-fitter, a—a—Oh, I would give five thousand dollars this very hour to see her so disgraced, that he would be ashamed to own that he had ever spoken to her. I hate her very name!”
“What is her name?” inquired Ellen Post.
“Laurence. Eva Laurence. Such a name for a shop-girl!”
“Eva Laurence. I have heard that before. The madam kept saying it over in her sleep the night she came home from Mrs. Carter’s party. She does not like the girl more than you do, I am certain, though I never heard her speak the name except in sleep; then it left her lips white as if henbane had touched them.”
“I should not wonder,” exclaimed Miss Spicer, struck by a sudden idea. “Didn’t you tell me that Mr. Ross, the great artist, called here once or twice?”
“Once; I remember only once; but she received him in her private room—a thing I do not remember of any other man—and told me to say that she was not at home to a human being. He stayed ever so long—three hours, I should think.”
“That is strange,” said the young lady. “She must have known him before.”
CHAPTER XLVIII.
FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS.
“Miss Spicer, if you’ll promise never to mention it, I’ll tell you something,” said the maid, after a little consideration.
“Well, I promise!”