"Because," resumed Matilda, "her people sent her here without a copper in her pocket. So I guess they're a pretty shabby set, after all."
"I was judging as much," said Eliza, "by her not taking no airs, and always acting so polite to everybody."
"Well now," observed Matilda, "Mr. Scourbrass, the gentleman as lives with old Madam Montgomery, at the big house, in Bowdin Square, and helps to do her work, always stands out that very great people of the rale sort, act much better, and an't so apt to take airs as them what are upstarts."
"Doctors differ," sagely remarked Eliza. "However, as you say, I don't believe this here Laura is much; and I'm thinking how she'll get along at Nahant. Miss Lathersoap, the lady as washes her clothes, told me, among other things, that Laura's pocket-handkerchers are all quite plain—not a worked or a laced one among them. Now our Augusta would scorn to carry a plain handkercher, and so would her mother."
"I've taken notice of Laura's handkerchers myself," said Matilda, "and I don't see why we young ladies as lives out, and does people's work to oblige them, should be expected to run at the beck and call of any strangers they may choose to take into the house; let alone when they're not no great things."
Laura retreated from the open windows, that she might hear no more of a conversation so painful to her. She would at once have written to her father, told him all, and begged him, if he possibly could, to send her money enough to repay Miss Frampton, but she had found, by a letter received the day before, that he had gone on some business to the interior of Maine, and would not be home in less than a fortnight.
Next day was the one finally appointed for their removal to Nahant, and our heroine felt her spirits revive at the idea of beholding, for the first time in her life, "the sea, the sea, the open sea." They went in Mr. Brantley's carriage, and Laura understood that she might ride in her black silk dress and her straw bonnet.
They crossed at the Winnisimmet Ferry, rode through Chelsea, and soon arrived at the flourishing town of Lynn, where every man was making shoes, and every woman binding them. The last sunbeams were glowing in the west, when they came to the beautiful Long Beach that connects the rocks of Lynn with those of Nahant, the sand being so firm and smooth that the shadow of every object is reflected in it downwards. The tide was so high that they drove along the verge of the surf, the horses' feet splashing through the water, and trampling on the shells and sea-weed left by the retiring waves. Cattle, as they went home, were cooling themselves by wading breast high in the breakers; and the little sand-birds were sporting on the crests of the billows, sometimes flying low, and dipping into the water the white edges of their wings, and sometimes seeming, with their slender feet, to walk on the surface of the foam. Beyond the everlasting breakers rolled the unbounded ocean, the haze of evening coming fast upon it, and the full moon rising broad and red through the misty veil of the eastern horizon.
Laura Lovel felt as if she could have viewed this scene for ever, and at times she could not refrain from audibly expressing her delight. The other ladies were deeply engaged in listening to Miss Frampton's account of a ball and supper given by her intimate friend, that lovely woman, Mrs. Ben Derrydown, the evening before Mr. Ben Derrydown's last failure, and which ball and supper exceeded in splendour anything she had ever witnessed, except the wedding-party of her sweet love, Mrs. Nick Rearsby, whose furniture was seized by the sheriff a few months after; and the birth-night concert at the coming out of her darling pet, Kate Bolderhurst, who ran away next morning with her music-master.
Our party now arrived at the Nahant Hotel, which was full of visitors, with some of whom the Brantleys were acquainted. After tea, when the company adjourned to the lower drawing-rooms, the extraordinary beauty of Laura Lovel drew the majority of the gentlemen to that side of the apartment on which the Brantley family were seated. Many introductions took place, and Mrs. Brantley felt in paradise at seeing that her party had attracted the greatest number of beaux. Miss Frampton generally made a point of answering everything that was addressed to Laura; and Augusta glided, and flitted, and chattered much impertinent nonsense to the gentlemen on the outskirts of the group, that were waiting for an opportunity of saying something to Miss Lovel.