diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 20:05:14 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 20:05:14 -0700 |
| commit | 6a592bb81c098c02539170a58b5dc016e90303bf (patch) | |
| tree | 40815bd6cd010d08246d263b04fac428467f8ba6 | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36160.txt | 5988 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36160.zip | bin | 0 -> 113117 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
5 files changed, 6004 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/36160.txt b/36160.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6cfcaa9 --- /dev/null +++ b/36160.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5988 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Rachel Gray, by Julia Kavanagh + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + + + + +Title: Rachel Gray + + +Author: Julia Kavanagh + + + +Release Date: May 18, 2011 [eBook #36160] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RACHEL GRAY*** + + +Julia Kavanagh (1824-1877), Rachel Gray (1855), 1856 Tauchnitz edition + +Produced by Daniel FROMONT + + + + + + +COLLECTION +OF +BRITISH AUTHORS. + +VOL. CCCXLIV. + + + + +RACHEL GRAY BY JULIA KAVANAGH. + + +IN ONE VOLUME. + + + + +RACHEL GRAY. + + +A TALE + + +FOUNDED ON FACT. + + +BY JULIA KAVANAGH, + + +AUTHOR or "NATHALIE," "DAISY BURNS," "GRACE LEE." + + + +_COPYRIGHT EDITION_. + + + +LEIPZIG + + +BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ + + +1856 + + + + + + +PREFACE. + + + +This tale, as the title-page implies, is founded on fact. Its truth is +its chief merit, and the Author claims no other share in it, than that of +telling it to the best of her power. + +I do not mean to aver that every word is a positive and literal truth, +that every incident occurred exactly as I have related it, and in no +other fashion, but this I mean to say: that I have invented nothing in +the character of Rachel Gray, and that the sorrows of Richard Jones are +not imaginary sorrows. + +My purpose in giving this story to the world is twofold. I have found +that my first, and in many respects, most imperfect work "Madeleine," is +nevertheless that which has won the greatest share of interest and +sympathy; a result which I may, I think, safely attribute to its truth, +and which has induced me to believe that on similar grounds, a similar +distinction might be awarded to a heroine very different indeed from +"Madeleine," but whose silent virtues have perhaps as strong a claim to +admiration and respect. + +I had also another purpose, and though I mention it last, it was that +which mainly contributed to make me intrude on public attention; I wished +to show the intellectual, the educated, the fortunate, that minds which +they are apt to slight as narrow, that lives which they pity as moving in +the straight and gloomy paths of mediocrity, are often blessed and graced +beyond the usual lot, with those lovely aspirations towards better deeds +and immortal things, without which life is indeed a thing of little +worth; cold and dull as a sunless day. + + + +JULIA KAVANAGH. + + + +LONDON: +DECEMBER 1855. + + + +RACHEL GRAY. + + + +CHAPTER I. + +In one of the many little suburbs which cling to the outskirts of London, +there is a silent and grass-grown street, of aspect both quiet and +quaint. The houses are crazy, old, and brown, of every height and every +size; many are untenanted. Some years ago one was internally destroyed by +fire. It was not thought worth rebuilding. There it still stands, gaunt +and grim, looking for all the world, with its broken or dust-stained +windows, like a town deserted after a sacking. + +This street is surrounded by populous courts and alleys, by stirring +thoroughfares, by roads full of activity and commerce; yet somehow or +other, all the noise of life, all its tumult and agitation, here seem to +die away to silence and repose. Few people, even amongst the poor, and +the neighbourhood is a poor one, care to reside in it, while they can be +lodged as cheaply close by, and more to their taste. Some think that the +old square at the end, with its ancient, nodding trees, is close and +gloomy; others have heard strange noises in the house that has suffered +from fire, and are sure it is haunted; and some again do not like the +silent, deserted look of the place, and cannot get over the fancy that, +if no one will live in it, it must be because it is unlucky. And thus it +daily decays more and more, and daily seems to grow more silent. + +The appearance of the few houses that are inhabited, says little in +favour of this unfortunate street. In one, a tailor has taken up his +abode. He is a pale, serious man, who stitches at his board in the +window the whole day long, cheered by the occasional song of a thrush, +hopping in its osier cage. This tailor, Samuel Hopkins yclept, lives by +repairing damaged vestments. He once made a coat, and boasts--with how +much truth is known to his own heart--that he likewise cut out, +fashioned, and fitted, a pair of blue nether garments. Further on, at the +corner of the square, stands the house of Mrs. Adams, an aged widow, who +keeps a small school, which, on her brass board, she emphatically +denominates her "Establishment for Young Ladies." This house has an +unmistakeable air of literary dirt and neglect; the area and kitchen +windows are encumbered with the accumulated mud and dust of years; from +the attic casement, a little red-haired servant-girl is ever gaping; and +on hot summer afternoons, when the parlour windows are left open, there +is a glimpse within of a dingy school-mistress, and still more dingy +school-room, with a few pupils who sit straggling on half-a-dozen +benches, conning their lessons with a murmuring hum. + +With one exception, there is no other sign of commerce, trade, or +profession in the whole street. For all an outward glance can reveal to +the contrary, the people who live there are so very rich that they do not +need to work at all, or so very genteel in their decay, that if they do +work, they must do it in a hidden, skulking, invisible sort of fashion, +or else be irretrievably disgraced. + +The solitary exception to which we have alluded, exists, or rather +existed, for though we speak in the present, we write in the past by some +years, in one of the smallest houses in the street. A little six-roomed +house it was, exactly facing the dreary haunted mansion, and exposed to +all the noises aforesaid. It was, also, to say the truth, an abode of +poor and mean aspect. In the window hung a dress-maker's board, on which +was modestly inscribed, with a list of prices, the name of-- + + +"RACHEL GRAY." + + +It was accompanied with patterns of yellow paper sleeves, trimmed in +every colour, an old book of fashions, and beautiful and bright, as if +reared in wood or meadow, a pot of yellow crocuses in bloom. They were +closing now, for evening was drawing in, and they knew the hour. + +They had opened to light in the dingy parlour within, and which we will +now enter. It was but a little room, and the soft gloom of a spring +twilight half-filled it. The furniture though poor and old-fashioned, was +scrupulously clean; and it shone again in the flickering fire-light. A +few discoloured prints in black frames hung against the walls; two or +three broken china ornaments adorned the wooden mantel-shelf, which was, +moreover, decorated with a little dark-looking mirror in a rim of +tarnished gold. + +By the fire an elderly woman of grave and stern aspect, but who had once +been handsome, sat reading the newspaper. Near the window, two +apprentices sewed, under the superintendence of Rachel Gray. + +A mild ray of light fell on her pale face, and bending figure. She sewed +on, serious and still, and the calm gravity of her aspect harmonized with +the silence of the little parlour which nothing disturbed, save the +ticking of an old clock behind the door, the occasional rustling of Mrs. +Gray's newspaper, and the continuous and monotonous sound of stitching. + +Rachel Gray looked upwards of thirty, yet she was younger by some years. +She was a tall, thin, and awkward woman, sallow and faded before her +time. She was not, and had never been handsome, yet there was a patient +seriousness in the lines of her face, which, when it caught the eye, +arrested it at once, and kept it long. Her brow, too, was broad and +intellectual; her eyes were very fine, though their look was dreamy and +abstracted; and her smile, when she did smile, which was not often, for +she was slightly deaf and spoke little, was pleasant and very sweet. + +She sewed on, as we have said, abstracted and serious, when gradually, +for even in observation she was slow, the yellow crocuses attracted her +attention. She looked at them meditatively, and watched them closing, +with the decline of day. And, at length, as if she had not understood, +until then, what was going on before her, she smiled and admiringly +exclaimed: + +"Now do look at the creatures, mother!" + +Mrs. Gray glanced up from her newspaper, and snuffed rather disdainfully. + +"Lawk, Rachel!" she said, "you don't mean to call crocuses creatures--do +you? I'll tell you what though," she added, with a doleful shake of the +head, "I don't know what Her Majesty thinks; but I say the country can't +stand it much longer." + +Mrs. Gray had been cook in a Prime Minister's household, and this had +naturally given her a political turn. + +"The Lord has taught you," murmured Rachel, bending over the flowers with +something like awe, and a glow spread over her sallow cheek, and there +came a light to her large brown eyes. + +Of the two apprentices--one a sickly, fretful girl of sixteen, heard her +not; she went on sewing, and the very way in which she drew her needle +and thread was peevish. The other apprentice did hear Rachel, and she +looked, or rather stared at the dress-maker, with grim wonder. Indeed, +there was something particularly grim about this young maiden--a drear +stolidity that defies describing. A pure Saxon she was--no infusion of +Celtic, or Danish, or Norman blood had lightened the native weight of her +nature. She was young, yet she already went through life settling +everything, and living in a moral tower of most uninviting aspect. But +though Jane settled everything, she did not profess to understand +everything; and when, as happened every now and then, Rachel Gray came +out with such remarks as that above recorded, Jane felt confounded. "She +couldn't make out Miss Gray--that she couldn't." + +"I'm so tired!" peevishly said Mary, the fretful apprentice. + +At once Rachel kindly observed: "Put by your work, dear." + +Again Mrs. Gray snuffed, and came out with: "Lawk! she's always grummy!" + +Mary tossed away her work, folded her arms, and looked sullen. Jane, the +grim apprentice, drew her needle and thread twice as fast as before. +"Thank Heaven!" she piously thought, "I am not lazy, nor sickly, and I +can't see much difference between the two--that I can't." + +Rachel's work lay in her lap; she sat looking at the crocuses until she +fell in a dream far in the past. + +For the past is our realm, free to all, high or low, who wish to dwell in +it. There we may set aside the bitterness and the sorrow; there we may +choose none but the pleasing visions, the bright, sunny spots where it is +sweet to linger. The Future, fair as Hope may make it, is a dream, we +claim it in vain. The Present, harsh or delightful, must be endured, yet +it flies from us before we can say "it is gone." But the Past is ours to +call up at our will. It is vivid and distinct as truth. In good and in +evil, it is irrevocable; the divine seal has been set upon it for +evermore. + +In that Book--a pure and holy one was hers--though not without a few +dark and sad pages--Rachel Gray often read. And now, the sight of the +yellow flower of spring took her back, to a happy day of her childhood. +She saw herself a little girl again, with her younger sister Jane, and +the whole school to which they belonged, out on a holiday treat in a +green forest. Near that forest there was a breezy field; and there it was +that Rachel first saw the yellow crocuses bloom. She remembered her joy, +her delight at the wonderful beauty of the wild field flowers--how she +and Jane heaped their laps with them, and sat down at the task; and how, +when tired with the pleasant labour, they rested, as many yellow crocuses +as before seemed to blow and play in the breeze around them. And she +remembered, too, how, even then, there passed across her childish mind, a +silent wonder at their multitude, an undefined awe for the power of the +Almighty Hand who made the little flower, and bade it bloom in the green +fields, beneath the misty azure of a soft spring sky. + +And then swiftly followed other thoughts. Where was little, blue-eyed +Jane, her younger sister, her little companion and friend? Sleeping in a +London grave, far from the pleasant and sunny spots where God's wild +flowers bloom. And she--why she was pursuing her path in life, doing the +will of God Almighty. + +"And what more," thought Rachel, "can I hope or wish for?" + +"Now, Rachel, what are you moping about?" tartly asked her mother, who, +though half blind, had a quick eye for her daughter's meditative fits. + +Abruptly fled the dream. The childish memories, the holy remembrance of +the dead, sank back once more to their quiet resting-place in Rachel's +heart. Wakening up with a half-lightened start, she hastily resumed her +work. + +"I don't think there ever was such a moper as that girl," grumbled Mrs. +Gray to herself. + +Rachel smiled cheerfully in her mother's face. But as to telling her that +she had been thinking of the yellow crocuses, and of the spots they grew +in, and of the power and greatness and glory of Him who made them, Rachel +did not dream of it. + +"There's Mrs. Brown," said Mrs. Gray, as a dark figure passed by the +window. "Go, and open the door, Mary." + +Mary did not stir, upon which Jane officiously rose and said, "I'll go." +She went, and in came, or rather bounced, Mrs. Brown--a short, stout, +vulgar-looking woman of fifty or so, who at once filled the room with +noise. + +"La, Mrs. Gray!" she began breathlessly, "What do you think? There's a +new one. I have brought you the paper; third column, second page, first +article, 'The Church in a Mess.' I thought you'd like to see it. Well, +Rachel, and how are you getting on? Mrs. James's dress don't fit her a +bit, and she says she'll not give you another stitch of work: but la! you +don't care--do you? Why, Mary, how yellow you look to day. I declare +you're as yellow as the crocuses in the pot. Ain't she now, Jane? And so +you're not married yet--are you, my girl?" she added, giving the grim +apprentice a slap on the back. + +Jane eyed her quietly. + +"You'd better not do that again, Mrs. Brown," she said, with some +sternness, "and as to getting married: why, s'pose you mind your own +business!" + +Mrs. Brown threw herself back in her chair, and laughed until the tears +ran down her face. When she recovered, it was to address Mrs. Gray. + +"La, Mrs. Gray! can't you find it?" she said. "Why, I told you, third +column, second page, 'The Church in a Mess.' You can't miss. I have put a +pin in it." + +Spite of this kind attention, Mrs. Gray had not found "The Church in a +Mess." + +"Lawk, Mrs. Brown!" she said, impatiently, "where's the use of always +raking up them sort of things! The badness of others don't make us good-- +does it? It's the taxes I think of, Mrs. Brown; it's the taxes! Now, +Rachel, where are you going?" + +"I am going to take home this work, mother." + +Unable to find fault with this, Mrs. Gray muttered to herself. She was +not ill-natured, but fault-finding was with her an inveterate habit. + +"La! what a muff that girl of yours is, Mrs. Gray!" charitably observed +Mrs. Brown, as Rachel left the room. For Mrs. Brown being Mrs. Gray's +cousin, landlady, and neighbour, took the right to say everything she +pleased. + +"She ain't particlerly bright," confessed Mrs. Gray, poking the fire, +"but you see, Mrs. Brown--" + +Rachel closed the door, and heard no more. Whilst Mrs. Brown was talking, +she had been tying up her parcel. She now put on her bonnet and cloak, +and went out. + +It is sweet, after the toil of a day, to breathe fresh air, London air +even though it should be. It is sweet, after the long closeness of the +work-room, to walk out and feel the sense of life and liberty. A new +being seemed poured into Rachel as she went on. + +"I wonder people do not like this street," she thought, pausing at the +corner to look back on the grey, quiet line she was leaving behind. "They +call it dull, and