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-Project Gutenberg's New Bed-Time Stories, by Louise Chandler Moulton

-

-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most

-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions

-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of

-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at

-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have

-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.

-

-Title: New Bed-Time Stories

-

-Author: Louise Chandler Moulton

-

-Release Date: October 3, 2019 [EBook #60418]

-

-Language: English

-

-Character set encoding: UTF-8

-

-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW BED-TIME STORIES ***

-

-

-

-

-Produced by Sonya Schermann, Nigel Blower and the Online

-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This

-file was produced from images generously made available

-by The Internet Archive)

-

-

-

-

-

-

-  [Transcriber's Note

-

-  _Italic words_ in the original have been enclosed in underscores in

-  this version.

-

-  A few minor typographical errors have been silently corrected.

-

-  A page number in the Contents was corrected from 77 to 79.]

-

-

-

-

-[Illustration: Day after day Johnny watched.--PAGE 15.]

-

-

-

-

-                 NEW

-

-          BED-TIME STORIES.

-

-

-                 BY

-

-       LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON,

-

-     AUTHOR OF “BED-TIME STORIES,”

-       “MORE BED-TIME STORIES,”

-  “SOME WOMEN’S HEARTS,” AND “POEMS.”

-

-

-         _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS._

-

-

-            [Illustration]

-

-

-                BOSTON:

-      LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY,

-                 1907

-

-

-

-

-          _Copyright_, 1880,

-      BY LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.

-

-

-  ALFRED MUDGE & SON, INC., PRINTERS,

-        BOSTON, MASS., U. S. A.

-

-

-

-

-_TO MISTRESS BROWN-EYES._

-

-

-    _At Christmas-tide, by Christmas fire,

-      You’ll read these tales of mine;--

-    I see, above my story-book,

-      Your happy brown eyes shine._

-

-    _Dear eyes, that front the future time

-      So fearlessly to-day,

-    Oh, may from them some kindly Fate

-      Keep future tears away,_

-

-    _And give you all your heart desires,

-      My little English maid,

-    For whom, in this far-distant land,

-      My loving prayers are said!_

-

-    _I pray for Peace, since Peace is good,

-      For Love, since Love is best:

-    If prayers bring blessings, Brown-eyed Girl,

-      How much you will be blest!_

-

-  _L. C. M._

-

-  _August, 1880._

-

-

-

-

-CONTENTS.

-

-

-                                     PAGE

-

-  “ALL A-GROWIN’ AND A-BLOWIN’”         5

-

-  MY VAGRANT                           20

-

-  HELEN’S TEMPTATION                   35

-

-  THE SURGEON OF THE DOLLS’ HOSPITAL   56

-

-  PRETTY MISS KATE                     79

-

-  A BORROWED ROSEBUD                   94

-

-  TOM’S THANKSGIVING                  106

-

-  FINDING JACK                        124

-

-  HER MOTHER’S DAUGHTER               139

-

-  MY QUARREL WITH RUTH                158

-

-  WAS IT HER MOTHER?                  172

-

-  THE LADY FROM OVER THE WAY          186

-

-  HIS MOTHER’S BOY                    200

-

-  DR. JOE’S VALENTINE                 217

-

-

-

-

-NEW BED-TIME STORIES.

-

-

-

-

-“ALL A-GROWIN’ AND A-BLOWIN’.”

-

-

-It had been such a weary hunt for lodgings. Not that lodgings are

-scarce in London. There are scores of streets, whole districts, indeed,

-where the house that did not say “Apartments” in its window would be

-the exception.

-

-But Miss Endell wanted to combine a great deal. She must be economical,

-for her funds were running low; she must be near the British Museum,

-for she wanted to consult many authorities for the book about “Noted

-Irishwomen,” by which she hoped to retrieve her fortunes; she wanted

-quiet, too, and reasonably pretty things about her.

-

-For a week she had spent most of her time in quest of the place where

-she could settle herself comfortably for a few months. It was the gray

-March weather. The mornings were dark, and the gloom of coming dusk

-settled down early; and, during all the hours between, Miss Endell

-had been busy in that weary work of which Dante speaks, “climbing the

-stairs of others.”

-

-At last, after much consideration, she had decided to make a certain

-flight of stairs her own. She had taken the drawing-room floor of No.

-30 Guilford Street; and with a comfortable feeling of success she had

-paid her bill at the Charing Cross Hotel, and driven to her new home.

-

-The drawing-room floor--that is to say, the suite of rooms up

-one flight of stairs from the street--is the most important part

-of a London lodging-house. Whoever is kept waiting, when “the

-drawing-room”--as it is the fashion to designate the lodger who

-occupies that apartment--rings, the ring must at once be “answered to.”

-That floor rents for as much as all the rest of the house put together,

-and is the chief dependence of anxious landladies.

-

-Miss Endell, accordingly, was received as a person of importance. Her

-boxes were brought upstairs, and her landlady, Mrs. Stone, bustled

-about cheerfully, helping her to arrange things.

-

-At last every thing was comfortably placed, and the tired new-comer

-settled herself in a low chair in front of the glowing coal-fire, and

-glanced around her.

-

-Mrs. Stone was still busy, wiping away imperceptible dust. The door was

-open, and in the doorway was framed a singular face, that of a pale,

-slender child, with a figure that looked too tall for the face, and

-great eager eyes, with such a wistful, silent longing in them as Miss

-Endell had never seen before.

-

-At the same moment Mrs. Stone also caught sight of the child, and cried

-out a little crossly,--

-

-“Go away, you plague! Didn’t I tell you as you wasn’t to ’ang round the

-new lady, a-worritin’ her?”

-

-The child’s wistful face colored, and the tears sprang to the great,

-sad eyes; but he was silently turning away, when Miss Endell herself

-spoke. She was not specially fond of children; but she had a kind

-heart, and something in the wan, pitiful face of the child touched it.

-

-“Don’t send him away, Mrs. Stone,” she said kindly. “Come in, my little

-man, and tell me what your name is.”

-

-The child sidled in, timidly, but did not speak.

-

-“Don’t be afraid,” Miss Endell said. “What is your name?”

-

-“Bless you, ma’am, he _can’t_ speak!” said Mrs. Stone.

-

-“Can’t speak?”

-

-“No; he was born with something wrong. Laws, he can hear as well as

-anybody, and he knows all you say to him; but there’s something the

-matter. The last ‘drawing-room’ said that there was doctors, she was

-sure, as could help him, but I haint any money to try experiments.

-

-“Johnny was my brother’s child. His father died before he was born, and

-his mother lived just long enough to ’and over Johnny to me, and ask me

-to take care of him.

-

-“I’ve done my best; but a lodging-house is a worrit. What with empty

-rooms, and lodgers as didn’t pay, and hard times, I never got money

-enough ahead to spend on doctors.

-

-“But you mustn’t have Johnny a-worritin’ round. You’d get sick o’ that.

-The last ‘drawing-room’ said it made her that nervous to see him; and I

-halways thought she went off partly for that.”

-

-“I will not let him trouble me, don’t be afraid; but let him sit down

-here by the fire, and when I find he disturbs me I’ll send him away.”

-

-Mrs. Stone vanished, and Johnny took up his station on a stool in a

-corner of the hearth-rug.

-

-Miss Endell busied herself with a book, but from time to time she

-looked at the boy. His face was pale and wistful still, but a

-half-smile, as sad as tears, was round his poor silent mouth, and he

-was gazing at his new friend as if he would fix every line of her face

-in his memory for ever.

-

-For a long hour he sat there; and then Mrs. Stone came to lay the cloth

-for dinner, and sent him away to bed.

-

-The next morning he appeared again; and soon it grew to be his habit to

-sit, almost all the day through, and watch Miss Endell at her tasks.

-In spite of her absorption, he occupied a good many of her thoughts.

-

-Like him, she was an orphan; and she had few close and vital interests

-in her life. She got to feel as if it belonged to her, in a certain

-way, to look after this silent waif of humanity more lonely still than

-herself.

-

-Often she took an hour from her work to read little tales to him, and

-it was reward enough to see how his eyes brightened, and the color

-came into his pale little face. She used to think that if her work

-succeeded, Johnny should also be the better for it. As soon as the

-first edition of “Noted Irishwomen” was sold, she would have the best

-medical advice for him; and if there were such a thing as giving those

-lips language, it should be done.

-

-“Should you _like_ to speak to me, Johnny?” she asked one day suddenly.

-

-The boy looked at her, for one moment, with eyes that seemed to grow

-larger and larger. Then came a great rush of sobs and tears that shook

-him so that Miss Endell was half-frightened at the effect of her own

-words. She bent over and put her hand on his head.

-

-“Don’t, Johnny! Don’t, dear!” she said tenderly.

-

-I doubt if any one had ever called the poor little dumb boy “dear”

-before, in all his eleven years of life. He looked up through his

-tears, with a glad, strange smile, as if some wonderful, sweet thing

-had befallen him; and then, in a sort of timid rapture, he kissed the

-hem of Miss Endell’s gown, and the slippered foot that peeped out

-beneath it.

-

-I think there is an instinct of motherhood in good women that comes

-out toward all helpless creatures; and it awoke then in Miss Endell’s

-heart. After that she and Johnny were almost inseparable. Often she

-took him with her on her walks, and always when she worked he kept his

-silent vigil on the hearth-rug.

-

-Miss Endell had one extravagance. She could not bear to be without

-flowers. She did not care much for the cut and wired bouquets of the

-florist, but she seldom came home from her walks without some handful

-of wall-flowers, or a knot of violets or forget-me-nots. Now and then

-she bought a tea-rose bud; and then Johnny always noticed how lovingly

-she tended it--how she watched it bursting from bud to flower.

-

-He got to know that this strange, bright creature whom he idolized

-loved flowers, and loved tea-roses best of all. A wild desire grew in

-him to buy her tea-roses--not one, only, but a whole bunch. He spent

-his days in thinking how it was to be done, and his nights in dreaming

-about it. A penny was the largest sum he had ever possessed in his

-life, and a penny will not buy one tea-rose, much less a bunch of them.

-

-One day Miss Endell took him with her when she went to see a friend. It

-was a prosperous, good-natured, rich woman in whose house they found

-themselves. “Go and see the pictures, Johnny,” Miss Endell said; and

-Johnny wandered down the long room, quite out of ear-shot.

-

-Then she told his pathetic little story, and her friend’s careless yet

-kind heart was touched. When it was time for Miss Endell to go, she

-summoned Johnny; and then the lady they were visiting gave the boy a

-half-crown, a whole shining, silver half-crown.

-

-Johnny clasped it to his heart in expressive pantomime, and lifted his

-wistful, inquiring eyes.

-

-“Yes, it is all yours,” the lady said, in answer; “and don’t let any

-one take it away from you.”

-

-Small danger, indeed, of that! The piece of silver meant but one thing

-to Johnny,--tea-roses, unlimited tea-roses.

-

-The next day he was taken ill. He had a fever,--a low, slow fever. His

-aunt was kind enough to him, but she had plenty to do, and Johnny would

-have been lonely indeed but for Miss Endell.

-

-She had him brought each morning into her room, and kept him all day

-lying on her sofa, giving him now a kind word, now a draught of cold

-water, and then a few grapes, with the sun’s secret in them.

-

-One day Johnny drew something from his bosom, and put it into Miss

-Endell’s hand. It was the silver half-crown. He made her understand,

-by his expressive gestures, that she was to keep it for him; and she

-dropped it into a drawer of her writing-desk.

-

-At last Johnny began to get well. June came, with all its summer sights

-and sounds, and strength came with its softer winds to the poor little

-waif. One day he stood before Miss Endell, and put out his hand. She

-understood, and dropped the half-crown into it. He hid it, with a sort

-of passion, in his bosom, and Miss Endell smiled. Did even this little

-waif, then, care so much for money?

-

-As soon as he could stand, he took up his station on the balcony

-outside the windows, and watched and watched.

-

-His friend thought only that the sights and sounds of the street amused

-him. She was working on at the “Noted Irishwomen,” which was nearing

-its conclusion, and it quite suited her that Johnny found the street so

-interesting.

-

-As for the child, he was possessed by only one idea,--tea-roses. He

-watched to see the hand-barrows come along, flower-laden and tempting.

-

-These same hand-barrows are a feature of London street life. They

-are full of plants growing in pots, and also there are plenty of

-cut flowers. The venders cry, as they pass along, “All a-growin’ and

-a-blowin’!” and there is something exciting in the cry. It seems part

-of the summer itself.

-

-Day after day, day after day, Johnny watched and watched. Flowers

-enough went by,--geraniums glowing scarlet in the sun, azaleas, white

-heath, violets,--only never any tea-roses.

-

-But at last, one morning, he heard the familiar cry, “_All a-growin’

-and a-blowin’!_” and lo! as if they had bloomed for his need, there

-were tea-roses--whole loads of tea-roses!

-

-Miss Endell was busy, just then, with Lady Morgan. She never noticed

-when the little silent figure left the window, and hurried downstairs.

-Out into the street that little figure went, and on and on, in hot

-pursuit of the flower-barrow, which by this time had quite the start of

-him.

-

-Down one street, up another, he ran, and always with the silver

-half-crown tightly clasped in the palm of his little hand.

-

-At last a customer detained the barrow; and Johnny hurried up to it,

-panting and breathless. He put his hand out towards the tea-roses, and

-then he held out his silver half-crown.

-

-The flower-seller looked at him curiously, “Why don’t you speak, young

-’un?” he said. “Are you dumb? You want this ’alf-crown’s wuth o’ them

-tea-roses?”

-

-Johnny nodded vehemently.

-

-The man took up a great handful of the pale sweet flowers, and thrust

-them into the boy’s hands, taking in exchange the half-crown, and

-putting it away in a sort of pouch, along with many silver mates.

-

-As for Johnny, there are in every life supreme moments, and his came

-then. He held in his hand the flowers that Miss Endell loved, and he

-was going to give them to her.

-

-All his life he had felt himself in every one’s way. She, only, had

-made him welcome to her side. She had called him “dear,”--and now

-there was something he could do for her. She had loved one tea-rose:

-how much, then, would she love a whole handful of tea-roses! His heart

-swelled with a great wave of pride and joy.

-

-He thought of nothing but his flowers,--how should he?--and he never

-even heard or saw the butcher’s cart, tearing along at such a pace as

-John Gilpin never dreamed of. And in a moment, something had pushed him

-down,--something rolled and crunched over him,--and he knew nothing;

-but he held the flowers tight through it all.

-

-“Why, it’s Mrs. Stone’s dumb Johnny!” said the butcher-boy, who had

-got down from his cart by this time, and was addressing the quickly

-assembled London crowd. “Gi ’e a hand, and lift un up into my cart, and

-I’ll carry un home.”

-

-An awful inarticulate groan came from the poor child’s dumb lips as

-they lifted him; but his hold on the tea-roses never loosened.

-

-They carried him home, and into the house. Mrs. Stone was shocked and

-grieved; and she took her troubles noisily, as is the fashion of her

-class. Miss Endell, still fagging away at Lady Morgan, heard cries and

-shrieks, and dropped her pen and hastened downstairs.

-

-“He’s dead! Johnny’s dead!” cried Mrs. Stone and Miss Endell, white and

-silent, drew near.

-

-But Johnny was not dead, though he was dying fast. The butcher-boy had

-hurried off for a doctor and the three women, Mrs. Stone, her maid, and

-her lodger, stood by helplessly.

-

-Suddenly Johnny’s wandering look rested on Miss Endell. A great sweet

-smile of triumph curved his mouth, lighted his eyes, kindled all his

-face. With one grand last effort, he put out the bunch of tea-roses,

-and pressed them into her hand.

-

-And then, as if death had somehow been more merciful to him than life,

-and had in some way loosed his poor bound tongue, he stammered out the

-only words he had ever spoken--was ever to speak,--

-

-“_For you!_”

-

-At length the doctor came and stood there, helpless like the rest, for

-death was stronger than all his skill. The shock and the hurt together

-had quenched the poor frail life that was ebbing so swiftly.

-

-Miss Endell bent and kissed the white quivering lips. As she did so,

-the tea-roses she held touched the little face.

-

-Was it their subtile fragrance, or this kiss, or both together, which

-seemed for one moment to recall the departing soul?

-

-He looked up; it was his last look, and it took in the sweet woman who

-had been so gentle and so loving to him, and the flowers in her hand.

-

-His face kindled with a great joy. A hero might have looked like that

-who had died for his country, or a man who had given his life joyfully

-for child or wife.

-

-Johnny Stone had loved one creature well, and that creature had loved

-tea-roses. What _could_ life have held so sweet as the death that found

-him when he was striving to give her her heart’s desire?

-

-

-

-

-MY VAGRANT.

-

-

-We were in pursuit of Laura’s dressmaker, and had just rung the bell

-at her door, when a little boy presented himself, and, standing on the

-lower step, uplifted a pathetic pair of blue eyes, and a small tin

-cup held in a little grimy hand. A large basket was on one arm; and

-round his neck was one of those great printed placards, such as the

-blind men wear who sit at the street corners. Laura’s purse was always

-fuller than mine; and she was extracting a bit of scrip from it, while

-I bent my near-sighted eyes on the boy’s label. Could it be that I read

-aright? I looked again. No, I was not mistaken. It read, in great,

-staring letters--

-

-  I HAVE LOST MY HUSBAND IN THE WAR.

-

-In the war! And those blue eyes had not opened, surely, till some time

-after the war was ended! His husband! I was bewildered. I bent my gaze

-on him sternly, and asked, as severely as I could,--

-

-“Young man, can you read?”

-

-Laura was fumbling away at the unanswered door-bell. The boy looked as

-if he wanted to run; but I put my hand on his arm.

-

-“Can you read?” I repeated gravely. I think he shook in his shabby

-boots, for his voice was not quite steady as he answered,--

-

-“Not much.”

-

-“Not much, I should think. Do you know what this thing says that you’ve

-got round your neck?”

-

-“Does it say I’m blind?” he asked, with a little frightened quaver.

-

-“No, it says--but do you know what a husband is?”

-

-“Yes, he comes home drunk, and beats Mag and me awful.”

-

-“Did you ever know a boy of your age to have a husband?”

-

-The blue eyes grew so wide open that I wondered if they could ever

-shut themselves up again; and Laura, who had turned round at my

-question, looked as if she thought I had suddenly gone mad. The little

-dressmaker had opened the door, and stood there waiting meekly, with

-the handle in her hand. But my spirit was up, and I did not care for

-either of them. I asked again, very impressively, as I thought, with a

-pause after each word,--

-

-“Did--you--ever--know--a--boy--of--your--age--to--have--a--husband?”

-

-“No, marm,” he gasped, “husbands belongs to women.”

-

-“Then what do you wear this thing for? It says that you have lost your

-husband in the war.”

-

-The imp actually turned pale, and I almost pitied him.

-

-“Will they put me in prison?” he asked, an abject little whine coming

-into his voice. “_Will_ they?”

-

-“Did you steal it?”

-

-“I didn’t to say steal it--I just _took_ it. I’d seen the rest put them

-on when they went out begging, and this was old Meg’s. She wasn’t

-going out to-day, and I thought no harm to borrow.”

-

-“Then you can’t read?”

-

-“Well, not to say read, marm. I think I could make out a word now and

-then.”

-

-“Do you want to?”

-

-The face brightened a moment, and, with the curving lips and eager

-eyes, was really that of a pretty boy.

-

-“Oh, if I could!” half sighed the quivering lips; and then the smile

-went out, and left blank despair behind it. “It’s no use, marm; she

-won’t let me.”

-

-“Who won’t? Your mother?”

-

-“No, Mag’s mother--old Meg. My mother’s dead, and I never had any

-father that ever I heard of; and since mother died old Meg does for

-me; and every day she sends me out to beg; and if I don’t get much she

-whips Mag.”

-

-I was growing strangely interested.

-

-“Whips _Mag_, because _you_ don’t get much?” I said doubtfully. “What

-for?”

-

-“I guess there’s a hard place on _me_, marm. She found that it didn’t

-seem to hurt much, when she whipped _me_; and so one night Mag was

-teasing her to stop, and she turned to and whipped Mag, and that made

-me cry awful; and ever since, if I don’t get enough money, she whips

-Mag.”

-

-“Are you sure you are telling me the truth?”

-

-I don’t know why I asked the question, for I saw honesty in those clear

-eyes of his. He looked hurt. Yes, you may laugh if you want to, I’m

-telling you just as it was--the boy looked as hurt as any of you would

-if I doubted you. There came a sort of proud shame into his manner. He

-clutched at the placard round his neck, as if he would tear it off, and

-answered, sadly,--

-

-“I s’pose I can’t expect anybody to believe me with this round my neck;

-but, if you would go home with me, Mag could tell you, and you would

-believe _her_.”

-

-By this time Laura had gone in, leaving me to finish my interview

-alone. I reflected a moment. The other day I had heard Tom say

-he wanted an errand boy. Why should he not have this one? Tom was

-my brother. I knew just the difficulties he would make,--want of

-reference, a street beggar, a regular rat of the gutter. I could

-fancy just how he would talk. I knew, too, that I could overrule his

-objections. That’s a power women have when a man loves them; whether

-he be husband or brother or friend. I hated the thought of vice and

-ignorance and poverty. What if I could save just one small boy from

-their clutches? I said resolutely,--

-

-“Will you go home with me, and have a comfortable home and good food

-and honest work, and no one ever to beat you, and learn to read?”

-

-I had seen no assent in his eyes till I came to this last clause of my

-sentence. Then he asked shrewdly,--

-

-“Who’ll teach me? I can’t go to school and do my work, too.”

-

-“I will teach you. Will you go and work faithfully for my brother, and

-learn to read?”

-

-“Won’t I, just?”

-

-“Well, then, let me speak to the lady who went in, and I’ll take you

-home at once.”

-

-He shuffled uneasily.

-

-“If you please, marm, I can’t go till I’ve been back to Meg’s, and

-carried her this board.”

-

-“But I’ll get a policeman to send a messenger with that. If you go,

-perhaps she won’t let you come to me.”

-

-“Yes, marm, I shall come. But you wouldn’t believe me, sure, if I could

-steal away, like, and never say good-by to Mag, and let her cry both

-her eyes out thinking I’d been shut up, or somebody had killed me.”

-And his own great blue eyes grew pathetic again over this picture of

-sorrowful possibilities.

-

-“Well, you may go,” I said, half reluctantly, for the little vagabond

-had inspired in me a singular interest. “You may go, and be sure you

-come to-night or in the morning, to 70 Deerham Street, and ask for Miss

-May.”

-

-He looked at me with a grave, resolved look.

-

-“I shall come,” he said; and in an instant he was gone.

-

-That night, after dinner, I told Tom. He was mocking, incredulous,

-reluctant--just as I knew he would be. But it all ended in his

-promising to try “My Vagrant,” if he ever came.

-

-Just as I had brought him to this pass, the bell rang, and I sprang to

-the dining-room door. The dining-room was the front basement, and the

-outside door was so near that I opened it myself. It was, indeed, my

-vagrant.

-

-“I want Miss May,” he said, with the air which such a _gamin_ puts on

-when he speaks to a servant,--an air which instantly subdued itself

-into propriety when he heard my voice.

-

-I took him in to Tom; and I saw the blue eyes softened even the

-prejudiced mind and worldly heart of Mr. Thomas May. He spoke very

-kindly to the boy, and then sent him into the kitchen for his supper.

-

-“Where do you propose to keep this new acquisition?” he asked me, after

-the blue-eyed was out of sight.

-

-“In this house, if you please. There is a little single bed all ready

-for him in the attic, and I’ve arranged with cook to give him a bath

-and then put him into some of the clothes her own boy left behind him

-when he went away to sea. I mean to rescue this one soul from a starved

-and miserable and wicked life, and I’m willing to take some pains; and

-if you aren’t willing to do your part I’m ashamed of you.”

-

-Tom laughed, and called me his “fierce little woman,” his “angry

-turtle-dove,” and half-a-dozen other names which he never gave me

-except when he was in good humor, so I knew it was all right.

-

-Before three days were over Tom owned that my vagrant, as he persisted

-in calling the boy (though we knew now that his name was Johnny True),

-was the best errand boy he had ever employed. I myself taught him to

-read, as I had promised, and brighter scholar never teacher had. In

-four months he had progressed so fast that he could read almost any

-thing. There had been a sort of feverish eagerness in his desire to

-learn for which I was at a loss to account. Sometimes, coming home

-from some party or opera, I would find him studying in the kitchen at

-midnight.

-

-We grew fond of him, all of us. Cook said he was no trouble, and he

-made it seem as if she had her own boy back again. He waited on Tom

-with a sort of dog-like faithfulness; and, as for me, I believe that he

-would have cut his hand off for me at any time.

-

-Yet one morning he got up and deliberately walked out of the house.

-When his breakfast was ready cook called for him in vain, and in vain

-she searched for him from attic to cellar. But before it was time

-for Tom to go to business another boy came, a little older than my

-vagrant,--a nice, respectable-looking boy,--and asked for Mr. May. He

-came into the dining-room and stood there, cap in hand.

-

-“If you please, sir,” he said bashfully, “Johnny True wants to know if

-you’ll be so good as to take me on in his place, considering that he

-isn’t coming back any more, and I have done errands before, and got

-good reference.”

-

-He had made his little speech in breathless haste, running all his

-sentences together into one.

-

-Tom looked at him deliberately, and lit a cigar.

-

-“Johnny isn’t coming back, hey?”

-

-“No, sir.”

-

-“Where is Johnny gone?”

-

-“He didn’t tell me, if you please, but he said he should be hurt to

-death if it troubled you to lose him, and he knew I could do as well as

-he could.”

-

-I saw a refusal in Tom’s eyes, so I made haste to forestall it.

-

-“Do take him,” I said in a low tone to Tom, and then I said to the boy

-that just now he had better go to the store, and Mr. May would see him

-presently, when he came to business.

-

-Tom laughed, a half-amused, half-provoked laugh, when he went out, and

-said,--

-

-“Well, my dear, I don’t think your vagrant has proved to be such a

-success that you need expect me to let him choose my next errand boy.”

-

-“I think, at least, that if he has sent you one as good as himself you

-will have no fault to find,” I said hotly. But all the time there was

-a sore place in my own heart, for I had thought that my vagrant would

-have loved me too well to run away from me in this way.

-

-That night Tom said that the new errand boy was doing well, and he

-had concluded to keep him on. I think Tom missed my vagrant; but not,

-of course, so much as I missed my bright scholar--my grateful little

-follower.

-

-Of course, the new boy lived in his own home, wherever that might be. I

-did not concern myself about him, or feel any disposition to put him in

-the little bed in the front attic.

-

-Two or three weeks passed and we heard no word from Johnny True. But at

-last a rainy day came, and with it Johnny, asking for Miss May.

-

-“I guess he’s repented,” cook said, coming upstairs to tell me. I went

-down to Johnny, resolved to be equal to the occasion--to meet him with

-all the severity his ungrateful behavior deserved. But, somehow, the

-wistful look in his blue eyes disarmed me. He was a little thin and

-pale, too; and my heart began to soften even before he spoke.

-

-“I couldn’t stay away, ma’am,” he said, with the clear accent he had

-caught so quickly from my brief teaching, “and not let you know why I

-went.”

-

-“To let me know _when_ you went would have been more to the purpose,” I

-answered, with what sternness I could command. “I had thought better of

-you, Johnny, than that you were capable of running away.”

-

-“But you see, ma’am, I was afraid you would not let me go if I told

-you.”

-

-“And why did you want to go? Were you not comfortable?”

-

-“Yes, ma’am--that was the worst of it.”

-

-“Why the worst of it? Have you any especial objection to be

-comfortable?”

-

-Suddenly the blue eyes filled with tears, like a girl’s; and there was

-a pitiful sob in the voice which answered me.

-

-“Oh, it hurt me so, when I was warm, and had a good supper, and

-everybody’s kind word, to think of poor Mag there at home, cold and

-hungry, and with old Meg beating her. I never should have come and left

-her but for the learning to read. _She_ wanted me to come for that.”

-

-“So you could read to her?”

-

-“So I could _teach_ her, ma’am. You never in all your life saw anybody

-so hungry to learn to read as Mag; and when I went home that first day

-and told her all you said, and told her that after all I couldn’t go

-and leave her there to take all the hard fare and hard words, she just

-began to cry, and to tease me to go and learn to read, so I could teach

-her, until I couldn’t stand it any longer, and I came.”

-

-“And how did she know she would ever see you again?” I asked. “It would

-have been most natural, having learned what comfort was, to stay on

-here and enjoy it.”

-

-“Mag _knew me_, ma’am,” said my vagrant, as proudly as a prince could

-speak if his honor were called in question. “Mag knew what I was, and

-I learned as fast as I could to get back to her--don’t you think so,

-ma’am?”

-

-“You learned faster than any one else could; I know that,” I answered.

-“But, Johnny, how could you bear to go back to begging again?”

-

-“I couldn’t bear it, ma’am, and I didn’t. I had money enough, that

-Mr. Tom had given me, to buy myself a stock of papers. I’m a newsboy

-now, and I teach Mag to read out of the papers I have left. And old Meg

-knows better now than to beat Mag, and we are so much happier. It’s all

-owing to you; and I came back to thank you,--but I never could forsake

-Mag for long. I must stay with my own.”

-

-“But they are not your own.”

-

-“Mag is, ma’am.”

-

-He was as resolute to ally himself, for that girl’s sake, with poverty,

-and, if need were, shame, as ever was a hero to live or die for the

-land of his birth; and out in the rain, down the desolate street, I

-watched my vagrant go away from me for ever. But I did not pity him. No

-soul is to be pitied which has reached life’s crowning good,--the power

-to love another better than itself. Nor do I know any curled darling of

-fortune who seems to me happier than was my vagrant.

-

-

-

-

-HELEN’S TEMPTATION.

-

-

-The sun was almost setting, but its low light came in at the western

-windows, and lit up a pale face lying upon the pillows, till it seemed

-to the watchers beside the bed as if some glory from heaven had already

-touched the brow of the dying. These watchers were only two,--a girl of

-fourteen, rather tall of her age, with gray eyes that were almost green

-sometimes, and dark hair, short like a boy’s, and curling all over her

-head; and a middle-aged woman, who had tended this girl when a baby,

-and was half friend, half servant, to the dying mother.

-

-Mrs. Ash had been lying all the day, almost in silence. Her husband had

-brought her, a year before, to California, because she was stricken

-with consumption, and he hoped the change from the harsh east winds of

-New England to the balmy airs of the Pacific coast might restore her

-to health.

-

-For a time the result had seemed to fulfil his hope; but, very

-suddenly, he himself had been taken ill and died; and then the

-half-baffled disease seized again on the mourning wife, who had now no

-strength to repel its onset.

-

-I think she would fain have lived--even then, when all the joy seemed

-gone from her life--for her daughter Helen’s sake; but she was too weak

-to struggle, and so she lay there dying, quite aware of what was before

-her.

-

-All day she had seemed to be thinking, thinking, and waiting till she

-had settled something in her own mind before she spoke. At last, with

-the sunset light upon her face, she beckoned to the woman, who bent

-nearer.

-

-“As soon as all is over, Woods,” she said, as tranquilly as if she

-were speaking of the most ordinary household arrangement, “you will

-take Helen to my sister’s in Boston. You must make the journey by easy

-stages, so as not to tire her too much. Fortunately she will not be

-dependent. She has money enough, and she needs only care and love,

-which my sister will give her, I know well.

-

-“I shall be glad if you can stay with her; but that must of course be

-as Mrs. Mason will arrange. You will find when my affairs are settled

-that you have been remembered. You will lay me by my husband’s side,

-and then take Helen away.

-

-“All is arranged so that there can be no trouble, and now, if you

-please, leave me a little while with my daughter.”

-

-The woman went out of the room, and then Mrs. Ash opened her arms, and

-Helen crept into them and lay there silently, as if she were a baby

-again whom her mother comforted.

-

-She was a strange compound, this Helen Ash, of impulsiveness and

-self-control. She had an intense nature, and her temptations would grow

-chiefly out of her tendency to concentrate all her heart on a single

-object,--to seek whatever thing she wished for with an insistence which

-would not be denied.

-

-This quality has its great advantages certainly, but it has its extreme

-dangers.

-

-Helen had no brothers or sisters or special friends. She had loved only

-her father and mother, but she had loved them with an almost excessive

-devotion.

-

-When her father died she had borne up bravely, that she might comfort

-and help her mother, and now she was bearing up still, that she might

-not sadden that parting soul with the anguish of her own.

-

-As she lay there in her mother’s arms, her eyes were wide open and

-tearless, but they were full of a desperate gloom sadder than tears.

-She was almost as pale herself as was her mother.

-

-“Darling,” the mother said tenderly, “how can I bear to leave you all

-alone? Promise me one thing only, to open your heart to new love. It

-would be so like you to shut yourself up in your grief, and to fancy

-you were loving me less if you let yourself care for your Aunt Helen.

-

-“She will love you for my sake, and she must be your second mother now.

-We were dearer than most sisters to each other, and she is a wise and

-good woman.

-

-“Her daughter, my namesake Laura, is just about your own age, and being

-her mother’s daughter, she must be worth loving. Try to care for them,

-my darling. The life which has no love in it is empty indeed. Will you

-try?”

-

-“O mamma,” the girl cried, with a sudden, desperate sob, “I _will_ try

-because you bid me! I _will_ try; but oh, how _can_ I love them? How

-_can_ I bear to see another girl happy with her mother, and to know

-that you will never be with me any more--never in all the world? If I

-call all day and all night, you will never hear nor answer! O my own

-mother, _must_ you leave me?”

-

-“My darling, yes. I would have lived for your sake if I could. You have

-been my comfort always. Comfort me a little longer. Let me feel that in

-all the future you will try to live nobly for my sake.”

-

-The last words had been spoken with an evident effort, and it seemed to

-Helen that the cheek against which her own rested was already colder

-than it was half an hour ago.

-

-She clung closer to the poor wasted form that was her whole world of

-love, and closed her lips over the bitter cry that was rising to them;

-and so the two lay, very, very quietly in that last embrace they were

-ever to know.

-

-And the twilight gathered round them, and at last a young moon, hanging

-low in the western sky, looked in and touched with its pale glory the

-pale faces on the pillow.

-

-The mother stirred a little, and with a last effort clasped her child

-closer, and said, in a voice like a sigh, faint and sweet and strange,

-“Good-by, darling!” and then she seemed to sleep.

-

-Perhaps Helen slept, also. She never quite knew; but it was an hour

-afterwards when Woods touched her shoulder, and said, with a kind

-firmness in her tone,--

-

-“You _must_ get up now, Miss Helen, and leave her to me. She went off

-just as quiet as a lamb, poor dear, and if ever a face was peaceful and

-happy, hers is now.”

-

-No one knew what the few days that followed were to Helen Ash. She shut

-her lips, as her manner was, over her grief. She turned away, with her

-great tearless eyes, from the two graves where her father and mother

-lay side by side, and she helped, with a strange unnatural calmness, in

-all the preparations for the long journey she was to take.

-

-When at last she reached her aunt’s home in Boston, this strained,

-unnatural composure gave way a little.

-

-Her Aunt Helen looked so much like her mother that at first she thought

-she could _not_ bear it. Then, when her aunt’s arms closed round her

-almost as tenderly as her mother’s would have done, she shivered

-a little, and burst into one wild passion of tears, which almost

-instantly she checked.

-

-“I am to love you for _her_ sake,” she said. “Those were almost her

-last words; and indeed, indeed, I will try, but I think I left my heart

-all those miles away in her grave.”

-

-Mrs. Mason was, as her sister had said, a wise and good woman,--wise

-enough not to attempt to force the love or the interest of her niece.

-She contented herself with being exquisitely gentle and considerate

-towards her, and with trying, in countless little ways, to make her

-feel that she was at home.

-

-Laura Mason had looked forward to Helen’s coming with a feeling that at

-last she was to find in her the sister she had longed for all her life,

-but Helen’s cold and self-contained manner disappointed her. She felt

-the atmosphere of Helen’s reserve almost as tangibly as if her orphan

-cousin had pushed her away.

-

-The summer months passed, and scarcely brought them any nearer

-together. Try as Helen might, she could not get over the sting of pain

-when she saw this other girl happy in her mother’s love, or running

-gayly to meet her father when he came home at night. _They_ had each

-other, she used to say to herself, but _she_ had only her dead. She had

-not even Woods to speak to, for Mrs. Mason had decided not to retain

-her; and since there was no one to whom Helen ever spoke of the past,

-she pondered it all the more in her heart.

-

-Things were a little better when school commenced in the autumn. Helen

-and Laura were in the same classes, and that brought them somewhat

-more together; still there was no real intimacy between them.

-

-In the spring there was to be a competitive examination, and a medal

-was to be bestowed on the leading scholar in the class. By midwinter

-it was quite evident that Helen and Laura led all the rest, and a real

-spirit of rivalry grew up between the cousins which bade fair to become

-a passion.

-

-Mrs. Mason looked on regretfully, adhering to her difficult policy of

-non-interference. One day Helen heard Laura say to her mother,--

-

-“Mamsie, dear, you know you have the key to that French method locked

-up in your desk, for you taught us from it last summer. Won’t you be a

-dear, and lend it to me for a little while?

-

-“If I only could have that to help me, I should be sure of success.

-I would study just as hard. It would only be the difference between

-knowing when one was right, and floundering on in an awful uncertainty.”

-

-Helen was behind the curtain of the library window, and evidently they

-did not know of her presence. She waited for her aunt’s answer. If

-Laura had the key, then, indeed, she would be sure of success.

-

-Mrs. Mason spoke in a sad voice, with a subtile little thrill of

-reproach in it.

-

-“I did not think you would so much as wish, my dear, to do any thing

-that was not quite open and straightforward. You know Mademoiselle does

-not expect you to see the key. The very test of your power is that you

-should work without its aid, and the examination will prove how far you

-have succeeded.”

-

-“I suppose there’s no use in coaxing, when you say that. I do wish you

-weren’t such an uncoaxable mamma.”

-

-“No, you don’t,--you only fancy that you wish it; but, in your inmost

-soul, you would rather have me as I am,” Mrs. Mason answered; and Helen

-heard the sound of a kiss, and felt, for the thousandth time, how

-bitter it was that this other girl should have home and mother, while

-she had only a far-off grave.

-

-But, at least, she would triumph in this school contest! If Laura came

-off best there, it would be more than she _could_ bear.

-

-The weeks passed on, and the spring came. The deep old garden back

-of the house--the garden Helen’s mother had played in when she was a

-child--grew full of bird-songs and blossoms.

-

-There was a sweet laughter on the face of nature. The springs bubbled

-with it; the flowers opened to the light; the sunshine poured down its

-tender warmth, and the soft coo and call of the birds gave voice to the

-general joy.

-

-But both Laura and Helen were too eager and too tired to be gay. They

-only studied. They went to sleep with books under their pillows; they

-woke with the first light, and began to study again.

-

-It was the very week of the examination, at last. Helen felt satisfied

-with herself in all but her French. If _she_ could only have that key

-for one little half-hour, she knew she would have no weak spot in her

-armor.

-

-She brooded over the idea until the temptation possessed her like an

-evil fate. In her passionate girl’s heart she said to herself that she

-wanted to _die_ if Laura triumphed over her at school. Laura had every

-thing else; why _should_ she have that, also?

-

-She had said at first, “If only it were _right_ to have the key!” Then

-she said, “if only she could _chance_ on the key, somehow!” Then, “if

-only she could get at her aunt’s desk and _find_ the key!” At last it

-was,--

-

-“I _will_ get at the key, somehow!”

-

-This last was the very morning before the examination. She rose from

-her bed in the dainty blue-hung room her aunt had taken such pains to

-make pretty for her, and went softly downstairs, in the young spring

-morning.

-

-Her bare feet made no sound on the thick stair-carpet. She looked like

-a little white-clad ghost that had forgotten to flee away at the first

-cock-crowing, as an orthodox ghost ought; but no ghost ever had such

-glowing cheeks, crimson with excitement, such great wide-opened gray

-eyes with green depths in them.

-

-She held in her hand a large bunch of keys belonging to her mother. It

-was just a chance whether one of them would fit her aunt’s desk.

-

-She fairly trembled with excitement. She had lost all thought of the

-wrong she was doing--of the shame and meanness of this act, which must

-be done in silence and mystery; she thought only of the triumph which

-success would mean.

-

-She stood before the desk, and tried key after key with her shaking

-fingers.

-

-At last one fitted. In a moment more the key to the French method was

-in her hand.

-

-In desperate haste she compared her own work with it, and made

-corrections here and there.

-

-She was so absorbed that she quite failed to see another white-clad

-figure which had followed her noiselessly down the stairs, and stood in

-the doorway long enough to see what she was doing, and then went away.

-

-Hurriedly Helen went through her evil task, and then stole back to bed,

-with her glittering eyes and burning cheeks.

-

-Meantime Laura had gone, full of excitement, to her mother. Mr. Mason

-was away on business, and Laura crept into the empty half of her

-mother’s great bed.

-

-“Mamsie,” she said, “wake up quickly, and listen.”

-

-Patient Mrs. Mason rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, and turned over.

-Then followed Laura’s breathless story.

-

-“Of course she’ll win, now,” Laura said, in conclusion, “unless I tell

-Mademoiselle what she has done; and I suppose you wouldn’t like that,

-would you, mamsie?

-

-“But it was her French that was the shakiest of any thing. Oh, _did_

-you ever see any thing quite so mean? Think of getting into your desk

-with her keys, and then slying off all those corrections!”

-

-“Yes, I _do_ think,” Mrs. Mason answered, with almost a groan.

-

-“And she is Laura’s child--my poor Laura, who was honor and honesty

-itself!

-

-“You don’t know, dear, what a bitter thing this is to me. Poor Laura!

-what if she knows?”

-

-“But what shall we do, mamsie, dear? Are we just to keep still, and let

-her win the medal, and let every one think she has beaten fairly, or

-will you tell her what we know?”

-

-“Will you go away now,” Mrs. Mason said, “and come back again before

-breakfast? I don’t want to say any thing until I am quite sure what it

-is best to do.”

-

-When Laura came again, Mrs. Mason had settled upon her course of

-action, or rather of inaction.

-

-“Don’t be vexed, girlie,” she said to Laura; “I know it will seem hard

-to you to be beaten unfairly; but there are things of more consequence

-even than that. The thing that seems to me most important, just now,

-is to know what Helen’s character really is. If she is not utterly

-unworthy of her mother, she will repent before the thing comes to an

-end. If she does not, it will be time enough to think what to do next.”

-

-“And I must let her beat unfairly, and never say one word?” Laura

-asked, with a little strain of rebellion in her voice.

-

-“Yes, if you are the obedient and generous Laura I like to believe

-you.”

-

-“Mamsie, you have a flattering tongue, and you always get your way.”

-

-“And who is pretty sure always to admit, in the end, that it was the

-best way?” asked Mrs. Mason, laughing.

-

-“Mamsie, you are getting spoiled. See if I say yours was the best way

-this time!”

-

-French came on the first of the two examination-days. Laura and Helen

-led their class. Laura did very well, but Helen acquitted herself

-triumphantly, and sat down amid a little buzz of congratulations and

-praises.

-

-But somehow the triumph left a bitter taste in her mouth. She did not

-look at Laura, and even if she had she would not have understood the

-scorn on Laura’s face, since she was quite unaware that her raid on her

-aunt’s desk had been observed.

-

-Still she was not happy. She needed no scorn from outside, she had

-already begun to feel such bitterness of self-contempt scorching her

-soul. It seemed to her that up to this moment she had been as one under

-an evil spell.

-

-She had thought of no single thing except her triumph over her

-cousin--quite careless as to the means to this hotly desired end. Now

-she began to realize how base those means had been, and to long to

-exchange her success for any direst possible failure.

-

-Mrs. Mason was watching her, and when they started to go home, she

-found an instant in which to whisper to Laura,--

-

-“Be gentle to her, girlie; she will suffer enough to-night.”

-

-At supper Helen’s place was vacant. She sent word that her head ached

-too much to come.

-

-Her aunt despatched to her room tea and strawberries and

-bread-and-butter enough for the hungriest of girls, and then left her

-to herself.

-

-The poor, lonesome, miserable girl lay upon her bed and thought. It was

-not quite a year since she had lain in her mother’s arms and heard her

-say,--

-

-“Try to live nobly for my sake.”

-

-Those had been almost her mother’s last words; after them there was

-only the low sigh, faint as if it came already from far-off worlds,--

-

-“Good-by, darling.”

-

-The low sun-rays stole in softly, and touched her sad, pale face, and

-then went away; and after a while some cold, far-off stars looked down

-into the window, and saw the girl lying there still, fighting her

-battle with herself.

-

-One thing her conscience told her,--that she must undo this wrong, at

-whatever cost of shame.

-

-Once she started up, half-resolved to go to her aunt and tell her the

-whole story, and seek her help and counsel. But she lay down again,

-without the courage to confess her shame.

-

-Through the long night she scarcely slept; but before morning she

-had resolved what to do. In public she had taken the wages of her

-sin; in public she would make atonement, and eat the bitter bread of

-humiliation.

-

-When she had once settled on her course of action, sleep touched her

-weary eyes, and soothed her into a forgetfulness from which only the

-breakfast-bell awoke her.

-

-That day every one noticed a singular calmness and resolve in her

-manner. She passed the remaining examinations with thorough success,

-yet with an evident lack of interest in their result which all save her

-aunt were at a loss to understand.

-

-At last the time came for the awarding of the medal. There was a little

-consultation among the examining committee, and then their chairman

-rose, with the medal in his hand.

-

-“To Miss Helen Ash,” he began; but before he could proceed farther,

-Miss Helen Ash herself interrupted him.

-

-Her face was as white as the dress she wore, and her eyes glittered

-with some strange fire of resolve or courage; but her voice was

-absolutely without a quiver of emotion in it, as steady and even as if

-she were beyond hope or fear.

-

-“The medal does not belong to me,” she said. “My success was a

-false success. I dishonestly found the key to the French method,

-and corrected my mistakes by it, or I should have failed. The prize

-belongs, of right, to my cousin, Laura Mason.”

-

-The chairman was a fussy little man, and was thoroughly discomposed

-by this interruption. He had had his little speech all ready, but it

-began with the name of Helen Ash, and he found it difficult to change

-it at a moment’s notice.

-

-“Bless my heart!” he said quite unconsciously, and looking helplessly

-around him, he repeated, “_Bless_ my heart!”

-

-“Miss Laura Mason,” suggested one of his brethren on the committee; and

-thus reinforced, he began again,--

-

-“Miss Laura Mason, I am very sorry--I mean I am very glad, to bestow on

-you this medal, which you have fairly earned by your success.”

-

-And then he sat down, and his confusion was covered by a gentle little

-clapping of hands.

-

-That night Mrs. Mason went to Helen in her own room, when the twilight

-shadows were falling, and as she entered the door she said, “My

-darling,” in a voice so like Helen’s mother’s that the girl’s very

-heart sprang to meet it.

-

-“My darling, I know now that you are true enough and brave enough to be

-my sister’s child.”

-

-But Helen shrank back into the darkness, and this time the voice was

-broken with tears which faltered,--

-

-“Is there any one who could know what I have done, and yet not despise

-me?”

-

-“There is no one, dear, who dares to scorn the soul that repents and

-atones.”

-

-And then loving arms held the poor lonesome girl close, and she knew

-that she was no longer alone. She had found a new home--the home her

-mother bade her seek--in the heart of that mother’s sister.

-

-

-

-

-THE SURGEON OF THE DOLLS’ HOSPITAL.

-

-

-It was nearly four years ago that I first noticed, in one of the quiet

-side-streets in the West Central district of London, a sign over a door

-on which I read:--

-

-DOLLS’ HOSPITAL.

-

-Operations from 9 A.M., to 4 P.M.

-

-Whenever I passed through the street--and that was often, for it was a

-short cut to Mudie’s,--the largest circulating library in the world,--I

-used to notice this quaint sign, and wonder, laughingly, who was the

-superintending physician to this place of healing for the numerous race

-of dolls.

-

-I often thought I would go in and see the establishment; but one is

-always busy in London, so, very likely, I should never have entered its

-door but for a casualty at my own fireside.

-

-When I went downstairs one morning, I heard a sound of weeping, as

-bitter as that of Rachel of old mourning for her children. The mourner

-in this case was Mistress Brown-Eyes, as I was wont to call my friend’s

-little girl.

-

-She was a pretty child, this little Milicent; but you forgot to think

-about the rest of her face when you saw her wonderful eyes--soft and

-clear, yet bright, and of the warmest, deepest, yet softest brown.

-She had made her home in my heart, and so her grief, whatever it was,

-appealed at once to my sympathies.

-

-“My darling,” I said, as I tried to draw away the little hands from

-before the sorrowful face, “what can be the matter?”

-

-“Bella is dead!” and the sobs recommenced with fresh violence.

-

-Bella was the best-beloved of a somewhat large family of dolls,--a

-pretty Parian creature, with blue eyes and fair hair. I had myself

-lately assisted in making a trunk of clothes for Bella; and I grudged

-sorely all my wasted labor, if she had come to an untimely end.

-

-I looked at the dear remains, stretched out sadly upon a chair. Bella

-was evidently very dead indeed. Her pretty neck was broken, her fair,

-foolish head lay quite severed from her silken-clad body. Suddenly

-there flashed into my mind the thought of the dolls’ hospital. I spoke

-cheerfully.

-

-“Brown-Eyes,” I said, “I think that Bella may recover. I am pretty sure

-that her collar-bone is broken; but I have heard of people who got well

-after breaking their collar-bones.”

-

-The child looked up, her eyes shining through tears, and said, with

-that air of grave, old-fashioned propriety which was one of the most

-amusing things about her,--

-

-“It is a very serious accident. Do you think Bella _could_ recover?”

-

-“I hope she may; and I shall at once take her to the hospital.”

-

-“The hospital!” cried Mistress Brown-Eyes; “but that is where Mary Ann

-went when she had a fever. She was gone six weeks. Will my Bella be

-gone six weeks?”

-

-“I think not so long as one week, if she can be cured at all.”

-

-In five minutes more I was in the street, with Bella in a basket on my

-arm. Her little mother had covered her carefully from the cold, though

-it was already May; and I felt as if I were in a position of grave

-responsibility as I hurried to the dolls’ hospital.

-

-A bell rang when I opened the door, and the oddest little person stood

-before me. At first I thought it was a child masquerading in long

-clothes; for she was not more than half the height of an ordinary woman.

-

-But, looking more closely, I saw the maturity of her face, and realized

-that I stood in the presence of a grown-up dwarf, who might really have

-been taken for Dickens’s Miss Mowcher, herself.

-

-She was dressed in a long, straight gown of rusty-looking black alpaca,

-and her rusty-looking black hair was drawn straightly back from as

-plain a face as one often sees. It was a kind, honest face, however,

-and I liked the voice in which she asked how she could serve me. I

-explained my errand.

-

-“Please to let me see the patient.”

-

-She spoke with as much gravity as if she had been the superintending

-physician of the largest hospital in London. I unveiled poor Bella, and

-the dwarf lifted her from the basket with grave tenderness.

-

-“Poor little beauty!” she said. “Yes’m, I think I can cure her.”

-

-“Will the operation take long?” I asked, humoring her fancy.

-

-“I should prefer that the patient should not be moved, ma’am, before

-to-morrow.”

-

-“Very well; then I will leave her.”

-

-Just at that moment I heard a voice call, “Sally! Sally!”

-

-It was a well-trained, ladylike voice, but somewhat imperious.

-

-“Yes, Lady Jane, I’ll be there in a moment,” answered the dwarf, whom

-I now knew to be Sally. Then a door opened, and the most beautiful

-creature I ever saw stood in it, looking in.

-

-The hospital was a bare enough place. There was a great table covered

-with dolls,--dolls with broken legs, dolls with punched heads, dolls

-with one arm gone, hairless dolls, broken-backed dolls, dolls of every

-kind, awaiting the ministrations of Sally; and dozens of other dolls

-were there, too, whom those skilful fingers had already cured of their

-wounds.

-

-There was a shelf, on which was ranged the pharmacy of this

-hospital,--white cement, boxes of saw-dust, collections of legs and

-arms, wigs, every thing, in short, that an afflicted doll could

-possibly require. Then there were two or three wooden stools, and these

-completed the furniture of the apartment.

-

-Standing in the doorway, Lady Jane looked as if she were a larger doll

-than the rest,--a doll with a soul. She seemed a lady’s child, every

-pretty inch of her. I should think she was about twelve years old. She

-wore a blue dress, and a blue ribbon in the bright, fair hair that hung

-all about her soft, pink-and-white face, out of which looked two great,

-serious, inquiring blue eyes.

-

-“I will be through soon, Lady Jane,” Sally said quietly; and the girl

-turned away, but not before I had taken in a complete picture of her

-loveliness, and had noticed also a somewhat singular ornament she wore,

-attached to a slender golden chain. It was so strange a vision to see

-in this humble little shop that my curiosity got the better of me, and,

-after the door had closed on Lady Jane, I asked, “Does she live here?”

-

-“Yes’m,” answered Sally proudly. “In a way, she is my child.”

-

-I hesitated to inquire further; but I think my eyes must have asked

-some questions in spite of myself; for Sally said, after a moment,--

-

-“You seem interested, ma’am, and I don’t mind telling you about her.

-I saw Lady Jane first some eight years ago. A man had her who used to

-go round with a hand-organ. She was such a pretty little creature that

-everybody gave her money, and she was a great profit to Jacopo, for

-that was his name.

-

-“It used to make my heart ache to see the little beauty trudging round

-all day on her patient feet. When Jacopo spoke to her, I’ve seen her

-turn pale; and she never used to smile except when she was holding out

-her bit of a hat to people for money. She _had_ to smile then; it was

-part of the business.

-

-“I was sixteen, and I was all alone in the world. I had a room to

-myself, and I worked days in a toy-shop. I used to dress the dolls,

-and I got very clever at mending them; but I hadn’t thought of the

-hospital, then.

-

-“I lived in the same street with Jacopo, and I grew very fond of the

-little lady, as the people in the street used to call Jane. Sometimes I

-coaxed Jacopo to let her stay with me at night; but after three or four

-times, he would not let her come again. I suppose he thought she would

-get too fond of me.

-

-“Things went on that way for two years; then one night, in the middle

-of the night, a boy came for me, and said Jacopo was dying and wanted

-me to come. I knew it was something about Jane, and I hurried on my

-clothes and went.

-

-“The child was asleep in one corner. She had been tramping all that

-day, as usual, and she was too tired out for the noise in the room to

-wake her. Jacopo looked very ill, and he could hardly summon strength

-to speak to me.

-

-“‘The end has come sudden, Sally,’ he said, ‘the end to a bad life. But

-I ain’t bad enough to want harm to happen to the little one when I am

-gone. There will be plenty of folks after her, for she’s a profitable

-little one to have; but if you want her, I’ll give her to you. You may

-take her away to-night, if you will.’

-

-“‘Indeed I will,’ I cried, ‘and thank you. While I can work, she shall

-never want.’

-

-“Jacopo had been fumbling under his pillow as he spoke; and when I said

-I would take the child he handed me a curious locket. Maybe you noticed

-it at her neck when she stood in the door?

-

-“He said, as nearly as I could understand, for it was getting hard work

-for him to speak, that he had stolen the child, but he had always kept

-this thing, which she had on her neck when he took her, and perhaps it

-would help, some day, to find her people.

-

-“So I took her home. The next morning I heard that Jacopo was dead,

-and the Lady Jane has been mine ever since.”

-

-“Have you always called her Lady Jane?” I asked.

-

-“Yes’m. There is a coronet on that locket she wears; and I know she

-must be some great person’s daughter, she is so beautiful, and seems so

-much like a real lady.”

-

-“And so you’ve struggled on and worked for her, and taken care of her

-for six years, now?”

-

-“Yes’m, and I’ve thanked God every day that I’ve had her to take care

-of. You see, ma’am, I’m not like other people; and it was a good

-fortune I couldn’t look for to have a beautiful child like that given

-into my arms, as you might say. It was all the difference between being

-alone and with no one to care for, and having a home and an interest in

-life like other women.

-

-“I gave up working in the shop when I took her, for I didn’t like to

-leave her alone. I was a good workwoman, and they let me take work home

-for awhile; then I opened the hospital, and I’ve done very well. Lady

-Jane has been to school, and I don’t think if her true parents met

-her, they would be ashamed of her.”

-

-“Do you ever think,” I said, “that they may meet her some time, and

-then you would lose her for ever?”

-

-“Yes, indeed, I think about that, ma’am; and I make her keep the locket

-in sight all the time, in hopes it might lead to something.”

-

-“In hopes!” I said, surprised. “You don’t want to part with her, do

-you?”

-

-I was sorry, instantly, that I had asked the question, for her poor

-face flushed, and the tears gathered in her eyes.

-

-“O ma’am,” she said, “if I stopped to think about myself, I suppose

-I should rather die than lose her; but I _don’t_ think of any thing

-but her. And how could I want her, a lady born, and beautiful as any

-princess, to live always in a little room back of a dolls’ hospital?

-Would it be right for me to want it?

-

-“No; I think God gave her to make a few of my years bright; and when

-the time comes, she will go away to live her own life, and I shall

-live out mine, remembering that she _was_ here, once; and harking back

-till I can hear the sound of her voice again; or looking till I see her

-bright head shine in the corner where she sits now.”

-

-Just then the bell rang, and other customers came into the hospital,

-and I went away, promising to return for Bella on the morrow.

-

-I walked through the streets with a sense that I had been talking with

-some one nobler than the rest of the world. Another than poor Sally

-might have adopted Lady Jane, perhaps, tended her, loved her; but who

-else would have been noble enough to love her, and yet be ready to lose

-her for ever and live on in darkness quite satisfied if but the little

-queen might come to her own again?

-

-I comforted Mistress Brown-Eyes with a promise of her “child’s”

-recovery, and I went to a kettle-drum or two in the afternoon, and

-dined out at night; but all the time, amidst whatever buzz of talk, I

-was comparing the most generous persons I had ever known with the poor

-dwarfed surgeon of the dolls’ hospital, and finding them all wanting.

-

-I went for Bella about four the next afternoon. I wanted to get to the

-hospital late enough to see something of the little surgeon and her

-beautiful ward. I purchased a bunch of roses on the way, for I meant to

-please Sally by giving them to Lady Jane.

-

-I opened the door, and again, at the ringing of the bell, the quaint

-little figure of the dwarf surgeon started up like Jack-in-the-box.

-

-“Is the patient recovered?” I asked.

-

-“The patient is quite well;” and the surgeon took down pretty Bella,

-and proudly exhibited her. The white cement had done its work so

-perfectly that the slender neck showed no signs of ever having been

-broken.

-

-I paid the surgeon her modest fee, and then I said, “Here are some

-roses I brought for Lady Jane.”

-

-Sally’s plain face beamed with pleasure. “It’s time to stop receiving

-patients for to-day,” she said. “Won’t you walk into the sitting-room

-and give the roses to Lady Jane, yourself?”

-

-I was well pleased to accept the invitation. The sitting-room was as

-cosy as the hospital itself was barren of attraction. I really wondered

-at the taste with which it was arranged. The hangings were blue, and

-two or three low chairs were covered with the same color; and there

-were pretty trifles here and there which made it seem like a lady’s

-room.

-

-[Illustration: My roses were received with a cry of delight.--PAGE 69.]

-

-My roses were received with a cry of delight; and, while Lady Jane

-put them in a delicate glass, Sally made me sit down in the most

-comfortable chair, and then she asked her ward to sing to me.

-

-The girl had a wonderful voice, soft and clear and full.

-

-When she had done singing, Sally said, “I have thought sometimes that,

-if no better fortune comes, Lady Jane can sing herself into good luck.”

-

-“_I_ count on something better than that,” the little lady cried

-carelessly. “When I ‘come to my own,’ like the princesses in all the

-fairy tales, I’ll send you my picture, Sally, and it will make you

-less trouble than I do. It won’t wear out its gowns, nor want all the

-strawberries for supper.”

-

-Sally didn’t answer; but two great tears gathered in her eyes, and

-rolled down her cheeks.

-

-Lady Jane laughed--not unkindly, only childishly--and said, “Never

-mind. Don’t cry yet. You’ll have time enough for that when it all comes

-to pass. And you know you want it to happen; you always say so.”

-

-“Yes, yes, dear, I want it to happen,” Sally said hastily; “I couldn’t

-want to shut you up here for ever, like a flower growing in a dungeon.”

-

-“A pretty, blue-hung dungeon, with nice soft chairs,” Lady Jane said

-pleasantly; and then I got up to go.

-

-Had this beautiful girl any real heart behind her beauty? I wondered.

-If the time ever came when Sally must give her up to some brighter

-fate, would it cost the little lady herself one pang? Could she be

-wholly insensible to all the devotion that had been lavished on her for

-all these years? I could not tell; but she seemed to me too light a

-thing for deep loving.

-

-I carried Bella home to Mistress Brown-Eyes, who received her with

-great joy, and with a certain tender respect, such as we give to those

-who have passed through perils. I stayed in London till “the season”

-was over,--that is to say, till the end of July; and then, with the

-last rose of summer in my buttonhole, I went over to the fair sea coast

-of France.

-

-It was not until the next May that I found myself in London again; and

-going to renew my subscription at Mudie’s, passed the dolls’ hospital.

-I looked up at the quaint sign, and the fancy seized me to go in.

-

-I opened the door, and promptly as ever, the dwarf surgeon of the dolls

-stood before me. It was nearly four o’clock, and the hospital was empty

-of customers. Nothing in it was changed except the face of the surgeon.

-Out of that always plain face a certain cheerful light had faded. It

-looked now like a face accustomed to tears. I said,--

-

-“Do you remember me, Dr. Sally?”

-

-A sort of frozen smile came to the poor trembling lips.

-

-“Oh, yes’m. You’re the lady that brought the rose-buds to Lady Jane.”

-

-“And is she well?” I asked.

-

-“I _think_ so, ma’am. Heaven knows I _hope_ so; but the old days when

-I _knew_ are over. Won’t you come into the sitting-room, please?”

-

-I wanted nothing better for myself, and I felt that it might ease her

-sad heart to break its silence; so I followed her into the familiar

-room. It, at least, was unchanged. The blue hangings were there, and

-the low easy-chairs, and the pretty trifles; and yet, somehow, the room

-seemed cold, for the beauty which had gladdened it last year had gone

-for ever.

-

-“Will you tell me what happened?” I asked; and I know the real sympathy

-I felt must have sounded in my voice.

-

-“It wasn’t long after you were here,” she said, “a lady was driving by,

-and she saw my sign. She sent her footman to the door to see if the

-place was really what that said; and the next day she came in herself

-and brought a whole load of broken toys. She said she wanted these

-things put in order to take into the country, for they were favorite

-playthings of her little girl’s.

-

-“I turned then and looked at the child who had come in with her mother.

-I can never tell you how I felt. It was as though Lady Jane had gone

-back six years. Just what my darling was when she came to me, this

-little girl was now,--the very same blue eyes, and bright, fair hair,

-and the pretty, pink-and-white face.

-

-“Just at that moment, Lady Jane came into the hospital, and when the

-lady saw her, she stood and gazed as if she had seen a ghost. I looked

-at the lady herself, and then I looked at Lady Jane, and then again

-at the little girl; and true as you live, ma’am, I knew it was Lady

-Jane’s mother and sister before ever a word was spoken. I felt my knees

-shaking under me, and I held fast to the counter to keep from falling.

-I couldn’t have spoken first, if my life had depended on it.

-

-“The lady looked, for what seemed to me a long time; and then she

-walked up to my darling and touched the locket that she wore on her

-neck. At last she turned to me and asked, with a little sternness in

-her gentle voice, if I would tell her who this girl was, and how I came

-by her.

-

-“So I told her the whole story, just as I had told it to you, and

-before I had finished, she was crying as if her heart would break.

-Down she went on her knees beside Lady Jane, and put her arms around

-her, and cried,--

-

-“‘O my darling, my love, I thought you were dead! I am your mother--oh,

-believe me, my darling! Love me a little, a little,--after all these

-years!’

-

-“And just as properly as if she had gone through it all in her mind a

-hundred times beforehand, Lady Jane answered,--

-

-“‘I always expected you, mamma.’

-

-“Somehow, the lady looked astonished. She grew quieter, and stood up,

-holding Lady Jane’s hand.

-

-“‘You expected me?’ she said, inquiringly.

-

-“‘Yes, you know I _knew_ I had been stolen; and I used to think and

-think, and fancy how my true mother would look, and what my right home

-would be; and I always felt sure in my heart that you would come some

-day. I didn’t know when or how it would be; but I expected you.’

-

-“‘And when will you be ready to go with me?’ asked the mother.

-

-“‘When you please, mamma.’

-

-“The lady hesitated, and turned to me. ‘I owe you so much,’ she said,

-‘so much that I can never hope to pay it; and I do not like to grieve

-you. But her father and I have been without Jane so long, _could_ you

-spare her to me at once?’

-

-“‘That must be as you and she say, ma’am,’ I answered, trying as hard

-as I could to speak quietly. ‘I never have wanted any thing but that

-she should be well off and happy so far, and won’t begin to stand in

-her light now.’

-

-“Then the lady turned to the little girl who had come in with her.

-‘Ethel,’ she said, ‘this is your sister. She has been lost to us eight

-years, but we will keep her always, now.’ And then, with more thanks

-to me, she started to go away,--the stately, beautiful lady, with her

-beautiful girls, one on each side of her.

-

-“They got to the door, and suddenly my darling turned,--O ma’am, it’s

-the best thing in my whole life to remember that! Of her own accord she

-turned and came back to me, and said she,--

-

-“‘Don’t think, Sally, that I’m not sorry to say good-by. Of course I

-can’t be sorry to find my own mamma and my right home, but I’m sorry to

-leave _you_.’

-

-“And then she put her arms round my neck and kissed me just as she had

-done when I took her home that night from Jacopo’s, six years before;

-and then she went away, and the sunshine, it seemed to me, went out of

-the door with her, and has never come back since.”

-

-The poor little surgeon of the dolls stopped speaking, and cried very

-quietly, as those cry who are not used to have their tears wiped away,

-or their sorrows comforted.

-

-I wanted to say that Lady Jane seemed to me a heartless little piece,

-who cared for nothing in the world but herself, and wasn’t worth

-grieving for; but I felt there would be no comfort for her in thinking

-that there had never been any thing worth having in her life. Far

-better let her go on believing that for six years she had sheltered an

-angel at her fireside.

-

-At last, when I saw her tears were ceasing to flow, I said, “And when

-did you see her again?”

-

-“Oh, I have never seen her since that day. I think she pitied me too

-much to come back and give me the sorrow of parting with her over

-again. No, I have never seen her, but her mother sent me five hundred

-pounds.”

-

-“And so she ought,” I said impulsively. “It was little enough for all

-you had done.”

-

-Surgeon Sally looked at me with wonder, not unmixed with reproach, in

-her eyes.

-

-“Do you think I wanted _that_?” she asked. “I had had my pay for all I

-did, ten times over, in just having her here to look at and to love.

-No; I sent the money back, and I think it must be that my darling

-understood; for, two months afterwards, I received the only gift I

-would have cared to have,--her portrait. Will you please to look round,

-ma’am? It hangs behind you.”

-

-I looked round, and there she was, even lovelier than when I had seen

-her first,--a bright, smiling creature, silken-clad, patrician to the

-finger-tips. But it seemed to me that no heart of love looked out of

-the fair, careless face. I thought I would rather be Surgeon Sally,

-and know the sweetness of loving another better than myself.

-

-“She is very beautiful,” I said, as I turned away.

-

-“Yes; and sometimes I almost think I feel her lips, her bonny bright

-lips, touch my face, as they did that last day, and hear her say,

-‘Don’t think, Sally, that I’m not sorry.’ Oh, my lot isn’t hard, ma’am.

-I might have lived my life through and never have known what it was to

-have something all my own to love. God was good.

-

-“And after all, ma’am,” she added cheerfully, “there’s nothing happier

-in the world than to give all the pleasure you can to somebody.”

-

-And I went away, feeling that the dwarf surgeon of the dolls’ hospital

-had learned the true secret of life.

-

-

-

-

-PRETTY MISS KATE.

-

-

-Everybody called her “pretty Miss Kate.” It was an odd title, and she

-had come by it in an odd way. A sort of half-witted nurse, whose one

-supreme merit was her faithfulness, had tended Squire Oswald’s baby

-daughter all through her early years; and she it was who had first

-called the girl “pretty Miss Kate.”

-

-It was a small neighborhood where everybody knew everybody else; and,

-by dint of much hearing this title, all the neighbors grew to use it.

-And, indeed, at fifteen Kate Oswald deserved it. She was a tall, slight

-girl, with a figure very graceful, and what people call stylish.

-

-She had blue eyes; not the meaningless blue of a French doll, but deep

-and lustrous, like the tender hue of the summer sky. She had hair like

-some Northland princess. It had not a tint of yellow in it, but it

-was fine and fair, and so light as to be noticeable anywhere. Her skin

-was exquisite, too, as skin needs must be to match such hair. When any

-color came to the cheeks it was never crimson, but just the faintest

-tint of the blush rose; her lips alone were of rich, vivid bloom. A

-prettier creature, truly, seldom crosses this planet; and the few such

-girls who have lived among us, and grown to womanhood, have made wild

-work generally, using hearts for playthings; and, like other children,

-breaking their toys now and then. But pretty Miss Kate was not at the

-age yet for that sort of pastime, and her most ardent worshipper was

-little Sally Green.

-

-There was a curious friendship between these two, if one may call that

-friendship which is made up of blind worship on one side and gentle

-pity and kindliness on the other.

-

-Squire Oswald owned the poor little house where Widow Green lived, and

-whenever there was an unusual press of work at the great house above,

-the family washing used to be sent down to Mrs. Green at the foot of

-the hill. Many an hour the widow worked busily, fluting the delicate

-ruffles and smoothing the soft muslins, out of which pretty Miss Kate

-used to bloom as a flower does out of its calyx. And on these occasions

-Sally used to carry the dainty washing home, and she nearly always

-contrived to be permitted to take it up to Miss Kate’s room, herself.

-

-Nobody thought much about little Sally Green any way,--least of all did

-any one suspect her of any romantic or heroic or poetical qualities.

-And yet she had them all; and if you came to a question of soul and

-mind, there was something in Sally which entitled her to rank with

-the best. She was a plain, dark little thing, with a stubbed, solid,

-squarely-built figure; with great black eyes, which nobody thought any

-thing about in _her_, but which would have been enough for the whole

-stock-in-trade of a fashionable belle; with masses of black hair that

-she did not know what to do with; and with a skin somewhat sallow, but

-smooth. No one ever thought how she looked, except, perhaps, pretty

-Miss Kate.

-

-One day, when the child brought home the washing, Kate had been reading

-aloud to a friend, and Sally had shown an evident inclination to

-linger. At that time Kate was not more than fourteen, and the interest

-or the admiration in Sally’s face struck her, and, moved by a girl’s

-quick impulse, she had said,--

-

-“Do you want to hear all of it, Sally? Wait, then, and I will read it

-to you.”

-

-The poem was Mrs. Browning’s “Romance of the Swan’s Nest,” and it was

-the first glimpse for Sally Green into the enchanted land of poetry

-and fiction. Before that she had admired pretty Miss Kate, but now the

-feeling grew to worship.

-

-Kate was not slow to perceive it, with that feminine instinct which

-somehow scents out and delights in the honest admiration of high or

-low, rich or poor. She grew very kind to little Sally. Many a book and

-magazine she lent the child; and now and then she gave her a flower, a

-bit of bright ribbon, or some little picture. To poor Sally Green these

-trifles were as the gifts of a goddess, and no devotee ever treasured

-relics from the shrine of his patron saint more tenderly than she

-cherished any, even the slightest, token which was associated with the

-beautiful young lady whom she adored with all her faithful, reverent,

-imaginative heart.

-

-One June evening Sally had been working hard all day. She had washed

-dishes, run her mother’s errands, got supper, and now her reward was to

-come.

-

-“You may make yourself tidy,” her mother said, “and carry home that

-basket of Miss Kate’s things to Squire Oswald’s.”

-

-Sally flew upstairs, and brushed back her black locks, and tied them

-with a red ribbon Miss Kate had given her. She put on a clean dress,

-and a little straw hat that last year had been Miss Kate’s own; and

-really for such a stubbed, dark little thing, she looked very nicely.

-She was thirteen--two years younger than her idol--and while Miss Kate

-was tall, and looked older than her years, Sally looked even younger

-than she was. Her heart beat as she hurried up the hill. She thought

-of the fable of the mouse and the lion, which she had read in one of

-the books Miss Kate had lent her. It made her think of herself and her

-idol. Not that Miss Kate was like a lion at all,--no, she was like a

-beautiful princess,--but she herself was such a poor, humble, helpless

-little mouse; and yet there might be a time, if she only watched and

-waited, when she, even she, could do pretty Miss Kate some good. And

-if the time ever came, wouldn’t she _do_ it, just, at no matter _what_

-cost to herself? Poor little Sally! The time was on its way, and nearer

-than she thought.

-

-She found Miss Kate in her own pretty room,--a room all blue and white

-and silver, as befitted such a fair-haired beauty. The bedstead and

-wardrobe were of polished chestnut, lightly and gracefully carved.

-The carpet was pale gray, with impossible blue roses. The blue chintz

-curtains were looped back with silver cords; there were silver frames,

-with narrow blue edges, to the few graceful pictures; and on the mantel

-were a clock and vases with silver ornaments.

-

-Pretty Miss Kate looked as if she had been dressed on purpose to stay

-in that room. She wore a blue dress, and round her neck was a silver

-necklace which her father had brought her last year from far-off Genoa.

-Silver ornaments were in her little ears, and a silver clasp fastened

-the belt at her waist. She welcomed Sally with a sweet graciousness, a

-little conscious, perhaps, of the fact that she was Miss Oswald, and

-Sally was Sally Green; but to the child her manner, like every thing

-else about her, seemed perfection.

-

-“Sit down and stay a little, Sally,” she said, “I have something to

-tell you. Do you remember what you heard me read that first time, when

-your eyes got so big with listening, and I made you stay and hear it

-all?”

-

-“Yes, indeed,” Sally cried eagerly. “I never forgot any thing I ever

-heard you read. That first time it was ‘The Romance of the Swan’s

-Nest.’”

-

-“Yes, you are right, and I know I was surprised to find how much you

-cared about it. I began to be interested in you then, for you know I am

-interested in you, don’t you, Sally?”

-

-Sally blushed with pleasure till her face glowed like the June roses in

-Miss Kate’s silver vases, but she did not know what to say, and so,

-very wisely, she did not say any thing. Miss Kate went on,--

-

-“Well, that very same poem I am going to read, next Wednesday night,

-at the evening exercises in the academy. The academy hall won’t hold

-everybody, and so they are going to be admitted by tickets. Each of

-us girls has a certain number to give away, and I have one for you.

-I thought you would like to go and see me there among the rest in my

-white gown, and hear me read the old verses again.”

-

-You would not have believed so small a thing could so have moved

-anybody; but Sally’s face turned from red to white, and from white to

-red again, and her big black eyes were as full of tears as an April

-cloud is of rain-drops.

-

-“Do you mean it, truly?” she asked.

-

-“Yes, truly, child. Here is your ticket. Why, don’t cry, foolish girl.

-It’s nothing. I wanted to be sure of one person there who would think

-I read well, whether any one else did or not. And I’ve a gown for you,

-too--that pink muslin, don’t you know, that I wore last year? I’ve

-shot up right out of it, and it’s of no use to me, now, and mamma said

-I might give it to you. This is Saturday; you can get it ready by

-Wednesday, can’t you?”

-

-What a happy girl went home that night, just as the rosy June

-sunset was fading away, and ran, bright and glad and full of joyful

-expectation, into the Widow Green’s humble little house! Widow Green

-wasn’t much of a woman, in the neighbors’ estimation. She was honest

-and civil, and she washed well; but that was all they saw in her. Sally

-saw much more. She saw a mother who always tried to make her happy;

-who shared her enthusiasms, or at least sympathized with them; who was

-never cross or jealous, or any thing but motherly. She was as pleased,

-now, at the prospect of Sally’s pleasure as Sally herself was; and just

-as proud of this attention from pretty Miss Kate. Together they made

-over the pink muslin dress; and when Wednesday night came the widow

-felt sure that her daughter was as well worth having, and as much to be

-proud of, as any other mother’s daughter that would be at the academy.

-

-“You must go very early,” she said, “to get a good seat; and you need

-not be afraid to go right up to the front. You’ve just as good right to

-get close up there as anybody.”

-

-When Sally was going out, her mother called her back.

-

-“Here, dear,” she said, “just take the shawl. Do it to please me, for

-there’s no knowing how cold it might be when you get out.”

-

-“The shawl” was an immense Rob Roy plaid,--a ridiculous wrap, truly,

-for a June night; but summer shawls they had none, and Sally was too

-dutiful, as well as too happy, not to want to please her mother even in

-such a trifle. How differently two lives would have come out if she had

-not taken it!

-

-She was the very first one to enter the academy. Dare she go and sit

-in the front row so as to be close to pretty Miss Kate? Ordinarily she

-would have shrunk into some far corner, for she was almost painfully

-shy; but now something outside herself seemed to urge her on. She

-would not take up much room,--this something whispered,--and nobody,

-no, nobody at all, could love Miss Kate better than she did. So she

-went into the very front row, close up to the little stage on which

-the young performers were to appear,--a veritable stage, with real

-foot-lights.

-

-Soon the people began to come in, and after a while the lights were

-turned up, and the exercises commenced. There were dialogues and music,

-and at last the master of ceremonies announced the reading of “The

-Romance of the Swan’s Nest,” by Miss Kate Oswald.

-

-Other people had been interested in what went before, no doubt; but

-to Sally Green the whole evening had been but a prelude to this one

-triumphant moment for which she waited.

-

-Pretty Miss Kate came forward like a little queen,--tall and slight,

-with her coronet of fair, braided hair, in which a shy, sweet rosebud

-nestled. She wore a dress of white muslin, as light and fleecy as a

-summer cloud, with a sash that might, as far as its hue went, have

-been cut from the deep blue sky over which that summer cloud floated.

-A little bunch of flowers was on her bosom, and other ornament she had

-none. She looked like one of the pretty creatures, half angel and half

-woman of fashion, which some of the modern French artists paint.

-

-As she stepped forward she was greeted with a burst of irrepressible

-applause, and then the house was very still as she began to read. How

-her soft eyes glowed, and the blushes burned on her dainty cheeks, when

-she came to the lines:--

-

-      “Little Ellie in her smile

-    Chooseth: ‘I will have a lover,

-      Riding on a steed of steeds!

-      He shall love me without guile,

-    And to _him_ I will discover

-      That swan’s nest among the reeds.

-

-      “‘And the steed shall be red-roan,

-    And the lover shall be noble,

-      With an eye that takes the breath,

-      And the lute he plays upon

-    Shall strike ladies into trouble,

-      As his sword strikes men to death.’”

-

-She had the whole audience for her lovers before she was through with

-the poem, and the last verse was followed with a perfect storm of

-applause. Was she not young and beautiful, with a voice as sweet as her

-smile? And then she was Squire Oswald’s daughter, and he was the great

-man of the village.

-

-She stepped off the stage; and then the applause recalled her, and she

-came back, pink with pleasure. A bow, a smile, and then a step too near

-the poorly protected foot-lights, and the fleecy white muslin dress was

-a sheet of flame.

-

-How Sally Green sprang over those foot-lights she never knew; but there

-she was, on the stage, and “the shawl” was wrapped round pretty Miss

-Kate before any one else had done any thing but scream. Close, close,

-close, Sally hugged its heavy woollen folds. She burned her own fingers

-to the bone; but what cared she? The time of the poor little mouse had

-come at last.

-

-And so pretty Miss Kate was saved, and not so much as a scar marred the

-pink and white of her fair girl’s face. Her arms were burned rather

-badly, but they would heal, and no permanent harm had come to her.

-

-Sally was burned much more severely, but she hardly felt the pain of it

-in her joy that she had saved her idol, for whom she would have been so

-willing even to die. They took her home very tenderly, and the first

-words she said, as they led her inside her mother’s door, were,--

-

-“Now, mother, I know what I took the shawl for!”

-

-I said how differently two lives would have ended if she had not

-taken that shawl. Pretty Miss Kate’s would have burned out then and

-there, no doubt; for if any one else were there with presence of

-mind enough to have saved her, certainly there was no other wrap

-there like “the shawl.” And then Sally might have grown up to the

-humblest kind of toil, instead of being what she is to-day; for Squire

-Oswald’s gratitude for his daughter’s saved life did not exhaust

-itself in words. From that moment he charged himself with Sally

-Green’s education, and gave her every advantage which his own daughter

-received. And, truth to tell, Sally, with her wonderful temperament,

-the wealth of poetry and devotion and hero-worship that was in her,

-soon outstripped pretty Miss Kate in her progress.

-

-But no rivalry or jealousy ever came between them. As Sally had adored

-Kate’s loveliness, so, in time, Kate came to do homage to Sally’s

-genius; and the two were friends in the most complete sense of the

-word.

-

-

-

-

-A BORROWED ROSEBUD.

-

-

-There was a pattering footfall on the piazza, and Miss Ellen Harding

-went to look out. She saw a little figure standing there, among the

-rosebuds,--not one of the neighbors’ children, but a bonny little

-lassie, with curls of spun gold, and great, fearless brown eyes, and

-cheeks and lips as bright as the red roses on the climbing rosebush

-beside her.

-

-A little morsel, not more than five years old, she was; with a white

-dress, and a broad scarlet sash, and a hat which she swung in her

-fingers by its scarlet strings. She looked so bright and vivid, and she

-was such an unexpected vision in that place, that it almost seemed as

-if one of the poppies in the yard beyond had turned into a little girl,

-and come up the steps.

-

-“Did you want me?” Miss Harding asked, going up to the tiny blossom of

-a creature.

-

-“No, if you please.”

-

-“My father, then, Dr. Harding,--were you sent for him?”

-

-The child surveyed her, as if in gentle surprise at so much curiosity.

-

-“No,” she answered, after a moment. “I am Rosebud; and I don’t want

-anybody. Jane told me to come here, and she would follow presently.”

-

-She said the words with a singular correctness and propriety, as if

-they were a lesson which she had been taught.

-

-“And who is Jane?” Miss Harding asked.

-

-Evidently the process of training had gone no further. The child looked

-puzzled and uncomfortable.

-

-“Jane?” she answered hesitatingly. “Why, she is Jane.”

-

-“Not your mamma?”

-

-“No,--just Jane.”

-

-“And what did Jane want here?”

-

-“She told me to come, and she would follow presently,” said the child,

-saying her little lesson over again.

-

-Evidently there was nothing more to be got out of her; but Miss Harding

-coaxed her to come into the cool parlor, and wait for Jane; and gave

-her some strawberries and cream in a gayly painted china saucer, that

-all children liked. Rosebud was no exception to the rest. When she had

-finished her berries, she tapped on the saucer with her spoon.

-

-“I will have it for mine, while I stay,--may I?” she said. “Not to take

-away, but just to call, you know.”

-

-“Surely,” said Miss Harding, more puzzled than ever. Had the sprite,

-then, come to stay? Were there, by chance, fairies after all,--and

-was this some changeling from out their ranks? She tried to entertain

-her small guest; and she found her quite accessible to the charms

-of pictures, and contented for an hour with a box of red and white

-chessmen. Towards night her curiosity got the better of her courtesy;

-and, looking from the window, she inquired,--

-

-“I wonder where your Jane can be?”

-

-“Presently; Jane said presently,” answered the child, with quiet

-composure, and returned to the chessmen.

-

-Miss Harding heard her father drive into the yard, and slipped out

-to speak to him. She told her story, and the doctor gave a low, soft

-whistle. It was a way he had when any thing surprised him.

-

-“It looks to me,” said he, “as if Jane, whoever she may be, intended to

-make us a present of Miss Rosebud. Well, we must make the small person

-comfortable to-night, and to-morrow we will see what to do with her.”

-

-The small person was easily made comfortable. She ate plenty of

-bread-and-milk for her supper, and more strawberries; and when it was

-over, she went round and stood beside the doctor.

-

-“I think you are a dood man,” she said, with the quaint gravity which

-characterized all her utterances. “I should like to sit with you.”

-

-The doctor lifted her to his knee, and she laid her little golden head

-against his coat. There was a soft place under that coat, as many a

-sick and poor person in the town knew very well. I think the little

-golden head hit the soft place. He stroked the shining curls very

-tenderly. Then he asked,--

-

-“What makes you think I’m a ‘dood’ man, Pussy-cat?”

-

-“My name is not Pussy-cat,--I am Rosebud,” she replied gravely; “and I

-think you are dood because you look so, out of your eyes.”

-

-The little morsel spoke most of her words with singular clearness and

-propriety. It was only when a “g” came in that she substituted a “d”

-for it, and went on her way rejoicing.

-

-As the doctor held her, the soft place under his coat grew very soft

-indeed. A little girl had been his last legacy from his dying wife; and

-she had grown to be about as large as Rosebud, and then had gone home

-to her mother. It almost seemed to him as if she had come back again;

-and it was her head beneath which his heart was beating. He beckoned to

-his daughter.

-

-“Have you some of Aggie’s things?” he asked. “This child must be made

-comfortable, and she ought to go to bed soon.”

-

-“No,” the child said; “I’m doing to sit here till the moon comes. That

-means ‘do to bed.’”

-

-“Yes, I have them,” Miss Harding answered.

-

-She had loved Aggie so well, that it seemed half sacrilege to put

-her dead sister’s garments on this stranger child; and half it was a

-pleasure that again she had a little girl to dress and cuddle. She went

-out of the room. Soon she came running back, and called her father.

-

-“O, come here! I found this in the hall. It is a great basket full of

-all sorts of clothes, and it is marked ‘For Rosebud.’ See,--here is

-every thing a child needs.”

-

-The doctor had set the little girl down, but she was still clinging to

-his hand.

-

-“I think,” he said, “that Jane has been here, and that she does not

-mean to take away our Rosebud.”

-

-But the little one, still clinging to him, said,--

-

-“I think it is not ‘presently’ yet,--Jane wouldn’t come till

-‘presently.’”

-

-“Do you love Jane?” the doctor asked, looking down at the flower-like

-face.

-

-“Jane is not mamma. She is only Jane,” was the answer.

-

-When the moon rose, the little girl went willingly to bed; and all

-night long Miss Ellen Harding held her in her arms, as she used to hold

-her little sister, before the angels took her. Since Aggie’s death,

-people said Miss Ellen had grown cold and stiff and silent. She felt,

-herself, as if she had been frozen; but the ice was melting, as she lay

-there, feeling the soft, round little lump of breathing bliss in her

-arms; and a tender flower of love was to spring up and bloom in that

-heart that had grown hard and cold.

-

-There was no talk of sending Rosebud away, though some people wondered

-much at the doctor, and even almost blamed him for keeping this child,

-of whom he knew nothing. But he wanted her, and Miss Ellen wanted her;

-and, indeed, she was the joy and life and blessing of the long-silent

-household.

-

-She was by no means a perfect child. A well-mannered little creature

-she was,--some lady had brought her up evidently,--but she was

-self-willed and obstinate. When she had said, “I’m doing to do” such

-and such a thing, it was hard to move her from her purpose; unless,

-indeed, the doctor interposed, and to him she always yielded instantly.

-But, just such as she was, they found her altogether charming. The

-doctor never came home without something in his pocket to reward her

-search; Miss Ellen was her bond-slave; and Mistress Mulloney in the

-kitchen was ready to work her hands off for her.

-

-Often, when she had gone to bed, the doctor and Miss Ellen used to talk

-over her strange coming.

-

-“We shall lose her some day,” the doctor would say, with a sigh. “No

-one ever voluntarily abandoned such a child as that. She is only

-trusted to our protection for a little while, and presently we shall

-have to give her up.”

-

-“Should you be sorry, father,” Miss Ellen would inquire, “that we had

-had her at all?”

-

-And the doctor would answer thoughtfully “No, for she has made me young

-again. I will not grumble when the snows come because we have had

-summer, and know how bright it is.”

-

-But the child lived with them as if she were going to live with them

-for ever. If she had any memories of days before she came there, she

-never alluded to them. After the first, she never mentioned Jane,--she

-never spoke of a father or mother. But she was happy as the summer days

-were long,--a glad, bright, winsome creature as ever was the delight of

-any household.

-

-And so the days and the weeks and the months went on, and it was

-October. And one day the bell rang, and Mistress Mulloney went to the

-door, and in a moment came to the room where Miss Ellen was sitting,

-with Rosebud playing beside her, and beckoned to her mistress.

-

-“It’s some one asking for the child,” she said. “Can’t we jist hide her

-away? It’ll be hard for the doctor if she’s took.”

-

-“No; we must see who it is, and do what is right,” Miss Ellen answered;

-but her lips trembled a little. She went into the hall, and there, at

-the door, stood a woman, looking like a nursery-maid of the better sort.

-

-“I have come,” the stranger began; but Rosebud had caught the sound of

-her voice, and came on the scene like a flash of light.

-

-“It is ‘presently!’” she cried; “and there, oh, _there_ is mamma!”

-And down the path she flew, and into the very arms of a lady who was

-waiting at a little distance.

-

-Miss Harding went down the steps. “You have come, I see, to claim our

-Rosebud, and she is only too ready to be claimed. I thought we had made

-her happy.”

-

-The child caught the slight accent of reproach in Miss Ellen’s voice,

-and turned towards her.

-

-“You have been dood, oh, so very, very dood!” she said, “but _this_ is

-mamma.”

-

-“I trusted my darling to you in a very strange way,” the lady began,

-“but not, believe me, without knowing in whose hands I placed her. I

-was in mortal terror, then, lest she should be taken from me, and I

-dared not keep her until she had been legally made mine, and mine only.

-But you have made me your debtor for life, and I shall try to show it

-some day.”

-

-“But, at least, you will come in and wait until my father returns. He

-loves Rosebud so dearly, that it would be a cruelty to take her away

-until he has had time to bid her good-by.”

-

-“You are right,” the stranger answered courteously. “Jane, go with the

-carriage to the hotel, and I will come or send for you when I want you.”

-

-In a few moments more the strange lady was seated in the doctor’s

-parlor. Miss Harding saw now where Rosebud had got her bright, wilful

-beauty.

-

-“I must explain,” the mother said, as she lifted her child upon her

-lap. “I am Mrs. Matthewson. My husband is dead, and Rosebud has a

-very, very large fortune of her own. Her uncles, who were to have the

-management of her property, by her father’s will, claimed her also;

-and I have had such a fight for her! They were unscrupulous men, and

-I feared to keep Rosebud with me, lest by some means they should get

-some hold on her. So I resolved to lend her to you for the summer;

-and, indeed, I never can reward you for all your care of her.”

-

-“You can reward us only by not altogether taking her away from us. We

-have learned to love her very dearly.”

-

-And, after a while, the doctor came home and heard all the story.

-And it was a week before Mrs. Matthewson had the heart to take away

-the child she had lent them. Then it was not long before the doctor

-and Miss Ellen had to go to see Rosebud. And then, very soon, Mrs.

-Matthewson had to bring her back again; and, really, so much going back

-and forth was very troublesome; and they found it more convenient,

-after a while, to join their households.

-

-Before Rosebud came, the doctor had thought himself an old man, though

-he was only forty-five; but, as he said, Rosebud had made him young

-again; and Rosebud’s mamma found it possible to love him very dearly.

-But Miss Ellen always said it was Rosebud and nobody else whom her

-father married, and that he had been in love with the borrowed blossom

-from the first.

-

-

-

-

-TOM’S THANKSGIVING.

-

-

-“It was very provoking that seamstresses and such people would get

-married, like the rest of the world,” Mrs. Greenough said, half in fun

-and half in earnest. Her fall sewing was just coming on, and here was

-Lizzie Brown, who had suited her so nicely, going off to be married;

-and she had no resource but to advertise, and take whomsoever she could

-get. No less than ten women had been there that day, and not one would

-answer.

-

-“There comes Number Eleven; you will see,” she cried, as the bell rang.

-

-Kitty Greenough looked on with interest. Indeed, it was her gowns,

-rather than her mother’s, that were most pressing. She was just

-sixteen, and since last winter she had shot up suddenly, as girls at

-that age so often do, and left all her clothes behind her.

-

-Mrs. Greenough was right,--it _was_ another seamstress; and Bridget

-showed in a plain, sad-looking woman of about forty, with an air of

-intense respectability. Mrs. Greenough explained what she wanted done,

-and the woman said quietly that she was accustomed to such work,--would

-Mrs. Greenough be so kind as to look at some recommendations? Whereupon

-she handed out several lady-like looking notes, whose writers indorsed

-the bearer, Mrs. Margaret Graham, as faithful and capable, used to

-trimmings of all sorts, and quick to catch an idea.

-

-“Very well indeed,” Mrs. Greenough said, as she finished reading them;

-“I could ask nothing better. Can you be ready to come at once?”

-

-“To-morrow, if you wish, madam,” was the answer; and then Mrs. Graham

-went away.

-

-Kitty Greenough was an impulsive, imaginative girl; no subject was too

-dull or too unpromising for her fancy to touch it. She made a story

-for herself about every new person who came in her way. After Number

-Eleven had gone down the stairs, Kitty laughed.

-

-“Isn’t she a sobersides, mamma? I don’t believe there’ll be any frisk

-in my dresses at all if she trims them.”

-

-“There’ll be frisk enough in them if you wear them,” her mother

-answered, smiling at the bright, saucy, winsome face of her one tall

-daughter.

-

-Kitty was ready to turn the conversation.

-

-“What do you think she is, mamma,--wife or widow?” And then answering

-her own question: “I think she’s married, and he’s sick, and she has to

-take care of him. That solemn, still way she has comes of much staying

-in a sick-room. She’s in the habit of keeping quiet, don’t you see? I

-wish she were a little prettier; I think he would get well quicker.”

-

-“There’d be no plain, quiet people in your world if you made one,” her

-mother said, smiling; “but you’d make a mistake to leave them out. You

-would get tired even of the sun if it shone all the time.”

-

-The next day the new seamstress came, and a thoroughly good one she

-proved; “better even than Lizzie,” Mrs. Greenough said, and this was

-high praise. She sewed steadily, and never opened her lips except to

-ask some question about her work. Even Kitty, who used to boast that

-she could make a dumb man talk, had not audacity enough to intrude on

-the reserve in which Mrs. Graham intrenched herself.

-

-“_He’s_ worse this morning,” whispered saucy Kitty to her mother; “and

-she can do nothing but think about him and mind her gathers.”

-

-But, by the same token, “_he_” must have been worse every day, for

-during the two weeks she sewed there Mrs. Graham never spoke of any

-thing beyond her work.

-

-When Mrs. Greenough had paid her, the last night, she said,--

-

-“Please give me your address, Mrs. Graham, for I may want to find you

-again.”

-

-“17 Hudson Street, ma’am, up two flights of stairs; and if I’m not

-there Tom always is.”

-

-“There, didn’t I tell you?” Kitty cried exultingly, after the woman had

-gone. “Didn’t I tell you that he was sick? You see now,--‘Tom’s always

-there.’”

-

-“Yes; but Tom may not be her husband, and I don’t think he is. He is

-much more likely to be her child.”

-

-“Mrs. Greenough, I’m astonished at you. You say that to be

-contradictious. Now, it is not nice to be contradictious; besides, she

-wouldn’t look so quiet and sad if Tom were only her boy.”

-

-But weeks passed on, and nothing more was heard of Mrs. Graham, until,

-at last, Thanksgiving Day was near at hand. Kitty was to have a new

-dress, and Mrs. Greenough, who had undertaken to finish it, found that

-she had not time.

-

-“Oh, let me go for Mrs. Graham, mamma,” cried Kitty eagerly. “Luke can

-drive me down to Hudson Street, and then I shall see Tom.”

-

-Mrs. Greenough laughed and consented. In a few minutes Luke had brought

-to the door the one-horse coupé, which had been the last year’s

-Christmas gift of Mr. Greenough to his wife, and in which Miss Kitty

-was always glad to make an excuse for going out.

-

-Arrived at 17 Hudson Street, she tripped up two flights of stairs, and

-tapped on the door, on which was a printed card with the name of Mrs.

-Graham.

-

-A voice, with a wonderful quality of musical sweetness in it,

-answered,--

-

-“Please to come in; I cannot open the door.”

-

-If that were “he,” he had a very singular voice for a man.

-

-“I guess mamma was right after all,” thought wilful Kitty. “It’s rather

-curious how often mamma _is_ right, when I come to think of it.”

-

-She opened the door, and saw, not Mrs. Graham’s husband, nor yet her

-son, but a girl, whose face looked as if she might be about Kitty’s own

-age, whose shoulders and waist told the same story; but whose lower

-limbs seemed curiously misshapen and shrunken--no larger, in fact, than

-those of a mere child. The face was a pretty, winning face, not at all

-sad. Short, thick brown hair curled round it, and big brown eyes, full

-of good-humor, met Kitty’s curious glance.

-

-“_I_ am Tom,” the same musical voice--which made Kitty think of a

-bird’s warble--said, in a tone of explanation. “I can’t get up to open

-the door because, don’t you see, I can’t walk.”

-

-“And why--what--Tom”--

-

-Kitty struggled desperately with the question she had begun to ask, and

-Tom kindly helped her out.

-

-“Why am I Tom, do you mean, when it’s a boy’s name; or why can’t I

-walk? I’m Tom because my father called me Tomasina, after his mother,

-and we can’t afford such long names in this house; and I can’t walk

-because I pulled a kettle of boiling water over on myself when I was

-six years old, and the only wonder is that I’m alive at all. I was

-left, you see, in a room by myself, while mother was busy somewhere

-else, and when she heard me scream, and came to me, she pulled me out

-from under the kettle, and saved the upper half of me all right.”

-

-“Oh, how dreadful!” Kitty cried, with the quick tears rushing to her

-eyes. “It must have almost killed your mother.”

-

-“Yes; that’s what makes her so still and sober. She never laughs, but

-she never frets either; and oh, how good she is to me!”

-

-Kitty glanced around the room, which seemed to her so bare. It was

-spotlessly clean, and Tom’s chair was soft and comfortable--as indeed

-a chair ought to be which must be sat in from morning till night.

-Opposite to it were a few pictures on the wall,--engravings taken from

-books and magazines, and given, probably, to Mrs. Graham by some of her

-lady customers. Within easy reach was a little stand, on which stood a

-rose-bush in a pot, and a basket full of bright-colored worsteds, while

-a book or two lay beside them.

-

-“And do you never go out?” cried Kitty, forgetting her errand in her

-sympathy--forgetting, too, that Luke and his impatient horse were

-waiting below.

-

-“Not lately. Mother used to take me down into the street sometimes; but

-I’ve grown too heavy for her now, and she can’t. But I’m not very dull,

-even when she’s gone. You wouldn’t guess how many things I see from

-my window; and then I make worsted mats and tidies, and mother sells

-them; and then I sing.”

-

-Kitty stepped to the window to see what range of vision it offered, and

-her eye fell on Luke. She recalled her business.

-

-“I came to see if I could get your mother to sew two or three days for

-me this week.”

-

-Tom was alert and business-like at once.

-

-“Let me see,” she said, “to-day is Tuesday;” and she drew toward her a

-little book, and looked it over. “To-morrow is engaged, but you could

-have Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, if you want so much. Please write

-your name against them.”

-

-Kitty pulled off her pretty gray glove, and wrote her name and address

-with the little toy-pencil at the end of her chatelaine; and then she

-turned to go, but it was Tom’s turn to question.

-

-“Please,” said the sweet, fresh voice, which seemed so like the clear

-carol of a bird, “would you mind telling me how old you are? I’m

-sixteen myself.”

-

-“And so am I sixteen,” said Kitty.

-

-“And you have a father and mother both, haven’t you?”

-

-“Yes, indeed,” said Kitty.

-

-“Oh, I’ve only mother, but she is good as two. Must you go now? And I

-wonder if I shall ever see you again?”

-

-“Yes, you _will_ see me again,” answered Kitty cheerily; and then,

-moved by a sudden impulse of her kind, frank young heart, she bent

-over and touched her lips to the bright, bonny face of the poor girl

-who must sit prisoner there for ever, and yet who kept this bright

-cheerfulness all the time.

-

-“Oh mamma, I’ve had a lesson,” cried Kitty, bursting into her mother’s

-room like a fresh wind, “and Tom has taught it to me; and he isn’t _he

-_at all--she’s a girl just my age, and she can’t walk--not a step since

-she was six years old.”

-

-And then Kitty told all the sad, tender little story, and got to crying

-over it herself, and made her mother cry, too, before she was through.

-

-After dinner she sat half the evening in a brown study. Finally she

-came out of it, and began talking in her usual impulsive manner.

-

-“Can’t we have them here to Thanksgiving, mamma? There’s not a single

-pretty thing in that house except Tom herself, and the rose-bush; and

-every thing did look so bare and clean and poverty-stricken; and I know

-they’ll never afford a good dinner in the world. Oh, say yes, mamma,

-dear! I know you’ll say yes, _because_ you’re such a dear, and you love

-to make every one happy.”

-

-“Yes; but, first of all, I must love to make papa happy, must I not?

-You know he never wants any company on Thanksgiving but grandpa and

-grandma and Uncle John. I’m sure you would not like to spoil papa’s

-old-fashioned Thanksgiving Day.”

-

-Kitty’s countenance fell. She saw the justice of her mother’s

-remark, and there was no more to be said. She sat thinking over her

-disappointment in a silence which her mother was the one to break.

-

-“But I’ve thought of a better thing, Puss,” said this wise mamma, who

-was herself every bit as tender of heart as Kitty, and cared just as

-much about making people happy. “No doubt Mrs. Graham and Tom would

-just as much prefer being alone together as papa prefers to be alone

-with his family; and how will it suit you if I have a nice dinner

-prepared for them, and let you go and take it to them in the coupé?

-Mrs. Graham is hardly the woman one could take such a liberty with; but

-I’ll beg her to let you have the pleasure of sending dinner to Tom.”

-

-“Oh, you darling!” and Mrs. Greenough’s neck-ruffle suffered, and her

-hair was in danger, as was apt to be the case when Kitty was overcome

-with emotion, which could only find vent in a rapturous squeeze.

-

-Before bed-time Kitty had it all planned out. She was to go in the

-coupé and take Bridget and the basket. Bridget was to mount guard by

-the horse’s head while Luke went upstairs with Kitty and brought down

-Tom for a drive; and while they were gone Bridget would take the basket

-in, and see that every thing was right, and then go home.

-

-Mrs. Greenough consented to it all. I think she enjoyed the prospect

-of Tom’s ride, herself, just as much as Kitty did. While Mrs. Graham

-was sewing there she made the arrangement with her, approaching the

-subject so delicately that the most sensitive of women could not be

-hurt, and putting the acceptance of both drive and dinner in the light

-of a personal favor to Kitty, who had taken such a fancy to Tom.

-

-The last afternoon of Mrs. Graham’s stay Kitty called her mother into

-her room. Mrs. Greenough saw spread out upon the bed a thick, warm,

-soft jacket, a woollen dress, a last year’s hat.

-

-“You know them by sight, don’t you, mother mine? They are the last

-winter’s clothes that I grew away from, and have taken leave of. May

-Tom have them?”

-

-“Yes, indeed, if you’ll undertake to give them to Tom’s mother.”

-

-Kitty had seldom undertaken a more embarrassing task. She stole into

-the sewing-room with the things in her arms.

-

-“You’ll be sure, won’t you, Mrs. Graham, not to let Tom know she’s

-going to ride until I get there, because I want to see how surprised

-she’ll look?”

-

-“Yes, I’ll be sure, never fear.”

-

-“And, Mrs. Graham, here are my coat and hat and dress that I wore last

-year, and I’ve grown away from them. Would you mind letting Tom wear

-them?”

-

-“Would I mind?” A swift, hot rush of tears filled Mrs. Graham’s eyes,

-which presently she wiped away, and somehow then the eyes looked

-gladder than Kitty had ever seen them before. “Do you think I am so

-weakly, wickedly proud as to be hurt because you take an interest in

-my poor girl, and want to put a little happiness into her life,--that

-still, sad life which she bears so patiently? God bless you, Miss

-Kitty! and if He doesn’t, it won’t be because I shall get tired of

-asking Him.”

-

-“And you’ll not let her see the hat and jacket till I come, for fear

-she’ll think something?”

-

-At last Mrs. Graham smiled--an actual smile.

-

-“How you do think of every thing! No, I’ll keep the hat and jacket out

-of sight, and I’ll have the dress on her, all ready.”

-

-When Thanksgiving came Kitty scarcely remembered to put on the new

-fineries that Mrs. Graham had finished with such loving care; scarcely

-gave a thought to the family festivities at home, so eager was she

-about Tom’s Thanksgiving. She was to go to Hudson Street just at noon,

-so that Tom might have the benefit of the utmost warmth of which the

-chill November day was capable.

-

-First she saw the dinner packed. There was a turkey, and

-cranberry-sauce, and mince-pie, and plum-pudding, and a great cake

-full of plums, too, and fruit and nuts, and then Mr. Greenough, who

-had heard about the dinner with real interest, brought out a bottle of

-particularly nice sherry, and said to his wife,--

-

-“Put that in also. It will do those frozen-up souls good, once in the

-year.”

-

-At last impatient Kitty was off. Bridget and the basket filled all the

-spare space in the coupé, and when they reached Hudson Street, Luke

-took the dinner and followed Kitty upstairs, while Bridget stood by

-the horse’s head, according to the programme. He set the basket down

-in the hall, where no one would be likely to notice it in opening the

-door, and then he stood out of sight himself, while Kitty went in.

-

-There was Tom, in the warm crimson thibet,--a proud, happy-looking Tom

-as you could find in Boston that Thanksgiving Day.

-

-“I have come to take you to ride,” cried eager Kitty. “Will you go?”

-

-It was worth ten ordinary Thanksgivings to see the look on Tom’s

-face,--the joy and wonder, and then the doubt, as the breathless

-question came,--

-

-“How _will_ I get downstairs?”

-

-And then Luke was called in, and that mystery was solved. And then out

-of a closet came the warm jacket, and the hat, with its gay feather;

-and there were tears in Tom’s eyes, and smiles round her lips, and she

-tried to say something, and broke down utterly. And then big, strong

-Luke took her up as if she were a baby and marched downstairs with her,

-while she heard Kitty say,--but it all seemed to her like a dream, and

-Kitty’s voice like a voice in a dream,--

-

-“I’m sorry there’s nothing pretty to see at this time of year. It was

-so lovely out-doors six weeks ago.”

-

-Through Beach Street they went, and then through Boylston, and the

-Common was beside them, with its tree-boughs traced against the

-November sky, and the sun shone on the Frog Pond, and the dome of the

-State House glittered goldenly, and there were merry people walking

-about everywhere, with their Thanksgiving faces on; and at last Tom

-breathed a long, deep breath which was almost a sob, and cried,--

-

-“Did _you_ think there was nothing pretty to see to-day--_this_ day?

-Why, I didn’t know there was such a world!”

-

-The clocks had struck twelve when they left Hudson Street; the bells

-were ringing for one when they entered it again. Bridget was gone, but

-a good-natured boy stood by the horse’s head, and Kitty ran lightly

-upstairs, followed by Luke, with Tom in his arms.

-

-Kitty threw open the door, and there was a table spread with as good a

-Thanksgiving dinner as the heart could desire, with Tom’s chair drawn

-up beside it. Luke set his light burden down.

-

-Kitty waited to hear neither thanks nor exclamations. She saw Tom’s

-brown eyes as they rested on the table, and that was enough. She bent

-for one moment over the bright face,--the cheeks which the out-door

-air had painted red as the rose that had just opened in honor of the

-day,--and left on the young, sweet, wistful lips a kiss, and then

-went silently down the stairs, leaving Tom and Tom’s mother to their

-Thanksgiving.

-

-

-

-

-FINDING JACK.

-

-

-Conn turned over and rubbed her sleepy blue eyes. It seemed to her

-that the world was coming to an end all at once, there was such a

-Babel of noise about her. What was it? Had everybody gone mad? Then

-her wits began to wake up. She remembered that it was Fourth of July.

-That worst noise of all--why, that must be Jack’s pistol, which he had

-been saving up money to buy all winter and all summer. And that other

-sound--that must be torpedoes; and there was the old dog, Hero, barking

-at them, and no wonder: it was enough to make any respectable dog bark.

-Fire-crackers--ugh! Wasn’t the pistol bad enough, without all these

-side shows? Just then Jack called out from the yard below,--

-

-“Conn! Conn!”

-

-The girl’s name was Constantia Richmond; but she was too slight and

-bonny for such a long name, and everybody called her Conn.

-

-She shook back her fair, soft curls, as golden as a baby’s still,

-though Conn was fourteen, and, putting a little shawl over her

-shoulders, peeped out of the open window--as pretty a little slip

-of a girl as you would care to see--and looked down on the face,

-half-boyish, half-manly, which was upturned to her. If Jack had been

-her brother, perhaps she would have scolded at him; for Conn loved her

-morning nap, and the general din had discomposed her, no doubt. But

-Jack was only her cousin, and her second cousin, at that,--and it’s

-curious what a difference that does make. Your brother’s your brother

-all the days of his life; but your cousin is another affair, and far

-less certain. So Conn said, quite gently,--

-

-“What is it? Can I do any thing? But I’m sure I don’t want to help you

-make any more noise. This has been--oh, really dreadful!”

-

-She spoke with a droll little fine-lady air, and put her pretty little

-fingers to her pretty little ears. And Jack laughed; he had not begun

-to think of her yet as a charming girl,--she was just Cousin Conn.

-

-“What!” he cried. “Not like noise on Fourth of July? Why, you don’t

-deserve to have a country.”

-

-“I’m sure I wish I hadn’t,” said Conn, with a little dash of spirit.

-

-“Are you dressed?” cried the boy, nearly seventeen years old, but all a

-boy still.

-

-“No.”

-

-“Well, just hurry, then, and come down. I’m off in half an hour with

-the Brighton Blues, and I want you to see first how this pistol works.”

-

-High honor this, that she, a girl, should be invited to inspect the

-wonderful pistol!

-

-Conn began to dress hurriedly. What should she put on? Her white dress

-hung in the closet,--such a white dress as girls wore then,--all

-delicate ruffles, and with a blue ribbon sash, as dainty-fine as

-possible. She knew that was meant for afternoon, when Aunt Sarah would

-have company. But might she not put it on now? Perhaps Jack wouldn’t be

-here then, and she could be careful. So she slipped into the dainty

-gown, and fastened hooks and buttons in nervous haste, and then looked

-in the glass, as every other girl that ever lived would have done in

-her place.

-

-It was a bright, fair face that she saw there--all pink and white, and

-with those violet eyes over which the long lashes drooped, and that

-soft, bright hair that lay in little rings and ripples round her white

-forehead, and hung a wavy mass down to the slender waist which the blue

-ribbon girdled. Conn was pleased, no doubt, with the sight she saw in

-the mirror,--how could she help being? She tripped downstairs, and out

-of the door. Jack whistled when he saw her.

-

-“What! all your fineries on at this time of day? What do you think

-Mother Sarah will say to that?”

-

-The pretty pink flush deepened in the girl’s cheeks, and she answered

-him almost as if she thought she had done something wrong,--

-

-“I’ll be so careful, Jack. I won’t spoil it. By and by you’ll be gone;

-and I wanted to look nice when I saw the new pistol.”

-

-This seemed extremely natural to Jack. The pistol was to him a matter

-of such moment that no amount of demonstration in its honor would

-have seemed too great. Viewed in this light, it really appeared quite

-a meritorious act that Conn should have put on the white dress; and

-he looked her over with that air of half-patronizing approval with

-which boys are apt to regard the good looks of their sisters and their

-cousins.

-

-Then he exhibited the pistol. It had--as a boy’s knife or gun or boat

-always has--distinguishing and individual merits of its own. No other

-pistol, though it were run in the same mould, could quite compare with

-it, and it was by some sort of wonderful chance that he had become its

-possessor. Conn wondered and admired with him to his heart’s content.

-Then came breakfast, and then the marching of the Brighton Blues. This

-was a company of boys in blue uniforms,--handsome, healthy, wide-awake

-boys from fourteen to seventeen years old,--every one of them the pride

-of mothers and sisters and cousins. They were to march into Boston, and

-parade the streets, and dine at a restaurant, and see the fireworks

-in the evening, and I don’t know what other wonderful things.

-

-[Illustration: Conn stood and watched them.--PAGE 129.]

-

-Jack was in the highest spirits. He was sure he and his pistol were a

-necessary part of the day; and he sincerely pitied Conn, because she

-was a girl and must stay at home.

-

-    “‘_Bang, whang, whang_ goes the drum, _tootle-te-tootle_ the fife;

-    Oh! a day in the city square, there is no such pleasure in life!’”

-

-he quoted; and then he called back to her from the gate,--

-

-“It’s too bad, Conn, that there’s no fun for you; but keep your courage

-up, and I’ll bring you something.”

-

-And so they marched away, in the gay, glad morning sunshine, following

-their band of music,--a boy’s band that was, too.

-

-Conn stood and watched them, with a wistful, longing look in her great

-violet eyes, and the soft, bright color coming and going on her girlish

-cheeks. At last she gathered a bunch of late red roses, and put them

-in her bosom and went into the house. She sewed a little, and then

-she tossed her work aside, for who cares to work on holidays? Then she

-took up her new book; but the tale it told seemed dull and cold beside

-the warm throbbing life of which the outside world was full. She wished

-over and over that she were a boy, that she might have marched away

-with the rest. Then she wondered if she could not go into town and see

-them from somewhere in all their glory. Very little idea had she of a

-Boston crowd on Fourth of July. She had been into town often enough,

-with her aunt or her uncle, and walked through the quiet streets; and

-she thought she should have little trouble in doing the same now. She

-looked in her purse; she had not much money, but enough so that she

-could ride if she got tired, and she would be sure to save some to come

-home. She called her Aunt Sarah’s one servant, and made her promise to

-keep the secret as long as she could, and then tell Aunt Sarah that she

-had gone to Boston to find Jack and see him march with the rest.

-

-The girl was a good-natured creature, not bright enough to know that it

-was her duty to interfere, and easily persuaded by Conn’s entreaties

-and the bit of blue ribbon with which they were enforced.

-

-And so Conn started off, as the boys had done before her, and went on

-her way. But she had no gay music to which to march, and for company

-she had only her own thoughts, her own hopes. Still she marched bravely

-on.

-

-There were plenty of other people going the same way; indeed it seemed

-to Conn as if everybody must be going into Boston. Excitement upheld

-her, and she trudged along, mile after mile, across the pleasant

-mill-dam, and at last she reached Beacon Street. Her head had begun to

-throb horribly by the time she got into town. It seemed to her that

-all the world was whirling round and round, and she with it. But she

-could not turn back then; indeed, she did not know how to find any

-conveyance, and she knew her feet would not carry her much farther.

-Surely, she _must_ see Jack soon. He had said they should march through

-Beacon Street. She would ask some one. She had an idea that every one

-must know about any thing so important as the Brighton Blues. At last

-she got courage to speak to a kind-looking servant-maid in the midst

-of a group on the steps of one of the Beacon-street houses. The girl

-pitied her white face, so pale now, with all the pretty pink roses

-faded from the tired young cheeks, and answered kindly.

-

-She did not know about the Brighton Blues, but she guessed all the

-companies had been by there, or would come. Wouldn’t the young lady sit

-down with them on the steps, and rest, and wait a little?

-

-And “the young lady” sat down. What could she do else, with the whole

-world whirling, whirling, and her feet so strangely determined to whirl

-out from under her? And then it grew dark, and when it came light again

-there was a wet cloth on her hair, and she lay on a lounge in a cool

-basement, and the kind girl who had cared for her told her that she

-had fainted. And then she had some food and grew refreshed a little,

-but was strangely confused yet, and with only one thought, to which

-she held with all the strength of her will,--that she had come to see

-Jack and must look for him till he came. So on the steps she stationed

-herself, and the crowd surged by. Military companies, grown-up ones,

-came and went with glitter of brave uniforms and joyful clamor of

-music, and Conn watched, with all her soul in her eyes, but still no

-Jack.

-

-It was mid-afternoon at last when suddenly she saw the familiar blue,

-and marching down the street came the boyish ranks, following their

-own band--tired enough, all of them, no doubt, but their courage kept

-up by the music and the hope of fireworks by and by. Conn strained her

-eyes. She did not mean to speak, but after a little, when the face she

-longed for came in sight, something within her cried out with a sharp,

-despairing cry, “Oh, Jack, Jack!”

-

-And Jack heard. Those who were watching saw one boy break from the long

-blue line, and spring up the step where Conn sat, and seize in strong

-hands the shoulders of a girl all in white, her face as white as her

-gown, and some red roses, withered now, upon her breast.

-

-“Conn--Conn Richmond!” the boy cried, “what _does_ this mean?”

-

-“Don’t scold--oh, _don’t_ scold, Jack!” said the pitiful, quivering

-lips. “I only came in to see you marching with the rest, and--I’m

-tired.”

-

-“Yes,” said the girl who had befriended her, “and she fainted clean

-away, and she’s more dead than alive now; and if you’ve a heart in your

-bosom, you’ll let your play soldiering go, and take care of _her_.”

-

-And just then Jack realized, boy as he was, that he _had_ a heart in

-his bosom, and that his Cousin Conn was the dearest and nearest thing

-to that heart in the whole world. But he did not tell her so till long

-years afterwards. Just now his chief interest was to get her home. No

-more marching for him; and what were fireworks, or the supper the boys

-were to take together, in comparison with this girl, who had cared so

-much to see him in his holiday glory?

-

-He took her to an omnibus, which ran in those days to Brighton, and

-by tea-time he had got her home. He found his mother frightened and

-helpless, and too glad to get Conn back to think of scolding.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-It was six years after that, that in the battle of Malvern Hill, July

-1, 1862, Jack, a real soldier then, and no longer a boy playing at the

-mimicry of war, was wounded; and next day the news came to the quiet

-Brighton home.

-

-Conn had grown to be a young lady in the sweet grace of her twenty

-summers, and she was her Aunt Sarah’s help and comfort. To these

-two women came the news of Jack’s peril. The mother cried a little

-helplessly; but there were no tears in Conn’s eyes.

-

-“Aunt Sarah,” she said quietly, “I am going to find Jack.”

-

-And that day she was off for the Peninsula. It was the Fourth of July

-when she reached the hospital in which her Cousin Jack had been placed.

-She asked about him, trembling; but the news, which reassured her,

-was favorable. He was wounded, but not dangerously. It was a girlish

-instinct, which every girl will understand, that made Conn put on a

-fresh white gown before she used the permission she had received to

-enter the hospital. She remembered--would Jack remember also?--that

-other Fourth of July on which they had found each other, six years

-before. As if nothing should be wanting of the old attire, she met,

-as she passed along the street, a boy with flowers to sell,--for the

-flowers bloomed, just as the careless birds sang, even amid the horrors

-of those dreadful days,--and bought of him a bunch of late red roses,

-and fastened them, as she had done that other day, upon her breast.

-

-The sun was low when she entered the hospital, and its last rays

-kindled the hair, golden still as in the years long past, till it

-looked like a saint’s aureole about her fair and tender face. She

-walked on among the suffering, until, at last, before she knew that she

-had come near the object of her search, she heard her name called, just

-as _she_ had called Jack’s name six years before,--

-

-“Oh, Conn, Conn!”

-

-And then she sank upon her knees beside a low bed, and two feeble arms

-reached round her neck and drew her head down.

-

-“I was waiting for you, Conn. I knew you would come. I lay here

-waiting till I should see you as you were that day long ago,--all in

-white, and with red roses on your breast,--my one love in all the

-world!”

-

-And the girl’s white face grew crimson with a swift, sweet joy, for

-never before had such words blessed her. She did not speak; and Jack,

-full of a man’s impatience, now that at last he had uttered the words

-left unsaid so long, held her fast, and whispered,--

-

-“Tell me, Conn, tell me that you _are_ mine, come life or death. Surely

-you would not have sought me here if you had not meant it to be so! You

-_are_ my Conn,--tell me so.”

-

-And I suppose Conn satisfied him, for two years after that she was

-his wife, and last night he gave the old pistol of that first Fourth

-of July to a young ten-year-old Jack Richmond to practise with for

-this year’s Fourth; and pretty Mother Conn, as fair still as in her

-girlhood, remonstrated, as gentle mothers will, with,--

-

-“Oh Jack, surely he is too young for such a dangerous plaything.”

-

-Father Jack laughed as he lifted little Conn to his knee, and

-answered,--

-

-“Nonsense, sweetheart. He is a soldier’s boy, and a little

-pistol-shooting won’t hurt him.”

-

-But how noisy it will be round that house on Fourth of July!

-

-

-

-

-HER MOTHER’S DAUGHTER.

-

-

-Syl Graham was an only child. Her name was Sylvia, but everybody called

-her Syl, except that sometimes, half playfully and half chidingly, her

-father called her Sylly. But that was a liberty no one else took,--and

-for which Mr. Graham himself was not unlikely to pay in extra

-indulgence.

-

-Syl was seventeen, and she had never known any trouble in all her

-young, bright life. Her mother had died when she was two years old; and

-this, which might easily have been the greatest of misfortunes,--though

-Syl was too young to know it,--had been turned almost into a blessing

-by the devotion of her father’s sister, Aunt Rachel, who came to take

-care of the little one then, and had never left her since.

-

-Not the dead Mrs. Graham herself could have been more motherly or more

-tender than Aunt Rachel; and the girl had grown up like a flower in a

-shaded nook, on which no rough wind had ever been allowed to breathe.

-

-And a pretty flower she was; so her father thought when she ran into

-the hall to meet him, as he came in from business at the close of the

-short November day.

-

-The last rays of daylight just bronzed her chestnut hair. Her face was

-delicately fair,--as the complexion that goes with such hair usually

-is,--colorless save in the lips, which seemed as much brighter than

-other lips as if they had added to their own color all that which was

-absent from the fair, colorless cheeks. The brown eyes were dancing

-with pleasant thoughts, the little, girlish figure was wonderfully

-graceful, and Papa Graham looked down at this fair, sweet maiden with a

-fond pride, which the sourest critic could hardly have had a heart to

-condemn.

-

-“Are you cross?” she said laughingly, as she helped him off with his

-overcoat.

-

-“Very,” he answered, with gravity.

-

-“I mean are you worse than usual? Will you be in the best humor now or

-after dinner?”

-

-“After dinner, decidedly, if Aunt Rachel’s coffee is good.”

-

-Syl nodded her piquant little head. “I’ll wait, then.”

-

-The dinner was good enough to have tempted a less hungry man than Mr.

-Graham, and the coffee was perfect. Papa’s dressing-gown and slippers

-were ready, upstairs; and when he had sat down in the great, soft

-easy-chair that awaited him, and his daughter had settled herself on

-a stool at his feet, I think it would have been hard to find a more

-contented-looking man in all New York.

-

-“Now I’m very sure you are as good as such a bear can be,” said saucy

-Syl; “and now we’ll converse.”

-

-To “converse” was Syl’s pet phrase for the course of request,

-reasoning, entreaty, by which Papa Graham was usually brought to accede

-to all her wishes, however extravagant. He rested his hand now on her

-shining chestnut braids, and thought how like she was to the young wife

-he had loved so well, and lost so early. Then he said teasingly,--

-

-“What is it, this time? A Paris doll, with a trunk and a bandbox; or a

-hand-organ?”

-

-“For shame, papa! The doll was four years ago.”

-

-“All the more reason it must be worn out. Then it’s the hand-organ. But

-I must draw the line somewhere,--you can’t have the monkey. If Punch

-and Judy would do, though?”

-

-“Now, Father Lucius, you know I gave up the hand-organ two years ago,

-and took a piano for my little upstairs room instead; and you know I’m

-seventeen. Am I likely, at this age, to want monkeys, Punch and Judys,

-and things?”

-

-“O, no! I forgot. Seventeen,--it must be a sewing-machine. You want to

-make all your endless bibs and tuckers more easily. Well, I’ll consent.”

-

-Syl blushed. It was a sore point between her and Aunt Rachel that she

-so seldom sewed for herself. Aunt Rachel had old-fashioned notions, and

-believed in girls that made their own pretty things.

-

-“Now, papa, you are not good-humored at all. I had better have asked

-you before dinner. You don’t even let me tell you what I want.”

-

-Papa sobered his face into a look of respectful attention, and waited

-silently. But now Syl was not quite ready to speak.

-

-“Don’t you think pomegranate is a pretty color, papa?”

-

-“What is it like?”

-

-“O, it’s the deepest, richest, brightest, humanest red you ever saw.”

-

-“Why, I think it must be like your lips;” and he drew her to him, and

-kissed the bright young mouth with a lazy content.

-

-“Perhaps it _is_ like my lips; then, surely it will look well _with_

-them.”

-

-“Where does this blossom of beauty grow?”

-

-“It grows at Stewart’s. It has been woven into a lovely, soft-falling

-silk, at four dollars a yard. Twenty-five yards makes a gown, and eight

-yards of velvet makes the trimming and the sleeveless jacket, and the

-velvet is six dollars a yard. And then there is Madame Bodin, she

-charges like a horrid old Jew,--forty dollars just to look at a gown;

-and then there are the linings and buttons and things. Have you kept

-account, papa, and added it all up in your head?”

-

-“I think it means about two hundred dollars. Isn’t that what you call

-it, Sylly?”

-

-“Yes, if you please. It’ll be _worth_ that, won’t it, to have your

-daughter look like a love, when all the people come on New Year’s Day?”

-

-“So that’s it,--that’s what this conspiracy against my peace and my

-pocket has for its object,--that Miss Syl Graham may sit at the receipt

-of callers on New Year’s Day, in a robe like a red, red rose. O Sylly,

-Sylly!”

-

-Syl pouted a little, the most becoming pout in the world.

-

-“Well, I’m sure I thought you cared how I look. If you don’t, never

-mind. My old black silk is still very neat and decent.”

-

-“September, October, November,--it’s nearly three months old, isn’t

-it? What a well-behaved gown it must be to have kept neat and decent

-so long! And as to the other, I’ll consider, and you can ask me again

-when I come home to-morrow.”

-

-Syl knew what Papa Graham’s considers meant, and how they always ended.

-She had gained her point, and she danced off and sang to the piano some

-old Scotch airs that her father loved, because Syl’s mother used to

-sing them; and Papa Graham listened dreamily to the music, while his

-thoughts went back twenty years, to the first winter when he brought

-his girl-bride home, only a year older, then, than Syl was now. He

-remembered how the firelight used to shine on her fair, upturned face,

-as she knelt beside him; how sweet her voice was; how pure and true and

-fond her innocent young heart. And now Syl was all he had left of her.

-

-Should he lose Syl herself, soon? Would some bold wooer come and carry

-her away, and leave him with only Aunt Rachel’s quiet figure and fading

-face beside him for the rest of his life?

-

-Just then Syl might have asked him not in vain for any thing, even to

-the half of his kingdom.

-

-Next morning Syl went into the sewing-room. A young girl just about

-her own age was there--altering, sewing, making all the foolish little

-fancies in which Syl’s heart delighted, though her idle fingers never

-wrought at them. Out of pure kindness of heart Syl found her way into

-the sewing-room very often when Mary Gordon was there. She knew her

-presence carried pleasure with it, and often she used to take some

-story or poem and read to the young listener, with the always busy

-fingers, and the gentle, grateful face.

-

-But to-day she found the girl’s eyes very red as if with long weeping.

-If Syl was selfish it was only because she never came in contact with

-the pains and needs of others. She had “fed on the roses and lain among

-the lilies of life,”--how was she to know the hurt of its stinging

-nettles? But she could not have been the lovesome, charming girl she

-was if she had had a nature hard and indifferent to the pains of others.

-

-To see Mary Gordon’s red eyes was enough. Instantly she drew the work

-out of the fingers that trembled so; and then she set herself to draw

-the secret sorrow out of the poor, trembling heart.

-

-It was the old story, so sadly common and yet so bitterly sad, of a

-mother wasting away and fading out of life, and a daughter struggling

-to take care of her, and breaking her heart because she could do so

-little.

-

-“I’m used to all that,” the girl said sadly, “and I don’t let myself

-cry for what I can’t help. But this morning I heard her say to herself,

-as I was getting every thing ready for her, ‘O, the long, lonesome

-day!’ She thought I did not hear her, for she never complains; but

-somehow it broke me down. I keep thinking of her, suffering and weary

-and all alone. But I can’t help that, either; and I must learn to be

-contented in thinking that I do my best.”

-

-“But can’t you stay at home with her and work there?” cried Syl, all

-eager sympathy and interest.

-

-“No, I can’t get work enough in that way. People want their altering

-and fixing done in their own houses, and plain sewing pays so poorly.

-Sometimes I’ve thought if I only had a machine, so I could get a great

-deal done, I might manage but to hire one would eat up all my profits.”

-

-Syl thought a little silent while; and it was a pretty sight to see the

-fair young face settle into such deep earnestness.

-

-“Well,” she said at length, “at least you shall stay at home with her

-to-morrow; for all those ruffles can be done just as well there as

-here, and you shall carry them home with you. And you’d better go early

-this afternoon; there’ll be enough work to last you, and I can’t bear

-to think of her waiting for you, and wanting you, so many long hours.

-We’ll give her a little surprise.”

-

-Mary Gordon did not speak for a moment. I think she was getting her

-voice steady, for when she did begin it trembled.

-

-“I _can’t_ thank you, Miss Syl,--it’s no use to try; but the strange

-part is how you understand it all, when you’ve no mother yourself.”

-

-“Ah, but you see I have papa and auntie, and I just know.”

-

-That day, after Syl and Aunt Rachel had lunched together, Syl said, in

-a coaxing little way she had,--

-

-“Aunt Rachel, we never want to see the other half of that cold chicken

-again, do we?”

-

-“Why, Syl--we”--

-

-“Why, auntie, no--we never want to-morrow’s lunch furnished coldly

-forth by this sad relic. And there’s a tumbler of jelly we don’t want,

-either--and those rolls, and,--let me see, can sick people eat cake?”

-

-“Why, Syl Graham, what are you talking about! Who’s sick?”

-

-Syl grew sober.

-

-“I’m thinking about poor Mary Gordon’s mother, auntie. She’s sick, and

-dying by inches; and Mary has to leave her all alone; and I’ve told her

-she shall stay at home to-morrow and make my ruffles, and we’ll pay her

-just the same as if she came here. And don’t you see that we must give

-her her dinner to take home, since she can’t come here after it?”

-

-Aunt Rachel never said a word, but she got up and kissed Syl on each

-cheek. Then she brought a basket, and into it went the cold chicken and

-a cold tongue and jelly and buttered rolls and fruit, till even Syl

-was satisfied; and she took the heavy basket and danced away with it to

-the sewing-room, with a bright light in her dear brown eyes.

-

-“I think you’d best go now,” she said. “I can’t get your mother,

-waiting there alone, out of my mind, and it’s spoiling my afternoon,

-don’t you see? And because you mustn’t come here to dine to-morrow, you

-must carry your dinner home with you; and Aunt Rachel put some fruit

-and some jelly in the basket that maybe your mother will like.”

-

-That night, when Mr. Lucius Graham let himself into the hall with his

-latch-key, his daughter heard him and went to meet him, as usual. But

-she was very silent, and he missed his teasing, saucy, provoking Syl.

-

-“Why, daughter, are you in a dream?” he asked once during dinner; but

-she only laughed and shook her head. She held her peace until she had

-him at her mercy, in the great easy-chair, and she was on the stool

-beside him, as her wont was. Then, suddenly, her question came.

-

-“Papa, do you think a pomegranate silk without velvet would be very

-bad?”

-

-He was inclined to tease her, and began with “Hideous!” but then he saw

-that her lips were fairly trembling, and her face full of eagerness,

-and forbore.

-

-“How did you know you were to have the silk at all? But you know your

-power over me. Here is your needful;” and he put into her hands ten

-bright, new twenty-dollar bills.

-

-“O, thank you! and _do_ you think it would be bad without the velvet?”

-

-“Sylly, no; but why shouldn’t you have the velvet if you want it?”

-

-And then came the whole story of poor Mary Gordon, and--in such an

-eager tone,--

-

-“Don’t you see, with the money the velvet would cost, and a little

-more, I could get her the sewing-machine; and Madame Bodin wouldn’t ask

-so much to make the dress if it is plainer?”

-

-Mr. Graham was a rich man, and his first thought was to give her the

-money for the machine, and let her have her pretty dress, as she had

-fancied it, first. But a second thought restrained him. She was just

-beginning to learn the joy and beauty of self-sacrifice. Should he

-interfere? He kissed her with a half-solemn tenderness, and answered

-her,--

-

-“You shall do precisely as you please, my dear. The two hundred dollars

-is yours. Use it _just_ as you like. I shall never inquire into its

-fate again.”

-

-And then she went away--and was it her voice or that of some blessed

-spirit that came to him, a moment after, from the shadowy corner where

-the piano stood, singing an old middle-age hymn, about the city--

-

-    “Where all the glad life-music,

-      Now heard no longer here,

-    Shall come again to greet us,

-      As we are drawing near.”

-

-The next day, who so busy and happy as Syl--dragging Aunt Rachel from

-one warehouse to another--it was in the days when sewing-machines were

-costly--till she was quite sure she had found just the right machine;

-and then ordering it sent, at three o’clock, no earlier, no later, to

-Miss Gordon, No. 2 Crescent Place.

-

-At a quarter before three Syl went there herself. The pleasure of

-witnessing Mary Gordon’s surprise was the thing she had promised

-herself, in lieu of velvet on her gown. She found the poor room neat

-and clean, and by no means without traces of comfort and refinement;

-and Mrs. Gordon was a sweet and gentle woman, such as Mary’s mother

-must have been to be in keeping with Mary. She chatted with them for a

-few minutes, noticing the invalid’s short breath and frequent cough,

-and Mary’s careful tenderness over her.

-

-“It’s too bad Mary can’t be at home all the time,” said Syl.

-

-“Yes; but then to have her to-day is such a blessing. If you knew how

-we had enjoyed our day together, and our feast together, I know you

-would feel paid for any inconvenience it cost you.”

-

-Just then an express wagon rumbled up to the door and the bell rang

-loudly. Mary opened it at once, for their room was on the ground floor.

-

-“A sewing-machine for Miss Gordon,” said a somewhat gruff voice.

-

-“No, that cannot be. There is some mistake,” said Mary’s gentle tones.

-And then Syl sprang forward, in a flutter of excitement, which would

-have been pretty to see had there been anybody there to notice it.

-

-“I’m sure it’s all right. Bring it in, please; and Mary, you will tell

-them where to put it, in the best light.”

-

-And in five minutes or less it was all in its place, and Mary was

-looking, with eyes full of wonder, and something else beside wonder, at

-Syl Graham.

-

-“It’s nothing,” said Syl hurriedly; “it’s only my New Year’s present to

-you, a little in advance of time.”

-

-She had thought she should enjoy Mary’s surprise; but this was

-something she had not looked for,--this utter breaking down, these

-great wild sobs, as if the girl’s heart would break. And when she could

-speak at length, she cried with a sort of passion,--

-

-“O Miss Syl, I do believe you have saved my mother’s life! She will get

-better--she must--now that I can stay here all the time and take care

-of her.”

-

-Syl was glad to get out into the street. She felt something in her own

-throat choking her. Just a few steps off she met Dr. Meade,--her own

-doctor, as it chanced,--and it struck her that it would be a good thing

-if he would go in to see Mrs. Gordon. So she asked him.

-

-“I’m going there,” he said. “I try to see her once every week.”

-

-“And will she live--can she?”

-

-The doctor answered, with half a sigh,--

-

-“I’m afraid not. She needs more constant care, and more nourishing food

-and other things. I wish I could help her more, but I can only give my

-services, and I see so many such cases.”

-

-“But she would take things from you, and not be hurt?”

-

-“I should _make_ her if I had a full purse to go to.”

-

-“Well, then, here are forty dollars for her; and you are to get her

-what she needs, and never let her know where it came from--will you?”

-

-“Yes, I will,” he answered earnestly. And then, after a moment, he

-said,--“Syl Graham, you are your mother’s daughter. I can say no better

-thing of you,--she was a good woman.”

-

-Syl had a hundred dollars left; but that wouldn’t compass the

-pomegranate silk, and Syl had concluded now she did not want it. She

-had had a glimpse of something better; and that hundred dollars would

-make many a sad heart glad before spring.

-

-On New Year’s Day, Papa Graham was off all day making calls; and the

-gas was already lighted when he went into his own house, and into his

-own drawing-room. He saw a girl there with bands of bright chestnut

-hair about her graceful young head; with shining eyes, and lips as

-bright as the vivid crimson roses in her braided hair, and in the

-bosom of her black silk gown. He looked at her with a fond pride and a

-fonder love; and then he bent to kiss her,--for the room was empty of

-guests just then. As he lifted his head and met Aunt Rachel’s eyes, it

-happened that he said about the same words Dr. Meade had used before,--

-

-“She is her mother’s daughter; I can say of her no better thing.”

-

-

-

-

-MY QUARREL WITH RUTH.

-

-

-I suppose if I had not loved Ruth Carson so much my resentment against

-her would not have been so bitter. She was my first friend. She had no

-sister, neither had I; and we used to think that no sisters could be

-nearer to each other than we were. She had black eyes,--great, earnest,

-beautiful eyes, with pride and tenderness both in them; sometimes one

-and sometimes the other in the ascendant. I was yellow-haired and

-blue-eyed, but we always wanted our gowns and hats alike, and coaxed

-our mothers into indulging us. I don’t know whether Ruth suffered more

-in appearance when the clear dark of her face was set in my pale blues,

-or I, when her brilliant reds and orange turned me into a peony or a

-sunflower; but we thought little about such effects in those days. If

-Ruth got her new article of attire first, I must have one like it,

-whether or no; and if I was first favored, she followed my example.

-

-It was thus in every thing. We studied from the same text-books,

-keeping a nearly even pace Ruth was quicker than I at figures, so she

-helped me there; and my eyes were better than her near-sighted ones at

-finding towns, mountains, and fivers on the atlas, so we always did our

-“map questions” together. Of course our play hours were always passed

-in company, and one face was almost as familiar as the other in each of

-our houses. “The twins,” people used to call us, for fun; and if ever

-two girls were all and all to each other, we were.

-

-What did we quarrel about? It is a curious thing that I have forgotten

-how it began. It was some little difference of opinion, such as seldom

-occurred between us; and then, “what so wild as words are?” We said one

-thing after another, until, finally, Ruth’s black eyes flashed, and she

-cried out passionately,--

-

-“I just about hate you, Sue Morrison!”

-

-Then my temper flamed. It was a different kind of temper from

-Ruth’s,--slower to take fire, but much more sullen and resolute. I

-loved her as I did my own life, but I hated her also, just then,--if

-you can understand that contradiction. I looked at her, and I remember

-I thought, even then, how handsome she was, with the red glow on her

-cheeks, and her eyes so strangely bright. I could have kissed her for

-love, or cursed her for hate; but the hate triumphed. Slowly I said,--

-

-“Very well, Ruth Carson. I shall not trouble you any more. I shall

-never speak to you again, until I see you lie a-dying.”

-

-I don’t know what made me put that last sentence in. I suppose I

-thought, even then, that I could not have her go out of the world,

-for good and all, without one tender word from me. When I spoke, Ruth

-turned pale, and the light died in her eyes. I presume she did not

-think I really meant what I said; but, at any rate, it startled her.

-She did not answer. She just looked at me a moment. Then she turned

-away, and, for the first time in years, she and I walked home, so far

-as our roads lay the same way, on opposite sides of the street.

-

-“Where is Ruth?” my mother asked, when I went in.

-

-“Gone home, I believe,” was my only answer.

-

-It seemed to me that I could not tell even my mother of this

-estrangement, which had changed in a day the whole current of my life.

-Of course, as time went on, she saw that all was different between Ruth

-and me; but, finding that I did not voluntarily tell her any thing, she

-ceased even to mention Ruth in my presence.

-

-You cannot think how strange and solitary my new life seemed to me. For

-the first time since I could remember I felt all alone. I don’t think

-Ruth thought this unnatural state of things could last. The first day

-after our quarrel she spoke to me, at school, half timidly. I looked at

-her, and did not answer. She sighed, and turned away; and again, when

-school was over, each of us went home alone on our separate path.

-

-Sometimes I would find a bunch of roses on my desk, for it was June

-when our quarrel took place, and all the roses were in bloom. Then,

-later, I would lift up the desk cover and come upon an early apple

-or a peach; later still, a handful of chestnuts. I always let the

-roses wither without touching them; and the fruit I gave away, as if

-unconscious where it came from. Ruth would watch me and sigh; but after

-that first morning she never spoke to me. I think my rebuff then hurt

-her too much for her to be willing to risk receiving such another. What

-a strange, new, sad thing it was to get our lessons, as we did now, all

-alone! How the hateful figures tormented me, without Ruth’s quick brain

-to help me unravel them! How puzzled she looked, as I saw her holding

-the map close to her near-sighted eyes, trying to find the rivers and

-lakes and mountains all by herself!

-

-It was a curious thing that after the first two or three days my

-anger had passed away entirely. I held no longer the least bitterness

-in my heart toward Ruth; and yet I felt that I must keep my word. I

-looked upon my rash utterance as a vow, for which I had a sort of

-superstitious reverence. Then, too, there was a queer, evil kind of

-pride about me,--something that wouldn’t _let_ me speak to her when

-I had said I wouldn’t,--wouldn’t _let_ me show her that I was sorry.

-The teacher spoke to me about the trouble between me and Ruth, but he

-might as well have spoken to a blank wall,--I did not even answer him.

-Whether he said any thing to Ruth I do not know.

-

-In the late fall there was a vacation, which held over Thanksgiving.

-I had an idea that my mother watched me curiously to see how I

-would pass those weeks without Ruth. But I was resolute to show no

-pain or loneliness. I made occupations for myself. I read; I worked

-worsted; I crocheted; I copied out poems in my common-place book; I

-was busy from morning till night. One thing I did not do,--I did not

-take another friend in Ruth’s stead. Several of the girls had shown

-themselves willing to fill the vacant place, but they soon found that

-“No admittance here” was written over the door. I think they tried the

-same experiment with Ruth, with the same result. At any rate, each of

-us went on our solitary way, quite alone. Ruth had her own pride, too,

-as well as I; and, after a little while, she would no more have spoken

-to me than I to her; but she could not help those great, dark eyes

-of hers resting on me sometimes with a wistful, inquiring look, that

-almost brought the tears to mine.

-

-School commenced again the first of December. Ruth came, the first day,

-in her new winter dress. It was a deep, rich red; and somehow she made

-me think of the spicy little red roses of Burgundy, that used to grow

-in my grandmother’s old-fashioned garden. My own new gown was blue. For

-the first time in years, Ruth and I were dressed differently. We were

-no longer “the twins.” I thought Ruth looked a little sad. She was very

-grave. I never heard her laugh in these days. When it rained or snowed,

-and we stayed at school through the noonings, instead of going home

-for our dinner, neither of us would join in the games that made the

-noontime merry. I suppose each was afraid of too directly encountering

-the other.

-

-But when the good skating came, both of us used to be on the pond. The

-whole school, teacher and all, would turn out on half holidays. Both

-Ruth and I were among the best skaters in school My father had taught

-us, two or three winters before, and we had had great pride in our

-skill. We had always skated in company before; but now, as in every

-thing else we did, we kept at a distance from each other.

-

-The pond used to be a pretty sight, on those crisp, keen winter

-afternoons, all alive with boys and girls. A steep hill rose on one

-side of it, crowned by a pine wood, green all the winter through. Great

-fields of snow stretched far and away on the other side, and in the

-midst was the sheet of ice, smooth as glass. Here was a scarlet hood,

-and there a boy’s gay Scotch cap. Here some adventurer was cutting

-fantastic capers; there a girl was struggling with her first skates,

-and falling down at almost every step. I loved the pastime,--the

-keen, clear air, the swift motion, the excitement. I loved to watch

-Ruth, too, for by this time not only was all the bitterness gone from

-my heart, but the old love was welling up, sweet and strong, though

-nothing would have made me acknowledge it to myself. Wherever she

-moved, my far-sighted eyes followed her; and, indeed, she was a pretty

-sight, the prettiest there, in her bright scarlet skating dress, and

-with her cheeks scarcely less scarlet, and her great eyes bright as

-stars.

-

-There came a day, at last, when we promised ourselves an afternoon

-of glorious skating. The ice was in excellent condition, the sky was

-cloudless, the weather cold, indeed, but not piercing, and the air

-exhilarating as wine. I ate my dinner hurriedly--there was no time to

-lose out of such an afternoon. I rose from the table before the rest,

-put on my warm jacket and my skating-cap, and was just leaving the

-house when my father called after me.

-

-“Be very careful of the west side of the pond, Sue. They have been

-cutting a good deal of ice there.”

-

-The whole school was out; only when I first got there I did not see

-Ruth. The teacher repeated to us what my father had said, but I

-remembered afterward that it was not till he had done speaking that

-Ruth came in sight, looking, in her bright scarlet, like some tropical

-bird astray under our pale northern skies. As usual she and I began

-skating at some distance from each other, but gradually I drew nearer

-and nearer to her. I had no reason for this. I did not mean to speak to

-her, and the pride that held me from her was as untamed as ever. But

-yet something for which I could not account drew me towards her.

-

-Did she see me, and wish to avoid me? I did not know; but suddenly she

-began to skate swiftly away from me, and toward the dangerous west side

-of the pond. I think I must have called, “Come back! come back!” but

-if I did, she did not heed or hear. She was skating on, oh, so fast! I

-looked around in despair--I was nearer to her than any one else was. I

-shouted, with all my might, to Mr. Hunt, the teacher. I thought I saw

-him turn at the sound of my voice, but I did not wait to be sure. I

-just skated after Ruth.

-

-I never can tell you about that moment. All the love with which I

-had loved her swept back over my heart like a great flood. Pride and

-bitterness, what did they mean? I only knew that I had loved Ruth

-Carson as I should never, never love any other friend; and that if she

-died I wanted to die too, and be friends with her again in the next

-world, if I could not here. I think I called to her, but the call was

-wasted upon the wind which always bore my voice the other way. So Ruth

-skated on and on, and I skated after her. Whether any one was coming

-behind me I did not know. I never even looked over my shoulder. It

-seemed to me that some mad wind of destiny was sweeping us both ahead.

-

-Suddenly there came a plash, the scarlet cap appeared a moment above

-the ice, and then that went under, and there was no Ruth in sight,

-anywhere. You cannot think how calm I was. I wonder at it now, looking

-back over so many years, to that bright, sad, far-off winter day.

-I succeeded in checking my own headlong speed, and, drawing near

-cautiously to the spot where Ruth had gone down, I threw myself along

-the ice. It was thick and strong, and had been cut into squares, so

-it bore me up. I looked over the edge. Ruth was rising toward me. I

-reached down and clutched her, I hardly know by what. At that moment I

-felt my ankles grasped firmly by two strong hands, and then I knew that

-I could save Ruth. I held her until some one helped me to pull her out,

-and then I don’t know what came next.

-

-I waked up, long afterward, in my own bed, in my own room. I seemed to

-myself to have been quite away from this world, on some long journey.

-A consciousness of present things came back to me slowly. I recalled

-with a shudder the hard, sharply cut ice, the water gurgling below, and

-Ruth, _my_ Ruth, with her great black eyes and her bright, bonny face,

-going down, down. I cried out,--

-

-“Ruth! Ruth! where are you?”

-

-And then I turned my head, and there, beside me, she lay, my pretty

-Ruth--mine again, after so long.

-

-“She clung to you so tightly we could not separate you,” I heard my

-mother say; but all my being was absorbed in looking at Ruth. She was

-white as death. I had said I would not speak to her again until I saw

-her lie a-dying. _Was_ she dying now? I lifted myself on my elbow

-to look at her. I held my own breath to see if any came from her

-half-parted lips; and as I looked, her eyes unclosed, and she put her

-arm up,--oh, so feebly!--and struggled to get it round my neck. I bent

-over her, and one moment our lips clung together, in such a kiss as

-neither of us had ever known before--a kiss snatched from death, and

-full of peace and pardon, and the unutterable bliss of a restored love.

-Then Ruth whispered,--

-

-“Sue, I have been only half a girl since I lost you. I would rather

-have died there, in the black water from which you saved me, than not

-to find you again.”

-

-“I thought you _were_ dying, Ruth,” I whispered back, holding her

-close; “and if you were, I meant to die too. I would have gone after

-you into the water but what I would have had you back.”

-

-Then we were too weak to say any thing more. We just lay there, our

-hands clasped closely, in an ineffable content. Our mothers came and

-went about us; all sorts of tender cares were lavished on us of which

-we took no heed. I knew only one thing,--that I had won back Ruth;

-Ruth knew only one thing,--that once more she was by my side.

-

-That was our first and our last quarrel. I think no hasty word was ever

-spoken between us afterward. The first one had cost us too dear.

-

-

-

-

-WAS IT HER MOTHER?

-

-

-Just a little voice, calling through the dark, “Mamma, O mamma!” and

-then a low sound of stifled sobbing.

-

-Colonel Trevethick heard them both, and they smote him with a new sense

-of loss and pain. He had scarcely thought of his little girl since his

-wife died, five hours before,--died at the very instant when she was

-kissing him good-by, taking with her into the far heavens the warm

-breath of his human love. He had loved her as, perhaps, men seldom

-love, from the first hour of their first meeting.

-

-“There is Maud Harrison,” some one had said; and he had turned to look,

-and met the innocent gaze of two frank, gentle, very beautiful brown

-eyes. “Brightest eyes that ever have shone,” he said to himself. Their

-owner had other charms besides,--a fair and lovely face, round which

-the ruffled hair made a soft, bright halo; a lithe, girlish figure; a

-manner of unaffected cordiality, blent with a certain maidenly reserve,

-and which seemed to him perfection. He loved her, then and there. His

-wooing was short and his wedding hasty; but he had never repented his

-haste, never known an unhappy hour from the moment he brought his wife

-home, nine years ago, till these last few days, in which he had seen

-that no love or care of his could withhold her from going away from him

-to another home where he could not follow her,--the home where she had

-gone now, far beyond his search.

-

-She was a good little creature, and she did not rebel even at the

-summons to go out of her earthly Eden in search of the paradise of

-God. She longed, indeed, to live, for she so loved her own, and she

-could have resigned herself to die more willingly but for her husband’s

-uncontrollable passion of woe. That very day she had said to him, as he

-knelt beside her,--

-

-“Do not grieve so, darling! I am not going so far but that I shall come

-back to you every day. Something tells me that I shall be always near

-you and Maudie. You cannot call, or she cry, but that I shall hear

-you. I know that when she most needs, or you most want me, I shall be

-close beside you.”

-

-And with that very last kiss, when her breath was failing, she had

-whispered,--

-

-“I shall not go so far as you think.”

-

-Now when he heard the low call of his little Maudie and her smothered

-sobbing, he remembered the words of his dead wife. Did she, indeed,

-hear Maudie cry, and was it possibly troubling her? He got up and went

-into the little room where the child had slept alone ever since her

-sixth birthday, a couple of months ago. He bent over her low bed, and

-asked tenderly,--

-

-“What is it, darling?”

-

-A tiny night-gowned figure lifted itself up and two little arms clung

-round his neck.

-

-“Bessie put me to bed without taking me to mamma. Mamma did not kiss

-me good-night, and I want she should,--oh, I _want_ she should! Bessie

-wouldn’t carry me to see her; and I want you to. Bessie said mamma

-never _would_ kiss me again but that isn’t true, is it? You know I’ve

-heard mamma say Bessie wasn’t always ’sponsible.”

-

-Colonel Trevethick considered for a moment what he should say to

-his child--how he could make her understand the great, sad, awful,

-yet triumphant mystery which had come to pass that day under their

-roof--the great loss, and the great hope that hallowed it.

-

-She was such a mere baby it seemed hard to choose his words. Must he

-tell her that her mamma would never kiss her again? But how did he know

-that? When the dear Lord promised the “all things” to those who loved

-Him, did it not include the joining of broken threads, the up-springing

-of dead hopes, the finding one’s own again, somewhere? He thought it

-must; for what a word without meaning heaven would be to him if his own

-Maud were not there! He temporized a little.

-

-“She cannot kiss you now, my darling, but you shall kiss her.”

-

-So he lifted the little white figure in his arms, holding it close, as

-one who must be father and mother both together, now, and carried his

-little one across the hall to the room, where her dead mother lay,--oh,

-so fast asleep!--with a look like a smile frozen upon her fair, sweet

-face. He held Maudie down by the pillow on which her mother’s head

-rested, but that did not satisfy her.

-

-“Put me on the bed, please, papa. I get on the bed every night and kiss

-her, since she’s been ill.”

-

-So he let her have her will; and for a moment she nestled close to the

-still dead heart, which had always beaten for her so warmly. Then she

-lifted up her head.

-

-“Mamma is very cold,” she said, “and she does not stir. Can she hear

-what I say?”

-

-Again something invisible seemed to warn him against taking away from

-the child her mother. He answered very gently and slowly,--

-

-“She’s dead, my darling,--what we call dead. _I_ do not understand

-it--no one understands it; but it comes, one day, to everybody, and it

-is God’s will. Your mamma cannot speak to us any more, and soon she

-will be gone out of our sight; but she truly believed that she would

-always be able to see your face and hear your voice, as when she was

-here.”

-

-“She _is_ here. Won’t she be here always?” the little girl asked,

-growing cold with the shadow of an awful fear.

-

-“No, dear, she will not be here long. In a few days this dear white

-face will be put away, underneath the grass and the flowers; but the

-real mamma, who loves little Maudie, will not be buried up. She will be

-somewhere, I truly believe, where she can see and hear her little girl.”

-

-For a moment the child slid again from his arms, and nestled close

-against the cold breast, kissed the unmoving lips. Then she said,--

-

-“Good-by, this mamma, who can’t see; and good-night, other mamma, that

-hears Maudie.”

-

-Colonel Trevethick marvelled. Had he, indeed, succeeded in making this

-little creature understand; or had some one whom he could not see

-spoken to her words of sweet mother-wisdom?

-

-He carried her then, and laid her in her little bed, and went back to

-his own loneliness; but half an hour afterward he heard the small voice

-calling. “Papa, papa!” and again he went to her, and the little arms

-came up around his neck, and held him fast.

-

-“Can’t I go too, papa? If you ask God, won’t He let me? Because I do so

-love my mamma.”

-

-That afternoon Colonel Trevethick had felt as if he had nothing at all

-left in this world; but now he realized how much emptier still his home

-might be if he lost out of it this child who was so like her mother.

-

-“Mamma would not want you to come,” he said passionately. “_She_ has

-all heaven, and _I_ only you,--only you, little Maudie, in all the

-world. Mamma wants you to stay with me.”

-

-After that she was quite quiet; and when he looked in at her, an hour

-later, she was sound asleep, with one little hand like a crushed white

-rose under the red rose of her flushed cheek.

-

-She never asked for her mother after that night; but her father was

-sure that she never forgot her. She was the strangest, gravest little

-creature. She never made any noise, even at her play; and she never did

-any of the things for which her mother had been used to reprove her.

-The trouble was that she was too perfect; there was something unnatural

-about it which frightened Colonel Trevethick. He would have been glad

-if she had been naughty, sometimes, like other children. He longed

-to have her tease him, to see in her some spirit of naughtiness or

-contradiction; but he saw none. She grew tall quite fast, but she was

-very thin,--a little white wraith of a creature, who looked as if she

-had been made out of snow, and might melt away as soon.

-

-It was a good thing for Colonel Trevethick, no doubt, that he had her

-to tend, and to be anxious about. It kept him from surrendering himself

-to his own grief.

-

-Nearly two years went on, and all the time the little girl grew more

-and more frail; until, at last, when she had just passed her eighth

-birthday, she was taken very ill. Her illness seemed a sort of low,

-nervous fever, and she grew daily more feeble. A skilful nurse came to

-share with Bessie the task of tending her, and her father was seldom

-far away. Half the day he would be sitting in her room, and half a

-dozen times in the night he would steal in to watch her breathing.

-

-One afternoon, as he sat by her bed, she looked up at him with a sad,

-tender look, too old for her years,--but then all her words and ways

-were too old for her years.

-

-“Papa,” she said, “I would get well if I could, to please you. I

-_should_ get well, I know, if I had mamma to nurse me. Don’t you know

-how she used, if my head ached, to put her hand on it and make it stop?”

-

-A sudden mist of tears came between his eyes and the little white face

-looking up at him. She had not spoken before of her mother for so many

-months, and yet how well she remembered! Instantly his wife’s words,

-that last day, came back to his memory. She had said, “I know that when

-Maudie needs me most, or you most want me, I shall be there beside you.”

-

-_Was_ she there now? Could she breathe upon the little wasting life

-some merciful dew of healing? or was she, perhaps, by her very love and

-longing, drawing the child home to herself?

-

-That night Bessie was to sit up until one o’clock, and then to call the

-nurse. As for Colonel Trevethick, he would be in and out, as usual.

-

-He went to bed, and fell into sleep and a dream. His own Maud was

-beside him as he saw her first, then as his bride, his wife, then with

-Baby Maudie on her breast; just as of old he seemed to have her with

-him again,--his pride, his darling, the one woman he had ever loved.

-

-He woke at last. Had his dream, then, lasted the night through? Was

-this red ray that touched his face the first hint of the rising sun? He

-sprang up quickly. The whole night had indeed passed, and he had not

-seen Maudie. He hurried into a dressing-gown and went to her room. He

-expected to find the nurse there, but, instead, Bessie sat beside the

-table just where he had left her the night before, but sound asleep.

-Evidently she must have been asleep for hours, and had not called the

-nurse, who had slept in her turn: they were all tired enough, Heaven

-knows. But, meantime, what of Maudie? What harm had come to her, alone,

-unattended?

-

-He drew aside the curtain of her little bed and looked in. Surely this

-was not the Maud he had left the night before, so pale and worn upon

-her pillows? A face looked up at him bright as the new day. A soft,

-healthy color was in the cheeks, and the moist lips were crimson.

-

-“I knew I should be well if _she_ tended me,” a voice cried, gayer and

-gladder than he had heard from her lips in two years.

-

-What _did_ the child mean? Had she gone mad? He controlled himself, and

-asked,--

-

-“Who tended you, my child? I found Bessie sound asleep.”

-

-“Yes; mamma made her sleep, and you, and nurse. She sent all of you the

-dreams you like best; and all night long she sat here beside my bed,

-with her hand on my head, just as she used to put it long ago. She was

-all in white, and her hair fell about her shoulders, and her eyes were

-very, very bright, and her lips, when she kissed me, seemed somehow to

-melt away.”

-

-“So you, too, dreamed about mamma, darling?”

-

-“No, indeed, papa, I did not dream. Mamma sat there all night long,

-with her hand upon my head. Sometimes I slept, but more often I woke up

-to look at her; and all the time she sat there, and did not tire, until

-the first sunshine came in at the windows; and then she kissed me and

-went away. I did not see her go. Perhaps I shut my eyes a moment. Then

-I looked and she was gone, and then I heard you coming in. She said she

-was with me every day, but she couldn’t have come to me like _this_,

-except because I needed her so very, very much. And she wanted to make

-me well, because you would grieve for me if I came to her; and I was to

-be very good, and tend you and make you comfortable; and I must laugh

-and must make you laugh, for laughter was good, and the reason I got

-ill was because I had been sorry so long, and had not laughed at all.

-And I was _not_ to be sorry after _her_ any more, because she was very

-happy, and nothing grieved her except when she saw you and me mourning

-for her, and not knowing that she was waiting close beside us.”

-

-“_Was_ it her mother? Can it _be_ it was the child’s mother?” the

-father cried, uttering his thought aloud unconsciously.

-

-“Of course it was mamma; and she has made me well. See if Dr. Dale does

-not tell you I am well.”

-

-Two hours afterward Dr. Dale came. He stood for a few moments beside

-the little bed. He looked in the child’s glad eyes, he counted the

-throbs of her pulse, he made her put out her healthy little tongue.

-Then he turned to her father.

-

-“Trevethick,” he said, “can you swear that this is the same little girl

-I left here last night? If the days of miracles were not gone by, I

-should say that one had been wrought here. I left, I thought, a very

-sick little person, about whom I was anxious enough, certainly, to make

-this my first call this morning; and I find my small patient so well

-that I shall only keep her in bed a day or two longer, for form’s sake.”

-

-“Perhaps it _is_ a miracle,” Colonel Trevethick said, smiling. But he

-did not explain. There are some experiences too marvellous for belief

-and too sacred for doubt or question, and that was one of them.

-

-Two days afterward little Maudie went down to tea. She wore a fresh

-white gown, with lovely blue ribbons, and looked as much like a little

-angel in festal attire as a human child can be expected to look. But

-she did not take her usual seat. She sat down, instead, behind the

-tea-pot, where Bessie usually stood to pour out the tea.

-

-“Hadn’t Bessie better do that?” papa asked, as he saw the little hand

-close round the handle of the tea-pot.

