"Good-night, Lady Catheron," Miss Seton's bright, pleasant voice says, and Lady Catheron takes it, feeling in her heart that for once she cannot dislike a rival. This girl who will be Charley's wife—O blissful fate!—is worthy of him. They go out together, laughing as they go.
"Isn't she just the dearest darling!" cries Trix in her gushing way; "and O Edith! whatever would have become of us all without her, I shudder to think. In the dark days of our life, when friends were few and far between, she was our friend—our savior. She nursed mamma from the very jaws of death, she got me my place in the fancy-store, and I believe—she won't own it—but I do believe she saved Charley's life."
"Saved his life?" Edith falters.
"It was such an awful time," Trix says in sombre tones, "we were starving, Edith, literally starving. All our old friends had forsaken us; work we could not get, 'to beg we were ashamed.' If you had seen Charley in those days, gaunt, hollow-eyed, haggard, wretched. He looks and feels all right now," goes on Trix, brightening up a bit, "but then! it used to break my heart to look at him. He tried for work, from morning until night, and day after day he came home, footsore, weary, despairing. He could not leave mother and me, and go elsewhere—she was sick, father was dead—poor pa!—and I was just crazy, or near it. And one dark, dreadful night he went out, and down to the river, and—Nellie followed, and found him there. Ah Edith, he wasn't so much to blame; I suppose he was mad that night. She came up to him, and put her arms around him, as he stood in the darkness and the rain, and—I don't know what she said or did—but she brought him back to us. And Providence sent him work next day—the situation in the store he has now. I don't know about his merits as a salesman," says Trix, laughing, with her eyes full of tears "but he is immensely popular with the ladies. Nellie says it isn't his eloquence—where the other clerks expatiate fluently on the merits of ribbons, and gloves, and laces, shades and textures, Charley stands silent and lets them talk, and smiles and looks handsome. I suppose it answers, for they seem to like him. So now you see we get on splendidly, and I've almost forgotten that we were ever rich, and wore purple and fine linen, and feasted sumptuously every day."
"You are happy?" Edith asks, with wonder and envy in her eyes.
"Perfectly happy," Trix replies cheerily; "I haven't a wish unsatisfied—oh well! now that you've come. I did want you, Dithy; it seems such ages and ages since we met, and I was troubled about you. I heard of him, you know, poor fellow."
She touches timidly Edith's widow's weeds. There is no answer—Edith's tears are falling. She is contrasting her own cowardice with Trixy's courage; her own hardness with Trixy's generosity.
"How do you know?" she asks at length.
"Captain Hammond. You remember Angus Hammond, I suppose?" Trix says, blushing and hesitating; "he wrote us about it, and"—a pause.
"Go on; what else did he write?"