Light O' the Morning Part 33

"I don't know, I am sure, my dear," said Miss Truefitt, looking at her with nervous eyes.

"Oh, dear, Aunt Vi! if you were to see mother now you wouldn't know her; she is wonderfully addicted to the pleasures of the toilet.

There is nothing so fascinating as the pleasures of the toilet when once you yield to its charms. She rigged me up pretty smart before I left New York, and I am going to wear my rose-colored silk with the cream lace to-morrow."

"But you are not going to an evening party, my dear."

"No; but I shall stay all the evening, and I know I'll look killing.

The dress suits me down to the ground. It is one of my fads always to be in something red; it seems to harmonize with my hair."

Miss Truefitt uttered a deep sigh.

"What are you sighing for, Aunt Vi?"

"Nothing, dear; only please don't offer me a bon-bon. The mere sight of those boxes gives me a feeling of nausea."

"But you have not tried the crystallized figs," cried Stephanotie; "they are wonderfully good; and if you feel nausea a peppermint-drop will set you right. I have a kind of peppermint chocolate in this box which is extremely stimulating to the digestive organs."

"No, no, Stephie. I beg--I really do beg that you will take all the obnoxious boxes out of the room."

"Very well, auntie; but you'll come up to-morrow to see me in my dress?"

The next day was Sat.u.r.day, a holiday of course. Stephanotie had put her hair into Hinde's curlers the night before, and, in consequence, it was a perfect ma.s.s of frizzle and fluff the next morning. Miss Truefitt, who wore her own neat gray locks plainly banded round her head, gave a shudder when she first caught sight of Stephanotie.

"I was thinking, dear, during the night," she said, "of your pink silk dress, and I should very much prefer you to wear the gray cashmere trimmed with the neat velvet at the cuffs and collar. It would tone down your--"

"Oh, don't say it," said Stephanotie; "my hair is a perfect glory this morning. Come yourself and look at it--here; stand just here; the sun is shining full on me. Everyone will have to look twice at me with a head like this."

"Indeed, that is true," said Miss Truefitt; "and perhaps three times; and not approve of you then."

"Oh, come, auntie, you don't know how bewitching I look when I am got up in all my finery."

"She is hopelessly vulgar," thought poor Miss Truefitt to herself; "and I always supposed Agnes would have such a nice, proper girl, such as she was herself in the old days; but that last photograph of Agnes shows a decided falling off. How truly glad I am that I was never induced to marry an American! I would rather have my neat, precise little house and a small income than go about like a figure of fun. That poor child will never be made English; it is a hopeless task. The sooner she goes back to America the better."

Meanwhile Stephanotie wandered about the house, thinking over and over of the happy moment when she would appear at The Laurels. She thought it best to put on her rose-colored dress in time for early dinner. It fitted her well, but was scarcely the best accompaniment to her fiery-red hair.

"Oh, lor', miss!" said Maria, the servant, when she first caught sight of Stephanotie.

"You may well say, 'Oh, lor'!' Maria," replied Stephanotie, "although it is not a very pretty expression. But have a bon-bon; I don't mean to be cross."

She whirled across the room, s.n.a.t.c.hed hold of one of her boxes of bon-bons, and presented it to Maria. Maria was not averse to a chocolate peppermint, and popped one into her mouth. The next instant Miss Truefitt appeared. "Now, Stephanotie," she said, "do you think for a single moment--Oh, my dear child, you really are too awful! You don't mean to say you are going to The Laurels like that?"

"Have a bon-bon?" was Stephanotie's response.

"You are downright rude. I will not allow you to offer me bon-bons again."

"But a fresh box of them has just arrived. I got them by the eleven o'clock post to-day," was Stephanotie's reckless answer; "and, oh, such beauties! And I had a letter from mother to say that I might order as many as ever I liked from Fuller's. I mean to write to them to ask them to send me ten shillings' worth. I'll ask for the newest varieties. There surely must be bon-bons which would not give you indigestion, Aunt Vi."

"I must ask you to take off that dress, Stephanotie. I forbid you to go to The Laurels in such unsuitable attire."

"Oh, lor'! and it's lovely!" said Maria, _sotto voce_, as she was leaving the room.

