Chateau d'Or, Norah, and Kitty Craig

by Mary Jane Holmes

“Why, Lottie Steele—it’s an age since you were here. I thought you had forsaken us.”

Kitty did not hear the reply, so great was her astonishment at learning that this woman, who had wounded her so cruelly, was Lottie Steele, the one for whom she had watched so long, and on whose acquaintance and friendship she had counted so much in her utter ignorance of the city and its customs. Alas, how had her idol fallen, and how were all her hopes destroyed! She had nothing whatever to expect in that quarter—nothing to expect anywhere; and, with a swelling heart as she remembered the church society at home, where she was what Lottie Steele was here, or, as her dear old auntie expressed it, “a cat among rats,” she gathered up her work, and bidding good-morning to the pleasant-faced woman at her side, who alone of all the ladies there had spoken familiarly to her, started for home, feeling more desolate and alone than she had thought it possible for any one in the great city of New York, which had once seemed to her like an earthly paradise.

As she left the sewing-room she met the rector of the parish, who said a few friendly words to her and then passed on into the room, where he was immediately accosted by Lottie Steele, who asked him who the lady was he met with at the door.

“That was Mrs. John Craig, from Rosefield,” he replied. “She is a stranger in the city, and I wish some of my ladies would take a little pains to be polite to her. Her former clergyman speaks highly of her as a Christian and a lady of culture and education. She is very regular at church, I see, and her husband is a splendid-looking fellow.”

“Why, that must be the John Craig in our store,” chimed in Agatha Orr, a pert miss of seventeen. “Isn’t it, Mrs. Steele? You ought to know, for you and he used to be so intimate.”

A withering glance from Lottie’s eyes silenced Miss Agatha, while Lottie’s cheeks were scarlet, and her pulse throbbed faster than its wont. She was not naturally hard and cruel, and given to wounding people unnecessarily. She professed to be a Christian; perhaps she was one. She certainly was very rigid with regard to all the fasts and holy days, and no religious devotee kept Lent, so far as churchgoing was concerned, more strictly than she did; but she had been reared and trained in the school of fashion and caste until many of her better impulses were warped and deformed, and she sometimes did things thoughtlessly, of which she repented afterward. Bearing the reputation of being exceedingly exclusive, she had no idea of inviting into her charmed circle any who wished to enter, and deemed it her duty to shut and bar the door against all intruders, especially if she felt that the intruder had some claim upon her. So, when she overheard Kitty’s complaint, and felt in her heart that not only herself but many of her sisters in the church were sadly remiss in their reception of strangers, she said what she did, in a sudden fit of impatience that any one should expect to make her acquaintance at a sewing society. But she had no idea it was Kitty Craig whom she was lashing so unmercifully, and she would have given considerable for the privilege of recalling her thoughtless words. But it was too late; the mischief was done, and Kitty was gone, and, as is frequently the case when we are conscious of having injured a person in any way, Lottie, after the first pangs of self-reproach were over, found herself with a greater aversion than ever to that “nutshell of a house” which might be “put into her parlor,” and Kitty’s chances for an acquaintance with Mrs. Amasa Steele were far less than before. “A rat among cats” she certainly was, and she felt it keenly as she walked home, with Lottie’s scornful words ringing in her ears and making her heart throb so painfully.

“The sensitive ones, who feel slighted if they are not noticed.”

Had it really come to this, that she was thus designated—she, who at home had been first in everything, and had herself, perhaps, been a little hard on the sensitive ones, not knowing then just how they felt. She knew now, and, once alone in her room, wept bitter tears at the first real slight she had ever received. Then, as she remembered what Lottie had said of duty, she questioned herself closely to see how far her motives in going so regularly to the sewing-rooms had been pure and such as God would approve, and she found, alas! that they would not altogether bear the test applied. Something beside a genuine desire to do good had drawn her thither; a hope that she might by chance make some pleasant acquaintance, had been strong in her heart, and she confessed it, amid a gush of tears, to the Friend who never failed her, and to whom she always took her sorrows, whether great or small.

Kitty’s religion was not on the surface, a mere routine of form and ceremony. She knew in whom she had believed, and she told Him all about her trouble, with the simplicity of a little child, and asked to be forgiven so far as she was wrong, and that toward Lottie Steele she might feel as kindly as before. Kitty’s face was very bright after that talk with God, and when John came home at night it was a very pretty and gay little wife which sat at his table and told him she had at last seen Mrs. Steele, and thought her very handsome and very bright. Of the insult, however, she said nothing, and John never dreamed how little cause his wife had for speaking as kindly as she did of the thoughtless lady who had wounded her so sadly.

Kitty did not go to the sewing meeting after that, but worked at home for the poor and needy, and felt far happier alone in her quiet sitting-room, with only her singing-bird for company, than she had when surrounded by ladies whom she did not even know by name. She did not expect Lottie Steele now, and never dreamed how near that unlucky affair at the sewing-room came to bringing about the very thing she had once so greatly desired. For Lottie was disturbed and annoyed at her own rudeness and wished she could in some way atone, and half made up her mind to call upon Mrs. Craig and make friends with her. But when at the dinner-table her husband himself broached the subject and suggested that she go with him that very evening, her pride took alarm at once. It was too soon; Kitty would of course think she came to conciliate her, and she would not humble herself like that before the wife of a clerk. So she declined rather crossly, and said she was too tired, and she didn’t believe Mrs. Craig wanted her to call, and she was certain “John” did not care to have her see in what a small way he was living.