Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

The Reigning Belle.
A SOCIETY NOVEL.

BY MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS.

AUTHOR OF “MABEL’S MISTAKE; OR, THE LOST JEWELS,” “THE WIFE’S SECRET; OR, GILLIAN,” “LORD HOPE’S CHOICE; OR, MORE SECRETS THAN ONE,” “BERTHA’S ENGAGEMENT,” “BELLEHOOD AND BONDAGE; OR, BOUGHT WITH A PRICE,” “FASHION AND FAMINE,” “PALACES AND PRISONS; OR, THE PRISONER OF THE BASTILE,” “NORSTON’S REST,” “RUBY GRAY’S STRATEGY; OR, MARRIED BY MISTAKE,” “THE OLD COUNTESS,” “THE HEIRESS; OR, THE GYPSY’S LEGACY,” “THE SOLDIER’S ORPHANS,” “A NOBLE WOMAN; OR, A GULF BETWEEN THEM,” “MARY DERWENT,” “DOUBLY FALSE; OR, ALIKE AND NOT ALIKE,” “THE GOLD BRICK,” “CURSE OF GOLD,” “MARRIED IN HASTE,” “REJECTED WIFE,” “WIVES AND WIDOWS; OR, THE BROKEN LIFE,” “SILENT STRUGGLES,” “THE OLD HOMESTEAD,” ETC.

“The Reigning Belle,” by Mrs. Ann S. Stephens, is a romantic and thrilling novel of fashionable society, full of intensely dramatic scenes and overflowing with absorbing interest. The action goes straight ahead. So skilfully is the plot framed and handled that the veil of mystery surrounding Eva Laurence, the beautiful shop-girl, Mrs. Lambert, the society belle, and Herman Ross, the artist, cannot be penetrated until the author sees fit to throw it aside. Eva is a charming heroine, and the hero, Ivon Lambert, is a fine specimen of American manhood. The love episodes are delightfully depicted. There is much enjoyable humor in the novel, relieving the numerous exciting incidents. The scene in the Lambert conservatory between Mrs. Lambert and Ross, Mrs. Lambert’s jealous espionage of Ross at Mrs. Carter’s party, the episode in the court-room and the exposure of Miss Spicer are particularly stirring, but the whole romance is unusually powerful and effective. Everybody should read “The Reigning Belle” and enjoy a rich treat. Mrs. Stephens’ novels are among the best and most popular published, are admired by young and old alike, should be read by all, and will be found for sale by all Booksellers.

PHILADELPHIA:

T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS;

306 CHESTNUT STREET.

COPYRIGHT:—1885.

T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS.

MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS’ WORKS.

EACH IS COMPLETE IN ONE LARGE DUODECIMO VOLUME.

BELLEHOOD AND BONDAGE; or, Bought with a Price.

LORD HOPE’S CHOICE; or, More Secrets Than One.

THE OLD COUNTESS. Sequel to “Lord Hope’s Choice.”

BERTHA’S ENGAGEMENT.

NORSTON’S REST.

PALACES AND PRISONS; or, The Prisoner of the Bastile.

RUBY GRAY’S STRATEGY; or, Married by Mistake.

A NOBLE WOMAN; or, A Gulf Between Them.

WIVES AND WIDOWS; or, The Broken Life.

FASHION AND FAMINE.

THE CURSE OF GOLD; or, The Bound Girl and Wife’s Trials.

MABEL’S MISTAKE; or, The Lost Jewels.

SILENT STRUGGLES. A Tale of Witchcraft.

THE WIFE’S SECRET; or, Gillian.

THE HEIRESS; or, The Gypsy’s Legacy.

THE OLD HOMESTEAD; or, The Pet of the Poor House.

THE REJECTED WIFE; or, The Ruling Passion.

DOUBLY FALSE; or, Alike and Not Alike.

THE REIGNING BELLE.

MARRIED IN HASTE.

THE SOLDIER’S ORPHANS.

MARY DERWENT.

THE GOLD BRICK.

Above Books are Bound in Morocco Cloth, Gilt. Price $1.50 Each.

☞ Mrs. Stephens’ works are for sale by all Booksellers, or copies of any one, or more of them, will be sent to any one, postage prepaid, or free of freight, on remitting the price of the ones wanted to the publishers,

T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS,

306 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa.

“The Reigning Belle” is one of the most powerful, original and exciting society novels ever published. Though Mrs. Ann S. Stephens, its famous and gifted author, has written many superb romances, she has surpassed herself in this. The scene is laid in New York, and fashionable society is liberally drawn upon, while lowly life also comes in for its share of treatment. The plot is thrilling, intricate and managed with consummate art, the reader being kept in complete ignorance of what the end is to be until it comes. In the web of impenetrable mystery a lost child, Eva Laurence, Herman Ross and Mrs. Lambert are involved, and upon them and their hidden relation to each other the thrilling romance hinges. Eva is a handsome shop-girl, who is adopted by the wife of a shoddy millionaire, Ross an artist with a past full of shadows, and Mrs. Lambert a society belle. Humor is furnished in abundance and stirring episodes come thick and fast. Eva has a devoted admirer in Ivon Lambert, and the love scenes between the pair are natural and delicious. “The Reigning Belle” is certain to find hosts of readers, and it possesses every requisite to delight and fascinate them all. Mrs. Stephens, as a writer, ranks among the best of all American authors, and her novels should be read by every lover of absorbing fiction, for they are among the best and most popular published, and will be found for sale by all Booksellers everywhere, or copies of any or all of them will be sent to any one, to any place, post-paid, on receipt of price by the publishers.

CONTENTS.

THE REIGNING BELLE.

CHAPTER I.
THE SHOPPING PARTY.

Around her were such glowing colors, in masses, or floating airily through the room, that a face less richly tinted would have seemed pale by contrast. Behind her was a pile of India shawls, in which the rays of a gorgeous sunset seemed to have mellowed down in one soft, glowing heap. By her side was a morning-dress of Oriental cashmere, with vivid palm leaves running far up the skirt, which trailed down from the wire skeleton that supported it, and swept the floor like the plumage of a peacock.

