“Never,” said Tom; “there she sits in her chair, playing with her fingers, or else at the window, looking this way, and that, as if she were expecting somebody; when she does so, it seems to worry the old lady, who looks nervously at me, and tries to coax her away—the Lord only knows why; and two or three times I have seen her coax away a faded flower that Mary has a fancy for holding between her fingers. It’s all Greek to me. Confound it, I feel as if I were in a nest of lunatics. It makes me as nervous as the devil. Come, let’s be off. What has become of Susy, the little ballet-girl? Did she take my marriage to heart?”
“Not she, the delicious little monkey; she tossed her pretty head, and said with an arch smile: ‘Mark what I say: he’ll be back to me in six months.’”
“Pretty prophet!” replied Tom.
The two young men locked arms and sauntered down the crowded street, whiffing their cigars; now attracted by some brilliant shop-window, now bandying jests with those miserable women, who, but for just such as they, might have lifted their womanly brows to the starry sky—pure as when first kissed by a mother’s loving lips. Pale seamstresses glided by, unguarded, save by Him who noticeth the sparrow’s fall. Young men of their own age, weary of the slowly accumulating gains of honest toil, looked enviously upon their delicately kidded hands, fine apparel, and care-for-naught air. Passing, at length, the long line of carriages in front of the opera house, they disappeared under the lighted vestibule, and took possession of one of the boxes.
Fair young girls were there, unveiling to the libidinous eye, at Fashion’s bidding, charms of which they should have been chary to the moon. Faded belles throwing out bait at which nobody even nibbled. Married men groaned, looked at their watches, and leaning back in their seats, computed the rise and fall of stocks; married women gazed anxiously around to see if their laces, diamonds, or cashmeres were eclipsed by their neighbors’. Every body was bored to death, stifled by the heat, blinded, by the gas, and scientifically inappreciative of the music, but every body willing to endure ten times as much, rather than not be “in the fashion.” The moon, to be sure, silvered the pretty fountain in the park, close by, and the cool, sweet evening breeze played through the blossoming trees; but the “working people” were stretched upon its benches; the poor man’s child laid his soft cheek to the cool grass; the ragged little urchin, escaping from the stifled air of the noisome lane, threw up his brimless hat in the gravel walk. The parks were plebeian, opera boxes were beyond the reach of “the vulgar.”
But look! Now the audience show signs of animation. All is astir. See, the ballet! A fleecy cloud sails in, enveloping “Susy.” Susy, the favorite pro tem.—Susy, with her jetty locks, creamy skin, and dimpled shoulders. Susy, with her pretty ankles and rounded waist. Susy, with her jeweled arms and rose-banded hair. Susy, with her rounded bosom and twinkling feet. Young men and old men level their glasses in breathless admiration, as Susy languishingly twirls, and tip-toes, and pirouettes. Young girls, who have long since ceased blushing at such exhibitions, wish, for the nonce, that they were Susy, as bouquets and diamond rings are thrown upon the stage. Tom Shaw’s eyes sparkle, and relieving his enthusiasm by some expressive expletives, he leaves Jack for a behind-the-scene tête-à-tête with the danseuse.
CHAPTER XI.
“Day dawned—within a curtained room,
Filled to faintness with perfume,
A lady lay at point of doom.
Morn broke—an infant saw the light,
But for the lady, fair and bright,
She slumbered in undreaming night.”
Life and death had passed each other on the threshold! Lucy Ford’s tears were the baptism of Mary’s motherless babe. The poor weary heart, whose pulse had beat so unevenly above it, had ceased its flutterings. It was nothing new to see Mary lie with marble face, folded hands, and softly-fringed, closed eyes. But, sometimes, the thin hand had been kindly outstretched toward Lucy; sometimes, the glossy head had raised itself, and leaned tenderly on the maternal bosom; sometimes, the blue eye had lingered lovingly on her wrinkled face. Small comfort, God knows—and yet it was much to poor Lucy. She looked at the little gasping, helpless thing before her—a tenant already for her rifled heart—a new claimant for her love and care. Oh, how could she else but welcome it? With soft folds she wrapped its fragile limbs, with motherly care she soothed it on her sunken breast, and with a prayer to God, as she pressed her lips to Mary’s brow, she promised Death to be faithful to the trust of Life.