-

-But Maud laughed, and shook her head.

-

-“No, I don’t think Bessie is ’sponsible,” she said; “and mamma said I

-was to live just on purpose to do every thing for papa.”

-

-And again Colonel Trevethick asked, but this time silently,--

-

-“Was it--_could_ it have been the child’s mother?”

-

-

-

-

-THE LADY FROM OVER THE WAY.

-

-

-It was the twilight of Christmas evening,--that twilight which always

-seems so early, since nobody is ever quite ready for it. The pale

-gray of the winter’s sky was scarcely flushed by the low-lying sunset

-clouds, though sometimes you could catch a gleam of their scant

-brightness as you turned westward.

-

-The streets of New York were crowded, as usual, but everybody seemed

-even more than usually in a hurry. The air was intensely cold, and

-nipped the noses of those who were late with their Christmas shopping;

-but, in spite of it, men and women still jostled each other upon the

-sidewalk, or stopped to look at the tempting displays of holiday goods

-in the shops. Everybody, it seemed, had some small person at home who

-must be made happy to-morrow.

-

-From the window of a large but rusty-looking house on one of the

-avenues, two children looked down at the throng below, as they had been

-looking all day. They were in the fourth story of the house, and they

-could not see into the street very distinctly, but still the movement

-and the bustle interested them, and their mother was thankful that they

-had it to watch.

-

-She herself was sewing, catching the last glint of the sunset light

-for her work, as she had the first ray of the dawning. She had been a

-beautiful, high-bred woman; indeed, she was so still, though there was

-no one to note the unconscious elegance of her gestures or the graceful

-lines of her curving figure and bent head. She was very thin now, and

-very poorly clad, but a stranger would have felt that she was a lady,

-and wondered how she came in the fourth story of this house,--a great

-house, which had been handsome, too, in its day, but which was now

-let out to innumerable lodgers, mostly of the decent sort of honest,

-hard-working, half-starved poor people. Not with such neighbors had

-Mrs. Vanderheyden’s lot been formerly cast, nor for such uses as this

-had the old house itself been designed. It had been a stately mansion

-in its time, belonging to the estate of a good old Knickerbocker

-family, which was quite run out now. But there was one great comfort in

-this house: it had been so well built that its thick walls shut out all

-alien noises effectually, and made solitude possible even in a tenement

-house. Perhaps Mrs. Vanderheyden had thought of this when she chose her

-abode there.

-

-There was something in the faded grandeur of the old mansion that

-harmonized with the lingering grace of her own faded beauty. Its lofty

-walls were wainscoted with carved oak, almost black with time; and any

-imaginative person would have been likely to people it with the ghosts

-of the beautiful girls whose room no doubt this was in the old days.

-There, between those windows, hung, perhaps, their great, gleaming

-mirror, and into it they looked, all smiles and blushes and beauty,

-when they were ready for their first ball. But Mrs. Vanderheyden’s two

-little girls did not think of the other girls who might have lived

-there once. They were too young for that, and too hungry. Ethel, the

-elder, was only ten; and shy little Annie, beside her, scarcely seven.

-They saw a sight, however, from the window at which they stood, that

-interested them more than any vision of the past would have done.

-

-The avenue on which they lived was in a transition state. Trade had

-come into it and lodging-houses had vulgarized it, and yet there were

-some of the rich old residents who still clung to the houses in which

-their fathers and mothers had lived and died. There was one such

-directly opposite; and to look into the parlor over the way, and see

-there all the warmth and brightness and beauty of which they themselves

-were deprived, had been one of the chief enjoyments of the little

-Vanderheydens ever since they had been in the house. They were all that

-Mrs. Vanderheyden had left, these two girls. Wealth was gone, friends

-were gone, father and father’s home, husband and husband’s home--hope

-itself was gone; but she was not quite alone while she had these two

-for whom to struggle--to live or to die, as Heaven would. It was for

-their sakes that she had worked from dawning till nightfall, though she

-had felt all the time what seemed to her a mortal sickness stealing

-over her. Their breakfast and dinner had been only bread, of which she

-herself had scarcely tasted; but to-morrow would be Christmas, and

-it should go hard with her but she would give them better fare then.

-A dozen times during the day one or the other little voice had asked

-anxiously,--

-

-“Shall we surely, surely, have dinner to-morrow, because it is

-Christmas Day?”

-

-And she had answered,--

-

-“Please Heaven, you surely shall. My work is almost done;” and then

-she had stitched away more resolutely than ever on the child’s frock

-she was elaborately embroidering. The children meanwhile were feeding

-upon hope, and watching a scene in the house over the way, where, as

-they thought, all that any human creature could possibly hope for had

-already been given. Busy preparations had been made in that other

-house for Christmas. There was a great Christmas-tree in one corner,

-all full of little tapers, and a large, fair, gentle-looking woman had

-been engaged much of the afternoon in arranging gifts upon it. Now,

-with the twilight, a boy and girl had come in and were watching the

-lighting up of the Christmas-tree.

-

-“It’s so good of them not to pull the curtains down,” Ethel said, with

-a sigh of delight. “It’s almost as good as being there--almost.”

-

-“I do suppose that’s the very grandest house in all New York,” little

-Annie said, in a tone of awe and admiration.

-

-“Nonsense! You only think that because you are so little,” answered

-Ethel, from the height of her three years more of experience. “_You_

-forget, but _I_ can remember. We had a finer house ourselves, before

-poor papa died. There are plenty of them, only we’re so poor we don’t

-see them.”

-

-“Oh, it’s good to be that little girl!” cried Annie. “See how pretty

-her dress is, and how her hair curls; and she’ll have lots of presents

-off that Christmas-tree.”

-

-“So should we, if we had papa,” Ethel answered gravely. “Mamma, when we

-get up to heaven, do you think papa will know we’re his little girls?”

-

-“I’m sure he will,” Mrs. Vanderheyden answered; and then she rose

-wearily. “It’s all done,” she said, as she shook out the lovely little

-robe into which she had wrought so many patient stitches. “I cannot

-carry it home just yet, I am so tired; I must lie down first; but you

-shall have a good dinner to-morrow, my darlings.”

-

-The children had seen her very tired before, and they didn’t think

-much about it when she groped her way to a bed in the corner and lay

-down, drawing the scant bed-clothes up over her. They stood at the

-window still, and watched the merry children opposite, until at last a

-servant came and pulled down the curtains and shut away from them the

-Christmas-tree, with all its gleaming lights, and the boy and girl, who

-were dancing round it to some gay tune which their mother played.

-

-Then Ethel and Annie began to realize that they were cold and hungry

-and the room was dark. Ethel lit a candle. The fire was nearly out,

-but she would not make another till morning.

-

-“I won’t wake up mamma,” she said, with the premature thoughtfulness

-that characterized her; “she’s so tired. We’ll just have supper, and

-then I’ll hear you say ‘Our Father,’ and we’ll get to bed, and in the

-morning it will be Christmas.”

-

-Some vague promise of good was in the very word: Ethel did not know

-what would come, but surely Christmas would not be like other days.

-“Supper” was the rest of the bread. And then the two little creatures

-knelt down together and said their well-known prayers, and I think

-“Our Father” heard, for their sleep was just as sweet as if they had

-been in the warm, soft nest of the children over the way, tucked in

-with eider down. Through the long evening hours they slept,--through

-the solemn midnight, when the clear, cold Christmas stars looked down,

-just as they had looked centuries ago when the King of Glory, Himself a

-little child, lay asleep in an humble manger in Judea. Nothing troubled

-their quiet slumber until the sunshine of the Christmas morning broke

-through their dingy windows, and the day had begun.

-

-“It must be ever so late,” said Ethel, rubbing her sleepy eyes, “and

-mamma isn’t awake yet. But she was so tired. You lie still, Annie, and

-I’ll build the fire, and when she wakes up she’ll find it all done.”

-

-Very patiently the poor little half-frozen fingers struggled with the

-scant kindlings and the coal that seemed determined never to light; but

-they succeeded at last, and the room began to grow a little warm. Then

-she dressed Annie, and then it began to seem very late indeed, and she

-wondered if mamma would never wake up. She went to the bedside and,

-bending over, kissed her mother gently, then started back with a sudden

-alarm.

-

-“Why, Annie, she’s so cold--almost like poor papa--only you can’t

-remember--just before they took him away.”

-

-“No, she can’t be like papa,” Annie said stoutly, “for he was dead, and

-mamma is asleep.”

-

-“Yes, she’s asleep,” said the elder sister firmly. “We must wait till

-she wakes up. We’ll look over the way, and then, maybe, it won’t seem

-so long.”

-

-But over the way was brighter than ever this Christmas morning. The

-curtains had been looped back once more, the table glittered with

-lovely gifts, and presently the little girl who lived there came to the

-windows. She looked up at them--they were sure of it; but they could

-not have guessed what she said, as she turned away, and spoke to her

-mother.

-

-“O mamma,” cried the sweet young voice, “won’t you come and see these

-two poor little girls? They stood there all day yesterday and last

-night; and now see how sad they look. I can’t eat my Christmas candies

-or play with my Christmas things while they look so pale and lonesome.

-Won’t you go over and see them, mamma dear?”

-

-Mrs. Rosenburgh was a woman of warm and earnest sympathies when once

-they were aroused. When she was a girl she too had had quick impulses

-like her child’s; but she had grown selfish, perhaps, as she grew

-older, or maybe only careless; for the quick sympathies were there

-still, as you could see, now that her little girl had touched them.

-

-“To be sure I will,” she answered at once. “Poor little things! I wish

-we could make merry Christmas for all New York; but since we can’t,

-at least we won’t have faces white with want looking in at our very

-windows.”

-

-So the watching, wondering children saw the large, fair lady wrap

-herself in a heavy shawl and tie a hood over her head, and then come

-out and cross the street and enter their house.

-

-“What if she saw us, and what if she is coming here!” Ethel said

-breathlessly.

-

-Then they listened as if their hearts were in their ears. They heard

-feet upon the stairs and then a gentle tap, and the lady from over the

-way stood in their room.

-

-“I saw you at the window,” she said, “and came over to wish you a merry

-Christmas. How is this? Are you all alone?”

-

-“No, ma’am, mamma is in the bed there; but she was very tired

-yesterday, and she hasn’t waked up.”

-

-An awful terror seized Mrs. Rosenburgh. Had this woman died of want and

-weariness, in sight of her own windows? She stepped to the bedside, and

-drew away the clothes gently from the face of the sleeper. She looked a

-moment on that fair, faded face, and then she grew white as death.

-

-“Children,” she asked, “what are your names?”

-

-“I am Ethel Vanderheyden,” the oldest girl answered, “and she is Annie.”

-

-“And your mother--was she Ethel Carlisle once?”

-

-“Yes, ma’am, before she married papa.”

-

-“And your little sister is Annie?”

-

-“Yes; she was named for mamma’s best friend, one she hadn’t seen for a

-long, long time.”

-

-Meanwhile Mrs. Rosenburgh had knelt by the bedside. She had lifted the

-low-lying head upon her arm, and drawn a bottle of pungent salts from

-her pocket, and she was crying as if her heart would break, while the

-children looked wondering on.

-

-“O Ethel, my own old Ethel, _wake_ up!” And then she dropped her cheek,

-all wet with tears, against the white, cold cheek, that was so still.

-

-Oh, was it the warm tears, or the voice that sounded from far away out

-of the past, or only the strong odor that roused the poor soul from

-that long, heavy sleep of exhaustion that had so nearly been the sleep

-of death? I do not know, but I know the eyes did open, and beheld the

-tender face bending above them. And then, like a little child, the

-children heard their mother cry,--

-

-“O Annie, Annie, have I been dreaming all this time?”

-

-And then there were explanations, and the story of the long years

-since Annie Bryant and Ethel Carlisle were girls together was told.

-But the best of it all, the children thought, was when the lady from

-over the way took them home with her, and told them the boy and girl

-there should be their brother and sister, and they should live there

-henceforth; for she, who had found again her best friend, would never

-more let her struggle with want alone.

-

-And so the children had gifts and dinner, and a merry, merry Christmas

-in the bright, warm, crimson-hung room, which had seemed to them

-such a paradise of delights when they looked down into it from their

-fourth-story window through the falling shadows of Christmas Eve.

-

-

-

-

-HIS MOTHER’S BOY.

-

-

-The days were growing very dark for George Graham. He had not known

-at first what it meant that black specks should so dance between him

-and the page he tried to read, that his eyes should ache so much,

-that all things should seem so strangely dim about him. It would have

-been better, no doubt, had he stopped work as soon as he felt these

-symptoms; but how could he? This was his last term at school, and if he

-passed his examination creditably, especially if he thoroughly mastered

-the bookkeeping he was trying so hard to conquer, he was to have a

-place in Deacon Solomon Grant’s store, with wages that would not only

-take care of himself, but greatly help his mother.

-

-His mother was a widow, and George’s love for her was a sort of passion

-of devotion. When he could scarcely talk, the first two words he put

-together were, “Pretty mamma,” and ever since then she had been the

-first and fairest of created beings to him. He was very fond of Susie

-Hale, but Susie was only a nice girl,--a dear, sweet, good girl, such

-as any fellow would like; but his mother was the elect lady to whom

-were due his love, his care, his uttermost duty.

-

-Mrs. Graham was the kind of woman for a son to be romantic about. She

-was only seventeen when George was born; and now, when he was sixteen

-and she was thirty-three, she was, so he thought, more beautiful than

-ever. She had been a pretty, rather helpless little creature all her

-life,--one of those women toward whom every man feels the instinct of

-protection. George’s father had felt it always, and had never allowed

-care to come near his dainty darling. His one great agony, as he lay

-dying, was that he must leave her almost unprovided for. That was when

-George was thirteen, and the boy would never forget how his father had

-called him to his bedside, and charged him to take care of his mother.

-

-“You are old enough to be her staff, even now,” the dying man had said,

-clinging to his boy’s hand. “You can be good to her in a thousand ways,

-save her a thousand cares, and in a few years more you can work for

-her, and keep her comfortably, as I have done.”

-

-George never forgot this trust for one moment. The plans he made in

-life were all for his mother’s sake--his future was to be spent in her

-service. He wanted to come out of school at the time of his father’s

-death, and try by all manner of little industries to help take care

-of the household, but his mother was too wise to permit this. She

-developed a strength of mind and of body for which no one who saw her

-pink-and-white prettiness,--the prettiness of a girl still, despite all

-her years of married life,--would have given her credit.

-

-She saw clearly that if her boy’s education stopped at thirteen, he

-would be held in check all his life by his own ignorance--he must be

-drudge always, and never master. So she made him go to school three

-years longer.

-

-How she lived and kept up her refined little home puzzled all

-lookers-on, and indeed she hardly knew herself. She lived simply; she

-was busy from morning till night. She sewed for one neighbor, she

-helped another through some season of sickness, she taught a naughty

-child who had worn out its welcome at school, but who could not wear

-out Mrs. Graham’s sweet patience,--and all these things helped. It is

-true, it was very often hard work to compass the simple necessaries of

-life, but she struggled on bravely.

-

-When George was sixteen he should come out of school, well trained, she

-hoped, for a business man, and then things would be so much easier.

-With this hope in view, she never repined. She kept her strength of

-soul and her sweetness of temper, her fresh beauty and her fresh heart.

-She kept, too, her boy’s adoration,--an adoration which was, as I said,

-the romance of his life.

-

-When the days began to grow so dark for George Graham, it was of his

-mother that he thought. So far he had no ambitions, no hopes, that

-were not centred in her. What if this growing shadow about him was to

-increase until all was dark, until dense night shut him in,--a night

-through whose blackness no star of hope could shine? What if he must

-be no help to his mother, but only a burden on her for ever, a burden

-lasting through heaven only knew how many helpless years?

-

-He rebelled against such a fate madly. He stretched out his hands

-toward heaven, he lifted the dumb prayer of his darkening eyes, but no

-help came.

-

-Dimmer and dimmer grew the world about him, more and more desperate the

-gloom of his hopeless heart. His scholarship had been so fine that his

-teacher hesitated to reprove his now continual failures; and George

-said nothing of the increasing darkness around him,--nothing to his

-mother, for he felt that it would break her heart; nothing to teacher

-or school-mates, for it seemed to him his grief would be nothing to

-them. But one afternoon the crisis came.

-

-His recitation had been an utter failure, and, at last, his teacher

-spoke in severe terms of the neglect which had become habitual. No

-one who was present that day--not even the smallest child--will ever

-forget the look of despair that swept over George Graham’s face, or the

-gesture of helpless anguish with which he stretched out his hands, as

-if to seek among them all some friend, as he cried,--

-

-“God help me, sir! I have been going blind; and now I cannot see one

-figure in my book--I can hardly see your face.”

-

-There was a silence after this, through which came no sound but the

-audible beating of George Graham’s tortured heart. Then the master sent

-away the others, for school hours were nearly over, and tried his best

-to comfort his stricken pupil. It might not be so bad as he feared, an

-oculist might help him, perhaps it was only temporary.

-

-To all these well-meant consolations George listened in a sort of

-dreary silence. The words of the teacher entered his ears, but they did

-not reach his heart or kindle his hope.

-

-As soon as he could, he went away. He did not go straight home.

-How could he face his mother and tell her what he _must_ tell her

-now,--what she would be sure to hear from others, if not from him? He

-kept thinking how she would take it. Would not all the light go out of

-her face? Maybe she would faint away, as he remembered she had done

-when his father died.

-

-He sat down on a bank, a little removed from the road-side, a bank

-which overhung a swift and deep, yet narrow stream.

-

-An awful temptation came over him,--such a temptation as, thank Heaven!

-comes to few boys of sixteen, with the young, glad life running riot

-in their veins. He thought, what if he should die, then and there? It

-seemed to him the one desirable thing. To be sure, to die would be to

-leave his mother to fight her battle of life alone; but also it would

-relieve her from the heavy burden he must needs be to her if he lived.

-The river rushing down there below invited him with its murmur. Should

-he seek refuge there, and let his mother hear that he was dead, before

-she heard that he was blind? He bent forward over the stream. Then he

-drew back, for a longing came over him to go home first, and see his

-mother just once more; and then an exceeding bitter cry burst from his

-lips,--

-

-“_See_ her! What am I talking about? Do I not know I shall _never_ see

-her again?”

-

-And a girl’s voice, soft and cooing and tender,--an utterly unexpected

-voice,--answered him,--

-

-“Yes, you _will_ see her again. Surely you will see her again.”

-

-The boy turned his face toward the sound.

-

-“How did you come here, Susie Hale?” he asked.

-

-“Don’t be angry, George,” the gentle voice entreated. “I waited for

-you. I could not go home till I had told you how sorry I was, and tried

-to comfort you.”

-

-“Comfort me!” There was a sort of scornful bitterness in the cry. “How

-_can_ I be comforted? Do you think what it will be never to see the

-green earth or the blue sky, or any dear face any more, for ever and

-ever?”

-

-“But you will see them,” she said gently. “I did not mean that you

-must be reconciled to give up hope. I mean that you must take heart,

-and try to be cured. I have known people who could not see at all to be

-helped, and why not you? At least, you must try.”

-

-An evil mood was upon George Graham, and he answered harshly,--

-

-“Where is the money to come from, if you please? It has been all mother

-could do just to live and she has struggled on, in the expectation of

-my being able soon to help her. She has no money for experiments. There

-is nothing for it but for me to rest a dead weight upon her hands,

-or--die.”

-

-He said the last word with a sort of gasp. Susie Hale shivered. She

-drew closer to him. She looked into his poor, tortured face, with her

-dark and tender eyes, and said very quietly,--

-

-“You believe in God, George Graham, and you will not defy Him. If He

-means you to bear this you will bear it like a man, and not try to get

-rid of the burden. But I do not believe He does mean you to bear it;

-and I will not believe it till every means has been tried for your

-cure. Just now, it seems to me, you ought to go home. Would you like

-your mother to hear this first from some one else?”

-

-He rose slowly.

-

-“You are right,” he said, “and you are a good girl. Good-by, Susie.”

-

-She did not try to go with him; she followed him only with her eyes.

-She was contented if she could but send him home in safety to his

-mother.

-

-His mother met him at the gate. When she took his hand in hers the poor

-fellow felt that she knew all. She was very quiet and self-controlled.

-

-“Your teacher has been here,” she said, “and he has told me. My

-darling, why have you sat in the darkness, and shut your mother out

-from any share in your trouble?”

-

-“Oh, I couldn’t tell you, mother!” he sobbed, with his head upon her

-breast, at last,--“I couldn’t, I thought it would break your heart.”

-

-“Ah! that was because you did not know. If you should die and leave me

-alone in the world, _that_, indeed, would break my heart; but while

-I have you beside me, nothing can make me altogether miserable, and

-nothing must make you so. There is help somewhere, and we will find it,

-please God; or, if not, we will bear what others have borne, and find a

-way to lighten the darkness.”

-

-Meantime, Susie Hale had gone home full of an absorbing purpose.

-Somehow money must and should be raised to try what a skilful oculist

-could do for George Graham.

-

-Susie was the orphan niece of Deacon Solomon Grant, in whose store

-a place was awaiting George. She knew that she had a modest little

-fortune of her own, but it was all in her uncle’s hands, and without

-his consent she could not dispose even of her slender income. But

-would he not be persuaded to let her have enough of her own money

-to accomplish her desire? She asked him, using her utmost power of

-persuasion to touch his heart, but he refused with peremptory decision.

-He wouldn’t mind contributing moderately to a fund for young Graham’s

-help--he would not even mind letting her have five or ten dollars of

-her own for that purpose--but beyond that the duty of one neighbor did

-not go. And Deacon Solomon shut his lips together as tightly as he

-buttoned up his pocket.

-

-Susie had in the world one treasure,--a diamond ring which had been her

-mother’s, with a stone white and clear as a dew-drop. This must, she

-knew, be worth three or four hundred dollars. It was her very own. She

-had meant to keep it all her life for her mother’s sake, but surely

-this great need of George Graham’s justified her in parting with it.

-

-She had one friend in Boston,--an old teacher,--in whose good faith and

-judicious management she felt implicit confidence, and to him she sent

-her mother’s ring, with a request that he would sell it as speedily

-and on as good terms as possible, and remit her the price of it in

-bank-notes, not in a check, and keep for ever the secret that she had

-disposed of it.

-

-It was a week after George Graham had given up hope, when a most

-unexpected hope came to him. A neighbor, going by from the post-office,

-handed in at the door a letter addressed to him. Mrs. Graham opened

-it, for George’s vision had failed with every day, and his eyes were

-utterly useless now.

-

-“George,” she cried, after a moment, in an eager, trembling voice,

-“here are three one-hundred dollar bills, and this is the letter that

-comes with them:--

-

-“‘This money is from a true friend of George Graham’s, and is to be

-applied to taking him to an oculist, in the hope that his sight may

-be restored. The giver withholds his name, both because he desires

-no thanks, and because he wishes to make the return of the money

-impossible.’

-

-“It is from Heaven, itself!” the mother cried. “George, we will start

-for Boston to-morrow. I feel in my soul that you are to be cured.”

-

-The next day a mother and her blind son sought rooms at a quiet

-boarding-house, of which they had found the number in the advertisement

-column of a city paper, and the day after that they were among the

-earliest patients of Doctor Annesley. The first examination of George’s

-eyes was unpromising enough. They would be worse before they were

-better; an operation might or might not restore sight to them, but the

-time for it had not yet come. Meanwhile the doctor wanted to see him

-daily.

-

-Those were weary days and weeks that followed, both before the

-operation and afterward, when the poor eyes were carefully bandaged

-from the light, and mother and son sat day after day in the dark

-together, wondering, wondering, wondering what the result would be.

-It was curious that the mother was always hopeful, and the son always

-despairing. At last it almost irritated him to hear her speak of hope

-to him; and one day he turned on her with the first burst of passionate

-impatience she had ever experienced from him.

-

-“Mother,” he said, “for the love of Heaven do not talk to me as if it

-was a sure thing that I am going to see again. I _want_ to think it

-doubtful, almost impossible. If you should make me expect a sure cure,

-and then it shouldn’t come, don’t you see that I should go mad? I think

-I should dash my head against the wall. I can only _live_ by expecting

-nothing.”

-

-After that the mother held her peace; but whenever she went out of

-that darkened room those who saw her marvelled at the light of joy in

-her eyes, the bloom of hope upon her cheeks. At last the time came--the

-bandage was removed. There was just one wild cry, “Mother, I see you!”

-and then George Graham lay at the doctor’s feet, swooning and helpless

-in his great joy.

-

-It was weeks yet before he went home again, but the good news preceded

-him. The mother wrote it to Deacon Grant, who had agreed still to

-keep the place in his store open, while awaiting the result of this

-experiment.

-

-The deacon read the letter in full family conclave, with the slow

-deliberation of a man unused to correspondence. He little knew how his

-niece longed to snatch the paper from his hand and read it for herself;

-nor did he heed the tears that swam in her dark eyes.

-

-Deliberately he smoothed out the letter, and folded it. Deliberately he

-took off his spectacles, and wiped them, and put them on again. Then

-he said, with the half pompous, half solemn manner which became his

-position,--

-

-“Well, well, I’m ready always to rejoice with those that rejoice; and

-I’m sure I’m thankful that the Widow Graham hasn’t got to struggle with

-so much trouble as it looked as if Providence was laying on her; but

-wherever she got that money the Lord knows.”

-

-Another letter came, afterward, to tell when the widow and her son were

-to return, and to ask Deacon Grant, in whose keeping the key of their

-house had been left, to put it in their door on that day as he was

-passing by to the store.

-

-It was Susie who walked over with the key, early in the afternoon,

-carrying with her a basket of dainties for the travellers’ supper, from

-Mrs. Grant, a woman who knew how to be a good neighbor, and to make

-life pleasant with cheap kindnesses. Susie’s black eyes danced, and her

-heart sang within her as she set the table in the little parlor and

-lighted a fire in the kitchen stove, ready to make a fresh cup of tea

-whenever the widow and her son should arrive. Then she dusted every

-thing; and then she gathered some of the flowers of September,--for

-already the summer was over,--and put them in the vases on the mantel,

-and on the widow’s little round sewing-table.

-

-And at last the travellers came, as at last every thing does come, if

-we wait long enough for it. They had expected to find an empty house;

-they found instead, warmth and brightness and good cheer and Susie

-Hale.

-

-

-

-

-DR. JOE’S VALENTINE.

-

-

-There were half-a-dozen of the girls together,--pretty creatures, in

-the very first season of their long dresses,--the eldest not quite

-sixteen. They were all braids and puffs and fluffy curls, all loops and

-ruffles and ribbons, all smiles and dimples. It was the Saturday before

-Valentine’s Day, in a certain year of grace, of which I will not give

-you the precise date, but less than ten years ago, and more than five.

-Of the half-dozen girls, two are busy teachers now, two are married,

-one is playing mother to her brother’s little brood of orphan children,

-and the sixth, not less happy than the rest, has gone on to “the next

-country,” where they tell us she will never grow old, never be sick or

-sorry any more,--happy Bertha, whom, surely, God loved.

-

-But, that day in February, none of them thought much about the future:

-the present was enough, with its fun and frolic, its wealth of all the

-pleasures which girlhood holds dear. The six were passing the long

-day together. Two of them were sisters and belonged in one house, and

-the rest had come there to be with them; for they were all going to

-make valentines. They had made funny ones and foolish ones, tender

-ones, with just a little dash of satire in them, poetic ones and prosy

-ones; and at last it was dinner-time, a feast of all the things that

-school-girls love, and these were hungry girls. At least they were all

-hungry girls but Nelly Hunt, and she scarcely ate any dinner at all,

-she was so busy thinking. She was Bertha’s sister, and this was her

-home and Bertha’s, and it was to the girls’ own room that the little

-party went back again, after they had eaten and praised Mrs. Hunt’s

-dinner.

-

-“What are you thinking about, Nell?” Bertha asked, sitting on the arm

-of Nelly’s chair.

-

-“These valentines,” Nelly answered slowly.

-

-“Well, surely they need not make you sober,--they are absurd enough.”

-

-“Yes, and it’s just because they are so absurd that they make me sober.

-I was wondering why we couldn’t just as well have said something to

-help somebody--to make somebody think--to do some good.”

-

-“Nelly’s heroics!” cried Kate Greene flippantly. “Miss Hunt as a moral

-reformer!”

-

-Nelly blushed from her pretty ears to the roots of her sunny hair; but

-her eyes shone clear, and there was a ring of earnestness in her voice

-as she answered,--

-

-“You can laugh if you will, but I mean what I say, and I’m going to try

-an experiment. I will write one boy a valentine, such as I think a girl

-ought to write, and I’ll send it.”

-

-“So you shall,” Bertha said gently,--Bertha always was peacemaker,--“and

-we’ll all go away and see mamma and the baby while you write it. When

-it’s done you must call us.”

-

-“Yes, and you must show it to us,” cried Kate Greene, as she went away;

-“that’s only fair. We promised this morning to show each other all we

-sent, and we sha’n’t let you off.”

-

-And then the five fluttered away like a flock of birds, and Nelly was

-quite alone.

-

-Her task was harder than she had imagined. It is only the old, perhaps,

-who are sage in counsel by nature. At any rate, to give good advice

-did not come naturally to pretty Nelly. But she had an idea of what

-she wanted to say, and at last she got it said. She had written and

-rewritten it, and finally concluded that she could do no better, and

-then copied it out into her neatest handwriting before she called the

-others. It was a little stiff, to be sure, and preachy and high-flown,

-but it sounded like a lofty effort and a complete success to the

-listening girls. This was what it said:--

-

-“MY VALENTINE,--You will have plenty of fine speeches and praises,

-and, perhaps, of fun and fancy from others, so I shall not give you

-those,--I who have but one interest in you, namely, that you should be

-the best boy and the best man which it is possible for you to become.

-If you are selfish, if you are indolent, if you are mean, you will

-never be happy in your own society, until you have sunk so low that

-you don’t know the difference between goodness and badness. But if you

-set out to be a gentleman and a man of honor and a faithful worker, you

-will do good deeds and live a happy life, and be worthy the everlasting

-esteem of

-

-  YOUR VALENTINE.”

-

-[Illustration: Nelly Reading her Valentine.--PAGE 220.]

-

-Nelly read it with rising color and a little quiver about her mouth,

-which Bertha understood; but she read it with firm voice and careful,

-deliberate accent.

-

-“Then,” she said, when she had finished, “I shall burn up all the rest

-of my valentines, and send only this one; for it is what I mean, in

-earnest, and, as old Aunty Smoke says, ‘Ef it don’t do no good, it

-can’t do no harm.’”

-

-“To whom shall you send it, dear?” Bertha asked gently, a little

-subdued by Nelly’s epistolary success.

-

-“I hadn’t made up my mind,” Nelly answered thoughtfully; “they all need

-it.”

-

-“O, send it to Joe, my cousin Joe,” cried Kitty Greene. “He is staying

-with us, and _he_ needs it--bad enough. If ever a boy was full of his

-pranks, Joe is, and if ever a boy tormented a girl’s life out, Joe does

-mine.”

-

-A color clear and bright as flame glowed on Nelly Hunt’s cheeks. Had

-she had dark-eyed Joe in her mind all the while? She only answered very

-quietly,--

-

-“I don’t mind. I had just as lief send it to Joe. That is, I’ll send it

-to him if you’ll promise, on your sacred honor, never in any way to let

-him know who wrote it.”

-

-“Oh, I will--true as I live and breathe I’ll never tell him, and never

-let him guess, if I can help it.”

-

-“And all you girls?” Nelly asked, with the pretty pink glow deepening

-in her cheeks. “Will you all promise?”

-

-And they all promised; for there was a sort of honest earnestness in

-Nelly’s nature to which they found it natural to yield.

-

-So the valentine was directed in Nelly’s most neat and proper manner to

-“Mr. Joe Greene,” and was dropped into the post-office with the rest of

-the valentines the girls had written that day.

-

-On the fifteenth the six girls were all together at school, comparing

-notes and exchanging confidences. But Kitty Greene drew Nelly aside,

-and said, while they walked up and down the hall together, their arms

-around each other as girls will,--

-

-“I saw Joe get it, Nelly.”

-

-Nelly’s pretty cheeks glowed and her eyes shone like stars, but she

-asked no questions. Indeed, they were scarcely necessary, for Kitty was

-eager enough to tell her story.

-

-“He got it, don’t you think, along with half-a-dozen others, and he

-read them all before he came to this one. I knew this, you know, by

-the shape of the envelope. When he came to it I saw him read it all

-through, and then I saw him go back and read it again. I heard him say

-to himself,--

-

-“‘That’s an honest letter from some little saint.’

-

-“Then he came up to me and held it toward me, while I pretended to be

-very busy with my valentines. Then he asked,--

-

-“‘Do you know that handwriting, Kit?’

-

-“I felt like an awful little liar, but I had promised you. I stretched

-out my hand for it, and said carelessly,--

-

-“‘Why, ain’t it Sue’s?’

-

-“Sue is his sister, you know. So he thought I did not know who it came

-from, and he changed his mind, and put it into his pocket, and went

-off. When I teased him afterward to let me see it, he said,--

-

-“‘No; there are some things a fellow would be a cad to show.’

-

-“So I saw it hit home, and well it might. It was a tremendous letter,

-Nelly.”

-

-And Kitty ended with a hug and a kiss, and a look of that loyal

-admiration which a girl can give another girl now and then.

-

-When the spring came Joe Greene went away from Chester, and did not

-come back there any more. No doubt Nelly Hunt would have forgotten his

-very existence but for the valentine, which she could not forget. She

-used to blush, as she grew older, to think how “bumptious” it was, as

-she used to call it to herself. What was _she_, that she should have

-undertaken to preach a sermon to that boy? What if he remembered it

-only to think how presuming it was, and to laugh at it? But, luckily,

-he did not know from whom it came; and with that thought she cooled her

-blushes.

-

-Nelly was twenty when Joe Greene came back to Chester again. And now

-he came as a physician, just through his studies, and anxious to build

-up a practice. Soon his fame grew. His patients were among the poor at

-first, and he cured them; and then richer people heard of it, and sent

-for him. But, while he took all the patients that came, he never gave

-up his practice among those who most needed him. His praise was in all

-their mouths. There had never been any doctor like this one.

-

-Nelly was Miss Hunt now, for Bertha had gone away from her into the

-other, unknown country, and Nelly’s grief had made her gentle heart yet

-more gentle, and her helpful spirit yet more helpful.

-

-Toward night, one summer day, she had gone to see an old woman who

-had been her nurse once, and had found her very ill,--quite too ill

-to be left alone, and certainly in need of a physician. So Nelly tore

-a leaf from her memorandum-book and wrote on it a few lines, begging

-Dr. Greene to come at once, and then called to the first passer-by and

-entreated him to take it to the doctor.

-

-It was scarcely half an hour before Dr. Greene came in, quietly and

-gravely. He attended to his patient with that careful consideration

-which made all those poor souls whom he visited adore him. Then he

-turned to Nelly.

-

-“Who will stay with her to-night?” he asked; “for, indeed, she hardly

-ought to be left alone.”

-

-“I shall stay,” was the quiet answer.

-

-“Then come to the door with me, please, and let me give you your

-directions.”

-

-Nelly followed, and stood there, in the soft summer dusk,--a pretty

-picture, with the wild-rose flush dawning in her cheeks, and a new

-light kindling her eyes. She listened carefully to all his injunctions,

-and then turned as if to go. But he put out a hand to detain her.

-

-“How very much I owe to you!” he said.

-

-“_You_, how?” And a deep, deep crimson dyed Nelly’s face and throat. In

-that moment she thought of her “bumptious” valentine, which had not

-crossed her mind before for a long time.

-

-He looked at her with a smile in his eyes, but with a face that

-preserved all its respectful gravity. He took a red leather case out

-of his pocket, and from the case he took the very old valentine which

-Nelly remembered so well. Then he produced the brief note she had

-written that afternoon; and still there was light enough left in the

-day to see them by, as he held them side by side.

-

-“Your hand has matured somewhat since this valentine was written,” he

-remarked quietly; “but some of these letters I should know anywhere. No

-one could deceive me.”

-

-“I did not suppose you had kept that foolish thing,” Nelly said, with a

-pitiful little quiver in her voice, as if she were just on the point of

-bursting into tears. “I am so ashamed!”

-

-Dr. Joe looked at her a moment, as she stood there in the waning

-light,--a lovely, graceful girl from whom any man might be proud to win

-even a passing interest. So this was the woman, the thought of whom

-he had carried in his heart for years! If he had ever done any good

-thing, he was paid for it in the satisfaction of that hour.

-

-“Are you sorry,” he asked slowly, “that you have helped one man to be

-his best self? Those words of yours were to me like the voice of my

-inmost soul. Since then this paper has never left me, nor have I ever

-ceased to strive to be worthy of the esteem of my unknown ‘valentine.’

-If ever I have been generous instead of selfish, brave instead of

-cowardly, strong instead of weak, it has been because I have remembered

-the words written here, and meant to live in their spirit. Are you

-sorry for that? or do you grudge me the dear pleasure of thanking you?”

-

-“No, I’m not sorry, nor do I grudge you any thing; but it was a girl’s

-freak, and I am not worthy of so much praise and honor.”

-

-“It was a good girl’s good intention,” he said almost solemnly. “Let us

-be thankful that it succeeded.”

-

-Nelly went back to the bedside of the old woman with a fluttering

-heart. How strange it seemed to think this sick woman was old enough

-to have outlived all anxieties except those about her pains and her

-supper! Had not she been young once? and had no one ever looked at her

-as Dr. Joe looked?

-

-The next morning he came again. His medicine, a night’s sleep, Nelly’s

-care,--something seemed to have given the poor old patient a fresh

-lease of life. There was no need that Nelly should stay with her any

-more; but she went to see her daily, and it was curious how often Dr.

-Joe’s visits happened at the same time.

-

-One night the doctor had left his horse at home, and he and Nelly

-walked away together. They talked about the lingering sunset and the

-soft south wind and even the old woman; for Nelly, woman-like, was

-struggling desperately to keep Dr. Joe from saying what she desperately

-wanted to hear. But, at last, it came,--a half-blunt, half-awkward

-speech, yet with Dr. Joe’s honest heart in it,--

-

-“I’ve lived all these years just to earn your esteem, and now I find I

-don’t care a thing about that unless I can also win your love.”

-

-I think Nelly’s answer must have satisfied him, for she is Mrs.

-Joseph Greene now; and that valentine--worn and old, but choicely

-framed--always hangs over the doctor’s study table.

-

-[Illustration]

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-

-

-

-_Bright; Lively, and Enjoyable_

-

-“Jolly Good Times” Series

-

-_By Mary P. Wells Smith_

-

-  JOLLY GOOD TIMES; or, CHILD LIFE ON A FARM.

-  JOLLY GOOD TIMES AT SCHOOL; also, SOME TIMES NOT SO JOLLY.

-  THE BROWNS.

-  THEIR CANOE TRIP.

-  JOLLY GOOD TIMES AT HACKMATACK.

-  MORE GOOD TIMES AT HACKMATACK.

-  JOLLY GOOD TIMES TO-DAY.

-  A JOLLY GOOD SUMMER.

-

-[Illustration]

-

-_With Illustrations, 12 mo, cloth, gilt, $1.25 per volume. The set of

-eight volumes, uniformly bound in cloth, gilt, in a box, $10.00._

-

-Of these stories the Boston “Transcript” says: “Few series of juvenile

-books appeal more strongly to children than the ‘Jolly Good Times’

-Series, written by Mary P. Wells Smith. The naturalness of the stories,

-their brightness, their truth to boy and girl life and character, and

-the skill with which the author manages incident and dialogue, have

-given them deserved popularity.”

-

-It is Mrs. Smith’s happy ability to take the incidents of

-child-life,--such a life as any child of bright mind and sweet

-character, blessed with the surroundings of a good home, might

-have,--and to record them with such faithfulness to the child’s

-character, and yet with such charm in the narrative, as to make them

-engagingly interesting to other children.--_Gazette and Courier_,

-Greenfield, Mass.

-

-

-

-

-The Young Puritans Series

-

-_By Mary P. Wells Smith_

-

-_Author of “The Jolly Good Times” Series_

-

-  THE YOUNG PURITANS OF OLD HADLEY.

-  THE YOUNG PURITANS IN KING PHILIP’S WAR.

-  THE YOUNG PURITANS IN CAPTIVITY.

-  THE YOUNG AND OLD PURITANS OF HATFIELD.

-

-_Cloth, 12mo, Illustrated, each, $1.25._

-

-Mrs. Smith deserves very hearty commendation for the admirable pictures

-of Puritan life which are drawn with a skilful hand in this book. She

-has chosen a representative Puritan village as the scene, and the

-period of very early settlement of western Massachusetts for her story,

-a village which retains many of its early features to this day. Mrs.

-Smith knows the people of whom she writes thoroughly, and holds them

-in high and loving esteem. Even the most prejudiced reader can hardly

-close this book without seeing in these genuine Puritan people a phase

-of human life at once fine in its courage, its endurance of terrible

-hardships, and not unbeautiful in its childlike acceptance of God’s

-dealings and its daily hunger and thirst after righteousness.--_The

-Churchman._

-

-

-THE YOUNG PURITANS OF OLD HADLEY. 12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. $1.25.

-

-A capital colonial story.--_Congregationalist_, Boston.

-

-She catches the very spirit of Puritan life.--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._

-

-The work has historic value as well as unique interest.--LILIAN

-WHITING, _in Chicago Inter-Ocean_.

-

-An excellent book for school libraries.--_Literary News_, New York.

-

-The adventures of the boys while hunting, the trapping of wolves

-and panthers, which infested the forests in those early days, the

-encounters with the Indians, friendly and otherwise, are incidents

-which make up a book which will fascinate all young readers.--_San

-Francisco Bulletin._

-

-The author has studied her subject carefully; and the pictures of this

-life, extinct, yet still blood of our blood and bone of our bone, have

-unusual interest.--_Chicago Dial._

-

-Mrs. Smith has proven that she can write as simple and natural a story

-of child-life when the scene is laid two hundred and fifty years ago

-as when she chooses to describe country life in the New England of the

-present century.--_Christian Register._

-

-

-THE YOUNG PURITANS IN KING PHILIP’S WAR. Illustrated by L. J. BRIDGMAN.

-12mo. Cloth. $1.25.

-

-From a letter written the author by Bishop F. D. Huntington, Syracuse,

-N. Y.: “Have read all the pages through, every word,--finding the

-whole volume readable, entertaining, and satisfactory. Of course I

-feel rather competent to say that, in the phraseology, the territorial

-descriptions, the geography, the account of customs, language, family

-habits, natural phenomena, you are singularly correct, accurate, and

-felicitous.”

-

-Mrs. Smith seems to have caught the very breath and echo of those old

-days, and she makes one seem not to be merely reading of those Puritans

-and their constant struggles with their savage neighbors, but to be

-actually beholding them.--_Jersey City Evening Journal._

-

-The history of the seventeenth century in New England would gain new

-life when read in the light of such books.--_Christian Endeavor Herald._

-

-

-THE YOUNG PURITANS IN CAPTIVITY. Illustrated by JESSIE WILLCOX SMITH.

-12mo. Cloth. $1.25.

-

-Nothing could be more interesting than the period of which this story

-treats, and the author has handled the subject in a manner that is

-highly creditable. The reader will be for the nonce a Puritan, and will

-follow the adventures of three children taken captive by the Indians,

-feeling that he is a participant in the scenes so well portrayed. He

-will sleep in the Indians’ wigwam and breathe the odor of the pines.

-He will paddle a canoe upon the broad waters of the Connecticut, when

-New England was but a wilderness, and get an insight into Indian nature

-which he probably never had before.--_Sacramento Bee._

-

-She shows the same power of graphic description, the same faithful use

-of the best available material, and the same logical way of putting it

-into shape.--_Commercial Advertiser, N. Y._

-

-Mrs. Smith has made history live again in her life-like narrative. The

-children of to-day may well learn something of the sterner virtues in

-reading this story of the endurance and fortitude of children of two

-centuries ago.--_Springfield Republican._

-

-

-THE YOUNG AND OLD PURITANS OF HATFIELD. Illustrated by BERTHA C. DAY.

-12mo. $1.25.

-

-

-  LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., Publishers,

-  254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON.

-

-

-

-

-

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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 60418 ***
+
+  [Transcriber's Note
+
+  _Italic words_ in the original have been enclosed in underscores in
+  this version.
+
+  A few minor typographical errors have been silently corrected.
+
+  A page number in the Contents was corrected from 77 to 79.]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Day after day Johnny watched.--PAGE 15.]
+
+
+
+
+                 NEW
+
+          BED-TIME STORIES.
+
+
+                 BY
+
+       LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON,
+
+     AUTHOR OF “BED-TIME STORIES,”
+       “MORE BED-TIME STORIES,”
+  “SOME WOMEN’S HEARTS,” AND “POEMS.”
+
+
+         _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS._
+
+
+            [Illustration]
+
+
+                BOSTON:
+      LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY,
+                 1907
+
+
+
+
+          _Copyright_, 1880,
+      BY LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.
+
+
+  ALFRED MUDGE & SON, INC., PRINTERS,
+        BOSTON, MASS., U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+_TO MISTRESS BROWN-EYES._
+
+
+    _At Christmas-tide, by Christmas fire,
+      You’ll read these tales of mine;--
+    I see, above my story-book,
+      Your happy brown eyes shine._
+
+    _Dear eyes, that front the future time
+      So fearlessly to-day,
+    Oh, may from them some kindly Fate
+      Keep future tears away,_
+
+    _And give you all your heart desires,
+      My little English maid,
+    For whom, in this far-distant land,
+      My loving prayers are said!_
+
+    _I pray for Peace, since Peace is good,
+      For Love, since Love is best:
+    If prayers bring blessings, Brown-eyed Girl,
+      How much you will be blest!_
+
+  _L. C. M._
+
+  _August, 1880._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                     PAGE
+
+  “ALL A-GROWIN’ AND A-BLOWIN’”         5
+
+  MY VAGRANT                           20
+
+  HELEN’S TEMPTATION                   35
+
+  THE SURGEON OF THE DOLLS’ HOSPITAL   56
+
+  PRETTY MISS KATE                     79
+
+  A BORROWED ROSEBUD                   94
+
+  TOM’S THANKSGIVING                  106
+
+  FINDING JACK                        124
+
+  HER MOTHER’S DAUGHTER               139
+
+  MY QUARREL WITH RUTH                158
+
+  WAS IT HER MOTHER?                  172
+
+  THE LADY FROM OVER THE WAY          186
+
+  HIS MOTHER’S BOY                    200
+
+  DR. JOE’S VALENTINE                 217
+
+
+
+
+NEW BED-TIME STORIES.
+
+
+
+
+“ALL A-GROWIN’ AND A-BLOWIN’.”
+
+
+It had been such a weary hunt for lodgings. Not that lodgings are
+scarce in London. There are scores of streets, whole districts, indeed,
+where the house that did not say “Apartments” in its window would be
+the exception.
+
+But Miss Endell wanted to combine a great deal. She must be economical,
+for her funds were running low; she must be near the British Museum,
+for she wanted to consult many authorities for the book about “Noted
+Irishwomen,” by which she hoped to retrieve her fortunes; she wanted
+quiet, too, and reasonably pretty things about her.
+
+For a week she had spent most of her time in quest of the place where
+she could settle herself comfortably for a few months. It was the gray
+March weather. The mornings were dark, and the gloom of coming dusk
+settled down early; and, during all the hours between, Miss Endell
+had been busy in that weary work of which Dante speaks, “climbing the
+stairs of others.”
+
+At last, after much consideration, she had decided to make a certain
+flight of stairs her own. She had taken the drawing-room floor of No.
+30 Guilford Street; and with a comfortable feeling of success she had
+paid her bill at the Charing Cross Hotel, and driven to her new home.
+
+The drawing-room floor--that is to say, the suite of rooms up
+one flight of stairs from the street--is the most important part
+of a London lodging-house. Whoever is kept waiting, when “the
+drawing-room”--as it is the fashion to designate the lodger who
+occupies that apartment--rings, the ring must at once be “answered to.”
+That floor rents for as much as all the rest of the house put together,
+and is the chief dependence of anxious landladies.
+
+Miss Endell, accordingly, was received as a person of importance. Her
+boxes were brought upstairs, and her landlady, Mrs. Stone, bustled
+about cheerfully, helping her to arrange things.
+
+At last every thing was comfortably placed, and the tired new-comer
+settled herself in a low chair in front of the glowing coal-fire, and
+glanced around her.
+
+Mrs. Stone was still busy, wiping away imperceptible dust. The door was
+open, and in the doorway was framed a singular face, that of a pale,
+slender child, with a figure that looked too tall for the face, and
+great eager eyes, with such a wistful, silent longing in them as Miss
+Endell had never seen before.
+
+At the same moment Mrs. Stone also caught sight of the child, and cried
+out a little crossly,--
+
+“Go away, you plague! Didn’t I tell you as you wasn’t to ’ang round the
+new lady, a-worritin’ her?”
+
+The child’s wistful face colored, and the tears sprang to the great,
+sad eyes; but he was silently turning away, when Miss Endell herself
+spoke. She was not specially fond of children; but she had a kind
+heart, and something in the wan, pitiful face of the child touched it.
+
+“Don’t send him away, Mrs. Stone,” she said kindly. “Come in, my little
+man, and tell me what your name is.”
+
+The child sidled in, timidly, but did not speak.
+
+“Don’t be afraid,” Miss Endell said. “What is your name?”
+
+“Bless you, ma’am, he _can’t_ speak!” said Mrs. Stone.
+
+“Can’t speak?”
+
+“No; he was born with something wrong. Laws, he can hear as well as
+anybody, and he knows all you say to him; but there’s something the
+matter. The last ‘drawing-room’ said that there was doctors, she was
+sure, as could help him, but I haint any money to try experiments.
+
+“Johnny was my brother’s child. His father died before he was born, and
+his mother lived just long enough to ’and over Johnny to me, and ask me
+to take care of him.
+
+“I’ve done my best; but a lodging-house is a worrit. What with empty
+rooms, and lodgers as didn’t pay, and hard times, I never got money
+enough ahead to spend on doctors.
+
+“But you mustn’t have Johnny a-worritin’ round. You’d get sick o’ that.
+The last ‘drawing-room’ said it made her that nervous to see him; and I
+halways thought she went off partly for that.”
+
+“I will not let him trouble me, don’t be afraid; but let him sit down
+here by the fire, and when I find he disturbs me I’ll send him away.”
+
+Mrs. Stone vanished, and Johnny took up his station on a stool in a
+corner of the hearth-rug.
+
+Miss Endell busied herself with a book, but from time to time she
+looked at the boy. His face was pale and wistful still, but a
+half-smile, as sad as tears, was round his poor silent mouth, and he
+was gazing at his new friend as if he would fix every line of her face
+in his memory for ever.
+
+For a long hour he sat there; and then Mrs. Stone came to lay the cloth
+for dinner, and sent him away to bed.
+
+The next morning he appeared again; and soon it grew to be his habit to
+sit, almost all the day through, and watch Miss Endell at her tasks.
+In spite of her absorption, he occupied a good many of her thoughts.
+
+Like him, she was an orphan; and she had few close and vital interests
+in her life. She got to feel as if it belonged to her, in a certain
+way, to look after this silent waif of humanity more lonely still than
+herself.
+
+Often she took an hour from her work to read little tales to him, and
+it was reward enough to see how his eyes brightened, and the color
+came into his pale little face. She used to think that if her work
+succeeded, Johnny should also be the better for it. As soon as the
+first edition of “Noted Irishwomen” was sold, she would have the best
+medical advice for him; and if there were such a thing as giving those
+lips language, it should be done.
+
+“Should you _like_ to speak to me, Johnny?” she asked one day suddenly.
+
+The boy looked at her, for one moment, with eyes that seemed to grow
+larger and larger. Then came a great rush of sobs and tears that shook
+him so that Miss Endell was half-frightened at the effect of her own
+words. She bent over and put her hand on his head.
+
+“Don’t, Johnny! Don’t, dear!” she said tenderly.
+
+I doubt if any one had ever called the poor little dumb boy “dear”
+before, in all his eleven years of life. He looked up through his
+tears, with a glad, strange smile, as if some wonderful, sweet thing
+had befallen him; and then, in a sort of timid rapture, he kissed the
+hem of Miss Endell’s gown, and the slippered foot that peeped out
+beneath it.
+
+I think there is an instinct of motherhood in good women that comes
+out toward all helpless creatures; and it awoke then in Miss Endell’s
+heart. After that she and Johnny were almost inseparable. Often she
+took him with her on her walks, and always when she worked he kept his
+silent vigil on the hearth-rug.
+
+Miss Endell had one extravagance. She could not bear to be without
+flowers. She did not care much for the cut and wired bouquets of the
+florist, but she seldom came home from her walks without some handful
+of wall-flowers, or a knot of violets or forget-me-nots. Now and then
+she bought a tea-rose bud; and then Johnny always noticed how lovingly
+she tended it--how she watched it bursting from bud to flower.
+
+He got to know that this strange, bright creature whom he idolized
+loved flowers, and loved tea-roses best of all. A wild desire grew in
+him to buy her tea-roses--not one, only, but a whole bunch. He spent
+his days in thinking how it was to be done, and his nights in dreaming
+about it. A penny was the largest sum he had ever possessed in his
+life, and a penny will not buy one tea-rose, much less a bunch of them.
+
+One day Miss Endell took him with her when she went to see a friend. It
+was a prosperous, good-natured, rich woman in whose house they found
+themselves. “Go and see the pictures, Johnny,” Miss Endell said; and
+Johnny wandered down the long room, quite out of ear-shot.
+
+Then she told his pathetic little story, and her friend’s careless yet
+kind heart was touched. When it was time for Miss Endell to go, she
+summoned Johnny; and then the lady they were visiting gave the boy a
+half-crown, a whole shining, silver half-crown.
+
+Johnny clasped it to his heart in expressive pantomime, and lifted his
+wistful, inquiring eyes.
+
+“Yes, it is all yours,” the lady said, in answer; “and don’t let any
+one take it away from you.”
+
+Small danger, indeed, of that! The piece of silver meant but one thing
+to Johnny,--tea-roses, unlimited tea-roses.
+
+The next day he was taken ill. He had a fever,--a low, slow fever. His
+aunt was kind enough to him, but she had plenty to do, and Johnny would
+have been lonely indeed but for Miss Endell.
+
+She had him brought each morning into her room, and kept him all day
+lying on her sofa, giving him now a kind word, now a draught of cold
+water, and then a few grapes, with the sun’s secret in them.
+
+One day Johnny drew something from his bosom, and put it into Miss
+Endell’s hand. It was the silver half-crown. He made her understand,
+by his expressive gestures, that she was to keep it for him; and she
+dropped it into a drawer of her writing-desk.
+
+At last Johnny began to get well. June came, with all its summer sights
+and sounds, and strength came with its softer winds to the poor little
+waif. One day he stood before Miss Endell, and put out his hand. She
+understood, and dropped the half-crown into it. He hid it, with a sort
+of passion, in his bosom, and Miss Endell smiled. Did even this little
+waif, then, care so much for money?
+
+As soon as he could stand, he took up his station on the balcony
+outside the windows, and watched and watched.
+
+His friend thought only that the sights and sounds of the street amused
+him. She was working on at the “Noted Irishwomen,” which was nearing
+its conclusion, and it quite suited her that Johnny found the street so
+interesting.
+
+As for the child, he was possessed by only one idea,--tea-roses. He
+watched to see the hand-barrows come along, flower-laden and tempting.
+
+These same hand-barrows are a feature of London street life. They
+are full of plants growing in pots, and also there are plenty of
+cut flowers. The venders cry, as they pass along, “All a-growin’ and
+a-blowin’!” and there is something exciting in the cry. It seems part
+of the summer itself.
+
+Day after day, day after day, Johnny watched and watched. Flowers
+enough went by,--geraniums glowing scarlet in the sun, azaleas, white
+heath, violets,--only never any tea-roses.
+
+But at last, one morning, he heard the familiar cry, “_All a-growin’
+and a-blowin’!_” and lo! as if they had bloomed for his need, there
+were tea-roses--whole loads of tea-roses!
+
+Miss Endell was busy, just then, with Lady Morgan. She never noticed
+when the little silent figure left the window, and hurried downstairs.
+Out into the street that little figure went, and on and on, in hot
+pursuit of the flower-barrow, which by this time had quite the start of
+him.
+
+Down one street, up another, he ran, and always with the silver
+half-crown tightly clasped in the palm of his little hand.
+
+At last a customer detained the barrow; and Johnny hurried up to it,
+panting and breathless. He put his hand out towards the tea-roses, and
+then he held out his silver half-crown.
+
+The flower-seller looked at him curiously, “Why don’t you speak, young
+’un?” he said. “Are you dumb? You want this ’alf-crown’s wuth o’ them
+tea-roses?”
+
+Johnny nodded vehemently.
+
+The man took up a great handful of the pale sweet flowers, and thrust
+them into the boy’s hands, taking in exchange the half-crown, and
+putting it away in a sort of pouch, along with many silver mates.
+
+As for Johnny, there are in every life supreme moments, and his came
+then. He held in his hand the flowers that Miss Endell loved, and he
+was going to give them to her.
+
+All his life he had felt himself in every one’s way. She, only, had
+made him welcome to her side. She had called him “dear,”--and now
+there was something he could do for her. She had loved one tea-rose:
+how much, then, would she love a whole handful of tea-roses! His heart
+swelled with a great wave of pride and joy.
+
+He thought of nothing but his flowers,--how should he?--and he never
+even heard or saw the butcher’s cart, tearing along at such a pace as
+John Gilpin never dreamed of. And in a moment, something had pushed him
+down,--something rolled and crunched over him,--and he knew nothing;
+but he held the flowers tight through it all.
+
+“Why, it’s Mrs. Stone’s dumb Johnny!” said the butcher-boy, who had
+got down from his cart by this time, and was addressing the quickly
+assembled London crowd. “Gi ’e a hand, and lift un up into my cart, and
+I’ll carry un home.”
+
+An awful inarticulate groan came from the poor child’s dumb lips as
+they lifted him; but his hold on the tea-roses never loosened.
+
+They carried him home, and into the house. Mrs. Stone was shocked and
+grieved; and she took her troubles noisily, as is the fashion of her
+class. Miss Endell, still fagging away at Lady Morgan, heard cries and
+shrieks, and dropped her pen and hastened downstairs.
+
+“He’s dead! Johnny’s dead!” cried Mrs. Stone and Miss Endell, white and
+silent, drew near.
+
+But Johnny was not dead, though he was dying fast. The butcher-boy had
+hurried off for a doctor and the three women, Mrs. Stone, her maid, and
+her lodger, stood by helplessly.
+
+Suddenly Johnny’s wandering look rested on Miss Endell. A great sweet
+smile of triumph curved his mouth, lighted his eyes, kindled all his
+face. With one grand last effort, he put out the bunch of tea-roses,
+and pressed them into her hand.
+
+And then, as if death had somehow been more merciful to him than life,
+and had in some way loosed his poor bound tongue, he stammered out the
+only words he had ever spoken--was ever to speak,--
+
+“_For you!_”
+
+At length the doctor came and stood there, helpless like the rest, for
+death was stronger than all his skill. The shock and the hurt together
+had quenched the poor frail life that was ebbing so swiftly.
+
+Miss Endell bent and kissed the white quivering lips. As she did so,
+the tea-roses she held touched the little face.
+
+Was it their subtile fragrance, or this kiss, or both together, which
+seemed for one moment to recall the departing soul?
+
+He looked up; it was his last look, and it took in the sweet woman who
+had been so gentle and so loving to him, and the flowers in her hand.
+
+His face kindled with a great joy. A hero might have looked like that
+who had died for his country, or a man who had given his life joyfully
+for child or wife.
+
+Johnny Stone had loved one creature well, and that creature had loved
+tea-roses. What _could_ life have held so sweet as the death that found
+him when he was striving to give her her heart’s desire?
+
+
+
+
+MY VAGRANT.
+
+
+We were in pursuit of Laura’s dressmaker, and had just rung the bell
+at her door, when a little boy presented himself, and, standing on the
+lower step, uplifted a pathetic pair of blue eyes, and a small tin
+cup held in a little grimy hand. A large basket was on one arm; and
+round his neck was one of those great printed placards, such as the
+blind men wear who sit at the street corners. Laura’s purse was always
+fuller than mine; and she was extracting a bit of scrip from it, while
+I bent my near-sighted eyes on the boy’s label. Could it be that I read
+aright? I looked again. No, I was not mistaken. It read, in great,
+staring letters--
+
+  I HAVE LOST MY HUSBAND IN THE WAR.
+
+In the war! And those blue eyes had not opened, surely, till some time
+after the war was ended! His husband! I was bewildered. I bent my gaze
+on him sternly, and asked, as severely as I could,--
+
+“Young man, can you read?”
+
+Laura was fumbling away at the unanswered door-bell. The boy looked as
+if he wanted to run; but I put my hand on his arm.
+
+“Can you read?” I repeated gravely. I think he shook in his shabby
+boots, for his voice was not quite steady as he answered,--
+
+“Not much.”
+
+“Not much, I should think. Do you know what this thing says that you’ve
+got round your neck?”
+
+“Does it say I’m blind?” he asked, with a little frightened quaver.
+
+“No, it says--but do you know what a husband is?”
+
+“Yes, he comes home drunk, and beats Mag and me awful.”
+
+“Did you ever know a boy of your age to have a husband?”
+
+The blue eyes grew so wide open that I wondered if they could ever
+shut themselves up again; and Laura, who had turned round at my
+question, looked as if she thought I had suddenly gone mad. The little
+dressmaker had opened the door, and stood there waiting meekly, with
+the handle in her hand. But my spirit was up, and I did not care for
+either of them. I asked again, very impressively, as I thought, with a
+pause after each word,--
+
+“Did--you--ever--know--a--boy--of--your--age--to--have--a--husband?”
+
+“No, marm,” he gasped, “husbands belongs to women.”
+
+“Then what do you wear this thing for? It says that you have lost your
+husband in the war.”
+
+The imp actually turned pale, and I almost pitied him.
+
+“Will they put me in prison?” he asked, an abject little whine coming
+into his voice. “_Will_ they?”
+
+“Did you steal it?”
+
+“I didn’t to say steal it--I just _took_ it. I’d seen the rest put them
+on when they went out begging, and this was old Meg’s. She wasn’t
+going out to-day, and I thought no harm to borrow.”
+
+“Then you can’t read?”
+
+“Well, not to say read, marm. I think I could make out a word now and
+then.”
+
+“Do you want to?”
+
+The face brightened a moment, and, with the curving lips and eager
+eyes, was really that of a pretty boy.
+
+“Oh, if I could!” half sighed the quivering lips; and then the smile
+went out, and left blank despair behind it. “It’s no use, marm; she
+won’t let me.”
+
+“Who won’t? Your mother?”
+
+“No, Mag’s mother--old Meg. My mother’s dead, and I never had any
+father that ever I heard of; and since mother died old Meg does for
+me; and every day she sends me out to beg; and if I don’t get much she
+whips Mag.”
+
+I was growing strangely interested.
+
+“Whips _Mag_, because _you_ don’t get much?” I said doubtfully. “What
+for?”
+
+“I guess there’s a hard place on _me_, marm. She found that it didn’t
+seem to hurt much, when she whipped _me_; and so one night Mag was
+teasing her to stop, and she turned to and whipped Mag, and that made
+me cry awful; and ever since, if I don’t get enough money, she whips
+Mag.”
+
+“Are you sure you are telling me the truth?”
+
+I don’t know why I asked the question, for I saw honesty in those clear
+eyes of his. He looked hurt. Yes, you may laugh if you want to, I’m
+telling you just as it was--the boy looked as hurt as any of you would
+if I doubted you. There came a sort of proud shame into his manner. He
+clutched at the placard round his neck, as if he would tear it off, and
+answered, sadly,--
+
+“I s’pose I can’t expect anybody to believe me with this round my neck;
+but, if you would go home with me, Mag could tell you, and you would
+believe _her_.”
+
+By this time Laura had gone in, leaving me to finish my interview
+alone. I reflected a moment. The other day I had heard Tom say
+he wanted an errand boy. Why should he not have this one? Tom was
+my brother. I knew just the difficulties he would make,--want of
+reference, a street beggar, a regular rat of the gutter. I could
+fancy just how he would talk. I knew, too, that I could overrule his
+objections. That’s a power women have when a man loves them; whether
+he be husband or brother or friend. I hated the thought of vice and
+ignorance and poverty. What if I could save just one small boy from
+their clutches? I said resolutely,--
+
+“Will you go home with me, and have a comfortable home and good food
+and honest work, and no one ever to beat you, and learn to read?”
+
+I had seen no assent in his eyes till I came to this last clause of my
+sentence. Then he asked shrewdly,--
+
+“Who’ll teach me? I can’t go to school and do my work, too.”
+
+“I will teach you. Will you go and work faithfully for my brother, and
+learn to read?”
+
+“Won’t I, just?”
+
+“Well, then, let me speak to the lady who went in, and I’ll take you
+home at once.”
+
+He shuffled uneasily.
+
+“If you please, marm, I can’t go till I’ve been back to Meg’s, and
+carried her this board.”
+
+“But I’ll get a policeman to send a messenger with that. If you go,
+perhaps she won’t let you come to me.”
+
+“Yes, marm, I shall come. But you wouldn’t believe me, sure, if I could
+steal away, like, and never say good-by to Mag, and let her cry both
+her eyes out thinking I’d been shut up, or somebody had killed me.”
+And his own great blue eyes grew pathetic again over this picture of
+sorrowful possibilities.
+
+“Well, you may go,” I said, half reluctantly, for the little vagabond
+had inspired in me a singular interest. “You may go, and be sure you
+come to-night or in the morning, to 70 Deerham Street, and ask for Miss
+May.”
+
+He looked at me with a grave, resolved look.
+
+“I shall come,” he said; and in an instant he was gone.
+
+That night, after dinner, I told Tom. He was mocking, incredulous,
+reluctant--just as I knew he would be. But it all ended in his
+promising to try “My Vagrant,” if he ever came.
+
+Just as I had brought him to this pass, the bell rang, and I sprang to
+the dining-room door. The dining-room was the front basement, and the
+outside door was so near that I opened it myself. It was, indeed, my
+vagrant.
+
+“I want Miss May,” he said, with the air which such a _gamin_ puts on
+when he speaks to a servant,--an air which instantly subdued itself
+into propriety when he heard my voice.
+
+I took him in to Tom; and I saw the blue eyes softened even the
+prejudiced mind and worldly heart of Mr. Thomas May. He spoke very
+kindly to the boy, and then sent him into the kitchen for his supper.
+
+“Where do you propose to keep this new acquisition?” he asked me, after
+the blue-eyed was out of sight.
+
+“In this house, if you please. There is a little single bed all ready
+for him in the attic, and I’ve arranged with cook to give him a bath
+and then put him into some of the clothes her own boy left behind him
+when he went away to sea. I mean to rescue this one soul from a starved
+and miserable and wicked life, and I’m willing to take some pains; and
+if you aren’t willing to do your part I’m ashamed of you.”
+
+Tom laughed, and called me his “fierce little woman,” his “angry
+turtle-dove,” and half-a-dozen other names which he never gave me
+except when he was in good humor, so I knew it was all right.
+
+Before three days were over Tom owned that my vagrant, as he persisted
+in calling the boy (though we knew now that his name was Johnny True),
+was the best errand boy he had ever employed. I myself taught him to
+read, as I had promised, and brighter scholar never teacher had. In
+four months he had progressed so fast that he could read almost any
+thing. There had been a sort of feverish eagerness in his desire to
+learn for which I was at a loss to account. Sometimes, coming home
+from some party or opera, I would find him studying in the kitchen at
+midnight.
+
+We grew fond of him, all of us. Cook said he was no trouble, and he
+made it seem as if she had her own boy back again. He waited on Tom
+with a sort of dog-like faithfulness; and, as for me, I believe that he
+would have cut his hand off for me at any time.
+
+Yet one morning he got up and deliberately walked out of the house.
+When his breakfast was ready cook called for him in vain, and in vain
+she searched for him from attic to cellar. But before it was time
+for Tom to go to business another boy came, a little older than my
+vagrant,--a nice, respectable-looking boy,--and asked for Mr. May. He
+came into the dining-room and stood there, cap in hand.
+
+“If you please, sir,” he said bashfully, “Johnny True wants to know if
+you’ll be so good as to take me on in his place, considering that he
+isn’t coming back any more, and I have done errands before, and got
+good reference.”
+
+He had made his little speech in breathless haste, running all his
+sentences together into one.
+
+Tom looked at him deliberately, and lit a cigar.
+
+“Johnny isn’t coming back, hey?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Where is Johnny gone?”
+
+“He didn’t tell me, if you please, but he said he should be hurt to
+death if it troubled you to lose him, and he knew I could do as well as
+he could.”
+
+I saw a refusal in Tom’s eyes, so I made haste to forestall it.
+
+“Do take him,” I said in a low tone to Tom, and then I said to the boy
+that just now he had better go to the store, and Mr. May would see him
+presently, when he came to business.
+
+Tom laughed, a half-amused, half-provoked laugh, when he went out, and
+said,--
+
+“Well, my dear, I don’t think your vagrant has proved to be such a
+success that you need expect me to let him choose my next errand boy.”
+
+“I think, at least, that if he has sent you one as good as himself you
+will have no fault to find,” I said hotly. But all the time there was
+a sore place in my own heart, for I had thought that my vagrant would
+have loved me too well to run away from me in this way.
+
+That night Tom said that the new errand boy was doing well, and he
+had concluded to keep him on. I think Tom missed my vagrant; but not,
+of course, so much as I missed my bright scholar--my grateful little
+follower.
+
+Of course, the new boy lived in his own home, wherever that might be. I
+did not concern myself about him, or feel any disposition to put him in
+the little bed in the front attic.
+
+Two or three weeks passed and we heard no word from Johnny True. But at
+last a rainy day came, and with it Johnny, asking for Miss May.
+
+“I guess he’s repented,” cook said, coming upstairs to tell me. I went
+down to Johnny, resolved to be equal to the occasion--to meet him with
+all the severity his ungrateful behavior deserved. But, somehow, the
+wistful look in his blue eyes disarmed me. He was a little thin and
+pale, too; and my heart began to soften even before he spoke.
+
+“I couldn’t stay away, ma’am,” he said, with the clear accent he had
+caught so quickly from my brief teaching, “and not let you know why I
+went.”
+
+“To let me know _when_ you went would have been more to the purpose,” I
+answered, with what sternness I could command. “I had thought better of
+you, Johnny, than that you were capable of running away.”
+
+“But you see, ma’am, I was afraid you would not let me go if I told
+you.”
+
+“And why did you want to go? Were you not comfortable?”
+
+“Yes, ma’am--that was the worst of it.”
+
+“Why the worst of it? Have you any especial objection to be
+comfortable?”
+
+Suddenly the blue eyes filled with tears, like a girl’s; and there was
+a pitiful sob in the voice which answered me.
+
+“Oh, it hurt me so, when I was warm, and had a good supper, and
+everybody’s kind word, to think of poor Mag there at home, cold and
+hungry, and with old Meg beating her. I never should have come and left
+her but for the learning to read. _She_ wanted me to come for that.”
+
+“So you could read to her?”
+
+“So I could _teach_ her, ma’am. You never in all your life saw anybody
+so hungry to learn to read as Mag; and when I went home that first day
+and told her all you said, and told her that after all I couldn’t go
+and leave her there to take all the hard fare and hard words, she just
+began to cry, and to tease me to go and learn to read, so I could teach
+her, until I couldn’t stand it any longer, and I came.”
+
+“And how did she know she would ever see you again?” I asked. “It would
+have been most natural, having learned what comfort was, to stay on
+here and enjoy it.”
+
+“Mag _knew me_, ma’am,” said my vagrant, as proudly as a prince could
+speak if his honor were called in question. “Mag knew what I was, and
+I learned as fast as I could to get back to her--don’t you think so,
+ma’am?”
+
+“You learned faster than any one else could; I know that,” I answered.
+“But, Johnny, how could you bear to go back to begging again?”
+
+“I couldn’t bear it, ma’am, and I didn’t. I had money enough, that
+Mr. Tom had given me, to buy myself a stock of papers. I’m a newsboy
+now, and I teach Mag to read out of the papers I have left. And old Meg
+knows better now than to beat Mag, and we are so much happier. It’s all
+owing to you; and I came back to thank you,--but I never could forsake
+Mag for long. I must stay with my own.”
+
+“But they are not your own.”
+
+“Mag is, ma’am.”
+
+He was as resolute to ally himself, for that girl’s sake, with poverty,
+and, if need were, shame, as ever was a hero to live or die for the
+land of his birth; and out in the rain, down the desolate street, I
+watched my vagrant go away from me for ever. But I did not pity him. No
+soul is to be pitied which has reached life’s crowning good,--the power
+to love another better than itself. Nor do I know any curled darling of
+fortune who seems to me happier than was my vagrant.
+
+
+
+
+HELEN’S TEMPTATION.
+
+
+The sun was almost setting, but its low light came in at the western
+windows, and lit up a pale face lying upon the pillows, till it seemed
+to the watchers beside the bed as if some glory from heaven had already
+touched the brow of the dying. These watchers were only two,--a girl of
+fourteen, rather tall of her age, with gray eyes that were almost green
+sometimes, and dark hair, short like a boy’s, and curling all over her
+head; and a middle-aged woman, who had tended this girl when a baby,
+and was half friend, half servant, to the dying mother.
+
+Mrs. Ash had been lying all the day, almost in silence. Her husband had
+brought her, a year before, to California, because she was stricken
+with consumption, and he hoped the change from the harsh east winds of
+New England to the balmy airs of the Pacific coast might restore her
+to health.
+
+For a time the result had seemed to fulfil his hope; but, very
+suddenly, he himself had been taken ill and died; and then the
+half-baffled disease seized again on the mourning wife, who had now no
+strength to repel its onset.
+
+I think she would fain have lived--even then, when all the joy seemed
+gone from her life--for her daughter Helen’s sake; but she was too weak
+to struggle, and so she lay there dying, quite aware of what was before
+her.
+
+All day she had seemed to be thinking, thinking, and waiting till she
+had settled something in her own mind before she spoke. At last, with
+the sunset light upon her face, she beckoned to the woman, who bent
+nearer.
+
+“As soon as all is over, Woods,” she said, as tranquilly as if she
+were speaking of the most ordinary household arrangement, “you will
+take Helen to my sister’s in Boston. You must make the journey by easy
+stages, so as not to tire her too much. Fortunately she will not be
+dependent. She has money enough, and she needs only care and love,
+which my sister will give her, I know well.
+
+“I shall be glad if you can stay with her; but that must of course be
+as Mrs. Mason will arrange. You will find when my affairs are settled
+that you have been remembered. You will lay me by my husband’s side,
+and then take Helen away.
+
+“All is arranged so that there can be no trouble, and now, if you
+please, leave me a little while with my daughter.”
+
+The woman went out of the room, and then Mrs. Ash opened her arms, and
+Helen crept into them and lay there silently, as if she were a baby
+again whom her mother comforted.
+
+She was a strange compound, this Helen Ash, of impulsiveness and
+self-control. She had an intense nature, and her temptations would grow
+chiefly out of her tendency to concentrate all her heart on a single
+object,--to seek whatever thing she wished for with an insistence which
+would not be denied.
+
+This quality has its great advantages certainly, but it has its extreme
+dangers.
+
+Helen had no brothers or sisters or special friends. She had loved only
+her father and mother, but she had loved them with an almost excessive
+devotion.
+
+When her father died she had borne up bravely, that she might comfort
+and help her mother, and now she was bearing up still, that she might
+not sadden that parting soul with the anguish of her own.
+
+As she lay there in her mother’s arms, her eyes were wide open and
+tearless, but they were full of a desperate gloom sadder than tears.
+She was almost as pale herself as was her mother.
+
+“Darling,” the mother said tenderly, “how can I bear to leave you all
+alone? Promise me one thing only, to open your heart to new love. It
+would be so like you to shut yourself up in your grief, and to fancy
+you were loving me less if you let yourself care for your Aunt Helen.
+
+“She will love you for my sake, and she must be your second mother now.
+We were dearer than most sisters to each other, and she is a wise and
+good woman.
+
+“Her daughter, my namesake Laura, is just about your own age, and being
+her mother’s daughter, she must be worth loving. Try to care for them,
+my darling. The life which has no love in it is empty indeed. Will you
+try?”
+
+“O mamma,” the girl cried, with a sudden, desperate sob, “I _will_ try
+because you bid me! I _will_ try; but oh, how _can_ I love them? How
+_can_ I bear to see another girl happy with her mother, and to know
+that you will never be with me any more--never in all the world? If I
+call all day and all night, you will never hear nor answer! O my own
+mother, _must_ you leave me?”
+
+“My darling, yes. I would have lived for your sake if I could. You have
+been my comfort always. Comfort me a little longer. Let me feel that in
+all the future you will try to live nobly for my sake.”
+
+The last words had been spoken with an evident effort, and it seemed to
+Helen that the cheek against which her own rested was already colder
+than it was half an hour ago.
+
+She clung closer to the poor wasted form that was her whole world of
+love, and closed her lips over the bitter cry that was rising to them;
+and so the two lay, very, very quietly in that last embrace they were
+ever to know.
+
+And the twilight gathered round them, and at last a young moon, hanging
+low in the western sky, looked in and touched with its pale glory the
+pale faces on the pillow.
+
+The mother stirred a little, and with a last effort clasped her child
+closer, and said, in a voice like a sigh, faint and sweet and strange,
+“Good-by, darling!” and then she seemed to sleep.
+
+Perhaps Helen slept, also. She never quite knew; but it was an hour
+afterwards when Woods touched her shoulder, and said, with a kind
+firmness in her tone,--
+
+“You _must_ get up now, Miss Helen, and leave her to me. She went off
+just as quiet as a lamb, poor dear, and if ever a face was peaceful and
+happy, hers is now.”
+
+No one knew what the few days that followed were to Helen Ash. She shut
+her lips, as her manner was, over her grief. She turned away, with her
+great tearless eyes, from the two graves where her father and mother
+lay side by side, and she helped, with a strange unnatural calmness, in
+all the preparations for the long journey she was to take.
+
+When at last she reached her aunt’s home in Boston, this strained,
+unnatural composure gave way a little.
+
+Her Aunt Helen looked so much like her mother that at first she thought
+she could _not_ bear it. Then, when her aunt’s arms closed round her
+almost as tenderly as her mother’s would have done, she shivered
+a little, and burst into one wild passion of tears, which almost
+instantly she checked.
+
+“I am to love you for _her_ sake,” she said. “Those were almost her
+last words; and indeed, indeed, I will try, but I think I left my heart
+all those miles away in her grave.”
+
+Mrs. Mason was, as her sister had said, a wise and good woman,--wise
+enough not to attempt to force the love or the interest of her niece.
+She contented herself with being exquisitely gentle and considerate
+towards her, and with trying, in countless little ways, to make her
+feel that she was at home.
+
+Laura Mason had looked forward to Helen’s coming with a feeling that at
+last she was to find in her the sister she had longed for all her life,
+but Helen’s cold and self-contained manner disappointed her. She felt
+the atmosphere of Helen’s reserve almost as tangibly as if her orphan
+cousin had pushed her away.
+
+The summer months passed, and scarcely brought them any nearer
+together. Try as Helen might, she could not get over the sting of pain
+when she saw this other girl happy in her mother’s love, or running
+gayly to meet her father when he came home at night. _They_ had each
+other, she used to say to herself, but _she_ had only her dead. She had
+not even Woods to speak to, for Mrs. Mason had decided not to retain
+her; and since there was no one to whom Helen ever spoke of the past,
+she pondered it all the more in her heart.
+
+Things were a little better when school commenced in the autumn. Helen
+and Laura were in the same classes, and that brought them somewhat
+more together; still there was no real intimacy between them.
+
+In the spring there was to be a competitive examination, and a medal
+was to be bestowed on the leading scholar in the class. By midwinter
+it was quite evident that Helen and Laura led all the rest, and a real
+spirit of rivalry grew up between the cousins which bade fair to become
+a passion.
+
+Mrs. Mason looked on regretfully, adhering to her difficult policy of
+non-interference. One day Helen heard Laura say to her mother,--
+
+“Mamsie, dear, you know you have the key to that French method locked
+up in your desk, for you taught us from it last summer. Won’t you be a
+dear, and lend it to me for a little while?
+
+“If I only could have that to help me, I should be sure of success.
+I would study just as hard. It would only be the difference between
+knowing when one was right, and floundering on in an awful uncertainty.”
+
+Helen was behind the curtain of the library window, and evidently they
+did not know of her presence. She waited for her aunt’s answer. If
+Laura had the key, then, indeed, she would be sure of success.
+
+Mrs. Mason spoke in a sad voice, with a subtile little thrill of
+reproach in it.
+
+“I did not think you would so much as wish, my dear, to do any thing
+that was not quite open and straightforward. You know Mademoiselle does
+not expect you to see the key. The very test of your power is that you
+should work without its aid, and the examination will prove how far you
+have succeeded.”
+
+“I suppose there’s no use in coaxing, when you say that. I do wish you
+weren’t such an uncoaxable mamma.”
+
+“No, you don’t,--you only fancy that you wish it; but, in your inmost
+soul, you would rather have me as I am,” Mrs. Mason answered; and Helen
+heard the sound of a kiss, and felt, for the thousandth time, how
+bitter it was that this other girl should have home and mother, while
+she had only a far-off grave.
+
+But, at least, she would triumph in this school contest! If Laura came
+off best there, it would be more than she _could_ bear.
+
+The weeks passed on, and the spring came. The deep old garden back
+of the house--the garden Helen’s mother had played in when she was a
+child--grew full of bird-songs and blossoms.
+
+There was a sweet laughter on the face of nature. The springs bubbled
+with it; the flowers opened to the light; the sunshine poured down its
+tender warmth, and the soft coo and call of the birds gave voice to the
+general joy.
+
+But both Laura and Helen were too eager and too tired to be gay. They
+only studied. They went to sleep with books under their pillows; they
+woke with the first light, and began to study again.
+
+It was the very week of the examination, at last. Helen felt satisfied
+with herself in all but her French. If _she_ could only have that key
+for one little half-hour, she knew she would have no weak spot in her
+armor.
+
+She brooded over the idea until the temptation possessed her like an
+evil fate. In her passionate girl’s heart she said to herself that she
+wanted to _die_ if Laura triumphed over her at school. Laura had every
+thing else; why _should_ she have that, also?
+
+She had said at first, “If only it were _right_ to have the key!” Then
+she said, “if only she could _chance_ on the key, somehow!” Then, “if
+only she could get at her aunt’s desk and _find_ the key!” At last it
+was,--
+
+“I _will_ get at the key, somehow!”
+
+This last was the very morning before the examination. She rose from
+her bed in the dainty blue-hung room her aunt had taken such pains to
+make pretty for her, and went softly downstairs, in the young spring
+morning.
+
+Her bare feet made no sound on the thick stair-carpet. She looked like
+a little white-clad ghost that had forgotten to flee away at the first
+cock-crowing, as an orthodox ghost ought; but no ghost ever had such
+glowing cheeks, crimson with excitement, such great wide-opened gray
+eyes with green depths in them.
+
+She held in her hand a large bunch of keys belonging to her mother. It
+was just a chance whether one of them would fit her aunt’s desk.
+
+She fairly trembled with excitement. She had lost all thought of the
+wrong she was doing--of the shame and meanness of this act, which must
+be done in silence and mystery; she thought only of the triumph which
+success would mean.
+
+She stood before the desk, and tried key after key with her shaking
+fingers.
+
+At last one fitted. In a moment more the key to the French method was
+in her hand.
+
+In desperate haste she compared her own work with it, and made
+corrections here and there.
+
+She was so absorbed that she quite failed to see another white-clad
+figure which had followed her noiselessly down the stairs, and stood in
+the doorway long enough to see what she was doing, and then went away.
+
+Hurriedly Helen went through her evil task, and then stole back to bed,
+with her glittering eyes and burning cheeks.
+
+Meantime Laura had gone, full of excitement, to her mother. Mr. Mason
+was away on business, and Laura crept into the empty half of her
+mother’s great bed.
+
+“Mamsie,” she said, “wake up quickly, and listen.”
+
+Patient Mrs. Mason rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, and turned over.
+Then followed Laura’s breathless story.
+
+“Of course she’ll win, now,” Laura said, in conclusion, “unless I tell
+Mademoiselle what she has done; and I suppose you wouldn’t like that,
+would you, mamsie?
+
+“But it was her French that was the shakiest of any thing. Oh, _did_
+you ever see any thing quite so mean? Think of getting into your desk
+with her keys, and then slying off all those corrections!”
+
+“Yes, I _do_ think,” Mrs. Mason answered, with almost a groan.
+
+“And she is Laura’s child--my poor Laura, who was honor and honesty
+itself!
+
+“You don’t know, dear, what a bitter thing this is to me. Poor Laura!
+what if she knows?”
+
+“But what shall we do, mamsie, dear? Are we just to keep still, and let
+her win the medal, and let every one think she has beaten fairly, or
+will you tell her what we know?”
+
+“Will you go away now,” Mrs. Mason said, “and come back again before
+breakfast? I don’t want to say any thing until I am quite sure what it
+is best to do.”
+
+When Laura came again, Mrs. Mason had settled upon her course of
+action, or rather of inaction.
+
+“Don’t be vexed, girlie,” she said to Laura; “I know it will seem hard
+to you to be beaten unfairly; but there are things of more consequence
+even than that. The thing that seems to me most important, just now,
+is to know what Helen’s character really is. If she is not utterly
+unworthy of her mother, she will repent before the thing comes to an
+end. If she does not, it will be time enough to think what to do next.”
+
+“And I must let her beat unfairly, and never say one word?” Laura
+asked, with a little strain of rebellion in her voice.
+
+“Yes, if you are the obedient and generous Laura I like to believe
+you.”
+
+“Mamsie, you have a flattering tongue, and you always get your way.”
+
+“And who is pretty sure always to admit, in the end, that it was the
+best way?” asked Mrs. Mason, laughing.
+
+“Mamsie, you are getting spoiled. See if I say yours was the best way
+this time!”
+
+French came on the first of the two examination-days. Laura and Helen
+led their class. Laura did very well, but Helen acquitted herself
+triumphantly, and sat down amid a little buzz of congratulations and
+praises.
+
+But somehow the triumph left a bitter taste in her mouth. She did not
+look at Laura, and even if she had she would not have understood the
+scorn on Laura’s face, since she was quite unaware that her raid on her
+aunt’s desk had been observed.
+
+Still she was not happy. She needed no scorn from outside, she had
+already begun to feel such bitterness of self-contempt scorching her
+soul. It seemed to her that up to this moment she had been as one under
+an evil spell.
+
+She had thought of no single thing except her triumph over her
+cousin--quite careless as to the means to this hotly desired end. Now
+she began to realize how base those means had been, and to long to
+exchange her success for any direst possible failure.
+
+Mrs. Mason was watching her, and when they started to go home, she
+found an instant in which to whisper to Laura,--
+
+“Be gentle to her, girlie; she will suffer enough to-night.”
+
+At supper Helen’s place was vacant. She sent word that her head ached
+too much to come.
+
+Her aunt despatched to her room tea and strawberries and
+bread-and-butter enough for the hungriest of girls, and then left her
+to herself.
+
+The poor, lonesome, miserable girl lay upon her bed and thought. It was
+not quite a year since she had lain in her mother’s arms and heard her
+say,--
+
+“Try to live nobly for my sake.”
+
+Those had been almost her mother’s last words; after them there was
+only the low sigh, faint as if it came already from far-off worlds,--
+
+“Good-by, darling.”
+
+The low sun-rays stole in softly, and touched her sad, pale face, and
+then went away; and after a while some cold, far-off stars looked down
+into the window, and saw the girl lying there still, fighting her
+battle with herself.
+
+One thing her conscience told her,--that she must undo this wrong, at
+whatever cost of shame.
+
+Once she started up, half-resolved to go to her aunt and tell her the
+whole story, and seek her help and counsel. But she lay down again,
+without the courage to confess her shame.
+
+Through the long night she scarcely slept; but before morning she
+had resolved what to do. In public she had taken the wages of her
+sin; in public she would make atonement, and eat the bitter bread of
+humiliation.
+
+When she had once settled on her course of action, sleep touched her
+weary eyes, and soothed her into a forgetfulness from which only the
+breakfast-bell awoke her.
+
+That day every one noticed a singular calmness and resolve in her
+manner. She passed the remaining examinations with thorough success,
+yet with an evident lack of interest in their result which all save her
+aunt were at a loss to understand.
+
+At last the time came for the awarding of the medal. There was a little
+consultation among the examining committee, and then their chairman
+rose, with the medal in his hand.
+
+“To Miss Helen Ash,” he began; but before he could proceed farther,
+Miss Helen Ash herself interrupted him.
+
+Her face was as white as the dress she wore, and her eyes glittered
+with some strange fire of resolve or courage; but her voice was
+absolutely without a quiver of emotion in it, as steady and even as if
+she were beyond hope or fear.
+
+“The medal does not belong to me,” she said. “My success was a
+false success. I dishonestly found the key to the French method,
+and corrected my mistakes by it, or I should have failed. The prize
+belongs, of right, to my cousin, Laura Mason.”
+
+The chairman was a fussy little man, and was thoroughly discomposed
+by this interruption. He had had his little speech all ready, but it
+began with the name of Helen Ash, and he found it difficult to change
+it at a moment’s notice.
+
+“Bless my heart!” he said quite unconsciously, and looking helplessly
+around him, he repeated, “_Bless_ my heart!”
+
+“Miss Laura Mason,” suggested one of his brethren on the committee; and
+thus reinforced, he began again,--
+
+“Miss Laura Mason, I am very sorry--I mean I am very glad, to bestow on
+you this medal, which you have fairly earned by your success.”
+
+And then he sat down, and his confusion was covered by a gentle little
+clapping of hands.
+
+That night Mrs. Mason went to Helen in her own room, when the twilight
+shadows were falling, and as she entered the door she said, “My
+darling,” in a voice so like Helen’s mother’s that the girl’s very
+heart sprang to meet it.
+
+“My darling, I know now that you are true enough and brave enough to be
+my sister’s child.”
+
+But Helen shrank back into the darkness, and this time the voice was
+broken with tears which faltered,--
+
+“Is there any one who could know what I have done, and yet not despise
+me?”
+
+“There is no one, dear, who dares to scorn the soul that repents and
+atones.”
+
+And then loving arms held the poor lonesome girl close, and she knew
+that she was no longer alone. She had found a new home--the home her
+mother bade her seek--in the heart of that mother’s sister.
+
+
+
+
+THE SURGEON OF THE DOLLS’ HOSPITAL.
+
+
+It was nearly four years ago that I first noticed, in one of the quiet
+side-streets in the West Central district of London, a sign over a door
+on which I read:--
+
+DOLLS’ HOSPITAL.
+
+Operations from 9 A.M., to 4 P.M.
+
+Whenever I passed through the street--and that was often, for it was a
+short cut to Mudie’s,--the largest circulating library in the world,--I
+used to notice this quaint sign, and wonder, laughingly, who was the
+superintending physician to this place of healing for the numerous race
+of dolls.
+
+I often thought I would go in and see the establishment; but one is
+always busy in London, so, very likely, I should never have entered its
+door but for a casualty at my own fireside.
+
+When I went downstairs one morning, I heard a sound of weeping, as
+bitter as that of Rachel of old mourning for her children. The mourner
+in this case was Mistress Brown-Eyes, as I was wont to call my friend’s
+little girl.
+
+She was a pretty child, this little Milicent; but you forgot to think
+about the rest of her face when you saw her wonderful eyes--soft and
+clear, yet bright, and of the warmest, deepest, yet softest brown.
+She had made her home in my heart, and so her grief, whatever it was,
+appealed at once to my sympathies.
+
+“My darling,” I said, as I tried to draw away the little hands from
+before the sorrowful face, “what can be the matter?”
+
+“Bella is dead!” and the sobs recommenced with fresh violence.
+
+Bella was the best-beloved of a somewhat large family of dolls,--a
+pretty Parian creature, with blue eyes and fair hair. I had myself
+lately assisted in making a trunk of clothes for Bella; and I grudged
+sorely all my wasted labor, if she had come to an untimely end.
+
+I looked at the dear remains, stretched out sadly upon a chair. Bella
+was evidently very dead indeed. Her pretty neck was broken, her fair,
+foolish head lay quite severed from her silken-clad body. Suddenly
+there flashed into my mind the thought of the dolls’ hospital. I spoke
+cheerfully.
+
+“Brown-Eyes,” I said, “I think that Bella may recover. I am pretty sure
+that her collar-bone is broken; but I have heard of people who got well
+after breaking their collar-bones.”
+
+The child looked up, her eyes shining through tears, and said, with
+that air of grave, old-fashioned propriety which was one of the most
+amusing things about her,--
+
+“It is a very serious accident. Do you think Bella _could_ recover?”
+
+“I hope she may; and I shall at once take her to the hospital.”
+
+“The hospital!” cried Mistress Brown-Eyes; “but that is where Mary Ann
+went when she had a fever. She was gone six weeks. Will my Bella be
+gone six weeks?”
+
+“I think not so long as one week, if she can be cured at all.”
+
+In five minutes more I was in the street, with Bella in a basket on my
+arm. Her little mother had covered her carefully from the cold, though
+it was already May; and I felt as if I were in a position of grave
+responsibility as I hurried to the dolls’ hospital.
+
+A bell rang when I opened the door, and the oddest little person stood
+before me. At first I thought it was a child masquerading in long
+clothes; for she was not more than half the height of an ordinary woman.
+
+But, looking more closely, I saw the maturity of her face, and realized
+that I stood in the presence of a grown-up dwarf, who might really have
+been taken for Dickens’s Miss Mowcher, herself.
+
+She was dressed in a long, straight gown of rusty-looking black alpaca,
+and her rusty-looking black hair was drawn straightly back from as
+plain a face as one often sees. It was a kind, honest face, however,
+and I liked the voice in which she asked how she could serve me. I
+explained my errand.
+
+“Please to let me see the patient.”
+
+She spoke with as much gravity as if she had been the superintending
+physician of the largest hospital in London. I unveiled poor Bella, and
+the dwarf lifted her from the basket with grave tenderness.
+
+“Poor little beauty!” she said. “Yes’m, I think I can cure her.”
+
+“Will the operation take long?” I asked, humoring her fancy.
+
+“I should prefer that the patient should not be moved, ma’am, before
+to-morrow.”
+
+“Very well; then I will leave her.”
+
+Just at that moment I heard a voice call, “Sally! Sally!”
+
+It was a well-trained, ladylike voice, but somewhat imperious.
+
+“Yes, Lady Jane, I’ll be there in a moment,” answered the dwarf, whom
+I now knew to be Sally. Then a door opened, and the most beautiful
+creature I ever saw stood in it, looking in.
+
+The hospital was a bare enough place. There was a great table covered
+with dolls,--dolls with broken legs, dolls with punched heads, dolls
+with one arm gone, hairless dolls, broken-backed dolls, dolls of every
+kind, awaiting the ministrations of Sally; and dozens of other dolls
+were there, too, whom those skilful fingers had already cured of their
+wounds.
+
+There was a shelf, on which was ranged the pharmacy of this
+hospital,--white cement, boxes of saw-dust, collections of legs and
+arms, wigs, every thing, in short, that an afflicted doll could
+possibly require. Then there were two or three wooden stools, and these
+completed the furniture of the apartment.
+
+Standing in the doorway, Lady Jane looked as if she were a larger doll
+than the rest,--a doll with a soul. She seemed a lady’s child, every
+pretty inch of her. I should think she was about twelve years old. She
+wore a blue dress, and a blue ribbon in the bright, fair hair that hung
+all about her soft, pink-and-white face, out of which looked two great,
+serious, inquiring blue eyes.
+
+“I will be through soon, Lady Jane,” Sally said quietly; and the girl
+turned away, but not before I had taken in a complete picture of her
+loveliness, and had noticed also a somewhat singular ornament she wore,
+attached to a slender golden chain. It was so strange a vision to see
+in this humble little shop that my curiosity got the better of me, and,
+after the door had closed on Lady Jane, I asked, “Does she live here?”
+
+“Yes’m,” answered Sally proudly. “In a way, she is my child.”
+
+I hesitated to inquire further; but I think my eyes must have asked
+some questions in spite of myself; for Sally said, after a moment,--
+
+“You seem interested, ma’am, and I don’t mind telling you about her.
+I saw Lady Jane first some eight years ago. A man had her who used to
+go round with a hand-organ. She was such a pretty little creature that
+everybody gave her money, and she was a great profit to Jacopo, for
+that was his name.
+
+“It used to make my heart ache to see the little beauty trudging round
+all day on her patient feet. When Jacopo spoke to her, I’ve seen her
+turn pale; and she never used to smile except when she was holding out
+her bit of a hat to people for money. She _had_ to smile then; it was
+part of the business.
+
+“I was sixteen, and I was all alone in the world. I had a room to
+myself, and I worked days in a toy-shop. I used to dress the dolls,
+and I got very clever at mending them; but I hadn’t thought of the
+hospital, then.
+
+“I lived in the same street with Jacopo, and I grew very fond of the
+little lady, as the people in the street used to call Jane. Sometimes I
+coaxed Jacopo to let her stay with me at night; but after three or four
+times, he would not let her come again. I suppose he thought she would
+get too fond of me.
+
+“Things went on that way for two years; then one night, in the middle
+of the night, a boy came for me, and said Jacopo was dying and wanted
+me to come. I knew it was something about Jane, and I hurried on my
+clothes and went.
+
+“The child was asleep in one corner. She had been tramping all that
+day, as usual, and she was too tired out for the noise in the room to
+wake her. Jacopo looked very ill, and he could hardly summon strength
+to speak to me.
+
+“‘The end has come sudden, Sally,’ he said, ‘the end to a bad life. But
+I ain’t bad enough to want harm to happen to the little one when I am
+gone. There will be plenty of folks after her, for she’s a profitable
+little one to have; but if you want her, I’ll give her to you. You may
+take her away to-night, if you will.’
+
+“‘Indeed I will,’ I cried, ‘and thank you. While I can work, she shall
+never want.’
+
+“Jacopo had been fumbling under his pillow as he spoke; and when I said
+I would take the child he handed me a curious locket. Maybe you noticed
+it at her neck when she stood in the door?
+
+“He said, as nearly as I could understand, for it was getting hard work
+for him to speak, that he had stolen the child, but he had always kept
+this thing, which she had on her neck when he took her, and perhaps it
+would help, some day, to find her people.
+
+“So I took her home. The next morning I heard that Jacopo was dead,
+and the Lady Jane has been mine ever since.”
+
+“Have you always called her Lady Jane?” I asked.
+
+“Yes’m. There is a coronet on that locket she wears; and I know she
+must be some great person’s daughter, she is so beautiful, and seems so
+much like a real lady.”
+
+“And so you’ve struggled on and worked for her, and taken care of her
+for six years, now?”
+
+“Yes’m, and I’ve thanked God every day that I’ve had her to take care
+of. You see, ma’am, I’m not like other people; and it was a good
+fortune I couldn’t look for to have a beautiful child like that given
+into my arms, as you might say. It was all the difference between being
+alone and with no one to care for, and having a home and an interest in
+life like other women.
+
+“I gave up working in the shop when I took her, for I didn’t like to
+leave her alone. I was a good workwoman, and they let me take work home
+for awhile; then I opened the hospital, and I’ve done very well. Lady
+Jane has been to school, and I don’t think if her true parents met
+her, they would be ashamed of her.”
+
+“Do you ever think,” I said, “that they may meet her some time, and
+then you would lose her for ever?”
+
+“Yes, indeed, I think about that, ma’am; and I make her keep the locket
+in sight all the time, in hopes it might lead to something.”
+
+“In hopes!” I said, surprised. “You don’t want to part with her, do
+you?”
+
+I was sorry, instantly, that I had asked the question, for her poor
+face flushed, and the tears gathered in her eyes.
+
+“O ma’am,” she said, “if I stopped to think about myself, I suppose
+I should rather die than lose her; but I _don’t_ think of any thing
+but her. And how could I want her, a lady born, and beautiful as any
+princess, to live always in a little room back of a dolls’ hospital?
+Would it be right for me to want it?
+
+“No; I think God gave her to make a few of my years bright; and when
+the time comes, she will go away to live her own life, and I shall
+live out mine, remembering that she _was_ here, once; and harking back
+till I can hear the sound of her voice again; or looking till I see her
+bright head shine in the corner where she sits now.”
+
+Just then the bell rang, and other customers came into the hospital,
+and I went away, promising to return for Bella on the morrow.
+
+I walked through the streets with a sense that I had been talking with
+some one nobler than the rest of the world. Another than poor Sally
+might have adopted Lady Jane, perhaps, tended her, loved her; but who
+else would have been noble enough to love her, and yet be ready to lose
+her for ever and live on in darkness quite satisfied if but the little
+queen might come to her own again?
+
+I comforted Mistress Brown-Eyes with a promise of her “child’s”
+recovery, and I went to a kettle-drum or two in the afternoon, and
+dined out at night; but all the time, amidst whatever buzz of talk, I
+was comparing the most generous persons I had ever known with the poor
+dwarfed surgeon of the dolls’ hospital, and finding them all wanting.
+
+I went for Bella about four the next afternoon. I wanted to get to the
+hospital late enough to see something of the little surgeon and her
+beautiful ward. I purchased a bunch of roses on the way, for I meant to
+please Sally by giving them to Lady Jane.
+
+I opened the door, and again, at the ringing of the bell, the quaint
+little figure of the dwarf surgeon started up like Jack-in-the-box.
+
+“Is the patient recovered?” I asked.
+
+“The patient is quite well;” and the surgeon took down pretty Bella,
+and proudly exhibited her. The white cement had done its work so
+perfectly that the slender neck showed no signs of ever having been
+broken.
+
+I paid the surgeon her modest fee, and then I said, “Here are some
+roses I brought for Lady Jane.”
+
+Sally’s plain face beamed with pleasure. “It’s time to stop receiving
+patients for to-day,” she said. “Won’t you walk into the sitting-room
+and give the roses to Lady Jane, yourself?”
+
+I was well pleased to accept the invitation. The sitting-room was as
+cosy as the hospital itself was barren of attraction. I really wondered
+at the taste with which it was arranged. The hangings were blue, and
+two or three low chairs were covered with the same color; and there
+were pretty trifles here and there which made it seem like a lady’s
+room.
+
+[Illustration: My roses were received with a cry of delight.--PAGE 69.]
+
+My roses were received with a cry of delight; and, while Lady Jane
+put them in a delicate glass, Sally made me sit down in the most
+comfortable chair, and then she asked her ward to sing to me.
+
+The girl had a wonderful voice, soft and clear and full.
+
+When she had done singing, Sally said, “I have thought sometimes that,
+if no better fortune comes, Lady Jane can sing herself into good luck.”
+
+“_I_ count on something better than that,” the little lady cried
+carelessly. “When I ‘come to my own,’ like the princesses in all the
+fairy tales, I’ll send you my picture, Sally, and it will make you
+less trouble than I do. It won’t wear out its gowns, nor want all the
+strawberries for supper.”
+
+Sally didn’t answer; but two great tears gathered in her eyes, and
+rolled down her cheeks.
+
+Lady Jane laughed--not unkindly, only childishly--and said, “Never
+mind. Don’t cry yet. You’ll have time enough for that when it all comes
+to pass. And you know you want it to happen; you always say so.”
+
+“Yes, yes, dear, I want it to happen,” Sally said hastily; “I couldn’t
+want to shut you up here for ever, like a flower growing in a dungeon.”
+
+“A pretty, blue-hung dungeon, with nice soft chairs,” Lady Jane said
+pleasantly; and then I got up to go.
+
+Had this beautiful girl any real heart behind her beauty? I wondered.
+If the time ever came when Sally must give her up to some brighter
+fate, would it cost the little lady herself one pang? Could she be
+wholly insensible to all the devotion that had been lavished on her for
+all these years? I could not tell; but she seemed to me too light a
+thing for deep loving.
+
+I carried Bella home to Mistress Brown-Eyes, who received her with
+great joy, and with a certain tender respect, such as we give to those
+who have passed through perils. I stayed in London till “the season”
+was over,--that is to say, till the end of July; and then, with the
+last rose of summer in my buttonhole, I went over to the fair sea coast
+of France.
+
+It was not until the next May that I found myself in London again; and
+going to renew my subscription at Mudie’s, passed the dolls’ hospital.
+I looked up at the quaint sign, and the fancy seized me to go in.
+
+I opened the door, and promptly as ever, the dwarf surgeon of the dolls
+stood before me. It was nearly four o’clock, and the hospital was empty
+of customers. Nothing in it was changed except the face of the surgeon.
+Out of that always plain face a certain cheerful light had faded. It
+looked now like a face accustomed to tears. I said,--
+
+“Do you remember me, Dr. Sally?”
+
+A sort of frozen smile came to the poor trembling lips.
+
+“Oh, yes’m. You’re the lady that brought the rose-buds to Lady Jane.”
+
+“And is she well?” I asked.
+
+“I _think_ so, ma’am. Heaven knows I _hope_ so; but the old days when
+I _knew_ are over. Won’t you come into the sitting-room, please?”
+
+I wanted nothing better for myself, and I felt that it might ease her
+sad heart to break its silence; so I followed her into the familiar
+room. It, at least, was unchanged. The blue hangings were there, and
+the low easy-chairs, and the pretty trifles; and yet, somehow, the room
+seemed cold, for the beauty which had gladdened it last year had gone
+for ever.
+
+“Will you tell me what happened?” I asked; and I know the real sympathy
+I felt must have sounded in my voice.
+
+“It wasn’t long after you were here,” she said, “a lady was driving by,
+and she saw my sign. She sent her footman to the door to see if the
+place was really what that said; and the next day she came in herself
+and brought a whole load of broken toys. She said she wanted these
+things put in order to take into the country, for they were favorite
+playthings of her little girl’s.
+
+“I turned then and looked at the child who had come in with her mother.
+I can never tell you how I felt. It was as though Lady Jane had gone
+back six years. Just what my darling was when she came to me, this
+little girl was now,--the very same blue eyes, and bright, fair hair,
+and the pretty, pink-and-white face.
+
+“Just at that moment, Lady Jane came into the hospital, and when the
+lady saw her, she stood and gazed as if she had seen a ghost. I looked
+at the lady herself, and then I looked at Lady Jane, and then again
+at the little girl; and true as you live, ma’am, I knew it was Lady
+Jane’s mother and sister before ever a word was spoken. I felt my knees
+shaking under me, and I held fast to the counter to keep from falling.
+I couldn’t have spoken first, if my life had depended on it.
+
+“The lady looked, for what seemed to me a long time; and then she
+walked up to my darling and touched the locket that she wore on her
+neck. At last she turned to me and asked, with a little sternness in
+her gentle voice, if I would tell her who this girl was, and how I came
+by her.
+
+“So I told her the whole story, just as I had told it to you, and
+before I had finished, she was crying as if her heart would break.
+Down she went on her knees beside Lady Jane, and put her arms around
+her, and cried,--
+
+“‘O my darling, my love, I thought you were dead! I am your mother--oh,
+believe me, my darling! Love me a little, a little,--after all these
+years!’
+
+“And just as properly as if she had gone through it all in her mind a
+hundred times beforehand, Lady Jane answered,--
+
+“‘I always expected you, mamma.’
+
+“Somehow, the lady looked astonished. She grew quieter, and stood up,
+holding Lady Jane’s hand.
+
+“‘You expected me?’ she said, inquiringly.
+
+“‘Yes, you know I _knew_ I had been stolen; and I used to think and
+think, and fancy how my true mother would look, and what my right home
+would be; and I always felt sure in my heart that you would come some
+day. I didn’t know when or how it would be; but I expected you.’
+
+“‘And when will you be ready to go with me?’ asked the mother.
+
+“‘When you please, mamma.’
+
+“The lady hesitated, and turned to me. ‘I owe you so much,’ she said,
+‘so much that I can never hope to pay it; and I do not like to grieve
+you. But her father and I have been without Jane so long, _could_ you
+spare her to me at once?’
+
+“‘That must be as you and she say, ma’am,’ I answered, trying as hard
+as I could to speak quietly. ‘I never have wanted any thing but that
+she should be well off and happy so far, and won’t begin to stand in
+her light now.’
+
+“Then the lady turned to the little girl who had come in with her.
+‘Ethel,’ she said, ‘this is your sister. She has been lost to us eight
+years, but we will keep her always, now.’ And then, with more thanks
+to me, she started to go away,--the stately, beautiful lady, with her
+beautiful girls, one on each side of her.
+
+“They got to the door, and suddenly my darling turned,--O ma’am, it’s
+the best thing in my whole life to remember that! Of her own accord she
+turned and came back to me, and said she,--
+
+“‘Don’t think, Sally, that I’m not sorry to say good-by. Of course I
+can’t be sorry to find my own mamma and my right home, but I’m sorry to
+leave _you_.’
+
+“And then she put her arms round my neck and kissed me just as she had
+done when I took her home that night from Jacopo’s, six years before;
+and then she went away, and the sunshine, it seemed to me, went out of
+the door with her, and has never come back since.”
+
+The poor little surgeon of the dolls stopped speaking, and cried very
+quietly, as those cry who are not used to have their tears wiped away,
+or their sorrows comforted.
+
+I wanted to say that Lady Jane seemed to me a heartless little piece,
+who cared for nothing in the world but herself, and wasn’t worth
+grieving for; but I felt there would be no comfort for her in thinking
+that there had never been any thing worth having in her life. Far
+better let her go on believing that for six years she had sheltered an
+angel at her fireside.
+
+At last, when I saw her tears were ceasing to flow, I said, “And when
+did you see her again?”
+
+“Oh, I have never seen her since that day. I think she pitied me too
+much to come back and give me the sorrow of parting with her over
+again. No, I have never seen her, but her mother sent me five hundred
+pounds.”
+
+“And so she ought,” I said impulsively. “It was little enough for all
+you had done.”
+
+Surgeon Sally looked at me with wonder, not unmixed with reproach, in
+her eyes.
+
+“Do you think I wanted _that_?” she asked. “I had had my pay for all I
+did, ten times over, in just having her here to look at and to love.
+No; I sent the money back, and I think it must be that my darling
+understood; for, two months afterwards, I received the only gift I
+would have cared to have,--her portrait. Will you please to look round,
+ma’am? It hangs behind you.”
+
+I looked round, and there she was, even lovelier than when I had seen
+her first,--a bright, smiling creature, silken-clad, patrician to the
+finger-tips. But it seemed to me that no heart of love looked out of
+the fair, careless face. I thought I would rather be Surgeon Sally,
+and know the sweetness of loving another better than myself.
+
+“She is very beautiful,” I said, as I turned away.
+
+“Yes; and sometimes I almost think I feel her lips, her bonny bright
+lips, touch my face, as they did that last day, and hear her say,
+‘Don’t think, Sally, that I’m not sorry.’ Oh, my lot isn’t hard, ma’am.
+I might have lived my life through and never have known what it was to
+have something all my own to love. God was good.
+
+“And after all, ma’am,” she added cheerfully, “there’s nothing happier
+in the world than to give all the pleasure you can to somebody.”
+
+And I went away, feeling that the dwarf surgeon of the dolls’ hospital
+had learned the true secret of life.
+
+
+
+
+PRETTY MISS KATE.
+
+
+Everybody called her “pretty Miss Kate.” It was an odd title, and she
+had come by it in an odd way. A sort of half-witted nurse, whose one
+supreme merit was her faithfulness, had tended Squire Oswald’s baby
+daughter all through her early years; and she it was who had first
+called the girl “pretty Miss Kate.”
+
+It was a small neighborhood where everybody knew everybody else; and,
+by dint of much hearing this title, all the neighbors grew to use it.
+And, indeed, at fifteen Kate Oswald deserved it. She was a tall, slight
+girl, with a figure very graceful, and what people call stylish.
+
+She had blue eyes; not the meaningless blue of a French doll, but deep
+and lustrous, like the tender hue of the summer sky. She had hair like
+some Northland princess. It had not a tint of yellow in it, but it
+was fine and fair, and so light as to be noticeable anywhere. Her skin
+was exquisite, too, as skin needs must be to match such hair. When any
+color came to the cheeks it was never crimson, but just the faintest
+tint of the blush rose; her lips alone were of rich, vivid bloom. A
+prettier creature, truly, seldom crosses this planet; and the few such
+girls who have lived among us, and grown to womanhood, have made wild
+work generally, using hearts for playthings; and, like other children,
+breaking their toys now and then. But pretty Miss Kate was not at the
+age yet for that sort of pastime, and her most ardent worshipper was
+little Sally Green.
+
+There was a curious friendship between these two, if one may call that
+friendship which is made up of blind worship on one side and gentle
+pity and kindliness on the other.
+
+Squire Oswald owned the poor little house where Widow Green lived, and
+whenever there was an unusual press of work at the great house above,
+the family washing used to be sent down to Mrs. Green at the foot of
+the hill. Many an hour the widow worked busily, fluting the delicate
+ruffles and smoothing the soft muslins, out of which pretty Miss Kate
+used to bloom as a flower does out of its calyx. And on these occasions
+Sally used to carry the dainty washing home, and she nearly always
+contrived to be permitted to take it up to Miss Kate’s room, herself.
+
+Nobody thought much about little Sally Green any way,--least of all did
+any one suspect her of any romantic or heroic or poetical qualities.
+And yet she had them all; and if you came to a question of soul and
+mind, there was something in Sally which entitled her to rank with
+the best. She was a plain, dark little thing, with a stubbed, solid,
+squarely-built figure; with great black eyes, which nobody thought any
+thing about in _her_, but which would have been enough for the whole
+stock-in-trade of a fashionable belle; with masses of black hair that
+she did not know what to do with; and with a skin somewhat sallow, but
+smooth. No one ever thought how she looked, except, perhaps, pretty
+Miss Kate.
+
+One day, when the child brought home the washing, Kate had been reading
+aloud to a friend, and Sally had shown an evident inclination to
+linger. At that time Kate was not more than fourteen, and the interest
+or the admiration in Sally’s face struck her, and, moved by a girl’s
+quick impulse, she had said,--
+
+“Do you want to hear all of it, Sally? Wait, then, and I will read it
+to you.”
+
+The poem was Mrs. Browning’s “Romance of the Swan’s Nest,” and it was
+the first glimpse for Sally Green into the enchanted land of poetry
+and fiction. Before that she had admired pretty Miss Kate, but now the
+feeling grew to worship.
+
+Kate was not slow to perceive it, with that feminine instinct which
+somehow scents out and delights in the honest admiration of high or
+low, rich or poor. She grew very kind to little Sally. Many a book and
+magazine she lent the child; and now and then she gave her a flower, a
+bit of bright ribbon, or some little picture. To poor Sally Green these
+trifles were as the gifts of a goddess, and no devotee ever treasured
+relics from the shrine of his patron saint more tenderly than she
+cherished any, even the slightest, token which was associated with the
+beautiful young lady whom she adored with all her faithful, reverent,
+imaginative heart.
+
+One June evening Sally had been working hard all day. She had washed
+dishes, run her mother’s errands, got supper, and now her reward was to
+come.
+
+“You may make yourself tidy,” her mother said, “and carry home that
+basket of Miss Kate’s things to Squire Oswald’s.”
+
+Sally flew upstairs, and brushed back her black locks, and tied them
+with a red ribbon Miss Kate had given her. She put on a clean dress,
+and a little straw hat that last year had been Miss Kate’s own; and
+really for such a stubbed, dark little thing, she looked very nicely.
+She was thirteen--two years younger than her idol--and while Miss Kate
+was tall, and looked older than her years, Sally looked even younger
+than she was. Her heart beat as she hurried up the hill. She thought
+of the fable of the mouse and the lion, which she had read in one of
+the books Miss Kate had lent her. It made her think of herself and her
+idol. Not that Miss Kate was like a lion at all,--no, she was like a
+beautiful princess,--but she herself was such a poor, humble, helpless
+little mouse; and yet there might be a time, if she only watched and
+waited, when she, even she, could do pretty Miss Kate some good. And
+if the time ever came, wouldn’t she _do_ it, just, at no matter _what_
+cost to herself? Poor little Sally! The time was on its way, and nearer
+than she thought.
+
+She found Miss Kate in her own pretty room,--a room all blue and white
+and silver, as befitted such a fair-haired beauty. The bedstead and
+wardrobe were of polished chestnut, lightly and gracefully carved.
+The carpet was pale gray, with impossible blue roses. The blue chintz
+curtains were looped back with silver cords; there were silver frames,
+with narrow blue edges, to the few graceful pictures; and on the mantel
+were a clock and vases with silver ornaments.
+
+Pretty Miss Kate looked as if she had been dressed on purpose to stay
+in that room. She wore a blue dress, and round her neck was a silver
+necklace which her father had brought her last year from far-off Genoa.
+Silver ornaments were in her little ears, and a silver clasp fastened
+the belt at her waist. She welcomed Sally with a sweet graciousness, a
+little conscious, perhaps, of the fact that she was Miss Oswald, and
+Sally was Sally Green; but to the child her manner, like every thing
+else about her, seemed perfection.
+
+“Sit down and stay a little, Sally,” she said, “I have something to
+tell you. Do you remember what you heard me read that first time, when
+your eyes got so big with listening, and I made you stay and hear it
+all?”
+
+“Yes, indeed,” Sally cried eagerly. “I never forgot any thing I ever
+heard you read. That first time it was ‘The Romance of the Swan’s
+Nest.’”
+
+“Yes, you are right, and I know I was surprised to find how much you
+cared about it. I began to be interested in you then, for you know I am
+interested in you, don’t you, Sally?”
+
+Sally blushed with pleasure till her face glowed like the June roses in
+Miss Kate’s silver vases, but she did not know what to say, and so,
+very wisely, she did not say any thing. Miss Kate went on,--
+
+“Well, that very same poem I am going to read, next Wednesday night,
+at the evening exercises in the academy. The academy hall won’t hold
+everybody, and so they are going to be admitted by tickets. Each of
+us girls has a certain number to give away, and I have one for you.
+I thought you would like to go and see me there among the rest in my
+white gown, and hear me read the old verses again.”
+
+You would not have believed so small a thing could so have moved
+anybody; but Sally’s face turned from red to white, and from white to
+red again, and her big black eyes were as full of tears as an April
+cloud is of rain-drops.
+
+“Do you mean it, truly?” she asked.
+
+“Yes, truly, child. Here is your ticket. Why, don’t cry, foolish girl.
+It’s nothing. I wanted to be sure of one person there who would think
+I read well, whether any one else did or not. And I’ve a gown for you,
+too--that pink muslin, don’t you know, that I wore last year? I’ve
+shot up right out of it, and it’s of no use to me, now, and mamma said
+I might give it to you. This is Saturday; you can get it ready by
+Wednesday, can’t you?”
+
+What a happy girl went home that night, just as the rosy June
+sunset was fading away, and ran, bright and glad and full of joyful
+expectation, into the Widow Green’s humble little house! Widow Green
+wasn’t much of a woman, in the neighbors’ estimation. She was honest
+and civil, and she washed well; but that was all they saw in her. Sally
+saw much more. She saw a mother who always tried to make her happy;
+who shared her enthusiasms, or at least sympathized with them; who was
+never cross or jealous, or any thing but motherly. She was as pleased,
+now, at the prospect of Sally’s pleasure as Sally herself was; and just
+as proud of this attention from pretty Miss Kate. Together they made
+over the pink muslin dress; and when Wednesday night came the widow
+felt sure that her daughter was as well worth having, and as much to be
+proud of, as any other mother’s daughter that would be at the academy.
+
+“You must go very early,” she said, “to get a good seat; and you need
+not be afraid to go right up to the front. You’ve just as good right to
+get close up there as anybody.”
+
+When Sally was going out, her mother called her back.
+
+“Here, dear,” she said, “just take the shawl. Do it to please me, for
+there’s no knowing how cold it might be when you get out.”
+
+“The shawl” was an immense Rob Roy plaid,--a ridiculous wrap, truly,
+for a June night; but summer shawls they had none, and Sally was too
+dutiful, as well as too happy, not to want to please her mother even in
+such a trifle. How differently two lives would have come out if she had
+not taken it!
+
+She was the very first one to enter the academy. Dare she go and sit
+in the front row so as to be close to pretty Miss Kate? Ordinarily she
+would have shrunk into some far corner, for she was almost painfully
+shy; but now something outside herself seemed to urge her on. She
+would not take up much room,--this something whispered,--and nobody,
+no, nobody at all, could love Miss Kate better than she did. So she
+went into the very front row, close up to the little stage on which
+the young performers were to appear,--a veritable stage, with real
+foot-lights.
+
+Soon the people began to come in, and after a while the lights were
+turned up, and the exercises commenced. There were dialogues and music,
+and at last the master of ceremonies announced the reading of “The
+Romance of the Swan’s Nest,” by Miss Kate Oswald.
+
+Other people had been interested in what went before, no doubt; but
+to Sally Green the whole evening had been but a prelude to this one
+triumphant moment for which she waited.
+
+Pretty Miss Kate came forward like a little queen,--tall and slight,
+with her coronet of fair, braided hair, in which a shy, sweet rosebud
+nestled. She wore a dress of white muslin, as light and fleecy as a
+summer cloud, with a sash that might, as far as its hue went, have
+been cut from the deep blue sky over which that summer cloud floated.
+A little bunch of flowers was on her bosom, and other ornament she had
+none. She looked like one of the pretty creatures, half angel and half
+woman of fashion, which some of the modern French artists paint.
+
+As she stepped forward she was greeted with a burst of irrepressible
+applause, and then the house was very still as she began to read. How
+her soft eyes glowed, and the blushes burned on her dainty cheeks, when
+she came to the lines:--
+
+      “Little Ellie in her smile
+    Chooseth: ‘I will have a lover,
+      Riding on a steed of steeds!
+      He shall love me without guile,
+    And to _him_ I will discover
+      That swan’s nest among the reeds.
+
+      “‘And the steed shall be red-roan,
+    And the lover shall be noble,
+      With an eye that takes the breath,
+      And the lute he plays upon
+    Shall strike ladies into trouble,
+      As his sword strikes men to death.’”
+
+She had the whole audience for her lovers before she was through with
+the poem, and the last verse was followed with a perfect storm of
+applause. Was she not young and beautiful, with a voice as sweet as her
+smile? And then she was Squire Oswald’s daughter, and he was the great
+man of the village.
+
+She stepped off the stage; and then the applause recalled her, and she
+came back, pink with pleasure. A bow, a smile, and then a step too near
+the poorly protected foot-lights, and the fleecy white muslin dress was
+a sheet of flame.
+
+How Sally Green sprang over those foot-lights she never knew; but there
+she was, on the stage, and “the shawl” was wrapped round pretty Miss
+Kate before any one else had done any thing but scream. Close, close,
+close, Sally hugged its heavy woollen folds. She burned her own fingers
+to the bone; but what cared she? The time of the poor little mouse had
+come at last.
+
+And so pretty Miss Kate was saved, and not so much as a scar marred the
+pink and white of her fair girl’s face. Her arms were burned rather
+badly, but they would heal, and no permanent harm had come to her.
+
+Sally was burned much more severely, but she hardly felt the pain of it
+in her joy that she had saved her idol, for whom she would have been so
+willing even to die. They took her home very tenderly, and the first
+words she said, as they led her inside her mother’s door, were,--
+
+“Now, mother, I know what I took the shawl for!”
+
+I said how differently two lives would have ended if she had not
+taken that shawl. Pretty Miss Kate’s would have burned out then and
+there, no doubt; for if any one else were there with presence of
+mind enough to have saved her, certainly there was no other wrap
+there like “the shawl.” And then Sally might have grown up to the
+humblest kind of toil, instead of being what she is to-day; for Squire
+Oswald’s gratitude for his daughter’s saved life did not exhaust
+itself in words. From that moment he charged himself with Sally
+Green’s education, and gave her every advantage which his own daughter
+received. And, truth to tell, Sally, with her wonderful temperament,
+the wealth of poetry and devotion and hero-worship that was in her,
+soon outstripped pretty Miss Kate in her progress.
+
+But no rivalry or jealousy ever came between them. As Sally had adored
+Kate’s loveliness, so, in time, Kate came to do homage to Sally’s
+genius; and the two were friends in the most complete sense of the
+word.
+
+
+
+
+A BORROWED ROSEBUD.
+
+
+There was a pattering footfall on the piazza, and Miss Ellen Harding
+went to look out. She saw a little figure standing there, among the
+rosebuds,--not one of the neighbors’ children, but a bonny little
+lassie, with curls of spun gold, and great, fearless brown eyes, and
+cheeks and lips as bright as the red roses on the climbing rosebush
+beside her.
+
+A little morsel, not more than five years old, she was; with a white
+dress, and a broad scarlet sash, and a hat which she swung in her
+fingers by its scarlet strings. She looked so bright and vivid, and she
+was such an unexpected vision in that place, that it almost seemed as
+if one of the poppies in the yard beyond had turned into a little girl,
+and come up the steps.
+
+“Did you want me?” Miss Harding asked, going up to the tiny blossom of
+a creature.
+
+“No, if you please.”
+
+“My father, then, Dr. Harding,--were you sent for him?”
+
+The child surveyed her, as if in gentle surprise at so much curiosity.
+
+“No,” she answered, after a moment. “I am Rosebud; and I don’t want
+anybody. Jane told me to come here, and she would follow presently.”
+
+She said the words with a singular correctness and propriety, as if
+they were a lesson which she had been taught.
+
+“And who is Jane?” Miss Harding asked.
+
+Evidently the process of training had gone no further. The child looked
+puzzled and uncomfortable.
+
+“Jane?” she answered hesitatingly. “Why, she is Jane.”
+
+“Not your mamma?”
+
+“No,--just Jane.”
+
+“And what did Jane want here?”
+
+“She told me to come, and she would follow presently,” said the child,
+saying her little lesson over again.
+
+Evidently there was nothing more to be got out of her; but Miss Harding
+coaxed her to come into the cool parlor, and wait for Jane; and gave
+her some strawberries and cream in a gayly painted china saucer, that
+all children liked. Rosebud was no exception to the rest. When she had
+finished her berries, she tapped on the saucer with her spoon.
+
+“I will have it for mine, while I stay,--may I?” she said. “Not to take
+away, but just to call, you know.”
+
+“Surely,” said Miss Harding, more puzzled than ever. Had the sprite,
+then, come to stay? Were there, by chance, fairies after all,--and
+was this some changeling from out their ranks? She tried to entertain
+her small guest; and she found her quite accessible to the charms
+of pictures, and contented for an hour with a box of red and white
+chessmen. Towards night her curiosity got the better of her courtesy;
+and, looking from the window, she inquired,--
+
+“I wonder where your Jane can be?”
+
+“Presently; Jane said presently,” answered the child, with quiet
+composure, and returned to the chessmen.
+
+Miss Harding heard her father drive into the yard, and slipped out
+to speak to him. She told her story, and the doctor gave a low, soft
+whistle. It was a way he had when any thing surprised him.
+
+“It looks to me,” said he, “as if Jane, whoever she may be, intended to
+make us a present of Miss Rosebud. Well, we must make the small person
+comfortable to-night, and to-morrow we will see what to do with her.”
+
+The small person was easily made comfortable. She ate plenty of
+bread-and-milk for her supper, and more strawberries; and when it was
+over, she went round and stood beside the doctor.
+
+“I think you are a dood man,” she said, with the quaint gravity which
+characterized all her utterances. “I should like to sit with you.”
+
+The doctor lifted her to his knee, and she laid her little golden head
+against his coat. There was a soft place under that coat, as many a
+sick and poor person in the town knew very well. I think the little
+golden head hit the soft place. He stroked the shining curls very
+tenderly. Then he asked,--
+
+“What makes you think I’m a ‘dood’ man, Pussy-cat?”
+
+“My name is not Pussy-cat,--I am Rosebud,” she replied gravely; “and I
+think you are dood because you look so, out of your eyes.”
+
+The little morsel spoke most of her words with singular clearness and
+propriety. It was only when a “g” came in that she substituted a “d”
+for it, and went on her way rejoicing.
+
+As the doctor held her, the soft place under his coat grew very soft
+indeed. A little girl had been his last legacy from his dying wife; and
+she had grown to be about as large as Rosebud, and then had gone home
+to her mother. It almost seemed to him as if she had come back again;
+and it was her head beneath which his heart was beating. He beckoned to
+his daughter.
+
+“Have you some of Aggie’s things?” he asked. “This child must be made
+comfortable, and she ought to go to bed soon.”
+
+“No,” the child said; “I’m doing to sit here till the moon comes. That
+means ‘do to bed.’”
+
+“Yes, I have them,” Miss Harding answered.
+
+She had loved Aggie so well, that it seemed half sacrilege to put
+her dead sister’s garments on this stranger child; and half it was a
+pleasure that again she had a little girl to dress and cuddle. She went
+out of the room. Soon she came running back, and called her father.
+
+“O, come here! I found this in the hall. It is a great basket full of
+all sorts of clothes, and it is marked ‘For Rosebud.’ See,--here is
+every thing a child needs.”
+
+The doctor had set the little girl down, but she was still clinging to
+his hand.
+
+“I think,” he said, “that Jane has been here, and that she does not
+mean to take away our Rosebud.”
+
+But the little one, still clinging to him, said,--
+
+“I think it is not ‘presently’ yet,--Jane wouldn’t come till
+‘presently.’”
+
+“Do you love Jane?” the doctor asked, looking down at the flower-like
+face.
+
+“Jane is not mamma. She is only Jane,” was the answer.
+
+When the moon rose, the little girl went willingly to bed; and all
+night long Miss Ellen Harding held her in her arms, as she used to hold
+her little sister, before the angels took her. Since Aggie’s death,
+people said Miss Ellen had grown cold and stiff and silent. She felt,
+herself, as if she had been frozen; but the ice was melting, as she lay
+there, feeling the soft, round little lump of breathing bliss in her
+arms; and a tender flower of love was to spring up and bloom in that
+heart that had grown hard and cold.
+
+There was no talk of sending Rosebud away, though some people wondered
+much at the doctor, and even almost blamed him for keeping this child,
+of whom he knew nothing. But he wanted her, and Miss Ellen wanted her;
+and, indeed, she was the joy and life and blessing of the long-silent
+household.
+
+She was by no means a perfect child. A well-mannered little creature
+she was,--some lady had brought her up evidently,--but she was
+self-willed and obstinate. When she had said, “I’m doing to do” such
+and such a thing, it was hard to move her from her purpose; unless,
+indeed, the doctor interposed, and to him she always yielded instantly.
+But, just such as she was, they found her altogether charming. The
+doctor never came home without something in his pocket to reward her
+search; Miss Ellen was her bond-slave; and Mistress Mulloney in the
+kitchen was ready to work her hands off for her.
+
+Often, when she had gone to bed, the doctor and Miss Ellen used to talk
+over her strange coming.
+
+“We shall lose her some day,” the doctor would say, with a sigh. “No
+one ever voluntarily abandoned such a child as that. She is only
+trusted to our protection for a little while, and presently we shall
+have to give her up.”
+
+“Should you be sorry, father,” Miss Ellen would inquire, “that we had
+had her at all?”
+
+And the doctor would answer thoughtfully “No, for she has made me young
+again. I will not grumble when the snows come because we have had
+summer, and know how bright it is.”
+
+But the child lived with them as if she were going to live with them
+for ever. If she had any memories of days before she came there, she
+never alluded to them. After the first, she never mentioned Jane,--she
+never spoke of a father or mother. But she was happy as the summer days
+were long,--a glad, bright, winsome creature as ever was the delight of
+any household.
+
+And so the days and the weeks and the months went on, and it was
+October. And one day the bell rang, and Mistress Mulloney went to the
+door, and in a moment came to the room where Miss Ellen was sitting,
+with Rosebud playing beside her, and beckoned to her mistress.
+
+“It’s some one asking for the child,” she said. “Can’t we jist hide her
+away? It’ll be hard for the doctor if she’s took.”
+
+“No; we must see who it is, and do what is right,” Miss Ellen answered;
+but her lips trembled a little. She went into the hall, and there, at
+the door, stood a woman, looking like a nursery-maid of the better sort.
+
+“I have come,” the stranger began; but Rosebud had caught the sound of
+her voice, and came on the scene like a flash of light.
+
+“It is ‘presently!’” she cried; “and there, oh, _there_ is mamma!”
+And down the path she flew, and into the very arms of a lady who was
+waiting at a little distance.
+
+Miss Harding went down the steps. “You have come, I see, to claim our
+Rosebud, and she is only too ready to be claimed. I thought we had made
+her happy.”
+
+The child caught the slight accent of reproach in Miss Ellen’s voice,
+and turned towards her.
+
+“You have been dood, oh, so very, very dood!” she said, “but _this_ is
+mamma.”
+
+“I trusted my darling to you in a very strange way,” the lady began,
+“but not, believe me, without knowing in whose hands I placed her. I
+was in mortal terror, then, lest she should be taken from me, and I
+dared not keep her until she had been legally made mine, and mine only.
+But you have made me your debtor for life, and I shall try to show it
+some day.”
+
+“But, at least, you will come in and wait until my father returns. He
+loves Rosebud so dearly, that it would be a cruelty to take her away
+until he has had time to bid her good-by.”
+
+“You are right,” the stranger answered courteously. “Jane, go with the
+carriage to the hotel, and I will come or send for you when I want you.”
+
+In a few moments more the strange lady was seated in the doctor’s
+parlor. Miss Harding saw now where Rosebud had got her bright, wilful
+beauty.
+
+“I must explain,” the mother said, as she lifted her child upon her
+lap. “I am Mrs. Matthewson. My husband is dead, and Rosebud has a
+very, very large fortune of her own. Her uncles, who were to have the
+management of her property, by her father’s will, claimed her also;
+and I have had such a fight for her! They were unscrupulous men, and
+I feared to keep Rosebud with me, lest by some means they should get
+some hold on her. So I resolved to lend her to you for the summer;
+and, indeed, I never can reward you for all your care of her.”
+
+“You can reward us only by not altogether taking her away from us. We
+have learned to love her very dearly.”
+
+And, after a while, the doctor came home and heard all the story.
+And it was a week before Mrs. Matthewson had the heart to take away
+the child she had lent them. Then it was not long before the doctor
+and Miss Ellen had to go to see Rosebud. And then, very soon, Mrs.
+Matthewson had to bring her back again; and, really, so much going back
+and forth was very troublesome; and they found it more convenient,
+after a while, to join their households.
+
+Before Rosebud came, the doctor had thought himself an old man, though
+he was only forty-five; but, as he said, Rosebud had made him young
+again; and Rosebud’s mamma found it possible to love him very dearly.
+But Miss Ellen always said it was Rosebud and nobody else whom her
+father married, and that he had been in love with the borrowed blossom
+from the first.
+
+
+
+
+TOM’S THANKSGIVING.
+
+
+“It was very provoking that seamstresses and such people would get
+married, like the rest of the world,” Mrs. Greenough said, half in fun
+and half in earnest. Her fall sewing was just coming on, and here was
+Lizzie Brown, who had suited her so nicely, going off to be married;
+and she had no resource but to advertise, and take whomsoever she could
+get. No less than ten women had been there that day, and not one would
+answer.
+
+“There comes Number Eleven; you will see,” she cried, as the bell rang.
+
+Kitty Greenough looked on with interest. Indeed, it was her gowns,
+rather than her mother’s, that were most pressing. She was just
+sixteen, and since last winter she had shot up suddenly, as girls at
+that age so often do, and left all her clothes behind her.
+
+Mrs. Greenough was right,--it _was_ another seamstress; and Bridget
+showed in a plain, sad-looking woman of about forty, with an air of
+intense respectability. Mrs. Greenough explained what she wanted done,
+and the woman said quietly that she was accustomed to such work,--would
+Mrs. Greenough be so kind as to look at some recommendations? Whereupon
+she handed out several lady-like looking notes, whose writers indorsed
+the bearer, Mrs. Margaret Graham, as faithful and capable, used to
+trimmings of all sorts, and quick to catch an idea.
+
+“Very well indeed,” Mrs. Greenough said, as she finished reading them;
+“I could ask nothing better. Can you be ready to come at once?”
+
+“To-morrow, if you wish, madam,” was the answer; and then Mrs. Graham
+went away.
+
+Kitty Greenough was an impulsive, imaginative girl; no subject was too
+dull or too unpromising for her fancy to touch it. She made a story
+for herself about every new person who came in her way. After Number
+Eleven had gone down the stairs, Kitty laughed.
+
+“Isn’t she a sobersides, mamma? I don’t believe there’ll be any frisk
+in my dresses at all if she trims them.”
+
+“There’ll be frisk enough in them if you wear them,” her mother
+answered, smiling at the bright, saucy, winsome face of her one tall
+daughter.
+
+Kitty was ready to turn the conversation.
+
+“What do you think she is, mamma,--wife or widow?” And then answering
+her own question: “I think she’s married, and he’s sick, and she has to
+take care of him. That solemn, still way she has comes of much staying
+in a sick-room. She’s in the habit of keeping quiet, don’t you see? I
+wish she were a little prettier; I think he would get well quicker.”
+
+“There’d be no plain, quiet people in your world if you made one,” her
+mother said, smiling; “but you’d make a mistake to leave them out. You
+would get tired even of the sun if it shone all the time.”
+
+The next day the new seamstress came, and a thoroughly good one she
+proved; “better even than Lizzie,” Mrs. Greenough said, and this was
+high praise. She sewed steadily, and never opened her lips except to
+ask some question about her work. Even Kitty, who used to boast that
+she could make a dumb man talk, had not audacity enough to intrude on
+the reserve in which Mrs. Graham intrenched herself.
+
+“_He’s_ worse this morning,” whispered saucy Kitty to her mother; “and
+she can do nothing but think about him and mind her gathers.”
+
+But, by the same token, “_he_” must have been worse every day, for
+during the two weeks she sewed there Mrs. Graham never spoke of any
+thing beyond her work.
+
+When Mrs. Greenough had paid her, the last night, she said,--
+
+“Please give me your address, Mrs. Graham, for I may want to find you
+again.”
+
+“17 Hudson Street, ma’am, up two flights of stairs; and if I’m not
+there Tom always is.”
+
+“There, didn’t I tell you?” Kitty cried exultingly, after the woman had
+gone. “Didn’t I tell you that he was sick? You see now,--‘Tom’s always
+there.’”
+
+“Yes; but Tom may not be her husband, and I don’t think he is. He is
+much more likely to be her child.”
+
+“Mrs. Greenough, I’m astonished at you. You say that to be
+contradictious. Now, it is not nice to be contradictious; besides, she
+wouldn’t look so quiet and sad if Tom were only her boy.”
+
+But weeks passed on, and nothing more was heard of Mrs. Graham, until,
+at last, Thanksgiving Day was near at hand. Kitty was to have a new
+dress, and Mrs. Greenough, who had undertaken to finish it, found that
+she had not time.
+
+“Oh, let me go for Mrs. Graham, mamma,” cried Kitty eagerly. “Luke can
+drive me down to Hudson Street, and then I shall see Tom.”
+
+Mrs. Greenough laughed and consented. In a few minutes Luke had brought
+to the door the one-horse coupé, which had been the last year’s
+Christmas gift of Mr. Greenough to his wife, and in which Miss Kitty
+was always glad to make an excuse for going out.
+
+Arrived at 17 Hudson Street, she tripped up two flights of stairs, and
+tapped on the door, on which was a printed card with the name of Mrs.
+Graham.
+
+A voice, with a wonderful quality of musical sweetness in it,
+answered,--
+
+“Please to come in; I cannot open the door.”
+
+If that were “he,” he had a very singular voice for a man.
+
+“I guess mamma was right after all,” thought wilful Kitty. “It’s rather
+curious how often mamma _is_ right, when I come to think of it.”
+
+She opened the door, and saw, not Mrs. Graham’s husband, nor yet her
+son, but a girl, whose face looked as if she might be about Kitty’s own
+age, whose shoulders and waist told the same story; but whose lower
+limbs seemed curiously misshapen and shrunken--no larger, in fact, than
+those of a mere child. The face was a pretty, winning face, not at all
+sad. Short, thick brown hair curled round it, and big brown eyes, full
+of good-humor, met Kitty’s curious glance.
+
+“_I_ am Tom,” the same musical voice--which made Kitty think of a
+bird’s warble--said, in a tone of explanation. “I can’t get up to open
+the door because, don’t you see, I can’t walk.”
+
+“And why--what--Tom”--
+
+Kitty struggled desperately with the question she had begun to ask, and
+Tom kindly helped her out.
+
+“Why am I Tom, do you mean, when it’s a boy’s name; or why can’t I
+walk? I’m Tom because my father called me Tomasina, after his mother,
+and we can’t afford such long names in this house; and I can’t walk
+because I pulled a kettle of boiling water over on myself when I was
+six years old, and the only wonder is that I’m alive at all. I was
+left, you see, in a room by myself, while mother was busy somewhere
+else, and when she heard me scream, and came to me, she pulled me out
+from under the kettle, and saved the upper half of me all right.”
+
+“Oh, how dreadful!” Kitty cried, with the quick tears rushing to her
+eyes. “It must have almost killed your mother.”
+
+“Yes; that’s what makes her so still and sober. She never laughs, but
+she never frets either; and oh, how good she is to me!”
+
+Kitty glanced around the room, which seemed to her so bare. It was
+spotlessly clean, and Tom’s chair was soft and comfortable--as indeed
+a chair ought to be which must be sat in from morning till night.
+Opposite to it were a few pictures on the wall,--engravings taken from
+books and magazines, and given, probably, to Mrs. Graham by some of her
+lady customers. Within easy reach was a little stand, on which stood a
+rose-bush in a pot, and a basket full of bright-colored worsteds, while
+a book or two lay beside them.
+
+“And do you never go out?” cried Kitty, forgetting her errand in her
+sympathy--forgetting, too, that Luke and his impatient horse were
+waiting below.
+
+“Not lately. Mother used to take me down into the street sometimes; but
+I’ve grown too heavy for her now, and she can’t. But I’m not very dull,
+even when she’s gone. You wouldn’t guess how many things I see from
+my window; and then I make worsted mats and tidies, and mother sells
+them; and then I sing.”
+
+Kitty stepped to the window to see what range of vision it offered, and
+her eye fell on Luke. She recalled her business.
+
+“I came to see if I could get your mother to sew two or three days for
+me this week.”
+
+Tom was alert and business-like at once.
+
+“Let me see,” she said, “to-day is Tuesday;” and she drew toward her a
+little book, and looked it over. “To-morrow is engaged, but you could
+have Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, if you want so much. Please write
+your name against them.”
+
+Kitty pulled off her pretty gray glove, and wrote her name and address
+with the little toy-pencil at the end of her chatelaine; and then she
+turned to go, but it was Tom’s turn to question.
+
+“Please,” said the sweet, fresh voice, which seemed so like the clear
+carol of a bird, “would you mind telling me how old you are? I’m
+sixteen myself.”
+
+“And so am I sixteen,” said Kitty.
+
+“And you have a father and mother both, haven’t you?”
+
+“Yes, indeed,” said Kitty.
+
+“Oh, I’ve only mother, but she is good as two. Must you go now? And I
+wonder if I shall ever see you again?”
+
+“Yes, you _will_ see me again,” answered Kitty cheerily; and then,
+moved by a sudden impulse of her kind, frank young heart, she bent
+over and touched her lips to the bright, bonny face of the poor girl
+who must sit prisoner there for ever, and yet who kept this bright
+cheerfulness all the time.
+
+“Oh mamma, I’ve had a lesson,” cried Kitty, bursting into her mother’s
+room like a fresh wind, “and Tom has taught it to me; and he isn’t _he
+_at all--she’s a girl just my age, and she can’t walk--not a step since
+she was six years old.”
+
+And then Kitty told all the sad, tender little story, and got to crying
+over it herself, and made her mother cry, too, before she was through.
+
+After dinner she sat half the evening in a brown study. Finally she
+came out of it, and began talking in her usual impulsive manner.
+
+“Can’t we have them here to Thanksgiving, mamma? There’s not a single
+pretty thing in that house except Tom herself, and the rose-bush; and
+every thing did look so bare and clean and poverty-stricken; and I know
+they’ll never afford a good dinner in the world. Oh, say yes, mamma,
+dear! I know you’ll say yes, _because_ you’re such a dear, and you love
+to make every one happy.”
+
+“Yes; but, first of all, I must love to make papa happy, must I not?
+You know he never wants any company on Thanksgiving but grandpa and
+grandma and Uncle John. I’m sure you would not like to spoil papa’s
+old-fashioned Thanksgiving Day.”
+
+Kitty’s countenance fell. She saw the justice of her mother’s
+remark, and there was no more to be said. She sat thinking over her
+disappointment in a silence which her mother was the one to break.
+
+“But I’ve thought of a better thing, Puss,” said this wise mamma, who
+was herself every bit as tender of heart as Kitty, and cared just as
+much about making people happy. “No doubt Mrs. Graham and Tom would
+just as much prefer being alone together as papa prefers to be alone
+with his family; and how will it suit you if I have a nice dinner
+prepared for them, and let you go and take it to them in the coupé?
+Mrs. Graham is hardly the woman one could take such a liberty with; but
+I’ll beg her to let you have the pleasure of sending dinner to Tom.”
+
+“Oh, you darling!” and Mrs. Greenough’s neck-ruffle suffered, and her
+hair was in danger, as was apt to be the case when Kitty was overcome
+with emotion, which could only find vent in a rapturous squeeze.
+
+Before bed-time Kitty had it all planned out. She was to go in the
+coupé and take Bridget and the basket. Bridget was to mount guard by
+the horse’s head while Luke went upstairs with Kitty and brought down
+Tom for a drive; and while they were gone Bridget would take the basket
+in, and see that every thing was right, and then go home.
+
+Mrs. Greenough consented to it all. I think she enjoyed the prospect
+of Tom’s ride, herself, just as much as Kitty did. While Mrs. Graham
+was sewing there she made the arrangement with her, approaching the
+subject so delicately that the most sensitive of women could not be
+hurt, and putting the acceptance of both drive and dinner in the light
+of a personal favor to Kitty, who had taken such a fancy to Tom.
+
+The last afternoon of Mrs. Graham’s stay Kitty called her mother into
+her room. Mrs. Greenough saw spread out upon the bed a thick, warm,
+soft jacket, a woollen dress, a last year’s hat.
+
+“You know them by sight, don’t you, mother mine? They are the last
+winter’s clothes that I grew away from, and have taken leave of. May
+Tom have them?”
+
+“Yes, indeed, if you’ll undertake to give them to Tom’s mother.”
+
+Kitty had seldom undertaken a more embarrassing task. She stole into
+the sewing-room with the things in her arms.
+
+“You’ll be sure, won’t you, Mrs. Graham, not to let Tom know she’s
+going to ride until I get there, because I want to see how surprised
+she’ll look?”
+
+“Yes, I’ll be sure, never fear.”
+
+“And, Mrs. Graham, here are my coat and hat and dress that I wore last
+year, and I’ve grown away from them. Would you mind letting Tom wear
+them?”
+
+“Would I mind?” A swift, hot rush of tears filled Mrs. Graham’s eyes,
+which presently she wiped away, and somehow then the eyes looked
+gladder than Kitty had ever seen them before. “Do you think I am so
+weakly, wickedly proud as to be hurt because you take an interest in
+my poor girl, and want to put a little happiness into her life,--that
+still, sad life which she bears so patiently? God bless you, Miss
+Kitty! and if He doesn’t, it won’t be because I shall get tired of
+asking Him.”
+
+“And you’ll not let her see the hat and jacket till I come, for fear
+she’ll think something?”
+
+At last Mrs. Graham smiled--an actual smile.
+
+“How you do think of every thing! No, I’ll keep the hat and jacket out
+of sight, and I’ll have the dress on her, all ready.”
+
+When Thanksgiving came Kitty scarcely remembered to put on the new
+fineries that Mrs. Graham had finished with such loving care; scarcely
+gave a thought to the family festivities at home, so eager was she
+about Tom’s Thanksgiving. She was to go to Hudson Street just at noon,
+so that Tom might have the benefit of the utmost warmth of which the
+chill November day was capable.
+
+First she saw the dinner packed. There was a turkey, and
+cranberry-sauce, and mince-pie, and plum-pudding, and a great cake
+full of plums, too, and fruit and nuts, and then Mr. Greenough, who
+had heard about the dinner with real interest, brought out a bottle of
+particularly nice sherry, and said to his wife,--
+
+“Put that in also. It will do those frozen-up souls good, once in the
+year.”
+
+At last impatient Kitty was off. Bridget and the basket filled all the
+spare space in the coupé, and when they reached Hudson Street, Luke
+took the dinner and followed Kitty upstairs, while Bridget stood by
+the horse’s head, according to the programme. He set the basket down
+in the hall, where no one would be likely to notice it in opening the
+door, and then he stood out of sight himself, while Kitty went in.
+
+There was Tom, in the warm crimson thibet,--a proud, happy-looking Tom
+as you could find in Boston that Thanksgiving Day.
+
+“I have come to take you to ride,” cried eager Kitty. “Will you go?”
+
+It was worth ten ordinary Thanksgivings to see the look on Tom’s
+face,--the joy and wonder, and then the doubt, as the breathless
+question came,--
+
+“How _will_ I get downstairs?”
+
+And then Luke was called in, and that mystery was solved. And then out
+of a closet came the warm jacket, and the hat, with its gay feather;
+and there were tears in Tom’s eyes, and smiles round her lips, and she
+tried to say something, and broke down utterly. And then big, strong
+Luke took her up as if she were a baby and marched downstairs with her,
+while she heard Kitty say,--but it all seemed to her like a dream, and
+Kitty’s voice like a voice in a dream,--
+
+“I’m sorry there’s nothing pretty to see at this time of year. It was
+so lovely out-doors six weeks ago.”
+
+Through Beach Street they went, and then through Boylston, and the
+Common was beside them, with its tree-boughs traced against the
+November sky, and the sun shone on the Frog Pond, and the dome of the
+State House glittered goldenly, and there were merry people walking
+about everywhere, with their Thanksgiving faces on; and at last Tom
+breathed a long, deep breath which was almost a sob, and cried,--
+
+“Did _you_ think there was nothing pretty to see to-day--_this_ day?
+Why, I didn’t know there was such a world!”
+
+The clocks had struck twelve when they left Hudson Street; the bells
+were ringing for one when they entered it again. Bridget was gone, but
+a good-natured boy stood by the horse’s head, and Kitty ran lightly
+upstairs, followed by Luke, with Tom in his arms.
+
+Kitty threw open the door, and there was a table spread with as good a
+Thanksgiving dinner as the heart could desire, with Tom’s chair drawn
+up beside it. Luke set his light burden down.
+
+Kitty waited to hear neither thanks nor exclamations. She saw Tom’s
+brown eyes as they rested on the table, and that was enough. She bent
+for one moment over the bright face,--the cheeks which the out-door
+air had painted red as the rose that had just opened in honor of the
+day,--and left on the young, sweet, wistful lips a kiss, and then
+went silently down the stairs, leaving Tom and Tom’s mother to their
+Thanksgiving.
+
+
+
+
+FINDING JACK.
+
+
+Conn turned over and rubbed her sleepy blue eyes. It seemed to her
+that the world was coming to an end all at once, there was such a
+Babel of noise about her. What was it? Had everybody gone mad? Then
+her wits began to wake up. She remembered that it was Fourth of July.
+That worst noise of all--why, that must be Jack’s pistol, which he had
+been saving up money to buy all winter and all summer. And that other
+sound--that must be torpedoes; and there was the old dog, Hero, barking
+at them, and no wonder: it was enough to make any respectable dog bark.
+Fire-crackers--ugh! Wasn’t the pistol bad enough, without all these
+side shows? Just then Jack called out from the yard below,--
+
+“Conn! Conn!”
+
+The girl’s name was Constantia Richmond; but she was too slight and
+bonny for such a long name, and everybody called her Conn.
+
+She shook back her fair, soft curls, as golden as a baby’s still,
+though Conn was fourteen, and, putting a little shawl over her
+shoulders, peeped out of the open window--as pretty a little slip
+of a girl as you would care to see--and looked down on the face,
+half-boyish, half-manly, which was upturned to her. If Jack had been
+her brother, perhaps she would have scolded at him; for Conn loved her
+morning nap, and the general din had discomposed her, no doubt. But
+Jack was only her cousin, and her second cousin, at that,--and it’s
+curious what a difference that does make. Your brother’s your brother
+all the days of his life; but your cousin is another affair, and far
+less certain. So Conn said, quite gently,--
+
+“What is it? Can I do any thing? But I’m sure I don’t want to help you
+make any more noise. This has been--oh, really dreadful!”
+
+She spoke with a droll little fine-lady air, and put her pretty little
+fingers to her pretty little ears. And Jack laughed; he had not begun
+to think of her yet as a charming girl,--she was just Cousin Conn.
+
+“What!” he cried. “Not like noise on Fourth of July? Why, you don’t
+deserve to have a country.”
+
+“I’m sure I wish I hadn’t,” said Conn, with a little dash of spirit.
+
+“Are you dressed?” cried the boy, nearly seventeen years old, but all a
+boy still.
+
+“No.”
+
+“Well, just hurry, then, and come down. I’m off in half an hour with
+the Brighton Blues, and I want you to see first how this pistol works.”
+
+High honor this, that she, a girl, should be invited to inspect the
+wonderful pistol!
+
+Conn began to dress hurriedly. What should she put on? Her white dress
+hung in the closet,--such a white dress as girls wore then,--all
+delicate ruffles, and with a blue ribbon sash, as dainty-fine as
+possible. She knew that was meant for afternoon, when Aunt Sarah would
+have company. But might she not put it on now? Perhaps Jack wouldn’t be
+here then, and she could be careful. So she slipped into the dainty
+gown, and fastened hooks and buttons in nervous haste, and then looked
+in the glass, as every other girl that ever lived would have done in
+her place.
+
+It was a bright, fair face that she saw there--all pink and white, and
+with those violet eyes over which the long lashes drooped, and that
+soft, bright hair that lay in little rings and ripples round her white
+forehead, and hung a wavy mass down to the slender waist which the blue
+ribbon girdled. Conn was pleased, no doubt, with the sight she saw in
+the mirror,--how could she help being? She tripped downstairs, and out
+of the door. Jack whistled when he saw her.
+
+“What! all your fineries on at this time of day? What do you think
+Mother Sarah will say to that?”
+
+The pretty pink flush deepened in the girl’s cheeks, and she answered
+him almost as if she thought she had done something wrong,--
+
+“I’ll be so careful, Jack. I won’t spoil it. By and by you’ll be gone;
+and I wanted to look nice when I saw the new pistol.”
+
+This seemed extremely natural to Jack. The pistol was to him a matter
+of such moment that no amount of demonstration in its honor would
+have seemed too great. Viewed in this light, it really appeared quite
+a meritorious act that Conn should have put on the white dress; and
+he looked her over with that air of half-patronizing approval with
+which boys are apt to regard the good looks of their sisters and their
+cousins.
+
+Then he exhibited the pistol. It had--as a boy’s knife or gun or boat
+always has--distinguishing and individual merits of its own. No other
+pistol, though it were run in the same mould, could quite compare with
+it, and it was by some sort of wonderful chance that he had become its
+possessor. Conn wondered and admired with him to his heart’s content.
+Then came breakfast, and then the marching of the Brighton Blues. This
+was a company of boys in blue uniforms,--handsome, healthy, wide-awake
+boys from fourteen to seventeen years old,--every one of them the pride
+of mothers and sisters and cousins. They were to march into Boston, and
+parade the streets, and dine at a restaurant, and see the fireworks
+in the evening, and I don’t know what other wonderful things.
+
+[Illustration: Conn stood and watched them.--PAGE 129.]
+
+Jack was in the highest spirits. He was sure he and his pistol were a
+necessary part of the day; and he sincerely pitied Conn, because she
+was a girl and must stay at home.
+
+    “‘_Bang, whang, whang_ goes the drum, _tootle-te-tootle_ the fife;
+    Oh! a day in the city square, there is no such pleasure in life!’”
+
+he quoted; and then he called back to her from the gate,--
+
+“It’s too bad, Conn, that there’s no fun for you; but keep your courage
+up, and I’ll bring you something.”
+
+And so they marched away, in the gay, glad morning sunshine, following
+their band of music,--a boy’s band that was, too.
+
+Conn stood and watched them, with a wistful, longing look in her great
+violet eyes, and the soft, bright color coming and going on her girlish
+cheeks. At last she gathered a bunch of late red roses, and put them
+in her bosom and went into the house. She sewed a little, and then
+she tossed her work aside, for who cares to work on holidays? Then she
+took up her new book; but the tale it told seemed dull and cold beside
+the warm throbbing life of which the outside world was full. She wished
+over and over that she were a boy, that she might have marched away
+with the rest. Then she wondered if she could not go into town and see
+them from somewhere in all their glory. Very little idea had she of a
+Boston crowd on Fourth of July. She had been into town often enough,
+with her aunt or her uncle, and walked through the quiet streets; and
+she thought she should have little trouble in doing the same now. She
+looked in her purse; she had not much money, but enough so that she
+could ride if she got tired, and she would be sure to save some to come
+home. She called her Aunt Sarah’s one servant, and made her promise to
+keep the secret as long as she could, and then tell Aunt Sarah that she
+had gone to Boston to find Jack and see him march with the rest.
+
+The girl was a good-natured creature, not bright enough to know that it
+was her duty to interfere, and easily persuaded by Conn’s entreaties
+and the bit of blue ribbon with which they were enforced.
+
+And so Conn started off, as the boys had done before her, and went on
+her way. But she had no gay music to which to march, and for company
+she had only her own thoughts, her own hopes. Still she marched bravely
+on.
+
+There were plenty of other people going the same way; indeed it seemed
+to Conn as if everybody must be going into Boston. Excitement upheld
+her, and she trudged along, mile after mile, across the pleasant
+mill-dam, and at last she reached Beacon Street. Her head had begun to
+throb horribly by the time she got into town. It seemed to her that
+all the world was whirling round and round, and she with it. But she
+could not turn back then; indeed, she did not know how to find any
+conveyance, and she knew her feet would not carry her much farther.
+Surely, she _must_ see Jack soon. He had said they should march through
+Beacon Street. She would ask some one. She had an idea that every one
+must know about any thing so important as the Brighton Blues. At last
+she got courage to speak to a kind-looking servant-maid in the midst
+of a group on the steps of one of the Beacon-street houses. The girl
+pitied her white face, so pale now, with all the pretty pink roses
+faded from the tired young cheeks, and answered kindly.
+
+She did not know about the Brighton Blues, but she guessed all the
+companies had been by there, or would come. Wouldn’t the young lady sit
+down with them on the steps, and rest, and wait a little?
+
+And “the young lady” sat down. What could she do else, with the whole
+world whirling, whirling, and her feet so strangely determined to whirl
+out from under her? And then it grew dark, and when it came light again
+there was a wet cloth on her hair, and she lay on a lounge in a cool
+basement, and the kind girl who had cared for her told her that she
+had fainted. And then she had some food and grew refreshed a little,
+but was strangely confused yet, and with only one thought, to which
+she held with all the strength of her will,--that she had come to see
+Jack and must look for him till he came. So on the steps she stationed
+herself, and the crowd surged by. Military companies, grown-up ones,
+came and went with glitter of brave uniforms and joyful clamor of
+music, and Conn watched, with all her soul in her eyes, but still no
+Jack.
+
+It was mid-afternoon at last when suddenly she saw the familiar blue,
+and marching down the street came the boyish ranks, following their
+own band--tired enough, all of them, no doubt, but their courage kept
+up by the music and the hope of fireworks by and by. Conn strained her
+eyes. She did not mean to speak, but after a little, when the face she
+longed for came in sight, something within her cried out with a sharp,
+despairing cry, “Oh, Jack, Jack!”
+
+And Jack heard. Those who were watching saw one boy break from the long
+blue line, and spring up the step where Conn sat, and seize in strong
+hands the shoulders of a girl all in white, her face as white as her
+gown, and some red roses, withered now, upon her breast.
+
+“Conn--Conn Richmond!” the boy cried, “what _does_ this mean?”
+
+“Don’t scold--oh, _don’t_ scold, Jack!” said the pitiful, quivering
+lips. “I only came in to see you marching with the rest, and--I’m
+tired.”
+
+“Yes,” said the girl who had befriended her, “and she fainted clean
+away, and she’s more dead than alive now; and if you’ve a heart in your
+bosom, you’ll let your play soldiering go, and take care of _her_.”
+
+And just then Jack realized, boy as he was, that he _had_ a heart in
+his bosom, and that his Cousin Conn was the dearest and nearest thing
+to that heart in the whole world. But he did not tell her so till long
+years afterwards. Just now his chief interest was to get her home. No
+more marching for him; and what were fireworks, or the supper the boys
+were to take together, in comparison with this girl, who had cared so
+much to see him in his holiday glory?
+
+He took her to an omnibus, which ran in those days to Brighton, and
+by tea-time he had got her home. He found his mother frightened and
+helpless, and too glad to get Conn back to think of scolding.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was six years after that, that in the battle of Malvern Hill, July
+1, 1862, Jack, a real soldier then, and no longer a boy playing at the
+mimicry of war, was wounded; and next day the news came to the quiet
+Brighton home.
+
+Conn had grown to be a young lady in the sweet grace of her twenty
+summers, and she was her Aunt Sarah’s help and comfort. To these
+two women came the news of Jack’s peril. The mother cried a little
+helplessly; but there were no tears in Conn’s eyes.
+
+“Aunt Sarah,” she said quietly, “I am going to find Jack.”
+
+And that day she was off for the Peninsula. It was the Fourth of July
+when she reached the hospital in which her Cousin Jack had been placed.
+She asked about him, trembling; but the news, which reassured her,
+was favorable. He was wounded, but not dangerously. It was a girlish
+instinct, which every girl will understand, that made Conn put on a
+fresh white gown before she used the permission she had received to
+enter the hospital. She remembered--would Jack remember also?--that
+other Fourth of July on which they had found each other, six years
+before. As if nothing should be wanting of the old attire, she met,
+as she passed along the street, a boy with flowers to sell,--for the
+flowers bloomed, just as the careless birds sang, even amid the horrors
+of those dreadful days,--and bought of him a bunch of late red roses,
+and fastened them, as she had done that other day, upon her breast.
+
+The sun was low when she entered the hospital, and its last rays
+kindled the hair, golden still as in the years long past, till it
+looked like a saint’s aureole about her fair and tender face. She
+walked on among the suffering, until, at last, before she knew that she
+had come near the object of her search, she heard her name called, just
+as _she_ had called Jack’s name six years before,--
+
+“Oh, Conn, Conn!”
+
+And then she sank upon her knees beside a low bed, and two feeble arms
+reached round her neck and drew her head down.
+
+“I was waiting for you, Conn. I knew you would come. I lay here
+waiting till I should see you as you were that day long ago,--all in
+white, and with red roses on your breast,--my one love in all the
+world!”
+
+And the girl’s white face grew crimson with a swift, sweet joy, for
+never before had such words blessed her. She did not speak; and Jack,
+full of a man’s impatience, now that at last he had uttered the words
+left unsaid so long, held her fast, and whispered,--
+
+“Tell me, Conn, tell me that you _are_ mine, come life or death. Surely
+you would not have sought me here if you had not meant it to be so! You
+_are_ my Conn,--tell me so.”
+
+And I suppose Conn satisfied him, for two years after that she was
+his wife, and last night he gave the old pistol of that first Fourth
+of July to a young ten-year-old Jack Richmond to practise with for
+this year’s Fourth; and pretty Mother Conn, as fair still as in her
+girlhood, remonstrated, as gentle mothers will, with,--
+
+“Oh Jack, surely he is too young for such a dangerous plaything.”
+
+Father Jack laughed as he lifted little Conn to his knee, and
+answered,--
+
+“Nonsense, sweetheart. He is a soldier’s boy, and a little
+pistol-shooting won’t hurt him.”
+
+But how noisy it will be round that house on Fourth of July!
+
+
+
+
+HER MOTHER’S DAUGHTER.
+
+
+Syl Graham was an only child. Her name was Sylvia, but everybody called
+her Syl, except that sometimes, half playfully and half chidingly, her
+father called her Sylly. But that was a liberty no one else took,--and
+for which Mr. Graham himself was not unlikely to pay in extra
+indulgence.
+
+Syl was seventeen, and she had never known any trouble in all her
+young, bright life. Her mother had died when she was two years old; and
+this, which might easily have been the greatest of misfortunes,--though
+Syl was too young to know it,--had been turned almost into a blessing
+by the devotion of her father’s sister, Aunt Rachel, who came to take
+care of the little one then, and had never left her since.
+
+Not the dead Mrs. Graham herself could have been more motherly or more
+tender than Aunt Rachel; and the girl had grown up like a flower in a
+shaded nook, on which no rough wind had ever been allowed to breathe.
+
+And a pretty flower she was; so her father thought when she ran into
+the hall to meet him, as he came in from business at the close of the
+short November day.
+
+The last rays of daylight just bronzed her chestnut hair. Her face was
+delicately fair,--as the complexion that goes with such hair usually
+is,--colorless save in the lips, which seemed as much brighter than
+other lips as if they had added to their own color all that which was
+absent from the fair, colorless cheeks. The brown eyes were dancing
+with pleasant thoughts, the little, girlish figure was wonderfully
+graceful, and Papa Graham looked down at this fair, sweet maiden with a
+fond pride, which the sourest critic could hardly have had a heart to
+condemn.
+
+“Are you cross?” she said laughingly, as she helped him off with his
+overcoat.
+
+“Very,” he answered, with gravity.
+
+“I mean are you worse than usual? Will you be in the best humor now or
+after dinner?”
+
+“After dinner, decidedly, if Aunt Rachel’s coffee is good.”
+
+Syl nodded her piquant little head. “I’ll wait, then.”
+
+The dinner was good enough to have tempted a less hungry man than Mr.
+Graham, and the coffee was perfect. Papa’s dressing-gown and slippers
+were ready, upstairs; and when he had sat down in the great, soft
+easy-chair that awaited him, and his daughter had settled herself on
+a stool at his feet, I think it would have been hard to find a more
+contented-looking man in all New York.
+
+“Now I’m very sure you are as good as such a bear can be,” said saucy
+Syl; “and now we’ll converse.”
+
+To “converse” was Syl’s pet phrase for the course of request,
+reasoning, entreaty, by which Papa Graham was usually brought to accede
+to all her wishes, however extravagant. He rested his hand now on her
+shining chestnut braids, and thought how like she was to the young wife
+he had loved so well, and lost so early. Then he said teasingly,--
+
+“What is it, this time? A Paris doll, with a trunk and a bandbox; or a
+hand-organ?”
+
+“For shame, papa! The doll was four years ago.”
+
+“All the more reason it must be worn out. Then it’s the hand-organ. But
+I must draw the line somewhere,--you can’t have the monkey. If Punch
+and Judy would do, though?”
+
+“Now, Father Lucius, you know I gave up the hand-organ two years ago,
+and took a piano for my little upstairs room instead; and you know I’m
+seventeen. Am I likely, at this age, to want monkeys, Punch and Judys,
+and things?”
+
+“O, no! I forgot. Seventeen,--it must be a sewing-machine. You want to
+make all your endless bibs and tuckers more easily. Well, I’ll consent.”
+
+Syl blushed. It was a sore point between her and Aunt Rachel that she
+so seldom sewed for herself. Aunt Rachel had old-fashioned notions, and
+believed in girls that made their own pretty things.
+
+“Now, papa, you are not good-humored at all. I had better have asked
+you before dinner. You don’t even let me tell you what I want.”
+
+Papa sobered his face into a look of respectful attention, and waited
+silently. But now Syl was not quite ready to speak.
+
+“Don’t you think pomegranate is a pretty color, papa?”
+
+“What is it like?”
+
+“O, it’s the deepest, richest, brightest, humanest red you ever saw.”
+
+“Why, I think it must be like your lips;” and he drew her to him, and
+kissed the bright young mouth with a lazy content.
+
+“Perhaps it _is_ like my lips; then, surely it will look well _with_
+them.”
+
+“Where does this blossom of beauty grow?”
+
+“It grows at Stewart’s. It has been woven into a lovely, soft-falling
+silk, at four dollars a yard. Twenty-five yards makes a gown, and eight
+yards of velvet makes the trimming and the sleeveless jacket, and the
+velvet is six dollars a yard. And then there is Madame Bodin, she
+charges like a horrid old Jew,--forty dollars just to look at a gown;
+and then there are the linings and buttons and things. Have you kept
+account, papa, and added it all up in your head?”
+
+“I think it means about two hundred dollars. Isn’t that what you call
+it, Sylly?”
+
+“Yes, if you please. It’ll be _worth_ that, won’t it, to have your
+daughter look like a love, when all the people come on New Year’s Day?”
+
+“So that’s it,--that’s what this conspiracy against my peace and my
+pocket has for its object,--that Miss Syl Graham may sit at the receipt
+of callers on New Year’s Day, in a robe like a red, red rose. O Sylly,
+Sylly!”
+
+Syl pouted a little, the most becoming pout in the world.
+
+“Well, I’m sure I thought you cared how I look. If you don’t, never
+mind. My old black silk is still very neat and decent.”
+
+“September, October, November,--it’s nearly three months old, isn’t
+it? What a well-behaved gown it must be to have kept neat and decent
+so long! And as to the other, I’ll consider, and you can ask me again
+when I come home to-morrow.”
+
+Syl knew what Papa Graham’s considers meant, and how they always ended.
+She had gained her point, and she danced off and sang to the piano some
+old Scotch airs that her father loved, because Syl’s mother used to
+sing them; and Papa Graham listened dreamily to the music, while his
+thoughts went back twenty years, to the first winter when he brought
+his girl-bride home, only a year older, then, than Syl was now. He
+remembered how the firelight used to shine on her fair, upturned face,
+as she knelt beside him; how sweet her voice was; how pure and true and
+fond her innocent young heart. And now Syl was all he had left of her.
+
+Should he lose Syl herself, soon? Would some bold wooer come and carry
+her away, and leave him with only Aunt Rachel’s quiet figure and fading
+face beside him for the rest of his life?
+
+Just then Syl might have asked him not in vain for any thing, even to
+the half of his kingdom.
+
+Next morning Syl went into the sewing-room. A young girl just about
+her own age was there--altering, sewing, making all the foolish little
+fancies in which Syl’s heart delighted, though her idle fingers never
+wrought at them. Out of pure kindness of heart Syl found her way into
+the sewing-room very often when Mary Gordon was there. She knew her
+presence carried pleasure with it, and often she used to take some
+story or poem and read to the young listener, with the always busy
+fingers, and the gentle, grateful face.
+
+But to-day she found the girl’s eyes very red as if with long weeping.
+If Syl was selfish it was only because she never came in contact with
+the pains and needs of others. She had “fed on the roses and lain among
+the lilies of life,”--how was she to know the hurt of its stinging
+nettles? But she could not have been the lovesome, charming girl she
+was if she had had a nature hard and indifferent to the pains of others.
+
+To see Mary Gordon’s red eyes was enough. Instantly she drew the work
+out of the fingers that trembled so; and then she set herself to draw
+the secret sorrow out of the poor, trembling heart.
+
+It was the old story, so sadly common and yet so bitterly sad, of a
+mother wasting away and fading out of life, and a daughter struggling
+to take care of her, and breaking her heart because she could do so
+little.
+
+“I’m used to all that,” the girl said sadly, “and I don’t let myself
+cry for what I can’t help. But this morning I heard her say to herself,
+as I was getting every thing ready for her, ‘O, the long, lonesome
+day!’ She thought I did not hear her, for she never complains; but
+somehow it broke me down. I keep thinking of her, suffering and weary
+and all alone. But I can’t help that, either; and I must learn to be
+contented in thinking that I do my best.”
+
+“But can’t you stay at home with her and work there?” cried Syl, all
+eager sympathy and interest.
+
+“No, I can’t get work enough in that way. People want their altering
+and fixing done in their own houses, and plain sewing pays so poorly.
+Sometimes I’ve thought if I only had a machine, so I could get a great
+deal done, I might manage but to hire one would eat up all my profits.”
+
+Syl thought a little silent while; and it was a pretty sight to see the
+fair young face settle into such deep earnestness.
+
+“Well,” she said at length, “at least you shall stay at home with her
+to-morrow; for all those ruffles can be done just as well there as
+here, and you shall carry them home with you. And you’d better go early
+this afternoon; there’ll be enough work to last you, and I can’t bear
+to think of her waiting for you, and wanting you, so many long hours.
+We’ll give her a little surprise.”
+
+Mary Gordon did not speak for a moment. I think she was getting her
+voice steady, for when she did begin it trembled.
+
+“I _can’t_ thank you, Miss Syl,--it’s no use to try; but the strange
+part is how you understand it all, when you’ve no mother yourself.”
+
+“Ah, but you see I have papa and auntie, and I just know.”
+
+That day, after Syl and Aunt Rachel had lunched together, Syl said, in
+a coaxing little way she had,--
+
+“Aunt Rachel, we never want to see the other half of that cold chicken
+again, do we?”
+
+“Why, Syl--we”--
+
+“Why, auntie, no--we never want to-morrow’s lunch furnished coldly
+forth by this sad relic. And there’s a tumbler of jelly we don’t want,
+either--and those rolls, and,--let me see, can sick people eat cake?”
+
+“Why, Syl Graham, what are you talking about! Who’s sick?”
+
+Syl grew sober.
+
+“I’m thinking about poor Mary Gordon’s mother, auntie. She’s sick, and
+dying by inches; and Mary has to leave her all alone; and I’ve told her
+she shall stay at home to-morrow and make my ruffles, and we’ll pay her
+just the same as if she came here. And don’t you see that we must give
+her her dinner to take home, since she can’t come here after it?”
+
+Aunt Rachel never said a word, but she got up and kissed Syl on each
+cheek. Then she brought a basket, and into it went the cold chicken and
+a cold tongue and jelly and buttered rolls and fruit, till even Syl
+was satisfied; and she took the heavy basket and danced away with it to
+the sewing-room, with a bright light in her dear brown eyes.
+
+“I think you’d best go now,” she said. “I can’t get your mother,
+waiting there alone, out of my mind, and it’s spoiling my afternoon,
+don’t you see? And because you mustn’t come here to dine to-morrow, you
+must carry your dinner home with you; and Aunt Rachel put some fruit
+and some jelly in the basket that maybe your mother will like.”
+
+That night, when Mr. Lucius Graham let himself into the hall with his
+latch-key, his daughter heard him and went to meet him, as usual. But
+she was very silent, and he missed his teasing, saucy, provoking Syl.
+
+“Why, daughter, are you in a dream?” he asked once during dinner; but
+she only laughed and shook her head. She held her peace until she had
+him at her mercy, in the great easy-chair, and she was on the stool
+beside him, as her wont was. Then, suddenly, her question came.
+
+“Papa, do you think a pomegranate silk without velvet would be very
+bad?”
+
+He was inclined to tease her, and began with “Hideous!” but then he saw
+that her lips were fairly trembling, and her face full of eagerness,
+and forbore.
+
+“How did you know you were to have the silk at all? But you know your
+power over me. Here is your needful;” and he put into her hands ten
+bright, new twenty-dollar bills.
+
+“O, thank you! and _do_ you think it would be bad without the velvet?”
+
+“Sylly, no; but why shouldn’t you have the velvet if you want it?”
+
+And then came the whole story of poor Mary Gordon, and--in such an
+eager tone,--
+
+“Don’t you see, with the money the velvet would cost, and a little
+more, I could get her the sewing-machine; and Madame Bodin wouldn’t ask
+so much to make the dress if it is plainer?”
+
+Mr. Graham was a rich man, and his first thought was to give her the
+money for the machine, and let her have her pretty dress, as she had
+fancied it, first. But a second thought restrained him. She was just
+beginning to learn the joy and beauty of self-sacrifice. Should he
+interfere? He kissed her with a half-solemn tenderness, and answered
+her,--
+
+“You shall do precisely as you please, my dear. The two hundred dollars
+is yours. Use it _just_ as you like. I shall never inquire into its
+fate again.”
+
+And then she went away--and was it her voice or that of some blessed
+spirit that came to him, a moment after, from the shadowy corner where
+the piano stood, singing an old middle-age hymn, about the city--
+
+    “Where all the glad life-music,
+      Now heard no longer here,
+    Shall come again to greet us,
+      As we are drawing near.”
+
+The next day, who so busy and happy as Syl--dragging Aunt Rachel from
+one warehouse to another--it was in the days when sewing-machines were
+costly--till she was quite sure she had found just the right machine;
+and then ordering it sent, at three o’clock, no earlier, no later, to
+Miss Gordon, No. 2 Crescent Place.
+
+At a quarter before three Syl went there herself. The pleasure of
+witnessing Mary Gordon’s surprise was the thing she had promised
+herself, in lieu of velvet on her gown. She found the poor room neat
+and clean, and by no means without traces of comfort and refinement;
+and Mrs. Gordon was a sweet and gentle woman, such as Mary’s mother
+must have been to be in keeping with Mary. She chatted with them for a
+few minutes, noticing the invalid’s short breath and frequent cough,
+and Mary’s careful tenderness over her.
+
+“It’s too bad Mary can’t be at home all the time,” said Syl.
+
+“Yes; but then to have her to-day is such a blessing. If you knew how
+we had enjoyed our day together, and our feast together, I know you
+would feel paid for any inconvenience it cost you.”
+
+Just then an express wagon rumbled up to the door and the bell rang
+loudly. Mary opened it at once, for their room was on the ground floor.
+
+“A sewing-machine for Miss Gordon,” said a somewhat gruff voice.
+
+“No, that cannot be. There is some mistake,” said Mary’s gentle tones.
+And then Syl sprang forward, in a flutter of excitement, which would
+have been pretty to see had there been anybody there to notice it.
+
+“I’m sure it’s all right. Bring it in, please; and Mary, you will tell
+them where to put it, in the best light.”
+
+And in five minutes or less it was all in its place, and Mary was
+looking, with eyes full of wonder, and something else beside wonder, at
+Syl Graham.
+
+“It’s nothing,” said Syl hurriedly; “it’s only my New Year’s present to
+you, a little in advance of time.”
+
+She had thought she should enjoy Mary’s surprise; but this was
+something she had not looked for,--this utter breaking down, these
+great wild sobs, as if the girl’s heart would break. And when she could
+speak at length, she cried with a sort of passion,--
+
+“O Miss Syl, I do believe you have saved my mother’s life! She will get
+better--she must--now that I can stay here all the time and take care
+of her.”
+
+Syl was glad to get out into the street. She felt something in her own
+throat choking her. Just a few steps off she met Dr. Meade,--her own
+doctor, as it chanced,--and it struck her that it would be a good thing
+if he would go in to see Mrs. Gordon. So she asked him.
+
+“I’m going there,” he said. “I try to see her once every week.”
+
+“And will she live--can she?”
+
+The doctor answered, with half a sigh,--
+
+“I’m afraid not. She needs more constant care, and more nourishing food
+and other things. I wish I could help her more, but I can only give my
+services, and I see so many such cases.”
+
+“But she would take things from you, and not be hurt?”
+
+“I should _make_ her if I had a full purse to go to.”
+
+“Well, then, here are forty dollars for her; and you are to get her
+what she needs, and never let her know where it came from--will you?”
+
+“Yes, I will,” he answered earnestly. And then, after a moment, he
+said,--“Syl Graham, you are your mother’s daughter. I can say no better
+thing of you,--she was a good woman.”
+
+Syl had a hundred dollars left; but that wouldn’t compass the
+pomegranate silk, and Syl had concluded now she did not want it. She
+had had a glimpse of something better; and that hundred dollars would
+make many a sad heart glad before spring.
+
+On New Year’s Day, Papa Graham was off all day making calls; and the
+gas was already lighted when he went into his own house, and into his
+own drawing-room. He saw a girl there with bands of bright chestnut
+hair about her graceful young head; with shining eyes, and lips as
+bright as the vivid crimson roses in her braided hair, and in the
+bosom of her black silk gown. He looked at her with a fond pride and a
+fonder love; and then he bent to kiss her,--for the room was empty of
+guests just then. As he lifted his head and met Aunt Rachel’s eyes, it
+happened that he said about the same words Dr. Meade had used before,--
+
+“She is her mother’s daughter; I can say of her no better thing.”
+
+
+
+
+MY QUARREL WITH RUTH.
+
+
+I suppose if I had not loved Ruth Carson so much my resentment against
+her would not have been so bitter. She was my first friend. She had no
+sister, neither had I; and we used to think that no sisters could be
+nearer to each other than we were. She had black eyes,--great, earnest,
+beautiful eyes, with pride and tenderness both in them; sometimes one
+and sometimes the other in the ascendant. I was yellow-haired and
+blue-eyed, but we always wanted our gowns and hats alike, and coaxed
+our mothers into indulging us. I don’t know whether Ruth suffered more
+in appearance when the clear dark of her face was set in my pale blues,
+or I, when her brilliant reds and orange turned me into a peony or a
+sunflower; but we thought little about such effects in those days. If
+Ruth got her new article of attire first, I must have one like it,
+whether or no; and if I was first favored, she followed my example.
+
+It was thus in every thing. We studied from the same text-books,
+keeping a nearly even pace Ruth was quicker than I at figures, so she
+helped me there; and my eyes were better than her near-sighted ones at
+finding towns, mountains, and fivers on the atlas, so we always did our
+“map questions” together. Of course our play hours were always passed
+in company, and one face was almost as familiar as the other in each of
+our houses. “The twins,” people used to call us, for fun; and if ever
+two girls were all and all to each other, we were.
+
+What did we quarrel about? It is a curious thing that I have forgotten
+how it began. It was some little difference of opinion, such as seldom
+occurred between us; and then, “what so wild as words are?” We said one
+thing after another, until, finally, Ruth’s black eyes flashed, and she
+cried out passionately,--
+
+“I just about hate you, Sue Morrison!”
+
+Then my temper flamed. It was a different kind of temper from
+Ruth’s,--slower to take fire, but much more sullen and resolute. I
+loved her as I did my own life, but I hated her also, just then,--if
+you can understand that contradiction. I looked at her, and I remember
+I thought, even then, how handsome she was, with the red glow on her
+cheeks, and her eyes so strangely bright. I could have kissed her for
+love, or cursed her for hate; but the hate triumphed. Slowly I said,--
+
+“Very well, Ruth Carson. I shall not trouble you any more. I shall
+never speak to you again, until I see you lie a-dying.”
+
+I don’t know what made me put that last sentence in. I suppose I
+thought, even then, that I could not have her go out of the world,
+for good and all, without one tender word from me. When I spoke, Ruth
+turned pale, and the light died in her eyes. I presume she did not
+think I really meant what I said; but, at any rate, it startled her.
+She did not answer. She just looked at me a moment. Then she turned
+away, and, for the first time in years, she and I walked home, so far
+as our roads lay the same way, on opposite sides of the street.
+
+“Where is Ruth?” my mother asked, when I went in.
+
+“Gone home, I believe,” was my only answer.
+
+It seemed to me that I could not tell even my mother of this
+estrangement, which had changed in a day the whole current of my life.
+Of course, as time went on, she saw that all was different between Ruth
+and me; but, finding that I did not voluntarily tell her any thing, she
+ceased even to mention Ruth in my presence.
+
+You cannot think how strange and solitary my new life seemed to me. For
+the first time since I could remember I felt all alone. I don’t think
+Ruth thought this unnatural state of things could last. The first day
+after our quarrel she spoke to me, at school, half timidly. I looked at
+her, and did not answer. She sighed, and turned away; and again, when
+school was over, each of us went home alone on our separate path.
+
+Sometimes I would find a bunch of roses on my desk, for it was June
+when our quarrel took place, and all the roses were in bloom. Then,
+later, I would lift up the desk cover and come upon an early apple
+or a peach; later still, a handful of chestnuts. I always let the
+roses wither without touching them; and the fruit I gave away, as if
+unconscious where it came from. Ruth would watch me and sigh; but after
+that first morning she never spoke to me. I think my rebuff then hurt
+her too much for her to be willing to risk receiving such another. What
+a strange, new, sad thing it was to get our lessons, as we did now, all
+alone! How the hateful figures tormented me, without Ruth’s quick brain
+to help me unravel them! How puzzled she looked, as I saw her holding
+the map close to her near-sighted eyes, trying to find the rivers and
+lakes and mountains all by herself!
+
+It was a curious thing that after the first two or three days my
+anger had passed away entirely. I held no longer the least bitterness
+in my heart toward Ruth; and yet I felt that I must keep my word. I
+looked upon my rash utterance as a vow, for which I had a sort of
+superstitious reverence. Then, too, there was a queer, evil kind of
+pride about me,--something that wouldn’t _let_ me speak to her when
+I had said I wouldn’t,--wouldn’t _let_ me show her that I was sorry.
+The teacher spoke to me about the trouble between me and Ruth, but he
+might as well have spoken to a blank wall,--I did not even answer him.
+Whether he said any thing to Ruth I do not know.
+
+In the late fall there was a vacation, which held over Thanksgiving.
+I had an idea that my mother watched me curiously to see how I
+would pass those weeks without Ruth. But I was resolute to show no
+pain or loneliness. I made occupations for myself. I read; I worked
+worsted; I crocheted; I copied out poems in my common-place book; I
+was busy from morning till night. One thing I did not do,--I did not
+take another friend in Ruth’s stead. Several of the girls had shown
+themselves willing to fill the vacant place, but they soon found that
+“No admittance here” was written over the door. I think they tried the
+same experiment with Ruth, with the same result. At any rate, each of
+us went on our solitary way, quite alone. Ruth had her own pride, too,
+as well as I; and, after a little while, she would no more have spoken
+to me than I to her; but she could not help those great, dark eyes
+of hers resting on me sometimes with a wistful, inquiring look, that
+almost brought the tears to mine.
+
+School commenced again the first of December. Ruth came, the first day,
+in her new winter dress. It was a deep, rich red; and somehow she made
+me think of the spicy little red roses of Burgundy, that used to grow
+in my grandmother’s old-fashioned garden. My own new gown was blue. For
+the first time in years, Ruth and I were dressed differently. We were
+no longer “the twins.” I thought Ruth looked a little sad. She was very
+grave. I never heard her laugh in these days. When it rained or snowed,
+and we stayed at school through the noonings, instead of going home
+for our dinner, neither of us would join in the games that made the
+noontime merry. I suppose each was afraid of too directly encountering
+the other.
+
+But when the good skating came, both of us used to be on the pond. The
+whole school, teacher and all, would turn out on half holidays. Both
+Ruth and I were among the best skaters in school My father had taught
+us, two or three winters before, and we had had great pride in our
+skill. We had always skated in company before; but now, as in every
+thing else we did, we kept at a distance from each other.
+
+The pond used to be a pretty sight, on those crisp, keen winter
+afternoons, all alive with boys and girls. A steep hill rose on one
+side of it, crowned by a pine wood, green all the winter through. Great
+fields of snow stretched far and away on the other side, and in the
+midst was the sheet of ice, smooth as glass. Here was a scarlet hood,
+and there a boy’s gay Scotch cap. Here some adventurer was cutting
+fantastic capers; there a girl was struggling with her first skates,
+and falling down at almost every step. I loved the pastime,--the
+keen, clear air, the swift motion, the excitement. I loved to watch
+Ruth, too, for by this time not only was all the bitterness gone from
+my heart, but the old love was welling up, sweet and strong, though
+nothing would have made me acknowledge it to myself. Wherever she
+moved, my far-sighted eyes followed her; and, indeed, she was a pretty
+sight, the prettiest there, in her bright scarlet skating dress, and
+with her cheeks scarcely less scarlet, and her great eyes bright as
+stars.
+
+There came a day, at last, when we promised ourselves an afternoon
+of glorious skating. The ice was in excellent condition, the sky was
+cloudless, the weather cold, indeed, but not piercing, and the air
+exhilarating as wine. I ate my dinner hurriedly--there was no time to
+lose out of such an afternoon. I rose from the table before the rest,
+put on my warm jacket and my skating-cap, and was just leaving the
+house when my father called after me.
+
+“Be very careful of the west side of the pond, Sue. They have been
+cutting a good deal of ice there.”
+
+The whole school was out; only when I first got there I did not see
+Ruth. The teacher repeated to us what my father had said, but I
+remembered afterward that it was not till he had done speaking that
+Ruth came in sight, looking, in her bright scarlet, like some tropical
+bird astray under our pale northern skies. As usual she and I began
+skating at some distance from each other, but gradually I drew nearer
+and nearer to her. I had no reason for this. I did not mean to speak to
+her, and the pride that held me from her was as untamed as ever. But
+yet something for which I could not account drew me towards her.
+
+Did she see me, and wish to avoid me? I did not know; but suddenly she
+began to skate swiftly away from me, and toward the dangerous west side
+of the pond. I think I must have called, “Come back! come back!” but
+if I did, she did not heed or hear. She was skating on, oh, so fast! I
+looked around in despair--I was nearer to her than any one else was. I
+shouted, with all my might, to Mr. Hunt, the teacher. I thought I saw
+him turn at the sound of my voice, but I did not wait to be sure. I
+just skated after Ruth.
+
+I never can tell you about that moment. All the love with which I
+had loved her swept back over my heart like a great flood. Pride and
+bitterness, what did they mean? I only knew that I had loved Ruth
+Carson as I should never, never love any other friend; and that if she
+died I wanted to die too, and be friends with her again in the next
+world, if I could not here. I think I called to her, but the call was
+wasted upon the wind which always bore my voice the other way. So Ruth
+skated on and on, and I skated after her. Whether any one was coming
+behind me I did not know. I never even looked over my shoulder. It
+seemed to me that some mad wind of destiny was sweeping us both ahead.
+
+Suddenly there came a plash, the scarlet cap appeared a moment above
+the ice, and then that went under, and there was no Ruth in sight,
+anywhere. You cannot think how calm I was. I wonder at it now, looking
+back over so many years, to that bright, sad, far-off winter day.
+I succeeded in checking my own headlong speed, and, drawing near
+cautiously to the spot where Ruth had gone down, I threw myself along
+the ice. It was thick and strong, and had been cut into squares, so
+it bore me up. I looked over the edge. Ruth was rising toward me. I
+reached down and clutched her, I hardly know by what. At that moment I
+felt my ankles grasped firmly by two strong hands, and then I knew that
+I could save Ruth. I held her until some one helped me to pull her out,
+and then I don’t know what came next.
+
+I waked up, long afterward, in my own bed, in my own room. I seemed to
+myself to have been quite away from this world, on some long journey.
+A consciousness of present things came back to me slowly. I recalled
+with a shudder the hard, sharply cut ice, the water gurgling below, and
+Ruth, _my_ Ruth, with her great black eyes and her bright, bonny face,
+going down, down. I cried out,--
+
+“Ruth! Ruth! where are you?”
+
+And then I turned my head, and there, beside me, she lay, my pretty
+Ruth--mine again, after so long.
+
+“She clung to you so tightly we could not separate you,” I heard my
+mother say; but all my being was absorbed in looking at Ruth. She was
+white as death. I had said I would not speak to her again until I saw
+her lie a-dying. _Was_ she dying now? I lifted myself on my elbow
+to look at her. I held my own breath to see if any came from her
+half-parted lips; and as I looked, her eyes unclosed, and she put her
+arm up,--oh, so feebly!--and struggled to get it round my neck. I bent
+over her, and one moment our lips clung together, in such a kiss as
+neither of us had ever known before--a kiss snatched from death, and
+full of peace and pardon, and the unutterable bliss of a restored love.
+Then Ruth whispered,--
+
+“Sue, I have been only half a girl since I lost you. I would rather
+have died there, in the black water from which you saved me, than not
+to find you again.”
+
+“I thought you _were_ dying, Ruth,” I whispered back, holding her
+close; “and if you were, I meant to die too. I would have gone after
+you into the water but what I would have had you back.”
+
+Then we were too weak to say any thing more. We just lay there, our
+hands clasped closely, in an ineffable content. Our mothers came and
+went about us; all sorts of tender cares were lavished on us of which
+we took no heed. I knew only one thing,--that I had won back Ruth;
+Ruth knew only one thing,--that once more she was by my side.
+
+That was our first and our last quarrel. I think no hasty word was ever
+spoken between us afterward. The first one had cost us too dear.
+
+
+
+
+WAS IT HER MOTHER?
+
+
+Just a little voice, calling through the dark, “Mamma, O mamma!” and
+then a low sound of stifled sobbing.
+
+Colonel Trevethick heard them both, and they smote him with a new sense
+of loss and pain. He had scarcely thought of his little girl since his
+wife died, five hours before,--died at the very instant when she was
+kissing him good-by, taking with her into the far heavens the warm
+breath of his human love. He had loved her as, perhaps, men seldom
+love, from the first hour of their first meeting.
+
+“There is Maud Harrison,” some one had said; and he had turned to look,
+and met the innocent gaze of two frank, gentle, very beautiful brown
+eyes. “Brightest eyes that ever have shone,” he said to himself. Their
+owner had other charms besides,--a fair and lovely face, round which
+the ruffled hair made a soft, bright halo; a lithe, girlish figure; a
+manner of unaffected cordiality, blent with a certain maidenly reserve,
+and which seemed to him perfection. He loved her, then and there. His
+wooing was short and his wedding hasty; but he had never repented his
+haste, never known an unhappy hour from the moment he brought his wife
+home, nine years ago, till these last few days, in which he had seen
+that no love or care of his could withhold her from going away from him
+to another home where he could not follow her,--the home where she had
+gone now, far beyond his search.
+
+She was a good little creature, and she did not rebel even at the
+summons to go out of her earthly Eden in search of the paradise of
+God. She longed, indeed, to live, for she so loved her own, and she
+could have resigned herself to die more willingly but for her husband’s
+uncontrollable passion of woe. That very day she had said to him, as he
+knelt beside her,--
+
+“Do not grieve so, darling! I am not going so far but that I shall come
+back to you every day. Something tells me that I shall be always near
+you and Maudie. You cannot call, or she cry, but that I shall hear
+you. I know that when she most needs, or you most want me, I shall be
+close beside you.”
+
+And with that very last kiss, when her breath was failing, she had
+whispered,--
+
+“I shall not go so far as you think.”
+
+Now when he heard the low call of his little Maudie and her smothered
+sobbing, he remembered the words of his dead wife. Did she, indeed,
+hear Maudie cry, and was it possibly troubling her? He got up and went
+into the little room where the child had slept alone ever since her
+sixth birthday, a couple of months ago. He bent over her low bed, and
+asked tenderly,--
+
+“What is it, darling?”
+
+A tiny night-gowned figure lifted itself up and two little arms clung
+round his neck.
+
+“Bessie put me to bed without taking me to mamma. Mamma did not kiss
+me good-night, and I want she should,--oh, I _want_ she should! Bessie
+wouldn’t carry me to see her; and I want you to. Bessie said mamma
+never _would_ kiss me again but that isn’t true, is it? You know I’ve
+heard mamma say Bessie wasn’t always ’sponsible.”
+
+Colonel Trevethick considered for a moment what he should say to
+his child--how he could make her understand the great, sad, awful,
+yet triumphant mystery which had come to pass that day under their
+roof--the great loss, and the great hope that hallowed it.
+
+She was such a mere baby it seemed hard to choose his words. Must he
+tell her that her mamma would never kiss her again? But how did he know
+that? When the dear Lord promised the “all things” to those who loved
+Him, did it not include the joining of broken threads, the up-springing
+of dead hopes, the finding one’s own again, somewhere? He thought it
+must; for what a word without meaning heaven would be to him if his own
+Maud were not there! He temporized a little.
+
+“She cannot kiss you now, my darling, but you shall kiss her.”
+
+So he lifted the little white figure in his arms, holding it close, as
+one who must be father and mother both together, now, and carried his
+little one across the hall to the room, where her dead mother lay,--oh,
+so fast asleep!--with a look like a smile frozen upon her fair, sweet
+face. He held Maudie down by the pillow on which her mother’s head
+rested, but that did not satisfy her.
+
+“Put me on the bed, please, papa. I get on the bed every night and kiss
+her, since she’s been ill.”
+
+So he let her have her will; and for a moment she nestled close to the
+still dead heart, which had always beaten for her so warmly. Then she
+lifted up her head.
+
+“Mamma is very cold,” she said, “and she does not stir. Can she hear
+what I say?”
+
+Again something invisible seemed to warn him against taking away from
+the child her mother. He answered very gently and slowly,--
+
+“She’s dead, my darling,--what we call dead. _I_ do not understand
+it--no one understands it; but it comes, one day, to everybody, and it
+is God’s will. Your mamma cannot speak to us any more, and soon she
+will be gone out of our sight; but she truly believed that she would
+always be able to see your face and hear your voice, as when she was
+here.”
+
+“She _is_ here. Won’t she be here always?” the little girl asked,
+growing cold with the shadow of an awful fear.
+
+“No, dear, she will not be here long. In a few days this dear white
+face will be put away, underneath the grass and the flowers; but the
+real mamma, who loves little Maudie, will not be buried up. She will be
+somewhere, I truly believe, where she can see and hear her little girl.”
+
+For a moment the child slid again from his arms, and nestled close
+against the cold breast, kissed the unmoving lips. Then she said,--
+
+“Good-by, this mamma, who can’t see; and good-night, other mamma, that
+hears Maudie.”
+
+Colonel Trevethick marvelled. Had he, indeed, succeeded in making this
+little creature understand; or had some one whom he could not see
+spoken to her words of sweet mother-wisdom?
+
+He carried her then, and laid her in her little bed, and went back to
+his own loneliness; but half an hour afterward he heard the small voice
+calling. “Papa, papa!” and again he went to her, and the little arms
+came up around his neck, and held him fast.
+
+“Can’t I go too, papa? If you ask God, won’t He let me? Because I do so
+love my mamma.”
+
+That afternoon Colonel Trevethick had felt as if he had nothing at all
+left in this world; but now he realized how much emptier still his home
+might be if he lost out of it this child who was so like her mother.
+
+“Mamma would not want you to come,” he said passionately. “_She_ has
+all heaven, and _I_ only you,--only you, little Maudie, in all the
+world. Mamma wants you to stay with me.”
+
+After that she was quite quiet; and when he looked in at her, an hour
+later, she was sound asleep, with one little hand like a crushed white
+rose under the red rose of her flushed cheek.
+
+She never asked for her mother after that night; but her father was
+sure that she never forgot her. She was the strangest, gravest little
+creature. She never made any noise, even at her play; and she never did
+any of the things for which her mother had been used to reprove her.
+The trouble was that she was too perfect; there was something unnatural
+about it which frightened Colonel Trevethick. He would have been glad
+if she had been naughty, sometimes, like other children. He longed
+to have her tease him, to see in her some spirit of naughtiness or
+contradiction; but he saw none. She grew tall quite fast, but she was
+very thin,--a little white wraith of a creature, who looked as if she
+had been made out of snow, and might melt away as soon.
+
+It was a good thing for Colonel Trevethick, no doubt, that he had her
+to tend, and to be anxious about. It kept him from surrendering himself
+to his own grief.
+
+Nearly two years went on, and all the time the little girl grew more
+and more frail; until, at last, when she had just passed her eighth
+birthday, she was taken very ill. Her illness seemed a sort of low,
+nervous fever, and she grew daily more feeble. A skilful nurse came to
+share with Bessie the task of tending her, and her father was seldom
+far away. Half the day he would be sitting in her room, and half a
+dozen times in the night he would steal in to watch her breathing.
+
+One afternoon, as he sat by her bed, she looked up at him with a sad,
+tender look, too old for her years,--but then all her words and ways
+were too old for her years.
+
+“Papa,” she said, “I would get well if I could, to please you. I
+_should_ get well, I know, if I had mamma to nurse me. Don’t you know
+how she used, if my head ached, to put her hand on it and make it stop?”
+
+A sudden mist of tears came between his eyes and the little white face
+looking up at him. She had not spoken before of her mother for so many
+months, and yet how well she remembered! Instantly his wife’s words,
+that last day, came back to his memory. She had said, “I know that when
+Maudie needs me most, or you most want me, I shall be there beside you.”
+
+_Was_ she there now? Could she breathe upon the little wasting life
+some merciful dew of healing? or was she, perhaps, by her very love and
+longing, drawing the child home to herself?
+
+That night Bessie was to sit up until one o’clock, and then to call the
+nurse. As for Colonel Trevethick, he would be in and out, as usual.
+
+He went to bed, and fell into sleep and a dream. His own Maud was
+beside him as he saw her first, then as his bride, his wife, then with
+Baby Maudie on her breast; just as of old he seemed to have her with
+him again,--his pride, his darling, the one woman he had ever loved.
+
+He woke at last. Had his dream, then, lasted the night through? Was
+this red ray that touched his face the first hint of the rising sun? He
+sprang up quickly. The whole night had indeed passed, and he had not
+seen Maudie. He hurried into a dressing-gown and went to her room. He
+expected to find the nurse there, but, instead, Bessie sat beside the
+table just where he had left her the night before, but sound asleep.
+Evidently she must have been asleep for hours, and had not called the
+nurse, who had slept in her turn: they were all tired enough, Heaven
+knows. But, meantime, what of Maudie? What harm had come to her, alone,
+unattended?
+
+He drew aside the curtain of her little bed and looked in. Surely this
+was not the Maud he had left the night before, so pale and worn upon
+her pillows? A face looked up at him bright as the new day. A soft,
+healthy color was in the cheeks, and the moist lips were crimson.
+
+“I knew I should be well if _she_ tended me,” a voice cried, gayer and
+gladder than he had heard from her lips in two years.
+
+What _did_ the child mean? Had she gone mad? He controlled himself, and
+asked,--
+
+“Who tended you, my child? I found Bessie sound asleep.”
+
+“Yes; mamma made her sleep, and you, and nurse. She sent all of you the
+dreams you like best; and all night long she sat here beside my bed,
+with her hand on my head, just as she used to put it long ago. She was
+all in white, and her hair fell about her shoulders, and her eyes were
+very, very bright, and her lips, when she kissed me, seemed somehow to
+melt away.”
+
+“So you, too, dreamed about mamma, darling?”
+
+“No, indeed, papa, I did not dream. Mamma sat there all night long,
+with her hand upon my head. Sometimes I slept, but more often I woke up
+to look at her; and all the time she sat there, and did not tire, until
+the first sunshine came in at the windows; and then she kissed me and
+went away. I did not see her go. Perhaps I shut my eyes a moment. Then
+I looked and she was gone, and then I heard you coming in. She said she
+was with me every day, but she couldn’t have come to me like _this_,
+except because I needed her so very, very much. And she wanted to make
+me well, because you would grieve for me if I came to her; and I was to
+be very good, and tend you and make you comfortable; and I must laugh
+and must make you laugh, for laughter was good, and the reason I got
+ill was because I had been sorry so long, and had not laughed at all.
+And I was _not_ to be sorry after _her_ any more, because she was very
+happy, and nothing grieved her except when she saw you and me mourning
+for her, and not knowing that she was waiting close beside us.”
+
+“_Was_ it her mother? Can it _be_ it was the child’s mother?” the
+father cried, uttering his thought aloud unconsciously.
+
+“Of course it was mamma; and she has made me well. See if Dr. Dale does
+not tell you I am well.”
+
+Two hours afterward Dr. Dale came. He stood for a few moments beside
+the little bed. He looked in the child’s glad eyes, he counted the
+throbs of her pulse, he made her put out her healthy little tongue.
+Then he turned to her father.
+
+“Trevethick,” he said, “can you swear that this is the same little girl
+I left here last night? If the days of miracles were not gone by, I
+should say that one had been wrought here. I left, I thought, a very
+sick little person, about whom I was anxious enough, certainly, to make
+this my first call this morning; and I find my small patient so well
+that I shall only keep her in bed a day or two longer, for form’s sake.”
+
+“Perhaps it _is_ a miracle,” Colonel Trevethick said, smiling. But he
+did not explain. There are some experiences too marvellous for belief
+and too sacred for doubt or question, and that was one of them.
+
+Two days afterward little Maudie went down to tea. She wore a fresh
+white gown, with lovely blue ribbons, and looked as much like a little
+angel in festal attire as a human child can be expected to look. But
+she did not take her usual seat. She sat down, instead, behind the
+tea-pot, where Bessie usually stood to pour out the tea.
+
+“Hadn’t Bessie better do that?” papa asked, as he saw the little hand
+close round the handle of the tea-pot.
+
+But Maud laughed, and shook her head.
+
+“No, I don’t think Bessie is ’sponsible,” she said; “and mamma said I
+was to live just on purpose to do every thing for papa.”
+
+And again Colonel Trevethick asked, but this time silently,--
+
+“Was it--_could_ it have been the child’s mother?”
+
+
+
+
+THE LADY FROM OVER THE WAY.
+
+
+It was the twilight of Christmas evening,--that twilight which always
+seems so early, since nobody is ever quite ready for it. The pale
+gray of the winter’s sky was scarcely flushed by the low-lying sunset
+clouds, though sometimes you could catch a gleam of their scant
+brightness as you turned westward.
+
+The streets of New York were crowded, as usual, but everybody seemed
+even more than usually in a hurry. The air was intensely cold, and
+nipped the noses of those who were late with their Christmas shopping;
+but, in spite of it, men and women still jostled each other upon the
+sidewalk, or stopped to look at the tempting displays of holiday goods
+in the shops. Everybody, it seemed, had some small person at home who
+must be made happy to-morrow.
+
+From the window of a large but rusty-looking house on one of the
+avenues, two children looked down at the throng below, as they had been
+looking all day. They were in the fourth story of the house, and they
+could not see into the street very distinctly, but still the movement
+and the bustle interested them, and their mother was thankful that they
+had it to watch.
+
+She herself was sewing, catching the last glint of the sunset light
+for her work, as she had the first ray of the dawning. She had been a
+beautiful, high-bred woman; indeed, she was so still, though there was
+no one to note the unconscious elegance of her gestures or the graceful
+lines of her curving figure and bent head. She was very thin now, and
+very poorly clad, but a stranger would have felt that she was a lady,
+and wondered how she came in the fourth story of this house,--a great
+house, which had been handsome, too, in its day, but which was now
+let out to innumerable lodgers, mostly of the decent sort of honest,
+hard-working, half-starved poor people. Not with such neighbors had
+Mrs. Vanderheyden’s lot been formerly cast, nor for such uses as this
+had the old house itself been designed. It had been a stately mansion
+in its time, belonging to the estate of a good old Knickerbocker
+family, which was quite run out now. But there was one great comfort in
+this house: it had been so well built that its thick walls shut out all
+alien noises effectually, and made solitude possible even in a tenement
+house. Perhaps Mrs. Vanderheyden had thought of this when she chose her
+abode there.
+
+There was something in the faded grandeur of the old mansion that
+harmonized with the lingering grace of her own faded beauty. Its lofty
+walls were wainscoted with carved oak, almost black with time; and any
+imaginative person would have been likely to people it with the ghosts
+of the beautiful girls whose room no doubt this was in the old days.
+There, between those windows, hung, perhaps, their great, gleaming
+mirror, and into it they looked, all smiles and blushes and beauty,
+when they were ready for their first ball. But Mrs. Vanderheyden’s two
+little girls did not think of the other girls who might have lived
+there once. They were too young for that, and too hungry. Ethel, the
+elder, was only ten; and shy little Annie, beside her, scarcely seven.
+They saw a sight, however, from the window at which they stood, that
+interested them more than any vision of the past would have done.
+
+The avenue on which they lived was in a transition state. Trade had
+come into it and lodging-houses had vulgarized it, and yet there were
+some of the rich old residents who still clung to the houses in which
+their fathers and mothers had lived and died. There was one such
+directly opposite; and to look into the parlor over the way, and see
+there all the warmth and brightness and beauty of which they themselves
+were deprived, had been one of the chief enjoyments of the little
+Vanderheydens ever since they had been in the house. They were all that
+Mrs. Vanderheyden had left, these two girls. Wealth was gone, friends
+were gone, father and father’s home, husband and husband’s home--hope
+itself was gone; but she was not quite alone while she had these two
+for whom to struggle--to live or to die, as Heaven would. It was for
+their sakes that she had worked from dawning till nightfall, though she
+had felt all the time what seemed to her a mortal sickness stealing
+over her. Their breakfast and dinner had been only bread, of which she
+herself had scarcely tasted; but to-morrow would be Christmas, and
+it should go hard with her but she would give them better fare then.
+A dozen times during the day one or the other little voice had asked
+anxiously,--
+
+“Shall we surely, surely, have dinner to-morrow, because it is
+Christmas Day?”
+
+And she had answered,--
+
+“Please Heaven, you surely shall. My work is almost done;” and then
+she had stitched away more resolutely than ever on the child’s frock
+she was elaborately embroidering. The children meanwhile were feeding
+upon hope, and watching a scene in the house over the way, where, as
+they thought, all that any human creature could possibly hope for had
+already been given. Busy preparations had been made in that other
+house for Christmas. There was a great Christmas-tree in one corner,
+all full of little tapers, and a large, fair, gentle-looking woman had
+been engaged much of the afternoon in arranging gifts upon it. Now,
+with the twilight, a boy and girl had come in and were watching the
+lighting up of the Christmas-tree.
+
+“It’s so good of them not to pull the curtains down,” Ethel said, with
+a sigh of delight. “It’s almost as good as being there--almost.”
+
+“I do suppose that’s the very grandest house in all New York,” little
+Annie said, in a tone of awe and admiration.
+
+“Nonsense! You only think that because you are so little,” answered
+Ethel, from the height of her three years more of experience. “_You_
+forget, but _I_ can remember. We had a finer house ourselves, before
+poor papa died. There are plenty of them, only we’re so poor we don’t
+see them.”
+
+“Oh, it’s good to be that little girl!” cried Annie. “See how pretty
+her dress is, and how her hair curls; and she’ll have lots of presents
+off that Christmas-tree.”
+
+“So should we, if we had papa,” Ethel answered gravely. “Mamma, when we
+get up to heaven, do you think papa will know we’re his little girls?”
+
+“I’m sure he will,” Mrs. Vanderheyden answered; and then she rose
+wearily. “It’s all done,” she said, as she shook out the lovely little
+robe into which she had wrought so many patient stitches. “I cannot
+carry it home just yet, I am so tired; I must lie down first; but you
+shall have a good dinner to-morrow, my darlings.”
+
+The children had seen her very tired before, and they didn’t think
+much about it when she groped her way to a bed in the corner and lay
+down, drawing the scant bed-clothes up over her. They stood at the
+window still, and watched the merry children opposite, until at last a
+servant came and pulled down the curtains and shut away from them the
+Christmas-tree, with all its gleaming lights, and the boy and girl, who
+were dancing round it to some gay tune which their mother played.
+
+Then Ethel and Annie began to realize that they were cold and hungry
+and the room was dark. Ethel lit a candle. The fire was nearly out,
+but she would not make another till morning.
+
+“I won’t wake up mamma,” she said, with the premature thoughtfulness
+that characterized her; “she’s so tired. We’ll just have supper, and
+then I’ll hear you say ‘Our Father,’ and we’ll get to bed, and in the
+morning it will be Christmas.”
+
+Some vague promise of good was in the very word: Ethel did not know
+what would come, but surely Christmas would not be like other days.
+“Supper” was the rest of the bread. And then the two little creatures
+knelt down together and said their well-known prayers, and I think
+“Our Father” heard, for their sleep was just as sweet as if they had
+been in the warm, soft nest of the children over the way, tucked in
+with eider down. Through the long evening hours they slept,--through
+the solemn midnight, when the clear, cold Christmas stars looked down,
+just as they had looked centuries ago when the King of Glory, Himself a
+little child, lay asleep in an humble manger in Judea. Nothing troubled
+their quiet slumber until the sunshine of the Christmas morning broke
+through their dingy windows, and the day had begun.
+
+“It must be ever so late,” said Ethel, rubbing her sleepy eyes, “and
+mamma isn’t awake yet. But she was so tired. You lie still, Annie, and
+I’ll build the fire, and when she wakes up she’ll find it all done.”
+
+Very patiently the poor little half-frozen fingers struggled with the
+scant kindlings and the coal that seemed determined never to light; but
+they succeeded at last, and the room began to grow a little warm. Then
+she dressed Annie, and then it began to seem very late indeed, and she
+wondered if mamma would never wake up. She went to the bedside and,
+bending over, kissed her mother gently, then started back with a sudden
+alarm.
+
+“Why, Annie, she’s so cold--almost like poor papa--only you can’t
+remember--just before they took him away.”
+
+“No, she can’t be like papa,” Annie said stoutly, “for he was dead, and
+mamma is asleep.”
+
+“Yes, she’s asleep,” said the elder sister firmly. “We must wait till
+she wakes up. We’ll look over the way, and then, maybe, it won’t seem
+so long.”
+
+But over the way was brighter than ever this Christmas morning. The
+curtains had been looped back once more, the table glittered with
+lovely gifts, and presently the little girl who lived there came to the
+windows. She looked up at them--they were sure of it; but they could
+not have guessed what she said, as she turned away, and spoke to her
+mother.
+
+“O mamma,” cried the sweet young voice, “won’t you come and see these
+two poor little girls? They stood there all day yesterday and last
+night; and now see how sad they look. I can’t eat my Christmas candies
+or play with my Christmas things while they look so pale and lonesome.
+Won’t you go over and see them, mamma dear?”
+
+Mrs. Rosenburgh was a woman of warm and earnest sympathies when once
+they were aroused. When she was a girl she too had had quick impulses
+like her child’s; but she had grown selfish, perhaps, as she grew
+older, or maybe only careless; for the quick sympathies were there
+still, as you could see, now that her little girl had touched them.
+
+“To be sure I will,” she answered at once. “Poor little things! I wish
+we could make merry Christmas for all New York; but since we can’t,
+at least we won’t have faces white with want looking in at our very
+windows.”
+
+So the watching, wondering children saw the large, fair lady wrap
+herself in a heavy shawl and tie a hood over her head, and then come
+out and cross the street and enter their house.
+
+“What if she saw us, and what if she is coming here!” Ethel said
+breathlessly.
+
+Then they listened as if their hearts were in their ears. They heard
+feet upon the stairs and then a gentle tap, and the lady from over the
+way stood in their room.
+
+“I saw you at the window,” she said, “and came over to wish you a merry
+Christmas. How is this? Are you all alone?”
+
+“No, ma’am, mamma is in the bed there; but she was very tired
+yesterday, and she hasn’t waked up.”
+
+An awful terror seized Mrs. Rosenburgh. Had this woman died of want and
+weariness, in sight of her own windows? She stepped to the bedside, and
+drew away the clothes gently from the face of the sleeper. She looked a
+moment on that fair, faded face, and then she grew white as death.
+
+“Children,” she asked, “what are your names?”
+
+“I am Ethel Vanderheyden,” the oldest girl answered, “and she is Annie.”
+
+“And your mother--was she Ethel Carlisle once?”
+
+“Yes, ma’am, before she married papa.”
+
+“And your little sister is Annie?”
+
+“Yes; she was named for mamma’s best friend, one she hadn’t seen for a
+long, long time.”
+
+Meanwhile Mrs. Rosenburgh had knelt by the bedside. She had lifted the
+low-lying head upon her arm, and drawn a bottle of pungent salts from
+her pocket, and she was crying as if her heart would break, while the
+children looked wondering on.
+
+“O Ethel, my own old Ethel, _wake_ up!” And then she dropped her cheek,
+all wet with tears, against the white, cold cheek, that was so still.
+
+Oh, was it the warm tears, or the voice that sounded from far away out
+of the past, or only the strong odor that roused the poor soul from
+that long, heavy sleep of exhaustion that had so nearly been the sleep
+of death? I do not know, but I know the eyes did open, and beheld the
+tender face bending above them. And then, like a little child, the
+children heard their mother cry,--
+
+“O Annie, Annie, have I been dreaming all this time?”
+
+And then there were explanations, and the story of the long years
+since Annie Bryant and Ethel Carlisle were girls together was told.
+But the best of it all, the children thought, was when the lady from
+over the way took them home with her, and told them the boy and girl
+there should be their brother and sister, and they should live there
+henceforth; for she, who had found again her best friend, would never
+more let her struggle with want alone.
+
+And so the children had gifts and dinner, and a merry, merry Christmas
+in the bright, warm, crimson-hung room, which had seemed to them
+such a paradise of delights when they looked down into it from their
+fourth-story window through the falling shadows of Christmas Eve.
+
+
+
+
+HIS MOTHER’S BOY.
+
+
+The days were growing very dark for George Graham. He had not known
+at first what it meant that black specks should so dance between him
+and the page he tried to read, that his eyes should ache so much,
+that all things should seem so strangely dim about him. It would have
+been better, no doubt, had he stopped work as soon as he felt these
+symptoms; but how could he? This was his last term at school, and if he
+passed his examination creditably, especially if he thoroughly mastered
+the bookkeeping he was trying so hard to conquer, he was to have a
+place in Deacon Solomon Grant’s store, with wages that would not only
+take care of himself, but greatly help his mother.
+
+His mother was a widow, and George’s love for her was a sort of passion
+of devotion. When he could scarcely talk, the first two words he put
+together were, “Pretty mamma,” and ever since then she had been the
+first and fairest of created beings to him. He was very fond of Susie
+Hale, but Susie was only a nice girl,--a dear, sweet, good girl, such
+as any fellow would like; but his mother was the elect lady to whom
+were due his love, his care, his uttermost duty.
+
+Mrs. Graham was the kind of woman for a son to be romantic about. She
+was only seventeen when George was born; and now, when he was sixteen
+and she was thirty-three, she was, so he thought, more beautiful than
+ever. She had been a pretty, rather helpless little creature all her
+life,--one of those women toward whom every man feels the instinct of
+protection. George’s father had felt it always, and had never allowed
+care to come near his dainty darling. His one great agony, as he lay
+dying, was that he must leave her almost unprovided for. That was when
+George was thirteen, and the boy would never forget how his father had
+called him to his bedside, and charged him to take care of his mother.
+
+“You are old enough to be her staff, even now,” the dying man had said,
+clinging to his boy’s hand. “You can be good to her in a thousand ways,
+save her a thousand cares, and in a few years more you can work for
+her, and keep her comfortably, as I have done.”
+
+George never forgot this trust for one moment. The plans he made in
+life were all for his mother’s sake--his future was to be spent in her
+service. He wanted to come out of school at the time of his father’s
+death, and try by all manner of little industries to help take care
+of the household, but his mother was too wise to permit this. She
+developed a strength of mind and of body for which no one who saw her
+pink-and-white prettiness,--the prettiness of a girl still, despite all
+her years of married life,--would have given her credit.
+
+She saw clearly that if her boy’s education stopped at thirteen, he
+would be held in check all his life by his own ignorance--he must be
+drudge always, and never master. So she made him go to school three
+years longer.
+
+How she lived and kept up her refined little home puzzled all
+lookers-on, and indeed she hardly knew herself. She lived simply; she
+was busy from morning till night. She sewed for one neighbor, she
+helped another through some season of sickness, she taught a naughty
+child who had worn out its welcome at school, but who could not wear
+out Mrs. Graham’s sweet patience,--and all these things helped. It is
+true, it was very often hard work to compass the simple necessaries of
+life, but she struggled on bravely.
+
+When George was sixteen he should come out of school, well trained, she
+hoped, for a business man, and then things would be so much easier.
+With this hope in view, she never repined. She kept her strength of
+soul and her sweetness of temper, her fresh beauty and her fresh heart.
+She kept, too, her boy’s adoration,--an adoration which was, as I said,
+the romance of his life.
+
+When the days began to grow so dark for George Graham, it was of his
+mother that he thought. So far he had no ambitions, no hopes, that
+were not centred in her. What if this growing shadow about him was to
+increase until all was dark, until dense night shut him in,--a night
+through whose blackness no star of hope could shine? What if he must
+be no help to his mother, but only a burden on her for ever, a burden
+lasting through heaven only knew how many helpless years?
+
+He rebelled against such a fate madly. He stretched out his hands
+toward heaven, he lifted the dumb prayer of his darkening eyes, but no
+help came.
+
+Dimmer and dimmer grew the world about him, more and more desperate the
+gloom of his hopeless heart. His scholarship had been so fine that his
+teacher hesitated to reprove his now continual failures; and George
+said nothing of the increasing darkness around him,--nothing to his
+mother, for he felt that it would break her heart; nothing to teacher
+or school-mates, for it seemed to him his grief would be nothing to
+them. But one afternoon the crisis came.
+
+His recitation had been an utter failure, and, at last, his teacher
+spoke in severe terms of the neglect which had become habitual. No
+one who was present that day--not even the smallest child--will ever
+forget the look of despair that swept over George Graham’s face, or the
+gesture of helpless anguish with which he stretched out his hands, as
+if to seek among them all some friend, as he cried,--
+
+“God help me, sir! I have been going blind; and now I cannot see one
+figure in my book--I can hardly see your face.”
+
+There was a silence after this, through which came no sound but the
+audible beating of George Graham’s tortured heart. Then the master sent
+away the others, for school hours were nearly over, and tried his best
+to comfort his stricken pupil. It might not be so bad as he feared, an
+oculist might help him, perhaps it was only temporary.
+
+To all these well-meant consolations George listened in a sort of
+dreary silence. The words of the teacher entered his ears, but they did
+not reach his heart or kindle his hope.
+
+As soon as he could, he went away. He did not go straight home.
+How could he face his mother and tell her what he _must_ tell her
+now,--what she would be sure to hear from others, if not from him? He
+kept thinking how she would take it. Would not all the light go out of
+her face? Maybe she would faint away, as he remembered she had done
+when his father died.
+
+He sat down on a bank, a little removed from the road-side, a bank
+which overhung a swift and deep, yet narrow stream.
+
+An awful temptation came over him,--such a temptation as, thank Heaven!
+comes to few boys of sixteen, with the young, glad life running riot
+in their veins. He thought, what if he should die, then and there? It
+seemed to him the one desirable thing. To be sure, to die would be to
+leave his mother to fight her battle of life alone; but also it would
+relieve her from the heavy burden he must needs be to her if he lived.
+The river rushing down there below invited him with its murmur. Should
+he seek refuge there, and let his mother hear that he was dead, before
+she heard that he was blind? He bent forward over the stream. Then he
+drew back, for a longing came over him to go home first, and see his
+mother just once more; and then an exceeding bitter cry burst from his
+lips,--
+
+“_See_ her! What am I talking about? Do I not know I shall _never_ see
+her again?”
+
+And a girl’s voice, soft and cooing and tender,--an utterly unexpected
+voice,--answered him,--
+
+“Yes, you _will_ see her again. Surely you will see her again.”
+
+The boy turned his face toward the sound.
+
+“How did you come here, Susie Hale?” he asked.
+
+“Don’t be angry, George,” the gentle voice entreated. “I waited for
+you. I could not go home till I had told you how sorry I was, and tried
+to comfort you.”
+
+“Comfort me!” There was a sort of scornful bitterness in the cry. “How
+_can_ I be comforted? Do you think what it will be never to see the
+green earth or the blue sky, or any dear face any more, for ever and
+ever?”
+
+“But you will see them,” she said gently. “I did not mean that you
+must be reconciled to give up hope. I mean that you must take heart,
+and try to be cured. I have known people who could not see at all to be
+helped, and why not you? At least, you must try.”
+
+An evil mood was upon George Graham, and he answered harshly,--
+
+“Where is the money to come from, if you please? It has been all mother
+could do just to live and she has struggled on, in the expectation of
+my being able soon to help her. She has no money for experiments. There
+is nothing for it but for me to rest a dead weight upon her hands,
+or--die.”
+
+He said the last word with a sort of gasp. Susie Hale shivered. She
+drew closer to him. She looked into his poor, tortured face, with her
+dark and tender eyes, and said very quietly,--
+
+“You believe in God, George Graham, and you will not defy Him. If He
+means you to bear this you will bear it like a man, and not try to get
+rid of the burden. But I do not believe He does mean you to bear it;
+and I will not believe it till every means has been tried for your
+cure. Just now, it seems to me, you ought to go home. Would you like
+your mother to hear this first from some one else?”
+
+He rose slowly.
+
+“You are right,” he said, “and you are a good girl. Good-by, Susie.”
+
+She did not try to go with him; she followed him only with her eyes.
+She was contented if she could but send him home in safety to his
+mother.
+
+His mother met him at the gate. When she took his hand in hers the poor
+fellow felt that she knew all. She was very quiet and self-controlled.
+
+“Your teacher has been here,” she said, “and he has told me. My
+darling, why have you sat in the darkness, and shut your mother out
+from any share in your trouble?”
+
+“Oh, I couldn’t tell you, mother!” he sobbed, with his head upon her
+breast, at last,--“I couldn’t, I thought it would break your heart.”
+
+“Ah! that was because you did not know. If you should die and leave me
+alone in the world, _that_, indeed, would break my heart; but while
+I have you beside me, nothing can make me altogether miserable, and
+nothing must make you so. There is help somewhere, and we will find it,
+please God; or, if not, we will bear what others have borne, and find a
+way to lighten the darkness.”
+
+Meantime, Susie Hale had gone home full of an absorbing purpose.
+Somehow money must and should be raised to try what a skilful oculist
+could do for George Graham.
+
+Susie was the orphan niece of Deacon Solomon Grant, in whose store
+a place was awaiting George. She knew that she had a modest little
+fortune of her own, but it was all in her uncle’s hands, and without
+his consent she could not dispose even of her slender income. But
+would he not be persuaded to let her have enough of her own money
+to accomplish her desire? She asked him, using her utmost power of
+persuasion to touch his heart, but he refused with peremptory decision.
+He wouldn’t mind contributing moderately to a fund for young Graham’s
+help--he would not even mind letting her have five or ten dollars of
+her own for that purpose--but beyond that the duty of one neighbor did
+not go. And Deacon Solomon shut his lips together as tightly as he
+buttoned up his pocket.
+
+Susie had in the world one treasure,--a diamond ring which had been her
+mother’s, with a stone white and clear as a dew-drop. This must, she
+knew, be worth three or four hundred dollars. It was her very own. She
+had meant to keep it all her life for her mother’s sake, but surely
+this great need of George Graham’s justified her in parting with it.
+
+She had one friend in Boston,--an old teacher,--in whose good faith and
+judicious management she felt implicit confidence, and to him she sent
+her mother’s ring, with a request that he would sell it as speedily
+and on as good terms as possible, and remit her the price of it in
+bank-notes, not in a check, and keep for ever the secret that she had
+disposed of it.
+
+It was a week after George Graham had given up hope, when a most
+unexpected hope came to him. A neighbor, going by from the post-office,
+handed in at the door a letter addressed to him. Mrs. Graham opened
+it, for George’s vision had failed with every day, and his eyes were
+utterly useless now.
+
+“George,” she cried, after a moment, in an eager, trembling voice,
+“here are three one-hundred dollar bills, and this is the letter that
+comes with them:--
+
+“‘This money is from a true friend of George Graham’s, and is to be
+applied to taking him to an oculist, in the hope that his sight may
+be restored. The giver withholds his name, both because he desires
+no thanks, and because he wishes to make the return of the money
+impossible.’
+
+“It is from Heaven, itself!” the mother cried. “George, we will start
+for Boston to-morrow. I feel in my soul that you are to be cured.”
+
+The next day a mother and her blind son sought rooms at a quiet
+boarding-house, of which they had found the number in the advertisement
+column of a city paper, and the day after that they were among the
+earliest patients of Doctor Annesley. The first examination of George’s
+eyes was unpromising enough. They would be worse before they were
+better; an operation might or might not restore sight to them, but the
+time for it had not yet come. Meanwhile the doctor wanted to see him
+daily.
+
+Those were weary days and weeks that followed, both before the
+operation and afterward, when the poor eyes were carefully bandaged
+from the light, and mother and son sat day after day in the dark
+together, wondering, wondering, wondering what the result would be.
+It was curious that the mother was always hopeful, and the son always
+despairing. At last it almost irritated him to hear her speak of hope
+to him; and one day he turned on her with the first burst of passionate
+impatience she had ever experienced from him.
+
+“Mother,” he said, “for the love of Heaven do not talk to me as if it
+was a sure thing that I am going to see again. I _want_ to think it
+doubtful, almost impossible. If you should make me expect a sure cure,
+and then it shouldn’t come, don’t you see that I should go mad? I think
+I should dash my head against the wall. I can only _live_ by expecting
+nothing.”
+
+After that the mother held her peace; but whenever she went out of
+that darkened room those who saw her marvelled at the light of joy in
+her eyes, the bloom of hope upon her cheeks. At last the time came--the
+bandage was removed. There was just one wild cry, “Mother, I see you!”
+and then George Graham lay at the doctor’s feet, swooning and helpless
+in his great joy.
+
+It was weeks yet before he went home again, but the good news preceded
+him. The mother wrote it to Deacon Grant, who had agreed still to
+keep the place in his store open, while awaiting the result of this
+experiment.
+
+The deacon read the letter in full family conclave, with the slow
+deliberation of a man unused to correspondence. He little knew how his
+niece longed to snatch the paper from his hand and read it for herself;
+nor did he heed the tears that swam in her dark eyes.
+
+Deliberately he smoothed out the letter, and folded it. Deliberately he
+took off his spectacles, and wiped them, and put them on again. Then
+he said, with the half pompous, half solemn manner which became his
+position,--
+
+“Well, well, I’m ready always to rejoice with those that rejoice; and
+I’m sure I’m thankful that the Widow Graham hasn’t got to struggle with
+so much trouble as it looked as if Providence was laying on her; but
+wherever she got that money the Lord knows.”
+
+Another letter came, afterward, to tell when the widow and her son were
+to return, and to ask Deacon Grant, in whose keeping the key of their
+house had been left, to put it in their door on that day as he was
+passing by to the store.
+
+It was Susie who walked over with the key, early in the afternoon,
+carrying with her a basket of dainties for the travellers’ supper, from
+Mrs. Grant, a woman who knew how to be a good neighbor, and to make
+life pleasant with cheap kindnesses. Susie’s black eyes danced, and her
+heart sang within her as she set the table in the little parlor and
+lighted a fire in the kitchen stove, ready to make a fresh cup of tea
+whenever the widow and her son should arrive. Then she dusted every
+thing; and then she gathered some of the flowers of September,--for
+already the summer was over,--and put them in the vases on the mantel,
+and on the widow’s little round sewing-table.
+
+And at last the travellers came, as at last every thing does come, if
+we wait long enough for it. They had expected to find an empty house;
+they found instead, warmth and brightness and good cheer and Susie
+Hale.
+
+
+
+
+DR. JOE’S VALENTINE.
+
+
+There were half-a-dozen of the girls together,--pretty creatures, in
+the very first season of their long dresses,--the eldest not quite
+sixteen. They were all braids and puffs and fluffy curls, all loops and
+ruffles and ribbons, all smiles and dimples. It was the Saturday before
+Valentine’s Day, in a certain year of grace, of which I will not give
+you the precise date, but less than ten years ago, and more than five.
+Of the half-dozen girls, two are busy teachers now, two are married,
+one is playing mother to her brother’s little brood of orphan children,
+and the sixth, not less happy than the rest, has gone on to “the next
+country,” where they tell us she will never grow old, never be sick or
+sorry any more,--happy Bertha, whom, surely, God loved.
+
+But, that day in February, none of them thought much about the future:
+the present was enough, with its fun and frolic, its wealth of all the
+pleasures which girlhood holds dear. The six were passing the long
+day together. Two of them were sisters and belonged in one house, and
+the rest had come there to be with them; for they were all going to
+make valentines. They had made funny ones and foolish ones, tender
+ones, with just a little dash of satire in them, poetic ones and prosy
+ones; and at last it was dinner-time, a feast of all the things that
+school-girls love, and these were hungry girls. At least they were all
+hungry girls but Nelly Hunt, and she scarcely ate any dinner at all,
+she was so busy thinking. She was Bertha’s sister, and this was her
+home and Bertha’s, and it was to the girls’ own room that the little
+party went back again, after they had eaten and praised Mrs. Hunt’s
+dinner.
+
+“What are you thinking about, Nell?” Bertha asked, sitting on the arm
+of Nelly’s chair.
+
+“These valentines,” Nelly answered slowly.
+
+“Well, surely they need not make you sober,--they are absurd enough.”
+
+“Yes, and it’s just because they are so absurd that they make me sober.
+I was wondering why we couldn’t just as well have said something to
+help somebody--to make somebody think--to do some good.”
+
+“Nelly’s heroics!” cried Kate Greene flippantly. “Miss Hunt as a moral
+reformer!”
+
+Nelly blushed from her pretty ears to the roots of her sunny hair; but
+her eyes shone clear, and there was a ring of earnestness in her voice
+as she answered,--
+
+“You can laugh if you will, but I mean what I say, and I’m going to try
+an experiment. I will write one boy a valentine, such as I think a girl
+ought to write, and I’ll send it.”
+
+“So you shall,” Bertha said gently,--Bertha always was peacemaker,--“and
+we’ll all go away and see mamma and the baby while you write it. When
+it’s done you must call us.”
+
+“Yes, and you must show it to us,” cried Kate Greene, as she went away;
+“that’s only fair. We promised this morning to show each other all we
+sent, and we sha’n’t let you off.”
+
+And then the five fluttered away like a flock of birds, and Nelly was
+quite alone.
+
+Her task was harder than she had imagined. It is only the old, perhaps,
+who are sage in counsel by nature. At any rate, to give good advice
+did not come naturally to pretty Nelly. But she had an idea of what
+she wanted to say, and at last she got it said. She had written and
+rewritten it, and finally concluded that she could do no better, and
+then copied it out into her neatest handwriting before she called the
+others. It was a little stiff, to be sure, and preachy and high-flown,
+but it sounded like a lofty effort and a complete success to the
+listening girls. This was what it said:--
+
+“MY VALENTINE,--You will have plenty of fine speeches and praises,
+and, perhaps, of fun and fancy from others, so I shall not give you
+those,--I who have but one interest in you, namely, that you should be
+the best boy and the best man which it is possible for you to become.
+If you are selfish, if you are indolent, if you are mean, you will
+never be happy in your own society, until you have sunk so low that
+you don’t know the difference between goodness and badness. But if you
+set out to be a gentleman and a man of honor and a faithful worker, you
+will do good deeds and live a happy life, and be worthy the everlasting
+esteem of
+
+  YOUR VALENTINE.”
+
+[Illustration: Nelly Reading her Valentine.--PAGE 220.]
+
+Nelly read it with rising color and a little quiver about her mouth,
+which Bertha understood; but she read it with firm voice and careful,
+deliberate accent.
+
+“Then,” she said, when she had finished, “I shall burn up all the rest
+of my valentines, and send only this one; for it is what I mean, in
+earnest, and, as old Aunty Smoke says, ‘Ef it don’t do no good, it
+can’t do no harm.’”
+
+“To whom shall you send it, dear?” Bertha asked gently, a little
+subdued by Nelly’s epistolary success.
+
+“I hadn’t made up my mind,” Nelly answered thoughtfully; “they all need
+it.”
+
+“O, send it to Joe, my cousin Joe,” cried Kitty Greene. “He is staying
+with us, and _he_ needs it--bad enough. If ever a boy was full of his
+pranks, Joe is, and if ever a boy tormented a girl’s life out, Joe does
+mine.”
+
+A color clear and bright as flame glowed on Nelly Hunt’s cheeks. Had
+she had dark-eyed Joe in her mind all the while? She only answered very
+quietly,--
+
+“I don’t mind. I had just as lief send it to Joe. That is, I’ll send it
+to him if you’ll promise, on your sacred honor, never in any way to let
+him know who wrote it.”
+
+“Oh, I will--true as I live and breathe I’ll never tell him, and never
+let him guess, if I can help it.”
+
+“And all you girls?” Nelly asked, with the pretty pink glow deepening
+in her cheeks. “Will you all promise?”
+
+And they all promised; for there was a sort of honest earnestness in
+Nelly’s nature to which they found it natural to yield.
+
+So the valentine was directed in Nelly’s most neat and proper manner to
+“Mr. Joe Greene,” and was dropped into the post-office with the rest of
+the valentines the girls had written that day.
+
+On the fifteenth the six girls were all together at school, comparing
+notes and exchanging confidences. But Kitty Greene drew Nelly aside,
+and said, while they walked up and down the hall together, their arms
+around each other as girls will,--
+
+“I saw Joe get it, Nelly.”
+
+Nelly’s pretty cheeks glowed and her eyes shone like stars, but she
+asked no questions. Indeed, they were scarcely necessary, for Kitty was
+eager enough to tell her story.
+
+“He got it, don’t you think, along with half-a-dozen others, and he
+read them all before he came to this one. I knew this, you know, by
+the shape of the envelope. When he came to it I saw him read it all
+through, and then I saw him go back and read it again. I heard him say
+to himself,--
+
+“‘That’s an honest letter from some little saint.’
+
+“Then he came up to me and held it toward me, while I pretended to be
+very busy with my valentines. Then he asked,--
+
+“‘Do you know that handwriting, Kit?’
+
+“I felt like an awful little liar, but I had promised you. I stretched
+out my hand for it, and said carelessly,--
+
+“‘Why, ain’t it Sue’s?’
+
+“Sue is his sister, you know. So he thought I did not know who it came
+from, and he changed his mind, and put it into his pocket, and went
+off. When I teased him afterward to let me see it, he said,--
+
+“‘No; there are some things a fellow would be a cad to show.’
+
+“So I saw it hit home, and well it might. It was a tremendous letter,
+Nelly.”
+
+And Kitty ended with a hug and a kiss, and a look of that loyal
+admiration which a girl can give another girl now and then.
+
+When the spring came Joe Greene went away from Chester, and did not
+come back there any more. No doubt Nelly Hunt would have forgotten his
+very existence but for the valentine, which she could not forget. She
+used to blush, as she grew older, to think how “bumptious” it was, as
+she used to call it to herself. What was _she_, that she should have
+undertaken to preach a sermon to that boy? What if he remembered it
+only to think how presuming it was, and to laugh at it? But, luckily,
+he did not know from whom it came; and with that thought she cooled her
+blushes.
+
+Nelly was twenty when Joe Greene came back to Chester again. And now
+he came as a physician, just through his studies, and anxious to build
+up a practice. Soon his fame grew. His patients were among the poor at
+first, and he cured them; and then richer people heard of it, and sent
+for him. But, while he took all the patients that came, he never gave
+up his practice among those who most needed him. His praise was in all
+their mouths. There had never been any doctor like this one.
+
+Nelly was Miss Hunt now, for Bertha had gone away from her into the
+other, unknown country, and Nelly’s grief had made her gentle heart yet
+more gentle, and her helpful spirit yet more helpful.
+
+Toward night, one summer day, she had gone to see an old woman who
+had been her nurse once, and had found her very ill,--quite too ill
+to be left alone, and certainly in need of a physician. So Nelly tore
+a leaf from her memorandum-book and wrote on it a few lines, begging
+Dr. Greene to come at once, and then called to the first passer-by and
+entreated him to take it to the doctor.
+
+It was scarcely half an hour before Dr. Greene came in, quietly and
+gravely. He attended to his patient with that careful consideration
+which made all those poor souls whom he visited adore him. Then he
+turned to Nelly.
+
+“Who will stay with her to-night?” he asked; “for, indeed, she hardly
+ought to be left alone.”
+
+“I shall stay,” was the quiet answer.
+
+“Then come to the door with me, please, and let me give you your
+directions.”
+
+Nelly followed, and stood there, in the soft summer dusk,--a pretty
+picture, with the wild-rose flush dawning in her cheeks, and a new
+light kindling her eyes. She listened carefully to all his injunctions,
+and then turned as if to go. But he put out a hand to detain her.
+
+“How very much I owe to you!” he said.
+
+“_You_, how?” And a deep, deep crimson dyed Nelly’s face and throat. In
+that moment she thought of her “bumptious” valentine, which had not
+crossed her mind before for a long time.
+
+He looked at her with a smile in his eyes, but with a face that
+preserved all its respectful gravity. He took a red leather case out
+of his pocket, and from the case he took the very old valentine which
+Nelly remembered so well. Then he produced the brief note she had
+written that afternoon; and still there was light enough left in the
+day to see them by, as he held them side by side.
+
+“Your hand has matured somewhat since this valentine was written,” he
+remarked quietly; “but some of these letters I should know anywhere. No
+one could deceive me.”
+
+“I did not suppose you had kept that foolish thing,” Nelly said, with a
+pitiful little quiver in her voice, as if she were just on the point of
+bursting into tears. “I am so ashamed!”
+
+Dr. Joe looked at her a moment, as she stood there in the waning
+light,--a lovely, graceful girl from whom any man might be proud to win
+even a passing interest. So this was the woman, the thought of whom
+he had carried in his heart for years! If he had ever done any good
+thing, he was paid for it in the satisfaction of that hour.
+
+“Are you sorry,” he asked slowly, “that you have helped one man to be
+his best self? Those words of yours were to me like the voice of my
+inmost soul. Since then this paper has never left me, nor have I ever
+ceased to strive to be worthy of the esteem of my unknown ‘valentine.’
+If ever I have been generous instead of selfish, brave instead of
+cowardly, strong instead of weak, it has been because I have remembered
+the words written here, and meant to live in their spirit. Are you
+sorry for that? or do you grudge me the dear pleasure of thanking you?”
+
+“No, I’m not sorry, nor do I grudge you any thing; but it was a girl’s
+freak, and I am not worthy of so much praise and honor.”
+
+“It was a good girl’s good intention,” he said almost solemnly. “Let us
+be thankful that it succeeded.”
+
+Nelly went back to the bedside of the old woman with a fluttering
+heart. How strange it seemed to think this sick woman was old enough
+to have outlived all anxieties except those about her pains and her
+supper! Had not she been young once? and had no one ever looked at her
+as Dr. Joe looked?
+
+The next morning he came again. His medicine, a night’s sleep, Nelly’s
+care,--something seemed to have given the poor old patient a fresh
+lease of life. There was no need that Nelly should stay with her any
+more; but she went to see her daily, and it was curious how often Dr.
+Joe’s visits happened at the same time.
+
+One night the doctor had left his horse at home, and he and Nelly
+walked away together. They talked about the lingering sunset and the
+soft south wind and even the old woman; for Nelly, woman-like, was
+struggling desperately to keep Dr. Joe from saying what she desperately
+wanted to hear. But, at last, it came,--a half-blunt, half-awkward
+speech, yet with Dr. Joe’s honest heart in it,--
+
+“I’ve lived all these years just to earn your esteem, and now I find I
+don’t care a thing about that unless I can also win your love.”
+
+I think Nelly’s answer must have satisfied him, for she is Mrs.
+Joseph Greene now; and that valentine--worn and old, but choicely
+framed--always hangs over the doctor’s study table.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+_Bright; Lively, and Enjoyable_
+
+“Jolly Good Times” Series
+
+_By Mary P. Wells Smith_
+
+  JOLLY GOOD TIMES; or, CHILD LIFE ON A FARM.
+  JOLLY GOOD TIMES AT SCHOOL; also, SOME TIMES NOT SO JOLLY.
+  THE BROWNS.
+  THEIR CANOE TRIP.
+  JOLLY GOOD TIMES AT HACKMATACK.
+  MORE GOOD TIMES AT HACKMATACK.
+  JOLLY GOOD TIMES TO-DAY.
+  A JOLLY GOOD SUMMER.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+_With Illustrations, 12 mo, cloth, gilt, $1.25 per volume. The set of
+eight volumes, uniformly bound in cloth, gilt, in a box, $10.00._
+
+Of these stories the Boston “Transcript” says: “Few series of juvenile
+books appeal more strongly to children than the ‘Jolly Good Times’
+Series, written by Mary P. Wells Smith. The naturalness of the stories,
+their brightness, their truth to boy and girl life and character, and
+the skill with which the author manages incident and dialogue, have
+given them deserved popularity.”
+
+It is Mrs. Smith’s happy ability to take the incidents of
+child-life,--such a life as any child of bright mind and sweet
+character, blessed with the surroundings of a good home, might
+have,--and to record them with such faithfulness to the child’s
+character, and yet with such charm in the narrative, as to make them
+engagingly interesting to other children.--_Gazette and Courier_,
+Greenfield, Mass.
+
+
+
+
+The Young Puritans Series
+
+_By Mary P. Wells Smith_
+
+_Author of “The Jolly Good Times” Series_
+
+  THE YOUNG PURITANS OF OLD HADLEY.
+  THE YOUNG PURITANS IN KING PHILIP’S WAR.
+  THE YOUNG PURITANS IN CAPTIVITY.
+  THE YOUNG AND OLD PURITANS OF HATFIELD.
+
+_Cloth, 12mo, Illustrated, each, $1.25._
+
+Mrs. Smith deserves very hearty commendation for the admirable pictures
+of Puritan life which are drawn with a skilful hand in this book. She
+has chosen a representative Puritan village as the scene, and the
+period of very early settlement of western Massachusetts for her story,
+a village which retains many of its early features to this day. Mrs.
+Smith knows the people of whom she writes thoroughly, and holds them
+in high and loving esteem. Even the most prejudiced reader can hardly
+close this book without seeing in these genuine Puritan people a phase
+of human life at once fine in its courage, its endurance of terrible
+hardships, and not unbeautiful in its childlike acceptance of God’s
+dealings and its daily hunger and thirst after righteousness.--_The
+Churchman._
+
+
+THE YOUNG PURITANS OF OLD HADLEY. 12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. $1.25.
+
+A capital colonial story.--_Congregationalist_, Boston.
+
+She catches the very spirit of Puritan life.--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._
+
+The work has historic value as well as unique interest.--LILIAN
+WHITING, _in Chicago Inter-Ocean_.
+
+An excellent book for school libraries.--_Literary News_, New York.
+
+The adventures of the boys while hunting, the trapping of wolves
+and panthers, which infested the forests in those early days, the
+encounters with the Indians, friendly and otherwise, are incidents
+which make up a book which will fascinate all young readers.--_San
+Francisco Bulletin._
+
+The author has studied her subject carefully; and the pictures of this
+life, extinct, yet still blood of our blood and bone of our bone, have
+unusual interest.--_Chicago Dial._
+
+Mrs. Smith has proven that she can write as simple and natural a story
+of child-life when the scene is laid two hundred and fifty years ago
+as when she chooses to describe country life in the New England of the
+present century.--_Christian Register._
+
+
+THE YOUNG PURITANS IN KING PHILIP’S WAR. Illustrated by L. J. BRIDGMAN.
+12mo. Cloth. $1.25.
+
+From a letter written the author by Bishop F. D. Huntington, Syracuse,
+N. Y.: “Have read all the pages through, every word,--finding the
+whole volume readable, entertaining, and satisfactory. Of course I
+feel rather competent to say that, in the phraseology, the territorial
+descriptions, the geography, the account of customs, language, family
+habits, natural phenomena, you are singularly correct, accurate, and
+felicitous.”
+
+Mrs. Smith seems to have caught the very breath and echo of those old
+days, and she makes one seem not to be merely reading of those Puritans
+and their constant struggles with their savage neighbors, but to be
+actually beholding them.--_Jersey City Evening Journal._
+
+The history of the seventeenth century in New England would gain new
+life when read in the light of such books.--_Christian Endeavor Herald._
+
+
+THE YOUNG PURITANS IN CAPTIVITY. Illustrated by JESSIE WILLCOX SMITH.
+12mo. Cloth. $1.25.
+
+Nothing could be more interesting than the period of which this story
+treats, and the author has handled the subject in a manner that is
+highly creditable. The reader will be for the nonce a Puritan, and will
+follow the adventures of three children taken captive by the Indians,
+feeling that he is a participant in the scenes so well portrayed. He
+will sleep in the Indians’ wigwam and breathe the odor of the pines.
+He will paddle a canoe upon the broad waters of the Connecticut, when
+New England was but a wilderness, and get an insight into Indian nature
+which he probably never had before.--_Sacramento Bee._
+
+She shows the same power of graphic description, the same faithful use
+of the best available material, and the same logical way of putting it
+into shape.--_Commercial Advertiser, N. Y._
+
+Mrs. Smith has made history live again in her life-like narrative. The
+children of to-day may well learn something of the sterner virtues in
+reading this story of the endurance and fortitude of children of two
+centuries ago.--_Springfield Republican._
+
+
+THE YOUNG AND OLD PURITANS OF HATFIELD. Illustrated by BERTHA C. DAY.
+12mo. $1.25.
+
+
+  LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., Publishers,
+  254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's New Bed-Time Stories, by Louise Chandler Moulton
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 60418 ***
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-

