"All right; take it along, then!" she cried, "and do what you like with it. It's only been up two days, and has not a mark on it."
I fairly flew from the house. I sang, as I made my way uptown to buy several yards of rose-pink paper cambric and a half garland of American-made artificial roses. Then I sped home and, behind locked doors, measured and cut and snipped, and, regardless of possible accident, held about a gill of pins in my mouth while I hummed over my work. All my fears were gone, they had fled before the waving white curtain, which fortunately for me was of fine meshed net, carrying for design unusually small garlands of roses and daisies. And when the great night came, I appeared as one of the ball guests in a pink under-slip, with white lace overdress, whose low waist was garlanded with wild roses. So, happy at heart and light of foot, I danced with the rest, my pink and white gown ballooning about me in the courtesies with as much rustle and glow of color as though it had been silk.
But, alas! the imitation was too good a one! The pretty, cheap little gown I was so happy over attracted the attention of a woman whose whisper meant scandal, whose lifted brow was an innuendo, whose drooped lid was an accusation. Like a carrion bird she fed best upon corruption. Thank Heaven! this cruel creature, hated by the men, feared by the women, was not an actress, but through mistaken kindness she had been made wardrobe woman, where, as Mr. Ellsler once declared, she spent her time in ripping up and destroying the reputation of his actors instead of making and repairing their wardrobes.
That nothing was too small to catch her pale, cold eye is proved by the fact that even a ballet-girl's dress received her attention. Next day, after the play "Fashion" had been done, this woman was saying: "That girl's mother had better be looking after her conduct, I think!"
"Why, what on earth has Clara done?" asked her listener.
"Done!" she cried, "didn't you see her flaunting herself around the stage last night in silks and laces no honest girl could own? Where did the money come from that paid for such finery?"
A few days later a woman who boarded in the house favored by the mischief-maker happened to meet Mrs. Dickson, happily for me, and said, en passant: "Which one of your ballet-girls is it who has taken to dressing with so much wicked extravagance? I wonder Mrs. Ellsler don't notice it."
Now Mrs. Dickson was Scotch, generous, and "unco" quick-tempered, and after she had put the inquiring friend right, she visited her wrath upon the originator of the slander in person, and verily the Scottish burr was on her tongue, and her "r's" rolled famously while she explained the component parts of that extravagant costume: window curtain—her gift—and paper cambric and artificial flowers to the cost of one dollar and seventy-five cents; "and you'll admit," she cried, "that even the purse of a 'gude lass' can stand sic a strain as that; and what's mair, you wicked woman, had the girl been worse dressed than the others, you would ha' been the first to call attention to her as slovenly and careless."
This was the first drop of scandal expressed especially for me, and I not only found the taste bitter—very bitter—but learned that it had wonderful powers of expansion, and that the odor it gives off is rather pleasant in the nostrils of everyone save its object.
Mrs. Dickson, who, by the way, is still doing good work professionally, has doubtless forgotten the entire incident, curtain and all, but she never will forget the bonnie baby-girl she lost that summer, and she will remember me because I loved the little one—that's a mother's way.