and toil, the young lady in question had had, thus far, a totally
different experience. Mrs. Brown's educational advantages had been
limited to a knowledge of reading, writing and ciphering, with a
something of grammar. Miss Brown's childhood had passed under the
tutilage of accomplished masters. She could dance, execute a few showy
pieces upon the piano without a blunder, utter glibly French and Italian
phrases, and had, with the help of her teacher, finished, creditably, a
landscape, a gorgeous sunset, of amber and crimson, and purple-tinted
clouds, which hung in the most conspicuous position in her mother's
drawing-room. Melinda read novels, frequented theatres, and talked
slang, like the "girl of the period," and was the idol of her weak
mother, whom she ruled like a queen. Unfortunately, "my lady Graystone,"
as she was called in the clique over which Mrs. Crane presided, had an
innate love for the pure and beautiful, and a thorough contempt for
vulgarity in every form. The gorgeous Melinda, therefore, was not a
person calculated to inspire a lady of her high-toned mind with any deep
feeling of regard or esteem. The elder woman, who, from her long
probation at service, before she was fortunate enough to secure William
Brown, the grocer's apprentice, had caught that cringing obsequiousness
that we so often see in those accustomed to serve, and could have borne
patiently, any slights or rebuffs that opposed her entrance into the
charmed circle which she had determined to invade at all hazards. Meek
and fawning, where she desired to gain favor, as she was insolent and
overbearing to her inferiors, she was willing to commence at the lowest
round of the social ladder, and creep up slowly to a position that
suited her ambition, in the same manner in which she had won her way to
wealth out of the depth of poverty. But, when the blooming daughter of
the retired grocer returned from boarding school, all things were
changed. "Melinda was a lady," "entitled to a proud position in society,
by virtue of her lady-like acquirements," and she demanded an instant