Mrs. Carter seated herself as she spoke, and turned her full-blown, smiling face on Ruth, who answered her appeal with a look of gentle welcome; while her mother stood by, evidently waiting to learn why her humble home had been so grandly invaded.
Mrs. Carter observed this, and waved her hand benignly.
“Sit down! sit down, Mrs. Laurence; have no hesitation about it. I have been a poor woman myself; so, never mind the apron, but sit down. My call is for you as well as the young people!”
Mrs. Laurence took a seat near the door, and muttered something about being “a hard-working woman,” which Mrs. Carter took up at once.
“‘Hard-working!’ Don’t mention it, my dear madam! Your little housework here is nothing to what I have thrown upon me. What with receptions, shopping, promiscuous calls, regulating servants, the torment of dress-makers, and entertaining Carter’s friends, I am just worn out. Sometimes I think the happiest time of a woman’s life is when she lives in two rooms, and carries her baby about on one arm, while she does her work with the other!”
“Still,” said Ruth, with a quiet smile, “we seldom find ladies willing to give up prosperity and go back to that life.”
“Well, n—no!” answered Mrs. Carter, glancing through the window at her two servants perched high upon the carriage, and softly pluming herself under the thought of all they represented, “one can’t quite expect that. When a dog gets his day he likes to keep it, of course. Besides, it’s awful hard to come down.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Laurence, in her dull, low tone, “it is hard.”
“But this young lady is not all your family? My brother spoke of another.”
“That is Eva,” said Ruth, with animation. “She is busy in the day-time.”