Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 1.djvu/155

 ETHEL'S PRIDE.

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��ing,she led the way into the sitting-room, where Ethel sat with a look of angry- scorn on her beautiful face. She had overheard the conversation, and her proud, haughty face was pale with in- tense anger, as she raised her brown eyes to her father's face, and then rising slowly she advanced one step and paused, waiting for her father to speak. There was a look of pain in the noble face of Mr. Lee as he approached Ethel, saying quietly, as he reached forth his hand :

"Ethel, my dear daughter, have you no word of welcome for me and for my wife?"

"For you, yes — for your wife, none. I trust, however, that her life here at Elm House will be quite as happy as her ad- vent here will make mine."

She was turning to leave the room, when her father's voice, so stern and cold that she hardly recognized it, pro- nounced her name. She paused, raising her face, like marble in its extreme pal- lor, to her father's. He opened his lips to speak, but his wife raised one slender gloved hand to his lips while she extended the other towards Ethel, say- ing, in a voice tremulous, but soft, low and birdlike :

"Ethel, I am sorry that my coming here has made you so unhappy. Believe me, I shall not try to take your father's love from you, or do aught to make your happy home an unhappy one. Will you not give me your hand in token of friend- ship?"

There was no reply from the angry girl for a moment, then, slow and dis- tinct, came these words from her lips :

" Mrs. Lee, all my life I have been ac- customed to associate with people of my own standing in society. I can not for- get that my mother was a lady. You, who have taken her place, I do not con- sider one. I wish you good evening," and ere they could reply she was gone from the room, leaving the group behind gazing after her with various thoughts filling the minds of each. It was easy to see what Mr. Lee's thoughts were, for his face showed the anger which filled his very soul. He did not speak for a moment, then he turned to Lily, who stood looking sadly from one to the other

��of her companions, and said slowly : "Lily, summon Mrs. Ray to show your mother to her room, or go yourself if you please. Emma, do not mind Ethel. I will see that you are not insulted in like manner again — either she will leave the house or treat you with due respect. Go, now, for I know you must be very tired," and turning away he threw him- self into the chair that Ethel had just va- cated, and burying his face in his hands he gi-oaned aloud.

I think if William Lee had realized at the beginning all the trouble that his marriage with the governess, Emma Landelle, was to bring him, he would have paused ere he took so important a step. He had seen it when it was too late to retreat, but perhaps at that time he had no desire to retract the words which had won so lovely a bride.

Meanwhile Lily had conducted Mrs. Lee up the broad stairway leading to the elegantly furnished rooms that her little hands had made cosy and homelike for the bride. The entire suite were ar- ranged beautifully, and flowers filled the room with fragrance.

"Lily," said Mrs. Lee, as she gazed around the cosy boudoir, her eyes filling with tears as she spoke, "Lily, I recog- nize your handiwork in these lovely vases of flowers and in the cosy appearance of the whole apartment, as well as those we have just left, and I thank you so much. I hope and trust we shall be the best of friends. Go, now, please, and try and induce your father to forget his anger toward Ethel. I will join you very soon."

Somehow, the heart of Lily was touched at the kind words of her beauti- ful step-mother, and she took the slender hand of the bride in her own, and in a sweet manner, peculiar to herself, asked her to forget Ethel's cruel words ; and then she left the room and rejoined her father.

Lelt to herself, Mrs. Lee sank into an easy chair, and, burying her face in her hands, wept bitterly. She had been deeply wounded at Ethel's words, for they had been wholly unexpected. Her life as a governess had been full of trials, but when she entered upon the new one

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