-<pre>

-

-Project Gutenberg's New Bed-Time Stories, by Louise Chandler Moulton

-

-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most

-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions

-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of

-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at

-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have

-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.

-

-Title: New Bed-Time Stories

-

-Author: Louise Chandler Moulton

-

-Release Date: October 3, 2019 [EBook #60418]

-

-Language: English

-

-Character set encoding: UTF-8

-

-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW BED-TIME STORIES ***

-

-

-

-

-Produced by Sonya Schermann, Nigel Blower and the Online

-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This

-file was produced from images generously made available

-by The Internet Archive)

-

-

-

-

-

-

-</pre>

-

-

-<hr class="pb" />

-

-<div class="figcenter">

-<img src="images/i_frontis.jpg" width="600" alt="" />

-<div class="caption">Day after day Johnny watched.—<span class="smcap">Page <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</span></div>

-</div>

-

-<hr class="pb" />

-

-<h1><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a><span class="smcap">New<br />

-Bed-Time Stories.</span></h1>

-

-

-<p class="ph3"><small>BY</small><br />

-LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON,</p>

-

-<p class="ph4"><small>AUTHOR OF “BED-TIME STORIES,” “MORE BED-TIME STORIES,”<br />

-“SOME WOMEN’S HEARTS,” AND “POEMS.”</small></p>

-

-

-<p class="ph4"><i>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.</i></p>

-

-

-<div class="figcenter">

-<img src="images/i_colophon.jpg" width="200" alt="" />

-</div>

-

-

-<p class="ph3">BOSTON:<br />

-LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY,<br />

-1907</p>

-

-<hr class="pb" />

-

-<p class="ph3"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a>

-<i>Copyright</i>, 1880,<br />

-<span class="smcap">By Louise Chandler Moulton</span>.</p>

-

-

-<p class="ph4"><span class="smcap">Alfred Mudge &amp; Son, Inc., Printers,<br />

-Boston, Mass., U. S. A.</span>

-</p>

-

-<hr class="pb" />

-

-<p class="ph2 poem"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a><i>TO MISTRESS BROWN-EYES.</i></p>

-

-<div class="poem ital"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">At Christmas-tide, by Christmas fire,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">You’ll read these tales of mine;—<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I see, above my story-book,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Your happy brown eyes shine.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Dear eyes, that front the future time<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">So fearlessly to-day,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Oh, may from them some kindly Fate<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Keep future tears away,<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">And give you all your heart desires,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">My little English maid,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For whom, in this far-distant land,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">My loving prayers are said!<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">I pray for Peace, since Peace is good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">For Love, since Love is best:<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If prayers bring blessings, Brown-eyed Girl,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">How much you will be blest!<br /></span>

-</div>

-<p class="poet">

-L. C. M.

-</p>

-</div>

-

-<p><i>August, 1880.</i></p>

-

-<hr />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a>

-<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS.</h2>

-<hr />

-</div>

-

-<table summary="Contents">

-<tr>

-<th class="conpgh">&nbsp;</th>

-<th class="conpgh">PAGE</th>

-</tr><tr>

-<td class="smcap">“All a-Growin’ and a-Blowin’”</td>

-<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_5">5</a></td>

-</tr><tr>

-<td class="smcap">My Vagrant</td>

-<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td>

-</tr><tr>

-<td class="smcap">Helen’s Temptation</td>

-<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_35">35</a></td>

-</tr><tr>

-<td class="smcap">The Surgeon of the Dolls’ Hospital</td>

-<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td>

-</tr><tr>

-<td class="smcap">Pretty Miss Kate</td>

-<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td>

-</tr><tr>

-<td class="smcap">A Borrowed Rosebud</td>

-<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_94">94</a></td>

-</tr><tr>

-<td class="smcap">Tom’s Thanksgiving</td>

-<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_106">106</a></td>

-</tr><tr>

-<td class="smcap">Finding Jack</td>

-<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_124">124</a></td>

-</tr><tr>

-<td class="smcap">Her Mother’s Daughter</td>

-<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td>

-</tr><tr>

-<td class="smcap">My Quarrel with Ruth</td>

-<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_158">158</a></td>

-</tr><tr>

-<td class="smcap">Was it Her Mother?</td>

-<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_172">172</a></td>

-</tr><tr>

-<td class="smcap">The Lady from Over the Way</td>

-<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_186">186</a></td>

-</tr><tr>

-<td class="smcap">His Mother’s Boy</td>

-<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_200">200</a></td>

-</tr><tr>

-<td class="smcap">Dr. Joe’s Valentine</td>

-<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td>

-</tr>

-</table>

-

-<hr class="pb" />

-

-<p class="ph1"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a>NEW BED-TIME STORIES.</p>

-

-<h2 class="nobreak" id="ALL_A-GROWIN_AND_A-BLOWIN">“ALL A-GROWIN’ AND A-BLOWIN’.”</h2>

-<hr />

-

-<p>It had been such a weary hunt for lodgings.

-Not that lodgings are scarce in London. There

-are scores of streets, whole districts, indeed, where

-the house that did not say “Apartments” in its

-window would be the exception.</p>

-

-<p>But Miss Endell wanted to combine a great deal.

-She must be economical, for her funds were running

-low; she must be near the British Museum, for she

-wanted to consult many authorities for the book

-about “Noted Irishwomen,” by which she hoped to

-retrieve her fortunes; she wanted quiet, too, and

-reasonably pretty things about her.</p>

-

-<p>For a week she had spent most of her time in

-quest of the place where she could settle herself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>

-comfortably for a few months. It was the gray

-March weather. The mornings were dark, and the

-gloom of coming dusk settled down early; and, during

-all the hours between, Miss Endell had been

-busy in that weary work of which Dante speaks,

-“climbing the stairs of others.”</p>

-

-<p>At last, after much consideration, she had decided

-to make a certain flight of stairs her own.

-She had taken the drawing-room floor of No. 30

-Guilford Street; and with a comfortable feeling of

-success she had paid her bill at the Charing Cross

-Hotel, and driven to her new home.</p>

-

-<p>The drawing-room floor—that is to say, the

-suite of rooms up one flight of stairs from the street—is

-the most important part of a London lodging-house.

-Whoever is kept waiting, when “the drawing-room”—as

-it is the fashion to designate the

-lodger who occupies that apartment—rings, the

-ring must at once be “answered to.” That floor

-rents for as much as all the rest of the house put

-together, and is the chief dependence of anxious

-landladies.</p>

-

-<p>Miss Endell, accordingly, was received as a per<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>son

-of importance. Her boxes were brought upstairs,

-and her landlady, Mrs. Stone, bustled about

-cheerfully, helping her to arrange things.</p>

-

-<p>At last every thing was comfortably placed,

-and the tired new-comer settled herself in a low

-chair in front of the glowing coal-fire, and glanced

-around her.</p>

-

-<p>Mrs. Stone was still busy, wiping away imperceptible

-dust. The door was open, and in the doorway

-was framed a singular face, that of a pale,

-slender child, with a figure that looked too tall for

-the face, and great eager eyes, with such a wistful,

-silent longing in them as Miss Endell had never

-seen before.</p>

-

-<p>At the same moment Mrs. Stone also caught

-sight of the child, and cried out a little crossly,—</p>

-

-<p>“Go away, you plague! Didn’t I tell you as

-you wasn’t to ’ang round the new lady, a-worritin’

-her?”</p>

-

-<p>The child’s wistful face colored, and the tears

-sprang to the great, sad eyes; but he was silently

-turning away, when Miss Endell herself spoke. She

-was not specially fond of children; but she had a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>

-kind heart, and something in the wan, pitiful face

-of the child touched it.</p>

-

-<p>“Don’t send him away, Mrs. Stone,” she said

-kindly. “Come in, my little man, and tell me

-what your name is.”</p>

-

-<p>The child sidled in, timidly, but did not speak.</p>

-

-<p>“Don’t be afraid,” Miss Endell said. “What is

-your name?”</p>

-

-<p>“Bless you, ma’am, he <em>can’t</em> speak!” said Mrs.

-Stone.</p>

-

-<p>“Can’t speak?”</p>

-

-<p>“No; he was born with something wrong. Laws,

-he can hear as well as anybody, and he knows all

-you say to him; but there’s something the matter.

-The last ‘drawing-room’ said that there was doctors,

-she was sure, as could help him, but I haint

-any money to try experiments.</p>

-

-<p>“Johnny was my brother’s child. His father

-died before he was born, and his mother lived just

-long enough to ’and over Johnny to me, and ask me

-to take care of him.</p>

-

-<p>“I’ve done my best; but a lodging-house is a

-worrit. What with empty rooms, and lodgers as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>

-didn’t pay, and hard times, I never got money

-enough ahead to spend on doctors.</p>

-

-<p>“But you mustn’t have Johnny a-worritin’

-round. You’d get sick o’ that. The last ‘drawing-room’

-said it made her that nervous to see

-him; and I halways thought she went off partly for

-that.”</p>

-

-<p>“I will not let him trouble me, don’t be afraid;

-but let him sit down here by the fire, and when I

-find he disturbs me I’ll send him away.”</p>

-

-<p>Mrs. Stone vanished, and Johnny took up his

-station on a stool in a corner of the hearth-rug.</p>

-

-<p>Miss Endell busied herself with a book, but from

-time to time she looked at the boy. His face was

-pale and wistful still, but a half-smile, as sad as

-tears, was round his poor silent mouth, and he was

-gazing at his new friend as if he would fix every

-line of her face in his memory for ever.</p>

-

-<p>For a long hour he sat there; and then Mrs.

-Stone came to lay the cloth for dinner, and sent

-him away to bed.</p>

-

-<p>The next morning he appeared again; and soon

-it grew to be his habit to sit, almost all the day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>

-through, and watch Miss Endell at her tasks. In

-spite of her absorption, he occupied a good many of

-her thoughts.</p>

-

-<p>Like him, she was an orphan; and she had few

-close and vital interests in her life. She got to feel

-as if it belonged to her, in a certain way, to look

-after this silent waif of humanity more lonely still

-than herself.</p>

-

-<p>Often she took an hour from her work to read

-little tales to him, and it was reward enough to see

-how his eyes brightened, and the color came into

-his pale little face. She used to think that if her

-work succeeded, Johnny should also be the better

-for it. As soon as the first edition of “Noted Irishwomen”

-was sold, she would have the best medical

-advice for him; and if there were such a thing

-as giving those lips language, it should be done.</p>

-

-<p>“Should you <em>like</em> to speak to me, Johnny?” she

-asked one day suddenly.</p>

-

-<p>The boy looked at her, for one moment, with

-eyes that seemed to grow larger and larger. Then

-came a great rush of sobs and tears that shook him

-so that Miss Endell was half-frightened at the effect<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>

-of her own words. She bent over and put her

-hand on his head.</p>

-

-<p>“Don’t, Johnny! Don’t, dear!” she said tenderly.</p>

-

-<p>I doubt if any one had ever called the poor little

-dumb boy “dear” before, in all his eleven years of

-life. He looked up through his tears, with a glad,

-strange smile, as if some wonderful, sweet thing

-had befallen him; and then, in a sort of timid rapture,

-he kissed the hem of Miss Endell’s gown, and

-the slippered foot that peeped out beneath it.</p>

-

-<p>I think there is an instinct of motherhood in good

-women that comes out toward all helpless creatures;

-and it awoke then in Miss Endell’s heart.

-After that she and Johnny were almost inseparable.

-Often she took him with her on her walks,

-and always when she worked he kept his silent

-vigil on the hearth-rug.</p>

-

-<p>Miss Endell had one extravagance. She could

-not bear to be without flowers. She did not care

-much for the cut and wired bouquets of the florist,

-but she seldom came home from her walks without

-some handful of wall-flowers, or a knot of violets<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>

-or forget-me-nots. Now and then she bought a

-tea-rose bud; and then Johnny always noticed

-how lovingly she tended it—how she watched it

-bursting from bud to flower.</p>

-

-<p>He got to know that this strange, bright creature

-whom he idolized loved flowers, and loved tea-roses

-best of all. A wild desire grew in him to

-buy her tea-roses—not one, only, but a whole

-bunch. He spent his days in thinking how it was

-to be done, and his nights in dreaming about it.

-A penny was the largest sum he had ever possessed

-in his life, and a penny will not buy one tea-rose,

-much less a bunch of them.</p>

-

-<p>One day Miss Endell took him with her when

-she went to see a friend. It was a prosperous, good-natured,

-rich woman in whose house they found

-themselves. “Go and see the pictures, Johnny,”

-Miss Endell said; and Johnny wandered down the

-long room, quite out of ear-shot.</p>

-

-<p>Then she told his pathetic little story, and her

-friend’s careless yet kind heart was touched. When

-it was time for Miss Endell to go, she summoned

-Johnny; and then the lady they were visiting gave<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>

-the boy a half-crown, a whole shining, silver half-crown.</p>

-

-<p>Johnny clasped it to his heart in expressive pantomime,

-and lifted his wistful, inquiring eyes.</p>

-

-<p>“Yes, it is all yours,” the lady said, in answer;

-“and don’t let any one take it away from

-you.”</p>

-

-<p>Small danger, indeed, of that! The piece of silver

-meant but one thing to Johnny,—tea-roses, unlimited

-tea-roses.</p>

-

-<p>The next day he was taken ill. He had a fever,—a

-low, slow fever. His aunt was kind enough to

-him, but she had plenty to do, and Johnny would

-have been lonely indeed but for Miss Endell.</p>

-

-<p>She had him brought each morning into her

-room, and kept him all day lying on her sofa, giving

-him now a kind word, now a draught of cold water,

-and then a few grapes, with the sun’s secret in

-them.</p>

-

-<p>One day Johnny drew something from his bosom,

-and put it into Miss Endell’s hand. It was

-the silver half-crown. He made her understand,

-by his expressive gestures, that she was to keep it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>

-for him; and she dropped it into a drawer of her

-writing-desk.</p>

-

-<p>At last Johnny began to get well. June came,

-with all its summer sights and sounds, and strength

-came with its softer winds to the poor little waif.

-One day he stood before Miss Endell, and put out

-his hand. She understood, and dropped the half-crown

-into it. He hid it, with a sort of passion, in

-his bosom, and Miss Endell smiled. Did even this

-little waif, then, care so much for money?</p>

-

-<p>As soon as he could stand, he took up his station

-on the balcony outside the windows, and watched

-and watched.</p>

-

-<p>His friend thought only that the sights and

-sounds of the street amused him. She was working

-on at the “Noted Irishwomen,” which was

-nearing its conclusion, and it quite suited her that

-Johnny found the street so interesting.</p>

-

-<p>As for the child, he was possessed by only one

-idea,—tea-roses. He watched to see the hand-barrows

-come along, flower-laden and tempting.</p>

-

-<p>These same hand-barrows are a feature of London

-street life. They are full of plants growing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>

-in pots, and also there are plenty of cut flowers.

-The venders cry, as they pass along, “All a-growin’

-and a-blowin’!” and there is something exciting in

-the cry. It seems part of the summer itself.</p>

-

-<p>Day after day, day after day, Johnny watched

-and watched. Flowers enough went by,—geraniums

-glowing scarlet in the sun, azaleas, white

-heath, violets,—only never any tea-roses.</p>

-

-<p>But at last, one morning, he heard the familiar

-cry, “<em>All a-growin’ and a-blowin’!</em>” and lo! as if

-they had bloomed for his need, there were tea-roses—whole

-loads of tea-roses!</p>

-

-<p>Miss Endell was busy, just then, with Lady

-Morgan. She never noticed when the little silent

-figure left the window, and hurried downstairs.

-Out into the street that little figure went, and

-on and on, in hot pursuit of the flower-barrow,

-which by this time had quite the start of him.</p>

-

-<p>Down one street, up another, he ran, and always

-with the silver half-crown tightly clasped in the

-palm of his little hand.</p>

-

-<p>At last a customer detained the barrow; and

-Johnny hurried up to it, panting and breathless.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>

-He put his hand out towards the tea-roses, and

-then he held out his silver half-crown.</p>

-

-<p>The flower-seller looked at him curiously,

-“Why don’t you speak, young ’un?” he said.

-“Are you dumb? You want this ’alf-crown’s wuth

-o’ them tea-roses?”</p>

-

-<p>Johnny nodded vehemently.</p>

-

-<p>The man took up a great handful of the pale

-sweet flowers, and thrust them into the boy’s

-hands, taking in exchange the half-crown, and putting

-it away in a sort of pouch, along with many

-silver mates.</p>

-

-<p>As for Johnny, there are in every life supreme

-moments, and his came then. He held in his hand

-the flowers that Miss Endell loved, and he was

-going to give them to her.</p>

-

-<p>All his life he had felt himself in every one’s

-way. She, only, had made him welcome to her

-side. She had called him “dear,”—and now

-there was something he could do for her. She

-had loved one tea-rose: how much, then, would

-she love a whole handful of tea-roses! His heart

-swelled with a great wave of pride and joy.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>He thought of nothing but his flowers,—how

-should he?—and he never even heard or saw the

-butcher’s cart, tearing along at such a pace as John

-Gilpin never dreamed of. And in a moment,

-something had pushed him down,—something

-rolled and crunched over him,—and he knew nothing;

-but he held the flowers tight through it all.</p>

-

-<p>“Why, it’s Mrs. Stone’s dumb Johnny!” said

-the butcher-boy, who had got down from his cart

-by this time, and was addressing the quickly

-assembled London crowd. “Gi ’e a hand, and

-lift un up into my cart, and I’ll carry un home.”</p>

-

-<p>An awful inarticulate groan came from the poor

-child’s dumb lips as they lifted him; but his hold

-on the tea-roses never loosened.</p>

-

-<p>They carried him home, and into the house.

-Mrs. Stone was shocked and grieved; and she

-took her troubles noisily, as is the fashion of her

-class. Miss Endell, still fagging away at Lady

-Morgan, heard cries and shrieks, and dropped her

-pen and hastened downstairs.</p>

-

-<p>“He’s dead! Johnny’s dead!” cried Mrs. Stone

-and Miss Endell, white and silent, drew near.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>But Johnny was not dead, though he was dying

-fast. The butcher-boy had hurried off for a doctor

-and the three women, Mrs. Stone, her maid,

-and her lodger, stood by helplessly.</p>

-

-<p>Suddenly Johnny’s wandering look rested on

-Miss Endell. A great sweet smile of triumph

-curved his mouth, lighted his eyes, kindled all his

-face. With one grand last effort, he put out the

-bunch of tea-roses, and pressed them into her hand.</p>

-

-<p>And then, as if death had somehow been more

-merciful to him than life, and had in some way

-loosed his poor bound tongue, he stammered out

-the only words he had ever spoken—was ever to

-speak,—</p>

-

-<p>“<em>For you!</em>”</p>

-

-<p>At length the doctor came and stood there, helpless

-like the rest, for death was stronger than all

-his skill. The shock and the hurt together had

-quenched the poor frail life that was ebbing so

-swiftly.</p>

-

-<p>Miss Endell bent and kissed the white quivering

-lips. As she did so, the tea-roses she held touched

-the little face.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>Was it their subtile fragrance, or this kiss, or

-both together, which seemed for one moment to

-recall the departing soul?</p>

-

-<p>He looked up; it was his last look, and it took

-in the sweet woman who had been so gentle and

-so loving to him, and the flowers in her hand.</p>

-

-<p>His face kindled with a great joy. A hero

-might have looked like that who had died for his

-country, or a man who had given his life joyfully

-for child or wife.</p>

-

-<p>Johnny Stone had loved one creature well, and

-that creature had loved tea-roses. What <em>could</em>

-life have held so sweet as the death that found

-him when he was striving to give her her heart’s

-desire?</p>

-

-<hr />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>

-<h2 class="nobreak" id="MY_VAGRANT">MY VAGRANT.</h2>

-<hr />

-</div>

-

-

-<p>We were in pursuit of Laura’s dressmaker,

-and had just rung the bell at her door,

-when a little boy presented himself, and, standing

-on the lower step, uplifted a pathetic pair of blue

-eyes, and a small tin cup held in a little grimy

-hand. A large basket was on one arm; and

-round his neck was one of those great printed

-placards, such as the blind men wear who sit at

-the street corners. Laura’s purse was always

-fuller than mine; and she was extracting a bit of

-scrip from it, while I bent my near-sighted eyes

-on the boy’s label. Could it be that I read

-aright? I looked again. No, I was not mistaken.

-It read, in great, staring letters—</p>

-

-<p>

-I HAVE LOST MY HUSBAND IN THE WAR.<br />

-</p>

-

-<p>In the war! And those blue eyes had not

-opened, surely, till some time after the war was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>

-ended! His husband! I was bewildered. I

-bent my gaze on him sternly, and asked, as

-severely as I could,—</p>

-

-<p>“Young man, can you read?”</p>

-

-<p>Laura was fumbling away at the unanswered

-door-bell. The boy looked as if he wanted to

-run; but I put my hand on his arm.</p>

-

-<p>“Can you read?” I repeated gravely. I think

-he shook in his shabby boots, for his voice was

-not quite steady as he answered,—</p>

-

-<p>“Not much.”</p>

-

-<p>“Not much, I should think. Do you know

-what this thing says that you’ve got round your

-neck?”</p>

-

-<p>“Does it say I’m blind?” he asked, with a

-little frightened quaver.</p>

-

-<p>“No, it says—but do you know what a husband

-is?”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes, he comes home drunk, and beats Mag

-and me awful.”</p>

-

-<p>“Did you ever know a boy of your age to have

-a husband?”</p>

-

-<p>The blue eyes grew so wide open that I won<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>dered

-if they could ever shut themselves up

-again; and Laura, who had turned round at my

-question, looked as if she thought I had suddenly

-gone mad. The little dressmaker had opened the

-door, and stood there waiting meekly, with the

-handle in her hand. But my spirit was up, and I

-did not care for either of them. I asked again,

-very impressively, as I thought, with a pause after

-each word,—</p>

-

-<p>“Did—you—ever—know—a—boy—of—your—age—to—have—a—husband?”</p>

-

-<p>“No, marm,” he gasped, “husbands belongs to

-women.”</p>

-

-<p>“Then what do you wear this thing for? It

-says that you have lost your husband in the war.”</p>

-

-<p>The imp actually turned pale, and I almost pitied

-him.</p>

-

-<p>“Will they put me in prison?” he asked, an

-abject little whine coming into his voice. “<em>Will</em>

-they?”</p>

-

-<p>“Did you steal it?”</p>

-

-<p>“I didn’t to say steal it—I just <em>took</em> it. I’d

-seen the rest put them on when they went out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>

-begging, and this was old Meg’s. She wasn’t

-going out to-day, and I thought no harm to

-borrow.”</p>

-

-<p>“Then you can’t read?”</p>

-

-<p>“Well, not to say read, marm. I think I could

-make out a word now and then.”</p>

-

-<p>“Do you want to?”</p>

-

-<p>The face brightened a moment, and, with the

-curving lips and eager eyes, was really that of a

-pretty boy.</p>

-

-<p>“Oh, if I could!” half sighed the quivering

-lips; and then the smile went out, and left blank

-despair behind it. “It’s no use, marm; she

-won’t let me.”</p>

-

-<p>“Who won’t? Your mother?”</p>

-

-<p>“No, Mag’s mother—old Meg. My mother’s

-dead, and I never had any father that ever I heard

-of; and since mother died old Meg does for me;

-and every day she sends me out to beg; and if I

-don’t get much she whips Mag.”</p>

-

-<p>I was growing strangely interested.</p>

-

-<p>“Whips <em>Mag</em>, because <em>you</em> don’t get much?”

-I said doubtfully. “What for?”</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“I guess there’s a hard place on <em>me</em>, marm.

-She found that it didn’t seem to hurt much, when

-she whipped <em>me</em>; and so one night Mag was teasing

-her to stop, and she turned to and whipped

-Mag, and that made me cry awful; and ever

-since, if I don’t get enough money, she whips

-Mag.”</p>

-

-<p>“Are you sure you are telling me the truth?”</p>

-

-<p>I don’t know why I asked the question, for I

-saw honesty in those clear eyes of his. He looked

-hurt. Yes, you may laugh if you want to, I’m

-telling you just as it was—the boy looked as

-hurt as any of you would if I doubted you.

-There came a sort of proud shame into his manner.

-He clutched at the placard round his

-neck, as if he would tear it off, and answered,

-sadly,—</p>

-

-<p>“I s’pose I can’t expect anybody to believe me

-with this round my neck; but, if you would go

-home with me, Mag could tell you, and you would

-believe <em>her</em>.”</p>

-

-<p>By this time Laura had gone in, leaving me to

-finish my interview alone. I reflected a moment.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>

-The other day I had heard Tom say he wanted an

-errand boy. Why should he not have this one?

-Tom was my brother. I knew just the difficulties

-he would make,—want of reference, a street beggar,

-a regular rat of the gutter. I could fancy

-just how he would talk. I knew, too, that I could

-overrule his objections. That’s a power women

-have when a man loves them; whether he be husband

-or brother or friend. I hated the thought

-of vice and ignorance and poverty. What if I

-could save just one small boy from their clutches?

-I said resolutely,—</p>

-

-<p>“Will you go home with me, and have a comfortable

-home and good food and honest work,

-and no one ever to beat you, and learn to read?”</p>

-

-<p>I had seen no assent in his eyes till I came to

-this last clause of my sentence. Then he asked

-shrewdly,—</p>

-

-<p>“Who’ll teach me? I can’t go to school and

-do my work, too.”</p>

-

-<p>“I will teach you. Will you go and work

-faithfully for my brother, and learn to read?”</p>

-

-<p>“Won’t I, just?”</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“Well, then, let me speak to the lady who went

-in, and I’ll take you home at once.”</p>

-

-<p>He shuffled uneasily.</p>

-

-<p>“If you please, marm, I can’t go till I’ve been

-back to Meg’s, and carried her this board.”</p>

-

-<p>“But I’ll get a policeman to send a messenger

-with that. If you go, perhaps she won’t let you

-come to me.”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes, marm, I shall come. But you wouldn’t

-believe me, sure, if I could steal away, like, and

-never say good-by to Mag, and let her cry both

-her eyes out thinking I’d been shut up, or somebody

-had killed me.” And his own great blue

-eyes grew pathetic again over this picture of sorrowful

-possibilities.</p>

-

-<p>“Well, you may go,” I said, half reluctantly,

-for the little vagabond had inspired in me a singular

-interest. “You may go, and be sure you

-come to-night or in the morning, to 70 Deerham

-Street, and ask for Miss May.”</p>

-

-<p>He looked at me with a grave, resolved look.</p>

-

-<p>“I shall come,” he said; and in an instant he

-was gone.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>That night, after dinner, I told Tom. He was

-mocking, incredulous, reluctant—just as I knew

-he would be. But it all ended in his promising to

-try “My Vagrant,” if he ever came.</p>

-

-<p>Just as I had brought him to this pass, the bell

-rang, and I sprang to the dining-room door. The

-dining-room was the front basement, and the outside

-door was so near that I opened it myself. It

-was, indeed, my vagrant.</p>

-

-<p>“I want Miss May,” he said, with the air which

-such a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">gamin</i> puts on when he speaks to a servant,—an

-air which instantly subdued itself into propriety

-when he heard my voice.</p>

-

-<p>I took him in to Tom; and I saw the blue eyes

-softened even the prejudiced mind and worldly

-heart of Mr. Thomas May. He spoke very kindly

-to the boy, and then sent him into the kitchen for

-his supper.</p>

-

-<p>“Where do you propose to keep this new acquisition?”

-he asked me, after the blue-eyed was out

-of sight.</p>

-

-<p>“In this house, if you please. There is a little

-single bed all ready for him in the attic, and I’ve<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>

-arranged with cook to give him a bath and then

-put him into some of the clothes her own boy left

-behind him when he went away to sea. I mean

-to rescue this one soul from a starved and miserable

-and wicked life, and I’m willing to take

-some pains; and if you aren’t willing to do your

-part I’m ashamed of you.”</p>

-

-<p>Tom laughed, and called me his “fierce little

-woman,” his “angry turtle-dove,” and half-a-dozen

-other names which he never gave me except when

-he was in good humor, so I knew it was all right.</p>

-

-<p>Before three days were over Tom owned that my

-vagrant, as he persisted in calling the boy (though

-we knew now that his name was Johnny True),

-was the best errand boy he had ever employed. I

-myself taught him to read, as I had promised, and

-brighter scholar never teacher had. In four

-months he had progressed so fast that he could

-read almost any thing. There had been a sort of

-feverish eagerness in his desire to learn for which I

-was at a loss to account. Sometimes, coming home

-from some party or opera, I would find him studying

-in the kitchen at midnight.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>We grew fond of him, all of us. Cook said he

-was no trouble, and he made it seem as if she had

-her own boy back again. He waited on Tom with

-a sort of dog-like faithfulness; and, as for me,

-I believe that he would have cut his hand off for

-me at any time.</p>

-

-<p>Yet one morning he got up and deliberately

-walked out of the house. When his breakfast was

-ready cook called for him in vain, and in vain she

-searched for him from attic to cellar. But before

-it was time for Tom to go to business another boy

-came, a little older than my vagrant,—a nice,

-respectable-looking boy,—and asked for Mr. May.

-He came into the dining-room and stood there, cap

-in hand.</p>

-

-<p>“If you please, sir,” he said bashfully, “Johnny

-True wants to know if you’ll be so good as to take

-me on in his place, considering that he isn’t coming

-back any more, and I have done errands before,

-and got good reference.”</p>

-

-<p>He had made his little speech in breathless haste,

-running all his sentences together into one.</p>

-

-<p>Tom looked at him deliberately, and lit a cigar.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“Johnny isn’t coming back, hey?”</p>

-

-<p>“No, sir.”</p>

-

-<p>“Where is Johnny gone?”</p>

-

-<p>“He didn’t tell me, if you please, but he said he

-should be hurt to death if it troubled you to lose

-him, and he knew I could do as well as he could.”</p>

-

-<p>I saw a refusal in Tom’s eyes, so I made haste to

-forestall it.</p>

-

-<p>“Do take him,” I said in a low tone to Tom, and

-then I said to the boy that just now he had better

-go to the store, and Mr. May would see him presently,

-when he came to business.</p>

-

-<p>Tom laughed, a half-amused, half-provoked

-laugh, when he went out, and said,—</p>

-

-<p>“Well, my dear, I don’t think your vagrant

-has proved to be such a success that you need

-expect me to let him choose my next errand boy.”</p>

-

-<p>“I think, at least, that if he has sent you one as

-good as himself you will have no fault to find,” I

-said hotly. But all the time there was a sore

-place in my own heart, for I had thought that my

-vagrant would have loved me too well to run away

-from me in this way.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>That night Tom said that the new errand boy

-was doing well, and he had concluded to keep him

-on. I think Tom missed my vagrant; but not, of

-course, so much as I missed my bright scholar—my

-grateful little follower.</p>

-

-<p>Of course, the new boy lived in his own home,

-wherever that might be. I did not concern myself

-about him, or feel any disposition to put him in

-the little bed in the front attic.</p>

-

-<p>Two or three weeks passed and we heard no

-word from Johnny True. But at last a rainy

-day came, and with it Johnny, asking for Miss

-May.</p>

-

-<p>“I guess he’s repented,” cook said, coming upstairs

-to tell me. I went down to Johnny, resolved

-to be equal to the occasion—to meet him with all

-the severity his ungrateful behavior deserved.

-But, somehow, the wistful look in his blue eyes

-disarmed me. He was a little thin and pale, too;

-and my heart began to soften even before he

-spoke.</p>

-

-<p>“I couldn’t stay away, ma’am,” he said, with the

-clear accent he had caught so quickly from my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>

-brief teaching, “and not let you know why I

-went.”</p>

-

-<p>“To let me know <em>when</em> you went would have

-been more to the purpose,” I answered, with what

-sternness I could command. “I had thought better

-of you, Johnny, than that you were capable of

-running away.”</p>

-

-<p>“But you see, ma’am, I was afraid you would

-not let me go if I told you.”</p>

-

-<p>“And why did you want to go? Were you

-not comfortable?”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes, ma’am—that was the worst of it.”</p>

-

-<p>“Why the worst of it? Have you any especial

-objection to be comfortable?”</p>

-

-<p>Suddenly the blue eyes filled with tears, like a

-girl’s; and there was a pitiful sob in the voice

-which answered me.</p>

-

-<p>“Oh, it hurt me so, when I was warm, and had

-a good supper, and everybody’s kind word, to

-think of poor Mag there at home, cold and hungry,

-and with old Meg beating her. I never should

-have come and left her but for the learning to read.

-<em>She</em> wanted me to come for that.”</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“So you could read to her?”</p>

-

-<p>“So I could <em>teach</em> her, ma’am. You never in all

-your life saw anybody so hungry to learn to read

-as Mag; and when I went home that first day and

-told her all you said, and told her that after all I

-couldn’t go and leave her there to take all the

-hard fare and hard words, she just began to cry,

-and to tease me to go and learn to read, so I could

-teach her, until I couldn’t stand it any longer, and

-I came.”</p>

-

-<p>“And how did she know she would ever see you

-again?” I asked. “It would have been most natural,

-having learned what comfort was, to stay on

-here and enjoy it.”</p>

-

-<p>“Mag <em>knew me</em>, ma’am,” said my vagrant, as

-proudly as a prince could speak if his honor were

-called in question. “Mag knew what I was, and I

-learned as fast as I could to get back to her—don’t

-you think so, ma’am?”</p>

-

-<p>“You learned faster than any one else could; I

-know that,” I answered. “But, Johnny, how

-could you bear to go back to begging again?”</p>

-

-<p>“I couldn’t bear it, ma’am, and I didn’t. I had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>

-money enough, that Mr. Tom had given me, to buy

-myself a stock of papers. I’m a newsboy now, and

-I teach Mag to read out of the papers I have left.

-And old Meg knows better now than to beat Mag,

-and we are so much happier. It’s all owing to you;

-and I came back to thank you,—but I never could

-forsake Mag for long. I must stay with my own.”</p>

-

-<p>“But they are not your own.”</p>

-

-<p>“Mag is, ma’am.”</p>

-

-<p>He was as resolute to ally himself, for that girl’s

-sake, with poverty, and, if need were, shame, as

-ever was a hero to live or die for the land of his

-birth; and out in the rain, down the desolate

-street, I watched my vagrant go away from me for

-ever. But I did not pity him. No soul is to be

-pitied which has reached life’s crowning good,—the

-power to love another better than itself. Nor

-do I know any curled darling of fortune who seems

-to me happier than was my vagrant.</p>

-

-<hr />

-

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>

-<h2 class="nobreak" id="HELENS_TEMPTATION">HELEN’S TEMPTATION.</h2>

-<hr />

-</div>

-

-

-<p>The sun was almost setting, but its low light

-came in at the western windows, and lit up a

-pale face lying upon the pillows, till it seemed to

-the watchers beside the bed as if some glory from

-heaven had already touched the brow of the dying.

-These watchers were only two,—a girl of fourteen,

-rather tall of her age, with gray eyes that

-were almost green sometimes, and dark hair, short

-like a boy’s, and curling all over her head; and

-a middle-aged woman, who had tended this girl

-when a baby, and was half friend, half servant, to

-the dying mother.</p>

-

-<p>Mrs. Ash had been lying all the day, almost in

-silence. Her husband had brought her, a year

-before, to California, because she was stricken

-with consumption, and he hoped the change

-from the harsh east winds of New England to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>

-the balmy airs of the Pacific coast might restore

-her to health.</p>

-

-<p>For a time the result had seemed to fulfil his

-hope; but, very suddenly, he himself had been

-taken ill and died; and then the half-baffled disease

-seized again on the mourning wife, who had

-now no strength to repel its onset.</p>

-

-<p>I think she would fain have lived—even then,

-when all the joy seemed gone from her life—for

-her daughter Helen’s sake; but she was too weak

-to struggle, and so she lay there dying, quite

-aware of what was before her.</p>

-

-<p>All day she had seemed to be thinking, thinking,

-and waiting till she had settled something in

-her own mind before she spoke. At last, with the

-sunset light upon her face, she beckoned to the

-woman, who bent nearer.</p>

-

-<p>“As soon as all is over, Woods,” she said, as

-tranquilly as if she were speaking of the most ordinary

-household arrangement, “you will take Helen

-to my sister’s in Boston. You must make the

-journey by easy stages, so as not to tire her too

-much. Fortunately she will not be dependent.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>

-She has money enough, and she needs only care

-and love, which my sister will give her, I know

-well.</p>

-

-<p>“I shall be glad if you can stay with her; but

-that must of course be as Mrs. Mason will arrange.

-You will find when my affairs are settled that you

-have been remembered. You will lay me by my

-husband’s side, and then take Helen away.</p>

-

-<p>“All is arranged so that there can be no trouble,

-and now, if you please, leave me a little while with

-my daughter.”</p>

-

-<p>The woman went out of the room, and then Mrs.

-Ash opened her arms, and Helen crept into them

-and lay there silently, as if she were a baby again

-whom her mother comforted.</p>

-

-<p>She was a strange compound, this Helen Ash, of

-impulsiveness and self-control. She had an intense

-nature, and her temptations would grow chiefly

-out of her tendency to concentrate all her heart on

-a single object,—to seek whatever thing she wished

-for with an insistence which would not be denied.</p>

-

-<p>This quality has its great advantages certainly,

-but it has its extreme dangers.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>Helen had no brothers or sisters or special

-friends. She had loved only her father and

-mother, but she had loved them with an almost

-excessive devotion.</p>

-

-<p>When her father died she had borne up bravely,

-that she might comfort and help her mother, and

-now she was bearing up still, that she might not

-sadden that parting soul with the anguish of her

-own.</p>

-

-<p>As she lay there in her mother’s arms, her eyes

-were wide open and tearless, but they were full of

-a desperate gloom sadder than tears. She was

-almost as pale herself as was her mother.</p>

-

-<p>“Darling,” the mother said tenderly, “how can

-I bear to leave you all alone? Promise me one

-thing only, to open your heart to new love. It

-would be so like you to shut yourself up in your

-grief, and to fancy you were loving me less if you

-let yourself care for your Aunt Helen.</p>

-

-<p>“She will love you for my sake, and she must

-be your second mother now. We were dearer

-than most sisters to each other, and she is a wise

-and good woman.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“Her daughter, my namesake Laura, is just

-about your own age, and being her mother’s daughter,

-she must be worth loving. Try to care for

-them, my darling. The life which has no love in

-it is empty indeed. Will you try?”</p>

-

-<p>“O mamma,” the girl cried, with a sudden, desperate

-sob, “I <em>will</em> try because you bid me! I <em>will</em>

-try; but oh, how <em>can</em> I love them? How <em>can</em> I

-bear to see another girl happy with her mother,

-and to know that you will never be with me any

-more—never in all the world? If I call all day

-and all night, you will never hear nor answer! O

-my own mother, <em>must</em> you leave me?”</p>

-

-<p>“My darling, yes. I would have lived for your

-sake if I could. You have been my comfort always.

-Comfort me a little longer. Let me feel that in all

-the future you will try to live nobly for my sake.”</p>

-

-<p>The last words had been spoken with an evident

-effort, and it seemed to Helen that the cheek

-against which her own rested was already colder

-than it was half an hour ago.</p>

-

-<p>She clung closer to the poor wasted form that

-was her whole world of love, and closed her lips<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>

-over the bitter cry that was rising to them; and so

-the two lay, very, very quietly in that last embrace

-they were ever to know.</p>

-

-<p>And the twilight gathered round them, and at

-last a young moon, hanging low in the western sky,

-looked in and touched with its pale glory the pale

-faces on the pillow.</p>

-

-<p>The mother stirred a little, and with a last effort

-clasped her child closer, and said, in a voice like a

-sigh, faint and sweet and strange, “Good-by,

-darling!” and then she seemed to sleep.</p>

-

-<p>Perhaps Helen slept, also. She never quite

-knew; but it was an hour afterwards when Woods

-touched her shoulder, and said, with a kind firmness

-in her tone,—</p>

-

-<p>“You <em>must</em> get up now, Miss Helen, and leave

-her to me. She went off just as quiet as a lamb,

-poor dear, and if ever a face was peaceful and

-happy, hers is now.”</p>

-

-<p>No one knew what the few days that followed

-were to Helen Ash. She shut her lips, as her

-manner was, over her grief. She turned away,

-with her great tearless eyes, from the two graves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>

-where her father and mother lay side by side, and

-she helped, with a strange unnatural calmness, in

-all the preparations for the long journey she was

-to take.</p>

-

-<p>When at last she reached her aunt’s home in

-Boston, this strained, unnatural composure gave

-way a little.</p>

-

-<p>Her Aunt Helen looked so much like her

-mother that at first she thought she could <em>not</em>

-bear it. Then, when her aunt’s arms closed round

-her almost as tenderly as her mother’s would have

-done, she shivered a little, and burst into one

-wild passion of tears, which almost instantly she

-checked.</p>

-

-<p>“I am to love you for <em>her</em> sake,” she said.

-“Those were almost her last words; and indeed,

-indeed, I will try, but I think I left my heart all

-those miles away in her grave.”</p>

-

-<p>Mrs. Mason was, as her sister had said, a wise

-and good woman,—wise enough not to attempt to

-force the love or the interest of her niece. She

-contented herself with being exquisitely gentle and

-considerate towards her, and with trying, in count<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>less

-little ways, to make her feel that she was at

-home.</p>

-

-<p>Laura Mason had looked forward to Helen’s

-coming with a feeling that at last she was to find

-in her the sister she had longed for all her life, but

-Helen’s cold and self-contained manner disappointed

-her. She felt the atmosphere of Helen’s

-reserve almost as tangibly as if her orphan cousin

-had pushed her away.</p>

-

-<p>The summer months passed, and scarcely brought

-them any nearer together. Try as Helen might, she

-could not get over the sting of pain when she saw

-this other girl happy in her mother’s love, or running

-gayly to meet her father when he came home

-at night. <em>They</em> had each other, she used to say to

-herself, but <em>she</em> had only her dead. She had not

-even Woods to speak to, for Mrs. Mason had decided

-not to retain her; and since there was no one to

-whom Helen ever spoke of the past, she pondered

-it all the more in her heart.</p>

-

-<p>Things were a little better when school commenced

-in the autumn. Helen and Laura were in

-the same classes, and that brought them somewhat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>

-more together; still there was no real intimacy

-between them.</p>

-

-<p>In the spring there was to be a competitive

-examination, and a medal was to be bestowed on

-the leading scholar in the class. By midwinter it

-was quite evident that Helen and Laura led all the

-rest, and a real spirit of rivalry grew up between

-the cousins which bade fair to become a passion.</p>

-

-<p>Mrs. Mason looked on regretfully, adhering to

-her difficult policy of non-interference. One day

-Helen heard Laura say to her mother,—</p>

-

-<p>“Mamsie, dear, you know you have the key

-to that French method locked up in your desk, for

-you taught us from it last summer. Won’t you be

-a dear, and lend it to me for a little while?</p>

-

-<p>“If I only could have that to help me, I should

-be sure of success. I would study just as hard.

-It would only be the difference between knowing

-when one was right, and floundering on in an awful

-uncertainty.”</p>

-

-<p>Helen was behind the curtain of the library

-window, and evidently they did not know of her

-presence. She waited for her aunt’s answer. If<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>

-Laura had the key, then, indeed, she would be

-sure of success.</p>

-

-<p>Mrs. Mason spoke in a sad voice, with a subtile

-little thrill of reproach in it.</p>

-

-<p>“I did not think you would so much as wish,

-my dear, to do any thing that was not quite open

-and straightforward. You know Mademoiselle

-does not expect you to see the key. The very

-test of your power is that you should work without

-its aid, and the examination will prove how

-far you have succeeded.”</p>

-

-<p>“I suppose there’s no use in coaxing, when you

-say that. I do wish you weren’t such an uncoaxable

-mamma.”</p>

-

-<p>“No, you don’t,—you only fancy that you wish

-it; but, in your inmost soul, you would rather

-have me as I am,” Mrs. Mason answered; and

-Helen heard the sound of a kiss, and felt, for the

-thousandth time, how bitter it was that this other

-girl should have home and mother, while she had

-only a far-off grave.</p>

-

-<p>But, at least, she would triumph in this school

-contest! If Laura came off best there, it would

-be more than she <em>could</em> bear.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>The weeks passed on, and the spring came.

-The deep old garden back of the house—the garden

-Helen’s mother had played in when she was a

-child—grew full of bird-songs and blossoms.</p>

-

-<p>There was a sweet laughter on the face of nature.

-The springs bubbled with it; the flowers

-opened to the light; the sunshine poured down its

-tender warmth, and the soft coo and call of the

-birds gave voice to the general joy.</p>

-

-<p>But both Laura and Helen were too eager and

-too tired to be gay. They only studied. They

-went to sleep with books under their pillows;

-they woke with the first light, and began to study

-again.</p>

-

-<p>It was the very week of the examination, at

-last. Helen felt satisfied with herself in all but

-her French. If <em>she</em> could only have that key for

-one little half-hour, she knew she would have no

-weak spot in her armor.</p>

-

-<p>She brooded over the idea until the temptation

-possessed her like an evil fate. In her passionate

-girl’s heart she said to herself that she wanted to

-<em>die</em> if Laura triumphed over her at school. Laura<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>

-had every thing else; why <em>should</em> she have that,

-also?</p>

-

-<p>She had said at first, “If only it were <em>right</em> to

-have the key!” Then she said, “if only she

-could <em>chance</em> on the key, somehow!” Then, “if

-only she could get at her aunt’s desk and <em>find</em> the

-key!” At last it was,—</p>

-

-<p>“I <em>will</em> get at the key, somehow!”</p>

-

-<p>This last was the very morning before the examination.

-She rose from her bed in the dainty

-blue-hung room her aunt had taken such pains to

-make pretty for her, and went softly downstairs,

-in the young spring morning.</p>

-

-<p>Her bare feet made no sound on the thick stair-carpet.

-She looked like a little white-clad ghost

-that had forgotten to flee away at the first cock-crowing,

-as an orthodox ghost ought; but no

-ghost ever had such glowing cheeks, crimson with

-excitement, such great wide-opened gray eyes

-with green depths in them.</p>

-

-<p>She held in her hand a large bunch of keys belonging

-to her mother. It was just a chance

-whether one of them would fit her aunt’s desk.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>She fairly trembled with excitement. She had

-lost all thought of the wrong she was doing—of

-the shame and meanness of this act, which must be

-done in silence and mystery; she thought only of

-the triumph which success would mean.</p>

-

-<p>She stood before the desk, and tried key after

-key with her shaking fingers.</p>

-

-<p>At last one fitted. In a moment more the key

-to the French method was in her hand.</p>

-

-<p>In desperate haste she compared her own work

-with it, and made corrections here and there.</p>

-

-<p>She was so absorbed that she quite failed to see

-another white-clad figure which had followed her

-noiselessly down the stairs, and stood in the doorway

-long enough to see what she was doing, and

-then went away.</p>

-

-<p>Hurriedly Helen went through her evil task,

-and then stole back to bed, with her glittering

-eyes and burning cheeks.</p>

-

-<p>Meantime Laura had gone, full of excitement,

-to her mother. Mr. Mason was away on business,

-and Laura crept into the empty half of her mother’s

-great bed.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“Mamsie,” she said, “wake up quickly, and

-listen.”</p>

-

-<p>Patient Mrs. Mason rubbed the sleep out of her

-eyes, and turned over. Then followed Laura’s

-breathless story.</p>

-

-<p>“Of course she’ll win, now,” Laura said, in

-conclusion, “unless I tell Mademoiselle what she

-has done; and I suppose you wouldn’t like that,

-would you, mamsie?</p>

-

-<p>“But it was her French that was the shakiest

-of any thing. Oh, <em>did</em> you ever see any thing quite

-so mean? Think of getting into your desk with

-her keys, and then slying off all those corrections!”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes, I <em>do</em> think,” Mrs. Mason answered, with

-almost a groan.</p>

-

-<p>“And she is Laura’s child—my poor Laura,

-who was honor and honesty itself!</p>

-

-<p>“You don’t know, dear, what a bitter thing

-this is to me. Poor Laura! what if she

-knows?”</p>

-

-<p>“But what shall we do, mamsie, dear? Are

-we just to keep still, and let her win the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>

-medal, and let every one think she has beaten

-fairly, or will you tell her what we know?”</p>

-

-<p>“Will you go away now,” Mrs. Mason said,

-“and come back again before breakfast? I don’t

-want to say any thing until I am quite sure what

-it is best to do.”</p>

-

-<p>When Laura came again, Mrs. Mason had settled

-upon her course of action, or rather of inaction.</p>

-

-<p>“Don’t be vexed, girlie,” she said to Laura; “I

-know it will seem hard to you to be beaten unfairly;

-but there are things of more consequence

-even than that. The thing that seems to me most

-important, just now, is to know what Helen’s

-character really is. If she is not utterly unworthy

-of her mother, she will repent before the thing

-comes to an end. If she does not, it will be time

-enough to think what to do next.”</p>

-

-<p>“And I must let her beat unfairly, and never

-say one word?” Laura asked, with a little strain of

-rebellion in her voice.</p>

-

-<p>“Yes, if you are the obedient and generous

-Laura I like to believe you.”</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“Mamsie, you have a flattering tongue, and you

-always get your way.”</p>

-

-<p>“And who is pretty sure always to admit, in the

-end, that it was the best way?” asked Mrs. Mason,

-laughing.</p>

-

-<p>“Mamsie, you are getting spoiled. See if I say

-yours was the best way this time!”</p>

-

-<p>French came on the first of the two examination-days.

-Laura and Helen led their class. Laura

-did very well, but Helen acquitted herself triumphantly,

-and sat down amid a little buzz of

-congratulations and praises.</p>

-

-<p>But somehow the triumph left a bitter taste in

-her mouth. She did not look at Laura, and even

-if she had she would not have understood the

-scorn on Laura’s face, since she was quite unaware

-that her raid on her aunt’s desk had been observed.</p>

-

-<p>Still she was not happy. She needed no scorn

-from outside, she had already begun to feel such

-bitterness of self-contempt scorching her soul. It

-seemed to her that up to this moment she had been

-as one under an evil spell.</p>

-

-<p>She had thought of no single thing except her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>

-triumph over her cousin—quite careless as to the

-means to this hotly desired end. Now she began

-to realize how base those means had been, and to

-long to exchange her success for any direst possible

-failure.</p>

-

-<p>Mrs. Mason was watching her, and when they

-started to go home, she found an instant in which

-to whisper to Laura,—</p>

-

-<p>“Be gentle to her, girlie; she will suffer enough

-to-night.”</p>

-

-<p>At supper Helen’s place was vacant. She sent

-word that her head ached too much to come.</p>

-

-<p>Her aunt despatched to her room tea and strawberries

-and bread-and-butter enough for the hungriest

-of girls, and then left her to herself.</p>

-

-<p>The poor, lonesome, miserable girl lay upon her

-bed and thought. It was not quite a year since

-she had lain in her mother’s arms and heard her

-say,—</p>

-

-<p>“Try to live nobly for my sake.”</p>

-

-<p>Those had been almost her mother’s last words;

-after them there was only the low sigh, faint as if

-it came already from far-off worlds,—</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“Good-by, darling.”</p>

-

-<p>The low sun-rays stole in softly, and touched her

-sad, pale face, and then went away; and after a

-while some cold, far-off stars looked down into the

-window, and saw the girl lying there still, fighting

-her battle with herself.</p>

-

-<p>One thing her conscience told her,—that she

-must undo this wrong, at whatever cost of shame.</p>

-

-<p>Once she started up, half-resolved to go to her

-aunt and tell her the whole story, and seek her

-help and counsel. But she lay down again, without

-the courage to confess her shame.</p>

-

-<p>Through the long night she scarcely slept; but

-before morning she had resolved what to do. In

-public she had taken the wages of her sin; in

-public she would make atonement, and eat the

-bitter bread of humiliation.</p>

-

-<p>When she had once settled on her course of

-action, sleep touched her weary eyes, and soothed

-her into a forgetfulness from which only the breakfast-bell

-awoke her.</p>

-

-<p>That day every one noticed a singular calmness

-and resolve in her manner. She passed the remain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>ing

-examinations with thorough success, yet with

-an evident lack of interest in their result which all

-save her aunt were at a loss to understand.</p>

-

-<p>At last the time came for the awarding of the

-medal. There was a little consultation among the

-examining committee, and then their chairman

-rose, with the medal in his hand.</p>

-

-<p>“To Miss Helen Ash,” he began; but before he

-could proceed farther, Miss Helen Ash herself

-interrupted him.</p>

-

-<p>Her face was as white as the dress she wore,

-and her eyes glittered with some strange fire of

-resolve or courage; but her voice was absolutely

-without a quiver of emotion in it, as steady and

-even as if she were beyond hope or fear.</p>

-

-<p>“The medal does not belong to me,” she said.

-“My success was a false success. I dishonestly

-found the key to the French method, and corrected

-my mistakes by it, or I should have failed.

-The prize belongs, of right, to my cousin, Laura

-Mason.”</p>

-

-<p>The chairman was a fussy little man, and was

-thoroughly discomposed by this interruption. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>

-had had his little speech all ready, but it began

-with the name of Helen Ash, and he found it

-difficult to change it at a moment’s notice.</p>

-

-<p>“Bless my heart!” he said quite unconsciously,

-and looking helplessly around him, he repeated,

-“<em>Bless</em> my heart!”</p>

-

-<p>“Miss Laura Mason,” suggested one of his

-brethren on the committee; and thus reinforced,

-he began again,—</p>

-

-<p>“Miss Laura Mason, I am very sorry—I mean

-I am very glad, to bestow on you this medal, which

-you have fairly earned by your success.”</p>

-

-<p>And then he sat down, and his confusion was

-covered by a gentle little clapping of hands.</p>

-

-<p>That night Mrs. Mason went to Helen in her

-own room, when the twilight shadows were falling,

-and as she entered the door she said, “My darling,”

-in a voice so like Helen’s mother’s that the

-girl’s very heart sprang to meet it.</p>

-

-<p>“My darling, I know now that you are true

-enough and brave enough to be my sister’s

-child.”</p>

-

-<p>But Helen shrank back into the darkness, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>

-this time the voice was broken with tears which

-faltered,—</p>

-

-<p>“Is there any one who could know what I have

-done, and yet not despise me?”</p>

-

-<p>“There is no one, dear, who dares to scorn the

-soul that repents and atones.”</p>

-

-<p>And then loving arms held the poor lonesome

-girl close, and she knew that she was no longer

-alone. She had found a new home—the home

-her mother bade her seek—in the heart of that

-mother’s sister.</p>

-

-<hr />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>

-<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_SURGEON_OF_THE_DOLLS">THE SURGEON OF THE DOLLS’ HOSPITAL.</h2>

-<hr />

-</div>

-

-<p>It was nearly four years ago that I first noticed,

-in one of the quiet side-streets in the West

-Central district of London, a sign over a door on

-which I read:—</p>

-

-<p>DOLLS’ HOSPITAL.</p>

-

-<p>Operations from 9 <span class="smcap">A.M.</span>, to 4 <span class="smcap">P.M.</span></p>

-

-<p>Whenever I passed through the street—and

-that was often, for it was a short cut to Mudie’s,—the

-largest circulating library in the world,—I used

-to notice this quaint sign, and wonder, laughingly,

-who was the superintending physician to this place

-of healing for the numerous race of dolls.</p>

-

-<p>I often thought I would go in and see the establishment;

-but one is always busy in London, so,

-very likely, I should never have entered its door

-but for a casualty at my own fireside.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>When I went downstairs one morning, I heard

-a sound of weeping, as bitter as that of Rachel of

-old mourning for her children. The mourner in

-this case was Mistress Brown-Eyes, as I was wont

-to call my friend’s little girl.</p>

-

-<p>She was a pretty child, this little Milicent; but

-you forgot to think about the rest of her face when

-you saw her wonderful eyes—soft and clear, yet

-bright, and of the warmest, deepest, yet softest

-brown. She had made her home in my heart, and

-so her grief, whatever it was, appealed at once to

-my sympathies.</p>

-

-<p>“My darling,” I said, as I tried to draw away

-the little hands from before the sorrowful face,

-“what can be the matter?”</p>

-

-<p>“Bella is dead!” and the sobs recommenced

-with fresh violence.</p>

-

-<p>Bella was the best-beloved of a somewhat large

-family of dolls,—a pretty Parian creature, with

-blue eyes and fair hair. I had myself lately

-assisted in making a trunk of clothes for Bella;

-and I grudged sorely all my wasted labor, if she

-had come to an untimely end.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>I looked at the dear remains, stretched out sadly

-upon a chair. Bella was evidently very dead indeed.

-Her pretty neck was broken, her fair,

-foolish head lay quite severed from her silken-clad

-body. Suddenly there flashed into my

-mind the thought of the dolls’ hospital. I spoke

-cheerfully.</p>

-

-<p>“Brown-Eyes,” I said, “I think that Bella may

-recover. I am pretty sure that her collar-bone is

-broken; but I have heard of people who got well

-after breaking their collar-bones.”</p>

-

-<p>The child looked up, her eyes shining through

-tears, and said, with that air of grave, old-fashioned

-propriety which was one of the most amusing

-things about her,—</p>

-

-<p>“It is a very serious accident. Do you think

-Bella <em>could</em> recover?”</p>

-

-<p>“I hope she may; and I shall at once take her

-to the hospital.”</p>

-

-<p>“The hospital!” cried Mistress Brown-Eyes;

-“but that is where Mary Ann went when she had

-a fever. She was gone six weeks. Will my Bella

-be gone six weeks?”</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“I think not so long as one week, if she can be

-cured at all.”</p>

-

-<p>In five minutes more I was in the street, with

-Bella in a basket on my arm. Her little mother

-had covered her carefully from the cold, though it

-was already May; and I felt as if I were in a

-position of grave responsibility as I hurried to the

-dolls’ hospital.</p>

-

-<p>A bell rang when I opened the door, and the

-oddest little person stood before me. At first I

-thought it was a child masquerading in long

-clothes; for she was not more than half the height

-of an ordinary woman.</p>

-

-<p>But, looking more closely, I saw the maturity of

-her face, and realized that I stood in the presence

-of a grown-up dwarf, who might really have been

-taken for Dickens’s Miss Mowcher, herself.</p>

-

-<p>She was dressed in a long, straight gown of rusty-looking

-black alpaca, and her rusty-looking black

-hair was drawn straightly back from as plain a

-face as one often sees. It was a kind, honest face,

-however, and I liked the voice in which she asked

-how she could serve me. I explained my errand.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“Please to let me see the patient.”</p>

-

-<p>She spoke with as much gravity as if she had

-been the superintending physician of the largest

-hospital in London. I unveiled poor Bella, and

-the dwarf lifted her from the basket with grave

-tenderness.</p>

-

-<p>“Poor little beauty!” she said. “Yes’m, I

-think I can cure her.”</p>

-

-<p>“Will the operation take long?” I asked,

-humoring her fancy.</p>

-

-<p>“I should prefer that the patient should not be

-moved, ma’am, before to-morrow.”</p>

-

-<p>“Very well; then I will leave her.”</p>

-

-<p>Just at that moment I heard a voice call, “Sally!

-Sally!”</p>

-

-<p>It was a well-trained, ladylike voice, but somewhat

-imperious.</p>

-

-<p>“Yes, Lady Jane, I’ll be there in a moment,”

-answered the dwarf, whom I now knew to be

-Sally. Then a door opened, and the most beautiful

-creature I ever saw stood in it, looking in.</p>

-

-<p>The hospital was a bare enough place. There

-was a great table covered with dolls,—dolls with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>

-broken legs, dolls with punched heads, dolls with

-one arm gone, hairless dolls, broken-backed dolls,

-dolls of every kind, awaiting the ministrations of

-Sally; and dozens of other dolls were there, too,

-whom those skilful fingers had already cured of

-their wounds.</p>

-

-<p>There was a shelf, on which was ranged the

-pharmacy of this hospital,—white cement, boxes

-of saw-dust, collections of legs and arms, wigs,

-every thing, in short, that an afflicted doll could

-possibly require. Then there were two or three

-wooden stools, and these completed the furniture

-of the apartment.</p>

-

-<p>Standing in the doorway, Lady Jane looked as

-if she were a larger doll than the rest,—a doll

-with a soul. She seemed a lady’s child, every

-pretty inch of her. I should think she was about

-twelve years old. She wore a blue dress, and a

-blue ribbon in the bright, fair hair that hung all

-about her soft, pink-and-white face, out of which

-looked two great, serious, inquiring blue eyes.</p>

-

-<p>“I will be through soon, Lady Jane,” Sally said

-quietly; and the girl turned away, but not before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>

-I had taken in a complete picture of her loveliness,

-and had noticed also a somewhat singular

-ornament she wore, attached to a slender golden

-chain. It was so strange a vision to see in this

-humble little shop that my curiosity got the better

-of me, and, after the door had closed on Lady

-Jane, I asked, “Does she live here?”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes’m,” answered Sally proudly. “In a

-way, she is my child.”</p>

-

-<p>I hesitated to inquire further; but I think my

-eyes must have asked some questions in spite of

-myself; for Sally said, after a moment,—</p>

-

-<p>“You seem interested, ma’am, and I don’t mind

-telling you about her. I saw Lady Jane first

-some eight years ago. A man had her who used

-to go round with a hand-organ. She was such a

-pretty little creature that everybody gave her

-money, and she was a great profit to Jacopo, for

-that was his name.</p>

-

-<p>“It used to make my heart ache to see the little

-beauty trudging round all day on her patient feet.

-When Jacopo spoke to her, I’ve seen her turn

-pale; and she never used to smile except when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>

-she was holding out her bit of a hat to people for

-money. She <em>had</em> to smile then; it was part of

-the business.</p>

-

-<p>“I was sixteen, and I was all alone in the

-world. I had a room to myself, and I worked

-days in a toy-shop. I used to dress the dolls, and

-I got very clever at mending them; but I hadn’t

-thought of the hospital, then.</p>

-

-<p>“I lived in the same street with Jacopo, and I

-grew very fond of the little lady, as the people

-in the street used to call Jane. Sometimes I

-coaxed Jacopo to let her stay with me at night;

-but after three or four times, he would not let her

-come again. I suppose he thought she would get

-too fond of me.</p>

-

-<p>“Things went on that way for two years; then

-one night, in the middle of the night, a boy came

-for me, and said Jacopo was dying and wanted me

-to come. I knew it was something about Jane,

-and I hurried on my clothes and went.</p>

-

-<p>“The child was asleep in one corner. She had

-been tramping all that day, as usual, and she was

-too tired out for the noise in the room to wake<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>

-her. Jacopo looked very ill, and he could hardly

-summon strength to speak to me.</p>

-

-<p>“‘The end has come sudden, Sally,’ he said,

-‘the end to a bad life. But I ain’t bad enough to

-want harm to happen to the little one when I am

-gone. There will be plenty of folks after her, for

-she’s a profitable little one to have; but if you

-want her, I’ll give her to you. You may take her

-away to-night, if you will.’</p>

-

-<p>“‘Indeed I will,’ I cried, ‘and thank you.

-While I can work, she shall never want.’</p>

-

-<p>“Jacopo had been fumbling under his pillow as

-he spoke; and when I said I would take the

-child he handed me a curious locket. Maybe you

-noticed it at her neck when she stood in the

-door?</p>

-

-<p>“He said, as nearly as I could understand, for

-it was getting hard work for him to speak, that he

-had stolen the child, but he had always kept this

-thing, which she had on her neck when he took

-her, and perhaps it would help, some day, to find

-her people.</p>

-

-<p>“So I took her home. The next morning I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>

-heard that Jacopo was dead, and the Lady Jane

-has been mine ever since.”</p>

-

-<p>“Have you always called her Lady Jane?” I

-asked.</p>

-

-<p>“Yes’m. There is a coronet on that locket she

-wears; and I know she must be some great person’s

-daughter, she is so beautiful, and seems so

-much like a real lady.”</p>

-

-<p>“And so you’ve struggled on and worked for

-her, and taken care of her for six years, now?”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes’m, and I’ve thanked God every day that

-I’ve had her to take care of. You see, ma’am,

-I’m not like other people; and it was a good fortune

-I couldn’t look for to have a beautiful child

-like that given into my arms, as you might say.

-It was all the difference between being alone and

-with no one to care for, and having a home and an

-interest in life like other women.</p>

-

-<p>“I gave up working in the shop when I took

-her, for I didn’t like to leave her alone. I was a

-good workwoman, and they let me take work

-home for awhile; then I opened the hospital,

-and I’ve done very well. Lady Jane has been to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>

-school, and I don’t think if her true parents met

-her, they would be ashamed of her.”</p>

-

-<p>“Do you ever think,” I said, “that they may

-meet her some time, and then you would lose her

-for ever?”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes, indeed, I think about that, ma’am; and I

-make her keep the locket in sight all the time, in

-hopes it might lead to something.”</p>

-

-<p>“In hopes!” I said, surprised. “You don’t

-want to part with her, do you?”</p>

-

-<p>I was sorry, instantly, that I had asked the

-question, for her poor face flushed, and the tears

-gathered in her eyes.</p>

-

-<p>“O ma’am,” she said, “if I stopped to think

-about myself, I suppose I should rather die than

-lose her; but I <em>don’t</em> think of any thing but her.

-And how could I want her, a lady born, and beautiful

-as any princess, to live always in a little room

-back of a dolls’ hospital? Would it be right for

-me to want it?</p>

-

-<p>“No; I think God gave her to make a few of

-my years bright; and when the time comes, she

-will go away to live her own life, and I shall live<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>

-out mine, remembering that she <em>was</em> here, once;

-and harking back till I can hear the sound of her

-voice again; or looking till I see her bright head

-shine in the corner where she sits now.”</p>

-

-<p>Just then the bell rang, and other customers

-came into the hospital, and I went away, promising

-to return for Bella on the morrow.</p>

-

-<p>I walked through the streets with a sense that I

-had been talking with some one nobler than the

-rest of the world. Another than poor Sally might

-have adopted Lady Jane, perhaps, tended her,

-loved her; but who else would have been noble

-enough to love her, and yet be ready to lose her

-for ever and live on in darkness quite satisfied if

-but the little queen might come to her own again?</p>

-

-<p>I comforted Mistress Brown-Eyes with a promise

-of her “child’s” recovery, and I went to a kettle-drum

-or two in the afternoon, and dined out at

-night; but all the time, amidst whatever buzz of

-talk, I was comparing the most generous persons I

-had ever known with the poor dwarfed surgeon of

-the dolls’ hospital, and finding them all wanting.</p>

-

-<p>I went for Bella about four the next afternoon.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>

-I wanted to get to the hospital late enough to see

-something of the little surgeon and her beautiful

-ward. I purchased a bunch of roses on the way,

-for I meant to please Sally by giving them to Lady

-Jane.</p>

-

-<p>I opened the door, and again, at the ringing of

-the bell, the quaint little figure of the dwarf surgeon

-started up like Jack-in-the-box.</p>

-

-<p>“Is the patient recovered?” I asked.</p>

-

-<p>“The patient is quite well;” and the surgeon

-took down pretty Bella, and proudly exhibited

-her. The white cement had done its work so perfectly

-that the slender neck showed no signs of

-ever having been broken.</p>

-

-<p>I paid the surgeon her modest fee, and then I said,

-“Here are some roses I brought for Lady Jane.”</p>

-

-<p>Sally’s plain face beamed with pleasure. “It’s

-time to stop receiving patients for to-day,” she

-said. “Won’t you walk into the sitting-room and

-give the roses to Lady Jane, yourself?”</p>

-

-<p>I was well pleased to accept the invitation. The

-sitting-room was as cosy as the hospital itself was

-barren of attraction. I really wondered at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>

-taste with which it was arranged. The hangings

-were blue, and two or three low chairs were covered

-with the same color; and there were pretty

-trifles here and there which made it seem like a

-lady’s room.</p>

-

-<div class="figcenter">

-<img src="images/i_68.jpg" width="600" alt="" />

-<div class="caption">My roses were received with a cry of delight.—<span class="smcap">Page <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.</span></div>

-</div>

-

-<p>My roses were received with a cry of delight;

-and, while Lady Jane put them in a delicate glass,

-Sally made me sit down in the most comfortable

-chair, and then she asked her ward to sing to me.</p>

-

-<p>The girl had a wonderful voice, soft and clear

-and full.</p>

-

-<p>When she had done singing, Sally said, “I have

-thought sometimes that, if no better fortune comes,

-Lady Jane can sing herself into good luck.”</p>

-

-<p>“<em>I</em> count on something better than that,” the

-little lady cried carelessly. “When I ‘come to

-my own,’ like the princesses in all the fairy tales,

-I’ll send you my picture, Sally, and it will make

-you less trouble than I do. It won’t wear out its

-gowns, nor want all the strawberries for supper.”</p>

-

-<p>Sally didn’t answer; but two great tears gathered

-in her eyes, and rolled down her cheeks.</p>

-

-<p>Lady Jane laughed—not unkindly, only child<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>ishly—and

-said, “Never mind. Don’t cry yet.

-You’ll have time enough for that when it all

-comes to pass. And you know you want it to

-happen; you always say so.”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes, yes, dear, I want it to happen,” Sally

-said hastily; “I couldn’t want to shut you up

-here for ever, like a flower growing in a dungeon.”</p>

-

-<p>“A pretty, blue-hung dungeon, with nice soft

-chairs,” Lady Jane said pleasantly; and then I got

-up to go.</p>

-

-<p>Had this beautiful girl any real heart behind

-her beauty? I wondered. If the time ever came

-when Sally must give her up to some brighter

-fate, would it cost the little lady herself one pang?

-Could she be wholly insensible to all the devotion

-that had been lavished on her for all these years?

-I could not tell; but she seemed to me too light a

-thing for deep loving.</p>

-

-<p>I carried Bella home to Mistress Brown-Eyes,

-who received her with great joy, and with a certain

-tender respect, such as we give to those who have

-passed through perils. I stayed in London till

-“the season” was over,—that is to say, till the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>

-end of July; and then, with the last rose of summer

-in my buttonhole, I went over to the fair sea

-coast of France.</p>

-

-<p>It was not until the next May that I found myself

-in London again; and going to renew my subscription

-at Mudie’s, passed the dolls’ hospital.

-I looked up at the quaint sign, and the fancy

-seized me to go in.</p>

-

-<p>I opened the door, and promptly as ever, the

-dwarf surgeon of the dolls stood before me. It

-was nearly four o’clock, and the hospital was

-empty of customers. Nothing in it was changed

-except the face of the surgeon. Out of that

-always plain face a certain cheerful light had

-faded. It looked now like a face accustomed to

-tears. I said,—</p>

-

-<p>“Do you remember me, Dr. Sally?”</p>

-

-<p>A sort of frozen smile came to the poor trembling

-lips.</p>

-

-<p>“Oh, yes’m. You’re the lady that brought the

-rose-buds to Lady Jane.”</p>

-

-<p>“And is she well?” I asked.</p>

-

-<p>“I <em>think</em> so, ma’am. Heaven knows I <em>hope</em> so;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>

-but the old days when I <em>knew</em> are over. Won’t

-you come into the sitting-room, please?”</p>

-

-<p>I wanted nothing better for myself, and I felt

-that it might ease her sad heart to break its silence;

-so I followed her into the familiar room. It, at

-least, was unchanged. The blue hangings were

-there, and the low easy-chairs, and the pretty

-trifles; and yet, somehow, the room seemed cold,

-for the beauty which had gladdened it last year

-had gone for ever.</p>

-

-<p>“Will you tell me what happened?” I asked;

-and I know the real sympathy I felt must have

-sounded in my voice.</p>

-

-<p>“It wasn’t long after you were here,” she said,

-“a lady was driving by, and she saw my sign.

-She sent her footman to the door to see if the

-place was really what that said; and the next day

-she came in herself and brought a whole load of

-broken toys. She said she wanted these things

-put in order to take into the country, for they

-were favorite playthings of her little girl’s.</p>

-

-<p>“I turned then and looked at the child who had

-come in with her mother. I can never tell you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>

-how I felt. It was as though Lady Jane had gone

-back six years. Just what my darling was when

-she came to me, this little girl was now,—the

-very same blue eyes, and bright, fair hair, and the

-pretty, pink-and-white face.</p>

-

-<p>“Just at that moment, Lady Jane came into the

-hospital, and when the lady saw her, she stood

-and gazed as if she had seen a ghost. I looked

-at the lady herself, and then I looked at Lady

-Jane, and then again at the little girl; and true

-as you live, ma’am, I knew it was Lady Jane’s

-mother and sister before ever a word was spoken.

-I felt my knees shaking under me, and I held fast

-to the counter to keep from falling. I couldn’t

-have spoken first, if my life had depended on it.</p>

-

-<p>“The lady looked, for what seemed to me a long

-time; and then she walked up to my darling and

-touched the locket that she wore on her neck.

-At last she turned to me and asked, with a little

-sternness in her gentle voice, if I would tell her

-who this girl was, and how I came by her.</p>

-

-<p>“So I told her the whole story, just as I had

-told it to you, and before I had finished, she was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>

-crying as if her heart would break. Down she

-went on her knees beside Lady Jane, and put her

-arms around her, and cried,—</p>

-

-<p>“‘O my darling, my love, I thought you were

-dead! I am your mother—oh, believe me, my

-darling! Love me a little, a little,—after all

-these years!’</p>

-

-<p>“And just as properly as if she had gone

-through it all in her mind a hundred times beforehand,

-Lady Jane answered,—</p>

-

-<p>“‘I always expected you, mamma.’</p>

-

-<p>“Somehow, the lady looked astonished. She

-grew quieter, and stood up, holding Lady Jane’s

-hand.</p>

-

-<p>“‘You expected me?’ she said, inquiringly.</p>

-

-<p>“‘Yes, you know I <em>knew</em> I had been stolen;

-and I used to think and think, and fancy how my

-true mother would look, and what my right home

-would be; and I always felt sure in my heart that

-you would come some day. I didn’t know when

-or how it would be; but I expected you.’</p>

-

-<p>“‘And when will you be ready to go with me?’

