"Who's going? Who did he ask?" I said, breathless as the child herself.

"You, me, mamma, Josephine, all of us! Be quick."

"But listen, Essie," I exclaimed, following her to the hall, as she bounded off up to the nursery. "Stop a minute. What did he say?--did he say _me?_"

"Yes, yes, he said, 'run up and ask your cousin if she'll take that ride this morning that we talked about at Rutledge, and I'll go into the parlor and ask your mamma and Miss Josephine;' and now let me run for Felicie to get me ready;" and the child was off again, but came back obediently when I called her. I held her tight by the hand, as, with a beating heart, I leaned over the bal.u.s.ters, and heard the merry voices in the hall below. I could not distinguish what Mr. Rutledge said, but I heard Josephine's laughing rejoinder:

"I a.s.sure you, I didn't mean to hint, last night, when I said I longed for a sleigh-ride again; but it was just like you, to remember it. It's a charming day. How we shall enjoy it!"

I led Essie to the stairs, and leaning down, said:

"Go down and tell Mr. Rutledge, that he's very kind, but I beg he will excuse me to-day."

The child looked bewildered, and exclaimed: "But, aren't you going?"

"No; go down and say just what I have told you, remember; and then come back, and I'll help you get ready."

Esther wonderingly obeyed, and slid down the stairs like a spirit. I scorned to listen any longer, though I would have given anything and everything I possessed to have unravelled the tangled maze of voices in the hall, and known how my refusal was received. Pride to the rescue!

however, and I was bending over my German, when my aunt looked in a moment at the door, to inquire if I didn't care to go.

I said, "No, thank you; I have my translation to finish, and, if you are willing, I will stay at home."

Just then, Josephine and Grace came up, and Essie burst into the room, exclaiming:

"Mamma, mamma, what shall I wear? What frock had I better put on?"

"Why, you're not going," cried Josephine, pettishly. "Surely, mamma, you do not mean to let that child go. There's no room for her if Phil goes, and she'll be whimpering with the cold in ten minutes."

"Mr. Rutledge only asked her for politeness," said Grace. "He never thought of such a snip really going."

"She'll spoil everything," said Josephine, decidedly. "I don't care to go if she does."

"I think, on the whole, my dear Essie," said Mrs. Churchill, "that it is best for you not to go. You must amuse yourself at home, and be a good child; we shall not be gone very long."

The little girl's lips moved, as if she would speak, but no words came, and, as the others left the room, I looked at her with some anxiety. I never saw a face so changed. The brief radiance that had lighted it had pa.s.sed away, and in its place was a livid look of pa.s.sion that fairly frightened me.

"Why, Essie, child, don't take it so to heart," I said, soothingly, attempting to touch her cold, clenched hand, but with a fierce gesture she released herself and turned away. I tried to pacify and divert her, but received no word in answer, till, from the window, we saw the party enter the sleigh, and after a moment of adjusting sleigh-robes and furs, the fine horses started spiritedly forward, to the music of their own merry bells; then, with a violent scream, the child threw herself upon the floor, and shook from head to foot with a pa.s.sion that many men and women pa.s.s through life without experiencing. Such tempests cannot fail to blight the souls they sweep over; they bow the cracking forest, and strip it of its leaves; the tender sapling, alone and unprotected in its flexile youth, can hardly escape undesolated. Swayed and whipped about with the fierce blast, all that is tender and delicate about it must be blighted; the stem that should have been fair and straight, must, if it survive the trial, be twisted, and rough, and gnarled; it may strike a deeper root; it will never cast as fine a shade, nor be as fair a tree.

If, unable to sustain the storm, the frail stem snap, and the life-blood ooze away, is it a questionable providence, or an utter mercy?

"Essie, my dear little girl," I continued, as the child still lay sobbing on the floor, long after the first burst of temper had expended itself, "Essie, you will surely make yourself sick; you are chilled through already, and the room is getting cold; come upstairs with me."

But no, the headstrong child would not go upstairs, but would lie there, and only there, and sob, and cry, and refuse all comfort. It was not till the shaking of sleigh-bells at the door announced the return of the party, that my arguments had the least effect.

"Don't let them see you lying there, Esther. Come up, and let me wash the tears off your face and smooth your hair," I said; and she allowed me to lift her up, and lead her upstairs, before her sisters came in.

Felicie was busy with a skirt of Josephine's, so I shut the nursery door and kept the child with me. But this time there was no soothing her; she was fretful and trying beyond anything I had ever seen; perhaps if I had not been so miserable myself then, I could not have been as patient with her, as I remember I was. I was wretched enough to have lain down and sobbed myself, but the office of comforter is incompatible with that of mourner, and so is an office twice blessed; for tempting as is the luxury of tears, the reward of self-control is always greater and more lasting.

"The dinner-bell will soon ring, Essie, and you will not be ready to come down to dessert; come and let me brush your hair."

"I don't want to go down; I don't want any dessert," she whined.

