CHAPTER II.

The spirited horse that young Jack Brooks drove held his attention so completely at that moment that he had no time to bestow upon anything else; but when he was well out on the broad, clear roadway of the "Neck," he turned to his sister, and asked, "What did Kitty Grant; mean by your going to take tea with a girl who lives on McVane Street?"

"It is one of the girls at Miss Milwood's school,—Esther Bodn."

"How does a girl who lives on McVane Street come to go to Miss Milwood's school?"

"She assists Miss Milwood." And Laura told what she knew of Esther's assistance in the way of the French and German.

"Oh!" and the young man gave a satisfied sort of nod as he uttered this, as much as to say, "That explains it;" and then, dismissing the subject from his mind, turned his whole attention again to his horse, while Laura drew a deep breath of relief. She had begun to think that if her brother were to take up Kitty's cry against McVane Street, she might find her anticipated visit set about with thorns. "But I shall go, I shall go!" she said to herself, "whatever Jack may say, when mamma says that I may."

But Jack said no more on that occasion, nor when his mother, the next day at luncheon, asked Laura what time Miss Bodn expected her, did the young gentleman make any remark. He had evidently forgotten the matter altogether; and Laura, without further anxiety, set out upon her little journey to McVane Street.

Kitty Grant had laughed that morning when Laura had told her that she was to go to Esther's at four o'clock and leave at six, that she might be in time for her own dinner hour,—had laughed and said, "Oh, a regular 'four-to-six,'—a sunset tea! The little Bodn is 'up' on 'sassiety' matters, isn't she? Dear me, I wish I could go with you,—I never went to a sunset tea. Couldn't you take me along?"

"No, I'm sure I couldn't," Laura had answered, laughing a little, but a little irritated, nevertheless, at Kitty's tone; and when Kitty had gone on and declared that nobody could be more appreciative than herself, Laura had retorted,—

"Yes; but you make great mistakes in your appreciations. You wouldn't appreciate Esther's own sweetness and refinement at their real worth, if the carpets and curtains and chairs and things in the house on McVane Street didn't happen to please your taste."

These words of hers returned to Laura with great force as the door of the house on McVane Street was opened to her, and she found herself in a chilly hall, darkly papered and darkly and shabbily carpeted; and when she followed Esther up the stairs,—for it was Esther who had answered her ring,—and noted the general dreariness of the whole, she thought pityingly, "Poor Esther, to be obliged to live in such a dismal fashion."

It was in this depressed state of mind that she came to the top of the stairs. Here Esther was waiting for her; and as she pushed wide open a door in front of her, she said brightly, "Here we are," and Laura, turning, stood for a moment dumb with surprise, as she saw a room that by contrast with the dinginess of the halls looked almost luxurious, for it was all lightness and brightness and warmth and sweet odors, with the sunshine streaming in upon a window full of plants, and touching up a quantity of woodcuts, photographs, and water-colors, with a few oils, and two or three fine etchings,—all of which pretty nearly hid the ugly dark wallpaper. A little coal fire in a low grate made things still brighter, and brought out the soft faded reds of the rug, and purples and yellows of the worn chintz covers of lounge and chairs. And right in the lightest and brightest spot of all this lightness and brightness stood a little claw-footed round table, bearing an old-fashioned tea-service of china. The sunshine seemed actually to fill up the cups and spill over into the gilt-bordered saucers, as Laura looked. "It is a 'sunset tea,' indeed," she said to herself; "and if Kitty Grant could see how pretty and refined were the simple arrangements, she wouldn't mix Esther up with any horrid common emigrants, if she does live on McVane Street. Esther a foreigner of any kind! Nothing could be more absurd. Esther was a New England girl, if ever there was one,—a little New England girl, who had come up with her mother to Boston from the Cape perhaps to learn to be a teacher. Yes, that must be the explanation of McVane Street. The Bodns were people who had come up from the country, and country people of small means wouldn't be likely to know where to choose a home."

Laura had all this settled satisfactorily in her mind after she had chatted awhile with Esther in the sunny room, and taken in more completely its various details, such as the fishnet drapery by the windows, the group of shells on the plant-stand, and several photographs of a sea-coast. And when shown other sea-country treasures,—bits of coral and ivory and mosses,—things grew plainer than ever, and she began to have a very clear notion of Esther's past surroundings, and pictured her mother as one of those neat, trim, anxious-faced little women she had often seen in her sea or mountain summerings. It was just when she had got this fancy picture sharply defined that she heard Esther say, as a door leading from the next room opened,—

A tall, handsome woman smiled a greeting
A tall, handsome woman smiled a greeting

"Mother dear, this is my friend Laura Brooks, I've told you about;" and Laura, rising hastily, turned to see no trim, anxious-faced little person, but a tall, handsome, dark-eyed woman smiling a greeting to her daughter's guest over the pot of tea and plate of bread and butter that she carried. Not in the least like the fancy picture; but who—who was it she suggested?

All through the little meal this question kept recurring to Laura. Where had she seen that dark, handsome face before? It recurred to her again, as she followed the mother and daughter up to the little third-story room, to see the beautiful sunset effects. Where had she seen just that profile against such a sunset light? Then all at once, as the declining beams sent a redder ray across the nose and chin, the question was answered. The red ray had also illumined Laura's own face, and Mrs. Bodn, turning suddenly, caught the girl's curiously animated expression, and asked inquiringly, "What is it, my dear?" and Laura answered eagerly,—

"Oh, do you know that picture of Walter Scott's 'Rebecca,' painted by some great English artist, I think? My uncle has a copy of it in his library, and it is so like you, so like you, Mrs. Bodn. The moment I saw you I was sure that I had met you before; but just now, when the sunset lit up your face, I knew at once what made it so familiar. It was its great resemblance to the 'Rebecca.' Oh, do you know the picture, Mrs. Bodn?"

"Yes, perfectly well," answered Mrs. Bodn, quietly; "but it was not painted by an English artist, it was the work of a young German who is now dead. He was very little known, though he did some fine work."

"And did you know that the picture was so like you, Mrs. Bodn?"

"Well, yes, I knew that it was thought to be like me when it was painted; and it ought to be, you know, for I sat for it,—I was the model."

"You were a—a—the model," gasped Laura, in astonishment.

"Yes, I was a—a—the model," answered Mrs. Bodn, repeating Laura's own halting syllables, with an accent half of amusement, half of sarcasm. Then, more seriously, she added, "It was years ago, when I was living in Munich."

"Esther, where are you?" a voice from the floor below here called out.

"We are up in your room looking at the sunset; it's lovely; come up and see it," Esther called back. And the next moment Laura was being introduced to "My cousin, David Wybern,"—a tall, good-looking boy of fifteen or sixteen, with beautiful dark eyes like Mrs. Bodn's. The next moment after that, when this tall, good-looking boy, in addressing Mrs. Bodn, called her "Aunt Rebecca," like a flash these thoughts went flying through Laura's mind,—

"A model for Rebecca the Jewess, and her own name Rebecca, and her daughter's and her nephew's names,—Esther, David,—these also Hebrew names!" What did it signify? Kitty—Kitty would say that it proved she was right,—that they were the very people she had said they were. But, oh, they were not; they were not of that common kind that Kitty had classed so scornfully! No matter if her mother had been a model years ago, it was through poverty, of course, and she was very brave not to be ashamed of it; and Esther,—Esther was lovely, a girl to be good to, to be true to, and she, Laura Brooks, would be good to her and true to her, no matter what happened. Poor Laura, she little knew how this resolve would be put to the test within the next few hours, for she could not foresee that the fact of the coachman's forgetfulness to call for her, as he had been ordered to do, and her consequent acceptance of David Wybern's attendance, was to bring such a storm about her. It had seemed the simplest thing in the world, when half-past six struck, and no carriage came for her, to accept David's attendance, and just as simple, when the street cars rushed by, without an inch of standing-room, to walk on and up over the hill to Beacon Street. But in this walk it happened that her brother had passed her as he drove by with one of his friends, and he had gone straight home and into the dining-room with the words, "What does this mean?" and then he proceeded to tell how he had passed his sister accompanied by a young man or boy who looked to him like one of the clerks in Weyman & Co.'s importing-house.

