Oh, Lizzie, Lizzie!

For a short time, now, we will leave the young ladies in Miss Graham’s dressing-room, and transport our readers to another part of the village.

CHAPTER III.

ADA HARCOURT.

In a small and neat, but scantily furnished chamber, a poor widow was preparing her only child, Ada, for the party.  The plain, white muslin dress of two years old had been washed and ironed so carefully that Ada said it looked just as well as new; but then everything looked well on Ada Harcourt, who was highly gifted, both with intellect and beauty.  After her dress was arranged she went to the table for her old white gloves, the cleaning of which had cost her much trouble, for her mother did not seem to be at all interested in them, so Ada did as well as she could.  As she was about to put them on her mother returned from a drawer, into the recesses of which she had been diving, and from which she brought a paper carefully folded.

“Here, Ada,” said she, “you need not wear those gloves; see here”—­and she held up a pair of handsome mitts, a fine linen handkerchief, and a neat little gold pin.

“Oh, mother, mother!” said Ada joyfully, “where did you get them?”

“I know,” answered Mrs. Harcourt, “and that is enough.”

After a moment’s thought Ada knew, too.  The little hoard of money her mother had laid by for a warm winter shawl had been spent for her.  From Ada’s lustrous blue eyes the tears were dropping as, twining her arm around her mother’s neck, she said, “Naughty, naughty mother!” but there was a knock at the door.  The sleigh which Anna Graham had promised to send for Ada had come; so dashing away her tears, and adjusting her new mitts and pin, she was soon warmly wrapped up, and on her way to Mr. Graham’s.

“In the name of the people, who is that?” said Lucy Dayton, as Anna Graham entered the dressing-room, accompanied by a bundle of something securely shielded from the cold.

The removal of the hood soon showed Lucy who it was, and with an exclamation of surprise she turned inquiringly to a young lady who was standing near.  To her look the young lady replied, “A freak of Anna’s, I suppose.  She thinks a great deal of those Harcourts.”

An impatient “pshaw!” burst from Lucy’s lips, accompanied with the words, “I wonder who she thinks wants to associate with that plebeian!”

The words, the look, and the tone caught Ada’s eye and ear, and instantly blighted her happiness.  In the joy and surprise of receiving an invitation to the party it had never occurred to her that she might be slighted there, and she was not prepared for Lucy’s unkind remark.  For an instant the tears moistened her long silken eyelashes, and a deeper glow mantled her usually bright cheek; but this only increased her beauty, which tended to increase Lucy’s vexation.  Lucy knew that in her own circle there was none to dispute her claim; but she knew, too, that in a low-roofed house, in the outskirts of the town, there dwelt a poor sewing woman, whose only daughter was famed for her wondrous beauty.  Lucy had frequently seen Ada in the streets, but never before had she met her, and she now determined to treat her with the utmost disdain.