It cannot gild her gold with all its words."
Alexander Smith.
There was a neat, little vine-covered cottage standing a few doors removed from the elegant mansion of Leroy Edson, and in it dwelt Mrs. Stanhope, a widow lady and her maiden sister, Miss Martha Pinkerton, a female of uncertain age, as authors say, and possessed of the peculiarities common to persons of her class. They were not poor, nor were they rich, but made a good living, as the world goes, by taking in needlework. Young Mrs. Edson frequently dropped in to pass an hour in social converse with Mrs. Stanhope, who was a pleasant, agreeable woman. Miss Martha, too, always wore a smile on her sharp-featured face when the lovely young wife appeared at the cottage. As they were simple, unostentatious people, living in a retired and quiet way, she laid aside all form and ceremony, and was accustomed to run in at any hour, in whatever garb she chanced to be.
On a bright May morning, as the ladies had made all things tidy, and were seating themselves to their daily avocation of the needle, they heard the garden gate swing, and beheld Mrs. Edson approaching in her little white sun-bonnet and spotted muslin dressing-gown, open from the waist downwards, revealing a fine cambric skirt, wrought in several rows of vines and deep scolloped edges. Mrs. Stanhope met her visitor on the porch.
"Good-morning," said she, extending her hand; "I am happy to see you:—how beautiful and eloquent you are looking!"
"O, this glorious, sweet-breathed morning, with its birds and flowers, is enough to brighten the most torpid thing into animation!" exclaimed Louise, grasping her friend's hand warmly. "You don't know how I love everything and everybody to-day, Mrs. Stanhope," she continued, in a tone of earnest enthusiasm, as she entered the little parlor, still holding the good woman by one hand, while she extended the other to Miss Pinkerton, who rose from her work to receive her, and drew an old-fashioned, straight-backed rocking-chair, cushioned and lined with gay copperplate, up before the window for her comfort. "I must not sit long," said Louise, assuming the proffered seat, "for I have left my house quite alone; the servants having gone out on errands for themselves. I tried one thing and another to divert myself, but the birds sang so sweetly, the sun was so bright, and everything seemed to say, up and away. So I donned my sun-bonnet and ran over here as the nicest, quietest little nook I could fly to; and where I should be as welcome in my morning-gown as in full dress of ruffles and satins."
"And even more so, if possible," answered Mrs. Stanhope; "simple people like us are always a good deal put out and embarrassed by grandeur and display. It has something awful and unapproachable in our eyes."
"It has something servile and contemptible in mine," said Louise; "I always shrink from a woman flaunted out in rustling silks, great, glaring rings on her fingers, and alarming jewels swinging like ponderous pendulums from her ears. I think what a poor, little, pinched, narrow-contracted, poverty-stricken soul is there, that seeks to atone for the lack within, by rigging her poor body out like a veritable queen of harlots."
Mrs. Stanhope and Miss Martha burst into a cordial fit of laughter, as Louise, with a good deal of spirit and sarcasm, delivered herself of the preceding speech; and, before their merriment had subsided, a knock was heard at the inner door, and Col. Malcome stepped in, bowing gracefully, with a pleasant "Good-morning" to the three ladies. Mrs. Stanhope rose and offered him a chair. Depositing a large package he held in his arms on a corner of the sofa, he sat down.
Mrs. Edson blushed. She thought it was at being caught from home in dishabille by a gentleman of the colonel's etiquette and high breeding. After a few casual remarks upon the beauty of the morning, he turned his discourse to her, and remarked: