It was on the following day that a less important member of society than Miss Minster resolved to also pay a visit to the milliner’s shop.
Ben Lawton’s second wife—for she herself scarcely thought of “Mrs. Lawton” as a title appertaining to her condition of ill-requited servitude—had become possessed of some new clothes. Their monetary value was not large, but they were warm and respectable, with bugle trimming on the cloak, and a feather rising out of real velvet on the bonnet; and they were new all together at the same time, a fact which impressed her mind by its novelty even more than did the inherent charm of acquisition.
To go out in this splendid apparel was an obvious duty. Where to go was less clear. The notion of going shopping loomed in the background of Mrs. Lawton’s thoughts for a while, but in a formless and indistinct way, and then disappeared again. Her mind was not civilized enough to assimilate the idea of loitering around among the stores when she had no money with which to buy anything.
Gradually the conception of a visit to her step-Jessica took shape in her imagination.
Perhaps the fact that she owed her new clothes to the bounty of this girl helped forward this decision. There was also a certain curiosity to see the child who was Ben’s grandson, and so indirectly related to her, and for whose anomalous existence there was more than one precedent in her own family, and who might turn out to resemble her own little lost Alonzo. But the consideration which primarily dictated her choice was that there was no other place to go to.
Her reception by Jessica, when she finally found her way by Samantha’s complicated directions to the shop, was satisfactorily cordial. She was allowed to linger for a time in the show-room, and satiate bewilderment over the rich plumes, and multi-colored velvets and ribbons there displayed; then she was taken into the domestic part of the building, where she was asked like a real visitor to take off her cloak and bonnet, and sat down to enjoy the unheard-of luxury of seeing somebody else getting a “meal of victuals” ready. The child was playing by himself back of the stove with some blocks. He seemed to take no interest in his new relation, and Mrs. Lawton saw that if Alonzo had lived he would not have looked like this boy, who was blonde and delicate, with serious eyes and flaxen curls, and a high, rather protuberant forehead.
The brevet grandmother heard with surprise from Lucinda that this five-year-old child already knew most of his letters. She stole furtive glances at him after this, from time to time, and as soon as Jessica had gone out into the store and closed the door she asked:
“Don’t his head look to you like water on the brain?”
Lucinda shook her head emphatically: “He’s healthy enough,” she said.
“And his name’s Horace, you say?”