The dream seemed to him to have lasted quite a long time, but in reality the pause was but of a moment’s duration, and had been abundantly filled by Mellicent, who having spied Arthur’s parcel was consumed with curiosity to discover its contents.
“What’s in the box?” she cried with the directness for which she was celebrated, and Arthur picked up his parcel, and balanced it in his hands with a roguish glance in the bride’s direction.
“Something for Esther, for the bottom drawer.”
“The bottom drawer! What are you talking about?”
“Every engaged young woman has a bottom drawer! It’s part of the performance, and you can’t be properly engaged without it. It’s the bottom drawer of the wardrobe generally, and all sorts of things live in it—everything and anything that she can lay hands on, to put aside for the new house. Fancy work, pictures, pottery, Christmas presents, and bazaar gleanings—in they go, and when she has friends to tea they sit in rows on the floor, and she undoes the wrapping, and they groan with envy, and cry, ‘How sweet! How perfectly sweet! Won’t it look sweet in the drawing-room!’”
“You seem to know a great deal about it!”
“I do! I’ve heard about it scores of times, and of course I knew that Esther would have a bottom drawer like the rest.”
“You were mistaken then! Esther has nothing of the sort. I am to be engaged such a short time, Arthur, that I have had no leisure to think of such things. In any case, I don’t think it is much in my line.”
“Well, you needn’t be so superior! If you haven’t got a bottom drawer, you have the next thing to it. Who went over the house the very day she came home, grabbing all the things that belonged to her, and taking them up to her room?” cried Mellicent the irrepressible. “Who took the little blue jug off my mantelpiece? Who took the brass candlestick from the hall? Who took the pictures from the schoolroom? Who took the toilet-cover that she said I might have, and left me with nothing but two horrid mats? You did, you know you did, and it is not a bit of use giving yourself airs!”
Evidently not. Esther hung her head, and admitted the impeachment. Well, she had thought that it would be nice to have her own things—it did seem wise to collect them at once, before she grew too busy! It was very, very kind of Arthur, and she was truly grateful. Should she open the parcel now?