Clemence | Page 5

grass had greened and faded for many a weary year; perhaps this remembrance touched a chord of her better nature. Life, with its cares, and sorrows, and disappointments, had hardened her, till she had almost lost faith in humanity. Moreover, she was a woman, homely, and old and common, and with feminine malice and spite she could not readily forgive another of her own sex for being beautiful, refined and attractive. She said emphatically, that "it was well that, in this world, pride could sometimes be humbled;" but for all that, the memory of that day so long ago, passed alone in her desolation and sorrowful widowhood, lent a pitying sadness to her voice that placed her infinitely above these other soulless ones of her sex, with their cold eyes and unsympathetic tones.
Vixenish Mrs. Brown detected the weakness at once, and pounced upon it with avidity. She was blessed with a good memory, and one or two well remembered slights from the unconscious objects of her animadversions, rankled bitterly, and she hungered for revenge. She exulted now without stint, and took no pains to conceal it. The lady had a blooming daughter, Melinda. If the mother's early life had been one of privation and toil, the young lady in question had had, thus far, a totally different experience. Mrs. Brown's educational advantages had been limited to a knowledge of reading, writing and ciphering, with a something of grammar. Miss Brown's childhood had passed under the tutilage of accomplished masters. She could dance, execute a few showy pieces upon the piano without a blunder, utter glibly French and Italian phrases, and had, with the help of her teacher, finished, creditably, a landscape, a gorgeous sunset, of amber and crimson, and purple-tinted clouds, which hung in the most conspicuous position in her mother's drawing-room. Melinda read novels, frequented theatres, and talked slang, like the "girl of the period," and was the idol of her weak mother, whom she ruled like a queen. Unfortunately, "my lady Graystone," as she was called in the clique over which Mrs. Crane presided, had an innate love for the pure and beautiful, and a thorough contempt for vulgarity in every form. The gorgeous Melinda, therefore, was not a person calculated to inspire a lady of her high-toned mind with any deep feeling of regard or esteem. The elder woman, who, from her long probation at service, before she was fortunate enough to secure William Brown, the grocer's apprentice, had caught that cringing obsequiousness that we so often see in those accustomed to serve, and could have borne patiently, any slights or rebuffs that opposed her entrance into the charmed circle which she had determined to invade at all hazards. Meek and fawning, where she desired to gain favor, as she was insolent and overbearing to her inferiors, she was willing to commence at the lowest round of the social ladder, and creep up slowly to a position that suited her ambition, in the same manner in which she had won her way to wealth out of the depth of poverty. But, when the blooming daughter of the retired grocer returned from boarding school, all things were changed. "Melinda was a lady," "entitled to a proud position in society, by virtue of her lady-like acquirements," and she demanded an instant recognition of her claims by said society. The exclusive circle of which the beautiful wife of Grosvenor Graystone had long been an acknowledged leader, politely, but firmly repulsed the overtures of the ladies of the Brown family, in such a way that they were not again repeated, and the result, as we have seen, was their cordial dislike, and even more, a vindictive hatred.
"Hard to part with everything," hissed Mrs. Brown, "and you pity them, I suppose, Alicia! You, who have been snubbed by them so repeatedly, that you have come to expect nothing better at their hands! You, a daughter of the people, so to speak;" (Mrs. Brown, since her signal defeat by the Graystone clique, had been at no little pains to air her democratic principles, much in the way we have seen some of our politicians do in the present day.) However, she was not so good a sensational speaker as Mrs. Crane, and like every one who attempts to imitate anything out of their "line," or perform impossibilities, and probably owing, in part, 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