Signing the Contract and What it Cost

“Not a bit more’n you do, miss,” said the girl, with a compassionate glance at Floy’s pale cheeks and heavy eyes. “Dear me! don’t you think riches harden the heart? There’s the Madame has a dozen elegant silk dresses, good as new, if she has one, yet we must both wear ourselves out to get this done for to-morrow, though there won’t be a soul besides ourselves here to look at it, unless the lawyer or doctor should happen to call, which ain’t in the least likely, seein’ it’s a holiday.”

“Perhaps, then, we may consider ourselves blest in being poor,” Floy returned cheerfully; “and which of us would exchange our health for the poor Madame’s wealth?”

“Not I, I’m sure,” said Mary, shaking her head; “she’s worth her thousands, and has everything that money can buy, but she has never an hour’s ease or happiness.”

Both were too weary, Floy too heartsore, to be in a talkative mood; so they worked on in silence till startled from it by a sudden loud peal from the door-bell.

“Who can that be?” exclaimed Mary, laying down her work and glancing at the clock on the mantel; “half-past nine, and we never have any callers of evenings. There,” returning to her work at the sound of the opening and shutting of a door, followed by footsteps hastily descending the stairs, “Katty’s gone to answer it.”

The next minute Floy felt a light tap on her shoulder, and looked up to find Hetty’s bright, cheery face bending over her.

“Ah, I’ve surprised you! Thought I should. Hope the shock will be good for your nerves,” Hetty said, laughing in a pleased, kindly way at Floy’s start and joyous exclamation:

“Oh! is it you? how glad I am!”

“Yes; John and I have come to take you home.”

“John?”

“One of Aunt Prue’s boys. The children have come home for the holidays – but wouldn’t Araminta take my head off if she heard me say that! She’s the youngest, has arrived at the mature age of fifteen, and considers herself wiser than her parents or ‘than ten men that can render a reason.’ Come, put on your things, my dear.”

“I wish I could, but I have engaged to finish this to-night, and there’s a full hour’s work on it yet.”

“Not if I help,” said Hetty, pulling off her gloves and taking a thimble from her pocket. “I’ll call master John up and give him a book. You see I came prepared for emergencies.”

“He won’t like it, will he?”

“He’s a dear good fellow, and would do more than that for me; or for you when he knows you.”

CHAPTER XXIII

OLD FRIENDS AND NEW

“All things, friendship excepted,
Are subject to fortune.” —

    Lilly.
The hands on the dial-plate of the clock pointed to quarter-past ten as Hetty’s nimble fingers set the last stitch in the gown and Floy drew on her gloves, having already donned hat and cloak in obedience to orders.

“Done!” cried Hetty, putting her needle in the cushion and her thimble into her pocket. “Now, John, make way with these few basting threads while I put on my duds, there’s a good soul!”

John – a well-grown lad of seventeen, in looks a happy mixture of father and mother, in character an improvement upon both, having his mother’s energy without her hardness and closeness – laid down the paper he had been reading, and with the smiling rejoinder, “Pretty work to set a man at, Het!” was about to comply with her request when Mary, coming in from her mistress’s bedroom, her hands full of packages, interposed:

“Oh, never mind them! I’ll have them all out in the morning before the Madame’s up. Here, Miss Goodenough, Miss Kemper, and Mr. John, she charged me to give you each one of these. They’re boxes of fine candies. She always lays in a great store of them about Christmas.”

“Ah, ha!” cried John as the street-door closed on him and his companions, “won’t I have the laugh on Lu to-night, Het? He’d never have let me be your gallant if he’d thought there was a box of candy to be won by it.”

“A good thing he didn’t; he’ll manage as it is to get enough to make himself sick,” she returned somewhat scornfully.

“It was so kind in you to come for me,” remarked Floy. “How did you happen to do it, Hetty?”

“Because we wanted you – mother and I at least – and we thought it was getting too late for you to come alone.”

Floy was very weary in body, inexpressibly sad and weary in heart and mind. She strove to shake off her depression and respond to Hetty’s merry mood; but in vain. She could not banish the thick-coming memories of other holiday seasons made bright and joyous by the gifts, and still more by the love, of those of whom she was now bereaved by death and enforced separation.

Ah, what of Espy to-night?

Hetty read something of this in the sad eyes, and her mood changed to quiet, subdued cheerfulness.

They entered the house quietly, letting themselves in with a latch-key, and passed into the room back of the store.

Floy uttered a slight exclamation of pleased surprise as John turned up the light.

The room had put on quite a festive appearance; all signs of work had vanished, and it had been made neat and orderly, and its walls tastefully decorated with evergreens.

“John’s doings,” said Hetty, pushing a cushioned arm-chair nearer the fire. “Sit down here, my dear, and we’ll have some refreshments shortly; you see the kettle’s boiling, and the coals are just splendid, and we can take our time, as we’re not obliged to rise early to-morrow.

“Toast and tea, Jack, my boy; you and I know how to make ’em,” she went on, throwing off cloak and hat, and producing the requisite articles from a closet beside the chimney.

“I’ve already had three good meals to-day,” observed Floy, smiling slightly.

“What of that? four or five hours of hard work since the last, beside a brisk walk and a ride through the cold, ought to have made you ready for another,” returned Hetty, giving John the toaster and a slice of bread, then putting on the tea to draw.

“Have you nothing for me to do?” asked Floy.

“Yes; warm yourself thoroughly. Ah, what a good forgettery I have of my own! Here’s something else to employ you. A bit of Christmas in it, I suspect,” she ran on, taking a letter from the mantel and putting it into Floy’s hand.

A flush of pleasure came into the young girl’s cheek as she recognized in the address the writing of her old friend Miss Wells, but faded again instantly, leaving it paler than before.

What news did this missive bring? would it tell her of Espy, and that sorrow and bereavement had befallen him?

She broke the seal with a trembling hand. Ah, if she were only alone!

But Hetty and John, busy with their culinary labors, might have been unconscious of her existence for all the notice they seemed to be taking of her movements.

She opened the letter. A pair of black kid gloves and a folded bank-note fell into her lap; but without waiting to examine them, she glanced her eye down the page.

It was a kind, motherly letter, saying a great deal in few words; for Miss Wells had but little time to give to correspondence.

“She sent a trifling gift just to assure her dear child of her loving remembrance, and she inclosed ten dollars, fearing her purse might be low (she had not forgotten how it was with herself in the days when she was an apprentice and getting nothing but her board for her work); and if Floy did not like to take it as a gift, as she would be only too glad to have her do, then let it stand as a loan.”

“How kind, how very kind!” thought Floy.

Yes, her purse was very low, and such a loan from such a source was very acceptable. Ah, here was Espy’s name! He had been called home to see his mother die; she had had a stroke of paralysis, but the case was not hopeless; she might linger a good while, and perhaps get about again.

Floy breathed more freely.

There were just a few more lines.