she felt a strong desire to use these gifts, not for the pleasure of
display, but to seem fair in the eyes that seldom looked at her
without a tender sort of admiration, all the more winning when no
words marred the involuntary homage women love.
These thoughts were busy in Rose’s mind as she sat looking at the
lovely silk and wondering what Charlie would say if she should
some night burst upon him in a pale rosy cloud, like the Aurora to
whom he often likened her. She knew it would please him very
much and she longed to do all she honestly could to gratify the
poor fellow, for her tender heart already felt some remorseful
pangs, remembering how severe she had been the night before. She
could not revoke her words, because she meant them every one,
but she might be kind and show that she did not wholly shut him
out from her regard by asking him to go with her to Kitty’s ball and
gratify his artistic taste by a lovely costume. A very girlish but
kindly plan, for that ball was to be the last of her frivolities, so she
wanted it to be a pleasant one and felt that “being friends” with
Charlie would add much to her enjoyment.
This idea made her fingers tighten on the gleaming fabric so
temptingly upheld, and she was about to take it when, “If ye
please, sir, would ye kindly tell me where I’d be finding the flannel
place?” said a voice behind her, and, glancing up, she saw a meek
little Irishwoman looking quite lost and out of place among the
luxuries around her.
“Downstairs, turn to the left,” was the clerk’s hasty reply, with a
vague wave of the hand which left the inquirer more in the dark
than ever.
Rose saw the woman’s perplexity and said kindly, “I’ll show you
this way.?
“I’m ashamed to be throublin’ ye, miss, but it’s strange I am in it,
and wouldn’t be comin’ here at all, at all, barrin’ they tould me I’d
get the bit I’m wantin’ chaper in this big shop than the little ones
more becomin’ the like o’ me,” explained the little woman humbly.
Rose looked again as she led the way through a well-dressed
crowd of busy shoppers, and something in the anxious, tired face
under the old woolen hood the bare, purple hands holding fast a
meager wallet and a faded scrap of the dotted flannel little
children’s frocks are so often made of touched the generous heart
that never could see want without an impulse to relieve it. She had
meant only to point the way, but, following a new impulse, she
went on, listening to the poor soul’s motherly prattle about “me
baby” and the “throuble” it was to “find clothes for the growin’
childer when me man is out av work and the bit and sup
inconvaynient these hard times” as they descended to that
darksome lower world where necessities take refuge when luxuries
crowd them out from the gayer place above.
The presence of a lady made Mrs. Sullivan’s shopping very easy
now, and her one poor “bit” of flannel grew miraculously into
yards of several colors, since the shabby purse was no lighter when
she went away, wiping her eyes on the corner of a big, brown
bundle. A very little thing, and no one saw it but a wooden-faced
clerk, who never told, yet it did Rose good and sent her up into the
light again with a sober face, thinking self-reproachfully, “What
right have I to more gay gowns when some poor babies have none,
or to spend time making myself fine while there is so much bitter
want in the world??
Nevertheless the pretty things were just as tempting as ever, and
she yearned for the opal silk with a renewed yearning when she got
back. It is not certain that it would not have been bought in spite of
her better self if a good angel in the likeness of a stout lady with
silvery curls about the benevolent face, enshrined in a plain
bonnet, had not accosted her as she joined Kitty, still brooding