Isabel’s chamber was visited next, and Marian’s would have been less than a woman’s nature could she have looked, without a pang, upon the costly furniture and rare ornaments which had been gathered there. In the disposal of the furniture there was a lack of taste—a decidedly Mrs. Russell air; but Marian had no wish to interfere. There was something sickening in the very atmosphere of her rival’s apartment, and with a long, deep sigh, she turned away. Opening the door of an adjoining chamber, she stood for a moment motionless, while her lips moved nervously, for she knew that this was Alice’s room. It was smaller than the others, and with its neat white furniture, seemed well adapted to the pure, sinless child who was to occupy it. Here too, she tarried long, gazing, through blinded tears, upon the little rocking-chair just fitted to Alice’s form, looping up the soft lace curtains, brushing the dust from the marble mantle, and patting lovingly the snowy pillows, for the sake of the fair head which would rest there some night.
“There are no flowers here,” said she, glancing at the tiny vases on the stand. “Alice is fond of flowers, and though they will be withered ere she comes, she will be sure to find them, and who knows but their faint perfume may remind her of me,” and going out into the garden she gathered some hyacinths and violets which she made into bouquets and placed them in the vases, and bidding the old woman change the water every day, until they began to fade, and then leave them to dry until the blind girl came. “Ben told me of her; he once staid at Redstone Hall all night,” she said, in answer to the woman’s inquiring look. “He says she is a sweet young creature, and I thought flowers might please her.”
“Fresh ones would,” returned Mrs. Russell “but them that’s withered ain’t no use. S’pose I fling ’em away when they get old and put in some new the day she comes?”
“No, no, not for the world, leave them as they are,” and Marian spoke so earnestly that the old lady promised compliance with her request.
“Be you that Yankee peddler’s sister,” she asked, as she followed Marian down the stairs. “If you be, nater cut up a curis caper with one or t’other of you, for you ain’t no more alike than nothin’.”
“I believe I do not resemble him much,” was Marian’s evasive answer, as with a farewell glance at the old place, she bade Mrs. Russell good-by and went with Ben to the gate where the stage was waiting to take them back to the depot.
It was dark when they reached New York, and as they passed the —— Hotel a second time, Marian spoke of the sick man, and wondered how he was.
“I might go in and see,” said Ben, “but it’s so late I guess I won’t, particularly as he’s nothin’ to us.”
“But he’s something to somebody,” returned Marian, and as she followed on after Ben, her thoughts turned continually upon him, wondering if he had a mother—a sister—or a wife, and if they knew how sick he was.
While thus reflecting they reached home, where they found Mrs. Burt entertaining a visitor—a Martha Gibbs, who for some time had been at the —— Hotel, in the capacity of chamber-maid, but who was to leave there the next day. Martha’s parents lived in the same New England village where Mrs. Burt had formerly resided, and the two thus became acquainted, Martha making Mrs. Burt the depository of all her little secrets and receiving in return much motherly advice. She was to be married soon, and though her destination was a log house in the West, and her bridal trousseau consisted merely of three dresses—a silk, a delaine and a calico—it was an affair of great consequence to her, and she had come as usual to talk it over with Mrs. Burt, feeling glad at the absence of Ben and Marian, the latter of whom she supposed was an orphan niece of her friend’s husband. The return of the young people operated as a restraint upon her, and changing the conversation, she spoke at last of a sick man who was up in the third story in one of the rooms of which she had the charge.