and, without waiting an answer, she turned and led the way to the parlor. Annie followed, as if across the foundation of the fallen wall of Jericho; and found, to her surprise, that Mrs. Macintosh, knowing her by sight, received her with condescension, and Annie, grateful for the good-humor which she took for kindness, told her simply that she had come to see whether she would accept her services as parlor-maid.
Mrs. Macintosh seemed surprised at the proposal, and asked her the natural question whether she had ever occupied a similar situation.
Annie answered she had not, but that at home, while her father was alive, she had done so much of the same sort that she believed she could speedily learn all that was necessary.
"I thought someone told me," said the lady, who was one of the greatest gossips in the town, "that you were one of the teachers in the High School?"
"That is true," answered Annie; "I was doing so upon probation; but I had not yet begun to receive any salary for it. I was only a sort of apprentice to the work, and under no engagement."
Mrs. Macintosh, after regarding Annie for some time, and taking silent observation of her modesty and good-breeding, said at last:
"I like the look of you, Miss—, Miss–"
"My name is Annie Melville."
"Well, Annie, I confess I do not indeed see anything particularly unsuitable in you, but at the same time I cannot help fearing you may be—or, I should say rather, may imagine yourself—superior to what may be required of you."
"Oh, no, ma'am!" answered Annie; "I assure you I am too poor to think of any such thing! Indeed, I am so anxious to make money at once that, if you would consent to give me a trial, I should be ready to come to you this very evening."
"You will have no wages before the end of your six months."
"I understand, ma'am."
"It is a risk to take you without a character."
"I am very sorry, ma'am; but I have no one that can vouch for me—except, indeed, Mrs. Slater, of the High School, would say a word in my favor."
"Well, well!" answered Mrs. Macintosh, "I am so far pleased with you that I do not think I can be making a great mistake if I merely give you a trial. You may come to-night, if you like—that is, with your mother's permission."
Annie ran home greatly relieved, and told her mother what a piece of good-fortune she had had. Mrs. Melville did not at all take to the idea at first, for she cherished undefined expections for Annie, and knew that her father had done so also, for the girl was always reading, and had been for years in the habit of reading aloud to him, making now and then a remark that showed she understood well what she read. So the mother took comfort in her disappointment that her child had, solely for her sake, she supposed, betaken herself to such service as would at once secure her livelihood and bring her in a little money, for, with the shadow of coming want growing black above them, even her first half-year's wages was a point of hope and expectation.
"Well, Annie," she answered, after a few moments' consideration, "it is but for a time; and you will be able to give up the place as soon as you please, and the easier that she only takes you on trial; that will hold for you as well as for her."
But nothing was farther from Annie's intention than finding the place would not suit her: no change could she dream of before at least she had a pound-note in her hand, when at once she would make it clear to her mother what a terrible scare had driven her to the sudden step she had taken. Until then she must go about with her whole head sick and her whole heart faint; neither could she for many weeks rid herself of the haunting notion that the banker, who was chiefly affected by her crime,—for as such she fully believed and regarded her deed,—was fully aware of her guilt. It seemed to her, when at any moment he happened to look at her, that now at last he must be on the point of letting her know that he had read the truth in her guilty looks, and she constantly fancied him saying to himself, "That is the girl who stole my money; she feels my eyes upon her." Every time she came home from an errand she would imagine her master looking from the window of his private room on the first floor, in readiness to cast aside forbearance and denounce her: he was only waiting to make himself one shade surer! Ah, how long was the time she had to await her cleansing, the moment when she could go to him and say, "I have wronged, I have robbed you; here is all I can do to show my repentance. All this time I have been but waiting for my wages, to repay what I had taken from you." And, oddly enough, she was always mixing herself up with the man in the parable, who had received from his master a pound to trade with and make more; from her dreams she would wake in terror at the sound of that master's voice, ordering the pound to be taken from her and given to the school-fellow whom, at the cost of her own honesty, she had befriended. Oh, joyous day when the doom should be lifted from her, and she set free, to dream no more! For surely, when at length her master knew all, with the depth of her sorrow and repentance, he could not refuse his forgiveness! Would he not even, she dared to hope, remit the interest due on his money?—of which she entertained, in her ignorance, a usurious and preposterous idea.
The days went on, and the hour of her deliverance drew nigh. But, long before it came, two other processes had been slowly arriving at maturity. She had been gaining the confidence of her mistress, so that, ere three months were over, the arrangement of all minor matters of housekeeping was entirely in her hands. It may be that Mrs. Macintosh was not a little lazy, nor sorry to leave aside whatever did not positively demand her personal attention; one thing I am sure of, that Annie never made the smallest attempt to gain this favor, if such it was. Her mistress would, for instance, keep losing the keys of the cellaret, until in despair she at last yielded them entirely to the care of Annie, who thereafter carried them in her pocket, where they were always at hand when wanted.
The other result was equally natural, but of greater importance; Hector, the only child of the house, was gradually and, for a long time, unconsciously falling in love with Annie. Those friends of the family who liked Annie, and felt the charm of her manners and simplicity, said only that his mother had herself to blame, for what else could she expect? Others of them, regarding her from the same point of view as her mistress, repudiated the notion as absurd, saying Hector was not the man to degrade himself! He was incapable of such a misalliance.
But, as I have said already, Hector, although he had never yet been in love, was yet more than usually ready to fall in love, as belongs to the poetic temperament, when the fit person should appear. As to what sort she might prove depended on two facts in Hector—one, that he was fastidious in the best meaning of the word, and the other that he was dominated by sound good sense; a fact which even his father allowed, although with a grudge, seeing he had hitherto manifested no devotion to business, but spent his free time in literary pursuits. Of the special nature of those pursuits his father knew, or cared to know, nothing; and as to his mother, she had not even a favorite hymn.
I may say, then, that the love of womankind, which in solution, so to speak, pervaded every atomic interstice of the nature of Hector, had gradually, indeed, but yet rapidly, concentrated and crystallized around the idea of Annie—the more homogeneously and absorbingly that she was the first who had so moved him. It was, indeed, in the case of each a first love, although in the case of neither love at first sight.
Almost from the hour when first Annie entered the family, Hector had looked on her with eyes of interest; but, for a time, she had gone about the house with a sense almost of being there upon false pretenses, for she knew that she was doing what she did from no regard to any of its members, but only to gain the money whose payment would relieve her from an ever-present consciousness of guilt; and for this cause, if for no other, she was not in danger of falling in love with Hector. She was, indeed, too full of veneration for her master and mistress, and for their son so immeasurably above her, to let her thoughts rest upon him in any but a distantly worshipful fashion.