to me it is so calm and sweet." And she sighed to enter +the noisy and populous world before her. She hastily crossed it, and only +slackened her pace when she reached the wide streets, the mansions with +gardens to them, the broad and silent squares of the west end. She +stopped before a handsome house, the abode of a rich lady who +occasionally employed her, because she worked cheaper than a fashionable +dress-maker, and as well. + +Mrs. Moxton was engaged--visitors were with her--Rachel had to wait-- +she sat in the hall. A stylish footman, who quickly detected that she was +shy and nervous, entertained himself and his companions, by making her +ten times more so. His speech was rude--his jests were insolent. Rachel +was meek and humble; but she could feel insult; and that pride, from +which few of God's creatures are free, rose within her, and flushed her +pale cheek with involuntary displeasure. + +At length, the infliction ceased. Mrs. Moxton's visitors left; Rachel was +called in. Her first impulse had been to complain of the footman to his +mistress; but mercy checked the temptation; it might make him lose his +place. Poor Rachel! she little knew that this footman could have been +insolent to his mistress herself, had he so chosen. He was six foot +three, and, in his livery of brown and gold, looked splendid. In short, +he was invaluable, and not to be parted with on any account. + +Mrs. Moxton was habitually a well-bred, good-natured woman; but every +rule has its exceptions. Rachel found her very much out of temper. To say +the truth, one of her recent visitors was in the Mrs. Brown style; Mrs. +Moxton had been provoked and irritated; and Rachel paid for it. + +"Now, Miss Gray," she said, with solemn indignation, "what do you mean by +bringing back work in this style? That flounce is at least an inch too +high! I thought you an intelligent young person--but really, really!" + +"It's very easily altered, ma'am," said Rachel, submissively. + +"You need, not trouble," gravely replied Mrs. Moxton. "I owe you +something; you may call with your bill to-morrow." + +"I shall not be able to call to-morrow, ma'am; and if it were convenient +now--" + +"It is not convenient now!" said Mrs. Morton, rather haughtily. She +thought Rachel the most impertinent creature she had ever met with--that +is to say, next to that irritating Mrs. Maberly, who had repeated that +provoking thing about Mr. So-and-So. Rachel sighed and left the house +like all shy persons, she was easily depressed. It was night when she +stood once more in the street. Above the pale outline of the houses +spread a sky of dark azure. A star shone in it, a little star; but it +burned with as brilliant a light as any great planet. Rachel gazed at it +earnestly, and the shadow passed away. "What matter!" she thought, "even +though a man in livery made a jest of me--even though a lady in silk was +scornful. What matter! God made that star for me as well as for her! +Besides," she added, checking a thought which might, she feared, be too +proud, "besides, who, and what am I, that I should repine?" + + +CHAPTER II. + + + +Rachel went on; but she did not turn homewards. She left the broad and +airy strait, where Mrs. Moxton lived. She entered a narrow one, long and +gloomy. It led her into a large and gas-lit square. She crossed it +without looking right or left: a thought led her on like a spell. Through +streets and alleys, by lanes and courts--on she went, until at length +she stood in the heart of a populous neighbourhood. Cars were dashing +along the pavement; night vendors were screaming at their stalls, where +tallow lights flared in the night wind. Drunken men were shouting in gin +palaces, wretched looking women were coming out of pawnbroker's shops, +and precocious London children were pouring into a theatre, where their +morals were to be improved, and their understandings were to be +enlightened, at the moderate rate of a penny a head. + +Rachel sighed at all she saw, and divined. "Poor things!" she thought, +"if they only knew better." But this compassionate feeling did not +exclude a sort of fear. Rachel kept as much as she could in the gloomy +part of the streets; she shrank back nervously from every rude group, and +thus she at length succeeded in attracting the very thing she most wished +to shun--observation. Three or four women, rushing out of a +public-house, caught sight of her timid figure. At once, one of +them--she was more than half-intoxicated--burst out into a loud shouting +laugh, and, seizing Rachel's arm, swung her round on the pavement. + +"Let me go!" said Rachel "I am in a hurry." She trembled from head to +foot, and vainly tried to put on the appearance of a courage she felt +not. + +"Give me something for drink then," insolently said the woman. + +Rachel's momentary fear was already over; she had said to herself, "and +what can happen to me without God's will?" and the thought had nerved +her. She looked very quietly at the woman's flushed and bloated face, and +as quietly she said: + +"You have drunk too much already; let me go." + +"No I won't," hoarsely replied her tormentor, and she used language +which, though it could not stain the pure heart of her who heard it, +brought the blush of anger and shame to her cheek. + +"Let me go!" she said, trembling this time with indignation. + +"Yes--yes, let the young woman go, Molly," observed one of the woman's +companions who had hitherto looked on apathetically. She officiously +disengaged Rachel's arm, whispering as she did so: "You'd better cut +now--I'll hold her. Molly's awful when she's got them fits on." + +Rachel hastened away, followed by the derisive shout of the whole group. +She turned down the first street she found; it was dark and silent, yet +Rachel did not stop until she reached the very end of it; then she paused +to breathe a while, but when she put her hand in her pocket for her +handkerchief it was gone; with it had disappeared her purse, and two or +three shillings. Rachel saw and understood it all--the friend of Molly, +her officious deliverer, was a pick-pocket She hung down her head and +sighed, dismayed and astonished, not at her loss, but at the sin. "Ah! +dear Lord Jesus," she thought, full of sorrow, "that thou shouldst thus +be crucified anew by the sins of thy people!" Then followed the +perplexing inward question: "Oh! why is there so much sin?" "God knows +best," was the inward reply, and once more calm and serene, Rachel went +on. At first, she hardly knew where she was. She stood in a dark +thoroughfare where three streets met--three narrow streets that scarcely +broke on the surrounding gloom. Hesitatingly she took the first. It +happened to be that which she wanted. When Rachel recognized it, her pace +slackened, her heart beat, her colour came and went, she was much moved; +she prayed too--she prayed with her whole heart, but she walked very +slowly. And thus she reached at length a lonely little street not quite +so gloomy as that which she had been following. + +She paused at the corner shop for a moment. It was a second-hand +ironmonger's; rusty iron locks, and rusty tongs and shovels, and rusty +goods of every description kept grim company to tattered books and a few +old pictures, that had contracted an iron look in their vicinity. A +solitary gas-light lit the whole. + +Rachel stopped and looked at the books, and at the pictures, but only for +a few seconds. If she stood there, it was not to gaze with passing +curiosity on those objects; she knew them all of old, as she knew every +stone of that street; it was to wait until the flush of her cheek had +subsided, and the beating of her heart had grown still. + +At length she went on. When she reached the middle of the street she +paused; she stood near a dark house, shrouded within the gloom of its +doorway. Opposite her, on the other side of the way, was a small shop lit +from within. From where she stood, Rachel could see everything that +passed in that abode. A carpenter lived there, for the place was full of +rough deal boards standing erect against the wall, and the floor was +heaped high with shavings. Presently a door within opened, the master of +the shop entered it, and set himself to work by the light of a tallow +candle. He was a tall, thin man, grey-headed and deeply wrinkled, but +strong and hale for his years. As he bent over his work, the light of the +candle vividly defined his angular figure and sharp features. Rachel +looked at him; her eyes filled with tears, she brushed them away with her +hand, for they prevented her from seeing, but they returned thicker and +faster. + +"Oh! my father, my father!" she cried within her heart, "why must I stand +here in darkness looking at you? why cannot I go in to you, like other +daughters to their father? why do you not love your child?" Her heart +seemed full to bursting; her eyes overflowed, her breathing was broken by +sobs, and in the simple and pathetic words of Scripture, she turned away +her head, and raised her voice and wept aloud. + +Rachel Gray was the daughter of the grey-headed carpenter by a first +wife; soon after whose death he had married again. Mrs. Gray was his +second wife, and the mother of his youngest daughter. She was kind in her +way, but that was at the best a harsh one. Rachel was a timid, retiring +child, plain, awkward, and sallow, with nothing to attract the eye, and +little to please the fancy. Mrs. Gray did not use her ill certainly, but +neither did she give her any great share in her affections. And why and +how should a step-mother have loved Rachel when her own father did not? +when almost from her birth she had been to him as though she did not +exist--as a being who, uncalled for and unwanted, had come athwart his +life. Never had he, to her knowledge, taken her in his arms, or on his +knee; never had he kissed or caressed her; never addressed to her one +word of fondness, or even of common kindness. Neither, it is true, had he +ill-used nor ill-treated her; he felt no unnatural aversion for his own +flesh and blood, nothing beyond a deep and incurable indifference. For +her, his heart remained as a barren and arid soil on which the sweet +flower of love could never bloom. + +There was but one being in this narrow circle who really and fondly loved +Rachel Gray. And this was Jane, her little half-sister. Rachel was her +elder by full five years. When she was told one morning that Jane was +born, she heard the tidings with silent awe, then with eager curiosity, +climbed up on a chair to peep at the rosy baby fast asleep in its cradle. +From that day, she had but one thought--her little sister. How describe +the mingled love and pride with which Rachel received the baby, when it +was first confided to her care, and when to her was allotted the +delightful task of dragging about in her arms a heavy, screaming child? +And who but Rachel found Jane's first tooth? Who but Rachel taught Jane +to speak; and taught her how to walk? Who else fulfilled for the helpless +infant and wilful child every little office of kindness and of love, +until at length there woke in her own childish heart some of that +maternal fondness born with woman, the feeling whence her deepest woes +and her highest happiness alike must spring. When her father was unkind, +when her step-mother was hasty, Rachel turned for comfort to her little +sister. In her childish caresses, and words, and ways, she found solace +and consolation. She did not feel it hard that she was to be the slave of +a spoiled child, to wash, comb, and dress her, to work for her, to carry +her, to sing to her, to play with her, and that, not when she liked, but +when it pleased Jane. All this Rachel did not mind--Jane loved her. She +knew it, she was sure of it; and where there is love, there cannot be +tyranny. + +Thus the two sisters grew up together, until one day, without previous +warning, Thomas Gray went off to America, and coolly left his wife and +children behind. Mrs. Gray was a good and an upright woman; she reared +her husband's child like her own, and worked for both, without ever +repining at the double burden. When her husband returned to England, +after three years' absence, Mrs. Gray lost no time in compelling him to +grant her a weekly allowance for herself, and for the support of her +children. Thomas Gray could not resist the claim; but he gave what the +law compelled him to give, and no more. He never returned to live with +his wife; he never expressed a wish to see either of his daughters. + +He had been back some years when little Jane died at thirteen. She died, +dreaming of heaven, with her hand in that of Rachel, and her head on +Rachel's bosom. She died, blessing her eldest sister with her last +breath, with love for her in the last look of her blue eyes, in the last +smile of her wan lips. It was a happy death-bed--one to waken hope, not +to call forth sorrow; and yet what became of the life of Rachel when Jane +was gone? For a long time it was a dreary void--a melancholy succession +of days and weeks and months, from which the happy light had fled--from +which something sweet and delightful was gone for ever. + +For, though it may be sweeter to love, than to be loved, yet it is hard +always to give and never to receive in return; and when Jane died, Rachel +knew well enough that all the love she had to receive upon earth, had +been given unto her. Like the lost Pleiad, "seen no more below," the +bright star of her life had left the sky. It burned in other heavens with +more celestial light; but it shone no longer over her path--to cheer, to +comfort, to illume. + +Mrs. Gray was kind; after her own fashion, she loved Rachel. They had +grieved and suffered together from the same sorrows, and kindred griefs +can bind the farthest hearts; but beyond this there was no sympathy +between them, and Mrs. Gray's affection, such as it was, was free from a +particle of tenderness. + +She was not naturally a patient or an amiable woman; and she had endured +great and unmerited wrongs from Rachel's father. Perhaps, she would have +been more than human, had she not occasionally reminded her step-daughter +of Mr. Thomas Gray's misdeeds, and now and then taunted her with a "He +never cared about you--you know." + +Aye--Rachel knew it well enough. She knew that her own father loved her +not--that though he had cared little for Jane, not being a +tender-hearted man, still that he had cared somewhat, for that younger, +and more favoured child. That before he left England, he would +occasionally caress her; that when she died, tears had flowed down his +stern cheek on hearing the tidings, and that the words had escaped him: +"I am sorry I was not there." + +All this Rachel knew. Her mind was too noble, and too firm for jealousy; +her heart too pious, and too humble for rebellious sorrow; but yet she +found it hard to bear, and very hard to be reminded of it as a reproach +and a shame. + +Was it not enough that she could not win the affection she most longed +for? She was devoted to her step-mother; she had fondly loved her younger +sister; but earlier born in her heart than these two loves, deeper, and +more solemn, was the love Rachel felt for her father. That instinct of +nature, which in him was silent, in her spoke strongly. That share of +love which he denied her, she silently added to her own, and united both +in one fervent offering. Harshness and indifference had no power to +quench a feeling, to which love in kindness had not given birth. She +loved because it was her destiny; because, as she once said herself, when +speaking of another: "A daughter's heart clings to her father with +boundless charity." + +Young as she was when Thomas Gray left his home, Rachel remembered him +well. His looks, the very tones of his voice, were present to her. Not +once, during the years of his absence, did the thought of her father +cease to haunt her heart. When, from the bitter remarks of her +step-mother, she learned that he had returned, and where he had taken up +his home, she had no peace until she succeeded in obtaining a glimpse of +him. Free, as are all the children of the poor, she made her way to the +street where he lived, and many a day walked for weary miles in order to +pass by her father's door. But she never crossed the threshold, never +spoke to him, never let him know who she was, until the sad day when she +bore to him the news of her sister's death. + +He received her with his usual coldness--in such emotion as he showed, +she had no share, like strangers they had met--like strangers they +parted. But, though his coldness and her own timidity prevented nearer +advances, they did not prevent Rachel from often seeking the remote +neighbourhood and gloomy street where her father dwelt. + +It was a pleasure, though a sad one, to look on his face, even if she +went not near him; and thus it happened, that on this dark night she +stood in the sheltering obscurity of the well-known doorway, gazing on +the solitary old man, yet venturing not to cross the narrow street. + +The wind blew from the east. It was cold and piercing; yet it could not +draw Rachel from her vigil of love. Still she looked and lingered, +wishing she knew not what; and hoping against hope. Thus she stayed, +until Thomas Gray left his work, put up the shutters, then left the house +by the private door, and slowly walked away to the nearest public-house. + +The shop was once more a blank in the dark street. Rachel looked at the +deserted dwelling and sighed; than softly and silently she stole away. + + +CHAPTER III. + + +It was late when Rachel reached home. She found her step-mother sitting +up for her, rigid, amazed y indignant--so indignant, indeed, that though +she rated Rachel soundly for her audacity in presuming to stay out so +long without previous leave obtained, she quite forgot to inquire +particularly why she had not come home earlier. A series of disasters had +been occasioned by Rachel's absence; Jane and Mary had quarrelled, Mrs. +Gray had been kept an hour waiting for her supper, the beer had naturally +become flat and worthless, and whilst Mrs. Gray was sleeping--and how +could she help sleeping, being quite faint and exhausted with her long +vigil--puss had got up on the table and walked off with Rachel's polony. + +There was a touch of quiet humour in Rachel, and with a demure smile, she +internally wondered why it was precisely her polony that had been +selected by puss, but aloud she merely declared that she could make an +excellent supper on bread and beer. Mrs. Gray, who held the reins of +domestic management in their little household, assured her that she had +better, for that nothing else was she going to get; she sat down +heroically determined to eat the whole of her polony in order to punish +and provoke her step-daughter; but somehow or other the half of that +dainty had, before the end of the meal, found its way to the plate of +Rachel, who, when she protested against this act of generosity, was +imperiously ordered to hold her tongue, which order she did not dare to +resist; for if Mrs. Gray's heart was mellow, her temper was sufficiently +tart. + +The apprentices had long been gone to bed; as soon as supper was over, +Mrs. Gray intimated to Rachel the propriety of following their example. +Rachel ventured to demur meekly. + +"I cannot, mother--I have work to finish." + +"Then better have sat at home and finished it, than have gone gadding +about, and nearly got a pitch plaster on your mouth," grumbled Mrs. Gray, +who was a firm believer in pitch plasters, and abductions, and highway +robberies, and all sorts of horrors. "Mind you don't set the house a +fire," she added, retiring. + +"Why, mother," said Rachel, smiling, "you treat me like a child, and I am +twenty-six." + +"What about that? when you aint got no more sense than a baby." + +Rachel did not venture to dispute, a proposition so distinctly stated. +She remained up, and sat sewing until her work was finished; she then +took out from some secret repository a small end of candle, lit it, and +extinguished the long candle, by the light of which she had been working. +From her pocket she took a small key; it opened a work-box, whence she +drew a shirt collar finely stitched; she worked until her eyes ached, but +she heeded it not, until they closed with involuntary fatigue and sleep, +and still she would not obey the voice of wearied nature; still she +stitched for love, like the poor shirtmaker for bread, until, without +previous warning, her candle end suddenly flickered, then expired in its +socket, and left her in darkness. Rachel gently opened the window, and +partly unclosed the shutter; the moon was riding in the sky above the old +house opposite, her pale clear light glided over its brown walls and the +quiet street, down into the silent parlour of Rachel. She looked around +her, moved at seeing familiar objects under an unusual aspect. In that +old chair she had often seen her father sitting; on such a moonlight +night as this she and Jane, then already declining, had sat by the +window, and looking at that same sky, had talked with youthful fervour of +high and eternal things. And now Jane knew the divine secrets she had +guessed from afar, and Thomas Gray, alas! was a stranger and an alien in +his own home. + +"Who knows," thought Rachel, "but he will return some day? Who knows-- +who can tell? Life is long, and hope is eternal. Ah! if he should come +back, even though he never looked at me, never spoke, blessed, thrice +blessed, should ever be held the day..." And a prayer, not framed in +words, but in deep feelings, gushed like a pure spring from her inmost +heart. But, indeed, when did she not pray? When was God divided from her +thoughts? When did prayer fail to prompt the kind, gentle words that fell +from her lips, or to lend its daily grace to a pure and blameless life? + +For to her, God was not what He, alas! is to so many--an unapproachable +Deity, to be worshipped from afar, in fear and trembling, or a cold +though sublime abstraction. No, Jesus was her friend, her counsellor, her +refuge. There was familiarity and tenderness in her very love for Him; +and, though she scarcely knew it herself, a deep and fervent sense of His +divine humanity of those thirty-three years of earthly life, of toil, of +poverty, of trouble, and of sorrow which move our very hearts within us, +when we look from Bethlehem to Calvary, from the lowly birth in the +Manger to the bitter death on the Cross. + +We might ask, were these the pages to raise such questions, why Jesus is +not more loved thus--as a friend, and a dear one, rather than as a cold +master to be served, not for love, but for wages. But let it rest. +Sufficient is it for us to know that not thus did Rachel Gray love him, +but with a love in which humility and tenderness equally blended. + +After a meditative pause, she quietly put away her things by moonlight, +then again closed shutter and window, and softly stole up to the room +which she shared with her step-mother. She soon fell asleep, and dreamed +that she had gone to live with her father, who said to her, "Rachel! +Rachel!" So great was her joy, that she awoke. She found her mother +already up, and scolding her because she still slept. + +"Mother," asked Rachel, leaning up on one elbow, "was it you who called +me, Rachel?" + +"Why aint I been a calling of you this last hour?" asked Mrs. Gray, with +much asperity. + +Rachel checked a sigh, and rose. + +"Get up Jane--get up Mary," said Mrs. Gray, rapping soundly at the room +door of the two apprentices. + +"Let them sleep a little longer, poor young things!" implored Rachel. + +"No, that I won't," replied her mother, with great determination, "lazy +little creatures." + +And to the imminent danger of her own knuckles, she rapped so +pertinaciously, that Jane and Mary were unable to feign deafness, and +replied, the former acting as spokeswoman, that Mrs. Gray needn't be +making all that noise; for that they heard her, and were getting up. "I +thought I'd make them hear me," muttered Mrs. Gray, hobbling down stairs. + +There are some beings who lead lives so calm, that when they look back on +years, they seem to read the story of a few days; and of these was Rachel +Gray. Life for her flowed dull, monotonous and quiet, as that of a nun in +her cloister. The story of one day was the story of the next. A few +hopes, a few precious thoughts she treasured in her heart; but outwardly, +to work, to hear idle gossip, to eat, drink, and sleep, seemed her whole +portion, her destiny from mom till night, from birth to the grave. + +Like every day passed this day. When it grew so dark that she could see +no more to work, she put her task by, and softly stole away to a little +back room up-stairs. + +It was a very small room indeed, with a bed, where the apprentices slept; +a chest of drawers, a table, and two chairs:--many a closet is larger. +Its solitary window looked out on the little yard below; low walls, +against which grew Rachel's stocks and wall-flowers, enclosed it. From +the next house, there came the laughter and the screams too of children, +and of babies; and from a neighbouring forge, a loud, yet not unmusical +clanking, with which now and then, blended the rude voices of the men, +singing snatches of popular songs. Dimmed by the smoke of the forge, and +by the natural heaviness of a London atmosphere, the sky enclosed all; +yet, even through the smoke and haze, fair rosy gleams of the setting sun +shone in that London sky, and at the zenith there was a space of pure, +ethereal blue--soft, and very far from sinful and suffering earth, where +glittered in calm beauty a large and tranquil star. + +Rachel sat by the window. She listened to earth: she looked at Heaven. +Her heart swelled with love, and prayer, and tenderness, and hope. Tears +of delight filled her eyes; she murmured to herself verses from psalms +and hymns--all praising God, all telling the beauty of God's creation. +Oh! pure and beautiful, indeed, would be the story of these your evening +musings, if we could lightly tell it here, Rachel Gray. + +Reader, if to learn how a fine nature found its way through darkness and +mist, and some suffering to the highest, and to the noblest of the +delights God has granted to man--the religious and the intellectual; if, +we say, to learn this give you pleasure, you may read on to the end of +the chapter; if not, pass on at once to the next. These pages were not +written for you; and even though you should read them, feel and +understand them, you never will. + +Our life is twofold; and of that double life, which, like all of us, +Rachel bore within her, we have as yet said but little. She was now +twenty six; a tall, thin, sallow woman, ungraceful, of shy manners, and +but little speech; but with a gentle face, a broad forehead, and large +brown eyes. By trade, she was a dress-maker, of small pretensions; her +father had forsaken her early, and her step-mother had reared her. This +much, knew the little world in which moved Rachel Gray, this much, and no +more. We may add, that this some little world had, in its wisdom, +pronounced Rachel Gray a fool. + +Her education had been very limited. She knew how to read, and she could +write, but neither easily nor well. For though God had bestowed on her +the rare dower of a fine mind, He had not added to it the much more +common, though infinitely less precious gift, of a quick intellect. She +learned slowly, with great difficulty, with sore pain and trouble. Her +teachers, one and all, pronounced her dull; her step-mother was ashamed +of her, and to her dying day thought Rachel no better than a simpleton. + +Rachel felt this keenly; but she had no means of self-defence. She had +not the least idea of how she could prove that she was not an idiot. One +of the characteristics of childhood and of youth is a painful inability, +an entire powerlessness of giving the form of speech to its deepest and +most fervent feelings. The infirmity generally dies off with years, +perhaps because also dies off the very strength of those feelings; but +even as they were to last for ever with Rachel Gray, so was that +infirmity destined to endure. Shy, sensitive, and nervous, she was a +noble book, sealed to all save God. + +At eleven, her education, such as it was, was over. Rachel had to work, +and earn her bread. She was reared religiously, and hers was a deeply +religious nature. The misapplication of religion narrows still more a +narrow mind, but religion, taken in its true sense, enlarges a noble one. +Yet, not without strife, not without suffering, did Rachel make her way. +She was ignorant, and she was alone; how to ask advice she knew not, for +she could not explain herself. Sometimes she seemed to see the most +sublime truths, plain as in a book; at other times, they floated dark and +clouded before her gaze, or vanished in deep obscurity, and left her +alone and cast down. She suffered years, until, from her very sufferings, +perfect faith was born, and from faith unbounded trust in God, after +which her soul sank in deep and blessed peace. + +And now, when rest was won, there came the want for more. Religion is +love. Rachel wanted thought, that child of the intellect, as love is the +child of the heart. She did not know herself what it was that she needed, +until she discovered and possessed it--until she could read a book, a +pamphlet, a scrap of verse, and brood over it, like a bird over her +young, not for hours, not for days, but for weeks--blest in that silent +meditation. Her mind was tenacious, but slow; she read few books--many +would have disturbed her. Sweeter and pleasanter was it to Rachel to +think over what she did read, and to treasure it up in the chambers of +her mind, than to fill those chambers with heaps of knowledge. Indeed for +knowledge Rachel cared comparatively little. In such as displayed more +clearly the glories of God's creation she delighted; but man's learning, +man's science, touched her not. To think was her delight; a silent, +solitary, forbidden pleasure, in which Rachel had to indulge by stealth. + +For all this time, and especially since the death of her sister, she +suffered keenly from home troubles, from a little domestic persecution, +painful, pertinacious, and irritating. Mrs. Gray vaguely felt that her +daughter was not like other girls, and not knowing that she was in +reality very far beyond most; feeling, too, that Rachel was wholly unlike +herself, and jealously resenting the fact, she teased her unceasingly, +and did her best to interrupt the fits of meditation, which she did not +scruple to term "moping." When her mind was most haunted with some fine +thought, Rachel had to talk to her step-mother, to listen to her, and to +take care not to reply at random; if she failed in any of these +obligations, half-an-hour's lecture was the least penalty she could +expect. Dear to her, for this reason; were the few moments of solitude +she could call her own; dear to her was that little room, where she could +steal away at twilight time and think in peace. + +Very unlike her age was this ignorant dress-maker of the nineteenth +century. Ask the men and women of the day to read volumes; why, there is +not a season but they go through the Herculean labour of swallowing down +histories written faster than time flies, novels by the dozen, essays, +philosophic and political, books of travels, of science, of statistics, +besides the nameless host of reviews, magazines, and papers, daily and +weekly. Ask them to study: why, what is there they do not know, from the +most futile accomplishment to the most abstruse science? Ask them too, if +you like, to enter life, to view it under all its aspects; why, they have +travelled over the whole earth; and life, they know from the palace down +to the hovel; but bid them think! They stare aghast: it is the task of +Sisyphus--the labour of the Danaide; as fast as thought enters their +mind, it goes out again. Bid them commune, one day with God and their own +hearts--they reply dejectedly that they cannot; for their intellect is +quick and brilliant, but their heart is cold. And thought springs from +the heart, and in her heart had Rachel Gray found it. + +The task impossible to them was to her easy and delightful. Time wore on; +deeper and more exquisite grew what Rachel quaintly termed to herself +"the pleasure of thinking." And oh! she thought sometimes, and it was a +thought that made her heart bum, "Oh! that people only knew the pleasures +of thinking! Oh! if people would only think!" And mom, and noon, and +night, and bending over her work, or sitting at peaceful twilight time in +the little back room, Rachel thought; and thus she went on through life, +between those two fair sisters, Thought and Prayer. + +Reader, hare you known many thinkers? We confess that we hare known many +men and women of keen and great intellect, some geniuses; but only one +real thinker have we known, only one who really thought for thought's own +sake, and that one was Rachel Gray. + +And now, if she moves through this story, thinking much and doing little, +you know why. + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +It was not merely in meditation that Rachel indulged, when she sought the +little room. The divine did not banish the human from her heart; and she +had friends known to her, but from that back room window; but friends +they were, and, in their way and degree, valued ones. + +First, came the neighbour's children. By standing up on an old wooden +stool in the yard, they could see Rachel at her window, and Rachel could +see them. They were rude and ignorant little things enough, and no better +than young heathens, in rearing and knowledge; yet they liked to hear +Rachel singing hymns in a low voice; they even caught from her, scraps of +verses, and sang them in their own fashion; and when Rachel, hearing +this, took courage to open a conversation with them, and to teach them as +well as she could, she found in them voluntary and sufficiently docile +pupils. Their intercourse, indeed, was brief, and limited to a few +minutes every evening that Rachel could steal up to her little room, but +it was cordial and free. + +Another friend had Rachel, yet one with whom she had never exchanged +speech. There existed, at the back of Mrs. Gray's house, a narrow court, +inhabited by the poorest of the poor. Over part of this court, Mrs. +Gray's back windows commanded a prospect which few would have envied-- +yet it had proved to Rachel the source of the truest and the keenest +pleasure. + +From her window, Rachel could look clearly into a low damp cellar +opposite, the abode of a little old Frenchwoman, known in the +neighbourhood, as "mad Madame Rose." + +Madame Rose, as she called herself, was a very diminutive old woman-- +unusually so, but small and neat in all her limbs, and brisk in all her +movements. She was dry, too, and brown as a nut, with a restless black +eye, and a voluble tongue, which she exercised mostly in her native +language--not that Madame Rose could not speak English; she had resided +some fifteen years in London, and could say 'yes' and 'no,' &c., quite +fluently. Her attire looked peculiar, in this country, but it suited her +person excellently well; it was simply that of a French peasant woman, +with high peaked cap, and kerchief, both snow-white, short petticoats, +and full, a wide apron, clattering wooden shoes, and blue stockings. + +What wind of fortune had wafted this little French fairy to a London +cellar, no one ever knew. How she lived, was almost as great a mystery. +Every Sunday morning, she went forth, with a little wooden stool, and +planted herself at the door of the French chapel; she asked for nothing, +but took what she got. Indeed, her business there did not seem to be to +get anything, but to make herself busy. She nodded to every one who went +in or out, gave unasked-for information, and assisted the policeman in +keeping the carriages in order. She darted in and out, among wheels and +horses, with reckless audacity; and once, to the infinite wrath of a fat +liveried coachman, she suspended herself--she was rather short--from +the aristocratic reins he held, and boldly attempted to turn the heads of +his horses. On week days, Madame Rose stayed in her cellar, and knitted. +It was this part of her life which Rachel knew, and it was the most +beautiful; for this little, laughed-at being, who lived upon charity, +was, herself, all charity. Never yet, for five years that Rachel had +watched her, had she seen Madame Rose alone in her cellar. Poor girls, +who looked very much like out-casts, old and infirm women, helpless +children, had successively shared the home, the bed, and the board of +Madame Rose. For her seemed written the beautiful record, "I was naked, +and ye clothed me; I was hungry, and ye fed me: athirst, and ye gave me +drink; and I was houseless, and you sheltered me." + +With humble admiration, Rachel saw a charity and a zeal which she could +not imitate. Like Mary, she could sit at the feet of the Lord, and, +looking up, listen, rapt and absorbed, to the divine teaching. But the +spirit of Martha, the holy zeal and fervour with which she bade welcome +to her heavenly guest, were not among the gifts of Rachel Gray. + +Yet, the pleasure with which she stood in the corner of her own window, +and looked down into the cellar of Madame Rose, was not merely that of +religious sympathy or admiration. As she saw it this evening, with the +tallow light that burned on the table, rendering every object minutely +distinct, Rachel looked with another feeling than that of mere curiosity. +She looked with the artistic pleasure we feel, when we gaze at some +clearly-painted Dutch picture, with its back-ground of soft gloom, and +its homely details of domestic life, relieved by touches of brilliant +light. Poor as this cellar was, a painter would have liked it well; he +would surely have delighted in the brown and crazy clothes-press, that +stood at the further end, massive and dark; in the shining kitchen +utensils that decorated the walls; in the low and many-coloured bed; in +the clean, white deal table; in the smouldering fire, that burned in that +dark grate, like a red eye; especially would he have gloried in the +quaint little figure of Madame Rose. + +She had been cooking her supper, and she now sat down to it. In doing so, +she caught sight of Rachel's figure; they were acquainted--that is to +say, that Madame Rose, partly aware of the interest Rachel took in such +glimpses as she obtained of her own daily life, favoured her with tokens +of recognition, whenever she caught sight of her, far or near. She now +nodded in friendly style, laughed, nodded again, and with that +communicativeness which formed part of her character, successively +displayed every article of her supper for Rachel's inspection. First, +came a dishful of dark liquid--onion soup it was--then, a piece of +bread, not a large one; then, two apples; then a small bit of cheese-- +for Madame Rose was a Frenchwoman, and she would have her soup, and her +dish, and her dessert, no matter on what scale, or in what quantity. + +But the supper of Madame Rose did not alone attract the attention and +interest of Rachel. For a week, Madame Rose had enjoyed her cellar to +herself; her last guest, an old and infirm woman, having died of old age; +but, since the preceding day, she had taken in a new tenant--an idiot +girl, of some fourteen years of age, whom her father, an inhabitant of +the court, had lately forsaken, and whom society, that negligent +step-mother of man, had left to her fate. + +And now, with tears of emotion and admiration, Rachel watched the little +Frenchwoman feeding her adopted child; having first girt its neck with a +sort of bib, Madame Rose armed herself with a long handled spoon, and +standing before it--she was too short to sit--she deliberately poured a +sufficient quantity of onion soup down its throat a proceeding which the +idiot girl received with great equanimity, opening and shutting her mouth +with exemplary regularity and seriousness. + +So absorbed was Rachel in looking, that she never heard her mother +calling her from below, until the summons was, for a third time, angrily +repeated. + +"Now, Rachel, what are you doing up there?" asked the sharp voice of Mrs. +Gray, at the foot of the staircase; "moping, as usual! Eh?" + +Rachel started, and hastened down stairs, a little frightened. She had +remained unusually long. What if her mother should suspect that she had +gone up for the purpose of thinking? Mrs. Gray had no such suspicion, +fortunately; else she would surely have been horror-struck at the +monstrous idea, that Rachel should actually dare to think! The very +extravagance of the supposition saved Rachel It was not to be thought of. + +The candle was lit. Mrs. Brown and another neighbour had looked in. +Gossip, flavoured with scandal--else it would have been tasteless--was +at full galop. + +"La! but didn't I always say so?" exclaimed Mrs. Brown, who had always +said everything. + +"I couldn't have believed it, that I couldn't!" emphatically observed +Mrs. Gray. + +"La, bless you, Mrs. Gray! _I_ could," sneered the neighbour, who was +sharp, thin, and irritable. + +Even Jane had her word: + +"I never liked her," she said, giving her thread a pull. + +"Who is she?" languidly asked Mary, letting her work fall on her knees. + +"Never you mind, Miss," tartly replied Jane. "Just stitch on, will you?" + +Mrs. Brown was again down on the unlucky absent one. + +"Serve her right," she said, benevolently. "Serve her right--the set up +thing! Oh! there's Rachel. Lawk, Rachel! what a pity you ain't been here! +You never heard such a story as has come out about that little staymaker, +Humpy, as I call her. Why, she's been a making love to--la! but I can't +help laughing, when I think of it; and it's all true, every word of it; +aint it, Mrs. Smith?" + +Mrs. Smith loftily acquiesced. + +"Oh! my little room--my little room!" inwardly sighed Rachel, as she sat +down to her work. She hoped that the story was, at least, finished and +over; but if it was, the commentaries upon it were only beginning, and +Heaven knows if they were not various and abundant. + +Rachel did her best to abstract herself; to hear, and not listen. She +succeeded so well that she only awoke from her dream when Mrs. Brown said +to her, + +"Well, Rachel, why don't you answer, then?" + +Rachel looked up, with a start, and said, in some trepidation, + +"Answer! I didn't hear you speak, ma'am." + +"Didn't you now!" knowingly observed Mrs. Brown, winking on the rest of +the company. + +"No, ma'am, I did not, indeed," replied Rachel, earnestly. + +"Bless the girl!" said Mrs. Brown, laughing outright; "why, you must be +growing deaf." + +"I hope not," said Rachel, rather perplexed; "yet, perhaps, I am; for, +indeed, I did not hear you." + +"La, Miss Gray! don't you see they are making fun of you?" impatiently +observed Jane. "Why, Mrs. Brown hadn't been a saying anything at all." + +Rachel reddened a little, and there was a general laugh at her expense. +The joke was certainly a witty one. But Mrs. Gray, who was a touchy +woman, was not pleased; and no sooner were her amiable visitors gone, +than she gave it to Rachel for having been laughed at with insolent +rudeness. + +"If you were not sich a simpleton," she said, in great anger, "people +wouldn't dare to laugh at you. They wouldn't take the liberty. No one +ever laughed at me, I can tell you. No Mrs. Brown; no, nor no Mrs. Smith +either. But you! why, they'll do anythink to you." + +Rachel looked up from her work into her mother's face. It rose to her +lips to say--"If you were not the first to make little of me, would +others dare to do so?" but she remembered her lonely forsaken childhood, +and bending once more over her task, Rachel held her peace. + +"I want to go to bed," peevishly said Mary. + +"Then go, my dear," gently replied Rachel. + +"You'll spoil that girl," observed Mrs. Gray, with great asperity. + +"She is not strong," answered Rachel; "and I promised Mr. Jones she +should not work too much." + +"Not much fear of that," drily said Jane, as the door closed on Mary. + +No one answered. Rachel worked; her mother read the paper, and for an +hour there was deep silence in the parlour. As the church clock struck +nine, a knock came at the door. Jane opened, and a rosy, good-humoured +looking man entered the parlour. He was about forty, short, stout, with +rather a low forehead, and stubby hair; altogether, he seemed more +remarkable for good-nature than for intelligence. At once his look went +round the room. + +"Mary is gone to bed, Mr. Jones," said Rachel, smiling. + +"To bed!--She ain't ill, I hope. Miss Gray," he exclaimed, with an +alarmed start. + +"Ill! Oh, no! but she felt tired. I am sorry you have had this long walk +for nothing." + +"Never mind, Miss Gray," he replied cheerfully; then sitting down, and +wiping his moist brow, he added--"the walk does me good, and then I hear +how she is, and I've the pleasure of seeing you all. And so she's quite +well, is she?" + +He leaned his two hands on the head of his walking-stick, and looking +over it, smiled abstractedly at his own thoughts. Mrs. Gray roused him +with the query-- + +"And what do you think of the state of the nation, Mr. Jones?" + +Mr. Jones scratched his head, looked puzzled, hemmed, and at length came +out with the candid confession: + +"Mrs. Gray, I ain't no politician. For all I see, politics only brings a +poor man into trouble. Look at the Chartists, and the tenth of April." + +"Ah! poor things!" sighed Rachel, "I saw them--they passed by here. How +thin they were--bow careworn they looked!" + +Mrs. Gray remained aghast. Rachel had actually had the audacity to give +an opinion on any subject unconnected with dress-making--and even on +that, poor girl! she was not always allowed to speak. + +"Now, Rachel," she said, rallying, "_will_ you hold _your_ tongue, and +speak of what you know, and not meddle with politics." + +We must apologize for using italics, but without their aid we never could +convey to our readers a proper idea of the awful solemnity with which +Mrs. Gray emphasized her address. Rachel was rather bewildered, for she +was not conscious of having said a word on politics, a subject she did +not understand, and never spoke on; but she had long learned the virtue +of silence. She did not reply. + +"As to the Chartists?" resumed Mrs. Gray, turning to Mr. Jones. + +"Law bless you, Mrs. Gray, _I_ ain't one of them!" he hastily replied. "I +mind my own business--that's what I do, Mrs. Gray. The world must go +round, you know." + +"So it must," gravely replied that lady. "You never said a truer thing, +Mr. Jones." + +And very likely Mr. Jones had not. + +"And I must go off," said Mr. Jones, rising with a half-stifled sigh, +"for it's getting late, and I have five miles to walk." + +And, undetained by Mrs. Gray's slow but honest entreaty to stay and share +their supper, he left Rachel lighted him out. As she closed the parlour +door, he looked at her, and lowering his voice, he said hesitatingly: + +"I couldn't see her, could I, Miss Gray?" + +Poor Rachel hesitated. She knew that she should get scolded if she +complied; but then, he looked at her with such beseeching eyes--he +wished for it so very much. Kindness prevailed over fear; she smiled, and +treading softly, led the way up-stairs. As softly, he followed her up +into the little back room. + +Mary was fast asleep; her hands were folded over the coverlet of +variegated patchwork; her head lay slightly turned on the white pillow; +the frill of her cap softly shaded her pale young face, now slightly +flushed with sleep. Her father bent over her with fond love, keeping in +his breath. Rachel held the light; she turned her head away, that Mr. +Jones might not see her eyes, fest filling with tears. "Oh! my father-- +my father!" she thought, "never have you looked so at your child--never +--never!" + +On tip-toe, Mr. Jones softly withdrew, and stole downstairs. + +"I'd have kissed her," he whispered to Rachel, as she opened the door for +him, "but it might have woke her out of that sweet sleep." + +And away he went, happy to have purchased, by a ten miles walk after a +day's hard labour, that look at his sleeping child. + +"Oh, Lord! how beautiful is the love Thou hast put into the hearts of Thy +creature!" thought Rachel Gray; and though it had not been her lot to win +that love, the thought was to her so sweet and so lovely, that she bore +without repining her expected scolding. + +"Mrs. Gray had never heard of such a think--never." + + +CHAPTER V. + + +The rich man has his intellect, and its pleasures; he has his books, his +studies, his club, his lectures, his excursions; he has foreign lands, +splendid cities, galleries, museums, ancient and modern art: the poor man +has his child, solitary delight of his hard tasked life, only solace of +his cheerless home. + +Richard Jones had but that one child, that peevish, sickly, fretful +little daughter; but she was his all. He was twenty-one, when the grocer +in whose shop his youth had been spent, died a bankrupt, leaving one +child, a daughter, a pale, sickly young creature of seventeen, called +Mary Smith. + +Richard Jones had veneration large. He had always felt for this young +lady an awful degree of respect, quite sufficient of itself to preclude +love, had he been one to know this beautiful feeling by more than hearsay +--which he was not. Indeed, he never could or would have thought of Mary +Smith as something less than a goddess, if, calling at the house of the +relative to whom she had gone, and finding her in tears, and, on her own +confession, very miserable, he had not felt moved to offer himself, most +hesitatingly, poor fellow I for her acceptance. + +Miss Smith gave gracious consent. They were married, and lived most +happily together. Poor little Mary's temper was none of the best; but +Richard made every allowance: "Breaking down of the business--other's +death--having to marry a poor fellow like him, &c." In short, he proved +the most humble and devoted of husbands, toiled like a slave to keep his +wife like a lady, and never forgot the honour she had conferred upon him; +to this honour Mrs. Jones added, after three years, by presenting him +with a sickly baby, which, to its mother's name of Mary, proudly added +that of its maternal grandfather Smith. + +A year after the birth of Mary Smith Jones, her mother died. The +affections of the widower centred on his child; he had, indeed, felt more +awe than fondness for his deceased wife--love had never entered his +heart; he earned it with him, pure and virgin, to the grave, impressed +with but one image--that of his daughter. + +He reared his little baby alone and unaided. Once, indeed, a female +friend insisted on relieving him from the charge; but, after surrendering +his treasure to her, after spending a sleepless night, he rose with dawn, +and went and fetched back his darling. During his wife's lifetime, he had +been employed in a large warehouse; but now, in order to stay at home, he +turned basket-maker. His child slept with him, cradled in his arms; he +washed, combed, dressed it himself every morning, and made a woman of +himself for its sake. + +When Mary grew up, her father sent her to school, and resumed his more +profitable out-door occupation. After a long search and much +deliberation, he prenticed her to Rachel Gray, and with her Mary Jones +had now been about a month. + +"How pretty she looked, with that bit of pink on her cheek," soliloquized +Richard Jones, as he turned round the corner of the street on his way +homewards; and fairer than his mistress's image to the lover's fancy, +young Mary's face rose before her father on the gloom of the dark night. +A woman's voice suddenly broke on his reverie. She asked him to direct +her to the nearest grocer's shop. + +"I am a stranger to the neighbourhood," he replied; "but I dare say this +young person can tell us;" and he stopped a servant-girl, and put the +question to her. + +"A grocer's shop?" she said, "there's not one within a mile. You must go +down the next street on your right-hand, turn into the alley on your +left, then turn to your right again, and if you take the fifth street +after that, it will take you to the Teapot." + +She had to repeat her directions twice before the woman fairly understood +them. + +"What a chance!" thought Jones, as he again walked on; "not a grocer's +shop within a mile. Now, suppose I had, say fifty pounds, just to open +with, how soon the thing would do for itself. And then I'd have my little +Mary at home with me. Yes, that would be something!" + +Ay; the shop and Mary!--ambition and love! Ever since he had dealt tea +and sugar in Mr. Smith's establishment, Richard Jones had been haunted +with the desire to become a tradesman, and do the same thing in a shop of +his own. But, conscious of the extravagant futility of this wish, Jones +generally consoled himself with the thought that grocer's shops were as +thick as mushrooms, and that, capital or no capital, there was no room +for him. + +And now, as he walked home, dreaming, he could not but sigh, for there +was room, he could not doubt it--but where was the capital? He was still +vaguely wondering in his own mind, by what magical process the said +capital could possibly be called up, when he reached his own home. There +he found that, in his absence, a rudely scrawled scrap of paper had been +slipped under his room door; it was to the following purport: + + +"Dear J., + +"Als up; farm broke. Weral inn for it. + +"Yours, + +"S. S." + + +This laconic epistle signified that the firm in whose warehouse Richard +Jones was employed, had stopped payment Rich men lost their thousands, +and eat none the worse a dinner; Richard Jones lost his week's wages, his +future employment, and remained stunned with the magnitude of the blow. + +His first thought flew to his child. + +"How shall I pay Miss Gray for my little Mary's keep?" he exclaimed, +inwardly. + +He cast his look round the room to see what he could pledge or sell. +Alas! there was little enough there. His next feeling was, + +"My darling must know nothing about it Thank God, she is not with me now! +Thank God!" + +But, though this was some sort of comfort, the future still looked so +dark and threatening, that Jones spent a sleepless night, tossing in his +bed, and groaning so loudly, that his landlady forsook her couch to knock +at his door, and inquire, to his infinite confusion, "if Mr. Jones felt +poorly, and if there was anything she could do for him, and if he would +like some hot ginger?" To which Mr. Jones replied, with thanks, "that he +was quite well, much obliged to her all the same." + +After this significant hint, he managed to keep quiet. Towards morning, +he fell asleep, and dreamed he had found a purse full of guineas, and +that he was going to open a grocer's shop, to be called the Teapot. + +Richard Jones was sober, intelligent enough for what he had to do, and +not too intelligent--which is a great disadvantage; he bore an excellent +character; and yet, somehow or other, when he searched for employment, +there seemed to be no zoom for him; and had he been a philosopher, which, +most fortunately for his peace of mind, he was not, he must inevitably +hare come to the conclusion, that in this world he was not wanted. + +We are not called upon to enter into the history of his struggles. He +maintained a sort of precarious existence, now working at this, now +working at that; for he was a Jack of all trades, and could torn his hand +to anything, but certain of no continual employment. How he went through +it all, still paying Miss Gray, still keeping up a decent appearance, +contracting no debts, the pitying eye which alone looks down on the +bitter trials of the poor, also alone knows. + +The poorer a man gets, the more he thinks of wealth and money; the +narrower does the world close around him, and all the wider grows the +world of his charms. The shop, which had only been a dormant idea in +Richard Jones's mind, now became a living phantom; day and night, mom and +noon it haunted him. When he had nothing to do--and this was, +unfortunately, too often the case--he sought intuitively the suburb +where Rachel Gray dwelt; ascertained, over and over, that within the mile +circuit of that central point there did not exist one grocer's shop, and +finally determined that the precise spot where, for public benefit and +its own advantage, a grocer's shop should be, was just round the corner +of the street next to that of Rachel Gray, in a dirty little house, now +occupied by a rag and bottle establishment, with very dirty windows, and +a shabby black doll dangling like a thief, over the doorway; spite of +which enticing prospect, the rag and bottle people seemed to thrive but +indifferently, if one might judge from the sulky, ill-tempered looking +woman, whom Jones always saw within, sorting old rags, and scowling at +him whenever she caught him in the act of peering in. + +It was, therefore, with no surprise, though with some uneasiness, that +coming one day to linger as usual near the place, James found the rag and +bottle shop closed, the black doll gone, and the words, "To let" +scrawled, in white chalk, on the shutters. Convinced that none but a +grocer could take such a desirable shop, and desirous, at least, to know +when this fated consummation was to take place, Jones took courage, and +went on as far as Rachel Gray's. + +Jane, the grim apprentice, opened to him, + +"There's no one at home," she said. + +Mr. Jones pleaded fatigue, and asked to be permitted to rest awhile. She +did not oppose his entrance, but grimly repelled all his attempts at +opening a conversation. He entered on that most innocent topic, the +weather, and praised it. + +"It has been raining," was Jane's emphatic reply. + +"Oh! has it? What's them bells ringing for, I wonder." + +"They aint a ringing; they're a tolling." + +Mr. Jones, rather confused at being thus put down by a girl of sixteen, +coughed behind his hand, and looked round the room for a subject. He +found none, save a general inquiry after the health of Mary, Mrs. Gray, +and Miss Gray. + +"They're all well enough," disdainfully replied Jane. + +"Oh, are they! I see the rag and bottle shop is shut," he added, plunging +desperately into the subject. + +"S'pose it is!" answered Jane, eyeing him rather defiantly; for the rag +and bottle woman was her own aunt; and she thought the observation of a +personal nature. + +Though much taken aback, Jones, spurred on by the irresistible wish to +know, ventured on another question. + +"You don't know who is going to take it next, do you?" + +"Oh! you want to take it, do you?" said Jane. + +"I--I!" exclaimed Jones, flurried and disconcerted. "La, bless the young +woman! I aint in the rag and bottle line, am I?" + +He thought by this artful turn to throw his young enemy off the scent; +but her rejoinder showed him the futility of the attempt. + +"I didn't say you was, did I?" she replied, drily. + +Jones rose precipitately, and hastily desiring his love to Mrs. Gray, and +his respects to Mary, he retreated most shamefully beaten. He did not +breathe freely until he reached the end of the street, and once more +found himself opposite the closed rag shop. How he had come there, he did +not rightly know; for it was not his way home. But, being there, he +naturally gave it another look. He stood gazing at it very attentively, +and absorbed in thought, when he was roused by a sharp voice, which said, + +"P'raps you'd like to see it within." + +The voice came from above. Richard looked up. The first floor window was +open, and a man's head was just thrust out of it. It looked down at him +in the street, and apparently belonged to a little old man, to whom one +very sharp eye--the other was closed up quite tight--and a long nose, +which went all of one side, gave a rather remarkable appearance. + +"Thank you, sir," replied Jones, rather confused. "I--I--" + +Before he had got to the end of his speech, the old man vanished from the +window, and suddenly appeared at the private door, beckoning him in. + +"Come in," he said, coaxingly, like an ogre luring in an unwary little +boy. + +And, drawn as by a magnet, Jones entered. + +"Dark passage, but good shop," said the old man. He opened a door, and in +the shop suddenly stepped Richard Jones. It was small, dirty, and smelt +of grease and old rags. + +"Good shop," said the old man, rubbing his hands, in seeming great glee; +"neat back parlour;" he opened a glass door, and Jones saw a triangular +room, not much larger than a good-sized cupboard. + +"More rooms up stairs," briskly said the old man; he nimbly darted up an +old wooden staircase, that creaked under him. Mechanically Jones +followed. There were two rooms on the upper and only storey; one of +moderate size; the other, a little larger than the back parlour. + +"Good shop," began the old man, reckoning on his fingers, "ca-pital shop; +neat parlour--very neat; upper storey, two rooms; one splendid; cosy +bed-room; rent of the whole, only thirty-five pounds a-year--only +thirty-five pounds a-year!" + +The repetition was uttered impressively. + +"Thank you--much obliged to you," began Richard Jones, wishing himself +fairly out of the place; "but you see--" + +"Stop a bit," eagerly interrupted the old man, catching Jones by the +button-hole, and fixing him, as the 'Ancient Mariner' fixed the wedding +guest, with his glittering eye, "stop a bit; you take the house, keep +shop, parlour, and bedroom for yourself and family--plenty; furnish +front room, let it at five shillings a week; fifty-two weeks in the year; +five times two, ten--put down naught, carry one; five times five, +twenty-five, and one, twenty-six--two hundred and sixty shillings, make +thirteen pounds; take thirteen pounds from thirty-five--" + +"Law bless you, Sir!" hastily interrupted Jones, getting frightened at +the practical landlord view the one-eyed and one-sided-nosed old man +seemed to take of his presence in the house. "Law bless you, Sir! it's +all a mistake, every bit of it." + +"A mistake!" interrupted the old man, his voice rising shrill and loud. +"A mistake! five times two, ten--" + +"Well, but I couldn't think of such a thing," in his turn interrupted +Jones. "I--" + +"Well then, say thirty pound," pertinaciously resumed the old man; "take +thirteen from thirty--" + +"No, I can't then--really, I can't," desperately exclaimed Jones; "on my +word I can't." + +"Well, then, say twenty-five; from twenty-five take thirteen--" + +"I tell you, 'tain't a bit of use your taking away thirteen at that +rate," interrupted Jones, rather warmly. + +"And what will you give, then?" asked the old man, with a sort of +screech. + +"Why, nothing!" impatiently replied Jones. "Who ever said I would give +anything? I didn't--did I?" + +"Then what do you come creeping and crawling about the place for?" hissed +the old man, his one eye glaring defiance on Jones, "eh! just tell me +that. Why, these two months you've crept and crept, and crawled, and +crawled, till you've sent the rag and bottle people away. 'Sir,' says the +rag and bottle woman to me, 'Sir, we can't stand it no longer. There's a +man, Sir, and he prowls around the shop. Sir, and he jist looks in, and +darts off agin, and he won't buy no rags, and he hasn't no bottles to +sell; and my husband and me, Sir, we can't stand it--that's all.' Well, +and what have you got to say to that, I should like to know?" + +Jones, who never had a very ready tongue, and who was quite confounded at +the accusation, remained dumb. + +"I'll tell you what you are, though," cried the old man, his voice rising +still higher with his wrath; "you are a crawling, creeping, low, sneaking +fellow!" + +"Now, old gentleman!" cried Jones, in his turn losing his temper, "just +keep a civil tongue in your head, will you? I didn't ask to come in, did +I? And if I did look at the shop at times, why, a cat can look at a king, +can't he?" + +Spite of the excellence of the reasoning thus popularly expressed, Jones +perceived that the old man was going to renew his offensive language, and +as he wisely mistrusted his own somewhat hasty temper, he prudently +walked downstairs, and let himself out. But then he reached the street, +the old man's head was already out of the first-floor window, and Jones +turned the corner pursued with the words "creeping," "crawling." He lost +the rest. + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +Rachel sat alone, working and thinking. The dull street was silent; the +sound and stir of morning, alive elsewhere, reached it not; but the sky +was clear and blue, and on that azure field mounted the burning sun, +gladdening the very house-roofs as he went, and filling with light and +life the quiet parlour of Rachel Gray. + +Mrs. Gray was an ignorant woman, and she spoke bad English; but her +literary tastes were superior to her education and to her language. Her +few books were good--they were priceless; they included the poetical +works of one John Milton. Whether Mrs. Gray understood him in all his +beauty and sublimity, we know not, but at least, she read him, seriously, +conscientiously--and many a fine lady cannot say as much. Rachel, too, +read Milton, and loved him as a fine mind must ever love that noble poet. +That very morning, she had been reading one of his sonnets, too little +read, and too little known. We will give it here, for though, of course, +all our readers are already acquainted with it, it might not be present +to their memory. + + + "When I consider how my light is spent + Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, + And that one talent which is death to hide, + Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent, + To serve therewith my Maker, and present + My true account, lest he, returning, chide; + 'Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?' + I fondly ask: but Patience to prevent + That murmur, soon replies, 'God doth not need + Either man's work, or his own gifts; who best + Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best; his state + Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed, + And post o'er land and ocean without rest; + They also serve, who only stand and wait'" + + + "'They also serve who only stand and wait,'" + + +thought Rachel, brooding over the words, as was her wont, "and that is my +case. Oh, God! I stand and wait, and alas! I do nothing, for I am blind, +and ignorant, and helpless, and what am I that the Lord should make use +of me; yet, in His goodness, my simple readiness to do His will, He takes +as good service. Oh, Rachel! happy Rachel! to serve so kind a master." + +Her work dropt on her lap; and so deep was her abstraction, that she +heard not the door opening, and saw not Richard Jones, until he stood +within a few paces of her chair. She gave a slight start on perceiving +him; and her nervous emotion was not lessened, by remarking that he was +rather pale and looked excited. + +"Mary is very well," she said, hastily, and half smiling at the supposed +alarm which had, she thought, brought him so suddenly in upon her. + +"Of course she is--of course she is," he replied, nodding; then, drawing +a chair near to Rachel's, he sat down upon it, and, bending forward, with +his two hands resting on his knees, he said, in a deep, impressive +whisper, + +"Miss Gray, may I speak to you? I want you to advise me," he added, after +a slight pause. + +"To advise you, Mr. Jones!" echoed Rachel, looking up at him, with mild +astonishment. + +"Yes, Miss Gray," he firmly replied; and, slightly clearing his throat, +he thus began: "Miss Gray, I aint a known you very long; but there aint +another in this wide world whom I respect as I do you. And I think I have +proved it; for haven't I given you my little Mary? I couldn't do more, +Miss Gray," he added, with energetic earnestness. "Yes, Miss Gray, I do +respect you; and that is why I want you to advise me. Now, this is the +whole story:-- + +"From a boy, Miss Gray, I have wished to be in business. I was in +business at Mr. Smith's, Mr. Smith was the grandfather of my little Mary, +but not on my account; and that's not quite the same thing, you see. And +I have wished to be in the grocery line, in particular, because of +understanding it so much better, from having been brought up to it, like. +Now, Miss Gray, here's the plain truth of the case. Some time ago, I +found out, by chance, that there was not--actually, that there was not a +grocer's shop in this immediate vicinity!" Here Mr. Jones held up his +forefinger by way of note of admiration. "Well, Miss Gray," he resumed +impressively, "that thought haunted me. Why here was the very place for +me! A grocer was wanted. I found out, too, that the rag and bottle shop +round the corner was just the place for me, and the people left, too; but +bless you. Miss Gray, 't was all not a bit of use--for why--I hadn't +got no capital! Well, Miss Gray, to make a long story short, a cousin of +mine has just died, and left me all she had, poor thing, and that was +sixty pound. Now, Miss Gray, what I want to know is this:--do you think +that as a father--that is, the father of my little Mary--I'm justified +in risking that money by setting up a shop, or that it's my duty to keep +it all up for the child?" + +He looked earnestly in Rachel's face. Ay, the child; it was still the +child, and always the child. His own was not his own--it was but a trust +held for his little Mary. + +"Truly, Mr. Jones," said Rachel, smiling, "you can do what you like with +your own." + +"No, indeed, Miss Gray," he rejoined, a little warmly, "I must think of +my little Mary first; and you see the whole question is, which is best +for her. Why, I aint slep these three nights with thinking on it, and so, +at last, I thought I'd come to you." + +Who had ever asked Rachel for advice! Rachel the simpleton--Rachel the +slighted and laughed-at dressmaker? Little did Mr. Jones know how nervous +he made the poor girl; besides, she felt quite bewildered at the strange +views he took of the case he submitted to her. At length she gathered +courage, and looking earnestly in his face with her mild brown eyes, she +spoke. + +"Mr. Jones," she said, "it seems to me that as the money is yours, and +that as your intentions are to turn it to a good account, you have a +right to do with it as you please. I think, too, that you are likely to +do very well as a grocer, for we really do want one about here. But I +only tell you what I think. I do not advise. I really cannot. If you want +advice, Mr. Jones, why, ask it of one who cannot mistake, for He is not +liable to human error--ask it of God Almighty." + +Richard Jones scratched his head, then hung it down ashamed. If he had +dared, he would have asked of Rachel how he was to ask of God to advise +him, and, especially, how he was to get the answer! Poor fellow! he had +an excellent hearty some faith, much charity, but the world's net was +around him. His life was not like that of Rachel Gray--a heaven upon +earth. And Rachel, who laboured under the disadvantages of a narrow +education, and a narrow life, who had not enough knowledge and enough +experience of human nature to understand clearly that there were states +of mind worlds lower than her own, did not suspect that she had given +Richard Jones the worst of all advice--that which the receiver cannot +follow. + +Alas! who talks of God now! who listens like Adam in Eden to the voice of +the Lord, and treasures in his or her own heart that source of all +knowledge? And we complain that God goes away from us; that His face is +dark, and behind the cloud; that in the days of adversity we find him +not. + +Jones rose confused, muttered thanks, then hastily changed the subject by +asking to see his daughter. Even as he spoke, the door opened, and Mary +entered. + +She did not show much pleasure or surprise on seeing her father; it was +not that she did not love him, but she was a spoiled child, too much +accustomed to his fondness and devotion to set great value on either. She +complained of the heat, then of the cold, sat down, got up again, and +gave herself all the airs of a precocious woman. Her father, leaning on +his stick, looked at her with admixing fondness, and occasionally nodded +and winked at Rachel, as if inviting her to admire likewise. At length, +with a half stifled sigh--for he never parted from his darling without +regret--he again said he must go. + +"And so, good-bye, my little Mary," he added, kissing her, but the +peevish child half-turned her head away, and said his beard hurt her. +"You hear her, Miss Gray," he exclaimed, chuckling, "does not care a pin +for her old father, not a pin," and chucking Mary's chin, he looked down +at her fondly. + +"Dear me, father, how can you?" asked the young lady, rather pettishly. +Upon which, Mr. Jones shook his head, looked delighted, and at length +managed to tear himself away. + +"And is it thus, indeed, that fathers love their daughters?" thought +Rachel Gray, as she sat alone in the little back room on the evening of +that day. "And is it thus, indeed! Oh! my father--my father!" + +She laid down the book she had been attempting to read. She leaned her +brow upon her hand; she envied none, but her heart felt full to +over-flowing. Since the night when she had gone to look at her father, as +we have recorded, Rachel had not felt strong or courageous enough to +attempt more. Her nature was timid, sensitive and shrinking to a fault, +and circumstances had made it doubly so, yet the repeated sight of +Richard Jones's devoted love for his child, inspired her with involuntary +hope. She had grown up in the belief of her father's rooted indifference; +might she not have been mistaken? was it not possible that his daughter +could become dear to Thomas Gray, as other daughters were dear to their +father? Rachel had always cherished the secret hope that it would one day +be so, but because that hope was so precious, she had deferred risking +it, lest it should perish irretrievably. She now felt inwardly urged to +make the attempt. Why should she not, like the prodigal son, rise and go +to her father? "I will," she thought, clasping her hands, her cheeks +flushing, her eyes kindling, "yes, I will go to-morrow, and my father +shall know his daughter; and, perhaps, who knows, perhaps God Almighty +will bless me." + +Here the sound of a sudden tumult in the little court close by, broke on +the dream of Rachel Gray. She looked, and she saw and heard Madame Rose +gesticulating and scolding, to the infinite amusement of a crowd of boys, +who where teazing the idiot girl. The wrath of Madame Rose was something +to see. Having first placed her protege behind herself for safety--as +if her own little body could do much for the protection of another twice +its size--Madame Rose next put herself in an attitude, then expostulated +with, then scolded, then denounced the persecutors of the helpless idiot; +after which washing her hands of them, she walked backwards to her +cellar, scorning to turn her back to the foe. But the enemy, nothing +daunted, showed evident intentions of besieging her in her stronghold, +and though Madame Rose made her appearance at the window, armed with a +broomstick, she failed to strike that terror into the hearts of her +assailants, which the formidable nature of the weapon warranted. +Fortunately, however, for the peace of the little French lady, that +valiant knight-errant of modern times, the policeman, having made his +appearance at the entrance of the court, a scutter, then a rushing +flight, were the immediate consequence. Ignorant of this fact, Madame +Rose ascribed the result entirely to her own prowess, and in all peace of +mind proceeded to cook her supper. Then followed the little domestic +scenes which Rachel liked to watch. + +As Rachel looked, she took a bold resolve, and this was to pay Madame +Rose a visit. They had met, the day before, in the street; and Madame +Rose had addressed a long and voluble discourse to Rachel, in French, +concluding with an invitation to visit her, which Rachel had understood, +and smilingly accepted. + +And now was the favourable moment to carry this project into effect. From +the little room, Rachel heard Mrs. Brown's loud voice below in the +parlour. Mrs. Gray was fully engaged, and not likely to mind her +daughter's absence. Unheeded, Rachel slipped out. + +A few minutes brought her round to the little courts and to the house +inhabited by Madame Rose. It was dingy, noisy, and dirty; and as she +groped and stumbled down the dark staircase, Rachel half repented haying +come. The voice of Madame Rose directed her to the right door--for there +were several. She knocked gently; a shrill "entrez," which she rightly +interpreted as a summons to enter, was uttered from within; and pushing +the door open, Rachel found herself in the abode and presence of Madame +Rose. + +She was received with a storm of enthusiasm, that rather bewildered than +pleased her. Madame Rose welcomed her in a torrent of speech, with a +multiplicity of nods, and winks, and shrugs, and exclamations, so novel +in the experience of Rachel Gray, that she began to wonder how much truth +there might be in the epithet occasionally bestowed on Madame Rose. For, +first of all, she insisted on cooking a dish of onion soup for her +expressly, a kindness which Rachel had all the trouble in the world to +resist; and next, this point settled, she was loud and unceasing in the +praise of the poor idiot girl, who sat mowing in her chair. + +Rachel went and sat near her, and spoke to her, but she only got an +unintelligible murmur for a reply. Madame Rose shook her head, as much as +to say that the attainments of Mimi--so she called her--did not include +speech. But Mimi was very good--very good indeed, only she could not +talk, which was "bien dommage," added Madame Rose, as, had she only been +able to speak, Mimi would certainly have done it charmingly. + +"You should see her eating onion soup," enthusiastically added Madame +Rose. "It is beautiful!" Then, seeing that Rachel was engaged in +scrutinizing, with a pitying glance, the ragged attire of her protege, +Madame Rose jealously informed her that, as yet, the toilette of Mimi had +been a little neglected, certainly; but that, "with time, and the help of +God," added Madame Rose, "Mimi should want for nothing." + +"I have an old dress at home, that will just do for her," timidly said +Rachel "Shall I bring it to-morrow night?" + +Madame Rose coughed dubiously--she had not understood; but a perfect +knowledge of the English tongue, in all its most delicate intricacies, +was one of her vanities. So, bending her head of one side, and patting +her ear, as if to imply that there lay the fault, she evidently requested +Rachel to repeat She did so; and this time, Madame Rose caught enough of +her meaning to misunderstand her. + +"I understand--I understand!" she exclaimed, triumphantly; and settling +Mimi in her chair, she told her to be good, for that she was only going +to fetch her an elegant dress presented to her by the goodness of +Mademoiselle, and that she would be back in an incredibly short space of +time; after which exhortation, Madame Rose prepared to accompany Rachel. + +In vain, poor Rachel, alarmed at the prospect of her mother's anger, +endeavoured to explain that she would bring the dress. Madame Rose, still +triumphantly asserting that she understood, insisted on going out with +her guest, and actually walked with her to her very door. In great +trepidation, Rachel opened it, and unconscious of peril or offence, +Madame Rose entered, clattering along the passage in her wooden shoes; +but Mrs. Brown's voice was just then at the loudest; the noise was not +heeded. + +Rachel took her up-stairs to the little back-room, and left her there, +whilst she looked in the room which she shared with her mother, for the +dress she wished to give Mimi; she soon came back with it, tied in a +parcel, and now devoutly wished that she could see Madame Rose safe out +of the place. But Madame Rose was in no mood to go. She had recognized +the room and window where she so often saw Rachel; and she intimated as +much, by a lively pantomime; first taking up a book, she held it before +her, pretending to read; then she pointed to her forehead, to imply that +Rachel was a thinker; and finally, to the horror and dismay of Rachel, +Madame Rose shut her eyes, opened her mouth, and warbled a sufficiently +correct imitation of the old hundredth. + +The window was open; and even Mrs. Brown's voice could not drown these +strange tones. They reached the ear of Mrs. Gray; and before Rachel had +fairly recovered from the surprise and alarm into which the musical +outburst of Madame Rose had thrown her, her step-mother appeared at the +door of the little back room, and, in stern and indignant accents, asked +to know the meaning of what she heard and saw. But, before Rachel could +reply, the French costume of Madame Rose had betrayed her. + +Mrs. Gray was of Scotch descent, and she had some of the old puritan +spirit, to which, in the course of a long life, she had added a plenteous +store of stubborn English prejudices. + +Madame Rose was "an idolatrous furriner!" "a French beggar!" too; and +that she should have darkened her doors!--that she should be familiarly +sitting under her roof--chattering and singing in a back room, with her +daughter, was an intolerable insult, a wrong not to be borne. + +"I am amazed at you, Rachel!" she said, her voice quivering with +indignation. "I am amazed at you. How dare you do sich a thing!" + +The tones and the attitude of Mrs. Gray were not to be misunderstood; nor +was little Madame Rose so dull as to mistake them. She saw that her +presence was not welcome, and, with great dignity, rose and took her +leave. Crimson with pain and shame, Rachel followed her out. She gave +Madame Rose an humble and imploring glance, as they parted at the door, +as much, as to say, "You know I could not help it." But the appeal was +not needed. To her surprise, Madame Rose remained very good-humoured. She +even laughed and shrugged her shoulders, French fashion, and indulged in +a variety of pantomimic signs, closing with one more intelligible than +the rest: a significant tap of her forefinger on her brown forehead, and +by which Madame Rose plainly intimated it to be her firm conviction that +the intellect of Mrs. Gray was unfortunately deranged. Thus they parted. + +Violent were the reproaches with which Mrs. Gray greeted her daughter's +reappearance. She exacted a strict and rigid account of the rise and +progress of Rachel's acquaintance with that "mad French beggar;" was +horror-struck on learning that the back-room window had been made the +medium; and not satisfied with prohibiting future intercourse, took the +most effective means to prevent it, by locking up the guilty zoom, and +putting the key in her pocket. + +To all this Rachel submitted; though, when she saw the door of her +much-loved retreat closing on her, her heart ached. But when, in the +height of her anger, Mrs. Gray railed at the poor little Frenchwoman, as +little better than an idolater or an infidel, Rachel felt as if it +touched her honour, not to suffer this slur on her humble friend. + +"Mother," she said, with some firmness, "you cannot tell what she is; for +you know nothing of her, save by idle reports. I have watched her life +day after day, and I have seen that it is holy. And, mother," added +Rachel, slightly colouring, from the fervour with which she felt and +spoke, "you know it as I do: all holiness comes from God." + +Unable to contradict, Mrs. Gray sniffed indignantly. + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +Hard indeed were the days that followed for Rachel Gray. The old quarrel +had began anew. Why was she not like every one? Why did she pick up +strange acquaintances?--above all, why did she mope, and want to be in +the little back room? It was strange, and Mrs. Gray was not sure that it +was not wicked. If so, it was a wickedness of which she effectually +deprived Rachel, by keeping the back room locked, and the key in her +pocket. + +But, hard as this was, it was not all. Amongst Rachel's few treasures, +were little pamphlets, tracts, old sermons, scraps of all sorts, a little +hoard collected for years, but to their owner priceless. She did not read +them daily; she had not time; but when she was alone, she took them oat, +now and then, to look at and think over. On the day that followed the +affair of Madame Rose, Mrs. Gray discovered Rachel's board. + +"More of Rachel's rubbish!" she thought, and she took the papers to the +kitchen, and lit the fire with them forthwith. + +"Oh, mother! what have you done!" cried Rachel, when she discovered her +loss. + +"Well, what about it?" tartly asked Mrs. Gray. + +A few silent, unheeded tears Rachel shed, but no more was said. + +But her very heart ached; and, perhaps, because it did ache, her longing +to go and see her father returned all the stronger. The whole day, the +thought kept her in a dream. + +"I never saw you so mopish," angrily exclaimed Mrs. Gray, "never!" + +Rachel looked up in her mother's face, and smiled so pleasantly, that +Mrs. Gray was a little softened, she herself knew not why; but the smile +was so very sweet. + +And again Rachel sat up that night, when all were sleeping in the little +house; again she burned her precious candle ends, and sat and sewed, to +finish the last of the half-dozen of fine linen shirts, begun a year +before, purchased with the few shillings she could spare now and then +from her earnings, and sewed by stealth, in hours robbed from the rest of +the night, after the fatigue of the day. But, spite of all her efforts to +keep awake, she fell asleep over her task. When she awoke, daylight +gleamed through the chinks of the shutters; it was morning. She opened +the window in some alarm; but felt relieved to perceive that it was early +yet. The street was silent; every window was closed; the sky, still free +from smoke was calm and pure; there was a peace in this stillness, which +moved the very heart of Rachel Gray. She thought of the calm slumbers of +the two millions, who, in a few hours, would fill the vast city, with +noise, agitation and strife; and she half sadly wondered that for the few +years man has to spend here below, for the few wants and cravings he +derives from nature, he should think it needful to give away the most +precious hours of a short life, and devote to ceaseless toil every +aspiration and desire of his heart. + +It was too late to think of going to bed, which would, besides, have +exposed her to discovery. So, after uniting her morning and evening +prayers in one long and fervent petition of Hope and Love, she went back +to her work, finished the little there was to do, then carefully folded +up the six shirts, and tied them up in a neat parcel. + +When this was done, Rachel busied herself with her usual tasks about the +house, until her mother came down. It was no uncommon thing for Rachel to +get up early, and do the work, while her mother still slept; and, +accordingly, that she should have done so, as Mrs. Gray thought, drew +forth from her no comment on this particular morning. + +Everything, indeed, seemed to favour her project; for, in the course of +the day, Mrs. Gray and Jane went out. Rachel remained alone with Mary. + +"Why, how merry you are to-day, Miss!" said Mary, looking with wonder at +Rachel, as she busied herself about the house, singing by snatches. + +"It is such a fine day," replied Rachel; she opened the parlour window; +in poured the joyous sunshine--the blue sky shone above the dull brick +street, and the tailor's thrush began to sing in its osier cage. "A day +to make one happy," continued Rachel; and she smiled at her own thoughts; +for on such a beautiful day, how could she but prosper? "Mary," she +resumed, after a pause, "you will not be afraid, if I go out, and leave +you awhile alone, will you?" + +"La, bless you! no, Miss Gray," said Mary, smiling. "Are you afraid when +you are alone?" she added, with a look of superiority; for she, too, +seeing every one else around her do it, unconsciously began to patronize +Rachel. + +"Oh, no!" simply replied Rachel Gray, too well disciplined into humility +to feel offended with the pertness of a child, "I am never afraid; but +then, I am so much older than you. However, since you do not mind it, I +shall go out. Either Jane or my mother will soon be in, and so you will +not long remain alone, at all events." + +"La, bless you! I don't mind," replied Mary, again looking superior. + +And now, Rachel is gone out. She has been walking an hour and more. +Again, she goes through a populous neighbourhood, and through crowded +streets; but this time, in the broad daylight of a lazy summer afternoon. +Rachel is neither nervous nor afraid--not, at least, of anything around +her. On she goes, her heart full of hope, her mind full of dreams. On she +goes: street after street is passed; at length, is reached the street +where Thomas Gray, the father of Rachel, lives. + +She stops at the second-hand ironmonger's and looks at the portraits and +the books, and feels faint and hopeless, and almost wishes that her +father may not be within. + +Thomas Gray was at his work, and there was a book by him at which he +glanced now and then, Tom Paine's "Rights of Man." There was an empty +pewter pot too, and a dirty public-house paper, from which we do not mean +to have it inferred that Thomas Gray was given to intoxication. He was +essentially a sober, steady man, vehement in nothing, not even in +politics, though he was a thorough Republican. + +Thomas Gray was planing sturdily, enjoying the sunshine, which fell full +on his meagre figure. It was hot; but as he grew old he grew chilly, +when, suddenly, a dark shadow came between him and the light. He looked +up, and saw a woman standing on the threshold of his shop. She was young +and simply clad, tall and slender, not handsome, and very timid looking. + +"Walk in ma'am," he said, civilly enough. + +The stranger entered; he looked at her, and she looked at him. + +"Want anything?" he asked, at length. + +She took courage and spoke. + +"My name is Rachel," she said. + +He said nothing. + +"Rachel Gray," she resumed. + +He looked at her steadily, but he was still silent. + +"I am your daughter," she continued, in faltering accents. + +"Well! I never said you was not;" he answered rather drily. "Come, you +need not shake so; there's a chair there. Take it and at down." + +Rachel obeyed; but she was so agitated that she could not utter one word. +Her father looked at her for awhile, then resumed his work. Rachel did +not speak--she literally could not. Words would have choked her; so it +was Thomas Gray who opened the conversation. + +"Well, and how's the old lady?" he asked. + +"My mother is quite well, thank you. Sir," replied Rachel The name of +father was too strange to be used thus at first. + +"And you--how do you get on? You 're a milliner, stay-maker--ain't +you?" + +"I am a dress-maker; but I can do other work," said Rachel, thinking +this, poor girl! a favourable opening for her present. + +"I have made these for you," she added, opening and untying her parcel; +and displaying the shirts to her father's view, and as she did so, she +gazed very wistfully in his face. + +He gave them a careless look. + +"Why, my good girl," he said, "I have dozens of shirts--dozens!" + +And he returned to his work, a moment interrupted. + +Tears stood in Rachel's eyes. + +"I am sorry," she began, "but--but I did not know; and then I thought-- +I thought you might like them." + +"'Taint of much consequence," he philosophically replied, "thank you all +the same. Jim," he added, hailing a lad who was passing by, "just tell +them at the 'Rose' to send down a pint of half-and-half, will you? I dare +say you'll have something before you go," he continued, addressing his +daughter. "If you'll just look in there," he added, jerking his head +towards the back parlour, "you'll find some bread and cheese on the +table, there's a plate too." + +Rachel rose and eagerly availed herself of this invitation, cold though +it was; she felt curious too, to inspect, her father's domestic +arrangements. She was almost disappointed to find everything so much more +tidy than she could have imagined. She had hoped that her services as +house-keeper might be more required, either then, or at some future +period of time. She sat down, but she could not eat. + +"Here's the half-and-half," said her father from the shop. + +Rachel went and took it; she poured out some in a glass, but she could +not drink; her heart was too full. + +"You'd better," said her father, who had now joined her. + +"I cannot," replied Rachel, feeling ready to cry, "I am neither hungry +nor thirsty, thank you." + +"Oh! aint you?" said her father, "yet you have a long walk home, you +know." + +It was the second time he said so. Rachel looked up into his face; she +sought for something there, not for love, not for fondness, but for the +shadow of kindness, for that which might one day become affection--she +saw nothing but cold, hard, rooted indifference. The head of Rachel sank +on her bosom, "The will of God be done," she thought. With a sigh she +rose, and looked up in her father's face. + +"Good bye, father," she said, for her father she would call him once at +least. + +"Good bye, Rachel," he replied. + +She held out her hand; he took it with the same hard indifference he had +shown from the beginning. He did not seek to detain her; he did not ask +her to come again. His farewell was as cold as had been his greeting. +Rachel left him with a heart full to bursting. She had not gone ten steps +when he called her. She hastened back; he stood on the threshold of his +shop, a newspaper in his hand. + +"Just take that paper, and leave it at the 'Rose,' will you? You can't +miss the 'Rose'--it's the public-house round the left-hand corner." + +"Yes, father," meekly said Rachel. She took the paper from his hand, +turned away, and did as she was bid. + +Her errand fulfilled, Rachel walked home. There were no tears on her +cheek, but there was a dull pain at her heart; an aching sorrow that +dwelt there, and that--do what she would--would not depart. In vain she +said to herself--"It was just what I expected; of course, I could not +think it would come all in a day. Besides, if it be the will of God, must +I not submit?" still disappointment murmured: "Oh! but it is hard! not +one word, not one look, not one wish to see me again; nothing--nothing." + +It was late when Rachel reached home. Mrs. Gray, confounded at her +step-daughter's audacity in thus again absenting herself without leave, +had, during the whole day, amassed a store of resentment, which now burst +forth on Rachel's head. The irritable old lady scolded herself into a +violent passion. Rachel received her reproaches with more of apathy than +of her usual resignation. They were alone; Jane and Mary had retired to +their room. Rachel sat by the table where the supper things were laid, +her head supported by her hand. At the other end of the table sat Mrs. +Gray erect, sharp, bitter; scolding and railing by turns, and between +both burned a yellow tallow candle unsnuffed, dreary looking, and but +half lighting the gloomy little parlour. + +"And so you won't say where you have been, you good-for-nothing +creature," at length cried Mrs. Gray, exasperated by her daughter's long +silence. + +Rachel looked up in her step-mother's face. + +"You did not ask me where I had been," she said deliberately. "I have +been to see my father." + +Not one word could Mrs. Gray utter. The face of Rachel, pale, desolate, +and sorrow-stricken, told the whole story. Rachel added nothing. She, lit +another candle, and merely saying, in her gentle voice-- + +"Good night, mother," she left the room. + +As Rachel passed by the little room of the apprentices, she saw a streak +of light gliding out on the landing, through the half-open door. She +pushed it, and entered. Jane sat reading by the little table; Mary lay in +bed, but awake. + +"I did not know you were up," said Rachel to Jane, "and seeing a light, I +felt afraid of fire." + +"Not much fear of fire," drily answered Jane. Rachel did not heed her-- +she was bending over Mary. + +"How are you to-night, Mary?" she asked. + +"Oh! I am quite well," pettishly answered Mary. + +Rachel smoothed the young girl's hair away from her cheek. She remembered +how dearly, how fondly loved was that peevish child; and she may be +forgiven if she involuntarily thought the contrast between that love, and +her own portion of indifference, bitter. + +"Mary," she softly whispered, "did you say your prayers to-night?" + +"Why, of course I did." + +"And, Mary, did you pray for your father?" + +"I wish you would let me sleep," crossly said the young girl. + +"Oh! Mary--Mary!" exclaimed Rachel, and there was tenderness and pathos +in her voice; "Mary, I hope you love your father--I hope you love him." + +"Who said I didn't?" + +"Ah! but I fear you do not love him as much as he loves you." + +"To be sure I don't," replied Mary, who had grown up in the firm +conviction that children were domestic idols, of which fathers were the +born worshippers. + +"But you must try--but you must try," very earnestly said Rachel. +"Promise me that you will try, Mary." + +She spoke in a soft, low voice; but Mary, wearied with the discourse, +turned her head away. + +"I can't talk, my back aches," she said peevishly. + +"Mary's back always aches when she don't want to speak," ironically +observed Jane. + +"You mind your own business, will you!" cried Mary, reddening, and +speaking very fast. "I don't want your opinion, at all events; and if I +did--" + +"I thought you couldn't talk, your back ached so," quietly put in Jane. + +Mary burst into peevish tears. Jane laughed triumphantly. Rachel looked +at them both with mild reproach. + +"Jane," she said, "it is wrong--very wrong--to provoke another. Mary, +God did not give us tears--and they are a great gift of his mercy--to +shed them so for a trifle. Do it no more." + +The two girls remained abashed. Rachel quietly left the room. She went to +her own. She had prayed long that morning, but still longer did she pray +that night. For alas!