Home Lights and Shadows Part 7

"It is the best I can do," Mrs. Bates said, with a quiet smile.

"Sister," said Mrs. Tarleton, on returning home, "you can't imagine what a sweet head-dress Mrs. Bates has just received from Paris through her sister in New York. It is the most unique and beautiful thing I ever saw. I tried hard for the pattern, but the selfish creature wouldn't let me have it. She is keeping it for the Liston's party, where it will be the admiration of every one."

"What is it like?"

"Oh, I can't begin to describe it. It is altogether novel. I wish now I had asked her to let me bring it home to show it to you."

"I wish you had. You must go there again and get it for me."

"I believe I will call in again to-morrow.--Perhaps she will have thought better of it by that time, and changed her mind. At any rate, if not, I will ask her to let me bring it home and show it to you."

This was done. Mrs. Bates did not object to letting Mrs. Tarleton take the head-dress and show it to her sister, for she had the fullest confidence that she would not do anything with it that she knew was against her wishes, which had been clearly expressed.

The sister of Mrs. Tarleton was in raptures with the head-dress.

"It is right down mean and selfish in Mrs. Bates not to let you have the pattern," she said. "What a vain woman she must be. I always thought better of her."

"So did I. But this shows what she is."

"If I were you," remarked the sister, "I would have it in spite of her. It isn't _her_ pattern, that she need pretend hold it so exclusively. It is a Paris fas.h.i.+on, and any body else may get it just as well as she. She has no property in it."

"No, of course not."

"Then while you have the chance, take it to Madame Pinto and get her to make you one exactly like it."

"I have a great mind to do it; it would serve her perfectly right."

"I wouldn't hesitate a moment," urged the sister. "At the last party, Mrs. Bates managed to have on something new that attracted every one and threw others into the shade, I wouldn't let her have another such triumph."

Thus urged by her sister, Mrs. Tarleton yielded to the evil counsel, which was seconded by her own heart. The head-dress was taken to Madame Pinto, who, after a careful examination of it, said that she would make one exactly similar for Mrs. Tarleton. After charging the milliner over and over again to keep the matter a profound secret, Mrs. Tarleton went away and returned the head-dress to Mrs. Bates.

It had been in her possession only a couple of hours.

Mrs. Pinto was a fas.h.i.+onable milliner and dress maker, and was patronized by the most fas.h.i.+onable people in the city, Mrs. Bates among the rest. The latter had called in the aid of this woman in the preparation of various little matters of dress to be worn at the party. Three or four days after Mrs. Tarleton's visit to Mrs. Pinto with the head-dress, Mrs. Bates happened to step in at the milliner's, who, during their consultation, about little matters of dress, drew the lady aside, saying--"I've got something that I know I can venture to show you.--It's for the party, and the loveliest thing you ever saw."

As she said this she took from a box a facsimile of Mrs. Bates' own beautiful head-dress, and held it up with looks of admiration.

"Isn't it sweet?" she said.

"It is the most beautiful head-dress I ever saw," replied Mrs.

Bates, concealing her surprise. "Who is it for?"

"It's a secret, but I can tell _you_. It is for Mrs. Tarleton."

"Ah! Where did she get the pattern?"

"I don't know; she brought it here, but said she couldn't leave it for the world. I had to study it all out, and then make it from my recollection of the pattern."

"The pattern did not belong to her?"

"Oh, no. Somebody had it who was going to show it off at the party, she said; but she meant to surprise her."

"Have you any new patterns for head-dresses not chosen by the ladies who have made selections of you for Mrs. Liston's party?" asked Mrs.

Bates, not seeming to notice the reply of Mrs. Pinto.

"Oh, yes, ma'am, a good many," and half-a-dozen really handsome head-dresses were shown--none, however, that pleased her half so well as the one she was about throwing aside. She suited herself from the a.s.sortment shown her, and directed it to be sent home.

Mrs. Bates felt justly outraged at the conduct of Mrs. Tarleton, but she did not speak of what had taken place, except to one or two very intimate friends and to her husband. The evening of the party at length arrived. Mrs. Tarleton was there a little earlier than Mrs.

Bates, in all the glory of her ungenerous triumph. The beautiful head-dress she wore attracted every eye, and in the admiration won by the display of her taste, she lost all the shame she had felt in antic.i.p.ation of meeting Mrs. Bates, to whom her meanness and dishonesty would be at once apparent.

At length she saw this lady enter the parlors by the side of her husband, and noticed with surprise that her head-dress was entirely different from the one she wore. The truth flashed across her mind.

Mrs. Pinto had betrayed her secret, and Mrs. Bates, justly outraged by what had occurred, had thrown aside her beautiful cap and selected another.

Now Mrs. Bates was a woman whom Mrs. Tarleton would be sorry to offend seriously, because her position in certain circles was undoubted, while her own was a little questionable. The fact that Mrs. Bates had declined wearing so beautiful a head-dress because she had obtained one of the same pattern by unfair means, made her fear that serious offence had been given, and dashed her spirits at once. She was not long left in doubt. Before ten minutes had elapsed she was thrown into immediate contact with Mrs. Bates, from whom she received a polite but cold bow.

Mrs. Tarleton was both hurt and offended at this, and immediately after the party, commenced talking about it and mis-stating the whole transaction, so as not to appear so much to blame as she really was. Mrs. Bates, on the contrary, said little on the subject, except to a few very intimate friends, and to those who made free to ask her about it, to whom she said, after giving fairly the cause of complaint against Mrs. Tarleton--"I spoke to her coldly because I wished our more intimate acquaintance to cease. Her conduct was unworthy of a lady, and therefore I cannot and will not consider her among my friends. No apologies, if she would even make them, could change the wrong spirit from which she acted, or make her any more worthy of my confidence, esteem or love."

"But you will surely forgive her?" said one.

"The wrong done to me I am ready enough to forgive, for it is but a trifling matter; but the violation of confidence and departure from a truly honest principle, of which she has been guilty, I cannot forgive, for they are not sins against me, but against Heaven's first and best laws."

But that did not satisfy some. Persons calling themselves mutual friends strove hard to reconcile what they were pleased to call a misunderstanding in which "both were to blame." But it availed not.

To their interference, Mrs. Bates usually replied--"If it will be any satisfaction to Mrs. Tarleton to be recognized by me and treated kindly and politely in company, I will most cheerfully yield her all that; but I cannot feel towards her as heretofore, because I have been deceived in her, and find her to be governed by principles that I cannot approve. We can never again be on terms of intimacy."

But it was impossible to make some understand the difference between acting from principle and wounded pride. The version given by Mrs.

Tarleton was variously modified as it pa.s.sed from mouth to mouth, until it made Mrs. Bates almost as much to blame as herself, and finally, as the coldness continued until all intercourse at last ceased, it was pretty generally conceded, except by a very few, that "both were about equally to blame."

The reader can now make up his own mind on the subject from what has been related. For our part, we do not think Mrs. Bates at all to blame in at once withdrawing herself from intimate a.s.sociation with such a woman as Mrs. Tarleton showed herself to be, and we consider that a false charity which would seek to interfere with or set aside the honest indignation that should always be felt in similar cases of open betrayal of confidence and violation of honest and honorable principles.

We have chosen a very simple and commonplace incident upon which to "hang a moral."--But it is in the ordinary pursuits of business and pleasure where the true character is most p.r.o.ne to exhibit itself, and we must go there if we would read the book of human life aright.

IT'S NONE OF MY BUSINESS.

"WAS N'T that young Sanford?" asked Mrs. Larkin of her husband, as the two stood at a window of their dwelling one Sunday afternoon, noticing the pa.s.sers by. The individual she alluded to was a young man who had ridden gaily along on a spirited horse.

"Yes," was the reply.

"He rides past here almost every Sunday afternoon, and often in company with Harriet Meadows. He is quite a das.h.i.+ng young fellow."

"He is das.h.i.+ng far beyond his ostensible means. I wonder at Millard for keeping him in his store. I would soon cast adrift any one of my clerks who kept a fast horse, and sported about with the gay extravagance that Sanford does. His salary does not, I am sure, meet half his expenses. I have heard some of my young men speak of his habits. They say money with him is no consideration. He spends it as freely as water."

"Strange that his employer does not see this!"

"It is. But Millard is too unsuspicious, and too ignorant of what is going on out of the narrow business circle. He is like a horse in a mill. He sees nothing outside of a certain limit. He gets up in the morning, dresses himself, goes to his store, and then devotes himself to business until dinner time. Then he goes home and dines.

After this he comes back to his store and stays until night. His evenings are either spent in reading or dozing at home, or with a neighbor at checkers. On Sunday morning he goes to church, in the afternoon he sleeps to kill time, and in the evening retires at eight, unless a friend steps in, to sleep away the tedious hours. Of the habits of his clerks, when out of his store, he knows as little as the man in the moon."