Bad Hugh

He had not told her all of Lily's story, as he meant to do. There was no

necessity for that, for the matter was fixed. 'Lina should be his wife,

and he need not trouble Anna further; so he had bidden her adieu, and

was gone again, the carriage which bore him away bringing back Adah and

her boy.

Jim opened the wide door for her, and showing her first into the parlor,

but finding that dark and cold, he ushered her next into a little

reception-room, where the Misses Richards received their morning calls.

Willie seemed perfectly at home, seating himself upon a little stool,

covered with some of Miss Eudora's choicest worsted embroidery, a piece

of work of which she was very proud, never allowing anything to touch

it lest the roses should be jammed, or the raised leaves defaced. But

Willie cared neither for leaves, nor roses, nor yet for Miss Eudora, and

drawing the stool to his mother's side, he sat kicking his little heels

into a worn place of the carpet, which no child had kicked since the

doctor's days of babyhood. The tender threads were fast giving way to

the vigorous strokes, when two doors opposite each other opened

simultaneously, and both Mrs. Richards and Eudora appeared.

"Are you--ah, yes--you are the lady who Jim said wished to see me," Mrs.

Richards began, bowing politely to Adah, who had not yet dared to look

up, and who when at last she did raise her eyes, withdrew them at once,

more abashed, more frightened, more bewildered than ever, for the face

she saw fully warranted her ideas of a woman who could turn a waiting

maid from her door just because she was a waiting maid.

Something seemed choking Adah and preventing her utterance, for she did

not speak until Mrs. Richards said again, this time with a little less

suavity and a little more hauteur of manner, "Have I had the honor of

meeting you before?"--then with a low gasp, a mental petition for help,

Adah rose up and lifting to Mrs. Richards' cold, haughty face, her soft,

brown eyes, where tears were almost visible, answered faintly: "We have

not met before. Excuse me, madam, but my business is with Miss Anna, can

I see her please?"

There was something supplicating in the tone with which Adah made this

request, and it struck Mrs. Richards unpleasantly. She answered

haughtily, though still politely, "My daughter is sick. She does not see

visitors. It will be impossible to admit you to her chamber, but I will

take your name and your errand."

Adah felt as if she should sink beneath the cold, cruel scrutiny to

which she knew she was subjected by the woman on her right and the woman

on her left. Too much confused to remember anything distinctly, Adah

forgot Jim's injunction; forgot that Pamelia was to arrange it somehow;

forgot everything, except that Mrs. Richards was waiting for her to

speak. An ominous cough from Eudora decided her, and then it came out,

her reason for being there. She had seen Miss Anna's advertisement, she

wanted a place, and she had come so far to get it; had left a happy home

that she might not be dependent but earn, her bread for herself and her

little boy, for Willie. Would they take her message to Anna? Would they

let her stay?