“I’s goin’, too. Did you know that?” Lulu said to her, as she sat bending over a cloud of lace and soft blue silk.
“You? For what?” and Adah lifted her brown eyes inquiringly.
“Oh, goin’ to wait on ’em. It’s grand to have a nigger and Miss ’Lina keeps trainin’ me how to act and what to say. I ain’t to tell how mean Spring Bank is furnished, nor how poor master Hugh is. Nothin’ of the kind. We’re to be fust cut. Oh, so nice, Miss ’Lina an, Airey, and when we get home, if I does well, I’m to hev that gownd, all mud, what Miss ’Lina wared to the Tiffton party, whew!” and in the mischievous glance of Lulu’s saucy eyes, Adah read that the quick-witted negro was not in the least deceived with regard to the “Airey,” as she called Miss ’Lina.
Half amused at Lulu’s remarks and half sorry that she had listened to them, Adah resumed her work, just as ’Lina appeared, saying to her, “Here is Miss Tiffton’s square-necked bertha. She’s just got home from New York, and says they are all the fashion. You are to cut me a pattern. There’s a paper, the Louisville Journal, I guess, but nobody reads it, now Hugh is gone,” and with a few more general directions, ’Lina hurried away, having first tossed into Adah’s lap the paper containing Anna Richards’ advertisement.
In spite of the doctor’s predictions and consignment of that girl to Georgia, or some warmer place, it had reached her at last. The compositor had wondered at its wording, a few casual readers had wondered at it, too—a western editor, laughing jocosely at its “married or unfortunate woman with a child a few months old,” had copied it into his columns, thus attracting the attention of his more south-western neighbor, who had thought it too good to lose and so given it to his readers with sundry remarks of his own. But through all its many changes, Adah’s God had watched it, and brought it around to her. She did not see it at first, but just as her scissors were raised to cut the pattern, her eyes fell on the spot headed, “A curious advertisement,” and suspending her operations for a moment, she read it through, a feeling rising in her heart that it was surely an answer to her own advertisement sent forth months ago, with tearful prayers that it might be successful. She did not know that “A. E. R.” meant it for her, and no one else. She only felt that at Terrace Hall there was a place for her, a home where she would no longer be dependent on Hugh, whose straits she understood perfectly well, knowing why Rocket was sold, and how it hurt his master to sell him. Oh, if she only could redeem him, no toil, no weariness would be too great; but she never could, even if “A. E. R.” should take her—the pay would be so small that Rocket would be old and worthless ere she could earn five hundred dollars; but she could do something toward it, and her heart grew light and happy as she thought how surprised Hugh would be to receive a letter containing money earned by the feeble Adah, to whom he had been so kind.
Adah was a famous castle-builder, and she went on rearing castle after castle, until ’Lina came back again and taking a seat beside her, began to talk so familiarly and pleasantly that Adah felt emboldened to tell her of the advertisement and her intention to answer it. Averse as ’Lina had at first been to Adah’s remaining at Spring Bank, she now saw a channel through which she could be made very useful, and would far rather that she should remain. So she opposed the plan, urging so many arguments against it that Adah began to think the idea a foolish one, and with a sigh dismissed it from her mind until another time, when she might give it more consideration.
That afternoon Ellen Tiffton rode over to see ’Lina, who told her of Alice Johnson, whom they were expecting.
“Alice Johnson,” Ellen repeated; “why, that’s the girl father says so much about. Fortieth or fiftieth cousin. He was at their house in Boston a few years ago, and when he came home he annoyed me terribly by quoting Alice continually, and comparing me with her. Of course I fell in the scale, for there was nothing like Alice, Alice—so beautiful, so refined, so sweet, so amiable, so religious.”
“Religious!” and ’Lina laughed scornfully. “Adah pretends to be religious, too, and so does Sam, while Alice will make three. Pleasant prospects ahead. I wonder if she’s the blue kind—thinks dancing wicked, and all that.”
Ellen could not tell. She only knew what her father said; but she did not fancy Miss Alice to be more morose or gloomy—at all events she would gladly have her for a companion, and she thought it queer that Mrs. Johnson should send her to a stranger, as it were, when they would have been so glad to receive her. “Pa won’t like it a bit, I know, and I quite envy you,” she said, as she took her leave, her remarks raising Alice largely in ’Lina’s estimation, and making her not a little proud that Spring Bank had been selected as Miss Johnson’s home.