Poppea of the Post-Office

by Mabel Osgood Wright

"You've stayed here by yourself too long," she said; "to-night you shall go out and whisper to the people who will hear me sing and ask them to be kind." Slipping the chain over her head, she let the locket hang half veiled among the folds of drapery that crossed her bosom.

There was no one but Nora in the dressing-room at the Feltons' when Poppea looked shyly in, and, seizing the chance, dropped music and light shawl upon a chair to arrange the flowers. They adjusted themselves easily to her coiled hair. In a half wreath with a great bunch at the waist, so intangible did they seem in their cloud colors of rose, pink, salmon, and flame fading back to white, that it was impossible to believe that they would not flutter away from their perch like butterflies.

"Look at that now! there isn't a dress here to-night'll touch yours, dearie," said Nora, hands raised in honest admiration. "But I mistrust them posies not to last long, gi'n you dance too hard."

"That's precisely it, Nora," said Poppea, a mischievous smile banishing the little pathetic droop that her lips sometimes wore, and the opal colors flashing from the black-lashed eyes. "I must not dance, but sing my songs and disappear, else my finery will drop away as Cinderella's did when the clock struck."

Downstairs among the maze of faces, she saw that of Stephen Latimer, and motioning to him that she was there when needed, Poppea glanced wistfully across the room, slipped through one of the long windows, then drew into the shadows where she could see and not be seen, except as the light fell now and then upon her eager face as she leaned forward to watch the tableaux, dreading the time when she must step before so fashionable and critical an audience.

Evidently, she had not been as wholly unobserved as she thought, for Miss Emmy, who had reached the veranda through another window in company with a youngish man, came toward her, saying:—

"Ah, here she is, Bradish, keeping quiet until her own time comes. Julia dear" (Miss Emmy often used this name in formal society), "this is Mr. Winslow, the son of my dearest Boston friend, who wishes to meet you. It is the first time that we have been able to lure him into the country, and we wish him to like it. Where is your shawl, child? It is quite breezy here, and you mustn't risk your voice. Upstairs? No, don't go; I will tell Nora to fetch it," and as Miss Emmy flitted away, her shimmering silver costume, with a crescent and gold stars in her fluffy light hair still guiltless of gray, caught and held the combined lights of moon and lamp, helping to perfect the part of "Evening" for which she was costumed.

For a moment after she had recognized Mr. Winslow's bow, Poppea continued looking into the room. She wished that Miss Emmy had not introduced her to this stranger; she did not care to talk, but to remain quiet and alone. Then making an effort, she turned toward him to put the orthodox query as to what character he represented, when before the sentence was half framed, she realized that he wore conventional evening dress, and her air of embarrassment turned to a smile when she saw the half quizzical, half satirical expression of his cleanly shaven face.

"Confess that you not only did not look at me, but that you are rather vexed at either being obliged to do so now or be rude," he said, placing a chair with a dexterous turn of the wrist in the exact spot where she could continue to look at the tableaux and yet be seated.

"I'm afraid that you are right, and yet I will not allow that I was even almost rude to one of the Aunties' friends. It is this way; I am to sing to-night before all these men and women from the city who know what music means; I have only sung before here in the church for Mr. Latimer or at some little musicals at Bridgeton. If I had to go into the room now and be shut in among them all, I should simply run away. So I came out here to find myself, and when Miss Emmy spoke your name, I was so far away that I do not think I heard it. Pray forgive me." Something about the direct simplicity of her excuse touched a new chord in Winslow's perfectly controlled nature. This was not the simpering, self-satisfied young woman of the small towns who usually, when taking part in amateur social functions, keeps well in the limelight.