“Why, my patience! if there isn’t Dr. Mason Kent, staring right straight at me! What a splendid likeness! I declare I most feel as though he ought to speak to me.”
“Was Dr. Kent an acquaintance of yours?”
Nothing could be colder, more lofty, more in keeping with the proprieties, than the tone in which Mrs. Schuyler Colman asked the question.
“An acquaintance! why I guess he was. I sewed in his house nigh on two months before his oldest daughter was married. They had a regular seamstress in the house, one who belonged to the family, you know. O! they were high up in the world, I tell you. But she needed extra help when the rush came, and there was always lots of plain sewing to do, anyway, and the woman I sewed for last recommended me, and I got in. It was a nice place. They gave good pay; better than I ever got anywhere else, and I always remembered Dr. Kent; he was as kind as he could be.”
Shall I try to describe to you the glow on Ruth Erskine’s face? What had become of her haughty indifference to other people’s opinions? What had become of her loftily expressed scorn of persons who indulged in pride of station, or pride of birth? Ah! little this young woman knew about her own heart. Gradually she was discovering that she had plenty of pride of birth and station and name. The thing which had seemed plebeian to her was to exhibit such pride in a marked way before others.
Mrs. Colman seemed to consider it necessary to make some reply:
“Dr. Kent is an uncle of mine,” she said, and her voice was freezing in its dignity.
“You don’t say! Where is he now? How I should like to see the dear old man! I wonder, Ruth, that your pa didn’t tell me his relatives lived here. It was at his house that I first saw your pa. I shall never forget that night, if I live to be a hundred. They had a party, or a dinner, or—well, I forget what the name of it was; but it was after the wedding, you know, and crowds of fashionables was there. I was in a back passage, helping sort out the rubbers and things that had got mixed up; and I peeked out to see them march to dinner; and I see them all as plain as day. I said then—says I, to Mirandy Bates, the girl that I was helping: ‘That tall man with the long whiskers and pale face is the stylishest one amongst ’em, I think.’ And who do you suppose it was but your pa! Land alive! I had just as much idea of marrying him, then, as I had of flying and no more.”
“I should suppose so,” said Mrs. Schuyler Colman. She could not resist the temptation of saying it, though Ruth darted a lightning glance at her from eyes that were gleaming in a face that had become very pale. She arose suddenly, remarking that they were making a very lengthy call; and Mrs. Erskine, to whom the call seemed very short, began to be uncomfortably conscious that she had been talking a great deal, and perhaps not to Ruth’s liking. She relapsed into an embarrassed silence, and made her adieu in the most awkward manner possible. Had Ruth taken counsel of her own nerves, she would have felt it impossible to endure more, and have beaten a retreat; but to sustain her was the memory of the fact that certain calls must be made, and, that if she did not make them, her father must. When it came to the martyr spirit, and she could realize that she was being martyrized in her father’s place, she could endure. But, oh, if she could only manage to give this dreadful woman a hint as to the proprieties! And yet, suppose she stopped that dreadful tide of reminiscences, what would the woman talk about? Still, at all hazards, it must be risked: