Clemence | Page 6

to her defective education, she became easily
confused and bewildered in an argument. She should have known, poor
lady, that flights of imagination ought not to be attempted by a practical
little body like herself, as the aforementioned retired grocer had more
than once informed her during some of their little conjugal scenes in
which Mrs. Brown's bony fingers and long nails generally played an
active part. But if the lady aimed at dramatic effect, she succeeded only
too well, for the little angular form, bristling with indignation, from the
depths of the great crimson velvet easy chair, the lurid eyes emitting
greenish lights, and the gaunt arm waved in the air, created a
momentary diversion. Mrs. Crane compressed her thin lips closely;
Miss Cynthia raised a filmy lace handkerchief and coughed slightly,
and Alicia Linden burst into a loud, masculine laugh. Mrs. Brown
instantly subsided and the conversation was skilfully turned into
another channel. The strong-minded widow was the only woman the
diminutive lady really feared.
* * * * *
Presently there was a little flutter, a rustling of silken robes, more
kissing and hand-shaking, and "good bye, loves," and the little party
dispersed.
* * * * *
"Widowed and fatherless; God pity them," came in a low voice from a
sad-faced woman, clad in the sable robes of mourning. It was that
"distant branch of the family," none other than Mrs. Crane's own
widowed sister, for whom the patriotic contractor had so generously
provided with a home, and one dollar fifty per week. Tears were falling
upon the work before her, but she brushed them away quietly as a shrill
voice beside her cried,

"Blubbering again, Jane Phelps, and Lucinda's new pearl-colored silk,
that I paid five dollars a yard for, in your lap. You miserable,
ill-tempered, sulky thing; if you have soiled it, I'll make you starve it
out, and take it out of your wages, beside!"
"You could not make me suffer more, whatever you might do, for I am
the most wretched, pitiable creature in existence," sobbed the woman.
"Good enough for you," was the response; "'as you make your bed, so
you must lie.' I always knew, for all your pretty, pink and white face,
and meek ways, you'd come to grief. You could always fool everybody
but me, though mother's pet, must have the best of everything to show
off her good looks, and no matter what fell to my share. I was so
homely and unattractive it did not make any difference what I wore.
But the tables are turned now, eh, Jane! The old folks didn't know,
when they thought they'd made you for this world and the next, by
putting you ahead of me, and sounding your praises in the ear of that
white-faced artist, that he'd die and leave their darling with nothing but
a lot of unsalable, miserable pictures and a child to support! They didn't
live to see it, to be sure, but I did, and, Jane, (coming closer and
lowering her voice to a tone of deep, intense passion,) I glory in my
revenge. I'm the rich Mrs. Crane, to-day, and you are old and poor, and
faded, and I don't mind telling you, now that this is an hour that I've
longed to see. You have always been preferred before me, and as I've
had to take up with the refuse, it was no more than natural, I suppose,
(with a sneering laugh,) that I should wait, and long, and hunger, for
the love that you took only as your right. So I waited, and to-day I
triumph in the thought that Deane Phelps' petted wife is a dependent
upon my bounty, a menial in the house where I reign supreme, and
which knows no law but my will. I have forgotten how to love, but each
day (and I have conned the lesson well) I learn better how to hate."
There was a rustling of stiff silk, a door slammed angrily, and the
slender figure left alone with her trouble, bowed itself like a reed before
the storm, and that wail of heart-broken humanity that has resounded
through long ages, and is yet only a faint echo of that night so long ago,
rose to the pallid lips, "my punishment is greater than I can bear,"

nevertheless, "not as I will, but as Thou wilt."
CHAPTER II.
Alicia Linden walked slowly homeward, musing thoughtfully: "This is
a strange world," she soliloquized. "Let philosophers air their utopian
theories about its containing the elements of universal happiness. I
know that human nature, as it is now constituted, is too selfish and
mean to arrive at a state of absolute perfection. Truly, 'men are a little
breed.' 'But, in the future, when that which is whispered in