years, and can do everything, from dressing my hair to making a blanc-mange. I only parted with her because she was sick, and now that she is well, her place is filled. Try her, and do not make a servant of yourself. It is not fitting that you should.'
Grace was fond of giving advice, and had said more than she intended saying when she began, but Mrs. Tracy, though annoyed, was not angry, and consented to receive the girl who had lived at Brier Hill three years, and who, she reflected, could be of use to her in many ways.
While sitting there in her soiled working dress talking to the elegant Mrs. Atherton she had felt her inferiority more keenly than she had ever done before, while at the same time she was conscious that a new set of ideas and thoughts had taken possession of her, reawaking in her the germ of that ambition to be somebody which she had felt so often when a girl, and which now was to bud and blossom, and bear fruit a hundred fold. She would take the girl, and from her learn the ways of the world as presented at Brier Hill. She would no longer wear sacking aprons, and open the door herself. She would be more like Grace Atherton, whom she watched admiringly as she went down the walk to the handsome carriage waiting for her, with driver and footman in tall hats and long coats on the box.
This was the beginning of the fine lady into which Dolly finally blossomed, and when that day Frank went home to his dinner he noticed something in her manner which he could not understand until she told him of Mrs. Atherton's call, and the plight in which that lady had found her.
'Served you right, Dolly,' Frank said, laughing till the tears ran. 'You have no business to be digging round like a slave when we are able to have what we like. Arthur said we were to keep up the place us he had done, and that does not mean that you should be a scullion. No, Dolly; have all the girls you want, and hold up your head with the best of them. Get a new silk gown, and return Mrs. Atherton's call at once, and take a card and turn down one corner or the other, I don't know which, but this girl of hers can tell you. Pump her dry as a powder horn; find out what the quality do, and then do it, and not bother about the expense. I am going in for a good time, and don't mean to work either. I told Colvin this morning that I thought I ought to draw a salary of about four thousand a year, besides our living expenses, and though he looked at me pretty sharp over his spectacles he said nothing. Arthur is worth half a million, if he is worth a cent. So, go it, Dolly, while you are young,' and in the exuberance of his joy Frank kissed his wife on both cheeks, and then hurried back to his office, where he spent most of his time trying to be a gentleman.
That day they dined in the kitchen with a leaf of the table turned up as they had done in Langley, but the next day they had dinner in the dining-room, and were waited upon by the new girl as well as it was possible for her to do with her mistress' interference.
'Never mind; Mr. Tracy's in a hurry. Give him his pie at once,' she said, as Susan was about to clear the table preparatory to the dessert, but she repented the speech when she saw the look of surprise which the girl gave her and which expressed more than words could have done.
'Better let her run herself,' Frank said, when Susan had left the room, 'and if she wants to take every darned thing off the table and tip it over to boot, let her do it. If she has lived three years with Mrs. Atherton, she knows what is what better than we do.'
'But it takes so long, and I have much to see to in this great house,' Dolly objected, and her husband replied:
'Get another girl, then; three of them if you like. What matter how many girls we have so long as Arthur pays for them, and he is bound to do that. He said so in his letter. You are altogether too economical. I've told you so a hundred times, and now there is no need of saving. I want to see you a lady of silks and satins like Mrs. Atherton. Pump that girl. I tell you, and find out what ladies do!'
This was Frank's advice to his wife, and as far as in her lay she acted upon it, and whatever Susan told her was done by Mrs. Atherton at Brier Hill, she tried to do at Tracy Park: all except staying out of the kitchen. That, from her nature, she could not and would not do. Consequently she was constantly changing cooks, and frequently took the helm herself, to the great disgust of her husband, who managed at last to imbue her with his own ideas of things.
In course of time most of the neighbors who had any claim to society called at the park, and among them Mrs. Crawford. But Mrs. Tracy had then reached a point from which she looked down upon one who had been housekeeper where she was now mistress, and whose daughter's good name was under a cloud, as there were some who did not believe that Harold Hastings had ever made her his wife. When told that Mrs. Crawford had asked for her Mrs. Tracy sent word that she was engaged, and that if Mrs. Crawford pleased she would give her errand to the girl.
'I have no errand. I came to call,' was Mrs. Crawford's reply, and she never crossed the threshold of her old home again until the March winds were blowing and there was a little boy in the nursery at the park.
At the last moment the expected nurse had fallen sick, and in his perplexity Mr. Tracy went to the cottage in the lane and begged of Mrs. Crawford to come and care for his wife. Mrs. Crawford was very proud, but she was poor, too, and as the price per week which Frank offered her was four times as much as she could earn by sewing, she consented at last and went as nurse to the sick-room, and the baby, Tom, on whose little red face she imprinted many a kiss for the sake of her daughter who was coming home in June, and over whom the shadow of hope and fear was hanging.
Dolly Tracy's growth after it fairly commenced, was very rapid, and when Mrs. Crawford went to her as nurse she had three servants in her employ, besides the coachman, and was imitating Mrs. Atherton to the best of her ability; and when, early in the summer, she received the wedding cards of Edith Hastings, the young lady from Collingwood, who had married a Mr. St. Claire instead of her guardian, she felt that her position was assured, and from that time her progress was onward and upward until the October morning, ten years later, when our story proper opens, and we see her standing upon the piazza of her handsome house, with every sign of wealth and luxury about her person, from the silken robe to the jewels upon her soft, white hands, which once had washed her own dishes, and canned berries in her own kitchen, where she had received Grace Atherton, with her sleeves above her elbows.
There were five servants in the house now, and they ran over and against each other, and quarrelled, and gossipped, and worried her life nearly out of her, until she was sometimes tempted to send them away and do the work herself. But she was far too great a lady for that. She dressed in silk and satin every day, and drove in her handsome carriage, with her driver and footman in tall hats and long coats. She was thoroughly up in etiquette, and did not need Susan to tell her what to do. She knew all about visiting cards, and dinner cards, and cards of acceptance, and regret, and condolence, and she read much oftener than she did her Bible a book entitled 'Habits of Good Society.'
Three children played in the nursery now, Tom, and Jack, and baby Maude, and she kept a nurse constantly for them, and strove with all her might to instil into their infant minds that they were the Tracys of Tracy Park, and entitled to due respect from their inferiors; and Tom, the boy of ten and a half, had profited by her teaching, and was the veriest little braggart in all Shannondale, boasting of his father's house, and his father's money, without a word of the Uncle Arthur wandering no one knew where, or cared particularly for that matter.
Arthur had never been home since the day he quitted it to look after Amy Crawford, now lying in the grave-yard of Shannondale, under the shadow of the tall monument which Arthur's money had bought. At first he had written frequently to Mrs. Crawford, and occasionally to his brother, and his agent, Mr. Colvin; then his letters came very irregularly, and sometimes a year would intervene between them. Then he would write every week, and he once told them not to be anxious if they did not hear from him in a long time, as in case of his death he had arranged to have the news communicated to his friends at once. After this letter nothing had been heard from him for more than two years, until the morning when his telegram came and