In fact this vast show-room was one panorama of bright, beautiful things; and most beautiful of all was the young girl, with her rich complexion, just verging on the brunette, and her large, blue-gray eyes, that looked out from their sweeping lashes like shadowed waters where the rushes grow thickly. Her hair, too, was lustrous and abundant, neither black, auburn, nor brown, but with a gleam of each as the light chanced to fall on it.

The face, we have so imperfectly described, was turned toward a flight of stairs that led from the more general warerooms below, and across it flew a shadow of pride or pain, as a party of ladies, accompanied by one gentleman, came up the stairs, and loitered along the show-room, where she was standing. One of the clerks went forward to meet the party, and turning, walked by the side of the younger lady, who came on somewhat in advance of the rest, politely attentive to business.

“Shawls, did you say?”

“Yes,” answered the young lady, smiling blandly in the face of the clerk, whose soft amber beard stirred almost imperceptibly with an answering smile. “I scarcely know yet what we do want; but my friend has a perfect passion for shawls, and I dare say will add another to the variety she has stored away in her cedar-closet, where even the moths are forbidden to touch them. Oh Mrs. Lambert! here is something lovely!”

The elder lady came forward, and, taking out her gold-mounted eye-glass, examined the shawl which had struck the young lady’s attention. It was, indeed, a fabric of wonderful beauty, soft, firm, and wrought in with a splendor of harmonious colors, which the most perfect taste alone could appreciate. But the lady who examined this exquisite workmanship well understood its value, and after making herself mistress of all its perfections, quietly inquired the price.

The sum named would have bought a pretty homestead for some poor family in the country. The lady seemed in no way surprised by the amount, but took the shawl from its stand, while the young lady beckoned the girl, who had withdrawn a little way off, to try it on.

This young creature came forward, not blushing under the astonished eyes turned upon her, but rather growing pale, with a keen feeling of humiliation, and submitted her queenly person to be enveloped in the rich folds of the shawl. When she felt all those strange eyes upon her the color came back to her face, while the downcast lashes swept her glowing cheeks, and her lips began to quiver, as if a burst of tears were struggling upward.

“Mother,” said the young gentleman, in a low voice, “the counter would be a better place.”

“No, no!” broke in the very positive young person, whom the elder lady addressed as Miss Spicer, who leaned forward and touched the shoulder over which the shawl was draped with her parasol. “Nothing like a live person to carry off a thing like this. Please move forward and let us see how it falls upon the train. Superb, isn’t it?”

Eva Laurence lifted her eyelids with a sudden flash, and stepped back from the insolent touch of that parasol, with a gesture at once haughty and graceful. Then, remembering what was expected of her, she moved across the floor, displaying the shawl in every fold as it swept from her shoulders, down the long, black train of her dress. All other eyes were fixed upon the garment, but young Lambert saw that her bosom heaved, and the hands folded over the shawl trembled. He was turning away, touched by this evidence of painful embarrassment, when Miss Spicer darted forward, seized upon Eva’s train, and spread it out upon the floor, exclaiming,

“There now, that’s something like. Isn’t it superb?”

“It is, indeed!” answered Mrs. Lambert, surveying the tall, well-formed girl with her glass. “What do you think, of it Ivon?”

“What do I think, mother? Why, that the young lady will be tired to death before you have made up your mind. Permit me——”

Here young Lambert lifted the shawl gently from Eva’s shoulders, and laid it on the counter.

Eva drew a deep breath and moved off to a window, resentful and hurt, she could scarcely tell why—for had she not come to that place for the very purpose that wounded her so? Did she not receive extra compensation because her stately figure carried off those costly garments to such advantage? What right had she that this patrician party had invaded?

Still the girl’s cheek burned, and her shoulders felt heavy, as if a burden more oppressive than twenty shawls bore them down.

CHAPTER II.
THE GIRL OF THE TIMES.

While Mrs. Lambert was completing the purchase of her shawl, the young man moved quietly about the room, carrying his cane in one well-gloved hand, with which he manifested a little impatience, as most men do when forced into a shopping excursion with members of their own family; but, with all his restlessness, he kept Eva Laurence well in view, wondering in his heart who she was, and how she came to be in that strange position.

Miss Spicer, too, had her curiosity. Troubled with no sensitive hesitation, she watched the girl in a bold, staring way, now and then turning a quizzical look on young Lambert, which brought the color to his face.

“Stylish, ha!” she whispered, taking the young man’s cane from his hand. “Stop here often after this, I dare say—I would if I carried one of these things.”

The young lady gave emphasis to her words by a dashing flourish of the cane, which, being a flexible, gold-mounted affair, she was twisting back and forth in her hands.

The young gentleman made a gesture as if to reclaim his property.

Miss Spicer gave up the cane.

Eva Laurence saw all this, though her drooping eyes seemed fixed on the floor, and the proud heart burned with in her; for now and then Miss Spicer glanced across the piles of merchandise to where she stood, taking no pains to conceal that she was an object of curiosity, if not of conversation.

“There now, don’t look so savage, my friend,” said the lady, “and you shall see what a chance I will give you for a second survey.”

Before young Lambert could answer, the reckless creature had called another clerk to her side.

“This velvet cloak,” she said, “I should like to see it tried on. Please call the young person.”

The clerk stepped over to Eva Laurence, and spoke to her. She looked up quickly, bent her head, and came across the room, almost smiling the contempt she felt for that rude girl, who only seemed the more plebeian from the fact that her coarseness was smothered in purple and fine linen.

Without a word Eva invested herself in the velvet garment, and with its rich, deep laces settling round her, stood out in the midst of the open space to be examined, looking gravely and quietly on the group that gathered around her.

Then the ladies fell to examining the cloak by detail; handling its glossy folds, criticising the pattern of the lace, and exclaiming at the perfect fit; while Spicer turned the shrinking girl round, and jerked the cloak in and out of place, as if that proud, sensitive creature were a mere lay-figure, with a wooden soul, created for her amusement.

“There now, Mr. Lambert, tell me if this is not perfect?”

