Didactic fiction; Political fiction; Social problems -- Fiction
And then changing into English, Mabel told Yetta that she must be very
tired after so much excitement, that they had a hard day before them,
and that she had best take a piping-hot bath to make her sleep and turn
in at once. Yetta did not understand French, but from Eleanor's tone she
had guessed the meaning of "_de trop._" She wanted very much to stay up
and talk with Miss Train, but with a pang in her heart, she followed her
docilely into a bedroom, watched her lay out a nightgown and bath-robe,
and as docilely followed her into the dazzling bath-room.
"Take it just as hot as you can stand it, and then jump right into bed,"
Mabel said, and kissed her good night.
Before she was half through with her bath, she began to hear the sound
of music. And when she had put on the nightgown and wrapped herself in
the bath-robe,--her skin had never felt such soft fabrics,--she opened
the door noiselessly and stood a moment unobserved in the hallway. In
the front room Mabel was sitting at the piano and Eleanor stood beside
her, with closed eyes, a violin tucked lovingly under her chin, and
swayed gently to the rhythm of the music. It was one of Chopin's
Nocturnes. Yetta did not know what a Nocturne was; the best music she
had ever heard had been the cheap orchestras at the Settlement and at
the Skirt-Finishers' Ball. Neither Eleanor nor Mabel were great
musicians; it would have seemed a commonplace performance to most of us,
but to the girl in the bath-robe it sounded beautiful beyond words, the
most wondrous thing of all the wonderful new world she had so suddenly
entered.
She listened a moment and then tiptoed down the hall to her bedroom. She
carefully closed the window, which Mabel had as carefully opened, left
her door ajar, so she could hear the music, and climbed in between the
soft white sheets. She was very tired, the hot bath had quieted her
nerves, and it was while they were playing the third piece, something by
Grieg, that she fell asleep. Her last conscious thought was a dreamy,
wistful wonder if she could ever become a part, have a real share in so
gorgeous a life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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