John Marvel, Assistant Part 19

"Ask her."

"Bet you you daren't ask her."

"How much?"

"What you like."

"I don't want to win your money."

"Don't you? Then hand me back that little fifteen hundred you picked up from me last week."

"That was square, but this is a certainty."

"I'd chance it--bet you a thousand, Jim, you daren't ask her to her face if old Bart isn't courting her and hasn't asked her to marry him."

"Oh! that's different. You want to make me put up and then make my bet for me. I tell you what I'll bet--that she's the only girl I know I wouldn't ask that."

"That may be. Now, I tell you what I'll bet--that you want a drink--ring the bell."

"That's a certainty, too," laughed his friend, and they turned and sank wearily in deep chairs till a drink should give them energy to start a fresh discussion.

Having put down the Rev. Bartholomew at the door of her aunt's imposing mansion, Eleanor Leigh, after a moment of indecision, directed her coachman to drive to a certain street in the section known as "down-town," and there she stopped at a pleasant looking old house, and jumping out of the carriage, ran up the worn stone steps and rang the bell. It was a street that had once been fashionable, as the ample, well-built houses and the good doors and windows testified. But that fickle jade, Fashion, had long since taken her flight to other and more pretentious sections and shops, loan-offices, and small grocers' markets had long engulfed the mansions of the last generation. Had any gauge of the decadence of the quarter been needed it might have been found in the scornful air of Miss Leigh's stout coachman as he sat on his box. He looked unutterably disgusted, and his chin was almost as high as the chins of his tightly reined-up horses.

Miss Leigh asked of the rather slatternly girl who came to the door, if the Miss Tippses were in, and if so, would they see her. When the maid went to see if they were at home, Miss Leigh was shown into a large and very dark room with chairs of many patterns, all old, placed about in it, a horsehair sofa on one side, a marble-topped table in the centre; an upright piano on the other side, and on a small table a large piece of white coral under a gla.s.s cover. Where the fireplace had once been, a large register now stood grating off the heat that might try in vain to escape through it.

Presently the maid returned. "Miss Pansy" was in, and would the lady please walk up. It was in the third story, back, at the top of the stairs. Miss Leigh ran up and tapped on the door, waited and tapped again. Then, as there was no answer, she opened the door cautiously and peeped in. It was a small hall-room, bare of furniture except two chairs, a sewing-machine, a table on which was an ironing-board at which at the moment stood a little old lady with a forehead so high as to be almost bald. She was clad in a rusty black skirt, a loose morning sacque of blue cotton, and she wore loose bedroom-slippers. Her sleeves were rolled up, and her arms were thin and skinny. She held a flat-iron in her hand, with which she had evidently been ironing a white under-garment which lay on the board, and another one was on a little gas-stove which stood near a stationary wash-stand. As Miss Leigh opened the door, the old lady gave a little exclamation of dismay and her hand went involuntarily to her throat.

"Oh! I beg your pardon!" said the girl, starting to retire and close the door; "I thought the servant told me----"

By this time the other had recovered herself.

"Oh! come in, won't you?" she said, with a smile and in a voice singularly soft and refined. "My sister will be ready to receive you in a moment. I was only a little startled. The fact is," she said laughing, "I thought the door was bolted; but sometimes the bolt does not go quite in. My sister--Won't you take a chair? Let me remove those things." She took up the pile of under-garments that was on one chair and placed it on top of a pile of dishes and other things on the other.

"Oh! I am so sorry," protested the girl, who observed that she was concealing the dishes; "I was sure the girl told me it was the door at the head of the stairs."

"She is the stupidest creature--that girl. I must really get my sister to speak to Mrs. Kale about her. I would, except that I am afraid the poor thing might lose her place. There is another door just off the little pa.s.sage that she probably meant."

"Yes--probably. It was I that was stupid."

"Oh! no, not at all. You must excuse the disorder you find. The fact is, this is our work-room, and we were just--I was just doing a little ironing to get these things finished. When your card was brought up--well, we both were--and as my sister is so much quicker, she ran to get ready and I thought I would just finish this when I was at it, and you would excuse me."

"Oh! I am so sorry. I wouldn't for anything have interrupted you,"

repeated the girl, observing how all the time she was trying un.o.btrusively to arrange her poor attire, rolling down her sleeves and smoothing her darned skirt, all the while with a furtive glance of her eye toward the door.