Miss Spicer turned as she spoke; but the gentleman, for whom all this display had been gotten up, was at the other end of the room, looking diligently out of the window.

“Mr. Lambert! Mr. Lambert! Come; we want your opinion,” cried Miss Spicer, so loudly that every one in the room could hear.

“I beg your pardon,” answered the young man, blushing with angry annoyance; “gentlemen are no judges of such things.”

Miss Spicer walked toward him, grasping her parasol as if it had been a spear, with which she meant to pierce him through.

“Now, this is too bad, after all the pains I have taken! Come along, I say.”

Lambert turned from the window and followed his tormentor. He did not even glance at Eva Laurence.

“Mother, I have an engagement; pray, excuse me.”

“An engagement—gone! The idea!”

With this exclamation, Miss Spicer turned from the girl she had tortured, and the cloak she did not want, with a gesture of the hand, meant to indicate that she had done with the whole affair, and became all at once impatient to leave the establishment.

Mrs. Lambert, who had concluded her purchase, and had been standing an amused spectator of her friend’s defeat, was now ready to go; and Eva saw them depart with a feeling of resentful humiliation, which brought a hot red to her cheeks, and mingled fire and tears to her eyes.

“You find it hard,” said a voice at her elbow. “We all rebel at first; but time and patience do wonders.”

The person who spoke was a slight, dark-eyed man, about thirty-five or forty years of age, whose low, kind voice fell gently on her disturbed senses.

“Yes, it is hard,” answered Eva; and the tears that had been gathering in her eyes flashed over the vivid red of her cheeks, and melted there like dew upon a peach. “I did not expect this—I thought that ladies alone would claim my services.”

“You forget,” said her fellow clerk, “that money does not always fall to the wise or the refined.”

“But a person like that, coarse, unfeeling, and insolent—what right has she to money, while I have nothing?”

“Ah! there is the old story, restless rebellion against things as they are and must be. The law gives her a fortune which some one else has earned—it is the chance of her birth; but nature withheld from her many things far more precious than wealth, which she has lavished on—on others, perhaps.”

Eva blushed, and a smile quivered over her lips. This half-suppressed compliment soothed her wounded pride a little, but she soon broke into impatience again.

“Is there no way in which a poor girl can support herself without meeting these bitter insults?” she exclaimed.

The man shook his head.

“Do intelligence, refinement, noble aspirations, go for nothing when joined with honest labor?”

“Yes, child, as they enchance the value of that labor.”

“And labor is slavery,” murmured the girl, looking toward the broad window, against which the sunshine was breaking in bright waves of silver. “That girl is her own mistress—can go where she will—say what she pleases—wound others if she likes, without rebuke or compunction.”

“Would you call that a privilege?” questioned the man, who listened with a grave smile.

“No, no! I could not do it. Knowing how keenly a poor girl can feel, no amount of prosperity could induce me to wound one as—as that girl has hurt me. If I were rich—”

“Well, if you were rich? What then?”

“I would think of others, use my wealth to make others prosperous. No girl with a soul should be shut up in a great room like this, to show off garments for happier woman to wear.”

“Yet it is only a little time since you were so glad to come here.”

Eva’s face changed and the cloud was swept from it as if by a flash of lightning. She reached forth her hand.

“You think me impatient, and so I am; ungrateful—but that I am not. I was glad to come here—so glad! The sweetest hour of my life will be that in which I carry home my first week’s wages, and see those poor, dear faces brighten with a sight of the money. How can I be so unreasonable? Forgive me!”

CHAPTER III.
A HUMBLE HOME.

Up town, where vacant lots can still be found, stood a small wooden building, scarcely more than a shantie in dimensions, but perfectly finished, so far as it went, and neat in all its appointments as any palace. Two small rooms on the first floor, and a like number of sleeping chambers, with their ceilings in the roof, took up the entire length and breadth of the building. The little space of ground, not occupied by the building, was given up to turf and brightened with flowers, which climbed the fences and ran up the little portico, as leaves cluster around a bird’s-nest in the spring. Indeed, that little spot of earth was lovely. In the cool of the day, thousands of purple and pink morning glories shook the dew from their delicate bells, and, at all hours masses of scarlet beans, cypress-vines, and sweet scented clematis, kept the little enclosure bright and beautiful, week in and week out, so long as the season lasted.

The house itself contained little of value. Curtains of cheap muslin, white as snow, through which you could see a thousand delicate shadows from the flowers outside, shaded the windows.

In the front room was a pretty chintz couch, home-made, with dainty cushions, and an easy-chair to match, the workmanship of some strong, deft hand in the first construction, and finished up by the taste, still more perfect, of a woman, to whom the aesthetic influence was second nature.

Two or three really fine engravings were on the walls, and in one corner stood a straight-legged, old piano, with an embroidered stool.

Two persons sat in this room, at nightfall, on the day Eva Laurence made her little outburst of pride in that fashionable establishment down town. One was a tall, spare woman, about fifty years of age, perhaps, originally from New England, as you might detect from a certain peculiarity of speech, and the constant occupation she found for her hands, even while seated in that roomy easy-chair. The other was a young girl, seemingly about fourteen at a first glance; but on a second look, you saw traces of thought and of pain on that noble face, which took your judgment in a few years. The girl was near the age of her sister Eva; in fact, there was not a year between them, and if that had been all, they might have passed for twins. But there the resemblance ended. Nothing could be more unlike the rich coloring and perfect figure of Eva than the pale delicacy and wonderful expression of this girl on the couch.

“Mother!”

How sweet and low that voice was! This one incomparable word seemed rippling off into music, full of tenderness and gentle pathos.

“Well, Ruth, what is it? Shall I move the cushions?”

“No, mother; but you seem thoughtful. Has anything gone wrong that I do not know of?”

“Wrong? No! It is only the one old trouble!”

“The house?”

“Yes. I am afraid, Ruth, that we shall have to give it up. The mortgage will be due this year——”

“But Eva thought——”

“Yes, dear, I know. If she had only got her situation a little earlier, there might have been some chance; but the lot is growing more valuable all the time, and Mr. Clapp is a grasping man.”

