Staunton Spectator

subject, "Miss Gardiner is not here to receive me, and if you would please take me back in your carriage, I would creep in by the area-gate, and perhaps--perhaps, I shall be 'at home' on New Year's Day, after all--But," her large, dark eyes suddenly blazing into indignation, "you are laughing at me!"
"Not laughing at you, Miss Ardell," he hastened to explain--"only with you!"
"Miss Ardell!"
Alexia's heart leaped at this delicious tribute to her ladyhood. She felt prouder still when Mr. Helullyn helped her into his carriage and they drove away.
"Leave me at the corner of the street, please," said Alexia, "It would never do for mamma and the girls to see me in your carriage! And Ermengarde would be so vexed!"
And so the little wild gipsy stole in at the area-gate, and bribed the cook with a kiss and a string of amber beads, not to betray her surreptitious re-entrance into the family circle, while Mr. Helullyn went home to wonder what there was so fascinating in Alexia Ardell's round, dimpled face and liquid, dark eyes.
"A child indeed!" he said to himself. "She is a woman, and a dangerously lovely woman, too--only she does
Eyes like pools of deep garnet brown; hair all glistening like tangles of sunshine. Little Alexia, if you could only see yourself as others see you, you might be tempted to be vain! I shall make a point of calling at Judge Ardell's house on New Year's day, and if Miss Alexia is not there, I shall certainly inquire for her!"
The pink satin dress vindicated Mme. Chaussa's fame as an artistic dressmaker: the blue damask came home in time to be tried on and pronounced "perfect," on Saturday night; and on Monday, the Misses Scarlett dressed themselves with judicious care, and many lavings with rose water and cautious application of pearl-cream and blush-pink.
The drawing-rooms, decorated with hot-house flowers, and illuminated, not with vulgar gas, but with the white lustre of many wax candles in myriad-branched candelabra, had been personally inspected by Mrs. Ardell before she went to make her toilet, and the little room at the back, where the judge ordinarily kept his boots, and overcoats, and Turkish pipes, had been transformed into a smilax-garlanded bower, where faint lights glowed through shades of Nile-green glass, and the most elegant and aesthetic refreshments were arranged in cloisonne enamelled ware, trays of repousse silver, and baskets of Dresden China.
And, just at the time when Ermengarde was saying to her sister "how do I look, dear?" and Verena was twisting herself into the shape of a letter S, to see the back of her false pugs and plaitings in the mirror, little Alexia was enthusiastically tossing about the contents of an old cedar chest in the store-room, which contained the long forgotten wardrobe of the first Mrs. Judge Ardell.
"Oh," she cried, "this is beautiful!" and she unfolded a scented robe of long China crape, crimped like the shingly bars of the finest sea-sand, and embroidered in fantastic figures of scarlet silk. "I'll wear this."
"But it's so odd and old-fashioned, miss," said Louisa, the maid.
"That is the very charm of it!" pronounced Alexia. "Oh, do make haste, Louisa, with my hair! Are you sure you can do it to the plate in the fashion book!"
Mrs. Ardell was arranging the folds of point lace over her shoulders, when Miss Verena rushed up stairs.
"Mama, Ermengarde!" she cried, "who lady down stairs?"
"Lady down stairs!" repeated both
loveliest dead-white dress, brocaded rose-leaf silk, and long golden hair braided with antique Roman pearls."
"My dear," said Mrs. Ardell, "you must be crazy!"
And both she and Ermengarde hurried down stairs, just in time to see the beautiful young intruder courtesy a gracious greeting to two of the jeunesse doree of New York.
And said Alexia, with the utmost self-possession "here is mamma now, and my sisters. Don't move, Mr. Helullyn," she added in a lower tone, "I'm quite safe now. Mamma won't dare to scold me before company."
And Mrs. Ardell and Misses Scarlett were forced to digest their rage and mortification as best they could.
For Alexia outshone them as a real, fairy crimson-hearted rose outshines the milliner's presentiment--as the diamond outshines the wretched paste ornament and they knew it but too well.
r papaz.sem Muty Int success excuses everything, and Mrs. e his preo's. and carry out his ds e. You da great deal too young ve visitorsh New Year's Day, lil Da and Eringarde, You are to.g
"Alexia," she cried, when there was a temporary lu'l in the stream of callers, how ut!"' criedexia, in dipay, "uy ays do not dire until Wnesday. "4
"I did it for fun, mamma," said Alexia: hat is veryi ue," sald Ms. Ardoll ressing her lin lips to :nere slit, sequeutly, yq can see lid:far'you I abiiged your wn period ojecreatiqs 65 ur ungovernble will.l.:"
"I never heard auything so insolent in my life!" cried Ermengarde Scarlett, turn- xia, forgettinl all about t sixteen al , and the long prisses, burfiuto loud ng.
"She oughtto be locked up for a week on bread and ater,"said Verena, passion- a ay,. Alexia, don't.be so a. at.ly.
But Alexia onlyarched her eyebrows and rde, "that jou were a c up'Er- of .ten sofled. yuing the Ner:, Year's day the child e would thitk,"' tartly sp old.' Of couse, it is all fe heown had lvoned anto wonan.
A.hod herown iAligment ever scold or d Alexia. is she fied lyiu- They uld none d She had no more own fiddles icks!" irrey h. the tyrauoizX to boarding-school.
rs. at in floeds of undignif! 3 Scarlett culd he uext day when hers are certvin to nd so Judge Alexia out to