51

Mrs. Blunt introduced Star, and then gave Mrs. Richards’ orders about the “two print dresses.”

“Goodness gracious! are you Stella Gladstone?” ejaculated the pet and pride of the Richards mansion, with a stare of surprise.

Star bowed a cold assent to this rude salutation, and then walked quietly across the room and seated herself by a window.

Miss Baker, however, had nodded and smiled kindly at her, and she felt sure that she should like the weary-looking seamstress.

“Well, I guess mamma will be glad you have come,” Josephine pursued; “she has been nearly plagued to death with that Maggie Flynn—you’re to take her place, you know, as chambermaid and errand girl.”

Star did not reply, and Miss Baker shot an indignant glance at the rude girl.

The young stranger’s heart was swelling within her until it was nearly ready to burst with insulted pride and bitter disappointment. She had longed, when she had found herself alone in her room, to relieve herself with a burst of passionate weeping, but she dare not give way to it lest it should unfit her for everything during the day; but now it seemed as if she could not endure much more.

She had never dreamed that such a reception as this awaited her.

She had pictured to herself, many times, being drawn into the arms of a pleasant, gentle-voiced woman, who had loved her mother, and who would love her for that mother’s sake, if not for her own. She had thought to twine her arms about her neck, and, laying her head upon a sympathizing bosom, tell her of her dear parents, what their hopes and plans had been for her, and what her own desires for the future were, 52and expected to receive only kind and encouraging words in return.

52

How different it all was, and how cruel that all her hopes must be crushed in this unfeeling way!

She had been ambitious to become a cultivated woman and scholar, and to follow out her father’s plans for her education, and come up to his standard, which was a high one.

But instead she found she was to be degraded to the level of a common servant, all her prospects destroyed, all her hopes crushed, and she felt as if she could not bear it.

 Prev. P 37/329 next