Ruth Laurence clasped her hands, and turned her eyes upon the wall.

“Oh! how helpless I am!” she said, with a thrill of pathetic pain in her voice. “If we could both work now.”

“But that is impossible. Besides, what would the house be without you—a cage without its bird?”

That moment, a brave, young voice came singing up to the front door of that tiny house, and a bright face leaned through the open window, under which Ruth was lying, and shook some ripe leaves from the vines upon her.

“All right—both here,” cried as fine a school-boy as you ever sat eyes on, swinging a package of books down from his shoulder, and coming through the little hall. “I’ve got along famously, mother: not a demerit. But what makes you look so sober?”

The lad seemed to lose something of his bright animation as he entered that humble parlor and saw his mother’s anxious face, his large grey eyes clouded over with anxiety and he stood a moment gazing mutely upon her.

“Well, mother,” he said at last, “has Eva come home yet? She promised us a famous supper when those people paid her, and I’m on hand for it, if ever a little chap was. Not here yet, you say! Now that’s what I call rough! Isn’t it, sister Ruth?”

“She will be home soon,” answered sister Ruth, returning the boy’s kiss with a gentle sigh.

“How cold your lips are!” exclaimed the boy, and a look of tender trouble came into his eyes. “Is it because you are hungry, sister Ruth? If it is, I’ll—I’ll go and sell my school-books, and play hookey after it, to get you something to eat. As for me, I was only in fun. A chap of my age don’t want much, you know.”

“But the books are not yours, dear,” answered the sweet, sad voice from the couch; “they belong to the city.”

The boy stood still a moment while the slow color mounted to his face.

“I know that,” he answered, almost crying; “but just then they seemed to be mine, dear old friends, ready to go anywhere for my good. Anyway, if I was a fairy now, every one of them should turn into something good to eat; bread for me, and pound-cake for mother, and—and——”

“Beef-steak for us all!” said the mother, joining in the conversation.

The boy drew in his breath and smacked his lips, as if the very idea of a warm beef-steak were a delicious morsel to be tasted and lingered over.

“Oh, that! but then one must not be extravagant. Who knows! Eva may come back with a whole pocket full of rocks!” the boy broke forth, after a moment of dull despondency. “Come, mother, cheer up, something good is going to happen. I feel it in my bones.”

Mrs. Laurence arose feebly from her chair, took the boy’s head between her hands and kissed him, with a sort of slow restrained passion, half a dozen times, as if she thought each kiss could be coined into food for his hungry lips.

“Are you so very——”

“Not a bit of it,” cried the lad, shaking his head free, and making a dive at his books, that the poor mother might not see his hard struggle to keep from crying. “Hungry, oh, no! Didn’t one of the big boys give me half his lunch? That’s a roundabout whopper, I know,” he muttered to himself; “but them eyes, I couldn’t stand ’em, and she been sick so long. Capital lunch it was, too: corned beef sandwiches and pickles—famous! So just think of yourself, mother, not me. But here comes Eva. Hurra!”

Sure enough, that moment Eva Laurence came through the little gate, sad, weary, and despondent, moving through the dusky flowers like a spirit of night. She entered the little sitting-room, and going directly up to her mother, kissed her in silence. Then she sat down on an edge of the couch, looked tenderly upon her invalid sister, and whispered to her,

“Have you had nothing? Has no raven or dove from Heaven come to feed you, my poor darling?”

Ruth shook her head, and tried to smile.

“It is mother who needs it most,” she said. “She is not used to being ill, poor darling, and did without so long herself before she would own that we were getting short. Have you brought nothing for her?”

Eva shook her head, and whispered, “I did ask. Don’t think me a coward, Ruth, but they will not break their rules, down there, for anyone.”

“What can we do?” cried the sick girl, clasping her hands. “I can wait, but mother and poor Jim? Then you will break down.”

“No,” answered Eva, almost bitterly. “Mr. Harald has insisted on sharing his lunch with me every day—that is the worst of it. I am kept strong and rosy, while you and mother, who need wholesome food much more, are left here to suffer. You don’t know, Ruthy, dear, how I have longed for an opportunity to hide some of his nice things away, and bring them home; but he always eats with me, and I have no courage to speak. So I feast like a princess, and feel guilty as a thief.”

“But you need strength so much more than we do,” answered Ruth, clasping her pale hands over Eva’s neck, and kissing her beautiful face. “It would break my heart to see you growing pale and thin like the rest of us.”

Eva sprang to her feet, stung with unreasonable contrition for having tasted the food she could not share with those she loved.

“What can I do? Is there nothing left? If we could only bridge over the next two days—but how?”

“Just you hold on,” said little Jim, pitching his pile of books into the next room, and shutting the door upon them with a bang, as if nothing less than a great effort could free him from temptation. “Just you hold on. This is a free country, and every American has a right to have something to eat; yes, and be President of the United States, if the whole people want him to—not to speak of women who haven’t got their inalienable rights to be men just yet, but are hungry and thirsty just the same. Give me a chance, now.”

Out of the house James Laurence went, putting on his thread-bare cap as he ran. The women he left looked at each other, and almost smiled, his enthusiasm was so contagious.

“Where can he have gone, what is the boy thinking of,” said Eva, untying her shabby little bonnet, and sitting down in helpless expectation. Ruth looked up, smiling. She had great faith in little Jim, and, spite of all the sweet patience which made her character so lovely, thought, with keen physical longing, of the good which might possibly come out of his sudden resolution.

“We never know what ideas our blessed Lord may give to a child,” she said; “besides, it does seem impossible that, in a country like this, God’s innocent creatures can be left to starve. I think Jim will come back at least with a loaf of bread; the man who refused us may trust him. Let us wait and see.”

This sweet prophecy fell so tranquilly on the soft, summer air that, spite of themselves, these women began to hope.

CHAPTER IV.
LITTLE JIMMY GOES AFTER WORK.

Little James Laurence gave himself no time for cowardly thoughts, but ran bravely towards a grocery store, where the family provisions had been bought in better times, but where all credit for their present necessities was now curtly refused.

The proprietor of this store had fortunately gone out, and his wife stood behind the counter, serving a customer. She was a stout, matronly body, with clear, light-blue eyes, and a pleasant smile, which was turned with more than usual kindness on the boy as he entered almost upon the run. Something in that young face, in the large, eager eyes, and restless mouth, struck her with a vague idea of commiseration. When her customer went out, carrying a brown paper parcel, she folded her plump, round arms on the counter, and leaning over them in a luxuriously cozy position, accosted the boy.

“Well, Jimmy, what shall we put up for you? One never sees any of your folks lately. Seem to have took their trade somewhere else?”

James went close up to the counter, and fixed his great, hungry eyes on hers: the light from a swinging lamp overhead fell upon his face, and the kind woman read something there that made her heart ache.

“Why, Jimmy, my dear boy, what is it? No trouble, I hope, beyond the great loss?”

Had the woman been cold or angry, that brave boy would have faced both without a tear; but now, sudden moisture sparkled in his eyes, and he winked his long, black lashes over and over again to break it up while he was speaking.

“We haven’t traded here lately, Mrs. Smith, because we had no money, and your husband got tired of trusting.”

“Who told you so?”

“He did.”

“Then he—— Well, he’s one of the best fellows that ever lived. Does it all for the sake of me and the children—you must understand that, youngster. He’s generous as the day, is my husband. Now what is it you want just at present?”

“Mrs. Smith, we haven’t had anything to eat in our house these three days.”

The boy’s voice broke as he said this, and tears fell from the eyes he lifted to that woman’s face, whose kindness he could only see through a mist.

“Not had anything to eat in three days, and I here! Oh, Jimmy Laurence! what were you all thinking about? It’s too bad, there!”

Mrs. Smith drew a plump arm across her eyes as she spoke, then seizing the lad by both hands, she fell to kissing him over the counter, then gave him a box on the ear, and pushed him away.

“Why didn’t you come to me? Why didn’t your mother just step over and tell me about it? Business is business, but this—— I’ve no patience with you, Jimmy Laurence, nor none of your tribe.”

“But we did not know. He said——”

“He said. He can say anything he likes when there’s no woman by with a will of her own. Now come round here this very minute and tell me what you want.”

“Oh, Mrs. Smith, you are so good! I didn’t mean to beg for things, or run in debt more than we have; but we must have something to eat, or—or more of us will be down sick; but I mean to work for it—that is what I came for. There is a load of coal coming to-morrow morning. I want to bring it in for you.”

“You, Jimmy! You bring in coal, poor, slender, pale-faced darling!”

Little Jim flushed all over at this insinuation against his manliness, and rolling up the sleeve of his jacket, exposed a delicate, white arm, with the little hand clenched, and blue veins thus forced to notice on the wrist.

“See, Mrs. Smith,” he said, “there’s muscle for a boy; lean, but tough—just feel it.”

Mrs. Smith did span the delicate wrist with her thumb and finger, feeling the quick pulse stir feebly to the touch, and turned away her face to keep the boy from seeing how close she was to tears—an unusual thing with her.

“Yes, I see; not much flesh to spare.”

“No; some fellows have lots, you know—but that don’t make ’em powerful. Mrs. Smith, just look at the boys that ride circus horses, and jump through hoops, how lean they keep ’em. Just let me feed up a little, and I shall be in prime working order.”

“Well,” answered the woman, laughing away the tears that had actually begun to float in her blue eyes, “we will feed you up and try.”

“That’s splendid,” cried the boy, pulling down his jacket-sleeve, which was far too short, and woefully thread-bare. “Then I was thinking of another thing. Saturday nights you are so busy, and have lots of things to carry home—couldn’t I do some of that just as well as the bigger boys? You don’t know how spry I am. Now a basket like that is nothing to me.”

Here the noble little fellow lifted down a basket of groceries that stood on the counter, ready to be carried home, and dragged it, staggering and breathless, across the floor, where he gave way and fell across it, utterly insensible.

Good Mrs. Smith ran around the counter and lifted the poor little fellow in her arms. Then she sat down on a candle-box, and pressing that pale head to her bosom, began to pat him on the back, rub his hands, and push the hair off from his forehead with quick, motherly tenderness. This flamed up to generous rage when her husband came in with his fresh, prosperous look, and asked her what she was about, and what boy she was hugging.

“Come and look for yourself, John Smith, and if you are not quite a heathen and Sandwich Island hottentot, ask God to forgive your cruelty. Look at that face; look at these limp, little hands; just go to the door and look down street towards the house, where all those morning glories only cover up starvation. You brought it on, Smith; you refused them credit when they hadn’t another place to go to, and the poor things are just starved out—starved out! Do you hear me, John Smith? And one of ’em, for anything I know, dead in your wife’s arms—just an awful judgment against you if he is—poor, sweet, innocent darling, as wanted only to work for a morsel of bread. He work? John Smith, I hate you!”

“Come, come, old woman. Isn’t this going a little rough?” said the grocer, quite bewildered, and taken aback by this assault from the most genial and kind creature in the world. “What has got into your head, and who is that in your arms?”

“Who? don’t ask me. It’s little Jimmy Laurence, the son of that splendid policeman, who was shot down in the street by a highway burglar; one of the steadiest customers you had when we wanted custom bad enough, mercy knows. He’s just starved out, mother, sisters and all, and you’ve done it by telling them you couldn’t trust any longer; but I’ll pay you off. They shall have everything they want, if it’s half the store. I’ll send for carts, and have the whole stock moved into their kitchen. How can you look me in the face, John Smith? Bring me some water, brandy, peppermint, hartshorn. Can’t you step about? Or do you want to kill him over again? There!”

CHAPTER V.
A FEAST AFTER A FAMINE.

John Smith had done his best to obey these confused demands. He brought water, and held it in a stone pitcher, while Mrs. Smith thrust her hand to the bottom and sprinkled little Jimmy’s face; but this failed to bring a sign of life back. So he put down the pitcher, and brought a little tin measure half-full of brandy, from some secret corner back in the store, which his better half snatched from him and held to those pale lips. Some drops trickled through the teeth that had fallen slightly apart, and, after a little, the boy began to stir. Then the good woman burst into tears that came in a torrent, deluging all the full-blown roses in her cheeks, and shaking her bosom with sobs.