-asked the mother.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“‘When you please, mamma.’</p>

-

-<p>“The lady hesitated, and turned to me. ‘I owe

-you so much,’ she said, ‘so much that I can never

-hope to pay it; and I do not like to grieve you.

-But her father and I have been without Jane so

-long, <em>could</em> you spare her to me at once?’</p>

-

-<p>“‘That must be as you and she say, ma’am,’ I

-answered, trying as hard as I could to speak quietly.

-‘I never have wanted any thing but that

-she should be well off and happy so far, and won’t

-begin to stand in her light now.’</p>

-

-<p>“Then the lady turned to the little girl who

-had come in with her. ‘Ethel,’ she said, ‘this is

-your sister. She has been lost to us eight years,

-but we will keep her always, now.’ And then,

-with more thanks to me, she started to go away,—the

-stately, beautiful lady, with her beautiful

-girls, one on each side of her.</p>

-

-<p>“They got to the door, and suddenly my darling

-turned,—O ma’am, it’s the best thing in my

-whole life to remember that! Of her own accord

-she turned and came back to me, and said she,—</p>

-

-<p>“‘Don’t think, Sally, that I’m not sorry to say<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>

-good-by. Of course I can’t be sorry to find my

-own mamma and my right home, but I’m sorry to

-leave <em>you</em>.’</p>

-

-<p>“And then she put her arms round my neck

-and kissed me just as she had done when I took

-her home that night from Jacopo’s, six years

-before; and then she went away, and the sunshine,

-it seemed to me, went out of the door

-with her, and has never come back since.”</p>

-

-<p>The poor little surgeon of the dolls stopped

-speaking, and cried very quietly, as those cry who

-are not used to have their tears wiped away, or

-their sorrows comforted.</p>

-

-<p>I wanted to say that Lady Jane seemed to me a

-heartless little piece, who cared for nothing in the

-world but herself, and wasn’t worth grieving for;

-but I felt there would be no comfort for her in

-thinking that there had never been any thing

-worth having in her life. Far better let her go on

-believing that for six years she had sheltered an

-angel at her fireside.</p>

-

-<p>At last, when I saw her tears were ceasing to

-flow, I said, “And when did you see her again?”</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“Oh, I have never seen her since that day. I

-think she pitied me too much to come back and

-give me the sorrow of parting with her over again.

-No, I have never seen her, but her mother sent me

-five hundred pounds.”</p>

-

-<p>“And so she ought,” I said impulsively. “It

-was little enough for all you had done.”</p>

-

-<p>Surgeon Sally looked at me with wonder, not

-unmixed with reproach, in her eyes.</p>

-

-<p>“Do you think I wanted <em>that</em>?” she asked. “I

-had had my pay for all I did, ten times over, in

-just having her here to look at and to love.

-No; I sent the money back, and I think it must

-be that my darling understood; for, two months

-afterwards, I received the only gift I would

-have cared to have,—her portrait. Will you

-please to look round, ma’am? It hangs behind

-you.”</p>

-

-<p>I looked round, and there she was, even lovelier

-than when I had seen her first,—a bright, smiling

-creature, silken-clad, patrician to the finger-tips.

-But it seemed to me that no heart of love looked

-out of the fair, careless face. I thought I would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>

-rather be Surgeon Sally, and know the sweetness

-of loving another better than myself.</p>

-

-<p>“She is very beautiful,” I said, as I turned

-away.</p>

-

-<p>“Yes; and sometimes I almost think I feel her

-lips, her bonny bright lips, touch my face, as they

-did that last day, and hear her say, ‘Don’t think,

-Sally, that I’m not sorry.’ Oh, my lot isn’t hard,

-ma’am. I might have lived my life through and

-never have known what it was to have something

-all my own to love. God was good.</p>

-

-<p>“And after all, ma’am,” she added cheerfully,

-“there’s nothing happier in the world than to

-give all the pleasure you can to somebody.”</p>

-

-<p>And I went away, feeling that the dwarf surgeon

-of the dolls’ hospital had learned the true

-secret of life.</p>

-

-<hr />

-

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>

-<h2 class="nobreak" id="PRETTY_MISS_KATE">PRETTY MISS KATE.</h2>

-<hr />

-</div>

-

-<p>Everybody called her “pretty Miss Kate.”

-It was an odd title, and she had come by it

-in an odd way. A sort of half-witted nurse,

-whose one supreme merit was her faithfulness,

-had tended Squire Oswald’s baby daughter all

-through her early years; and she it was who had

-first called the girl “pretty Miss Kate.”</p>

-

-<p>It was a small neighborhood where everybody

-knew everybody else; and, by dint of much hearing

-this title, all the neighbors grew to use it.

-And, indeed, at fifteen Kate Oswald deserved it.

-She was a tall, slight girl, with a figure very graceful,

-and what people call stylish.</p>

-

-<p>She had blue eyes; not the meaningless blue of

-a French doll, but deep and lustrous, like the tender

-hue of the summer sky. She had hair like

-some Northland princess. It had not a tint of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>

-yellow in it, but it was fine and fair, and so light

-as to be noticeable anywhere. Her skin was

-exquisite, too, as skin needs must be to match

-such hair. When any color came to the cheeks

-it was never crimson, but just the faintest tint

-of the blush rose; her lips alone were of rich,

-vivid bloom. A prettier creature, truly, seldom

-crosses this planet; and the few such girls who

-have lived among us, and grown to womanhood,

-have made wild work generally, using hearts for

-playthings; and, like other children, breaking

-their toys now and then. But pretty Miss Kate

-was not at the age yet for that sort of pastime,

-and her most ardent worshipper was little Sally

-Green.</p>

-

-<p>There was a curious friendship between these

-two, if one may call that friendship which is made

-up of blind worship on one side and gentle pity

-and kindliness on the other.</p>

-

-<p>Squire Oswald owned the poor little house where

-Widow Green lived, and whenever there was an

-unusual press of work at the great house above,

-the family washing used to be sent down to Mrs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>

-Green at the foot of the hill. Many an hour the

-widow worked busily, fluting the delicate ruffles

-and smoothing the soft muslins, out of which pretty

-Miss Kate used to bloom as a flower does out of its

-calyx. And on these occasions Sally used to carry

-the dainty washing home, and she nearly always

-contrived to be permitted to take it up to Miss

-Kate’s room, herself.</p>

-

-<p>Nobody thought much about little Sally Green

-any way,—least of all did any one suspect her of

-any romantic or heroic or poetical qualities. And

-yet she had them all; and if you came to a question

-of soul and mind, there was something in

-Sally which entitled her to rank with the best.

-She was a plain, dark little thing, with a stubbed,

-solid, squarely-built figure; with great black eyes,

-which nobody thought any thing about in <em>her</em>, but

-which would have been enough for the whole

-stock-in-trade of a fashionable belle; with masses

-of black hair that she did not know what to do

-with; and with a skin somewhat sallow, but

-smooth. No one ever thought how she looked,

-except, perhaps, pretty Miss Kate.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>One day, when the child brought home the

-washing, Kate had been reading aloud to a friend,

-and Sally had shown an evident inclination to linger.

-At that time Kate was not more than fourteen,

-and the interest or the admiration in Sally’s

-face struck her, and, moved by a girl’s quick impulse,

-she had said,—</p>

-

-<p>“Do you want to hear all of it, Sally? Wait,

-then, and I will read it to you.”</p>

-

-<p>The poem was Mrs. Browning’s “Romance of

-the Swan’s Nest,” and it was the first glimpse for

-Sally Green into the enchanted land of poetry

-and fiction. Before that she had admired pretty

-Miss Kate, but now the feeling grew to worship.</p>

-

-<p>Kate was not slow to perceive it, with that feminine

-instinct which somehow scents out and delights

-in the honest admiration of high or low, rich

-or poor. She grew very kind to little Sally. Many

-a book and magazine she lent the child; and now

-and then she gave her a flower, a bit of bright

-ribbon, or some little picture. To poor Sally

-Green these trifles were as the gifts of a goddess,

-and no devotee ever treasured relics from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>

-the shrine of his patron saint more tenderly than

-she cherished any, even the slightest, token which

-was associated with the beautiful young lady whom

-she adored with all her faithful, reverent, imaginative

-heart.</p>

-

-<p>One June evening Sally had been working hard

-all day. She had washed dishes, run her mother’s

-errands, got supper, and now her reward was to

-come.</p>

-

-<p>“You may make yourself tidy,” her mother said,

-“and carry home that basket of Miss Kate’s things

-to Squire Oswald’s.”</p>

-

-<p>Sally flew upstairs, and brushed back her black

-locks, and tied them with a red ribbon Miss Kate

-had given her. She put on a clean dress, and a

-little straw hat that last year had been Miss Kate’s

-own; and really for such a stubbed, dark little

-thing, she looked very nicely. She was thirteen—two

-years younger than her idol—and while Miss

-Kate was tall, and looked older than her years,

-Sally looked even younger than she was. Her

-heart beat as she hurried up the hill. She thought

-of the fable of the mouse and the lion, which she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>

-had read in one of the books Miss Kate had lent

-her. It made her think of herself and her idol.

-Not that Miss Kate was like a lion at all,—no, she

-was like a beautiful princess,—but she herself was

-such a poor, humble, helpless little mouse; and yet

-there might be a time, if she only watched and

-waited, when she, even she, could do pretty Miss

-Kate some good. And if the time ever came,

-wouldn’t she <em>do</em> it, just, at no matter <em>what</em> cost to

-herself? Poor little Sally! The time was on its

-way, and nearer than she thought.</p>

-

-<p>She found Miss Kate in her own pretty room,—a

-room all blue and white and silver, as befitted

-such a fair-haired beauty. The bedstead and wardrobe

-were of polished chestnut, lightly and gracefully

-carved. The carpet was pale gray, with

-impossible blue roses. The blue chintz curtains

-were looped back with silver cords; there were

-silver frames, with narrow blue edges, to the few

-graceful pictures; and on the mantel were a clock

-and vases with silver ornaments.</p>

-

-<p>Pretty Miss Kate looked as if she had been

-dressed on purpose to stay in that room. She wore<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>

-a blue dress, and round her neck was a silver necklace

-which her father had brought her last year

-from far-off Genoa. Silver ornaments were in her

-little ears, and a silver clasp fastened the belt at

-her waist. She welcomed Sally with a sweet graciousness,

-a little conscious, perhaps, of the fact

-that she was Miss Oswald, and Sally was Sally

-Green; but to the child her manner, like every

-thing else about her, seemed perfection.</p>

-

-<p>“Sit down and stay a little, Sally,” she said,

-“I have something to tell you. Do you remember

-what you heard me read that first time, when your

-eyes got so big with listening, and I made you stay

-and hear it all?”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes, indeed,” Sally cried eagerly. “I never

-forgot any thing I ever heard you read. That first

-time it was ‘The Romance of the Swan’s Nest.’”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes, you are right, and I know I was surprised

-to find how much you cared about it. I

-began to be interested in you then, for you know

-I am interested in you, don’t you, Sally?”</p>

-

-<p>Sally blushed with pleasure till her face glowed

-like the June roses in Miss Kate’s silver vases,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>

-but she did not know what to say, and so, very

-wisely, she did not say any thing. Miss Kate

-went on,—</p>

-

-<p>“Well, that very same poem I am going to read,

-next Wednesday night, at the evening exercises in

-the academy. The academy hall won’t hold everybody,

-and so they are going to be admitted by

-tickets. Each of us girls has a certain number to

-give away, and I have one for you. I thought you

-would like to go and see me there among the rest

-in my white gown, and hear me read the old verses

-again.”</p>

-

-<p>You would not have believed so small a thing

-could so have moved anybody; but Sally’s face

-turned from red to white, and from white to red

-again, and her big black eyes were as full of tears

-as an April cloud is of rain-drops.</p>

-

-<p>“Do you mean it, truly?” she asked.</p>

-

-<p>“Yes, truly, child. Here is your ticket. Why,

-don’t cry, foolish girl. It’s nothing. I wanted to

-be sure of one person there who would think I

-read well, whether any one else did or not. And

-I’ve a gown for you, too—that pink muslin,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>

-don’t you know, that I wore last year? I’ve shot

-up right out of it, and it’s of no use to me, now,

-and mamma said I might give it to you. This is

-Saturday; you can get it ready by Wednesday,

-can’t you?”</p>

-

-<p>What a happy girl went home that night, just as

-the rosy June sunset was fading away, and ran,

-bright and glad and full of joyful expectation, into

-the Widow Green’s humble little house! Widow

-Green wasn’t much of a woman, in the neighbors’

-estimation. She was honest and civil, and she

-washed well; but that was all they saw in her.

-Sally saw much more. She saw a mother who

-always tried to make her happy; who shared her

-enthusiasms, or at least sympathized with them;

-who was never cross or jealous, or any thing

-but motherly. She was as pleased, now, at the

-prospect of Sally’s pleasure as Sally herself was;

-and just as proud of this attention from pretty

-Miss Kate. Together they made over the pink

-muslin dress; and when Wednesday night came

-the widow felt sure that her daughter was as well

-worth having, and as much to be proud of, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>

-any other mother’s daughter that would be at

-the academy.</p>

-

-<p>“You must go very early,” she said, “to get a

-good seat; and you need not be afraid to go right

-up to the front. You’ve just as good right to

-get close up there as anybody.”</p>

-

-<p>When Sally was going out, her mother called her

-back.</p>

-

-<p>“Here, dear,” she said, “just take the shawl.

-Do it to please me, for there’s no knowing how

-cold it might be when you get out.”</p>

-

-<p>“The shawl” was an immense Rob Roy plaid,—a

-ridiculous wrap, truly, for a June night; but

-summer shawls they had none, and Sally was too

-dutiful, as well as too happy, not to want to please

-her mother even in such a trifle. How differently

-two lives would have come out if she had

-not taken it!</p>

-

-<p>She was the very first one to enter the academy.

-Dare she go and sit in the front row so

-as to be close to pretty Miss Kate? Ordinarily

-she would have shrunk into some far corner,

-for she was almost painfully shy; but now some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>thing

-outside herself seemed to urge her on. She

-would not take up much room,—this something

-whispered,—and nobody, no, nobody at all, could

-love Miss Kate better than she did. So she

-went into the very front row, close up to the

-little stage on which the young performers were

-to appear,—a veritable stage, with real foot-lights.</p>

-

-<p>Soon the people began to come in, and after a

-while the lights were turned up, and the exercises

-commenced. There were dialogues and music,

-and at last the master of ceremonies announced the

-reading of “The Romance of the Swan’s Nest,”

-by Miss Kate Oswald.</p>

-

-<p>Other people had been interested in what went

-before, no doubt; but to Sally Green the whole

-evening had been but a prelude to this one triumphant

-moment for which she waited.</p>

-

-<p>Pretty Miss Kate came forward like a little

-queen,—tall and slight, with her coronet of fair,

-braided hair, in which a shy, sweet rosebud nestled.

-She wore a dress of white muslin, as light and

-fleecy as a summer cloud, with a sash that might,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>

-as far as its hue went, have been cut from the deep

-blue sky over which that summer cloud floated. A

-little bunch of flowers was on her bosom, and other

-ornament she had none. She looked like one of

-the pretty creatures, half angel and half woman of

-fashion, which some of the modern French artists

-paint.</p>

-

-<p>As she stepped forward she was greeted with a

-burst of irrepressible applause, and then the house

-was very still as she began to read. How her soft

-eyes glowed, and the blushes burned on her dainty

-cheeks, when she came to the lines:—</p>

-

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i2">“Little Ellie in her smile<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Chooseth: ‘I will have a lover,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Riding on a steed of steeds!<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">He shall love me without guile,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And to <em>him</em> I will discover<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">That swan’s nest among the reeds.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i2">“‘And the steed shall be red-roan,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And the lover shall be noble,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">With an eye that takes the breath,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">And the lute he plays upon<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Shall strike ladies into trouble,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">As his sword strikes men to death.’”<br /></span>

-</div></div>

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p>

-<p>She had the whole audience for her lovers before

-she was through with the poem, and the last

-verse was followed with a perfect storm of applause.

-Was she not young and beautiful, with a

-voice as sweet as her smile? And then she was

-Squire Oswald’s daughter, and he was the great

-man of the village.</p>

-

-<p>She stepped off the stage; and then the applause

-recalled her, and she came back, pink with

-pleasure. A bow, a smile, and then a step too

-near the poorly protected foot-lights, and the

-fleecy white muslin dress was a sheet of flame.</p>

-

-<p>How Sally Green sprang over those foot-lights

-she never knew; but there she was, on the stage,

-and “the shawl” was wrapped round pretty Miss

-Kate before any one else had done any thing but

-scream. Close, close, close, Sally hugged its

-heavy woollen folds. She burned her own fingers

-to the bone; but what cared she? The time of

-the poor little mouse had come at last.</p>

-

-<p>And so pretty Miss Kate was saved, and not so

-much as a scar marred the pink and white of her

-fair girl’s face. Her arms were burned rather<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>

-badly, but they would heal, and no permanent

-harm had come to her.</p>

-

-<p>Sally was burned much more severely, but she

-hardly felt the pain of it in her joy that she had

-saved her idol, for whom she would have been so

-willing even to die. They took her home very

-tenderly, and the first words she said, as they led

-her inside her mother’s door, were,—</p>

-

-<p>“Now, mother, I know what I took the shawl

-for!”</p>

-

-<p>I said how differently two lives would have

-ended if she had not taken that shawl. Pretty

-Miss Kate’s would have burned out then and

-there, no doubt; for if any one else were there

-with presence of mind enough to have saved her,

-certainly there was no other wrap there like “the

-shawl.” And then Sally might have grown up to

-the humblest kind of toil, instead of being what

-she is to-day; for Squire Oswald’s gratitude for

-his daughter’s saved life did not exhaust itself in

-words. From that moment he charged himself

-with Sally Green’s education, and gave her every

-advantage which his own daughter received.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>

-And, truth to tell, Sally, with her wonderful temperament,

-the wealth of poetry and devotion and

-hero-worship that was in her, soon outstripped

-pretty Miss Kate in her progress.</p>

-

-<p>But no rivalry or jealousy ever came between

-them. As Sally had adored Kate’s loveliness, so,

-in time, Kate came to do homage to Sally’s

-genius; and the two were friends in the most

-complete sense of the word.</p>

-

-<hr />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>

-<h2 class="nobreak" id="A_BORROWED_ROSEBUD">A BORROWED ROSEBUD.</h2>

-<hr />

-</div>

-

-<p>There was a pattering footfall on the piazza,

-and Miss Ellen Harding went to look out.

-She saw a little figure standing there, among the

-rosebuds,—not one of the neighbors’ children, but

-a bonny little lassie, with curls of spun gold, and

-great, fearless brown eyes, and cheeks and lips as

-bright as the red roses on the climbing rosebush

-beside her.</p>

-

-<p>A little morsel, not more than five years old, she

-was; with a white dress, and a broad scarlet sash,

-and a hat which she swung in her fingers by its

-scarlet strings. She looked so bright and vivid,

-and she was such an unexpected vision in that

-place, that it almost seemed as if one of the poppies

-in the yard beyond had turned into a little

-girl, and come up the steps.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“Did you want me?” Miss Harding asked, going

-up to the tiny blossom of a creature.</p>

-

-<p>“No, if you please.”</p>

-

-<p>“My father, then, Dr. Harding,—were you

-sent for him?”</p>

-

-<p>The child surveyed her, as if in gentle surprise

-at so much curiosity.</p>

-

-<p>“No,” she answered, after a moment. “I am

-Rosebud; and I don’t want anybody. Jane told

-me to come here, and she would follow presently.”</p>

-

-<p>She said the words with a singular correctness

-and propriety, as if they were a lesson which she

-had been taught.</p>

-

-<p>“And who is Jane?” Miss Harding asked.</p>

-

-<p>Evidently the process of training had gone no

-further. The child looked puzzled and uncomfortable.</p>

-

-<p>“Jane?” she answered hesitatingly. “Why,

-she is Jane.”</p>

-

-<p>“Not your mamma?”</p>

-

-<p>“No,—just Jane.”</p>

-

-<p>“And what did Jane want here?”</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“She told me to come, and she would follow

-presently,” said the child, saying her little lesson

-over again.</p>

-

-<p>Evidently there was nothing more to be got out

-of her; but Miss Harding coaxed her to come

-into the cool parlor, and wait for Jane; and gave

-her some strawberries and cream in a gayly painted

-china saucer, that all children liked. Rosebud

-was no exception to the rest. When she had

-finished her berries, she tapped on the saucer with

-her spoon.</p>

-

-<p>“I will have it for mine, while I stay,—may

-I?” she said. “Not to take away, but just to

-call, you know.”</p>

-

-<p>“Surely,” said Miss Harding, more puzzled than

-ever. Had the sprite, then, come to stay? Were

-there, by chance, fairies after all,—and was this

-some changeling from out their ranks? She tried

-to entertain her small guest; and she found her

-quite accessible to the charms of pictures, and contented

-for an hour with a box of red and white

-chessmen. Towards night her curiosity got the

-better of her courtesy; and, looking from the

-window, she inquired,—</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“I wonder where your Jane can be?”</p>

-

-<p>“Presently; Jane said presently,” answered the

-child, with quiet composure, and returned to the

-chessmen.</p>

-

-<p>Miss Harding heard her father drive into the

-yard, and slipped out to speak to him. She told

-her story, and the doctor gave a low, soft whistle.

-It was a way he had when any thing surprised him.</p>

-

-<p>“It looks to me,” said he, “as if Jane, whoever

-she may be, intended to make us a present of Miss

-Rosebud. Well, we must make the small person

-comfortable to-night, and to-morrow we will see

-what to do with her.”</p>

-

-<p>The small person was easily made comfortable.

-She ate plenty of bread-and-milk for her supper,

-and more strawberries; and when it was over, she

-went round and stood beside the doctor.</p>

-

-<p>“I think you are a dood man,” she said, with the

-quaint gravity which characterized all her utterances.

-“I should like to sit with you.”</p>

-

-<p>The doctor lifted her to his knee, and she laid

-her little golden head against his coat. There

-was a soft place under that coat, as many a sick and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>

-poor person in the town knew very well. I think

-the little golden head hit the soft place. He stroked

-the shining curls very tenderly. Then he asked,—</p>

-

-<p>“What makes you think I’m a ‘dood’ man,

-Pussy-cat?”</p>

-

-<p>“My name is not Pussy-cat,—I am Rosebud,”

-she replied gravely; “and I think you are dood

-because you look so, out of your eyes.”</p>

-

-<p>The little morsel spoke most of her words with

-singular clearness and propriety. It was only

-when a “g” came in that she substituted a “d”

-for it, and went on her way rejoicing.</p>

-

-<p>As the doctor held her, the soft place under his

-coat grew very soft indeed. A little girl had been

-his last legacy from his dying wife; and she had

-grown to be about as large as Rosebud, and then

-had gone home to her mother. It almost seemed

-to him as if she had come back again; and it was

-her head beneath which his heart was beating. He

-beckoned to his daughter.</p>

-

-<p>“Have you some of Aggie’s things?” he asked.

-“This child must be made comfortable, and she

-ought to go to bed soon.”</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“No,” the child said; “I’m doing to sit here till

-the moon comes. That means ‘do to bed.’”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes, I have them,” Miss Harding answered.</p>

-

-<p>She had loved Aggie so well, that it seemed half

-sacrilege to put her dead sister’s garments on this

-stranger child; and half it was a pleasure that

-again she had a little girl to dress and cuddle. She

-went out of the room. Soon she came running

-back, and called her father.</p>

-

-<p>“O, come here! I found this in the hall. It is

-a great basket full of all sorts of clothes, and it is

-marked ‘For Rosebud.’ See,—here is every thing

-a child needs.”</p>

-

-<p>The doctor had set the little girl down, but she

-was still clinging to his hand.</p>

-

-<p>“I think,” he said, “that Jane has been here,

-and that she does not mean to take away our Rosebud.”</p>

-

-<p>But the little one, still clinging to him, said,—</p>

-

-<p>“I think it is not ‘presently’ yet,—Jane

-wouldn’t come till ‘presently.’”</p>

-

-<p>“Do you love Jane?” the doctor asked, looking

-down at the flower-like face.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“Jane is not mamma. She is only Jane,” was

-the answer.</p>

-

-<p>When the moon rose, the little girl went willingly

-to bed; and all night long Miss Ellen Harding

-held her in her arms, as she used to hold her

-little sister, before the angels took her. Since

-Aggie’s death, people said Miss Ellen had grown

-cold and stiff and silent. She felt, herself, as if

-she had been frozen; but the ice was melting, as

-she lay there, feeling the soft, round little lump of

-breathing bliss in her arms; and a tender flower

-of love was to spring up and bloom in that heart

-that had grown hard and cold.</p>

-

-<p>There was no talk of sending Rosebud away,

-though some people wondered much at the doctor,

-and even almost blamed him for keeping this child,

-of whom he knew nothing. But he wanted her,

-and Miss Ellen wanted her; and, indeed, she

-was the joy and life and blessing of the long-silent

-household.</p>

-

-<p>She was by no means a perfect child. A well-mannered

-little creature she was,—some lady had

-brought her up evidently,—but she was self<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>-willed

-and obstinate. When she had said, “I’m

-doing to do” such and such a thing, it was hard

-to move her from her purpose; unless, indeed,

-the doctor interposed, and to him she always

-yielded instantly. But, just such as she was, they

-found her altogether charming. The doctor never

-came home without something in his pocket to reward

-her search; Miss Ellen was her bond-slave;

-and Mistress Mulloney in the kitchen was ready

-to work her hands off for her.</p>

-

-<p>Often, when she had gone to bed, the doctor and

-Miss Ellen used to talk over her strange coming.</p>

-

-<p>“We shall lose her some day,” the doctor would

-say, with a sigh. “No one ever voluntarily abandoned

-such a child as that. She is only trusted to

-our protection for a little while, and presently we

-shall have to give her up.”</p>

-

-<p>“Should you be sorry, father,” Miss Ellen would

-inquire, “that we had had her at all?”</p>

-

-<p>And the doctor would answer thoughtfully

-“No, for she has made me young again. I will

-not grumble when the snows come because we

-have had summer, and know how bright it is.”</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>But the child lived with them as if she were

-going to live with them for ever. If she had any

-memories of days before she came there, she never

-alluded to them. After the first, she never mentioned

-Jane,—she never spoke of a father or

-mother. But she was happy as the summer days

-were long,—a glad, bright, winsome creature as

-ever was the delight of any household.</p>

-

-<p>And so the days and the weeks and the months

-went on, and it was October. And one day the

-bell rang, and Mistress Mulloney went to the door,

-and in a moment came to the room where Miss

-Ellen was sitting, with Rosebud playing beside her,

-and beckoned to her mistress.</p>

-

-<p>“It’s some one asking for the child,” she said.

-“Can’t we jist hide her away? It’ll be hard for

-the doctor if she’s took.”</p>

-

-<p>“No; we must see who it is, and do what is

-right,” Miss Ellen answered; but her lips trembled

-a little. She went into the hall, and there, at

-the door, stood a woman, looking like a nursery-maid

-of the better sort.</p>

-

-<p>“I have come,” the stranger began; but Rose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>bud

-had caught the sound of her voice, and came

-on the scene like a flash of light.</p>

-

-<p>“It is ‘presently!’” she cried; “and there, oh,

-<em>there</em> is mamma!” And down the path she flew,

-and into the very arms of a lady who was waiting

-at a little distance.</p>

-

-<p>Miss Harding went down the steps. “You have

-come, I see, to claim our Rosebud, and she is only

-too ready to be claimed. I thought we had made

-her happy.”</p>

-

-<p>The child caught the slight accent of reproach

-in Miss Ellen’s voice, and turned towards her.</p>

-

-<p>“You have been dood, oh, so very, very dood!”

-she said, “but <em>this</em> is mamma.”</p>

-

-<p>“I trusted my darling to you in a very strange

-way,” the lady began, “but not, believe me, without

-knowing in whose hands I placed her. I was

-in mortal terror, then, lest she should be taken

-from me, and I dared not keep her until she had

-been legally made mine, and mine only. But you

-have made me your debtor for life, and I shall try

-to show it some day.”</p>

-

-<p>“But, at least, you will come in and wait until<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>

-my father returns. He loves Rosebud so dearly,

-that it would be a cruelty to take her away until

-he has had time to bid her good-by.”</p>

-

-<p>“You are right,” the stranger answered courteously.

-“Jane, go with the carriage to the hotel,

-and I will come or send for you when I want

-you.”</p>

-

-<p>In a few moments more the strange lady was

-seated in the doctor’s parlor. Miss Harding saw

-now where Rosebud had got her bright, wilful

-beauty.</p>

-

-<p>“I must explain,” the mother said, as she lifted

-her child upon her lap. “I am Mrs. Matthewson.

-My husband is dead, and Rosebud has a very, very

-large fortune of her own. Her uncles, who were

-to have the management of her property, by her

-father’s will, claimed her also; and I have had

-such a fight for her! They were unscrupulous

-men, and I feared to keep Rosebud with me, lest

-by some means they should get some hold on her.

-So I resolved to lend her to you for the summer;

-and, indeed, I never can reward you for all your

-care of her.”</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>“You

-can reward us only by not altogether taking

-her away from us. We have learned to love

-her very dearly.”</p>

-

-<p>And, after a while, the doctor came home and

-heard all the story. And it was a week before

-Mrs. Matthewson had the heart to take away the

-child she had lent them. Then it was not long

-before the doctor and Miss Ellen had to go to see

-Rosebud. And then, very soon, Mrs. Matthewson

-had to bring her back again; and, really, so much

-going back and forth was very troublesome; and

-they found it more convenient, after a while, to

-join their households.</p>

-

-<p>Before Rosebud came, the doctor had thought

-himself an old man, though he was only forty-five;

-but, as he said, Rosebud had made him young

-again; and Rosebud’s mamma found it possible to

-love him very dearly. But Miss Ellen always

-said it was Rosebud and nobody else whom her

-father married, and that he had been in love with

-the borrowed blossom from the first.</p>

-

-<hr />

-

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>

-<h2 class="nobreak" id="TOMS_THANKSGIVING">TOM’S THANKSGIVING.</h2>

-<hr />

-</div>

-

-<p>“It was very provoking that seamstresses and

-such people would get married, like the rest

-of the world,” Mrs. Greenough said, half in fun

-and half in earnest. Her fall sewing was just

-coming on, and here was Lizzie Brown, who had

-suited her so nicely, going off to be married; and

-she had no resource but to advertise, and take

-whomsoever she could get. No less than ten

-women had been there that day, and not one

-would answer.</p>

-

-<p>“There comes Number Eleven; you will see,”

-she cried, as the bell rang.</p>

-

-<p>Kitty Greenough looked on with interest. Indeed,

-it was her gowns, rather than her mother’s,

-that were most pressing. She was just sixteen,

-and since last winter she had shot up suddenly, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>

-girls at that age so often do, and left all her clothes

-behind her.</p>

-

-<p>Mrs. Greenough was right,—it <em>was</em> another

-seamstress; and Bridget showed in a plain, sad-looking

-woman of about forty, with an air of intense

-respectability. Mrs. Greenough explained

-what she wanted done, and the woman said quietly

-that she was accustomed to such work,—would

-Mrs. Greenough be so kind as to look at some

-recommendations? Whereupon she handed out

-several lady-like looking notes, whose writers indorsed

-the bearer, Mrs. Margaret Graham, as faithful

-and capable, used to trimmings of all sorts, and

-quick to catch an idea.</p>

-

-<p>“Very well indeed,” Mrs. Greenough said, as

-she finished reading them; “I could ask nothing

-better. Can you be ready to come at once?”</p>

-

-<p>“To-morrow, if you wish, madam,” was the

-answer; and then Mrs. Graham went away.</p>

-

-<p>Kitty Greenough was an impulsive, imaginative

-girl; no subject was too dull or too unpromising

-for her fancy to touch it. She made a story for

-herself about every new person who came in her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>

-way. After Number Eleven had gone down the

-stairs, Kitty laughed.</p>

-

-<p>“Isn’t she a sobersides, mamma? I don’t believe

-there’ll be any frisk in my dresses at all if

-she trims them.”</p>

-

-<p>“There’ll be frisk enough in them if you wear

-them,” her mother answered, smiling at the bright,

-saucy, winsome face of her one tall daughter.</p>

-

-<p>Kitty was ready to turn the conversation.</p>

-

-<p>“What do you think she is, mamma,—wife or

-widow?” And then answering her own question:

-“I think she’s married, and he’s sick, and she has

-to take care of him. That solemn, still way she

-has comes of much staying in a sick-room. She’s

-in the habit of keeping quiet, don’t you see? I

-wish she were a little prettier; I think he would

-get well quicker.”</p>

-

-<p>“There’d be no plain, quiet people in your

-world if you made one,” her mother said, smiling;

-“but you’d make a mistake to leave them out.

-You would get tired even of the sun if it shone

-all the time.”</p>

-

-<p>The next day the new seamstress came, and a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>

-thoroughly good one she proved; “better even

-than Lizzie,” Mrs. Greenough said, and this was

-high praise. She sewed steadily, and never opened

-her lips except to ask some question about her

-work. Even Kitty, who used to boast that she

-could make a dumb man talk, had not audacity

-enough to intrude on the reserve in which Mrs.

-Graham intrenched herself.</p>

-

-<p>“<em>He’s</em> worse this morning,” whispered saucy

-Kitty to her mother; “and she can do nothing but

-think about him and mind her gathers.”</p>

-

-<p>But, by the same token, “<em>he</em>” must have been

-worse every day, for during the two weeks she

-sewed there Mrs. Graham never spoke of any thing

-beyond her work.</p>

-

-<p>When Mrs. Greenough had paid her, the last

-night, she said,—</p>

-

-<p>“Please give me your address, Mrs. Graham, for

-I may want to find you again.”</p>

-

-<p>“17 Hudson Street, ma’am, up two flights of

-stairs; and if I’m not there Tom always is.”</p>

-

-<p>“There, didn’t I tell you?” Kitty cried exultingly,

-after the woman had gone. “Didn’t I tell<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>

-you that he was sick? You see now,—‘Tom’s

-always there.’”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes; but Tom may not be her husband, and I

-don’t think he is. He is much more likely to be

-her child.”</p>

-

-<p>“Mrs. Greenough, I’m astonished at you. You

-say that to be contradictious. Now, it is not

-nice to be contradictious; besides, she wouldn’t

-look so quiet and sad if Tom were only her

-boy.”</p>

-

-<p>But weeks passed on, and nothing more was

-heard of Mrs. Graham, until, at last, Thanksgiving

-Day was near at hand. Kitty was to

-have a new dress, and Mrs. Greenough, who had

-undertaken to finish it, found that she had not

-time.</p>

-

-<p>“Oh, let me go for Mrs. Graham, mamma,”

-cried Kitty eagerly. “Luke can drive me down

-to Hudson Street, and then I shall see Tom.”</p>

-

-<p>Mrs. Greenough laughed and consented. In a

-few minutes Luke had brought to the door the

-one-horse coupé, which had been the last year’s

-Christmas gift of Mr. Greenough to his wife, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>

-in which Miss Kitty was always glad to make an

-excuse for going out.</p>

-

-<p>Arrived at 17 Hudson Street, she tripped up two

-flights of stairs, and tapped on the door, on which

-was a printed card with the name of Mrs. Graham.</p>

-

-<p>A voice, with a wonderful quality of musical

-sweetness in it, answered,—</p>

-

-<p>“Please to come in; I cannot open the door.”</p>

-

-<p>If that were “he,” he had a very singular voice

-for a man.</p>

-

-<p>“I guess mamma was right after all,” thought

-wilful Kitty. “It’s rather curious how often

-mamma <em>is</em> right, when I come to think of it.”</p>

-

-<p>She opened the door, and saw, not Mrs. Graham’s

-husband, nor yet her son, but a girl, whose face

-looked as if she might be about Kitty’s own age,

-whose shoulders and waist told the same story;

-but whose lower limbs seemed curiously misshapen

-and shrunken—no larger, in fact, than those of a

-mere child. The face was a pretty, winning face,

-not at all sad. Short, thick brown hair curled

-round it, and big brown eyes, full of good-humor,

-met Kitty’s curious glance.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“<em>I</em> am Tom,” the same musical voice—which

-made Kitty think of a bird’s warble—said, in a

-tone of explanation. “I can’t get up to open the

-door because, don’t you see, I can’t walk.”</p>

-

-<p>“And why—what—Tom”—</p>

-

-<p>Kitty struggled desperately with the question she

-had begun to ask, and Tom kindly helped her out.</p>

-

-<p>“Why am I Tom, do you mean, when it’s a

-boy’s name; or why can’t I walk? I’m Tom

-because my father called me Tomasina, after his

-mother, and we can’t afford such long names in this

-house; and I can’t walk because I pulled a kettle

-of boiling water over on myself when I was six

-years old, and the only wonder is that I’m alive at

-all. I was left, you see, in a room by myself,

-while mother was busy somewhere else, and when

-she heard me scream, and came to me, she pulled

-me out from under the kettle, and saved the upper

-half of me all right.”</p>

-

-<p>“Oh, how dreadful!” Kitty cried, with the

-quick tears rushing to her eyes. “It must have

-almost killed your mother.”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes; that’s what makes her so still and sober.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>

-She never laughs, but she never frets either; and

-oh, how good she is to me!”</p>

-

-<p>Kitty glanced around the room, which seemed

-to her so bare. It was spotlessly clean, and Tom’s

-chair was soft and comfortable—as indeed a chair

-ought to be which must be sat in from morning till

-night. Opposite to it were a few pictures on

-the wall,—engravings taken from books and

-magazines, and given, probably, to Mrs. Graham

-by some of her lady customers. Within

-easy reach was a little stand, on which stood a

-rose-bush in a pot, and a basket full of bright-colored

-worsteds, while a book or two lay beside

-them.</p>

-

-<p>“And do you never go out?” cried Kitty, forgetting

-her errand in her sympathy—forgetting,

-too, that Luke and his impatient horse were waiting

-below.</p>

-

-<p>“Not lately. Mother used to take me down into

-the street sometimes; but I’ve grown too heavy

-for her now, and she can’t. But I’m not very dull,

-even when she’s gone. You wouldn’t guess how

-many things I see from my window; and then I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>

-make worsted mats and tidies, and mother sells

-them; and then I sing.”</p>

-

-<p>Kitty stepped to the window to see what range

-of vision it offered, and her eye fell on Luke.

-She recalled her business.</p>

-

-<p>“I came to see if I could get your mother to sew

-two or three days for me this week.”</p>

-

-<p>Tom was alert and business-like at once.</p>

-

-<p>“Let me see,” she said, “to-day is Tuesday;”

-and she drew toward her a little book, and looked

-it over. “To-morrow is engaged, but you could

-have Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, if you

-want so much. Please write your name against

-them.”</p>

-

-<p>Kitty pulled off her pretty gray glove, and wrote

-her name and address with the little toy-pencil at

-the end of her chatelaine; and then she turned to

-go, but it was Tom’s turn to question.</p>

-

-<p>“Please,” said the sweet, fresh voice, which

-seemed so like the clear carol of a bird, “would

-you mind telling me how old you are? I’m sixteen

-myself.”</p>

-

-<p>“And so am I sixteen,” said Kitty.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“And you have a father and mother both,

-haven’t you?”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes, indeed,” said Kitty.</p>

-

-<p>“Oh, I’ve only mother, but she is good as two.

-Must you go now? And I wonder if I shall ever

-see you again?”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes, you <em>will</em> see me again,” answered Kitty

-cheerily; and then, moved by a sudden impulse

-of her kind, frank young heart, she bent over and

-touched her lips to the bright, bonny face of the

-poor girl who must sit prisoner there for ever, and

-yet who kept this bright cheerfulness all the time.</p>

-

-<p>“Oh mamma, I’ve had a lesson,” cried Kitty,

-bursting into her mother’s room like a fresh wind,

-“and Tom has taught it to me; and he isn’t <em>he</em>

-at all—she’s a girl just my age, and she can’t

-walk—not a step since she was six years old.”</p>

-

-<p>And then Kitty told all the sad, tender little

-story, and got to crying over it herself, and made

-her mother cry, too, before she was through.</p>

-

-<p>After dinner she sat half the evening in a brown

-study. Finally she came out of it, and began

-talking in her usual impulsive manner.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“Can’t we have them here to Thanksgiving,

-mamma? There’s not a single pretty thing in

-that house except Tom herself, and the rose-bush;

-and every thing did look so bare and clean

-and poverty-stricken; and I know they’ll never

-afford a good dinner in the world. Oh, say yes,

-mamma, dear! I know you’ll say yes, <em>because</em>

-you’re such a dear, and you love to make every

-one happy.”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes; but, first of all, I must love to make

-papa happy, must I not? You know he never

-wants any company on Thanksgiving but grandpa

-and grandma and Uncle John. I’m sure you

-would not like to spoil papa’s old-fashioned

-Thanksgiving Day.”</p>

-

-<p>Kitty’s countenance fell. She saw the justice

-of her mother’s remark, and there was no more to

-be said. She sat thinking over her disappointment

-in a silence which her mother was the one to

-break.</p>

-

-<p>“But I’ve thought of a better thing, Puss,”

-said this wise mamma, who was herself every bit

-as tender of heart as Kitty, and cared just as much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>

-about making people happy. “No doubt Mrs.

-Graham and Tom would just as much prefer being

-alone together as papa prefers to be alone with his

-family; and how will it suit you if I have a nice

-dinner prepared for them, and let you go and take

-it to them in the coupé? Mrs. Graham is hardly

-the woman one could take such a liberty with;

-but I’ll beg her to let you have the pleasure of

-sending dinner to Tom.”</p>

-

-<p>“Oh, you darling!” and Mrs. Greenough’s neck-ruffle

-suffered, and her hair was in danger, as was

-apt to be the case when Kitty was overcome with

-emotion, which could only find vent in a rapturous

-squeeze.</p>

-

-<p>Before bed-time Kitty had it all planned out.

-She was to go in the coupé and take Bridget and

-the basket. Bridget was to mount guard by the

-horse’s head while Luke went upstairs with Kitty

-and brought down Tom for a drive; and while

-they were gone Bridget would take the basket in,

-and see that every thing was right, and then go

-home.</p>

-

-<p>Mrs. Greenough consented to it all. I think<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>

-she enjoyed the prospect of Tom’s ride, herself,

-just as much as Kitty did. While Mrs. Graham

-was sewing there she made the arrangement with

-her, approaching the subject so delicately that the

-most sensitive of women could not be hurt, and

-putting the acceptance of both drive and dinner in

-the light of a personal favor to Kitty, who had

-taken such a fancy to Tom.</p>

-

-<p>The last afternoon of Mrs. Graham’s stay Kitty

-called her mother into her room. Mrs. Greenough

-saw spread out upon the bed a thick, warm, soft

-jacket, a woollen dress, a last year’s hat.</p>

-

-<p>“You know them by sight, don’t you, mother

-mine? They are the last winter’s clothes that I

-grew away from, and have taken leave of. May

-Tom have them?”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes, indeed, if you’ll undertake to give them

-to Tom’s mother.”</p>

-

-<p>Kitty had seldom undertaken a more embarrassing

-task. She stole into the sewing-room with

-the things in her arms.</p>

-

-<p>“You’ll be sure, won’t you, Mrs. Graham, not

-to let Tom know she’s going to ride until I get<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>

-there, because I want to see how surprised she’ll

-look?”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes, I’ll be sure, never fear.”</p>

-

-<p>“And, Mrs. Graham, here are my coat and hat

-and dress that I wore last year, and I’ve grown

-away from them. Would you mind letting Tom

-wear them?”</p>

-

-<p>“Would I mind?” A swift, hot rush of tears

-filled Mrs. Graham’s eyes, which presently she

-wiped away, and somehow then the eyes looked

-gladder than Kitty had ever seen them before. “Do

-you think I am so weakly, wickedly proud as to be

-hurt because you take an interest in my poor girl,

-and want to put a little happiness into her life,—that

-still, sad life which she bears so patiently?

-God bless you, Miss Kitty! and if He doesn’t, it

-won’t be because I shall get tired of asking Him.”</p>

-

-<p>“And you’ll not let her see the hat and jacket

-till I come, for fear she’ll think something?”</p>

-

-<p>At last Mrs. Graham smiled—an actual smile.</p>

-

-<p>“How you do think of every thing! No, I’ll

-keep the hat and jacket out of sight, and I’ll have

-the dress on her, all ready.”</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>When Thanksgiving came Kitty scarcely remembered

-to put on the new fineries that Mrs.

-Graham had finished with such loving care;

-scarcely gave a thought to the family festivities at

-home, so eager was she about Tom’s Thanksgiving.

-She was to go to Hudson Street just at

-noon, so that Tom might have the benefit of the

-utmost warmth of which the chill November day

-was capable.</p>

-

-<p>First she saw the dinner packed. There was a

-turkey, and cranberry-sauce, and mince-pie, and

-plum-pudding, and a great cake full of plums, too,

-and fruit and nuts, and then Mr. Greenough, who

-had heard about the dinner with real interest,

-brought out a bottle of particularly nice sherry,

-and said to his wife,—</p>

-

-<p>“Put that in also. It will do those frozen-up

-souls good, once in the year.”</p>

-

-<p>At last impatient Kitty was off. Bridget and

-the basket filled all the spare space in the coupé,

-and when they reached Hudson Street, Luke took

-the dinner and followed Kitty upstairs, while

-Bridget stood by the horse’s head, according to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>

-the programme. He set the basket down in the

-hall, where no one would be likely to notice it in

-opening the door, and then he stood out of sight

-himself, while Kitty went in.</p>

-

-<p>There was Tom, in the warm crimson thibet,—a

-proud, happy-looking Tom as you could find in

-Boston that Thanksgiving Day.</p>

-

-<p>“I have come to take you to ride,” cried eager

-Kitty. “Will you go?”</p>

-

-<p>It was worth ten ordinary Thanksgivings to see

-the look on Tom’s face,—the joy and wonder, and

-then the doubt, as the breathless question came,—</p>

-

-<p>“How <em>will</em> I get downstairs?”</p>

-

-<p>And then Luke was called in, and that mystery

-was solved. And then out of a closet came the

-warm jacket, and the hat, with its gay feather;

-and there were tears in Tom’s eyes, and smiles

-round her lips, and she tried to say something, and

-broke down utterly. And then big, strong Luke

-took her up as if she were a baby and marched

-downstairs with her, while she heard Kitty say,—but

-it all seemed to her like a dream, and Kitty’s

-voice like a voice in a dream,—</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“I’m sorry there’s nothing pretty to see at this

-time of year. It was so lovely out-doors six weeks

-ago.”</p>

-

-<p>Through Beach Street they went, and then

-through Boylston, and the Common was beside

-them, with its tree-boughs traced against the November

-sky, and the sun shone on the Frog Pond,

-and the dome of the State House glittered goldenly,

-and there were merry people walking about

-everywhere, with their Thanksgiving faces on;

-and at last Tom breathed a long, deep breath

-which was almost a sob, and cried,—</p>

-

-<p>“Did <em>you</em> think there was nothing pretty to see

-to-day—<em>this</em> day? Why, I didn’t know there

-was such a world!”</p>

-

-<p>The clocks had struck twelve when they left

-Hudson Street; the bells were ringing for one

-when they entered it again. Bridget was gone,

-but a good-natured boy stood by the horse’s head,

-and Kitty ran lightly upstairs, followed by Luke,

-with Tom in his arms.</p>

-

-<p>Kitty threw open the door, and there was a

-table spread with as good a Thanksgiving din<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>ner

-as the heart could desire, with Tom’s chair

-drawn up beside it. Luke set his light burden

-down.</p>

-

-<p>Kitty waited to hear neither thanks nor exclamations.

-She saw Tom’s brown eyes as they

-rested on the table, and that was enough. She

-bent for one moment over the bright face,—the

-cheeks which the out-door air had painted red as

-the rose that had just opened in honor of the day,—and

-left on the young, sweet, wistful lips a kiss,

-and then went silently down the stairs, leaving

-Tom and Tom’s mother to their Thanksgiving.</p>

-

-<hr />

-

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>

-<h2 class="nobreak" id="FINDING_JACK">FINDING JACK.</h2>

-<hr />

-</div>

-

-<p>Conn turned over and rubbed her sleepy blue

-eyes. It seemed to her that the world was

-coming to an end all at once, there was such a

-Babel of noise about her. What was it? Had

-everybody gone mad? Then her wits began to

-wake up. She remembered that it was Fourth of

-July. That worst noise of all—why, that must

-be Jack’s pistol, which he had been saving up

-money to buy all winter and all summer. And

-that other sound—that must be torpedoes; and

-there was the old dog, Hero, barking at them, and

-no wonder: it was enough to make any respectable

-dog bark. Fire-crackers—ugh! Wasn’t the

-pistol bad enough, without all these side shows?

-Just then Jack called out from the yard below,—</p>

-

-<p>“Conn! Conn!”</p>

-

-<p>The girl’s name was Constantia Richmond; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>

-she was too slight and bonny for such a long name,

-and everybody called her Conn.</p>

-

-<p>She shook back her fair, soft curls, as golden as

-a baby’s still, though Conn was fourteen, and,

-putting a little shawl over her shoulders, peeped

-out of the open window—as pretty a little slip of

-a girl as you would care to see—and looked down

-on the face, half-boyish, half-manly, which was upturned

-to her. If Jack had been her brother, perhaps

-she would have scolded at him; for Conn

-loved her morning nap, and the general din had

-discomposed her, no doubt. But Jack was only

-her cousin, and her second cousin, at that,—and

-it’s curious what a difference that does make.

-Your brother’s your brother all the days of his

-life; but your cousin is another affair, and far less

-certain. So Conn said, quite gently,—</p>

-

-<p>“What is it? Can I do any thing? But I’m

-sure I don’t want to help you make any more

-noise. This has been—oh, really dreadful!”</p>

-

-<p>She spoke with a droll little fine-lady air, and

-put her pretty little fingers to her pretty little

-ears. And Jack laughed; he had not begun to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>

-think of her yet as a charming girl,—she was

-just Cousin Conn.</p>

-

-<p>“What!” he cried. “Not like noise on Fourth

-of July? Why, you don’t deserve to have a

-country.”</p>

-

-<p>“I’m sure I wish I hadn’t,” said Conn, with a

-little dash of spirit.</p>

-

-<p>“Are you dressed?” cried the boy, nearly

-seventeen years old, but all a boy still.</p>

-

-<p>“No.”</p>

-

-<p>“Well, just hurry, then, and come down. I’m

-off in half an hour with the Brighton Blues, and I

-want you to see first how this pistol works.”</p>

-

-<p>High honor this, that she, a girl, should be invited

-to inspect the wonderful pistol!</p>

-

-<p>Conn began to dress hurriedly. What should

-she put on? Her white dress hung in the closet,—such

-a white dress as girls wore then,—all

-delicate ruffles, and with a blue ribbon sash, as

-dainty-fine as possible. She knew that was meant

-for afternoon, when Aunt Sarah would have company.

-But might she not put it on now? Perhaps

-Jack wouldn’t be here then, and she could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>

-be careful. So she slipped into the dainty gown,

-and fastened hooks and buttons in nervous haste,

-and then looked in the glass, as every other girl

-that ever lived would have done in her place.</p>

-

-<p>It was a bright, fair face that she saw there—all

-pink and white, and with those violet eyes over

-which the long lashes drooped, and that soft, bright

-hair that lay in little rings and ripples round her

-white forehead, and hung a wavy mass down to

-the slender waist which the blue ribbon girdled.

-Conn was pleased, no doubt, with the sight she

-saw in the mirror,—how could she help being?

-She tripped downstairs, and out of the door.

-Jack whistled when he saw her.</p>

-

-<p>“What! all your fineries on at this time of

-day? What do you think Mother Sarah will say

-to that?”</p>

-

-<p>The pretty pink flush deepened in the girl’s

-cheeks, and she answered him almost as if she

-thought she had done something wrong,—</p>

-

-<p>“I’ll be so careful, Jack. I won’t spoil it. By

-and by you’ll be gone; and I wanted to look nice

-when I saw the new pistol.”</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>This seemed extremely natural to Jack. The

-pistol was to him a matter of such moment that

-no amount of demonstration in its honor would

-have seemed too great. Viewed in this light, it

-really appeared quite a meritorious act that Conn

-should have put on the white dress; and he looked

-her over with that air of half-patronizing approval

-with which boys are apt to regard the good looks

-of their sisters and their cousins.</p>

-

-<p>Then he exhibited the pistol. It had—as a

-boy’s knife or gun or boat always has—distinguishing

-and individual merits of its own. No

-other pistol, though it were run in the same mould,

-could quite compare with it, and it was by some

-sort of wonderful chance that he had become its

-possessor. Conn wondered and admired with him

-to his heart’s content. Then came breakfast, and

-then the marching of the Brighton Blues. This

-was a company of boys in blue uniforms,—handsome,

-healthy, wide-awake boys from fourteen to

-seventeen years old,—every one of them the pride

-of mothers and sisters and cousins. They were

-to march into Boston, and parade the streets, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>

-dine at a restaurant, and see the fireworks in the

-evening, and I don’t know what other wonderful

-things.</p>

-

-<div class="figcenter">

-<img src="images/i_128.jpg" width="600" alt="" />

-<div class="caption">Conn stood and watched them.—<span class="smcap">Page <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</span></div>

-</div>

-

-<p>Jack was in the highest spirits. He was sure

-he and his pistol were a necessary part of the day;

-and he sincerely pitied Conn, because she was a

-girl and must stay at home.</p>

-

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">“‘<i>Bang, whang, whang</i> goes the drum, <i>tootle-te-tootle</i> the fife;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Oh! a day in the city square, there is no such pleasure in life!’”<br /></span>

-</div></div>

-

-<p>he quoted; and then he called back to her from

-the gate,—</p>

-

-<p>“It’s too bad, Conn, that there’s no fun for

-you; but keep your courage up, and I’ll bring you

-something.”</p>

-

-<p>And so they marched away, in the gay, glad

-morning sunshine, following their band of music,—a

-boy’s band that was, too.</p>

-

-<p>Conn stood and watched them, with a wistful,

-longing look in her great violet eyes, and the soft,

-bright color coming and going on her girlish cheeks.

-At last she gathered a bunch of late red roses, and

-put them in her bosom and went into the house.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>

-She sewed a little, and then she tossed her work

-aside, for who cares to work on holidays? Then

-she took up her new book; but the tale it told

-seemed dull and cold beside the warm throbbing

-life of which the outside world was full. She

-wished over and over that she were a boy, that she

-might have marched away with the rest. Then

-she wondered if she could not go into town and

-see them from somewhere in all their glory. Very

-little idea had she of a Boston crowd on Fourth of

-July. She had been into town often enough, with

-her aunt or her uncle, and walked through the

-quiet streets; and she thought she should have

-little trouble in doing the same now. She looked

-in her purse; she had not much money, but enough

-so that she could ride if she got tired, and she

-would be sure to save some to come home. She

-called her Aunt Sarah’s one servant, and made her

-promise to keep the secret as long as she could, and

-then tell Aunt Sarah that she had gone to Boston

-to find Jack and see him march with the rest.</p>

-

-<p>The girl was a good-natured creature, not bright

-enough to know that it was her duty to interfere,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>

-and easily persuaded by Conn’s entreaties and the

-bit of blue ribbon with which they were enforced.</p>

-

-<p>And so Conn started off, as the boys had done

-before her, and went on her way. But she had no

-gay music to which to march, and for company

-she had only her own thoughts, her own hopes.

-Still she marched bravely on.</p>

-

-<p>There were plenty of other people going the

-same way; indeed it seemed to Conn as if everybody

-must be going into Boston. Excitement upheld

-her, and she trudged along, mile after mile,

-across the pleasant mill-dam, and at last she

-reached Beacon Street. Her head had begun to

-throb horribly by the time she got into town. It

-seemed to her that all the world was whirling

-round and round, and she with it. But she could

-not turn back then; indeed, she did not know

-how to find any conveyance, and she knew her

-feet would not carry her much farther. Surely,

-she <em>must</em> see Jack soon. He had said they should

-march through Beacon Street. She would ask

-some one. She had an idea that every one must

-know about any thing so important as the Brighton<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>

-Blues. At last she got courage to speak to a kind-looking

-servant-maid in the midst of a group on

-the steps of one of the Beacon-street houses. The

-girl pitied her white face, so pale now, with all

-the pretty pink roses faded from the tired young

-cheeks, and answered kindly.</p>

-

-<p>She did not know about the Brighton Blues, but

-she guessed all the companies had been by there, or

-would come. Wouldn’t the young lady sit down

-with them on the steps, and rest, and wait a little?</p>

-

-<p>And “the young lady” sat down. What could

-she do else, with the whole world whirling, whirling,

-and her feet so strangely determined to whirl

-out from under her? And then it grew dark,

-and when it came light again there was a wet cloth

-on her hair, and she lay on a lounge in a cool basement,

-and the kind girl who had cared for her told

-her that she had fainted. And then she had some

-food and grew refreshed a little, but was strangely

-confused yet, and with only one thought, to which

-she held with all the strength of her will,—that

-she had come to see Jack and must look for him

-till he came. So on the steps she stationed herself,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>

-and the crowd surged by. Military companies,

-grown-up ones, came and went with glitter of

-brave uniforms and joyful clamor of music, and

-Conn watched, with all her soul in her eyes, but

-still no Jack.</p>

-

-<p>It was mid-afternoon at last when suddenly she

-saw the familiar blue, and marching down the

-street came the boyish ranks, following their own

-band—tired enough, all of them, no doubt, but

-their courage kept up by the music and the hope of

-fireworks by and by. Conn strained her eyes.

-She did not mean to speak, but after a little, when

-the face she longed for came in sight, something

-within her cried out with a sharp, despairing cry,

-“Oh, Jack, Jack!”</p>

-

-<p>And Jack heard. Those who were watching

-saw one boy break from the long blue line, and

-spring up the step where Conn sat, and seize in

-strong hands the shoulders of a girl all in white,

-her face as white as her gown, and some red roses,

-withered now, upon her breast.</p>

-

-<p>“Conn—Conn Richmond!” the boy cried,

-“what <em>does</em> this mean?”</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“Don’t scold—oh, <em>don’t</em> scold, Jack!” said the

-pitiful, quivering lips. “I only came in to see you

-marching with the rest, and—I’m tired.”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes,” said the girl who had befriended her,

-“and she fainted clean away, and she’s more dead

-than alive now; and if you’ve a heart in your bosom,

-you’ll let your play soldiering go, and take

-care of <em>her</em>.”</p>

-

-<p>And just then Jack realized, boy as he was, that

-he <em>had</em> a heart in his bosom, and that his Cousin

-Conn was the dearest and nearest thing to that

-heart in the whole world. But he did not tell her

-so till long years afterwards. Just now his chief

-interest was to get her home. No more marching

-for him; and what were fireworks, or the supper

-the boys were to take together, in comparison with

-this girl, who had cared so much to see him in his

-holiday glory?</p>

-

-<p>He took her to an omnibus, which ran in those

-days to Brighton, and by tea-time he had got her

-home. He found his mother frightened and helpless,

-and too glad to get Conn back to think of

-scolding.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span></p>

-

-<hr class="tight" />

-

-<p>It was six years after that, that in the battle of

-Malvern Hill, July 1, 1862, Jack, a real soldier

-then, and no longer a boy playing at the mimicry

-of war, was wounded; and next day the news

-came to the quiet Brighton home.</p>

-

-<p>Conn had grown to be a young lady in the sweet

-grace of her twenty summers, and she was her Aunt

-Sarah’s help and comfort. To these two women

-came the news of Jack’s peril. The mother cried

-a little helplessly; but there were no tears in

-Conn’s eyes.</p>

-

-<p>“Aunt Sarah,” she said quietly, “I am going to

-find Jack.”</p>

-

-<p>And that day she was off for the Peninsula. It

-was the Fourth of July when she reached the hospital

-in which her Cousin Jack had been placed.

-She asked about him, trembling; but the news,

-which reassured her, was favorable. He was

-wounded, but not dangerously. It was a girlish

-instinct, which every girl will understand, that

-made Conn put on a fresh white gown before she

-used the permission she had received to enter the

-hospital. She remembered—would Jack remem<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>ber

-also?—that other Fourth of July on which

-they had found each other, six years before. As

-if nothing should be wanting of the old attire,

-she met, as she passed along the street, a boy

-with flowers to sell,—for the flowers bloomed,

-just as the careless birds sang, even amid the

-horrors of those dreadful days,—and bought of

-him a bunch of late red roses, and fastened

-them, as she had done that other day, upon her

-breast.</p>

-

-<p>The sun was low when she entered the hospital,

-and its last rays kindled the hair, golden still as in

-the years long past, till it looked like a saint’s aureole

-about her fair and tender face. She walked

-on among the suffering, until, at last, before she

-knew that she had come near the object of her

-search, she heard her name called, just as <em>she</em> had

-called Jack’s name six years before,—</p>

-

-<p>“Oh, Conn, Conn!”</p>

-

-<p>And then she sank upon her knees beside a low

-bed, and two feeble arms reached round her neck

-and drew her head down.</p>

-

-<p>“I was waiting for you, Conn. I knew you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>

-would come. I lay here waiting till I should see

-you as you were that day long ago,—all in white,

-and with red roses on your breast,—my one love

-in all the world!”</p>

-

-<p>And the girl’s white face grew crimson with a

-swift, sweet joy, for never before had such words

-blessed her. She did not speak; and Jack, full of

-a man’s impatience, now that at last he had uttered

-the words left unsaid so long, held her fast, and

-whispered,—</p>

-

-<p>“Tell me, Conn, tell me that you <em>are</em> mine,

-come life or death. Surely you would not have

-sought me here if you had not meant it to be so!

-You <em>are</em> my Conn,—tell me so.”</p>

-

-<p>And I suppose Conn satisfied him, for two years

-after that she was his wife, and last night he gave

-the old pistol of that first Fourth of July to a

-young ten-year-old Jack Richmond to practise

-with for this year’s Fourth; and pretty Mother

-Conn, as fair still as in her girlhood, remonstrated,

-as gentle mothers will, with,—</p>

-

-<p>“Oh Jack, surely he is too young for such a

-dangerous plaything.”</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>Father Jack laughed as he lifted little Conn to

-his knee, and answered,—</p>

-

-<p>“Nonsense, sweetheart. He is a soldier’s boy,

-and a little pistol-shooting won’t hurt him.”</p>

-

-<p>But how noisy it will be round that house on

-Fourth of July!</p>

-

-<hr />

-

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>

-<h2 class="nobreak" id="HER_MOTHERS_DAUGHTER">HER MOTHER’S DAUGHTER.</h2>

-<hr />

-</div>

-

-<p>Syl Graham was an only child. Her name

-was Sylvia, but everybody called her Syl,

-except that sometimes, half playfully and half chidingly,

-her father called her Sylly. But that was a

-liberty no one else took,—and for which Mr. Graham

-himself was not unlikely to pay in extra indulgence.</p>

-

-<p>Syl was seventeen, and she had never known

-any trouble in all her young, bright life. Her

-mother had died when she was two years old; and

-this, which might easily have been the greatest of

-misfortunes,—though Syl was too young to know

-it,—had been turned almost into a blessing by the

-devotion of her father’s sister, Aunt Rachel, who

-came to take care of the little one then, and had

-never left her since.</p>

-

-<p>Not the dead Mrs. Graham herself could have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>

-been more motherly or more tender than Aunt

-Rachel; and the girl had grown up like a flower

-in a shaded nook, on which no rough wind had

-ever been allowed to breathe.</p>

-

-<p>And a pretty flower she was; so her father

-thought when she ran into the hall to meet him,

-as he came in from business at the close of the

-short November day.</p>

-

-<p>The last rays of daylight just bronzed her chestnut

-hair. Her face was delicately fair,—as the

-complexion that goes with such hair usually is,—colorless

-save in the lips, which seemed as much

-brighter than other lips as if they had added to

-their own color all that which was absent from the

-fair, colorless cheeks. The brown eyes were dancing

-with pleasant thoughts, the little, girlish figure

-was wonderfully graceful, and Papa Graham looked

-down at this fair, sweet maiden with a fond pride,

-which the sourest critic could hardly have had a

-heart to condemn.</p>

-

-<p>“Are you cross?” she said laughingly, as she

-helped him off with his overcoat.</p>

-

-<p>“Very,” he answered, with gravity.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“I mean are you worse than usual? Will you

-be in the best humor now or after dinner?”</p>

-

-<p>“After dinner, decidedly, if Aunt Rachel’s coffee

-is good.”</p>

-

-<p>Syl nodded her piquant little head. “I’ll wait,

-then.”</p>

-

-<p>The dinner was good enough to have tempted

-a less hungry man than Mr. Graham, and the coffee

-was perfect. Papa’s dressing-gown and slippers

-were ready, upstairs; and when he had sat down

-in the great, soft easy-chair that awaited him, and

-his daughter had settled herself on a stool at his

-feet, I think it would have been hard to find a

-more contented-looking man in all New York.</p>

-

-<p>“Now I’m very sure you are as good as such a

-bear can be,” said saucy Syl; “and now we’ll

-converse.”</p>

-

-<p>To “converse” was Syl’s pet phrase for the

-course of request, reasoning, entreaty, by which

-Papa Graham was usually brought to accede to all

-her wishes, however extravagant. He rested his

-hand now on her shining chestnut braids, and

-thought how like she was to the young wife he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>

-had loved so well, and lost so early. Then he

-said teasingly,—</p>

-

-<p>“What is it, this time? A Paris doll, with a

-trunk and a bandbox; or a hand-organ?”</p>

-

-<p>“For shame, papa! The doll was four years

-ago.”</p>

-

-<p>“All the more reason it must be worn out.

-Then it’s the hand-organ. But I must draw the

-line somewhere,—you can’t have the monkey. If

-Punch and Judy would do, though?”</p>

-

-<p>“Now, Father Lucius, you know I gave up the

-hand-organ two years ago, and took a piano for

-my little upstairs room instead; and you know

-I’m seventeen. Am I likely, at this age, to want

-monkeys, Punch and Judys, and things?”</p>

-

-<p>“O, no! I forgot. Seventeen,—it must be a

-sewing-machine. You want to make all your endless

-bibs and tuckers more easily. Well, I’ll

-consent.”</p>

-

-<p>Syl blushed. It was a sore point between her

-and Aunt Rachel that she so seldom sewed for

-herself. Aunt Rachel had old-fashioned notions,

-and believed in girls that made their own pretty

-things.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“Now, papa, you are not good-humored at all.

-I had better have asked you before dinner. You

-don’t even let me tell you what I want.”</p>

-

-<p>Papa sobered his face into a look of respectful

-attention, and waited silently. But now Syl was

-not quite ready to speak.</p>

-

-<p>“Don’t you think pomegranate is a pretty color,

-papa?”</p>

-

-<p>“What is it like?”</p>

-

-<p>“O, it’s the deepest, richest, brightest, humanest

-red you ever saw.”</p>

-

-<p>“Why, I think it must be like your lips;” and

-he drew her to him, and kissed the bright young

-mouth with a lazy content.</p>

-

-<p>“Perhaps it <em>is</em> like my lips; then, surely it will

-look well <em>with</em> them.”</p>

-

-<p>“Where does this blossom of beauty grow?”</p>

-

-<p>“It grows at Stewart’s. It has been woven

-into a lovely, soft-falling silk, at four dollars a

-yard. Twenty-five yards makes a gown, and

-eight yards of velvet makes the trimming and

-the sleeveless jacket, and the velvet is six dollars

-a yard. And then there is Madame Bodin, she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>

-charges like a horrid old Jew,—forty dollars just

-to look at a gown; and then there are the linings

-and buttons and things. Have you kept account,

-papa, and added it all up in your head?”</p>

-

-<p>“I think it means about two hundred dollars.

-Isn’t that what you call it, Sylly?”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes, if you please. It’ll be <em>worth</em> that, won’t

-it, to have your daughter look like a love, when

-all the people come on New Year’s Day?”</p>

-

-<p>“So that’s it,—that’s what this conspiracy

-against my peace and my pocket has for its object,—that

-Miss Syl Graham may sit at the receipt of

-callers on New Year’s Day, in a robe like a red,

-red rose. O Sylly, Sylly!”</p>

-

-<p>Syl pouted a little, the most becoming pout in

-the world.</p>

-

-<p>“Well, I’m sure I thought you cared how I

-look. If you don’t, never mind. My old black

-silk is still very neat and decent.”</p>

-

-<p>“September, October, November,—it’s nearly

-three months old, isn’t it? What a well-behaved

-gown it must be to have kept neat and decent

-so long! And as to the other, I’ll consider,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>

-and you can ask me again when I come home to-morrow.”</p>

-

-<p>Syl knew what Papa Graham’s considers meant,

-and how they always ended. She had gained her

-point, and she danced off and sang to the piano

-some old Scotch airs that her father loved, because

-Syl’s mother used to sing them; and Papa Graham

-listened dreamily to the music, while his

-thoughts went back twenty years, to the first winter

-when he brought his girl-bride home, only a

-year older, then, than Syl was now. He remembered

-how the firelight used to shine on her fair,

-upturned face, as she knelt beside him; how

-sweet her voice was; how pure and true and

-fond her innocent young heart. And now Syl

-was all he had left of her.</p>

-

-<p>Should he lose Syl herself, soon? Would some

-bold wooer come and carry her away, and leave

-him with only Aunt Rachel’s quiet figure and fading

-face beside him for the rest of his life?</p>

-

-<p>Just then Syl might have asked him not in vain

-for any thing, even to the half of his kingdom.</p>

-

-<p>Next morning Syl went into the sewing-room.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>

-A young girl just about her own age was there—altering,

-sewing, making all the foolish little fancies

-in which Syl’s heart delighted, though her

-idle fingers never wrought at them. Out of pure

-kindness of heart Syl found her way into the sewing-room

-very often when Mary Gordon was there.

-She knew her presence carried pleasure with it,

-and often she used to take some story or poem and

-read to the young listener, with the always busy

-fingers, and the gentle, grateful face.</p>

-

-<p>But to-day she found the girl’s eyes very red as

-if with long weeping. If Syl was selfish it was

-only because she never came in contact with the

-pains and needs of others. She had “fed on the

-roses and lain among the lilies of life,”—how was

-she to know the hurt of its stinging nettles? But

-she could not have been the lovesome, charming

-girl she was if she had had a nature hard and

-indifferent to the pains of others.</p>

-

-<p>To see Mary Gordon’s red eyes was enough.

-Instantly she drew the work out of the fingers

-that trembled so; and then she set herself to draw

-the secret sorrow out of the poor, trembling

-heart.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>It was the old story, so sadly common and yet

-so bitterly sad, of a mother wasting away and fading

-out of life, and a daughter struggling to take

-care of her, and breaking her heart because she

-could do so little.</p>

-

-<p>“I’m used to all that,” the girl said sadly,

-“and I don’t let myself cry for what I can’t help.

-But this morning I heard her say to herself, as I

-was getting every thing ready for her, ‘O, the long,

-lonesome day!’ She thought I did not hear her,

-for she never complains; but somehow it broke me

-down. I keep thinking of her, suffering and weary

-and all alone. But I can’t help that, either; and

-I must learn to be contented in thinking that I

-do my best.”</p>

-

-<p>“But can’t you stay at home with her and work

-there?” cried Syl, all eager sympathy and interest.</p>

-

-<p>“No, I can’t get work enough in that way.

-People want their altering and fixing done in their

-own houses, and plain sewing pays so poorly.

-Sometimes I’ve thought if I only had a machine,

-so I could get a great deal done, I might manage

-but to hire one would eat up all my profits.”</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>Syl thought a little silent while; and it was a

-pretty sight to see the fair young face settle into

-such deep earnestness.</p>

-

-<p>“Well,” she said at length, “at least you shall

-stay at home with her to-morrow; for all those

-ruffles can be done just as well there as here,

-and you shall carry them home with you. And

-you’d better go early this afternoon; there’ll

-be enough work to last you, and I can’t bear

-to think of her waiting for you, and wanting you,

-so many long hours. We’ll give her a little surprise.”</p>

-

-<p>Mary Gordon did not speak for a moment. I

-think she was getting her voice steady, for when

-she did begin it trembled.</p>

-

-<p>“I <em>can’t</em> thank you, Miss Syl,—it’s no use to

-try; but the strange part is how you understand

-it all, when you’ve no mother yourself.”</p>

-

-<p>“Ah, but you see I have papa and auntie, and I

-just know.”</p>

-

-<p>That day, after Syl and Aunt Rachel had

-lunched together, Syl said, in a coaxing little

-way she had,—</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“Aunt Rachel, we never want to see the other

-half of that cold chicken again, do we?”</p>

-

-<p>“Why, Syl—we”—</p>

-

-<p>“Why, auntie, no—we never want to-morrow’s

-lunch furnished coldly forth by this sad relic.

-And there’s a tumbler of jelly we don’t want,

-either—and those rolls, and,—let me see, can

-sick people eat cake?”</p>

-

-<p>“Why, Syl Graham, what are you talking

-about! Who’s sick?”</p>

-

-<p>Syl grew sober.</p>

-

-<p>“I’m thinking about poor Mary Gordon’s

-mother, auntie. She’s sick, and dying by inches;

-and Mary has to leave her all alone; and I’ve

-told her she shall stay at home to-morrow and

-make my ruffles, and we’ll pay her just the same

-as if she came here. And don’t you see that we

-must give her her dinner to take home, since she

-can’t come here after it?”</p>

-

-<p>Aunt Rachel never said a word, but she got up

-and kissed Syl on each cheek. Then she brought

-a basket, and into it went the cold chicken and a

-cold tongue and jelly and buttered rolls and fruit,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>

-till even Syl was satisfied; and she took the heavy

-basket and danced away with it to the sewing-room,

-with a bright light in her dear brown

-eyes.</p>

-

-<p>“I think you’d best go now,” she said. “I

-can’t get your mother, waiting there alone, out of

-my mind, and it’s spoiling my afternoon, don’t

-you see? And because you mustn’t come here to

-dine to-morrow, you must carry your dinner home

-with you; and Aunt Rachel put some fruit and

-some jelly in the basket that maybe your mother

-will like.”</p>

-

-<p>That night, when Mr. Lucius Graham let himself

-into the hall with his latch-key, his daughter

-heard him and went to meet him, as usual. But

-she was very silent, and he missed his teasing,

-saucy, provoking Syl.</p>

-

-<p>“Why, daughter, are you in a dream?” he

-asked once during dinner; but she only laughed

-and shook her head. She held her peace until she

-had him at her mercy, in the great easy-chair, and

-she was on the stool beside him, as her wont was.

-Then, suddenly, her question came.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“Papa, do you think a pomegranate silk without

-velvet would be very bad?”</p>

-

-<p>He was inclined to tease her, and began with

-“Hideous!” but then he saw that her lips were

-fairly trembling, and her face full of eagerness,

-and forbore.</p>

-

-<p>“How did you know you were to have the silk

-at all? But you know your power over me.

-Here is your needful;” and he put into her hands

-ten bright, new twenty-dollar bills.</p>

-

-<p>“O, thank you! and <em>do</em> you think it would be

-bad without the velvet?”</p>

-

-<p>“Sylly, no; but why shouldn’t you have the

-velvet if you want it?”</p>

-

-<p>And then came the whole story of poor Mary

-Gordon, and—in such an eager tone,—</p>

-

-<p>“Don’t you see, with the money the velvet

-would cost, and a little more, I could get her the

-sewing-machine; and Madame Bodin wouldn’t

-ask so much to make the dress if it is plainer?”</p>

-

-<p>Mr. Graham was a rich man, and his first

-thought was to give her the money for the machine,

-and let her have her pretty dress, as she had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>

-fancied it, first. But a second thought restrained

-him. She was just beginning to learn the joy and

-beauty of self-sacrifice. Should he interfere? He

-kissed her with a half-solemn tenderness, and answered

-her,—</p>

-

-<p>“You shall do precisely as you please, my dear.

-The two hundred dollars is yours. Use it <em>just</em> as

-you like. I shall never inquire into its fate again.”</p>

-

-<p>And then she went away—and was it her voice

-or that of some blessed spirit that came to him, a

-moment after, from the shadowy corner where the

-piano stood, singing an old middle-age hymn,

-about the city—</p>

-

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">“Where all the glad life-music,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Now heard no longer here,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Shall come again to greet us,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">As we are drawing near.”<br /></span>

-</div></div>

-

-<p>The next day, who so busy and happy as Syl—dragging

-Aunt Rachel from one warehouse to

-another—it was in the days when sewing-machines

-were costly—till she was quite sure she

-had found just the right machine; and then or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>dering

-it sent, at three o’clock, no earlier, no later,

-to Miss Gordon, No. 2 Crescent Place.</p>

-

-<p>At a quarter before three Syl went there herself.

-The pleasure of witnessing Mary Gordon’s surprise

-was the thing she had promised herself, in lieu of

-velvet on her gown. She found the poor room

-neat and clean, and by no means without traces of

-comfort and refinement; and Mrs. Gordon was a

-sweet and gentle woman, such as Mary’s mother

-must have been to be in keeping with Mary. She

-chatted with them for a few minutes, noticing the

-invalid’s short breath and frequent cough, and

-Mary’s careful tenderness over her.</p>

-

-<p>“It’s too bad Mary can’t be at home all the

-time,” said Syl.</p>

-

-<p>“Yes; but then to have her to-day is such a

-blessing. If you knew how we had enjoyed our

-day together, and our feast together, I know you

-would feel paid for any inconvenience it cost you.”</p>

-

-<p>Just then an express wagon rumbled up to the

-door and the bell rang loudly. Mary opened

-it at once, for their room was on the ground

-floor.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“A sewing-machine for Miss Gordon,” said a

-somewhat gruff voice.</p>

-

-<p>“No, that cannot be. There is some mistake,”

-said Mary’s gentle tones. And then Syl sprang

-forward, in a flutter of excitement, which would

-have been pretty to see had there been anybody

-there to notice it.</p>

-

-<p>“I’m sure it’s all right. Bring it in, please;

-and Mary, you will tell them where to put it, in

-the best light.”</p>

-

-<p>And in five minutes or less it was all in its

-place, and Mary was looking, with eyes full of

-wonder, and something else beside wonder, at

-Syl Graham.</p>

-

-<p>“It’s nothing,” said Syl hurriedly; “it’s only

-my New Year’s present to you, a little in advance

-of time.”</p>

-

-<p>She had thought she should enjoy Mary’s surprise;

-but this was something she had not looked

-for,—this utter breaking down, these great wild

-sobs, as if the girl’s heart would break. And

-when she could speak at length, she cried with a

-sort of passion,—</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“O Miss Syl, I do believe you have saved my

-mother’s life! She will get better—she must—now

-that I can stay here all the time and take

-care of her.”</p>

-

-<p>Syl was glad to get out into the street. She

-felt something in her own throat choking her.

-Just a few steps off she met Dr. Meade,—her own

-doctor, as it chanced,—and it struck her that it

-would be a good thing if he would go in to see

-Mrs. Gordon. So she asked him.</p>

-

-<p>“I’m going there,” he said. “I try to see her

-once every week.”</p>

-

-<p>“And will she live—can she?”</p>

-

-<p>The doctor answered, with half a sigh,—</p>

-

-<p>“I’m afraid not. She needs more constant care,

-and more nourishing food and other things. I

-wish I could help her more, but I can only give my

-services, and I see so many such cases.”</p>

-

-<p>“But she would take things from you, and not

-be hurt?”</p>

-

-<p>“I should <em>make</em> her if I had a full purse to go

-to.”</p>

-

-<p>“Well, then, here are forty dollars for her; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>

-you are to get her what she needs, and never let

-her know where it came from—will you?”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes, I will,” he answered earnestly. And

-then, after a moment, he said,—“Syl Graham,

-you are your mother’s daughter. I can say no better

-thing of you,—she was a good woman.”</p>

-

-<p>Syl had a hundred dollars left; but that

-wouldn’t compass the pomegranate silk, and Syl

-had concluded now she did not want it. She had

-had a glimpse of something better; and that hundred

-dollars would make many a sad heart glad

-before spring.</p>

-

-<p>On New Year’s Day, Papa Graham was off all

-day making calls; and the gas was already lighted

-when he went into his own house, and into his

-own drawing-room. He saw a girl there with

-bands of bright chestnut hair about her graceful

-young head; with shining eyes, and lips as bright

-as the vivid crimson roses in her braided hair, and

-in the bosom of her black silk gown. He looked

-at her with a fond pride and a fonder love; and

-then he bent to kiss her,—for the room was

-empty of guests just then. As he lifted his head<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>

-and met Aunt Rachel’s eyes, it happened that he

-said about the same words Dr. Meade had used

-before,—</p>

-

-<p>“She is her mother’s daughter; I can say of her

-no better thing.”</p>

-

-<hr />

-

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>

-<h2 class="nobreak" id="MY_QUARREL_WITH_RUTH">MY QUARREL WITH RUTH.</h2>

-<hr />

-</div>

-

-<p>I suppose if I had not loved Ruth Carson so

-much my resentment against her would not

-have been so bitter. She was my first friend. She

-had no sister, neither had I; and we used to think

-that no sisters could be nearer to each other than

-we were. She had black eyes,—great, earnest,

-beautiful eyes, with pride and tenderness both in

-them; sometimes one and sometimes the other in

-the ascendant. I was yellow-haired and blue-eyed,

-but we always wanted our gowns and hats alike,

-and coaxed our mothers into indulging us. I don’t

-know whether Ruth suffered more in appearance

-when the clear dark of her face was set in my pale

-blues, or I, when her brilliant reds and orange

-turned me into a peony or a sunflower; but we

-thought little about such effects in those days. If

-Ruth got her new article of attire first, I must<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>

-have one like it, whether or no; and if I was first

-favored, she followed my example.</p>

-

-<p>It was thus in every thing. We studied from

-the same text-books, keeping a nearly even pace

-Ruth was quicker than I at figures, so she helped

-me there; and my eyes were better than her near-sighted

-ones at finding towns, mountains, and

-fivers on the atlas, so we always did our “map

-questions” together. Of course our play hours

-were always passed in company, and one face was

-almost as familiar as the other in each of our

-houses. “The twins,” people used to call us, for

-fun; and if ever two girls were all and all to each

-other, we were.</p>

-

-<p>What did we quarrel about? It is a curious

-thing that I have forgotten how it began. It was

-some little difference of opinion, such as seldom

-occurred between us; and then, “what so wild as

-words are?” We said one thing after another,

-until, finally, Ruth’s black eyes flashed, and she

-cried out passionately,—</p>

-

-<p>“I just about hate you, Sue Morrison!”</p>

-

-<p>Then my temper flamed. It was a different<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>

-kind of temper from Ruth’s,—slower to take fire,

-but much more sullen and resolute. I loved her

-as I did my own life, but I hated her also, just

-then,—if you can understand that contradiction.

-I looked at her, and I remember I thought, even

-then, how handsome she was, with the red glow

-on her cheeks, and her eyes so strangely bright.

-I could have kissed her for love, or cursed her for

-hate; but the hate triumphed. Slowly I said,—</p>

-

-<p>“Very well, Ruth Carson. I shall not trouble

-you any more. I shall never speak to you again,

-until I see you lie a-dying.”</p>

-

-<p>I don’t know what made me put that last sentence

-in. I suppose I thought, even then, that I

-could not have her go out of the world, for good

-and all, without one tender word from me. When

-I spoke, Ruth turned pale, and the light died in

-her eyes. I presume she did not think I really

-meant what I said; but, at any rate, it startled her.

-She did not answer. She just looked at me a moment.

-Then she turned away, and, for the first

-time in years, she and I walked home, so far as our

-roads lay the same way, on opposite sides of the

-street.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“Where is Ruth?” my mother asked, when I

-went in.</p>

-

-<p>“Gone home, I believe,” was my only answer.</p>

-

-<p>It seemed to me that I could not tell even my

-mother of this estrangement, which had changed

-in a day the whole current of my life. Of course,

-as time went on, she saw that all was different

-between Ruth and me; but, finding that I did not

-voluntarily tell her any thing, she ceased even to

-mention Ruth in my presence.</p>

-

-<p>You cannot think how strange and solitary my

-new life seemed to me. For the first time since I

-could remember I felt all alone. I don’t think

-Ruth thought this unnatural state of things could

-last. The first day after our quarrel she spoke to

-me, at school, half timidly. I looked at her, and

-did not answer. She sighed, and turned away;

-and again, when school was over, each of us went

-home alone on our separate path.</p>

-

-<p>Sometimes I would find a bunch of roses on my

-desk, for it was June when our quarrel took place,

-and all the roses were in bloom. Then, later, I

-would lift up the desk cover and come upon an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>

-early apple or a peach; later still, a handful of

-chestnuts. I always let the roses wither without

-touching them; and the fruit I gave away, as if

-unconscious where it came from. Ruth would

-watch me and sigh; but after that first morning

-she never spoke to me. I think my rebuff then

-hurt her too much for her to be willing to risk receiving

-such another. What a strange, new, sad

-thing it was to get our lessons, as we did now, all

-alone! How the hateful figures tormented me,

-without Ruth’s quick brain to help me unravel

-them! How puzzled she looked, as I saw her holding

-the map close to her near-sighted eyes, trying

-to find the rivers and lakes and mountains all by

-herself!</p>

-

-<p>It was a curious thing that after the first two or

-three days my anger had passed away entirely. I

-held no longer the least bitterness in my heart

-toward Ruth; and yet I felt that I must keep my

-word. I looked upon my rash utterance as a vow,

-for which I had a sort of superstitious reverence.

-Then, too, there was a queer, evil kind of pride

-about me,—something that wouldn’t <em>let</em> me speak<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>

-to her when I had said I wouldn’t,—wouldn’t <em>let</em>

-me show her that I was sorry. The teacher spoke

-to me about the trouble between me and Ruth, but

-he might as well have spoken to a blank wall,—I

-did not even answer him. Whether he said any

-thing to Ruth I do not know.</p>

-

-<p>In the late fall there was a vacation, which held

-over Thanksgiving. I had an idea that my mother

-watched me curiously to see how I would pass

-those weeks without Ruth. But I was resolute to

-show no pain or loneliness. I made occupations for

-myself. I read; I worked worsted; I crocheted;

-I copied out poems in my common-place book; I

-was busy from morning till night. One thing I did

-not do,—I did not take another friend in Ruth’s

-stead. Several of the girls had shown themselves

-willing to fill the vacant place, but they soon found

-that “No admittance here” was written over the

-door. I think they tried the same experiment with

-Ruth, with the same result. At any rate, each of

-us went on our solitary way, quite alone. Ruth

-had her own pride, too, as well as I; and, after a

-little while, she would no more have spoken to me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>

-than I to her; but she could not help those great,

-dark eyes of hers resting on me sometimes with a

-wistful, inquiring look, that almost brought the

-tears to mine.</p>

-

-<p>School commenced again the first of December.

-Ruth came, the first day, in her new winter dress.

-It was a deep, rich red; and somehow she made

-me think of the spicy little red roses of Burgundy,

-that used to grow in my grandmother’s old-fashioned

-garden. My own new gown was blue. For

-the first time in years, Ruth and I were dressed

-differently. We were no longer “the twins.” I

-thought Ruth looked a little sad. She was very

-grave. I never heard her laugh in these days.

-When it rained or snowed, and we stayed at school

-through the noonings, instead of going home for

-our dinner, neither of us would join in the games

-that made the noontime merry. I suppose each

-was afraid of too directly encountering the other.</p>

-

-<p>But when the good skating came, both of us

-used to be on the pond. The whole school, teacher

-and all, would turn out on half holidays. Both

-Ruth and I were among the best skaters in school<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>

-My father had taught us, two or three winters before,

-and we had had great pride in our skill. We

-had always skated in company before; but now, as

-in every thing else we did, we kept at a distance

-from each other.</p>

-

-<p>The pond used to be a pretty sight, on those

-crisp, keen winter afternoons, all alive with boys

-and girls. A steep hill rose on one side of it,

-crowned by a pine wood, green all the winter

-through. Great fields of snow stretched far and

-away on the other side, and in the midst was the

-sheet of ice, smooth as glass. Here was a scarlet

-hood, and there a boy’s gay Scotch cap. Here

-some adventurer was cutting fantastic capers;

-there a girl was struggling with her first skates,

-and falling down at almost every step. I loved

-the pastime,—the keen, clear air, the swift motion,

-the excitement. I loved to watch Ruth, too,

-for by this time not only was all the bitterness

-gone from my heart, but the old love was welling

-up, sweet and strong, though nothing would have

-made me acknowledge it to myself. Wherever

-she moved, my far-sighted eyes followed her; and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>

-indeed, she was a pretty sight, the prettiest there,

-in her bright scarlet skating dress, and with her

-cheeks scarcely less scarlet, and her great eyes

-bright as stars.</p>

-

-<p>There came a day, at last, when we promised

-ourselves an afternoon of glorious skating. The

-ice was in excellent condition, the sky was cloudless,

-the weather cold, indeed, but not piercing,

-and the air exhilarating as wine. I ate my dinner

-hurriedly—there was no time to lose out of such

-an afternoon. I rose from the table before the

-rest, put on my warm jacket and my skating-cap,

-and was just leaving the house when my father

-called after me.</p>

-

-<p>“Be very careful of the west side of the pond,

-Sue. They have been cutting a good deal of ice

-there.”</p>

-

-<p>The whole school was out; only when I first

-got there I did not see Ruth. The teacher repeated

-to us what my father had said, but I remembered

-afterward that it was not till he had done

-speaking that Ruth came in sight, looking, in her

-bright scarlet, like some tropical bird astray under<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>

-our pale northern skies. As usual she and I began

-skating at some distance from each other, but

-gradually I drew nearer and nearer to her. I had

-no reason for this. I did not mean to speak to her,

-and the pride that held me from her was as untamed

-as ever. But yet something for which I

-could not account drew me towards her.</p>

-

-<p>Did she see me, and wish to avoid me? I did

-not know; but suddenly she began to skate

-swiftly away from me, and toward the dangerous

-west side of the pond. I think I must have called,

-“Come back! come back!” but if I did, she did

-not heed or hear. She was skating on, oh, so fast!

-I looked around in despair—I was nearer to her

-than any one else was. I shouted, with all my

-might, to Mr. Hunt, the teacher. I thought I saw

-him turn at the sound of my voice, but I did not

-wait to be sure. I just skated after Ruth.</p>

-

-<p>I never can tell you about that moment. All

-the love with which I had loved her swept back

-over my heart like a great flood. Pride and bitterness,

-what did they mean? I only knew that I

-had loved Ruth Carson as I should never, never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>

-love any other friend; and that if she died I wanted

-to die too, and be friends with her again in the

-next world, if I could not here. I think I called

-to her, but the call was wasted upon the wind

-which always bore my voice the other way. So

-Ruth skated on and on, and I skated after her.

-Whether any one was coming behind me I did not

-know. I never even looked over my shoulder.

-It seemed to me that some mad wind of destiny

-was sweeping us both ahead.</p>

-

-<p>Suddenly there came a plash, the scarlet cap appeared

-a moment above the ice, and then that went

-under, and there was no Ruth in sight, anywhere.

-You cannot think how calm I was. I wonder at it

-now, looking back over so many years, to that

-bright, sad, far-off winter day. I succeeded in

-checking my own headlong speed, and, drawing

-near cautiously to the spot where Ruth had gone

-down, I threw myself along the ice. It was thick

-and strong, and had been cut into squares, so it

-bore me up. I looked over the edge. Ruth was

-rising toward me. I reached down and clutched

-her, I hardly know by what. At that moment I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>

-felt my ankles grasped firmly by two strong hands,

-and then I knew that I could save Ruth. I held

-her until some one helped me to pull her out,

-and then I don’t know what came next.</p>

-

-<p>I waked up, long afterward, in my own bed, in

-my own room. I seemed to myself to have been

-quite away from this world, on some long journey.

-A consciousness of present things came back to

-me slowly. I recalled with a shudder the hard,

-sharply cut ice, the water gurgling below, and

-Ruth, <em>my</em> Ruth, with her great black eyes and her

-bright, bonny face, going down, down. I cried

-out,—</p>

-

-<p>“Ruth! Ruth! where are you?”</p>

-

-<p>And then I turned my head, and there, beside

-me, she lay, my pretty Ruth—mine again, after so

-long.</p>

-

-<p>“She clung to you so tightly we could not separate

-you,” I heard my mother say; but all my being

-was absorbed in looking at Ruth. She was

-white as death. I had said I would not speak to

-her again until I saw her lie a-dying. <em>Was</em> she

-dying now? I lifted myself on my elbow to look<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>

-at her. I held my own breath to see if any came

-from her half-parted lips; and as I looked, her

-eyes unclosed, and she put her arm up,—oh, so feebly!—and

-struggled to get it round my neck. I

-bent over her, and one moment our lips clung together,

-in such a kiss as neither of us had ever

-known before—a kiss snatched from death, and full

-of peace and pardon, and the unutterable bliss of a

-restored love. Then Ruth whispered,—</p>

-

-<p>“Sue, I have been only half a girl since I lost

-you. I would rather have died there, in the black

-water from which you saved me, than not to find

-you again.”</p>

-

-<p>“I thought you <em>were</em> dying, Ruth,” I whispered

-back, holding her close; “and if you were, I

-meant to die too. I would have gone after you

-into the water but what I would have had you

-back.”</p>

-

-<p>Then we were too weak to say any thing more.

-We just lay there, our hands clasped closely, in

-an ineffable content. Our mothers came and went

-about us; all sorts of tender cares were lavished

-on us of which we took no heed. I knew only one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>

-thing,—that I had won back Ruth; Ruth knew

-only one thing,—that once more she was by my

-side.</p>

-

-<p>That was our first and our last quarrel. I think

-no hasty word was ever spoken between us afterward.

-The first one had cost us too dear.</p>

-

-<hr />

-

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>

-<h2 class="nobreak" id="WAS_IT_HER_MOTHER">WAS IT HER MOTHER?</h2>

-<hr />

-</div>

-

-<p>Just a little voice, calling through the dark,

-“Mamma, O mamma!” and then a low

-sound of stifled sobbing.</p>

-

-<p>Colonel Trevethick heard them both, and they

-smote him with a new sense of loss and pain. He

-had scarcely thought of his little girl since his wife

-died, five hours before,—died at the very instant

-when she was kissing him good-by, taking with her

-into the far heavens the warm breath of his human

-love. He had loved her as, perhaps, men seldom

-love, from the first hour of their first meeting.</p>

-

-<p>“There is Maud Harrison,” some one had said;

-and he had turned to look, and met the innocent

-gaze of two frank, gentle, very beautiful brown

-eyes. “Brightest eyes that ever have shone,” he

-said to himself. Their owner had other charms

-besides,—a fair and lovely face, round which the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>

-ruffled hair made a soft, bright halo; a lithe, girlish

-figure; a manner of unaffected cordiality, blent

-with a certain maidenly reserve, and which seemed

-to him perfection. He loved her, then and there.

-His wooing was short and his wedding hasty; but

-he had never repented his haste, never known an

-unhappy hour from the moment he brought his

-wife home, nine years ago, till these last few days,

-in which he had seen that no love or care of his

-could withhold her from going away from him to

-another home where he could not follow her,—the

-home where she had gone now, far beyond his search.</p>

-

-<p>She was a good little creature, and she did not

-rebel even at the summons to go out of her earthly

-Eden in search of the paradise of God. She

-longed, indeed, to live, for she so loved her own,

-and she could have resigned herself to die more

-willingly but for her husband’s uncontrollable passion

-of woe. That very day she had said to him,

-as he knelt beside her,—</p>

-

-<p>“Do not grieve so, darling! I am not going so

-far but that I shall come back to you every day.

-Something tells me that I shall be always near you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>

-and Maudie. You cannot call, or she cry, but

-that I shall hear you. I know that when she most

-needs, or you most want me, I shall be close beside

-you.”</p>

-

-<p>And with that very last kiss, when her breath

-was failing, she had whispered,—</p>

-

-<p>“I shall not go so far as you think.”</p>

-

-<p>Now when he heard the low call of his little

-Maudie and her smothered sobbing, he remembered

-the words of his dead wife. Did she, indeed,

-hear Maudie cry, and was it possibly troubling

-her? He got up and went into the little

-room where the child had slept alone ever since

-her sixth birthday, a couple of months ago. He

-bent over her low bed, and asked tenderly,—</p>

-

-<p>“What is it, darling?”</p>

-

-<p>A tiny night-gowned figure lifted itself up and

-two little arms clung round his neck.</p>

-

-<p>“Bessie put me to bed without taking me to

-mamma. Mamma did not kiss me good-night, and

-I want she should,—oh, I <em>want</em> she should! Bessie

-wouldn’t carry me to see her; and I want you to.

-Bessie said mamma never <em>would</em> kiss me again<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>

-but that isn’t true, is it? You know I’ve heard

-mamma say Bessie wasn’t always ’sponsible.”</p>

-

-<p>Colonel Trevethick considered for a moment what

-he should say to his child—how he could make

-her understand the great, sad, awful, yet triumphant

-mystery which had come to pass that day

-under their roof—the great loss, and the great

-hope that hallowed it.</p>

-

-<p>She was such a mere baby it seemed hard to

-choose his words. Must he tell her that her mamma

-would never kiss her again? But how did he

-know that? When the dear Lord promised the

-“all things” to those who loved Him, did it not

-include the joining of broken threads, the up-springing

-of dead hopes, the finding one’s own

-again, somewhere? He thought it must; for

-what a word without meaning heaven would be

-to him if his own Maud were not there! He temporized

-a little.</p>

-

-<p>“She cannot kiss you now, my darling, but you

-shall kiss her.”</p>

-

-<p>So he lifted the little white figure in his arms,

-holding it close, as one who must be father and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>

-mother both together, now, and carried his little

-one across the hall to the room, where her dead

-mother lay,—oh, so fast asleep!—with a look like

-a smile frozen upon her fair, sweet face. He held

-Maudie down by the pillow on which her mother’s

-head rested, but that did not satisfy her.</p>

-

-<p>“Put me on the bed, please, papa. I get on the

-bed every night and kiss her, since she’s been ill.”</p>

-

-<p>So he let her have her will; and for a moment

-she nestled close to the still dead heart, which had

-always beaten for her so warmly. Then she lifted

-up her head.</p>

-

-<p>“Mamma is very cold,” she said, “and she does

-not stir. Can she hear what I say?”</p>

-

-<p>Again something invisible seemed to warn him

-against taking away from the child her mother.

-He answered very gently and slowly,—</p>

-

-<p>“She’s dead, my darling,—what we call dead.

-<em>I</em> do not understand it—no one understands it;

-but it comes, one day, to everybody, and it is

-God’s will. Your mamma cannot speak to us any

-more, and soon she will be gone out of our sight;

-but she truly believed that she would always be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>

-able to see your face and hear your voice, as when

-she was here.”</p>

-

-<p>“She <em>is</em> here. Won’t she be here always?” the

-little girl asked, growing cold with the shadow of

-an awful fear.</p>

-

-<p>“No, dear, she will not be here long. In a few

-days this dear white face will be put away, underneath

-the grass and the flowers; but the real

-mamma, who loves little Maudie, will not be buried

-up. She will be somewhere, I truly believe,

-where she can see and hear her little girl.”</p>

-

-<p>For a moment the child slid again from his

-arms, and nestled close against the cold breast,

-kissed the unmoving lips. Then she said,—</p>

-

-<p>“Good-by, this mamma, who can’t see; and good-night,

-other mamma, that hears Maudie.”</p>

-

-<p>Colonel Trevethick marvelled. Had he, indeed,

-succeeded in making this little creature understand;

-or had some one whom he could not see

-spoken to her words of sweet mother-wisdom?</p>

-

-<p>He carried her then, and laid her in her little

-bed, and went back to his own loneliness; but half

-an hour afterward he heard the small voice calling.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>

-“Papa, papa!” and again he went to her, and the

-little arms came up around his neck, and held him

-fast.</p>

-

-<p>“Can’t I go too, papa? If you ask God, won’t

-He let me? Because I do so love my mamma.”</p>

-

-<p>That afternoon Colonel Trevethick had felt as if

-he had nothing at all left in this world; but now

-he realized how much emptier still his home might

-be if he lost out of it this child who was so like

-her mother.</p>

-

-<p>“Mamma would not want you to come,” he

-said passionately. “<em>She</em> has all heaven, and <em>I</em>

-only you,—only you, little Maudie, in all the

-world. Mamma wants you to stay with me.”</p>

-

-<p>After that she was quite quiet; and when he

-looked in at her, an hour later, she was sound

-asleep, with one little hand like a crushed white

-rose under the red rose of her flushed cheek.</p>

-

-<p>She never asked for her mother after that night;

-but her father was sure that she never forgot her.

-She was the strangest, gravest little creature. She

-never made any noise, even at her play; and she

-never did any of the things for which her mother<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>

-had been used to reprove her. The trouble was

-that she was too perfect; there was something

-unnatural about it which frightened Colonel Trevethick.

-He would have been glad if she had been

-naughty, sometimes, like other children. He

-longed to have her tease him, to see in her some

-spirit of naughtiness or contradiction; but he saw

-none. She grew tall quite fast, but she was very

-thin,—a little white wraith of a creature, who

-looked as if she had been made out of snow, and

-might melt away as soon.</p>

-

-<p>It was a good thing for Colonel Trevethick, no

-doubt, that he had her to tend, and to be anxious

-about. It kept him from surrendering himself to

-his own grief.</p>

-

-<p>Nearly two years went on, and all the time the

-little girl grew more and more frail; until, at last,

-when she had just passed her eighth birthday, she

-was taken very ill. Her illness seemed a sort of

-low, nervous fever, and she grew daily more feeble.

-A skilful nurse came to share with Bessie

-the task of tending her, and her father was seldom

-far away. Half the day he would be sitting in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>

-her room, and half a dozen times in the night he

-would steal in to watch her breathing.</p>

-

-<p>One afternoon, as he sat by her bed, she looked

-up at him with a sad, tender look, too old for her

-years,—but then all her words and ways were too

-old for her years.</p>

-

-<p>“Papa,” she said, “I would get well if I could,

-to please you. I <em>should</em> get well, I know, if I had

-mamma to nurse me. Don’t you know how she

-used, if my head ached, to put her hand on it and

-make it stop?”</p>

-

-<p>A sudden mist of tears came between his eyes

-and the little white face looking up at him. She

-had not spoken before of her mother for so many

-months, and yet how well she remembered! Instantly

-his wife’s words, that last day, came back

-to his memory. She had said, “I know that

-when Maudie needs me most, or you most want

-me, I shall be there beside you.”</p>

-

-<p><em>Was</em> she there now? Could she breathe upon

-the little wasting life some merciful dew of healing?

-or was she, perhaps, by her very love and

-longing, drawing the child home to herself?</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>That night Bessie was to sit up until one

-o’clock, and then to call the nurse. As for Colonel

-Trevethick, he would be in and out, as

-usual.</p>

-

-<p>He went to bed, and fell into sleep and a dream.

-His own Maud was beside him as he saw her first,

-then as his bride, his wife, then with Baby Maudie

-on her breast; just as of old he seemed to have

-her with him again,—his pride, his darling, the

-one woman he had ever loved.</p>

-

-<p>He woke at last. Had his dream, then, lasted

-the night through? Was this red ray that touched

-his face the first hint of the rising sun? He

-sprang up quickly. The whole night had indeed

-passed, and he had not seen Maudie. He hurried

-into a dressing-gown and went to her room. He

-expected to find the nurse there, but, instead,

-Bessie sat beside the table just where he had left

-her the night before, but sound asleep. Evidently

-she must have been asleep for hours, and had not

-called the nurse, who had slept in her turn: they

-were all tired enough, Heaven knows. But, meantime,

-what of Maudie? What harm had come to

-her, alone, unattended?</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>He drew aside the curtain of her little bed and

-looked in. Surely this was not the Maud he had

-left the night before, so pale and worn upon her

-pillows? A face looked up at him bright as the

-new day. A soft, healthy color was in the cheeks,

-and the moist lips were crimson.</p>

-

-<p>“I knew I should be well if <em>she</em> tended me,”

-a voice cried, gayer and gladder than he had heard

-from her lips in two years.</p>

-

-<p>What <em>did</em> the child mean? Had she gone mad?

-He controlled himself, and asked,—</p>

-

-<p>“Who tended you, my child? I found Bessie

-sound asleep.”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes; mamma made her sleep, and you, and

-nurse. She sent all of you the dreams you like

-best; and all night long she sat here beside my

-bed, with her hand on my head, just as she used

-to put it long ago. She was all in white, and her

-hair fell about her shoulders, and her eyes were

-very, very bright, and her lips, when she kissed

-me, seemed somehow to melt away.”</p>

-

-<p>“So you, too, dreamed about mamma, darling?”</p>

-

-<p>“No, indeed, papa, I did not dream. Mamma<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>

-sat there all night long, with her hand upon my

-head. Sometimes I slept, but more often I woke

-up to look at her; and all the time she sat there,

-and did not tire, until the first sunshine came in at

-the windows; and then she kissed me and went

-away. I did not see her go. Perhaps I shut my

-eyes a moment. Then I looked and she was gone,

-and then I heard you coming in. She said she

-was with me every day, but she couldn’t have

-come to me like <em>this</em>, except because I needed her

-so very, very much. And she wanted to make me

-well, because you would grieve for me if I came

-to her; and I was to be very good, and tend you

-and make you comfortable; and I must laugh and

-must make you laugh, for laughter was good, and

-the reason I got ill was because I had been sorry

-so long, and had not laughed at all. And I was <em>not</em>

-to be sorry after <em>her</em> any more, because she was

-very happy, and nothing grieved her except when

-she saw you and me mourning for her, and

-not knowing that she was waiting close beside

-us.”</p>

-

-<p>“<em>Was</em> it her mother? Can it <em>be</em> it was the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>

-child’s mother?” the father cried, uttering his

-thought aloud unconsciously.</p>

-

-<p>“Of course it was mamma; and she has made

-me well. See if Dr. Dale does not tell you I am

-well.”</p>

-

-<p>Two hours afterward Dr. Dale came. He stood

-for a few moments beside the little bed. He

-looked in the child’s glad eyes, he counted the

-throbs of her pulse, he made her put out her

-healthy little tongue. Then he turned to her

-father.</p>

-

-<p>“Trevethick,” he said, “can you swear that this

-is the same little girl I left here last night? If the

-days of miracles were not gone by, I should say

-that one had been wrought here. I left, I thought,

-a very sick little person, about whom I was anxious

-enough, certainly, to make this my first call

-this morning; and I find my small patient so well

-that I shall only keep her in bed a day or two

-longer, for form’s sake.”</p>

-

-<p>“Perhaps it <em>is</em> a miracle,” Colonel Trevethick

-said, smiling. But he did not explain. There are

-some experiences too marvellous for belief and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>

-too sacred for doubt or question, and that was

-one of them.</p>

-

-<p>Two days afterward little Maudie went down to

-tea. She wore a fresh white gown, with lovely

-blue ribbons, and looked as much like a little

-angel in festal attire as a human child can be

-expected to look. But she did not take her usual

-seat. She sat down, instead, behind the tea-pot,

-where Bessie usually stood to pour out the tea.</p>

-

-<p>“Hadn’t Bessie better do that?” papa asked,

-as he saw the little hand close round the handle

-of the tea-pot.</p>

-

-<p>But Maud laughed, and shook her head.</p>

-

-<p>“No, I don’t think Bessie is ’sponsible,” she

-said; “and mamma said I was to live just on purpose

-to do every thing for papa.”</p>

-

-<p>And again Colonel Trevethick asked, but this

-time silently,—</p>

-

-<p>“Was it—<em>could</em> it have been the child’s mother?”</p>

-

-<hr />

-

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>

-<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_LADY_FROM_OVER_THE_WAY">THE LADY FROM OVER THE WAY.</h2>

-<hr />

-</div>

-

-<p>It was the twilight of Christmas evening,—that

-twilight which always seems so early, since

-nobody is ever quite ready for it. The pale gray

-of the winter’s sky was scarcely flushed by the

-low-lying sunset clouds, though sometimes you

-could catch a gleam of their scant brightness as

-you turned westward.</p>

-

-<p>The streets of New York were crowded, as

-usual, but everybody seemed even more than

-usually in a hurry. The air was intensely cold,

-and nipped the noses of those who were late with

-their Christmas shopping; but, in spite of it, men

-and women still jostled each other upon the sidewalk,

-or stopped to look at the tempting displays

-of holiday goods in the shops. Everybody, it

-seemed, had some small person at home who must

-be made happy to-morrow.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>From the window of a large but rusty-looking

-house on one of the avenues, two children looked

-down at the throng below, as they had been looking

-all day. They were in the fourth story of the

-house, and they could not see into the street very

-distinctly, but still the movement and the bustle

-interested them, and their mother was thankful

-that they had it to watch.</p>

-

-<p>She herself was sewing, catching the last glint

-of the sunset light for her work, as she had the

-first ray of the dawning. She had been a beautiful,

-high-bred woman; indeed, she was so still,

-though there was no one to note the unconscious

-elegance of her gestures or the graceful lines of

-her curving figure and bent head. She was very

-thin now, and very poorly clad, but a stranger

-would have felt that she was a lady, and wondered

-how she came in the fourth story of this

-house,—a great house, which had been handsome,

-too, in its day, but which was now let out to innumerable

-lodgers, mostly of the decent sort of

-honest, hard-working, half-starved poor people.

-Not with such neighbors had Mrs. Vanderheyden’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>

-lot been formerly cast, nor for such uses as this

-had the old house itself been designed. It had

-been a stately mansion in its time, belonging to

-the estate of a good old Knickerbocker family,

-which was quite run out now. But there was one

-great comfort in this house: it had been so well

-built that its thick walls shut out all alien noises

-effectually, and made solitude possible even in a

-tenement house. Perhaps Mrs. Vanderheyden had

-thought of this when she chose her abode there.</p>

-

-<p>There was something in the faded grandeur of

-the old mansion that harmonized with the lingering

-grace of her own faded beauty. Its lofty

-walls were wainscoted with carved oak, almost

-black with time; and any imaginative person

-would have been likely to people it with the

-ghosts of the beautiful girls whose room no doubt

-this was in the old days. There, between those

-windows, hung, perhaps, their great, gleaming

-mirror, and into it they looked, all smiles and

-blushes and beauty, when they were ready for

-their first ball. But Mrs. Vanderheyden’s two

-little girls did not think of the other girls who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>

-might have lived there once. They were too

-young for that, and too hungry. Ethel, the elder,

-was only ten; and shy little Annie, beside her,

-scarcely seven. They saw a sight, however, from

-the window at which they stood, that interested

-them more than any vision of the past would

-have done.</p>

-

-<p>The avenue on which they lived was in a transition

-state. Trade had come into it and lodging-houses

-had vulgarized it, and yet there were some

-of the rich old residents who still clung to the

-houses in which their fathers and mothers had

-lived and died. There was one such directly opposite;

-and to look into the parlor over the way,

-and see there all the warmth and brightness and

-beauty of which they themselves were deprived,

-had been one of the chief enjoyments of the

-little Vanderheydens ever since they had been in

-the house. They were all that Mrs. Vanderheyden

-had left, these two girls. Wealth was

-gone, friends were gone, father and father’s home,

-husband and husband’s home—hope itself was

-gone; but she was not quite alone while she had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>

-these two for whom to struggle—to live or to die,

-as Heaven would. It was for their sakes that she

-had worked from dawning till nightfall, though

-she had felt all the time what seemed to her a

-mortal sickness stealing over her. Their breakfast

-and dinner had been only bread, of which she

-herself had scarcely tasted; but to-morrow would

-be Christmas, and it should go hard with her but

-she would give them better fare then. A dozen

-times during the day one or the other little voice

-had asked anxiously,—</p>

-

-<p>“Shall we surely, surely, have dinner to-morrow,

-because it is Christmas Day?”</p>

-

-<p>And she had answered,—</p>

-

-<p>“Please Heaven, you surely shall. My work is

-almost done;” and then she had stitched away

-more resolutely than ever on the child’s frock

-she was elaborately embroidering. The children

-meanwhile were feeding upon hope, and watching

-a scene in the house over the way, where, as they

-thought, all that any human creature could possibly

-hope for had already been given. Busy

-preparations had been made in that other house<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>

-for Christmas. There was a great Christmas-tree

-in one corner, all full of little tapers, and a large,

-fair, gentle-looking woman had been engaged

-much of the afternoon in arranging gifts upon

-it. Now, with the twilight, a boy and girl had

-come in and were watching the lighting up of the

-Christmas-tree.</p>

-

-<p>“It’s so good of them not to pull the curtains

-down,” Ethel said, with a sigh of delight. “It’s

-almost as good as being there—almost.”</p>

-

-<p>“I do suppose that’s the very grandest house in

-all New York,” little Annie said, in a tone of awe

-and admiration.</p>

-

-<p>“Nonsense! You only think that because you

-are so little,” answered Ethel, from the height of her

-three years more of experience. “<em>You</em> forget, but

-<em>I</em> can remember. We had a finer house ourselves,

-before poor papa died. There are plenty of them,

-only we’re so poor we don’t see them.”</p>

-

-<p>“Oh, it’s good to be that little girl!” cried

-Annie. “See how pretty her dress is, and how

-her hair curls; and she’ll have lots of presents

-off that Christmas-tree.”</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“So should we, if we had papa,” Ethel answered

-gravely. “Mamma, when we get up to

-heaven, do you think papa will know we’re his

-little girls?”</p>

-

-<p>“I’m sure he will,” Mrs. Vanderheyden answered;

-and then she rose wearily. “It’s all

-done,” she said, as she shook out the lovely little

-robe into which she had wrought so many patient

-stitches. “I cannot carry it home just yet, I am

-so tired; I must lie down first; but you shall

-have a good dinner to-morrow, my darlings.”</p>

-

-<p>The children had seen her very tired before,

-and they didn’t think much about it when she

-groped her way to a bed in the corner and lay

-down, drawing the scant bed-clothes up over her.

-They stood at the window still, and watched the

-merry children opposite, until at last a servant

-came and pulled down the curtains and shut away

-from them the Christmas-tree, with all its gleaming

-lights, and the boy and girl, who were dancing round

-it to some gay tune which their mother played.</p>

-

-<p>Then Ethel and Annie began to realize that

-they were cold and hungry and the room was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>

-dark. Ethel lit a candle. The fire was nearly out,

-but she would not make another till morning.</p>

-

-<p>“I won’t wake up mamma,” she said, with the

-premature thoughtfulness that characterized her;

-“she’s so tired. We’ll just have supper, and

-then I’ll hear you say ‘Our Father,’ and we’ll

-get to bed, and in the morning it will be Christmas.”</p>

-

-<p>Some vague promise of good was in the very

-word: Ethel did not know what would come, but

-surely Christmas would not be like other days.

-“Supper” was the rest of the bread. And then

-the two little creatures knelt down together and

-said their well-known prayers, and I think “Our

-Father” heard, for their sleep was just as sweet

-as if they had been in the warm, soft nest of the

-children over the way, tucked in with eider down.

-Through the long evening hours they slept,—through

-the solemn midnight, when the clear,

-cold Christmas stars looked down, just as they

-had looked centuries ago when the King of Glory,

-Himself a little child, lay asleep in an humble

-manger in Judea. Nothing troubled their quiet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>

-slumber until the sunshine of the Christmas morning

-broke through their dingy windows, and the

-day had begun.</p>

-

-<p>“It must be ever so late,” said Ethel, rubbing

-her sleepy eyes, “and mamma isn’t awake yet.

-But she was so tired. You lie still, Annie, and

-I’ll build the fire, and when she wakes up she’ll

-find it all done.”</p>

-

-<p>Very patiently the poor little half-frozen fingers

-struggled with the scant kindlings and the coal

-that seemed determined never to light; but they

-succeeded at last, and the room began to grow a little

-warm. Then she dressed Annie, and then it began

-to seem very late indeed, and she wondered if

-mamma would never wake up. She went to the

-bedside and, bending over, kissed her mother gently,

-then started back with a sudden alarm.</p>

-

-<p>“Why, Annie, she’s so cold—almost like poor

-papa—only you can’t remember—just before they

-took him away.”</p>

-

-<p>“No, she can’t be like papa,” Annie said stoutly,

-“for he was dead, and mamma is asleep.”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes, she’s asleep,” said the elder sister firm<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>ly.

-“We must wait till she wakes up. We’ll

-look over the way, and then, maybe, it won’t seem

-so long.”</p>

-

-<p>But over the way was brighter than ever this

-Christmas morning. The curtains had been looped

-back once more, the table glittered with lovely

-gifts, and presently the little girl who lived there

-came to the windows. She looked up at them—they

-were sure of it; but they could not have

-guessed what she said, as she turned away, and

-spoke to her mother.</p>

-

-<p>“O mamma,” cried the sweet young voice,

-“won’t you come and see these two poor little

-girls? They stood there all day yesterday and

-last night; and now see how sad they look. I can’t

-eat my Christmas candies or play with my Christmas

-things while they look so pale and lonesome.

-Won’t you go over and see them, mamma dear?”</p>

-

-<p>Mrs. Rosenburgh was a woman of warm and earnest

-sympathies when once they were aroused.

-When she was a girl she too had had quick impulses

-like her child’s; but she had grown selfish,

-perhaps, as she grew older, or maybe only careless;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>

-for the quick sympathies were there still, as you

-could see, now that her little girl had touched them.</p>

-

-<p>“To be sure I will,” she answered at once.

-“Poor little things! I wish we could make merry

-Christmas for all New York; but since we can’t,

-at least we won’t have faces white with want looking

-in at our very windows.”</p>

-

-<p>So the watching, wondering children saw the

-large, fair lady wrap herself in a heavy shawl and

-tie a hood over her head, and then come out and

-cross the street and enter their house.</p>

-

-<p>“What if she saw us, and what if she is coming

-here!” Ethel said breathlessly.</p>

-

-<p>Then they listened as if their hearts were in

-their ears. They heard feet upon the stairs and

-then a gentle tap, and the lady from over the way

-stood in their room.</p>

-

-<p>“I saw you at the window,” she said, “and came

-over to wish you a merry Christmas. How is

-this? Are you all alone?”</p>

-

-<p>“No, ma’am, mamma is in the bed there; but she

-was very tired yesterday, and she hasn’t waked

-up.”</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>An awful terror seized Mrs. Rosenburgh. Had

-this woman died of want and weariness, in sight of

-her own windows? She stepped to the bedside,

-and drew away the clothes gently from the face of

-the sleeper. She looked a moment on that fair,

-faded face, and then she grew white as death.</p>

-

-<p>“Children,” she asked, “what are your names?”</p>

-

-<p>“I am Ethel Vanderheyden,” the oldest girl answered,

-“and she is Annie.”</p>

-

-<p>“And your mother—was she Ethel Carlisle

-once?”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes, ma’am, before she married papa.”</p>

-

-<p>“And your little sister is Annie?”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes; she was named for mamma’s best friend,

-one she hadn’t seen for a long, long time.”</p>

-

-<p>Meanwhile Mrs. Rosenburgh had knelt by the

-bedside. She had lifted the low-lying head upon

-her arm, and drawn a bottle of pungent salts from

-her pocket, and she was crying as if her heart

-would break, while the children looked wondering

-on.</p>

-

-<p>“O Ethel, my own old Ethel, <em>wake</em> up!” And

-then she dropped her cheek, all wet with tears,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>

-against the white, cold cheek, that was so

-still.</p>

-

-<p>Oh, was it the warm tears, or the voice that

-sounded from far away out of the past, or only the

-strong odor that roused the poor soul from that

-long, heavy sleep of exhaustion that had so nearly

-been the sleep of death? I do not know, but I

-know the eyes did open, and beheld the tender

-face bending above them. And then, like a little

-child, the children heard their mother cry,—</p>

-

-<p>“O Annie, Annie, have I been dreaming all

-this time?”</p>

-

-<p>And then there were explanations, and the story

-of the long years since Annie Bryant and Ethel

-Carlisle were girls together was told. But the

-best of it all, the children thought, was when the

-lady from over the way took them home with her,

-and told them the boy and girl there should be

-their brother and sister, and they should live there

-henceforth; for she, who had found again her best

-friend, would never more let her struggle with

-want alone.</p>

-

-<p>And so the children had gifts and dinner, and a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>

-merry, merry Christmas in the bright, warm, crimson-hung

-room, which had seemed to them such a

-paradise of delights when they looked down into it

-from their fourth-story window through the falling

-shadows of Christmas Eve.</p>

-

-<hr />

-

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>

-<h2 class="nobreak" id="HIS_MOTHERS_BOY">HIS MOTHER’S BOY.</h2>

-<hr />

-</div>

-

-<p>The days were growing very dark for George

-Graham. He had not known at first what

-it meant that black specks should so dance between

-him and the page he tried to read, that

-his eyes should ache so much, that all things

-should seem so strangely dim about him. It

-would have been better, no doubt, had he stopped

-work as soon as he felt these symptoms; but how

-could he? This was his last term at school, and

-if he passed his examination creditably, especially

-if he thoroughly mastered the bookkeeping he was

-trying so hard to conquer, he was to have a place

-in Deacon Solomon Grant’s store, with wages that

-would not only take care of himself, but greatly

-help his mother.</p>

-

-<p>His mother was a widow, and George’s love for

-her was a sort of passion of devotion. When he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>

-could scarcely talk, the first two words he put

-together were, “Pretty mamma,” and ever since

-then she had been the first and fairest of created

-beings to him. He was very fond of Susie Hale,

-but Susie was only a nice girl,—a dear, sweet,

-good girl, such as any fellow would like; but his

-mother was the elect lady to whom were due his

-love, his care, his uttermost duty.</p>

-

-<p>Mrs. Graham was the kind of woman for a son

-to be romantic about. She was only seventeen

-when George was born; and now, when he was

-sixteen and she was thirty-three, she was, so he

-thought, more beautiful than ever. She had been

-a pretty, rather helpless little creature all her

-life,—one of those women toward whom every

-man feels the instinct of protection. George’s

-father had felt it always, and had never allowed

-care to come near his dainty darling. His one

-great agony, as he lay dying, was that he must

-leave her almost unprovided for. That was when

-George was thirteen, and the boy would never forget

-how his father had called him to his bedside,

-and charged him to take care of his mother.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“You are old enough to be her staff, even

-now,” the dying man had said, clinging to his boy’s

-hand. “You can be good to her in a thousand

-ways, save her a thousand cares, and in a few

-years more you can work for her, and keep her

-comfortably, as I have done.”</p>

-

-<p>George never forgot this trust for one moment.

-The plans he made in life were all for his mother’s

-sake—his future was to be spent in her service.

-He wanted to come out of school at the time of

-his father’s death, and try by all manner of little

-industries to help take care of the household, but

-his mother was too wise to permit this. She developed

-a strength of mind and of body for which

-no one who saw her pink-and-white prettiness,—the

-prettiness of a girl still, despite all her years

-of married life,—would have given her credit.</p>

-

-<p>She saw clearly that if her boy’s education

-stopped at thirteen, he would be held in check

-all his life by his own ignorance—he must be

-drudge always, and never master. So she made

-him go to school three years longer.</p>

-

-<p>How she lived and kept up her refined little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>

-home puzzled all lookers-on, and indeed she

-hardly knew herself. She lived simply; she was

-busy from morning till night. She sewed for one

-neighbor, she helped another through some season

-of sickness, she taught a naughty child who had

-worn out its welcome at school, but who could not

-wear out Mrs. Graham’s sweet patience,—and all

-these things helped. It is true, it was very often

-hard work to compass the simple necessaries of

-life, but she struggled on bravely.</p>

-

-<p>When George was sixteen he should come out

-of school, well trained, she hoped, for a business

-man, and then things would be so much easier.

-With this hope in view, she never repined. She

-kept her strength of soul and her sweetness of

-temper, her fresh beauty and her fresh heart.

-She kept, too, her boy’s adoration,—an adoration

-which was, as I said, the romance of his life.</p>

-

-<p>When the days began to grow so dark for

-George Graham, it was of his mother that he

-thought. So far he had no ambitions, no hopes,

-that were not centred in her. What if this growing

-shadow about him was to increase until all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>

-was dark, until dense night shut him in,—a night

-through whose blackness no star of hope could

-shine? What if he must be no help to his

-mother, but only a burden on her for ever, a burden

-lasting through heaven only knew how many

-helpless years?</p>

-

-<p>He rebelled against such a fate madly. He

-stretched out his hands toward heaven, he lifted

-the dumb prayer of his darkening eyes, but no

-help came.</p>

-

-<p>Dimmer and dimmer grew the world about

-him, more and more desperate the gloom of his

-hopeless heart. His scholarship had been so fine

-that his teacher hesitated to reprove his now continual

-failures; and George said nothing of the

-increasing darkness around him,—nothing to his

-mother, for he felt that it would break her

-heart; nothing to teacher or school-mates, for

-it seemed to him his grief would be nothing to

-them. But one afternoon the crisis came.</p>

-

-<p>His recitation had been an utter failure, and, at

-last, his teacher spoke in severe terms of the

-neglect which had become habitual. No one who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>

-was present that day—not even the smallest

-child—will ever forget the look of despair that

-swept over George Graham’s face, or the gesture

-of helpless anguish with which he stretched out

-his hands, as if to seek among them all some

-friend, as he cried,—</p>

-

-<p>“God help me, sir! I have been going blind;

-and now I cannot see one figure in my book—I

-can hardly see your face.”</p>

-

-<p>There was a silence after this, through which

-came no sound but the audible beating of George

-Graham’s tortured heart. Then the master sent

-away the others, for school hours were nearly

-over, and tried his best to comfort his stricken

-pupil. It might not be so bad as he feared, an

-oculist might help him, perhaps it was only

-temporary.</p>

-

-<p>To all these well-meant consolations George

-listened in a sort of dreary silence. The words of

-the teacher entered his ears, but they did not

-reach his heart or kindle his hope.</p>

-

-<p>As soon as he could, he went away. He did

-not go straight home. How could he face his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>

-mother and tell her what he <em>must</em> tell her now,—what

-she would be sure to hear from others, if not

-from him? He kept thinking how she would take

-it. Would not all the light go out of her face?

-Maybe she would faint away, as he remembered

-she had done when his father died.</p>

-

-<p>He sat down on a bank, a little removed from

-the road-side, a bank which overhung a swift and

-deep, yet narrow stream.</p>

-

-<p>An awful temptation came over him,—such a

-temptation as, thank Heaven! comes to few boys of

-sixteen, with the young, glad life running riot in

-their veins. He thought, what if he should die,

-then and there? It seemed to him the one desirable

-thing. To be sure, to die would be to leave

-his mother to fight her battle of life alone; but

-also it would relieve her from the heavy burden

-he must needs be to her if he lived. The river

-rushing down there below invited him with its

-murmur. Should he seek refuge there, and let his

-mother hear that he was dead, before she heard

-that he was blind? He bent forward over the

-stream. Then he drew back, for a longing came<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>

-over him to go home first, and see his mother just

-once more; and then an exceeding bitter cry

-burst from his lips,—</p>

-

-<p>“<em>See</em> her! What am I talking about? Do I

-not know I shall <em>never</em> see her again?”</p>

-

-<p>And a girl’s voice, soft and cooing and tender,—an

-utterly unexpected voice,—answered

-him,—</p>

-

-<p>“Yes, you <em>will</em> see her again. Surely you will

-see her again.”</p>

-

-<p>The boy turned his face toward the sound.</p>

-

-<p>“How did you come here, Susie Hale?” he

-asked.</p>

-

-<p>“Don’t be angry, George,” the gentle voice

-entreated. “I waited for you. I could not go

-home till I had told you how sorry I was, and

-tried to comfort you.”</p>

-

-<p>“Comfort me!” There was a sort of scornful

-bitterness in the cry. “How <em>can</em> I be comforted?

-Do you think what it will be never to see the

-green earth or the blue sky, or any dear face any

-more, for ever and ever?”</p>

-

-<p>“But you will see them,” she said gently.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>

-“I did not mean that you must be reconciled to

-give up hope. I mean that you must take heart,

-and try to be cured. I have known people who

-could not see at all to be helped, and why not

-you? At least, you must try.”</p>

-

-<p>An evil mood was upon George Graham, and he

-answered harshly,—</p>

-

-<p>“Where is the money to come from, if you

-please? It has been all mother could do just to

-live and she has struggled on, in the expectation of

-my being able soon to help her. She has no money

-for experiments. There is nothing for it but for

-me to rest a dead weight upon her hands, or—die.”</p>

-

-<p>He said the last word with a sort of gasp. Susie

-Hale shivered. She drew closer to him. She

-looked into his poor, tortured face, with her dark

-and tender eyes, and said very quietly,—</p>

-

-<p>“You believe in God, George Graham, and you

-will not defy Him. If He means you to bear this

-you will bear it like a man, and not try to get rid

-of the burden. But I do not believe He does

-mean you to bear it; and I will not believe it till

-every means has been tried for your cure. Just<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>

-now, it seems to me, you ought to go home.

-Would you like your mother to hear this first

-from some one else?”</p>

-

-<p>He rose slowly.</p>

-

-<p>“You are right,” he said, “and you are a good

-girl. Good-by, Susie.”</p>

-

-<p>She did not try to go with him; she followed

-him only with her eyes. She was contented if she

-could but send him home in safety to his mother.</p>

-

-<p>His mother met him at the gate. When she

-took his hand in hers the poor fellow felt that she

-knew all. She was very quiet and self-controlled.</p>

-

-<p>“Your teacher has been here,” she said, “and

-he has told me. My darling, why have you sat in

-the darkness, and shut your mother out from any

-share in your trouble?”</p>

-

-<p>“Oh, I couldn’t tell you, mother!” he sobbed,

-with his head upon her breast, at last,—“I

-couldn’t, I thought it would break your heart.”</p>

-

-<p>“Ah! that was because you did not know. If

-you should die and leave me alone in the world,

-<em>that</em>, indeed, would break my heart; but while I

-have you beside me, nothing can make me alto<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>gether

-miserable, and nothing must make you so.

-There is help somewhere, and we will find it, please

-God; or, if not, we will bear what others have

-borne, and find a way to lighten the darkness.”</p>

-

-<p>Meantime, Susie Hale had gone home full of an

-absorbing purpose. Somehow money must and

-should be raised to try what a skilful oculist

-could do for George Graham.</p>

-

-<p>Susie was the orphan niece of Deacon Solomon

-Grant, in whose store a place was awaiting George.

-She knew that she had a modest little fortune of

-her own, but it was all in her uncle’s hands, and

-without his consent she could not dispose even of

-her slender income. But would he not be persuaded

-to let her have enough of her own money

-to accomplish her desire? She asked him, using her

-utmost power of persuasion to touch his heart,

-but he refused with peremptory decision. He

-wouldn’t mind contributing moderately to a fund

-for young Graham’s help—he would not even

-mind letting her have five or ten dollars of her

-own for that purpose—but beyond that the duty

-of one neighbor did not go. And Deacon Solomon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>

-shut his lips together as tightly as he buttoned up

-his pocket.</p>

-

-<p>Susie had in the world one treasure,—a diamond

-ring which had been her mother’s, with a

-stone white and clear as a dew-drop. This must,

-she knew, be worth three or four hundred dollars.

-It was her very own. She had meant to keep it all

-her life for her mother’s sake, but surely this great

-need of George Graham’s justified her in parting

-with it.</p>

-

-<p>She had one friend in Boston,—an old teacher,—in

-whose good faith and judicious management

-she felt implicit confidence, and to him she sent her

-mother’s ring, with a request that he would sell

-it as speedily and on as good terms as possible,

-and remit her the price of it in bank-notes, not in

-a check, and keep for ever the secret that she had

-disposed of it.</p>

-

-<p>It was a week after George Graham had given

-up hope, when a most unexpected hope came to

-him. A neighbor, going by from the post-office,

-handed in at the door a letter addressed to him.

-Mrs. Graham opened it, for George’s vision had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>

-failed with every day, and his eyes were utterly

-useless now.</p>

-

-<p>“George,” she cried, after a moment, in an eager,

-trembling voice, “here are three one-hundred dollar

-bills, and this is the letter that comes with

-them:—</p>

-

-<p>“‘This money is from a true friend of George

-Graham’s, and is to be applied to taking him to

-an oculist, in the hope that his sight may be

-restored. The giver withholds his name, both

-because he desires no thanks, and because he

-wishes to make the return of the money impossible.’</p>

-

-<p>“It is from Heaven, itself!” the mother cried.

-“George, we will start for Boston to-morrow. I

-feel in my soul that you are to be cured.”</p>

-

-<p>The next day a mother and her blind son sought

-rooms at a quiet boarding-house, of which they

-had found the number in the advertisement column

-of a city paper, and the day after that

-they were among the earliest patients of Doctor

-Annesley. The first examination of George’s eyes

-was unpromising enough. They would be worse

-before they were better; an operation might or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>

-might not restore sight to them, but the time for

-it had not yet come. Meanwhile the doctor

-wanted to see him daily.</p>

-

-<p>Those were weary days and weeks that followed,

-both before the operation and afterward,

-when the poor eyes were carefully bandaged from

-the light, and mother and son sat day after day in

-the dark together, wondering, wondering, wondering

-what the result would be. It was curious

-that the mother was always hopeful, and the son

-always despairing. At last it almost irritated him

-to hear her speak of hope to him; and one day he

-turned on her with the first burst of passionate impatience

-she had ever experienced from him.</p>

-

-<p>“Mother,” he said, “for the love of Heaven do

-not talk to me as if it was a sure thing that I am

-going to see again. I <em>want</em> to think it doubtful,

-almost impossible. If you should make me expect

-a sure cure, and then it shouldn’t come,

-don’t you see that I should go mad? I think I

-should dash my head against the wall. I can only

-<em>live</em> by expecting nothing.”</p>

-

-<p>After that the mother held her peace; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>

-whenever she went out of that darkened room

-those who saw her marvelled at the light of joy in

-her eyes, the bloom of hope upon her cheeks. At

-last the time came—the bandage was removed.

-There was just one wild cry, “Mother, I see you!”

-and then George Graham lay at the doctor’s feet,

-swooning and helpless in his great joy.</p>

-

-<p>It was weeks yet before he went home again,

-but the good news preceded him. The mother

-wrote it to Deacon Grant, who had agreed still to

-keep the place in his store open, while awaiting

-the result of this experiment.</p>

-

-<p>The deacon read the letter in full family conclave,

-with the slow deliberation of a man unused

-to correspondence. He little knew how his niece

-longed to snatch the paper from his hand and read

-it for herself; nor did he heed the tears that swam

-in her dark eyes.</p>

-

-<p>Deliberately he smoothed out the letter, and

-folded it. Deliberately he took off his spectacles,

-and wiped them, and put them on again. Then

-he said, with the half pompous, half solemn manner

-which became his position,—</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“Well, well, I’m ready always to rejoice with

-those that rejoice; and I’m sure I’m thankful

-that the Widow Graham hasn’t got to struggle

-with so much trouble as it looked as if Providence

-was laying on her; but wherever she got that

-money the Lord knows.”</p>

-

-<p>Another letter came, afterward, to tell when the

-widow and her son were to return, and to ask

-Deacon Grant, in whose keeping the key of their

-house had been left, to put it in their door on that

-day as he was passing by to the store.</p>

-

-<p>It was Susie who walked over with the key,

-early in the afternoon, carrying with her a basket

-of dainties for the travellers’ supper, from Mrs.

-Grant, a woman who knew how to be a good

-neighbor, and to make life pleasant with cheap

-kindnesses. Susie’s black eyes danced, and her

-heart sang within her as she set the table in the

-little parlor and lighted a fire in the kitchen stove,

-ready to make a fresh cup of tea whenever the

-widow and her son should arrive. Then she

-dusted every thing; and then she gathered some

-of the flowers of September,—for already the sum<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>mer

-was over,—and put them in the vases on the

-mantel, and on the widow’s little round sewing-table.</p>

-

-<p>And at last the travellers came, as at last every

-thing does come, if we wait long enough for it.

-They had expected to find an empty house; they

-found instead, warmth and brightness and good

-cheer and Susie Hale.</p>

-

-<hr />

-

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>

-<h2 class="nobreak" id="DR_JOES_VALENTINE">DR. JOE’S VALENTINE.</h2>

-<hr />

-</div>

-

-<p>There were half-a-dozen of the girls together,—pretty

-creatures, in the very first season

-of their long dresses,—the eldest not quite sixteen.

-They were all braids and puffs and fluffy

-curls, all loops and ruffles and ribbons, all

-smiles and dimples. It was the Saturday before

-Valentine’s Day, in a certain year of grace, of

-which I will not give you the precise date, but

-less than ten years ago, and more than five. Of

-the half-dozen girls, two are busy teachers now,

-two are married, one is playing mother to her

-brother’s little brood of orphan children, and the

-sixth, not less happy than the rest, has gone on to

-“the next country,” where they tell us she will

-never grow old, never be sick or sorry any more,—happy

-Bertha, whom, surely, God loved.</p>

-

-<p>But, that day in February, none of them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>

-thought much about the future: the present was

-enough, with its fun and frolic, its wealth of all

-the pleasures which girlhood holds dear. The six

-were passing the long day together. Two of them

-were sisters and belonged in one house, and the

-rest had come there to be with them; for they

-were all going to make valentines. They had

-made funny ones and foolish ones, tender ones,

-with just a little dash of satire in them, poetic

-ones and prosy ones; and at last it was dinner-time,

-a feast of all the things that school-girls

-love, and these were hungry girls. At least they

-were all hungry girls but Nelly Hunt, and she

-scarcely ate any dinner at all, she was so busy

-thinking. She was Bertha’s sister, and this was her

-home and Bertha’s, and it was to the girls’ own

-room that the little party went back again, after

-they had eaten and praised Mrs. Hunt’s dinner.</p>

-

-<p>“What are you thinking about, Nell?” Bertha

-asked, sitting on the arm of Nelly’s chair.</p>

-

-<p>“These valentines,” Nelly answered slowly.</p>

-

-<p>“Well, surely they need not make you sober,—they

-are absurd enough.”</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“Yes, and it’s just because they are so absurd

-that they make me sober. I was wondering why

-we couldn’t just as well have said something to

-help somebody—to make somebody think—to do

-some good.”</p>

-

-<p>“Nelly’s heroics!” cried Kate Greene flippantly.

-“Miss Hunt as a moral reformer!”</p>

-

-<p>Nelly blushed from her pretty ears to the roots

-of her sunny hair; but her eyes shone clear, and

-there was a ring of earnestness in her voice as she

-answered,—</p>

-

-<p>“You can laugh if you will, but I mean what I

-say, and I’m going to try an experiment. I will

-write one boy a valentine, such as I think a girl

-ought to write, and I’ll send it.”</p>

-

-<p>“So you shall,” Bertha said gently,—Bertha

-always was peacemaker,—“and we’ll all go away

-and see mamma and the baby while you write it.

-When it’s done you must call us.”</p>

-

-<p>“Yes, and you must show it to us,” cried Kate

-Greene, as she went away; “that’s only fair. We

-promised this morning to show each other all we

-sent, and we sha’n’t let you off.”</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>And then the five fluttered away like a flock of

-birds, and Nelly was quite alone.</p>

-

-<p>Her task was harder than she had imagined. It

-is only the old, perhaps, who are sage in counsel

-by nature. At any rate, to give good advice did

-not come naturally to pretty Nelly. But she had

-an idea of what she wanted to say, and at last she

-got it said. She had written and rewritten it, and

-finally concluded that she could do no better, and

-then copied it out into her neatest handwriting

-before she called the others. It was a little stiff,

-to be sure, and preachy and high-flown, but it

-sounded like a lofty effort and a complete success

-to the listening girls. This was what it

-said:—</p>

-

-<p>“<span class="smcap">My Valentine</span>,—You will have plenty of

-fine speeches and praises, and, perhaps, of fun and

-fancy from others, so I shall not give you those,—I

-who have but one interest in you, namely, that

-you should be the best boy and the best man

-which it is possible for you to become. If you are

-selfish, if you are indolent, if you are mean, you

-will never be happy in your own society, until you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>

-have sunk so low that you don’t know the difference

-between goodness and badness. But if you

-set out to be a gentleman and a man of honor

-and a faithful worker, you will do good deeds and

-live a happy life, and be worthy the everlasting

-esteem of</p>

-

-<p>

-<span class="smcap">Your Valentine</span>.”<br />

-</p>

-

-<div class="figcenter">

-<img src="images/i_220.jpg" width="600" alt="" />

-<div class="caption">Nelly Reading her Valentine.—<span class="smcap">Page <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.</span></div>

-</div>

-

-<p>Nelly read it with rising color and a little quiver

-about her mouth, which Bertha understood; but

-she read it with firm voice and careful, deliberate

-accent.</p>

-

-<p>“Then,” she said, when she had finished, “I

-shall burn up all the rest of my valentines, and

-send only this one; for it is what I mean, in earnest,

-and, as old Aunty Smoke says, ‘Ef it don’t do

-no good, it can’t do no harm.’”</p>

-

-<p>“To whom shall you send it, dear?” Bertha

-asked gently, a little subdued by Nelly’s epistolary

-success.</p>

-

-<p>“I hadn’t made up my mind,” Nelly answered

-thoughtfully; “they all need it.”</p>

-

-<p>“O, send it to Joe, my cousin Joe,” cried Kitty

-Greene. “He is staying with us, and <em>he</em> needs it—bad

-enough. If ever a boy was full of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>

-pranks, Joe is, and if ever a boy tormented a girl’s

-life out, Joe does mine.”</p>

-

-<p>A color clear and bright as flame glowed on

-Nelly Hunt’s cheeks. Had she had dark-eyed Joe

-in her mind all the while? She only answered

-very quietly,—</p>

-

-<p>“I don’t mind. I had just as lief send it to Joe.

-That is, I’ll send it to him if you’ll promise, on

-your sacred honor, never in any way to let him

-know who wrote it.”</p>

-

-<p>“Oh, I will—true as I live and breathe I’ll

-never tell him, and never let him guess, if I can

-help it.”</p>

-

-<p>“And all you girls?” Nelly asked, with the

-pretty pink glow deepening in her cheeks. “Will

-you all promise?”</p>

-

-<p>And they all promised; for there was a sort of

-honest earnestness in Nelly’s nature to which they

-found it natural to yield.</p>

-

-<p>So the valentine was directed in Nelly’s most

-neat and proper manner to “Mr. Joe Greene,”

-and was dropped into the post-office with the rest

-of the valentines the girls had written that day.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>On the fifteenth the six girls were all together

-at school, comparing notes and exchanging confidences.

-But Kitty Greene drew Nelly aside, and

-said, while they walked up and down the hall together,

-their arms around each other as girls will,—</p>

-

-<p>“I saw Joe get it, Nelly.”</p>

-

-<p>Nelly’s pretty cheeks glowed and her eyes shone

-like stars, but she asked no questions. Indeed,

-they were scarcely necessary, for Kitty was eager

-enough to tell her story.</p>

-

-<p>“He got it, don’t you think, along with half-a-dozen

-others, and he read them all before he came

-to this one. I knew this, you know, by the shape

-of the envelope. When he came to it I saw him

-read it all through, and then I saw him go back

-and read it again. I heard him say to himself,—</p>

-

-<p>“‘That’s an honest letter from some little saint.’</p>

-

-<p>“Then he came up to me and held it toward

-me, while I pretended to be very busy with my

-valentines. Then he asked,—</p>

-

-<p>“‘Do you know that handwriting, Kit?’</p>

-

-<p>“I felt like an awful little liar, but I had promised

-you. I stretched out my hand for it, and said

-carelessly,—</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>“‘Why, ain’t it Sue’s?’</p>

-

-<p>“Sue is his sister, you know. So he thought I

-did not know who it came from, and he changed

-his mind, and put it into his pocket, and went off.

-When I teased him afterward to let me see it, he

-said,—</p>

-

-<p>“‘No; there are some things a fellow would be

-a cad to show.’</p>

-

-<p>“So I saw it hit home, and well it might. It

-was a tremendous letter, Nelly.”</p>

-

-<p>And Kitty ended with a hug and a kiss, and a

-look of that loyal admiration which a girl can give

-another girl now and then.</p>

-

-<p>When the spring came Joe Greene went away

-from Chester, and did not come back there any

-more. No doubt Nelly Hunt would have forgotten

-his very existence but for the valentine, which

-she could not forget. She used to blush, as she

-grew older, to think how “bumptious” it was, as

-she used to call it to herself. What was <em>she</em>, that

-she should have undertaken to preach a sermon to

-that boy? What if he remembered it only to

-think how presuming it was, and to laugh at it?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>

-But, luckily, he did not know from whom it came;

-and with that thought she cooled her blushes.</p>

-

-<p>Nelly was twenty when Joe Greene came back

-to Chester again. And now he came as a physician,

-just through his studies, and anxious to build

-up a practice. Soon his fame grew. His patients

-were among the poor at first, and he cured them;

-and then richer people heard of it, and sent for

-him. But, while he took all the patients that

-came, he never gave up his practice among those

-who most needed him. His praise was in all their

-mouths. There had never been any doctor like

-this one.</p>

-

-<p>Nelly was Miss Hunt now, for Bertha had gone

-away from her into the other, unknown country,

-and Nelly’s grief had made her gentle heart yet

-more gentle, and her helpful spirit yet more

-helpful.</p>

-

-<p>Toward night, one summer day, she had gone to

-see an old woman who had been her nurse once,

-and had found her very ill,—quite too ill to be

-left alone, and certainly in need of a physician.

-So Nelly tore a leaf from her memorandum-book<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>

-and wrote on it a few lines, begging Dr. Greene

-to come at once, and then called to the first

-passer-by and entreated him to take it to the

-doctor.</p>

-

-<p>It was scarcely half an hour before Dr. Greene

-came in, quietly and gravely. He attended to his

-patient with that careful consideration which made

-all those poor souls whom he visited adore him.

-Then he turned to Nelly.</p>

-

-<p>“Who will stay with her to-night?” he asked;

-“for, indeed, she hardly ought to be left alone.”</p>

-

-<p>“I shall stay,” was the quiet answer.</p>

-

-<p>“Then come to the door with me, please, and

-let me give you your directions.”</p>

-

-<p>Nelly followed, and stood there, in the soft summer

-dusk,—a pretty picture, with the wild-rose

-flush dawning in her cheeks, and a new light kindling

-her eyes. She listened carefully to all his

-injunctions, and then turned as if to go. But he

-put out a hand to detain her.</p>

-

-<p>“How very much I owe to you!” he said.</p>

-

-<p>“<em>You</em>, how?” And a deep, deep crimson dyed

-Nelly’s face and throat. In that moment she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>

-thought of her “bumptious” valentine, which had

-not crossed her mind before for a long time.</p>

-

-<p>He looked at her with a smile in his eyes, but

-with a face that preserved all its respectful gravity.

-He took a red leather case out of his pocket,

-and from the case he took the very old valentine

-which Nelly remembered so well. Then he produced

-the brief note she had written that afternoon;

-and still there was light enough left in the

-day to see them by, as he held them side by side.</p>

-

-<p>“Your hand has matured somewhat since this

-valentine was written,” he remarked quietly;

-“but some of these letters I should know anywhere.

-No one could deceive me.”</p>

-

-<p>“I did not suppose you had kept that foolish

-thing,” Nelly said, with a pitiful little quiver in

-her voice, as if she were just on the point of bursting

-into tears. “I am so ashamed!”</p>

-

-<p>Dr. Joe looked at her a moment, as she stood

-there in the waning light,—a lovely, graceful girl

-from whom any man might be proud to win even

-a passing interest. So this was the woman, the

-thought of whom he had carried in his heart for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>

-years! If he had ever done any good thing, he

-was paid for it in the satisfaction of that hour.</p>

-

-<p>“Are you sorry,” he asked slowly, “that you

-have helped one man to be his best self? Those

-words of yours were to me like the voice of my inmost

-soul. Since then this paper has never left

-me, nor have I ever ceased to strive to be worthy

-of the esteem of my unknown ‘valentine.’ If ever

-I have been generous instead of selfish, brave instead

-of cowardly, strong instead of weak, it has

-been because I have remembered the words written

-here, and meant to live in their spirit. Are

-you sorry for that? or do you grudge me the dear

-pleasure of thanking you?”</p>

-

-<p>“No, I’m not sorry, nor do I grudge you any

-thing; but it was a girl’s freak, and I am not

-worthy of so much praise and honor.”</p>

-

-<p>“It was a good girl’s good intention,” he said

-almost solemnly. “Let us be thankful that it succeeded.”</p>

-

-<p>Nelly went back to the bedside of the old woman

-with a fluttering heart. How strange it seemed to

-think this sick woman was old enough to have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>

-outlived all anxieties except those about her pains

-and her supper! Had not she been young once?

-and had no one ever looked at her as Dr. Joe

-looked?</p>

-

-<p>The next morning he came again. His medicine,

-a night’s sleep, Nelly’s care,—something

-seemed to have given the poor old patient a fresh

-lease of life. There was no need that Nelly should

-stay with her any more; but she went to see her

-daily, and it was curious how often Dr. Joe’s visits

-happened at the same time.</p>

-

-<p>One night the doctor had left his horse at home,

-and he and Nelly walked away together. They

-talked about the lingering sunset and the soft

-south wind and even the old woman; for Nelly,

-woman-like, was struggling desperately to keep

-Dr. Joe from saying what she desperately wanted

-to hear. But, at last, it came,—a half-blunt, half-awkward

-speech, yet with Dr. Joe’s honest heart

-in it,—</p>

-

-<p>“I’ve lived all these years just to earn your

-esteem, and now I find I don’t care a thing about

-that unless I can also win your love.”</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>I think Nelly’s answer must have satisfied him,

-for she is Mrs. Joseph Greene now; and that valentine—worn

-and old, but choicely framed—always

-hangs over the doctor’s study table.</p>

-

-<hr class="pb" />

-

-<div class="figcenter">

-<img src="images/i_colophon.jpg" width="200" alt="" />

-</div>

-

-

-<hr class="pb" />

-

-<p class="ph3 bd u"><i>Bright; Lively, and Enjoyable</i></p>

-

-<p class="ph2 bd">“Jolly Good Times” Series</p>

-

-<p class="ph3 bd"><i>By Mary P. Wells Smith</i></p>

-

-<hr class="tight" />

-

-<div class="figright">

-<img src="images/i_advert.jpg" width="300" alt="Illustration from Jolly Good Times Series" />

-</div>

-

-<p class="hang">JOLLY GOOD TIMES; or, <span class="smcap">Child Life on a Farm</span>.</p>

-<p class="hang">JOLLY GOOD TIMES AT SCHOOL; also, <span class="smcap">Some Times not so Jolly</span>.</p>

-<p class="hang">THE BROWNS.</p>

-<p class="hang">THEIR CANOE TRIP.</p>

-<p class="hang">JOLLY GOOD TIMES AT HACKMATACK.</p>

-<p class="hang">MORE GOOD TIMES AT HACKMATACK.</p>

-<p class="hang">JOLLY GOOD TIMES TO-DAY.</p>

-<p class="hang">A JOLLY GOOD SUMMER.</p>

-

-<p><i>With Illustrations, 12 mo,

-cloth, gilt, $1.25 per volume.

-The set of eight volumes, uniformly

-bound in cloth, gilt, in

-a box, $10.00.</i></p>

-

-<hr class="tight" />

-

-<div class="blockquot">

-

-<p>Of these stories the Boston “Transcript” says: “Few series of juvenile

-books appeal more strongly to children than the ‘Jolly Good Times’

-Series, written by Mary P. Wells Smith. The naturalness of the stories,

-their brightness, their truth to boy and girl life and character, and

-the skill with which the author manages incident and dialogue, have

-given them deserved popularity.”</p>

-

-<p>It is Mrs. Smith’s happy ability to take the incidents of child-life,—such

-a life as any child of bright mind and sweet character, blessed with

-the surroundings of a good home, might have,—and to record them with

-such faithfulness to the child’s character, and yet with such charm in the

-narrative, as to make them engagingly interesting to other children.—<cite>Gazette

-and Courier</cite>, Greenfield, Mass.</p></div>

-

-<hr class="pb" />

-

-<p class="ph2 bd">The Young Puritans Series</p>

-

-<p class="ph3 bd"><i>By Mary P. Wells Smith</i></p>

-

-<p class="ph4"><i>Author of “The Jolly Good Times” Series</i></p>

-

-<p class="hang">THE YOUNG PURITANS OF OLD HADLEY.</p>

-<p class="hang">THE YOUNG PURITANS IN KING PHILIP’S WAR.</p>

-<p class="hang">THE YOUNG PURITANS IN CAPTIVITY.</p>

-<p class="hang">THE YOUNG AND OLD PURITANS OF HATFIELD.</p>

-

-<p class="ph4"><i>Cloth, 12mo, Illustrated, each, $1.25.</i></p>

-

-<hr class="tight" />

-

-<div class="blockquot">

-

-<p>Mrs. Smith deserves very hearty commendation for the admirable

-pictures of Puritan life which are drawn with a skilful hand in this book.

-She has chosen a representative Puritan village as the scene, and the

-period of very early settlement of western Massachusetts for her story, a

-village which retains many of its early features to this day. Mrs. Smith

-knows the people of whom she writes thoroughly, and holds them in

-high and loving esteem. Even the most prejudiced reader can hardly

-close this book without seeing in these genuine Puritan people a phase of

-human life at once fine in its courage, its endurance of terrible hardships,

-and not unbeautiful in its childlike acceptance of God’s dealings and its

-daily hunger and thirst after righteousness.—<cite>The Churchman.</cite></p></div>

-

-

-<p class="p1">THE YOUNG PURITANS OF OLD HADLEY. 12mo.

-Cloth. Illustrated. $1.25.</p>

-

-<div class="blockquot">

-<p>A capital colonial story.—<cite>Congregationalist</cite>, Boston.</p>

-

-<p>She catches the very spirit of Puritan life.—<cite>Chicago Inter-Ocean.</cite></p>

-

-<p>The work has historic value as well as unique interest.—<span class="smcap">Lilian

-Whiting</span>, <cite>in Chicago Inter-Ocean</cite>.</p>

-

-<p>An excellent book for school libraries.—<cite>Literary News</cite>, New York.</p>

-

-<p>The adventures of the boys while hunting, the trapping of wolves and

-panthers, which infested the forests in those early days, the encounters

-with the Indians, friendly and otherwise, are incidents which make up a

-book which will fascinate all young readers.—<cite>San Francisco Bulletin.</cite></p>

-

-<p>The author has studied her subject carefully; and the pictures of this

-life, extinct, yet still blood of our blood and bone of our bone, have

-unusual interest.—<cite>Chicago Dial.</cite></p>

-

-<p>Mrs. Smith has proven that she can write as simple and natural a

-story of child-life when the scene is laid two hundred and fifty years ago

-as when she chooses to describe country life in the New England of the

-present century.—<cite>Christian Register.</cite></p>

-</div>

-

-<p class="p1">THE YOUNG PURITANS IN KING PHILIP’S WAR.

-Illustrated by <span class="smcap">L. J. Bridgman</span>. 12mo. Cloth. $1.25.</p>

-

-<div class="blockquot">

-<p>From a letter written the author by Bishop F. D. Huntington, Syracuse,

-N. Y.: “Have read all the pages through, every word,—finding

-the whole volume readable, entertaining, and satisfactory. Of course I

-feel rather competent to say that, in the phraseology, the territorial descriptions,

-the geography, the account of customs, language, family habits,

-natural phenomena, you are singularly correct, accurate, and felicitous.”</p>

-

-<p>Mrs. Smith seems to have caught the very breath and echo of those

-old days, and she makes one seem not to be merely reading of those

-Puritans and their constant struggles with their savage neighbors, but

-to be actually beholding them.—<cite>Jersey City Evening Journal.</cite></p>

-

-<p>The history of the seventeenth century in New England would gain

-new life when read in the light of such books.—<cite>Christian Endeavor

-Herald.</cite></p>

-</div>

-

-

-<p class="p1">THE YOUNG PURITANS IN CAPTIVITY. Illustrated

-by <span class="smcap">Jessie Willcox Smith</span>. 12mo. Cloth. $1.25.</p>

-

-<div class="blockquot">

-<p>Nothing could be more interesting than the period of which this story

-treats, and the author has handled the subject in a manner that is highly

-creditable. The reader will be for the nonce a Puritan, and will follow

-the adventures of three children taken captive by the Indians, feeling

-that he is a participant in the scenes so well portrayed. He will sleep in

-the Indians’ wigwam and breathe the odor of the pines. He will paddle

-a canoe upon the broad waters of the Connecticut, when New England

-was but a wilderness, and get an insight into Indian nature which he

-probably never had before.—<cite>Sacramento Bee.</cite></p>

-

-<p>She shows the same power of graphic description, the same faithful use

-of the best available material, and the same logical way of putting it into

-shape.—<cite>Commercial Advertiser, N. Y.</cite></p>

-

-<p>Mrs. Smith has made history live again in her life-like narrative. The

-children of to-day may well learn something of the sterner virtues in

-reading this story of the endurance and fortitude of children of two

-centuries ago.—<cite>Springfield Republican.</cite></p>

-</div>

-

-

-<p class="p1">THE YOUNG AND OLD PURITANS OF HATFIELD.