What did it mean, indeed? Her father and mother also wondered and exclaimed; and when Laura appeared, and told them what it meant, there was a general outcry of disapproval and criticism, led on by her brother, who told her she should have waited and sent a message to them by this boy, instead of permitting him to walk home with her. In vain Laura spoke of the boy's good manners, of the refined aspect of the little home which she had just visited, and the intelligence and dignity of Mrs. Bodn and her daughter. Nothing she said seemed to ameliorate the disapproval or criticism; and at last, stung by a sore sense of injustice, the girl turned upon her father and said, "Papa, I've always heard you say that everybody should be judged by their worth, and you've often and often quoted from that poem of Robert Burns that you are so fond of, about honest poverty, and I remember two lines particularly, that you seemed to like most of all,—

"'That sense and worth o'er a' the earth
May bear the prize and a' that;'

"and yet now, now—"

"But, my dear child," as Laura here broke down with a little sob,—"my dear child, it isn't that these people are poor,—it is because we don't know anything about them."

"I—I think it is because you do know that—that they live on McVane Street," faltered Laura.

"Well, that is to know nothing about them, in the sense that father means," broke in her brother, sharply. "Their living there shows that they are the kind of people that are out of our class entirely,—people that we don't want to know. I didn't think it mattered much the other day, when you told me you were going down there to take tea with your teacher; but when I find you are to make friends with the young clerks who are the relations of your teacher, I think it matters a good deal."

"But this clerk, as you call him, has a great deal better manners than Charley Aplin. He behaves a great deal more like a gentleman."

"And he has a much longer nose," retorted her brother, with a sneering little laugh. "The fellow's a Jew, I'm certain; he has a regular Jewish face."

"He has not ," began Laura, indignantly, and then stopped suddenly. It was the low trader-type of Jewish face reflected from her brother's mind that she saw as she spoke; then Mrs. Bodn's beautiful profile and that of her nephew rose before her! If they—if they—her brother, her father, could see these faces,—these faces so fine and intelligent, and saw, too, the likeness that she had seen to the portrait in her uncle's library,—would they feel differently,—would they do justice to Esther and her relations, though they were Jews,—would they admit that they were of the higher type, that they were fit friends for her? No, no, no, she answered herself, as soon as these questions started up in her mind, and, stung through all her generous young heart by these instinctive answers, she burst forth: "You talk about Jews as if there were but one class,—the lowest class. What if all Americans were judged by the lowest class? Would you call that fair? And you think the Bodns are the lowest kind just because they are poor and live on McVane Street! That great novelist who lived in England and who was prime minister there, Lord Beaconsfield, was a Jew, and he was proud of it; and the Mendelssohns were Jews; and there are those wonderful musical novels Uncle George gave me to read last summer, 'Charles Auchester' and 'Counterparts,' they are full of Jews and their genius—"

"Laura, Laura, there is no need of your talking like this," interrupted her father; "we are not going to deny the worth or respectability of your new acquaintances, but it is entirely unnecessary for you to rush into any intimacy with such strangers."

There was a look in her father's face, as he spoke, that told Laura very plainly that all she had said had done more harm than good, and that henceforth there would be no more "sunset teas" with Esther Bodn. All her little plans, too, for making Esther's life brighter, by welcoming her into her own home, and bringing her into a better acquaintance with the other girls, were rendered impossible now. But if she could not be good to her in this way, she would be more than ever kind and cordial to her at school, and she would try to enlist Kitty Grant's interest. She would tell Kitty about that pretty refined home, and ask her to be kind and cordial too; and she was sure that Kitty would not refuse, for, in spite of her fun and her worldliness, Kitty had really a kind heart. Yes, she would enlist Kitty, and Kitty was all powerful. If she once got interested in a person, she could make everybody else interested. But, alas, for this scheme! 9zyqWhD0n3ZhJXC6wtzIdBlOqU//Yv/vnKa16RgMF3Xm7USm4du5xK37ylTs3IvU