"What an unpleasant smell of peppermint!" said Miss Truefitt, sniffing at that moment. "You know, Stephanotie, how I have begged of you not to eat those unpleasant sweets in the dining room."

"I didn't," said Stephanotie; "it was only Maria."

Maria backed out of the room with another violent "Oh, lor'!" and ran down to the kitchen.

"I'll have to give notice," she said. "It's Miss Stephanotie; she's the most dazzlingly brilliant young lady I ever set eyes on; but mistress will never forgive me for eating that peppermint in her presence."

"Rinse the mouth out, and take no notice," was the cook's somewhat heartless rejoinder. "How do you say she was dressed, Maria?"

"Pink, the color of a rose, and that ravishing with lace. I never see'd such a dress," said Maria. "She's the most beautiful young lady and the queerest I ever set eyes on."

Stephanotie and her aunt were having a battle upstairs, and in the end the elder lady won. Stephanotie was obliged to take off the unsuitable dress and put on the gray cashmere. As subsequent events proved, it was lucky for her that she did do so.

CHAPTER XXII.

LETTERS.

By the post on the following morning there came two letters for Nora. She hailed them with a cry of delight.

"At last!" she said.

Mrs. Hartrick was not in the room; she had a headache, and did not get up to breakfast. Terence had already started for town. He had secured the post he desired in his uncle's office, and thought himself a very great man of business. Linda did not count for anything.

Nora flung herself into an easy-chair, and opened the first of her letters. It was from her mother. She was soon lost in its contents.

"MY DEAR NORA [wrote Mrs. O'Shanaghgan]: Be prepared for very great, startling, and at the same time gratifying, news. Your dear Uncle George, who has been spending the last three weeks with us, has made an arrangement which lifts us, my dear daughter, out of all pecuniary embarra.s.sments. I will tell you as briefly as possible what has taken place. He had a consultation with your father, and induced him, at my suggestion, to unburden his mind to him. You know the Squire's ways. He pooh-poohed the subject and fought shy of it; but at last I myself brought him to task, and the whole terrible and disgraceful state of things was revealed. My dear Nora, my dear little girl, we were, it appears, on the brink of bankruptcy. In a couple of months O'Shanaghgan would no longer have been ours.

I cannot say that I should ever have regretted leaving this ramshackle and much-dilapidated place, but of course I should have shrunk from the disgrace, the exposure, the feeling that I was the cynosure of all eyes. That, indeed, would have cut me to the quick.

Had your father consented to sell O'Shanaghgan and live in England, it would have been a moment of great rejoicing for me; but the place to be sold up over his head was quite a different matter. This, my dear Nora, seems to have been the position of affairs when your dear uncle, like a good providence or a guardian angel, appeared on the scene. Your uncle, my dearest Nora, is a very rich man. My dear brother has been careful with regard to money matters all his life, and is now in possession of a very large supply of this world's goods. Your dear uncle was good enough to come to the rescue, and has bought O'Shanaghgan from the man to whom your father owed the mortgage. O'Shanaghgan now belongs to your Uncle George."

"Never!" cried Nora, springing to her feet.

"What is the matter, Nora?" said Linda.

"Don't talk to me for the present, or I'll say something you won't like to hear," replied Nora.

"Really, I must say you are copying Molly in your manner."

"Don't speak to me," said Nora. Her face was crimson; she had never felt such a wild, surging sense of pa.s.sion in the whole of her existence. Linda's calm gray eyes were upon her, however. She managed to suppress any more emotion, saw that her cousin was burning with curiosity, and continued the letter.

"Although, my dearest Nora, Castle O'Shanaghgan now belongs to your Uncle George, don't suppose for a single moment that he is going to be unkind to us. Far from it. To all appearance the place is still ours; but with, oh! such a difference. Your father is still, in the eyes of the tenants and of the country round, the owner of Castle O'Shanaghgan; but, after consulting with me, your Uncle George felt that he must not have the reins. His Irish nature, my dear--But I need not discuss that. You know as well as I do how reckless and improvident he is."

"Oh, mother!" gasped Nora. She clenched her little white teeth, and had great difficulty in proceeding with her letter. Linda's curiosity, however, acted as a restorative, and she went on with her mother's lengthy epistle.