The rooms were quite full when a plain but handsome carriage stopped at the door. A lady alighted with her arms full of bundles, followed by two slender girls of eighteen and twenty, each with a parcel, although the footman stood idly by, holding the door.
“Just like her!” murmured a spectator inside the front window, peeping through the lace curtains. “She prides herself on her want of what she calls false shame, and on being able to wait on herself.”
A hum ran from the tattler through the little assembly. Blanche, who was showing a box of feathers to a customer, feigned not to hear it; dared not to steal a look at her sister, although she longed to know how she comported herself in view of the approaching ordeal. She was the only one present whose eyes were not directed instantly toward the young dressmaker as she advanced a few steps to meet the new arrivals. Foremost in the group was the mistress of the carriage, a stately figure, richly attired, who wore her own gray hair folded smoothly above a pair of black brows and searching, usually severe eyes. They softened and shone at sight of the form in deep mourning, awaiting her pleasure, perhaps reading through the guise of lady-like self-possession the secret trouble that fluttered heart and pulse, while the trained features served the resolute will faithfully.
“My dear child!” she said, impulsively, holding fast to her parcels, but bending to kiss the cheek which flushed high under the salute.
Her daughters pressed forward to bestow caresses as affectionate upon “dear Imogen,” the family having recently returned from abroad. Their mother allowed them no time for inquiries or condolence.
“I am very, very glad to see you looking so well and bright!” she pursued, in a breezy, cheerful tone, neither shrill nor loud, but one that could make itself heard whenever and by whomsoever she willed. “I didn’t mean that my first call should be one of business, but I suppose you wouldn’t admit me upon any other plea, in business hours. But there’s the great Huntley wedding, week after next, you know, and the girls haven’t enough finery to warrant their appearance there—just from Paris, too! So we have come to cast ourselves upon your generosity and beg you, for the sake of old times and present friendship, to make us presentable. Unless you are too severely taxed already by the importunate friends of whom I see so many present. How is the dear father to-day? You must let me see him and mamma before I leave—and Emma and the babies! You mustn’t exclude us from the other parts of the house because you have taken to practicalities in sober, serious earnest. We would rebel outright, and en masse—after having been welcomed, during so many years, to the pleasantest home in the city!”
Imogen had led the way into the other parlor while the lady talked, and was now undoing the wrappings of the three silk dresses, and opening boxes of rare, fine lace on the long table. Her back was to the groups of attentive listeners to the foregoing monologue, and the keen eyes beside her saw her fingers shake, the long, brown lashes fall quickly to hide the unshed tears.
“You are very good!” said a gentle, grateful voice. “But I felt sure you would be!”
“My love!” A strong and not small hand—ungloved—a superb diamond solitaire, in itself a fortune, flashing on it as the guard to a worn wedding-ring—covered the chill, uncertain fingers, busy with paper and twine. Imogen felt the warmth and thrill of the pressure to her very heart. “If you ever dare to say another word like that, I’ll never forgive you! Trimmings, style, everything—we leave to you, Imogen, my dear!” she continued, aloud. “If you can make my girls half as distingué as you are yourself in full dress, or home-dress either, for that matter, I shall be satisfied. I always told you you were a genius in your profession—creative, not merely imitative genius. It was a shame that you did not give others the benefit of it before now. It is refreshing to one who has cultivated any taste for the æsthetic, to look about your rooms. I have lively hopes that dress may be understood and studied as one of the fine arts among us in time. You will be known in this generation and region, at least, as a benefactress. We go into another room to be measured, did you say?”
She swept her daughters before her into the fitting-room, and a buzz and rustle succeeded the silence her entrance had caused.