“But she don’t know that,” Conscience whispered; and then Lottie began to wonder what she could do to secure John’s services.
She could not do without him, and to get him she was willing even to ask his wife’s pardon, if necessary, and at all events she would call the next day and apologize, for John’s voice she must and would have at any cost.
Kitty’s morning work was done. The little parlor, which did duty as sitting-room and nursery too, was nicely swept and dusted, and everything was in its place. A bright fire was blazing in the grate. Freddie was asleep in his crib, the gift of Amasa Steele, who had mostly supplied the wants of his god-child since the day he stood with him at the font, and Kitty, in her neat delaine wrapper, with faultlessly clean collar and cuffs, was just sitting down to the pile of work which lay beside her “Wilcox & Gibbs,” John’s Christmas gift to her. She was never troubled with morning calls; for, though she had some few acquaintances in the city by this time, they were not of the fashionable kind to whom one hour is as free as another, and she had no thought of the honor in store for her, and which was even then at her very door, in the shape of a handsome little coupé, satin lined, and bearing the stamp of the very latest style in all its appurtenances, from the silver-tipped harness to the driver in his livery, and the footman, whose coat came nearly to the ground as he obsequiously held the door for his mistress to alight.
“It is a nutshell of a house,” was Lottie’s mental comment, as she went up the steps and rang the bell. “Poor John, with his refined instincts, he ought to have done better;” and, so low down in Lottie’s heart that it was hardly a wrong to Amasa Steele, there was the shadow of a regret that she had not thought twice before deciding not to encourage her father’s confidential clerk.
But it was too late now. She was Mrs. Amasa Steele, and had come to call on John’s wife, who, greatly to her amazement, opened the door herself! Kitty had heard the ring, and not seeing the stylish turnout in front, and knowing that in all human probability Susan’s hands were in the bread, she went to the door, expecting to meet either a book agent or somebody inquiring if Dr. Jones lived there, he being her next neighbor, as she and John both had learned from sundry calls at all hours of the day and night. She was prepared for the agent and the patient of Dr. Jones, but not for the “grand dame” clad in velvet and Russian sable, whose big black eyes looked their surprise, but who nevertheless smiled sweetly, and asked in the blandest of tones if this were Mrs. Craig.
Lottie’s first impulse had been to suppose the lady a servant, and ask for her mistress, but she had come for an object, and it suited her to be very amiable and even familiar.
“So kind in you to let me in yourself,” she said, as she followed Kitty into the little parlor, and then apologized for not having called before.
She did not say out and out that she had intended calling, for she would not tell an absolute lie, but her manner implied as much, and she talked so fast and made herself so agreeable, that Kitty began to be drawn toward her in spite of herself, and when she praised the new Wilcox & Gibbs sewing machine, and pronounced it “the dearest plaything in the world,” and then, pouncing upon little Freddie, called him a darling, and complimented his eyes and his hair, the conquest was more than half completed. But when Lottie ventured at last to introduce the musicale, and to say how sorry she was that Mrs. Craig had declined coming, and how very badly she felt to lose Mr. Craig’s services, there was a peculiar look in Kitty’s eyes which did not bode success to Mrs. Lottie’s project. Still she was not disheartened. Her heaviest forces were still in reserve. The day was so fine and the air so bracing, would not Mrs. Craig like a drive in the Park? It would do her good, and the baby, too. Dear little fellow, he looked pale, though possibly that was his natural complexion.
Freddie had not been well for a day or two, and Kitty had wished that very morning that she was rich and could afford a drive, and now that it was so gracefully offered to her, she hesitated at first, and then finally accepted, and almost before she had time to think she was seated on the satin cushions by Mrs. Lottie’s side, and was rolling over the level roads of the beautiful Central Park. Lottie insisted upon holding Freddie herself, and was so generally charming that Kitty was sorry when the carriage stopped at last at her own door.