"No, I have told you that I have no one to depend upon."
The landlady's mouth was primly set, and she merely exclaimed,—
"Oh! indeed!"
"I think I'll look further," said Alice. "Good-morning."
"Good-morning."
Half-suppressed chuckles followed her, as she left the room. Sorely grieved and indignant, she took her way to another house. Fortune this time favored her. The landlady, a kind-hearted woman, was in mourning for her only daughter, and with the first words she heard she felt her heart drawn to the lovely and soft-voiced stranger. Without any offensive inquiries, Alice was at once received, and an upper room assigned to her. After sending for her trunk, she dressed for dinner.
The table presented specimens of all the familiar characters of boarding-house life. There was the lawyer, sharp, observant, talkative, ready for a joke or an argument. There was the solemn man of business, who ate from a sense of duty, and scowled at the lawyer's bad puns. Near him, with an absurdly youthful wig and opaque goggles, sat the Unknown; his name, occupation, resources, and tastes alike a profound mystery. Several dapper clerks, whose right ears drooped from having been used as pen-racks, wearing stunning cravats, outré brooches and shirt-studs, learned in the lore of "two-forty" driving, were ranged opposite. Then there was the jolly widow, who was the admiration of men of her own age, but who cruelly gave all her smiles to the boys with newly-sprouting chins. Near her sat the fastidious man, whose nostrils curled ominously when any stain appeared on his napkin, or when anything sullied the virgin purity of his own exclusive fork. His spectacles seemed to serve as microscopes, made for the sole purpose of detecting some fatal speck invisible to other eyes. There was the singer, with a neck like a swan's, bowing with the gracious air that is acquired in the acknowledgment of bouquets and bravas. The artist was her vis-à-vis, powerful like Samson in his bushy locks, negligent with fore-thought, wearing a massive seal-ring, and fragrant with the perfume of countless pipes. The nice old maid near him turns away in disgust when she sees his moustaches draggle in the soup.
Down the long row of faces Alice looked timidly, and at length fastened her eyes upon a lady in mourning like herself. There is no physiognomist like the frank, affectionate young man or woman who looks to find appreciation and sympathy. It is not necessary, for such a purpose, to speculate upon Grecian or Roman noses, thin or protruding lips, blue, gray, or brown eyes; each soul knows its own sphere and the people that belong in it; and a sure instinct or prescience guides us in our choice of friends. Alice at a glance became conscious of an affinity, and quietly waited till circumstances should bring her into associations with the woman whom she hoped to make a friend.
It was not long before the occasion came. Not to make any mystery, it was our old acquaintance, Mrs. Sandford, who attracted the gaze of Alice, and who soon became her kindly adviser. Never was there a more motherly woman; and, as she was now almost a stranger in the house, she attached herself to Alice with a warmth and an unobtrusive solicitude that quite won the girl's heart. Alice lost no time in procuring such work from a tailor as she felt competent to do, and applied herself diligently to her task; but a very short trial convinced her, that, at the "starvation prices" then paid for needlework, she should not be able to earn even her board. Then came in the thoughtful friend, who, after gently drawing out the facts of the case, furnished her with sewing on which she could display her taste and skill. Day after day new employment came through the same kind hands, until Alice wondered how one wearer could want such a quantity of the various nameless, tasteful articles in which all women feel so much pride. It was not until long after, that she learned how the work had been procured by her friend's active, but noiseless agency.
Not many days after their intimacy commenced, as Mrs. Sandford sat watching Alice at her work, it occurred to her that there was a look of tender sorrow, an unexplained melancholy, which her recent bereavement did not wholly account for. Not that the girl was given to romantic sighs or tragic starts, or that she carried a miniature for lachrymose exercises; but it was evident that she had what we term "a history." She was frank and cheerful, although there was palpably something kept back, and her cheerfulness was like the mournful beauty of flowers that blossom over graves. No sympathetic nature could refuse confidence to Mrs. Sandford, and it was not long before she discovered that Alice had passed through the golden gate to which all footsteps tend, and from which no one comes back except with a change that colors all the after life.