"Oh! my dear, I wouldn't have had you turned away for anything in the world. My sister would be _desolee_. We have a better room than this, where we usually receive our visitors. You will see what a nice room it is. We can't very well afford to have two rooms; but this is too small for us to live in comfortably and we have to keep it because it has a stationary wash-stand with hot water, which enables us to do our laundering."

"Yes, I see," murmured Miss Leigh softly.

"You see, we earn our living by making underclothes for--for a firm----"

"I see, and what nice work you do." She was handling a garment softly.

"Yes, my sister does beautiful work; and I used to do pretty well, too; but I am troubled a little with my eyes lately. The light isn't very good at night--and the gas is so expensive. I don't see quite as well as I used to do."

"How much can you do?" asked her visitor, who had been making a mental calculation.

"Why, I--It is hard to tell. I do the coa.r.s.er work and my sister does the finishing; then she usually launders and I iron when I am able. I suffer with rheumatism so that I can't help her very much."

"I hope you make them pay you well for it," blurted out the girl.

"Why, we used to get a very good price. We got till recently seven cents apiece, but now it has been cut down--that was for everything, laundering and ironing, too. We are glad to get that."

"How on earth do you manage to live on it?"

"Oh! we live very well--very well, indeed," said the little lady cheerfully. "Mrs. Kale is very good to us. She lets us have the rooms cheaper than she would any one else. You see she used to know us when we lived back in the East. Her father was a clerk in our father's office, and her mother went to school with us. Then when we lost everything and were turned out, we found we had to make our own living and we came here to see about our case, and she found we were here--and that's the way we came to be here. But don't you let my sister know I told you about the sewing," she said, dropping her voice, as a brisk step was heard outside the door. "Ah! here she is now!" as at the moment the door opened and a brisk little old lady, almost the counterpart of her sister, except that she might have been ten years her junior, that is, sixty instead of seventy years of age, tripped into the room.

"Oh! my dear Miss Leigh, how good of you to come all the way out here to call on us! Sister, what in the world are you doing? Why will you do this? I can't keep her from amusing herself! (This with a shake of the head and a comical appeal for sympathy from her visitor.) Won't you walk into our sitting-room? Now, sister, do go and make yourself presentable.

You know she will slave over all sorts of queer things. She really loves sewing and ironing. I'm quite ashamed to have you come into this pig-sty. Walk in, won't you?" And she led the way into a larger room adjoining the work-room, leaving Miss Leigh in doubt which was the more pathetic, the little old lady still delving over the ironing-board, making no pretence to conceal their poverty, or the other in her poor "best," trying to conceal the straits in which they were fallen.

Eleanor had observed that the older sister's gaze had constantly rested on the rose she wore, and as they were going out, the latter called her sister's attention to it. She said, she thought it possibly the most beautiful rose she had ever seen.

"Won't you have it?" said Eleanor, and unpinned it.

"Oh! no, indeed, I wouldn't deprive you of it for anything. It is just where it ought to be."

Eleanor persisted, and finally overcame both her reluctance and her sister's objection.

She was struck with the caressing way in which she took and held it, pressing it against her withered cheek.

"Sister, don't you remember the Giant-of-Battles we used to have in our garden at Rosebank? This reminds me of it so--its fragrance is just the same."

"Yes. We used to have a great many roses," explained the younger sister, as she led the way into the next room as if she were asking Eleanor into a palace, though this room was almost as bare of furniture as the other, the chief difference being an upright case which was manifestly a folding-bed, and a table on which were a score of books, and a few old daguerreotypes.

"Your friend, Mr. Marvel, was here the other day. What a nice young man he is."

"Yes," said Eleanor. "I am going out to see him. Where has he moved to?"

Miss Pansy said she did not know the street; but her sister had the address. She would go and see. When she came back, she went over and opened the old Bible lying on the table. "Here is where we keep the addresses of those we especially value," she said, smiling. "Oh! here it is. When he was here the other day, he brought us a treat; a whole half-dozen oranges; won't you let me prepare you one? They are so delicious."

Eleanor, who had been holding a bank-note clutched in her hand, thanked her with a smile, but said she must go. She walked across the room, and took up the Bible casually, and when she laid it down it gaped a little in a new place.

"Oh, you know we have had quite an adventure," said Miss Pansy.

"An adventure? Tell me about it."

"Why, you must know there is a young man here I am sure must be some one in disguise. He is so--well, not exactly handsome, but really distinguished looking, and he knows all about railroads and things like that."

"You'd better look out for him," said Miss Leigh.