Mrs. Blunt was jubilant over the change in “Miss Star’s fortunes.”
“Just to think of it!” she would exclaim every little while. “Who would have dreamed of it two years ago, when you were at Madam Richards’, and she trying to make a drudge of you. Don’t I wish I might be on hand when you and Miss Josephine meet, if you ever do, and she hears that Mr. Rosevelt was only playing poverty all the time, just to try his proud relations! I tell you there’ll be music by the full band.”
The young girl flushed.
Josephine had, indeed, been very unkind to her, and it had been hard not to resent the theft of her beautiful little cameo but she was not one to treasure ill-will. Her little heart was full of “Christian charity,” and full of gratitude for the blessings which were surrounding her, and she was ready to forgive all past injuries.
“I should at least try to remember,” she returned, quietly, in reply to the housekeeper’s somewhat vindictive speech, “that I wish to be a lady in the truest sense of the term, and treat her accordingly. But,” she continued, wishing to change the subject, “you have never told me yet how you happened to come to keep house for us. I think it was one of the nicest arrangements that was ever made.”
“Thank you, Miss Star,” the woman answered, with a beaming face; “and you’d better believe it was a chance that I jumped at. I suppose I should have been slaving it for that ungrateful set now if I hadn’t come over to New York one day about three months ago, and met Mr. Rosevelt on Broadway, all by chance. He seemed glad to see me, and asked how I was getting on; and I was that discouraged with the way things were being managed, the cross words, complaints, and everything, that I told him I was sick and tired of it all, and meant to find another place just as soon as ever I could, though goodness knows I hadn’t an idea where that would be. Upon that he looked thoughtful, and, after a moment, said ‘he didn’t believe in hiring people away from their employers, but if I really meant to go away, he thought he knew of some one who would like just such a person for a housekeeper.’ I tell you I jumped at the chance, for ever since that young lord took himself off so quick, the madam has been so irritable that nothing would please her; and Mr. Rosevelt said when I had worked out my notice to come to him, and I’d find him any day at home at ten o’clock. I suppose he set that hour because he didn’t want you to know what was going on. I gave my notice the next day, worked out my two weeks, and came over to New York lighter of heart than I’d been for years.
“When Mr. Rosevelt told me about what he’d been doing, and what he was going to do, and said he wanted me for his own housekeeper, my eyes stuck out so that I thought they’d never feel natural again; but if ever an old woman was happy, I was, to think I was going to serve you; and here I’ve been ever since, helping him fix up for you.
“It’s like a beautiful story, Miss Star,” continued Mrs. Blunt, waxing sentimental, “to see you here among all these elegant things, for which you were just made, or I’m much mistaken; and when I see you coming out in all of these lovely clothes, nobody’ll be prouder than I.”
“You are very good, Mrs. Blunt, to be so interested for me,” Star said, with a smile; “and if what you want is to see me ‘come out in these fine things,’ you will have your wish, for we shall have to take you to Newport with us, as I must have some one to attend me, and I cannot consent to take a stranger.”
“That will be almost as good as to come out myself,” the woman said, with a chuckle of delight.