It was a lovely sight, those two girls as it were, the one mistress, the other the maid, yet both forgetting the inequality in that expression of a common faith which made them truly equals; and Eudora, awed at the sight paused a moment on the threshold, and then moved silently away, lest they should know she had been there.
At first Adah’s position at Terrace Hill was a very trying one, but Anna’s unfailing kindness and thoughtfulness shielded her from much that was unpleasant, while the fact that Willie was finding favor in the eyes of those who had considered him an intruder, helped to make her burden easy.
Accustomed to the free range of Spring Bank, Willie asserted the same right at Terrace Hill, going where he pleased, and putting himself so often in Mrs. Richards way, that she began at last to notice him, and if no one was near, to caress the handsome boy. Asenath and Eudora held out longer, but even they were not proof against Willie’s winning ways. His innocent prattle, and the patter of his little feet, heard from day dawn till night, thawed the ice from their hearts, until Asenath, the softer of the two, was once caught by Adah in the very undignified act of playing she was coach horse, while Willie’s whip, given to him by Anna, was snapped in close proximity to her ears; Eudora, too, no longer hid her worsted stool, and as the weeks went on, there gradually came to be prints of little, soiled, dirty fingers—on the sideboard in the dining room, on the hat-stand in the hall, on the table in the parlor, and even on the dressing bureau in Madame’s bed chamber, where the busy, active child had forced an entrance.
It was some weeks ere Adah wrote to Alice Johnson, and when at last she did, she said of Terrace Hill,
“I am happier here than I at first supposed it possible. The older ladies were so proud, that it made me very wretched, in spite of sweet Anna’s kindness. But there has come a perceptible change, and they now treat me civilly, if nothing more, while I do believe they are fond of Willie, and would miss him if he were gone.”
Adah was right in this conjecture; for had it now been optional with the Misses Richards whether Willie should go or stay, they would have kept him there from choice so cheery and pleasant he made the house. Adah was still too pretty, too stylish, to suit their ideas of a servant; but when they found she did not presume at all on her good looks, but meekly kept her place, they dropped the haughty manner they had at first assumed, and treated her with civility if not with kindness.
With Anna it was different. Won by Adah’s gentleness, and purity, she came at last to love her almost as much as if she had been a younger sister. Adah was not a servant to her, but a companion, a friend, with whom she daily held familiar converse, learning from her much that was good, and prizing her more and more as the winter weeks went swiftly by.
She had also grown very confidential, telling Adah much of her past life, talking freely of Charlie Millbrook whose wife she had heard was dead, and for whose return to America she was hoping. She was talking of him one afternoon and blushing like a girl as Adah playfully suggested what might possibly ensue from his coming home, when her mother came in evidently annoyed and disturbed at something.
“I have a letter from John,” she said. “They are to be married the —— day of April, which leaves us only five weeks more, as they will start at once for Terrace Hill. I am so bothered. I want to see you alone,” and she cast a furtive glance at Adah, who left the room, while madam plunged at once into the matter agitating her so much.
She had fully intended going to Kentucky with her son. It would be a good opportunity for seeing the country, besides showing proper respect to her daughter-in-law, but ’Lina had objected, not in words, but in manner, objected, and the doctor had written, saying she must not go, at the same time urging upon her the necessity of having everything in perfect order, and in as good style as possible for his bride.