Love Me Little, Love Me Long | Page 4

at once to go with her to her room and try it on.
"No--no--it is so cold there; we will do it here by the fire. You will find it in the large wardrobe, dear. Mind how you carry it. Lucy! lots of pins."
Mrs. Bazalgette then rang the bell, and told the servant to say she was out if anyone called, no matter who.
Meantime Lucy, impressed with the gravity of her office, took the dress carefully down from the pegs; and as it would have been death to crease it, and destruction to let its hem sweep against any of the inferior forms of matter, she came down the stairs and into the room holding this female weapon of destruction as high above her head as Judith waves the sword of Holofernes in Etty's immortal picture.
The other had just found time to loosen her dress and lock one of the doors. She now locked the other, and the rites began. Well!!??
"It fits you like a glove."
"Really? tell the truth now; it is a sin to tell a story--about a new gown. What a nuisance one can't see behind one!"
"I could fetch another glass, but you may trust my word, aunt. This point behind is very becoming; it gives distinction to the waist."
"Yes, Baldwin cuts these bodies better than Olivier; but the worst of her is, when it comes to the trimming you have to think for yourself. The woman has no mind; she is a pair of hands, and there is an end of her."
"I must confess it is a little plain, for one thing," said Lucy.
"Why, you little goose, you don't think I am going to wear it like this. No. I thought of having down a wreath and bouquet from Foster's of violets and heart's-ease--the bosom and sleeves covered with blond, you know, and caught up here and there with a small bunch of the flowers. Then, in the center heart's-ease of the bosom, I meant to have had two of my largest diamonds set--hush!"
The door-handle worked viciously; then came rap! rap! rap! rap!
"Tic--tic--tic; this is always the way. Who is there? Go away; you can't come here."
"But I want to speak to you. What the deuce are you doing?" said through the keyhole the wretch that owned the room in a mere legal sense.
"We are trying a dress. Come again in an hour."
"Confound your dresses! Who is we?"
"Lucy has got a new dress."
"Aunt!" whispered Lucy, in a tone of piteous expostulation.
"Oh, if it is Lucy. Well, good-by, ladies. I am obliged to go to London at a moment's notice for a couple of days. You will have done by when I come back, perhaps," and off went Bazalgette whistling, but not best pleased. He had told his wife more than once that the drawing-rooms and dining-rooms of a house are the public rooms, and the bedrooms the private ones.
Lucy colored with mortification. It was death to her to annoy anyone; so her aunt had thrust her into a cruel position.
"Poor Mr. Bazalgette!" sighed she.
"Fiddle de dee. Let him go, and come back in a better temper--set transparent; so then, backed by the violet, you know, they will imitate dewdrops to the life."
"Charming! Why not let Olivier do it for you, as poor Baldwin cannot?"
"Because Olivier works for the Claytons, and we should have that Emily Clayton out as my double; and as we visit the same houses--"
"And as she is extremely pretty--aunt, what a generalissima you are!"
"Pretty! Snub-nosed little toad. No, she is not pretty. But she is eighteen; so I can't afford to dress her. No. I see I shall have to moderate my views for this gown, and buy another dress for the flowers and diamonds. There, take it off, and let us think it calmly over. I never act in a hurry but I am sorry for it afterward--I mean in things of real importance." The gown was taken off in silence, broken only by occasional sighs from the sufferer, in whose heart a dozen projects battled fiercely for the mastery, and worried and sore perplexed her, and rent her inmost soul fiercely divers ways.
"Black lace, dear," suggested Lucy, soothingly.
Mrs. B. curled her arm lovingly round Lucy's waist. "Just what I was beginning to think," said she, warmly. "And we can't both be mistaken, can we? But where can I get enough?" and her countenance, that the cheering coincidence had rendered seraphic, was once more clouded with doubt.
"Why, you have yards of it."
"Yes, but mine is all made up in some form or other, and it musses one's things so to pick them to pieces."
"So it does, dear," replied Lucy, with gentle but genuine feeling.
"It would only be for one night, Lucy--I should not hurt it, love--you would not like to fetch down your Brussels