“There,” she cried holding the lad out on her lap as he struggled to life again; “take him, heft him, make sure what a shadow he is; then down upon your knees, John Smith, and thank God that you’re not quite a murderer! Your meanness will be the death of me yet. Now I warn you. Me and the children, your duty to take care of us? John Smith, John Smith, now don’t get me out of patience.”

“Well, then, what if I say that I am sorry—right down sorry?”

“In that case, John Smith——”

“That I will let them have anything they want, without charging till better times come round,” continued the grocer, soaking a cracker in brandy, and feeding it in fragments to the boy.

“John—John Smith, I always did say——”

“And what we haven’t got, I’ll go right out and buy with our own money—sausages, beef-steak, mutton-chops. Will that pacify you, Mary Jane?”

So the two set to work in earnest, while little James looked on, somewhat faint still, and pleasantly bewildered, with a strong taste of brandy in his mouth, and a warmth in his whole system that he had not felt for months.

“Don’t take too much of that, Jimmy dear,” said Mrs. Smith, looking up from the basket she was packing. “Dried-beef, crackers, tea, bread; just stuff in a codfish, Smith, edgeways down this side, and fill up the chinks with apples—them red ones are the best. As I was saying, Jimmy, one cracker can soak up no end of moisture, and your cheeks are getting red. Now, Smith, run out, and hurry back with the other things.”

Smith went out, and his wife, in her rich benevolence, began to fill innumerable paper bags with dried prunes, raisins, loaf-sugar, and other little dainties, which, in her eager haste to pack up substantials, had escaped her mind till then. These she pressed down into the basket, and stuffed into her own pocket, which were quite full when her husband returned with three or four paper parcels in his hand, looking more radiant than any man who had bribed his wife’s forgiveness with a diamond bracelet could have done.

“Now, wife, you are ready?”

“Stop a minute. John Smith, you are an angel, coat, boots, and all; but I’ve thought of something. Any fire in your kitchen, Jimmy, dear?”

“No, ma’am. We haven’t had any use for a fire lately!”

“Exactly. No wood, no coal?”

James shook his head. Mrs. Smith opened a side door, and called to some one in the upper rooms, in which her family dwelt.

“Kate! Kate Gorman!”

“Well, marum, what’s to the fore now?”

“Come down stairs, Kate—but no matter. Is there a good fire in the range?”

“Never a better!”

“Then take this, and this; broil the steak, fry the ham, slice up the cold potatoes left after dinner, and fry them; then heat some tin pans, and put them in.”

“Thin I’m not to set the table, marum?”

“No. Make a strong pot of coffee, and one of tea, bring ’em hot; pickles, mustard; and don’t forget some of them strawberry preserves, too.”

“But what am I to do with the same, Mistress Smith?”

“Bring them all over to the little white house, with the morning glories. Open the gate softly, and come round to the back door. Step down here, Kate, and I will tell you.”

Kate stepped down, and in the darkness of the stair-case received very particular instructions, which she obeyed implicitly.

Then Mrs. Smith returned to the store, took up the heavy basket, and called James.

“Run on first, now,” she said, “and keep them all busy about something; take half a dozen apples, and give them each one; then step back and let me into the kitchen. It is sure to be ready and neat as wax. I’ve got matches here; then keep them all busy, and be a little boisterous till I get things ship-shape.”

Little James obeyed; and a few moments after burst in upon the mournful silence into which his mother and sisters had fallen, with eyes as bright as stars, and a heap of red apples in his arms.

“Didn’t I tell you?” he cried out, pouring the apples into Eva’s lap. “One, two, three, four, five. One a piece, and another to spare. Here, mother, the biggest for you, plump and rosy as Mrs. Smith’s cheek, and smelling luscious. There, Ruthy, darling, I’ll get a knife and peel yours.”

With this the artful little rogue ran into the kitchen, unbolted the door, and seizing on a knife, was back again in an instant.

“No, no, James, dear! We must not waste good things like that,” said Ruth, holding out her slender hand for the fruit which she regarded with longing eyes. “Put away your knife—I am in a hurry for my apple.”

James sprang to her couch, held the apple to her mouth, and laughed aloud as her teeth sunk into its crimson side.

“Eva, why don’t you pitch into yours?” he said. “Just watch Ruth, then see how mother is going it.”

“I do not need it. These two will keep over.”

“Oh, yes! Keep over, of course. Well, just as you like. But I say, let to-morrow take care of itself. ‘Hi diddle diddle, the cat’s in the fiddle, the cow——’ No, that’s all nonsense; the animal couldn’t do it, but I could. There, now, what do people have foot-stools lying about loose for. One step more, and the only gentleman of this family would have been full length at your feet. Mother!”

The boy sprung to his mother, and kneeling before her, pulled down the hand she had lifted to her face, and kissed it tenderly.

“Oh, mother! I thought nothing could make you cry.”

“I am growing childish, James; sickness weakens one so,” answered the woman, who was usually firm as iron. “Besides, gratitude brings tears easy.”

“Yes,” said Ruth, thoughtfully; “for rain, there must be some warmth; the cold, bitter days only bring down hail and sleet.”

“Tell us,” said the mother, wiping her eyes, “where did you get these?”

“From Mrs. Smith, mother. Isn’t she splendid?”

“But you did not ask her again?”

“Yes, I did; not for them, but to let me work for something to keep us alive; so these apples were handy, you see, and I’m going lots of errands—never you fear!”

“How they set one craving for more,” said the old lady, who had the great hunger of a past fever on her, which was maddening—and she eyed the two apples in Eva’s lap ravenously.

Eva reached forth one of the apples, but James put it back, shaking his head playfully at the mother’s greed.

“Not healthy to eat too much at once. Wait a little, and then——”

That instant the door leading into the kitchen was flung open, and the delicious scent of hot beef-steak and steaming coffee filled the little parlor. Eva and Mrs. Laurence started up, and cried out in their joyful amazement, for there, lighted by two lamps, was a table, well spread with all their scarcely-used dishes, on which was a repast such as they had not tasted for months.

