An Ambitious Man

Twenty-five years before, when Berene Dumont disappeared from

Beryngford, she had, quite unknown to herself, left one devoted

though humble friend behind, who sincerely mourned her absence.

Mrs Connor liked to be spoken of as "the wash-lady at the Palace."

Yet proud as she was of this appellation, she was not satisfied with

being an excellent laundress. She was a person of ambitions. To be

the owner of a lodging-house, like the Baroness, was her leading

ambition, and to possess a "peany" for her young daughter Kathleen

was another.

She kept her mind fixed on these two achievements, and she worked

always for those two results. And as mind rules matter, so the

laundress became in time the landlady of a comfortable and

respectable lodging-house, and in its parlour a piano was the chief

object of furniture.

Kathleen Connor learned to play; and at last to the joy of the

lodgers, she married and bore her "peany" away with her. During the

time when Mrs Connor was the ambitious "wash-lady" at the Palace,

Berene Dumont came to live there; and every morning when the young

woman carried the tray down to the kitchen after having served the

Baroness with her breakfast, she offered Mrs Connor a cup of coffee

and a slice of toast.

This simple act of thoughtfulness from the young dependant touched

the Irishwoman's tender heart and awoke her lasting gratitude. She

had heard Berene's story, and she had been prepared to mete out to

her that disdainful dislike which Erin almost invariably feels

towards France. Realising that the young widow was by birth and

breeding above the station of housemaid, Mrs Connor and the servants

had expected her to treat them with the same lofty airs which the

Baroness made familiar to her servants. When, instead, Berene

toasted the bread for Mrs Connor, and poured the coffee and placed it

on the kitchen table with her own hands, the heart of the wash-lady

melted in her ample breast. When the heart of the daughter of Erin

melts, it permeates her whole being; and Mrs Connor became a secret

devotee at the shrine of Miss Dumont.

She had never entertained cordial feelings toward the Baroness. When

a society lady--especially a titled one--enters into competition with

working people, and yet refuses to associate with them, it always

incites their enmity. The working population of Beryngford, from the

highest to the lowest grades, felt a sense of resentment toward the

Baroness, who in her capacity of landlady still maintained the airs

of a grand dame, and succeeded in keeping her footing with some of

the most fashionable people in the town.