That breakfast scene was a cheery one. So much of home had already entered into its elements that Judge Burnham cordially pronounced Susan a fairy, and she as genially responded that she was a most substantial one, and had had two substantial helpers, with a meaning glance toward the girls.
“Indeed!” he said, in kindly tone, and then he glanced toward them.
That was a very pleasant way of showing good-will. The contrast between this breakfast and the one to which they sat down but the morning before was certainly very striking And, though the girls blushed painfully, the tone in which he had spoken, and the glance which accompanied his remark, did more for those daughters than all their father’s lectures had accomplished.
Directly the muffins and the broiled steak and the amber coffee were discussed, and, the meal concluded, business in that house commenced. Thereafter it was a scene of organized disorder. The girls, under Susan’s lead, proved, notwithstanding Mrs. Judge Erskine’s surmise, very “efficient” helpers. They could not enter a room properly, they could not use the King’s English very well, and they knew nothing about the multitude of little accomplishments with which the girls of their age usually consume time. But it transpired that they could wash windows, and “paints,” and sweep walls, and even nail carpets. They were both quick-witted and skillful over many of these employments, and the hearty laugh which occasionally rung out from their vicinity, when Susan was with them, showed plainly that they had lost their fear of her; but their embarrassment, where either their father or Ruth was concerned, did not decrease. And, indeed, in the whirl of plans which had recently come upon them, these two had little leisure to cultivate the daughters’ acquaintance. Ruth, after a few attempts at helping, discreetly left the ordering of the hired helpers to Susan’s skillful hands, and accompanied her husband on daily shopping excursions, where her good taste and good sense were equally called into action.
In the course of time, and when there is a full purse to command skillful helpers, the time need not be so very long drawn out. There came a morning when it would have done your comfort-loving heart good to have walked with Judge Burnham and his wife through the reconstructed house! Nothing showy; nothing really expensive, as that term is used in the fashionable world, had been attempted. Ruth’s tastes were too well cultured for that. She knew, perfectly, that what was quite in keeping with the lofty ceilings and massive windows of her father’s house would be ridiculously out of place here. As you passed with her from room to room you would have realized that nothing looked out of place. Perhaps in the girl’s room as much thought had been expended as in any place in that house.
Ruth had been amazed, not to say horrified, on the occasion of her first visit to their room, to find that it was carpetless, curtainless, and, I had almost said, furnitureless! An old-fashioned, high-post bedstead, destitute of any pretense of beauty, and a plain-painted stand, holding a tin basin and a broken-nosed milk pitcher! To Ruth, whose one experience of life had to do with her father’s carefully furnished house, where the servants’ rooms were well supplied with the comforts, to say nothing of the luxuries of the toilet, this looked simply barbarous. Judge Burnham, too, was shocked and subdued. It had been years since he had been a caller in his daughters’ room, and he had seemed to think that magic of some sort must have supplied their wants. “I furnished money whenever it was asked for,” he said, regarding Ruth with a sort of appealing air. “Now, that I think of it, they were never extravagant in their demands; but I supposed I gave them enough. At least, when I thought about it at all, I assured myself that the Ferrises would certainly not be afraid to ask for more, if more was needed.”
“The difficulty with the Ferris family was, that they had no tastes to expend money for,” Ruth said, quietly, “but you can not wonder that the girls are not just what we would like to see them. They certainly have had no surroundings of any sort that would educate them in your direction.”
After this talk he entered with heartiness into the plans for that room, and when the delicate blue and pale gold carpet was laid—and it reminded one of a sunset in a pure sky—and the white drapery was looped with blue ribbons, rural fashion, and the gold-banded china was gracefully disposed on the toilet case, and the dressing-bureau was adorned with all the little daintinesses which Ruth understood so well how to scatter, even to a blue and gold vase full of sweet-scented blossoms, and the pretty cottage bedstead was luxuriously draped in spotless white, plump pillows, ruffled pillow shams, all complete, Ruth stood back and surveyed the entire effect with the most intense satisfaction. What said the girls? Well, they said nothing. But their blazing cheeks and suspiciously wet eyes looked volumes, and for several days they stepped about that room in a tiptoe fashion which would have amused Ruth, had she seen it. They could not rally from the feeling that everything about them was so delicate and pure that to breathe upon, or touch, would be to mar a work of art.
Meantime, other matters had been progressing. Ruth had lain awake half of one night and studied the immortal question of dress. She had met and battled with, and conquered half a dozen forms of pride, and then had boldly announced at the next morning’s breakfast-table, the following:
“Judge Burnham, the girls and I want to go to the city to attend to some dress-making. Shall we go in that mail-wagon, or how?”