“It’s luck. Some people are always havin’ luck,” she said. “Here have I been a-makin’ and a-savin’, a-scrimpin’ and a-studyin’ all the time for forty years or more, and I haven’t had a bit o’ luck. It’s all been hard, stupid work. And that baby-faced thing will jump right into a fortune, I’ll bet, and like as not marry that handsome book-bindery man right before my face and eyes. Sakes alive! it chokes me to think of it. If I wasn’t afraid of what might happen I’d spoil her beauty for her. I’d put arsenic into her tea, or pison her some way. She a-ridin’ around with my man, that ought to be, in a carriage, while I stand here a-shiverin’ like a thief in a corner a-waitin’ for her. But I mustn’t make her mad. She has got a thousand dollars, and I’ll raise on her board, and make her come down, too. She can afford it, and she shall.”
Miss Scrimp said this vehemently, and then shuffled up stairs to her own room.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE OFFER REFUSED.
All was still in the house when Hattie climbed up those long and dreary stairs, for tired working girls go to sleep early and sleep soundly.
They know the day must not dawn on their closed eyes, but they must be up, wash, eat, and off to labor before the sun from its eastern up-lift gilds the city spires.
Hattie entered her room, set her lamp alight, took off her things, and sat down by her bedside to think.
She took the letter from her pocket which Mr. W—— had given her at the bindery, and put it down on the table, unopened, and there it lay for full a quarter of an hour, while she was lost in her meditation.
And yet men say a woman is made up of curiosity. And that is all men know about it. They can say so, but it doesn’t make it so.
At last she took up the letter, looked again at her name written in a bold, handsome hand on a business envelope of the firm, and then she broke the seal.
The color came and went in her face, showing surprise, agitation, and even pain, while she read it. That we may understand her feelings it may be as well to give the letter place here. It ran thus: