The next morning Ada ordered the carriage early; for besides having various purchases to make, she wished to deliver to Catharine Ashton, in person, a dressing-case, which she had ordered as a wedding-present for her friend.
Ada was ushered into Catharine’s own room, where on a centre-table lay scattered the countless pretty offerings, which, at such a period, never fail a bride, (I mean a bride rich enough to buy them for herself,) for it is a remarkable fact in the physiology of present making, that gifts are carefully disproportioned to the need of the donees; to the rich, much, to the poor, little is invariably given. Miss Ashton was wealthy, and, therefore, her friends had spent a great deal of money in her honor; and many a rich bauble calling itself “Friendship’s offering,” had it been labeled “Gift of ostentation,” would have worn the livery of the motive that sent it.
Over the glittering heap that dazzled Ada’s eyes, as she entered the room, was flung the scarf of delicate Brussels, no longer the veil but the ornament of brides; and Kate herself was standing before a Cheval-glass, adjusting the folds of a bright Cashmere, which fell, soft as silk, around her slight figure.
“Beautiful!” exclaimed Ada, herself an exquisite judge of dress: “and how becoming.”
“Which is more to the purpose,” replied Catharine, laughing; and she threw her shawl upon the bed, thereby disturbing the flounces of six silk dresses, which flew up like so many peacocks’ tails. The next moment she was snapping asunder the cords that bound up Ada’s package, and her busy fingers had soon torn off the papers that enveloped it.
“Beautiful! beautiful!” cried she, delighted, “the very, the only thing I wanted. Oh,” cried she, opening it, “this is really prettier than Mrs. Darrington’s gift to you in days of yore, Ada. Do you remember your exultation, and my envy on that memorable evening? And the ring—poor James’ emerald! Suppose he were to return with another ring, do you think your heart could be made to beat to the tune of ‘Auld lang syne’?”
“I should not know him if I met him,” replied Ada; but she was so busy fastening her glove that Catharine could not see whether her saucy question had made an impression. She knew that Ada disliked the least allusion to her early love, a symptom which, as Catharine was “herself and not Œdipus,” puzzled her exceedingly.
“What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?” said she, carelessly, and after replacing all the boxes and flacons she had taken out of her dressing-case, she continued: “Well! I suppose I must give you up. George wouldn’t do, would he?” asked she, with a saucy smile, and then shaking her head: “No—No—I see you resent my old offer of him as successor to the unfortunate James, whose memory now lies ‘five fathom deep under the blade waters of Lethe.’ ”
Ada leaned her head upon her hand, and her fancy wandered back to the days of her childish love, and the spell of memory was so potent that her heart beat as if the black waters of Lethe had not engulfed all remembrance. Catharine looked at her in some surprise, and then snatching from the table a little Cupid of bronze artistique, whose quiver was filled with harmless lamplighters, she placed it before Ada, saying:
“ ‘Qui que tu sois, voici ton maître