-Illustrated by <span class="smcap">Bertha C. Day</span>. 12mo. $1.25.</p>

-

-<hr />

-

-<p class="ph3 bd">LITTLE, BROWN, &amp; CO., Publishers,<br />

-<small>254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON.</small>

-</p>

-

-<hr class="pb" />

-

-<div class="transnote">

-  <p class="bd">Transcriber's Note</p>

-  <p>A few minor typographical errors have been silently corrected.</p>

-  <p>A page number in the Contents was corrected from 77 to 79.</p>

-</div>

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-<pre>

-

-

-

-

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+  </head>
+<body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 60418 ***</div>
+
+<hr class="pb" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/i_frontis.jpg" width="600" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">Day after day Johnny watched.—<span class="smcap">Page <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</span></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="pb" />
+
+<h1><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a><span class="smcap">New<br />
+Bed-Time Stories.</span></h1>
+
+
+<p class="ph3"><small>BY</small><br />
+LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON,</p>
+
+<p class="ph4"><small>AUTHOR OF “BED-TIME STORIES,” “MORE BED-TIME STORIES,”<br />
+“SOME WOMEN’S HEARTS,” AND “POEMS.”</small></p>
+
+
+<p class="ph4"><i>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.</i></p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/i_colophon.jpg" width="200" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="ph3">BOSTON:<br />
+LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY,<br />
+1907</p>
+
+<hr class="pb" />
+
+<p class="ph3"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a>
+<i>Copyright</i>, 1880,<br />
+<span class="smcap">By Louise Chandler Moulton</span>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="ph4"><span class="smcap">Alfred Mudge &amp; Son, Inc., Printers,<br />
+Boston, Mass., U. S. A.</span>
+</p>
+
+<hr class="pb" />
+
+<p class="ph2 poem"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a><i>TO MISTRESS BROWN-EYES.</i></p>
+
+<div class="poem ital"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">At Christmas-tide, by Christmas fire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">You’ll read these tales of mine;—<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I see, above my story-book,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Your happy brown eyes shine.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Dear eyes, that front the future time<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">So fearlessly to-day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, may from them some kindly Fate<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Keep future tears away,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And give you all your heart desires,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">My little English maid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For whom, in this far-distant land,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">My loving prayers are said!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I pray for Peace, since Peace is good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For Love, since Love is best:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If prayers bring blessings, Brown-eyed Girl,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">How much you will be blest!<br /></span>
+</div>
+<p class="poet">
+L. C. M.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><i>August, 1880.</i></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a>
+<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+<table summary="Contents">
+<tr>
+<th class="conpgh">&nbsp;</th>
+<th class="conpgh">PAGE</th>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">“All a-Growin’ and a-Blowin’”</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_5">5</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">My Vagrant</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">Helen’s Temptation</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_35">35</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">The Surgeon of the Dolls’ Hospital</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">Pretty Miss Kate</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">A Borrowed Rosebud</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_94">94</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">Tom’s Thanksgiving</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_106">106</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">Finding Jack</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_124">124</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">Her Mother’s Daughter</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">My Quarrel with Ruth</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_158">158</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">Was it Her Mother?</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_172">172</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">The Lady from Over the Way</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_186">186</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">His Mother’s Boy</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_200">200</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">Dr. Joe’s Valentine</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="pb" />
+
+<p class="ph1"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a>NEW BED-TIME STORIES.</p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="ALL_A-GROWIN_AND_A-BLOWIN">“ALL A-GROWIN’ AND A-BLOWIN’.”</h2>
+<hr />
+
+<p>It had been such a weary hunt for lodgings.
+Not that lodgings are scarce in London. There
+are scores of streets, whole districts, indeed, where
+the house that did not say “Apartments” in its
+window would be the exception.</p>
+
+<p>But Miss Endell wanted to combine a great deal.
+She must be economical, for her funds were running
+low; she must be near the British Museum, for she
+wanted to consult many authorities for the book
+about “Noted Irishwomen,” by which she hoped to
+retrieve her fortunes; she wanted quiet, too, and
+reasonably pretty things about her.</p>
+
+<p>For a week she had spent most of her time in
+quest of the place where she could settle herself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
+comfortably for a few months. It was the gray
+March weather. The mornings were dark, and the
+gloom of coming dusk settled down early; and, during
+all the hours between, Miss Endell had been
+busy in that weary work of which Dante speaks,
+“climbing the stairs of others.”</p>
+
+<p>At last, after much consideration, she had decided
+to make a certain flight of stairs her own.
+She had taken the drawing-room floor of No. 30
+Guilford Street; and with a comfortable feeling of
+success she had paid her bill at the Charing Cross
+Hotel, and driven to her new home.</p>
+
+<p>The drawing-room floor—that is to say, the
+suite of rooms up one flight of stairs from the street—is
+the most important part of a London lodging-house.
+Whoever is kept waiting, when “the drawing-room”—as
+it is the fashion to designate the
+lodger who occupies that apartment—rings, the
+ring must at once be “answered to.” That floor
+rents for as much as all the rest of the house put
+together, and is the chief dependence of anxious
+landladies.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Endell, accordingly, was received as a per<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>son
+of importance. Her boxes were brought upstairs,
+and her landlady, Mrs. Stone, bustled about
+cheerfully, helping her to arrange things.</p>
+
+<p>At last every thing was comfortably placed,
+and the tired new-comer settled herself in a low
+chair in front of the glowing coal-fire, and glanced
+around her.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stone was still busy, wiping away imperceptible
+dust. The door was open, and in the doorway
+was framed a singular face, that of a pale,
+slender child, with a figure that looked too tall for
+the face, and great eager eyes, with such a wistful,
+silent longing in them as Miss Endell had never
+seen before.</p>
+
+<p>At the same moment Mrs. Stone also caught
+sight of the child, and cried out a little crossly,—</p>
+
+<p>“Go away, you plague! Didn’t I tell you as
+you wasn’t to ’ang round the new lady, a-worritin’
+her?”</p>
+
+<p>The child’s wistful face colored, and the tears
+sprang to the great, sad eyes; but he was silently
+turning away, when Miss Endell herself spoke. She
+was not specially fond of children; but she had a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
+kind heart, and something in the wan, pitiful face
+of the child touched it.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t send him away, Mrs. Stone,” she said
+kindly. “Come in, my little man, and tell me
+what your name is.”</p>
+
+<p>The child sidled in, timidly, but did not speak.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t be afraid,” Miss Endell said. “What is
+your name?”</p>
+
+<p>“Bless you, ma’am, he <em>can’t</em> speak!” said Mrs.
+Stone.</p>
+
+<p>“Can’t speak?”</p>
+
+<p>“No; he was born with something wrong. Laws,
+he can hear as well as anybody, and he knows all
+you say to him; but there’s something the matter.
+The last ‘drawing-room’ said that there was doctors,
+she was sure, as could help him, but I haint
+any money to try experiments.</p>
+
+<p>“Johnny was my brother’s child. His father
+died before he was born, and his mother lived just
+long enough to ’and over Johnny to me, and ask me
+to take care of him.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve done my best; but a lodging-house is a
+worrit. What with empty rooms, and lodgers as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
+didn’t pay, and hard times, I never got money
+enough ahead to spend on doctors.</p>
+
+<p>“But you mustn’t have Johnny a-worritin’
+round. You’d get sick o’ that. The last ‘drawing-room’
+said it made her that nervous to see
+him; and I halways thought she went off partly for
+that.”</p>
+
+<p>“I will not let him trouble me, don’t be afraid;
+but let him sit down here by the fire, and when I
+find he disturbs me I’ll send him away.”</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stone vanished, and Johnny took up his
+station on a stool in a corner of the hearth-rug.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Endell busied herself with a book, but from
+time to time she looked at the boy. His face was
+pale and wistful still, but a half-smile, as sad as
+tears, was round his poor silent mouth, and he was
+gazing at his new friend as if he would fix every
+line of her face in his memory for ever.</p>
+
+<p>For a long hour he sat there; and then Mrs.
+Stone came to lay the cloth for dinner, and sent
+him away to bed.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning he appeared again; and soon
+it grew to be his habit to sit, almost all the day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
+through, and watch Miss Endell at her tasks. In
+spite of her absorption, he occupied a good many of
+her thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>Like him, she was an orphan; and she had few
+close and vital interests in her life. She got to feel
+as if it belonged to her, in a certain way, to look
+after this silent waif of humanity more lonely still
+than herself.</p>
+
+<p>Often she took an hour from her work to read
+little tales to him, and it was reward enough to see
+how his eyes brightened, and the color came into
+his pale little face. She used to think that if her
+work succeeded, Johnny should also be the better
+for it. As soon as the first edition of “Noted Irishwomen”
+was sold, she would have the best medical
+advice for him; and if there were such a thing
+as giving those lips language, it should be done.</p>
+
+<p>“Should you <em>like</em> to speak to me, Johnny?” she
+asked one day suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>The boy looked at her, for one moment, with
+eyes that seemed to grow larger and larger. Then
+came a great rush of sobs and tears that shook him
+so that Miss Endell was half-frightened at the effect<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>
+of her own words. She bent over and put her
+hand on his head.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t, Johnny! Don’t, dear!” she said tenderly.</p>
+
+<p>I doubt if any one had ever called the poor little
+dumb boy “dear” before, in all his eleven years of
+life. He looked up through his tears, with a glad,
+strange smile, as if some wonderful, sweet thing
+had befallen him; and then, in a sort of timid rapture,
+he kissed the hem of Miss Endell’s gown, and
+the slippered foot that peeped out beneath it.</p>
+
+<p>I think there is an instinct of motherhood in good
+women that comes out toward all helpless creatures;
+and it awoke then in Miss Endell’s heart.
+After that she and Johnny were almost inseparable.
+Often she took him with her on her walks,
+and always when she worked he kept his silent
+vigil on the hearth-rug.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Endell had one extravagance. She could
+not bear to be without flowers. She did not care
+much for the cut and wired bouquets of the florist,
+but she seldom came home from her walks without
+some handful of wall-flowers, or a knot of violets<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
+or forget-me-nots. Now and then she bought a
+tea-rose bud; and then Johnny always noticed
+how lovingly she tended it—how she watched it
+bursting from bud to flower.</p>
+
+<p>He got to know that this strange, bright creature
+whom he idolized loved flowers, and loved tea-roses
+best of all. A wild desire grew in him to
+buy her tea-roses—not one, only, but a whole
+bunch. He spent his days in thinking how it was
+to be done, and his nights in dreaming about it.
+A penny was the largest sum he had ever possessed
+in his life, and a penny will not buy one tea-rose,
+much less a bunch of them.</p>
+
+<p>One day Miss Endell took him with her when
+she went to see a friend. It was a prosperous, good-natured,
+rich woman in whose house they found
+themselves. “Go and see the pictures, Johnny,”
+Miss Endell said; and Johnny wandered down the
+long room, quite out of ear-shot.</p>
+
+<p>Then she told his pathetic little story, and her
+friend’s careless yet kind heart was touched. When
+it was time for Miss Endell to go, she summoned
+Johnny; and then the lady they were visiting gave<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
+the boy a half-crown, a whole shining, silver half-crown.</p>
+
+<p>Johnny clasped it to his heart in expressive pantomime,
+and lifted his wistful, inquiring eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, it is all yours,” the lady said, in answer;
+“and don’t let any one take it away from
+you.”</p>
+
+<p>Small danger, indeed, of that! The piece of silver
+meant but one thing to Johnny,—tea-roses, unlimited
+tea-roses.</p>
+
+<p>The next day he was taken ill. He had a fever,—a
+low, slow fever. His aunt was kind enough to
+him, but she had plenty to do, and Johnny would
+have been lonely indeed but for Miss Endell.</p>
+
+<p>She had him brought each morning into her
+room, and kept him all day lying on her sofa, giving
+him now a kind word, now a draught of cold water,
+and then a few grapes, with the sun’s secret in
+them.</p>
+
+<p>One day Johnny drew something from his bosom,
+and put it into Miss Endell’s hand. It was
+the silver half-crown. He made her understand,
+by his expressive gestures, that she was to keep it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
+for him; and she dropped it into a drawer of her
+writing-desk.</p>
+
+<p>At last Johnny began to get well. June came,
+with all its summer sights and sounds, and strength
+came with its softer winds to the poor little waif.
+One day he stood before Miss Endell, and put out
+his hand. She understood, and dropped the half-crown
+into it. He hid it, with a sort of passion, in
+his bosom, and Miss Endell smiled. Did even this
+little waif, then, care so much for money?</p>
+
+<p>As soon as he could stand, he took up his station
+on the balcony outside the windows, and watched
+and watched.</p>
+
+<p>His friend thought only that the sights and
+sounds of the street amused him. She was working
+on at the “Noted Irishwomen,” which was
+nearing its conclusion, and it quite suited her that
+Johnny found the street so interesting.</p>
+
+<p>As for the child, he was possessed by only one
+idea,—tea-roses. He watched to see the hand-barrows
+come along, flower-laden and tempting.</p>
+
+<p>These same hand-barrows are a feature of London
+street life. They are full of plants growing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
+in pots, and also there are plenty of cut flowers.
+The venders cry, as they pass along, “All a-growin’
+and a-blowin’!” and there is something exciting in
+the cry. It seems part of the summer itself.</p>
+
+<p>Day after day, day after day, Johnny watched
+and watched. Flowers enough went by,—geraniums
+glowing scarlet in the sun, azaleas, white
+heath, violets,—only never any tea-roses.</p>
+
+<p>But at last, one morning, he heard the familiar
+cry, “<em>All a-growin’ and a-blowin’!</em>” and lo! as if
+they had bloomed for his need, there were tea-roses—whole
+loads of tea-roses!</p>
+
+<p>Miss Endell was busy, just then, with Lady
+Morgan. She never noticed when the little silent
+figure left the window, and hurried downstairs.
+Out into the street that little figure went, and
+on and on, in hot pursuit of the flower-barrow,
+which by this time had quite the start of him.</p>
+
+<p>Down one street, up another, he ran, and always
+with the silver half-crown tightly clasped in the
+palm of his little hand.</p>
+
+<p>At last a customer detained the barrow; and
+Johnny hurried up to it, panting and breathless.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
+He put his hand out towards the tea-roses, and
+then he held out his silver half-crown.</p>
+
+<p>The flower-seller looked at him curiously,
+“Why don’t you speak, young ’un?” he said.
+“Are you dumb? You want this ’alf-crown’s wuth
+o’ them tea-roses?”</p>
+
+<p>Johnny nodded vehemently.</p>
+
+<p>The man took up a great handful of the pale
+sweet flowers, and thrust them into the boy’s
+hands, taking in exchange the half-crown, and putting
+it away in a sort of pouch, along with many
+silver mates.</p>
+
+<p>As for Johnny, there are in every life supreme
+moments, and his came then. He held in his hand
+the flowers that Miss Endell loved, and he was
+going to give them to her.</p>
+
+<p>All his life he had felt himself in every one’s
+way. She, only, had made him welcome to her
+side. She had called him “dear,”—and now
+there was something he could do for her. She
+had loved one tea-rose: how much, then, would
+she love a whole handful of tea-roses! His heart
+swelled with a great wave of pride and joy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He thought of nothing but his flowers,—how
+should he?—and he never even heard or saw the
+butcher’s cart, tearing along at such a pace as John
+Gilpin never dreamed of. And in a moment,
+something had pushed him down,—something
+rolled and crunched over him,—and he knew nothing;
+but he held the flowers tight through it all.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, it’s Mrs. Stone’s dumb Johnny!” said
+the butcher-boy, who had got down from his cart
+by this time, and was addressing the quickly
+assembled London crowd. “Gi ’e a hand, and
+lift un up into my cart, and I’ll carry un home.”</p>
+
+<p>An awful inarticulate groan came from the poor
+child’s dumb lips as they lifted him; but his hold
+on the tea-roses never loosened.</p>
+
+<p>They carried him home, and into the house.
+Mrs. Stone was shocked and grieved; and she
+took her troubles noisily, as is the fashion of her
+class. Miss Endell, still fagging away at Lady
+Morgan, heard cries and shrieks, and dropped her
+pen and hastened downstairs.</p>
+
+<p>“He’s dead! Johnny’s dead!” cried Mrs. Stone
+and Miss Endell, white and silent, drew near.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But Johnny was not dead, though he was dying
+fast. The butcher-boy had hurried off for a doctor
+and the three women, Mrs. Stone, her maid,
+and her lodger, stood by helplessly.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Johnny’s wandering look rested on
+Miss Endell. A great sweet smile of triumph
+curved his mouth, lighted his eyes, kindled all his
+face. With one grand last effort, he put out the
+bunch of tea-roses, and pressed them into her hand.</p>
+
+<p>And then, as if death had somehow been more
+merciful to him than life, and had in some way
+loosed his poor bound tongue, he stammered out
+the only words he had ever spoken—was ever to
+speak,—</p>
+
+<p>“<em>For you!</em>”</p>
+
+<p>At length the doctor came and stood there, helpless
+like the rest, for death was stronger than all
+his skill. The shock and the hurt together had
+quenched the poor frail life that was ebbing so
+swiftly.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Endell bent and kissed the white quivering
+lips. As she did so, the tea-roses she held touched
+the little face.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Was it their subtile fragrance, or this kiss, or
+both together, which seemed for one moment to
+recall the departing soul?</p>
+
+<p>He looked up; it was his last look, and it took
+in the sweet woman who had been so gentle and
+so loving to him, and the flowers in her hand.</p>
+
+<p>His face kindled with a great joy. A hero
+might have looked like that who had died for his
+country, or a man who had given his life joyfully
+for child or wife.</p>
+
+<p>Johnny Stone had loved one creature well, and
+that creature had loved tea-roses. What <em>could</em>
+life have held so sweet as the death that found
+him when he was striving to give her her heart’s
+desire?</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="MY_VAGRANT">MY VAGRANT.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+
+<p>We were in pursuit of Laura’s dressmaker,
+and had just rung the bell at her door,
+when a little boy presented himself, and, standing
+on the lower step, uplifted a pathetic pair of blue
+eyes, and a small tin cup held in a little grimy
+hand. A large basket was on one arm; and
+round his neck was one of those great printed
+placards, such as the blind men wear who sit at
+the street corners. Laura’s purse was always
+fuller than mine; and she was extracting a bit of
+scrip from it, while I bent my near-sighted eyes
+on the boy’s label. Could it be that I read
+aright? I looked again. No, I was not mistaken.
+It read, in great, staring letters—</p>
+
+<p>
+I HAVE LOST MY HUSBAND IN THE WAR.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>In the war! And those blue eyes had not
+opened, surely, till some time after the war was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
+ended! His husband! I was bewildered. I
+bent my gaze on him sternly, and asked, as
+severely as I could,—</p>
+
+<p>“Young man, can you read?”</p>
+
+<p>Laura was fumbling away at the unanswered
+door-bell. The boy looked as if he wanted to
+run; but I put my hand on his arm.</p>
+
+<p>“Can you read?” I repeated gravely. I think
+he shook in his shabby boots, for his voice was
+not quite steady as he answered,—</p>
+
+<p>“Not much.”</p>
+
+<p>“Not much, I should think. Do you know
+what this thing says that you’ve got round your
+neck?”</p>
+
+<p>“Does it say I’m blind?” he asked, with a
+little frightened quaver.</p>
+
+<p>“No, it says—but do you know what a husband
+is?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, he comes home drunk, and beats Mag
+and me awful.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you ever know a boy of your age to have
+a husband?”</p>
+
+<p>The blue eyes grew so wide open that I won<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>dered
+if they could ever shut themselves up
+again; and Laura, who had turned round at my
+question, looked as if she thought I had suddenly
+gone mad. The little dressmaker had opened the
+door, and stood there waiting meekly, with the
+handle in her hand. But my spirit was up, and I
+did not care for either of them. I asked again,
+very impressively, as I thought, with a pause after
+each word,—</p>
+
+<p>“Did—you—ever—know—a—boy—of—your—age—to—have—a—husband?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, marm,” he gasped, “husbands belongs to
+women.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then what do you wear this thing for? It
+says that you have lost your husband in the war.”</p>
+
+<p>The imp actually turned pale, and I almost pitied
+him.</p>
+
+<p>“Will they put me in prison?” he asked, an
+abject little whine coming into his voice. “<em>Will</em>
+they?”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you steal it?”</p>
+
+<p>“I didn’t to say steal it—I just <em>took</em> it. I’d
+seen the rest put them on when they went out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
+begging, and this was old Meg’s. She wasn’t
+going out to-day, and I thought no harm to
+borrow.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then you can’t read?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, not to say read, marm. I think I could
+make out a word now and then.”</p>
+
+<p>“Do you want to?”</p>
+
+<p>The face brightened a moment, and, with the
+curving lips and eager eyes, was really that of a
+pretty boy.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, if I could!” half sighed the quivering
+lips; and then the smile went out, and left blank
+despair behind it. “It’s no use, marm; she
+won’t let me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Who won’t? Your mother?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, Mag’s mother—old Meg. My mother’s
+dead, and I never had any father that ever I heard
+of; and since mother died old Meg does for me;
+and every day she sends me out to beg; and if I
+don’t get much she whips Mag.”</p>
+
+<p>I was growing strangely interested.</p>
+
+<p>“Whips <em>Mag</em>, because <em>you</em> don’t get much?”
+I said doubtfully. “What for?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“I guess there’s a hard place on <em>me</em>, marm.
+She found that it didn’t seem to hurt much, when
+she whipped <em>me</em>; and so one night Mag was teasing
+her to stop, and she turned to and whipped
+Mag, and that made me cry awful; and ever
+since, if I don’t get enough money, she whips
+Mag.”</p>
+
+<p>“Are you sure you are telling me the truth?”</p>
+
+<p>I don’t know why I asked the question, for I
+saw honesty in those clear eyes of his. He looked
+hurt. Yes, you may laugh if you want to, I’m
+telling you just as it was—the boy looked as
+hurt as any of you would if I doubted you.
+There came a sort of proud shame into his manner.
+He clutched at the placard round his
+neck, as if he would tear it off, and answered,
+sadly,—</p>
+
+<p>“I s’pose I can’t expect anybody to believe me
+with this round my neck; but, if you would go
+home with me, Mag could tell you, and you would
+believe <em>her</em>.”</p>
+
+<p>By this time Laura had gone in, leaving me to
+finish my interview alone. I reflected a moment.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
+The other day I had heard Tom say he wanted an
+errand boy. Why should he not have this one?
+Tom was my brother. I knew just the difficulties
+he would make,—want of reference, a street beggar,
+a regular rat of the gutter. I could fancy
+just how he would talk. I knew, too, that I could
+overrule his objections. That’s a power women
+have when a man loves them; whether he be husband
+or brother or friend. I hated the thought
+of vice and ignorance and poverty. What if I
+could save just one small boy from their clutches?
+I said resolutely,—</p>
+
+<p>“Will you go home with me, and have a comfortable
+home and good food and honest work,
+and no one ever to beat you, and learn to read?”</p>
+
+<p>I had seen no assent in his eyes till I came to
+this last clause of my sentence. Then he asked
+shrewdly,—</p>
+
+<p>“Who’ll teach me? I can’t go to school and
+do my work, too.”</p>
+
+<p>“I will teach you. Will you go and work
+faithfully for my brother, and learn to read?”</p>
+
+<p>“Won’t I, just?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Well, then, let me speak to the lady who went
+in, and I’ll take you home at once.”</p>
+
+<p>He shuffled uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>“If you please, marm, I can’t go till I’ve been
+back to Meg’s, and carried her this board.”</p>
+
+<p>“But I’ll get a policeman to send a messenger
+with that. If you go, perhaps she won’t let you
+come to me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, marm, I shall come. But you wouldn’t
+believe me, sure, if I could steal away, like, and
+never say good-by to Mag, and let her cry both
+her eyes out thinking I’d been shut up, or somebody
+had killed me.” And his own great blue
+eyes grew pathetic again over this picture of sorrowful
+possibilities.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, you may go,” I said, half reluctantly,
+for the little vagabond had inspired in me a singular
+interest. “You may go, and be sure you
+come to-night or in the morning, to 70 Deerham
+Street, and ask for Miss May.”</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me with a grave, resolved look.</p>
+
+<p>“I shall come,” he said; and in an instant he
+was gone.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>That night, after dinner, I told Tom. He was
+mocking, incredulous, reluctant—just as I knew
+he would be. But it all ended in his promising to
+try “My Vagrant,” if he ever came.</p>
+
+<p>Just as I had brought him to this pass, the bell
+rang, and I sprang to the dining-room door. The
+dining-room was the front basement, and the outside
+door was so near that I opened it myself. It
+was, indeed, my vagrant.</p>
+
+<p>“I want Miss May,” he said, with the air which
+such a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">gamin</i> puts on when he speaks to a servant,—an
+air which instantly subdued itself into propriety
+when he heard my voice.</p>
+
+<p>I took him in to Tom; and I saw the blue eyes
+softened even the prejudiced mind and worldly
+heart of Mr. Thomas May. He spoke very kindly
+to the boy, and then sent him into the kitchen for
+his supper.</p>
+
+<p>“Where do you propose to keep this new acquisition?”
+he asked me, after the blue-eyed was out
+of sight.</p>
+
+<p>“In this house, if you please. There is a little
+single bed all ready for him in the attic, and I’ve<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>
+arranged with cook to give him a bath and then
+put him into some of the clothes her own boy left
+behind him when he went away to sea. I mean
+to rescue this one soul from a starved and miserable
+and wicked life, and I’m willing to take
+some pains; and if you aren’t willing to do your
+part I’m ashamed of you.”</p>
+
+<p>Tom laughed, and called me his “fierce little
+woman,” his “angry turtle-dove,” and half-a-dozen
+other names which he never gave me except when
+he was in good humor, so I knew it was all right.</p>
+
+<p>Before three days were over Tom owned that my
+vagrant, as he persisted in calling the boy (though
+we knew now that his name was Johnny True),
+was the best errand boy he had ever employed. I
+myself taught him to read, as I had promised, and
+brighter scholar never teacher had. In four
+months he had progressed so fast that he could
+read almost any thing. There had been a sort of
+feverish eagerness in his desire to learn for which I
+was at a loss to account. Sometimes, coming home
+from some party or opera, I would find him studying
+in the kitchen at midnight.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We grew fond of him, all of us. Cook said he
+was no trouble, and he made it seem as if she had
+her own boy back again. He waited on Tom with
+a sort of dog-like faithfulness; and, as for me,
+I believe that he would have cut his hand off for
+me at any time.</p>
+
+<p>Yet one morning he got up and deliberately
+walked out of the house. When his breakfast was
+ready cook called for him in vain, and in vain she
+searched for him from attic to cellar. But before
+it was time for Tom to go to business another boy
+came, a little older than my vagrant,—a nice,
+respectable-looking boy,—and asked for Mr. May.
+He came into the dining-room and stood there, cap
+in hand.</p>
+
+<p>“If you please, sir,” he said bashfully, “Johnny
+True wants to know if you’ll be so good as to take
+me on in his place, considering that he isn’t coming
+back any more, and I have done errands before,
+and got good reference.”</p>
+
+<p>He had made his little speech in breathless haste,
+running all his sentences together into one.</p>
+
+<p>Tom looked at him deliberately, and lit a cigar.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Johnny isn’t coming back, hey?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where is Johnny gone?”</p>
+
+<p>“He didn’t tell me, if you please, but he said he
+should be hurt to death if it troubled you to lose
+him, and he knew I could do as well as he could.”</p>
+
+<p>I saw a refusal in Tom’s eyes, so I made haste to
+forestall it.</p>
+
+<p>“Do take him,” I said in a low tone to Tom, and
+then I said to the boy that just now he had better
+go to the store, and Mr. May would see him presently,
+when he came to business.</p>
+
+<p>Tom laughed, a half-amused, half-provoked
+laugh, when he went out, and said,—</p>
+
+<p>“Well, my dear, I don’t think your vagrant
+has proved to be such a success that you need
+expect me to let him choose my next errand boy.”</p>
+
+<p>“I think, at least, that if he has sent you one as
+good as himself you will have no fault to find,” I
+said hotly. But all the time there was a sore
+place in my own heart, for I had thought that my
+vagrant would have loved me too well to run away
+from me in this way.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>That night Tom said that the new errand boy
+was doing well, and he had concluded to keep him
+on. I think Tom missed my vagrant; but not, of
+course, so much as I missed my bright scholar—my
+grateful little follower.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, the new boy lived in his own home,
+wherever that might be. I did not concern myself
+about him, or feel any disposition to put him in
+the little bed in the front attic.</p>
+
+<p>Two or three weeks passed and we heard no
+word from Johnny True. But at last a rainy
+day came, and with it Johnny, asking for Miss
+May.</p>
+
+<p>“I guess he’s repented,” cook said, coming upstairs
+to tell me. I went down to Johnny, resolved
+to be equal to the occasion—to meet him with all
+the severity his ungrateful behavior deserved.
+But, somehow, the wistful look in his blue eyes
+disarmed me. He was a little thin and pale, too;
+and my heart began to soften even before he
+spoke.</p>
+
+<p>“I couldn’t stay away, ma’am,” he said, with the
+clear accent he had caught so quickly from my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
+brief teaching, “and not let you know why I
+went.”</p>
+
+<p>“To let me know <em>when</em> you went would have
+been more to the purpose,” I answered, with what
+sternness I could command. “I had thought better
+of you, Johnny, than that you were capable of
+running away.”</p>
+
+<p>“But you see, ma’am, I was afraid you would
+not let me go if I told you.”</p>
+
+<p>“And why did you want to go? Were you
+not comfortable?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, ma’am—that was the worst of it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why the worst of it? Have you any especial
+objection to be comfortable?”</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the blue eyes filled with tears, like a
+girl’s; and there was a pitiful sob in the voice
+which answered me.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, it hurt me so, when I was warm, and had
+a good supper, and everybody’s kind word, to
+think of poor Mag there at home, cold and hungry,
+and with old Meg beating her. I never should
+have come and left her but for the learning to read.
+<em>She</em> wanted me to come for that.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“So you could read to her?”</p>
+
+<p>“So I could <em>teach</em> her, ma’am. You never in all
+your life saw anybody so hungry to learn to read
+as Mag; and when I went home that first day and
+told her all you said, and told her that after all I
+couldn’t go and leave her there to take all the
+hard fare and hard words, she just began to cry,
+and to tease me to go and learn to read, so I could
+teach her, until I couldn’t stand it any longer, and
+I came.”</p>
+
+<p>“And how did she know she would ever see you
+again?” I asked. “It would have been most natural,
+having learned what comfort was, to stay on
+here and enjoy it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mag <em>knew me</em>, ma’am,” said my vagrant, as
+proudly as a prince could speak if his honor were
+called in question. “Mag knew what I was, and I
+learned as fast as I could to get back to her—don’t
+you think so, ma’am?”</p>
+
+<p>“You learned faster than any one else could; I
+know that,” I answered. “But, Johnny, how
+could you bear to go back to begging again?”</p>
+
+<p>“I couldn’t bear it, ma’am, and I didn’t. I had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
+money enough, that Mr. Tom had given me, to buy
+myself a stock of papers. I’m a newsboy now, and
+I teach Mag to read out of the papers I have left.
+And old Meg knows better now than to beat Mag,
+and we are so much happier. It’s all owing to you;
+and I came back to thank you,—but I never could
+forsake Mag for long. I must stay with my own.”</p>
+
+<p>“But they are not your own.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mag is, ma’am.”</p>
+
+<p>He was as resolute to ally himself, for that girl’s
+sake, with poverty, and, if need were, shame, as
+ever was a hero to live or die for the land of his
+birth; and out in the rain, down the desolate
+street, I watched my vagrant go away from me for
+ever. But I did not pity him. No soul is to be
+pitied which has reached life’s crowning good,—the
+power to love another better than itself. Nor
+do I know any curled darling of fortune who seems
+to me happier than was my vagrant.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="HELENS_TEMPTATION">HELEN’S TEMPTATION.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+
+<p>The sun was almost setting, but its low light
+came in at the western windows, and lit up a
+pale face lying upon the pillows, till it seemed to
+the watchers beside the bed as if some glory from
+heaven had already touched the brow of the dying.
+These watchers were only two,—a girl of fourteen,
+rather tall of her age, with gray eyes that
+were almost green sometimes, and dark hair, short
+like a boy’s, and curling all over her head; and
+a middle-aged woman, who had tended this girl
+when a baby, and was half friend, half servant, to
+the dying mother.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Ash had been lying all the day, almost in
+silence. Her husband had brought her, a year
+before, to California, because she was stricken
+with consumption, and he hoped the change
+from the harsh east winds of New England to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
+the balmy airs of the Pacific coast might restore
+her to health.</p>
+
+<p>For a time the result had seemed to fulfil his
+hope; but, very suddenly, he himself had been
+taken ill and died; and then the half-baffled disease
+seized again on the mourning wife, who had
+now no strength to repel its onset.</p>
+
+<p>I think she would fain have lived—even then,
+when all the joy seemed gone from her life—for
+her daughter Helen’s sake; but she was too weak
+to struggle, and so she lay there dying, quite
+aware of what was before her.</p>
+
+<p>All day she had seemed to be thinking, thinking,
+and waiting till she had settled something in
+her own mind before she spoke. At last, with the
+sunset light upon her face, she beckoned to the
+woman, who bent nearer.</p>
+
+<p>“As soon as all is over, Woods,” she said, as
+tranquilly as if she were speaking of the most ordinary
+household arrangement, “you will take Helen
+to my sister’s in Boston. You must make the
+journey by easy stages, so as not to tire her too
+much. Fortunately she will not be dependent.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
+She has money enough, and she needs only care
+and love, which my sister will give her, I know
+well.</p>
+
+<p>“I shall be glad if you can stay with her; but
+that must of course be as Mrs. Mason will arrange.
+You will find when my affairs are settled that you
+have been remembered. You will lay me by my
+husband’s side, and then take Helen away.</p>
+
+<p>“All is arranged so that there can be no trouble,
+and now, if you please, leave me a little while with
+my daughter.”</p>
+
+<p>The woman went out of the room, and then Mrs.
+Ash opened her arms, and Helen crept into them
+and lay there silently, as if she were a baby again
+whom her mother comforted.</p>
+
+<p>She was a strange compound, this Helen Ash, of
+impulsiveness and self-control. She had an intense
+nature, and her temptations would grow chiefly
+out of her tendency to concentrate all her heart on
+a single object,—to seek whatever thing she wished
+for with an insistence which would not be denied.</p>
+
+<p>This quality has its great advantages certainly,
+but it has its extreme dangers.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Helen had no brothers or sisters or special
+friends. She had loved only her father and
+mother, but she had loved them with an almost
+excessive devotion.</p>
+
+<p>When her father died she had borne up bravely,
+that she might comfort and help her mother, and
+now she was bearing up still, that she might not
+sadden that parting soul with the anguish of her
+own.</p>
+
+<p>As she lay there in her mother’s arms, her eyes
+were wide open and tearless, but they were full of
+a desperate gloom sadder than tears. She was
+almost as pale herself as was her mother.</p>
+
+<p>“Darling,” the mother said tenderly, “how can
+I bear to leave you all alone? Promise me one
+thing only, to open your heart to new love. It
+would be so like you to shut yourself up in your
+grief, and to fancy you were loving me less if you
+let yourself care for your Aunt Helen.</p>
+
+<p>“She will love you for my sake, and she must
+be your second mother now. We were dearer
+than most sisters to each other, and she is a wise
+and good woman.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Her daughter, my namesake Laura, is just
+about your own age, and being her mother’s daughter,
+she must be worth loving. Try to care for
+them, my darling. The life which has no love in
+it is empty indeed. Will you try?”</p>
+
+<p>“O mamma,” the girl cried, with a sudden, desperate
+sob, “I <em>will</em> try because you bid me! I <em>will</em>
+try; but oh, how <em>can</em> I love them? How <em>can</em> I
+bear to see another girl happy with her mother,
+and to know that you will never be with me any
+more—never in all the world? If I call all day
+and all night, you will never hear nor answer! O
+my own mother, <em>must</em> you leave me?”</p>
+
+<p>“My darling, yes. I would have lived for your
+sake if I could. You have been my comfort always.
+Comfort me a little longer. Let me feel that in all
+the future you will try to live nobly for my sake.”</p>
+
+<p>The last words had been spoken with an evident
+effort, and it seemed to Helen that the cheek
+against which her own rested was already colder
+than it was half an hour ago.</p>
+
+<p>She clung closer to the poor wasted form that
+was her whole world of love, and closed her lips<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
+over the bitter cry that was rising to them; and so
+the two lay, very, very quietly in that last embrace
+they were ever to know.</p>
+
+<p>And the twilight gathered round them, and at
+last a young moon, hanging low in the western sky,
+looked in and touched with its pale glory the pale
+faces on the pillow.</p>
+
+<p>The mother stirred a little, and with a last effort
+clasped her child closer, and said, in a voice like a
+sigh, faint and sweet and strange, “Good-by,
+darling!” and then she seemed to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps Helen slept, also. She never quite
+knew; but it was an hour afterwards when Woods
+touched her shoulder, and said, with a kind firmness
+in her tone,—</p>
+
+<p>“You <em>must</em> get up now, Miss Helen, and leave
+her to me. She went off just as quiet as a lamb,
+poor dear, and if ever a face was peaceful and
+happy, hers is now.”</p>
+
+<p>No one knew what the few days that followed
+were to Helen Ash. She shut her lips, as her
+manner was, over her grief. She turned away,
+with her great tearless eyes, from the two graves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
+where her father and mother lay side by side, and
+she helped, with a strange unnatural calmness, in
+all the preparations for the long journey she was
+to take.</p>
+
+<p>When at last she reached her aunt’s home in
+Boston, this strained, unnatural composure gave
+way a little.</p>
+
+<p>Her Aunt Helen looked so much like her
+mother that at first she thought she could <em>not</em>
+bear it. Then, when her aunt’s arms closed round
+her almost as tenderly as her mother’s would have
+done, she shivered a little, and burst into one
+wild passion of tears, which almost instantly she
+checked.</p>
+
+<p>“I am to love you for <em>her</em> sake,” she said.
+“Those were almost her last words; and indeed,
+indeed, I will try, but I think I left my heart all
+those miles away in her grave.”</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Mason was, as her sister had said, a wise
+and good woman,—wise enough not to attempt to
+force the love or the interest of her niece. She
+contented herself with being exquisitely gentle and
+considerate towards her, and with trying, in count<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>less
+little ways, to make her feel that she was at
+home.</p>
+
+<p>Laura Mason had looked forward to Helen’s
+coming with a feeling that at last she was to find
+in her the sister she had longed for all her life, but
+Helen’s cold and self-contained manner disappointed
+her. She felt the atmosphere of Helen’s
+reserve almost as tangibly as if her orphan cousin
+had pushed her away.</p>
+
+<p>The summer months passed, and scarcely brought
+them any nearer together. Try as Helen might, she
+could not get over the sting of pain when she saw
+this other girl happy in her mother’s love, or running
+gayly to meet her father when he came home
+at night. <em>They</em> had each other, she used to say to
+herself, but <em>she</em> had only her dead. She had not
+even Woods to speak to, for Mrs. Mason had decided
+not to retain her; and since there was no one to
+whom Helen ever spoke of the past, she pondered
+it all the more in her heart.</p>
+
+<p>Things were a little better when school commenced
+in the autumn. Helen and Laura were in
+the same classes, and that brought them somewhat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
+more together; still there was no real intimacy
+between them.</p>
+
+<p>In the spring there was to be a competitive
+examination, and a medal was to be bestowed on
+the leading scholar in the class. By midwinter it
+was quite evident that Helen and Laura led all the
+rest, and a real spirit of rivalry grew up between
+the cousins which bade fair to become a passion.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Mason looked on regretfully, adhering to
+her difficult policy of non-interference. One day
+Helen heard Laura say to her mother,—</p>
+
+<p>“Mamsie, dear, you know you have the key
+to that French method locked up in your desk, for
+you taught us from it last summer. Won’t you be
+a dear, and lend it to me for a little while?</p>
+
+<p>“If I only could have that to help me, I should
+be sure of success. I would study just as hard.
+It would only be the difference between knowing
+when one was right, and floundering on in an awful
+uncertainty.”</p>
+
+<p>Helen was behind the curtain of the library
+window, and evidently they did not know of her
+presence. She waited for her aunt’s answer. If<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
+Laura had the key, then, indeed, she would be
+sure of success.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Mason spoke in a sad voice, with a subtile
+little thrill of reproach in it.</p>
+
+<p>“I did not think you would so much as wish,
+my dear, to do any thing that was not quite open
+and straightforward. You know Mademoiselle
+does not expect you to see the key. The very
+test of your power is that you should work without
+its aid, and the examination will prove how
+far you have succeeded.”</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose there’s no use in coaxing, when you
+say that. I do wish you weren’t such an uncoaxable
+mamma.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, you don’t,—you only fancy that you wish
+it; but, in your inmost soul, you would rather
+have me as I am,” Mrs. Mason answered; and
+Helen heard the sound of a kiss, and felt, for the
+thousandth time, how bitter it was that this other
+girl should have home and mother, while she had
+only a far-off grave.</p>
+
+<p>But, at least, she would triumph in this school
+contest! If Laura came off best there, it would
+be more than she <em>could</em> bear.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The weeks passed on, and the spring came.
+The deep old garden back of the house—the garden
+Helen’s mother had played in when she was a
+child—grew full of bird-songs and blossoms.</p>
+
+<p>There was a sweet laughter on the face of nature.
+The springs bubbled with it; the flowers
+opened to the light; the sunshine poured down its
+tender warmth, and the soft coo and call of the
+birds gave voice to the general joy.</p>
+
+<p>But both Laura and Helen were too eager and
+too tired to be gay. They only studied. They
+went to sleep with books under their pillows;
+they woke with the first light, and began to study
+again.</p>
+
+<p>It was the very week of the examination, at
+last. Helen felt satisfied with herself in all but
+her French. If <em>she</em> could only have that key for
+one little half-hour, she knew she would have no
+weak spot in her armor.</p>
+
+<p>She brooded over the idea until the temptation
+possessed her like an evil fate. In her passionate
+girl’s heart she said to herself that she wanted to
+<em>die</em> if Laura triumphed over her at school. Laura<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
+had every thing else; why <em>should</em> she have that,
+also?</p>
+
+<p>She had said at first, “If only it were <em>right</em> to
+have the key!” Then she said, “if only she
+could <em>chance</em> on the key, somehow!” Then, “if
+only she could get at her aunt’s desk and <em>find</em> the
+key!” At last it was,—</p>
+
+<p>“I <em>will</em> get at the key, somehow!”</p>
+
+<p>This last was the very morning before the examination.
+She rose from her bed in the dainty
+blue-hung room her aunt had taken such pains to
+make pretty for her, and went softly downstairs,
+in the young spring morning.</p>
+
+<p>Her bare feet made no sound on the thick stair-carpet.
+She looked like a little white-clad ghost
+that had forgotten to flee away at the first cock-crowing,
+as an orthodox ghost ought; but no
+ghost ever had such glowing cheeks, crimson with
+excitement, such great wide-opened gray eyes
+with green depths in them.</p>
+
+<p>She held in her hand a large bunch of keys belonging
+to her mother. It was just a chance
+whether one of them would fit her aunt’s desk.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She fairly trembled with excitement. She had
+lost all thought of the wrong she was doing—of
+the shame and meanness of this act, which must be
+done in silence and mystery; she thought only of
+the triumph which success would mean.</p>
+
+<p>She stood before the desk, and tried key after
+key with her shaking fingers.</p>
+
+<p>At last one fitted. In a moment more the key
+to the French method was in her hand.</p>
+
+<p>In desperate haste she compared her own work
+with it, and made corrections here and there.</p>
+
+<p>She was so absorbed that she quite failed to see
+another white-clad figure which had followed her
+noiselessly down the stairs, and stood in the doorway
+long enough to see what she was doing, and
+then went away.</p>
+
+<p>Hurriedly Helen went through her evil task,
+and then stole back to bed, with her glittering
+eyes and burning cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime Laura had gone, full of excitement,
+to her mother. Mr. Mason was away on business,
+and Laura crept into the empty half of her mother’s
+great bed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Mamsie,” she said, “wake up quickly, and
+listen.”</p>
+
+<p>Patient Mrs. Mason rubbed the sleep out of her
+eyes, and turned over. Then followed Laura’s
+breathless story.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course she’ll win, now,” Laura said, in
+conclusion, “unless I tell Mademoiselle what she
+has done; and I suppose you wouldn’t like that,
+would you, mamsie?</p>
+
+<p>“But it was her French that was the shakiest
+of any thing. Oh, <em>did</em> you ever see any thing quite
+so mean? Think of getting into your desk with
+her keys, and then slying off all those corrections!”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I <em>do</em> think,” Mrs. Mason answered, with
+almost a groan.</p>
+
+<p>“And she is Laura’s child—my poor Laura,
+who was honor and honesty itself!</p>
+
+<p>“You don’t know, dear, what a bitter thing
+this is to me. Poor Laura! what if she
+knows?”</p>
+
+<p>“But what shall we do, mamsie, dear? Are
+we just to keep still, and let her win the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
+medal, and let every one think she has beaten
+fairly, or will you tell her what we know?”</p>
+
+<p>“Will you go away now,” Mrs. Mason said,
+“and come back again before breakfast? I don’t
+want to say any thing until I am quite sure what
+it is best to do.”</p>
+
+<p>When Laura came again, Mrs. Mason had settled
+upon her course of action, or rather of inaction.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t be vexed, girlie,” she said to Laura; “I
+know it will seem hard to you to be beaten unfairly;
+but there are things of more consequence
+even than that. The thing that seems to me most
+important, just now, is to know what Helen’s
+character really is. If she is not utterly unworthy
+of her mother, she will repent before the thing
+comes to an end. If she does not, it will be time
+enough to think what to do next.”</p>
+
+<p>“And I must let her beat unfairly, and never
+say one word?” Laura asked, with a little strain of
+rebellion in her voice.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, if you are the obedient and generous
+Laura I like to believe you.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Mamsie, you have a flattering tongue, and you
+always get your way.”</p>
+
+<p>“And who is pretty sure always to admit, in the
+end, that it was the best way?” asked Mrs. Mason,
+laughing.</p>
+
+<p>“Mamsie, you are getting spoiled. See if I say
+yours was the best way this time!”</p>
+
+<p>French came on the first of the two examination-days.
+Laura and Helen led their class. Laura
+did very well, but Helen acquitted herself triumphantly,
+and sat down amid a little buzz of
+congratulations and praises.</p>
+
+<p>But somehow the triumph left a bitter taste in
+her mouth. She did not look at Laura, and even
+if she had she would not have understood the
+scorn on Laura’s face, since she was quite unaware
+that her raid on her aunt’s desk had been observed.</p>
+
+<p>Still she was not happy. She needed no scorn
+from outside, she had already begun to feel such
+bitterness of self-contempt scorching her soul. It
+seemed to her that up to this moment she had been
+as one under an evil spell.</p>
+
+<p>She had thought of no single thing except her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
+triumph over her cousin—quite careless as to the
+means to this hotly desired end. Now she began
+to realize how base those means had been, and to
+long to exchange her success for any direst possible
+failure.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Mason was watching her, and when they
+started to go home, she found an instant in which
+to whisper to Laura,—</p>
+
+<p>“Be gentle to her, girlie; she will suffer enough
+to-night.”</p>
+
+<p>At supper Helen’s place was vacant. She sent
+word that her head ached too much to come.</p>
+
+<p>Her aunt despatched to her room tea and strawberries
+and bread-and-butter enough for the hungriest
+of girls, and then left her to herself.</p>
+
+<p>The poor, lonesome, miserable girl lay upon her
+bed and thought. It was not quite a year since
+she had lain in her mother’s arms and heard her
+say,—</p>
+
+<p>“Try to live nobly for my sake.”</p>
+
+<p>Those had been almost her mother’s last words;
+after them there was only the low sigh, faint as if
+it came already from far-off worlds,—</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Good-by, darling.”</p>
+
+<p>The low sun-rays stole in softly, and touched her
+sad, pale face, and then went away; and after a
+while some cold, far-off stars looked down into the
+window, and saw the girl lying there still, fighting
+her battle with herself.</p>
+
+<p>One thing her conscience told her,—that she
+must undo this wrong, at whatever cost of shame.</p>
+
+<p>Once she started up, half-resolved to go to her
+aunt and tell her the whole story, and seek her
+help and counsel. But she lay down again, without
+the courage to confess her shame.</p>
+
+<p>Through the long night she scarcely slept; but
+before morning she had resolved what to do. In
+public she had taken the wages of her sin; in
+public she would make atonement, and eat the
+bitter bread of humiliation.</p>
+
+<p>When she had once settled on her course of
+action, sleep touched her weary eyes, and soothed
+her into a forgetfulness from which only the breakfast-bell
+awoke her.</p>
+
+<p>That day every one noticed a singular calmness
+and resolve in her manner. She passed the remain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>ing
+examinations with thorough success, yet with
+an evident lack of interest in their result which all
+save her aunt were at a loss to understand.</p>
+
+<p>At last the time came for the awarding of the
+medal. There was a little consultation among the
+examining committee, and then their chairman
+rose, with the medal in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>“To Miss Helen Ash,” he began; but before he
+could proceed farther, Miss Helen Ash herself
+interrupted him.</p>
+
+<p>Her face was as white as the dress she wore,
+and her eyes glittered with some strange fire of
+resolve or courage; but her voice was absolutely
+without a quiver of emotion in it, as steady and
+even as if she were beyond hope or fear.</p>
+
+<p>“The medal does not belong to me,” she said.
+“My success was a false success. I dishonestly
+found the key to the French method, and corrected
+my mistakes by it, or I should have failed.
+The prize belongs, of right, to my cousin, Laura
+Mason.”</p>
+
+<p>The chairman was a fussy little man, and was
+thoroughly discomposed by this interruption. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
+had had his little speech all ready, but it began
+with the name of Helen Ash, and he found it
+difficult to change it at a moment’s notice.</p>
+
+<p>“Bless my heart!” he said quite unconsciously,
+and looking helplessly around him, he repeated,
+“<em>Bless</em> my heart!”</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Laura Mason,” suggested one of his
+brethren on the committee; and thus reinforced,
+he began again,—</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Laura Mason, I am very sorry—I mean
+I am very glad, to bestow on you this medal, which
+you have fairly earned by your success.”</p>
+
+<p>And then he sat down, and his confusion was
+covered by a gentle little clapping of hands.</p>
+
+<p>That night Mrs. Mason went to Helen in her
+own room, when the twilight shadows were falling,
+and as she entered the door she said, “My darling,”
+in a voice so like Helen’s mother’s that the
+girl’s very heart sprang to meet it.</p>
+
+<p>“My darling, I know now that you are true
+enough and brave enough to be my sister’s
+child.”</p>
+
+<p>But Helen shrank back into the darkness, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
+this time the voice was broken with tears which
+faltered,—</p>
+
+<p>“Is there any one who could know what I have
+done, and yet not despise me?”</p>
+
+<p>“There is no one, dear, who dares to scorn the
+soul that repents and atones.”</p>
+
+<p>And then loving arms held the poor lonesome
+girl close, and she knew that she was no longer
+alone. She had found a new home—the home
+her mother bade her seek—in the heart of that
+mother’s sister.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_SURGEON_OF_THE_DOLLS">THE SURGEON OF THE DOLLS’ HOSPITAL.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+<p>It was nearly four years ago that I first noticed,
+in one of the quiet side-streets in the West
+Central district of London, a sign over a door on
+which I read:—</p>
+
+<p>DOLLS’ HOSPITAL.</p>
+
+<p>Operations from 9 <span class="smcap">A.M.</span>, to 4 <span class="smcap">P.M.</span></p>
+
+<p>Whenever I passed through the street—and
+that was often, for it was a short cut to Mudie’s,—the
+largest circulating library in the world,—I used
+to notice this quaint sign, and wonder, laughingly,
+who was the superintending physician to this place
+of healing for the numerous race of dolls.</p>
+
+<p>I often thought I would go in and see the establishment;
+but one is always busy in London, so,
+very likely, I should never have entered its door
+but for a casualty at my own fireside.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When I went downstairs one morning, I heard
+a sound of weeping, as bitter as that of Rachel of
+old mourning for her children. The mourner in
+this case was Mistress Brown-Eyes, as I was wont
+to call my friend’s little girl.</p>
+
+<p>She was a pretty child, this little Milicent; but
+you forgot to think about the rest of her face when
+you saw her wonderful eyes—soft and clear, yet
+bright, and of the warmest, deepest, yet softest
+brown. She had made her home in my heart, and
+so her grief, whatever it was, appealed at once to
+my sympathies.</p>
+
+<p>“My darling,” I said, as I tried to draw away
+the little hands from before the sorrowful face,
+“what can be the matter?”</p>
+
+<p>“Bella is dead!” and the sobs recommenced
+with fresh violence.</p>
+
+<p>Bella was the best-beloved of a somewhat large
+family of dolls,—a pretty Parian creature, with
+blue eyes and fair hair. I had myself lately
+assisted in making a trunk of clothes for Bella;
+and I grudged sorely all my wasted labor, if she
+had come to an untimely end.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I looked at the dear remains, stretched out sadly
+upon a chair. Bella was evidently very dead indeed.
+Her pretty neck was broken, her fair,
+foolish head lay quite severed from her silken-clad
+body. Suddenly there flashed into my
+mind the thought of the dolls’ hospital. I spoke
+cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>“Brown-Eyes,” I said, “I think that Bella may
+recover. I am pretty sure that her collar-bone is
+broken; but I have heard of people who got well
+after breaking their collar-bones.”</p>
+
+<p>The child looked up, her eyes shining through
+tears, and said, with that air of grave, old-fashioned
+propriety which was one of the most amusing
+things about her,—</p>
+
+<p>“It is a very serious accident. Do you think
+Bella <em>could</em> recover?”</p>
+
+<p>“I hope she may; and I shall at once take her
+to the hospital.”</p>
+
+<p>“The hospital!” cried Mistress Brown-Eyes;
+“but that is where Mary Ann went when she had
+a fever. She was gone six weeks. Will my Bella
+be gone six weeks?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“I think not so long as one week, if she can be
+cured at all.”</p>
+
+<p>In five minutes more I was in the street, with
+Bella in a basket on my arm. Her little mother
+had covered her carefully from the cold, though it
+was already May; and I felt as if I were in a
+position of grave responsibility as I hurried to the
+dolls’ hospital.</p>
+
+<p>A bell rang when I opened the door, and the
+oddest little person stood before me. At first I
+thought it was a child masquerading in long
+clothes; for she was not more than half the height
+of an ordinary woman.</p>
+
+<p>But, looking more closely, I saw the maturity of
+her face, and realized that I stood in the presence
+of a grown-up dwarf, who might really have been
+taken for Dickens’s Miss Mowcher, herself.</p>
+
+<p>She was dressed in a long, straight gown of rusty-looking
+black alpaca, and her rusty-looking black
+hair was drawn straightly back from as plain a
+face as one often sees. It was a kind, honest face,
+however, and I liked the voice in which she asked
+how she could serve me. I explained my errand.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Please to let me see the patient.”</p>
+
+<p>She spoke with as much gravity as if she had
+been the superintending physician of the largest
+hospital in London. I unveiled poor Bella, and
+the dwarf lifted her from the basket with grave
+tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>“Poor little beauty!” she said. “Yes’m, I
+think I can cure her.”</p>
+
+<p>“Will the operation take long?” I asked,
+humoring her fancy.</p>
+
+<p>“I should prefer that the patient should not be
+moved, ma’am, before to-morrow.”</p>
+
+<p>“Very well; then I will leave her.”</p>
+
+<p>Just at that moment I heard a voice call, “Sally!
+Sally!”</p>
+
+<p>It was a well-trained, ladylike voice, but somewhat
+imperious.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, Lady Jane, I’ll be there in a moment,”
+answered the dwarf, whom I now knew to be
+Sally. Then a door opened, and the most beautiful
+creature I ever saw stood in it, looking in.</p>
+
+<p>The hospital was a bare enough place. There
+was a great table covered with dolls,—dolls with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
+broken legs, dolls with punched heads, dolls with
+one arm gone, hairless dolls, broken-backed dolls,
+dolls of every kind, awaiting the ministrations of
+Sally; and dozens of other dolls were there, too,
+whom those skilful fingers had already cured of
+their wounds.</p>
+
+<p>There was a shelf, on which was ranged the
+pharmacy of this hospital,—white cement, boxes
+of saw-dust, collections of legs and arms, wigs,
+every thing, in short, that an afflicted doll could
+possibly require. Then there were two or three
+wooden stools, and these completed the furniture
+of the apartment.</p>
+
+<p>Standing in the doorway, Lady Jane looked as
+if she were a larger doll than the rest,—a doll
+with a soul. She seemed a lady’s child, every
+pretty inch of her. I should think she was about
+twelve years old. She wore a blue dress, and a
+blue ribbon in the bright, fair hair that hung all
+about her soft, pink-and-white face, out of which
+looked two great, serious, inquiring blue eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“I will be through soon, Lady Jane,” Sally said
+quietly; and the girl turned away, but not before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>
+I had taken in a complete picture of her loveliness,
+and had noticed also a somewhat singular
+ornament she wore, attached to a slender golden
+chain. It was so strange a vision to see in this
+humble little shop that my curiosity got the better
+of me, and, after the door had closed on Lady
+Jane, I asked, “Does she live here?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes’m,” answered Sally proudly. “In a
+way, she is my child.”</p>
+
+<p>I hesitated to inquire further; but I think my
+eyes must have asked some questions in spite of
+myself; for Sally said, after a moment,—</p>
+
+<p>“You seem interested, ma’am, and I don’t mind
+telling you about her. I saw Lady Jane first
+some eight years ago. A man had her who used
+to go round with a hand-organ. She was such a
+pretty little creature that everybody gave her
+money, and she was a great profit to Jacopo, for
+that was his name.</p>
+
+<p>“It used to make my heart ache to see the little
+beauty trudging round all day on her patient feet.
+When Jacopo spoke to her, I’ve seen her turn
+pale; and she never used to smile except when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
+she was holding out her bit of a hat to people for
+money. She <em>had</em> to smile then; it was part of
+the business.</p>
+
+<p>“I was sixteen, and I was all alone in the
+world. I had a room to myself, and I worked
+days in a toy-shop. I used to dress the dolls, and
+I got very clever at mending them; but I hadn’t
+thought of the hospital, then.</p>
+
+<p>“I lived in the same street with Jacopo, and I
+grew very fond of the little lady, as the people
+in the street used to call Jane. Sometimes I
+coaxed Jacopo to let her stay with me at night;
+but after three or four times, he would not let her
+come again. I suppose he thought she would get
+too fond of me.</p>
+
+<p>“Things went on that way for two years; then
+one night, in the middle of the night, a boy came
+for me, and said Jacopo was dying and wanted me
+to come. I knew it was something about Jane,
+and I hurried on my clothes and went.</p>
+
+<p>“The child was asleep in one corner. She had
+been tramping all that day, as usual, and she was
+too tired out for the noise in the room to wake<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>
+her. Jacopo looked very ill, and he could hardly
+summon strength to speak to me.</p>
+
+<p>“‘The end has come sudden, Sally,’ he said,
+‘the end to a bad life. But I ain’t bad enough to
+want harm to happen to the little one when I am
+gone. There will be plenty of folks after her, for
+she’s a profitable little one to have; but if you
+want her, I’ll give her to you. You may take her
+away to-night, if you will.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘Indeed I will,’ I cried, ‘and thank you.
+While I can work, she shall never want.’</p>
+
+<p>“Jacopo had been fumbling under his pillow as
+he spoke; and when I said I would take the
+child he handed me a curious locket. Maybe you
+noticed it at her neck when she stood in the
+door?</p>
+
+<p>“He said, as nearly as I could understand, for
+it was getting hard work for him to speak, that he
+had stolen the child, but he had always kept this
+thing, which she had on her neck when he took
+her, and perhaps it would help, some day, to find
+her people.</p>
+
+<p>“So I took her home. The next morning I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>
+heard that Jacopo was dead, and the Lady Jane
+has been mine ever since.”</p>
+
+<p>“Have you always called her Lady Jane?” I
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes’m. There is a coronet on that locket she
+wears; and I know she must be some great person’s
+daughter, she is so beautiful, and seems so
+much like a real lady.”</p>
+
+<p>“And so you’ve struggled on and worked for
+her, and taken care of her for six years, now?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes’m, and I’ve thanked God every day that
+I’ve had her to take care of. You see, ma’am,
+I’m not like other people; and it was a good fortune
+I couldn’t look for to have a beautiful child
+like that given into my arms, as you might say.
+It was all the difference between being alone and
+with no one to care for, and having a home and an
+interest in life like other women.</p>
+
+<p>“I gave up working in the shop when I took
+her, for I didn’t like to leave her alone. I was a
+good workwoman, and they let me take work
+home for awhile; then I opened the hospital,
+and I’ve done very well. Lady Jane has been to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
+school, and I don’t think if her true parents met
+her, they would be ashamed of her.”</p>
+
+<p>“Do you ever think,” I said, “that they may
+meet her some time, and then you would lose her
+for ever?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, indeed, I think about that, ma’am; and I
+make her keep the locket in sight all the time, in
+hopes it might lead to something.”</p>
+
+<p>“In hopes!” I said, surprised. “You don’t
+want to part with her, do you?”</p>
+
+<p>I was sorry, instantly, that I had asked the
+question, for her poor face flushed, and the tears
+gathered in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“O ma’am,” she said, “if I stopped to think
+about myself, I suppose I should rather die than
+lose her; but I <em>don’t</em> think of any thing but her.
+And how could I want her, a lady born, and beautiful
+as any princess, to live always in a little room
+back of a dolls’ hospital? Would it be right for
+me to want it?</p>
+
+<p>“No; I think God gave her to make a few of
+my years bright; and when the time comes, she
+will go away to live her own life, and I shall live<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
+out mine, remembering that she <em>was</em> here, once;
+and harking back till I can hear the sound of her
+voice again; or looking till I see her bright head
+shine in the corner where she sits now.”</p>
+
+<p>Just then the bell rang, and other customers
+came into the hospital, and I went away, promising
+to return for Bella on the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>I walked through the streets with a sense that I
+had been talking with some one nobler than the
+rest of the world. Another than poor Sally might
+have adopted Lady Jane, perhaps, tended her,
+loved her; but who else would have been noble
+enough to love her, and yet be ready to lose her
+for ever and live on in darkness quite satisfied if
+but the little queen might come to her own again?</p>
+
+<p>I comforted Mistress Brown-Eyes with a promise
+of her “child’s” recovery, and I went to a kettle-drum
+or two in the afternoon, and dined out at
+night; but all the time, amidst whatever buzz of
+talk, I was comparing the most generous persons I
+had ever known with the poor dwarfed surgeon of
+the dolls’ hospital, and finding them all wanting.</p>
+
+<p>I went for Bella about four the next afternoon.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
+I wanted to get to the hospital late enough to see
+something of the little surgeon and her beautiful
+ward. I purchased a bunch of roses on the way,
+for I meant to please Sally by giving them to Lady
+Jane.</p>
+
+<p>I opened the door, and again, at the ringing of
+the bell, the quaint little figure of the dwarf surgeon
+started up like Jack-in-the-box.</p>
+
+<p>“Is the patient recovered?” I asked.</p>
+
+<p>“The patient is quite well;” and the surgeon
+took down pretty Bella, and proudly exhibited
+her. The white cement had done its work so perfectly
+that the slender neck showed no signs of
+ever having been broken.</p>
+
+<p>I paid the surgeon her modest fee, and then I said,
+“Here are some roses I brought for Lady Jane.”</p>
+
+<p>Sally’s plain face beamed with pleasure. “It’s
+time to stop receiving patients for to-day,” she
+said. “Won’t you walk into the sitting-room and
+give the roses to Lady Jane, yourself?”</p>
+
+<p>I was well pleased to accept the invitation. The
+sitting-room was as cosy as the hospital itself was
+barren of attraction. I really wondered at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>
+taste with which it was arranged. The hangings
+were blue, and two or three low chairs were covered
+with the same color; and there were pretty
+trifles here and there which made it seem like a
+lady’s room.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/i_68.jpg" width="600" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">My roses were received with a cry of delight.—<span class="smcap">Page <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.</span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>My roses were received with a cry of delight;
+and, while Lady Jane put them in a delicate glass,
+Sally made me sit down in the most comfortable
+chair, and then she asked her ward to sing to me.</p>
+
+<p>The girl had a wonderful voice, soft and clear
+and full.</p>
+
+<p>When she had done singing, Sally said, “I have
+thought sometimes that, if no better fortune comes,
+Lady Jane can sing herself into good luck.”</p>
+
+<p>“<em>I</em> count on something better than that,” the
+little lady cried carelessly. “When I ‘come to
+my own,’ like the princesses in all the fairy tales,
+I’ll send you my picture, Sally, and it will make
+you less trouble than I do. It won’t wear out its
+gowns, nor want all the strawberries for supper.”</p>
+
+<p>Sally didn’t answer; but two great tears gathered
+in her eyes, and rolled down her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Jane laughed—not unkindly, only child<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>ishly—and
+said, “Never mind. Don’t cry yet.
+You’ll have time enough for that when it all
+comes to pass. And you know you want it to
+happen; you always say so.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, yes, dear, I want it to happen,” Sally
+said hastily; “I couldn’t want to shut you up
+here for ever, like a flower growing in a dungeon.”</p>
+
+<p>“A pretty, blue-hung dungeon, with nice soft
+chairs,” Lady Jane said pleasantly; and then I got
+up to go.</p>
+
+<p>Had this beautiful girl any real heart behind
+her beauty? I wondered. If the time ever came
+when Sally must give her up to some brighter
+fate, would it cost the little lady herself one pang?
+Could she be wholly insensible to all the devotion
+that had been lavished on her for all these years?
+I could not tell; but she seemed to me too light a
+thing for deep loving.</p>
+
+<p>I carried Bella home to Mistress Brown-Eyes,
+who received her with great joy, and with a certain
+tender respect, such as we give to those who have
+passed through perils. I stayed in London till
+“the season” was over,—that is to say, till the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
+end of July; and then, with the last rose of summer
+in my buttonhole, I went over to the fair sea
+coast of France.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until the next May that I found myself
+in London again; and going to renew my subscription
+at Mudie’s, passed the dolls’ hospital.
+I looked up at the quaint sign, and the fancy
+seized me to go in.</p>
+
+<p>I opened the door, and promptly as ever, the
+dwarf surgeon of the dolls stood before me. It
+was nearly four o’clock, and the hospital was
+empty of customers. Nothing in it was changed
+except the face of the surgeon. Out of that
+always plain face a certain cheerful light had
+faded. It looked now like a face accustomed to
+tears. I said,—</p>
+
+<p>“Do you remember me, Dr. Sally?”</p>
+
+<p>A sort of frozen smile came to the poor trembling
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes’m. You’re the lady that brought the
+rose-buds to Lady Jane.”</p>
+
+<p>“And is she well?” I asked.</p>
+
+<p>“I <em>think</em> so, ma’am. Heaven knows I <em>hope</em> so;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
+but the old days when I <em>knew</em> are over. Won’t
+you come into the sitting-room, please?”</p>
+
+<p>I wanted nothing better for myself, and I felt
+that it might ease her sad heart to break its silence;
+so I followed her into the familiar room. It, at
+least, was unchanged. The blue hangings were
+there, and the low easy-chairs, and the pretty
+trifles; and yet, somehow, the room seemed cold,
+for the beauty which had gladdened it last year
+had gone for ever.</p>
+
+<p>“Will you tell me what happened?” I asked;
+and I know the real sympathy I felt must have
+sounded in my voice.</p>
+
+<p>“It wasn’t long after you were here,” she said,
+“a lady was driving by, and she saw my sign.
+She sent her footman to the door to see if the
+place was really what that said; and the next day
+she came in herself and brought a whole load of
+broken toys. She said she wanted these things
+put in order to take into the country, for they
+were favorite playthings of her little girl’s.</p>
+
+<p>“I turned then and looked at the child who had
+come in with her mother. I can never tell you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
+how I felt. It was as though Lady Jane had gone
+back six years. Just what my darling was when
+she came to me, this little girl was now,—the
+very same blue eyes, and bright, fair hair, and the
+pretty, pink-and-white face.</p>
+
+<p>“Just at that moment, Lady Jane came into the
+hospital, and when the lady saw her, she stood
+and gazed as if she had seen a ghost. I looked
+at the lady herself, and then I looked at Lady
+Jane, and then again at the little girl; and true
+as you live, ma’am, I knew it was Lady Jane’s
+mother and sister before ever a word was spoken.
+I felt my knees shaking under me, and I held fast
+to the counter to keep from falling. I couldn’t
+have spoken first, if my life had depended on it.</p>
+
+<p>“The lady looked, for what seemed to me a long
+time; and then she walked up to my darling and
+touched the locket that she wore on her neck.
+At last she turned to me and asked, with a little
+sternness in her gentle voice, if I would tell her
+who this girl was, and how I came by her.</p>
+
+<p>“So I told her the whole story, just as I had
+told it to you, and before I had finished, she was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>
+crying as if her heart would break. Down she
+went on her knees beside Lady Jane, and put her
+arms around her, and cried,—</p>
+
+<p>“‘O my darling, my love, I thought you were
+dead! I am your mother—oh, believe me, my
+darling! Love me a little, a little,—after all
+these years!’</p>
+
+<p>“And just as properly as if she had gone
+through it all in her mind a hundred times beforehand,
+Lady Jane answered,—</p>
+
+<p>“‘I always expected you, mamma.’</p>
+
+<p>“Somehow, the lady looked astonished. She
+grew quieter, and stood up, holding Lady Jane’s
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>“‘You expected me?’ she said, inquiringly.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Yes, you know I <em>knew</em> I had been stolen;
+and I used to think and think, and fancy how my
+true mother would look, and what my right home
+would be; and I always felt sure in my heart that
+you would come some day. I didn’t know when
+or how it would be; but I expected you.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘And when will you be ready to go with me?’
+asked the mother.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“‘When you please, mamma.’</p>
+
+<p>“The lady hesitated, and turned to me. ‘I owe
+you so much,’ she said, ‘so much that I can never
+hope to pay it; and I do not like to grieve you.
+But her father and I have been without Jane so
+long, <em>could</em> you spare her to me at once?’</p>
+
+<p>“‘That must be as you and she say, ma’am,’ I
+answered, trying as hard as I could to speak quietly.
+‘I never have wanted any thing but that
+she should be well off and happy so far, and won’t
+begin to stand in her light now.’</p>
+
+<p>“Then the lady turned to the little girl who
+had come in with her. ‘Ethel,’ she said, ‘this is
+your sister. She has been lost to us eight years,
+but we will keep her always, now.’ And then,
+with more thanks to me, she started to go away,—the
+stately, beautiful lady, with her beautiful
+girls, one on each side of her.</p>
+
+<p>“They got to the door, and suddenly my darling
+turned,—O ma’am, it’s the best thing in my
+whole life to remember that! Of her own accord
+she turned and came back to me, and said she,—</p>
+
+<p>“‘Don’t think, Sally, that I’m not sorry to say<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
+good-by. Of course I can’t be sorry to find my
+own mamma and my right home, but I’m sorry to
+leave <em>you</em>.’</p>
+
+<p>“And then she put her arms round my neck
+and kissed me just as she had done when I took
+her home that night from Jacopo’s, six years
+before; and then she went away, and the sunshine,
+it seemed to me, went out of the door
+with her, and has never come back since.”</p>
+
+<p>The poor little surgeon of the dolls stopped
+speaking, and cried very quietly, as those cry who
+are not used to have their tears wiped away, or
+their sorrows comforted.</p>
+
+<p>I wanted to say that Lady Jane seemed to me a
+heartless little piece, who cared for nothing in the
+world but herself, and wasn’t worth grieving for;
+but I felt there would be no comfort for her in
+thinking that there had never been any thing
+worth having in her life. Far better let her go on
+believing that for six years she had sheltered an
+angel at her fireside.</p>
+
+<p>At last, when I saw her tears were ceasing to
+flow, I said, “And when did you see her again?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I have never seen her since that day. I
+think she pitied me too much to come back and
+give me the sorrow of parting with her over again.
+No, I have never seen her, but her mother sent me
+five hundred pounds.”</p>
+
+<p>“And so she ought,” I said impulsively. “It
+was little enough for all you had done.”</p>
+
+<p>Surgeon Sally looked at me with wonder, not
+unmixed with reproach, in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you think I wanted <em>that</em>?” she asked. “I
+had had my pay for all I did, ten times over, in
+just having her here to look at and to love.
+No; I sent the money back, and I think it must
+be that my darling understood; for, two months
+afterwards, I received the only gift I would
+have cared to have,—her portrait. Will you
+please to look round, ma’am? It hangs behind
+you.”</p>
+
+<p>I looked round, and there she was, even lovelier
+than when I had seen her first,—a bright, smiling
+creature, silken-clad, patrician to the finger-tips.
+But it seemed to me that no heart of love looked
+out of the fair, careless face. I thought I would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>
+rather be Surgeon Sally, and know the sweetness
+of loving another better than myself.</p>
+
+<p>“She is very beautiful,” I said, as I turned
+away.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; and sometimes I almost think I feel her
+lips, her bonny bright lips, touch my face, as they
+did that last day, and hear her say, ‘Don’t think,
+Sally, that I’m not sorry.’ Oh, my lot isn’t hard,
+ma’am. I might have lived my life through and
+never have known what it was to have something
+all my own to love. God was good.</p>
+
+<p>“And after all, ma’am,” she added cheerfully,
+“there’s nothing happier in the world than to
+give all the pleasure you can to somebody.”</p>
+
+<p>And I went away, feeling that the dwarf surgeon
+of the dolls’ hospital had learned the true
+secret of life.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="PRETTY_MISS_KATE">PRETTY MISS KATE.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+<p>Everybody called her “pretty Miss Kate.”
+It was an odd title, and she had come by it
+in an odd way. A sort of half-witted nurse,
+whose one supreme merit was her faithfulness,
+had tended Squire Oswald’s baby daughter all
+through her early years; and she it was who had
+first called the girl “pretty Miss Kate.”</p>
+
+<p>It was a small neighborhood where everybody
+knew everybody else; and, by dint of much hearing
+this title, all the neighbors grew to use it.
+And, indeed, at fifteen Kate Oswald deserved it.
+She was a tall, slight girl, with a figure very graceful,
+and what people call stylish.</p>
+
+<p>She had blue eyes; not the meaningless blue of
+a French doll, but deep and lustrous, like the tender
+hue of the summer sky. She had hair like
+some Northland princess. It had not a tint of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>
+yellow in it, but it was fine and fair, and so light
+as to be noticeable anywhere. Her skin was
+exquisite, too, as skin needs must be to match
+such hair. When any color came to the cheeks
+it was never crimson, but just the faintest tint
+of the blush rose; her lips alone were of rich,
+vivid bloom. A prettier creature, truly, seldom
+crosses this planet; and the few such girls who
+have lived among us, and grown to womanhood,
+have made wild work generally, using hearts for
+playthings; and, like other children, breaking
+their toys now and then. But pretty Miss Kate
+was not at the age yet for that sort of pastime,
+and her most ardent worshipper was little Sally
+Green.</p>
+
+<p>There was a curious friendship between these
+two, if one may call that friendship which is made
+up of blind worship on one side and gentle pity
+and kindliness on the other.</p>
+
+<p>Squire Oswald owned the poor little house where
+Widow Green lived, and whenever there was an
+unusual press of work at the great house above,
+the family washing used to be sent down to Mrs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
+Green at the foot of the hill. Many an hour the
+widow worked busily, fluting the delicate ruffles
+and smoothing the soft muslins, out of which pretty
+Miss Kate used to bloom as a flower does out of its
+calyx. And on these occasions Sally used to carry
+the dainty washing home, and she nearly always
+contrived to be permitted to take it up to Miss
+Kate’s room, herself.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody thought much about little Sally Green
+any way,—least of all did any one suspect her of
+any romantic or heroic or poetical qualities. And
+yet she had them all; and if you came to a question
+of soul and mind, there was something in
+Sally which entitled her to rank with the best.
+She was a plain, dark little thing, with a stubbed,
+solid, squarely-built figure; with great black eyes,
+which nobody thought any thing about in <em>her</em>, but
+which would have been enough for the whole
+stock-in-trade of a fashionable belle; with masses
+of black hair that she did not know what to do
+with; and with a skin somewhat sallow, but
+smooth. No one ever thought how she looked,
+except, perhaps, pretty Miss Kate.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>One day, when the child brought home the
+washing, Kate had been reading aloud to a friend,
+and Sally had shown an evident inclination to linger.
+At that time Kate was not more than fourteen,
+and the interest or the admiration in Sally’s
+face struck her, and, moved by a girl’s quick impulse,
+she had said,—</p>
+
+<p>“Do you want to hear all of it, Sally? Wait,
+then, and I will read it to you.”</p>
+
+<p>The poem was Mrs. Browning’s “Romance of
+the Swan’s Nest,” and it was the first glimpse for
+Sally Green into the enchanted land of poetry
+and fiction. Before that she had admired pretty
+Miss Kate, but now the feeling grew to worship.</p>
+
+<p>Kate was not slow to perceive it, with that feminine
+instinct which somehow scents out and delights
+in the honest admiration of high or low, rich
+or poor. She grew very kind to little Sally. Many
+a book and magazine she lent the child; and now
+and then she gave her a flower, a bit of bright
+ribbon, or some little picture. To poor Sally
+Green these trifles were as the gifts of a goddess,
+and no devotee ever treasured relics from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
+the shrine of his patron saint more tenderly than
+she cherished any, even the slightest, token which
+was associated with the beautiful young lady whom
+she adored with all her faithful, reverent, imaginative
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>One June evening Sally had been working hard
+all day. She had washed dishes, run her mother’s
+errands, got supper, and now her reward was to
+come.</p>
+
+<p>“You may make yourself tidy,” her mother said,
+“and carry home that basket of Miss Kate’s things
+to Squire Oswald’s.”</p>
+
+<p>Sally flew upstairs, and brushed back her black
+locks, and tied them with a red ribbon Miss Kate
+had given her. She put on a clean dress, and a
+little straw hat that last year had been Miss Kate’s
+own; and really for such a stubbed, dark little
+thing, she looked very nicely. She was thirteen—two
+years younger than her idol—and while Miss
+Kate was tall, and looked older than her years,
+Sally looked even younger than she was. Her
+heart beat as she hurried up the hill. She thought
+of the fable of the mouse and the lion, which she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
+had read in one of the books Miss Kate had lent
+her. It made her think of herself and her idol.
+Not that Miss Kate was like a lion at all,—no, she
+was like a beautiful princess,—but she herself was
+such a poor, humble, helpless little mouse; and yet
+there might be a time, if she only watched and
+waited, when she, even she, could do pretty Miss
+Kate some good. And if the time ever came,
+wouldn’t she <em>do</em> it, just, at no matter <em>what</em> cost to
+herself? Poor little Sally! The time was on its
+way, and nearer than she thought.</p>
+
+<p>She found Miss Kate in her own pretty room,—a
+room all blue and white and silver, as befitted
+such a fair-haired beauty. The bedstead and wardrobe
+were of polished chestnut, lightly and gracefully
+carved. The carpet was pale gray, with
+impossible blue roses. The blue chintz curtains
+were looped back with silver cords; there were
+silver frames, with narrow blue edges, to the few
+graceful pictures; and on the mantel were a clock
+and vases with silver ornaments.</p>
+
+<p>Pretty Miss Kate looked as if she had been
+dressed on purpose to stay in that room. She wore<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
+a blue dress, and round her neck was a silver necklace
+which her father had brought her last year
+from far-off Genoa. Silver ornaments were in her
+little ears, and a silver clasp fastened the belt at
+her waist. She welcomed Sally with a sweet graciousness,
+a little conscious, perhaps, of the fact
+that she was Miss Oswald, and Sally was Sally
+Green; but to the child her manner, like every
+thing else about her, seemed perfection.</p>
+
+<p>“Sit down and stay a little, Sally,” she said,
+“I have something to tell you. Do you remember
+what you heard me read that first time, when your
+eyes got so big with listening, and I made you stay
+and hear it all?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, indeed,” Sally cried eagerly. “I never
+forgot any thing I ever heard you read. That first
+time it was ‘The Romance of the Swan’s Nest.’”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, you are right, and I know I was surprised
+to find how much you cared about it. I
+began to be interested in you then, for you know
+I am interested in you, don’t you, Sally?”</p>
+
+<p>Sally blushed with pleasure till her face glowed
+like the June roses in Miss Kate’s silver vases,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
+but she did not know what to say, and so, very
+wisely, she did not say any thing. Miss Kate
+went on,—</p>
+
+<p>“Well, that very same poem I am going to read,
+next Wednesday night, at the evening exercises in
+the academy. The academy hall won’t hold everybody,
+and so they are going to be admitted by
+tickets. Each of us girls has a certain number to
+give away, and I have one for you. I thought you
+would like to go and see me there among the rest
+in my white gown, and hear me read the old verses
+again.”</p>
+
+<p>You would not have believed so small a thing
+could so have moved anybody; but Sally’s face
+turned from red to white, and from white to red
+again, and her big black eyes were as full of tears
+as an April cloud is of rain-drops.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you mean it, truly?” she asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, truly, child. Here is your ticket. Why,
+don’t cry, foolish girl. It’s nothing. I wanted to
+be sure of one person there who would think I
+read well, whether any one else did or not. And
+I’ve a gown for you, too—that pink muslin,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
+don’t you know, that I wore last year? I’ve shot
+up right out of it, and it’s of no use to me, now,
+and mamma said I might give it to you. This is
+Saturday; you can get it ready by Wednesday,
+can’t you?”</p>
+
+<p>What a happy girl went home that night, just as
+the rosy June sunset was fading away, and ran,
+bright and glad and full of joyful expectation, into
+the Widow Green’s humble little house! Widow
+Green wasn’t much of a woman, in the neighbors’
+estimation. She was honest and civil, and she
+washed well; but that was all they saw in her.
+Sally saw much more. She saw a mother who
+always tried to make her happy; who shared her
+enthusiasms, or at least sympathized with them;
+who was never cross or jealous, or any thing
+but motherly. She was as pleased, now, at the
+prospect of Sally’s pleasure as Sally herself was;
+and just as proud of this attention from pretty
+Miss Kate. Together they made over the pink
+muslin dress; and when Wednesday night came
+the widow felt sure that her daughter was as well
+worth having, and as much to be proud of, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
+any other mother’s daughter that would be at
+the academy.</p>
+
+<p>“You must go very early,” she said, “to get a
+good seat; and you need not be afraid to go right
+up to the front. You’ve just as good right to
+get close up there as anybody.”</p>
+
+<p>When Sally was going out, her mother called her
+back.</p>
+
+<p>“Here, dear,” she said, “just take the shawl.
+Do it to please me, for there’s no knowing how
+cold it might be when you get out.”</p>
+
+<p>“The shawl” was an immense Rob Roy plaid,—a
+ridiculous wrap, truly, for a June night; but
+summer shawls they had none, and Sally was too
+dutiful, as well as too happy, not to want to please
+her mother even in such a trifle. How differently
+two lives would have come out if she had
+not taken it!</p>
+
+<p>She was the very first one to enter the academy.
+Dare she go and sit in the front row so
+as to be close to pretty Miss Kate? Ordinarily
+she would have shrunk into some far corner,
+for she was almost painfully shy; but now some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>thing
+outside herself seemed to urge her on. She
+would not take up much room,—this something
+whispered,—and nobody, no, nobody at all, could
+love Miss Kate better than she did. So she
+went into the very front row, close up to the
+little stage on which the young performers were
+to appear,—a veritable stage, with real foot-lights.</p>
+
+<p>Soon the people began to come in, and after a
+while the lights were turned up, and the exercises
+commenced. There were dialogues and music,
+and at last the master of ceremonies announced the
+reading of “The Romance of the Swan’s Nest,”
+by Miss Kate Oswald.</p>
+
+<p>Other people had been interested in what went
+before, no doubt; but to Sally Green the whole
+evening had been but a prelude to this one triumphant
+moment for which she waited.</p>
+
+<p>Pretty Miss Kate came forward like a little
+queen,—tall and slight, with her coronet of fair,
+braided hair, in which a shy, sweet rosebud nestled.
+She wore a dress of white muslin, as light and
+fleecy as a summer cloud, with a sash that might,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
+as far as its hue went, have been cut from the deep
+blue sky over which that summer cloud floated. A
+little bunch of flowers was on her bosom, and other
+ornament she had none. She looked like one of
+the pretty creatures, half angel and half woman of
+fashion, which some of the modern French artists
+paint.</p>
+
+<p>As she stepped forward she was greeted with a
+burst of irrepressible applause, and then the house
+was very still as she began to read. How her soft
+eyes glowed, and the blushes burned on her dainty
+cheeks, when she came to the lines:—</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">“Little Ellie in her smile<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Chooseth: ‘I will have a lover,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Riding on a steed of steeds!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">He shall love me without guile,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And to <em>him</em> I will discover<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That swan’s nest among the reeds.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">“‘And the steed shall be red-roan,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the lover shall be noble,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With an eye that takes the breath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the lute he plays upon<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall strike ladies into trouble,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As his sword strikes men to death.’”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p>
+<p>She had the whole audience for her lovers before
+she was through with the poem, and the last
+verse was followed with a perfect storm of applause.
+Was she not young and beautiful, with a
+voice as sweet as her smile? And then she was
+Squire Oswald’s daughter, and he was the great
+man of the village.</p>
+
+<p>She stepped off the stage; and then the applause
+recalled her, and she came back, pink with
+pleasure. A bow, a smile, and then a step too
+near the poorly protected foot-lights, and the
+fleecy white muslin dress was a sheet of flame.</p>
+
+<p>How Sally Green sprang over those foot-lights
+she never knew; but there she was, on the stage,
+and “the shawl” was wrapped round pretty Miss
+Kate before any one else had done any thing but
+scream. Close, close, close, Sally hugged its
+heavy woollen folds. She burned her own fingers
+to the bone; but what cared she? The time of
+the poor little mouse had come at last.</p>
+
+<p>And so pretty Miss Kate was saved, and not so
+much as a scar marred the pink and white of her
+fair girl’s face. Her arms were burned rather<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
+badly, but they would heal, and no permanent
+harm had come to her.</p>
+
+<p>Sally was burned much more severely, but she
+hardly felt the pain of it in her joy that she had
+saved her idol, for whom she would have been so
+willing even to die. They took her home very
+tenderly, and the first words she said, as they led
+her inside her mother’s door, were,—</p>
+
+<p>“Now, mother, I know what I took the shawl
+for!”</p>
+
+<p>I said how differently two lives would have
+ended if she had not taken that shawl. Pretty
+Miss Kate’s would have burned out then and
+there, no doubt; for if any one else were there
+with presence of mind enough to have saved her,
+certainly there was no other wrap there like “the
+shawl.” And then Sally might have grown up to
+the humblest kind of toil, instead of being what
+she is to-day; for Squire Oswald’s gratitude for
+his daughter’s saved life did not exhaust itself in
+words. From that moment he charged himself
+with Sally Green’s education, and gave her every
+advantage which his own daughter received.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
+And, truth to tell, Sally, with her wonderful temperament,
+the wealth of poetry and devotion and
+hero-worship that was in her, soon outstripped
+pretty Miss Kate in her progress.</p>
+
+<p>But no rivalry or jealousy ever came between
+them. As Sally had adored Kate’s loveliness, so,
+in time, Kate came to do homage to Sally’s
+genius; and the two were friends in the most
+complete sense of the word.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="A_BORROWED_ROSEBUD">A BORROWED ROSEBUD.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+<p>There was a pattering footfall on the piazza,
+and Miss Ellen Harding went to look out.
+She saw a little figure standing there, among the
+rosebuds,—not one of the neighbors’ children, but
+a bonny little lassie, with curls of spun gold, and
+great, fearless brown eyes, and cheeks and lips as
+bright as the red roses on the climbing rosebush
+beside her.</p>
+
+<p>A little morsel, not more than five years old, she
+was; with a white dress, and a broad scarlet sash,
+and a hat which she swung in her fingers by its
+scarlet strings. She looked so bright and vivid,
+and she was such an unexpected vision in that
+place, that it almost seemed as if one of the poppies
+in the yard beyond had turned into a little
+girl, and come up the steps.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Did you want me?” Miss Harding asked, going
+up to the tiny blossom of a creature.</p>
+
+<p>“No, if you please.”</p>
+
+<p>“My father, then, Dr. Harding,—were you
+sent for him?”</p>
+
+<p>The child surveyed her, as if in gentle surprise
+at so much curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>“No,” she answered, after a moment. “I am
+Rosebud; and I don’t want anybody. Jane told
+me to come here, and she would follow presently.”</p>
+
+<p>She said the words with a singular correctness
+and propriety, as if they were a lesson which she
+had been taught.</p>
+
+<p>“And who is Jane?” Miss Harding asked.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently the process of training had gone no
+further. The child looked puzzled and uncomfortable.</p>
+
+<p>“Jane?” she answered hesitatingly. “Why,
+she is Jane.”</p>
+
+<p>“Not your mamma?”</p>
+
+<p>“No,—just Jane.”</p>
+
+<p>“And what did Jane want here?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“She told me to come, and she would follow
+presently,” said the child, saying her little lesson
+over again.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently there was nothing more to be got out
+of her; but Miss Harding coaxed her to come
+into the cool parlor, and wait for Jane; and gave
+her some strawberries and cream in a gayly painted
+china saucer, that all children liked. Rosebud
+was no exception to the rest. When she had
+finished her berries, she tapped on the saucer with
+her spoon.</p>
+
+<p>“I will have it for mine, while I stay,—may
+I?” she said. “Not to take away, but just to
+call, you know.”</p>
+
+<p>“Surely,” said Miss Harding, more puzzled than
+ever. Had the sprite, then, come to stay? Were
+there, by chance, fairies after all,—and was this
+some changeling from out their ranks? She tried
+to entertain her small guest; and she found her
+quite accessible to the charms of pictures, and contented
+for an hour with a box of red and white
+chessmen. Towards night her curiosity got the
+better of her courtesy; and, looking from the
+window, she inquired,—</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“I wonder where your Jane can be?”</p>
+
+<p>“Presently; Jane said presently,” answered the
+child, with quiet composure, and returned to the
+chessmen.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Harding heard her father drive into the
+yard, and slipped out to speak to him. She told
+her story, and the doctor gave a low, soft whistle.
+It was a way he had when any thing surprised him.</p>
+
+<p>“It looks to me,” said he, “as if Jane, whoever
+she may be, intended to make us a present of Miss
+Rosebud. Well, we must make the small person
+comfortable to-night, and to-morrow we will see
+what to do with her.”</p>
+
+<p>The small person was easily made comfortable.
+She ate plenty of bread-and-milk for her supper,
+and more strawberries; and when it was over, she
+went round and stood beside the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>“I think you are a dood man,” she said, with the
+quaint gravity which characterized all her utterances.
+“I should like to sit with you.”</p>
+
+<p>The doctor lifted her to his knee, and she laid
+her little golden head against his coat. There
+was a soft place under that coat, as many a sick and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
+poor person in the town knew very well. I think
+the little golden head hit the soft place. He stroked
+the shining curls very tenderly. Then he asked,—</p>
+
+<p>“What makes you think I’m a ‘dood’ man,
+Pussy-cat?”</p>
+
+<p>“My name is not Pussy-cat,—I am Rosebud,”
+she replied gravely; “and I think you are dood
+because you look so, out of your eyes.”</p>
+
+<p>The little morsel spoke most of her words with
+singular clearness and propriety. It was only
+when a “g” came in that she substituted a “d”
+for it, and went on her way rejoicing.</p>
+
+<p>As the doctor held her, the soft place under his
+coat grew very soft indeed. A little girl had been
+his last legacy from his dying wife; and she had
+grown to be about as large as Rosebud, and then
+had gone home to her mother. It almost seemed
+to him as if she had come back again; and it was
+her head beneath which his heart was beating. He
+beckoned to his daughter.</p>
+
+<p>“Have you some of Aggie’s things?” he asked.
+“This child must be made comfortable, and she
+ought to go to bed soon.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“No,” the child said; “I’m doing to sit here till
+the moon comes. That means ‘do to bed.’”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I have them,” Miss Harding answered.</p>
+
+<p>She had loved Aggie so well, that it seemed half
+sacrilege to put her dead sister’s garments on this
+stranger child; and half it was a pleasure that
+again she had a little girl to dress and cuddle. She
+went out of the room. Soon she came running
+back, and called her father.</p>
+
+<p>“O, come here! I found this in the hall. It is
+a great basket full of all sorts of clothes, and it is
+marked ‘For Rosebud.’ See,—here is every thing
+a child needs.”</p>
+
+<p>The doctor had set the little girl down, but she
+was still clinging to his hand.</p>
+
+<p>“I think,” he said, “that Jane has been here,
+and that she does not mean to take away our Rosebud.”</p>
+
+<p>But the little one, still clinging to him, said,—</p>
+
+<p>“I think it is not ‘presently’ yet,—Jane
+wouldn’t come till ‘presently.’”</p>
+
+<p>“Do you love Jane?” the doctor asked, looking
+down at the flower-like face.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Jane is not mamma. She is only Jane,” was
+the answer.</p>
+
+<p>When the moon rose, the little girl went willingly
+to bed; and all night long Miss Ellen Harding
+held her in her arms, as she used to hold her
+little sister, before the angels took her. Since
+Aggie’s death, people said Miss Ellen had grown
+cold and stiff and silent. She felt, herself, as if
+she had been frozen; but the ice was melting, as
+she lay there, feeling the soft, round little lump of
+breathing bliss in her arms; and a tender flower
+of love was to spring up and bloom in that heart
+that had grown hard and cold.</p>
+
+<p>There was no talk of sending Rosebud away,
+though some people wondered much at the doctor,
+and even almost blamed him for keeping this child,
+of whom he knew nothing. But he wanted her,
+and Miss Ellen wanted her; and, indeed, she
+was the joy and life and blessing of the long-silent
+household.</p>
+
+<p>She was by no means a perfect child. A well-mannered
+little creature she was,—some lady had
+brought her up evidently,—but she was self<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>-willed
+and obstinate. When she had said, “I’m
+doing to do” such and such a thing, it was hard
+to move her from her purpose; unless, indeed,
+the doctor interposed, and to him she always
+yielded instantly. But, just such as she was, they
+found her altogether charming. The doctor never
+came home without something in his pocket to reward
+her search; Miss Ellen was her bond-slave;
+and Mistress Mulloney in the kitchen was ready
+to work her hands off for her.</p>
+
+<p>Often, when she had gone to bed, the doctor and
+Miss Ellen used to talk over her strange coming.</p>
+
+<p>“We shall lose her some day,” the doctor would
+say, with a sigh. “No one ever voluntarily abandoned
+such a child as that. She is only trusted to
+our protection for a little while, and presently we
+shall have to give her up.”</p>
+
+<p>“Should you be sorry, father,” Miss Ellen would
+inquire, “that we had had her at all?”</p>
+
+<p>And the doctor would answer thoughtfully
+“No, for she has made me young again. I will
+not grumble when the snows come because we
+have had summer, and know how bright it is.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But the child lived with them as if she were
+going to live with them for ever. If she had any
+memories of days before she came there, she never
+alluded to them. After the first, she never mentioned
+Jane,—she never spoke of a father or
+mother. But she was happy as the summer days
+were long,—a glad, bright, winsome creature as
+ever was the delight of any household.</p>
+
+<p>And so the days and the weeks and the months
+went on, and it was October. And one day the
+bell rang, and Mistress Mulloney went to the door,
+and in a moment came to the room where Miss
+Ellen was sitting, with Rosebud playing beside her,
+and beckoned to her mistress.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s some one asking for the child,” she said.
+“Can’t we jist hide her away? It’ll be hard for
+the doctor if she’s took.”</p>
+
+<p>“No; we must see who it is, and do what is
+right,” Miss Ellen answered; but her lips trembled
+a little. She went into the hall, and there, at
+the door, stood a woman, looking like a nursery-maid
+of the better sort.</p>
+
+<p>“I have come,” the stranger began; but Rose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>bud
+had caught the sound of her voice, and came
+on the scene like a flash of light.</p>
+
+<p>“It is ‘presently!’” she cried; “and there, oh,
+<em>there</em> is mamma!” And down the path she flew,
+and into the very arms of a lady who was waiting
+at a little distance.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Harding went down the steps. “You have
+come, I see, to claim our Rosebud, and she is only
+too ready to be claimed. I thought we had made
+her happy.”</p>
+
+<p>The child caught the slight accent of reproach
+in Miss Ellen’s voice, and turned towards her.</p>
+
+<p>“You have been dood, oh, so very, very dood!”
+she said, “but <em>this</em> is mamma.”</p>
+
+<p>“I trusted my darling to you in a very strange
+way,” the lady began, “but not, believe me, without
+knowing in whose hands I placed her. I was
+in mortal terror, then, lest she should be taken
+from me, and I dared not keep her until she had
+been legally made mine, and mine only. But you
+have made me your debtor for life, and I shall try
+to show it some day.”</p>
+
+<p>“But, at least, you will come in and wait until<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>
+my father returns. He loves Rosebud so dearly,
+that it would be a cruelty to take her away until
+he has had time to bid her good-by.”</p>
+
+<p>“You are right,” the stranger answered courteously.
+“Jane, go with the carriage to the hotel,
+and I will come or send for you when I want
+you.”</p>
+
+<p>In a few moments more the strange lady was
+seated in the doctor’s parlor. Miss Harding saw
+now where Rosebud had got her bright, wilful
+beauty.</p>
+
+<p>“I must explain,” the mother said, as she lifted
+her child upon her lap. “I am Mrs. Matthewson.
+My husband is dead, and Rosebud has a very, very
+large fortune of her own. Her uncles, who were
+to have the management of her property, by her
+father’s will, claimed her also; and I have had
+such a fight for her! They were unscrupulous
+men, and I feared to keep Rosebud with me, lest
+by some means they should get some hold on her.
+So I resolved to lend her to you for the summer;
+and, indeed, I never can reward you for all your
+care of her.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>“You
+can reward us only by not altogether taking
+her away from us. We have learned to love
+her very dearly.”</p>
+
+<p>And, after a while, the doctor came home and
+heard all the story. And it was a week before
+Mrs. Matthewson had the heart to take away the
+child she had lent them. Then it was not long
+before the doctor and Miss Ellen had to go to see
+Rosebud. And then, very soon, Mrs. Matthewson
+had to bring her back again; and, really, so much
+going back and forth was very troublesome; and
+they found it more convenient, after a while, to
+join their households.</p>
+
+<p>Before Rosebud came, the doctor had thought
+himself an old man, though he was only forty-five;
+but, as he said, Rosebud had made him young
+again; and Rosebud’s mamma found it possible to
+love him very dearly. But Miss Ellen always
+said it was Rosebud and nobody else whom her
+father married, and that he had been in love with
+the borrowed blossom from the first.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="TOMS_THANKSGIVING">TOM’S THANKSGIVING.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+<p>“It was very provoking that seamstresses and
+such people would get married, like the rest
+of the world,” Mrs. Greenough said, half in fun
+and half in earnest. Her fall sewing was just
+coming on, and here was Lizzie Brown, who had
+suited her so nicely, going off to be married; and
+she had no resource but to advertise, and take
+whomsoever she could get. No less than ten
+women had been there that day, and not one
+would answer.</p>
+
+<p>“There comes Number Eleven; you will see,”
+she cried, as the bell rang.</p>
+
+<p>Kitty Greenough looked on with interest. Indeed,
+it was her gowns, rather than her mother’s,
+that were most pressing. She was just sixteen,
+and since last winter she had shot up suddenly, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
+girls at that age so often do, and left all her clothes
+behind her.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Greenough was right,—it <em>was</em> another
+seamstress; and Bridget showed in a plain, sad-looking
+woman of about forty, with an air of intense
+respectability. Mrs. Greenough explained
+what she wanted done, and the woman said quietly
+that she was accustomed to such work,—would
+Mrs. Greenough be so kind as to look at some
+recommendations? Whereupon she handed out
+several lady-like looking notes, whose writers indorsed
+the bearer, Mrs. Margaret Graham, as faithful
+and capable, used to trimmings of all sorts, and
+quick to catch an idea.</p>
+
+<p>“Very well indeed,” Mrs. Greenough said, as
+she finished reading them; “I could ask nothing
+better. Can you be ready to come at once?”</p>
+
+<p>“To-morrow, if you wish, madam,” was the
+answer; and then Mrs. Graham went away.</p>
+
+<p>Kitty Greenough was an impulsive, imaginative
+girl; no subject was too dull or too unpromising
+for her fancy to touch it. She made a story for
+herself about every new person who came in her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>
+way. After Number Eleven had gone down the
+stairs, Kitty laughed.</p>
+
+<p>“Isn’t she a sobersides, mamma? I don’t believe
+there’ll be any frisk in my dresses at all if
+she trims them.”</p>
+
+<p>“There’ll be frisk enough in them if you wear
+them,” her mother answered, smiling at the bright,
+saucy, winsome face of her one tall daughter.</p>
+
+<p>Kitty was ready to turn the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>“What do you think she is, mamma,—wife or
+widow?” And then answering her own question:
+“I think she’s married, and he’s sick, and she has
+to take care of him. That solemn, still way she
+has comes of much staying in a sick-room. She’s
+in the habit of keeping quiet, don’t you see? I
+wish she were a little prettier; I think he would
+get well quicker.”</p>
+
+<p>“There’d be no plain, quiet people in your
+world if you made one,” her mother said, smiling;
+“but you’d make a mistake to leave them out.
+You would get tired even of the sun if it shone
+all the time.”</p>
+
+<p>The next day the new seamstress came, and a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
+thoroughly good one she proved; “better even
+than Lizzie,” Mrs. Greenough said, and this was
+high praise. She sewed steadily, and never opened
+her lips except to ask some question about her
+work. Even Kitty, who used to boast that she
+could make a dumb man talk, had not audacity
+enough to intrude on the reserve in which Mrs.
+Graham intrenched herself.</p>
+
+<p>“<em>He’s</em> worse this morning,” whispered saucy
+Kitty to her mother; “and she can do nothing but
+think about him and mind her gathers.”</p>
+
+<p>But, by the same token, “<em>he</em>” must have been
+worse every day, for during the two weeks she
+sewed there Mrs. Graham never spoke of any thing
+beyond her work.</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Greenough had paid her, the last
+night, she said,—</p>
+
+<p>“Please give me your address, Mrs. Graham, for
+I may want to find you again.”</p>
+
+<p>“17 Hudson Street, ma’am, up two flights of
+stairs; and if I’m not there Tom always is.”</p>
+
+<p>“There, didn’t I tell you?” Kitty cried exultingly,
+after the woman had gone. “Didn’t I tell<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
+you that he was sick? You see now,—‘Tom’s
+always there.’”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; but Tom may not be her husband, and I
+don’t think he is. He is much more likely to be
+her child.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mrs. Greenough, I’m astonished at you. You
+say that to be contradictious. Now, it is not
+nice to be contradictious; besides, she wouldn’t
+look so quiet and sad if Tom were only her
+boy.”</p>
+
+<p>But weeks passed on, and nothing more was
+heard of Mrs. Graham, until, at last, Thanksgiving
+Day was near at hand. Kitty was to
+have a new dress, and Mrs. Greenough, who had
+undertaken to finish it, found that she had not
+time.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, let me go for Mrs. Graham, mamma,”
+cried Kitty eagerly. “Luke can drive me down
+to Hudson Street, and then I shall see Tom.”</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Greenough laughed and consented. In a
+few minutes Luke had brought to the door the
+one-horse coupé, which had been the last year’s
+Christmas gift of Mr. Greenough to his wife, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
+in which Miss Kitty was always glad to make an
+excuse for going out.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at 17 Hudson Street, she tripped up two
+flights of stairs, and tapped on the door, on which
+was a printed card with the name of Mrs. Graham.</p>
+
+<p>A voice, with a wonderful quality of musical
+sweetness in it, answered,—</p>
+
+<p>“Please to come in; I cannot open the door.”</p>
+
+<p>If that were “he,” he had a very singular voice
+for a man.</p>
+
+<p>“I guess mamma was right after all,” thought
+wilful Kitty. “It’s rather curious how often
+mamma <em>is</em> right, when I come to think of it.”</p>
+
+<p>She opened the door, and saw, not Mrs. Graham’s
+husband, nor yet her son, but a girl, whose face
+looked as if she might be about Kitty’s own age,
+whose shoulders and waist told the same story;
+but whose lower limbs seemed curiously misshapen
+and shrunken—no larger, in fact, than those of a
+mere child. The face was a pretty, winning face,
+not at all sad. Short, thick brown hair curled
+round it, and big brown eyes, full of good-humor,
+met Kitty’s curious glance.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“<em>I</em> am Tom,” the same musical voice—which
+made Kitty think of a bird’s warble—said, in a
+tone of explanation. “I can’t get up to open the
+door because, don’t you see, I can’t walk.”</p>
+
+<p>“And why—what—Tom”—</p>
+
+<p>Kitty struggled desperately with the question she
+had begun to ask, and Tom kindly helped her out.</p>
+
+<p>“Why am I Tom, do you mean, when it’s a
+boy’s name; or why can’t I walk? I’m Tom
+because my father called me Tomasina, after his
+mother, and we can’t afford such long names in this
+house; and I can’t walk because I pulled a kettle
+of boiling water over on myself when I was six
+years old, and the only wonder is that I’m alive at
+all. I was left, you see, in a room by myself,
+while mother was busy somewhere else, and when
+she heard me scream, and came to me, she pulled
+me out from under the kettle, and saved the upper
+half of me all right.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, how dreadful!” Kitty cried, with the
+quick tears rushing to her eyes. “It must have
+almost killed your mother.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; that’s what makes her so still and sober.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>
+She never laughs, but she never frets either; and
+oh, how good she is to me!”</p>
+
+<p>Kitty glanced around the room, which seemed
+to her so bare. It was spotlessly clean, and Tom’s
+chair was soft and comfortable—as indeed a chair
+ought to be which must be sat in from morning till
+night. Opposite to it were a few pictures on
+the wall,—engravings taken from books and
+magazines, and given, probably, to Mrs. Graham
+by some of her lady customers. Within
+easy reach was a little stand, on which stood a
+rose-bush in a pot, and a basket full of bright-colored
+worsteds, while a book or two lay beside
+them.</p>
+
+<p>“And do you never go out?” cried Kitty, forgetting
+her errand in her sympathy—forgetting,
+too, that Luke and his impatient horse were waiting
+below.</p>
+
+<p>“Not lately. Mother used to take me down into
+the street sometimes; but I’ve grown too heavy
+for her now, and she can’t. But I’m not very dull,
+even when she’s gone. You wouldn’t guess how
+many things I see from my window; and then I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>
+make worsted mats and tidies, and mother sells
+them; and then I sing.”</p>
+
+<p>Kitty stepped to the window to see what range
+of vision it offered, and her eye fell on Luke.
+She recalled her business.</p>
+
+<p>“I came to see if I could get your mother to sew
+two or three days for me this week.”</p>
+
+<p>Tom was alert and business-like at once.</p>
+
+<p>“Let me see,” she said, “to-day is Tuesday;”
+and she drew toward her a little book, and looked
+it over. “To-morrow is engaged, but you could
+have Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, if you
+want so much. Please write your name against
+them.”</p>
+
+<p>Kitty pulled off her pretty gray glove, and wrote
+her name and address with the little toy-pencil at
+the end of her chatelaine; and then she turned to
+go, but it was Tom’s turn to question.</p>
+
+<p>“Please,” said the sweet, fresh voice, which
+seemed so like the clear carol of a bird, “would
+you mind telling me how old you are? I’m sixteen
+myself.”</p>
+
+<p>“And so am I sixteen,” said Kitty.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“And you have a father and mother both,
+haven’t you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, indeed,” said Kitty.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I’ve only mother, but she is good as two.
+Must you go now? And I wonder if I shall ever
+see you again?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, you <em>will</em> see me again,” answered Kitty
+cheerily; and then, moved by a sudden impulse
+of her kind, frank young heart, she bent over and
+touched her lips to the bright, bonny face of the
+poor girl who must sit prisoner there for ever, and
+yet who kept this bright cheerfulness all the time.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh mamma, I’ve had a lesson,” cried Kitty,
+bursting into her mother’s room like a fresh wind,
+“and Tom has taught it to me; and he isn’t <em>he</em>
+at all—she’s a girl just my age, and she can’t
+walk—not a step since she was six years old.”</p>
+
+<p>And then Kitty told all the sad, tender little
+story, and got to crying over it herself, and made
+her mother cry, too, before she was through.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner she sat half the evening in a brown
+study. Finally she came out of it, and began
+talking in her usual impulsive manner.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Can’t we have them here to Thanksgiving,
+mamma? There’s not a single pretty thing in
+that house except Tom herself, and the rose-bush;
+and every thing did look so bare and clean
+and poverty-stricken; and I know they’ll never
+afford a good dinner in the world. Oh, say yes,
+mamma, dear! I know you’ll say yes, <em>because</em>
+you’re such a dear, and you love to make every
+one happy.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; but, first of all, I must love to make
+papa happy, must I not? You know he never
+wants any company on Thanksgiving but grandpa
+and grandma and Uncle John. I’m sure you
+would not like to spoil papa’s old-fashioned
+Thanksgiving Day.”</p>
+
+<p>Kitty’s countenance fell. She saw the justice
+of her mother’s remark, and there was no more to
+be said. She sat thinking over her disappointment
+in a silence which her mother was the one to
+break.</p>
+
+<p>“But I’ve thought of a better thing, Puss,”
+said this wise mamma, who was herself every bit
+as tender of heart as Kitty, and cared just as much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>
+about making people happy. “No doubt Mrs.
+Graham and Tom would just as much prefer being
+alone together as papa prefers to be alone with his
+family; and how will it suit you if I have a nice
+dinner prepared for them, and let you go and take
+it to them in the coupé? Mrs. Graham is hardly
+the woman one could take such a liberty with;
+but I’ll beg her to let you have the pleasure of
+sending dinner to Tom.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, you darling!” and Mrs. Greenough’s neck-ruffle
+suffered, and her hair was in danger, as was
+apt to be the case when Kitty was overcome with
+emotion, which could only find vent in a rapturous
+squeeze.</p>
+
+<p>Before bed-time Kitty had it all planned out.
+She was to go in the coupé and take Bridget and
+the basket. Bridget was to mount guard by the
+horse’s head while Luke went upstairs with Kitty
+and brought down Tom for a drive; and while
+they were gone Bridget would take the basket in,
+and see that every thing was right, and then go
+home.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Greenough consented to it all. I think<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>
+she enjoyed the prospect of Tom’s ride, herself,
+just as much as Kitty did. While Mrs. Graham
+was sewing there she made the arrangement with
+her, approaching the subject so delicately that the
+most sensitive of women could not be hurt, and
+putting the acceptance of both drive and dinner in
+the light of a personal favor to Kitty, who had
+taken such a fancy to Tom.</p>
+
+<p>The last afternoon of Mrs. Graham’s stay Kitty
+called her mother into her room. Mrs. Greenough
+saw spread out upon the bed a thick, warm, soft
+jacket, a woollen dress, a last year’s hat.</p>
+
+<p>“You know them by sight, don’t you, mother
+mine? They are the last winter’s clothes that I
+grew away from, and have taken leave of. May
+Tom have them?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, indeed, if you’ll undertake to give them
+to Tom’s mother.”</p>
+
+<p>Kitty had seldom undertaken a more embarrassing
+task. She stole into the sewing-room with
+the things in her arms.</p>
+
+<p>“You’ll be sure, won’t you, Mrs. Graham, not
+to let Tom know she’s going to ride until I get<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>
+there, because I want to see how surprised she’ll
+look?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I’ll be sure, never fear.”</p>
+
+<p>“And, Mrs. Graham, here are my coat and hat
+and dress that I wore last year, and I’ve grown
+away from them. Would you mind letting Tom
+wear them?”</p>
+
+<p>“Would I mind?” A swift, hot rush of tears
+filled Mrs. Graham’s eyes, which presently she
+wiped away, and somehow then the eyes looked
+gladder than Kitty had ever seen them before. “Do
+you think I am so weakly, wickedly proud as to be
+hurt because you take an interest in my poor girl,
+and want to put a little happiness into her life,—that
+still, sad life which she bears so patiently?
+God bless you, Miss Kitty! and if He doesn’t, it
+won’t be because I shall get tired of asking Him.”</p>
+
+<p>“And you’ll not let her see the hat and jacket
+till I come, for fear she’ll think something?”</p>
+
+<p>At last Mrs. Graham smiled—an actual smile.</p>
+
+<p>“How you do think of every thing! No, I’ll
+keep the hat and jacket out of sight, and I’ll have
+the dress on her, all ready.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When Thanksgiving came Kitty scarcely remembered
+to put on the new fineries that Mrs.
+Graham had finished with such loving care;
+scarcely gave a thought to the family festivities at
+home, so eager was she about Tom’s Thanksgiving.
+She was to go to Hudson Street just at
+noon, so that Tom might have the benefit of the
+utmost warmth of which the chill November day
+was capable.</p>
+
+<p>First she saw the dinner packed. There was a
+turkey, and cranberry-sauce, and mince-pie, and
+plum-pudding, and a great cake full of plums, too,
+and fruit and nuts, and then Mr. Greenough, who
+had heard about the dinner with real interest,
+brought out a bottle of particularly nice sherry,
+and said to his wife,—</p>
+
+<p>“Put that in also. It will do those frozen-up
+souls good, once in the year.”</p>
+
+<p>At last impatient Kitty was off. Bridget and
+the basket filled all the spare space in the coupé,
+and when they reached Hudson Street, Luke took
+the dinner and followed Kitty upstairs, while
+Bridget stood by the horse’s head, according to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
+the programme. He set the basket down in the
+hall, where no one would be likely to notice it in
+opening the door, and then he stood out of sight
+himself, while Kitty went in.</p>
+
+<p>There was Tom, in the warm crimson thibet,—a
+proud, happy-looking Tom as you could find in
+Boston that Thanksgiving Day.</p>
+
+<p>“I have come to take you to ride,” cried eager
+Kitty. “Will you go?”</p>
+
+<p>It was worth ten ordinary Thanksgivings to see
+the look on Tom’s face,—the joy and wonder, and
+then the doubt, as the breathless question came,—</p>
+
+<p>“How <em>will</em> I get downstairs?”</p>
+
+<p>And then Luke was called in, and that mystery
+was solved. And then out of a closet came the
+warm jacket, and the hat, with its gay feather;
+and there were tears in Tom’s eyes, and smiles
+round her lips, and she tried to say something, and
+broke down utterly. And then big, strong Luke
+took her up as if she were a baby and marched
+downstairs with her, while she heard Kitty say,—but
+it all seemed to her like a dream, and Kitty’s
+voice like a voice in a dream,—</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“I’m sorry there’s nothing pretty to see at this
+time of year. It was so lovely out-doors six weeks
+ago.”</p>
+
+<p>Through Beach Street they went, and then
+through Boylston, and the Common was beside
+them, with its tree-boughs traced against the November
+sky, and the sun shone on the Frog Pond,
+and the dome of the State House glittered goldenly,
+and there were merry people walking about
+everywhere, with their Thanksgiving faces on;
+and at last Tom breathed a long, deep breath
+which was almost a sob, and cried,—</p>
+
+<p>“Did <em>you</em> think there was nothing pretty to see
+to-day—<em>this</em> day? Why, I didn’t know there
+was such a world!”</p>
+
+<p>The clocks had struck twelve when they left
+Hudson Street; the bells were ringing for one
+when they entered it again. Bridget was gone,
+but a good-natured boy stood by the horse’s head,
+and Kitty ran lightly upstairs, followed by Luke,
+with Tom in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>Kitty threw open the door, and there was a
+table spread with as good a Thanksgiving din<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>ner
+as the heart could desire, with Tom’s chair
+drawn up beside it. Luke set his light burden
+down.</p>
+
+<p>Kitty waited to hear neither thanks nor exclamations.
+She saw Tom’s brown eyes as they
+rested on the table, and that was enough. She
+bent for one moment over the bright face,—the
+cheeks which the out-door air had painted red as
+the rose that had just opened in honor of the day,—and
+left on the young, sweet, wistful lips a kiss,
+and then went silently down the stairs, leaving
+Tom and Tom’s mother to their Thanksgiving.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="FINDING_JACK">FINDING JACK.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+<p>Conn turned over and rubbed her sleepy blue
+eyes. It seemed to her that the world was
+coming to an end all at once, there was such a
+Babel of noise about her. What was it? Had
+everybody gone mad? Then her wits began to
+wake up. She remembered that it was Fourth of
+July. That worst noise of all—why, that must
+be Jack’s pistol, which he had been saving up
+money to buy all winter and all summer. And
+that other sound—that must be torpedoes; and
+there was the old dog, Hero, barking at them, and
+no wonder: it was enough to make any respectable
+dog bark. Fire-crackers—ugh! Wasn’t the
+pistol bad enough, without all these side shows?
+Just then Jack called out from the yard below,—</p>
+
+<p>“Conn! Conn!”</p>
+
+<p>The girl’s name was Constantia Richmond; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>
+she was too slight and bonny for such a long name,
+and everybody called her Conn.</p>
+
+<p>She shook back her fair, soft curls, as golden as
+a baby’s still, though Conn was fourteen, and,
+putting a little shawl over her shoulders, peeped
+out of the open window—as pretty a little slip of
+a girl as you would care to see—and looked down
+on the face, half-boyish, half-manly, which was upturned
+to her. If Jack had been her brother, perhaps
+she would have scolded at him; for Conn
+loved her morning nap, and the general din had
+discomposed her, no doubt. But Jack was only
+her cousin, and her second cousin, at that,—and
+it’s curious what a difference that does make.
+Your brother’s your brother all the days of his
+life; but your cousin is another affair, and far less
+certain. So Conn said, quite gently,—</p>
+
+<p>“What is it? Can I do any thing? But I’m
+sure I don’t want to help you make any more
+noise. This has been—oh, really dreadful!”</p>
+
+<p>She spoke with a droll little fine-lady air, and
+put her pretty little fingers to her pretty little
+ears. And Jack laughed; he had not begun to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>
+think of her yet as a charming girl,—she was
+just Cousin Conn.</p>
+
+<p>“What!” he cried. “Not like noise on Fourth
+of July? Why, you don’t deserve to have a
+country.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m sure I wish I hadn’t,” said Conn, with a
+little dash of spirit.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you dressed?” cried the boy, nearly
+seventeen years old, but all a boy still.</p>
+
+<p>“No.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, just hurry, then, and come down. I’m
+off in half an hour with the Brighton Blues, and I
+want you to see first how this pistol works.”</p>
+
+<p>High honor this, that she, a girl, should be invited
+to inspect the wonderful pistol!</p>
+
+<p>Conn began to dress hurriedly. What should
+she put on? Her white dress hung in the closet,—such
+a white dress as girls wore then,—all
+delicate ruffles, and with a blue ribbon sash, as
+dainty-fine as possible. She knew that was meant
+for afternoon, when Aunt Sarah would have company.
+But might she not put it on now? Perhaps
+Jack wouldn’t be here then, and she could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
+be careful. So she slipped into the dainty gown,
+and fastened hooks and buttons in nervous haste,
+and then looked in the glass, as every other girl
+that ever lived would have done in her place.</p>
+
+<p>It was a bright, fair face that she saw there—all
+pink and white, and with those violet eyes over
+which the long lashes drooped, and that soft, bright
+hair that lay in little rings and ripples round her
+white forehead, and hung a wavy mass down to
+the slender waist which the blue ribbon girdled.
+Conn was pleased, no doubt, with the sight she
+saw in the mirror,—how could she help being?
+She tripped downstairs, and out of the door.
+Jack whistled when he saw her.</p>
+
+<p>“What! all your fineries on at this time of
+day? What do you think Mother Sarah will say
+to that?”</p>
+
+<p>The pretty pink flush deepened in the girl’s
+cheeks, and she answered him almost as if she
+thought she had done something wrong,—</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll be so careful, Jack. I won’t spoil it. By
+and by you’ll be gone; and I wanted to look nice
+when I saw the new pistol.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This seemed extremely natural to Jack. The
+pistol was to him a matter of such moment that
+no amount of demonstration in its honor would
+have seemed too great. Viewed in this light, it
+really appeared quite a meritorious act that Conn
+should have put on the white dress; and he looked
+her over with that air of half-patronizing approval
+with which boys are apt to regard the good looks
+of their sisters and their cousins.</p>
+
+<p>Then he exhibited the pistol. It had—as a
+boy’s knife or gun or boat always has—distinguishing
+and individual merits of its own. No
+other pistol, though it were run in the same mould,
+could quite compare with it, and it was by some
+sort of wonderful chance that he had become its
+possessor. Conn wondered and admired with him
+to his heart’s content. Then came breakfast, and
+then the marching of the Brighton Blues. This
+was a company of boys in blue uniforms,—handsome,
+healthy, wide-awake boys from fourteen to
+seventeen years old,—every one of them the pride
+of mothers and sisters and cousins. They were
+to march into Boston, and parade the streets, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>
+dine at a restaurant, and see the fireworks in the
+evening, and I don’t know what other wonderful
+things.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/i_128.jpg" width="600" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">Conn stood and watched them.—<span class="smcap">Page <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Jack was in the highest spirits. He was sure
+he and his pistol were a necessary part of the day;
+and he sincerely pitied Conn, because she was a
+girl and must stay at home.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“‘<i>Bang, whang, whang</i> goes the drum, <i>tootle-te-tootle</i> the fife;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh! a day in the city square, there is no such pleasure in life!’”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>he quoted; and then he called back to her from
+the gate,—</p>
+
+<p>“It’s too bad, Conn, that there’s no fun for
+you; but keep your courage up, and I’ll bring you
+something.”</p>
+
+<p>And so they marched away, in the gay, glad
+morning sunshine, following their band of music,—a
+boy’s band that was, too.</p>
+
+<p>Conn stood and watched them, with a wistful,
+longing look in her great violet eyes, and the soft,
+bright color coming and going on her girlish cheeks.
+At last she gathered a bunch of late red roses, and
+put them in her bosom and went into the house.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
+She sewed a little, and then she tossed her work
+aside, for who cares to work on holidays? Then
+she took up her new book; but the tale it told
+seemed dull and cold beside the warm throbbing
+life of which the outside world was full. She
+wished over and over that she were a boy, that she
+might have marched away with the rest. Then
+she wondered if she could not go into town and
+see them from somewhere in all their glory. Very
+little idea had she of a Boston crowd on Fourth of
+July. She had been into town often enough, with
+her aunt or her uncle, and walked through the
+quiet streets; and she thought she should have
+little trouble in doing the same now. She looked
+in her purse; she had not much money, but enough
+so that she could ride if she got tired, and she
+would be sure to save some to come home. She
+called her Aunt Sarah’s one servant, and made her
+promise to keep the secret as long as she could, and
+then tell Aunt Sarah that she had gone to Boston
+to find Jack and see him march with the rest.</p>
+
+<p>The girl was a good-natured creature, not bright
+enough to know that it was her duty to interfere,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
+and easily persuaded by Conn’s entreaties and the
+bit of blue ribbon with which they were enforced.</p>
+
+<p>And so Conn started off, as the boys had done
+before her, and went on her way. But she had no
+gay music to which to march, and for company
+she had only her own thoughts, her own hopes.
+Still she marched bravely on.</p>
+
+<p>There were plenty of other people going the
+same way; indeed it seemed to Conn as if everybody
+must be going into Boston. Excitement upheld
+her, and she trudged along, mile after mile,
+across the pleasant mill-dam, and at last she
+reached Beacon Street. Her head had begun to
+throb horribly by the time she got into town. It
+seemed to her that all the world was whirling
+round and round, and she with it. But she could
+not turn back then; indeed, she did not know
+how to find any conveyance, and she knew her
+feet would not carry her much farther. Surely,
+she <em>must</em> see Jack soon. He had said they should
+march through Beacon Street. She would ask
+some one. She had an idea that every one must
+know about any thing so important as the Brighton<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
+Blues. At last she got courage to speak to a kind-looking
+servant-maid in the midst of a group on
+the steps of one of the Beacon-street houses. The
+girl pitied her white face, so pale now, with all
+the pretty pink roses faded from the tired young
+cheeks, and answered kindly.</p>
+
+<p>She did not know about the Brighton Blues, but
+she guessed all the companies had been by there, or
+would come. Wouldn’t the young lady sit down
+with them on the steps, and rest, and wait a little?</p>
+
+<p>And “the young lady” sat down. What could
+she do else, with the whole world whirling, whirling,
+and her feet so strangely determined to whirl
+out from under her? And then it grew dark,
+and when it came light again there was a wet cloth
+on her hair, and she lay on a lounge in a cool basement,
+and the kind girl who had cared for her told
+her that she had fainted. And then she had some
+food and grew refreshed a little, but was strangely
+confused yet, and with only one thought, to which
+she held with all the strength of her will,—that
+she had come to see Jack and must look for him
+till he came. So on the steps she stationed herself,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>
+and the crowd surged by. Military companies,
+grown-up ones, came and went with glitter of
+brave uniforms and joyful clamor of music, and
+Conn watched, with all her soul in her eyes, but
+still no Jack.</p>
+
+<p>It was mid-afternoon at last when suddenly she
+saw the familiar blue, and marching down the
+street came the boyish ranks, following their own
+band—tired enough, all of them, no doubt, but
+their courage kept up by the music and the hope of
+fireworks by and by. Conn strained her eyes.
+She did not mean to speak, but after a little, when
+the face she longed for came in sight, something
+within her cried out with a sharp, despairing cry,
+“Oh, Jack, Jack!”</p>
+
+<p>And Jack heard. Those who were watching
+saw one boy break from the long blue line, and
+spring up the step where Conn sat, and seize in
+strong hands the shoulders of a girl all in white,
+her face as white as her gown, and some red roses,
+withered now, upon her breast.</p>
+
+<p>“Conn—Conn Richmond!” the boy cried,
+“what <em>does</em> this mean?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Don’t scold—oh, <em>don’t</em> scold, Jack!” said the
+pitiful, quivering lips. “I only came in to see you
+marching with the rest, and—I’m tired.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” said the girl who had befriended her,
+“and she fainted clean away, and she’s more dead
+than alive now; and if you’ve a heart in your bosom,
+you’ll let your play soldiering go, and take
+care of <em>her</em>.”</p>
+
+<p>And just then Jack realized, boy as he was, that
+he <em>had</em> a heart in his bosom, and that his Cousin
+Conn was the dearest and nearest thing to that
+heart in the whole world. But he did not tell her
+so till long years afterwards. Just now his chief
+interest was to get her home. No more marching
+for him; and what were fireworks, or the supper
+the boys were to take together, in comparison with
+this girl, who had cared so much to see him in his
+holiday glory?</p>
+
+<p>He took her to an omnibus, which ran in those
+days to Brighton, and by tea-time he had got her
+home. He found his mother frightened and helpless,
+and too glad to get Conn back to think of
+scolding.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="tight" />
+
+<p>It was six years after that, that in the battle of
+Malvern Hill, July 1, 1862, Jack, a real soldier
+then, and no longer a boy playing at the mimicry
+of war, was wounded; and next day the news
+came to the quiet Brighton home.</p>
+
+<p>Conn had grown to be a young lady in the sweet
+grace of her twenty summers, and she was her Aunt
+Sarah’s help and comfort. To these two women
+came the news of Jack’s peril. The mother cried
+a little helplessly; but there were no tears in
+Conn’s eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“Aunt Sarah,” she said quietly, “I am going to
+find Jack.”</p>
+
+<p>And that day she was off for the Peninsula. It
+was the Fourth of July when she reached the hospital
+in which her Cousin Jack had been placed.
+She asked about him, trembling; but the news,
+which reassured her, was favorable. He was
+wounded, but not dangerously. It was a girlish
+instinct, which every girl will understand, that
+made Conn put on a fresh white gown before she
+used the permission she had received to enter the
+hospital. She remembered—would Jack remem<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>ber
+also?—that other Fourth of July on which
+they had found each other, six years before. As
+if nothing should be wanting of the old attire,
+she met, as she passed along the street, a boy
+with flowers to sell,—for the flowers bloomed,
+just as the careless birds sang, even amid the
+horrors of those dreadful days,—and bought of
+him a bunch of late red roses, and fastened
+them, as she had done that other day, upon her
+breast.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was low when she entered the hospital,
+and its last rays kindled the hair, golden still as in
+the years long past, till it looked like a saint’s aureole
+about her fair and tender face. She walked
+on among the suffering, until, at last, before she
+knew that she had come near the object of her
+search, she heard her name called, just as <em>she</em> had
+called Jack’s name six years before,—</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Conn, Conn!”</p>
+
+<p>And then she sank upon her knees beside a low
+bed, and two feeble arms reached round her neck
+and drew her head down.</p>
+
+<p>“I was waiting for you, Conn. I knew you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
+would come. I lay here waiting till I should see
+you as you were that day long ago,—all in white,
+and with red roses on your breast,—my one love
+in all the world!”</p>
+
+<p>And the girl’s white face grew crimson with a
+swift, sweet joy, for never before had such words
+blessed her. She did not speak; and Jack, full of
+a man’s impatience, now that at last he had uttered
+the words left unsaid so long, held her fast, and
+whispered,—</p>
+
+<p>“Tell me, Conn, tell me that you <em>are</em> mine,
+come life or death. Surely you would not have
+sought me here if you had not meant it to be so!
+You <em>are</em> my Conn,—tell me so.”</p>
+
+<p>And I suppose Conn satisfied him, for two years
+after that she was his wife, and last night he gave
+the old pistol of that first Fourth of July to a
+young ten-year-old Jack Richmond to practise
+with for this year’s Fourth; and pretty Mother
+Conn, as fair still as in her girlhood, remonstrated,
+as gentle mothers will, with,—</p>
+
+<p>“Oh Jack, surely he is too young for such a
+dangerous plaything.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Father Jack laughed as he lifted little Conn to
+his knee, and answered,—</p>
+
+<p>“Nonsense, sweetheart. He is a soldier’s boy,
+and a little pistol-shooting won’t hurt him.”</p>
+
+<p>But how noisy it will be round that house on
+Fourth of July!</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="HER_MOTHERS_DAUGHTER">HER MOTHER’S DAUGHTER.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+<p>Syl Graham was an only child. Her name
+was Sylvia, but everybody called her Syl,
+except that sometimes, half playfully and half chidingly,
+her father called her Sylly. But that was a
+liberty no one else took,—and for which Mr. Graham
+himself was not unlikely to pay in extra indulgence.</p>
+
+<p>Syl was seventeen, and she had never known
+any trouble in all her young, bright life. Her
+mother had died when she was two years old; and
+this, which might easily have been the greatest of
+misfortunes,—though Syl was too young to know
+it,—had been turned almost into a blessing by the
+devotion of her father’s sister, Aunt Rachel, who
+came to take care of the little one then, and had
+never left her since.</p>
+
+<p>Not the dead Mrs. Graham herself could have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
+been more motherly or more tender than Aunt
+Rachel; and the girl had grown up like a flower
+in a shaded nook, on which no rough wind had
+ever been allowed to breathe.</p>
+
+<p>And a pretty flower she was; so her father
+thought when she ran into the hall to meet him,
+as he came in from business at the close of the
+short November day.</p>
+
+<p>The last rays of daylight just bronzed her chestnut
+hair. Her face was delicately fair,—as the
+complexion that goes with such hair usually is,—colorless
+save in the lips, which seemed as much
+brighter than other lips as if they had added to
+their own color all that which was absent from the
+fair, colorless cheeks. The brown eyes were dancing
+with pleasant thoughts, the little, girlish figure
+was wonderfully graceful, and Papa Graham looked
+down at this fair, sweet maiden with a fond pride,
+which the sourest critic could hardly have had a
+heart to condemn.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you cross?” she said laughingly, as she
+helped him off with his overcoat.</p>
+
+<p>“Very,” he answered, with gravity.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“I mean are you worse than usual? Will you
+be in the best humor now or after dinner?”</p>
+
+<p>“After dinner, decidedly, if Aunt Rachel’s coffee
+is good.”</p>
+
+<p>Syl nodded her piquant little head. “I’ll wait,
+then.”</p>
+
+<p>The dinner was good enough to have tempted
+a less hungry man than Mr. Graham, and the coffee
+was perfect. Papa’s dressing-gown and slippers
+were ready, upstairs; and when he had sat down
+in the great, soft easy-chair that awaited him, and
+his daughter had settled herself on a stool at his
+feet, I think it would have been hard to find a
+more contented-looking man in all New York.</p>
+
+<p>“Now I’m very sure you are as good as such a
+bear can be,” said saucy Syl; “and now we’ll
+converse.”</p>
+
+<p>To “converse” was Syl’s pet phrase for the
+course of request, reasoning, entreaty, by which
+Papa Graham was usually brought to accede to all
+her wishes, however extravagant. He rested his
+hand now on her shining chestnut braids, and
+thought how like she was to the young wife he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
+had loved so well, and lost so early. Then he
+said teasingly,—</p>
+
+<p>“What is it, this time? A Paris doll, with a
+trunk and a bandbox; or a hand-organ?”</p>
+
+<p>“For shame, papa! The doll was four years
+ago.”</p>
+
+<p>“All the more reason it must be worn out.
+Then it’s the hand-organ. But I must draw the
+line somewhere,—you can’t have the monkey. If
+Punch and Judy would do, though?”</p>
+
+<p>“Now, Father Lucius, you know I gave up the
+hand-organ two years ago, and took a piano for
+my little upstairs room instead; and you know
+I’m seventeen. Am I likely, at this age, to want
+monkeys, Punch and Judys, and things?”</p>
+
+<p>“O, no! I forgot. Seventeen,—it must be a
+sewing-machine. You want to make all your endless
+bibs and tuckers more easily. Well, I’ll
+consent.”</p>
+
+<p>Syl blushed. It was a sore point between her
+and Aunt Rachel that she so seldom sewed for
+herself. Aunt Rachel had old-fashioned notions,
+and believed in girls that made their own pretty
+things.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Now, papa, you are not good-humored at all.
+I had better have asked you before dinner. You
+don’t even let me tell you what I want.”</p>
+
+<p>Papa sobered his face into a look of respectful
+attention, and waited silently. But now Syl was
+not quite ready to speak.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t you think pomegranate is a pretty color,
+papa?”</p>
+
+<p>“What is it like?”</p>
+
+<p>“O, it’s the deepest, richest, brightest, humanest
+red you ever saw.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, I think it must be like your lips;” and
+he drew her to him, and kissed the bright young
+mouth with a lazy content.</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps it <em>is</em> like my lips; then, surely it will
+look well <em>with</em> them.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where does this blossom of beauty grow?”</p>
+
+<p>“It grows at Stewart’s. It has been woven
+into a lovely, soft-falling silk, at four dollars a
+yard. Twenty-five yards makes a gown, and
+eight yards of velvet makes the trimming and
+the sleeveless jacket, and the velvet is six dollars
+a yard. And then there is Madame Bodin, she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
+charges like a horrid old Jew,—forty dollars just
+to look at a gown; and then there are the linings
+and buttons and things. Have you kept account,
+papa, and added it all up in your head?”</p>
+
+<p>“I think it means about two hundred dollars.
+Isn’t that what you call it, Sylly?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, if you please. It’ll be <em>worth</em> that, won’t
+it, to have your daughter look like a love, when
+all the people come on New Year’s Day?”</p>
+
+<p>“So that’s it,—that’s what this conspiracy
+against my peace and my pocket has for its object,—that
+Miss Syl Graham may sit at the receipt of
+callers on New Year’s Day, in a robe like a red,
+red rose. O Sylly, Sylly!”</p>
+
+<p>Syl pouted a little, the most becoming pout in
+the world.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I’m sure I thought you cared how I
+look. If you don’t, never mind. My old black
+silk is still very neat and decent.”</p>
+
+<p>“September, October, November,—it’s nearly
+three months old, isn’t it? What a well-behaved
+gown it must be to have kept neat and decent
+so long! And as to the other, I’ll consider,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
+and you can ask me again when I come home to-morrow.”</p>
+
+<p>Syl knew what Papa Graham’s considers meant,
+and how they always ended. She had gained her
+point, and she danced off and sang to the piano
+some old Scotch airs that her father loved, because
+Syl’s mother used to sing them; and Papa Graham
+listened dreamily to the music, while his
+thoughts went back twenty years, to the first winter
+when he brought his girl-bride home, only a
+year older, then, than Syl was now. He remembered
+how the firelight used to shine on her fair,
+upturned face, as she knelt beside him; how
+sweet her voice was; how pure and true and
+fond her innocent young heart. And now Syl
+was all he had left of her.</p>
+
+<p>Should he lose Syl herself, soon? Would some
+bold wooer come and carry her away, and leave
+him with only Aunt Rachel’s quiet figure and fading
+face beside him for the rest of his life?</p>
+
+<p>Just then Syl might have asked him not in vain
+for any thing, even to the half of his kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning Syl went into the sewing-room.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>
+A young girl just about her own age was there—altering,
+sewing, making all the foolish little fancies
+in which Syl’s heart delighted, though her
+idle fingers never wrought at them. Out of pure
+kindness of heart Syl found her way into the sewing-room
+very often when Mary Gordon was there.
+She knew her presence carried pleasure with it,
+and often she used to take some story or poem and
+read to the young listener, with the always busy
+fingers, and the gentle, grateful face.</p>
+
+<p>But to-day she found the girl’s eyes very red as
+if with long weeping. If Syl was selfish it was
+only because she never came in contact with the
+pains and needs of others. She had “fed on the
+roses and lain among the lilies of life,”—how was
+she to know the hurt of its stinging nettles? But
+she could not have been the lovesome, charming
+girl she was if she had had a nature hard and
+indifferent to the pains of others.</p>
+
+<p>To see Mary Gordon’s red eyes was enough.
+Instantly she drew the work out of the fingers
+that trembled so; and then she set herself to draw
+the secret sorrow out of the poor, trembling
+heart.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was the old story, so sadly common and yet
+so bitterly sad, of a mother wasting away and fading
+out of life, and a daughter struggling to take
+care of her, and breaking her heart because she
+could do so little.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m used to all that,” the girl said sadly,
+“and I don’t let myself cry for what I can’t help.
+But this morning I heard her say to herself, as I
+was getting every thing ready for her, ‘O, the long,
+lonesome day!’ She thought I did not hear her,
+for she never complains; but somehow it broke me
+down. I keep thinking of her, suffering and weary
+and all alone. But I can’t help that, either; and
+I must learn to be contented in thinking that I
+do my best.”</p>
+
+<p>“But can’t you stay at home with her and work
+there?” cried Syl, all eager sympathy and interest.</p>
+
+<p>“No, I can’t get work enough in that way.
+People want their altering and fixing done in their
+own houses, and plain sewing pays so poorly.
+Sometimes I’ve thought if I only had a machine,
+so I could get a great deal done, I might manage
+but to hire one would eat up all my profits.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Syl thought a little silent while; and it was a
+pretty sight to see the fair young face settle into
+such deep earnestness.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” she said at length, “at least you shall
+stay at home with her to-morrow; for all those
+ruffles can be done just as well there as here,
+and you shall carry them home with you. And
+you’d better go early this afternoon; there’ll
+be enough work to last you, and I can’t bear
+to think of her waiting for you, and wanting you,
+so many long hours. We’ll give her a little surprise.”</p>
+
+<p>Mary Gordon did not speak for a moment. I
+think she was getting her voice steady, for when
+she did begin it trembled.</p>
+
+<p>“I <em>can’t</em> thank you, Miss Syl,—it’s no use to
+try; but the strange part is how you understand
+it all, when you’ve no mother yourself.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, but you see I have papa and auntie, and I
+just know.”</p>
+
+<p>That day, after Syl and Aunt Rachel had
+lunched together, Syl said, in a coaxing little
+way she had,—</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Aunt Rachel, we never want to see the other
+half of that cold chicken again, do we?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, Syl—we”—</p>
+
+<p>“Why, auntie, no—we never want to-morrow’s
+lunch furnished coldly forth by this sad relic.
+And there’s a tumbler of jelly we don’t want,
+either—and those rolls, and,—let me see, can
+sick people eat cake?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, Syl Graham, what are you talking
+about! Who’s sick?”</p>
+
+<p>Syl grew sober.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m thinking about poor Mary Gordon’s
+mother, auntie. She’s sick, and dying by inches;
+and Mary has to leave her all alone; and I’ve
+told her she shall stay at home to-morrow and
+make my ruffles, and we’ll pay her just the same
+as if she came here. And don’t you see that we
+must give her her dinner to take home, since she
+can’t come here after it?”</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Rachel never said a word, but she got up
+and kissed Syl on each cheek. Then she brought
+a basket, and into it went the cold chicken and a
+cold tongue and jelly and buttered rolls and fruit,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
+till even Syl was satisfied; and she took the heavy
+basket and danced away with it to the sewing-room,
+with a bright light in her dear brown
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“I think you’d best go now,” she said. “I
+can’t get your mother, waiting there alone, out of
+my mind, and it’s spoiling my afternoon, don’t
+you see? And because you mustn’t come here to
+dine to-morrow, you must carry your dinner home
+with you; and Aunt Rachel put some fruit and
+some jelly in the basket that maybe your mother
+will like.”</p>
+
+<p>That night, when Mr. Lucius Graham let himself
+into the hall with his latch-key, his daughter
+heard him and went to meet him, as usual. But
+she was very silent, and he missed his teasing,
+saucy, provoking Syl.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, daughter, are you in a dream?” he
+asked once during dinner; but she only laughed
+and shook her head. She held her peace until she
+had him at her mercy, in the great easy-chair, and
+she was on the stool beside him, as her wont was.
+Then, suddenly, her question came.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Papa, do you think a pomegranate silk without
+velvet would be very bad?”</p>
+
+<p>He was inclined to tease her, and began with
+“Hideous!” but then he saw that her lips were
+fairly trembling, and her face full of eagerness,
+and forbore.</p>
+
+<p>“How did you know you were to have the silk
+at all? But you know your power over me.
+Here is your needful;” and he put into her hands
+ten bright, new twenty-dollar bills.</p>
+
+<p>“O, thank you! and <em>do</em> you think it would be
+bad without the velvet?”</p>
+
+<p>“Sylly, no; but why shouldn’t you have the
+velvet if you want it?”</p>
+
+<p>And then came the whole story of poor Mary
+Gordon, and—in such an eager tone,—</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t you see, with the money the velvet
+would cost, and a little more, I could get her the
+sewing-machine; and Madame Bodin wouldn’t
+ask so much to make the dress if it is plainer?”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Graham was a rich man, and his first
+thought was to give her the money for the machine,
+and let her have her pretty dress, as she had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
+fancied it, first. But a second thought restrained
+him. She was just beginning to learn the joy and
+beauty of self-sacrifice. Should he interfere? He
+kissed her with a half-solemn tenderness, and answered
+her,—</p>
+
+<p>“You shall do precisely as you please, my dear.
+The two hundred dollars is yours. Use it <em>just</em> as
+you like. I shall never inquire into its fate again.”</p>
+
+<p>And then she went away—and was it her voice
+or that of some blessed spirit that came to him, a
+moment after, from the shadowy corner where the
+piano stood, singing an old middle-age hymn,
+about the city—</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Where all the glad life-music,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Now heard no longer here,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall come again to greet us,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As we are drawing near.”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The next day, who so busy and happy as Syl—dragging
+Aunt Rachel from one warehouse to
+another—it was in the days when sewing-machines
+were costly—till she was quite sure she
+had found just the right machine; and then or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>dering
+it sent, at three o’clock, no earlier, no later,
+to Miss Gordon, No. 2 Crescent Place.</p>
+
+<p>At a quarter before three Syl went there herself.
+The pleasure of witnessing Mary Gordon’s surprise
+was the thing she had promised herself, in lieu of
+velvet on her gown. She found the poor room
+neat and clean, and by no means without traces of
+comfort and refinement; and Mrs. Gordon was a
+sweet and gentle woman, such as Mary’s mother
+must have been to be in keeping with Mary. She
+chatted with them for a few minutes, noticing the
+invalid’s short breath and frequent cough, and
+Mary’s careful tenderness over her.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s too bad Mary can’t be at home all the
+time,” said Syl.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; but then to have her to-day is such a
+blessing. If you knew how we had enjoyed our
+day together, and our feast together, I know you
+would feel paid for any inconvenience it cost you.”</p>
+
+<p>Just then an express wagon rumbled up to the
+door and the bell rang loudly. Mary opened
+it at once, for their room was on the ground
+floor.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“A sewing-machine for Miss Gordon,” said a
+somewhat gruff voice.</p>
+
+<p>“No, that cannot be. There is some mistake,”
+said Mary’s gentle tones. And then Syl sprang
+forward, in a flutter of excitement, which would
+have been pretty to see had there been anybody
+there to notice it.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m sure it’s all right. Bring it in, please;
+and Mary, you will tell them where to put it, in
+the best light.”</p>
+
+<p>And in five minutes or less it was all in its
+place, and Mary was looking, with eyes full of
+wonder, and something else beside wonder, at
+Syl Graham.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s nothing,” said Syl hurriedly; “it’s only
+my New Year’s present to you, a little in advance
+of time.”</p>
+
+<p>She had thought she should enjoy Mary’s surprise;
+but this was something she had not looked
+for,—this utter breaking down, these great wild
+sobs, as if the girl’s heart would break. And
+when she could speak at length, she cried with a
+sort of passion,—</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“O Miss Syl, I do believe you have saved my
+mother’s life! She will get better—she must—now
+that I can stay here all the time and take
+care of her.”</p>
+
+<p>Syl was glad to get out into the street. She
+felt something in her own throat choking her.
+Just a few steps off she met Dr. Meade,—her own
+doctor, as it chanced,—and it struck her that it
+would be a good thing if he would go in to see
+Mrs. Gordon. So she asked him.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m going there,” he said. “I try to see her
+once every week.”</p>
+
+<p>“And will she live—can she?”</p>
+
+<p>The doctor answered, with half a sigh,—</p>
+
+<p>“I’m afraid not. She needs more constant care,
+and more nourishing food and other things. I
+wish I could help her more, but I can only give my
+services, and I see so many such cases.”</p>
+
+<p>“But she would take things from you, and not
+be hurt?”</p>
+
+<p>“I should <em>make</em> her if I had a full purse to go
+to.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, then, here are forty dollars for her; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
+you are to get her what she needs, and never let
+her know where it came from—will you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I will,” he answered earnestly. And
+then, after a moment, he said,—“Syl Graham,
+you are your mother’s daughter. I can say no better
+thing of you,—she was a good woman.”</p>
+
+<p>Syl had a hundred dollars left; but that
+wouldn’t compass the pomegranate silk, and Syl
+had concluded now she did not want it. She had
+had a glimpse of something better; and that hundred
+dollars would make many a sad heart glad
+before spring.</p>
+
+<p>On New Year’s Day, Papa Graham was off all
+day making calls; and the gas was already lighted
+when he went into his own house, and into his
+own drawing-room. He saw a girl there with
+bands of bright chestnut hair about her graceful
+young head; with shining eyes, and lips as bright
+as the vivid crimson roses in her braided hair, and
+in the bosom of her black silk gown. He looked
+at her with a fond pride and a fonder love; and
+then he bent to kiss her,—for the room was
+empty of guests just then. As he lifted his head<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>
+and met Aunt Rachel’s eyes, it happened that he
+said about the same words Dr. Meade had used
+before,—</p>
+
+<p>“She is her mother’s daughter; I can say of her
+no better thing.”</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="MY_QUARREL_WITH_RUTH">MY QUARREL WITH RUTH.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+<p>I suppose if I had not loved Ruth Carson so
+much my resentment against her would not
+have been so bitter. She was my first friend. She
+had no sister, neither had I; and we used to think
+that no sisters could be nearer to each other than
+we were. She had black eyes,—great, earnest,
+beautiful eyes, with pride and tenderness both in
+them; sometimes one and sometimes the other in
+the ascendant. I was yellow-haired and blue-eyed,
+but we always wanted our gowns and hats alike,
+and coaxed our mothers into indulging us. I don’t
+know whether Ruth suffered more in appearance
+when the clear dark of her face was set in my pale
+blues, or I, when her brilliant reds and orange
+turned me into a peony or a sunflower; but we
+thought little about such effects in those days. If
+Ruth got her new article of attire first, I must<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
+have one like it, whether or no; and if I was first
+favored, she followed my example.</p>
+
+<p>It was thus in every thing. We studied from
+the same text-books, keeping a nearly even pace
+Ruth was quicker than I at figures, so she helped
+me there; and my eyes were better than her near-sighted
+ones at finding towns, mountains, and
+fivers on the atlas, so we always did our “map
+questions” together. Of course our play hours
+were always passed in company, and one face was
+almost as familiar as the other in each of our
+houses. “The twins,” people used to call us, for
+fun; and if ever two girls were all and all to each
+other, we were.</p>
+
+<p>What did we quarrel about? It is a curious
+thing that I have forgotten how it began. It was
+some little difference of opinion, such as seldom
+occurred between us; and then, “what so wild as
+words are?” We said one thing after another,
+until, finally, Ruth’s black eyes flashed, and she
+cried out passionately,—</p>
+
+<p>“I just about hate you, Sue Morrison!”</p>
+
+<p>Then my temper flamed. It was a different<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>
+kind of temper from Ruth’s,—slower to take fire,
+but much more sullen and resolute. I loved her
+as I did my own life, but I hated her also, just
+then,—if you can understand that contradiction.
+I looked at her, and I remember I thought, even
+then, how handsome she was, with the red glow
+on her cheeks, and her eyes so strangely bright.
+I could have kissed her for love, or cursed her for
+hate; but the hate triumphed. Slowly I said,—</p>
+
+<p>“Very well, Ruth Carson. I shall not trouble
+you any more. I shall never speak to you again,
+until I see you lie a-dying.”</p>
+
+<p>I don’t know what made me put that last sentence
+in. I suppose I thought, even then, that I
+could not have her go out of the world, for good
+and all, without one tender word from me. When
+I spoke, Ruth turned pale, and the light died in
+her eyes. I presume she did not think I really
+meant what I said; but, at any rate, it startled her.
+She did not answer. She just looked at me a moment.
+Then she turned away, and, for the first
+time in years, she and I walked home, so far as our
+roads lay the same way, on opposite sides of the
+street.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Where is Ruth?” my mother asked, when I
+went in.</p>
+
+<p>“Gone home, I believe,” was my only answer.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to me that I could not tell even my
+mother of this estrangement, which had changed
+in a day the whole current of my life. Of course,
+as time went on, she saw that all was different
+between Ruth and me; but, finding that I did not
+voluntarily tell her any thing, she ceased even to
+mention Ruth in my presence.</p>
+
+<p>You cannot think how strange and solitary my
+new life seemed to me. For the first time since I
+could remember I felt all alone. I don’t think
+Ruth thought this unnatural state of things could
+last. The first day after our quarrel she spoke to
+me, at school, half timidly. I looked at her, and
+did not answer. She sighed, and turned away;
+and again, when school was over, each of us went
+home alone on our separate path.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes I would find a bunch of roses on my
+desk, for it was June when our quarrel took place,
+and all the roses were in bloom. Then, later, I
+would lift up the desk cover and come upon an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
+early apple or a peach; later still, a handful of
+chestnuts. I always let the roses wither without
+touching them; and the fruit I gave away, as if
+unconscious where it came from. Ruth would
+watch me and sigh; but after that first morning
+she never spoke to me. I think my rebuff then
+hurt her too much for her to be willing to risk receiving
+such another. What a strange, new, sad
+thing it was to get our lessons, as we did now, all
+alone! How the hateful figures tormented me,
+without Ruth’s quick brain to help me unravel
+them! How puzzled she looked, as I saw her holding
+the map close to her near-sighted eyes, trying
+to find the rivers and lakes and mountains all by
+herself!</p>
+
+<p>It was a curious thing that after the first two or
+three days my anger had passed away entirely. I
+held no longer the least bitterness in my heart
+toward Ruth; and yet I felt that I must keep my
+word. I looked upon my rash utterance as a vow,
+for which I had a sort of superstitious reverence.
+Then, too, there was a queer, evil kind of pride
+about me,—something that wouldn’t <em>let</em> me speak<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>
+to her when I had said I wouldn’t,—wouldn’t <em>let</em>
+me show her that I was sorry. The teacher spoke
+to me about the trouble between me and Ruth, but
+he might as well have spoken to a blank wall,—I
+did not even answer him. Whether he said any
+thing to Ruth I do not know.</p>
+
+<p>In the late fall there was a vacation, which held
+over Thanksgiving. I had an idea that my mother
+watched me curiously to see how I would pass
+those weeks without Ruth. But I was resolute to
+show no pain or loneliness. I made occupations for
+myself. I read; I worked worsted; I crocheted;
+I copied out poems in my common-place book; I
+was busy from morning till night. One thing I did
+not do,—I did not take another friend in Ruth’s
+stead. Several of the girls had shown themselves
+willing to fill the vacant place, but they soon found
+that “No admittance here” was written over the
+door. I think they tried the same experiment with
+Ruth, with the same result. At any rate, each of
+us went on our solitary way, quite alone. Ruth
+had her own pride, too, as well as I; and, after a
+little while, she would no more have spoken to me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>
+than I to her; but she could not help those great,
+dark eyes of hers resting on me sometimes with a
+wistful, inquiring look, that almost brought the
+tears to mine.</p>
+
+<p>School commenced again the first of December.
+Ruth came, the first day, in her new winter dress.
+It was a deep, rich red; and somehow she made
+me think of the spicy little red roses of Burgundy,
+that used to grow in my grandmother’s old-fashioned
+garden. My own new gown was blue. For
+the first time in years, Ruth and I were dressed
+differently. We were no longer “the twins.” I
+thought Ruth looked a little sad. She was very
+grave. I never heard her laugh in these days.
+When it rained or snowed, and we stayed at school
+through the noonings, instead of going home for
+our dinner, neither of us would join in the games
+that made the noontime merry. I suppose each
+was afraid of too directly encountering the other.</p>
+
+<p>But when the good skating came, both of us
+used to be on the pond. The whole school, teacher
+and all, would turn out on half holidays. Both
+Ruth and I were among the best skaters in school<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>
+My father had taught us, two or three winters before,
+and we had had great pride in our skill. We
+had always skated in company before; but now, as
+in every thing else we did, we kept at a distance
+from each other.</p>
+
+<p>The pond used to be a pretty sight, on those
+crisp, keen winter afternoons, all alive with boys
+and girls. A steep hill rose on one side of it,
+crowned by a pine wood, green all the winter
+through. Great fields of snow stretched far and
+away on the other side, and in the midst was the
+sheet of ice, smooth as glass. Here was a scarlet
+hood, and there a boy’s gay Scotch cap. Here
+some adventurer was cutting fantastic capers;
+there a girl was struggling with her first skates,
+and falling down at almost every step. I loved
+the pastime,—the keen, clear air, the swift motion,
+the excitement. I loved to watch Ruth, too,
+for by this time not only was all the bitterness
+gone from my heart, but the old love was welling
+up, sweet and strong, though nothing would have
+made me acknowledge it to myself. Wherever
+she moved, my far-sighted eyes followed her; and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>
+indeed, she was a pretty sight, the prettiest there,
+in her bright scarlet skating dress, and with her
+cheeks scarcely less scarlet, and her great eyes
+bright as stars.</p>
+
+<p>There came a day, at last, when we promised
+ourselves an afternoon of glorious skating. The
+ice was in excellent condition, the sky was cloudless,
+the weather cold, indeed, but not piercing,
+and the air exhilarating as wine. I ate my dinner
+hurriedly—there was no time to lose out of such
+an afternoon. I rose from the table before the
+rest, put on my warm jacket and my skating-cap,
+and was just leaving the house when my father
+called after me.</p>
+
+<p>“Be very careful of the west side of the pond,
+Sue. They have been cutting a good deal of ice
+there.”</p>
+
+<p>The whole school was out; only when I first
+got there I did not see Ruth. The teacher repeated
+to us what my father had said, but I remembered
+afterward that it was not till he had done
+speaking that Ruth came in sight, looking, in her
+bright scarlet, like some tropical bird astray under<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
+our pale northern skies. As usual she and I began
+skating at some distance from each other, but
+gradually I drew nearer and nearer to her. I had
+no reason for this. I did not mean to speak to her,
+and the pride that held me from her was as untamed
+as ever. But yet something for which I
+could not account drew me towards her.</p>
+
+<p>Did she see me, and wish to avoid me? I did
+not know; but suddenly she began to skate
+swiftly away from me, and toward the dangerous
+west side of the pond. I think I must have called,
+“Come back! come back!” but if I did, she did
+not heed or hear. She was skating on, oh, so fast!
+I looked around in despair—I was nearer to her
+than any one else was. I shouted, with all my
+might, to Mr. Hunt, the teacher. I thought I saw
+him turn at the sound of my voice, but I did not
+wait to be sure. I just skated after Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>I never can tell you about that moment. All
+the love with which I had loved her swept back
+over my heart like a great flood. Pride and bitterness,
+what did they mean? I only knew that I
+had loved Ruth Carson as I should never, never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>
+love any other friend; and that if she died I wanted
+to die too, and be friends with her again in the
+next world, if I could not here. I think I called
+to her, but the call was wasted upon the wind
+which always bore my voice the other way. So
+Ruth skated on and on, and I skated after her.
+Whether any one was coming behind me I did not
+know. I never even looked over my shoulder.
+It seemed to me that some mad wind of destiny
+was sweeping us both ahead.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly there came a plash, the scarlet cap appeared
+a moment above the ice, and then that went
+under, and there was no Ruth in sight, anywhere.
+You cannot think how calm I was. I wonder at it
+now, looking back over so many years, to that
+bright, sad, far-off winter day. I succeeded in
+checking my own headlong speed, and, drawing
+near cautiously to the spot where Ruth had gone
+down, I threw myself along the ice. It was thick
+and strong, and had been cut into squares, so it
+bore me up. I looked over the edge. Ruth was
+rising toward me. I reached down and clutched
+her, I hardly know by what. At that moment I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>
+felt my ankles grasped firmly by two strong hands,
+and then I knew that I could save Ruth. I held
+her until some one helped me to pull her out,
+and then I don’t know what came next.</p>
+
+<p>I waked up, long afterward, in my own bed, in
+my own room. I seemed to myself to have been
+quite away from this world, on some long journey.
+A consciousness of present things came back to
+me slowly. I recalled with a shudder the hard,
+sharply cut ice, the water gurgling below, and
+Ruth, <em>my</em> Ruth, with her great black eyes and her
+bright, bonny face, going down, down. I cried
+out,—</p>
+
+<p>“Ruth! Ruth! where are you?”</p>
+
+<p>And then I turned my head, and there, beside
+me, she lay, my pretty Ruth—mine again, after so
+long.</p>
+
+<p>“She clung to you so tightly we could not separate
+you,” I heard my mother say; but all my being
+was absorbed in looking at Ruth. She was
+white as death. I had said I would not speak to
+her again until I saw her lie a-dying. <em>Was</em> she
+dying now? I lifted myself on my elbow to look<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>
+at her. I held my own breath to see if any came
+from her half-parted lips; and as I looked, her
