Dainty's Cruel Rivals Part 28

When Ailsa informed her step-father questioningly of her offer, he smiled approval, and made Dainty welcome in his simple home, while tender-hearted Ailsa soothed her all she could in the bitterness of her bereavement.

"We are both orphans, dear, and we can sympathize with each other," she said, tenderly, and helped her friend to get some neat mourning gowns, in which she looked so frail and lily-like that she seemed to be fading away like a broken flower.

She tended patiently on the little children and won their love, and the exuberant grat.i.tude of their father, this latter so effusive that it grew irksome to the sorrowful, reserved girl.

"Oh, Ailsa, I do not wish to seem ungrateful, but I dislike the man as much as you do, and his attentions are getting too pointed to be agreeable. I am afraid I shall have to leave you and the dear children, much as I love you," she sighed, in December, after two quiet months in the little house; and her friend rejoined, indignantly:

"I see he is trying to court you, although his wife, my dear mother, has been dead but a few months. Oh, why did she ever marry such a brute? I believe he broke her heart, for it was a strange decline of which she died. He was always flirting with his women customers, and scolded his wife harshly when she objected. He made her bitterly unhappy, the coa.r.s.e, unfaithful wretch, and that is why I hate him so for my own papa never spoke an unkind word to her up to the day of his death. You will have to repulse him, but not too unkindly to arouse his enmity."

But the crisis came suddenly the next day while Ailsa was at school.

Mr. Sparks boldly proposed marriage to the indignant girl.

Her blue eyes flashed disdain upon him, as she cried:

"How can you be so coa.r.s.e and unfeeling, sir, showing so little respect to the memory of the wife dead but a few months?"

"She is as dead now as she will be in ten years hence!" he replied, with a grin that filled her with disgust; while he added, wheedlingly: "But I know how particular women folks are over these trifles, and I would have waited till spring before I spoke to you on the subject, but the fact is, the neighbors are gossiping about my keeping house with two pretty girls, and neither one any kin to me. So I thought I'd better marry one of them, and shut scandal's mouth. And as for Ailsa, I never liked her.

She is always throwing up to me that her pa was a nicer man than I am.

But as for you, Dainty, I wors.h.i.+p the very ground you walk on, and I'll marry you to-morrow if you'll say the word."

"I can't marry you, sir. I--I--oh I am going right away, Mr. Sparks! I couldn't breathe the same air with a man that was so disrespectful to his first wife's memory as to court another in three months after her death!" the young girl cried, in pa.s.sionate disgust, arousing such bitter spite that the rejected suitor cast courtesy to the winds, rejoining, hotly:

"Go, then, Miss Pert, and the sooner the better! Shall I call a wagon to take your trunk?" sarcastically.

"You know I have no trunk, Mr. Sparks, but I will pack my valise at once, and perhaps you will let it stay till I can take it away. I must rent a room somewhere first," she murmured.

"No; take it with you, I say. Your clothes might get contaminated breathing the same air with me!" he answered, angrily.

So presently Dainty went away in the teeth of a howling winter storm, without a penny in her purse, or a shelter for her head, while the little ones sobbed out to Ailsa when she returned that bad papa had driven sweet Dainty away.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

A NEW HOME.

Dainty dragged herself slowly along the snowy street, almost exhausted by the weight of the hand-bag; and she wondered pathetically if it might not be best to follow her mother's example, and seek refuge from life's woes by the straight gate of death?

"Dear mother, if I only knew where to find the lonely grave where strangers laid you, I would stretch myself upon it and die!" she sobbed, the tears in her cheeks mixing with the melting snow, as it flew into her pale face, driven by the bleak December gale.

She crept presently into a quiet area-way, and somewhat sheltered from the driving storm, pondered on what she was to do now, without friends and without money, in a cold, suspicious world.

Presently she heard girlish chatter and t.i.ttering, and glancing through a window, saw several young girls busy at sewing-machines, directed by an angular spinster whom she took to be a dress-maker.

A sudden temptation seized her, and she rapped timidly on the bas.e.m.e.nt door, bringing the spinster hurriedly to it.

"Do you want a dress made?" she inquired, glancing at Dainty's hand-bag.

"No, madame. I am in search of work. Do you wish another hand to sew?"

faltered Dainty.

"Um! yes--I don't know. Bring in your valise, and let us talk it over;"

ushering her into a tiny, cozy kitchen, where they could talk in private.

"Now, then, what's your name, and how came you out hunting work in the face of such weather? Tell the truth," she said, suspiciously; and Dainty obeyed.

"I have been employed to help nurse some children, and was discharged to-day. My name is Miss Chase."

"Did you bring a recommendation?" sharply.

"No, ma'am; but I think I can refer you to Miss Ailsa Scott, on this same street. It was her mother's children I was nursing; but the father sent me away."

"I know Mr. Sparks. Why did he send you away?"

"I would rather not tell."

"Then I can not give you work!" curtly.

"Oh, madame, I am ashamed to tell you! The man wanted to marry me, and his poor wife dead but a few months! I refused with scorn, and he drove me away," the girl answered, wearily.

"Humph! I can't see what he wanted with a chit like you for a wife," the spinster returned, tossing her false frizzes disparagingly, and adding: "I do need another hand, but the pay is too much. I can not afford it."

"Oh, madame, I would work for my board awhile, if you will let me stay here!" pleaded Dainty, eagerly; and the woman answered:

"I don't know but that would suit me very well. I live here by myself, all the girls going home in the evenings. You may take off your things, and I'll get some work ready for you. But, mind, I'll call on Ailsa Scott to-night, and unless you have spoken the truth, out you go in the morning."

"I have only spoken the truth, madame," Dainty sighed, as she obeyed the commands, and soon found herself seated among the busy sewing girls, basting away on a ruffle, and thanking G.o.d in her heart for even this poor shelter that must be paid for with constant toil.

The girls all seemed to be gay enough, in spite of their poverty; but Dainty, poor, nervous girl, was glad when they went away at sunset, and left her alone with Miss White, as she found the name of her employer to be.

The spinster was not more than forty, and rather good-looking, in spite of her angularity. She asked Dainty many questions about Sparks, betraying quite a lively interest in the widower; and by and by she dressed herself smartly in a black silk gown and red bonnet, and went off to get Dainty's character from Ailsa Scott, leaving the girl alone in the house, save for some tenants in the upper part.

Dainty was very tired and sad; but she washed the tea-things and put them away, and lay down on the lounge in the sewing-room, with a sigh of relief at the chance to rest.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

THROWN ON THE WORLD.

Poor Dainty was always tired and sad now. She had never been very strong since her illness in the mountains.

Her face was always thin and pale, her blue eyes hollow, with dark circles beneath them, while her breath was short and palpitating. She knew that she was strangely ill, and had a fancy that she was going into a rapid decline.