“Take your place, mother — the armed-chair for you. Pour out the coffee, Eva, while I roll Ruthy up to the table. Want help? Well, yes, you may lend a hand this once, for a cracker or so, soaked in bitterness, don’t make giants of boys all at once. There, Miss Ruthy, what do you think of that?”

Miss Ruthy, the moment her chair was drawn close to the table, folded her hands on the white cloth, and bowed her face upon it, thanked God as he is seldom thanked at any meal. Then the bowed heads were lifted, and this little household, so downcast an hour before, came out into the sunshine of this marvellous plenty; and those sad faces grew bright with smiles of thankfulness, while two eager faces peeped in through the morning glories at the window, enjoying it all, as if the grocer’s wife and her servant had been good fairies.

CHAPTER VI.
IN THE MORNING.

A sudden burst of sunshine had come in on the Laurence family, brightening the darkness around them. It glinted through the white curtains, where they floated over the window, as the morning dawned upon them. At daylight every one was astir and full of cheerful activity; the cloud, which had so long hung blackly over that family, had turned its silver lining, and the very edge seemed radiant.

The boy was up earliest of all, building a fire in the stove, and making ready for his mother to come down. He was singing to himself all the time, while a bright tin tea kettle kept up a murmuring accompaniment, and softened the air with its vapory steam.

Then the good housewife came down, pale, gaunt, but unconsciously almost smiling, and Eva followed, supporting Ruth with both arms, until the invalid dropped into a chair, and drew a breath of exquisite satisfaction, as she looked over the little table her mother’s deft hands had spread.

There was no prodigal display at this cheerful meal; but to sit once more at a table, even sparsely spread, was a delight to the whole family. So thankful smiles dawned softly on those wan faces, and pleasant looks were cast through the window, when Mrs. Smith parted the purple morning glories with her two hands, and called out in a kind, cheery voice,

“Well, good folks, how do you find yourselves this morning?”

Little Jim gave a leap from his seat, opened the door, and let in Mrs. Smith, with a gush of fresh air, that seemed to set all the morning-glory bells to trembling with delight as they peeped into the room and tossed drops of dew over the window-sill.

“There, now, that’s something like!” said the dame, gloating over the scene as if every living soul at the table were her own especial property. “Mercy on us! how we have all chirked up since last night. Well, Jimmy, what about the coal?”

“Oh! I’m on hand!” answered the boy, pushing up the sleeves of his jacket. “That beef-steak has made me tough as an oak-knot and springy as a steel-trap. Just show me the thing that is to be done, and see if I don’t do it.”

The good dame regarded the delicate child with infinite compassion, as he made his little boast.

“Yes, yes,” she said, “you shall do anything you want to by-and-by, when good living has toughened you up. But just now we must give you light jobs, such as carrying home single parcels, and helping a little at the counter, maybe now and then—but you mightn’t like that?”

“Like what? Why, Mrs. Smith, I’m just in for liking anything!”

“But then you are so manly, and this is girls’ work.”

A flush of scarlet came over that bright face, but it passed away in an instant; and holding up his arms, James asked the good woman if those hands and wrists were not slender and white as any girl’s.

At this Mrs. Smith laughed till her sides shook, and declared that, boy or girl, he was a splendid little fellow as the sun ever shone on; and if Mrs. Laurence felt as if she could spare him he might come up to the grocery, and when there was no light jobs for him to do, there was the cradle to rock, and the baby to tend up stairs.

Again the hot scarlet swept its way to the lad’s face, and a choking sense of shame rose to his throat; but he conquered the rebellious feelings like a hero, and protested, half crying, when he meant to laugh, that tending a baby must be prime fun, and rocking a cradle like rowing a boat. Just what he had wanted to do all his life. Besides, Mrs. Smith’s baby was such a first-class young one he wondered that any girl could be strong enough to hold her.

“Then it is all settled, Jimmy, dear!” exclaimed the good wife. “Smith couldn’t make much of an opening for a little chap as had got to learn the business before he could be of any use; so Kate Gorman and I thought how handy it would be to have some one about the baby now and then, just for that, and running the fancy errands, as I call them,—John Smith don’t like lazy people about him, and we musn’t eat the bread of idleness, you know, James.”

“I want to earn every mouthful of bread I eat,” said the boy, bravely, “and enough for others, too. If you’ll set me to washing dishes and peeling potatoes, I’ll try and do it well. See if I don’t.”

“Come along, then,” cried the woman, taking his hand with a firm clasp. “You’re willing, Mrs. Laurence?”

The poor, pale mother turned wistfully to her boy, who looked her firmly in the eyes, and smiled as if rocking cradles and tending babies were the great aim and glory of his young life.

“It will be in the house, and—and you’ll be a mother to him, Mrs. Smith?”

“Won’t I?” answered the dame.

“And you will let him come home sometimes?”

“Every night of his life, and three times a day, if you want him. Goodness gracious! you don’t expect that we intend to work a little fellow like that every hour in the twenty-four. I didn’t come here like a highway robber to run off with your son, and make a white slave of him; but just to give him what he seems to want, something to do, and something to eat.”

“And I’m in a hurry to begin,” said James, piling up his school-books on a set of hanging-shelves over the fire-place, and resolutely suppressing a big sigh that rose to his lips. “Perhaps the coal would have been too much for me. At any rate, I can do the other. But I say, Mrs. Smith?”

“Well, Jimmy. Just thought of something, I see.”

“Can I sleep at home? Ruth there is awful timid, and is sure to lie awake without a man in the house. Besides, mother, who has always been used to it, and Eva, who likes to have me about.”

“Indeed, I do, darling!” cried Eva, kissing the bright, young face; and turning to Mrs. Smith, she said, tenderly, “He does seem to be a protection, and we all love him so.”