+eyes unclosed, and she put her arm up,—oh, so feebly!—and
+struggled to get it round my neck. I
+bent over her, and one moment our lips clung together,
+in such a kiss as neither of us had ever
+known before—a kiss snatched from death, and full
+of peace and pardon, and the unutterable bliss of a
+restored love. Then Ruth whispered,—</p>
+
+<p>“Sue, I have been only half a girl since I lost
+you. I would rather have died there, in the black
+water from which you saved me, than not to find
+you again.”</p>
+
+<p>“I thought you <em>were</em> dying, Ruth,” I whispered
+back, holding her close; “and if you were, I
+meant to die too. I would have gone after you
+into the water but what I would have had you
+back.”</p>
+
+<p>Then we were too weak to say any thing more.
+We just lay there, our hands clasped closely, in
+an ineffable content. Our mothers came and went
+about us; all sorts of tender cares were lavished
+on us of which we took no heed. I knew only one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
+thing,—that I had won back Ruth; Ruth knew
+only one thing,—that once more she was by my
+side.</p>
+
+<p>That was our first and our last quarrel. I think
+no hasty word was ever spoken between us afterward.
+The first one had cost us too dear.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="WAS_IT_HER_MOTHER">WAS IT HER MOTHER?</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+<p>Just a little voice, calling through the dark,
+“Mamma, O mamma!” and then a low
+sound of stifled sobbing.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Trevethick heard them both, and they
+smote him with a new sense of loss and pain. He
+had scarcely thought of his little girl since his wife
+died, five hours before,—died at the very instant
+when she was kissing him good-by, taking with her
+into the far heavens the warm breath of his human
+love. He had loved her as, perhaps, men seldom
+love, from the first hour of their first meeting.</p>
+
+<p>“There is Maud Harrison,” some one had said;
+and he had turned to look, and met the innocent
+gaze of two frank, gentle, very beautiful brown
+eyes. “Brightest eyes that ever have shone,” he
+said to himself. Their owner had other charms
+besides,—a fair and lovely face, round which the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>
+ruffled hair made a soft, bright halo; a lithe, girlish
+figure; a manner of unaffected cordiality, blent
+with a certain maidenly reserve, and which seemed
+to him perfection. He loved her, then and there.
+His wooing was short and his wedding hasty; but
+he had never repented his haste, never known an
+unhappy hour from the moment he brought his
+wife home, nine years ago, till these last few days,
+in which he had seen that no love or care of his
+could withhold her from going away from him to
+another home where he could not follow her,—the
+home where she had gone now, far beyond his search.</p>
+
+<p>She was a good little creature, and she did not
+rebel even at the summons to go out of her earthly
+Eden in search of the paradise of God. She
+longed, indeed, to live, for she so loved her own,
+and she could have resigned herself to die more
+willingly but for her husband’s uncontrollable passion
+of woe. That very day she had said to him,
+as he knelt beside her,—</p>
+
+<p>“Do not grieve so, darling! I am not going so
+far but that I shall come back to you every day.
+Something tells me that I shall be always near you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>
+and Maudie. You cannot call, or she cry, but
+that I shall hear you. I know that when she most
+needs, or you most want me, I shall be close beside
+you.”</p>
+
+<p>And with that very last kiss, when her breath
+was failing, she had whispered,—</p>
+
+<p>“I shall not go so far as you think.”</p>
+
+<p>Now when he heard the low call of his little
+Maudie and her smothered sobbing, he remembered
+the words of his dead wife. Did she, indeed,
+hear Maudie cry, and was it possibly troubling
+her? He got up and went into the little
+room where the child had slept alone ever since
+her sixth birthday, a couple of months ago. He
+bent over her low bed, and asked tenderly,—</p>
+
+<p>“What is it, darling?”</p>
+
+<p>A tiny night-gowned figure lifted itself up and
+two little arms clung round his neck.</p>
+
+<p>“Bessie put me to bed without taking me to
+mamma. Mamma did not kiss me good-night, and
+I want she should,—oh, I <em>want</em> she should! Bessie
+wouldn’t carry me to see her; and I want you to.
+Bessie said mamma never <em>would</em> kiss me again<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
+but that isn’t true, is it? You know I’ve heard
+mamma say Bessie wasn’t always ’sponsible.”</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Trevethick considered for a moment what
+he should say to his child—how he could make
+her understand the great, sad, awful, yet triumphant
+mystery which had come to pass that day
+under their roof—the great loss, and the great
+hope that hallowed it.</p>
+
+<p>She was such a mere baby it seemed hard to
+choose his words. Must he tell her that her mamma
+would never kiss her again? But how did he
+know that? When the dear Lord promised the
+“all things” to those who loved Him, did it not
+include the joining of broken threads, the up-springing
+of dead hopes, the finding one’s own
+again, somewhere? He thought it must; for
+what a word without meaning heaven would be
+to him if his own Maud were not there! He temporized
+a little.</p>
+
+<p>“She cannot kiss you now, my darling, but you
+shall kiss her.”</p>
+
+<p>So he lifted the little white figure in his arms,
+holding it close, as one who must be father and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>
+mother both together, now, and carried his little
+one across the hall to the room, where her dead
+mother lay,—oh, so fast asleep!—with a look like
+a smile frozen upon her fair, sweet face. He held
+Maudie down by the pillow on which her mother’s
+head rested, but that did not satisfy her.</p>
+
+<p>“Put me on the bed, please, papa. I get on the
+bed every night and kiss her, since she’s been ill.”</p>
+
+<p>So he let her have her will; and for a moment
+she nestled close to the still dead heart, which had
+always beaten for her so warmly. Then she lifted
+up her head.</p>
+
+<p>“Mamma is very cold,” she said, “and she does
+not stir. Can she hear what I say?”</p>
+
+<p>Again something invisible seemed to warn him
+against taking away from the child her mother.
+He answered very gently and slowly,—</p>
+
+<p>“She’s dead, my darling,—what we call dead.
+<em>I</em> do not understand it—no one understands it;
+but it comes, one day, to everybody, and it is
+God’s will. Your mamma cannot speak to us any
+more, and soon she will be gone out of our sight;
+but she truly believed that she would always be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>
+able to see your face and hear your voice, as when
+she was here.”</p>
+
+<p>“She <em>is</em> here. Won’t she be here always?” the
+little girl asked, growing cold with the shadow of
+an awful fear.</p>
+
+<p>“No, dear, she will not be here long. In a few
+days this dear white face will be put away, underneath
+the grass and the flowers; but the real
+mamma, who loves little Maudie, will not be buried
+up. She will be somewhere, I truly believe,
+where she can see and hear her little girl.”</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the child slid again from his
+arms, and nestled close against the cold breast,
+kissed the unmoving lips. Then she said,—</p>
+
+<p>“Good-by, this mamma, who can’t see; and good-night,
+other mamma, that hears Maudie.”</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Trevethick marvelled. Had he, indeed,
+succeeded in making this little creature understand;
+or had some one whom he could not see
+spoken to her words of sweet mother-wisdom?</p>
+
+<p>He carried her then, and laid her in her little
+bed, and went back to his own loneliness; but half
+an hour afterward he heard the small voice calling.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>
+“Papa, papa!” and again he went to her, and the
+little arms came up around his neck, and held him
+fast.</p>
+
+<p>“Can’t I go too, papa? If you ask God, won’t
+He let me? Because I do so love my mamma.”</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon Colonel Trevethick had felt as if
+he had nothing at all left in this world; but now
+he realized how much emptier still his home might
+be if he lost out of it this child who was so like
+her mother.</p>
+
+<p>“Mamma would not want you to come,” he
+said passionately. “<em>She</em> has all heaven, and <em>I</em>
+only you,—only you, little Maudie, in all the
+world. Mamma wants you to stay with me.”</p>
+
+<p>After that she was quite quiet; and when he
+looked in at her, an hour later, she was sound
+asleep, with one little hand like a crushed white
+rose under the red rose of her flushed cheek.</p>
+
+<p>She never asked for her mother after that night;
+but her father was sure that she never forgot her.
+She was the strangest, gravest little creature. She
+never made any noise, even at her play; and she
+never did any of the things for which her mother<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>
+had been used to reprove her. The trouble was
+that she was too perfect; there was something
+unnatural about it which frightened Colonel Trevethick.
+He would have been glad if she had been
+naughty, sometimes, like other children. He
+longed to have her tease him, to see in her some
+spirit of naughtiness or contradiction; but he saw
+none. She grew tall quite fast, but she was very
+thin,—a little white wraith of a creature, who
+looked as if she had been made out of snow, and
+might melt away as soon.</p>
+
+<p>It was a good thing for Colonel Trevethick, no
+doubt, that he had her to tend, and to be anxious
+about. It kept him from surrendering himself to
+his own grief.</p>
+
+<p>Nearly two years went on, and all the time the
+little girl grew more and more frail; until, at last,
+when she had just passed her eighth birthday, she
+was taken very ill. Her illness seemed a sort of
+low, nervous fever, and she grew daily more feeble.
+A skilful nurse came to share with Bessie
+the task of tending her, and her father was seldom
+far away. Half the day he would be sitting in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>
+her room, and half a dozen times in the night he
+would steal in to watch her breathing.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon, as he sat by her bed, she looked
+up at him with a sad, tender look, too old for her
+years,—but then all her words and ways were too
+old for her years.</p>
+
+<p>“Papa,” she said, “I would get well if I could,
+to please you. I <em>should</em> get well, I know, if I had
+mamma to nurse me. Don’t you know how she
+used, if my head ached, to put her hand on it and
+make it stop?”</p>
+
+<p>A sudden mist of tears came between his eyes
+and the little white face looking up at him. She
+had not spoken before of her mother for so many
+months, and yet how well she remembered! Instantly
+his wife’s words, that last day, came back
+to his memory. She had said, “I know that
+when Maudie needs me most, or you most want
+me, I shall be there beside you.”</p>
+
+<p><em>Was</em> she there now? Could she breathe upon
+the little wasting life some merciful dew of healing?
+or was she, perhaps, by her very love and
+longing, drawing the child home to herself?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>That night Bessie was to sit up until one
+o’clock, and then to call the nurse. As for Colonel
+Trevethick, he would be in and out, as
+usual.</p>
+
+<p>He went to bed, and fell into sleep and a dream.
+His own Maud was beside him as he saw her first,
+then as his bride, his wife, then with Baby Maudie
+on her breast; just as of old he seemed to have
+her with him again,—his pride, his darling, the
+one woman he had ever loved.</p>
+
+<p>He woke at last. Had his dream, then, lasted
+the night through? Was this red ray that touched
+his face the first hint of the rising sun? He
+sprang up quickly. The whole night had indeed
+passed, and he had not seen Maudie. He hurried
+into a dressing-gown and went to her room. He
+expected to find the nurse there, but, instead,
+Bessie sat beside the table just where he had left
+her the night before, but sound asleep. Evidently
+she must have been asleep for hours, and had not
+called the nurse, who had slept in her turn: they
+were all tired enough, Heaven knows. But, meantime,
+what of Maudie? What harm had come to
+her, alone, unattended?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He drew aside the curtain of her little bed and
+looked in. Surely this was not the Maud he had
+left the night before, so pale and worn upon her
+pillows? A face looked up at him bright as the
+new day. A soft, healthy color was in the cheeks,
+and the moist lips were crimson.</p>
+
+<p>“I knew I should be well if <em>she</em> tended me,”
+a voice cried, gayer and gladder than he had heard
+from her lips in two years.</p>
+
+<p>What <em>did</em> the child mean? Had she gone mad?
+He controlled himself, and asked,—</p>
+
+<p>“Who tended you, my child? I found Bessie
+sound asleep.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; mamma made her sleep, and you, and
+nurse. She sent all of you the dreams you like
+best; and all night long she sat here beside my
+bed, with her hand on my head, just as she used
+to put it long ago. She was all in white, and her
+hair fell about her shoulders, and her eyes were
+very, very bright, and her lips, when she kissed
+me, seemed somehow to melt away.”</p>
+
+<p>“So you, too, dreamed about mamma, darling?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, indeed, papa, I did not dream. Mamma<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>
+sat there all night long, with her hand upon my
+head. Sometimes I slept, but more often I woke
+up to look at her; and all the time she sat there,
+and did not tire, until the first sunshine came in at
+the windows; and then she kissed me and went
+away. I did not see her go. Perhaps I shut my
+eyes a moment. Then I looked and she was gone,
+and then I heard you coming in. She said she
+was with me every day, but she couldn’t have
+come to me like <em>this</em>, except because I needed her
+so very, very much. And she wanted to make me
+well, because you would grieve for me if I came
+to her; and I was to be very good, and tend you
+and make you comfortable; and I must laugh and
+must make you laugh, for laughter was good, and
+the reason I got ill was because I had been sorry
+so long, and had not laughed at all. And I was <em>not</em>
+to be sorry after <em>her</em> any more, because she was
+very happy, and nothing grieved her except when
+she saw you and me mourning for her, and
+not knowing that she was waiting close beside
+us.”</p>
+
+<p>“<em>Was</em> it her mother? Can it <em>be</em> it was the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>
+child’s mother?” the father cried, uttering his
+thought aloud unconsciously.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course it was mamma; and she has made
+me well. See if Dr. Dale does not tell you I am
+well.”</p>
+
+<p>Two hours afterward Dr. Dale came. He stood
+for a few moments beside the little bed. He
+looked in the child’s glad eyes, he counted the
+throbs of her pulse, he made her put out her
+healthy little tongue. Then he turned to her
+father.</p>
+
+<p>“Trevethick,” he said, “can you swear that this
+is the same little girl I left here last night? If the
+days of miracles were not gone by, I should say
+that one had been wrought here. I left, I thought,
+a very sick little person, about whom I was anxious
+enough, certainly, to make this my first call
+this morning; and I find my small patient so well
+that I shall only keep her in bed a day or two
+longer, for form’s sake.”</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps it <em>is</em> a miracle,” Colonel Trevethick
+said, smiling. But he did not explain. There are
+some experiences too marvellous for belief and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
+too sacred for doubt or question, and that was
+one of them.</p>
+
+<p>Two days afterward little Maudie went down to
+tea. She wore a fresh white gown, with lovely
+blue ribbons, and looked as much like a little
+angel in festal attire as a human child can be
+expected to look. But she did not take her usual
+seat. She sat down, instead, behind the tea-pot,
+where Bessie usually stood to pour out the tea.</p>
+
+<p>“Hadn’t Bessie better do that?” papa asked,
+as he saw the little hand close round the handle
+of the tea-pot.</p>
+
+<p>But Maud laughed, and shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>“No, I don’t think Bessie is ’sponsible,” she
+said; “and mamma said I was to live just on purpose
+to do every thing for papa.”</p>
+
+<p>And again Colonel Trevethick asked, but this
+time silently,—</p>
+
+<p>“Was it—<em>could</em> it have been the child’s mother?”</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_LADY_FROM_OVER_THE_WAY">THE LADY FROM OVER THE WAY.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+<p>It was the twilight of Christmas evening,—that
+twilight which always seems so early, since
+nobody is ever quite ready for it. The pale gray
+of the winter’s sky was scarcely flushed by the
+low-lying sunset clouds, though sometimes you
+could catch a gleam of their scant brightness as
+you turned westward.</p>
+
+<p>The streets of New York were crowded, as
+usual, but everybody seemed even more than
+usually in a hurry. The air was intensely cold,
+and nipped the noses of those who were late with
+their Christmas shopping; but, in spite of it, men
+and women still jostled each other upon the sidewalk,
+or stopped to look at the tempting displays
+of holiday goods in the shops. Everybody, it
+seemed, had some small person at home who must
+be made happy to-morrow.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>From the window of a large but rusty-looking
+house on one of the avenues, two children looked
+down at the throng below, as they had been looking
+all day. They were in the fourth story of the
+house, and they could not see into the street very
+distinctly, but still the movement and the bustle
+interested them, and their mother was thankful
+that they had it to watch.</p>
+
+<p>She herself was sewing, catching the last glint
+of the sunset light for her work, as she had the
+first ray of the dawning. She had been a beautiful,
+high-bred woman; indeed, she was so still,
+though there was no one to note the unconscious
+elegance of her gestures or the graceful lines of
+her curving figure and bent head. She was very
+thin now, and very poorly clad, but a stranger
+would have felt that she was a lady, and wondered
+how she came in the fourth story of this
+house,—a great house, which had been handsome,
+too, in its day, but which was now let out to innumerable
+lodgers, mostly of the decent sort of
+honest, hard-working, half-starved poor people.
+Not with such neighbors had Mrs. Vanderheyden’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>
+lot been formerly cast, nor for such uses as this
+had the old house itself been designed. It had
+been a stately mansion in its time, belonging to
+the estate of a good old Knickerbocker family,
+which was quite run out now. But there was one
+great comfort in this house: it had been so well
+built that its thick walls shut out all alien noises
+effectually, and made solitude possible even in a
+tenement house. Perhaps Mrs. Vanderheyden had
+thought of this when she chose her abode there.</p>
+
+<p>There was something in the faded grandeur of
+the old mansion that harmonized with the lingering
+grace of her own faded beauty. Its lofty
+walls were wainscoted with carved oak, almost
+black with time; and any imaginative person
+would have been likely to people it with the
+ghosts of the beautiful girls whose room no doubt
+this was in the old days. There, between those
+windows, hung, perhaps, their great, gleaming
+mirror, and into it they looked, all smiles and
+blushes and beauty, when they were ready for
+their first ball. But Mrs. Vanderheyden’s two
+little girls did not think of the other girls who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>
+might have lived there once. They were too
+young for that, and too hungry. Ethel, the elder,
+was only ten; and shy little Annie, beside her,
+scarcely seven. They saw a sight, however, from
+the window at which they stood, that interested
+them more than any vision of the past would
+have done.</p>
+
+<p>The avenue on which they lived was in a transition
+state. Trade had come into it and lodging-houses
+had vulgarized it, and yet there were some
+of the rich old residents who still clung to the
+houses in which their fathers and mothers had
+lived and died. There was one such directly opposite;
+and to look into the parlor over the way,
+and see there all the warmth and brightness and
+beauty of which they themselves were deprived,
+had been one of the chief enjoyments of the
+little Vanderheydens ever since they had been in
+the house. They were all that Mrs. Vanderheyden
+had left, these two girls. Wealth was
+gone, friends were gone, father and father’s home,
+husband and husband’s home—hope itself was
+gone; but she was not quite alone while she had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>
+these two for whom to struggle—to live or to die,
+as Heaven would. It was for their sakes that she
+had worked from dawning till nightfall, though
+she had felt all the time what seemed to her a
+mortal sickness stealing over her. Their breakfast
+and dinner had been only bread, of which she
+herself had scarcely tasted; but to-morrow would
+be Christmas, and it should go hard with her but
+she would give them better fare then. A dozen
+times during the day one or the other little voice
+had asked anxiously,—</p>
+
+<p>“Shall we surely, surely, have dinner to-morrow,
+because it is Christmas Day?”</p>
+
+<p>And she had answered,—</p>
+
+<p>“Please Heaven, you surely shall. My work is
+almost done;” and then she had stitched away
+more resolutely than ever on the child’s frock
+she was elaborately embroidering. The children
+meanwhile were feeding upon hope, and watching
+a scene in the house over the way, where, as they
+thought, all that any human creature could possibly
+hope for had already been given. Busy
+preparations had been made in that other house<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>
+for Christmas. There was a great Christmas-tree
+in one corner, all full of little tapers, and a large,
+fair, gentle-looking woman had been engaged
+much of the afternoon in arranging gifts upon
+it. Now, with the twilight, a boy and girl had
+come in and were watching the lighting up of the
+Christmas-tree.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s so good of them not to pull the curtains
+down,” Ethel said, with a sigh of delight. “It’s
+almost as good as being there—almost.”</p>
+
+<p>“I do suppose that’s the very grandest house in
+all New York,” little Annie said, in a tone of awe
+and admiration.</p>
+
+<p>“Nonsense! You only think that because you
+are so little,” answered Ethel, from the height of her
+three years more of experience. “<em>You</em> forget, but
+<em>I</em> can remember. We had a finer house ourselves,
+before poor papa died. There are plenty of them,
+only we’re so poor we don’t see them.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, it’s good to be that little girl!” cried
+Annie. “See how pretty her dress is, and how
+her hair curls; and she’ll have lots of presents
+off that Christmas-tree.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“So should we, if we had papa,” Ethel answered
+gravely. “Mamma, when we get up to
+heaven, do you think papa will know we’re his
+little girls?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m sure he will,” Mrs. Vanderheyden answered;
+and then she rose wearily. “It’s all
+done,” she said, as she shook out the lovely little
+robe into which she had wrought so many patient
+stitches. “I cannot carry it home just yet, I am
+so tired; I must lie down first; but you shall
+have a good dinner to-morrow, my darlings.”</p>
+
+<p>The children had seen her very tired before,
+and they didn’t think much about it when she
+groped her way to a bed in the corner and lay
+down, drawing the scant bed-clothes up over her.
+They stood at the window still, and watched the
+merry children opposite, until at last a servant
+came and pulled down the curtains and shut away
+from them the Christmas-tree, with all its gleaming
+lights, and the boy and girl, who were dancing round
+it to some gay tune which their mother played.</p>
+
+<p>Then Ethel and Annie began to realize that
+they were cold and hungry and the room was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>
+dark. Ethel lit a candle. The fire was nearly out,
+but she would not make another till morning.</p>
+
+<p>“I won’t wake up mamma,” she said, with the
+premature thoughtfulness that characterized her;
+“she’s so tired. We’ll just have supper, and
+then I’ll hear you say ‘Our Father,’ and we’ll
+get to bed, and in the morning it will be Christmas.”</p>
+
+<p>Some vague promise of good was in the very
+word: Ethel did not know what would come, but
+surely Christmas would not be like other days.
+“Supper” was the rest of the bread. And then
+the two little creatures knelt down together and
+said their well-known prayers, and I think “Our
+Father” heard, for their sleep was just as sweet
+as if they had been in the warm, soft nest of the
+children over the way, tucked in with eider down.
+Through the long evening hours they slept,—through
+the solemn midnight, when the clear,
+cold Christmas stars looked down, just as they
+had looked centuries ago when the King of Glory,
+Himself a little child, lay asleep in an humble
+manger in Judea. Nothing troubled their quiet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>
+slumber until the sunshine of the Christmas morning
+broke through their dingy windows, and the
+day had begun.</p>
+
+<p>“It must be ever so late,” said Ethel, rubbing
+her sleepy eyes, “and mamma isn’t awake yet.
+But she was so tired. You lie still, Annie, and
+I’ll build the fire, and when she wakes up she’ll
+find it all done.”</p>
+
+<p>Very patiently the poor little half-frozen fingers
+struggled with the scant kindlings and the coal
+that seemed determined never to light; but they
+succeeded at last, and the room began to grow a little
+warm. Then she dressed Annie, and then it began
+to seem very late indeed, and she wondered if
+mamma would never wake up. She went to the
+bedside and, bending over, kissed her mother gently,
+then started back with a sudden alarm.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, Annie, she’s so cold—almost like poor
+papa—only you can’t remember—just before they
+took him away.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, she can’t be like papa,” Annie said stoutly,
+“for he was dead, and mamma is asleep.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, she’s asleep,” said the elder sister firm<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>ly.
+“We must wait till she wakes up. We’ll
+look over the way, and then, maybe, it won’t seem
+so long.”</p>
+
+<p>But over the way was brighter than ever this
+Christmas morning. The curtains had been looped
+back once more, the table glittered with lovely
+gifts, and presently the little girl who lived there
+came to the windows. She looked up at them—they
+were sure of it; but they could not have
+guessed what she said, as she turned away, and
+spoke to her mother.</p>
+
+<p>“O mamma,” cried the sweet young voice,
+“won’t you come and see these two poor little
+girls? They stood there all day yesterday and
+last night; and now see how sad they look. I can’t
+eat my Christmas candies or play with my Christmas
+things while they look so pale and lonesome.
+Won’t you go over and see them, mamma dear?”</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Rosenburgh was a woman of warm and earnest
+sympathies when once they were aroused.
+When she was a girl she too had had quick impulses
+like her child’s; but she had grown selfish,
+perhaps, as she grew older, or maybe only careless;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>
+for the quick sympathies were there still, as you
+could see, now that her little girl had touched them.</p>
+
+<p>“To be sure I will,” she answered at once.
+“Poor little things! I wish we could make merry
+Christmas for all New York; but since we can’t,
+at least we won’t have faces white with want looking
+in at our very windows.”</p>
+
+<p>So the watching, wondering children saw the
+large, fair lady wrap herself in a heavy shawl and
+tie a hood over her head, and then come out and
+cross the street and enter their house.</p>
+
+<p>“What if she saw us, and what if she is coming
+here!” Ethel said breathlessly.</p>
+
+<p>Then they listened as if their hearts were in
+their ears. They heard feet upon the stairs and
+then a gentle tap, and the lady from over the way
+stood in their room.</p>
+
+<p>“I saw you at the window,” she said, “and came
+over to wish you a merry Christmas. How is
+this? Are you all alone?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, ma’am, mamma is in the bed there; but she
+was very tired yesterday, and she hasn’t waked
+up.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>An awful terror seized Mrs. Rosenburgh. Had
+this woman died of want and weariness, in sight of
+her own windows? She stepped to the bedside,
+and drew away the clothes gently from the face of
+the sleeper. She looked a moment on that fair,
+faded face, and then she grew white as death.</p>
+
+<p>“Children,” she asked, “what are your names?”</p>
+
+<p>“I am Ethel Vanderheyden,” the oldest girl answered,
+“and she is Annie.”</p>
+
+<p>“And your mother—was she Ethel Carlisle
+once?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, ma’am, before she married papa.”</p>
+
+<p>“And your little sister is Annie?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; she was named for mamma’s best friend,
+one she hadn’t seen for a long, long time.”</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Mrs. Rosenburgh had knelt by the
+bedside. She had lifted the low-lying head upon
+her arm, and drawn a bottle of pungent salts from
+her pocket, and she was crying as if her heart
+would break, while the children looked wondering
+on.</p>
+
+<p>“O Ethel, my own old Ethel, <em>wake</em> up!” And
+then she dropped her cheek, all wet with tears,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>
+against the white, cold cheek, that was so
+still.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, was it the warm tears, or the voice that
+sounded from far away out of the past, or only the
+strong odor that roused the poor soul from that
+long, heavy sleep of exhaustion that had so nearly
+been the sleep of death? I do not know, but I
+know the eyes did open, and beheld the tender
+face bending above them. And then, like a little
+child, the children heard their mother cry,—</p>
+
+<p>“O Annie, Annie, have I been dreaming all
+this time?”</p>
+
+<p>And then there were explanations, and the story
+of the long years since Annie Bryant and Ethel
+Carlisle were girls together was told. But the
+best of it all, the children thought, was when the
+lady from over the way took them home with her,
+and told them the boy and girl there should be
+their brother and sister, and they should live there
+henceforth; for she, who had found again her best
+friend, would never more let her struggle with
+want alone.</p>
+
+<p>And so the children had gifts and dinner, and a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>
+merry, merry Christmas in the bright, warm, crimson-hung
+room, which had seemed to them such a
+paradise of delights when they looked down into it
+from their fourth-story window through the falling
+shadows of Christmas Eve.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="HIS_MOTHERS_BOY">HIS MOTHER’S BOY.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+<p>The days were growing very dark for George
+Graham. He had not known at first what
+it meant that black specks should so dance between
+him and the page he tried to read, that
+his eyes should ache so much, that all things
+should seem so strangely dim about him. It
+would have been better, no doubt, had he stopped
+work as soon as he felt these symptoms; but how
+could he? This was his last term at school, and
+if he passed his examination creditably, especially
+if he thoroughly mastered the bookkeeping he was
+trying so hard to conquer, he was to have a place
+in Deacon Solomon Grant’s store, with wages that
+would not only take care of himself, but greatly
+help his mother.</p>
+
+<p>His mother was a widow, and George’s love for
+her was a sort of passion of devotion. When he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>
+could scarcely talk, the first two words he put
+together were, “Pretty mamma,” and ever since
+then she had been the first and fairest of created
+beings to him. He was very fond of Susie Hale,
+but Susie was only a nice girl,—a dear, sweet,
+good girl, such as any fellow would like; but his
+mother was the elect lady to whom were due his
+love, his care, his uttermost duty.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Graham was the kind of woman for a son
+to be romantic about. She was only seventeen
+when George was born; and now, when he was
+sixteen and she was thirty-three, she was, so he
+thought, more beautiful than ever. She had been
+a pretty, rather helpless little creature all her
+life,—one of those women toward whom every
+man feels the instinct of protection. George’s
+father had felt it always, and had never allowed
+care to come near his dainty darling. His one
+great agony, as he lay dying, was that he must
+leave her almost unprovided for. That was when
+George was thirteen, and the boy would never forget
+how his father had called him to his bedside,
+and charged him to take care of his mother.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“You are old enough to be her staff, even
+now,” the dying man had said, clinging to his boy’s
+hand. “You can be good to her in a thousand
+ways, save her a thousand cares, and in a few
+years more you can work for her, and keep her
+comfortably, as I have done.”</p>
+
+<p>George never forgot this trust for one moment.
+The plans he made in life were all for his mother’s
+sake—his future was to be spent in her service.
+He wanted to come out of school at the time of
+his father’s death, and try by all manner of little
+industries to help take care of the household, but
+his mother was too wise to permit this. She developed
+a strength of mind and of body for which
+no one who saw her pink-and-white prettiness,—the
+prettiness of a girl still, despite all her years
+of married life,—would have given her credit.</p>
+
+<p>She saw clearly that if her boy’s education
+stopped at thirteen, he would be held in check
+all his life by his own ignorance—he must be
+drudge always, and never master. So she made
+him go to school three years longer.</p>
+
+<p>How she lived and kept up her refined little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>
+home puzzled all lookers-on, and indeed she
+hardly knew herself. She lived simply; she was
+busy from morning till night. She sewed for one
+neighbor, she helped another through some season
+of sickness, she taught a naughty child who had
+worn out its welcome at school, but who could not
+wear out Mrs. Graham’s sweet patience,—and all
+these things helped. It is true, it was very often
+hard work to compass the simple necessaries of
+life, but she struggled on bravely.</p>
+
+<p>When George was sixteen he should come out
+of school, well trained, she hoped, for a business
+man, and then things would be so much easier.
+With this hope in view, she never repined. She
+kept her strength of soul and her sweetness of
+temper, her fresh beauty and her fresh heart.
+She kept, too, her boy’s adoration,—an adoration
+which was, as I said, the romance of his life.</p>
+
+<p>When the days began to grow so dark for
+George Graham, it was of his mother that he
+thought. So far he had no ambitions, no hopes,
+that were not centred in her. What if this growing
+shadow about him was to increase until all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>
+was dark, until dense night shut him in,—a night
+through whose blackness no star of hope could
+shine? What if he must be no help to his
+mother, but only a burden on her for ever, a burden
+lasting through heaven only knew how many
+helpless years?</p>
+
+<p>He rebelled against such a fate madly. He
+stretched out his hands toward heaven, he lifted
+the dumb prayer of his darkening eyes, but no
+help came.</p>
+
+<p>Dimmer and dimmer grew the world about
+him, more and more desperate the gloom of his
+hopeless heart. His scholarship had been so fine
+that his teacher hesitated to reprove his now continual
+failures; and George said nothing of the
+increasing darkness around him,—nothing to his
+mother, for he felt that it would break her
+heart; nothing to teacher or school-mates, for
+it seemed to him his grief would be nothing to
+them. But one afternoon the crisis came.</p>
+
+<p>His recitation had been an utter failure, and, at
+last, his teacher spoke in severe terms of the
+neglect which had become habitual. No one who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>
+was present that day—not even the smallest
+child—will ever forget the look of despair that
+swept over George Graham’s face, or the gesture
+of helpless anguish with which he stretched out
+his hands, as if to seek among them all some
+friend, as he cried,—</p>
+
+<p>“God help me, sir! I have been going blind;
+and now I cannot see one figure in my book—I
+can hardly see your face.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence after this, through which
+came no sound but the audible beating of George
+Graham’s tortured heart. Then the master sent
+away the others, for school hours were nearly
+over, and tried his best to comfort his stricken
+pupil. It might not be so bad as he feared, an
+oculist might help him, perhaps it was only
+temporary.</p>
+
+<p>To all these well-meant consolations George
+listened in a sort of dreary silence. The words of
+the teacher entered his ears, but they did not
+reach his heart or kindle his hope.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as he could, he went away. He did
+not go straight home. How could he face his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>
+mother and tell her what he <em>must</em> tell her now,—what
+she would be sure to hear from others, if not
+from him? He kept thinking how she would take
+it. Would not all the light go out of her face?
+Maybe she would faint away, as he remembered
+she had done when his father died.</p>
+
+<p>He sat down on a bank, a little removed from
+the road-side, a bank which overhung a swift and
+deep, yet narrow stream.</p>
+
+<p>An awful temptation came over him,—such a
+temptation as, thank Heaven! comes to few boys of
+sixteen, with the young, glad life running riot in
+their veins. He thought, what if he should die,
+then and there? It seemed to him the one desirable
+thing. To be sure, to die would be to leave
+his mother to fight her battle of life alone; but
+also it would relieve her from the heavy burden
+he must needs be to her if he lived. The river
+rushing down there below invited him with its
+murmur. Should he seek refuge there, and let his
+mother hear that he was dead, before she heard
+that he was blind? He bent forward over the
+stream. Then he drew back, for a longing came<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>
+over him to go home first, and see his mother just
+once more; and then an exceeding bitter cry
+burst from his lips,—</p>
+
+<p>“<em>See</em> her! What am I talking about? Do I
+not know I shall <em>never</em> see her again?”</p>
+
+<p>And a girl’s voice, soft and cooing and tender,—an
+utterly unexpected voice,—answered
+him,—</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, you <em>will</em> see her again. Surely you will
+see her again.”</p>
+
+<p>The boy turned his face toward the sound.</p>
+
+<p>“How did you come here, Susie Hale?” he
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t be angry, George,” the gentle voice
+entreated. “I waited for you. I could not go
+home till I had told you how sorry I was, and
+tried to comfort you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Comfort me!” There was a sort of scornful
+bitterness in the cry. “How <em>can</em> I be comforted?
+Do you think what it will be never to see the
+green earth or the blue sky, or any dear face any
+more, for ever and ever?”</p>
+
+<p>“But you will see them,” she said gently.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>
+“I did not mean that you must be reconciled to
+give up hope. I mean that you must take heart,
+and try to be cured. I have known people who
+could not see at all to be helped, and why not
+you? At least, you must try.”</p>
+
+<p>An evil mood was upon George Graham, and he
+answered harshly,—</p>
+
+<p>“Where is the money to come from, if you
+please? It has been all mother could do just to
+live and she has struggled on, in the expectation of
+my being able soon to help her. She has no money
+for experiments. There is nothing for it but for
+me to rest a dead weight upon her hands, or—die.”</p>
+
+<p>He said the last word with a sort of gasp. Susie
+Hale shivered. She drew closer to him. She
+looked into his poor, tortured face, with her dark
+and tender eyes, and said very quietly,—</p>
+
+<p>“You believe in God, George Graham, and you
+will not defy Him. If He means you to bear this
+you will bear it like a man, and not try to get rid
+of the burden. But I do not believe He does
+mean you to bear it; and I will not believe it till
+every means has been tried for your cure. Just<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>
+now, it seems to me, you ought to go home.
+Would you like your mother to hear this first
+from some one else?”</p>
+
+<p>He rose slowly.</p>
+
+<p>“You are right,” he said, “and you are a good
+girl. Good-by, Susie.”</p>
+
+<p>She did not try to go with him; she followed
+him only with her eyes. She was contented if she
+could but send him home in safety to his mother.</p>
+
+<p>His mother met him at the gate. When she
+took his hand in hers the poor fellow felt that she
+knew all. She was very quiet and self-controlled.</p>
+
+<p>“Your teacher has been here,” she said, “and
+he has told me. My darling, why have you sat in
+the darkness, and shut your mother out from any
+share in your trouble?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I couldn’t tell you, mother!” he sobbed,
+with his head upon her breast, at last,—“I
+couldn’t, I thought it would break your heart.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah! that was because you did not know. If
+you should die and leave me alone in the world,
+<em>that</em>, indeed, would break my heart; but while I
+have you beside me, nothing can make me alto<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>gether
+miserable, and nothing must make you so.
+There is help somewhere, and we will find it, please
+God; or, if not, we will bear what others have
+borne, and find a way to lighten the darkness.”</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, Susie Hale had gone home full of an
+absorbing purpose. Somehow money must and
+should be raised to try what a skilful oculist
+could do for George Graham.</p>
+
+<p>Susie was the orphan niece of Deacon Solomon
+Grant, in whose store a place was awaiting George.
+She knew that she had a modest little fortune of
+her own, but it was all in her uncle’s hands, and
+without his consent she could not dispose even of
+her slender income. But would he not be persuaded
+to let her have enough of her own money
+to accomplish her desire? She asked him, using her
+utmost power of persuasion to touch his heart,
+but he refused with peremptory decision. He
+wouldn’t mind contributing moderately to a fund
+for young Graham’s help—he would not even
+mind letting her have five or ten dollars of her
+own for that purpose—but beyond that the duty
+of one neighbor did not go. And Deacon Solomon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>
+shut his lips together as tightly as he buttoned up
+his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>Susie had in the world one treasure,—a diamond
+ring which had been her mother’s, with a
+stone white and clear as a dew-drop. This must,
+she knew, be worth three or four hundred dollars.
+It was her very own. She had meant to keep it all
+her life for her mother’s sake, but surely this great
+need of George Graham’s justified her in parting
+with it.</p>
+
+<p>She had one friend in Boston,—an old teacher,—in
+whose good faith and judicious management
+she felt implicit confidence, and to him she sent her
+mother’s ring, with a request that he would sell
+it as speedily and on as good terms as possible,
+and remit her the price of it in bank-notes, not in
+a check, and keep for ever the secret that she had
+disposed of it.</p>
+
+<p>It was a week after George Graham had given
+up hope, when a most unexpected hope came to
+him. A neighbor, going by from the post-office,
+handed in at the door a letter addressed to him.
+Mrs. Graham opened it, for George’s vision had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>
+failed with every day, and his eyes were utterly
+useless now.</p>
+
+<p>“George,” she cried, after a moment, in an eager,
+trembling voice, “here are three one-hundred dollar
+bills, and this is the letter that comes with
+them:—</p>
+
+<p>“‘This money is from a true friend of George
+Graham’s, and is to be applied to taking him to
+an oculist, in the hope that his sight may be
+restored. The giver withholds his name, both
+because he desires no thanks, and because he
+wishes to make the return of the money impossible.’</p>
+
+<p>“It is from Heaven, itself!” the mother cried.
+“George, we will start for Boston to-morrow. I
+feel in my soul that you are to be cured.”</p>
+
+<p>The next day a mother and her blind son sought
+rooms at a quiet boarding-house, of which they
+had found the number in the advertisement column
+of a city paper, and the day after that
+they were among the earliest patients of Doctor
+Annesley. The first examination of George’s eyes
+was unpromising enough. They would be worse
+before they were better; an operation might or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>
+might not restore sight to them, but the time for
+it had not yet come. Meanwhile the doctor
+wanted to see him daily.</p>
+
+<p>Those were weary days and weeks that followed,
+both before the operation and afterward,
+when the poor eyes were carefully bandaged from
+the light, and mother and son sat day after day in
+the dark together, wondering, wondering, wondering
+what the result would be. It was curious
+that the mother was always hopeful, and the son
+always despairing. At last it almost irritated him
+to hear her speak of hope to him; and one day he
+turned on her with the first burst of passionate impatience
+she had ever experienced from him.</p>
+
+<p>“Mother,” he said, “for the love of Heaven do
+not talk to me as if it was a sure thing that I am
+going to see again. I <em>want</em> to think it doubtful,
+almost impossible. If you should make me expect
+a sure cure, and then it shouldn’t come,
+don’t you see that I should go mad? I think I
+should dash my head against the wall. I can only
+<em>live</em> by expecting nothing.”</p>
+
+<p>After that the mother held her peace; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>
+whenever she went out of that darkened room
+those who saw her marvelled at the light of joy in
+her eyes, the bloom of hope upon her cheeks. At
+last the time came—the bandage was removed.
+There was just one wild cry, “Mother, I see you!”
+and then George Graham lay at the doctor’s feet,
+swooning and helpless in his great joy.</p>
+
+<p>It was weeks yet before he went home again,
+but the good news preceded him. The mother
+wrote it to Deacon Grant, who had agreed still to
+keep the place in his store open, while awaiting
+the result of this experiment.</p>
+
+<p>The deacon read the letter in full family conclave,
+with the slow deliberation of a man unused
+to correspondence. He little knew how his niece
+longed to snatch the paper from his hand and read
+it for herself; nor did he heed the tears that swam
+in her dark eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Deliberately he smoothed out the letter, and
+folded it. Deliberately he took off his spectacles,
+and wiped them, and put them on again. Then
+he said, with the half pompous, half solemn manner
+which became his position,—</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Well, well, I’m ready always to rejoice with
+those that rejoice; and I’m sure I’m thankful
+that the Widow Graham hasn’t got to struggle
+with so much trouble as it looked as if Providence
+was laying on her; but wherever she got that
+money the Lord knows.”</p>
+
+<p>Another letter came, afterward, to tell when the
+widow and her son were to return, and to ask
+Deacon Grant, in whose keeping the key of their
+house had been left, to put it in their door on that
+day as he was passing by to the store.</p>
+
+<p>It was Susie who walked over with the key,
+early in the afternoon, carrying with her a basket
+of dainties for the travellers’ supper, from Mrs.
+Grant, a woman who knew how to be a good
+neighbor, and to make life pleasant with cheap
+kindnesses. Susie’s black eyes danced, and her
+heart sang within her as she set the table in the
+little parlor and lighted a fire in the kitchen stove,
+ready to make a fresh cup of tea whenever the
+widow and her son should arrive. Then she
+dusted every thing; and then she gathered some
+of the flowers of September,—for already the sum<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>mer
+was over,—and put them in the vases on the
+mantel, and on the widow’s little round sewing-table.</p>
+
+<p>And at last the travellers came, as at last every
+thing does come, if we wait long enough for it.
+They had expected to find an empty house; they
+found instead, warmth and brightness and good
+cheer and Susie Hale.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="DR_JOES_VALENTINE">DR. JOE’S VALENTINE.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+<p>There were half-a-dozen of the girls together,—pretty
+creatures, in the very first season
+of their long dresses,—the eldest not quite sixteen.
+They were all braids and puffs and fluffy
+curls, all loops and ruffles and ribbons, all
+smiles and dimples. It was the Saturday before
+Valentine’s Day, in a certain year of grace, of
+which I will not give you the precise date, but
+less than ten years ago, and more than five. Of
+the half-dozen girls, two are busy teachers now,
+two are married, one is playing mother to her
+brother’s little brood of orphan children, and the
+sixth, not less happy than the rest, has gone on to
+“the next country,” where they tell us she will
+never grow old, never be sick or sorry any more,—happy
+Bertha, whom, surely, God loved.</p>
+
+<p>But, that day in February, none of them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>
+thought much about the future: the present was
+enough, with its fun and frolic, its wealth of all
+the pleasures which girlhood holds dear. The six
+were passing the long day together. Two of them
+were sisters and belonged in one house, and the
+rest had come there to be with them; for they
+were all going to make valentines. They had
+made funny ones and foolish ones, tender ones,
+with just a little dash of satire in them, poetic
+ones and prosy ones; and at last it was dinner-time,
+a feast of all the things that school-girls
+love, and these were hungry girls. At least they
+were all hungry girls but Nelly Hunt, and she
+scarcely ate any dinner at all, she was so busy
+thinking. She was Bertha’s sister, and this was her
+home and Bertha’s, and it was to the girls’ own
+room that the little party went back again, after
+they had eaten and praised Mrs. Hunt’s dinner.</p>
+
+<p>“What are you thinking about, Nell?” Bertha
+asked, sitting on the arm of Nelly’s chair.</p>
+
+<p>“These valentines,” Nelly answered slowly.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, surely they need not make you sober,—they
+are absurd enough.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Yes, and it’s just because they are so absurd
+that they make me sober. I was wondering why
+we couldn’t just as well have said something to
+help somebody—to make somebody think—to do
+some good.”</p>
+
+<p>“Nelly’s heroics!” cried Kate Greene flippantly.
+“Miss Hunt as a moral reformer!”</p>
+
+<p>Nelly blushed from her pretty ears to the roots
+of her sunny hair; but her eyes shone clear, and
+there was a ring of earnestness in her voice as she
+answered,—</p>
+
+<p>“You can laugh if you will, but I mean what I
+say, and I’m going to try an experiment. I will
+write one boy a valentine, such as I think a girl
+ought to write, and I’ll send it.”</p>
+
+<p>“So you shall,” Bertha said gently,—Bertha
+always was peacemaker,—“and we’ll all go away
+and see mamma and the baby while you write it.
+When it’s done you must call us.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, and you must show it to us,” cried Kate
+Greene, as she went away; “that’s only fair. We
+promised this morning to show each other all we
+sent, and we sha’n’t let you off.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And then the five fluttered away like a flock of
+birds, and Nelly was quite alone.</p>
+
+<p>Her task was harder than she had imagined. It
+is only the old, perhaps, who are sage in counsel
+by nature. At any rate, to give good advice did
+not come naturally to pretty Nelly. But she had
+an idea of what she wanted to say, and at last she
+got it said. She had written and rewritten it, and
+finally concluded that she could do no better, and
+then copied it out into her neatest handwriting
+before she called the others. It was a little stiff,
+to be sure, and preachy and high-flown, but it
+sounded like a lofty effort and a complete success
+to the listening girls. This was what it
+said:—</p>
+
+<p>“<span class="smcap">My Valentine</span>,—You will have plenty of
+fine speeches and praises, and, perhaps, of fun and
+fancy from others, so I shall not give you those,—I
+who have but one interest in you, namely, that
+you should be the best boy and the best man
+which it is possible for you to become. If you are
+selfish, if you are indolent, if you are mean, you
+will never be happy in your own society, until you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>
+have sunk so low that you don’t know the difference
+between goodness and badness. But if you
+set out to be a gentleman and a man of honor
+and a faithful worker, you will do good deeds and
+live a happy life, and be worthy the everlasting
+esteem of</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="smcap">Your Valentine</span>.”<br />
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/i_220.jpg" width="600" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">Nelly Reading her Valentine.—<span class="smcap">Page <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.</span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Nelly read it with rising color and a little quiver
+about her mouth, which Bertha understood; but
+she read it with firm voice and careful, deliberate
+accent.</p>
+
+<p>“Then,” she said, when she had finished, “I
+shall burn up all the rest of my valentines, and
+send only this one; for it is what I mean, in earnest,
+and, as old Aunty Smoke says, ‘Ef it don’t do
+no good, it can’t do no harm.’”</p>
+
+<p>“To whom shall you send it, dear?” Bertha
+asked gently, a little subdued by Nelly’s epistolary
+success.</p>
+
+<p>“I hadn’t made up my mind,” Nelly answered
+thoughtfully; “they all need it.”</p>
+
+<p>“O, send it to Joe, my cousin Joe,” cried Kitty
+Greene. “He is staying with us, and <em>he</em> needs it—bad
+enough. If ever a boy was full of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>
+pranks, Joe is, and if ever a boy tormented a girl’s
+life out, Joe does mine.”</p>
+
+<p>A color clear and bright as flame glowed on
+Nelly Hunt’s cheeks. Had she had dark-eyed Joe
+in her mind all the while? She only answered
+very quietly,—</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t mind. I had just as lief send it to Joe.
+That is, I’ll send it to him if you’ll promise, on
+your sacred honor, never in any way to let him
+know who wrote it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I will—true as I live and breathe I’ll
+never tell him, and never let him guess, if I can
+help it.”</p>
+
+<p>“And all you girls?” Nelly asked, with the
+pretty pink glow deepening in her cheeks. “Will
+you all promise?”</p>
+
+<p>And they all promised; for there was a sort of
+honest earnestness in Nelly’s nature to which they
+found it natural to yield.</p>
+
+<p>So the valentine was directed in Nelly’s most
+neat and proper manner to “Mr. Joe Greene,”
+and was dropped into the post-office with the rest
+of the valentines the girls had written that day.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On the fifteenth the six girls were all together
+at school, comparing notes and exchanging confidences.
+But Kitty Greene drew Nelly aside, and
+said, while they walked up and down the hall together,
+their arms around each other as girls will,—</p>
+
+<p>“I saw Joe get it, Nelly.”</p>
+
+<p>Nelly’s pretty cheeks glowed and her eyes shone
+like stars, but she asked no questions. Indeed,
+they were scarcely necessary, for Kitty was eager
+enough to tell her story.</p>
+
+<p>“He got it, don’t you think, along with half-a-dozen
+others, and he read them all before he came
+to this one. I knew this, you know, by the shape
+of the envelope. When he came to it I saw him
+read it all through, and then I saw him go back
+and read it again. I heard him say to himself,—</p>
+
+<p>“‘That’s an honest letter from some little saint.’</p>
+
+<p>“Then he came up to me and held it toward
+me, while I pretended to be very busy with my
+valentines. Then he asked,—</p>
+
+<p>“‘Do you know that handwriting, Kit?’</p>
+
+<p>“I felt like an awful little liar, but I had promised
+you. I stretched out my hand for it, and said
+carelessly,—</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“‘Why, ain’t it Sue’s?’</p>
+
+<p>“Sue is his sister, you know. So he thought I
+did not know who it came from, and he changed
+his mind, and put it into his pocket, and went off.
+When I teased him afterward to let me see it, he
+said,—</p>
+
+<p>“‘No; there are some things a fellow would be
+a cad to show.’</p>
+
+<p>“So I saw it hit home, and well it might. It
+was a tremendous letter, Nelly.”</p>
+
+<p>And Kitty ended with a hug and a kiss, and a
+look of that loyal admiration which a girl can give
+another girl now and then.</p>
+
+<p>When the spring came Joe Greene went away
+from Chester, and did not come back there any
+more. No doubt Nelly Hunt would have forgotten
+his very existence but for the valentine, which
+she could not forget. She used to blush, as she
+grew older, to think how “bumptious” it was, as
+she used to call it to herself. What was <em>she</em>, that
+she should have undertaken to preach a sermon to
+that boy? What if he remembered it only to
+think how presuming it was, and to laugh at it?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>
+But, luckily, he did not know from whom it came;
+and with that thought she cooled her blushes.</p>
+
+<p>Nelly was twenty when Joe Greene came back
+to Chester again. And now he came as a physician,
+just through his studies, and anxious to build
+up a practice. Soon his fame grew. His patients
+were among the poor at first, and he cured them;
+and then richer people heard of it, and sent for
+him. But, while he took all the patients that
+came, he never gave up his practice among those
+who most needed him. His praise was in all their
+mouths. There had never been any doctor like
+this one.</p>
+
+<p>Nelly was Miss Hunt now, for Bertha had gone
+away from her into the other, unknown country,
+and Nelly’s grief had made her gentle heart yet
+more gentle, and her helpful spirit yet more
+helpful.</p>
+
+<p>Toward night, one summer day, she had gone to
+see an old woman who had been her nurse once,
+and had found her very ill,—quite too ill to be
+left alone, and certainly in need of a physician.
+So Nelly tore a leaf from her memorandum-book<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>
+and wrote on it a few lines, begging Dr. Greene
+to come at once, and then called to the first
+passer-by and entreated him to take it to the
+doctor.</p>
+
+<p>It was scarcely half an hour before Dr. Greene
+came in, quietly and gravely. He attended to his
+patient with that careful consideration which made
+all those poor souls whom he visited adore him.
+Then he turned to Nelly.</p>
+
+<p>“Who will stay with her to-night?” he asked;
+“for, indeed, she hardly ought to be left alone.”</p>
+
+<p>“I shall stay,” was the quiet answer.</p>
+
+<p>“Then come to the door with me, please, and
+let me give you your directions.”</p>
+
+<p>Nelly followed, and stood there, in the soft summer
+dusk,—a pretty picture, with the wild-rose
+flush dawning in her cheeks, and a new light kindling
+her eyes. She listened carefully to all his
+injunctions, and then turned as if to go. But he
+put out a hand to detain her.</p>
+
+<p>“How very much I owe to you!” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“<em>You</em>, how?” And a deep, deep crimson dyed
+Nelly’s face and throat. In that moment she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>
+thought of her “bumptious” valentine, which had
+not crossed her mind before for a long time.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her with a smile in his eyes, but
+with a face that preserved all its respectful gravity.
+He took a red leather case out of his pocket,
+and from the case he took the very old valentine
+which Nelly remembered so well. Then he produced
+the brief note she had written that afternoon;
+and still there was light enough left in the
+day to see them by, as he held them side by side.</p>
+
+<p>“Your hand has matured somewhat since this
+valentine was written,” he remarked quietly;
+“but some of these letters I should know anywhere.
+No one could deceive me.”</p>
+
+<p>“I did not suppose you had kept that foolish
+thing,” Nelly said, with a pitiful little quiver in
+her voice, as if she were just on the point of bursting
+into tears. “I am so ashamed!”</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Joe looked at her a moment, as she stood
+there in the waning light,—a lovely, graceful girl
+from whom any man might be proud to win even
+a passing interest. So this was the woman, the
+thought of whom he had carried in his heart for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>
+years! If he had ever done any good thing, he
+was paid for it in the satisfaction of that hour.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you sorry,” he asked slowly, “that you
+have helped one man to be his best self? Those
+words of yours were to me like the voice of my inmost
+soul. Since then this paper has never left
+me, nor have I ever ceased to strive to be worthy
+of the esteem of my unknown ‘valentine.’ If ever
+I have been generous instead of selfish, brave instead
+of cowardly, strong instead of weak, it has
+been because I have remembered the words written
+here, and meant to live in their spirit. Are
+you sorry for that? or do you grudge me the dear
+pleasure of thanking you?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I’m not sorry, nor do I grudge you any
+thing; but it was a girl’s freak, and I am not
+worthy of so much praise and honor.”</p>
+
+<p>“It was a good girl’s good intention,” he said
+almost solemnly. “Let us be thankful that it succeeded.”</p>
+
+<p>Nelly went back to the bedside of the old woman
+with a fluttering heart. How strange it seemed to
+think this sick woman was old enough to have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>
+outlived all anxieties except those about her pains
+and her supper! Had not she been young once?
+and had no one ever looked at her as Dr. Joe
+looked?</p>
+
+<p>The next morning he came again. His medicine,
+a night’s sleep, Nelly’s care,—something
+seemed to have given the poor old patient a fresh
+lease of life. There was no need that Nelly should
+stay with her any more; but she went to see her
+daily, and it was curious how often Dr. Joe’s visits
+happened at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>One night the doctor had left his horse at home,
+and he and Nelly walked away together. They
+talked about the lingering sunset and the soft
+south wind and even the old woman; for Nelly,
+woman-like, was struggling desperately to keep
+Dr. Joe from saying what she desperately wanted
+to hear. But, at last, it came,—a half-blunt, half-awkward
+speech, yet with Dr. Joe’s honest heart
+in it,—</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve lived all these years just to earn your
+esteem, and now I find I don’t care a thing about
+that unless I can also win your love.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I think Nelly’s answer must have satisfied him,
+for she is Mrs. Joseph Greene now; and that valentine—worn
+and old, but choicely framed—always
+hangs over the doctor’s study table.</p>
+
+<hr class="pb" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/i_colophon.jpg" width="200" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="pb" />
+
+<p class="ph3 bd u"><i>Bright; Lively, and Enjoyable</i></p>
+
+<p class="ph2 bd">“Jolly Good Times” Series</p>
+
+<p class="ph3 bd"><i>By Mary P. Wells Smith</i></p>
+
+<hr class="tight" />
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/i_advert.jpg" width="300" alt="Illustration from Jolly Good Times Series" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="hang">JOLLY GOOD TIMES; or, <span class="smcap">Child Life on a Farm</span>.</p>
+<p class="hang">JOLLY GOOD TIMES AT SCHOOL; also, <span class="smcap">Some Times not so Jolly</span>.</p>
+<p class="hang">THE BROWNS.</p>
+<p class="hang">THEIR CANOE TRIP.</p>
+<p class="hang">JOLLY GOOD TIMES AT HACKMATACK.</p>
+<p class="hang">MORE GOOD TIMES AT HACKMATACK.</p>
+<p class="hang">JOLLY GOOD TIMES TO-DAY.</p>
+<p class="hang">A JOLLY GOOD SUMMER.</p>
+
+<p><i>With Illustrations, 12 mo,
+cloth, gilt, $1.25 per volume.
+The set of eight volumes, uniformly
+bound in cloth, gilt, in
+a box, $10.00.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="tight" />
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Of these stories the Boston “Transcript” says: “Few series of juvenile
+books appeal more strongly to children than the ‘Jolly Good Times’
+Series, written by Mary P. Wells Smith. The naturalness of the stories,
+their brightness, their truth to boy and girl life and character, and
+the skill with which the author manages incident and dialogue, have
+given them deserved popularity.”</p>
+
+<p>It is Mrs. Smith’s happy ability to take the incidents of child-life,—such
+a life as any child of bright mind and sweet character, blessed with
+the surroundings of a good home, might have,—and to record them with
+such faithfulness to the child’s character, and yet with such charm in the
+narrative, as to make them engagingly interesting to other children.—<cite>Gazette
+and Courier</cite>, Greenfield, Mass.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="pb" />
+
+<p class="ph2 bd">The Young Puritans Series</p>
+
+<p class="ph3 bd"><i>By Mary P. Wells Smith</i></p>
+
+<p class="ph4"><i>Author of “The Jolly Good Times” Series</i></p>
+
+<p class="hang">THE YOUNG PURITANS OF OLD HADLEY.</p>
+<p class="hang">THE YOUNG PURITANS IN KING PHILIP’S WAR.</p>
+<p class="hang">THE YOUNG PURITANS IN CAPTIVITY.</p>
+<p class="hang">THE YOUNG AND OLD PURITANS OF HATFIELD.</p>
+
+<p class="ph4"><i>Cloth, 12mo, Illustrated, each, $1.25.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="tight" />
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Mrs. Smith deserves very hearty commendation for the admirable
+pictures of Puritan life which are drawn with a skilful hand in this book.
+She has chosen a representative Puritan village as the scene, and the
+period of very early settlement of western Massachusetts for her story, a
+village which retains many of its early features to this day. Mrs. Smith
+knows the people of whom she writes thoroughly, and holds them in
+high and loving esteem. Even the most prejudiced reader can hardly
+close this book without seeing in these genuine Puritan people a phase of
+human life at once fine in its courage, its endurance of terrible hardships,
+and not unbeautiful in its childlike acceptance of God’s dealings and its
+daily hunger and thirst after righteousness.—<cite>The Churchman.</cite></p></div>
+
+
+<p class="p1">THE YOUNG PURITANS OF OLD HADLEY. 12mo.
+Cloth. Illustrated. $1.25.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>A capital colonial story.—<cite>Congregationalist</cite>, Boston.</p>
+
+<p>She catches the very spirit of Puritan life.—<cite>Chicago Inter-Ocean.</cite></p>
+
+<p>The work has historic value as well as unique interest.—<span class="smcap">Lilian
+Whiting</span>, <cite>in Chicago Inter-Ocean</cite>.</p>
+
+<p>An excellent book for school libraries.—<cite>Literary News</cite>, New York.</p>
+
+<p>The adventures of the boys while hunting, the trapping of wolves and
+panthers, which infested the forests in those early days, the encounters
+with the Indians, friendly and otherwise, are incidents which make up a
+book which will fascinate all young readers.—<cite>San Francisco Bulletin.</cite></p>
+
+<p>The author has studied her subject carefully; and the pictures of this
+life, extinct, yet still blood of our blood and bone of our bone, have
+unusual interest.—<cite>Chicago Dial.</cite></p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Smith has proven that she can write as simple and natural a
+story of child-life when the scene is laid two hundred and fifty years ago
+as when she chooses to describe country life in the New England of the
+present century.—<cite>Christian Register.</cite></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="p1">THE YOUNG PURITANS IN KING PHILIP’S WAR.
+Illustrated by <span class="smcap">L. J. Bridgman</span>. 12mo. Cloth. $1.25.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>From a letter written the author by Bishop F. D. Huntington, Syracuse,
+N. Y.: “Have read all the pages through, every word,—finding
+the whole volume readable, entertaining, and satisfactory. Of course I
+feel rather competent to say that, in the phraseology, the territorial descriptions,
+the geography, the account of customs, language, family habits,
+natural phenomena, you are singularly correct, accurate, and felicitous.”</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Smith seems to have caught the very breath and echo of those
+old days, and she makes one seem not to be merely reading of those
+Puritans and their constant struggles with their savage neighbors, but
+to be actually beholding them.—<cite>Jersey City Evening Journal.</cite></p>
+
+<p>The history of the seventeenth century in New England would gain
+new life when read in the light of such books.—<cite>Christian Endeavor
+Herald.</cite></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="p1">THE YOUNG PURITANS IN CAPTIVITY. Illustrated
+by <span class="smcap">Jessie Willcox Smith</span>. 12mo. Cloth. $1.25.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>Nothing could be more interesting than the period of which this story
+treats, and the author has handled the subject in a manner that is highly
+creditable. The reader will be for the nonce a Puritan, and will follow
+the adventures of three children taken captive by the Indians, feeling
+that he is a participant in the scenes so well portrayed. He will sleep in
+the Indians’ wigwam and breathe the odor of the pines. He will paddle
+a canoe upon the broad waters of the Connecticut, when New England
+was but a wilderness, and get an insight into Indian nature which he
+probably never had before.—<cite>Sacramento Bee.</cite></p>
+
+<p>She shows the same power of graphic description, the same faithful use
+of the best available material, and the same logical way of putting it into
+shape.—<cite>Commercial Advertiser, N. Y.</cite></p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Smith has made history live again in her life-like narrative. The
+children of to-day may well learn something of the sterner virtues in
+reading this story of the endurance and fortitude of children of two
+centuries ago.—<cite>Springfield Republican.</cite></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="p1">THE YOUNG AND OLD PURITANS OF HATFIELD.
+Illustrated by <span class="smcap">Bertha C. Day</span>. 12mo. $1.25.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="ph3 bd">LITTLE, BROWN, &amp; CO., Publishers,<br />
+<small>254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON.</small>
+</p>
+
+<hr class="pb" />
+
+<div class="transnote">
+  <p class="bd">Transcriber's Note</p>
+  <p>A few minor typographical errors have been silently corrected.</p>
+  <p>A page number in the Contents was corrected from 77 to 79.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 60418 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg's New Bed-Time Stories, by Louise Chandler Moulton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
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+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: New Bed-Time Stories
+
+Author: Louise Chandler Moulton
+
+Release Date: October 3, 2019 [EBook #60418]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW BED-TIME STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sonya Schermann, Nigel Blower and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  [Transcriber's Note
+
+  _Italic words_ in the original have been enclosed in underscores in
+  this version.
+
+  A few minor typographical errors have been silently corrected.
+
+  A page number in the Contents was corrected from 77 to 79.]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Day after day Johnny watched.--PAGE 15.]
+
+
+
+
+                 NEW
+
+          BED-TIME STORIES.
+
+
+                 BY
+
+       LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON,
+
+     AUTHOR OF “BED-TIME STORIES,”
+       “MORE BED-TIME STORIES,”
+  “SOME WOMEN’S HEARTS,” AND “POEMS.”
+
+
+         _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS._
+
+
+            [Illustration]
+
+
+                BOSTON:
+      LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY,
+                 1907
+
+
+
+
+          _Copyright_, 1880,
+      BY LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.
+
+
+  ALFRED MUDGE & SON, INC., PRINTERS,
+        BOSTON, MASS., U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+_TO MISTRESS BROWN-EYES._
+
+
+    _At Christmas-tide, by Christmas fire,
+      You’ll read these tales of mine;--
+    I see, above my story-book,
+      Your happy brown eyes shine._
+
+    _Dear eyes, that front the future time
+      So fearlessly to-day,
+    Oh, may from them some kindly Fate
+      Keep future tears away,_
+
+    _And give you all your heart desires,
+      My little English maid,
+    For whom, in this far-distant land,
+      My loving prayers are said!_
+
+    _I pray for Peace, since Peace is good,
+      For Love, since Love is best:
+    If prayers bring blessings, Brown-eyed Girl,
+      How much you will be blest!_
+
+  _L. C. M._
+
+  _August, 1880._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                     PAGE
+
+  “ALL A-GROWIN’ AND A-BLOWIN’”         5
+
+  MY VAGRANT                           20
+
+  HELEN’S TEMPTATION                   35
+
+  THE SURGEON OF THE DOLLS’ HOSPITAL   56
+
+  PRETTY MISS KATE                     79
+
+  A BORROWED ROSEBUD                   94
+
+  TOM’S THANKSGIVING                  106
+
+  FINDING JACK                        124
+
+  HER MOTHER’S DAUGHTER               139
+
+  MY QUARREL WITH RUTH                158
+
+  WAS IT HER MOTHER?                  172
+
+  THE LADY FROM OVER THE WAY          186
+
+  HIS MOTHER’S BOY                    200
+
+  DR. JOE’S VALENTINE                 217
+
+
+
+
+NEW BED-TIME STORIES.
+
+
+
+
+“ALL A-GROWIN’ AND A-BLOWIN’.”
+
+
+It had been such a weary hunt for lodgings. Not that lodgings are
+scarce in London. There are scores of streets, whole districts, indeed,
+where the house that did not say “Apartments” in its window would be
+the exception.
+
+But Miss Endell wanted to combine a great deal. She must be economical,
+for her funds were running low; she must be near the British Museum,
+for she wanted to consult many authorities for the book about “Noted
+Irishwomen,” by which she hoped to retrieve her fortunes; she wanted
+quiet, too, and reasonably pretty things about her.
+
+For a week she had spent most of her time in quest of the place where
+she could settle herself comfortably for a few months. It was the gray
+March weather. The mornings were dark, and the gloom of coming dusk
+settled down early; and, during all the hours between, Miss Endell
+had been busy in that weary work of which Dante speaks, “climbing the
+stairs of others.”
+
+At last, after much consideration, she had decided to make a certain
+flight of stairs her own. She had taken the drawing-room floor of No.
+30 Guilford Street; and with a comfortable feeling of success she had
+paid her bill at the Charing Cross Hotel, and driven to her new home.
+
+The drawing-room floor--that is to say, the suite of rooms up
+one flight of stairs from the street--is the most important part
+of a London lodging-house. Whoever is kept waiting, when “the
+drawing-room”--as it is the fashion to designate the lodger who
+occupies that apartment--rings, the ring must at once be “answered to.”
+That floor rents for as much as all the rest of the house put together,
+and is the chief dependence of anxious landladies.
+
+Miss Endell, accordingly, was received as a person of importance. Her
+boxes were brought upstairs, and her landlady, Mrs. Stone, bustled
+about cheerfully, helping her to arrange things.
+
+At last every thing was comfortably placed, and the tired new-comer
+settled herself in a low chair in front of the glowing coal-fire, and
+glanced around her.
+
+Mrs. Stone was still busy, wiping away imperceptible dust. The door was
+open, and in the doorway was framed a singular face, that of a pale,
+slender child, with a figure that looked too tall for the face, and
+great eager eyes, with such a wistful, silent longing in them as Miss
+Endell had never seen before.
+
+At the same moment Mrs. Stone also caught sight of the child, and cried
+out a little crossly,--
+
+“Go away, you plague! Didn’t I tell you as you wasn’t to ’ang round the
+new lady, a-worritin’ her?”
+
+The child’s wistful face colored, and the tears sprang to the great,
+sad eyes; but he was silently turning away, when Miss Endell herself
+spoke. She was not specially fond of children; but she had a kind
+heart, and something in the wan, pitiful face of the child touched it.
+
+“Don’t send him away, Mrs. Stone,” she said kindly. “Come in, my little
+man, and tell me what your name is.”
+
+The child sidled in, timidly, but did not speak.
+
+“Don’t be afraid,” Miss Endell said. “What is your name?”
+
+“Bless you, ma’am, he _can’t_ speak!” said Mrs. Stone.
+
+“Can’t speak?”
+
+“No; he was born with something wrong. Laws, he can hear as well as
+anybody, and he knows all you say to him; but there’s something the
+matter. The last ‘drawing-room’ said that there was doctors, she was
+sure, as could help him, but I haint any money to try experiments.
+
+“Johnny was my brother’s child. His father died before he was born, and
+his mother lived just long enough to ’and over Johnny to me, and ask me
+to take care of him.
+
+“I’ve done my best; but a lodging-house is a worrit. What with empty
+rooms, and lodgers as didn’t pay, and hard times, I never got money
+enough ahead to spend on doctors.
+
+“But you mustn’t have Johnny a-worritin’ round. You’d get sick o’ that.
+The last ‘drawing-room’ said it made her that nervous to see him; and I
+halways thought she went off partly for that.”
+
+“I will not let him trouble me, don’t be afraid; but let him sit down
+here by the fire, and when I find he disturbs me I’ll send him away.”
+
+Mrs. Stone vanished, and Johnny took up his station on a stool in a
+corner of the hearth-rug.
+
+Miss Endell busied herself with a book, but from time to time she
+looked at the boy. His face was pale and wistful still, but a
+half-smile, as sad as tears, was round his poor silent mouth, and he
+was gazing at his new friend as if he would fix every line of her face
+in his memory for ever.
+
+For a long hour he sat there; and then Mrs. Stone came to lay the cloth
+for dinner, and sent him away to bed.
+
+The next morning he appeared again; and soon it grew to be his habit to
+sit, almost all the day through, and watch Miss Endell at her tasks.
+In spite of her absorption, he occupied a good many of her thoughts.
+
+Like him, she was an orphan; and she had few close and vital interests
+in her life. She got to feel as if it belonged to her, in a certain
+way, to look after this silent waif of humanity more lonely still than
+herself.
+
+Often she took an hour from her work to read little tales to him, and
+it was reward enough to see how his eyes brightened, and the color
+came into his pale little face. She used to think that if her work
+succeeded, Johnny should also be the better for it. As soon as the
+first edition of “Noted Irishwomen” was sold, she would have the best
+medical advice for him; and if there were such a thing as giving those
+lips language, it should be done.
+
+“Should you _like_ to speak to me, Johnny?” she asked one day suddenly.
+
+The boy looked at her, for one moment, with eyes that seemed to grow
+larger and larger. Then came a great rush of sobs and tears that shook
+him so that Miss Endell was half-frightened at the effect of her own
+words. She bent over and put her hand on his head.
+
+“Don’t, Johnny! Don’t, dear!” she said tenderly.
+
+I doubt if any one had ever called the poor little dumb boy “dear”
+before, in all his eleven years of life. He looked up through his
+tears, with a glad, strange smile, as if some wonderful, sweet thing
+had befallen him; and then, in a sort of timid rapture, he kissed the
+hem of Miss Endell’s gown, and the slippered foot that peeped out
+beneath it.
+
+I think there is an instinct of motherhood in good women that comes
+out toward all helpless creatures; and it awoke then in Miss Endell’s
+heart. After that she and Johnny were almost inseparable. Often she
+took him with her on her walks, and always when she worked he kept his
+silent vigil on the hearth-rug.
+
+Miss Endell had one extravagance. She could not bear to be without
+flowers. She did not care much for the cut and wired bouquets of the
+florist, but she seldom came home from her walks without some handful
+of wall-flowers, or a knot of violets or forget-me-nots. Now and then
+she bought a tea-rose bud; and then Johnny always noticed how lovingly
+she tended it--how she watched it bursting from bud to flower.
+
+He got to know that this strange, bright creature whom he idolized
+loved flowers, and loved tea-roses best of all. A wild desire grew in
+him to buy her tea-roses--not one, only, but a whole bunch. He spent
+his days in thinking how it was to be done, and his nights in dreaming
+about it. A penny was the largest sum he had ever possessed in his
+life, and a penny will not buy one tea-rose, much less a bunch of them.
+
+One day Miss Endell took him with her when she went to see a friend. It
+was a prosperous, good-natured, rich woman in whose house they found
+themselves. “Go and see the pictures, Johnny,” Miss Endell said; and
+Johnny wandered down the long room, quite out of ear-shot.
+
+Then she told his pathetic little story, and her friend’s careless yet
+kind heart was touched. When it was time for Miss Endell to go, she
+summoned Johnny; and then the lady they were visiting gave the boy a
+half-crown, a whole shining, silver half-crown.
+
+Johnny clasped it to his heart in expressive pantomime, and lifted his
+wistful, inquiring eyes.
+
+“Yes, it is all yours,” the lady said, in answer; “and don’t let any
+one take it away from you.”
+
+Small danger, indeed, of that! The piece of silver meant but one thing
+to Johnny,--tea-roses, unlimited tea-roses.
+
+The next day he was taken ill. He had a fever,--a low, slow fever. His
+aunt was kind enough to him, but she had plenty to do, and Johnny would
+have been lonely indeed but for Miss Endell.
+
+She had him brought each morning into her room, and kept him all day
+lying on her sofa, giving him now a kind word, now a draught of cold
+water, and then a few grapes, with the sun’s secret in them.
+
+One day Johnny drew something from his bosom, and put it into Miss
+Endell’s hand. It was the silver half-crown. He made her understand,
+by his expressive gestures, that she was to keep it for him; and she
+dropped it into a drawer of her writing-desk.
+
+At last Johnny began to get well. June came, with all its summer sights
+and sounds, and strength came with its softer winds to the poor little
+waif. One day he stood before Miss Endell, and put out his hand. She
+understood, and dropped the half-crown into it. He hid it, with a sort
+of passion, in his bosom, and Miss Endell smiled. Did even this little
+waif, then, care so much for money?
+
+As soon as he could stand, he took up his station on the balcony
+outside the windows, and watched and watched.
+
+His friend thought only that the sights and sounds of the street amused
+him. She was working on at the “Noted Irishwomen,” which was nearing
+its conclusion, and it quite suited her that Johnny found the street so
+interesting.
+
+As for the child, he was possessed by only one idea,--tea-roses. He
+watched to see the hand-barrows come along, flower-laden and tempting.
+
+These same hand-barrows are a feature of London street life. They
+are full of plants growing in pots, and also there are plenty of
+cut flowers. The venders cry, as they pass along, “All a-growin’ and
+a-blowin’!” and there is something exciting in the cry. It seems part
+of the summer itself.
+
+Day after day, day after day, Johnny watched and watched. Flowers
+enough went by,--geraniums glowing scarlet in the sun, azaleas, white
+heath, violets,--only never any tea-roses.
+
+But at last, one morning, he heard the familiar cry, “_All a-growin’
+and a-blowin’!_” and lo! as if they had bloomed for his need, there
+were tea-roses--whole loads of tea-roses!
+
+Miss Endell was busy, just then, with Lady Morgan. She never noticed
+when the little silent figure left the window, and hurried downstairs.
+Out into the street that little figure went, and on and on, in hot
+pursuit of the flower-barrow, which by this time had quite the start of
+him.
+
+Down one street, up another, he ran, and always with the silver
+half-crown tightly clasped in the palm of his little hand.
+
+At last a customer detained the barrow; and Johnny hurried up to it,
+panting and breathless. He put his hand out towards the tea-roses, and
+then he held out his silver half-crown.
+
+The flower-seller looked at him curiously, “Why don’t you speak, young
+’un?” he said. “Are you dumb? You want this ’alf-crown’s wuth o’ them
+tea-roses?”
+
+Johnny nodded vehemently.
+
+The man took up a great handful of the pale sweet flowers, and thrust
+them into the boy’s hands, taking in exchange the half-crown, and
+putting it away in a sort of pouch, along with many silver mates.
+
+As for Johnny, there are in every life supreme moments, and his came
+then. He held in his hand the flowers that Miss Endell loved, and he
+was going to give them to her.
+
+All his life he had felt himself in every one’s way. She, only, had
+made him welcome to her side. She had called him “dear,”--and now
+there was something he could do for her. She had loved one tea-rose:
+how much, then, would she love a whole handful of tea-roses! His heart
+swelled with a great wave of pride and joy.
+
+He thought of nothing but his flowers,--how should he?--and he never
+even heard or saw the butcher’s cart, tearing along at such a pace as
+John Gilpin never dreamed of. And in a moment, something had pushed him
+down,--something rolled and crunched over him,--and he knew nothing;
+but he held the flowers tight through it all.
+
+“Why, it’s Mrs. Stone’s dumb Johnny!” said the butcher-boy, who had
+got down from his cart by this time, and was addressing the quickly
+assembled London crowd. “Gi ’e a hand, and lift un up into my cart, and
+I’ll carry un home.”
+
+An awful inarticulate groan came from the poor child’s dumb lips as
+they lifted him; but his hold on the tea-roses never loosened.
+
+They carried him home, and into the house. Mrs. Stone was shocked and
+grieved; and she took her troubles noisily, as is the fashion of her
+class. Miss Endell, still fagging away at Lady Morgan, heard cries and
+shrieks, and dropped her pen and hastened downstairs.
+
+“He’s dead! Johnny’s dead!” cried Mrs. Stone and Miss Endell, white and
+silent, drew near.
+
+But Johnny was not dead, though he was dying fast. The butcher-boy had
+hurried off for a doctor and the three women, Mrs. Stone, her maid, and
+her lodger, stood by helplessly.
+
+Suddenly Johnny’s wandering look rested on Miss Endell. A great sweet
+smile of triumph curved his mouth, lighted his eyes, kindled all his
+face. With one grand last effort, he put out the bunch of tea-roses,
+and pressed them into her hand.
+
+And then, as if death had somehow been more merciful to him than life,
+and had in some way loosed his poor bound tongue, he stammered out the
+only words he had ever spoken--was ever to speak,--
+
+“_For you!_”
+
+At length the doctor came and stood there, helpless like the rest, for
+death was stronger than all his skill. The shock and the hurt together
+had quenched the poor frail life that was ebbing so swiftly.
+
+Miss Endell bent and kissed the white quivering lips. As she did so,
+the tea-roses she held touched the little face.
+
+Was it their subtile fragrance, or this kiss, or both together, which
+seemed for one moment to recall the departing soul?
+
+He looked up; it was his last look, and it took in the sweet woman who
+had been so gentle and so loving to him, and the flowers in her hand.
+
+His face kindled with a great joy. A hero might have looked like that
+who had died for his country, or a man who had given his life joyfully
+for child or wife.
+
+Johnny Stone had loved one creature well, and that creature had loved
+tea-roses. What _could_ life have held so sweet as the death that found
+him when he was striving to give her her heart’s desire?
+
+
+
+
+MY VAGRANT.
+
+
+We were in pursuit of Laura’s dressmaker, and had just rung the bell
+at her door, when a little boy presented himself, and, standing on the
+lower step, uplifted a pathetic pair of blue eyes, and a small tin
+cup held in a little grimy hand. A large basket was on one arm; and
+round his neck was one of those great printed placards, such as the
+blind men wear who sit at the street corners. Laura’s purse was always
+fuller than mine; and she was extracting a bit of scrip from it, while
+I bent my near-sighted eyes on the boy’s label. Could it be that I read
+aright? I looked again. No, I was not mistaken. It read, in great,
+staring letters--
+
+  I HAVE LOST MY HUSBAND IN THE WAR.
+
+In the war! And those blue eyes had not opened, surely, till some time
+after the war was ended! His husband! I was bewildered. I bent my gaze
+on him sternly, and asked, as severely as I could,--
+
+“Young man, can you read?”
+
+Laura was fumbling away at the unanswered door-bell. The boy looked as
+if he wanted to run; but I put my hand on his arm.
+
+“Can you read?” I repeated gravely. I think he shook in his shabby
+boots, for his voice was not quite steady as he answered,--
+
+“Not much.”
+
+“Not much, I should think. Do you know what this thing says that you’ve
+got round your neck?”
+
+“Does it say I’m blind?” he asked, with a little frightened quaver.
+
+“No, it says--but do you know what a husband is?”
+
+“Yes, he comes home drunk, and beats Mag and me awful.”
+
+“Did you ever know a boy of your age to have a husband?”
+
+The blue eyes grew so wide open that I wondered if they could ever
+shut themselves up again; and Laura, who had turned round at my
+question, looked as if she thought I had suddenly gone mad. The little
+dressmaker had opened the door, and stood there waiting meekly, with
+the handle in her hand. But my spirit was up, and I did not care for
+either of them. I asked again, very impressively, as I thought, with a
+pause after each word,--
+
+“Did--you--ever--know--a--boy--of--your--age--to--have--a--husband?”
+
+“No, marm,” he gasped, “husbands belongs to women.”
+
+“Then what do you wear this thing for? It says that you have lost your
+husband in the war.”
+
+The imp actually turned pale, and I almost pitied him.
+
+“Will they put me in prison?” he asked, an abject little whine coming
+into his voice. “_Will_ they?”
+
+“Did you steal it?”
+
+“I didn’t to say steal it--I just _took_ it. I’d seen the rest put them
+on when they went out begging, and this was old Meg’s. She wasn’t
+going out to-day, and I thought no harm to borrow.”
+
+“Then you can’t read?”
+
+“Well, not to say read, marm. I think I could make out a word now and
+then.”
+
+“Do you want to?”
+
+The face brightened a moment, and, with the curving lips and eager
+eyes, was really that of a pretty boy.
+
+“Oh, if I could!” half sighed the quivering lips; and then the smile
+went out, and left blank despair behind it. “It’s no use, marm; she
+won’t let me.”
+
+“Who won’t? Your mother?”
+
+“No, Mag’s mother--old Meg. My mother’s dead, and I never had any
+father that ever I heard of; and since mother died old Meg does for
+me; and every day she sends me out to beg; and if I don’t get much she
+whips Mag.”
+
+I was growing strangely interested.
+
+“Whips _Mag_, because _you_ don’t get much?” I said doubtfully. “What
+for?”
+
+“I guess there’s a hard place on _me_, marm. She found that it didn’t
+seem to hurt much, when she whipped _me_; and so one night Mag was
+teasing her to stop, and she turned to and whipped Mag, and that made
+me cry awful; and ever since, if I don’t get enough money, she whips
+Mag.”
+
+“Are you sure you are telling me the truth?”
+
+I don’t know why I asked the question, for I saw honesty in those clear
+eyes of his. He looked hurt. Yes, you may laugh if you want to, I’m
+telling you just as it was--the boy looked as hurt as any of you would
+if I doubted you. There came a sort of proud shame into his manner. He
+clutched at the placard round his neck, as if he would tear it off, and
+answered, sadly,--
+
+“I s’pose I can’t expect anybody to believe me with this round my neck;
+but, if you would go home with me, Mag could tell you, and you would
+believe _her_.”
+
+By this time Laura had gone in, leaving me to finish my interview
+alone. I reflected a moment. The other day I had heard Tom say
+he wanted an errand boy. Why should he not have this one? Tom was
+my brother. I knew just the difficulties he would make,--want of
+reference, a street beggar, a regular rat of the gutter. I could
+fancy just how he would talk. I knew, too, that I could overrule his
+objections. That’s a power women have when a man loves them; whether
+he be husband or brother or friend. I hated the thought of vice and
+ignorance and poverty. What if I could save just one small boy from
+their clutches? I said resolutely,--
+
+“Will you go home with me, and have a comfortable home and good food
+and honest work, and no one ever to beat you, and learn to read?”
+
+I had seen no assent in his eyes till I came to this last clause of my
+sentence. Then he asked shrewdly,--
+
+“Who’ll teach me? I can’t go to school and do my work, too.”
+
+“I will teach you. Will you go and work faithfully for my brother, and
+learn to read?”
+
+“Won’t I, just?”
+
+“Well, then, let me speak to the lady who went in, and I’ll take you
+home at once.”
+
+He shuffled uneasily.
+
+“If you please, marm, I can’t go till I’ve been back to Meg’s, and
+carried her this board.”
+
+“But I’ll get a policeman to send a messenger with that. If you go,
+perhaps she won’t let you come to me.”
+
+“Yes, marm, I shall come. But you wouldn’t believe me, sure, if I could
+steal away, like, and never say good-by to Mag, and let her cry both
+her eyes out thinking I’d been shut up, or somebody had killed me.”
+And his own great blue eyes grew pathetic again over this picture of
+sorrowful possibilities.
+
+“Well, you may go,” I said, half reluctantly, for the little vagabond
+had inspired in me a singular interest. “You may go, and be sure you
+come to-night or in the morning, to 70 Deerham Street, and ask for Miss
+May.”
+
+He looked at me with a grave, resolved look.
+
+“I shall come,” he said; and in an instant he was gone.
+
+That night, after dinner, I told Tom. He was mocking, incredulous,
+reluctant--just as I knew he would be. But it all ended in his
+promising to try “My Vagrant,” if he ever came.
+
+Just as I had brought him to this pass, the bell rang, and I sprang to
+the dining-room door. The dining-room was the front basement, and the
+outside door was so near that I opened it myself. It was, indeed, my
+vagrant.
+
+“I want Miss May,” he said, with the air which such a _gamin_ puts on
+when he speaks to a servant,--an air which instantly subdued itself
+into propriety when he heard my voice.
+
+I took him in to Tom; and I saw the blue eyes softened even the
+prejudiced mind and worldly heart of Mr. Thomas May. He spoke very
+kindly to the boy, and then sent him into the kitchen for his supper.
+
+“Where do you propose to keep this new acquisition?” he asked me, after
+the blue-eyed was out of sight.
+
+“In this house, if you please. There is a little single bed all ready
+for him in the attic, and I’ve arranged with cook to give him a bath
+and then put him into some of the clothes her own boy left behind him
+when he went away to sea. I mean to rescue this one soul from a starved
+and miserable and wicked life, and I’m willing to take some pains; and
+if you aren’t willing to do your part I’m ashamed of you.”
+
+Tom laughed, and called me his “fierce little woman,” his “angry
+turtle-dove,” and half-a-dozen other names which he never gave me
+except when he was in good humor, so I knew it was all right.
+
+Before three days were over Tom owned that my vagrant, as he persisted
+in calling the boy (though we knew now that his name was Johnny True),
+was the best errand boy he had ever employed. I myself taught him to
+read, as I had promised, and brighter scholar never teacher had. In
+four months he had progressed so fast that he could read almost any
+thing. There had been a sort of feverish eagerness in his desire to
+learn for which I was at a loss to account. Sometimes, coming home
+from some party or opera, I would find him studying in the kitchen at
+midnight.
+
+We grew fond of him, all of us. Cook said he was no trouble, and he
+made it seem as if she had her own boy back again. He waited on Tom
+with a sort of dog-like faithfulness; and, as for me, I believe that he
+would have cut his hand off for me at any time.
+
+Yet one morning he got up and deliberately walked out of the house.
+When his breakfast was ready cook called for him in vain, and in vain
+she searched for him from attic to cellar. But before it was time
+for Tom to go to business another boy came, a little older than my
+vagrant,--a nice, respectable-looking boy,--and asked for Mr. May. He
+came into the dining-room and stood there, cap in hand.
+
+“If you please, sir,” he said bashfully, “Johnny True wants to know if
+you’ll be so good as to take me on in his place, considering that he
+isn’t coming back any more, and I have done errands before, and got
+good reference.”
+
+He had made his little speech in breathless haste, running all his
+sentences together into one.
+
+Tom looked at him deliberately, and lit a cigar.
+
+“Johnny isn’t coming back, hey?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Where is Johnny gone?”
+
+“He didn’t tell me, if you please, but he said he should be hurt to
+death if it troubled you to lose him, and he knew I could do as well as
+he could.”
+
+I saw a refusal in Tom’s eyes, so I made haste to forestall it.
+
+“Do take him,” I said in a low tone to Tom, and then I said to the boy
+that just now he had better go to the store, and Mr. May would see him
+presently, when he came to business.
+
+Tom laughed, a half-amused, half-provoked laugh, when he went out, and
+said,--
+
+“Well, my dear, I don’t think your vagrant has proved to be such a
+success that you need expect me to let him choose my next errand boy.”
+
+“I think, at least, that if he has sent you one as good as himself you
+will have no fault to find,” I said hotly. But all the time there was
+a sore place in my own heart, for I had thought that my vagrant would
+have loved me too well to run away from me in this way.
+
+That night Tom said that the new errand boy was doing well, and he
+had concluded to keep him on. I think Tom missed my vagrant; but not,
+of course, so much as I missed my bright scholar--my grateful little
+follower.
+
+Of course, the new boy lived in his own home, wherever that might be. I
+did not concern myself about him, or feel any disposition to put him in
+the little bed in the front attic.
+
+Two or three weeks passed and we heard no word from Johnny True. But at
+last a rainy day came, and with it Johnny, asking for Miss May.
+
+“I guess he’s repented,” cook said, coming upstairs to tell me. I went
+down to Johnny, resolved to be equal to the occasion--to meet him with
+all the severity his ungrateful behavior deserved. But, somehow, the
+wistful look in his blue eyes disarmed me. He was a little thin and
+pale, too; and my heart began to soften even before he spoke.
+
+“I couldn’t stay away, ma’am,” he said, with the clear accent he had
+caught so quickly from my brief teaching, “and not let you know why I
+went.”
+
+“To let me know _when_ you went would have been more to the purpose,” I
+answered, with what sternness I could command. “I had thought better of
+you, Johnny, than that you were capable of running away.”
+
+“But you see, ma’am, I was afraid you would not let me go if I told
+you.”
+
+“And why did you want to go? Were you not comfortable?”
+
+“Yes, ma’am--that was the worst of it.”
+
+“Why the worst of it? Have you any especial objection to be
+comfortable?”
+
+Suddenly the blue eyes filled with tears, like a girl’s; and there was
+a pitiful sob in the voice which answered me.
+
+“Oh, it hurt me so, when I was warm, and had a good supper, and
+everybody’s kind word, to think of poor Mag there at home, cold and
+hungry, and with old Meg beating her. I never should have come and left
+her but for the learning to read. _She_ wanted me to come for that.”
+
+“So you could read to her?”
+
+“So I could _teach_ her, ma’am. You never in all your life saw anybody
+so hungry to learn to read as Mag; and when I went home that first day
+and told her all you said, and told her that after all I couldn’t go
+and leave her there to take all the hard fare and hard words, she just
+began to cry, and to tease me to go and learn to read, so I could teach
+her, until I couldn’t stand it any longer, and I came.”
+
+“And how did she know she would ever see you again?” I asked. “It would
+have been most natural, having learned what comfort was, to stay on
+here and enjoy it.”
+
+“Mag _knew me_, ma’am,” said my vagrant, as proudly as a prince could
+speak if his honor were called in question. “Mag knew what I was, and
+I learned as fast as I could to get back to her--don’t you think so,
+ma’am?”
+
+“You learned faster than any one else could; I know that,” I answered.
+“But, Johnny, how could you bear to go back to begging again?”
+
+“I couldn’t bear it, ma’am, and I didn’t. I had money enough, that
+Mr. Tom had given me, to buy myself a stock of papers. I’m a newsboy
+now, and I teach Mag to read out of the papers I have left. And old Meg
+knows better now than to beat Mag, and we are so much happier. It’s all
+owing to you; and I came back to thank you,--but I never could forsake
+Mag for long. I must stay with my own.”
+
+“But they are not your own.”
+
+“Mag is, ma’am.”
+
+He was as resolute to ally himself, for that girl’s sake, with poverty,
+and, if need were, shame, as ever was a hero to live or die for the
+land of his birth; and out in the rain, down the desolate street, I
+watched my vagrant go away from me for ever. But I did not pity him. No
+soul is to be pitied which has reached life’s crowning good,--the power
+to love another better than itself. Nor do I know any curled darling of
+fortune who seems to me happier than was my vagrant.
+
+
+
+
+HELEN’S TEMPTATION.
+
+
+The sun was almost setting, but its low light came in at the western
+windows, and lit up a pale face lying upon the pillows, till it seemed
+to the watchers beside the bed as if some glory from heaven had already
+touched the brow of the dying. These watchers were only two,--a girl of
+fourteen, rather tall of her age, with gray eyes that were almost green
+sometimes, and dark hair, short like a boy’s, and curling all over her
+head; and a middle-aged woman, who had tended this girl when a baby,
+and was half friend, half servant, to the dying mother.
+
+Mrs. Ash had been lying all the day, almost in silence. Her husband had
+brought her, a year before, to California, because she was stricken
+with consumption, and he hoped the change from the harsh east winds of
+New England to the balmy airs of the Pacific coast might restore her
+to health.
+
+For a time the result had seemed to fulfil his hope; but, very
+suddenly, he himself had been taken ill and died; and then the
+half-baffled disease seized again on the mourning wife, who had now no
+strength to repel its onset.
+
+I think she would fain have lived--even then, when all the joy seemed
+gone from her life--for her daughter Helen’s sake; but she was too weak
+to struggle, and so she lay there dying, quite aware of what was before
+her.
+
+All day she had seemed to be thinking, thinking, and waiting till she
+had settled something in her own mind before she spoke. At last, with
+the sunset light upon her face, she beckoned to the woman, who bent
+nearer.
+
+“As soon as all is over, Woods,” she said, as tranquilly as if she
+were speaking of the most ordinary household arrangement, “you will
+take Helen to my sister’s in Boston. You must make the journey by easy
+stages, so as not to tire her too much. Fortunately she will not be
+dependent. She has money enough, and she needs only care and love,
+which my sister will give her, I know well.
+
+“I shall be glad if you can stay with her; but that must of course be
+as Mrs. Mason will arrange. You will find when my affairs are settled
+that you have been remembered. You will lay me by my husband’s side,
+and then take Helen away.
+
+“All is arranged so that there can be no trouble, and now, if you
+please, leave me a little while with my daughter.”
+
+The woman went out of the room, and then Mrs. Ash opened her arms, and
+Helen crept into them and lay there silently, as if she were a baby
+again whom her mother comforted.
+
+She was a strange compound, this Helen Ash, of impulsiveness and
+self-control. She had an intense nature, and her temptations would grow
+chiefly out of her tendency to concentrate all her heart on a single
+object,--to seek whatever thing she wished for with an insistence which
+would not be denied.
+
+This quality has its great advantages certainly, but it has its extreme
+dangers.
+
+Helen had no brothers or sisters or special friends. She had loved only
+her father and mother, but she had loved them with an almost excessive
+devotion.
+
+When her father died she had borne up bravely, that she might comfort
+and help her mother, and now she was bearing up still, that she might
+not sadden that parting soul with the anguish of her own.
+
+As she lay there in her mother’s arms, her eyes were wide open and
+tearless, but they were full of a desperate gloom sadder than tears.
+She was almost as pale herself as was her mother.
+
+“Darling,” the mother said tenderly, “how can I bear to leave you all
+alone? Promise me one thing only, to open your heart to new love. It
+would be so like you to shut yourself up in your grief, and to fancy
+you were loving me less if you let yourself care for your Aunt Helen.
+
+“She will love you for my sake, and she must be your second mother now.
+We were dearer than most sisters to each other, and she is a wise and
+good woman.
+
+“Her daughter, my namesake Laura, is just about your own age, and being
+her mother’s daughter, she must be worth loving. Try to care for them,
+my darling. The life which has no love in it is empty indeed. Will you
+try?”
+
+“O mamma,” the girl cried, with a sudden, desperate sob, “I _will_ try
+because you bid me! I _will_ try; but oh, how _can_ I love them? How
+_can_ I bear to see another girl happy with her mother, and to know
+that you will never be with me any more--never in all the world? If I
+call all day and all night, you will never hear nor answer! O my own
+mother, _must_ you leave me?”
+
+“My darling, yes. I would have lived for your sake if I could. You have
+been my comfort always. Comfort me a little longer. Let me feel that in
+all the future you will try to live nobly for my sake.”
+
+The last words had been spoken with an evident effort, and it seemed to
+Helen that the cheek against which her own rested was already colder
+than it was half an hour ago.
+
+She clung closer to the poor wasted form that was her whole world of
+love, and closed her lips over the bitter cry that was rising to them;
+and so the two lay, very, very quietly in that last embrace they were
+ever to know.
+
+And the twilight gathered round them, and at last a young moon, hanging
+low in the western sky, looked in and touched with its pale glory the
+pale faces on the pillow.
+
+The mother stirred a little, and with a last effort clasped her child
+closer, and said, in a voice like a sigh, faint and sweet and strange,
+“Good-by, darling!” and then she seemed to sleep.
+
+Perhaps Helen slept, also. She never quite knew; but it was an hour
+afterwards when Woods touched her shoulder, and said, with a kind
+firmness in her tone,--
+
+“You _must_ get up now, Miss Helen, and leave her to me. She went off
+just as quiet as a lamb, poor dear, and if ever a face was peaceful and
+happy, hers is now.”
+
+No one knew what the few days that followed were to Helen Ash. She shut
+her lips, as her manner was, over her grief. She turned away, with her
+great tearless eyes, from the two graves where her father and mother
+lay side by side, and she helped, with a strange unnatural calmness, in
+all the preparations for the long journey she was to take.
+
+When at last she reached her aunt’s home in Boston, this strained,
+unnatural composure gave way a little.
+
+Her Aunt Helen looked so much like her mother that at first she thought
+she could _not_ bear it. Then, when her aunt’s arms closed round her
+almost as tenderly as her mother’s would have done, she shivered
+a little, and burst into one wild passion of tears, which almost
+instantly she checked.
+
+“I am to love you for _her_ sake,” she said. “Those were almost her
+last words; and indeed, indeed, I will try, but I think I left my heart
+all those miles away in her grave.”
+
+Mrs. Mason was, as her sister had said, a wise and good woman,--wise
+enough not to attempt to force the love or the interest of her niece.
+She contented herself with being exquisitely gentle and considerate
+towards her, and with trying, in countless little ways, to make her
+feel that she was at home.
+
+Laura Mason had looked forward to Helen’s coming with a feeling that at
+last she was to find in her the sister she had longed for all her life,
+but Helen’s cold and self-contained manner disappointed her. She felt
+the atmosphere of Helen’s reserve almost as tangibly as if her orphan
+cousin had pushed her away.
+
+The summer months passed, and scarcely brought them any nearer
+together. Try as Helen might, she could not get over the sting of pain
+when she saw this other girl happy in her mother’s love, or running
+gayly to meet her father when he came home at night. _They_ had each
+other, she used to say to herself, but _she_ had only her dead. She had
+not even Woods to speak to, for Mrs. Mason had decided not to retain
+her; and since there was no one to whom Helen ever spoke of the past,
+she pondered it all the more in her heart.
+
+Things were a little better when school commenced in the autumn. Helen
+and Laura were in the same classes, and that brought them somewhat
+more together; still there was no real intimacy between them.
+
+In the spring there was to be a competitive examination, and a medal
+was to be bestowed on the leading scholar in the class. By midwinter
+it was quite evident that Helen and Laura led all the rest, and a real
+spirit of rivalry grew up between the cousins which bade fair to become
+a passion.
+
+Mrs. Mason looked on regretfully, adhering to her difficult policy of
+non-interference. One day Helen heard Laura say to her mother,--
+
+“Mamsie, dear, you know you have the key to that French method locked
+up in your desk, for you taught us from it last summer. Won’t you be a
+dear, and lend it to me for a little while?
+
+“If I only could have that to help me, I should be sure of success.
+I would study just as hard. It would only be the difference between
+knowing when one was right, and floundering on in an awful uncertainty.”
+
+Helen was behind the curtain of the library window, and evidently they
+did not know of her presence. She waited for her aunt’s answer. If
+Laura had the key, then, indeed, she would be sure of success.
+
+Mrs. Mason spoke in a sad voice, with a subtile little thrill of
+reproach in it.
+
+“I did not think you would so much as wish, my dear, to do any thing
+that was not quite open and straightforward. You know Mademoiselle does
+not expect you to see the key. The very test of your power is that you
+should work without its aid, and the examination will prove how far you
+have succeeded.”
+
+“I suppose there’s no use in coaxing, when you say that. I do wish you
+weren’t such an uncoaxable mamma.”
+
+“No, you don’t,--you only fancy that you wish it; but, in your inmost
+soul, you would rather have me as I am,” Mrs. Mason answered; and Helen
+heard the sound of a kiss, and felt, for the thousandth time, how
+bitter it was that this other girl should have home and mother, while
+she had only a far-off grave.
+
+But, at least, she would triumph in this school contest! If Laura came
+off best there, it would be more than she _could_ bear.
+
+The weeks passed on, and the spring came. The deep old garden back
+of the house--the garden Helen’s mother had played in when she was a
+child--grew full of bird-songs and blossoms.
+
+There was a sweet laughter on the face of nature. The springs bubbled
+with it; the flowers opened to the light; the sunshine poured down its
+tender warmth, and the soft coo and call of the birds gave voice to the
+general joy.
+
+But both Laura and Helen were too eager and too tired to be gay. They
+only studied. They went to sleep with books under their pillows; they
+woke with the first light, and began to study again.
+
+It was the very week of the examination, at last. Helen felt satisfied
+with herself in all but her French. If _she_ could only have that key
+for one little half-hour, she knew she would have no weak spot in her
+armor.
+
+She brooded over the idea until the temptation possessed her like an
+evil fate. In her passionate girl’s heart she said to herself that she
+wanted to _die_ if Laura triumphed over her at school. Laura had every
+thing else; why _should_ she have that, also?
+
+She had said at first, “If only it were _right_ to have the key!” Then
+she said, “if only she could _chance_ on the key, somehow!” Then, “if
+only she could get at her aunt’s desk and _find_ the key!” At last it
+was,--
+
+“I _will_ get at the key, somehow!”
+
+This last was the very morning before the examination. She rose from
+her bed in the dainty blue-hung room her aunt had taken such pains to
+make pretty for her, and went softly downstairs, in the young spring
+morning.
+
+Her bare feet made no sound on the thick stair-carpet. She looked like
+a little white-clad ghost that had forgotten to flee away at the first
+cock-crowing, as an orthodox ghost ought; but no ghost ever had such
+glowing cheeks, crimson with excitement, such great wide-opened gray
+eyes with green depths in them.
+
+She held in her hand a large bunch of keys belonging to her mother. It
+was just a chance whether one of them would fit her aunt’s desk.
+
+She fairly trembled with excitement. She had lost all thought of the
+wrong she was doing--of the shame and meanness of this act, which must
+be done in silence and mystery; she thought only of the triumph which
+success would mean.
+
+She stood before the desk, and tried key after key with her shaking
+fingers.
+
+At last one fitted. In a moment more the key to the French method was
+in her hand.
+
+In desperate haste she compared her own work with it, and made
+corrections here and there.
+
+She was so absorbed that she quite failed to see another white-clad
+figure which had followed her noiselessly down the stairs, and stood in
+the doorway long enough to see what she was doing, and then went away.
+
+Hurriedly Helen went through her evil task, and then stole back to bed,
+with her glittering eyes and burning cheeks.
+
+Meantime Laura had gone, full of excitement, to her mother. Mr. Mason
+was away on business, and Laura crept into the empty half of her
+mother’s great bed.
+
+“Mamsie,” she said, “wake up quickly, and listen.”
+
+Patient Mrs. Mason rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, and turned over.
+Then followed Laura’s breathless story.
+
+“Of course she’ll win, now,” Laura said, in conclusion, “unless I tell
+Mademoiselle what she has done; and I suppose you wouldn’t like that,
+would you, mamsie?
+
+“But it was her French that was the shakiest of any thing. Oh, _did_
+you ever see any thing quite so mean? Think of getting into your desk
+with her keys, and then slying off all those corrections!”
+
+“Yes, I _do_ think,” Mrs. Mason answered, with almost a groan.
+
+“And she is Laura’s child--my poor Laura, who was honor and honesty
+itself!
+
+“You don’t know, dear, what a bitter thing this is to me. Poor Laura!
+what if she knows?”
+
+“But what shall we do, mamsie, dear? Are we just to keep still, and let
+her win the medal, and let every one think she has beaten fairly, or
+will you tell her what we know?”
+
+“Will you go away now,” Mrs. Mason said, “and come back again before
+breakfast? I don’t want to say any thing until I am quite sure what it
+is best to do.”
+
+When Laura came again, Mrs. Mason had settled upon her course of
+action, or rather of inaction.
+
+“Don’t be vexed, girlie,” she said to Laura; “I know it will seem hard
+to you to be beaten unfairly; but there are things of more consequence
+even than that. The thing that seems to me most important, just now,
+is to know what Helen’s character really is. If she is not utterly
+unworthy of her mother, she will repent before the thing comes to an
+end. If she does not, it will be time enough to think what to do next.”
+
+“And I must let her beat unfairly, and never say one word?” Laura
+asked, with a little strain of rebellion in her voice.
+
+“Yes, if you are the obedient and generous Laura I like to believe
+you.”
+
+“Mamsie, you have a flattering tongue, and you always get your way.”
+
+“And who is pretty sure always to admit, in the end, that it was the
+best way?” asked Mrs. Mason, laughing.
+
+“Mamsie, you are getting spoiled. See if I say yours was the best way
+this time!”
+
+French came on the first of the two examination-days. Laura and Helen
+led their class. Laura did very well, but Helen acquitted herself
+triumphantly, and sat down amid a little buzz of congratulations and
+praises.
+
+But somehow the triumph left a bitter taste in her mouth. She did not
+look at Laura, and even if she had she would not have understood the
+scorn on Laura’s face, since she was quite unaware that her raid on her
+aunt’s desk had been observed.
+
+Still she was not happy. She needed no scorn from outside, she had
+already begun to feel such bitterness of self-contempt scorching her
+soul. It seemed to her that up to this moment she had been as one under
+an evil spell.
+
+She had thought of no single thing except her triumph over her
+cousin--quite careless as to the means to this hotly desired end. Now
+she began to realize how base those means had been, and to long to
+exchange her success for any direst possible failure.
+
+Mrs. Mason was watching her, and when they started to go home, she
+found an instant in which to whisper to Laura,--
+
+“Be gentle to her, girlie; she will suffer enough to-night.”
+
+At supper Helen’s place was vacant. She sent word that her head ached
+too much to come.
+
+Her aunt despatched to her room tea and strawberries and
+bread-and-butter enough for the hungriest of girls, and then left her
+to herself.
+
+The poor, lonesome, miserable girl lay upon her bed and thought. It was
+not quite a year since she had lain in her mother’s arms and heard her
+say,--
+
+“Try to live nobly for my sake.”
+
+Those had been almost her mother’s last words; after them there was
+only the low sigh, faint as if it came already from far-off worlds,--
+
+“Good-by, darling.”
+
+The low sun-rays stole in softly, and touched her sad, pale face, and
+then went away; and after a while some cold, far-off stars looked down
+into the window, and saw the girl lying there still, fighting her
+battle with herself.
+
+One thing her conscience told her,--that she must undo this wrong, at
+whatever cost of shame.
+
+Once she started up, half-resolved to go to her aunt and tell her the
+whole story, and seek her help and counsel. But she lay down again,
+without the courage to confess her shame.
+
+Through the long night she scarcely slept; but before morning she
+had resolved what to do. In public she had taken the wages of her
+sin; in public she would make atonement, and eat the bitter bread of
+humiliation.
+
+When she had once settled on her course of action, sleep touched her
+weary eyes, and soothed her into a forgetfulness from which only the
+breakfast-bell awoke her.
+
+That day every one noticed a singular calmness and resolve in her
+manner. She passed the remaining examinations with thorough success,
+yet with an evident lack of interest in their result which all save her
+aunt were at a loss to understand.
+
+At last the time came for the awarding of the medal. There was a little
+consultation among the examining committee, and then their chairman
+rose, with the medal in his hand.
+
+“To Miss Helen Ash,” he began; but before he could proceed farther,
+Miss Helen Ash herself interrupted him.
+
+Her face was as white as the dress she wore, and her eyes glittered
+with some strange fire of resolve or courage; but her voice was
+absolutely without a quiver of emotion in it, as steady and even as if
+she were beyond hope or fear.
+
+“The medal does not belong to me,” she said. “My success was a
+false success. I dishonestly found the key to the French method,
+and corrected my mistakes by it, or I should have failed. The prize
+belongs, of right, to my cousin, Laura Mason.”
+
+The chairman was a fussy little man, and was thoroughly discomposed
+by this interruption. He had had his little speech all ready, but it
+began with the name of Helen Ash, and he found it difficult to change
+it at a moment’s notice.
+
+“Bless my heart!” he said quite unconsciously, and looking helplessly
+around him, he repeated, “_Bless_ my heart!”
+
+“Miss Laura Mason,” suggested one of his brethren on the committee; and
+thus reinforced, he began again,--
+
+“Miss Laura Mason, I am very sorry--I mean I am very glad, to bestow on
+you this medal, which you have fairly earned by your success.”
+
+And then he sat down, and his confusion was covered by a gentle little
+clapping of hands.
+
+That night Mrs. Mason went to Helen in her own room, when the twilight
+shadows were falling, and as she entered the door she said, “My
+darling,” in a voice so like Helen’s mother’s that the girl’s very
+heart sprang to meet it.
+
+“My darling, I know now that you are true enough and brave enough to be
+my sister’s child.”
+
+But Helen shrank back into the darkness, and this time the voice was
+broken with tears which faltered,--
+
+“Is there any one who could know what I have done, and yet not despise
+me?”
+
+“There is no one, dear, who dares to scorn the soul that repents and
+atones.”
+
+And then loving arms held the poor lonesome girl close, and she knew
+that she was no longer alone. She had found a new home--the home her
+mother bade her seek--in the heart of that mother’s sister.
+
+
+
+
+THE SURGEON OF THE DOLLS’ HOSPITAL.
+
+
+It was nearly four years ago that I first noticed, in one of the quiet
+side-streets in the West Central district of London, a sign over a door
+on which I read:--
+
+DOLLS’ HOSPITAL.
+
+Operations from 9 A.M., to 4 P.M.
+
+Whenever I passed through the street--and that was often, for it was a
+short cut to Mudie’s,--the largest circulating library in the world,--I
+used to notice this quaint sign, and wonder, laughingly, who was the
+superintending physician to this place of healing for the numerous race
+of dolls.
+
+I often thought I would go in and see the establishment; but one is
+always busy in London, so, very likely, I should never have entered its
+door but for a casualty at my own fireside.
+
+When I went downstairs one morning, I heard a sound of weeping, as
+bitter as that of Rachel of old mourning for her children. The mourner
+in this case was Mistress Brown-Eyes, as I was wont to call my friend’s
+little girl.
+
+She was a pretty child, this little Milicent; but you forgot to think
+about the rest of her face when you saw her wonderful eyes--soft and
+clear, yet bright, and of the warmest, deepest, yet softest brown.
+She had made her home in my heart, and so her grief, whatever it was,
+appealed at once to my sympathies.
+
+“My darling,” I said, as I tried to draw away the little hands from
+before the sorrowful face, “what can be the matter?”
+
+“Bella is dead!” and the sobs recommenced with fresh violence.
+
+Bella was the best-beloved of a somewhat large family of dolls,--a
+pretty Parian creature, with blue eyes and fair hair. I had myself
+lately assisted in making a trunk of clothes for Bella; and I grudged
+sorely all my wasted labor, if she had come to an untimely end.
+
+I looked at the dear remains, stretched out sadly upon a chair. Bella
+was evidently very dead indeed. Her pretty neck was broken, her fair,
+foolish head lay quite severed from her silken-clad body. Suddenly
+there flashed into my mind the thought of the dolls’ hospital. I spoke
+cheerfully.
+
+“Brown-Eyes,” I said, “I think that Bella may recover. I am pretty sure
+that her collar-bone is broken; but I have heard of people who got well
+after breaking their collar-bones.”
+
+The child looked up, her eyes shining through tears, and said, with
+that air of grave, old-fashioned propriety which was one of the most
+amusing things about her,--
+
+“It is a very serious accident. Do you think Bella _could_ recover?”
+
+“I hope she may; and I shall at once take her to the hospital.”
+
+“The hospital!” cried Mistress Brown-Eyes; “but that is where Mary Ann
+went when she had a fever. She was gone six weeks. Will my Bella be
+gone six weeks?”
+
+“I think not so long as one week, if she can be cured at all.”
+
+In five minutes more I was in the street, with Bella in a basket on my
+arm. Her little mother had covered her carefully from the cold, though
+it was already May; and I felt as if I were in a position of grave
+responsibility as I hurried to the dolls’ hospital.
+
+A bell rang when I opened the door, and the oddest little person stood
+before me. At first I thought it was a child masquerading in long
+clothes; for she was not more than half the height of an ordinary woman.
+
+But, looking more closely, I saw the maturity of her face, and realized
+that I stood in the presence of a grown-up dwarf, who might really have
+been taken for Dickens’s Miss Mowcher, herself.
+
+She was dressed in a long, straight gown of rusty-looking black alpaca,
+and her rusty-looking black hair was drawn straightly back from as
+plain a face as one often sees. It was a kind, honest face, however,
+and I liked the voice in which she asked how she could serve me. I
+explained my errand.
+
+“Please to let me see the patient.”
+
+She spoke with as much gravity as if she had been the superintending
+physician of the largest hospital in London. I unveiled poor Bella, and
+the dwarf lifted her from the basket with grave tenderness.
+
+“Poor little beauty!” she said. “Yes’m, I think I can cure her.”
+
+“Will the operation take long?” I asked, humoring her fancy.
+
+“I should prefer that the patient should not be moved, ma’am, before
+to-morrow.”
+
+“Very well; then I will leave her.”
+
+Just at that moment I heard a voice call, “Sally! Sally!”
+
+It was a well-trained, ladylike voice, but somewhat imperious.
+
+“Yes, Lady Jane, I’ll be there in a moment,” answered the dwarf, whom
+I now knew to be Sally. Then a door opened, and the most beautiful
+creature I ever saw stood in it, looking in.
+
+The hospital was a bare enough place. There was a great table covered
+with dolls,--dolls with broken legs, dolls with punched heads, dolls
+with one arm gone, hairless dolls, broken-backed dolls, dolls of every
+kind, awaiting the ministrations of Sally; and dozens of other dolls
+were there, too, whom those skilful fingers had already cured of their
+wounds.
+
+There was a shelf, on which was ranged the pharmacy of this
+hospital,--white cement, boxes of saw-dust, collections of legs and
+arms, wigs, every thing, in short, that an afflicted doll could
+possibly require. Then there were two or three wooden stools, and these
+completed the furniture of the apartment.
+
+Standing in the doorway, Lady Jane looked as if she were a larger doll
+than the rest,--a doll with a soul. She seemed a lady’s child, every
+pretty inch of her. I should think she was about twelve years old. She
+wore a blue dress, and a blue ribbon in the bright, fair hair that hung
+all about her soft, pink-and-white face, out of which looked two great,
+serious, inquiring blue eyes.
+
+“I will be through soon, Lady Jane,” Sally said quietly; and the girl
+turned away, but not before I had taken in a complete picture of her
+loveliness, and had noticed also a somewhat singular ornament she wore,
+attached to a slender golden chain. It was so strange a vision to see
+in this humble little shop that my curiosity got the better of me, and,
+after the door had closed on Lady Jane, I asked, “Does she live here?”
+
+“Yes’m,” answered Sally proudly. “In a way, she is my child.”
+
+I hesitated to inquire further; but I think my eyes must have asked
+some questions in spite of myself; for Sally said, after a moment,--
+
+“You seem interested, ma’am, and I don’t mind telling you about her.
+I saw Lady Jane first some eight years ago. A man had her who used to
+go round with a hand-organ. She was such a pretty little creature that
+everybody gave her money, and she was a great profit to Jacopo, for
+that was his name.
+
+“It used to make my heart ache to see the little beauty trudging round
+all day on her patient feet. When Jacopo spoke to her, I’ve seen her
+turn pale; and she never used to smile except when she was holding out
+her bit of a hat to people for money. She _had_ to smile then; it was
+part of the business.
+
+“I was sixteen, and I was all alone in the world. I had a room to
+myself, and I worked days in a toy-shop. I used to dress the dolls,
+and I got very clever at mending them; but I hadn’t thought of the
+hospital, then.
+
+“I lived in the same street with Jacopo, and I grew very fond of the
+little lady, as the people in the street used to call Jane. Sometimes I
+coaxed Jacopo to let her stay with me at night; but after three or four
+times, he would not let her come again. I suppose he thought she would
+get too fond of me.
+
+“Things went on that way for two years; then one night, in the middle
+of the night, a boy came for me, and said Jacopo was dying and wanted
+me to come. I knew it was something about Jane, and I hurried on my
+clothes and went.
+
+“The child was asleep in one corner. She had been tramping all that
+day, as usual, and she was too tired out for the noise in the room to
+wake her. Jacopo looked very ill, and he could hardly summon strength
+to speak to me.
+
+“‘The end has come sudden, Sally,’ he said, ‘the end to a bad life. But
+I ain’t bad enough to want harm to happen to the little one when I am
+gone. There will be plenty of folks after her, for she’s a profitable
+little one to have; but if you want her, I’ll give her to you. You may
+take her away to-night, if you will.’
+
+“‘Indeed I will,’ I cried, ‘and thank you. While I can work, she shall
+never want.’
+
+“Jacopo had been fumbling under his pillow as he spoke; and when I said
+I would take the child he handed me a curious locket. Maybe you noticed
+it at her neck when she stood in the door?
+
+“He said, as nearly as I could understand, for it was getting hard work
+for him to speak, that he had stolen the child, but he had always kept
+this thing, which she had on her neck when he took her, and perhaps it
+would help, some day, to find her people.
+
+“So I took her home. The next morning I heard that Jacopo was dead,
+and the Lady Jane has been mine ever since.”
+
+“Have you always called her Lady Jane?” I asked.
+
+“Yes’m. There is a coronet on that locket she wears; and I know she
+must be some great person’s daughter, she is so beautiful, and seems so
+much like a real lady.”
+
+“And so you’ve struggled on and worked for her, and taken care of her
+for six years, now?”
+
+“Yes’m, and I’ve thanked God every day that I’ve had her to take care
+of. You see, ma’am, I’m not like other people; and it was a good
+fortune I couldn’t look for to have a beautiful child like that given
+into my arms, as you might say. It was all the difference between being
+alone and with no one to care for, and having a home and an interest in
+life like other women.
+
+“I gave up working in the shop when I took her, for I didn’t like to
+leave her alone. I was a good workwoman, and they let me take work home
+for awhile; then I opened the hospital, and I’ve done very well. Lady
+Jane has been to school, and I don’t think if her true parents met
+her, they would be ashamed of her.”
+
+“Do you ever think,” I said, “that they may meet her some time, and
+then you would lose her for ever?”
+
+“Yes, indeed, I think about that, ma’am; and I make her keep the locket
+in sight all the time, in hopes it might lead to something.”
+
+“In hopes!” I said, surprised. “You don’t want to part with her, do
+you?”
+
+I was sorry, instantly, that I had asked the question, for her poor
+face flushed, and the tears gathered in her eyes.
+
+“O ma’am,” she said, “if I stopped to think about myself, I suppose
+I should rather die than lose her; but I _don’t_ think of any thing
+but her. And how could I want her, a lady born, and beautiful as any
+princess, to live always in a little room back of a dolls’ hospital?
+Would it be right for me to want it?
+
+“No; I think God gave her to make a few of my years bright; and when
+the time comes, she will go away to live her own life, and I shall
+live out mine, remembering that she _was_ here, once; and harking back
+till I can hear the sound of her voice again; or looking till I see her
+bright head shine in the corner where she sits now.”
+
+Just then the bell rang, and other customers came into the hospital,
+and I went away, promising to return for Bella on the morrow.
+
+I walked through the streets with a sense that I had been talking with
+some one nobler than the rest of the world. Another than poor Sally
+might have adopted Lady Jane, perhaps, tended her, loved her; but who
+else would have been noble enough to love her, and yet be ready to lose
+her for ever and live on in darkness quite satisfied if but the little
+queen might come to her own again?
+
+I comforted Mistress Brown-Eyes with a promise of her “child’s”
+recovery, and I went to a kettle-drum or two in the afternoon, and
+dined out at night; but all the time, amidst whatever buzz of talk, I
+was comparing the most generous persons I had ever known with the poor
+dwarfed surgeon of the dolls’ hospital, and finding them all wanting.
+
+I went for Bella about four the next afternoon. I wanted to get to the
+hospital late enough to see something of the little surgeon and her
+beautiful ward. I purchased a bunch of roses on the way, for I meant to
+please Sally by giving them to Lady Jane.
+
+I opened the door, and again, at the ringing of the bell, the quaint
+little figure of the dwarf surgeon started up like Jack-in-the-box.
+
+“Is the patient recovered?” I asked.
+
+“The patient is quite well;” and the surgeon took down pretty Bella,
+and proudly exhibited her. The white cement had done its work so
+perfectly that the slender neck showed no signs of ever having been
+broken.
+
+I paid the surgeon her modest fee, and then I said, “Here are some
+roses I brought for Lady Jane.”
+
+Sally’s plain face beamed with pleasure. “It’s time to stop receiving
+patients for to-day,” she said. “Won’t you walk into the sitting-room
+and give the roses to Lady Jane, yourself?”
+
+I was well pleased to accept the invitation. The sitting-room was as
+cosy as the hospital itself was barren of attraction. I really wondered
+at the taste with which it was arranged. The hangings were blue, and
+two or three low chairs were covered with the same color; and there
+were pretty trifles here and there which made it seem like a lady’s
+room.
+
+[Illustration: My roses were received with a cry of delight.--PAGE 69.]
+
+My roses were received with a cry of delight; and, while Lady Jane
+put them in a delicate glass, Sally made me sit down in the most
+comfortable chair, and then she asked her ward to sing to me.
+
+The girl had a wonderful voice, soft and clear and full.
+
+When she had done singing, Sally said, “I have thought sometimes that,
+if no better fortune comes, Lady Jane can sing herself into good luck.”
+
+“_I_ count on something better than that,” the little lady cried
+carelessly. “When I ‘come to my own,’ like the princesses in all the
+fairy tales, I’ll send you my picture, Sally, and it will make you
+less trouble than I do. It won’t wear out its gowns, nor want all the
+strawberries for supper.”
+
+Sally didn’t answer; but two great tears gathered in her eyes, and
+rolled down her cheeks.
+
+Lady Jane laughed--not unkindly, only childishly--and said, “Never
+mind. Don’t cry yet. You’ll have time enough for that when it all comes
+to pass. And you know you want it to happen; you always say so.”
+
+“Yes, yes, dear, I want it to happen,” Sally said hastily; “I couldn’t
+want to shut you up here for ever, like a flower growing in a dungeon.”
+
+“A pretty, blue-hung dungeon, with nice soft chairs,” Lady Jane said
+pleasantly; and then I got up to go.
+
+Had this beautiful girl any real heart behind her beauty? I wondered.
+If the time ever came when Sally must give her up to some brighter
+fate, would it cost the little lady herself one pang? Could she be
+wholly insensible to all the devotion that had been lavished on her for
+all these years? I could not tell; but she seemed to me too light a
+thing for deep loving.
+
+I carried Bella home to Mistress Brown-Eyes, who received her with
+great joy, and with a certain tender respect, such as we give to those
+who have passed through perils. I stayed in London till “the season”
+was over,--that is to say, till the end of July; and then, with the
+last rose of summer in my buttonhole, I went over to the fair sea coast
+of France.
+
+It was not until the next May that I found myself in London again; and
+going to renew my subscription at Mudie’s, passed the dolls’ hospital.
+I looked up at the quaint sign, and the fancy seized me to go in.
+
+I opened the door, and promptly as ever, the dwarf surgeon of the dolls
+stood before me. It was nearly four o’clock, and the hospital was empty
+of customers. Nothing in it was changed except the face of the surgeon.
+Out of that always plain face a certain cheerful light had faded. It
+looked now like a face accustomed to tears. I said,--
+
+“Do you remember me, Dr. Sally?”
+
+A sort of frozen smile came to the poor trembling lips.
+
+“Oh, yes’m. You’re the lady that brought the rose-buds to Lady Jane.”
+
+“And is she well?” I asked.
+
+“I _think_ so, ma’am. Heaven knows I _hope_ so; but the old days when
+I _knew_ are over. Won’t you come into the sitting-room, please?”
+
+I wanted nothing better for myself, and I felt that it might ease her
+sad heart to break its silence; so I followed her into the familiar
+room. It, at least, was unchanged. The blue hangings were there, and
+the low easy-chairs, and the pretty trifles; and yet, somehow, the room
+seemed cold, for the beauty which had gladdened it last year had gone
+for ever.
+
+“Will you tell me what happened?” I asked; and I know the real sympathy
+I felt must have sounded in my voice.
+
+“It wasn’t long after you were here,” she said, “a lady was driving by,
+and she saw my sign. She sent her footman to the door to see if the
+place was really what that said; and the next day she came in herself
+and brought a whole load of broken toys. She said she wanted these
+things put in order to take into the country, for they were favorite
+playthings of her little girl’s.
+
+“I turned then and looked at the child who had come in with her mother.
+I can never tell you how I felt. It was as though Lady Jane had gone
+back six years. Just what my darling was when she came to me, this
+little girl was now,--the very same blue eyes, and bright, fair hair,
+and the pretty, pink-and-white face.
+
+“Just at that moment, Lady Jane came into the hospital, and when the
+lady saw her, she stood and gazed as if she had seen a ghost. I looked
+at the lady herself, and then I looked at Lady Jane, and then again
+at the little girl; and true as you live, ma’am, I knew it was Lady
+Jane’s mother and sister before ever a word was spoken. I felt my knees
+shaking under me, and I held fast to the counter to keep from falling.
+I couldn’t have spoken first, if my life had depended on it.
+
+“The lady looked, for what seemed to me a long time; and then she
+walked up to my darling and touched the locket that she wore on her
+neck. At last she turned to me and asked, with a little sternness in
+her gentle voice, if I would tell her who this girl was, and how I came
+by her.
+
+“So I told her the whole story, just as I had told it to you, and
+before I had finished, she was crying as if her heart would break.
+Down she went on her knees beside Lady Jane, and put her arms around
+her, and cried,--
+
+“‘O my darling, my love, I thought you were dead! I am your mother--oh,
+believe me, my darling! Love me a little, a little,--after all these
+years!’
+
+“And just as properly as if she had gone through it all in her mind a
+hundred times beforehand, Lady Jane answered,--
+
+“‘I always expected you, mamma.’
+
+“Somehow, the lady looked astonished. She grew quieter, and stood up,
+holding Lady Jane’s hand.
+
+“‘You expected me?’ she said, inquiringly.
+
+“‘Yes, you know I _knew_ I had been stolen; and I used to think and
+think, and fancy how my true mother would look, and what my right home
+would be; and I always felt sure in my heart that you would come some
+day. I didn’t know when or how it would be; but I expected you.’
+
+“‘And when will you be ready to go with me?’ asked the mother.
+
+“‘When you please, mamma.’
+
+“The lady hesitated, and turned to me. ‘I owe you so much,’ she said,
+‘so much that I can never hope to pay it; and I do not like to grieve
+you. But her father and I have been without Jane so long, _could_ you
+spare her to me at once?’
+
+“‘That must be as you and she say, ma’am,’ I answered, trying as hard
+as I could to speak quietly. ‘I never have wanted any thing but that
+she should be well off and happy so far, and won’t begin to stand in
+her light now.’
+
+“Then the lady turned to the little girl who had come in with her.
+‘Ethel,’ she said, ‘this is your sister. She has been lost to us eight
+years, but we will keep her always, now.’ And then, with more thanks
+to me, she started to go away,--the stately, beautiful lady, with her
+beautiful girls, one on each side of her.
+
+“They got to the door, and suddenly my darling turned,--O ma’am, it’s
+the best thing in my whole life to remember that! Of her own accord she
+turned and came back to me, and said she,--
+
+“‘Don’t think, Sally, that I’m not sorry to say good-by. Of course I
+can’t be sorry to find my own mamma and my right home, but I’m sorry to
+leave _you_.’
+
+“And then she put her arms round my neck and kissed me just as she had
+done when I took her home that night from Jacopo’s, six years before;
+and then she went away, and the sunshine, it seemed to me, went out of
+the door with her, and has never come back since.”
+
+The poor little surgeon of the dolls stopped speaking, and cried very
+quietly, as those cry who are not used to have their tears wiped away,
+or their sorrows comforted.
+
+I wanted to say that Lady Jane seemed to me a heartless little piece,
+who cared for nothing in the world but herself, and wasn’t worth
+grieving for; but I felt there would be no comfort for her in thinking
+that there had never been any thing worth having in her life. Far
+better let her go on believing that for six years she had sheltered an
+angel at her fireside.
+
+At last, when I saw her tears were ceasing to flow, I said, “And when
+did you see her again?”
+
+“Oh, I have never seen her since that day. I think she pitied me too
+much to come back and give me the sorrow of parting with her over
+again. No, I have never seen her, but her mother sent me five hundred
+pounds.”
+
+“And so she ought,” I said impulsively. “It was little enough for all
+you had done.”
+
+Surgeon Sally looked at me with wonder, not unmixed with reproach, in
+her eyes.
+
+“Do you think I wanted _that_?” she asked. “I had had my pay for all I
+did, ten times over, in just having her here to look at and to love.
+No; I sent the money back, and I think it must be that my darling
+understood; for, two months afterwards, I received the only gift I
+would have cared to have,--her portrait. Will you please to look round,
+ma’am? It hangs behind you.”
+
+I looked round, and there she was, even lovelier than when I had seen
+her first,--a bright, smiling creature, silken-clad, patrician to the
+finger-tips. But it seemed to me that no heart of love looked out of
+the fair, careless face. I thought I would rather be Surgeon Sally,
+and know the sweetness of loving another better than myself.
+
+“She is very beautiful,” I said, as I turned away.
+
+“Yes; and sometimes I almost think I feel her lips, her bonny bright
+lips, touch my face, as they did that last day, and hear her say,
+‘Don’t think, Sally, that I’m not sorry.’ Oh, my lot isn’t hard, ma’am.
+I might have lived my life through and never have known what it was to
+have something all my own to love. God was good.
+
+“And after all, ma’am,” she added cheerfully, “there’s nothing happier
+in the world than to give all the pleasure you can to somebody.”
+
+And I went away, feeling that the dwarf surgeon of the dolls’ hospital
+had learned the true secret of life.
+
+
+
+
+PRETTY MISS KATE.
+
+
+Everybody called her “pretty Miss Kate.” It was an odd title, and she
+had come by it in an odd way. A sort of half-witted nurse, whose one
+supreme merit was her faithfulness, had tended Squire Oswald’s baby
+daughter all through her early years; and she it was who had first
+called the girl “pretty Miss Kate.”
+
+It was a small neighborhood where everybody knew everybody else; and,
+by dint of much hearing this title, all the neighbors grew to use it.
+And, indeed, at fifteen Kate Oswald deserved it. She was a tall, slight
+girl, with a figure very graceful, and what people call stylish.
+
+She had blue eyes; not the meaningless blue of a French doll, but deep
+and lustrous, like the tender hue of the summer sky. She had hair like
+some Northland princess. It had not a tint of yellow in it, but it
+was fine and fair, and so light as to be noticeable anywhere. Her skin
+was exquisite, too, as skin needs must be to match such hair. When any
+color came to the cheeks it was never crimson, but just the faintest
+tint of the blush rose; her lips alone were of rich, vivid bloom. A
+prettier creature, truly, seldom crosses this planet; and the few such
+girls who have lived among us, and grown to womanhood, have made wild
+work generally, using hearts for playthings; and, like other children,
+breaking their toys now and then. But pretty Miss Kate was not at the
+age yet for that sort of pastime, and her most ardent worshipper was
+little Sally Green.
+
+There was a curious friendship between these two, if one may call that
+friendship which is made up of blind worship on one side and gentle
+pity and kindliness on the other.
+
+Squire Oswald owned the poor little house where Widow Green lived, and
+whenever there was an unusual press of work at the great house above,
+the family washing used to be sent down to Mrs. Green at the foot of
+the hill. Many an hour the widow worked busily, fluting the delicate
+ruffles and smoothing the soft muslins, out of which pretty Miss Kate
+used to bloom as a flower does out of its calyx. And on these occasions
+Sally used to carry the dainty washing home, and she nearly always
+contrived to be permitted to take it up to Miss Kate’s room, herself.
+
+Nobody thought much about little Sally Green any way,--least of all did
+any one suspect her of any romantic or heroic or poetical qualities.
+And yet she had them all; and if you came to a question of soul and
+mind, there was something in Sally which entitled her to rank with
+the best. She was a plain, dark little thing, with a stubbed, solid,
+squarely-built figure; with great black eyes, which nobody thought any
+thing about in _her_, but which would have been enough for the whole
+stock-in-trade of a fashionable belle; with masses of black hair that
+she did not know what to do with; and with a skin somewhat sallow, but
+smooth. No one ever thought how she looked, except, perhaps, pretty
+Miss Kate.
+
+One day, when the child brought home the washing, Kate had been reading
+aloud to a friend, and Sally had shown an evident inclination to
+linger. At that time Kate was not more than fourteen, and the interest
+or the admiration in Sally’s face struck her, and, moved by a girl’s
+quick impulse, she had said,--
+
+“Do you want to hear all of it, Sally? Wait, then, and I will read it
+to you.”
+
+The poem was Mrs. Browning’s “Romance of the Swan’s Nest,” and it was
+the first glimpse for Sally Green into the enchanted land of poetry
+and fiction. Before that she had admired pretty Miss Kate, but now the
+feeling grew to worship.
+
+Kate was not slow to perceive it, with that feminine instinct which
+somehow scents out and delights in the honest admiration of high or
+low, rich or poor. She grew very kind to little Sally. Many a book and
+magazine she lent the child; and now and then she gave her a flower, a
+bit of bright ribbon, or some little picture. To poor Sally Green these
+trifles were as the gifts of a goddess, and no devotee ever treasured
+relics from the shrine of his patron saint more tenderly than she
+cherished any, even the slightest, token which was associated with the
+beautiful young lady whom she adored with all her faithful, reverent,
+imaginative heart.
+
+One June evening Sally had been working hard all day. She had washed
+dishes, run her mother’s errands, got supper, and now her reward was to
+come.
+
+“You may make yourself tidy,” her mother said, “and carry home that
+basket of Miss Kate’s things to Squire Oswald’s.”
+
+Sally flew upstairs, and brushed back her black locks, and tied them
+with a red ribbon Miss Kate had given her. She put on a clean dress,
+and a little straw hat that last year had been Miss Kate’s own; and
+really for such a stubbed, dark little thing, she looked very nicely.
+She was thirteen--two years younger than her idol--and while Miss Kate
+was tall, and looked older than her years, Sally looked even younger
+than she was. Her heart beat as she hurried up the hill. She thought
+of the fable of the mouse and the lion, which she had read in one of
+the books Miss Kate had lent her. It made her think of herself and her
+idol. Not that Miss Kate was like a lion at all,--no, she was like a
+beautiful princess,--but she herself was such a poor, humble, helpless
+little mouse; and yet there might be a time, if she only watched and
+waited, when she, even she, could do pretty Miss Kate some good. And
+if the time ever came, wouldn’t she _do_ it, just, at no matter _what_
+cost to herself? Poor little Sally! The time was on its way, and nearer
+than she thought.
+
+She found Miss Kate in her own pretty room,--a room all blue and white
+and silver, as befitted such a fair-haired beauty. The bedstead and
+wardrobe were of polished chestnut, lightly and gracefully carved.
+The carpet was pale gray, with impossible blue roses. The blue chintz
+curtains were looped back with silver cords; there were silver frames,
+with narrow blue edges, to the few graceful pictures; and on the mantel
+were a clock and vases with silver ornaments.
+
+Pretty Miss Kate looked as if she had been dressed on purpose to stay
+in that room. She wore a blue dress, and round her neck was a silver
+necklace which her father had brought her last year from far-off Genoa.
+Silver ornaments were in her little ears, and a silver clasp fastened
+the belt at her waist. She welcomed Sally with a sweet graciousness, a
+little conscious, perhaps, of the fact that she was Miss Oswald, and
+Sally was Sally Green; but to the child her manner, like every thing
+else about her, seemed perfection.
+
+“Sit down and stay a little, Sally,” she said, “I have something to
+tell you. Do you remember what you heard me read that first time, when
+your eyes got so big with listening, and I made you stay and hear it
+all?”
+
+“Yes, indeed,” Sally cried eagerly. “I never forgot any thing I ever
+heard you read. That first time it was ‘The Romance of the Swan’s
+Nest.’”
+
+“Yes, you are right, and I know I was surprised to find how much you
+cared about it. I began to be interested in you then, for you know I am
+interested in you, don’t you, Sally?”
+
+Sally blushed with pleasure till her face glowed like the June roses in
+Miss Kate’s silver vases, but she did not know what to say, and so,
+very wisely, she did not say any thing. Miss Kate went on,--
+
+“Well, that very same poem I am going to read, next Wednesday night,
+at the evening exercises in the academy. The academy hall won’t hold
+everybody, and so they are going to be admitted by tickets. Each of
+us girls has a certain number to give away, and I have one for you.
+I thought you would like to go and see me there among the rest in my
+white gown, and hear me read the old verses again.”
+
+You would not have believed so small a thing could so have moved
+anybody; but Sally’s face turned from red to white, and from white to
+red again, and her big black eyes were as full of tears as an April
+cloud is of rain-drops.
+
+“Do you mean it, truly?” she asked.
+
+“Yes, truly, child. Here is your ticket. Why, don’t cry, foolish girl.
+It’s nothing. I wanted to be sure of one person there who would think
+I read well, whether any one else did or not. And I’ve a gown for you,
+too--that pink muslin, don’t you know, that I wore last year? I’ve
+shot up right out of it, and it’s of no use to me, now, and mamma said
+I might give it to you. This is Saturday; you can get it ready by
+Wednesday, can’t you?”
+
+What a happy girl went home that night, just as the rosy June
+sunset was fading away, and ran, bright and glad and full of joyful
+expectation, into the Widow Green’s humble little house! Widow Green
+wasn’t much of a woman, in the neighbors’ estimation. She was honest
+and civil, and she washed well; but that was all they saw in her. Sally
+saw much more. She saw a mother who always tried to make her happy;
+who shared her enthusiasms, or at least sympathized with them; who was
+never cross or jealous, or any thing but motherly. She was as pleased,
+now, at the prospect of Sally’s pleasure as Sally herself was; and just
+as proud of this attention from pretty Miss Kate. Together they made
+over the pink muslin dress; and when Wednesday night came the widow
+felt sure that her daughter was as well worth having, and as much to be
+proud of, as any other mother’s daughter that would be at the academy.
+
+“You must go very early,” she said, “to get a good seat; and you need
+not be afraid to go right up to the front. You’ve just as good right to
+get close up there as anybody.”
+
+When Sally was going out, her mother called her back.
+
+“Here, dear,” she said, “just take the shawl. Do it to please me, for
+there’s no knowing how cold it might be when you get out.”
+
+“The shawl” was an immense Rob Roy plaid,--a ridiculous wrap, truly,
+for a June night; but summer shawls they had none, and Sally was too
+dutiful, as well as too happy, not to want to please her mother even in
+such a trifle. How differently two lives would have come out if she had
+not taken it!
+
+She was the very first one to enter the academy. Dare she go and sit
+in the front row so as to be close to pretty Miss Kate? Ordinarily she
+would have shrunk into some far corner, for she was almost painfully
+shy; but now something outside herself seemed to urge her on. She
+would not take up much room,--this something whispered,--and nobody,
+no, nobody at all, could love Miss Kate better than she did. So she
+went into the very front row, close up to the little stage on which
+the young performers were to appear,--a veritable stage, with real
+foot-lights.
+
+Soon the people began to come in, and after a while the lights were
+turned up, and the exercises commenced. There were dialogues and music,
+and at last the master of ceremonies announced the reading of “The
+Romance of the Swan’s Nest,” by Miss Kate Oswald.
+
+Other people had been interested in what went before, no doubt; but
+to Sally Green the whole evening had been but a prelude to this one
+triumphant moment for which she waited.
+
+Pretty Miss Kate came forward like a little queen,--tall and slight,
+with her coronet of fair, braided hair, in which a shy, sweet rosebud
+nestled. She wore a dress of white muslin, as light and fleecy as a
+summer cloud, with a sash that might, as far as its hue went, have
+been cut from the deep blue sky over which that summer cloud floated.
+A little bunch of flowers was on her bosom, and other ornament she had
+none. She looked like one of the pretty creatures, half angel and half
+woman of fashion, which some of the modern French artists paint.
+
+As she stepped forward she was greeted with a burst of irrepressible
+applause, and then the house was very still as she began to read. How
+her soft eyes glowed, and the blushes burned on her dainty cheeks, when
+she came to the lines:--
+
+      “Little Ellie in her smile
+    Chooseth: ‘I will have a lover,
+      Riding on a steed of steeds!
+      He shall love me without guile,
+    And to _him_ I will discover
+      That swan’s nest among the reeds.
+
+      “‘And the steed shall be red-roan,
+    And the lover shall be noble,
+      With an eye that takes the breath,
+      And the lute he plays upon
+    Shall strike ladies into trouble,
+      As his sword strikes men to death.’”
+
+She had the whole audience for her lovers before she was through with
+the poem, and the last verse was followed with a perfect storm of
+applause. Was she not young and beautiful, with a voice as sweet as her
+smile? And then she was Squire Oswald’s daughter, and he was the great
+man of the village.
+
+She stepped off the stage; and then the applause recalled her, and she
+came back, pink with pleasure. A bow, a smile, and then a step too near
+the poorly protected foot-lights, and the fleecy white muslin dress was
+a sheet of flame.
+
+How Sally Green sprang over those foot-lights she never knew; but there
+she was, on the stage, and “the shawl” was wrapped round pretty Miss
+Kate before any one else had done any thing but scream. Close, close,
+close, Sally hugged its heavy woollen folds. She burned her own fingers
+to the bone; but what cared she? The time of the poor little mouse had
+come at last.
+
+And so pretty Miss Kate was saved, and not so much as a scar marred the
+pink and white of her fair girl’s face. Her arms were burned rather
+badly, but they would heal, and no permanent harm had come to her.
+
+Sally was burned much more severely, but she hardly felt the pain of it
+in her joy that she had saved her idol, for whom she would have been so
+willing even to die. They took her home very tenderly, and the first
+words she said, as they led her inside her mother’s door, were,--
+
+“Now, mother, I know what I took the shawl for!”
+
+I said how differently two lives would have ended if she had not
+taken that shawl. Pretty Miss Kate’s would have burned out then and
+there, no doubt; for if any one else were there with presence of
+mind enough to have saved her, certainly there was no other wrap
+there like “the shawl.” And then Sally might have grown up to the
+humblest kind of toil, instead of being what she is to-day; for Squire
+Oswald’s gratitude for his daughter’s saved life did not exhaust
+itself in words. From that moment he charged himself with Sally
+Green’s education, and gave her every advantage which his own daughter
+received. And, truth to tell, Sally, with her wonderful temperament,
+the wealth of poetry and devotion and hero-worship that was in her,
+soon outstripped pretty Miss Kate in her progress.
+
+But no rivalry or jealousy ever came between them. As Sally had adored
+Kate’s loveliness, so, in time, Kate came to do homage to Sally’s
+genius; and the two were friends in the most complete sense of the
+word.
+
+
+
+
+A BORROWED ROSEBUD.
+
+
+There was a pattering footfall on the piazza, and Miss Ellen Harding
+went to look out. She saw a little figure standing there, among the
+rosebuds,--not one of the neighbors’ children, but a bonny little
+lassie, with curls of spun gold, and great, fearless brown eyes, and
+cheeks and lips as bright as the red roses on the climbing rosebush
+beside her.
+
+A little morsel, not more than five years old, she was; with a white
+dress, and a broad scarlet sash, and a hat which she swung in her
+fingers by its scarlet strings. She looked so bright and vivid, and she
+was such an unexpected vision in that place, that it almost seemed as
+if one of the poppies in the yard beyond had turned into a little girl,
+and come up the steps.
+
+“Did you want me?” Miss Harding asked, going up to the tiny blossom of
+a creature.
+
+“No, if you please.”
+
+“My father, then, Dr. Harding,--were you sent for him?”
+
+The child surveyed her, as if in gentle surprise at so much curiosity.
+
+“No,” she answered, after a moment. “I am Rosebud; and I don’t want
+anybody. Jane told me to come here, and she would follow presently.”
+
+She said the words with a singular correctness and propriety, as if
+they were a lesson which she had been taught.
+
+“And who is Jane?” Miss Harding asked.
+
+Evidently the process of training had gone no further. The child looked
+puzzled and uncomfortable.
+
+“Jane?” she answered hesitatingly. “Why, she is Jane.”
+
+“Not your mamma?”
+
+“No,--just Jane.”
+
+“And what did Jane want here?”
+
+“She told me to come, and she would follow presently,” said the child,
+saying her little lesson over again.
+
+Evidently there was nothing more to be got out of her; but Miss Harding
+coaxed her to come into the cool parlor, and wait for Jane; and gave
+her some strawberries and cream in a gayly painted china saucer, that
+all children liked. Rosebud was no exception to the rest. When she had
+finished her berries, she tapped on the saucer with her spoon.
+
+“I will have it for mine, while I stay,--may I?” she said. “Not to take
+away, but just to call, you know.”
+
+“Surely,” said Miss Harding, more puzzled than ever. Had the sprite,
+then, come to stay? Were there, by chance, fairies after all,--and
+was this some changeling from out their ranks? She tried to entertain
+her small guest; and she found her quite accessible to the charms
+of pictures, and contented for an hour with a box of red and white
+chessmen. Towards night her curiosity got the better of her courtesy;
+and, looking from the window, she inquired,--
+
+“I wonder where your Jane can be?”
+
+“Presently; Jane said presently,” answered the child, with quiet
+composure, and returned to the chessmen.
+
+Miss Harding heard her father drive into the yard, and slipped out
+to speak to him. She told her story, and the doctor gave a low, soft
+whistle. It was a way he had when any thing surprised him.
+
+“It looks to me,” said he, “as if Jane, whoever she may be, intended to
+make us a present of Miss Rosebud. Well, we must make the small person
+comfortable to-night, and to-morrow we will see what to do with her.”
+
+The small person was easily made comfortable. She ate plenty of
+bread-and-milk for her supper, and more strawberries; and when it was
+over, she went round and stood beside the doctor.
+
+“I think you are a dood man,” she said, with the quaint gravity which
+characterized all her utterances. “I should like to sit with you.”
+
+The doctor lifted her to his knee, and she laid her little golden head
+against his coat. There was a soft place under that coat, as many a
+sick and poor person in the town knew very well. I think the little
+golden head hit the soft place. He stroked the shining curls very
+tenderly. Then he asked,--
+
+“What makes you think I’m a ‘dood’ man, Pussy-cat?”
+
+“My name is not Pussy-cat,--I am Rosebud,” she replied gravely; “and I
+think you are dood because you look so, out of your eyes.”
+
+The little morsel spoke most of her words with singular clearness and
+propriety. It was only when a “g” came in that she substituted a “d”
+for it, and went on her way rejoicing.
+
+As the doctor held her, the soft place under his coat grew very soft
+indeed. A little girl had been his last legacy from his dying wife; and
+she had grown to be about as large as Rosebud, and then had gone home
+to her mother. It almost seemed to him as if she had come back again;
+and it was her head beneath which his heart was beating. He beckoned to
+his daughter.
+
+“Have you some of Aggie’s things?” he asked. “This child must be made
+comfortable, and she ought to go to bed soon.”
+
+“No,” the child said; “I’m doing to sit here till the moon comes. That
+means ‘do to bed.’”
+
+“Yes, I have them,” Miss Harding answered.
+
+She had loved Aggie so well, that it seemed half sacrilege to put
+her dead sister’s garments on this stranger child; and half it was a
+pleasure that again she had a little girl to dress and cuddle. She went
+out of the room. Soon she came running back, and called her father.
+
+“O, come here! I found this in the hall. It is a great basket full of
+all sorts of clothes, and it is marked ‘For Rosebud.’ See,--here is
+every thing a child needs.”
+
+The doctor had set the little girl down, but she was still clinging to
+his hand.
+
+“I think,” he said, “that Jane has been here, and that she does not
+mean to take away our Rosebud.”
+
+But the little one, still clinging to him, said,--
+
+“I think it is not ‘presently’ yet,--Jane wouldn’t come till
+‘presently.’”
+
+“Do you love Jane?” the doctor asked, looking down at the flower-like
+face.
+
+“Jane is not mamma. She is only Jane,” was the answer.
+
+When the moon rose, the little girl went willingly to bed; and all
+night long Miss Ellen Harding held her in her arms, as she used to hold
+her little sister, before the angels took her. Since Aggie’s death,
+people said Miss Ellen had grown cold and stiff and silent. She felt,
+herself, as if she had been frozen; but the ice was melting, as she lay
+there, feeling the soft, round little lump of breathing bliss in her
+arms; and a tender flower of love was to spring up and bloom in that
+heart that had grown hard and cold.
+
+There was no talk of sending Rosebud away, though some people wondered
+much at the doctor, and even almost blamed him for keeping this child,
+of whom he knew nothing. But he wanted her, and Miss Ellen wanted her;
+and, indeed, she was the joy and life and blessing of the long-silent
+household.
+
+She was by no means a perfect child. A well-mannered little creature
+she was,--some lady had brought her up evidently,--but she was
+self-willed and obstinate. When she had said, “I’m doing to do” such
+and such a thing, it was hard to move her from her purpose; unless,
+indeed, the doctor interposed, and to him she always yielded instantly.
+But, just such as she was, they found her altogether charming. The
+doctor never came home without something in his pocket to reward her
+search; Miss Ellen was her bond-slave; and Mistress Mulloney in the
+kitchen was ready to work her hands off for her.
+
+Often, when she had gone to bed, the doctor and Miss Ellen used to talk
+over her strange coming.
+
+“We shall lose her some day,” the doctor would say, with a sigh. “No
+one ever voluntarily abandoned such a child as that. She is only
+trusted to our protection for a little while, and presently we shall
+have to give her up.”
+
+“Should you be sorry, father,” Miss Ellen would inquire, “that we had
+had her at all?”
+
+And the doctor would answer thoughtfully “No, for she has made me young
+again. I will not grumble when the snows come because we have had
+summer, and know how bright it is.”
+
+But the child lived with them as if she were going to live with them
+for ever. If she had any memories of days before she came there, she
+never alluded to them. After the first, she never mentioned Jane,--she
+never spoke of a father or mother. But she was happy as the summer days
+were long,--a glad, bright, winsome creature as ever was the delight of
+any household.
+
+And so the days and the weeks and the months went on, and it was
+October. And one day the bell rang, and Mistress Mulloney went to the
+door, and in a moment came to the room where Miss Ellen was sitting,
+with Rosebud playing beside her, and beckoned to her mistress.
+
+“It’s some one asking for the child,” she said. “Can’t we jist hide her
+away? It’ll be hard for the doctor if she’s took.”
+
+“No; we must see who it is, and do what is right,” Miss Ellen answered;
+but her lips trembled a little. She went into the hall, and there, at
+the door, stood a woman, looking like a nursery-maid of the better sort.
+
+“I have come,” the stranger began; but Rosebud had caught the sound of
+her voice, and came on the scene like a flash of light.
+
+“It is ‘presently!’” she cried; “and there, oh, _there_ is mamma!”
+And down the path she flew, and into the very arms of a lady who was
+waiting at a little distance.
+
+Miss Harding went down the steps. “You have come, I see, to claim our
+Rosebud, and she is only too ready to be claimed. I thought we had made
+her happy.”
+
+The child caught the slight accent of reproach in Miss Ellen’s voice,
+and turned towards her.
+
+“You have been dood, oh, so very, very dood!” she said, “but _this_ is
+mamma.”
+
+“I trusted my darling to you in a very strange way,” the lady began,
+“but not, believe me, without knowing in whose hands I placed her. I
+was in mortal terror, then, lest she should be taken from me, and I
+dared not keep her until she had been legally made mine, and mine only.
+But you have made me your debtor for life, and I shall try to show it
+some day.”
+
+“But, at least, you will come in and wait until my father returns. He
+loves Rosebud so dearly, that it would be a cruelty to take her away
+until he has had time to bid her good-by.”
+
+“You are right,” the stranger answered courteously. “Jane, go with the
+carriage to the hotel, and I will come or send for you when I want you.”
+
+In a few moments more the strange lady was seated in the doctor’s
+parlor. Miss Harding saw now where Rosebud had got her bright, wilful
+beauty.
+
+“I must explain,” the mother said, as she lifted her child upon her
+lap. “I am Mrs. Matthewson. My husband is dead, and Rosebud has a
+very, very large fortune of her own. Her uncles, who were to have the
+management of her property, by her father’s will, claimed her also;
+and I have had such a fight for her! They were unscrupulous men, and
+I feared to keep Rosebud with me, lest by some means they should get
+some hold on her. So I resolved to lend her to you for the summer;
+and, indeed, I never can reward you for all your care of her.”
+
+“You can reward us only by not altogether taking her away from us. We
+have learned to love her very dearly.”
+
+And, after a while, the doctor came home and heard all the story.
+And it was a week before Mrs. Matthewson had the heart to take away
+the child she had lent them. Then it was not long before the doctor
+and Miss Ellen had to go to see Rosebud. And then, very soon, Mrs.
+Matthewson had to bring her back again; and, really, so much going back
+and forth was very troublesome; and they found it more convenient,
+after a while, to join their households.
+
+Before Rosebud came, the doctor had thought himself an old man, though
+he was only forty-five; but, as he said, Rosebud had made him young
+again; and Rosebud’s mamma found it possible to love him very dearly.
+But Miss Ellen always said it was Rosebud and nobody else whom her
+father married, and that he had been in love with the borrowed blossom
+from the first.
+
+
+
+
+TOM’S THANKSGIVING.
+
+
+“It was very provoking that seamstresses and such people would get
+married, like the rest of the world,” Mrs. Greenough said, half in fun
+and half in earnest. Her fall sewing was just coming on, and here was
+Lizzie Brown, who had suited her so nicely, going off to be married;
+and she had no resource but to advertise, and take whomsoever she could
+get. No less than ten women had been there that day, and not one would
+answer.
+
+“There comes Number Eleven; you will see,” she cried, as the bell rang.
+
+Kitty Greenough looked on with interest. Indeed, it was her gowns,
+rather than her mother’s, that were most pressing. She was just
+sixteen, and since last winter she had shot up suddenly, as girls at
+that age so often do, and left all her clothes behind her.
+
+Mrs. Greenough was right,--it _was_ another seamstress; and Bridget
+showed in a plain, sad-looking woman of about forty, with an air of
+intense respectability. Mrs. Greenough explained what she wanted done,
+and the woman said quietly that she was accustomed to such work,--would
+Mrs. Greenough be so kind as to look at some recommendations? Whereupon
+she handed out several lady-like looking notes, whose writers indorsed
+the bearer, Mrs. Margaret Graham, as faithful and capable, used to
+trimmings of all sorts, and quick to catch an idea.
+
+“Very well indeed,” Mrs. Greenough said, as she finished reading them;
+“I could ask nothing better. Can you be ready to come at once?”
+
+“To-morrow, if you wish, madam,” was the answer; and then Mrs. Graham
+went away.
+
+Kitty Greenough was an impulsive, imaginative girl; no subject was too
+dull or too unpromising for her fancy to touch it. She made a story
+for herself about every new person who came in her way. After Number
+Eleven had gone down the stairs, Kitty laughed.
+
+“Isn’t she a sobersides, mamma? I don’t believe there’ll be any frisk
+in my dresses at all if she trims them.”
+
+“There’ll be frisk enough in them if you wear them,” her mother
+answered, smiling at the bright, saucy, winsome face of her one tall
+daughter.
+
+Kitty was ready to turn the conversation.
+
+“What do you think she is, mamma,--wife or widow?” And then answering
+her own question: “I think she’s married, and he’s sick, and she has to
+take care of him. That solemn, still way she has comes of much staying
+in a sick-room. She’s in the habit of keeping quiet, don’t you see? I
+wish she were a little prettier; I think he would get well quicker.”
+
+“There’d be no plain, quiet people in your world if you made one,” her
+mother said, smiling; “but you’d make a mistake to leave them out. You
+would get tired even of the sun if it shone all the time.”
+
+The next day the new seamstress came, and a thoroughly good one she
+proved; “better even than Lizzie,” Mrs. Greenough said, and this was
+high praise. She sewed steadily, and never opened her lips except to
+ask some question about her work. Even Kitty, who used to boast that
+she could make a dumb man talk, had not audacity enough to intrude on
+the reserve in which Mrs. Graham intrenched herself.
+
+“_He’s_ worse this morning,” whispered saucy Kitty to her mother; “and
+she can do nothing but think about him and mind her gathers.”
+
+But, by the same token, “_he_” must have been worse every day, for
+during the two weeks she sewed there Mrs. Graham never spoke of any
+thing beyond her work.
+
+When Mrs. Greenough had paid her, the last night, she said,--
+
+“Please give me your address, Mrs. Graham, for I may want to find you
+again.”
+
+“17 Hudson Street, ma’am, up two flights of stairs; and if I’m not
+there Tom always is.”
+
+“There, didn’t I tell you?” Kitty cried exultingly, after the woman had
+gone. “Didn’t I tell you that he was sick? You see now,--‘Tom’s always
+there.’”
+
+“Yes; but Tom may not be her husband, and I don’t think he is. He is
+much more likely to be her child.”
+
+“Mrs. Greenough, I’m astonished at you. You say that to be
+contradictious. Now, it is not nice to be contradictious; besides, she
+wouldn’t look so quiet and sad if Tom were only her boy.”
+
+But weeks passed on, and nothing more was heard of Mrs. Graham, until,
+at last, Thanksgiving Day was near at hand. Kitty was to have a new
+dress, and Mrs. Greenough, who had undertaken to finish it, found that
+she had not time.
+
+“Oh, let me go for Mrs. Graham, mamma,” cried Kitty eagerly. “Luke can
+drive me down to Hudson Street, and then I shall see Tom.”
+
+Mrs. Greenough laughed and consented. In a few minutes Luke had brought
+to the door the one-horse coupé, which had been the last year’s
+Christmas gift of Mr. Greenough to his wife, and in which Miss Kitty
+was always glad to make an excuse for going out.
+
+Arrived at 17 Hudson Street, she tripped up two flights of stairs, and
+tapped on the door, on which was a printed card with the name of Mrs.
+Graham.
+
+A voice, with a wonderful quality of musical sweetness in it,
+answered,--
+
+“Please to come in; I cannot open the door.”
+
+If that were “he,” he had a very singular voice for a man.
+
+“I guess mamma was right after all,” thought wilful Kitty. “It’s rather
+curious how often mamma _is_ right, when I come to think of it.”
+
+She opened the door, and saw, not Mrs. Graham’s husband, nor yet her
+son, but a girl, whose face looked as if she might be about Kitty’s own
+age, whose shoulders and waist told the same story; but whose lower
+limbs seemed curiously misshapen and shrunken--no larger, in fact, than
+those of a mere child. The face was a pretty, winning face, not at all
+sad. Short, thick brown hair curled round it, and big brown eyes, full
+of good-humor, met Kitty’s curious glance.
+
+“_I_ am Tom,” the same musical voice--which made Kitty think of a
+bird’s warble--said, in a tone of explanation. “I can’t get up to open
+the door because, don’t you see, I can’t walk.”
+
+“And why--what--Tom”--
+
+Kitty struggled desperately with the question she had begun to ask, and
+Tom kindly helped her out.
+
+“Why am I Tom, do you mean, when it’s a boy’s name; or why can’t I
+walk? I’m Tom because my father called me Tomasina, after his mother,
+and we can’t afford such long names in this house; and I can’t walk
+because I pulled a kettle of boiling water over on myself when I was
+six years old, and the only wonder is that I’m alive at all. I was
+left, you see, in a room by myself, while mother was busy somewhere
+else, and when she heard me scream, and came to me, she pulled me out
+from under the kettle, and saved the upper half of me all right.”
+
+“Oh, how dreadful!” Kitty cried, with the quick tears rushing to her
+eyes. “It must have almost killed your mother.”
+
+“Yes; that’s what makes her so still and sober. She never laughs, but
+she never frets either; and oh, how good she is to me!”
+
+Kitty glanced around the room, which seemed to her so bare. It was
+spotlessly clean, and Tom’s chair was soft and comfortable--as indeed
+a chair ought to be which must be sat in from morning till night.
+Opposite to it were a few pictures on the wall,--engravings taken from
+books and magazines, and given, probably, to Mrs. Graham by some of her
+lady customers. Within easy reach was a little stand, on which stood a
+rose-bush in a pot, and a basket full of bright-colored worsteds, while
+a book or two lay beside them.
+
+“And do you never go out?” cried Kitty, forgetting her errand in her
+sympathy--forgetting, too, that Luke and his impatient horse were
+waiting below.
+
+“Not lately. Mother used to take me down into the street sometimes; but
+I’ve grown too heavy for her now, and she can’t. But I’m not very dull,
+even when she’s gone. You wouldn’t guess how many things I see from
+my window; and then I make worsted mats and tidies, and mother sells
+them; and then I sing.”
+
+Kitty stepped to the window to see what range of vision it offered, and
+her eye fell on Luke. She recalled her business.
+
+“I came to see if I could get your mother to sew two or three days for
+me this week.”
+
+Tom was alert and business-like at once.
+
+“Let me see,” she said, “to-day is Tuesday;” and she drew toward her a
+little book, and looked it over. “To-morrow is engaged, but you could
+have Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, if you want so much. Please write
+your name against them.”
+
+Kitty pulled off her pretty gray glove, and wrote her name and address
+with the little toy-pencil at the end of her chatelaine; and then she
+turned to go, but it was Tom’s turn to question.
+
+“Please,” said the sweet, fresh voice, which seemed so like the clear
+carol of a bird, “would you mind telling me how old you are? I’m
+sixteen myself.”
+
+“And so am I sixteen,” said Kitty.
+
+“And you have a father and mother both, haven’t you?”
+
+“Yes, indeed,” said Kitty.
+
+“Oh, I’ve only mother, but she is good as two. Must you go now? And I
+wonder if I shall ever see you again?”
+
+“Yes, you _will_ see me again,” answered Kitty cheerily; and then,
+moved by a sudden impulse of her kind, frank young heart, she bent
+over and touched her lips to the bright, bonny face of the poor girl
+who must sit prisoner there for ever, and yet who kept this bright
+cheerfulness all the time.
+
+“Oh mamma, I’ve had a lesson,” cried Kitty, bursting into her mother’s
+room like a fresh wind, “and Tom has taught it to me; and he isn’t _he
+_at all--she’s a girl just my age, and she can’t walk--not a step since
+she was six years old.”
+
+And then Kitty told all the sad, tender little story, and got to crying
+over it herself, and made her mother cry, too, before she was through.
+
+After dinner she sat half the evening in a brown study. Finally she
+came out of it, and began talking in her usual impulsive manner.
+
+“Can’t we have them here to Thanksgiving, mamma? There’s not a single
+pretty thing in that house except Tom herself, and the rose-bush; and
+every thing did look so bare and clean and poverty-stricken; and I know
+they’ll never afford a good dinner in the world. Oh, say yes, mamma,
+dear! I know you’ll say yes, _because_ you’re such a dear, and you love
+to make every one happy.”
+
+“Yes; but, first of all, I must love to make papa happy, must I not?
+You know he never wants any company on Thanksgiving but grandpa and
+grandma and Uncle John. I’m sure you would not like to spoil papa’s
+old-fashioned Thanksgiving Day.”
+
+Kitty’s countenance fell. She saw the justice of her mother’s
+remark, and there was no more to be said. She sat thinking over her
+disappointment in a silence which her mother was the one to break.
+
+“But I’ve thought of a better thing, Puss,” said this wise mamma, who
+was herself every bit as tender of heart as Kitty, and cared just as
+much about making people happy. “No doubt Mrs. Graham and Tom would
+just as much prefer being alone together as papa prefers to be alone
+with his family; and how will it suit you if I have a nice dinner
+prepared for them, and let you go and take it to them in the coupé?
+Mrs. Graham is hardly the woman one could take such a liberty with; but
+I’ll beg her to let you have the pleasure of sending dinner to Tom.”
+
+“Oh, you darling!” and Mrs. Greenough’s neck-ruffle suffered, and her
+hair was in danger, as was apt to be the case when Kitty was overcome
+with emotion, which could only find vent in a rapturous squeeze.
+
+Before bed-time Kitty had it all planned out. She was to go in the
+coupé and take Bridget and the basket. Bridget was to mount guard by
+the horse’s head while Luke went upstairs with Kitty and brought down
+Tom for a drive; and while they were gone Bridget would take the basket
+in, and see that every thing was right, and then go home.
+
+Mrs. Greenough consented to it all. I think she enjoyed the prospect
+of Tom’s ride, herself, just as much as Kitty did. While Mrs. Graham
+was sewing there she made the arrangement with her, approaching the
+subject so delicately that the most sensitive of women could not be
+hurt, and putting the acceptance of both drive and dinner in the light
+of a personal favor to Kitty, who had taken such a fancy to Tom.
+
+The last afternoon of Mrs. Graham’s stay Kitty called her mother into
+her room. Mrs. Greenough saw spread out upon the bed a thick, warm,
+soft jacket, a woollen dress, a last year’s hat.
+
+“You know them by sight, don’t you, mother mine? They are the last
+winter’s clothes that I grew away from, and have taken leave of. May
+Tom have them?”
+
+“Yes, indeed, if you’ll undertake to give them to Tom’s mother.”
+
+Kitty had seldom undertaken a more embarrassing task. She stole into
+the sewing-room with the things in her arms.
+
+“You’ll be sure, won’t you, Mrs. Graham, not to let Tom know she’s
+going to ride until I get there, because I want to see how surprised
+she’ll look?”
+
+“Yes, I’ll be sure, never fear.”
+
+“And, Mrs. Graham, here are my coat and hat and dress that I wore last
+year, and I’ve grown away from them. Would you mind letting Tom wear