Her hands were now hot and feverish, her teeth chattering with nervousness, and I recognized the approach of one of her sick headaches.

I did not much wonder that she did not want to go down, so I coaxed her to let me undress her, and put her to bed, "and if you'll be a good child, you may sleep with me to-night."

"Very well," she said, laconically, with a weary sigh; and before the dinner-bell rang, I had laid her, quieted, in my bed, with, however, a very wide-awake and nervous stare about her eyes, but no tears and not much fretting.

For the next few days, the absorbing cares of the approaching party must have prevented my Aunt Edith from seeing the real indisposition of Esther. That her increasing irritability was the result of illness, I could not doubt, as I had ascertained for myself, that she could be as quiet as other children, when she was well. Josephine declared, I spoiled the teasing little object. Grace said, with a laugh:

"You can't reproach yourself with anything of the kind, can you, Joseph?"

And Phil, taking "the teasing little object" on his knee, said:

"Aunt Edith, upon my word, the child grows lighter every time I take her up. Is she well?"

"I mean to have the doctor this morning," she answered, looking up from her writing. "I am rather worried about her; she is a little feverish.

Esther, don't stay by the window; it is too cold for you. Go up to the nursery, and tell Felicie to put a little sacque on you."

So Esther was remanded to the nursery, and it being the day before the party, there was plenty to be done and thought of for all hands. And though the doctor came, he did not seem much impressed with her state of health--left a very innocent prescription that was not sent for till the next day, and eased everybody's mind exceedingly. What a very comfortable thing it is to be able to pin one's faith to a medical coatsleeve, and according as it is elevated or depressed, be soothed or terrified.

Any disinterested observer, I think, would have agreed with Esther and me, that party-giving was not in any way conducive to home comfort. That wretched day, lessons of course were given up; the study being turned into a dressing-room, and the nursery sharing the same fate--my room was the sanctuary where Grace and Esther sought refuge from the bustle and confusion of the first and second floors, and no paradise it proved, Essie being unbearably peevish and Grace unbearably provoking. Aunt Edith tore herself away from the claims of upholsterer, florist, and waiter for a moment, to look in upon us--gave the final directions about our dresses, and p.r.o.nounced Esther's sentence, which she had been dreading for days, to wit, that she must not go downstairs. It was a most proper sentence, but it was a cruel disappointment, and the child of course cried herself into another headache. I induced her to go to bed about seven o'clock, but she sat bolt upright, watching eagerly the operations of the hairdresser, who had come to Grace and me, before arranging Josephine's hair.

"Esther, do go to sleep, and stop bothering!" cried Grace. "You've done nothing but worry this whole day."

A fresh burst of tears was the answer to this, and Grace was more incensed than ever.

"I think this is a pursuit of pleasure under difficulties, indeed," I exclaimed, despairing. "I hope all parties are not as much trouble! Will it pay, do you suppose?"

"_Cela depend_," said Grace; "if you get attended to, it may; if you have to talk to the old ladies, and look over books of engravings in the corner, it wont."

I inly wondered which would be my fate, as I glanced at the pretty muslin on the foot of the bed. "Not the old ladies and the engravings I hope." It was my first party, and though everything seemed to conspire to make it a punishment, still I would have been more than human if I had felt no excitement when I first dressed myself in party-dress. White muslin and coral ornaments were not very elaborate certainly, but they were a great contrast to the plain clothes I had seen myself in since I could remember. When Grace was dressed, she went down, but Essie clung to me and begged me to stay so piteously, that I could not resist; and turning out the gas, I sat down on the bed by her, and told her stories by the dozen, and sung her hymns, in the vain hope of getting her to sleep; but she seemed to grow wider awake every minute. Ten o'clock chimed; the music began; the carriages were rolling to the door, and still she held my hand firmly, and said, "go on," in a hopelessly-clear voice, every time I paused in my recital. I was beginning to be in dire perplexity about leaving her, when the door opened, and Grace put her head in, saying, hurriedly:

"Mamma sent me up to say you must come down directly; half the people are here, and they are beginning to dance. Come as quick as you can,"

and Grace disappeared.

There was another burst of grief from Esther to be soothed and subdued, and at last, taking my gloves and fan, and kissing her good night, I stole out of the room, thinking her quite reconciled; but when half way down the stairs, I looked back, and saw the child, in her long white nightgown, standing at the head of the staircase, and heard her heart-broken voice begging me to come back, it was so lonesome, she was so sick. At the foot stood Grace.

"Mamma is displeased that you do not come."

What should I do? I ran upstairs again. Essie stood shivering at the door, a bright spot on each cheek, and an excited glitter in her eye.

"Essie!" I exclaimed, "why will you be so naughty? Don't you know mamma has sent for me twice? Do you want me to be scolded?"

"No, but I don't want to be left; it is so lonesome up here."

"But don't you know I promised to send Felicie up; and do I ever break my promises?"

"I don't want Felicie to come; she's cross," said the child.

"Well, then, Frances shall come; will she do?"