“Of course, you do! He’s just the lovingest little shaver in the world! I only hope that John Smith, junior, will be up to his mark, which I think he will, being bright as a new dollar, if sich things are in these greenbacky days. As for sleeping at home, I never had any other idea. Now, come away, Jimmy, or something else will turn up; and my time is short, having left Kate Gorman tending Jerusha Maria, and breakfast on the table, which Smith won’t touch a mouthful of till I am there to cut up and pour out, being of that loving nature—though he does, sometimes, cut up a little rusty with customers. Come, Jimmy.”

James pulled down his sleeves, and put on his cap, after which he kissed his mother and sisters with clinging affection, as if he were starting on a whaling voyage, and marched off to the grocery, side by side with Mrs. Smith, who stopped in the store long enough to fill his pockets with nuts and raisins. Then she took him up stairs, and laid the baby she called Jerusha Maria into his arms, and taught him, with brief scolding, how to arrange his knees, so that the little curly head and the feet, in their tiny worsted socks, should not come too closely together, while the rest of that plump body dropped through, and was ignominiously doubled up, which happened, I am ashamed to say, more than was proper during the first half-hour of the lad’s promotion.

At these times Mrs. Smith would turn very red, and wonder if she had done quite wisely in the first outburst of her warm-hearted charity. While Kate Gorman paused in her work now and then to shake out the child’s long skirts and settle her comfortable, where she could bury her chubby hands in the boy’s hair, and refresh herself with a vigorous pull now and then, all of which James Laurence endured with the smiling stoicism of a young Indian.

CHAPTER VII.
SUNSHINE.

Eva Laurence was radiant that day as she walked down to the wareroom, which scarcely seemed to her like a place of toil. For the first time in weeks she had left a really cheerful home. The few days which intervened between her and the time her first wages would be paid were bridged over, and she no longer trembled with a wild fear of starvation for those she loved. Trouble might come, but nothing quite so dreadful as that. The heroism of her little brother had worked marvels, for which her heart swelled with tender gratitude.

The young man, who wore that soft, amber beard, was struck by her brilliant color, and deigned, in a careless way, to compliment her upon it as she passed him. This she scarcely noticed, being so occupied with pleasant thoughts, that his condescension passed unheeded; but when Harold came up, she reached forth both hands, and, looking in his earnest face, said,

“Good morning! What a lovely day it is!”

“Yes, very lovely—a great change,” he murmured, pressing her hands one instant; then dropping them with a gentle sigh.

“Yesterday was so gloomy,” she said; “but this——”

She broke off with a faint laugh, for the sky was, in fact, clouded; and she remembered the floods of silvery light that had come through the windows the day before, mocking her anxiety, and turning her heart sick with a thought of the dear ones at home.

Harold looked at her a moment in a grave, questioning way. He had seen the young clerk address her, and gave the smile on her lip, and the glow in her cheek, an interpretation that made his own greeting constrained and formal. Eva did not heed this either, the warmth at her heart was not to be chilled by a cold glance just then, even from the man who had been kindest to her. She went to a mirror, in which customers were expected to admire themselves, and stood before it smoothing her hair, graceful as a bird, and quite as unconscious of her own beauty.

Just then a party came into the show-room, and Harold turned his attention on them, while Eva stole away from the mirror, and stood ready to be called, without one trace of the shrinking pride which had made her so sensitive the day before.

The lady, who soon required her attention, was a stout, full-featured dame, arrayed in costly silk, flounced, looped, and puffed, until the rich material was lost in a confusion of trimmings, which fluttered, like the plumage of an angry bird, as she walked.

Up and down the vast show-room this person wandered, touching first one article, then another, with a heavy hand, so tightly incased in canary kid gloves, that the delicate fabric seemed ready to burst at each incautious movement of the imprisoned fingers. Now and then she would toss the fabric aside with a scornful little sniff, and ask the obsequious clerk if he had nothing better than that to show a lady who did not stand on prices, but must have the best of everything when she went a shopping. What would she please to look at, indeed? Why just what happened to take her fancy; as for wanting anything particular, she was a long way beyond that. If the young man had anything very rechercher, and out of the common, she didn’t mind looking at it; but, goodness gracious! “Who was that young woman?”

Here the new customer lifted both hands, and parted her lips with an expression of growing amazement, while her eyes, deepening from blue to pale gray, were fastened on Eva Laurence.

“That young lady,” answered the clerk, “is Miss Laurence, just engaged. You are not the first person who has been struck with her good looks. Haven’t a more genteel girl in the establishment.”

The customer dropped her hands, and turning abruptly from the clerk, walked to the stair-case, where an elderly man stood waiting for her with the patient indifference of a person impressed into service he did not like.

“Herman! Herman Ross!” she exclaimed, in an eager voice, “come here this minute and see for yourself. Did you ever in your born days! Look there! Isn’t that the loveliest creature you ever set eyes on?”

Eva was standing at a far-off counter, looking thoughtfully into the distance, with that soft, happy smile brightening her whole face, as the full light from a neighboring window fell upon it.

The man paused as he saw the face, and drew back with a sudden recoil from the eager hand still pressing his arm.

“What is this? What does it mean?” he demanded, turning white, and looking forward with a wild stare. “It is twenty years. I cannot go back to that, but—but—be quiet! Leave me alone!”

The man walked forward unsteadily, and, like one impelled to an action against his own consciousness, until he came close to Eva, but with such noiseless action that she did not heed him.

“Will you tell me your name?”

Eva started. The voice that addressed her was so low and hoarse that surprise became almost terror in her.

“My name? My—my name? Did you ask that?”

“Yes—yes!”

Eva turned her eyes on the white face which was reading hers with such pathetic earnestness, and all the angry surprise his abrupt address had kindled, died out under the sad penetration of his glance.

“My name is Laurence—Eva Laurence,” she answered, with gentle courtesy. “Pray, why do you care to know?”

“I can scarcely tell you, young lady. Excuse me, there must be some mistake. Laurence—did you say Laurence?”

“That is my name.”

“And your father?”

“My father is dead,” answered the girl, with a flush about her drooping eyelids, under which quick tears were springing.

“Dead? But your mother?”

“She is living.”

“Ah! But you have other relatives—brothers, sisters, perhaps?”

“Yes, I have a brother and one sister.”