+them?”
+
+“Would I mind?” A swift, hot rush of tears filled Mrs. Graham’s eyes,
+which presently she wiped away, and somehow then the eyes looked
+gladder than Kitty had ever seen them before. “Do you think I am so
+weakly, wickedly proud as to be hurt because you take an interest in
+my poor girl, and want to put a little happiness into her life,--that
+still, sad life which she bears so patiently? God bless you, Miss
+Kitty! and if He doesn’t, it won’t be because I shall get tired of
+asking Him.”
+
+“And you’ll not let her see the hat and jacket till I come, for fear
+she’ll think something?”
+
+At last Mrs. Graham smiled--an actual smile.
+
+“How you do think of every thing! No, I’ll keep the hat and jacket out
+of sight, and I’ll have the dress on her, all ready.”
+
+When Thanksgiving came Kitty scarcely remembered to put on the new
+fineries that Mrs. Graham had finished with such loving care; scarcely
+gave a thought to the family festivities at home, so eager was she
+about Tom’s Thanksgiving. She was to go to Hudson Street just at noon,
+so that Tom might have the benefit of the utmost warmth of which the
+chill November day was capable.
+
+First she saw the dinner packed. There was a turkey, and
+cranberry-sauce, and mince-pie, and plum-pudding, and a great cake
+full of plums, too, and fruit and nuts, and then Mr. Greenough, who
+had heard about the dinner with real interest, brought out a bottle of
+particularly nice sherry, and said to his wife,--
+
+“Put that in also. It will do those frozen-up souls good, once in the
+year.”
+
+At last impatient Kitty was off. Bridget and the basket filled all the
+spare space in the coupé, and when they reached Hudson Street, Luke
+took the dinner and followed Kitty upstairs, while Bridget stood by
+the horse’s head, according to the programme. He set the basket down
+in the hall, where no one would be likely to notice it in opening the
+door, and then he stood out of sight himself, while Kitty went in.
+
+There was Tom, in the warm crimson thibet,--a proud, happy-looking Tom
+as you could find in Boston that Thanksgiving Day.
+
+“I have come to take you to ride,” cried eager Kitty. “Will you go?”
+
+It was worth ten ordinary Thanksgivings to see the look on Tom’s
+face,--the joy and wonder, and then the doubt, as the breathless
+question came,--
+
+“How _will_ I get downstairs?”
+
+And then Luke was called in, and that mystery was solved. And then out
+of a closet came the warm jacket, and the hat, with its gay feather;
+and there were tears in Tom’s eyes, and smiles round her lips, and she
+tried to say something, and broke down utterly. And then big, strong
+Luke took her up as if she were a baby and marched downstairs with her,
+while she heard Kitty say,--but it all seemed to her like a dream, and
+Kitty’s voice like a voice in a dream,--
+
+“I’m sorry there’s nothing pretty to see at this time of year. It was
+so lovely out-doors six weeks ago.”
+
+Through Beach Street they went, and then through Boylston, and the
+Common was beside them, with its tree-boughs traced against the
+November sky, and the sun shone on the Frog Pond, and the dome of the
+State House glittered goldenly, and there were merry people walking
+about everywhere, with their Thanksgiving faces on; and at last Tom
+breathed a long, deep breath which was almost a sob, and cried,--
+
+“Did _you_ think there was nothing pretty to see to-day--_this_ day?
+Why, I didn’t know there was such a world!”
+
+The clocks had struck twelve when they left Hudson Street; the bells
+were ringing for one when they entered it again. Bridget was gone, but
+a good-natured boy stood by the horse’s head, and Kitty ran lightly
+upstairs, followed by Luke, with Tom in his arms.
+
+Kitty threw open the door, and there was a table spread with as good a
+Thanksgiving dinner as the heart could desire, with Tom’s chair drawn
+up beside it. Luke set his light burden down.
+
+Kitty waited to hear neither thanks nor exclamations. She saw Tom’s
+brown eyes as they rested on the table, and that was enough. She bent
+for one moment over the bright face,--the cheeks which the out-door
+air had painted red as the rose that had just opened in honor of the
+day,--and left on the young, sweet, wistful lips a kiss, and then
+went silently down the stairs, leaving Tom and Tom’s mother to their
+Thanksgiving.
+
+
+
+
+FINDING JACK.
+
+
+Conn turned over and rubbed her sleepy blue eyes. It seemed to her
+that the world was coming to an end all at once, there was such a
+Babel of noise about her. What was it? Had everybody gone mad? Then
+her wits began to wake up. She remembered that it was Fourth of July.
+That worst noise of all--why, that must be Jack’s pistol, which he had
+been saving up money to buy all winter and all summer. And that other
+sound--that must be torpedoes; and there was the old dog, Hero, barking
+at them, and no wonder: it was enough to make any respectable dog bark.
+Fire-crackers--ugh! Wasn’t the pistol bad enough, without all these
+side shows? Just then Jack called out from the yard below,--
+
+“Conn! Conn!”
+
+The girl’s name was Constantia Richmond; but she was too slight and
+bonny for such a long name, and everybody called her Conn.
+
+She shook back her fair, soft curls, as golden as a baby’s still,
+though Conn was fourteen, and, putting a little shawl over her
+shoulders, peeped out of the open window--as pretty a little slip
+of a girl as you would care to see--and looked down on the face,
+half-boyish, half-manly, which was upturned to her. If Jack had been
+her brother, perhaps she would have scolded at him; for Conn loved her
+morning nap, and the general din had discomposed her, no doubt. But
+Jack was only her cousin, and her second cousin, at that,--and it’s
+curious what a difference that does make. Your brother’s your brother
+all the days of his life; but your cousin is another affair, and far
+less certain. So Conn said, quite gently,--
+
+“What is it? Can I do any thing? But I’m sure I don’t want to help you
+make any more noise. This has been--oh, really dreadful!”
+
+She spoke with a droll little fine-lady air, and put her pretty little
+fingers to her pretty little ears. And Jack laughed; he had not begun
+to think of her yet as a charming girl,--she was just Cousin Conn.
+
+“What!” he cried. “Not like noise on Fourth of July? Why, you don’t
+deserve to have a country.”
+
+“I’m sure I wish I hadn’t,” said Conn, with a little dash of spirit.
+
+“Are you dressed?” cried the boy, nearly seventeen years old, but all a
+boy still.
+
+“No.”
+
+“Well, just hurry, then, and come down. I’m off in half an hour with
+the Brighton Blues, and I want you to see first how this pistol works.”
+
+High honor this, that she, a girl, should be invited to inspect the
+wonderful pistol!
+
+Conn began to dress hurriedly. What should she put on? Her white dress
+hung in the closet,--such a white dress as girls wore then,--all
+delicate ruffles, and with a blue ribbon sash, as dainty-fine as
+possible. She knew that was meant for afternoon, when Aunt Sarah would
+have company. But might she not put it on now? Perhaps Jack wouldn’t be
+here then, and she could be careful. So she slipped into the dainty
+gown, and fastened hooks and buttons in nervous haste, and then looked
+in the glass, as every other girl that ever lived would have done in
+her place.
+
+It was a bright, fair face that she saw there--all pink and white, and
+with those violet eyes over which the long lashes drooped, and that
+soft, bright hair that lay in little rings and ripples round her white
+forehead, and hung a wavy mass down to the slender waist which the blue
+ribbon girdled. Conn was pleased, no doubt, with the sight she saw in
+the mirror,--how could she help being? She tripped downstairs, and out
+of the door. Jack whistled when he saw her.
+
+“What! all your fineries on at this time of day? What do you think
+Mother Sarah will say to that?”
+
+The pretty pink flush deepened in the girl’s cheeks, and she answered
+him almost as if she thought she had done something wrong,--
+
+“I’ll be so careful, Jack. I won’t spoil it. By and by you’ll be gone;
+and I wanted to look nice when I saw the new pistol.”
+
+This seemed extremely natural to Jack. The pistol was to him a matter
+of such moment that no amount of demonstration in its honor would
+have seemed too great. Viewed in this light, it really appeared quite
+a meritorious act that Conn should have put on the white dress; and
+he looked her over with that air of half-patronizing approval with
+which boys are apt to regard the good looks of their sisters and their
+cousins.
+
+Then he exhibited the pistol. It had--as a boy’s knife or gun or boat
+always has--distinguishing and individual merits of its own. No other
+pistol, though it were run in the same mould, could quite compare with
+it, and it was by some sort of wonderful chance that he had become its
+possessor. Conn wondered and admired with him to his heart’s content.
+Then came breakfast, and then the marching of the Brighton Blues. This
+was a company of boys in blue uniforms,--handsome, healthy, wide-awake
+boys from fourteen to seventeen years old,--every one of them the pride
+of mothers and sisters and cousins. They were to march into Boston, and
+parade the streets, and dine at a restaurant, and see the fireworks
+in the evening, and I don’t know what other wonderful things.
+
+[Illustration: Conn stood and watched them.--PAGE 129.]
+
+Jack was in the highest spirits. He was sure he and his pistol were a
+necessary part of the day; and he sincerely pitied Conn, because she
+was a girl and must stay at home.
+
+    “‘_Bang, whang, whang_ goes the drum, _tootle-te-tootle_ the fife;
+    Oh! a day in the city square, there is no such pleasure in life!’”
+
+he quoted; and then he called back to her from the gate,--
+
+“It’s too bad, Conn, that there’s no fun for you; but keep your courage
+up, and I’ll bring you something.”
+
+And so they marched away, in the gay, glad morning sunshine, following
+their band of music,--a boy’s band that was, too.
+
+Conn stood and watched them, with a wistful, longing look in her great
+violet eyes, and the soft, bright color coming and going on her girlish
+cheeks. At last she gathered a bunch of late red roses, and put them
+in her bosom and went into the house. She sewed a little, and then
+she tossed her work aside, for who cares to work on holidays? Then she
+took up her new book; but the tale it told seemed dull and cold beside
+the warm throbbing life of which the outside world was full. She wished
+over and over that she were a boy, that she might have marched away
+with the rest. Then she wondered if she could not go into town and see
+them from somewhere in all their glory. Very little idea had she of a
+Boston crowd on Fourth of July. She had been into town often enough,
+with her aunt or her uncle, and walked through the quiet streets; and
+she thought she should have little trouble in doing the same now. She
+looked in her purse; she had not much money, but enough so that she
+could ride if she got tired, and she would be sure to save some to come
+home. She called her Aunt Sarah’s one servant, and made her promise to
+keep the secret as long as she could, and then tell Aunt Sarah that she
+had gone to Boston to find Jack and see him march with the rest.
+
+The girl was a good-natured creature, not bright enough to know that it
+was her duty to interfere, and easily persuaded by Conn’s entreaties
+and the bit of blue ribbon with which they were enforced.
+
+And so Conn started off, as the boys had done before her, and went on
+her way. But she had no gay music to which to march, and for company
+she had only her own thoughts, her own hopes. Still she marched bravely
+on.
+
+There were plenty of other people going the same way; indeed it seemed
+to Conn as if everybody must be going into Boston. Excitement upheld
+her, and she trudged along, mile after mile, across the pleasant
+mill-dam, and at last she reached Beacon Street. Her head had begun to
+throb horribly by the time she got into town. It seemed to her that
+all the world was whirling round and round, and she with it. But she
+could not turn back then; indeed, she did not know how to find any
+conveyance, and she knew her feet would not carry her much farther.
+Surely, she _must_ see Jack soon. He had said they should march through
+Beacon Street. She would ask some one. She had an idea that every one
+must know about any thing so important as the Brighton Blues. At last
+she got courage to speak to a kind-looking servant-maid in the midst
+of a group on the steps of one of the Beacon-street houses. The girl
+pitied her white face, so pale now, with all the pretty pink roses
+faded from the tired young cheeks, and answered kindly.
+
+She did not know about the Brighton Blues, but she guessed all the
+companies had been by there, or would come. Wouldn’t the young lady sit
+down with them on the steps, and rest, and wait a little?
+
+And “the young lady” sat down. What could she do else, with the whole
+world whirling, whirling, and her feet so strangely determined to whirl
+out from under her? And then it grew dark, and when it came light again
+there was a wet cloth on her hair, and she lay on a lounge in a cool
+basement, and the kind girl who had cared for her told her that she
+had fainted. And then she had some food and grew refreshed a little,
+but was strangely confused yet, and with only one thought, to which
+she held with all the strength of her will,--that she had come to see
+Jack and must look for him till he came. So on the steps she stationed
+herself, and the crowd surged by. Military companies, grown-up ones,
+came and went with glitter of brave uniforms and joyful clamor of
+music, and Conn watched, with all her soul in her eyes, but still no
+Jack.
+
+It was mid-afternoon at last when suddenly she saw the familiar blue,
+and marching down the street came the boyish ranks, following their
+own band--tired enough, all of them, no doubt, but their courage kept
+up by the music and the hope of fireworks by and by. Conn strained her
+eyes. She did not mean to speak, but after a little, when the face she
+longed for came in sight, something within her cried out with a sharp,
+despairing cry, “Oh, Jack, Jack!”
+
+And Jack heard. Those who were watching saw one boy break from the long
+blue line, and spring up the step where Conn sat, and seize in strong
+hands the shoulders of a girl all in white, her face as white as her
+gown, and some red roses, withered now, upon her breast.
+
+“Conn--Conn Richmond!” the boy cried, “what _does_ this mean?”
+
+“Don’t scold--oh, _don’t_ scold, Jack!” said the pitiful, quivering
+lips. “I only came in to see you marching with the rest, and--I’m
+tired.”
+
+“Yes,” said the girl who had befriended her, “and she fainted clean
+away, and she’s more dead than alive now; and if you’ve a heart in your
+bosom, you’ll let your play soldiering go, and take care of _her_.”
+
+And just then Jack realized, boy as he was, that he _had_ a heart in
+his bosom, and that his Cousin Conn was the dearest and nearest thing
+to that heart in the whole world. But he did not tell her so till long
+years afterwards. Just now his chief interest was to get her home. No
+more marching for him; and what were fireworks, or the supper the boys
+were to take together, in comparison with this girl, who had cared so
+much to see him in his holiday glory?
+
+He took her to an omnibus, which ran in those days to Brighton, and
+by tea-time he had got her home. He found his mother frightened and
+helpless, and too glad to get Conn back to think of scolding.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was six years after that, that in the battle of Malvern Hill, July
+1, 1862, Jack, a real soldier then, and no longer a boy playing at the
+mimicry of war, was wounded; and next day the news came to the quiet
+Brighton home.
+
+Conn had grown to be a young lady in the sweet grace of her twenty
+summers, and she was her Aunt Sarah’s help and comfort. To these
+two women came the news of Jack’s peril. The mother cried a little
+helplessly; but there were no tears in Conn’s eyes.
+
+“Aunt Sarah,” she said quietly, “I am going to find Jack.”
+
+And that day she was off for the Peninsula. It was the Fourth of July
+when she reached the hospital in which her Cousin Jack had been placed.
+She asked about him, trembling; but the news, which reassured her,
+was favorable. He was wounded, but not dangerously. It was a girlish
+instinct, which every girl will understand, that made Conn put on a
+fresh white gown before she used the permission she had received to
+enter the hospital. She remembered--would Jack remember also?--that
+other Fourth of July on which they had found each other, six years
+before. As if nothing should be wanting of the old attire, she met,
+as she passed along the street, a boy with flowers to sell,--for the
+flowers bloomed, just as the careless birds sang, even amid the horrors
+of those dreadful days,--and bought of him a bunch of late red roses,
+and fastened them, as she had done that other day, upon her breast.
+
+The sun was low when she entered the hospital, and its last rays
+kindled the hair, golden still as in the years long past, till it
+looked like a saint’s aureole about her fair and tender face. She
+walked on among the suffering, until, at last, before she knew that she
+had come near the object of her search, she heard her name called, just
+as _she_ had called Jack’s name six years before,--
+
+“Oh, Conn, Conn!”
+
+And then she sank upon her knees beside a low bed, and two feeble arms
+reached round her neck and drew her head down.
+
+“I was waiting for you, Conn. I knew you would come. I lay here
+waiting till I should see you as you were that day long ago,--all in
+white, and with red roses on your breast,--my one love in all the
+world!”
+
+And the girl’s white face grew crimson with a swift, sweet joy, for
+never before had such words blessed her. She did not speak; and Jack,
+full of a man’s impatience, now that at last he had uttered the words
+left unsaid so long, held her fast, and whispered,--
+
+“Tell me, Conn, tell me that you _are_ mine, come life or death. Surely
+you would not have sought me here if you had not meant it to be so! You
+_are_ my Conn,--tell me so.”
+
+And I suppose Conn satisfied him, for two years after that she was
+his wife, and last night he gave the old pistol of that first Fourth
+of July to a young ten-year-old Jack Richmond to practise with for
+this year’s Fourth; and pretty Mother Conn, as fair still as in her
+girlhood, remonstrated, as gentle mothers will, with,--
+
+“Oh Jack, surely he is too young for such a dangerous plaything.”
+
+Father Jack laughed as he lifted little Conn to his knee, and
+answered,--
+
+“Nonsense, sweetheart. He is a soldier’s boy, and a little
+pistol-shooting won’t hurt him.”
+
+But how noisy it will be round that house on Fourth of July!
+
+
+
+
+HER MOTHER’S DAUGHTER.
+
+
+Syl Graham was an only child. Her name was Sylvia, but everybody called
+her Syl, except that sometimes, half playfully and half chidingly, her
+father called her Sylly. But that was a liberty no one else took,--and
+for which Mr. Graham himself was not unlikely to pay in extra
+indulgence.
+
+Syl was seventeen, and she had never known any trouble in all her
+young, bright life. Her mother had died when she was two years old; and
+this, which might easily have been the greatest of misfortunes,--though
+Syl was too young to know it,--had been turned almost into a blessing
+by the devotion of her father’s sister, Aunt Rachel, who came to take
+care of the little one then, and had never left her since.
+
+Not the dead Mrs. Graham herself could have been more motherly or more
+tender than Aunt Rachel; and the girl had grown up like a flower in a
+shaded nook, on which no rough wind had ever been allowed to breathe.
+
+And a pretty flower she was; so her father thought when she ran into
+the hall to meet him, as he came in from business at the close of the
+short November day.
+
+The last rays of daylight just bronzed her chestnut hair. Her face was
+delicately fair,--as the complexion that goes with such hair usually
+is,--colorless save in the lips, which seemed as much brighter than
+other lips as if they had added to their own color all that which was
+absent from the fair, colorless cheeks. The brown eyes were dancing
+with pleasant thoughts, the little, girlish figure was wonderfully
+graceful, and Papa Graham looked down at this fair, sweet maiden with a
+fond pride, which the sourest critic could hardly have had a heart to
+condemn.
+
+“Are you cross?” she said laughingly, as she helped him off with his
+overcoat.
+
+“Very,” he answered, with gravity.
+
+“I mean are you worse than usual? Will you be in the best humor now or
+after dinner?”
+
+“After dinner, decidedly, if Aunt Rachel’s coffee is good.”
+
+Syl nodded her piquant little head. “I’ll wait, then.”
+
+The dinner was good enough to have tempted a less hungry man than Mr.
+Graham, and the coffee was perfect. Papa’s dressing-gown and slippers
+were ready, upstairs; and when he had sat down in the great, soft
+easy-chair that awaited him, and his daughter had settled herself on
+a stool at his feet, I think it would have been hard to find a more
+contented-looking man in all New York.
+
+“Now I’m very sure you are as good as such a bear can be,” said saucy
+Syl; “and now we’ll converse.”
+
+To “converse” was Syl’s pet phrase for the course of request,
+reasoning, entreaty, by which Papa Graham was usually brought to accede
+to all her wishes, however extravagant. He rested his hand now on her
+shining chestnut braids, and thought how like she was to the young wife
+he had loved so well, and lost so early. Then he said teasingly,--
+
+“What is it, this time? A Paris doll, with a trunk and a bandbox; or a
+hand-organ?”
+
+“For shame, papa! The doll was four years ago.”
+
+“All the more reason it must be worn out. Then it’s the hand-organ. But
+I must draw the line somewhere,--you can’t have the monkey. If Punch
+and Judy would do, though?”
+
+“Now, Father Lucius, you know I gave up the hand-organ two years ago,
+and took a piano for my little upstairs room instead; and you know I’m
+seventeen. Am I likely, at this age, to want monkeys, Punch and Judys,
+and things?”
+
+“O, no! I forgot. Seventeen,--it must be a sewing-machine. You want to
+make all your endless bibs and tuckers more easily. Well, I’ll consent.”
+
+Syl blushed. It was a sore point between her and Aunt Rachel that she
+so seldom sewed for herself. Aunt Rachel had old-fashioned notions, and
+believed in girls that made their own pretty things.
+
+“Now, papa, you are not good-humored at all. I had better have asked
+you before dinner. You don’t even let me tell you what I want.”
+
+Papa sobered his face into a look of respectful attention, and waited
+silently. But now Syl was not quite ready to speak.
+
+“Don’t you think pomegranate is a pretty color, papa?”
+
+“What is it like?”
+
+“O, it’s the deepest, richest, brightest, humanest red you ever saw.”
+
+“Why, I think it must be like your lips;” and he drew her to him, and
+kissed the bright young mouth with a lazy content.
+
+“Perhaps it _is_ like my lips; then, surely it will look well _with_
+them.”
+
+“Where does this blossom of beauty grow?”
+
+“It grows at Stewart’s. It has been woven into a lovely, soft-falling
+silk, at four dollars a yard. Twenty-five yards makes a gown, and eight
+yards of velvet makes the trimming and the sleeveless jacket, and the
+velvet is six dollars a yard. And then there is Madame Bodin, she
+charges like a horrid old Jew,--forty dollars just to look at a gown;
+and then there are the linings and buttons and things. Have you kept
+account, papa, and added it all up in your head?”
+
+“I think it means about two hundred dollars. Isn’t that what you call
+it, Sylly?”
+
+“Yes, if you please. It’ll be _worth_ that, won’t it, to have your
+daughter look like a love, when all the people come on New Year’s Day?”
+
+“So that’s it,--that’s what this conspiracy against my peace and my
+pocket has for its object,--that Miss Syl Graham may sit at the receipt
+of callers on New Year’s Day, in a robe like a red, red rose. O Sylly,
+Sylly!”
+
+Syl pouted a little, the most becoming pout in the world.
+
+“Well, I’m sure I thought you cared how I look. If you don’t, never
+mind. My old black silk is still very neat and decent.”
+
+“September, October, November,--it’s nearly three months old, isn’t
+it? What a well-behaved gown it must be to have kept neat and decent
+so long! And as to the other, I’ll consider, and you can ask me again
+when I come home to-morrow.”
+
+Syl knew what Papa Graham’s considers meant, and how they always ended.
+She had gained her point, and she danced off and sang to the piano some
+old Scotch airs that her father loved, because Syl’s mother used to
+sing them; and Papa Graham listened dreamily to the music, while his
+thoughts went back twenty years, to the first winter when he brought
+his girl-bride home, only a year older, then, than Syl was now. He
+remembered how the firelight used to shine on her fair, upturned face,
+as she knelt beside him; how sweet her voice was; how pure and true and
+fond her innocent young heart. And now Syl was all he had left of her.
+
+Should he lose Syl herself, soon? Would some bold wooer come and carry
+her away, and leave him with only Aunt Rachel’s quiet figure and fading
+face beside him for the rest of his life?
+
+Just then Syl might have asked him not in vain for any thing, even to
+the half of his kingdom.
+
+Next morning Syl went into the sewing-room. A young girl just about
+her own age was there--altering, sewing, making all the foolish little
+fancies in which Syl’s heart delighted, though her idle fingers never
+wrought at them. Out of pure kindness of heart Syl found her way into
+the sewing-room very often when Mary Gordon was there. She knew her
+presence carried pleasure with it, and often she used to take some
+story or poem and read to the young listener, with the always busy
+fingers, and the gentle, grateful face.
+
+But to-day she found the girl’s eyes very red as if with long weeping.
+If Syl was selfish it was only because she never came in contact with
+the pains and needs of others. She had “fed on the roses and lain among
+the lilies of life,”--how was she to know the hurt of its stinging
+nettles? But she could not have been the lovesome, charming girl she
+was if she had had a nature hard and indifferent to the pains of others.
+
+To see Mary Gordon’s red eyes was enough. Instantly she drew the work
+out of the fingers that trembled so; and then she set herself to draw
+the secret sorrow out of the poor, trembling heart.
+
+It was the old story, so sadly common and yet so bitterly sad, of a
+mother wasting away and fading out of life, and a daughter struggling
+to take care of her, and breaking her heart because she could do so
+little.
+
+“I’m used to all that,” the girl said sadly, “and I don’t let myself
+cry for what I can’t help. But this morning I heard her say to herself,
+as I was getting every thing ready for her, ‘O, the long, lonesome
+day!’ She thought I did not hear her, for she never complains; but
+somehow it broke me down. I keep thinking of her, suffering and weary
+and all alone. But I can’t help that, either; and I must learn to be
+contented in thinking that I do my best.”
+
+“But can’t you stay at home with her and work there?” cried Syl, all
+eager sympathy and interest.
+
+“No, I can’t get work enough in that way. People want their altering
+and fixing done in their own houses, and plain sewing pays so poorly.
+Sometimes I’ve thought if I only had a machine, so I could get a great
+deal done, I might manage but to hire one would eat up all my profits.”
+
+Syl thought a little silent while; and it was a pretty sight to see the
+fair young face settle into such deep earnestness.
+
+“Well,” she said at length, “at least you shall stay at home with her
+to-morrow; for all those ruffles can be done just as well there as
+here, and you shall carry them home with you. And you’d better go early
+this afternoon; there’ll be enough work to last you, and I can’t bear
+to think of her waiting for you, and wanting you, so many long hours.
+We’ll give her a little surprise.”
+
+Mary Gordon did not speak for a moment. I think she was getting her
+voice steady, for when she did begin it trembled.
+
+“I _can’t_ thank you, Miss Syl,--it’s no use to try; but the strange
+part is how you understand it all, when you’ve no mother yourself.”
+
+“Ah, but you see I have papa and auntie, and I just know.”
+
+That day, after Syl and Aunt Rachel had lunched together, Syl said, in
+a coaxing little way she had,--
+
+“Aunt Rachel, we never want to see the other half of that cold chicken
+again, do we?”
+
+“Why, Syl--we”--
+
+“Why, auntie, no--we never want to-morrow’s lunch furnished coldly
+forth by this sad relic. And there’s a tumbler of jelly we don’t want,
+either--and those rolls, and,--let me see, can sick people eat cake?”
+
+“Why, Syl Graham, what are you talking about! Who’s sick?”
+
+Syl grew sober.
+
+“I’m thinking about poor Mary Gordon’s mother, auntie. She’s sick, and
+dying by inches; and Mary has to leave her all alone; and I’ve told her
+she shall stay at home to-morrow and make my ruffles, and we’ll pay her
+just the same as if she came here. And don’t you see that we must give
+her her dinner to take home, since she can’t come here after it?”
+
+Aunt Rachel never said a word, but she got up and kissed Syl on each
+cheek. Then she brought a basket, and into it went the cold chicken and
+a cold tongue and jelly and buttered rolls and fruit, till even Syl
+was satisfied; and she took the heavy basket and danced away with it to
+the sewing-room, with a bright light in her dear brown eyes.
+
+“I think you’d best go now,” she said. “I can’t get your mother,
+waiting there alone, out of my mind, and it’s spoiling my afternoon,
+don’t you see? And because you mustn’t come here to dine to-morrow, you
+must carry your dinner home with you; and Aunt Rachel put some fruit
+and some jelly in the basket that maybe your mother will like.”
+
+That night, when Mr. Lucius Graham let himself into the hall with his
+latch-key, his daughter heard him and went to meet him, as usual. But
+she was very silent, and he missed his teasing, saucy, provoking Syl.
+
+“Why, daughter, are you in a dream?” he asked once during dinner; but
+she only laughed and shook her head. She held her peace until she had
+him at her mercy, in the great easy-chair, and she was on the stool
+beside him, as her wont was. Then, suddenly, her question came.
+
+“Papa, do you think a pomegranate silk without velvet would be very
+bad?”
+
+He was inclined to tease her, and began with “Hideous!” but then he saw
+that her lips were fairly trembling, and her face full of eagerness,
+and forbore.
+
+“How did you know you were to have the silk at all? But you know your
+power over me. Here is your needful;” and he put into her hands ten
+bright, new twenty-dollar bills.
+
+“O, thank you! and _do_ you think it would be bad without the velvet?”
+
+“Sylly, no; but why shouldn’t you have the velvet if you want it?”
+
+And then came the whole story of poor Mary Gordon, and--in such an
+eager tone,--
+
+“Don’t you see, with the money the velvet would cost, and a little
+more, I could get her the sewing-machine; and Madame Bodin wouldn’t ask
+so much to make the dress if it is plainer?”
+
+Mr. Graham was a rich man, and his first thought was to give her the
+money for the machine, and let her have her pretty dress, as she had
+fancied it, first. But a second thought restrained him. She was just
+beginning to learn the joy and beauty of self-sacrifice. Should he
+interfere? He kissed her with a half-solemn tenderness, and answered
+her,--
+
+“You shall do precisely as you please, my dear. The two hundred dollars
+is yours. Use it _just_ as you like. I shall never inquire into its
+fate again.”
+
+And then she went away--and was it her voice or that of some blessed
+spirit that came to him, a moment after, from the shadowy corner where
+the piano stood, singing an old middle-age hymn, about the city--
+
+    “Where all the glad life-music,
+      Now heard no longer here,
+    Shall come again to greet us,
+      As we are drawing near.”
+
+The next day, who so busy and happy as Syl--dragging Aunt Rachel from
+one warehouse to another--it was in the days when sewing-machines were
+costly--till she was quite sure she had found just the right machine;
+and then ordering it sent, at three o’clock, no earlier, no later, to
+Miss Gordon, No. 2 Crescent Place.
+
+At a quarter before three Syl went there herself. The pleasure of
+witnessing Mary Gordon’s surprise was the thing she had promised
+herself, in lieu of velvet on her gown. She found the poor room neat
+and clean, and by no means without traces of comfort and refinement;
+and Mrs. Gordon was a sweet and gentle woman, such as Mary’s mother
+must have been to be in keeping with Mary. She chatted with them for a
+few minutes, noticing the invalid’s short breath and frequent cough,
+and Mary’s careful tenderness over her.
+
+“It’s too bad Mary can’t be at home all the time,” said Syl.
+
+“Yes; but then to have her to-day is such a blessing. If you knew how
+we had enjoyed our day together, and our feast together, I know you
+would feel paid for any inconvenience it cost you.”
+
+Just then an express wagon rumbled up to the door and the bell rang
+loudly. Mary opened it at once, for their room was on the ground floor.
+
+“A sewing-machine for Miss Gordon,” said a somewhat gruff voice.
+
+“No, that cannot be. There is some mistake,” said Mary’s gentle tones.
+And then Syl sprang forward, in a flutter of excitement, which would
+have been pretty to see had there been anybody there to notice it.
+
+“I’m sure it’s all right. Bring it in, please; and Mary, you will tell
+them where to put it, in the best light.”
+
+And in five minutes or less it was all in its place, and Mary was
+looking, with eyes full of wonder, and something else beside wonder, at
+Syl Graham.
+
+“It’s nothing,” said Syl hurriedly; “it’s only my New Year’s present to
+you, a little in advance of time.”
+
+She had thought she should enjoy Mary’s surprise; but this was
+something she had not looked for,--this utter breaking down, these
+great wild sobs, as if the girl’s heart would break. And when she could
+speak at length, she cried with a sort of passion,--
+
+“O Miss Syl, I do believe you have saved my mother’s life! She will get
+better--she must--now that I can stay here all the time and take care
+of her.”
+
+Syl was glad to get out into the street. She felt something in her own
+throat choking her. Just a few steps off she met Dr. Meade,--her own
+doctor, as it chanced,--and it struck her that it would be a good thing
+if he would go in to see Mrs. Gordon. So she asked him.
+
+“I’m going there,” he said. “I try to see her once every week.”
+
+“And will she live--can she?”
+
+The doctor answered, with half a sigh,--
+
+“I’m afraid not. She needs more constant care, and more nourishing food
+and other things. I wish I could help her more, but I can only give my
+services, and I see so many such cases.”
+
+“But she would take things from you, and not be hurt?”
+
+“I should _make_ her if I had a full purse to go to.”
+
+“Well, then, here are forty dollars for her; and you are to get her
+what she needs, and never let her know where it came from--will you?”
+
+“Yes, I will,” he answered earnestly. And then, after a moment, he
+said,--“Syl Graham, you are your mother’s daughter. I can say no better
+thing of you,--she was a good woman.”
+
+Syl had a hundred dollars left; but that wouldn’t compass the
+pomegranate silk, and Syl had concluded now she did not want it. She
+had had a glimpse of something better; and that hundred dollars would
+make many a sad heart glad before spring.
+
+On New Year’s Day, Papa Graham was off all day making calls; and the
+gas was already lighted when he went into his own house, and into his
+own drawing-room. He saw a girl there with bands of bright chestnut
+hair about her graceful young head; with shining eyes, and lips as
+bright as the vivid crimson roses in her braided hair, and in the
+bosom of her black silk gown. He looked at her with a fond pride and a
+fonder love; and then he bent to kiss her,--for the room was empty of
+guests just then. As he lifted his head and met Aunt Rachel’s eyes, it
+happened that he said about the same words Dr. Meade had used before,--
+
+“She is her mother’s daughter; I can say of her no better thing.”
+
+
+
+
+MY QUARREL WITH RUTH.
+
+
+I suppose if I had not loved Ruth Carson so much my resentment against
+her would not have been so bitter. She was my first friend. She had no
+sister, neither had I; and we used to think that no sisters could be
+nearer to each other than we were. She had black eyes,--great, earnest,
+beautiful eyes, with pride and tenderness both in them; sometimes one
+and sometimes the other in the ascendant. I was yellow-haired and
+blue-eyed, but we always wanted our gowns and hats alike, and coaxed
+our mothers into indulging us. I don’t know whether Ruth suffered more
+in appearance when the clear dark of her face was set in my pale blues,
+or I, when her brilliant reds and orange turned me into a peony or a
+sunflower; but we thought little about such effects in those days. If
+Ruth got her new article of attire first, I must have one like it,
+whether or no; and if I was first favored, she followed my example.
+
+It was thus in every thing. We studied from the same text-books,
+keeping a nearly even pace Ruth was quicker than I at figures, so she
+helped me there; and my eyes were better than her near-sighted ones at
+finding towns, mountains, and fivers on the atlas, so we always did our
+“map questions” together. Of course our play hours were always passed
+in company, and one face was almost as familiar as the other in each of
+our houses. “The twins,” people used to call us, for fun; and if ever
+two girls were all and all to each other, we were.
+
+What did we quarrel about? It is a curious thing that I have forgotten
+how it began. It was some little difference of opinion, such as seldom
+occurred between us; and then, “what so wild as words are?” We said one
+thing after another, until, finally, Ruth’s black eyes flashed, and she
+cried out passionately,--
+
+“I just about hate you, Sue Morrison!”
+
+Then my temper flamed. It was a different kind of temper from
+Ruth’s,--slower to take fire, but much more sullen and resolute. I
+loved her as I did my own life, but I hated her also, just then,--if
+you can understand that contradiction. I looked at her, and I remember
+I thought, even then, how handsome she was, with the red glow on her
+cheeks, and her eyes so strangely bright. I could have kissed her for
+love, or cursed her for hate; but the hate triumphed. Slowly I said,--
+
+“Very well, Ruth Carson. I shall not trouble you any more. I shall
+never speak to you again, until I see you lie a-dying.”
+
+I don’t know what made me put that last sentence in. I suppose I
+thought, even then, that I could not have her go out of the world,
+for good and all, without one tender word from me. When I spoke, Ruth
+turned pale, and the light died in her eyes. I presume she did not
+think I really meant what I said; but, at any rate, it startled her.
+She did not answer. She just looked at me a moment. Then she turned
+away, and, for the first time in years, she and I walked home, so far
+as our roads lay the same way, on opposite sides of the street.
+
+“Where is Ruth?” my mother asked, when I went in.
+
+“Gone home, I believe,” was my only answer.
+
+It seemed to me that I could not tell even my mother of this
+estrangement, which had changed in a day the whole current of my life.
+Of course, as time went on, she saw that all was different between Ruth
+and me; but, finding that I did not voluntarily tell her any thing, she
+ceased even to mention Ruth in my presence.
+
+You cannot think how strange and solitary my new life seemed to me. For
+the first time since I could remember I felt all alone. I don’t think
+Ruth thought this unnatural state of things could last. The first day
+after our quarrel she spoke to me, at school, half timidly. I looked at
+her, and did not answer. She sighed, and turned away; and again, when
+school was over, each of us went home alone on our separate path.
+
+Sometimes I would find a bunch of roses on my desk, for it was June
+when our quarrel took place, and all the roses were in bloom. Then,
+later, I would lift up the desk cover and come upon an early apple
+or a peach; later still, a handful of chestnuts. I always let the
+roses wither without touching them; and the fruit I gave away, as if
+unconscious where it came from. Ruth would watch me and sigh; but after
+that first morning she never spoke to me. I think my rebuff then hurt
+her too much for her to be willing to risk receiving such another. What
+a strange, new, sad thing it was to get our lessons, as we did now, all
+alone! How the hateful figures tormented me, without Ruth’s quick brain
+to help me unravel them! How puzzled she looked, as I saw her holding
+the map close to her near-sighted eyes, trying to find the rivers and
+lakes and mountains all by herself!
+
+It was a curious thing that after the first two or three days my
+anger had passed away entirely. I held no longer the least bitterness
+in my heart toward Ruth; and yet I felt that I must keep my word. I
+looked upon my rash utterance as a vow, for which I had a sort of
+superstitious reverence. Then, too, there was a queer, evil kind of
+pride about me,--something that wouldn’t _let_ me speak to her when
+I had said I wouldn’t,--wouldn’t _let_ me show her that I was sorry.
+The teacher spoke to me about the trouble between me and Ruth, but he
+might as well have spoken to a blank wall,--I did not even answer him.
+Whether he said any thing to Ruth I do not know.
+
+In the late fall there was a vacation, which held over Thanksgiving.
+I had an idea that my mother watched me curiously to see how I
+would pass those weeks without Ruth. But I was resolute to show no
+pain or loneliness. I made occupations for myself. I read; I worked
+worsted; I crocheted; I copied out poems in my common-place book; I
+was busy from morning till night. One thing I did not do,--I did not
+take another friend in Ruth’s stead. Several of the girls had shown
+themselves willing to fill the vacant place, but they soon found that
+“No admittance here” was written over the door. I think they tried the
+same experiment with Ruth, with the same result. At any rate, each of
+us went on our solitary way, quite alone. Ruth had her own pride, too,
+as well as I; and, after a little while, she would no more have spoken
+to me than I to her; but she could not help those great, dark eyes
+of hers resting on me sometimes with a wistful, inquiring look, that
+almost brought the tears to mine.
+
+School commenced again the first of December. Ruth came, the first day,
+in her new winter dress. It was a deep, rich red; and somehow she made
+me think of the spicy little red roses of Burgundy, that used to grow
+in my grandmother’s old-fashioned garden. My own new gown was blue. For
+the first time in years, Ruth and I were dressed differently. We were
+no longer “the twins.” I thought Ruth looked a little sad. She was very
+grave. I never heard her laugh in these days. When it rained or snowed,
+and we stayed at school through the noonings, instead of going home
+for our dinner, neither of us would join in the games that made the
+noontime merry. I suppose each was afraid of too directly encountering
+the other.
+
+But when the good skating came, both of us used to be on the pond. The
+whole school, teacher and all, would turn out on half holidays. Both
+Ruth and I were among the best skaters in school My father had taught
+us, two or three winters before, and we had had great pride in our
+skill. We had always skated in company before; but now, as in every
+thing else we did, we kept at a distance from each other.
+
+The pond used to be a pretty sight, on those crisp, keen winter
+afternoons, all alive with boys and girls. A steep hill rose on one
+side of it, crowned by a pine wood, green all the winter through. Great
+fields of snow stretched far and away on the other side, and in the
+midst was the sheet of ice, smooth as glass. Here was a scarlet hood,
+and there a boy’s gay Scotch cap. Here some adventurer was cutting
+fantastic capers; there a girl was struggling with her first skates,
+and falling down at almost every step. I loved the pastime,--the
+keen, clear air, the swift motion, the excitement. I loved to watch
+Ruth, too, for by this time not only was all the bitterness gone from
+my heart, but the old love was welling up, sweet and strong, though
+nothing would have made me acknowledge it to myself. Wherever she
+moved, my far-sighted eyes followed her; and, indeed, she was a pretty
+sight, the prettiest there, in her bright scarlet skating dress, and
+with her cheeks scarcely less scarlet, and her great eyes bright as
+stars.
+
+There came a day, at last, when we promised ourselves an afternoon
+of glorious skating. The ice was in excellent condition, the sky was
+cloudless, the weather cold, indeed, but not piercing, and the air
+exhilarating as wine. I ate my dinner hurriedly--there was no time to
+lose out of such an afternoon. I rose from the table before the rest,
+put on my warm jacket and my skating-cap, and was just leaving the
+house when my father called after me.
+
+“Be very careful of the west side of the pond, Sue. They have been
+cutting a good deal of ice there.”
+
+The whole school was out; only when I first got there I did not see
+Ruth. The teacher repeated to us what my father had said, but I
+remembered afterward that it was not till he had done speaking that
+Ruth came in sight, looking, in her bright scarlet, like some tropical
+bird astray under our pale northern skies. As usual she and I began
+skating at some distance from each other, but gradually I drew nearer
+and nearer to her. I had no reason for this. I did not mean to speak to
+her, and the pride that held me from her was as untamed as ever. But
+yet something for which I could not account drew me towards her.
+
+Did she see me, and wish to avoid me? I did not know; but suddenly she
+began to skate swiftly away from me, and toward the dangerous west side
+of the pond. I think I must have called, “Come back! come back!” but
+if I did, she did not heed or hear. She was skating on, oh, so fast! I
+looked around in despair--I was nearer to her than any one else was. I
+shouted, with all my might, to Mr. Hunt, the teacher. I thought I saw
+him turn at the sound of my voice, but I did not wait to be sure. I
+just skated after Ruth.
+
+I never can tell you about that moment. All the love with which I
+had loved her swept back over my heart like a great flood. Pride and
+bitterness, what did they mean? I only knew that I had loved Ruth
+Carson as I should never, never love any other friend; and that if she
+died I wanted to die too, and be friends with her again in the next
+world, if I could not here. I think I called to her, but the call was
+wasted upon the wind which always bore my voice the other way. So Ruth
+skated on and on, and I skated after her. Whether any one was coming
+behind me I did not know. I never even looked over my shoulder. It
+seemed to me that some mad wind of destiny was sweeping us both ahead.
+
+Suddenly there came a plash, the scarlet cap appeared a moment above
+the ice, and then that went under, and there was no Ruth in sight,
+anywhere. You cannot think how calm I was. I wonder at it now, looking
+back over so many years, to that bright, sad, far-off winter day.
+I succeeded in checking my own headlong speed, and, drawing near
+cautiously to the spot where Ruth had gone down, I threw myself along
+the ice. It was thick and strong, and had been cut into squares, so
+it bore me up. I looked over the edge. Ruth was rising toward me. I
+reached down and clutched her, I hardly know by what. At that moment I
+felt my ankles grasped firmly by two strong hands, and then I knew that
+I could save Ruth. I held her until some one helped me to pull her out,
+and then I don’t know what came next.
+
+I waked up, long afterward, in my own bed, in my own room. I seemed to
+myself to have been quite away from this world, on some long journey.
+A consciousness of present things came back to me slowly. I recalled
+with a shudder the hard, sharply cut ice, the water gurgling below, and
+Ruth, _my_ Ruth, with her great black eyes and her bright, bonny face,
+going down, down. I cried out,--
+
+“Ruth! Ruth! where are you?”
+
+And then I turned my head, and there, beside me, she lay, my pretty
+Ruth--mine again, after so long.
+
+“She clung to you so tightly we could not separate you,” I heard my
+mother say; but all my being was absorbed in looking at Ruth. She was
+white as death. I had said I would not speak to her again until I saw
+her lie a-dying. _Was_ she dying now? I lifted myself on my elbow
+to look at her. I held my own breath to see if any came from her
+half-parted lips; and as I looked, her eyes unclosed, and she put her
+arm up,--oh, so feebly!--and struggled to get it round my neck. I bent
+over her, and one moment our lips clung together, in such a kiss as
+neither of us had ever known before--a kiss snatched from death, and
+full of peace and pardon, and the unutterable bliss of a restored love.
+Then Ruth whispered,--
+
+“Sue, I have been only half a girl since I lost you. I would rather
+have died there, in the black water from which you saved me, than not
+to find you again.”
+
+“I thought you _were_ dying, Ruth,” I whispered back, holding her
+close; “and if you were, I meant to die too. I would have gone after
+you into the water but what I would have had you back.”
+
+Then we were too weak to say any thing more. We just lay there, our
+hands clasped closely, in an ineffable content. Our mothers came and
+went about us; all sorts of tender cares were lavished on us of which
+we took no heed. I knew only one thing,--that I had won back Ruth;
+Ruth knew only one thing,--that once more she was by my side.
+
+That was our first and our last quarrel. I think no hasty word was ever
+spoken between us afterward. The first one had cost us too dear.
+
+
+
+
+WAS IT HER MOTHER?
+
+
+Just a little voice, calling through the dark, “Mamma, O mamma!” and
+then a low sound of stifled sobbing.
+
+Colonel Trevethick heard them both, and they smote him with a new sense
+of loss and pain. He had scarcely thought of his little girl since his
+wife died, five hours before,--died at the very instant when she was
+kissing him good-by, taking with her into the far heavens the warm
+breath of his human love. He had loved her as, perhaps, men seldom
+love, from the first hour of their first meeting.
+
+“There is Maud Harrison,” some one had said; and he had turned to look,
+and met the innocent gaze of two frank, gentle, very beautiful brown
+eyes. “Brightest eyes that ever have shone,” he said to himself. Their
+owner had other charms besides,--a fair and lovely face, round which
+the ruffled hair made a soft, bright halo; a lithe, girlish figure; a
+manner of unaffected cordiality, blent with a certain maidenly reserve,
+and which seemed to him perfection. He loved her, then and there. His
+wooing was short and his wedding hasty; but he had never repented his
+haste, never known an unhappy hour from the moment he brought his wife
+home, nine years ago, till these last few days, in which he had seen
+that no love or care of his could withhold her from going away from him
+to another home where he could not follow her,--the home where she had
+gone now, far beyond his search.
+
+She was a good little creature, and she did not rebel even at the
+summons to go out of her earthly Eden in search of the paradise of
+God. She longed, indeed, to live, for she so loved her own, and she
+could have resigned herself to die more willingly but for her husband’s
+uncontrollable passion of woe. That very day she had said to him, as he
+knelt beside her,--
+
+“Do not grieve so, darling! I am not going so far but that I shall come
+back to you every day. Something tells me that I shall be always near
+you and Maudie. You cannot call, or she cry, but that I shall hear
+you. I know that when she most needs, or you most want me, I shall be
+close beside you.”
+
+And with that very last kiss, when her breath was failing, she had
+whispered,--
+
+“I shall not go so far as you think.”
+
+Now when he heard the low call of his little Maudie and her smothered
+sobbing, he remembered the words of his dead wife. Did she, indeed,
+hear Maudie cry, and was it possibly troubling her? He got up and went
+into the little room where the child had slept alone ever since her
+sixth birthday, a couple of months ago. He bent over her low bed, and
+asked tenderly,--
+
+“What is it, darling?”
+
+A tiny night-gowned figure lifted itself up and two little arms clung
+round his neck.
+
+“Bessie put me to bed without taking me to mamma. Mamma did not kiss
+me good-night, and I want she should,--oh, I _want_ she should! Bessie
+wouldn’t carry me to see her; and I want you to. Bessie said mamma
+never _would_ kiss me again but that isn’t true, is it? You know I’ve
+heard mamma say Bessie wasn’t always ’sponsible.”
+
+Colonel Trevethick considered for a moment what he should say to
+his child--how he could make her understand the great, sad, awful,
+yet triumphant mystery which had come to pass that day under their
+roof--the great loss, and the great hope that hallowed it.
+
+She was such a mere baby it seemed hard to choose his words. Must he
+tell her that her mamma would never kiss her again? But how did he know
+that? When the dear Lord promised the “all things” to those who loved
+Him, did it not include the joining of broken threads, the up-springing
+of dead hopes, the finding one’s own again, somewhere? He thought it
+must; for what a word without meaning heaven would be to him if his own
+Maud were not there! He temporized a little.
+
+“She cannot kiss you now, my darling, but you shall kiss her.”
+
+So he lifted the little white figure in his arms, holding it close, as
+one who must be father and mother both together, now, and carried his
+little one across the hall to the room, where her dead mother lay,--oh,
+so fast asleep!--with a look like a smile frozen upon her fair, sweet
+face. He held Maudie down by the pillow on which her mother’s head
+rested, but that did not satisfy her.
+
+“Put me on the bed, please, papa. I get on the bed every night and kiss
+her, since she’s been ill.”
+
+So he let her have her will; and for a moment she nestled close to the
+still dead heart, which had always beaten for her so warmly. Then she
+lifted up her head.
+
+“Mamma is very cold,” she said, “and she does not stir. Can she hear
+what I say?”
+
+Again something invisible seemed to warn him against taking away from
+the child her mother. He answered very gently and slowly,--
+
+“She’s dead, my darling,--what we call dead. _I_ do not understand
+it--no one understands it; but it comes, one day, to everybody, and it
+is God’s will. Your mamma cannot speak to us any more, and soon she
+will be gone out of our sight; but she truly believed that she would
+always be able to see your face and hear your voice, as when she was
+here.”
+
+“She _is_ here. Won’t she be here always?” the little girl asked,
+growing cold with the shadow of an awful fear.
+
+“No, dear, she will not be here long. In a few days this dear white
+face will be put away, underneath the grass and the flowers; but the
+real mamma, who loves little Maudie, will not be buried up. She will be
+somewhere, I truly believe, where she can see and hear her little girl.”
+
+For a moment the child slid again from his arms, and nestled close
+against the cold breast, kissed the unmoving lips. Then she said,--
+
+“Good-by, this mamma, who can’t see; and good-night, other mamma, that
+hears Maudie.”
+
+Colonel Trevethick marvelled. Had he, indeed, succeeded in making this
+little creature understand; or had some one whom he could not see
+spoken to her words of sweet mother-wisdom?
+
+He carried her then, and laid her in her little bed, and went back to
+his own loneliness; but half an hour afterward he heard the small voice
+calling. “Papa, papa!” and again he went to her, and the little arms
+came up around his neck, and held him fast.
+
+“Can’t I go too, papa? If you ask God, won’t He let me? Because I do so
+love my mamma.”
+
+That afternoon Colonel Trevethick had felt as if he had nothing at all
+left in this world; but now he realized how much emptier still his home
+might be if he lost out of it this child who was so like her mother.
+
+“Mamma would not want you to come,” he said passionately. “_She_ has
+all heaven, and _I_ only you,--only you, little Maudie, in all the
+world. Mamma wants you to stay with me.”
+
+After that she was quite quiet; and when he looked in at her, an hour
+later, she was sound asleep, with one little hand like a crushed white
+rose under the red rose of her flushed cheek.
+
+She never asked for her mother after that night; but her father was
+sure that she never forgot her. She was the strangest, gravest little
+creature. She never made any noise, even at her play; and she never did
+any of the things for which her mother had been used to reprove her.
+The trouble was that she was too perfect; there was something unnatural
+about it which frightened Colonel Trevethick. He would have been glad
+if she had been naughty, sometimes, like other children. He longed
+to have her tease him, to see in her some spirit of naughtiness or
+contradiction; but he saw none. She grew tall quite fast, but she was
+very thin,--a little white wraith of a creature, who looked as if she
+had been made out of snow, and might melt away as soon.
+
+It was a good thing for Colonel Trevethick, no doubt, that he had her
+to tend, and to be anxious about. It kept him from surrendering himself
+to his own grief.
+
+Nearly two years went on, and all the time the little girl grew more
+and more frail; until, at last, when she had just passed her eighth
+birthday, she was taken very ill. Her illness seemed a sort of low,
+nervous fever, and she grew daily more feeble. A skilful nurse came to
+share with Bessie the task of tending her, and her father was seldom
+far away. Half the day he would be sitting in her room, and half a
+dozen times in the night he would steal in to watch her breathing.
+
+One afternoon, as he sat by her bed, she looked up at him with a sad,
+tender look, too old for her years,--but then all her words and ways
+were too old for her years.
+
+“Papa,” she said, “I would get well if I could, to please you. I
+_should_ get well, I know, if I had mamma to nurse me. Don’t you know
+how she used, if my head ached, to put her hand on it and make it stop?”
+
+A sudden mist of tears came between his eyes and the little white face
+looking up at him. She had not spoken before of her mother for so many
+months, and yet how well she remembered! Instantly his wife’s words,
+that last day, came back to his memory. She had said, “I know that when
+Maudie needs me most, or you most want me, I shall be there beside you.”
+
+_Was_ she there now? Could she breathe upon the little wasting life
+some merciful dew of healing? or was she, perhaps, by her very love and
+longing, drawing the child home to herself?
+
+That night Bessie was to sit up until one o’clock, and then to call the
+nurse. As for Colonel Trevethick, he would be in and out, as usual.
+
+He went to bed, and fell into sleep and a dream. His own Maud was
+beside him as he saw her first, then as his bride, his wife, then with
+Baby Maudie on her breast; just as of old he seemed to have her with
+him again,--his pride, his darling, the one woman he had ever loved.
+
+He woke at last. Had his dream, then, lasted the night through? Was
+this red ray that touched his face the first hint of the rising sun? He
+sprang up quickly. The whole night had indeed passed, and he had not
+seen Maudie. He hurried into a dressing-gown and went to her room. He
+expected to find the nurse there, but, instead, Bessie sat beside the
+table just where he had left her the night before, but sound asleep.
+Evidently she must have been asleep for hours, and had not called the
+nurse, who had slept in her turn: they were all tired enough, Heaven
+knows. But, meantime, what of Maudie? What harm had come to her, alone,
+unattended?
+
+He drew aside the curtain of her little bed and looked in. Surely this
+was not the Maud he had left the night before, so pale and worn upon
+her pillows? A face looked up at him bright as the new day. A soft,
+healthy color was in the cheeks, and the moist lips were crimson.
+
+“I knew I should be well if _she_ tended me,” a voice cried, gayer and
+gladder than he had heard from her lips in two years.
+
+What _did_ the child mean? Had she gone mad? He controlled himself, and
+asked,--
+
+“Who tended you, my child? I found Bessie sound asleep.”
+
+“Yes; mamma made her sleep, and you, and nurse. She sent all of you the
+dreams you like best; and all night long she sat here beside my bed,
+with her hand on my head, just as she used to put it long ago. She was
+all in white, and her hair fell about her shoulders, and her eyes were
+very, very bright, and her lips, when she kissed me, seemed somehow to
+melt away.”
+
+“So you, too, dreamed about mamma, darling?”
+
+“No, indeed, papa, I did not dream. Mamma sat there all night long,
+with her hand upon my head. Sometimes I slept, but more often I woke up
+to look at her; and all the time she sat there, and did not tire, until
+the first sunshine came in at the windows; and then she kissed me and
+went away. I did not see her go. Perhaps I shut my eyes a moment. Then
+I looked and she was gone, and then I heard you coming in. She said she
+was with me every day, but she couldn’t have come to me like _this_,
+except because I needed her so very, very much. And she wanted to make
+me well, because you would grieve for me if I came to her; and I was to
+be very good, and tend you and make you comfortable; and I must laugh
+and must make you laugh, for laughter was good, and the reason I got
+ill was because I had been sorry so long, and had not laughed at all.
+And I was _not_ to be sorry after _her_ any more, because she was very
+happy, and nothing grieved her except when she saw you and me mourning
+for her, and not knowing that she was waiting close beside us.”
+
+“_Was_ it her mother? Can it _be_ it was the child’s mother?” the
+father cried, uttering his thought aloud unconsciously.
+
+“Of course it was mamma; and she has made me well. See if Dr. Dale does
+not tell you I am well.”
+
+Two hours afterward Dr. Dale came. He stood for a few moments beside
+the little bed. He looked in the child’s glad eyes, he counted the
+throbs of her pulse, he made her put out her healthy little tongue.
+Then he turned to her father.
+
+“Trevethick,” he said, “can you swear that this is the same little girl
+I left here last night? If the days of miracles were not gone by, I
+should say that one had been wrought here. I left, I thought, a very
+sick little person, about whom I was anxious enough, certainly, to make
+this my first call this morning; and I find my small patient so well
+that I shall only keep her in bed a day or two longer, for form’s sake.”
+
+“Perhaps it _is_ a miracle,” Colonel Trevethick said, smiling. But he
+did not explain. There are some experiences too marvellous for belief
+and too sacred for doubt or question, and that was one of them.
+
+Two days afterward little Maudie went down to tea. She wore a fresh
+white gown, with lovely blue ribbons, and looked as much like a little
+angel in festal attire as a human child can be expected to look. But
+she did not take her usual seat. She sat down, instead, behind the
+tea-pot, where Bessie usually stood to pour out the tea.
+
+“Hadn’t Bessie better do that?” papa asked, as he saw the little hand
+close round the handle of the tea-pot.
+
+But Maud laughed, and shook her head.
+
+“No, I don’t think Bessie is ’sponsible,” she said; “and mamma said I
+was to live just on purpose to do every thing for papa.”
+
+And again Colonel Trevethick asked, but this time silently,--
+
+“Was it--_could_ it have been the child’s mother?”
+
+
+
+
+THE LADY FROM OVER THE WAY.
+
+
+It was the twilight of Christmas evening,--that twilight which always
+seems so early, since nobody is ever quite ready for it. The pale
+gray of the winter’s sky was scarcely flushed by the low-lying sunset
+clouds, though sometimes you could catch a gleam of their scant
+brightness as you turned westward.
+
+The streets of New York were crowded, as usual, but everybody seemed
+even more than usually in a hurry. The air was intensely cold, and
+nipped the noses of those who were late with their Christmas shopping;
+but, in spite of it, men and women still jostled each other upon the
+sidewalk, or stopped to look at the tempting displays of holiday goods
+in the shops. Everybody, it seemed, had some small person at home who
+must be made happy to-morrow.
+
+From the window of a large but rusty-looking house on one of the
+avenues, two children looked down at the throng below, as they had been
+looking all day. They were in the fourth story of the house, and they
+could not see into the street very distinctly, but still the movement
+and the bustle interested them, and their mother was thankful that they
+had it to watch.
+
+She herself was sewing, catching the last glint of the sunset light
+for her work, as she had the first ray of the dawning. She had been a
+beautiful, high-bred woman; indeed, she was so still, though there was
+no one to note the unconscious elegance of her gestures or the graceful
+lines of her curving figure and bent head. She was very thin now, and
+very poorly clad, but a stranger would have felt that she was a lady,
+and wondered how she came in the fourth story of this house,--a great
+house, which had been handsome, too, in its day, but which was now
+let out to innumerable lodgers, mostly of the decent sort of honest,
+hard-working, half-starved poor people. Not with such neighbors had
+Mrs. Vanderheyden’s lot been formerly cast, nor for such uses as this
+had the old house itself been designed. It had been a stately mansion
+in its time, belonging to the estate of a good old Knickerbocker
+family, which was quite run out now. But there was one great comfort in
+this house: it had been so well built that its thick walls shut out all
+alien noises effectually, and made solitude possible even in a tenement
+house. Perhaps Mrs. Vanderheyden had thought of this when she chose her
+abode there.
+
+There was something in the faded grandeur of the old mansion that
+harmonized with the lingering grace of her own faded beauty. Its lofty
+walls were wainscoted with carved oak, almost black with time; and any
+imaginative person would have been likely to people it with the ghosts
+of the beautiful girls whose room no doubt this was in the old days.
+There, between those windows, hung, perhaps, their great, gleaming
+mirror, and into it they looked, all smiles and blushes and beauty,
+when they were ready for their first ball. But Mrs. Vanderheyden’s two
+little girls did not think of the other girls who might have lived
+there once. They were too young for that, and too hungry. Ethel, the
+elder, was only ten; and shy little Annie, beside her, scarcely seven.
+They saw a sight, however, from the window at which they stood, that
+interested them more than any vision of the past would have done.
+
+The avenue on which they lived was in a transition state. Trade had
+come into it and lodging-houses had vulgarized it, and yet there were
+some of the rich old residents who still clung to the houses in which
+their fathers and mothers had lived and died. There was one such
+directly opposite; and to look into the parlor over the way, and see
+there all the warmth and brightness and beauty of which they themselves
+were deprived, had been one of the chief enjoyments of the little
+Vanderheydens ever since they had been in the house. They were all that
+Mrs. Vanderheyden had left, these two girls. Wealth was gone, friends
+were gone, father and father’s home, husband and husband’s home--hope
+itself was gone; but she was not quite alone while she had these two
+for whom to struggle--to live or to die, as Heaven would. It was for
+their sakes that she had worked from dawning till nightfall, though she
+had felt all the time what seemed to her a mortal sickness stealing
+over her. Their breakfast and dinner had been only bread, of which she
+herself had scarcely tasted; but to-morrow would be Christmas, and
+it should go hard with her but she would give them better fare then.
+A dozen times during the day one or the other little voice had asked
+anxiously,--
+
+“Shall we surely, surely, have dinner to-morrow, because it is
+Christmas Day?”
+
+And she had answered,--
+
+“Please Heaven, you surely shall. My work is almost done;” and then
+she had stitched away more resolutely than ever on the child’s frock
+she was elaborately embroidering. The children meanwhile were feeding
+upon hope, and watching a scene in the house over the way, where, as
+they thought, all that any human creature could possibly hope for had
+already been given. Busy preparations had been made in that other
+house for Christmas. There was a great Christmas-tree in one corner,
+all full of little tapers, and a large, fair, gentle-looking woman had
+been engaged much of the afternoon in arranging gifts upon it. Now,
+with the twilight, a boy and girl had come in and were watching the
+lighting up of the Christmas-tree.
+
+“It’s so good of them not to pull the curtains down,” Ethel said, with
+a sigh of delight. “It’s almost as good as being there--almost.”
+
+“I do suppose that’s the very grandest house in all New York,” little
+Annie said, in a tone of awe and admiration.
+
+“Nonsense! You only think that because you are so little,” answered
+Ethel, from the height of her three years more of experience. “_You_
+forget, but _I_ can remember. We had a finer house ourselves, before
+poor papa died. There are plenty of them, only we’re so poor we don’t
+see them.”
+
+“Oh, it’s good to be that little girl!” cried Annie. “See how pretty
+her dress is, and how her hair curls; and she’ll have lots of presents
+off that Christmas-tree.”
+
+“So should we, if we had papa,” Ethel answered gravely. “Mamma, when we
+get up to heaven, do you think papa will know we’re his little girls?”
+
+“I’m sure he will,” Mrs. Vanderheyden answered; and then she rose
+wearily. “It’s all done,” she said, as she shook out the lovely little
+robe into which she had wrought so many patient stitches. “I cannot
+carry it home just yet, I am so tired; I must lie down first; but you
+shall have a good dinner to-morrow, my darlings.”
+
+The children had seen her very tired before, and they didn’t think
+much about it when she groped her way to a bed in the corner and lay
+down, drawing the scant bed-clothes up over her. They stood at the
+window still, and watched the merry children opposite, until at last a
+servant came and pulled down the curtains and shut away from them the
+Christmas-tree, with all its gleaming lights, and the boy and girl, who
+were dancing round it to some gay tune which their mother played.
+
+Then Ethel and Annie began to realize that they were cold and hungry
+and the room was dark. Ethel lit a candle. The fire was nearly out,
+but she would not make another till morning.
+
+“I won’t wake up mamma,” she said, with the premature thoughtfulness
+that characterized her; “she’s so tired. We’ll just have supper, and
+then I’ll hear you say ‘Our Father,’ and we’ll get to bed, and in the
+morning it will be Christmas.”
+
+Some vague promise of good was in the very word: Ethel did not know
+what would come, but surely Christmas would not be like other days.
+“Supper” was the rest of the bread. And then the two little creatures
+knelt down together and said their well-known prayers, and I think
+“Our Father” heard, for their sleep was just as sweet as if they had
+been in the warm, soft nest of the children over the way, tucked in
+with eider down. Through the long evening hours they slept,--through
+the solemn midnight, when the clear, cold Christmas stars looked down,
+just as they had looked centuries ago when the King of Glory, Himself a
+little child, lay asleep in an humble manger in Judea. Nothing troubled
+their quiet slumber until the sunshine of the Christmas morning broke
+through their dingy windows, and the day had begun.
+
+“It must be ever so late,” said Ethel, rubbing her sleepy eyes, “and
+mamma isn’t awake yet. But she was so tired. You lie still, Annie, and
+I’ll build the fire, and when she wakes up she’ll find it all done.”
+
+Very patiently the poor little half-frozen fingers struggled with the
+scant kindlings and the coal that seemed determined never to light; but
+they succeeded at last, and the room began to grow a little warm. Then
+she dressed Annie, and then it began to seem very late indeed, and she
+wondered if mamma would never wake up. She went to the bedside and,
+bending over, kissed her mother gently, then started back with a sudden
+alarm.
+
+“Why, Annie, she’s so cold--almost like poor papa--only you can’t
+remember--just before they took him away.”
+
+“No, she can’t be like papa,” Annie said stoutly, “for he was dead, and
+mamma is asleep.”
+
+“Yes, she’s asleep,” said the elder sister firmly. “We must wait till
+she wakes up. We’ll look over the way, and then, maybe, it won’t seem
+so long.”
+
+But over the way was brighter than ever this Christmas morning. The
+curtains had been looped back once more, the table glittered with
+lovely gifts, and presently the little girl who lived there came to the
+windows. She looked up at them--they were sure of it; but they could
+not have guessed what she said, as she turned away, and spoke to her
+mother.
+
+“O mamma,” cried the sweet young voice, “won’t you come and see these
+two poor little girls? They stood there all day yesterday and last
+night; and now see how sad they look. I can’t eat my Christmas candies
+or play with my Christmas things while they look so pale and lonesome.
+Won’t you go over and see them, mamma dear?”
+
+Mrs. Rosenburgh was a woman of warm and earnest sympathies when once
+they were aroused. When she was a girl she too had had quick impulses
+like her child’s; but she had grown selfish, perhaps, as she grew
+older, or maybe only careless; for the quick sympathies were there
+still, as you could see, now that her little girl had touched them.
+
+“To be sure I will,” she answered at once. “Poor little things! I wish
+we could make merry Christmas for all New York; but since we can’t,
+at least we won’t have faces white with want looking in at our very
+windows.”
+
+So the watching, wondering children saw the large, fair lady wrap
+herself in a heavy shawl and tie a hood over her head, and then come
+out and cross the street and enter their house.
+
+“What if she saw us, and what if she is coming here!” Ethel said
+breathlessly.
+
+Then they listened as if their hearts were in their ears. They heard
+feet upon the stairs and then a gentle tap, and the lady from over the
+way stood in their room.
+
+“I saw you at the window,” she said, “and came over to wish you a merry
+Christmas. How is this? Are you all alone?”
+
+“No, ma’am, mamma is in the bed there; but she was very tired
+yesterday, and she hasn’t waked up.”
+
+An awful terror seized Mrs. Rosenburgh. Had this woman died of want and
+weariness, in sight of her own windows? She stepped to the bedside, and
+drew away the clothes gently from the face of the sleeper. She looked a
+moment on that fair, faded face, and then she grew white as death.
+
+“Children,” she asked, “what are your names?”
+
+“I am Ethel Vanderheyden,” the oldest girl answered, “and she is Annie.”
+
+“And your mother--was she Ethel Carlisle once?”
+
+“Yes, ma’am, before she married papa.”
+
+“And your little sister is Annie?”
+
+“Yes; she was named for mamma’s best friend, one she hadn’t seen for a
+long, long time.”
+
+Meanwhile Mrs. Rosenburgh had knelt by the bedside. She had lifted the
+low-lying head upon her arm, and drawn a bottle of pungent salts from
+her pocket, and she was crying as if her heart would break, while the
+children looked wondering on.
+
+“O Ethel, my own old Ethel, _wake_ up!” And then she dropped her cheek,
+all wet with tears, against the white, cold cheek, that was so still.
+
+Oh, was it the warm tears, or the voice that sounded from far away out
+of the past, or only the strong odor that roused the poor soul from
+that long, heavy sleep of exhaustion that had so nearly been the sleep
+of death? I do not know, but I know the eyes did open, and beheld the
+tender face bending above them. And then, like a little child, the
+children heard their mother cry,--
+
+“O Annie, Annie, have I been dreaming all this time?”
+
+And then there were explanations, and the story of the long years
+since Annie Bryant and Ethel Carlisle were girls together was told.
+But the best of it all, the children thought, was when the lady from
+over the way took them home with her, and told them the boy and girl
+there should be their brother and sister, and they should live there
+henceforth; for she, who had found again her best friend, would never
+more let her struggle with want alone.
+
+And so the children had gifts and dinner, and a merry, merry Christmas
+in the bright, warm, crimson-hung room, which had seemed to them
+such a paradise of delights when they looked down into it from their
+fourth-story window through the falling shadows of Christmas Eve.
+
+
+
+
+HIS MOTHER’S BOY.
+
+
+The days were growing very dark for George Graham. He had not known
+at first what it meant that black specks should so dance between him
+and the page he tried to read, that his eyes should ache so much,
+that all things should seem so strangely dim about him. It would have
+been better, no doubt, had he stopped work as soon as he felt these
+symptoms; but how could he? This was his last term at school, and if he
+passed his examination creditably, especially if he thoroughly mastered
+the bookkeeping he was trying so hard to conquer, he was to have a
+place in Deacon Solomon Grant’s store, with wages that would not only
+take care of himself, but greatly help his mother.
+
+His mother was a widow, and George’s love for her was a sort of passion
+of devotion. When he could scarcely talk, the first two words he put
+together were, “Pretty mamma,” and ever since then she had been the
+first and fairest of created beings to him. He was very fond of Susie
+Hale, but Susie was only a nice girl,--a dear, sweet, good girl, such
+as any fellow would like; but his mother was the elect lady to whom
+were due his love, his care, his uttermost duty.
+
+Mrs. Graham was the kind of woman for a son to be romantic about. She
+was only seventeen when George was born; and now, when he was sixteen
+and she was thirty-three, she was, so he thought, more beautiful than
+ever. She had been a pretty, rather helpless little creature all her
+life,--one of those women toward whom every man feels the instinct of
+protection. George’s father had felt it always, and had never allowed
+care to come near his dainty darling. His one great agony, as he lay
+dying, was that he must leave her almost unprovided for. That was when
+George was thirteen, and the boy would never forget how his father had
+called him to his bedside, and charged him to take care of his mother.
+
+“You are old enough to be her staff, even now,” the dying man had said,
+clinging to his boy’s hand. “You can be good to her in a thousand ways,
+save her a thousand cares, and in a few years more you can work for
+her, and keep her comfortably, as I have done.”
+
+George never forgot this trust for one moment. The plans he made in
+life were all for his mother’s sake--his future was to be spent in her
+service. He wanted to come out of school at the time of his father’s
+death, and try by all manner of little industries to help take care
+of the household, but his mother was too wise to permit this. She
+developed a strength of mind and of body for which no one who saw her
+pink-and-white prettiness,--the prettiness of a girl still, despite all
+her years of married life,--would have given her credit.
+
+She saw clearly that if her boy’s education stopped at thirteen, he
+would be held in check all his life by his own ignorance--he must be
+drudge always, and never master. So she made him go to school three
+years longer.
+
+How she lived and kept up her refined little home puzzled all
+lookers-on, and indeed she hardly knew herself. She lived simply; she
+was busy from morning till night. She sewed for one neighbor, she
+helped another through some season of sickness, she taught a naughty
+child who had worn out its welcome at school, but who could not wear
+out Mrs. Graham’s sweet patience,--and all these things helped. It is
+true, it was very often hard work to compass the simple necessaries of
+life, but she struggled on bravely.
+
+When George was sixteen he should come out of school, well trained, she
+hoped, for a business man, and then things would be so much easier.
+With this hope in view, she never repined. She kept her strength of
+soul and her sweetness of temper, her fresh beauty and her fresh heart.
+She kept, too, her boy’s adoration,--an adoration which was, as I said,
+the romance of his life.
+
+When the days began to grow so dark for George Graham, it was of his
+mother that he thought. So far he had no ambitions, no hopes, that
+were not centred in her. What if this growing shadow about him was to
+increase until all was dark, until dense night shut him in,--a night
+through whose blackness no star of hope could shine? What if he must
+be no help to his mother, but only a burden on her for ever, a burden
+lasting through heaven only knew how many helpless years?
+
+He rebelled against such a fate madly. He stretched out his hands
+toward heaven, he lifted the dumb prayer of his darkening eyes, but no
+help came.
+
+Dimmer and dimmer grew the world about him, more and more desperate the
+gloom of his hopeless heart. His scholarship had been so fine that his
+teacher hesitated to reprove his now continual failures; and George
+said nothing of the increasing darkness around him,--nothing to his
+mother, for he felt that it would break her heart; nothing to teacher
+or school-mates, for it seemed to him his grief would be nothing to
+them. But one afternoon the crisis came.
+
+His recitation had been an utter failure, and, at last, his teacher
+spoke in severe terms of the neglect which had become habitual. No
+one who was present that day--not even the smallest child--will ever
+forget the look of despair that swept over George Graham’s face, or the
+gesture of helpless anguish with which he stretched out his hands, as
+if to seek among them all some friend, as he cried,--
+
+“God help me, sir! I have been going blind; and now I cannot see one
+figure in my book--I can hardly see your face.”
+
+There was a silence after this, through which came no sound but the
+audible beating of George Graham’s tortured heart. Then the master sent
+away the others, for school hours were nearly over, and tried his best
+to comfort his stricken pupil. It might not be so bad as he feared, an
+oculist might help him, perhaps it was only temporary.
+
+To all these well-meant consolations George listened in a sort of
+dreary silence. The words of the teacher entered his ears, but they did
+not reach his heart or kindle his hope.
+
+As soon as he could, he went away. He did not go straight home.
+How could he face his mother and tell her what he _must_ tell her
+now,--what she would be sure to hear from others, if not from him? He
+kept thinking how she would take it. Would not all the light go out of
+her face? Maybe she would faint away, as he remembered she had done
+when his father died.
+
+He sat down on a bank, a little removed from the road-side, a bank
+which overhung a swift and deep, yet narrow stream.
+
+An awful temptation came over him,--such a temptation as, thank Heaven!
+comes to few boys of sixteen, with the young, glad life running riot
+in their veins. He thought, what if he should die, then and there? It
+seemed to him the one desirable thing. To be sure, to die would be to
+leave his mother to fight her battle of life alone; but also it would
+relieve her from the heavy burden he must needs be to her if he lived.
+The river rushing down there below invited him with its murmur. Should
+he seek refuge there, and let his mother hear that he was dead, before
+she heard that he was blind? He bent forward over the stream. Then he
+drew back, for a longing came over him to go home first, and see his
+mother just once more; and then an exceeding bitter cry burst from his
+lips,--
+
+“_See_ her! What am I talking about? Do I not know I shall _never_ see
+her again?”
+
+And a girl’s voice, soft and cooing and tender,--an utterly unexpected
+voice,--answered him,--
+
+“Yes, you _will_ see her again. Surely you will see her again.”
+
+The boy turned his face toward the sound.
+
+“How did you come here, Susie Hale?” he asked.
+
+“Don’t be angry, George,” the gentle voice entreated. “I waited for
+you. I could not go home till I had told you how sorry I was, and tried
+to comfort you.”
+
+“Comfort me!” There was a sort of scornful bitterness in the cry. “How
+_can_ I be comforted? Do you think what it will be never to see the
+green earth or the blue sky, or any dear face any more, for ever and
+ever?”
+
+“But you will see them,” she said gently. “I did not mean that you
+must be reconciled to give up hope. I mean that you must take heart,
+and try to be cured. I have known people who could not see at all to be
+helped, and why not you? At least, you must try.”
+
+An evil mood was upon George Graham, and he answered harshly,--
+
+“Where is the money to come from, if you please? It has been all mother
+could do just to live and she has struggled on, in the expectation of
+my being able soon to help her. She has no money for experiments. There
+is nothing for it but for me to rest a dead weight upon her hands,
+or--die.”
+
+He said the last word with a sort of gasp. Susie Hale shivered. She
+drew closer to him. She looked into his poor, tortured face, with her
+dark and tender eyes, and said very quietly,--
+
+“You believe in God, George Graham, and you will not defy Him. If He
+means you to bear this you will bear it like a man, and not try to get
+rid of the burden. But I do not believe He does mean you to bear it;
+and I will not believe it till every means has been tried for your
+cure. Just now, it seems to me, you ought to go home. Would you like
+your mother to hear this first from some one else?”
+
+He rose slowly.
+
+“You are right,” he said, “and you are a good girl. Good-by, Susie.”
+
+She did not try to go with him; she followed him only with her eyes.
+She was contented if she could but send him home in safety to his
+mother.
+
+His mother met him at the gate. When she took his hand in hers the poor
+fellow felt that she knew all. She was very quiet and self-controlled.
+
+“Your teacher has been here,” she said, “and he has told me. My
+darling, why have you sat in the darkness, and shut your mother out
+from any share in your trouble?”
+
+“Oh, I couldn’t tell you, mother!” he sobbed, with his head upon her
+breast, at last,--“I couldn’t, I thought it would break your heart.”
+
+“Ah! that was because you did not know. If you should die and leave me
+alone in the world, _that_, indeed, would break my heart; but while
+I have you beside me, nothing can make me altogether miserable, and
+nothing must make you so. There is help somewhere, and we will find it,
+please God; or, if not, we will bear what others have borne, and find a
+way to lighten the darkness.”
+
+Meantime, Susie Hale had gone home full of an absorbing purpose.
+Somehow money must and should be raised to try what a skilful oculist
+could do for George Graham.
+
+Susie was the orphan niece of Deacon Solomon Grant, in whose store
+a place was awaiting George. She knew that she had a modest little
+fortune of her own, but it was all in her uncle’s hands, and without
+his consent she could not dispose even of her slender income. But
+would he not be persuaded to let her have enough of her own money
+to accomplish her desire? She asked him, using her utmost power of
+persuasion to touch his heart, but he refused with peremptory decision.
+He wouldn’t mind contributing moderately to a fund for young Graham’s
+help--he would not even mind letting her have five or ten dollars of
+her own for that purpose--but beyond that the duty of one neighbor did
+not go. And Deacon Solomon shut his lips together as tightly as he
+buttoned up his pocket.
+
+Susie had in the world one treasure,--a diamond ring which had been her
+mother’s, with a stone white and clear as a dew-drop. This must, she
+knew, be worth three or four hundred dollars. It was her very own. She
+had meant to keep it all her life for her mother’s sake, but surely
+this great need of George Graham’s justified her in parting with it.
+
+She had one friend in Boston,--an old teacher,--in whose good faith and
+judicious management she felt implicit confidence, and to him she sent
+her mother’s ring, with a request that he would sell it as speedily
+and on as good terms as possible, and remit her the price of it in
+bank-notes, not in a check, and keep for ever the secret that she had
+disposed of it.
+
+It was a week after George Graham had given up hope, when a most
+unexpected hope came to him. A neighbor, going by from the post-office,
+handed in at the door a letter addressed to him. Mrs. Graham opened
+it, for George’s vision had failed with every day, and his eyes were
+utterly useless now.
+
+“George,” she cried, after a moment, in an eager, trembling voice,
+“here are three one-hundred dollar bills, and this is the letter that
+comes with them:--
+
+“‘This money is from a true friend of George Graham’s, and is to be
+applied to taking him to an oculist, in the hope that his sight may
+be restored. The giver withholds his name, both because he desires
+no thanks, and because he wishes to make the return of the money
+impossible.’
+
+“It is from Heaven, itself!” the mother cried. “George, we will start
+for Boston to-morrow. I feel in my soul that you are to be cured.”
+
+The next day a mother and her blind son sought rooms at a quiet
+boarding-house, of which they had found the number in the advertisement
+column of a city paper, and the day after that they were among the
+earliest patients of Doctor Annesley. The first examination of George’s
+eyes was unpromising enough. They would be worse before they were
+better; an operation might or might not restore sight to them, but the
+time for it had not yet come. Meanwhile the doctor wanted to see him
+daily.
+
+Those were weary days and weeks that followed, both before the
+operation and afterward, when the poor eyes were carefully bandaged
+from the light, and mother and son sat day after day in the dark
+together, wondering, wondering, wondering what the result would be.
+It was curious that the mother was always hopeful, and the son always
+despairing. At last it almost irritated him to hear her speak of hope
+to him; and one day he turned on her with the first burst of passionate
+impatience she had ever experienced from him.
+
+“Mother,” he said, “for the love of Heaven do not talk to me as if it
+was a sure thing that I am going to see again. I _want_ to think it
+doubtful, almost impossible. If you should make me expect a sure cure,
+and then it shouldn’t come, don’t you see that I should go mad? I think
+I should dash my head against the wall. I can only _live_ by expecting
+nothing.”
+
+After that the mother held her peace; but whenever she went out of
+that darkened room those who saw her marvelled at the light of joy in
+her eyes, the bloom of hope upon her cheeks. At last the time came--the
+bandage was removed. There was just one wild cry, “Mother, I see you!”
+and then George Graham lay at the doctor’s feet, swooning and helpless
+in his great joy.
+
+It was weeks yet before he went home again, but the good news preceded
+him. The mother wrote it to Deacon Grant, who had agreed still to
+keep the place in his store open, while awaiting the result of this
+experiment.
+
+The deacon read the letter in full family conclave, with the slow
+deliberation of a man unused to correspondence. He little knew how his
+niece longed to snatch the paper from his hand and read it for herself;
+nor did he heed the tears that swam in her dark eyes.
+
+Deliberately he smoothed out the letter, and folded it. Deliberately he
+took off his spectacles, and wiped them, and put them on again. Then
+he said, with the half pompous, half solemn manner which became his
+position,--
+
+“Well, well, I’m ready always to rejoice with those that rejoice; and
+I’m sure I’m thankful that the Widow Graham hasn’t got to struggle with
+so much trouble as it looked as if Providence was laying on her; but
+wherever she got that money the Lord knows.”
+
+Another letter came, afterward, to tell when the widow and her son were
+to return, and to ask Deacon Grant, in whose keeping the key of their
+house had been left, to put it in their door on that day as he was
+passing by to the store.
+
+It was Susie who walked over with the key, early in the afternoon,
+carrying with her a basket of dainties for the travellers’ supper, from
+Mrs. Grant, a woman who knew how to be a good neighbor, and to make
+life pleasant with cheap kindnesses. Susie’s black eyes danced, and her
+heart sang within her as she set the table in the little parlor and
+lighted a fire in the kitchen stove, ready to make a fresh cup of tea
+whenever the widow and her son should arrive. Then she dusted every
+thing; and then she gathered some of the flowers of September,--for
+already the summer was over,--and put them in the vases on the mantel,
+and on the widow’s little round sewing-table.
+
+And at last the travellers came, as at last every thing does come, if
+we wait long enough for it. They had expected to find an empty house;
+they found instead, warmth and brightness and good cheer and Susie
+Hale.
+
+
+
+
+DR. JOE’S VALENTINE.
+
+
+There were half-a-dozen of the girls together,--pretty creatures, in
+the very first season of their long dresses,--the eldest not quite
+sixteen. They were all braids and puffs and fluffy curls, all loops and
+ruffles and ribbons, all smiles and dimples. It was the Saturday before
+Valentine’s Day, in a certain year of grace, of which I will not give
+you the precise date, but less than ten years ago, and more than five.
+Of the half-dozen girls, two are busy teachers now, two are married,
+one is playing mother to her brother’s little brood of orphan children,
+and the sixth, not less happy than the rest, has gone on to “the next
+country,” where they tell us she will never grow old, never be sick or
+sorry any more,--happy Bertha, whom, surely, God loved.
+
+But, that day in February, none of them thought much about the future:
+the present was enough, with its fun and frolic, its wealth of all the
+pleasures which girlhood holds dear. The six were passing the long
+day together. Two of them were sisters and belonged in one house, and
+the rest had come there to be with them; for they were all going to
+make valentines. They had made funny ones and foolish ones, tender
+ones, with just a little dash of satire in them, poetic ones and prosy
+ones; and at last it was dinner-time, a feast of all the things that
+school-girls love, and these were hungry girls. At least they were all
+hungry girls but Nelly Hunt, and she scarcely ate any dinner at all,
+she was so busy thinking. She was Bertha’s sister, and this was her
+home and Bertha’s, and it was to the girls’ own room that the little
+party went back again, after they had eaten and praised Mrs. Hunt’s
+dinner.
+
+“What are you thinking about, Nell?” Bertha asked, sitting on the arm
+of Nelly’s chair.
+
+“These valentines,” Nelly answered slowly.
+
+“Well, surely they need not make you sober,--they are absurd enough.”
+
+“Yes, and it’s just because they are so absurd that they make me sober.
+I was wondering why we couldn’t just as well have said something to
+help somebody--to make somebody think--to do some good.”
+
+“Nelly’s heroics!” cried Kate Greene flippantly. “Miss Hunt as a moral
+reformer!”
+
+Nelly blushed from her pretty ears to the roots of her sunny hair; but
+her eyes shone clear, and there was a ring of earnestness in her voice
+as she answered,--
+
+“You can laugh if you will, but I mean what I say, and I’m going to try
+an experiment. I will write one boy a valentine, such as I think a girl
+ought to write, and I’ll send it.”
+
+“So you shall,” Bertha said gently,--Bertha always was peacemaker,--“and
+we’ll all go away and see mamma and the baby while you write it. When
+it’s done you must call us.”
+
+“Yes, and you must show it to us,” cried Kate Greene, as she went away;
+“that’s only fair. We promised this morning to show each other all we
+sent, and we sha’n’t let you off.”
+
+And then the five fluttered away like a flock of birds, and Nelly was
+quite alone.
+
+Her task was harder than she had imagined. It is only the old, perhaps,
+who are sage in counsel by nature. At any rate, to give good advice
+did not come naturally to pretty Nelly. But she had an idea of what
+she wanted to say, and at last she got it said. She had written and
+rewritten it, and finally concluded that she could do no better, and
+then copied it out into her neatest handwriting before she called the
+others. It was a little stiff, to be sure, and preachy and high-flown,
+but it sounded like a lofty effort and a complete success to the
+listening girls. This was what it said:--
+
+“MY VALENTINE,--You will have plenty of fine speeches and praises,
+and, perhaps, of fun and fancy from others, so I shall not give you
+those,--I who have but one interest in you, namely, that you should be
+the best boy and the best man which it is possible for you to become.
+If you are selfish, if you are indolent, if you are mean, you will
+never be happy in your own society, until you have sunk so low that
+you don’t know the difference between goodness and badness. But if you
+set out to be a gentleman and a man of honor and a faithful worker, you
+will do good deeds and live a happy life, and be worthy the everlasting
+esteem of
+
+  YOUR VALENTINE.”
+
+[Illustration: Nelly Reading her Valentine.--PAGE 220.]
+
+Nelly read it with rising color and a little quiver about her mouth,
+which Bertha understood; but she read it with firm voice and careful,
+deliberate accent.
+
+“Then,” she said, when she had finished, “I shall burn up all the rest
+of my valentines, and send only this one; for it is what I mean, in
+earnest, and, as old Aunty Smoke says, ‘Ef it don’t do no good, it
+can’t do no harm.’”
+
+“To whom shall you send it, dear?” Bertha asked gently, a little
+subdued by Nelly’s epistolary success.
+
+“I hadn’t made up my mind,” Nelly answered thoughtfully; “they all need
+it.”
+
+“O, send it to Joe, my cousin Joe,” cried Kitty Greene. “He is staying
+with us, and _he_ needs it--bad enough. If ever a boy was full of his
+pranks, Joe is, and if ever a boy tormented a girl’s life out, Joe does
+mine.”
+
+A color clear and bright as flame glowed on Nelly Hunt’s cheeks. Had
+she had dark-eyed Joe in her mind all the while? She only answered very
+quietly,--
+
+“I don’t mind. I had just as lief send it to Joe. That is, I’ll send it
+to him if you’ll promise, on your sacred honor, never in any way to let
+him know who wrote it.”
+
+“Oh, I will--true as I live and breathe I’ll never tell him, and never
+let him guess, if I can help it.”
+
+“And all you girls?” Nelly asked, with the pretty pink glow deepening
+in her cheeks. “Will you all promise?”
+
+And they all promised; for there was a sort of honest earnestness in
+Nelly’s nature to which they found it natural to yield.
+
+So the valentine was directed in Nelly’s most neat and proper manner to
+“Mr. Joe Greene,” and was dropped into the post-office with the rest of
+the valentines the girls had written that day.
+
+On the fifteenth the six girls were all together at school, comparing
+notes and exchanging confidences. But Kitty Greene drew Nelly aside,
+and said, while they walked up and down the hall together, their arms
+around each other as girls will,--
+
+“I saw Joe get it, Nelly.”
+
+Nelly’s pretty cheeks glowed and her eyes shone like stars, but she
+asked no questions. Indeed, they were scarcely necessary, for Kitty was
+eager enough to tell her story.
+
+“He got it, don’t you think, along with half-a-dozen others, and he
+read them all before he came to this one. I knew this, you know, by
+the shape of the envelope. When he came to it I saw him read it all
+through, and then I saw him go back and read it again. I heard him say
+to himself,--
+
+“‘That’s an honest letter from some little saint.’
+
+“Then he came up to me and held it toward me, while I pretended to be
+very busy with my valentines. Then he asked,--
+
+“‘Do you know that handwriting, Kit?’
+
+“I felt like an awful little liar, but I had promised you. I stretched
+out my hand for it, and said carelessly,--
+
+“‘Why, ain’t it Sue’s?’
+
+“Sue is his sister, you know. So he thought I did not know who it came
+from, and he changed his mind, and put it into his pocket, and went
+off. When I teased him afterward to let me see it, he said,--
+
+“‘No; there are some things a fellow would be a cad to show.’
+
+“So I saw it hit home, and well it might. It was a tremendous letter,
+Nelly.”
+
+And Kitty ended with a hug and a kiss, and a look of that loyal
+admiration which a girl can give another girl now and then.
+
+When the spring came Joe Greene went away from Chester, and did not
+come back there any more. No doubt Nelly Hunt would have forgotten his
+very existence but for the valentine, which she could not forget. She
+used to blush, as she grew older, to think how “bumptious” it was, as
+she used to call it to herself. What was _she_, that she should have
+undertaken to preach a sermon to that boy? What if he remembered it
+only to think how presuming it was, and to laugh at it? But, luckily,
+he did not know from whom it came; and with that thought she cooled her
+blushes.
+
+Nelly was twenty when Joe Greene came back to Chester again. And now
+he came as a physician, just through his studies, and anxious to build
+up a practice. Soon his fame grew. His patients were among the poor at
+first, and he cured them; and then richer people heard of it, and sent
+for him. But, while he took all the patients that came, he never gave
+up his practice among those who most needed him. His praise was in all
+their mouths. There had never been any doctor like this one.
+
+Nelly was Miss Hunt now, for Bertha had gone away from her into the
+other, unknown country, and Nelly’s grief had made her gentle heart yet
+more gentle, and her helpful spirit yet more helpful.
+
+Toward night, one summer day, she had gone to see an old woman who
+had been her nurse once, and had found her very ill,--quite too ill
+to be left alone, and certainly in need of a physician. So Nelly tore
+a leaf from her memorandum-book and wrote on it a few lines, begging
+Dr. Greene to come at once, and then called to the first passer-by and
+entreated him to take it to the doctor.
+
+It was scarcely half an hour before Dr. Greene came in, quietly and
+gravely. He attended to his patient with that careful consideration
+which made all those poor souls whom he visited adore him. Then he
+turned to Nelly.
+
+“Who will stay with her to-night?” he asked; “for, indeed, she hardly
+ought to be left alone.”
+
+“I shall stay,” was the quiet answer.
+
+“Then come to the door with me, please, and let me give you your
+directions.”
+
+Nelly followed, and stood there, in the soft summer dusk,--a pretty
+picture, with the wild-rose flush dawning in her cheeks, and a new
+light kindling her eyes. She listened carefully to all his injunctions,
+and then turned as if to go. But he put out a hand to detain her.
+
+“How very much I owe to you!” he said.
+
+“_You_, how?” And a deep, deep crimson dyed Nelly’s face and throat. In
+that moment she thought of her “bumptious” valentine, which had not
+crossed her mind before for a long time.
+
+He looked at her with a smile in his eyes, but with a face that
+preserved all its respectful gravity. He took a red leather case out
+of his pocket, and from the case he took the very old valentine which
+Nelly remembered so well. Then he produced the brief note she had
+written that afternoon; and still there was light enough left in the
+day to see them by, as he held them side by side.
+
+“Your hand has matured somewhat since this valentine was written,” he
+remarked quietly; “but some of these letters I should know anywhere. No
+one could deceive me.”
+
+“I did not suppose you had kept that foolish thing,” Nelly said, with a
+pitiful little quiver in her voice, as if she were just on the point of
+bursting into tears. “I am so ashamed!”
+
+Dr. Joe looked at her a moment, as she stood there in the waning
+light,--a lovely, graceful girl from whom any man might be proud to win
+even a passing interest. So this was the woman, the thought of whom
+he had carried in his heart for years! If he had ever done any good
+thing, he was paid for it in the satisfaction of that hour.
+
+“Are you sorry,” he asked slowly, “that you have helped one man to be
+his best self? Those words of yours were to me like the voice of my
+inmost soul. Since then this paper has never left me, nor have I ever
+ceased to strive to be worthy of the esteem of my unknown ‘valentine.’
+If ever I have been generous instead of selfish, brave instead of
+cowardly, strong instead of weak, it has been because I have remembered
+the words written here, and meant to live in their spirit. Are you
+sorry for that? or do you grudge me the dear pleasure of thanking you?”
+
+“No, I’m not sorry, nor do I grudge you any thing; but it was a girl’s
+freak, and I am not worthy of so much praise and honor.”
+
+“It was a good girl’s good intention,” he said almost solemnly. “Let us
+be thankful that it succeeded.”
+
+Nelly went back to the bedside of the old woman with a fluttering
+heart. How strange it seemed to think this sick woman was old enough
+to have outlived all anxieties except those about her pains and her
+supper! Had not she been young once? and had no one ever looked at her
+as Dr. Joe looked?
+
+The next morning he came again. His medicine, a night’s sleep, Nelly’s
+care,--something seemed to have given the poor old patient a fresh
+lease of life. There was no need that Nelly should stay with her any
+more; but she went to see her daily, and it was curious how often Dr.
+Joe’s visits happened at the same time.
+
+One night the doctor had left his horse at home, and he and Nelly
+walked away together. They talked about the lingering sunset and the
+soft south wind and even the old woman; for Nelly, woman-like, was
+struggling desperately to keep Dr. Joe from saying what she desperately
+wanted to hear. But, at last, it came,--a half-blunt, half-awkward
+speech, yet with Dr. Joe’s honest heart in it,--
+
+“I’ve lived all these years just to earn your esteem, and now I find I
+don’t care a thing about that unless I can also win your love.”
+
+I think Nelly’s answer must have satisfied him, for she is Mrs.
+Joseph Greene now; and that valentine--worn and old, but choicely
+framed--always hangs over the doctor’s study table.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+_Bright; Lively, and Enjoyable_
+
+“Jolly Good Times” Series
+
+_By Mary P. Wells Smith_
+
+  JOLLY GOOD TIMES; or, CHILD LIFE ON A FARM.
+  JOLLY GOOD TIMES AT SCHOOL; also, SOME TIMES NOT SO JOLLY.
+  THE BROWNS.
+  THEIR CANOE TRIP.
+  JOLLY GOOD TIMES AT HACKMATACK.
+  MORE GOOD TIMES AT HACKMATACK.
+  JOLLY GOOD TIMES TO-DAY.
+  A JOLLY GOOD SUMMER.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+_With Illustrations, 12 mo, cloth, gilt, $1.25 per volume. The set of
+eight volumes, uniformly bound in cloth, gilt, in a box, $10.00._
+
+Of these stories the Boston “Transcript” says: “Few series of juvenile
+books appeal more strongly to children than the ‘Jolly Good Times’
+Series, written by Mary P. Wells Smith. The naturalness of the stories,
+their brightness, their truth to boy and girl life and character, and
+the skill with which the author manages incident and dialogue, have
+given them deserved popularity.”
+
+It is Mrs. Smith’s happy ability to take the incidents of
+child-life,--such a life as any child of bright mind and sweet
+character, blessed with the surroundings of a good home, might
+have,--and to record them with such faithfulness to the child’s
+character, and yet with such charm in the narrative, as to make them
+engagingly interesting to other children.--_Gazette and Courier_,
+Greenfield, Mass.
+
+
+
+
+The Young Puritans Series
+
+_By Mary P. Wells Smith_
+
+_Author of “The Jolly Good Times” Series_
+
+  THE YOUNG PURITANS OF OLD HADLEY.
+  THE YOUNG PURITANS IN KING PHILIP’S WAR.
+  THE YOUNG PURITANS IN CAPTIVITY.
+  THE YOUNG AND OLD PURITANS OF HATFIELD.
+
+_Cloth, 12mo, Illustrated, each, $1.25._
+
+Mrs. Smith deserves very hearty commendation for the admirable pictures
+of Puritan life which are drawn with a skilful hand in this book. She
+has chosen a representative Puritan village as the scene, and the
+period of very early settlement of western Massachusetts for her story,
+a village which retains many of its early features to this day. Mrs.
+Smith knows the people of whom she writes thoroughly, and holds them
+in high and loving esteem. Even the most prejudiced reader can hardly
+close this book without seeing in these genuine Puritan people a phase
+of human life at once fine in its courage, its endurance of terrible
+hardships, and not unbeautiful in its childlike acceptance of God’s
+dealings and its daily hunger and thirst after righteousness.--_The
+Churchman._
+
+
+THE YOUNG PURITANS OF OLD HADLEY. 12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. $1.25.
+
+A capital colonial story.--_Congregationalist_, Boston.
+
+She catches the very spirit of Puritan life.--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._
+
+The work has historic value as well as unique interest.--LILIAN
+WHITING, _in Chicago Inter-Ocean_.
+
+An excellent book for school libraries.--_Literary News_, New York.
+
+The adventures of the boys while hunting, the trapping of wolves
+and panthers, which infested the forests in those early days, the
+encounters with the Indians, friendly and otherwise, are incidents
+which make up a book which will fascinate all young readers.--_San
+Francisco Bulletin._
+
+The author has studied her subject carefully; and the pictures of this
+life, extinct, yet still blood of our blood and bone of our bone, have
+unusual interest.--_Chicago Dial._
+
+Mrs. Smith has proven that she can write as simple and natural a story
+of child-life when the scene is laid two hundred and fifty years ago
+as when she chooses to describe country life in the New England of the
+present century.--_Christian Register._
+
+
+THE YOUNG PURITANS IN KING PHILIP’S WAR. Illustrated by L. J. BRIDGMAN.
+12mo. Cloth. $1.25.
+
+From a letter written the author by Bishop F. D. Huntington, Syracuse,
+N. Y.: “Have read all the pages through, every word,--finding the
+whole volume readable, entertaining, and satisfactory. Of course I
+feel rather competent to say that, in the phraseology, the territorial
+descriptions, the geography, the account of customs, language, family
+habits, natural phenomena, you are singularly correct, accurate, and
+felicitous.”
+
+Mrs. Smith seems to have caught the very breath and echo of those old
+days, and she makes one seem not to be merely reading of those Puritans
+and their constant struggles with their savage neighbors, but to be
+actually beholding them.--_Jersey City Evening Journal._
+
+The history of the seventeenth century in New England would gain new
+life when read in the light of such books.--_Christian Endeavor Herald._
+
+
+THE YOUNG PURITANS IN CAPTIVITY. Illustrated by JESSIE WILLCOX SMITH.
+12mo. Cloth. $1.25.
+
+Nothing could be more interesting than the period of which this story
+treats, and the author has handled the subject in a manner that is
+highly creditable. The reader will be for the nonce a Puritan, and will
+follow the adventures of three children taken captive by the Indians,
+feeling that he is a participant in the scenes so well portrayed. He
+will sleep in the Indians’ wigwam and breathe the odor of the pines.
+He will paddle a canoe upon the broad waters of the Connecticut, when
+New England was but a wilderness, and get an insight into Indian nature
+which he probably never had before.--_Sacramento Bee._
+
+She shows the same power of graphic description, the same faithful use
+of the best available material, and the same logical way of putting it
+into shape.--_Commercial Advertiser, N. Y._
+
+Mrs. Smith has made history live again in her life-like narrative. The
+children of to-day may well learn something of the sterner virtues in
+reading this story of the endurance and fortitude of children of two
+centuries ago.--_Springfield Republican._
+
+
+THE YOUNG AND OLD PURITANS OF HATFIELD. Illustrated by BERTHA C. DAY.
+12mo. $1.25.
+
+
+  LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., Publishers,
+  254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's New Bed-Time Stories, by Louise Chandler Moulton
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's New Bed-Time Stories, by Louise Chandler Moulton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: New Bed-Time Stories
+
+Author: Louise Chandler Moulton
+
+Release Date: October 3, 2019 [EBook #60418]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW BED-TIME STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sonya Schermann, Nigel Blower and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<hr class="pb" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/i_frontis.jpg" width="600" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">Day after day Johnny watched.—<span class="smcap">Page <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</span></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="pb" />
+
+<h1><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a><span class="smcap">New<br />
+Bed-Time Stories.</span></h1>
+
+
+<p class="ph3"><small>BY</small><br />
+LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON,</p>
+
+<p class="ph4"><small>AUTHOR OF “BED-TIME STORIES,” “MORE BED-TIME STORIES,”<br />
+“SOME WOMEN’S HEARTS,” AND “POEMS.”</small></p>
+
+
+<p class="ph4"><i>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.</i></p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/i_colophon.jpg" width="200" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="ph3">BOSTON:<br />
+LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY,<br />
+1907</p>
+
+<hr class="pb" />
+
+<p class="ph3"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a>
+<i>Copyright</i>, 1880,<br />
+<span class="smcap">By Louise Chandler Moulton</span>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="ph4"><span class="smcap">Alfred Mudge &amp; Son, Inc., Printers,<br />
+Boston, Mass., U. S. A.</span>
+</p>
+
+<hr class="pb" />
+
+<p class="ph2 poem"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a><i>TO MISTRESS BROWN-EYES.</i></p>
+
+<div class="poem ital"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">At Christmas-tide, by Christmas fire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">You’ll read these tales of mine;—<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I see, above my story-book,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Your happy brown eyes shine.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Dear eyes, that front the future time<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">So fearlessly to-day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, may from them some kindly Fate<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Keep future tears away,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And give you all your heart desires,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">My little English maid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For whom, in this far-distant land,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">My loving prayers are said!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I pray for Peace, since Peace is good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For Love, since Love is best:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If prayers bring blessings, Brown-eyed Girl,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">How much you will be blest!<br /></span>
+</div>
+<p class="poet">
+L. C. M.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><i>August, 1880.</i></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a>
+<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+<table summary="Contents">
+<tr>
+<th class="conpgh">&nbsp;</th>
+<th class="conpgh">PAGE</th>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">“All a-Growin’ and a-Blowin’”</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_5">5</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">My Vagrant</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">Helen’s Temptation</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_35">35</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">The Surgeon of the Dolls’ Hospital</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">Pretty Miss Kate</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">A Borrowed Rosebud</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_94">94</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">Tom’s Thanksgiving</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_106">106</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">Finding Jack</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_124">124</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">Her Mother’s Daughter</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">My Quarrel with Ruth</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_158">158</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">Was it Her Mother?</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_172">172</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">The Lady from Over the Way</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_186">186</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">His Mother’s Boy</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_200">200</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="smcap">Dr. Joe’s Valentine</td>
+<td class="conpag"><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="pb" />
+
+<p class="ph1"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a>NEW BED-TIME STORIES.</p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="ALL_A-GROWIN_AND_A-BLOWIN">“ALL A-GROWIN’ AND A-BLOWIN’.”</h2>
+<hr />
+
+<p>It had been such a weary hunt for lodgings.
+Not that lodgings are scarce in London. There
+are scores of streets, whole districts, indeed, where
+the house that did not say “Apartments” in its
+window would be the exception.</p>
+
+<p>But Miss Endell wanted to combine a great deal.
+She must be economical, for her funds were running
+low; she must be near the British Museum, for she
+wanted to consult many authorities for the book
+about “Noted Irishwomen,” by which she hoped to
+retrieve her fortunes; she wanted quiet, too, and
+reasonably pretty things about her.</p>
+
+<p>For a week she had spent most of her time in
+quest of the place where she could settle herself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
+comfortably for a few months. It was the gray
+March weather. The mornings were dark, and the
+gloom of coming dusk settled down early; and, during
+all the hours between, Miss Endell had been
+busy in that weary work of which Dante speaks,
+“climbing the stairs of others.”</p>
+
+<p>At last, after much consideration, she had decided
+to make a certain flight of stairs her own.
+She had taken the drawing-room floor of No. 30
+Guilford Street; and with a comfortable feeling of
+success she had paid her bill at the Charing Cross
+Hotel, and driven to her new home.</p>
+
+<p>The drawing-room floor—that is to say, the
+suite of rooms up one flight of stairs from the street—is
+the most important part of a London lodging-house.
+Whoever is kept waiting, when “the drawing-room”—as
+it is the fashion to designate the
+lodger who occupies that apartment—rings, the
+ring must at once be “answered to.” That floor
+rents for as much as all the rest of the house put
+together, and is the chief dependence of anxious
+landladies.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Endell, accordingly, was received as a per<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>son
+of importance. Her boxes were brought upstairs,
+and her landlady, Mrs. Stone, bustled about
+cheerfully, helping her to arrange things.</p>
+
+<p>At last every thing was comfortably placed,
+and the tired new-comer settled herself in a low
+chair in front of the glowing coal-fire, and glanced
+around her.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stone was still busy, wiping away imperceptible
+dust. The door was open, and in the doorway
+was framed a singular face, that of a pale,
+slender child, with a figure that looked too tall for
+the face, and great eager eyes, with such a wistful,
+silent longing in them as Miss Endell had never
+seen before.</p>
+
+<p>At the same moment Mrs. Stone also caught
+sight of the child, and cried out a little crossly,—</p>
+
+<p>“Go away, you plague! Didn’t I tell you as
+you wasn’t to ’ang round the new lady, a-worritin’
+her?”</p>
+
+<p>The child’s wistful face colored, and the tears
+sprang to the great, sad eyes; but he was silently
+turning away, when Miss Endell herself spoke. She
+was not specially fond of children; but she had a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
+kind heart, and something in the wan, pitiful face
+of the child touched it.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t send him away, Mrs. Stone,” she said
+kindly. “Come in, my little man, and tell me
+what your name is.”</p>
+
+<p>The child sidled in, timidly, but did not speak.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t be afraid,” Miss Endell said. “What is
+your name?”</p>
+
+<p>“Bless you, ma’am, he <em>can’t</em> speak!” said Mrs.
+Stone.</p>
+
+<p>“Can’t speak?”</p>
+
+<p>“No; he was born with something wrong. Laws,
+he can hear as well as anybody, and he knows all
+you say to him; but there’s something the matter.
+The last ‘drawing-room’ said that there was doctors,
+she was sure, as could help him, but I haint
+any money to try experiments.</p>
+
+<p>“Johnny was my brother’s child. His father
+died before he was born, and his mother lived just
+long enough to ’and over Johnny to me, and ask me
+to take care of him.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve done my best; but a lodging-house is a
+worrit. What with empty rooms, and lodgers as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
+didn’t pay, and hard times, I never got money
+enough ahead to spend on doctors.</p>
+
+<p>“But you mustn’t have Johnny a-worritin’
+round. You’d get sick o’ that. The last ‘drawing-room’
+said it made her that nervous to see
+him; and I halways thought she went off partly for
+that.”</p>
+
+<p>“I will not let him trouble me, don’t be afraid;
+but let him sit down here by the fire, and when I
+find he disturbs me I’ll send him away.”</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stone vanished, and Johnny took up his
+station on a stool in a corner of the hearth-rug.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Endell busied herself with a book, but from
+time to time she looked at the boy. His face was
+pale and wistful still, but a half-smile, as sad as
+tears, was round his poor silent mouth, and he was
+gazing at his new friend as if he would fix every
+line of her face in his memory for ever.</p>
+
+<p>For a long hour he sat there; and then Mrs.
+Stone came to lay the cloth for dinner, and sent
+him away to bed.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning he appeared again; and soon
+it grew to be his habit to sit, almost all the day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
+through, and watch Miss Endell at her tasks. In
+spite of her absorption, he occupied a good many of
+her thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>Like him, she was an orphan; and she had few
+close and vital interests in her life. She got to feel
+as if it belonged to her, in a certain way, to look
+after this silent waif of humanity more lonely still
+than herself.</p>
+
+<p>Often she took an hour from her work to read
+little tales to him, and it was reward enough to see
+how his eyes brightened, and the color came into
+his pale little face. She used to think that if her
+work succeeded, Johnny should also be the better
+for it. As soon as the first edition of “Noted Irishwomen”
+was sold, she would have the best medical
+advice for him; and if there were such a thing
+as giving those lips language, it should be done.</p>
+
+<p>“Should you <em>like</em> to speak to me, Johnny?” she
+asked one day suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>The boy looked at her, for one moment, with
+eyes that seemed to grow larger and larger. Then
+came a great rush of sobs and tears that shook him
+so that Miss Endell was half-frightened at the effect<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>
+of her own words. She bent over and put her
+hand on his head.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t, Johnny! Don’t, dear!” she said tenderly.</p>
+
+<p>I doubt if any one had ever called the poor little
+dumb boy “dear” before, in all his eleven years of
+life. He looked up through his tears, with a glad,
+strange smile, as if some wonderful, sweet thing
+had befallen him; and then, in a sort of timid rapture,
+he kissed the hem of Miss Endell’s gown, and
+the slippered foot that peeped out beneath it.</p>
+
+<p>I think there is an instinct of motherhood in good
+women that comes out toward all helpless creatures;
+and it awoke then in Miss Endell’s heart.
+After that she and Johnny were almost inseparable.
+Often she took him with her on her walks,
+and always when she worked he kept his silent
+vigil on the hearth-rug.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Endell had one extravagance. She could
+not bear to be without flowers. She did not care
+much for the cut and wired bouquets of the florist,
+but she seldom came home from her walks without
+some handful of wall-flowers, or a knot of violets<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
+or forget-me-nots. Now and then she bought a
+tea-rose bud; and then Johnny always noticed
+how lovingly she tended it—how she watched it
+bursting from bud to flower.</p>
+
+<p>He got to know that this strange, bright creature
+whom he idolized loved flowers, and loved tea-roses
+best of all. A wild desire grew in him to
+buy her tea-roses—not one, only, but a whole
+bunch. He spent his days in thinking how it was
+to be done, and his nights in dreaming about it.
+A penny was the largest sum he had ever possessed
+in his life, and a penny will not buy one tea-rose,
+much less a bunch of them.</p>
+
+<p>One day Miss Endell took him with her when
+she went to see a friend. It was a prosperous, good-natured,
+rich woman in whose house they found
+themselves. “Go and see the pictures, Johnny,”
+Miss Endell said; and Johnny wandered down the
+long room, quite out of ear-shot.</p>
+
+<p>Then she told his pathetic little story, and her
+friend’s careless yet kind heart was touched. When
+it was time for Miss Endell to go, she summoned
+Johnny; and then the lady they were visiting gave<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
+the boy a half-crown, a whole shining, silver half-crown.</p>
+
+<p>Johnny clasped it to his heart in expressive pantomime,
+and lifted his wistful, inquiring eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, it is all yours,” the lady said, in answer;
+“and don’t let any one take it away from
+you.”</p>
+
+<p>Small danger, indeed, of that! The piece of silver
+meant but one thing to Johnny,—tea-roses, unlimited
+tea-roses.</p>
+
+<p>The next day he was taken ill. He had a fever,—a
+low, slow fever. His aunt was kind enough to
+him, but she had plenty to do, and Johnny would
+have been lonely indeed but for Miss Endell.</p>
+
+<p>She had him brought each morning into her
+room, and kept him all day lying on her sofa, giving
+him now a kind word, now a draught of cold water,
+and then a few grapes, with the sun’s secret in
+them.</p>
+
+<p>One day Johnny drew something from his bosom,
+and put it into Miss Endell’s hand. It was
+the silver half-crown. He made her understand,
+by his expressive gestures, that she was to keep it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
+for him; and she dropped it into a drawer of her
+writing-desk.</p>
+
+<p>At last Johnny began to get well. June came,
+with all its summer sights and sounds, and strength
+came with its softer winds to the poor little waif.
+One day he stood before Miss Endell, and put out
+his hand. She understood, and dropped the half-crown
+into it. He hid it, with a sort of passion, in
+his bosom, and Miss Endell smiled. Did even this
+little waif, then, care so much for money?</p>
+
+<p>As soon as he could stand, he took up his station
+on the balcony outside the windows, and watched
+and watched.</p>
+
+<p>His friend thought only that the sights and
+sounds of the street amused him. She was working
+on at the “Noted Irishwomen,” which was
+nearing its conclusion, and it quite suited her that
+Johnny found the street so interesting.</p>
+
+<p>As for the child, he was possessed by only one
+idea,—tea-roses. He watched to see the hand-barrows
+come along, flower-laden and tempting.</p>
+
+<p>These same hand-barrows are a feature of London
+street life. They are full of plants growing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
+in pots, and also there are plenty of cut flowers.
+The venders cry, as they pass along, “All a-growin’
+and a-blowin’!” and there is something exciting in
+the cry. It seems part of the summer itself.</p>
+
+<p>Day after day, day after day, Johnny watched
+and watched. Flowers enough went by,—geraniums
+glowing scarlet in the sun, azaleas, white
+heath, violets,—only never any tea-roses.</p>
+
+<p>But at last, one morning, he heard the familiar
+cry, “<em>All a-growin’ and a-blowin’!</em>” and lo! as if
+they had bloomed for his need, there were tea-roses—whole
+loads of tea-roses!</p>
+
+<p>Miss Endell was busy, just then, with Lady
+Morgan. She never noticed when the little silent
+figure left the window, and hurried downstairs.
+Out into the street that little figure went, and
+on and on, in hot pursuit of the flower-barrow,
+which by this time had quite the start of him.</p>
+
+<p>Down one street, up another, he ran, and always
+with the silver half-crown tightly clasped in the
+palm of his little hand.</p>
+
+<p>At last a customer detained the barrow; and
+Johnny hurried up to it, panting and breathless.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
+He put his hand out towards the tea-roses, and
+then he held out his silver half-crown.</p>
+
+<p>The flower-seller looked at him curiously,
+“Why don’t you speak, young ’un?” he said.
+“Are you dumb? You want this ’alf-crown’s wuth
+o’ them tea-roses?”</p>
+
+<p>Johnny nodded vehemently.</p>
+
+<p>The man took up a great handful of the pale
+sweet flowers, and thrust them into the boy’s
+hands, taking in exchange the half-crown, and putting
+it away in a sort of pouch, along with many
+silver mates.</p>
+
+<p>As for Johnny, there are in every life supreme
+moments, and his came then. He held in his hand
+the flowers that Miss Endell loved, and he was
+going to give them to her.</p>
+
+<p>All his life he had felt himself in every one’s
+way. She, only, had made him welcome to her
+side. She had called him “dear,”—and now
+there was something he could do for her. She
+had loved one tea-rose: how much, then, would
+she love a whole handful of tea-roses! His heart
+swelled with a great wave of pride and joy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He thought of nothing but his flowers,—how
+should he?—and he never even heard or saw the
+butcher’s cart, tearing along at such a pace as John
+Gilpin never dreamed of. And in a moment,
+something had pushed him down,—something
+rolled and crunched over him,—and he knew nothing;
+but he held the flowers tight through it all.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, it’s Mrs. Stone’s dumb Johnny!” said
+the butcher-boy, who had got down from his cart
+by this time, and was addressing the quickly
+assembled London crowd. “Gi ’e a hand, and
+lift un up into my cart, and I’ll carry un home.”</p>
+
+<p>An awful inarticulate groan came from the poor
+child’s dumb lips as they lifted him; but his hold
+on the tea-roses never loosened.</p>
+
+<p>They carried him home, and into the house.
+Mrs. Stone was shocked and grieved; and she
+took her troubles noisily, as is the fashion of her
+class. Miss Endell, still fagging away at Lady
+Morgan, heard cries and shrieks, and dropped her
+pen and hastened downstairs.</p>
+
+<p>“He’s dead! Johnny’s dead!” cried Mrs. Stone
+and Miss Endell, white and silent, drew near.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But Johnny was not dead, though he was dying
+fast. The butcher-boy had hurried off for a doctor
+and the three women, Mrs. Stone, her maid,
+and her lodger, stood by helplessly.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Johnny’s wandering look rested on
+Miss Endell. A great sweet smile of triumph
+curved his mouth, lighted his eyes, kindled all his
+face. With one grand last effort, he put out the
+bunch of tea-roses, and pressed them into her hand.</p>
+
+<p>And then, as if death had somehow been more
+merciful to him than life, and had in some way
+loosed his poor bound tongue, he stammered out
+the only words he had ever spoken—was ever to
+speak,—</p>
+
+<p>“<em>For you!</em>”</p>
+
+<p>At length the doctor came and stood there, helpless
+like the rest, for death was stronger than all
+his skill. The shock and the hurt together had
+quenched the poor frail life that was ebbing so
+swiftly.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Endell bent and kissed the white quivering
+lips. As she did so, the tea-roses she held touched
+the little face.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Was it their subtile fragrance, or this kiss, or
+both together, which seemed for one moment to
+recall the departing soul?</p>
+
+<p>He looked up; it was his last look, and it took
+in the sweet woman who had been so gentle and
+so loving to him, and the flowers in her hand.</p>
+
+<p>His face kindled with a great joy. A hero
+might have looked like that who had died for his
+country, or a man who had given his life joyfully
+for child or wife.</p>
+
+<p>Johnny Stone had loved one creature well, and
+that creature had loved tea-roses. What <em>could</em>
+life have held so sweet as the death that found
+him when he was striving to give her her heart’s
+desire?</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="MY_VAGRANT">MY VAGRANT.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+
+<p>We were in pursuit of Laura’s dressmaker,
+and had just rung the bell at her door,
+when a little boy presented himself, and, standing
+on the lower step, uplifted a pathetic pair of blue
+eyes, and a small tin cup held in a little grimy
+hand. A large basket was on one arm; and
+round his neck was one of those great printed
+placards, such as the blind men wear who sit at
+the street corners. Laura’s purse was always
+fuller than mine; and she was extracting a bit of
+scrip from it, while I bent my near-sighted eyes
+on the boy’s label. Could it be that I read
+aright? I looked again. No, I was not mistaken.
+It read, in great, staring letters—</p>
+
+<p>
+I HAVE LOST MY HUSBAND IN THE WAR.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>In the war! And those blue eyes had not
+opened, surely, till some time after the war was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
+ended! His husband! I was bewildered. I
+bent my gaze on him sternly, and asked, as
+severely as I could,—</p>
+
+<p>“Young man, can you read?”</p>
+
+<p>Laura was fumbling away at the unanswered
+door-bell. The boy looked as if he wanted to
+run; but I put my hand on his arm.</p>
+
+<p>“Can you read?” I repeated gravely. I think
+he shook in his shabby boots, for his voice was
+not quite steady as he answered,—</p>
+
+<p>“Not much.”</p>
+
+<p>“Not much, I should think. Do you know
+what this thing says that you’ve got round your
+neck?”</p>
+
+<p>“Does it say I’m blind?” he asked, with a
+little frightened quaver.</p>
+
+<p>“No, it says—but do you know what a husband
+is?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, he comes home drunk, and beats Mag
+and me awful.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you ever know a boy of your age to have
+a husband?”</p>
+
+<p>The blue eyes grew so wide open that I won<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>dered
+if they could ever shut themselves up
+again; and Laura, who had turned round at my
+question, looked as if she thought I had suddenly
+gone mad. The little dressmaker had opened the
+door, and stood there waiting meekly, with the
+handle in her hand. But my spirit was up, and I
+did not care for either of them. I asked again,
+very impressively, as I thought, with a pause after
+each word,—</p>
+
+<p>“Did—you—ever—know—a—boy—of—your—age—to—have—a—husband?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, marm,” he gasped, “husbands belongs to
+women.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then what do you wear this thing for? It
+says that you have lost your husband in the war.”</p>
+
+<p>The imp actually turned pale, and I almost pitied
+him.</p>
+
+<p>“Will they put me in prison?” he asked, an
+abject little whine coming into his voice. “<em>Will</em>
+they?”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you steal it?”</p>
+
+<p>“I didn’t to say steal it—I just <em>took</em> it. I’d
+seen the rest put them on when they went out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
+begging, and this was old Meg’s. She wasn’t
+going out to-day, and I thought no harm to
+borrow.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then you can’t read?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, not to say read, marm. I think I could
+make out a word now and then.”</p>
+
+<p>“Do you want to?”</p>
+
+<p>The face brightened a moment, and, with the
+curving lips and eager eyes, was really that of a
+pretty boy.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, if I could!” half sighed the quivering
+lips; and then the smile went out, and left blank
+despair behind it. “It’s no use, marm; she
+won’t let me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Who won’t? Your mother?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, Mag’s mother—old Meg. My mother’s
+dead, and I never had any father that ever I heard
+of; and since mother died old Meg does for me;
+and every day she sends me out to beg; and if I
+don’t get much she whips Mag.”</p>
+
+<p>I was growing strangely interested.</p>
+
+<p>“Whips <em>Mag</em>, because <em>you</em> don’t get much?”
+I said doubtfully. “What for?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“I guess there’s a hard place on <em>me</em>, marm.
+She found that it didn’t seem to hurt much, when
+she whipped <em>me</em>; and so one night Mag was teasing
+her to stop, and she turned to and whipped
+Mag, and that made me cry awful; and ever
+since, if I don’t get enough money, she whips
+Mag.”</p>
+
+<p>“Are you sure you are telling me the truth?”</p>
+
+<p>I don’t know why I asked the question, for I
+saw honesty in those clear eyes of his. He looked
+hurt. Yes, you may laugh if you want to, I’m
+telling you just as it was—the boy looked as
+hurt as any of you would if I doubted you.
+There came a sort of proud shame into his manner.
+He clutched at the placard round his
+neck, as if he would tear it off, and answered,
+sadly,—</p>
+
+<p>“I s’pose I can’t expect anybody to believe me
+with this round my neck; but, if you would go
+home with me, Mag could tell you, and you would
+believe <em>her</em>.”</p>
+
+<p>By this time Laura had gone in, leaving me to
+finish my interview alone. I reflected a moment.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
+The other day I had heard Tom say he wanted an
+errand boy. Why should he not have this one?
+Tom was my brother. I knew just the difficulties
+he would make,—want of reference, a street beggar,
+a regular rat of the gutter. I could fancy
+just how he would talk. I knew, too, that I could
+overrule his objections. That’s a power women
+have when a man loves them; whether he be husband
+or brother or friend. I hated the thought
+of vice and ignorance and poverty. What if I
+could save just one small boy from their clutches?
+I said resolutely,—</p>
+
+<p>“Will you go home with me, and have a comfortable
+home and good food and honest work,
+and no one ever to beat you, and learn to read?”</p>
+
+<p>I had seen no assent in his eyes till I came to
+this last clause of my sentence. Then he asked
+shrewdly,—</p>
+
+<p>“Who’ll teach me? I can’t go to school and
+do my work, too.”</p>
+
+<p>“I will teach you. Will you go and work
+faithfully for my brother, and learn to read?”</p>
+
+<p>“Won’t I, just?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Well, then, let me speak to the lady who went
+in, and I’ll take you home at once.”</p>
+
+<p>He shuffled uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>“If you please, marm, I can’t go till I’ve been
+back to Meg’s, and carried her this board.”</p>
+
+<p>“But I’ll get a policeman to send a messenger
+with that. If you go, perhaps she won’t let you
+come to me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, marm, I shall come. But you wouldn’t
+believe me, sure, if I could steal away, like, and
+never say good-by to Mag, and let her cry both
+her eyes out thinking I’d been shut up, or somebody
+had killed me.” And his own great blue
+eyes grew pathetic again over this picture of sorrowful
+possibilities.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, you may go,” I said, half reluctantly,
+for the little vagabond had inspired in me a singular
+interest. “You may go, and be sure you
+come to-night or in the morning, to 70 Deerham
+Street, and ask for Miss May.”</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me with a grave, resolved look.</p>
+
+<p>“I shall come,” he said; and in an instant he
+was gone.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>That night, after dinner, I told Tom. He was
+mocking, incredulous, reluctant—just as I knew
+he would be. But it all ended in his promising to
+try “My Vagrant,” if he ever came.</p>
+
+<p>Just as I had brought him to this pass, the bell
+rang, and I sprang to the dining-room door. The
+dining-room was the front basement, and the outside
+door was so near that I opened it myself. It
+was, indeed, my vagrant.</p>
+
+<p>“I want Miss May,” he said, with the air which
+such a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">gamin</i> puts on when he speaks to a servant,—an
+air which instantly subdued itself into propriety
+when he heard my voice.</p>
+
+<p>I took him in to Tom; and I saw the blue eyes
+softened even the prejudiced mind and worldly
+heart of Mr. Thomas May. He spoke very kindly
+to the boy, and then sent him into the kitchen for
+his supper.</p>
+
+<p>“Where do you propose to keep this new acquisition?”
+he asked me, after the blue-eyed was out
+of sight.</p>
+
+<p>“In this house, if you please. There is a little
+single bed all ready for him in the attic, and I’ve<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>
+arranged with cook to give him a bath and then
+put him into some of the clothes her own boy left
+behind him when he went away to sea. I mean
+to rescue this one soul from a starved and miserable
+and wicked life, and I’m willing to take
+some pains; and if you aren’t willing to do your
+part I’m ashamed of you.”</p>
+
+<p>Tom laughed, and called me his “fierce little
+woman,” his “angry turtle-dove,” and half-a-dozen
+other names which he never gave me except when
+he was in good humor, so I knew it was all right.</p>
+
+<p>Before three days were over Tom owned that my
+vagrant, as he persisted in calling the boy (though
+we knew now that his name was Johnny True),
+was the best errand boy he had ever employed. I
+myself taught him to read, as I had promised, and
+brighter scholar never teacher had. In four
+months he had progressed so fast that he could
+read almost any thing. There had been a sort of
+feverish eagerness in his desire to learn for which I
+was at a loss to account. Sometimes, coming home
+from some party or opera, I would find him studying
+in the kitchen at midnight.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We grew fond of him, all of us. Cook said he
+was no trouble, and he made it seem as if she had
+her own boy back again. He waited on Tom with
+a sort of dog-like faithfulness; and, as for me,
+I believe that he would have cut his hand off for
+me at any time.</p>
+
+<p>Yet one morning he got up and deliberately
+walked out of the house. When his breakfast was
+ready cook called for him in vain, and in vain she
+searched for him from attic to cellar. But before
+it was time for Tom to go to business another boy
+came, a little older than my vagrant,—a nice,
+respectable-looking boy,—and asked for Mr. May.
+He came into the dining-room and stood there, cap
+in hand.</p>
+
+<p>“If you please, sir,” he said bashfully, “Johnny
+True wants to know if you’ll be so good as to take
+me on in his place, considering that he isn’t coming
+back any more, and I have done errands before,
+and got good reference.”</p>
+
+<p>He had made his little speech in breathless haste,
+running all his sentences together into one.</p>
+
+<p>Tom looked at him deliberately, and lit a cigar.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Johnny isn’t coming back, hey?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where is Johnny gone?”</p>
+
+<p>“He didn’t tell me, if you please, but he said he
+should be hurt to death if it troubled you to lose
+him, and he knew I could do as well as he could.”</p>
+
+<p>I saw a refusal in Tom’s eyes, so I made haste to
+forestall it.</p>
+
+<p>“Do take him,” I said in a low tone to Tom, and
+then I said to the boy that just now he had better
+go to the store, and Mr. May would see him presently,
+when he came to business.</p>
+
+<p>Tom laughed, a half-amused, half-provoked
+laugh, when he went out, and said,—</p>
+
+<p>“Well, my dear, I don’t think your vagrant
+has proved to be such a success that you need
+expect me to let him choose my next errand boy.”</p>
+
+<p>“I think, at least, that if he has sent you one as
+good as himself you will have no fault to find,” I
+said hotly. But all the time there was a sore
+place in my own heart, for I had thought that my
+vagrant would have loved me too well to run away
+from me in this way.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>That night Tom said that the new errand boy
+was doing well, and he had concluded to keep him
+on. I think Tom missed my vagrant; but not, of
+course, so much as I missed my bright scholar—my
+grateful little follower.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, the new boy lived in his own home,
+wherever that might be. I did not concern myself
+about him, or feel any disposition to put him in
+the little bed in the front attic.</p>
+
+<p>Two or three weeks passed and we heard no
+word from Johnny True. But at last a rainy
+day came, and with it Johnny, asking for Miss
+May.</p>
+
+<p>“I guess he’s repented,” cook said, coming upstairs
+to tell me. I went down to Johnny, resolved
+to be equal to the occasion—to meet him with all
+the severity his ungrateful behavior deserved.
+But, somehow, the wistful look in his blue eyes
+disarmed me. He was a little thin and pale, too;
+and my heart began to soften even before he
+spoke.</p>
+
+<p>“I couldn’t stay away, ma’am,” he said, with the
+clear accent he had caught so quickly from my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
+brief teaching, “and not let you know why I
+went.”</p>
+
+<p>“To let me know <em>when</em> you went would have
+been more to the purpose,” I answered, with what
+sternness I could command. “I had thought better
+of you, Johnny, than that you were capable of
+running away.”</p>
+
+<p>“But you see, ma’am, I was afraid you would
+not let me go if I told you.”</p>
+
+<p>“And why did you want to go? Were you
+not comfortable?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, ma’am—that was the worst of it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why the worst of it? Have you any especial
+objection to be comfortable?”</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the blue eyes filled with tears, like a
+girl’s; and there was a pitiful sob in the voice
+which answered me.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, it hurt me so, when I was warm, and had
+a good supper, and everybody’s kind word, to
+think of poor Mag there at home, cold and hungry,
+and with old Meg beating her. I never should
+have come and left her but for the learning to read.
+<em>She</em> wanted me to come for that.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“So you could read to her?”</p>
+
+<p>“So I could <em>teach</em> her, ma’am. You never in all
+your life saw anybody so hungry to learn to read
+as Mag; and when I went home that first day and
+told her all you said, and told her that after all I
+couldn’t go and leave her there to take all the
+hard fare and hard words, she just began to cry,
+and to tease me to go and learn to read, so I could
+teach her, until I couldn’t stand it any longer, and
+I came.”</p>
+
+<p>“And how did she know she would ever see you
+again?” I asked. “It would have been most natural,
+having learned what comfort was, to stay on
+here and enjoy it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mag <em>knew me</em>, ma’am,” said my vagrant, as
+proudly as a prince could speak if his honor were
+called in question. “Mag knew what I was, and I
+learned as fast as I could to get back to her—don’t
+you think so, ma’am?”</p>
+
+<p>“You learned faster than any one else could; I
+know that,” I answered. “But, Johnny, how
+could you bear to go back to begging again?”</p>
+
+<p>“I couldn’t bear it, ma’am, and I didn’t. I had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
+money enough, that Mr. Tom had given me, to buy
+myself a stock of papers. I’m a newsboy now, and
+I teach Mag to read out of the papers I have left.
+And old Meg knows better now than to beat Mag,
+and we are so much happier. It’s all owing to you;
+and I came back to thank you,—but I never could
+forsake Mag for long. I must stay with my own.”</p>
+
+<p>“But they are not your own.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mag is, ma’am.”</p>
+
+<p>He was as resolute to ally himself, for that girl’s
+sake, with poverty, and, if need were, shame, as
+ever was a hero to live or die for the land of his
+birth; and out in the rain, down the desolate
+street, I watched my vagrant go away from me for
+ever. But I did not pity him. No soul is to be
+pitied which has reached life’s crowning good,—the
+power to love another better than itself. Nor
+do I know any curled darling of fortune who seems
+to me happier than was my vagrant.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="HELENS_TEMPTATION">HELEN’S TEMPTATION.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+
+<p>The sun was almost setting, but its low light
+came in at the western windows, and lit up a
+pale face lying upon the pillows, till it seemed to
+the watchers beside the bed as if some glory from
+heaven had already touched the brow of the dying.
+These watchers were only two,—a girl of fourteen,
+rather tall of her age, with gray eyes that
+were almost green sometimes, and dark hair, short
+like a boy’s, and curling all over her head; and
+a middle-aged woman, who had tended this girl
+when a baby, and was half friend, half servant, to
+the dying mother.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Ash had been lying all the day, almost in
+silence. Her husband had brought her, a year
+before, to California, because she was stricken
+with consumption, and he hoped the change
+from the harsh east winds of New England to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
+the balmy airs of the Pacific coast might restore
+her to health.</p>
+
+<p>For a time the result had seemed to fulfil his
+hope; but, very suddenly, he himself had been
+taken ill and died; and then the half-baffled disease
+seized again on the mourning wife, who had
+now no strength to repel its onset.</p>
+
+<p>I think she would fain have lived—even then,
+when all the joy seemed gone from her life—for
+her daughter Helen’s sake; but she was too weak
+to struggle, and so she lay there dying, quite
+aware of what was before her.</p>
+
+<p>All day she had seemed to be thinking, thinking,
+and waiting till she had settled something in
+her own mind before she spoke. At last, with the
+sunset light upon her face, she beckoned to the
+woman, who bent nearer.</p>
+
+<p>“As soon as all is over, Woods,” she said, as
+tranquilly as if she were speaking of the most ordinary
+household arrangement, “you will take Helen
+to my sister’s in Boston. You must make the
+journey by easy stages, so as not to tire her too
+much. Fortunately she will not be dependent.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
+She has money enough, and she needs only care
+and love, which my sister will give her, I know
+well.</p>
+
+<p>“I shall be glad if you can stay with her; but
+that must of course be as Mrs. Mason will arrange.
+You will find when my affairs are settled that you
+have been remembered. You will lay me by my
+husband’s side, and then take Helen away.</p>
+
+<p>“All is arranged so that there can be no trouble,
+and now, if you please, leave me a little while with
+my daughter.”</p>
+
+<p>The woman went out of the room, and then Mrs.
+Ash opened her arms, and Helen crept into them
+and lay there silently, as if she were a baby again
+whom her mother comforted.</p>
+
+<p>She was a strange compound, this Helen Ash, of
+impulsiveness and self-control. She had an intense
+nature, and her temptations would grow chiefly
+out of her tendency to concentrate all her heart on
+a single object,—to seek whatever thing she wished
+for with an insistence which would not be denied.</p>
+
+<p>This quality has its great advantages certainly,
+but it has its extreme dangers.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Helen had no brothers or sisters or special
+friends. She had loved only her father and
+mother, but she had loved them with an almost
+excessive devotion.</p>
+
+<p>When her father died she had borne up bravely,
+that she might comfort and help her mother, and
+now she was bearing up still, that she might not
+sadden that parting soul with the anguish of her
+own.</p>
+
+<p>As she lay there in her mother’s arms, her eyes
+were wide open and tearless, but they were full of
+a desperate gloom sadder than tears. She was
+almost as pale herself as was her mother.</p>
+
+<p>“Darling,” the mother said tenderly, “how can
+I bear to leave you all alone? Promise me one
+thing only, to open your heart to new love. It
+would be so like you to shut yourself up in your
+grief, and to fancy you were loving me less if you
+let yourself care for your Aunt Helen.</p>
+
+<p>“She will love you for my sake, and she must
+be your second mother now. We were dearer
+than most sisters to each other, and she is a wise
+and good woman.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Her daughter, my namesake Laura, is just
+about your own age, and being her mother’s daughter,
+she must be worth loving. Try to care for
+them, my darling. The life which has no love in
+it is empty indeed. Will you try?”</p>
+
+<p>“O mamma,” the girl cried, with a sudden, desperate
+sob, “I <em>will</em> try because you bid me! I <em>will</em>
+try; but oh, how <em>can</em> I love them? How <em>can</em> I
+bear to see another girl happy with her mother,
+and to know that you will never be with me any
+more—never in all the world? If I call all day
+and all night, you will never hear nor answer! O
+my own mother, <em>must</em> you leave me?”</p>
+
+<p>“My darling, yes. I would have lived for your
+sake if I could. You have been my comfort always.
+Comfort me a little longer. Let me feel that in all
+the future you will try to live nobly for my sake.”</p>
+
+<p>The last words had been spoken with an evident
+effort, and it seemed to Helen that the cheek
+against which her own rested was already colder
+than it was half an hour ago.</p>
+
+<p>She clung closer to the poor wasted form that
+was her whole world of love, and closed her lips<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
+over the bitter cry that was rising to them; and so
+the two lay, very, very quietly in that last embrace
+they were ever to know.</p>
+
+<p>And the twilight gathered round them, and at
+last a young moon, hanging low in the western sky,
+looked in and touched with its pale glory the pale
+faces on the pillow.</p>
+
+<p>The mother stirred a little, and with a last effort
+clasped her child closer, and said, in a voice like a
+sigh, faint and sweet and strange, “Good-by,
+darling!” and then she seemed to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps Helen slept, also. She never quite
+knew; but it was an hour afterwards when Woods
+touched her shoulder, and said, with a kind firmness
+in her tone,—</p>
+
+<p>“You <em>must</em> get up now, Miss Helen, and leave
+her to me. She went off just as quiet as a lamb,
+poor dear, and if ever a face was peaceful and
+happy, hers is now.”</p>
+
+<p>No one knew what the few days that followed
+were to Helen Ash. She shut her lips, as her
+manner was, over her grief. She turned away,
+with her great tearless eyes, from the two graves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
+where her father and mother lay side by side, and
+she helped, with a strange unnatural calmness, in
+all the preparations for the long journey she was
+to take.</p>
+
+<p>When at last she reached her aunt’s home in
+Boston, this strained, unnatural composure gave
+way a little.</p>
+
+<p>Her Aunt Helen looked so much like her
+mother that at first she thought she could <em>not</em>
+bear it. Then, when her aunt’s arms closed round
+her almost as tenderly as her mother’s would have
+done, she shivered a little, and burst into one
+wild passion of tears, which almost instantly she
+checked.</p>
+
+<p>“I am to love you for <em>her</em> sake,” she said.
+“Those were almost her last words; and indeed,
+indeed, I will try, but I think I left my heart all
+those miles away in her grave.”</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Mason was, as her sister had said, a wise
+and good woman,—wise enough not to attempt to
+force the love or the interest of her niece. She
+contented herself with being exquisitely gentle and
+considerate towards her, and with trying, in count<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>less
+little ways, to make her feel that she was at
+home.</p>
+
+<p>Laura Mason had looked forward to Helen’s
+coming with a feeling that at last she was to find
+in her the sister she had longed for all her life, but
+Helen’s cold and self-contained manner disappointed
+her. She felt the atmosphere of Helen’s
+reserve almost as tangibly as if her orphan cousin
+had pushed her away.</p>
+
+<p>The summer months passed, and scarcely brought
+them any nearer together. Try as Helen might, she
+could not get over the sting of pain when she saw
+this other girl happy in her mother’s love, or running
+gayly to meet her father when he came home
+at night. <em>They</em> had each other, she used to say to
+herself, but <em>she</em> had only her dead. She had not
+even Woods to speak to, for Mrs. Mason had decided
+not to retain her; and since there was no one to
+whom Helen ever spoke of the past, she pondered
+it all the more in her heart.</p>
+
+<p>Things were a little better when school commenced
+in the autumn. Helen and Laura were in
+the same classes, and that brought them somewhat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
+more together; still there was no real intimacy
+between them.</p>
+
+<p>In the spring there was to be a competitive
+examination, and a medal was to be bestowed on
+the leading scholar in the class. By midwinter it
+was quite evident that Helen and Laura led all the
+rest, and a real spirit of rivalry grew up between
+the cousins which bade fair to become a passion.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Mason looked on regretfully, adhering to
+her difficult policy of non-interference. One day
+Helen heard Laura say to her mother,—</p>
+
+<p>“Mamsie, dear, you know you have the key
+to that French method locked up in your desk, for
+you taught us from it last summer. Won’t you be
+a dear, and lend it to me for a little while?</p>
+
+<p>“If I only could have that to help me, I should
+be sure of success. I would study just as hard.
+It would only be the difference between knowing
+when one was right, and floundering on in an awful
+uncertainty.”</p>
+
+<p>Helen was behind the curtain of the library
+window, and evidently they did not know of her
+presence. She waited for her aunt’s answer. If<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
+Laura had the key, then, indeed, she would be
+sure of success.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Mason spoke in a sad voice, with a subtile
+little thrill of reproach in it.</p>
+
+<p>“I did not think you would so much as wish,
+my dear, to do any thing that was not quite open
+and straightforward. You know Mademoiselle
+does not expect you to see the key. The very
+test of your power is that you should work without
+its aid, and the examination will prove how
+far you have succeeded.”</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose there’s no use in coaxing, when you
+say that. I do wish you weren’t such an uncoaxable
+mamma.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, you don’t,—you only fancy that you wish
+it; but, in your inmost soul, you would rather
+have me as I am,” Mrs. Mason answered; and
+Helen heard the sound of a kiss, and felt, for the
+thousandth time, how bitter it was that this other
+girl should have home and mother, while she had
+only a far-off grave.</p>
+
+<p>But, at least, she would triumph in this school
+contest! If Laura came off best there, it would
+be more than she <em>could</em> bear.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The weeks passed on, and the spring came.
+The deep old garden back of the house—the garden
+Helen’s mother had played in when she was a
+child—grew full of bird-songs and blossoms.</p>
+
+<p>There was a sweet laughter on the face of nature.
+The springs bubbled with it; the flowers
+opened to the light; the sunshine poured down its
+tender warmth, and the soft coo and call of the
+birds gave voice to the general joy.</p>
+
+<p>But both Laura and Helen were too eager and
+too tired to be gay. They only studied. They
+went to sleep with books under their pillows;
+they woke with the first light, and began to study
+again.</p>
+
+<p>It was the very week of the examination, at
+last. Helen felt satisfied with herself in all but
+her French. If <em>she</em> could only have that key for
+one little half-hour, she knew she would have no
+weak spot in her armor.</p>
+
+<p>She brooded over the idea until the temptation
+possessed her like an evil fate. In her passionate
+girl’s heart she said to herself that she wanted to
+<em>die</em> if Laura triumphed over her at school. Laura<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
+had every thing else; why <em>should</em> she have that,
+also?</p>
+
+<p>She had said at first, “If only it were <em>right</em> to
+have the key!” Then she said, “if only she
+could <em>chance</em> on the key, somehow!” Then, “if
+only she could get at her aunt’s desk and <em>find</em> the
+key!” At last it was,—</p>
+
+<p>“I <em>will</em> get at the key, somehow!”</p>
+
+<p>This last was the very morning before the examination.
+She rose from her bed in the dainty
+blue-hung room her aunt had taken such pains to
+make pretty for her, and went softly downstairs,
+in the young spring morning.</p>
+
+<p>Her bare feet made no sound on the thick stair-carpet.
+She looked like a little white-clad ghost
+that had forgotten to flee away at the first cock-crowing,
+as an orthodox ghost ought; but no
+ghost ever had such glowing cheeks, crimson with
+excitement, such great wide-opened gray eyes
+with green depths in them.</p>
+
+<p>She held in her hand a large bunch of keys belonging
+to her mother. It was just a chance
+whether one of them would fit her aunt’s desk.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She fairly trembled with excitement. She had
+lost all thought of the wrong she was doing—of
+the shame and meanness of this act, which must be
+done in silence and mystery; she thought only of
+the triumph which success would mean.</p>
+
+<p>She stood before the desk, and tried key after
+key with her shaking fingers.</p>
+
+<p>At last one fitted. In a moment more the key
+to the French method was in her hand.</p>
+
+<p>In desperate haste she compared her own work
+with it, and made corrections here and there.</p>
+
+<p>She was so absorbed that she quite failed to see
+another white-clad figure which had followed her
+noiselessly down the stairs, and stood in the doorway
+long enough to see what she was doing, and
+then went away.</p>
+
+<p>Hurriedly Helen went through her evil task,
+and then stole back to bed, with her glittering
+eyes and burning cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime Laura had gone, full of excitement,
+to her mother. Mr. Mason was away on business,
+and Laura crept into the empty half of her mother’s
+great bed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Mamsie,” she said, “wake up quickly, and
+listen.”</p>
+
+<p>Patient Mrs. Mason rubbed the sleep out of her
+eyes, and turned over. Then followed Laura’s
+breathless story.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course she’ll win, now,” Laura said, in
+conclusion, “unless I tell Mademoiselle what she
+has done; and I suppose you wouldn’t like that,
+would you, mamsie?</p>
+
+<p>“But it was her French that was the shakiest
+of any thing. Oh, <em>did</em> you ever see any thing quite
+so mean? Think of getting into your desk with
+her keys, and then slying off all those corrections!”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I <em>do</em> think,” Mrs. Mason answered, with
+almost a groan.</p>
+
+<p>“And she is Laura’s child—my poor Laura,
+who was honor and honesty itself!</p>
+
+<p>“You don’t know, dear, what a bitter thing
+this is to me. Poor Laura! what if she
+knows?”</p>
+
+<p>“But what shall we do, mamsie, dear? Are
+we just to keep still, and let her win the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
+medal, and let every one think she has beaten
+fairly, or will you tell her what we know?”</p>
+
+<p>“Will you go away now,” Mrs. Mason said,
+“and come back again before breakfast? I don’t
+want to say any thing until I am quite sure what
+it is best to do.”</p>
+
+<p>When Laura came again, Mrs. Mason had settled
+upon her course of action, or rather of inaction.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t be vexed, girlie,” she said to Laura; “I
+know it will seem hard to you to be beaten unfairly;
+but there are things of more consequence
+even than that. The thing that seems to me most
+important, just now, is to know what Helen’s
+character really is. If she is not utterly unworthy
+of her mother, she will repent before the thing
+comes to an end. If she does not, it will be time
+enough to think what to do next.”</p>
+
+<p>“And I must let her beat unfairly, and never
+say one word?” Laura asked, with a little strain of
+rebellion in her voice.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, if you are the obedient and generous
+Laura I like to believe you.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Mamsie, you have a flattering tongue, and you
+always get your way.”</p>
+
+<p>“And who is pretty sure always to admit, in the
+end, that it was the best way?” asked Mrs. Mason,
+laughing.</p>
+
+<p>“Mamsie, you are getting spoiled. See if I say
+yours was the best way this time!”</p>
+
+<p>French came on the first of the two examination-days.
+Laura and Helen led their class. Laura
+did very well, but Helen acquitted herself triumphantly,
+and sat down amid a little buzz of
+congratulations and praises.</p>
+
+<p>But somehow the triumph left a bitter taste in
+her mouth. She did not look at Laura, and even
+if she had she would not have understood the
+scorn on Laura’s face, since she was quite unaware
+that her raid on her aunt’s desk had been observed.</p>
+
+<p>Still she was not happy. She needed no scorn
+from outside, she had already begun to feel such
+bitterness of self-contempt scorching her soul. It
+seemed to her that up to this moment she had been
+as one under an evil spell.</p>
+
+<p>She had thought of no single thing except her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
+triumph over her cousin—quite careless as to the
+means to this hotly desired end. Now she began
+to realize how base those means had been, and to
+long to exchange her success for any direst possible
+failure.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Mason was watching her, and when they
+started to go home, she found an instant in which
+to whisper to Laura,—</p>
+
+<p>“Be gentle to her, girlie; she will suffer enough
+to-night.”</p>
+
+<p>At supper Helen’s place was vacant. She sent
+word that her head ached too much to come.</p>
+
+<p>Her aunt despatched to her room tea and strawberries
+and bread-and-butter enough for the hungriest
+of girls, and then left her to herself.</p>
+
+<p>The poor, lonesome, miserable girl lay upon her
+bed and thought. It was not quite a year since
+she had lain in her mother’s arms and heard her
+say,—</p>
+
+<p>“Try to live nobly for my sake.”</p>
+
+<p>Those had been almost her mother’s last words;
+after them there was only the low sigh, faint as if
+it came already from far-off worlds,—</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Good-by, darling.”</p>
+
+<p>The low sun-rays stole in softly, and touched her
+sad, pale face, and then went away; and after a
+while some cold, far-off stars looked down into the
+window, and saw the girl lying there still, fighting
+her battle with herself.</p>
+
+<p>One thing her conscience told her,—that she
+must undo this wrong, at whatever cost of shame.</p>
+
+<p>Once she started up, half-resolved to go to her
+aunt and tell her the whole story, and seek her
+help and counsel. But she lay down again, without
+the courage to confess her shame.</p>
+
+<p>Through the long night she scarcely slept; but
+before morning she had resolved what to do. In
+public she had taken the wages of her sin; in
+public she would make atonement, and eat the
+bitter bread of humiliation.</p>
+
+<p>When she had once settled on her course of
+action, sleep touched her weary eyes, and soothed
+her into a forgetfulness from which only the breakfast-bell
+awoke her.</p>
+
+<p>That day every one noticed a singular calmness
+and resolve in her manner. She passed the remain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>ing
+examinations with thorough success, yet with
+an evident lack of interest in their result which all
+save her aunt were at a loss to understand.</p>
+
+<p>At last the time came for the awarding of the
+medal. There was a little consultation among the
+examining committee, and then their chairman
+rose, with the medal in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>“To Miss Helen Ash,” he began; but before he
+could proceed farther, Miss Helen Ash herself
+interrupted him.</p>
+
+<p>Her face was as white as the dress she wore,
+and her eyes glittered with some strange fire of
+resolve or courage; but her voice was absolutely
+without a quiver of emotion in it, as steady and
+even as if she were beyond hope or fear.</p>
+
+<p>“The medal does not belong to me,” she said.
+“My success was a false success. I dishonestly
+found the key to the French method, and corrected
+my mistakes by it, or I should have failed.
+The prize belongs, of right, to my cousin, Laura
+Mason.”</p>
+
+<p>The chairman was a fussy little man, and was
+thoroughly discomposed by this interruption. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
+had had his little speech all ready, but it began
+with the name of Helen Ash, and he found it
+difficult to change it at a moment’s notice.</p>
+
+<p>“Bless my heart!” he said quite unconsciously,
+and looking helplessly around him, he repeated,
+“<em>Bless</em> my heart!”</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Laura Mason,” suggested one of his
+brethren on the committee; and thus reinforced,
+he began again,—</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Laura Mason, I am very sorry—I mean
+I am very glad, to bestow on you this medal, which
+you have fairly earned by your success.”</p>
+
+<p>And then he sat down, and his confusion was
+covered by a gentle little clapping of hands.</p>
+
+<p>That night Mrs. Mason went to Helen in her
+own room, when the twilight shadows were falling,
+and as she entered the door she said, “My darling,”
+in a voice so like Helen’s mother’s that the
+girl’s very heart sprang to meet it.</p>
+
+<p>“My darling, I know now that you are true
+enough and brave enough to be my sister’s
+child.”</p>
+
+<p>But Helen shrank back into the darkness, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
+this time the voice was broken with tears which
+faltered,—</p>
+
+<p>“Is there any one who could know what I have
+done, and yet not despise me?”</p>
+
+<p>“There is no one, dear, who dares to scorn the
+soul that repents and atones.”</p>
+
+<p>And then loving arms held the poor lonesome
+girl close, and she knew that she was no longer
+alone. She had found a new home—the home
+her mother bade her seek—in the heart of that
+mother’s sister.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_SURGEON_OF_THE_DOLLS">THE SURGEON OF THE DOLLS’ HOSPITAL.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+<p>It was nearly four years ago that I first noticed,
+in one of the quiet side-streets in the West
+Central district of London, a sign over a door on
+which I read:—</p>
+
+<p>DOLLS’ HOSPITAL.</p>
+
+<p>Operations from 9 <span class="smcap">A.M.</span>, to 4 <span class="smcap">P.M.</span></p>
+
+<p>Whenever I passed through the street—and
+that was often, for it was a short cut to Mudie’s,—the
+largest circulating library in the world,—I used
+to notice this quaint sign, and wonder, laughingly,
+who was the superintending physician to this place
+of healing for the numerous race of dolls.</p>
+
+<p>I often thought I would go in and see the establishment;
+but one is always busy in London, so,
+very likely, I should never have entered its door
+but for a casualty at my own fireside.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When I went downstairs one morning, I heard
+a sound of weeping, as bitter as that of Rachel of
+old mourning for her children. The mourner in
+this case was Mistress Brown-Eyes, as I was wont
+to call my friend’s little girl.</p>
+
+<p>She was a pretty child, this little Milicent; but
+you forgot to think about the rest of her face when
+you saw her wonderful eyes—soft and clear, yet
+bright, and of the warmest, deepest, yet softest
+brown. She had made her home in my heart, and
+so her grief, whatever it was, appealed at once to
+my sympathies.</p>
+
+<p>“My darling,” I said, as I tried to draw away
+the little hands from before the sorrowful face,
+“what can be the matter?”</p>
+
+<p>“Bella is dead!” and the sobs recommenced
+with fresh violence.</p>
+
+<p>Bella was the best-beloved of a somewhat large
+family of dolls,—a pretty Parian creature, with
+blue eyes and fair hair. I had myself lately
+assisted in making a trunk of clothes for Bella;
+and I grudged sorely all my wasted labor, if she
+had come to an untimely end.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I looked at the dear remains, stretched out sadly
+upon a chair. Bella was evidently very dead indeed.
+Her pretty neck was broken, her fair,
+foolish head lay quite severed from her silken-clad
+body. Suddenly there flashed into my
+mind the thought of the dolls’ hospital. I spoke
+cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>“Brown-Eyes,” I said, “I think that Bella may
+recover. I am pretty sure that her collar-bone is
+broken; but I have heard of people who got well
+after breaking their collar-bones.”</p>
+
+<p>The child looked up, her eyes shining through
+tears, and said, with that air of grave, old-fashioned
+propriety which was one of the most amusing
+things about her,—</p>
+
+<p>“It is a very serious accident. Do you think
+Bella <em>could</em> recover?”</p>
+
+<p>“I hope she may; and I shall at once take her
+to the hospital.”</p>
+
+<p>“The hospital!” cried Mistress Brown-Eyes;
+“but that is where Mary Ann went when she had
+a fever. She was gone six weeks. Will my Bella
+be gone six weeks?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“I think not so long as one week, if she can be
+cured at all.”</p>
+
+<p>In five minutes more I was in the street, with
+Bella in a basket on my arm. Her little mother
+had covered her carefully from the cold, though it
+was already May; and I felt as if I were in a
+position of grave responsibility as I hurried to the
+dolls’ hospital.</p>
+
+<p>A bell rang when I opened the door, and the
+oddest little person stood before me. At first I
+thought it was a child masquerading in long
+clothes; for she was not more than half the height
+of an ordinary woman.</p>
+
+<p>But, looking more closely, I saw the maturity of
+her face, and realized that I stood in the presence
+of a grown-up dwarf, who might really have been
+taken for Dickens’s Miss Mowcher, herself.</p>
+
+<p>She was dressed in a long, straight gown of rusty-looking
+black alpaca, and her rusty-looking black
+hair was drawn straightly back from as plain a
+face as one often sees. It was a kind, honest face,
+however, and I liked the voice in which she asked
+how she could serve me. I explained my errand.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Please to let me see the patient.”</p>
+
+<p>She spoke with as much gravity as if she had
+been the superintending physician of the largest
+hospital in London. I unveiled poor Bella, and
+the dwarf lifted her from the basket with grave
+tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>“Poor little beauty!” she said. “Yes’m, I
+think I can cure her.”</p>
+
+<p>“Will the operation take long?” I asked,
+humoring her fancy.</p>
+
+<p>“I should prefer that the patient should not be
+moved, ma’am, before to-morrow.”</p>
+
+<p>“Very well; then I will leave her.”</p>
+
+<p>Just at that moment I heard a voice call, “Sally!
+Sally!”</p>
+
+<p>It was a well-trained, ladylike voice, but somewhat
+imperious.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, Lady Jane, I’ll be there in a moment,”
+answered the dwarf, whom I now knew to be
+Sally. Then a door opened, and the most beautiful
+creature I ever saw stood in it, looking in.</p>
+
+<p>The hospital was a bare enough place. There
+was a great table covered with dolls,—dolls with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
+broken legs, dolls with punched heads, dolls with
+one arm gone, hairless dolls, broken-backed dolls,
+dolls of every kind, awaiting the ministrations of
+Sally; and dozens of other dolls were there, too,
+whom those skilful fingers had already cured of
+their wounds.</p>
+
+<p>There was a shelf, on which was ranged the
+pharmacy of this hospital,—white cement, boxes
+of saw-dust, collections of legs and arms, wigs,
+every thing, in short, that an afflicted doll could
+possibly require. Then there were two or three
+wooden stools, and these completed the furniture
+of the apartment.</p>
+
+<p>Standing in the doorway, Lady Jane looked as
+if she were a larger doll than the rest,—a doll
+with a soul. She seemed a lady’s child, every
+pretty inch of her. I should think she was about
+twelve years old. She wore a blue dress, and a
+blue ribbon in the bright, fair hair that hung all
+about her soft, pink-and-white face, out of which
+looked two great, serious, inquiring blue eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“I will be through soon, Lady Jane,” Sally said
+quietly; and the girl turned away, but not before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>
+I had taken in a complete picture of her loveliness,
+and had noticed also a somewhat singular
+ornament she wore, attached to a slender golden
+chain. It was so strange a vision to see in this
+humble little shop that my curiosity got the better
+of me, and, after the door had closed on Lady
+Jane, I asked, “Does she live here?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes’m,” answered Sally proudly. “In a
+way, she is my child.”</p>
+
+<p>I hesitated to inquire further; but I think my
+eyes must have asked some questions in spite of
+myself; for Sally said, after a moment,—</p>
+
+<p>“You seem interested, ma’am, and I don’t mind
+telling you about her. I saw Lady Jane first
+some eight years ago. A man had her who used
+to go round with a hand-organ. She was such a
+pretty little creature that everybody gave her
+money, and she was a great profit to Jacopo, for
+that was his name.</p>
+
+<p>“It used to make my heart ache to see the little
+beauty trudging round all day on her patient feet.
+When Jacopo spoke to her, I’ve seen her turn
+pale; and she never used to smile except when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
+she was holding out her bit of a hat to people for
+money. She <em>had</em> to smile then; it was part of
+the business.</p>
+
+<p>“I was sixteen, and I was all alone in the
+world. I had a room to myself, and I worked
+days in a toy-shop. I used to dress the dolls, and
+I got very clever at mending them; but I hadn’t
+thought of the hospital, then.</p>
+
+<p>“I lived in the same street with Jacopo, and I
+grew very fond of the little lady, as the people
+in the street used to call Jane. Sometimes I
+coaxed Jacopo to let her stay with me at night;
+but after three or four times, he would not let her
+come again. I suppose he thought she would get
+too fond of me.</p>
+
+<p>“Things went on that way for two years; then
+one night, in the middle of the night, a boy came
+for me, and said Jacopo was dying and wanted me
+to come. I knew it was something about Jane,
+and I hurried on my clothes and went.</p>
+
+<p>“The child was asleep in one corner. She had
+been tramping all that day, as usual, and she was
+too tired out for the noise in the room to wake<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>
+her. Jacopo looked very ill, and he could hardly
+summon strength to speak to me.</p>
+
+<p>“‘The end has come sudden, Sally,’ he said,
+‘the end to a bad life. But I ain’t bad enough to
+want harm to happen to the little one when I am
+gone. There will be plenty of folks after her, for
+she’s a profitable little one to have; but if you
+want her, I’ll give her to you. You may take her
+away to-night, if you will.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘Indeed I will,’ I cried, ‘and thank you.
+While I can work, she shall never want.’</p>
+
+<p>“Jacopo had been fumbling under his pillow as
+he spoke; and when I said I would take the
+child he handed me a curious locket. Maybe you
+noticed it at her neck when she stood in the
+door?</p>
+
+<p>“He said, as nearly as I could understand, for
+it was getting hard work for him to speak, that he
+had stolen the child, but he had always kept this
+thing, which she had on her neck when he took
+her, and perhaps it would help, some day, to find
+her people.</p>
+
+<p>“So I took her home. The next morning I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>
+heard that Jacopo was dead, and the Lady Jane
+has been mine ever since.”</p>
+
+<p>“Have you always called her Lady Jane?” I
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes’m. There is a coronet on that locket she
+wears; and I know she must be some great person’s
+daughter, she is so beautiful, and seems so
+much like a real lady.”</p>
+
+<p>“And so you’ve struggled on and worked for
+her, and taken care of her for six years, now?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes’m, and I’ve thanked God every day that
+I’ve had her to take care of. You see, ma’am,
+I’m not like other people; and it was a good fortune
+I couldn’t look for to have a beautiful child
+like that given into my arms, as you might say.
+It was all the difference between being alone and
+with no one to care for, and having a home and an
+interest in life like other women.</p>
+
+<p>“I gave up working in the shop when I took
+her, for I didn’t like to leave her alone. I was a
+good workwoman, and they let me take work
+home for awhile; then I opened the hospital,
+and I’ve done very well. Lady Jane has been to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
+school, and I don’t think if her true parents met
+her, they would be ashamed of her.”</p>
+
+<p>“Do you ever think,” I said, “that they may
+meet her some time, and then you would lose her
+for ever?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, indeed, I think about that, ma’am; and I
+make her keep the locket in sight all the time, in
+hopes it might lead to something.”</p>
+
+<p>“In hopes!” I said, surprised. “You don’t
+want to part with her, do you?”</p>
+
+<p>I was sorry, instantly, that I had asked the
+question, for her poor face flushed, and the tears
+gathered in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“O ma’am,” she said, “if I stopped to think
+about myself, I suppose I should rather die than
+lose her; but I <em>don’t</em> think of any thing but her.
+And how could I want her, a lady born, and beautiful
+as any princess, to live always in a little room
+back of a dolls’ hospital? Would it be right for
+me to want it?</p>
+
+<p>“No; I think God gave her to make a few of
+my years bright; and when the time comes, she
+will go away to live her own life, and I shall live<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
+out mine, remembering that she <em>was</em> here, once;
+and harking back till I can hear the sound of her
+voice again; or looking till I see her bright head
+shine in the corner where she sits now.”</p>
+
+<p>Just then the bell rang, and other customers
