Part 14 (1/2)

”Ruth Richards, madame; call me Ruth, if you please.”

”Hum! Ruth Richards--that's rather pretty,” remarked the lady, but still searching the fair face before her with a look of curious interest.

”But,” she added, ”you look very young; I am afraid you are hardly experienced enough to be a very efficient seamstress,” and the lady told herself that those delicate, rose-tipped fingers did not look as if they had been long accustomed to the use of a needle.

”I do not understand very much about dressmaking,” Mona frankly replied, although she ignored the reference to her youthfulness; ”but I can do plain sewing very nicely, and, indeed, almost anything that is planned for me. I distinctly stated at the office that I could neither cut nor fit.”

”Well, I can but give you a trial,” with a little sigh of disappointment, as if she regretted having engaged one so young; ”and if you cannot fill the place, I shall have to try again, I suppose. But, see here! I caught the thread that fastened this lace to my skirt, and have ripped off nearly half a yard. I want you to replace it for me, and you must do it quickly, for I am a little late, as it is.”

Mona dropped upon her knees beside the beautiful woman, threaded her needle with the silk which Mary brought her, and, though her fingers trembled and her heart beat with rapid, nervous throbs, she quickly repaired the damage, and in a manner to win commendation from Mrs.

Montague.

”You are very quick with your needle, and you have done it very nicely,”

she said, with a smile that revealed two rows of the most perfect teeth that Mona had ever seen. ”And now tell me,” she added, as she turned slowly around, ”if everything about my costume is all right, then you may go.”

”Yes,” Mona returned; ”it is perfect; it fits and hangs beautifully.”

”That is the highest praise any one could give,” Mrs. Montague responded, with another brilliant smile; ”and I believe you are really a competent judge, since your own dress hasn't a wrinkle in it. Did you make it yourself?”

”I--I helped to make it. I told you I do not know how to fit,” Mona answered, with a quick flush, and almost a feeling of guilt, for she had really done but very little work upon the simple black robe which had been made since her uncle's death.

”Well, I shall soon find out how much you do know,” said the lady in a business-like tone. ”You can begin upon those sheets and pillow slips to-morrow morning--Mary has told you, I suppose. That will be plain sewing, and you can manage it well enough by yourself. Now you may go,”

and the elegant woman turned to her dressing-case, gathered up an exquisite point-lace fan and handkerchief, while Mona stole softly out of the room and up to her own, where, no longer able to control the nervous excitement under which she was laboring, she wept herself to sleep.

The poor grief-stricken girl felt very desolate on this, her first night beneath a strange roof, and realized, as she had not before, that she was utterly alone in the world, and dependent upon the labor of her own hands for her future support.

Aside from the grief which she experienced in losing her uncle and the lovely home which for so many years had been hers, she was both wounded and mortified because of Ray Palmer's apparent indifference.

She could not understand it, for he had always seemed so innately good and n.o.ble that it was but natural she should expect some evidence of sympathy from him.

He had been so marked in his attentions to her during that evening at the opera, he had appeared so eager for her permission to call, and had implied, by both words and manner, that he found his greatest pleasure in her society, she felt she had a right to expect some condolence from him.

She had begun to believe--to hope that he entertained a more tender sentiment than that of mere friends.h.i.+p for her, and she had become conscious that love for him--and the strongest pa.s.sion of her nature--had taken deep root in her own heart.

How kind he had been to her that night--how thoughtful! antic.i.p.ating her every wis.h.!.+ How his glance and even the tones of his voice had softened and grown tender whenever their eyes had met, or he had spoken to her!

What, then, could be the meaning of his recent neglect? Could it be possible that it had been occasioned by the loss of her wealth?--that it had been simply the heiress of the wealthy Mr. Dinsmore in whom he had been interested, and now, having lost all, his regard for her had ceased?

It was a bitter thought, but she could a.s.sign no other reason for his strange silence and absence during her sorrow.

Must she resign all the sweet hopes that had begun to take form in her heart?--all the bright antic.i.p.ations in which he had borne so conspicuous a part?

Must she lose faith in one who had appeared to be so manly, so n.o.ble, and so high-minded?

It certainly seemed so, and thus the future looked all the darker before her, for, humiliating as it was to confess it, she knew that Ray Palmer was all the world to her; that life without him would be almost like a body without a soul, a world without a sun.

Her uncle's death had come upon her so like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky, almost benumbing all her faculties with the grief it had hurled upon her so remorselessly, that she could think of nothing else until Mr.