+came into the hospital, and I went away, promising
+to return for Bella on the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>I walked through the streets with a sense that I
+had been talking with some one nobler than the
+rest of the world. Another than poor Sally might
+have adopted Lady Jane, perhaps, tended her,
+loved her; but who else would have been noble
+enough to love her, and yet be ready to lose her
+for ever and live on in darkness quite satisfied if
+but the little queen might come to her own again?</p>
+
+<p>I comforted Mistress Brown-Eyes with a promise
+of her “child’s” recovery, and I went to a kettle-drum
+or two in the afternoon, and dined out at
+night; but all the time, amidst whatever buzz of
+talk, I was comparing the most generous persons I
+had ever known with the poor dwarfed surgeon of
+the dolls’ hospital, and finding them all wanting.</p>
+
+<p>I went for Bella about four the next afternoon.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
+I wanted to get to the hospital late enough to see
+something of the little surgeon and her beautiful
+ward. I purchased a bunch of roses on the way,
+for I meant to please Sally by giving them to Lady
+Jane.</p>
+
+<p>I opened the door, and again, at the ringing of
+the bell, the quaint little figure of the dwarf surgeon
+started up like Jack-in-the-box.</p>
+
+<p>“Is the patient recovered?” I asked.</p>
+
+<p>“The patient is quite well;” and the surgeon
+took down pretty Bella, and proudly exhibited
+her. The white cement had done its work so perfectly
+that the slender neck showed no signs of
+ever having been broken.</p>
+
+<p>I paid the surgeon her modest fee, and then I said,
+“Here are some roses I brought for Lady Jane.”</p>
+
+<p>Sally’s plain face beamed with pleasure. “It’s
+time to stop receiving patients for to-day,” she
+said. “Won’t you walk into the sitting-room and
+give the roses to Lady Jane, yourself?”</p>
+
+<p>I was well pleased to accept the invitation. The
+sitting-room was as cosy as the hospital itself was
+barren of attraction. I really wondered at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>
+taste with which it was arranged. The hangings
+were blue, and two or three low chairs were covered
+with the same color; and there were pretty
+trifles here and there which made it seem like a
+lady’s room.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/i_68.jpg" width="600" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">My roses were received with a cry of delight.—<span class="smcap">Page <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.</span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>My roses were received with a cry of delight;
+and, while Lady Jane put them in a delicate glass,
+Sally made me sit down in the most comfortable
+chair, and then she asked her ward to sing to me.</p>
+
+<p>The girl had a wonderful voice, soft and clear
+and full.</p>
+
+<p>When she had done singing, Sally said, “I have
+thought sometimes that, if no better fortune comes,
+Lady Jane can sing herself into good luck.”</p>
+
+<p>“<em>I</em> count on something better than that,” the
+little lady cried carelessly. “When I ‘come to
+my own,’ like the princesses in all the fairy tales,
+I’ll send you my picture, Sally, and it will make
+you less trouble than I do. It won’t wear out its
+gowns, nor want all the strawberries for supper.”</p>
+
+<p>Sally didn’t answer; but two great tears gathered
+in her eyes, and rolled down her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Jane laughed—not unkindly, only child<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>ishly—and
+said, “Never mind. Don’t cry yet.
+You’ll have time enough for that when it all
+comes to pass. And you know you want it to
+happen; you always say so.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, yes, dear, I want it to happen,” Sally
+said hastily; “I couldn’t want to shut you up
+here for ever, like a flower growing in a dungeon.”</p>
+
+<p>“A pretty, blue-hung dungeon, with nice soft
+chairs,” Lady Jane said pleasantly; and then I got
+up to go.</p>
+
+<p>Had this beautiful girl any real heart behind
+her beauty? I wondered. If the time ever came
+when Sally must give her up to some brighter
+fate, would it cost the little lady herself one pang?
+Could she be wholly insensible to all the devotion
+that had been lavished on her for all these years?
+I could not tell; but she seemed to me too light a
+thing for deep loving.</p>
+
+<p>I carried Bella home to Mistress Brown-Eyes,
+who received her with great joy, and with a certain
+tender respect, such as we give to those who have
+passed through perils. I stayed in London till
+“the season” was over,—that is to say, till the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
+end of July; and then, with the last rose of summer
+in my buttonhole, I went over to the fair sea
+coast of France.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until the next May that I found myself
+in London again; and going to renew my subscription
+at Mudie’s, passed the dolls’ hospital.
+I looked up at the quaint sign, and the fancy
+seized me to go in.</p>
+
+<p>I opened the door, and promptly as ever, the
+dwarf surgeon of the dolls stood before me. It
+was nearly four o’clock, and the hospital was
+empty of customers. Nothing in it was changed
+except the face of the surgeon. Out of that
+always plain face a certain cheerful light had
+faded. It looked now like a face accustomed to
+tears. I said,—</p>
+
+<p>“Do you remember me, Dr. Sally?”</p>
+
+<p>A sort of frozen smile came to the poor trembling
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes’m. You’re the lady that brought the
+rose-buds to Lady Jane.”</p>
+
+<p>“And is she well?” I asked.</p>
+
+<p>“I <em>think</em> so, ma’am. Heaven knows I <em>hope</em> so;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
+but the old days when I <em>knew</em> are over. Won’t
+you come into the sitting-room, please?”</p>
+
+<p>I wanted nothing better for myself, and I felt
+that it might ease her sad heart to break its silence;
+so I followed her into the familiar room. It, at
+least, was unchanged. The blue hangings were
+there, and the low easy-chairs, and the pretty
+trifles; and yet, somehow, the room seemed cold,
+for the beauty which had gladdened it last year
+had gone for ever.</p>
+
+<p>“Will you tell me what happened?” I asked;
+and I know the real sympathy I felt must have
+sounded in my voice.</p>
+
+<p>“It wasn’t long after you were here,” she said,
+“a lady was driving by, and she saw my sign.
+She sent her footman to the door to see if the
+place was really what that said; and the next day
+she came in herself and brought a whole load of
+broken toys. She said she wanted these things
+put in order to take into the country, for they
+were favorite playthings of her little girl’s.</p>
+
+<p>“I turned then and looked at the child who had
+come in with her mother. I can never tell you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
+how I felt. It was as though Lady Jane had gone
+back six years. Just what my darling was when
+she came to me, this little girl was now,—the
+very same blue eyes, and bright, fair hair, and the
+pretty, pink-and-white face.</p>
+
+<p>“Just at that moment, Lady Jane came into the
+hospital, and when the lady saw her, she stood
+and gazed as if she had seen a ghost. I looked
+at the lady herself, and then I looked at Lady
+Jane, and then again at the little girl; and true
+as you live, ma’am, I knew it was Lady Jane’s
+mother and sister before ever a word was spoken.
+I felt my knees shaking under me, and I held fast
+to the counter to keep from falling. I couldn’t
+have spoken first, if my life had depended on it.</p>
+
+<p>“The lady looked, for what seemed to me a long
+time; and then she walked up to my darling and
+touched the locket that she wore on her neck.
+At last she turned to me and asked, with a little
+sternness in her gentle voice, if I would tell her
+who this girl was, and how I came by her.</p>
+
+<p>“So I told her the whole story, just as I had
+told it to you, and before I had finished, she was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>
+crying as if her heart would break. Down she
+went on her knees beside Lady Jane, and put her
+arms around her, and cried,—</p>
+
+<p>“‘O my darling, my love, I thought you were
+dead! I am your mother—oh, believe me, my
+darling! Love me a little, a little,—after all
+these years!’</p>
+
+<p>“And just as properly as if she had gone
+through it all in her mind a hundred times beforehand,
+Lady Jane answered,—</p>
+
+<p>“‘I always expected you, mamma.’</p>
+
+<p>“Somehow, the lady looked astonished. She
+grew quieter, and stood up, holding Lady Jane’s
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>“‘You expected me?’ she said, inquiringly.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Yes, you know I <em>knew</em> I had been stolen;
+and I used to think and think, and fancy how my
+true mother would look, and what my right home
+would be; and I always felt sure in my heart that
+you would come some day. I didn’t know when
+or how it would be; but I expected you.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘And when will you be ready to go with me?’
+asked the mother.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“‘When you please, mamma.’</p>
+
+<p>“The lady hesitated, and turned to me. ‘I owe
+you so much,’ she said, ‘so much that I can never
+hope to pay it; and I do not like to grieve you.
+But her father and I have been without Jane so
+long, <em>could</em> you spare her to me at once?’</p>
+
+<p>“‘That must be as you and she say, ma’am,’ I
+answered, trying as hard as I could to speak quietly.
+‘I never have wanted any thing but that
+she should be well off and happy so far, and won’t
+begin to stand in her light now.’</p>
+
+<p>“Then the lady turned to the little girl who
+had come in with her. ‘Ethel,’ she said, ‘this is
+your sister. She has been lost to us eight years,
+but we will keep her always, now.’ And then,
+with more thanks to me, she started to go away,—the
+stately, beautiful lady, with her beautiful
+girls, one on each side of her.</p>
+
+<p>“They got to the door, and suddenly my darling
+turned,—O ma’am, it’s the best thing in my
+whole life to remember that! Of her own accord
+she turned and came back to me, and said she,—</p>
+
+<p>“‘Don’t think, Sally, that I’m not sorry to say<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
+good-by. Of course I can’t be sorry to find my
+own mamma and my right home, but I’m sorry to
+leave <em>you</em>.’</p>
+
+<p>“And then she put her arms round my neck
+and kissed me just as she had done when I took
+her home that night from Jacopo’s, six years
+before; and then she went away, and the sunshine,
+it seemed to me, went out of the door
+with her, and has never come back since.”</p>
+
+<p>The poor little surgeon of the dolls stopped
+speaking, and cried very quietly, as those cry who
+are not used to have their tears wiped away, or
+their sorrows comforted.</p>
+
+<p>I wanted to say that Lady Jane seemed to me a
+heartless little piece, who cared for nothing in the
+world but herself, and wasn’t worth grieving for;
+but I felt there would be no comfort for her in
+thinking that there had never been any thing
+worth having in her life. Far better let her go on
+believing that for six years she had sheltered an
+angel at her fireside.</p>
+
+<p>At last, when I saw her tears were ceasing to
+flow, I said, “And when did you see her again?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I have never seen her since that day. I
+think she pitied me too much to come back and
+give me the sorrow of parting with her over again.
+No, I have never seen her, but her mother sent me
+five hundred pounds.”</p>
+
+<p>“And so she ought,” I said impulsively. “It
+was little enough for all you had done.”</p>
+
+<p>Surgeon Sally looked at me with wonder, not
+unmixed with reproach, in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you think I wanted <em>that</em>?” she asked. “I
+had had my pay for all I did, ten times over, in
+just having her here to look at and to love.
+No; I sent the money back, and I think it must
+be that my darling understood; for, two months
+afterwards, I received the only gift I would
+have cared to have,—her portrait. Will you
+please to look round, ma’am? It hangs behind
+you.”</p>
+
+<p>I looked round, and there she was, even lovelier
+than when I had seen her first,—a bright, smiling
+creature, silken-clad, patrician to the finger-tips.
+But it seemed to me that no heart of love looked
+out of the fair, careless face. I thought I would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>
+rather be Surgeon Sally, and know the sweetness
+of loving another better than myself.</p>
+
+<p>“She is very beautiful,” I said, as I turned
+away.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; and sometimes I almost think I feel her
+lips, her bonny bright lips, touch my face, as they
+did that last day, and hear her say, ‘Don’t think,
+Sally, that I’m not sorry.’ Oh, my lot isn’t hard,
+ma’am. I might have lived my life through and
+never have known what it was to have something
+all my own to love. God was good.</p>
+
+<p>“And after all, ma’am,” she added cheerfully,
+“there’s nothing happier in the world than to
+give all the pleasure you can to somebody.”</p>
+
+<p>And I went away, feeling that the dwarf surgeon
+of the dolls’ hospital had learned the true
+secret of life.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="PRETTY_MISS_KATE">PRETTY MISS KATE.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+<p>Everybody called her “pretty Miss Kate.”
+It was an odd title, and she had come by it
+in an odd way. A sort of half-witted nurse,
+whose one supreme merit was her faithfulness,
+had tended Squire Oswald’s baby daughter all
+through her early years; and she it was who had
+first called the girl “pretty Miss Kate.”</p>
+
+<p>It was a small neighborhood where everybody
+knew everybody else; and, by dint of much hearing
+this title, all the neighbors grew to use it.
+And, indeed, at fifteen Kate Oswald deserved it.
+She was a tall, slight girl, with a figure very graceful,
+and what people call stylish.</p>
+
+<p>She had blue eyes; not the meaningless blue of
+a French doll, but deep and lustrous, like the tender
+hue of the summer sky. She had hair like
+some Northland princess. It had not a tint of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>
+yellow in it, but it was fine and fair, and so light
+as to be noticeable anywhere. Her skin was
+exquisite, too, as skin needs must be to match
+such hair. When any color came to the cheeks
+it was never crimson, but just the faintest tint
+of the blush rose; her lips alone were of rich,
+vivid bloom. A prettier creature, truly, seldom
+crosses this planet; and the few such girls who
+have lived among us, and grown to womanhood,
+have made wild work generally, using hearts for
+playthings; and, like other children, breaking
+their toys now and then. But pretty Miss Kate
+was not at the age yet for that sort of pastime,
+and her most ardent worshipper was little Sally
+Green.</p>
+
+<p>There was a curious friendship between these
+two, if one may call that friendship which is made
+up of blind worship on one side and gentle pity
+and kindliness on the other.</p>
+
+<p>Squire Oswald owned the poor little house where
+Widow Green lived, and whenever there was an
+unusual press of work at the great house above,
+the family washing used to be sent down to Mrs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
+Green at the foot of the hill. Many an hour the
+widow worked busily, fluting the delicate ruffles
+and smoothing the soft muslins, out of which pretty
+Miss Kate used to bloom as a flower does out of its
+calyx. And on these occasions Sally used to carry
+the dainty washing home, and she nearly always
+contrived to be permitted to take it up to Miss
+Kate’s room, herself.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody thought much about little Sally Green
+any way,—least of all did any one suspect her of
+any romantic or heroic or poetical qualities. And
+yet she had them all; and if you came to a question
+of soul and mind, there was something in
+Sally which entitled her to rank with the best.
+She was a plain, dark little thing, with a stubbed,
+solid, squarely-built figure; with great black eyes,
+which nobody thought any thing about in <em>her</em>, but
+which would have been enough for the whole
+stock-in-trade of a fashionable belle; with masses
+of black hair that she did not know what to do
+with; and with a skin somewhat sallow, but
+smooth. No one ever thought how she looked,
+except, perhaps, pretty Miss Kate.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>One day, when the child brought home the
+washing, Kate had been reading aloud to a friend,
+and Sally had shown an evident inclination to linger.
+At that time Kate was not more than fourteen,
+and the interest or the admiration in Sally’s
+face struck her, and, moved by a girl’s quick impulse,
+she had said,—</p>
+
+<p>“Do you want to hear all of it, Sally? Wait,
+then, and I will read it to you.”</p>
+
+<p>The poem was Mrs. Browning’s “Romance of
+the Swan’s Nest,” and it was the first glimpse for
+Sally Green into the enchanted land of poetry
+and fiction. Before that she had admired pretty
+Miss Kate, but now the feeling grew to worship.</p>
+
+<p>Kate was not slow to perceive it, with that feminine
+instinct which somehow scents out and delights
+in the honest admiration of high or low, rich
+or poor. She grew very kind to little Sally. Many
+a book and magazine she lent the child; and now
+and then she gave her a flower, a bit of bright
+ribbon, or some little picture. To poor Sally
+Green these trifles were as the gifts of a goddess,
+and no devotee ever treasured relics from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
+the shrine of his patron saint more tenderly than
+she cherished any, even the slightest, token which
+was associated with the beautiful young lady whom
+she adored with all her faithful, reverent, imaginative
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>One June evening Sally had been working hard
+all day. She had washed dishes, run her mother’s
+errands, got supper, and now her reward was to
+come.</p>
+
+<p>“You may make yourself tidy,” her mother said,
+“and carry home that basket of Miss Kate’s things
+to Squire Oswald’s.”</p>
+
+<p>Sally flew upstairs, and brushed back her black
+locks, and tied them with a red ribbon Miss Kate
+had given her. She put on a clean dress, and a
+little straw hat that last year had been Miss Kate’s
+own; and really for such a stubbed, dark little
+thing, she looked very nicely. She was thirteen—two
+years younger than her idol—and while Miss
+Kate was tall, and looked older than her years,
+Sally looked even younger than she was. Her
+heart beat as she hurried up the hill. She thought
+of the fable of the mouse and the lion, which she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
+had read in one of the books Miss Kate had lent
+her. It made her think of herself and her idol.
+Not that Miss Kate was like a lion at all,—no, she
+was like a beautiful princess,—but she herself was
+such a poor, humble, helpless little mouse; and yet
+there might be a time, if she only watched and
+waited, when she, even she, could do pretty Miss
+Kate some good. And if the time ever came,
+wouldn’t she <em>do</em> it, just, at no matter <em>what</em> cost to
+herself? Poor little Sally! The time was on its
+way, and nearer than she thought.</p>
+
+<p>She found Miss Kate in her own pretty room,—a
+room all blue and white and silver, as befitted
+such a fair-haired beauty. The bedstead and wardrobe
+were of polished chestnut, lightly and gracefully
+carved. The carpet was pale gray, with
+impossible blue roses. The blue chintz curtains
+were looped back with silver cords; there were
+silver frames, with narrow blue edges, to the few
+graceful pictures; and on the mantel were a clock
+and vases with silver ornaments.</p>
+
+<p>Pretty Miss Kate looked as if she had been
+dressed on purpose to stay in that room. She wore<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
+a blue dress, and round her neck was a silver necklace
+which her father had brought her last year
+from far-off Genoa. Silver ornaments were in her
+little ears, and a silver clasp fastened the belt at
+her waist. She welcomed Sally with a sweet graciousness,
+a little conscious, perhaps, of the fact
+that she was Miss Oswald, and Sally was Sally
+Green; but to the child her manner, like every
+thing else about her, seemed perfection.</p>
+
+<p>“Sit down and stay a little, Sally,” she said,
+“I have something to tell you. Do you remember
+what you heard me read that first time, when your
+eyes got so big with listening, and I made you stay
+and hear it all?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, indeed,” Sally cried eagerly. “I never
+forgot any thing I ever heard you read. That first
+time it was ‘The Romance of the Swan’s Nest.’”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, you are right, and I know I was surprised
+to find how much you cared about it. I
+began to be interested in you then, for you know
+I am interested in you, don’t you, Sally?”</p>
+
+<p>Sally blushed with pleasure till her face glowed
+like the June roses in Miss Kate’s silver vases,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
+but she did not know what to say, and so, very
+wisely, she did not say any thing. Miss Kate
+went on,—</p>
+
+<p>“Well, that very same poem I am going to read,
+next Wednesday night, at the evening exercises in
+the academy. The academy hall won’t hold everybody,
+and so they are going to be admitted by
+tickets. Each of us girls has a certain number to
+give away, and I have one for you. I thought you
+would like to go and see me there among the rest
+in my white gown, and hear me read the old verses
+again.”</p>
+
+<p>You would not have believed so small a thing
+could so have moved anybody; but Sally’s face
+turned from red to white, and from white to red
+again, and her big black eyes were as full of tears
+as an April cloud is of rain-drops.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you mean it, truly?” she asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, truly, child. Here is your ticket. Why,
+don’t cry, foolish girl. It’s nothing. I wanted to
+be sure of one person there who would think I
+read well, whether any one else did or not. And
+I’ve a gown for you, too—that pink muslin,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
+don’t you know, that I wore last year? I’ve shot
+up right out of it, and it’s of no use to me, now,
+and mamma said I might give it to you. This is
+Saturday; you can get it ready by Wednesday,
+can’t you?”</p>
+
+<p>What a happy girl went home that night, just as
+the rosy June sunset was fading away, and ran,
+bright and glad and full of joyful expectation, into
+the Widow Green’s humble little house! Widow
+Green wasn’t much of a woman, in the neighbors’
+estimation. She was honest and civil, and she
+washed well; but that was all they saw in her.
+Sally saw much more. She saw a mother who
+always tried to make her happy; who shared her
+enthusiasms, or at least sympathized with them;
+who was never cross or jealous, or any thing
+but motherly. She was as pleased, now, at the
+prospect of Sally’s pleasure as Sally herself was;
+and just as proud of this attention from pretty
+Miss Kate. Together they made over the pink
+muslin dress; and when Wednesday night came
+the widow felt sure that her daughter was as well
+worth having, and as much to be proud of, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
+any other mother’s daughter that would be at
+the academy.</p>
+
+<p>“You must go very early,” she said, “to get a
+good seat; and you need not be afraid to go right
+up to the front. You’ve just as good right to
+get close up there as anybody.”</p>
+
+<p>When Sally was going out, her mother called her
+back.</p>
+
+<p>“Here, dear,” she said, “just take the shawl.
+Do it to please me, for there’s no knowing how
+cold it might be when you get out.”</p>
+
+<p>“The shawl” was an immense Rob Roy plaid,—a
+ridiculous wrap, truly, for a June night; but
+summer shawls they had none, and Sally was too
+dutiful, as well as too happy, not to want to please
+her mother even in such a trifle. How differently
+two lives would have come out if she had
+not taken it!</p>
+
+<p>She was the very first one to enter the academy.
+Dare she go and sit in the front row so
+as to be close to pretty Miss Kate? Ordinarily
+she would have shrunk into some far corner,
+for she was almost painfully shy; but now some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>thing
+outside herself seemed to urge her on. She
+would not take up much room,—this something
+whispered,—and nobody, no, nobody at all, could
+love Miss Kate better than she did. So she
+went into the very front row, close up to the
+little stage on which the young performers were
+to appear,—a veritable stage, with real foot-lights.</p>
+
+<p>Soon the people began to come in, and after a
+while the lights were turned up, and the exercises
+commenced. There were dialogues and music,
+and at last the master of ceremonies announced the
+reading of “The Romance of the Swan’s Nest,”
+by Miss Kate Oswald.</p>
+
+<p>Other people had been interested in what went
+before, no doubt; but to Sally Green the whole
+evening had been but a prelude to this one triumphant
+moment for which she waited.</p>
+
+<p>Pretty Miss Kate came forward like a little
+queen,—tall and slight, with her coronet of fair,
+braided hair, in which a shy, sweet rosebud nestled.
+She wore a dress of white muslin, as light and
+fleecy as a summer cloud, with a sash that might,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
+as far as its hue went, have been cut from the deep
+blue sky over which that summer cloud floated. A
+little bunch of flowers was on her bosom, and other
+ornament she had none. She looked like one of
+the pretty creatures, half angel and half woman of
+fashion, which some of the modern French artists
+paint.</p>
+
+<p>As she stepped forward she was greeted with a
+burst of irrepressible applause, and then the house
+was very still as she began to read. How her soft
+eyes glowed, and the blushes burned on her dainty
+cheeks, when she came to the lines:—</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">“Little Ellie in her smile<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Chooseth: ‘I will have a lover,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Riding on a steed of steeds!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">He shall love me without guile,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And to <em>him</em> I will discover<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That swan’s nest among the reeds.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">“‘And the steed shall be red-roan,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the lover shall be noble,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With an eye that takes the breath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the lute he plays upon<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall strike ladies into trouble,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As his sword strikes men to death.’”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p>
+<p>She had the whole audience for her lovers before
+she was through with the poem, and the last
+verse was followed with a perfect storm of applause.
+Was she not young and beautiful, with a
+voice as sweet as her smile? And then she was
+Squire Oswald’s daughter, and he was the great
+man of the village.</p>
+
+<p>She stepped off the stage; and then the applause
+recalled her, and she came back, pink with
+pleasure. A bow, a smile, and then a step too
+near the poorly protected foot-lights, and the
+fleecy white muslin dress was a sheet of flame.</p>
+
+<p>How Sally Green sprang over those foot-lights
+she never knew; but there she was, on the stage,
+and “the shawl” was wrapped round pretty Miss
+Kate before any one else had done any thing but
+scream. Close, close, close, Sally hugged its
+heavy woollen folds. She burned her own fingers
+to the bone; but what cared she? The time of
+the poor little mouse had come at last.</p>
+
+<p>And so pretty Miss Kate was saved, and not so
+much as a scar marred the pink and white of her
+fair girl’s face. Her arms were burned rather<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
+badly, but they would heal, and no permanent
+harm had come to her.</p>
+
+<p>Sally was burned much more severely, but she
+hardly felt the pain of it in her joy that she had
+saved her idol, for whom she would have been so
+willing even to die. They took her home very
+tenderly, and the first words she said, as they led
+her inside her mother’s door, were,—</p>
+
+<p>“Now, mother, I know what I took the shawl
+for!”</p>
+
+<p>I said how differently two lives would have
+ended if she had not taken that shawl. Pretty
+Miss Kate’s would have burned out then and
+there, no doubt; for if any one else were there
+with presence of mind enough to have saved her,
+certainly there was no other wrap there like “the
+shawl.” And then Sally might have grown up to
+the humblest kind of toil, instead of being what
+she is to-day; for Squire Oswald’s gratitude for
+his daughter’s saved life did not exhaust itself in
+words. From that moment he charged himself
+with Sally Green’s education, and gave her every
+advantage which his own daughter received.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
+And, truth to tell, Sally, with her wonderful temperament,
+the wealth of poetry and devotion and
+hero-worship that was in her, soon outstripped
+pretty Miss Kate in her progress.</p>
+
+<p>But no rivalry or jealousy ever came between
+them. As Sally had adored Kate’s loveliness, so,
+in time, Kate came to do homage to Sally’s
+genius; and the two were friends in the most
+complete sense of the word.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="A_BORROWED_ROSEBUD">A BORROWED ROSEBUD.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+<p>There was a pattering footfall on the piazza,
+and Miss Ellen Harding went to look out.
+She saw a little figure standing there, among the
+rosebuds,—not one of the neighbors’ children, but
+a bonny little lassie, with curls of spun gold, and
+great, fearless brown eyes, and cheeks and lips as
+bright as the red roses on the climbing rosebush
+beside her.</p>
+
+<p>A little morsel, not more than five years old, she
+was; with a white dress, and a broad scarlet sash,
+and a hat which she swung in her fingers by its
+scarlet strings. She looked so bright and vivid,
+and she was such an unexpected vision in that
+place, that it almost seemed as if one of the poppies
+in the yard beyond had turned into a little
+girl, and come up the steps.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Did you want me?” Miss Harding asked, going
+up to the tiny blossom of a creature.</p>
+
+<p>“No, if you please.”</p>
+
+<p>“My father, then, Dr. Harding,—were you
+sent for him?”</p>
+
+<p>The child surveyed her, as if in gentle surprise
+at so much curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>“No,” she answered, after a moment. “I am
+Rosebud; and I don’t want anybody. Jane told
+me to come here, and she would follow presently.”</p>
+
+<p>She said the words with a singular correctness
+and propriety, as if they were a lesson which she
+had been taught.</p>
+
+<p>“And who is Jane?” Miss Harding asked.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently the process of training had gone no
+further. The child looked puzzled and uncomfortable.</p>
+
+<p>“Jane?” she answered hesitatingly. “Why,
+she is Jane.”</p>
+
+<p>“Not your mamma?”</p>
+
+<p>“No,—just Jane.”</p>
+
+<p>“And what did Jane want here?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“She told me to come, and she would follow
+presently,” said the child, saying her little lesson
+over again.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently there was nothing more to be got out
+of her; but Miss Harding coaxed her to come
+into the cool parlor, and wait for Jane; and gave
+her some strawberries and cream in a gayly painted
+china saucer, that all children liked. Rosebud
+was no exception to the rest. When she had
+finished her berries, she tapped on the saucer with
+her spoon.</p>
+
+<p>“I will have it for mine, while I stay,—may
+I?” she said. “Not to take away, but just to
+call, you know.”</p>
+
+<p>“Surely,” said Miss Harding, more puzzled than
+ever. Had the sprite, then, come to stay? Were
+there, by chance, fairies after all,—and was this
+some changeling from out their ranks? She tried
+to entertain her small guest; and she found her
+quite accessible to the charms of pictures, and contented
+for an hour with a box of red and white
+chessmen. Towards night her curiosity got the
+better of her courtesy; and, looking from the
+window, she inquired,—</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“I wonder where your Jane can be?”</p>
+
+<p>“Presently; Jane said presently,” answered the
+child, with quiet composure, and returned to the
+chessmen.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Harding heard her father drive into the
+yard, and slipped out to speak to him. She told
+her story, and the doctor gave a low, soft whistle.
+It was a way he had when any thing surprised him.</p>
+
+<p>“It looks to me,” said he, “as if Jane, whoever
+she may be, intended to make us a present of Miss
+Rosebud. Well, we must make the small person
+comfortable to-night, and to-morrow we will see
+what to do with her.”</p>
+
+<p>The small person was easily made comfortable.
+She ate plenty of bread-and-milk for her supper,
+and more strawberries; and when it was over, she
+went round and stood beside the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>“I think you are a dood man,” she said, with the
+quaint gravity which characterized all her utterances.
+“I should like to sit with you.”</p>
+
+<p>The doctor lifted her to his knee, and she laid
+her little golden head against his coat. There
+was a soft place under that coat, as many a sick and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
+poor person in the town knew very well. I think
+the little golden head hit the soft place. He stroked
+the shining curls very tenderly. Then he asked,—</p>
+
+<p>“What makes you think I’m a ‘dood’ man,
+Pussy-cat?”</p>
+
+<p>“My name is not Pussy-cat,—I am Rosebud,”
+she replied gravely; “and I think you are dood
+because you look so, out of your eyes.”</p>
+
+<p>The little morsel spoke most of her words with
+singular clearness and propriety. It was only
+when a “g” came in that she substituted a “d”
+for it, and went on her way rejoicing.</p>
+
+<p>As the doctor held her, the soft place under his
+coat grew very soft indeed. A little girl had been
+his last legacy from his dying wife; and she had
+grown to be about as large as Rosebud, and then
+had gone home to her mother. It almost seemed
+to him as if she had come back again; and it was
+her head beneath which his heart was beating. He
+beckoned to his daughter.</p>
+
+<p>“Have you some of Aggie’s things?” he asked.
+“This child must be made comfortable, and she
+ought to go to bed soon.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“No,” the child said; “I’m doing to sit here till
+the moon comes. That means ‘do to bed.’”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I have them,” Miss Harding answered.</p>
+
+<p>She had loved Aggie so well, that it seemed half
+sacrilege to put her dead sister’s garments on this
+stranger child; and half it was a pleasure that
+again she had a little girl to dress and cuddle. She
+went out of the room. Soon she came running
+back, and called her father.</p>
+
+<p>“O, come here! I found this in the hall. It is
+a great basket full of all sorts of clothes, and it is
+marked ‘For Rosebud.’ See,—here is every thing
+a child needs.”</p>
+
+<p>The doctor had set the little girl down, but she
+was still clinging to his hand.</p>
+
+<p>“I think,” he said, “that Jane has been here,
+and that she does not mean to take away our Rosebud.”</p>
+
+<p>But the little one, still clinging to him, said,—</p>
+
+<p>“I think it is not ‘presently’ yet,—Jane
+wouldn’t come till ‘presently.’”</p>
+
+<p>“Do you love Jane?” the doctor asked, looking
+down at the flower-like face.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Jane is not mamma. She is only Jane,” was
+the answer.</p>
+
+<p>When the moon rose, the little girl went willingly
+to bed; and all night long Miss Ellen Harding
+held her in her arms, as she used to hold her
+little sister, before the angels took her. Since
+Aggie’s death, people said Miss Ellen had grown
+cold and stiff and silent. She felt, herself, as if
+she had been frozen; but the ice was melting, as
+she lay there, feeling the soft, round little lump of
+breathing bliss in her arms; and a tender flower
+of love was to spring up and bloom in that heart
+that had grown hard and cold.</p>
+
+<p>There was no talk of sending Rosebud away,
+though some people wondered much at the doctor,
+and even almost blamed him for keeping this child,
+of whom he knew nothing. But he wanted her,
+and Miss Ellen wanted her; and, indeed, she
+was the joy and life and blessing of the long-silent
+household.</p>
+
+<p>She was by no means a perfect child. A well-mannered
+little creature she was,—some lady had
+brought her up evidently,—but she was self<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>-willed
+and obstinate. When she had said, “I’m
+doing to do” such and such a thing, it was hard
+to move her from her purpose; unless, indeed,
+the doctor interposed, and to him she always
+yielded instantly. But, just such as she was, they
+found her altogether charming. The doctor never
+came home without something in his pocket to reward
+her search; Miss Ellen was her bond-slave;
+and Mistress Mulloney in the kitchen was ready
+to work her hands off for her.</p>
+
+<p>Often, when she had gone to bed, the doctor and
+Miss Ellen used to talk over her strange coming.</p>
+
+<p>“We shall lose her some day,” the doctor would
+say, with a sigh. “No one ever voluntarily abandoned
+such a child as that. She is only trusted to
+our protection for a little while, and presently we
+shall have to give her up.”</p>
+
+<p>“Should you be sorry, father,” Miss Ellen would
+inquire, “that we had had her at all?”</p>
+
+<p>And the doctor would answer thoughtfully
+“No, for she has made me young again. I will
+not grumble when the snows come because we
+have had summer, and know how bright it is.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But the child lived with them as if she were
+going to live with them for ever. If she had any
+memories of days before she came there, she never
+alluded to them. After the first, she never mentioned
+Jane,—she never spoke of a father or
+mother. But she was happy as the summer days
+were long,—a glad, bright, winsome creature as
+ever was the delight of any household.</p>
+
+<p>And so the days and the weeks and the months
+went on, and it was October. And one day the
+bell rang, and Mistress Mulloney went to the door,
+and in a moment came to the room where Miss
+Ellen was sitting, with Rosebud playing beside her,
+and beckoned to her mistress.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s some one asking for the child,” she said.
+“Can’t we jist hide her away? It’ll be hard for
+the doctor if she’s took.”</p>
+
+<p>“No; we must see who it is, and do what is
+right,” Miss Ellen answered; but her lips trembled
+a little. She went into the hall, and there, at
+the door, stood a woman, looking like a nursery-maid
+of the better sort.</p>
+
+<p>“I have come,” the stranger began; but Rose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>bud
+had caught the sound of her voice, and came
+on the scene like a flash of light.</p>
+
+<p>“It is ‘presently!’” she cried; “and there, oh,
+<em>there</em> is mamma!” And down the path she flew,
+and into the very arms of a lady who was waiting
+at a little distance.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Harding went down the steps. “You have
+come, I see, to claim our Rosebud, and she is only
+too ready to be claimed. I thought we had made
+her happy.”</p>
+
+<p>The child caught the slight accent of reproach
+in Miss Ellen’s voice, and turned towards her.</p>
+
+<p>“You have been dood, oh, so very, very dood!”
+she said, “but <em>this</em> is mamma.”</p>
+
+<p>“I trusted my darling to you in a very strange
+way,” the lady began, “but not, believe me, without
+knowing in whose hands I placed her. I was
+in mortal terror, then, lest she should be taken
+from me, and I dared not keep her until she had
+been legally made mine, and mine only. But you
+have made me your debtor for life, and I shall try
+to show it some day.”</p>
+
+<p>“But, at least, you will come in and wait until<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>
+my father returns. He loves Rosebud so dearly,
+that it would be a cruelty to take her away until
+he has had time to bid her good-by.”</p>
+
+<p>“You are right,” the stranger answered courteously.
+“Jane, go with the carriage to the hotel,
+and I will come or send for you when I want
+you.”</p>
+
+<p>In a few moments more the strange lady was
+seated in the doctor’s parlor. Miss Harding saw
+now where Rosebud had got her bright, wilful
+beauty.</p>
+
+<p>“I must explain,” the mother said, as she lifted
+her child upon her lap. “I am Mrs. Matthewson.
+My husband is dead, and Rosebud has a very, very
+large fortune of her own. Her uncles, who were
+to have the management of her property, by her
+father’s will, claimed her also; and I have had
+such a fight for her! They were unscrupulous
+men, and I feared to keep Rosebud with me, lest
+by some means they should get some hold on her.
+So I resolved to lend her to you for the summer;
+and, indeed, I never can reward you for all your
+care of her.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>“You
+can reward us only by not altogether taking
+her away from us. We have learned to love
+her very dearly.”</p>
+
+<p>And, after a while, the doctor came home and
+heard all the story. And it was a week before
+Mrs. Matthewson had the heart to take away the
+child she had lent them. Then it was not long
+before the doctor and Miss Ellen had to go to see
+Rosebud. And then, very soon, Mrs. Matthewson
+had to bring her back again; and, really, so much
+going back and forth was very troublesome; and
+they found it more convenient, after a while, to
+join their households.</p>
+
+<p>Before Rosebud came, the doctor had thought
+himself an old man, though he was only forty-five;
+but, as he said, Rosebud had made him young
+again; and Rosebud’s mamma found it possible to
+love him very dearly. But Miss Ellen always
+said it was Rosebud and nobody else whom her
+father married, and that he had been in love with
+the borrowed blossom from the first.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="TOMS_THANKSGIVING">TOM’S THANKSGIVING.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+<p>“It was very provoking that seamstresses and
+such people would get married, like the rest
+of the world,” Mrs. Greenough said, half in fun
+and half in earnest. Her fall sewing was just
+coming on, and here was Lizzie Brown, who had
+suited her so nicely, going off to be married; and
+she had no resource but to advertise, and take
+whomsoever she could get. No less than ten
+women had been there that day, and not one
+would answer.</p>
+
+<p>“There comes Number Eleven; you will see,”
+she cried, as the bell rang.</p>
+
+<p>Kitty Greenough looked on with interest. Indeed,
+it was her gowns, rather than her mother’s,
+that were most pressing. She was just sixteen,
+and since last winter she had shot up suddenly, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
+girls at that age so often do, and left all her clothes
+behind her.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Greenough was right,—it <em>was</em> another
+seamstress; and Bridget showed in a plain, sad-looking
+woman of about forty, with an air of intense
+respectability. Mrs. Greenough explained
+what she wanted done, and the woman said quietly
+that she was accustomed to such work,—would
+Mrs. Greenough be so kind as to look at some
+recommendations? Whereupon she handed out
+several lady-like looking notes, whose writers indorsed
+the bearer, Mrs. Margaret Graham, as faithful
+and capable, used to trimmings of all sorts, and
+quick to catch an idea.</p>
+
+<p>“Very well indeed,” Mrs. Greenough said, as
+she finished reading them; “I could ask nothing
+better. Can you be ready to come at once?”</p>
+
+<p>“To-morrow, if you wish, madam,” was the
+answer; and then Mrs. Graham went away.</p>
+
+<p>Kitty Greenough was an impulsive, imaginative
+girl; no subject was too dull or too unpromising
+for her fancy to touch it. She made a story for
+herself about every new person who came in her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>
+way. After Number Eleven had gone down the
+stairs, Kitty laughed.</p>
+
+<p>“Isn’t she a sobersides, mamma? I don’t believe
+there’ll be any frisk in my dresses at all if
+she trims them.”</p>
+
+<p>“There’ll be frisk enough in them if you wear
+them,” her mother answered, smiling at the bright,
+saucy, winsome face of her one tall daughter.</p>
+
+<p>Kitty was ready to turn the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>“What do you think she is, mamma,—wife or
+widow?” And then answering her own question:
+“I think she’s married, and he’s sick, and she has
+to take care of him. That solemn, still way she
+has comes of much staying in a sick-room. She’s
+in the habit of keeping quiet, don’t you see? I
+wish she were a little prettier; I think he would
+get well quicker.”</p>
+
+<p>“There’d be no plain, quiet people in your
+world if you made one,” her mother said, smiling;
+“but you’d make a mistake to leave them out.
+You would get tired even of the sun if it shone
+all the time.”</p>
+
+<p>The next day the new seamstress came, and a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
+thoroughly good one she proved; “better even
+than Lizzie,” Mrs. Greenough said, and this was
+high praise. She sewed steadily, and never opened
+her lips except to ask some question about her
+work. Even Kitty, who used to boast that she
+could make a dumb man talk, had not audacity
+enough to intrude on the reserve in which Mrs.
+Graham intrenched herself.</p>
+
+<p>“<em>He’s</em> worse this morning,” whispered saucy
+Kitty to her mother; “and she can do nothing but
+think about him and mind her gathers.”</p>
+
+<p>But, by the same token, “<em>he</em>” must have been
+worse every day, for during the two weeks she
+sewed there Mrs. Graham never spoke of any thing
+beyond her work.</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Greenough had paid her, the last
+night, she said,—</p>
+
+<p>“Please give me your address, Mrs. Graham, for
+I may want to find you again.”</p>
+
+<p>“17 Hudson Street, ma’am, up two flights of
+stairs; and if I’m not there Tom always is.”</p>
+
+<p>“There, didn’t I tell you?” Kitty cried exultingly,
+after the woman had gone. “Didn’t I tell<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
+you that he was sick? You see now,—‘Tom’s
+always there.’”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; but Tom may not be her husband, and I
+don’t think he is. He is much more likely to be
+her child.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mrs. Greenough, I’m astonished at you. You
+say that to be contradictious. Now, it is not
+nice to be contradictious; besides, she wouldn’t
+look so quiet and sad if Tom were only her
+boy.”</p>
+
+<p>But weeks passed on, and nothing more was
+heard of Mrs. Graham, until, at last, Thanksgiving
+Day was near at hand. Kitty was to
+have a new dress, and Mrs. Greenough, who had
+undertaken to finish it, found that she had not
+time.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, let me go for Mrs. Graham, mamma,”
+cried Kitty eagerly. “Luke can drive me down
+to Hudson Street, and then I shall see Tom.”</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Greenough laughed and consented. In a
+few minutes Luke had brought to the door the
+one-horse coupé, which had been the last year’s
+Christmas gift of Mr. Greenough to his wife, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
+in which Miss Kitty was always glad to make an
+excuse for going out.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at 17 Hudson Street, she tripped up two
+flights of stairs, and tapped on the door, on which
+was a printed card with the name of Mrs. Graham.</p>
+
+<p>A voice, with a wonderful quality of musical
+sweetness in it, answered,—</p>
+
+<p>“Please to come in; I cannot open the door.”</p>
+
+<p>If that were “he,” he had a very singular voice
+for a man.</p>
+
+<p>“I guess mamma was right after all,” thought
+wilful Kitty. “It’s rather curious how often
+mamma <em>is</em> right, when I come to think of it.”</p>
+
+<p>She opened the door, and saw, not Mrs. Graham’s
+husband, nor yet her son, but a girl, whose face
+looked as if she might be about Kitty’s own age,
+whose shoulders and waist told the same story;
+but whose lower limbs seemed curiously misshapen
+and shrunken—no larger, in fact, than those of a
+mere child. The face was a pretty, winning face,
+not at all sad. Short, thick brown hair curled
+round it, and big brown eyes, full of good-humor,
+met Kitty’s curious glance.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“<em>I</em> am Tom,” the same musical voice—which
+made Kitty think of a bird’s warble—said, in a
+tone of explanation. “I can’t get up to open the
+door because, don’t you see, I can’t walk.”</p>
+
+<p>“And why—what—Tom”—</p>
+
+<p>Kitty struggled desperately with the question she
+had begun to ask, and Tom kindly helped her out.</p>
+
+<p>“Why am I Tom, do you mean, when it’s a
+boy’s name; or why can’t I walk? I’m Tom
+because my father called me Tomasina, after his
+mother, and we can’t afford such long names in this
+house; and I can’t walk because I pulled a kettle
+of boiling water over on myself when I was six
+years old, and the only wonder is that I’m alive at
+all. I was left, you see, in a room by myself,
+while mother was busy somewhere else, and when
+she heard me scream, and came to me, she pulled
+me out from under the kettle, and saved the upper
+half of me all right.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, how dreadful!” Kitty cried, with the
+quick tears rushing to her eyes. “It must have
+almost killed your mother.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; that’s what makes her so still and sober.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>
+She never laughs, but she never frets either; and
+oh, how good she is to me!”</p>
+
+<p>Kitty glanced around the room, which seemed
+to her so bare. It was spotlessly clean, and Tom’s
+chair was soft and comfortable—as indeed a chair
+ought to be which must be sat in from morning till
+night. Opposite to it were a few pictures on
+the wall,—engravings taken from books and
+magazines, and given, probably, to Mrs. Graham
+by some of her lady customers. Within
+easy reach was a little stand, on which stood a
+rose-bush in a pot, and a basket full of bright-colored
+worsteds, while a book or two lay beside
+them.</p>
+
+<p>“And do you never go out?” cried Kitty, forgetting
+her errand in her sympathy—forgetting,
+too, that Luke and his impatient horse were waiting
+below.</p>
+
+<p>“Not lately. Mother used to take me down into
+the street sometimes; but I’ve grown too heavy
+for her now, and she can’t. But I’m not very dull,
+even when she’s gone. You wouldn’t guess how
+many things I see from my window; and then I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>
+make worsted mats and tidies, and mother sells
+them; and then I sing.”</p>
+
+<p>Kitty stepped to the window to see what range
+of vision it offered, and her eye fell on Luke.
+She recalled her business.</p>
+
+<p>“I came to see if I could get your mother to sew
+two or three days for me this week.”</p>
+
+<p>Tom was alert and business-like at once.</p>
+
+<p>“Let me see,” she said, “to-day is Tuesday;”
+and she drew toward her a little book, and looked
+it over. “To-morrow is engaged, but you could
+have Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, if you
+want so much. Please write your name against
+them.”</p>
+
+<p>Kitty pulled off her pretty gray glove, and wrote
+her name and address with the little toy-pencil at
+the end of her chatelaine; and then she turned to
+go, but it was Tom’s turn to question.</p>
+
+<p>“Please,” said the sweet, fresh voice, which
+seemed so like the clear carol of a bird, “would
+you mind telling me how old you are? I’m sixteen
+myself.”</p>
+
+<p>“And so am I sixteen,” said Kitty.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“And you have a father and mother both,
+haven’t you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, indeed,” said Kitty.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I’ve only mother, but she is good as two.
+Must you go now? And I wonder if I shall ever
+see you again?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, you <em>will</em> see me again,” answered Kitty
+cheerily; and then, moved by a sudden impulse
+of her kind, frank young heart, she bent over and
+touched her lips to the bright, bonny face of the
+poor girl who must sit prisoner there for ever, and
+yet who kept this bright cheerfulness all the time.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh mamma, I’ve had a lesson,” cried Kitty,
+bursting into her mother’s room like a fresh wind,
+“and Tom has taught it to me; and he isn’t <em>he</em>
+at all—she’s a girl just my age, and she can’t
+walk—not a step since she was six years old.”</p>
+
+<p>And then Kitty told all the sad, tender little
+story, and got to crying over it herself, and made
+her mother cry, too, before she was through.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner she sat half the evening in a brown
+study. Finally she came out of it, and began
+talking in her usual impulsive manner.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Can’t we have them here to Thanksgiving,
+mamma? There’s not a single pretty thing in
+that house except Tom herself, and the rose-bush;
+and every thing did look so bare and clean
+and poverty-stricken; and I know they’ll never
+afford a good dinner in the world. Oh, say yes,
+mamma, dear! I know you’ll say yes, <em>because</em>
+you’re such a dear, and you love to make every
+one happy.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; but, first of all, I must love to make
+papa happy, must I not? You know he never
+wants any company on Thanksgiving but grandpa
+and grandma and Uncle John. I’m sure you
+would not like to spoil papa’s old-fashioned
+Thanksgiving Day.”</p>
+
+<p>Kitty’s countenance fell. She saw the justice
+of her mother’s remark, and there was no more to
+be said. She sat thinking over her disappointment
+in a silence which her mother was the one to
+break.</p>
+
+<p>“But I’ve thought of a better thing, Puss,”
+said this wise mamma, who was herself every bit
+as tender of heart as Kitty, and cared just as much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>
+about making people happy. “No doubt Mrs.
+Graham and Tom would just as much prefer being
+alone together as papa prefers to be alone with his
+family; and how will it suit you if I have a nice
+dinner prepared for them, and let you go and take
+it to them in the coupé? Mrs. Graham is hardly
+the woman one could take such a liberty with;
+but I’ll beg her to let you have the pleasure of
+sending dinner to Tom.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, you darling!” and Mrs. Greenough’s neck-ruffle
+suffered, and her hair was in danger, as was
+apt to be the case when Kitty was overcome with
+emotion, which could only find vent in a rapturous
+squeeze.</p>
+
+<p>Before bed-time Kitty had it all planned out.
+She was to go in the coupé and take Bridget and
+the basket. Bridget was to mount guard by the
+horse’s head while Luke went upstairs with Kitty
+and brought down Tom for a drive; and while
+they were gone Bridget would take the basket in,
+and see that every thing was right, and then go
+home.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Greenough consented to it all. I think<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>
+she enjoyed the prospect of Tom’s ride, herself,
+just as much as Kitty did. While Mrs. Graham
+was sewing there she made the arrangement with
+her, approaching the subject so delicately that the
+most sensitive of women could not be hurt, and
+putting the acceptance of both drive and dinner in
+the light of a personal favor to Kitty, who had
+taken such a fancy to Tom.</p>
+
+<p>The last afternoon of Mrs. Graham’s stay Kitty
+called her mother into her room. Mrs. Greenough
+saw spread out upon the bed a thick, warm, soft
+jacket, a woollen dress, a last year’s hat.</p>
+
+<p>“You know them by sight, don’t you, mother
+mine? They are the last winter’s clothes that I
+grew away from, and have taken leave of. May
+Tom have them?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, indeed, if you’ll undertake to give them
+to Tom’s mother.”</p>
+
+<p>Kitty had seldom undertaken a more embarrassing
+task. She stole into the sewing-room with
+the things in her arms.</p>
+
+<p>“You’ll be sure, won’t you, Mrs. Graham, not
+to let Tom know she’s going to ride until I get<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>
+there, because I want to see how surprised she’ll
+look?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I’ll be sure, never fear.”</p>
+
+<p>“And, Mrs. Graham, here are my coat and hat
+and dress that I wore last year, and I’ve grown
+away from them. Would you mind letting Tom
+wear them?”</p>
+
+<p>“Would I mind?” A swift, hot rush of tears
+filled Mrs. Graham’s eyes, which presently she
+wiped away, and somehow then the eyes looked
+gladder than Kitty had ever seen them before. “Do
+you think I am so weakly, wickedly proud as to be
+hurt because you take an interest in my poor girl,
+and want to put a little happiness into her life,—that
+still, sad life which she bears so patiently?
+God bless you, Miss Kitty! and if He doesn’t, it
+won’t be because I shall get tired of asking Him.”</p>
+
+<p>“And you’ll not let her see the hat and jacket
+till I come, for fear she’ll think something?”</p>
+
+<p>At last Mrs. Graham smiled—an actual smile.</p>
+
+<p>“How you do think of every thing! No, I’ll
+keep the hat and jacket out of sight, and I’ll have
+the dress on her, all ready.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When Thanksgiving came Kitty scarcely remembered
+to put on the new fineries that Mrs.
+Graham had finished with such loving care;
+scarcely gave a thought to the family festivities at
+home, so eager was she about Tom’s Thanksgiving.
+She was to go to Hudson Street just at
+noon, so that Tom might have the benefit of the
+utmost warmth of which the chill November day
+was capable.</p>
+
+<p>First she saw the dinner packed. There was a
+turkey, and cranberry-sauce, and mince-pie, and
+plum-pudding, and a great cake full of plums, too,
+and fruit and nuts, and then Mr. Greenough, who
+had heard about the dinner with real interest,
+brought out a bottle of particularly nice sherry,
+and said to his wife,—</p>
+
+<p>“Put that in also. It will do those frozen-up
+souls good, once in the year.”</p>
+
+<p>At last impatient Kitty was off. Bridget and
+the basket filled all the spare space in the coupé,
+and when they reached Hudson Street, Luke took
+the dinner and followed Kitty upstairs, while
+Bridget stood by the horse’s head, according to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
+the programme. He set the basket down in the
+hall, where no one would be likely to notice it in
+opening the door, and then he stood out of sight
+himself, while Kitty went in.</p>
+
+<p>There was Tom, in the warm crimson thibet,—a
+proud, happy-looking Tom as you could find in
+Boston that Thanksgiving Day.</p>
+
+<p>“I have come to take you to ride,” cried eager
+Kitty. “Will you go?”</p>
+
+<p>It was worth ten ordinary Thanksgivings to see
+the look on Tom’s face,—the joy and wonder, and
+then the doubt, as the breathless question came,—</p>
+
+<p>“How <em>will</em> I get downstairs?”</p>
+
+<p>And then Luke was called in, and that mystery
+was solved. And then out of a closet came the
+warm jacket, and the hat, with its gay feather;
+and there were tears in Tom’s eyes, and smiles
+round her lips, and she tried to say something, and
+broke down utterly. And then big, strong Luke
+took her up as if she were a baby and marched
+downstairs with her, while she heard Kitty say,—but
+it all seemed to her like a dream, and Kitty’s
+voice like a voice in a dream,—</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“I’m sorry there’s nothing pretty to see at this
+time of year. It was so lovely out-doors six weeks
+ago.”</p>
+
+<p>Through Beach Street they went, and then
+through Boylston, and the Common was beside
+them, with its tree-boughs traced against the November
+sky, and the sun shone on the Frog Pond,
+and the dome of the State House glittered goldenly,
+and there were merry people walking about
+everywhere, with their Thanksgiving faces on;
+and at last Tom breathed a long, deep breath
+which was almost a sob, and cried,—</p>
+
+<p>“Did <em>you</em> think there was nothing pretty to see
+to-day—<em>this</em> day? Why, I didn’t know there
+was such a world!”</p>
+
+<p>The clocks had struck twelve when they left
+Hudson Street; the bells were ringing for one
+when they entered it again. Bridget was gone,
+but a good-natured boy stood by the horse’s head,
+and Kitty ran lightly upstairs, followed by Luke,
+with Tom in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>Kitty threw open the door, and there was a
+table spread with as good a Thanksgiving din<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>ner
+as the heart could desire, with Tom’s chair
+drawn up beside it. Luke set his light burden
+down.</p>
+
+<p>Kitty waited to hear neither thanks nor exclamations.
+She saw Tom’s brown eyes as they
+rested on the table, and that was enough. She
+bent for one moment over the bright face,—the
+cheeks which the out-door air had painted red as
+the rose that had just opened in honor of the day,—and
+left on the young, sweet, wistful lips a kiss,
+and then went silently down the stairs, leaving
+Tom and Tom’s mother to their Thanksgiving.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="FINDING_JACK">FINDING JACK.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+<p>Conn turned over and rubbed her sleepy blue
+eyes. It seemed to her that the world was
+coming to an end all at once, there was such a
+Babel of noise about her. What was it? Had
+everybody gone mad? Then her wits began to
+wake up. She remembered that it was Fourth of
+July. That worst noise of all—why, that must
+be Jack’s pistol, which he had been saving up
+money to buy all winter and all summer. And
+that other sound—that must be torpedoes; and
+there was the old dog, Hero, barking at them, and
+no wonder: it was enough to make any respectable
+dog bark. Fire-crackers—ugh! Wasn’t the
+pistol bad enough, without all these side shows?
+Just then Jack called out from the yard below,—</p>
+
+<p>“Conn! Conn!”</p>
+
+<p>The girl’s name was Constantia Richmond; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>
+she was too slight and bonny for such a long name,
+and everybody called her Conn.</p>
+
+<p>She shook back her fair, soft curls, as golden as
+a baby’s still, though Conn was fourteen, and,
+putting a little shawl over her shoulders, peeped
+out of the open window—as pretty a little slip of
+a girl as you would care to see—and looked down
+on the face, half-boyish, half-manly, which was upturned
+to her. If Jack had been her brother, perhaps
+she would have scolded at him; for Conn
+loved her morning nap, and the general din had
+discomposed her, no doubt. But Jack was only
+her cousin, and her second cousin, at that,—and
+it’s curious what a difference that does make.
+Your brother’s your brother all the days of his
+life; but your cousin is another affair, and far less
+certain. So Conn said, quite gently,—</p>
+
+<p>“What is it? Can I do any thing? But I’m
+sure I don’t want to help you make any more
+noise. This has been—oh, really dreadful!”</p>
+
+<p>She spoke with a droll little fine-lady air, and
+put her pretty little fingers to her pretty little
+ears. And Jack laughed; he had not begun to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>
+think of her yet as a charming girl,—she was
+just Cousin Conn.</p>
+
+<p>“What!” he cried. “Not like noise on Fourth
+of July? Why, you don’t deserve to have a
+country.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m sure I wish I hadn’t,” said Conn, with a
+little dash of spirit.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you dressed?” cried the boy, nearly
+seventeen years old, but all a boy still.</p>
+
+<p>“No.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, just hurry, then, and come down. I’m
+off in half an hour with the Brighton Blues, and I
+want you to see first how this pistol works.”</p>
+
+<p>High honor this, that she, a girl, should be invited
+to inspect the wonderful pistol!</p>
+
+<p>Conn began to dress hurriedly. What should
+she put on? Her white dress hung in the closet,—such
+a white dress as girls wore then,—all
+delicate ruffles, and with a blue ribbon sash, as
+dainty-fine as possible. She knew that was meant
+for afternoon, when Aunt Sarah would have company.
+But might she not put it on now? Perhaps
+Jack wouldn’t be here then, and she could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
+be careful. So she slipped into the dainty gown,
+and fastened hooks and buttons in nervous haste,
+and then looked in the glass, as every other girl
+that ever lived would have done in her place.</p>
+
+<p>It was a bright, fair face that she saw there—all
+pink and white, and with those violet eyes over
+which the long lashes drooped, and that soft, bright
+hair that lay in little rings and ripples round her
+white forehead, and hung a wavy mass down to
+the slender waist which the blue ribbon girdled.
+Conn was pleased, no doubt, with the sight she
+saw in the mirror,—how could she help being?
+She tripped downstairs, and out of the door.
+Jack whistled when he saw her.</p>
+
+<p>“What! all your fineries on at this time of
+day? What do you think Mother Sarah will say
+to that?”</p>
+
+<p>The pretty pink flush deepened in the girl’s
+cheeks, and she answered him almost as if she
+thought she had done something wrong,—</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll be so careful, Jack. I won’t spoil it. By
+and by you’ll be gone; and I wanted to look nice
+when I saw the new pistol.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This seemed extremely natural to Jack. The
+pistol was to him a matter of such moment that
+no amount of demonstration in its honor would
+have seemed too great. Viewed in this light, it
+really appeared quite a meritorious act that Conn
+should have put on the white dress; and he looked
+her over with that air of half-patronizing approval
+with which boys are apt to regard the good looks
+of their sisters and their cousins.</p>
+
+<p>Then he exhibited the pistol. It had—as a
+boy’s knife or gun or boat always has—distinguishing
+and individual merits of its own. No
+other pistol, though it were run in the same mould,
+could quite compare with it, and it was by some
+sort of wonderful chance that he had become its
+possessor. Conn wondered and admired with him
+to his heart’s content. Then came breakfast, and
+then the marching of the Brighton Blues. This
+was a company of boys in blue uniforms,—handsome,
+healthy, wide-awake boys from fourteen to
+seventeen years old,—every one of them the pride
+of mothers and sisters and cousins. They were
+to march into Boston, and parade the streets, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>
+dine at a restaurant, and see the fireworks in the
+evening, and I don’t know what other wonderful
+things.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/i_128.jpg" width="600" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">Conn stood and watched them.—<span class="smcap">Page <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Jack was in the highest spirits. He was sure
+he and his pistol were a necessary part of the day;
+and he sincerely pitied Conn, because she was a
+girl and must stay at home.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“‘<i>Bang, whang, whang</i> goes the drum, <i>tootle-te-tootle</i> the fife;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh! a day in the city square, there is no such pleasure in life!’”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>he quoted; and then he called back to her from
+the gate,—</p>
+
+<p>“It’s too bad, Conn, that there’s no fun for
+you; but keep your courage up, and I’ll bring you
+something.”</p>
+
+<p>And so they marched away, in the gay, glad
+morning sunshine, following their band of music,—a
+boy’s band that was, too.</p>
+
+<p>Conn stood and watched them, with a wistful,
+longing look in her great violet eyes, and the soft,
+bright color coming and going on her girlish cheeks.
+At last she gathered a bunch of late red roses, and
+put them in her bosom and went into the house.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
+She sewed a little, and then she tossed her work
+aside, for who cares to work on holidays? Then
+she took up her new book; but the tale it told
+seemed dull and cold beside the warm throbbing
+life of which the outside world was full. She
+wished over and over that she were a boy, that she
+might have marched away with the rest. Then
+she wondered if she could not go into town and
+see them from somewhere in all their glory. Very
+little idea had she of a Boston crowd on Fourth of
+July. She had been into town often enough, with
+her aunt or her uncle, and walked through the
+quiet streets; and she thought she should have
+little trouble in doing the same now. She looked
+in her purse; she had not much money, but enough
+so that she could ride if she got tired, and she
+would be sure to save some to come home. She
+called her Aunt Sarah’s one servant, and made her
+promise to keep the secret as long as she could, and
+then tell Aunt Sarah that she had gone to Boston
+to find Jack and see him march with the rest.</p>
+
+<p>The girl was a good-natured creature, not bright
+enough to know that it was her duty to interfere,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
+and easily persuaded by Conn’s entreaties and the
+bit of blue ribbon with which they were enforced.</p>
+
+<p>And so Conn started off, as the boys had done
+before her, and went on her way. But she had no
+gay music to which to march, and for company
+she had only her own thoughts, her own hopes.
+Still she marched bravely on.</p>
+
+<p>There were plenty of other people going the
+same way; indeed it seemed to Conn as if everybody
+must be going into Boston. Excitement upheld
+her, and she trudged along, mile after mile,
+across the pleasant mill-dam, and at last she
+reached Beacon Street. Her head had begun to
+throb horribly by the time she got into town. It
+seemed to her that all the world was whirling
+round and round, and she with it. But she could
+not turn back then; indeed, she did not know
+how to find any conveyance, and she knew her
+feet would not carry her much farther. Surely,
+she <em>must</em> see Jack soon. He had said they should
+march through Beacon Street. She would ask
+some one. She had an idea that every one must
+know about any thing so important as the Brighton<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
+Blues. At last she got courage to speak to a kind-looking
+servant-maid in the midst of a group on
+the steps of one of the Beacon-street houses. The
+girl pitied her white face, so pale now, with all
+the pretty pink roses faded from the tired young
+cheeks, and answered kindly.</p>
+
+<p>She did not know about the Brighton Blues, but
+she guessed all the companies had been by there, or
+would come. Wouldn’t the young lady sit down
+with them on the steps, and rest, and wait a little?</p>
+
+<p>And “the young lady” sat down. What could
+she do else, with the whole world whirling, whirling,
+and her feet so strangely determined to whirl
+out from under her? And then it grew dark,
+and when it came light again there was a wet cloth
+on her hair, and she lay on a lounge in a cool basement,
+and the kind girl who had cared for her told
+her that she had fainted. And then she had some
+food and grew refreshed a little, but was strangely
+confused yet, and with only one thought, to which
+she held with all the strength of her will,—that
+she had come to see Jack and must look for him
+till he came. So on the steps she stationed herself,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>
+and the crowd surged by. Military companies,
+grown-up ones, came and went with glitter of
+brave uniforms and joyful clamor of music, and
+Conn watched, with all her soul in her eyes, but
+still no Jack.</p>
+
+<p>It was mid-afternoon at last when suddenly she
+saw the familiar blue, and marching down the
+street came the boyish ranks, following their own
+band—tired enough, all of them, no doubt, but
+their courage kept up by the music and the hope of
+fireworks by and by. Conn strained her eyes.
+She did not mean to speak, but after a little, when
+the face she longed for came in sight, something
+within her cried out with a sharp, despairing cry,
+“Oh, Jack, Jack!”</p>
+
+<p>And Jack heard. Those who were watching
+saw one boy break from the long blue line, and
+spring up the step where Conn sat, and seize in
+strong hands the shoulders of a girl all in white,
+her face as white as her gown, and some red roses,
+withered now, upon her breast.</p>
+
+<p>“Conn—Conn Richmond!” the boy cried,
+“what <em>does</em> this mean?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Don’t scold—oh, <em>don’t</em> scold, Jack!” said the
+pitiful, quivering lips. “I only came in to see you
+marching with the rest, and—I’m tired.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” said the girl who had befriended her,
+“and she fainted clean away, and she’s more dead
+than alive now; and if you’ve a heart in your bosom,
+you’ll let your play soldiering go, and take
+care of <em>her</em>.”</p>
+
+<p>And just then Jack realized, boy as he was, that
+he <em>had</em> a heart in his bosom, and that his Cousin
+Conn was the dearest and nearest thing to that
+heart in the whole world. But he did not tell her
+so till long years afterwards. Just now his chief
+interest was to get her home. No more marching
+for him; and what were fireworks, or the supper
+the boys were to take together, in comparison with
+this girl, who had cared so much to see him in his
+holiday glory?</p>
+
+<p>He took her to an omnibus, which ran in those
+days to Brighton, and by tea-time he had got her
+home. He found his mother frightened and helpless,
+and too glad to get Conn back to think of
+scolding.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="tight" />
+
+<p>It was six years after that, that in the battle of
+Malvern Hill, July 1, 1862, Jack, a real soldier
+then, and no longer a boy playing at the mimicry
+of war, was wounded; and next day the news
+came to the quiet Brighton home.</p>
+
+<p>Conn had grown to be a young lady in the sweet
+grace of her twenty summers, and she was her Aunt
+Sarah’s help and comfort. To these two women
+came the news of Jack’s peril. The mother cried
+a little helplessly; but there were no tears in
+Conn’s eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“Aunt Sarah,” she said quietly, “I am going to
+find Jack.”</p>
+
+<p>And that day she was off for the Peninsula. It
+was the Fourth of July when she reached the hospital
+in which her Cousin Jack had been placed.
+She asked about him, trembling; but the news,
+which reassured her, was favorable. He was
+wounded, but not dangerously. It was a girlish
+instinct, which every girl will understand, that
+made Conn put on a fresh white gown before she
+used the permission she had received to enter the
+hospital. She remembered—would Jack remem<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>ber
+also?—that other Fourth of July on which
+they had found each other, six years before. As
+if nothing should be wanting of the old attire,
+she met, as she passed along the street, a boy
+with flowers to sell,—for the flowers bloomed,
+just as the careless birds sang, even amid the
+horrors of those dreadful days,—and bought of
+him a bunch of late red roses, and fastened
+them, as she had done that other day, upon her
+breast.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was low when she entered the hospital,
+and its last rays kindled the hair, golden still as in
+the years long past, till it looked like a saint’s aureole
+about her fair and tender face. She walked
+on among the suffering, until, at last, before she
+knew that she had come near the object of her
+search, she heard her name called, just as <em>she</em> had
+called Jack’s name six years before,—</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Conn, Conn!”</p>
+
+<p>And then she sank upon her knees beside a low
+bed, and two feeble arms reached round her neck
+and drew her head down.</p>
+
+<p>“I was waiting for you, Conn. I knew you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
+would come. I lay here waiting till I should see
+you as you were that day long ago,—all in white,
+and with red roses on your breast,—my one love
+in all the world!”</p>
+
+<p>And the girl’s white face grew crimson with a
+swift, sweet joy, for never before had such words
+blessed her. She did not speak; and Jack, full of
+a man’s impatience, now that at last he had uttered
+the words left unsaid so long, held her fast, and
+whispered,—</p>
+
+<p>“Tell me, Conn, tell me that you <em>are</em> mine,
+come life or death. Surely you would not have
+sought me here if you had not meant it to be so!
+You <em>are</em> my Conn,—tell me so.”</p>
+
+<p>And I suppose Conn satisfied him, for two years
+after that she was his wife, and last night he gave
+the old pistol of that first Fourth of July to a
+young ten-year-old Jack Richmond to practise
+with for this year’s Fourth; and pretty Mother
+Conn, as fair still as in her girlhood, remonstrated,
+as gentle mothers will, with,—</p>
+
+<p>“Oh Jack, surely he is too young for such a
+dangerous plaything.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Father Jack laughed as he lifted little Conn to
+his knee, and answered,—</p>
+
+<p>“Nonsense, sweetheart. He is a soldier’s boy,
+and a little pistol-shooting won’t hurt him.”</p>
+
+<p>But how noisy it will be round that house on
+Fourth of July!</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="HER_MOTHERS_DAUGHTER">HER MOTHER’S DAUGHTER.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+<p>Syl Graham was an only child. Her name
+was Sylvia, but everybody called her Syl,
+except that sometimes, half playfully and half chidingly,
+her father called her Sylly. But that was a
+liberty no one else took,—and for which Mr. Graham
+himself was not unlikely to pay in extra indulgence.</p>
+
+<p>Syl was seventeen, and she had never known
+any trouble in all her young, bright life. Her
+mother had died when she was two years old; and
+this, which might easily have been the greatest of
+misfortunes,—though Syl was too young to know
+it,—had been turned almost into a blessing by the
+devotion of her father’s sister, Aunt Rachel, who
+came to take care of the little one then, and had
+never left her since.</p>
+
+<p>Not the dead Mrs. Graham herself could have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
+been more motherly or more tender than Aunt
+Rachel; and the girl had grown up like a flower
+in a shaded nook, on which no rough wind had
+ever been allowed to breathe.</p>
+
+<p>And a pretty flower she was; so her father
+thought when she ran into the hall to meet him,
+as he came in from business at the close of the
+short November day.</p>
+
+<p>The last rays of daylight just bronzed her chestnut
+hair. Her face was delicately fair,—as the
+complexion that goes with such hair usually is,—colorless
+save in the lips, which seemed as much
+brighter than other lips as if they had added to
+their own color all that which was absent from the
+fair, colorless cheeks. The brown eyes were dancing
+with pleasant thoughts, the little, girlish figure
+was wonderfully graceful, and Papa Graham looked
+down at this fair, sweet maiden with a fond pride,
+which the sourest critic could hardly have had a
+heart to condemn.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you cross?” she said laughingly, as she
+helped him off with his overcoat.</p>
+
+<p>“Very,” he answered, with gravity.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“I mean are you worse than usual? Will you
+be in the best humor now or after dinner?”</p>
+
+<p>“After dinner, decidedly, if Aunt Rachel’s coffee
+is good.”</p>
+
+<p>Syl nodded her piquant little head. “I’ll wait,
+then.”</p>
+
+<p>The dinner was good enough to have tempted
+a less hungry man than Mr. Graham, and the coffee
+was perfect. Papa’s dressing-gown and slippers
+were ready, upstairs; and when he had sat down
+in the great, soft easy-chair that awaited him, and
+his daughter had settled herself on a stool at his
+feet, I think it would have been hard to find a
+more contented-looking man in all New York.</p>
+
+<p>“Now I’m very sure you are as good as such a
+bear can be,” said saucy Syl; “and now we’ll
+converse.”</p>
+
+<p>To “converse” was Syl’s pet phrase for the
+course of request, reasoning, entreaty, by which
+Papa Graham was usually brought to accede to all
+her wishes, however extravagant. He rested his
+hand now on her shining chestnut braids, and
+thought how like she was to the young wife he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
+had loved so well, and lost so early. Then he
+said teasingly,—</p>
+
+<p>“What is it, this time? A Paris doll, with a
+trunk and a bandbox; or a hand-organ?”</p>
+
+<p>“For shame, papa! The doll was four years
+ago.”</p>
+
+<p>“All the more reason it must be worn out.
+Then it’s the hand-organ. But I must draw the
+line somewhere,—you can’t have the monkey. If
+Punch and Judy would do, though?”</p>
+
+<p>“Now, Father Lucius, you know I gave up the
+hand-organ two years ago, and took a piano for
+my little upstairs room instead; and you know
+I’m seventeen. Am I likely, at this age, to want
+monkeys, Punch and Judys, and things?”</p>
+
+<p>“O, no! I forgot. Seventeen,—it must be a
+sewing-machine. You want to make all your endless
+bibs and tuckers more easily. Well, I’ll
+consent.”</p>
+
+<p>Syl blushed. It was a sore point between her
+and Aunt Rachel that she so seldom sewed for
+herself. Aunt Rachel had old-fashioned notions,
+and believed in girls that made their own pretty
+things.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Now, papa, you are not good-humored at all.
+I had better have asked you before dinner. You
+don’t even let me tell you what I want.”</p>
+
+<p>Papa sobered his face into a look of respectful
+attention, and waited silently. But now Syl was
+not quite ready to speak.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t you think pomegranate is a pretty color,
+papa?”</p>
+
+<p>“What is it like?”</p>
+
+<p>“O, it’s the deepest, richest, brightest, humanest
+red you ever saw.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, I think it must be like your lips;” and
+he drew her to him, and kissed the bright young
+mouth with a lazy content.</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps it <em>is</em> like my lips; then, surely it will
+look well <em>with</em> them.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where does this blossom of beauty grow?”</p>
+
+<p>“It grows at Stewart’s. It has been woven
+into a lovely, soft-falling silk, at four dollars a
+yard. Twenty-five yards makes a gown, and
+eight yards of velvet makes the trimming and
+the sleeveless jacket, and the velvet is six dollars
+a yard. And then there is Madame Bodin, she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
+charges like a horrid old Jew,—forty dollars just
+to look at a gown; and then there are the linings
+and buttons and things. Have you kept account,
+papa, and added it all up in your head?”</p>
+
+<p>“I think it means about two hundred dollars.
+Isn’t that what you call it, Sylly?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, if you please. It’ll be <em>worth</em> that, won’t
+it, to have your daughter look like a love, when
+all the people come on New Year’s Day?”</p>
+
+<p>“So that’s it,—that’s what this conspiracy
+against my peace and my pocket has for its object,—that
+Miss Syl Graham may sit at the receipt of
+callers on New Year’s Day, in a robe like a red,
+red rose. O Sylly, Sylly!”</p>
+
+<p>Syl pouted a little, the most becoming pout in
+the world.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I’m sure I thought you cared how I
+look. If you don’t, never mind. My old black
+silk is still very neat and decent.”</p>
+
+<p>“September, October, November,—it’s nearly
+three months old, isn’t it? What a well-behaved
+gown it must be to have kept neat and decent
+so long! And as to the other, I’ll consider,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
+and you can ask me again when I come home to-morrow.”</p>
+
+<p>Syl knew what Papa Graham’s considers meant,
+and how they always ended. She had gained her
+point, and she danced off and sang to the piano
+some old Scotch airs that her father loved, because
+Syl’s mother used to sing them; and Papa Graham
+listened dreamily to the music, while his
+thoughts went back twenty years, to the first winter
+when he brought his girl-bride home, only a
+year older, then, than Syl was now. He remembered
+how the firelight used to shine on her fair,
+upturned face, as she knelt beside him; how
+sweet her voice was; how pure and true and
+fond her innocent young heart. And now Syl
+was all he had left of her.</p>
+
+<p>Should he lose Syl herself, soon? Would some
+bold wooer come and carry her away, and leave
+him with only Aunt Rachel’s quiet figure and fading
+face beside him for the rest of his life?</p>
+
+<p>Just then Syl might have asked him not in vain
+for any thing, even to the half of his kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning Syl went into the sewing-room.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>
+A young girl just about her own age was there—altering,
+sewing, making all the foolish little fancies
+in which Syl’s heart delighted, though her
+idle fingers never wrought at them. Out of pure
+kindness of heart Syl found her way into the sewing-room
+very often when Mary Gordon was there.
+She knew her presence carried pleasure with it,
+and often she used to take some story or poem and
+read to the young listener, with the always busy
+fingers, and the gentle, grateful face.</p>
+
+<p>But to-day she found the girl’s eyes very red as
+if with long weeping. If Syl was selfish it was
+only because she never came in contact with the
+pains and needs of others. She had “fed on the
+roses and lain among the lilies of life,”—how was
+she to know the hurt of its stinging nettles? But
+she could not have been the lovesome, charming
+girl she was if she had had a nature hard and
+indifferent to the pains of others.</p>
+
+<p>To see Mary Gordon’s red eyes was enough.
+Instantly she drew the work out of the fingers
+that trembled so; and then she set herself to draw
+the secret sorrow out of the poor, trembling
+heart.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was the old story, so sadly common and yet
+so bitterly sad, of a mother wasting away and fading
+out of life, and a daughter struggling to take
+care of her, and breaking her heart because she
+could do so little.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m used to all that,” the girl said sadly,
+“and I don’t let myself cry for what I can’t help.
+But this morning I heard her say to herself, as I
+was getting every thing ready for her, ‘O, the long,
+lonesome day!’ She thought I did not hear her,
+for she never complains; but somehow it broke me
+down. I keep thinking of her, suffering and weary
+and all alone. But I can’t help that, either; and
+I must learn to be contented in thinking that I
+do my best.”</p>
+
+<p>“But can’t you stay at home with her and work
+there?” cried Syl, all eager sympathy and interest.</p>
+
+<p>“No, I can’t get work enough in that way.
+People want their altering and fixing done in their
+own houses, and plain sewing pays so poorly.
+Sometimes I’ve thought if I only had a machine,
+so I could get a great deal done, I might manage
+but to hire one would eat up all my profits.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Syl thought a little silent while; and it was a
+pretty sight to see the fair young face settle into
+such deep earnestness.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” she said at length, “at least you shall
+stay at home with her to-morrow; for all those
+ruffles can be done just as well there as here,
+and you shall carry them home with you. And
+you’d better go early this afternoon; there’ll
+be enough work to last you, and I can’t bear
+to think of her waiting for you, and wanting you,
+so many long hours. We’ll give her a little surprise.”</p>
+
+<p>Mary Gordon did not speak for a moment. I
+think she was getting her voice steady, for when
+she did begin it trembled.</p>
+
+<p>“I <em>can’t</em> thank you, Miss Syl,—it’s no use to
+try; but the strange part is how you understand
+it all, when you’ve no mother yourself.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, but you see I have papa and auntie, and I
+just know.”</p>
+
+<p>That day, after Syl and Aunt Rachel had
+lunched together, Syl said, in a coaxing little
+way she had,—</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Aunt Rachel, we never want to see the other
+half of that cold chicken again, do we?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, Syl—we”—</p>
+
+<p>“Why, auntie, no—we never want to-morrow’s
+lunch furnished coldly forth by this sad relic.
+And there’s a tumbler of jelly we don’t want,
+either—and those rolls, and,—let me see, can
+sick people eat cake?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, Syl Graham, what are you talking
+about! Who’s sick?”</p>
+
+<p>Syl grew sober.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m thinking about poor Mary Gordon’s
+mother, auntie. She’s sick, and dying by inches;
+and Mary has to leave her all alone; and I’ve
+told her she shall stay at home to-morrow and
+make my ruffles, and we’ll pay her just the same
+as if she came here. And don’t you see that we
+must give her her dinner to take home, since she
+can’t come here after it?”</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Rachel never said a word, but she got up
+and kissed Syl on each cheek. Then she brought
+a basket, and into it went the cold chicken and a
+cold tongue and jelly and buttered rolls and fruit,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
+till even Syl was satisfied; and she took the heavy
+basket and danced away with it to the sewing-room,
+with a bright light in her dear brown
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“I think you’d best go now,” she said. “I
+can’t get your mother, waiting there alone, out of
+my mind, and it’s spoiling my afternoon, don’t
+you see? And because you mustn’t come here to
+dine to-morrow, you must carry your dinner home
+with you; and Aunt Rachel put some fruit and
+some jelly in the basket that maybe your mother
+will like.”</p>
+
+<p>That night, when Mr. Lucius Graham let himself
+into the hall with his latch-key, his daughter
+heard him and went to meet him, as usual. But
+she was very silent, and he missed his teasing,
+saucy, provoking Syl.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, daughter, are you in a dream?” he
+asked once during dinner; but she only laughed
+and shook her head. She held her peace until she
+had him at her mercy, in the great easy-chair, and
+she was on the stool beside him, as her wont was.
+Then, suddenly, her question came.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Papa, do you think a pomegranate silk without
+velvet would be very bad?”</p>
+
+<p>He was inclined to tease her, and began with
+“Hideous!” but then he saw that her lips were
+fairly trembling, and her face full of eagerness,
+and forbore.</p>
+
+<p>“How did you know you were to have the silk
+at all? But you know your power over me.
+Here is your needful;” and he put into her hands
+ten bright, new twenty-dollar bills.</p>
+
+<p>“O, thank you! and <em>do</em> you think it would be
+bad without the velvet?”</p>
+
+<p>“Sylly, no; but why shouldn’t you have the
+velvet if you want it?”</p>
+
+<p>And then came the whole story of poor Mary
+Gordon, and—in such an eager tone,—</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t you see, with the money the velvet
+would cost, and a little more, I could get her the
+sewing-machine; and Madame Bodin wouldn’t
+ask so much to make the dress if it is plainer?”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Graham was a rich man, and his first
+thought was to give her the money for the machine,
+and let her have her pretty dress, as she had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
+fancied it, first. But a second thought restrained
+him. She was just beginning to learn the joy and
+beauty of self-sacrifice. Should he interfere? He
+kissed her with a half-solemn tenderness, and answered
+her,—</p>
+
+<p>“You shall do precisely as you please, my dear.
+The two hundred dollars is yours. Use it <em>just</em> as
+you like. I shall never inquire into its fate again.”</p>
+
+<p>And then she went away—and was it her voice
+or that of some blessed spirit that came to him, a
+moment after, from the shadowy corner where the
+piano stood, singing an old middle-age hymn,
+about the city—</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Where all the glad life-music,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Now heard no longer here,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall come again to greet us,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As we are drawing near.”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The next day, who so busy and happy as Syl—dragging
+Aunt Rachel from one warehouse to
+another—it was in the days when sewing-machines
+were costly—till she was quite sure she
+had found just the right machine; and then or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>dering
+it sent, at three o’clock, no earlier, no later,
+to Miss Gordon, No. 2 Crescent Place.</p>
+
+<p>At a quarter before three Syl went there herself.
+The pleasure of witnessing Mary Gordon’s surprise
+was the thing she had promised herself, in lieu of
+velvet on her gown. She found the poor room
+neat and clean, and by no means without traces of
+comfort and refinement; and Mrs. Gordon was a
+sweet and gentle woman, such as Mary’s mother
+must have been to be in keeping with Mary. She
+chatted with them for a few minutes, noticing the
+invalid’s short breath and frequent cough, and
+Mary’s careful tenderness over her.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s too bad Mary can’t be at home all the
+time,” said Syl.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; but then to have her to-day is such a
+blessing. If you knew how we had enjoyed our
+day together, and our feast together, I know you
+would feel paid for any inconvenience it cost you.”</p>
+
+<p>Just then an express wagon rumbled up to the
+door and the bell rang loudly. Mary opened
+it at once, for their room was on the ground
+floor.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“A sewing-machine for Miss Gordon,” said a
+somewhat gruff voice.</p>
+
+<p>“No, that cannot be. There is some mistake,”
+said Mary’s gentle tones. And then Syl sprang
+forward, in a flutter of excitement, which would
+have been pretty to see had there been anybody
+there to notice it.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m sure it’s all right. Bring it in, please;
+and Mary, you will tell them where to put it, in
+the best light.”</p>
+
+<p>And in five minutes or less it was all in its
+place, and Mary was looking, with eyes full of
+wonder, and something else beside wonder, at
+Syl Graham.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s nothing,” said Syl hurriedly; “it’s only
+my New Year’s present to you, a little in advance
+of time.”</p>
+
+<p>She had thought she should enjoy Mary’s surprise;
+but this was something she had not looked
+for,—this utter breaking down, these great wild
+sobs, as if the girl’s heart would break. And
+when she could speak at length, she cried with a
+sort of passion,—</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“O Miss Syl, I do believe you have saved my
+mother’s life! She will get better—she must—now
+that I can stay here all the time and take
+care of her.”</p>
+
+<p>Syl was glad to get out into the street. She
+felt something in her own throat choking her.
+Just a few steps off she met Dr. Meade,—her own
+doctor, as it chanced,—and it struck her that it
+would be a good thing if he would go in to see
+Mrs. Gordon. So she asked him.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m going there,” he said. “I try to see her
+once every week.”</p>
+
+<p>“And will she live—can she?”</p>
+
+<p>The doctor answered, with half a sigh,—</p>
+
+<p>“I’m afraid not. She needs more constant care,
+and more nourishing food and other things. I
+wish I could help her more, but I can only give my
+services, and I see so many such cases.”</p>
+
+<p>“But she would take things from you, and not
+be hurt?”</p>
+
+<p>“I should <em>make</em> her if I had a full purse to go
+to.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, then, here are forty dollars for her; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
+you are to get her what she needs, and never let
+her know where it came from—will you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I will,” he answered earnestly. And
+then, after a moment, he said,—“Syl Graham,
+you are your mother’s daughter. I can say no better
+thing of you,—she was a good woman.”</p>
+
+<p>Syl had a hundred dollars left; but that
+wouldn’t compass the pomegranate silk, and Syl
+had concluded now she did not want it. She had
+had a glimpse of something better; and that hundred
+dollars would make many a sad heart glad
+before spring.</p>
+
+<p>On New Year’s Day, Papa Graham was off all
+day making calls; and the gas was already lighted
+when he went into his own house, and into his
+own drawing-room. He saw a girl there with
+bands of bright chestnut hair about her graceful
+young head; with shining eyes, and lips as bright
+as the vivid crimson roses in her braided hair, and
+in the bosom of her black silk gown. He looked
+at her with a fond pride and a fonder love; and
+then he bent to kiss her,—for the room was
+empty of guests just then. As he lifted his head<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>
+and met Aunt Rachel’s eyes, it happened that he
+said about the same words Dr. Meade had used
+before,—</p>
+
+<p>“She is her mother’s daughter; I can say of her
+no better thing.”</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="MY_QUARREL_WITH_RUTH">MY QUARREL WITH RUTH.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+<p>I suppose if I had not loved Ruth Carson so
+much my resentment against her would not
+have been so bitter. She was my first friend. She
+had no sister, neither had I; and we used to think
+that no sisters could be nearer to each other than
+we were. She had black eyes,—great, earnest,
+beautiful eyes, with pride and tenderness both in
+them; sometimes one and sometimes the other in
+the ascendant. I was yellow-haired and blue-eyed,
+but we always wanted our gowns and hats alike,
+and coaxed our mothers into indulging us. I don’t
+know whether Ruth suffered more in appearance
+when the clear dark of her face was set in my pale
+blues, or I, when her brilliant reds and orange
+turned me into a peony or a sunflower; but we
+thought little about such effects in those days. If
+Ruth got her new article of attire first, I must<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
+have one like it, whether or no; and if I was first
+favored, she followed my example.</p>
+
+<p>It was thus in every thing. We studied from
+the same text-books, keeping a nearly even pace
+Ruth was quicker than I at figures, so she helped
+me there; and my eyes were better than her near-sighted
+ones at finding towns, mountains, and
+fivers on the atlas, so we always did our “map
+questions” together. Of course our play hours
+were always passed in company, and one face was
+almost as familiar as the other in each of our
+houses. “The twins,” people used to call us, for
+fun; and if ever two girls were all and all to each
+other, we were.</p>
+
+<p>What did we quarrel about? It is a curious
+thing that I have forgotten how it began. It was
+some little difference of opinion, such as seldom
+occurred between us; and then, “what so wild as
+words are?” We said one thing after another,
+until, finally, Ruth’s black eyes flashed, and she
+cried out passionately,—</p>
+
+<p>“I just about hate you, Sue Morrison!”</p>
+
+<p>Then my temper flamed. It was a different<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>
+kind of temper from Ruth’s,—slower to take fire,
+but much more sullen and resolute. I loved her
+as I did my own life, but I hated her also, just
+then,—if you can understand that contradiction.
+I looked at her, and I remember I thought, even
+then, how handsome she was, with the red glow
+on her cheeks, and her eyes so strangely bright.
+I could have kissed her for love, or cursed her for
+hate; but the hate triumphed. Slowly I said,—</p>
+
+<p>“Very well, Ruth Carson. I shall not trouble
+you any more. I shall never speak to you again,
+until I see you lie a-dying.”</p>
+
+<p>I don’t know what made me put that last sentence
+in. I suppose I thought, even then, that I
+could not have her go out of the world, for good
+and all, without one tender word from me. When
+I spoke, Ruth turned pale, and the light died in
+her eyes. I presume she did not think I really
+meant what I said; but, at any rate, it startled her.
+She did not answer. She just looked at me a moment.
+Then she turned away, and, for the first
+time in years, she and I walked home, so far as our
+roads lay the same way, on opposite sides of the
+street.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Where is Ruth?” my mother asked, when I
+went in.</p>
+
+<p>“Gone home, I believe,” was my only answer.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to me that I could not tell even my
+mother of this estrangement, which had changed
+in a day the whole current of my life. Of course,
+as time went on, she saw that all was different
+between Ruth and me; but, finding that I did not
+voluntarily tell her any thing, she ceased even to
+mention Ruth in my presence.</p>
+
+<p>You cannot think how strange and solitary my
+new life seemed to me. For the first time since I
+could remember I felt all alone. I don’t think
+Ruth thought this unnatural state of things could
+last. The first day after our quarrel she spoke to
+me, at school, half timidly. I looked at her, and
+did not answer. She sighed, and turned away;
+and again, when school was over, each of us went
+home alone on our separate path.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes I would find a bunch of roses on my
+desk, for it was June when our quarrel took place,
+and all the roses were in bloom. Then, later, I
+would lift up the desk cover and come upon an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
+early apple or a peach; later still, a handful of
+chestnuts. I always let the roses wither without
+touching them; and the fruit I gave away, as if
+unconscious where it came from. Ruth would
+watch me and sigh; but after that first morning
+she never spoke to me. I think my rebuff then
+hurt her too much for her to be willing to risk receiving
+such another. What a strange, new, sad
+thing it was to get our lessons, as we did now, all
+alone! How the hateful figures tormented me,
+without Ruth’s quick brain to help me unravel
+them! How puzzled she looked, as I saw her holding
+the map close to her near-sighted eyes, trying
+to find the rivers and lakes and mountains all by
+herself!</p>
+
+<p>It was a curious thing that after the first two or
+three days my anger had passed away entirely. I
+held no longer the least bitterness in my heart
+toward Ruth; and yet I felt that I must keep my
+word. I looked upon my rash utterance as a vow,
+for which I had a sort of superstitious reverence.
+Then, too, there was a queer, evil kind of pride
+about me,—something that wouldn’t <em>let</em> me speak<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>
+to her when I had said I wouldn’t,—wouldn’t <em>let</em>
+me show her that I was sorry. The teacher spoke
+to me about the trouble between me and Ruth, but
+he might as well have spoken to a blank wall,—I
+did not even answer him. Whether he said any
+thing to Ruth I do not know.</p>
+
+<p>In the late fall there was a vacation, which held
+over Thanksgiving. I had an idea that my mother
+watched me curiously to see how I would pass
+those weeks without Ruth. But I was resolute to
+show no pain or loneliness. I made occupations for
+myself. I read; I worked worsted; I crocheted;
+I copied out poems in my common-place book; I
+was busy from morning till night. One thing I did
+not do,—I did not take another friend in Ruth’s
+stead. Several of the girls had shown themselves
+willing to fill the vacant place, but they soon found
+that “No admittance here” was written over the
+door. I think they tried the same experiment with
+Ruth, with the same result. At any rate, each of
+us went on our solitary way, quite alone. Ruth
+had her own pride, too, as well as I; and, after a
+little while, she would no more have spoken to me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>
+than I to her; but she could not help those great,
+dark eyes of hers resting on me sometimes with a
+wistful, inquiring look, that almost brought the
+tears to mine.</p>
+
+<p>School commenced again the first of December.
+Ruth came, the first day, in her new winter dress.
+It was a deep, rich red; and somehow she made
+me think of the spicy little red roses of Burgundy,
+that used to grow in my grandmother’s old-fashioned
+garden. My own new gown was blue. For
+the first time in years, Ruth and I were dressed
+differently. We were no longer “the twins.” I
+thought Ruth looked a little sad. She was very
+grave. I never heard her laugh in these days.
+When it rained or snowed, and we stayed at school
+through the noonings, instead of going home for
+our dinner, neither of us would join in the games
+that made the noontime merry. I suppose each
+was afraid of too directly encountering the other.</p>
+
+<p>But when the good skating came, both of us
+used to be on the pond. The whole school, teacher
+and all, would turn out on half holidays. Both
+Ruth and I were among the best skaters in school<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>
+My father had taught us, two or three winters before,
+and we had had great pride in our skill. We
+had always skated in company before; but now, as
+in every thing else we did, we kept at a distance
+from each other.</p>
+
+<p>The pond used to be a pretty sight, on those
+crisp, keen winter afternoons, all alive with boys
+and girls. A steep hill rose on one side of it,
+crowned by a pine wood, green all the winter
+through. Great fields of snow stretched far and
+away on the other side, and in the midst was the
+sheet of ice, smooth as glass. Here was a scarlet
+hood, and there a boy’s gay Scotch cap. Here
+some adventurer was cutting fantastic capers;
+there a girl was struggling with her first skates,
+and falling down at almost every step. I loved
+the pastime,—the keen, clear air, the swift motion,
+the excitement. I loved to watch Ruth, too,
+for by this time not only was all the bitterness
+gone from my heart, but the old love was welling
+up, sweet and strong, though nothing would have
+made me acknowledge it to myself. Wherever
+she moved, my far-sighted eyes followed her; and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>
+indeed, she was a pretty sight, the prettiest there,
+in her bright scarlet skating dress, and with her
+cheeks scarcely less scarlet, and her great eyes
+bright as stars.</p>
+
+<p>There came a day, at last, when we promised
+ourselves an afternoon of glorious skating. The
+ice was in excellent condition, the sky was cloudless,
+the weather cold, indeed, but not piercing,
+and the air exhilarating as wine. I ate my dinner
+hurriedly—there was no time to lose out of such
+an afternoon. I rose from the table before the
+rest, put on my warm jacket and my skating-cap,
+and was just leaving the house when my father
+called after me.</p>
+
+<p>“Be very careful of the west side of the pond,
+Sue. They have been cutting a good deal of ice
+there.”</p>
+
+<p>The whole school was out; only when I first
+got there I did not see Ruth. The teacher repeated
+to us what my father had said, but I remembered
+afterward that it was not till he had done
+speaking that Ruth came in sight, looking, in her
+bright scarlet, like some tropical bird astray under<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
+our pale northern skies. As usual she and I began
+skating at some distance from each other, but
+gradually I drew nearer and nearer to her. I had
+no reason for this. I did not mean to speak to her,
+and the pride that held me from her was as untamed
+as ever. But yet something for which I
+could not account drew me towards her.</p>
+
+<p>Did she see me, and wish to avoid me? I did
+not know; but suddenly she began to skate
+swiftly away from me, and toward the dangerous
+west side of the pond. I think I must have called,
+“Come back! come back!” but if I did, she did
+not heed or hear. She was skating on, oh, so fast!
+I looked around in despair—I was nearer to her
+than any one else was. I shouted, with all my
+might, to Mr. Hunt, the teacher. I thought I saw
+him turn at the sound of my voice, but I did not
+wait to be sure. I just skated after Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>I never can tell you about that moment. All
+the love with which I had loved her swept back
+over my heart like a great flood. Pride and bitterness,
+what did they mean? I only knew that I
+had loved Ruth Carson as I should never, never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>
+love any other friend; and that if she died I wanted
+to die too, and be friends with her again in the
+next world, if I could not here. I think I called
+to her, but the call was wasted upon the wind
+which always bore my voice the other way. So
+Ruth skated on and on, and I skated after her.
+Whether any one was coming behind me I did not
+know. I never even looked over my shoulder.
+It seemed to me that some mad wind of destiny
+was sweeping us both ahead.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly there came a plash, the scarlet cap appeared
+a moment above the ice, and then that went
+under, and there was no Ruth in sight, anywhere.
+You cannot think how calm I was. I wonder at it
+now, looking back over so many years, to that
+bright, sad, far-off winter day. I succeeded in
+checking my own headlong speed, and, drawing
+near cautiously to the spot where Ruth had gone
+down, I threw myself along the ice. It was thick
+and strong, and had been cut into squares, so it
+bore me up. I looked over the edge. Ruth was
+rising toward me. I reached down and clutched
+her, I hardly know by what. At that moment I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>
+felt my ankles grasped firmly by two strong hands,
+and then I knew that I could save Ruth. I held
+her until some one helped me to pull her out,
+and then I don’t know what came next.</p>
+
+<p>I waked up, long afterward, in my own bed, in
+my own room. I seemed to myself to have been
+quite away from this world, on some long journey.
+A consciousness of present things came back to
+me slowly. I recalled with a shudder the hard,
+sharply cut ice, the water gurgling below, and
+Ruth, <em>my</em> Ruth, with her great black eyes and her
+bright, bonny face, going down, down. I cried
+out,—</p>
+
+<p>“Ruth! Ruth! where are you?”</p>
+
+<p>And then I turned my head, and there, beside
+me, she lay, my pretty Ruth—mine again, after so
+long.</p>
+
+<p>“She clung to you so tightly we could not separate
+you,” I heard my mother say; but all my being
+was absorbed in looking at Ruth. She was
+white as death. I had said I would not speak to
+her again until I saw her lie a-dying. <em>Was</em> she
+dying now? I lifted myself on my elbow to look<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>
+at her. I held my own breath to see if any came
+from her half-parted lips; and as I looked, her
+eyes unclosed, and she put her arm up,—oh, so feebly!—and
+struggled to get it round my neck. I
+bent over her, and one moment our lips clung together,
+in such a kiss as neither of us had ever
+known before—a kiss snatched from death, and full
+of peace and pardon, and the unutterable bliss of a
+restored love. Then Ruth whispered,—</p>
+
+<p>“Sue, I have been only half a girl since I lost
+you. I would rather have died there, in the black
+water from which you saved me, than not to find
+you again.”</p>
+
+<p>“I thought you <em>were</em> dying, Ruth,” I whispered
+back, holding her close; “and if you were, I
+meant to die too. I would have gone after you
+into the water but what I would have had you
+back.”</p>
+
+<p>Then we were too weak to say any thing more.
+We just lay there, our hands clasped closely, in
+an ineffable content. Our mothers came and went
+about us; all sorts of tender cares were lavished
+on us of which we took no heed. I knew only one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
+thing,—that I had won back Ruth; Ruth knew
+only one thing,—that once more she was by my
+side.</p>
+
+<p>That was our first and our last quarrel. I think
+no hasty word was ever spoken between us afterward.
+The first one had cost us too dear.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="WAS_IT_HER_MOTHER">WAS IT HER MOTHER?</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+<p>Just a little voice, calling through the dark,
+“Mamma, O mamma!” and then a low
+sound of stifled sobbing.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Trevethick heard them both, and they
+smote him with a new sense of loss and pain. He
+had scarcely thought of his little girl since his wife
+died, five hours before,—died at the very instant
+when she was kissing him good-by, taking with her
+into the far heavens the warm breath of his human
+love. He had loved her as, perhaps, men seldom
+love, from the first hour of their first meeting.</p>
+
+<p>“There is Maud Harrison,” some one had said;
+and he had turned to look, and met the innocent
+gaze of two frank, gentle, very beautiful brown
+eyes. “Brightest eyes that ever have shone,” he
+said to himself. Their owner had other charms
+besides,—a fair and lovely face, round which the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>
+ruffled hair made a soft, bright halo; a lithe, girlish
+figure; a manner of unaffected cordiality, blent
+with a certain maidenly reserve, and which seemed
+to him perfection. He loved her, then and there.
+His wooing was short and his wedding hasty; but
+he had never repented his haste, never known an
+unhappy hour from the moment he brought his
+wife home, nine years ago, till these last few days,
+in which he had seen that no love or care of his
+could withhold her from going away from him to
+another home where he could not follow her,—the
+home where she had gone now, far beyond his search.</p>
+
+<p>She was a good little creature, and she did not
+rebel even at the summons to go out of her earthly
+Eden in search of the paradise of God. She
+longed, indeed, to live, for she so loved her own,
+and she could have resigned herself to die more
+willingly but for her husband’s uncontrollable passion
+of woe. That very day she had said to him,
+as he knelt beside her,—</p>
+
+<p>“Do not grieve so, darling! I am not going so
+far but that I shall come back to you every day.
+Something tells me that I shall be always near you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>
+and Maudie. You cannot call, or she cry, but
+that I shall hear you. I know that when she most
+needs, or you most want me, I shall be close beside
+you.”</p>
+
+<p>And with that very last kiss, when her breath
+was failing, she had whispered,—</p>
+
+<p>“I shall not go so far as you think.”</p>
+
+<p>Now when he heard the low call of his little
+Maudie and her smothered sobbing, he remembered
+the words of his dead wife. Did she, indeed,
+hear Maudie cry, and was it possibly troubling
+her? He got up and went into the little
+room where the child had slept alone ever since
+her sixth birthday, a couple of months ago. He
+bent over her low bed, and asked tenderly,—</p>
+
+<p>“What is it, darling?”</p>
+
+<p>A tiny night-gowned figure lifted itself up and
+two little arms clung round his neck.</p>
+
+<p>“Bessie put me to bed without taking me to
+mamma. Mamma did not kiss me good-night, and
+I want she should,—oh, I <em>want</em> she should! Bessie
+wouldn’t carry me to see her; and I want you to.
+Bessie said mamma never <em>would</em> kiss me again<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
+but that isn’t true, is it? You know I’ve heard
+mamma say Bessie wasn’t always ’sponsible.”</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Trevethick considered for a moment what
+he should say to his child—how he could make
+her understand the great, sad, awful, yet triumphant
+mystery which had come to pass that day
+under their roof—the great loss, and the great
+hope that hallowed it.</p>
+
+<p>She was such a mere baby it seemed hard to
+choose his words. Must he tell her that her mamma
+would never kiss her again? But how did he
+know that? When the dear Lord promised the
+“all things” to those who loved Him, did it not
+include the joining of broken threads, the up-springing
+of dead hopes, the finding one’s own
+again, somewhere? He thought it must; for
+what a word without meaning heaven would be
+to him if his own Maud were not there! He temporized
+a little.</p>
+
+<p>“She cannot kiss you now, my darling, but you
+shall kiss her.”</p>
+
+<p>So he lifted the little white figure in his arms,
+holding it close, as one who must be father and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>
+mother both together, now, and carried his little
+one across the hall to the room, where her dead
+mother lay,—oh, so fast asleep!—with a look like
+a smile frozen upon her fair, sweet face. He held
+Maudie down by the pillow on which her mother’s
+head rested, but that did not satisfy her.</p>
+
+<p>“Put me on the bed, please, papa. I get on the
+bed every night and kiss her, since she’s been ill.”</p>
+
+<p>So he let her have her will; and for a moment
+she nestled close to the still dead heart, which had
+always beaten for her so warmly. Then she lifted
+up her head.</p>
+
+<p>“Mamma is very cold,” she said, “and she does
+not stir. Can she hear what I say?”</p>
+
+<p>Again something invisible seemed to warn him
+against taking away from the child her mother.
+He answered very gently and slowly,—</p>
+
+<p>“She’s dead, my darling,—what we call dead.
+<em>I</em> do not understand it—no one understands it;
+but it comes, one day, to everybody, and it is
+God’s will. Your mamma cannot speak to us any
+more, and soon she will be gone out of our sight;
+but she truly believed that she would always be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>
+able to see your face and hear your voice, as when
+she was here.”</p>
+
+<p>“She <em>is</em> here. Won’t she be here always?” the
+little girl asked, growing cold with the shadow of
+an awful fear.</p>
+
+<p>“No, dear, she will not be here long. In a few
+days this dear white face will be put away, underneath
+the grass and the flowers; but the real
+mamma, who loves little Maudie, will not be buried
+up. She will be somewhere, I truly believe,
+where she can see and hear her little girl.”</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the child slid again from his
+arms, and nestled close against the cold breast,
+kissed the unmoving lips. Then she said,—</p>
+
+<p>“Good-by, this mamma, who can’t see; and good-night,
+other mamma, that hears Maudie.”</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Trevethick marvelled. Had he, indeed,
+succeeded in making this little creature understand;
+or had some one whom he could not see
+spoken to her words of sweet mother-wisdom?</p>
+
+<p>He carried her then, and laid her in her little
+bed, and went back to his own loneliness; but half
+an hour afterward he heard the small voice calling.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>
+“Papa, papa!” and again he went to her, and the
+little arms came up around his neck, and held him
+fast.</p>
+
+<p>“Can’t I go too, papa? If you ask God, won’t
+He let me? Because I do so love my mamma.”</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon Colonel Trevethick had felt as if
+he had nothing at all left in this world; but now
+he realized how much emptier still his home might
+be if he lost out of it this child who was so like
+her mother.</p>
+
+<p>“Mamma would not want you to come,” he
+said passionately. “<em>She</em> has all heaven, and <em>I</em>
+only you,—only you, little Maudie, in all the
+world. Mamma wants you to stay with me.”</p>
+
+<p>After that she was quite quiet; and when he
+looked in at her, an hour later, she was sound
+asleep, with one little hand like a crushed white
+rose under the red rose of her flushed cheek.</p>
+
+<p>She never asked for her mother after that night;
+but her father was sure that she never forgot her.
+She was the strangest, gravest little creature. She
+never made any noise, even at her play; and she
+never did any of the things for which her mother<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>
+had been used to reprove her. The trouble was
+that she was too perfect; there was something
+unnatural about it which frightened Colonel Trevethick.
+He would have been glad if she had been
+naughty, sometimes, like other children. He
+longed to have her tease him, to see in her some
+spirit of naughtiness or contradiction; but he saw
+none. She grew tall quite fast, but she was very
+thin,—a little white wraith of a creature, who
+looked as if she had been made out of snow, and
+might melt away as soon.</p>
+
+<p>It was a good thing for Colonel Trevethick, no
+doubt, that he had her to tend, and to be anxious
+about. It kept him from surrendering himself to
+his own grief.</p>
+
+<p>Nearly two years went on, and all the time the
+little girl grew more and more frail; until, at last,
+when she had just passed her eighth birthday, she
+was taken very ill. Her illness seemed a sort of
+low, nervous fever, and she grew daily more feeble.
+A skilful nurse came to share with Bessie
+the task of tending her, and her father was seldom
+far away. Half the day he would be sitting in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>
+her room, and half a dozen times in the night he
+would steal in to watch her breathing.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon, as he sat by her bed, she looked
+up at him with a sad, tender look, too old for her
+years,—but then all her words and ways were too
+old for her years.</p>
+
+<p>“Papa,” she said, “I would get well if I could,
+to please you. I <em>should</em> get well, I know, if I had
+mamma to nurse me. Don’t you know how she
+used, if my head ached, to put her hand on it and
+make it stop?”</p>
+
+<p>A sudden mist of tears came between his eyes
+and the little white face looking up at him. She
+had not spoken before of her mother for so many
+months, and yet how well she remembered! Instantly
+his wife’s words, that last day, came back
+to his memory. She had said, “I know that
+when Maudie needs me most, or you most want
+me, I shall be there beside you.”</p>
+
+<p><em>Was</em> she there now? Could she breathe upon
+the little wasting life some merciful dew of healing?
+or was she, perhaps, by her very love and
+longing, drawing the child home to herself?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>That night Bessie was to sit up until one
+o’clock, and then to call the nurse. As for Colonel
+Trevethick, he would be in and out, as
+usual.</p>
+
+<p>He went to bed, and fell into sleep and a dream.
+His own Maud was beside him as he saw her first,
+then as his bride, his wife, then with Baby Maudie
+on her breast; just as of old he seemed to have
+her with him again,—his pride, his darling, the
+one woman he had ever loved.</p>
+
+<p>He woke at last. Had his dream, then, lasted
+the night through? Was this red ray that touched
+his face the first hint of the rising sun? He
+sprang up quickly. The whole night had indeed
+passed, and he had not seen Maudie. He hurried
+into a dressing-gown and went to her room. He
+expected to find the nurse there, but, instead,
+Bessie sat beside the table just where he had left
+her the night before, but sound asleep. Evidently
+she must have been asleep for hours, and had not
+called the nurse, who had slept in her turn: they
+were all tired enough, Heaven knows. But, meantime,
+what of Maudie? What harm had come to
+her, alone, unattended?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He drew aside the curtain of her little bed and
+looked in. Surely this was not the Maud he had
+left the night before, so pale and worn upon her
+pillows? A face looked up at him bright as the
+new day. A soft, healthy color was in the cheeks,
+and the moist lips were crimson.</p>
+
+<p>“I knew I should be well if <em>she</em> tended me,”
+a voice cried, gayer and gladder than he had heard
+from her lips in two years.</p>
+
+<p>What <em>did</em> the child mean? Had she gone mad?
+He controlled himself, and asked,—</p>
+
+<p>“Who tended you, my child? I found Bessie
+sound asleep.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; mamma made her sleep, and you, and
+nurse. She sent all of you the dreams you like
+best; and all night long she sat here beside my
+bed, with her hand on my head, just as she used
+to put it long ago. She was all in white, and her
+hair fell about her shoulders, and her eyes were
+very, very bright, and her lips, when she kissed
+me, seemed somehow to melt away.”</p>
+
+<p>“So you, too, dreamed about mamma, darling?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, indeed, papa, I did not dream. Mamma<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>
+sat there all night long, with her hand upon my
+head. Sometimes I slept, but more often I woke
+up to look at her; and all the time she sat there,
+and did not tire, until the first sunshine came in at
+the windows; and then she kissed me and went
+away. I did not see her go. Perhaps I shut my
+eyes a moment. Then I looked and she was gone,
+and then I heard you coming in. She said she
+was with me every day, but she couldn’t have
+come to me like <em>this</em>, except because I needed her
+so very, very much. And she wanted to make me
+well, because you would grieve for me if I came
+to her; and I was to be very good, and tend you
+and make you comfortable; and I must laugh and
+must make you laugh, for laughter was good, and
+the reason I got ill was because I had been sorry
+so long, and had not laughed at all. And I was <em>not</em>
+to be sorry after <em>her</em> any more, because she was
+very happy, and nothing grieved her except when
+she saw you and me mourning for her, and
+not knowing that she was waiting close beside
+us.”</p>
+
+<p>“<em>Was</em> it her mother? Can it <em>be</em> it was the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>
+child’s mother?” the father cried, uttering his
+thought aloud unconsciously.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course it was mamma; and she has made
+me well. See if Dr. Dale does not tell you I am
+well.”</p>
+
+<p>Two hours afterward Dr. Dale came. He stood
+for a few moments beside the little bed. He
+looked in the child’s glad eyes, he counted the
+throbs of her pulse, he made her put out her
+healthy little tongue. Then he turned to her
+father.</p>
+
+<p>“Trevethick,” he said, “can you swear that this
+is the same little girl I left here last night? If the
+days of miracles were not gone by, I should say
+that one had been wrought here. I left, I thought,
+a very sick little person, about whom I was anxious
+enough, certainly, to make this my first call
+this morning; and I find my small patient so well
+that I shall only keep her in bed a day or two
+longer, for form’s sake.”</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps it <em>is</em> a miracle,” Colonel Trevethick
+said, smiling. But he did not explain. There are
+some experiences too marvellous for belief and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
+too sacred for doubt or question, and that was
+one of them.</p>
+
+<p>Two days afterward little Maudie went down to
+tea. She wore a fresh white gown, with lovely
+blue ribbons, and looked as much like a little
+angel in festal attire as a human child can be
+expected to look. But she did not take her usual
+seat. She sat down, instead, behind the tea-pot,
+where Bessie usually stood to pour out the tea.</p>
+
+<p>“Hadn’t Bessie better do that?” papa asked,
+as he saw the little hand close round the handle
+of the tea-pot.</p>
+
+<p>But Maud laughed, and shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>“No, I don’t think Bessie is ’sponsible,” she
+said; “and mamma said I was to live just on purpose
+to do every thing for papa.”</p>
+
+<p>And again Colonel Trevethick asked, but this
+time silently,—</p>
+
+<p>“Was it—<em>could</em> it have been the child’s mother?”</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_LADY_FROM_OVER_THE_WAY">THE LADY FROM OVER THE WAY.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+<p>It was the twilight of Christmas evening,—that
+twilight which always seems so early, since
+nobody is ever quite ready for it. The pale gray
+of the winter’s sky was scarcely flushed by the
+low-lying sunset clouds, though sometimes you
+could catch a gleam of their scant brightness as
+you turned westward.</p>
+
+<p>The streets of New York were crowded, as
+usual, but everybody seemed even more than
+usually in a hurry. The air was intensely cold,
+and nipped the noses of those who were late with
+their Christmas shopping; but, in spite of it, men
+and women still jostled each other upon the sidewalk,
+or stopped to look at the tempting displays
+of holiday goods in the shops. Everybody, it
+seemed, had some small person at home who must
+be made happy to-morrow.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>From the window of a large but rusty-looking
+house on one of the avenues, two children looked
+down at the throng below, as they had been looking
+all day. They were in the fourth story of the
+house, and they could not see into the street very
+distinctly, but still the movement and the bustle
+interested them, and their mother was thankful
+that they had it to watch.</p>
+
+<p>She herself was sewing, catching the last glint
+of the sunset light for her work, as she had the
+first ray of the dawning. She had been a beautiful,
+high-bred woman; indeed, she was so still,
+though there was no one to note the unconscious
+elegance of her gestures or the graceful lines of
+her curving figure and bent head. She was very
+thin now, and very poorly clad, but a stranger
+would have felt that she was a lady, and wondered
+how she came in the fourth story of this
+house,—a great house, which had been handsome,
+too, in its day, but which was now let out to innumerable
+lodgers, mostly of the decent sort of
+honest, hard-working, half-starved poor people.
+Not with such neighbors had Mrs. Vanderheyden’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>
+lot been formerly cast, nor for such uses as this
+had the old house itself been designed. It had
+been a stately mansion in its time, belonging to
+the estate of a good old Knickerbocker family,
+which was quite run out now. But there was one
+great comfort in this house: it had been so well
+built that its thick walls shut out all alien noises
+effectually, and made solitude possible even in a
+tenement house. Perhaps Mrs. Vanderheyden had
+thought of this when she chose her abode there.</p>
+
+<p>There was something in the faded grandeur of
+the old mansion that harmonized with the lingering
+grace of her own faded beauty. Its lofty
+walls were wainscoted with carved oak, almost
+black with time; and any imaginative person
+would have been likely to people it with the
+ghosts of the beautiful girls whose room no doubt
+this was in the old days. There, between those
+windows, hung, perhaps, their great, gleaming
+mirror, and into it they looked, all smiles and
+blushes and beauty, when they were ready for
+their first ball. But Mrs. Vanderheyden’s two
+little girls did not think of the other girls who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>
+might have lived there once. They were too
+young for that, and too hungry. Ethel, the elder,
+was only ten; and shy little Annie, beside her,
+scarcely seven. They saw a sight, however, from
+the window at which they stood, that interested
+them more than any vision of the past would
+have done.</p>
+
+<p>The avenue on which they lived was in a transition
+state. Trade had come into it and lodging-houses
+had vulgarized it, and yet there were some
+of the rich old residents who still clung to the
+houses in which their fathers and mothers had
+lived and died. There was one such directly opposite;
+and to look into the parlor over the way,
+and see there all the warmth and brightness and
+beauty of which they themselves were deprived,
+had been one of the chief enjoyments of the
+little Vanderheydens ever since they had been in
+the house. They were all that Mrs. Vanderheyden
+had left, these two girls. Wealth was
+gone, friends were gone, father and father’s home,
+husband and husband’s home—hope itself was
+gone; but she was not quite alone while she had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>
+these two for whom to struggle—to live or to die,
+as Heaven would. It was for their sakes that she
+had worked from dawning till nightfall, though
+she had felt all the time what seemed to her a
+mortal sickness stealing over her. Their breakfast
+and dinner had been only bread, of which she
+herself had scarcely tasted; but to-morrow would
+be Christmas, and it should go hard with her but
+she would give them better fare then. A dozen
+times during the day one or the other little voice
+had asked anxiously,—</p>
+
+<p>“Shall we surely, surely, have dinner to-morrow,
+because it is Christmas Day?”</p>
+
+<p>And she had answered,—</p>
+
+<p>“Please Heaven, you surely shall. My work is
+almost done;” and then she had stitched away
+more resolutely than ever on the child’s frock
+she was elaborately embroidering. The children
+meanwhile were feeding upon hope, and watching
+a scene in the house over the way, where, as they
+thought, all that any human creature could possibly
+hope for had already been given. Busy
+preparations had been made in that other house<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>
+for Christmas. There was a great Christmas-tree
+in one corner, all full of little tapers, and a large,
+fair, gentle-looking woman had been engaged
+much of the afternoon in arranging gifts upon
+it. Now, with the twilight, a boy and girl had
+come in and were watching the lighting up of the
+Christmas-tree.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s so good of them not to pull the curtains
+down,” Ethel said, with a sigh of delight. “It’s
+almost as good as being there—almost.”</p>
+
+<p>“I do suppose that’s the very grandest house in
+all New York,” little Annie said, in a tone of awe
+and admiration.</p>
+
+<p>“Nonsense! You only think that because you
+are so little,” answered Ethel, from the height of her
+three years more of experience. “<em>You</em> forget, but
+<em>I</em> can remember. We had a finer house ourselves,
+before poor papa died. There are plenty of them,
+only we’re so poor we don’t see them.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, it’s good to be that little girl!” cried
+Annie. “See how pretty her dress is, and how
+her hair curls; and she’ll have lots of presents
+off that Christmas-tree.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“So should we, if we had papa,” Ethel answered
+gravely. “Mamma, when we get up to
+heaven, do you think papa will know we’re his
+little girls?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m sure he will,” Mrs. Vanderheyden answered;
+and then she rose wearily. “It’s all
+done,” she said, as she shook out the lovely little
+robe into which she had wrought so many patient
+stitches. “I cannot carry it home just yet, I am
+so tired; I must lie down first; but you shall
+have a good dinner to-morrow, my darlings.”</p>
+
+<p>The children had seen her very tired before,
+and they didn’t think much about it when she
+groped her way to a bed in the corner and lay
+down, drawing the scant bed-clothes up over her.
+They stood at the window still, and watched the
+merry children opposite, until at last a servant
+came and pulled down the curtains and shut away
+from them the Christmas-tree, with all its gleaming
+lights, and the boy and girl, who were dancing round
+it to some gay tune which their mother played.</p>
+
+<p>Then Ethel and Annie began to realize that
+they were cold and hungry and the room was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>
+dark. Ethel lit a candle. The fire was nearly out,
+but she would not make another till morning.</p>
+
+<p>“I won’t wake up mamma,” she said, with the
+premature thoughtfulness that characterized her;
+“she’s so tired. We’ll just have supper, and
+then I’ll hear you say ‘Our Father,’ and we’ll
+get to bed, and in the morning it will be Christmas.”</p>
+
+<p>Some vague promise of good was in the very
+word: Ethel did not know what would come, but
+surely Christmas would not be like other days.
+“Supper” was the rest of the bread. And then
+the two little creatures knelt down together and
+said their well-known prayers, and I think “Our
+Father” heard, for their sleep was just as sweet
+as if they had been in the warm, soft nest of the
+children over the way, tucked in with eider down.
+Through the long evening hours they slept,—through
+the solemn midnight, when the clear,
+cold Christmas stars looked down, just as they
+had looked centuries ago when the King of Glory,
+Himself a little child, lay asleep in an humble
+manger in Judea. Nothing troubled their quiet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>
+slumber until the sunshine of the Christmas morning
+broke through their dingy windows, and the
+day had begun.</p>
+
+<p>“It must be ever so late,” said Ethel, rubbing
+her sleepy eyes, “and mamma isn’t awake yet.
+But she was so tired. You lie still, Annie, and
+I’ll build the fire, and when she wakes up she’ll
+find it all done.”</p>
+
+<p>Very patiently the poor little half-frozen fingers
+struggled with the scant kindlings and the coal
+that seemed determined never to light; but they
+succeeded at last, and the room began to grow a little
+warm. Then she dressed Annie, and then it began
+to seem very late indeed, and she wondered if
+mamma would never wake up. She went to the
+bedside and, bending over, kissed her mother gently,
+then started back with a sudden alarm.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, Annie, she’s so cold—almost like poor
+papa—only you can’t remember—just before they
+took him away.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, she can’t be like papa,” Annie said stoutly,
+“for he was dead, and mamma is asleep.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, she’s asleep,” said the elder sister firm<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>ly.
+“We must wait till she wakes up. We’ll
+look over the way, and then, maybe, it won’t seem
+so long.”</p>
+
+<p>But over the way was brighter than ever this
+Christmas morning. The curtains had been looped
+back once more, the table glittered with lovely
+gifts, and presently the little girl who lived there
+came to the windows. She looked up at them—they
+were sure of it; but they could not have
+guessed what she said, as she turned away, and
+spoke to her mother.</p>
+
+<p>“O mamma,” cried the sweet young voice,
+“won’t you come and see these two poor little
+girls? They stood there all day yesterday and
+last night; and now see how sad they look. I can’t
+eat my Christmas candies or play with my Christmas
+things while they look so pale and lonesome.
+Won’t you go over and see them, mamma dear?”</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Rosenburgh was a woman of warm and earnest
+sympathies when once they were aroused.
+When she was a girl she too had had quick impulses
+like her child’s; but she had grown selfish,
+perhaps, as she grew older, or maybe only careless;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>
+for the quick sympathies were there still, as you
+could see, now that her little girl had touched them.</p>
+
+<p>“To be sure I will,” she answered at once.
+“Poor little things! I wish we could make merry
+Christmas for all New York; but since we can’t,
+at least we won’t have faces white with want looking
+in at our very windows.”</p>
+
+<p>So the watching, wondering children saw the
+large, fair lady wrap herself in a heavy shawl and
+tie a hood over her head, and then come out and
+cross the street and enter their house.</p>
+
+<p>“What if she saw us, and what if she is coming
+here!” Ethel said breathlessly.</p>
+
+<p>Then they listened as if their hearts were in
+their ears. They heard feet upon the stairs and
+then a gentle tap, and the lady from over the way
+stood in their room.</p>
+
+<p>“I saw you at the window,” she said, “and came
+over to wish you a merry Christmas. How is
+this? Are you all alone?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, ma’am, mamma is in the bed there; but she
+was very tired yesterday, and she hasn’t waked
+up.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>An awful terror seized Mrs. Rosenburgh. Had
+this woman died of want and weariness, in sight of
+her own windows? She stepped to the bedside,
+and drew away the clothes gently from the face of
+the sleeper. She looked a moment on that fair,
+faded face, and then she grew white as death.</p>
+
+<p>“Children,” she asked, “what are your names?”</p>
+
+<p>“I am Ethel Vanderheyden,” the oldest girl answered,
+“and she is Annie.”</p>
+
+<p>“And your mother—was she Ethel Carlisle
+once?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, ma’am, before she married papa.”</p>
+
+<p>“And your little sister is Annie?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; she was named for mamma’s best friend,
+one she hadn’t seen for a long, long time.”</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Mrs. Rosenburgh had knelt by the
+bedside. She had lifted the low-lying head upon
+her arm, and drawn a bottle of pungent salts from
+her pocket, and she was crying as if her heart
+would break, while the children looked wondering
+on.</p>
+
+<p>“O Ethel, my own old Ethel, <em>wake</em> up!” And
+then she dropped her cheek, all wet with tears,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>
+against the white, cold cheek, that was so
+still.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, was it the warm tears, or the voice that
+sounded from far away out of the past, or only the
+strong odor that roused the poor soul from that
+long, heavy sleep of exhaustion that had so nearly
+been the sleep of death? I do not know, but I
+know the eyes did open, and beheld the tender
+face bending above them. And then, like a little
+child, the children heard their mother cry,—</p>
+
+<p>“O Annie, Annie, have I been dreaming all
+this time?”</p>
+
+<p>And then there were explanations, and the story
+of the long years since Annie Bryant and Ethel
+Carlisle were girls together was told. But the
+best of it all, the children thought, was when the
+lady from over the way took them home with her,
+and told them the boy and girl there should be
+their brother and sister, and they should live there
+henceforth; for she, who had found again her best
+friend, would never more let her struggle with
+want alone.</p>
+
+<p>And so the children had gifts and dinner, and a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>
+merry, merry Christmas in the bright, warm, crimson-hung
+room, which had seemed to them such a
+paradise of delights when they looked down into it
+from their fourth-story window through the falling
+shadows of Christmas Eve.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="HIS_MOTHERS_BOY">HIS MOTHER’S BOY.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+<p>The days were growing very dark for George
+Graham. He had not known at first what
+it meant that black specks should so dance between
+him and the page he tried to read, that
+his eyes should ache so much, that all things
+should seem so strangely dim about him. It
+would have been better, no doubt, had he stopped
+work as soon as he felt these symptoms; but how
+could he? This was his last term at school, and
+if he passed his examination creditably, especially
+if he thoroughly mastered the bookkeeping he was
+trying so hard to conquer, he was to have a place
+in Deacon Solomon Grant’s store, with wages that
+would not only take care of himself, but greatly
+help his mother.</p>
+
+<p>His mother was a widow, and George’s love for
+her was a sort of passion of devotion. When he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>
+could scarcely talk, the first two words he put
+together were, “Pretty mamma,” and ever since
+then she had been the first and fairest of created
+beings to him. He was very fond of Susie Hale,
+but Susie was only a nice girl,—a dear, sweet,
+good girl, such as any fellow would like; but his
+mother was the elect lady to whom were due his
+love, his care, his uttermost duty.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Graham was the kind of woman for a son
+to be romantic about. She was only seventeen
+when George was born; and now, when he was
+sixteen and she was thirty-three, she was, so he
+thought, more beautiful than ever. She had been
+a pretty, rather helpless little creature all her
+life,—one of those women toward whom every
+man feels the instinct of protection. George’s
+father had felt it always, and had never allowed
+care to come near his dainty darling. His one
+great agony, as he lay dying, was that he must
+leave her almost unprovided for. That was when
+George was thirteen, and the boy would never forget
+how his father had called him to his bedside,
+and charged him to take care of his mother.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“You are old enough to be her staff, even
+now,” the dying man had said, clinging to his boy’s
+hand. “You can be good to her in a thousand
+ways, save her a thousand cares, and in a few
+years more you can work for her, and keep her
+comfortably, as I have done.”</p>
+
+<p>George never forgot this trust for one moment.
+The plans he made in life were all for his mother’s
+sake—his future was to be spent in her service.
+He wanted to come out of school at the time of
+his father’s death, and try by all manner of little
+industries to help take care of the household, but
+his mother was too wise to permit this. She developed
+a strength of mind and of body for which
+no one who saw her pink-and-white prettiness,—the
+prettiness of a girl still, despite all her years
+of married life,—would have given her credit.</p>
+
+<p>She saw clearly that if her boy’s education
+stopped at thirteen, he would be held in check
+all his life by his own ignorance—he must be
+drudge always, and never master. So she made
+him go to school three years longer.</p>
+
+<p>How she lived and kept up her refined little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>
+home puzzled all lookers-on, and indeed she
+hardly knew herself. She lived simply; she was
+busy from morning till night. She sewed for one
+neighbor, she helped another through some season
+of sickness, she taught a naughty child who had
+worn out its welcome at school, but who could not
+wear out Mrs. Graham’s sweet patience,—and all
+these things helped. It is true, it was very often
+hard work to compass the simple necessaries of
+life, but she struggled on bravely.</p>
+
+<p>When George was sixteen he should come out
+of school, well trained, she hoped, for a business
+man, and then things would be so much easier.
+With this hope in view, she never repined. She
+kept her strength of soul and her sweetness of
+temper, her fresh beauty and her fresh heart.
+She kept, too, her boy’s adoration,—an adoration
+which was, as I said, the romance of his life.</p>
+
+<p>When the days began to grow so dark for
+George Graham, it was of his mother that he
+thought. So far he had no ambitions, no hopes,
+that were not centred in her. What if this growing
+shadow about him was to increase until all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>
+was dark, until dense night shut him in,—a night
+through whose blackness no star of hope could
+shine? What if he must be no help to his
+mother, but only a burden on her for ever, a burden
+lasting through heaven only knew how many
+helpless years?</p>
+
+<p>He rebelled against such a fate madly. He
+stretched out his hands toward heaven, he lifted
+the dumb prayer of his darkening eyes, but no
+help came.</p>
+
+<p>Dimmer and dimmer grew the world about
+him, more and more desperate the gloom of his
+hopeless heart. His scholarship had been so fine
+that his teacher hesitated to reprove his now continual
+failures; and George said nothing of the
+increasing darkness around him,—nothing to his
+mother, for he felt that it would break her
+heart; nothing to teacher or school-mates, for
+it seemed to him his grief would be nothing to
+them. But one afternoon the crisis came.</p>
+
+<p>His recitation had been an utter failure, and, at
+last, his teacher spoke in severe terms of the
+neglect which had become habitual. No one who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>
+was present that day—not even the smallest
+child—will ever forget the look of despair that
+swept over George Graham’s face, or the gesture
+of helpless anguish with which he stretched out
+his hands, as if to seek among them all some
+friend, as he cried,—</p>
+
+<p>“God help me, sir! I have been going blind;
+and now I cannot see one figure in my book—I
+can hardly see your face.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence after this, through which
+came no sound but the audible beating of George
+Graham’s tortured heart. Then the master sent
+away the others, for school hours were nearly
+over, and tried his best to comfort his stricken
+pupil. It might not be so bad as he feared, an
+oculist might help him, perhaps it was only
+temporary.</p>
+
+<p>To all these well-meant consolations George
+listened in a sort of dreary silence. The words of
+the teacher entered his ears, but they did not
+reach his heart or kindle his hope.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as he could, he went away. He did
+not go straight home. How could he face his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>
+mother and tell her what he <em>must</em> tell her now,—what
+she would be sure to hear from others, if not
+from him? He kept thinking how she would take
+it. Would not all the light go out of her face?
+Maybe she would faint away, as he remembered
+she had done when his father died.</p>
+
+<p>He sat down on a bank, a little removed from
+the road-side, a bank which overhung a swift and
+deep, yet narrow stream.</p>
+
+<p>An awful temptation came over him,—such a
+temptation as, thank Heaven! comes to few boys of
+sixteen, with the young, glad life running riot in
+their veins. He thought, what if he should die,
+then and there? It seemed to him the one desirable
+thing. To be sure, to die would be to leave
+his mother to fight her battle of life alone; but
+also it would relieve her from the heavy burden
+he must needs be to her if he lived. The river
+rushing down there below invited him with its
+murmur. Should he seek refuge there, and let his
+mother hear that he was dead, before she heard
+that he was blind? He bent forward over the
+stream. Then he drew back, for a longing came<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>
+over him to go home first, and see his mother just
+once more; and then an exceeding bitter cry
+burst from his lips,—</p>
+
+<p>“<em>See</em> her! What am I talking about? Do I
+not know I shall <em>never</em> see her again?”</p>
+
+<p>And a girl’s voice, soft and cooing and tender,—an
+utterly unexpected voice,—answered
+him,—</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, you <em>will</em> see her again. Surely you will
+see her again.”</p>
+
+<p>The boy turned his face toward the sound.</p>
+
+<p>“How did you come here, Susie Hale?” he
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t be angry, George,” the gentle voice
+entreated. “I waited for you. I could not go
+home till I had told you how sorry I was, and
+tried to comfort you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Comfort me!” There was a sort of scornful
+bitterness in the cry. “How <em>can</em> I be comforted?
+Do you think what it will be never to see the
+green earth or the blue sky, or any dear face any
+more, for ever and ever?”</p>
+
+<p>“But you will see them,” she said gently.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>
+“I did not mean that you must be reconciled to
+give up hope. I mean that you must take heart,
+and try to be cured. I have known people who
+could not see at all to be helped, and why not
+you? At least, you must try.”</p>
+
+<p>An evil mood was upon George Graham, and he
+answered harshly,—</p>
+
+<p>“Where is the money to come from, if you
+please? It has been all mother could do just to
+live and she has struggled on, in the expectation of
+my being able soon to help her. She has no money
+for experiments. There is nothing for it but for
+me to rest a dead weight upon her hands, or—die.”</p>
+
+<p>He said the last word with a sort of gasp. Susie
+Hale shivered. She drew closer to him. She
+looked into his poor, tortured face, with her dark
+and tender eyes, and said very quietly,—</p>
+
+<p>“You believe in God, George Graham, and you
+will not defy Him. If He means you to bear this
+you will bear it like a man, and not try to get rid
+of the burden. But I do not believe He does
+mean you to bear it; and I will not believe it till
+every means has been tried for your cure. Just<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>
+now, it seems to me, you ought to go home.
+Would you like your mother to hear this first
+from some one else?”</p>
+
+<p>He rose slowly.</p>
+
+<p>“You are right,” he said, “and you are a good
+girl. Good-by, Susie.”</p>
+
+<p>She did not try to go with him; she followed
+him only with her eyes. She was contented if she
+could but send him home in safety to his mother.</p>
+
+<p>His mother met him at the gate. When she
+took his hand in hers the poor fellow felt that she
+knew all. She was very quiet and self-controlled.</p>
+
+<p>“Your teacher has been here,” she said, “and
+he has told me. My darling, why have you sat in
+the darkness, and shut your mother out from any
+share in your trouble?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I couldn’t tell you, mother!” he sobbed,
+with his head upon her breast, at last,—“I
+couldn’t, I thought it would break your heart.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah! that was because you did not know. If
+you should die and leave me alone in the world,
+<em>that</em>, indeed, would break my heart; but while I
+have you beside me, nothing can make me alto<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>gether
+miserable, and nothing must make you so.
+There is help somewhere, and we will find it, please
+God; or, if not, we will bear what others have
+borne, and find a way to lighten the darkness.”</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, Susie Hale had gone home full of an
+absorbing purpose. Somehow money must and
+should be raised to try what a skilful oculist
+could do for George Graham.</p>
+
+<p>Susie was the orphan niece of Deacon Solomon
+Grant, in whose store a place was awaiting George.
+She knew that she had a modest little fortune of
+her own, but it was all in her uncle’s hands, and
+without his consent she could not dispose even of
+her slender income. But would he not be persuaded
+to let her have enough of her own money
+to accomplish her desire? She asked him, using her
+utmost power of persuasion to touch his heart,
+but he refused with peremptory decision. He
+wouldn’t mind contributing moderately to a fund
+for young Graham’s help—he would not even
+mind letting her have five or ten dollars of her
+own for that purpose—but beyond that the duty
+of one neighbor did not go. And Deacon Solomon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>
+shut his lips together as tightly as he buttoned up
+his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>Susie had in the world one treasure,—a diamond
+ring which had been her mother’s, with a
+stone white and clear as a dew-drop. This must,
+she knew, be worth three or four hundred dollars.
+It was her very own. She had meant to keep it all
+her life for her mother’s sake, but surely this great
+need of George Graham’s justified her in parting
+with it.</p>
+
+<p>She had one friend in Boston,—an old teacher,—in
+whose good faith and judicious management
+she felt implicit confidence, and to him she sent her
+mother’s ring, with a request that he would sell
+it as speedily and on as good terms as possible,
+and remit her the price of it in bank-notes, not in
+a check, and keep for ever the secret that she had
+disposed of it.</p>
+
+<p>It was a week after George Graham had given
+up hope, when a most unexpected hope came to
+him. A neighbor, going by from the post-office,
+handed in at the door a letter addressed to him.
+Mrs. Graham opened it, for George’s vision had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>
+failed with every day, and his eyes were utterly
+useless now.</p>
+
+<p>“George,” she cried, after a moment, in an eager,
+trembling voice, “here are three one-hundred dollar
+bills, and this is the letter that comes with
+them:—</p>
+
+<p>“‘This money is from a true friend of George
+Graham’s, and is to be applied to taking him to
+an oculist, in the hope that his sight may be
+restored. The giver withholds his name, both
+because he desires no thanks, and because he
+wishes to make the return of the money impossible.’</p>
+
+<p>“It is from Heaven, itself!” the mother cried.
+“George, we will start for Boston to-morrow. I
+feel in my soul that you are to be cured.”</p>
+
+<p>The next day a mother and her blind son sought
+rooms at a quiet boarding-house, of which they
+had found the number in the advertisement column
+of a city paper, and the day after that
+they were among the earliest patients of Doctor
+Annesley. The first examination of George’s eyes
+was unpromising enough. They would be worse
+before they were better; an operation might or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>
+might not restore sight to them, but the time for
+it had not yet come. Meanwhile the doctor
+wanted to see him daily.</p>
+
+<p>Those were weary days and weeks that followed,
+both before the operation and afterward,
+when the poor eyes were carefully bandaged from
+the light, and mother and son sat day after day in
+the dark together, wondering, wondering, wondering
+what the result would be. It was curious
+that the mother was always hopeful, and the son
+always despairing. At last it almost irritated him
+to hear her speak of hope to him; and one day he
+turned on her with the first burst of passionate impatience
+she had ever experienced from him.</p>
+
+<p>“Mother,” he said, “for the love of Heaven do
+not talk to me as if it was a sure thing that I am
+going to see again. I <em>want</em> to think it doubtful,
+almost impossible. If you should make me expect
+a sure cure, and then it shouldn’t come,
+don’t you see that I should go mad? I think I
+should dash my head against the wall. I can only
+<em>live</em> by expecting nothing.”</p>
+
+<p>After that the mother held her peace; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>
+whenever she went out of that darkened room
+those who saw her marvelled at the light of joy in
+her eyes, the bloom of hope upon her cheeks. At
+last the time came—the bandage was removed.
+There was just one wild cry, “Mother, I see you!”
+and then George Graham lay at the doctor’s feet,
+swooning and helpless in his great joy.</p>
+
+<p>It was weeks yet before he went home again,
+but the good news preceded him. The mother
+wrote it to Deacon Grant, who had agreed still to
+keep the place in his store open, while awaiting
+the result of this experiment.</p>
+
+<p>The deacon read the letter in full family conclave,
+with the slow deliberation of a man unused
+to correspondence. He little knew how his niece
+longed to snatch the paper from his hand and read
+it for herself; nor did he heed the tears that swam
+in her dark eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Deliberately he smoothed out the letter, and
+folded it. Deliberately he took off his spectacles,
+and wiped them, and put them on again. Then
+he said, with the half pompous, half solemn manner
+which became his position,—</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Well, well, I’m ready always to rejoice with
+those that rejoice; and I’m sure I’m thankful
+that the Widow Graham hasn’t got to struggle
+with so much trouble as it looked as if Providence
+was laying on her; but wherever she got that
+money the Lord knows.”</p>
+
+<p>Another letter came, afterward, to tell when the
+widow and her son were to return, and to ask
+Deacon Grant, in whose keeping the key of their
+house had been left, to put it in their door on that
+day as he was passing by to the store.</p>
+
+<p>It was Susie who walked over with the key,
+early in the afternoon, carrying with her a basket
+of dainties for the travellers’ supper, from Mrs.
+Grant, a woman who knew how to be a good
+neighbor, and to make life pleasant with cheap
+kindnesses. Susie’s black eyes danced, and her
+heart sang within her as she set the table in the
+little parlor and lighted a fire in the kitchen stove,
+ready to make a fresh cup of tea whenever the
+widow and her son should arrive. Then she
+dusted every thing; and then she gathered some
+of the flowers of September,—for already the sum<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>mer
+was over,—and put them in the vases on the
+mantel, and on the widow’s little round sewing-table.</p>
+
+<p>And at last the travellers came, as at last every
+thing does come, if we wait long enough for it.
+They had expected to find an empty house; they
+found instead, warmth and brightness and good
+cheer and Susie Hale.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="DR_JOES_VALENTINE">DR. JOE’S VALENTINE.</h2>
+<hr />
+</div>
+
+<p>There were half-a-dozen of the girls together,—pretty
+creatures, in the very first season
+of their long dresses,—the eldest not quite sixteen.
+They were all braids and puffs and fluffy
+curls, all loops and ruffles and ribbons, all
+smiles and dimples. It was the Saturday before
+Valentine’s Day, in a certain year of grace, of
+which I will not give you the precise date, but
+less than ten years ago, and more than five. Of
+the half-dozen girls, two are busy teachers now,
+two are married, one is playing mother to her
+brother’s little brood of orphan children, and the
+sixth, not less happy than the rest, has gone on to
+“the next country,” where they tell us she will
+never grow old, never be sick or sorry any more,—happy
+Bertha, whom, surely, God loved.</p>
+
+<p>But, that day in February, none of them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>
+thought much about the future: the present was
+enough, with its fun and frolic, its wealth of all
+the pleasures which girlhood holds dear. The six
+were passing the long day together. Two of them
+were sisters and belonged in one house, and the
+rest had come there to be with them; for they
+were all going to make valentines. They had
+made funny ones and foolish ones, tender ones,
+with just a little dash of satire in them, poetic
+ones and prosy ones; and at last it was dinner-time,
+a feast of all the things that school-girls
+love, and these were hungry girls. At least they
+were all hungry girls but Nelly Hunt, and she
+scarcely ate any dinner at all, she was so busy
+thinking. She was Bertha’s sister, and this was her
+home and Bertha’s, and it was to the girls’ own
+room that the little party went back again, after
+they had eaten and praised Mrs. Hunt’s dinner.</p>
+
+<p>“What are you thinking about, Nell?” Bertha
+asked, sitting on the arm of Nelly’s chair.</p>
+
+<p>“These valentines,” Nelly answered slowly.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, surely they need not make you sober,—they
+are absurd enough.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Yes, and it’s just because they are so absurd
+that they make me sober. I was wondering why
+we couldn’t just as well have said something to
+help somebody—to make somebody think—to do
+some good.”</p>
+
+<p>“Nelly’s heroics!” cried Kate Greene flippantly.
+“Miss Hunt as a moral reformer!”</p>
+
+<p>Nelly blushed from her pretty ears to the roots
+of her sunny hair; but her eyes shone clear, and
+there was a ring of earnestness in her voice as she
+answered,—</p>
+
+<p>“You can laugh if you will, but I mean what I
+say, and I’m going to try an experiment. I will
+write one boy a valentine, such as I think a girl
+ought to write, and I’ll send it.”</p>
+
+<p>“So you shall,” Bertha said gently,—Bertha
+always was peacemaker,—“and we’ll all go away
+and see mamma and the baby while you write it.
+When it’s done you must call us.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, and you must show it to us,” cried Kate
+Greene, as she went away; “that’s only fair. We
+promised this morning to show each other all we
+sent, and we sha’n’t let you off.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And then the five fluttered away like a flock of
+birds, and Nelly was quite alone.</p>
+
+<p>Her task was harder than she had imagined. It
+is only the old, perhaps, who are sage in counsel
+by nature. At any rate, to give good advice did
+not come naturally to pretty Nelly. But she had
+an idea of what she wanted to say, and at last she
+got it said. She had written and rewritten it, and
+finally concluded that she could do no better, and
+then copied it out into her neatest handwriting
+before she called the others. It was a little stiff,
+to be sure, and preachy and high-flown, but it
+sounded like a lofty effort and a complete success
+to the listening girls. This was what it
+said:—</p>
+
+<p>“<span class="smcap">My Valentine</span>,—You will have plenty of
+fine speeches and praises, and, perhaps, of fun and
+fancy from others, so I shall not give you those,—I
+who have but one interest in you, namely, that
+you should be the best boy and the best man
+which it is possible for you to become. If you are
+selfish, if you are indolent, if you are mean, you
+will never be happy in your own society, until you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>
+have sunk so low that you don’t know the difference
+between goodness and badness. But if you
+set out to be a gentleman and a man of honor
+and a faithful worker, you will do good deeds and
+live a happy life, and be worthy the everlasting
+esteem of</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="smcap">Your Valentine</span>.”<br />
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/i_220.jpg" width="600" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">Nelly Reading her Valentine.—<span class="smcap">Page <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.</span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Nelly read it with rising color and a little quiver
+about her mouth, which Bertha understood; but
+she read it with firm voice and careful, deliberate
+accent.</p>
+
+<p>“Then,” she said, when she had finished, “I
+shall burn up all the rest of my valentines, and
+send only this one; for it is what I mean, in earnest,
+and, as old Aunty Smoke says, ‘Ef it don’t do
+no good, it can’t do no harm.’”</p>
+
+<p>“To whom shall you send it, dear?” Bertha
+asked gently, a little subdued by Nelly’s epistolary
+success.</p>
+
+<p>“I hadn’t made up my mind,” Nelly answered
+thoughtfully; “they all need it.”</p>
+
+<p>“O, send it to Joe, my cousin Joe,” cried Kitty
+Greene. “He is staying with us, and <em>he</em> needs it—bad
+enough. If ever a boy was full of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>
+pranks, Joe is, and if ever a boy tormented a girl’s
+life out, Joe does mine.”</p>
+
+<p>A color clear and bright as flame glowed on
+Nelly Hunt’s cheeks. Had she had dark-eyed Joe
+in her mind all the while? She only answered
+very quietly,—</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t mind. I had just as lief send it to Joe.
+That is, I’ll send it to him if you’ll promise, on
+your sacred honor, never in any way to let him
+know who wrote it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I will—true as I live and breathe I’ll
+never tell him, and never let him guess, if I can
+help it.”</p>
+
+<p>“And all you girls?” Nelly asked, with the
+pretty pink glow deepening in her cheeks. “Will
+you all promise?”</p>
+
+<p>And they all promised; for there was a sort of
+honest earnestness in Nelly’s nature to which they
+found it natural to yield.</p>
+
+<p>So the valentine was directed in Nelly’s most
+neat and proper manner to “Mr. Joe Greene,”
+and was dropped into the post-office with the rest
+of the valentines the girls had written that day.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On the fifteenth the six girls were all together
+at school, comparing notes and exchanging confidences.
+But Kitty Greene drew Nelly aside, and
+said, while they walked up and down the hall together,
+their arms around each other as girls will,—</p>
+
+<p>“I saw Joe get it, Nelly.”</p>
+
+<p>Nelly’s pretty cheeks glowed and her eyes shone
+like stars, but she asked no questions. Indeed,
+they were scarcely necessary, for Kitty was eager
+enough to tell her story.</p>
+
+<p>“He got it, don’t you think, along with half-a-dozen
+others, and he read them all before he came
+to this one. I knew this, you know, by the shape
+of the envelope. When he came to it I saw him
+read it all through, and then I saw him go back
+and read it again. I heard him say to himself,—</p>
+
+<p>“‘That’s an honest letter from some little saint.’</p>
+
+<p>“Then he came up to me and held it toward
+me, while I pretended to be very busy with my
+valentines. Then he asked,—</p>
+
+<p>“‘Do you know that handwriting, Kit?’</p>
+
+<p>“I felt like an awful little liar, but I had promised
+you. I stretched out my hand for it, and said
+carelessly,—</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“‘Why, ain’t it Sue’s?’</p>
+
+<p>“Sue is his sister, you know. So he thought I
+did not know who it came from, and he changed
+his mind, and put it into his pocket, and went off.
+When I teased him afterward to let me see it, he
+said,—</p>
+
+<p>“‘No; there are some things a fellow would be
+a cad to show.’</p>
+
+<p>“So I saw it hit home, and well it might. It
+was a tremendous letter, Nelly.”</p>
+
+<p>And Kitty ended with a hug and a kiss, and a
+look of that loyal admiration which a girl can give
+another girl now and then.</p>
+
+<p>When the spring came Joe Greene went away
+from Chester, and did not come back there any
+more. No doubt Nelly Hunt would have forgotten
+his very existence but for the valentine, which
+she could not forget. She used to blush, as she
+grew older, to think how “bumptious” it was, as
+she used to call it to herself. What was <em>she</em>, that
+she should have undertaken to preach a sermon to
+that boy? What if he remembered it only to
+think how presuming it was, and to laugh at it?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>
+But, luckily, he did not know from whom it came;
+and with that thought she cooled her blushes.</p>
+
+<p>Nelly was twenty when Joe Greene came back
+to Chester again. And now he came as a physician,
+just through his studies, and anxious to build
+up a practice. Soon his fame grew. His patients
+were among the poor at first, and he cured them;
+and then richer people heard of it, and sent for
+him. But, while he took all the patients that
+came, he never gave up his practice among those
+who most needed him. His praise was in all their
+mouths. There had never been any doctor like
+this one.</p>
+
+<p>Nelly was Miss Hunt now, for Bertha had gone
+away from her into the other, unknown country,
+and Nelly’s grief had made her gentle heart yet
+more gentle, and her helpful spirit yet more
+helpful.</p>
+
+<p>Toward night, one summer day, she had gone to
+see an old woman who had been her nurse once,
+and had found her very ill,—quite too ill to be
+left alone, and certainly in need of a physician.
+So Nelly tore a leaf from her memorandum-book<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>
+and wrote on it a few lines, begging Dr. Greene
+to come at once, and then called to the first
+passer-by and entreated him to take it to the
+doctor.</p>
+
+<p>It was scarcely half an hour before Dr. Greene
+came in, quietly and gravely. He attended to his
+patient with that careful consideration which made
+all those poor souls whom he visited adore him.
+Then he turned to Nelly.</p>
+
+<p>“Who will stay with her to-night?” he asked;
+“for, indeed, she hardly ought to be left alone.”</p>
+
+<p>“I shall stay,” was the quiet answer.</p>
+
+<p>“Then come to the door with me, please, and
+let me give you your directions.”</p>
+
+<p>Nelly followed, and stood there, in the soft summer
+dusk,—a pretty picture, with the wild-rose
+flush dawning in her cheeks, and a new light kindling
+her eyes. She listened carefully to all his
+injunctions, and then turned as if to go. But he
+put out a hand to detain her.</p>
+
+<p>“How very much I owe to you!” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“<em>You</em>, how?” And a deep, deep crimson dyed
+Nelly’s face and throat. In that moment she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>
+thought of her “bumptious” valentine, which had
+not crossed her mind before for a long time.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her with a smile in his eyes, but
+with a face that preserved all its respectful gravity.
+He took a red leather case out of his pocket,
+and from the case he took the very old valentine
+which Nelly remembered so well. Then he produced
+the brief note she had written that afternoon;
+and still there was light enough left in the
+day to see them by, as he held them side by side.</p>
+
+<p>“Your hand has matured somewhat since this
+valentine was written,” he remarked quietly;
+“but some of these letters I should know anywhere.
+No one could deceive me.”</p>
+
+<p>“I did not suppose you had kept that foolish
+thing,” Nelly said, with a pitiful little quiver in
+her voice, as if she were just on the point of bursting
+into tears. “I am so ashamed!”</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Joe looked at her a moment, as she stood
+there in the waning light,—a lovely, graceful girl
+from whom any man might be proud to win even
+a passing interest. So this was the woman, the
+thought of whom he had carried in his heart for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>
+years! If he had ever done any good thing, he
+was paid for it in the satisfaction of that hour.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you sorry,” he asked slowly, “that you
+have helped one man to be his best self? Those
+words of yours were to me like the voice of my inmost
+soul. Since then this paper has never left
+me, nor have I ever ceased to strive to be worthy
+of the esteem of my unknown ‘valentine.’ If ever
+I have been generous instead of selfish, brave instead
+of cowardly, strong instead of weak, it has
+been because I have remembered the words written
+here, and meant to live in their spirit. Are
+you sorry for that? or do you grudge me the dear
+pleasure of thanking you?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I’m not sorry, nor do I grudge you any
+thing; but it was a girl’s freak, and I am not
+worthy of so much praise and honor.”</p>
+
+<p>“It was a good girl’s good intention,” he said
+almost solemnly. “Let us be thankful that it succeeded.”</p>
+
+<p>Nelly went back to the bedside of the old woman
+with a fluttering heart. How strange it seemed to
+think this sick woman was old enough to have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>
+outlived all anxieties except those about her pains
+and her supper! Had not she been young once?
+and had no one ever looked at her as Dr. Joe
+looked?</p>
+
+<p>The next morning he came again. His medicine,
+a night’s sleep, Nelly’s care,—something
+seemed to have given the poor old patient a fresh
+lease of life. There was no need that Nelly should
+stay with her any more; but she went to see her
+daily, and it was curious how often Dr. Joe’s visits
+happened at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>One night the doctor had left his horse at home,
+and he and Nelly walked away together. They
+talked about the lingering sunset and the soft
+south wind and even the old woman; for Nelly,
+woman-like, was struggling desperately to keep
+Dr. Joe from saying what she desperately wanted
+to hear. But, at last, it came,—a half-blunt, half-awkward
+speech, yet with Dr. Joe’s honest heart
+in it,—</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve lived all these years just to earn your
+esteem, and now I find I don’t care a thing about
+that unless I can also win your love.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I think Nelly’s answer must have satisfied him,
+for she is Mrs. Joseph Greene now; and that valentine—worn
+and old, but choicely framed—always
+hangs over the doctor’s study table.</p>
+
+<hr class="pb" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/i_colophon.jpg" width="200" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="pb" />
+
+<p class="ph3 bd u"><i>Bright; Lively, and Enjoyable</i></p>
+
+<p class="ph2 bd">“Jolly Good Times” Series</p>
+
+<p class="ph3 bd"><i>By Mary P. Wells Smith</i></p>
+
+<hr class="tight" />
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/i_advert.jpg" width="300" alt="Illustration from Jolly Good Times Series" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="hang">JOLLY GOOD TIMES; or, <span class="smcap">Child Life on a Farm</span>.</p>
+<p class="hang">JOLLY GOOD TIMES AT SCHOOL; also, <span class="smcap">Some Times not so Jolly</span>.</p>
+<p class="hang">THE BROWNS.</p>
+<p class="hang">THEIR CANOE TRIP.</p>
+<p class="hang">JOLLY GOOD TIMES AT HACKMATACK.</p>
+<p class="hang">MORE GOOD TIMES AT HACKMATACK.</p>
+<p class="hang">JOLLY GOOD TIMES TO-DAY.</p>
+<p class="hang">A JOLLY GOOD SUMMER.</p>
+
+<p><i>With Illustrations, 12 mo,
+cloth, gilt, $1.25 per volume.
+The set of eight volumes, uniformly
+bound in cloth, gilt, in
+a box, $10.00.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="tight" />
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Of these stories the Boston “Transcript” says: “Few series of juvenile
+books appeal more strongly to children than the ‘Jolly Good Times’
+Series, written by Mary P. Wells Smith. The naturalness of the stories,
+their brightness, their truth to boy and girl life and character, and
+the skill with which the author manages incident and dialogue, have
+given them deserved popularity.”</p>
+
+<p>It is Mrs. Smith’s happy ability to take the incidents of child-life,—such
+a life as any child of bright mind and sweet character, blessed with
+the surroundings of a good home, might have,—and to record them with
+such faithfulness to the child’s character, and yet with such charm in the
+narrative, as to make them engagingly interesting to other children.—<cite>Gazette
+and Courier</cite>, Greenfield, Mass.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="pb" />
+
+<p class="ph2 bd">The Young Puritans Series</p>
+
+<p class="ph3 bd"><i>By Mary P. Wells Smith</i></p>
+
+<p class="ph4"><i>Author of “The Jolly Good Times” Series</i></p>
+
+<p class="hang">THE YOUNG PURITANS OF OLD HADLEY.</p>
+<p class="hang">THE YOUNG PURITANS IN KING PHILIP’S WAR.</p>
+<p class="hang">THE YOUNG PURITANS IN CAPTIVITY.</p>
+<p class="hang">THE YOUNG AND OLD PURITANS OF HATFIELD.</p>
+
+<p class="ph4"><i>Cloth, 12mo, Illustrated, each, $1.25.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="tight" />
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Mrs. Smith deserves very hearty commendation for the admirable
+pictures of Puritan life which are drawn with a skilful hand in this book.
+She has chosen a representative Puritan village as the scene, and the
+period of very early settlement of western Massachusetts for her story, a
+village which retains many of its early features to this day. Mrs. Smith
+knows the people of whom she writes thoroughly, and holds them in
+high and loving esteem. Even the most prejudiced reader can hardly
+close this book without seeing in these genuine Puritan people a phase of
+human life at once fine in its courage, its endurance of terrible hardships,
+and not unbeautiful in its childlike acceptance of God’s dealings and its
+daily hunger and thirst after righteousness.—<cite>The Churchman.</cite></p></div>
+
+
+<p class="p1">THE YOUNG PURITANS OF OLD HADLEY. 12mo.
+Cloth. Illustrated. $1.25.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>A capital colonial story.—<cite>Congregationalist</cite>, Boston.</p>
+
+<p>She catches the very spirit of Puritan life.—<cite>Chicago Inter-Ocean.</cite></p>
+
+<p>The work has historic value as well as unique interest.—<span class="smcap">Lilian
+Whiting</span>, <cite>in Chicago Inter-Ocean</cite>.</p>
+
+<p>An excellent book for school libraries.—<cite>Literary News</cite>, New York.</p>
+
+<p>The adventures of the boys while hunting, the trapping of wolves and
+panthers, which infested the forests in those early days, the encounters
+with the Indians, friendly and otherwise, are incidents which make up a
+book which will fascinate all young readers.—<cite>San Francisco Bulletin.</cite></p>
+
+<p>The author has studied her subject carefully; and the pictures of this
+life, extinct, yet still blood of our blood and bone of our bone, have
+unusual interest.—<cite>Chicago Dial.</cite></p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Smith has proven that she can write as simple and natural a
+story of child-life when the scene is laid two hundred and fifty years ago
+as when she chooses to describe country life in the New England of the
+present century.—<cite>Christian Register.</cite></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="p1">THE YOUNG PURITANS IN KING PHILIP’S WAR.
+Illustrated by <span class="smcap">L. J. Bridgman</span>. 12mo. Cloth. $1.25.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>From a letter written the author by Bishop F. D. Huntington, Syracuse,
+N. Y.: “Have read all the pages through, every word,—finding
+the whole volume readable, entertaining, and satisfactory. Of course I
+feel rather competent to say that, in the phraseology, the territorial descriptions,
+the geography, the account of customs, language, family habits,
+natural phenomena, you are singularly correct, accurate, and felicitous.”</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Smith seems to have caught the very breath and echo of those
+old days, and she makes one seem not to be merely reading of those
+Puritans and their constant struggles with their savage neighbors, but
+to be actually beholding them.—<cite>Jersey City Evening Journal.</cite></p>
+
+<p>The history of the seventeenth century in New England would gain
+new life when read in the light of such books.—<cite>Christian Endeavor
+Herald.</cite></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="p1">THE YOUNG PURITANS IN CAPTIVITY. Illustrated
+by <span class="smcap">Jessie Willcox Smith</span>. 12mo. Cloth. $1.25.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>Nothing could be more interesting than the period of which this story
+treats, and the author has handled the subject in a manner that is highly
+creditable. The reader will be for the nonce a Puritan, and will follow
+the adventures of three children taken captive by the Indians, feeling
+that he is a participant in the scenes so well portrayed. He will sleep in
+the Indians’ wigwam and breathe the odor of the pines. He will paddle
+a canoe upon the broad waters of the Connecticut, when New England
+was but a wilderness, and get an insight into Indian nature which he
+probably never had before.—<cite>Sacramento Bee.</cite></p>
+
+<p>She shows the same power of graphic description, the same faithful use
+of the best available material, and the same logical way of putting it into
+shape.—<cite>Commercial Advertiser, N. Y.</cite></p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Smith has made history live again in her life-like narrative. The
+children of to-day may well learn something of the sterner virtues in
+reading this story of the endurance and fortitude of children of two
+centuries ago.—<cite>Springfield Republican.</cite></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="p1">THE YOUNG AND OLD PURITANS OF HATFIELD.
+Illustrated by <span class="smcap">Bertha C. Day</span>. 12mo. $1.25.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="ph3 bd">LITTLE, BROWN, &amp; CO., Publishers,<br />
+<small>254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON.</small>
+</p>
+
+<hr class="pb" />
+
+<div class="transnote">
+  <p class="bd">Transcriber's Note</p>
+  <p>A few minor typographical errors have been silently corrected.</p>
+  <p>A page number in the Contents was corrected from 77 to 79.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's New Bed-Time Stories, by Louise Chandler Moulton
+
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+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
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