--who knows it not--the wings of Hope would of +themselves raise us to Heaven; but hard it is for poor resignation to +look up from this sad earth. + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +We were made to endure. A Heathen philosopher held the eight of the just +man's suffering, worthy of the Gods, and Christianity knows nothing more +beautiful, more holy, than the calm resignation of the pure and the +lowly, to the will of their Divine Father. + +It was the will of Heaven that Rachel should not be beloved of her +earthly father. She bore her lot--not without sorrow; but, at least, +without repining. Perhaps, she was more silent, more thoughtful, than +before; but she was not less cheerful, and in one sense she was certainly +not less happy. Affliction patiently borne for the love of the hand that +inflicts it, loses half its sting. The cup is always bitter--and doubly +bitter shall it seem to us, if we drink it reluctantly; but if we +courageously dram it, we shall find that the last drop is not like the +rest It is fraught with a Divine sweetness--it is a precious balsam, and +can heal the deepest and most envenomed wound. + +This pure drop Rachel found in her cup. It strengthened and upheld her +through her trial. "It is the will of God," she repeated to herself--"It +is the will of God;" and those simple words, which held a meaning so +deep, were to Rachel fortitude and consolation. + +And in the meanwhile, the little world around her, unconscious of her +sufferings and her trials--for even her mother could not wholly divine +them--went on its ways. Mrs. Gray grumbled, Jane was grim, Mary was +peevish, and Mrs. Brown occasionally dropped in "to keep them going," as +she said herself. + +As to Richard Jones, we will not attempt to describe the uneasiness of +mind he endured in endeavouring to follow out Rachel's advice. He did not +understand its spirit, which, indeed, she could not have explained. They +who make the will of God their daily law, are guided, even in apparently +worldly matters,--not indeed, so as never to commit mistakes, which were +being beyond humanity, but so, at least, as to err as little as possible +concerning their true motives of action. Our passions are our curse, +spiritual and temporal; and the mere habit of subduing them gives +prudence and humility in all things:--wisdom thus becomes one of the +rewards which God grants to the faithful servant. + +But of this, what did Richard Jones--the most unspiritual of good men, +know? After three days spent in a state of distracting doubt, he came to +the conclusion that it was, and must be the will of Heaven that he should +have a shop. Poor fellow! if he took his own will for that of the +Almighty, did he fall into a very uncommon mistake? + +Once, his mind was made up, he turned desperate, went and secured the +shop. He had all the time been in a perfect fever, lest some other should +forestall him, after which he became calm. "Did not much care about Miss +Gray's opinion--did not see why he should care about any one's opinion," +and in this lofty mood it was that Richard Jones went and gave a loud, +clear, and distinct knock at Mrs. Gray's door. + +Dinner was over--the apprentices were working--Rachel was dreaming, +rather sadly, poor girl! for she thought of what was, and of what might +have been. Mrs. Gray was reading the newspaper, when the entrance of +Richard Jones, admitted by his daughter, disturbed the quiet little +household. At once Mrs. Gray flew into politics. + +"Well, Mr. Jones," she cried, "and how are you? I suppose you know they +are raising the taxes--and then such rates as we have, Mr. Jones--such +rates!" + +Mrs. Gray was habitually a Tory, and not a mild one; but on the subject +of taxes and rates, Mrs. Gray was, we are sorry to say, a violent +radical. "She couldn't abide them," she declared. + +"And so they axe raising the taxes, are they!" echoed Mr. Jones, +chuckling. "Eh! but that won't do for me, Mrs. Gray. I'm turning +householder--and hard by here too!" he added, winking. + +Mrs. Gray did not understand at all. She coughed, and looked puzzled. Mr. +Jones saw that Rachel had not spoken to her. He continued winking, +chuckling, and rubbing his hands as he spoke. + +"I am going into business, Mrs. Gray." + +Mrs. Gray was profoundly astonished; Mary's work dropped on her lap as +she stared with open mouth and eyes at her father, who chucked her chin +for her. + +"Yes," he resumed, addressing Mrs. Gray; "I had always a turn that way." + +"Oh, you had!" + +"Always, Mrs. Gray; but I hadn't got no capital; and for a man to go into +business without capital, why, ma'am, it's like a body that aint got no +soul." + +"Don't talk so, Mr. Jones," said Mrs. Gray, to whom the latter +proposition sounded atheistical, "don't!" + +"Well, but what's a man without capital?" asked Mr. Jones, unconscious of +his offence, "why, nothink, Mrs. Gray, nothink! Well, but that's not the +question--I've got capital now, you see, and so I am going to set up a +grocery business in the rag and bottle shop round the corner; and I hare +called to secure your custom--that's all, Mrs. Gray." + +He winked and chuckled again. Rachel could not help smiling. Mrs. Gray +was grave and courteous, like any foreign potentate congratulating his +dear brother, Monsieur mon frere, on some fortunate event of his reign. + +"I called to tell you that, Mrs. Gray," resumed Jones; "and, also, to ask +a favour of Miss Gray. I should be so much obliged to 'her, if she could +spare my little Mary for half an hour or so, just to look over the house +with me." + +"Of course she can," replied Mrs. Gray for her meek daughter. "Go and put +on your bonnet, Mary.'" + +Mary, whom the tidings of the grocer's shop had most agreeably excited, +rose with great alacrity to obey, and promptly returned, with her bonnet +on. + +It was Rachel who let them out. + +"You need not be in a hurry to come back, dear," she whispered; "there's +not more work than Jane and I can well manage." + +Mary's only reply to this kind speech, was a saucy toss of the head. The +little thing already felt an heiress. + +"How much money have you got, father?" she promptly asked, as they went +down the street, + +"Sixty pounds, my dear." + +"Law! that ain't much," said Mary, as if she had rolled in guineas all +her life. + +"Well, it isn't," he replied candidly, and exactly in the same spirit; +for if there is a thing people promptly get used to, it is money. + +Mary had always been her father's confidante; he now opened his whole +heart to her, and was thereby much relieved. To his great satisfaction, +Mary condescended to approve almost without restriction, all he had done. +She accompanied him over the house and shop--thought "the whole concern +rather dirty," but kindly added, "that when it was cleaned up a bit, it +would do;" and finally gave it as her opinion, "that there wasn't a +better position in the whole neighbourhood." + +"Of course there ain't," said Mr. Jones, sitting down on the counter. +"The goodwives must either buy from me, or walk a mile. Now it stands to +reason that, rather than walk a mile, with babies crying at home, and +husbands growling--it stands to reason, I say, that they'll buy from me. +Don't it, Mary?" + +"Of course it does." + +"Well, that ain't all. You see I know something of business. The interest +of capital in business ranges from ten to a hundred per cent according to +luck; now I am lucky being alone, so we'll say fifty per cent, which is +moderate, ain't it, Mary?" + +"Of course it is," replied that infallible authority. + +"Well then: capital, sixty pounds; interest, fifty per cent. Why, in no +time, like, I shall double my capital; and when it's doubled, I shall +double it again--and so I'll go on doubling and doubling until I'm tired +--and then we'll stop. Won't we, Mary?" + +The little thing laughed; her father gave her a kiss; got up from the +counter, and with the golden vision of endless doubling of capital before +him, walked out of the shop. + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +What airs little Mary took; how Jane taunted and twitted her, how Rachel +had to interfere; how even Mrs. Brown chose to comment on the startling +fact of a new grocer's shop, and what predictions she made, we leave to +the imagination of the reader. + +We deal with the great day, or rather with the eve of the great day. It +was come. Rachel, her mother, Mary, and Mr. Jones were all busy giving +the shop its last finishing touch; on the next morning the Teapot was to +open. + +"Well, Miss Gray, 'tain't amiss, is it?" said Jones, looking around him +with innocent satisfaction. + +He was, as we have said before, a sort of Jack-of-all-trades, and to him +the Teapot doubly owed its existence. He had painted the walls; he had +fixed up the shelves in their places; the drawers and boxes his own hands +had fashioned. We will not aver that a professional glazier and carpenter +might not have done all this infinitely better than Richard Jones, but +who could have worked so cheap or pleased Richard Jones so well? And thus +with harmless pleasure he could look around him and repeat: + +"Well, Miss Gray, 'tain't amiss, is it?" + +"Amiss!" put in Mrs. Gray, before her daughter could speak, "I should +think not. You're a clever man, Mr. Jones, to have done all that with +your own hands, out of your own head." + +Mr. Jones rubbed his forehead, and passed his hand through his stubby +hair. + +"Well, Ma'am, 'tain't amiss, though I say it that shouldn't, and though +'tain't much." + +"Not much, father!" zealously cried Mary, not relishing so much modesty, +"why, didn't you nail them shelves with your own hands?" + +"Well, child," candidly replied her father, "I think I may say I did." + +"And didn't you make all them square boxes, a whole dozen of them?" + +"Hold your tongue you little chit, and help Miss Gray there to put up the +jams and marmalades." + +"And didn't you paint the walls?" triumphantly exclaimed Mary, without +heeding his orders. + +"Who else did, I should like to know?" + +"And the counter! who made the counter?" + +"Not I, Mary. I only polished it up." + +"Well, but what was it before you polished it up, father?" asked the +pertinacious daughter. + +"Not much to speak of; that's the truth. Why, bless you, Mrs. Gray," he +added, turning confidentially towards her, "you never saw such a poor +object as that counter was in all your born days. It caught my eye at the +corner of one of them second-hand shops in the New Cut. The man was +standing at the door, whistling, with his hands in his pockets. 'That's +fire-wood,' says I to him. 'No 'tain't, it's as good a counter as ever a +sovereign was changed on.' 'My good man,' says I, 'it's firewood, and +I'll give you five shillings for it.' Law, but you should have seen how +he looked at me. Well, to cut a long story short, he swore it was a +counter, and I swore it was firewood, and so, at length, I give him ten +shillings for it, and brought it home and cleaned it down, and scraped +the dirt, inch thick, off, and washed it, and painted it, and polished +it, and look at it now, Mrs. Gray, look at it now!" + +"It's just like mahogany!" enthusiastically cried Mary, "ain't it. Miss +Gray?" + +"Not quite, dear," mildly said Rachel, who was truth itself, "but it +looks very nice. But, Mr. Jones," she added, in a low timid voice, "why +did you tell the man it was firewood, when you meant it as a counter?" + +Jones wagged his head, winked, and touching his nose with his right hand +forefinger, he whispered knowingly: "That was business, Miss Gray, and in +business, you know--hem!" + +"But the Teapot, father," cried Mary, "where's the Teapot?" + +"Why, here's the Tea-pot," exclaimed Jones, suddenly producing this +masterpiece of art, and holding it up aloft to the gaze of the beholders. + +Such a Teapot had never been seen before, and, most probably, will never +be seen again, to the end of time. Its shape we will not, because we +cannot describe. It confounded Rachel, and startled even Mrs. Gray. She +coughed, and looked at it dubiously. + +"Where's the lid?" she said. + +"Why, here's the lid; but it don't take off, you know." + +"Oh! I see. And that's the handle." + +"The handle! bless you, Mrs. Gray, it's the spout." + +"Well, but where's the handle, then?" + +"Why, here's the handle, to be sure," replied Jones, rather nettled, +"don't you see?" + +Mrs. Gray said she did; but we are inclined to believe she did not. +However, Jones was satisfied; and, setting down the wooden Teapot--we +forgot to say that it was flaming red--on the counter, he surveyed it +complacently. + +"I spent a week on that Teapot," he said "didn't I, Mary?" + +"Ten days, father." + +"Well, one must not grudge time or trouble, must one, Mrs. Gray? And now, +ladies, we'll put away the Teapot, and step into the parlour, and have a +cup of tea, eh?" + +With the cup of tea, came a discussion of the morrow's prospects, and of +the ultimate destinies of the Teapot--the upshot of which was, that Mr. +Jones was an enterprising public man, and destined to effect a salutary +revolution in the whole neighbourhood. Such, at least, was the opinion of +Mrs. Gray, warmly supported by Mary. Mr. Jones was silent, through +modesty; Rachel, because she was already thinking of other things. They +parted late, though the Teapot was to open early. + +There is a report that it opened with dawn, Mr. Jones not having been +able to shut his eyes all night for excitement. But it is more important +to record that, until its close, late on the following evening, the +Teapot was not one moment empty. Mary had remained at home, to assist her +father; and she went through the day with perfect composure; but Mr. +Jones was fairly overpowered: the cup of his honours was too full; the +sum of his joy was too great. He blundered, he stammered, he was excited, +and looked foolish. Altogether, he did not feel happy, until the shop was +shut, and all was fairly over. He then sat down, wiped his forehead, and +declared, that since he was married to his dear little Mary's blessed +mother, he had never gone through such a trying day--never. + +"It's a fine thing Mr. Jones has undertaken," gravely observed Mrs. Gray +to Mrs. Brown. + +But Mrs. Brown was inclined to look at the shady side of the Tea-pot. + +"La bless you!" she kindly said, "it'll never do. I said so from the +first, and I say so the last, it'll never do!" + +"Oh, yes it will!" grimly observed Jane; "it will do for Mr. Jones, Mrs. +Brown." + +"I hope not, Jane," said Rachel, gravely; "and I would rather," she +added, with some firmness, and venturing for once on a reproof, "I would +rather you did not think so much of what evil may happen to others. +Sufficient to any of us is it to look forward to our own share of evil +days." + +She raised her voice as she began; but it sank low ere she concluded. +Surprised at herself for having said so much, she did not look round, but +resumed her work, a moment interrupted. The room remained deeply silent +Jane was crimson. For once, Mrs. Gray thought her daughter had spoken +sensibly; and for once, Mrs. Brown found nothing to say. + + +CHAPTER X. + + +A week had passed over the Teapot, and, sitting in the back-parlour with +Mary, who was busy sewing, Richard Jones dived deep into his books, and +cast up his accounts. He allowed for rent, for expenditure, for +household, for extras, then his face, brimful of ill-disguised +exultation, he said to his daughter: "Well, Mary, dear, 'taint much to +boast of, but for a first week, you see, 'taint amiss, either. I find, +all expenses covered, one pound ten net profit. Now, you know, that +makes, first, fifty-two pound a-year; then half of fifty-two, twenty-six; +add twenty-six to fifty-two, seventy-eight--seventy-eight pound a-year, +net-profit. Well, it stands to reason and common sense, that as I go on, +my business will go on improving too; in short, put it at the lowest--I +hate exaggeration--well put it at the lowest, and I may say that by next +Michaelmas, we shall have a neat hundred." + +"Law! father, can't you say a hundred and fifty at once," peevishly +interrupted Mary. + +Mary's will was law. + +"Well, I really think I can say a hundred and fifty," ingenuously replied +Richard Jones, "now, with a hundred and fifty pound for the first year, +and just five per cent, as increase of profit for the second." + +"I'm sure it'll be ten per cent," again interrupted Mary, who, from +hearing her father, had caught up some of the money terms of this +money-making world. + +"Well, I should not wonder if it would not," replied her docile papa. +"We'll suppose it, at least; well that'd be fifteen pound to add to the +hundred and fifty, or, rather, to the three hundred, and then for the +next year it would be--let me see! Ah!" and he scratched his head. "I +think I am getting into what they call compound interest, and, to say the +truth, I never was a very quick arithmetician. At all events, it is +pretty clear that at the end of ten years, we shall stand at the head of +something like fifteen hundred pound, and a flourishing house of +business," he added, glancing towards the shop--"a flourishing house of +business," he continued, complacently passing his Angers through his +hair. + +Awhile he mused, then suddenly he observed: "Mary, my dear, hadn't you +better go to bed?" Mary now slept at home. "You have to get up early, you +know." + +"Yes; but I ain't going to," she tartly replied. "It gives me a pain in +my side," she added. + +"Then you shall not get up early," authoritatively said Mr. Jones. "I'll +not allow my daughter to work herself to death for no Miss Grays." + +"I don't think I shall go at all to-morrow," composedly resumed Mary. "I +don't like dress-making--it don't agree with me." + +Mr. Jones had at first looked startled, but this settled the question. + +"If dress-making don't agree with you, not another stitch shall you put +in," he said, half angrily. "I think myself you don't look half so well +as you used to, and though Miss Gray is as nice a person as one need wish +to meet, I think she might have perceived it before this; but interest +blinds us all--every one of us," he added, with a philosophic sigh over +the weaknesses of humanity. + +"I know what Jane will be sure to say," observed Mary; "but I don't +care." + +"I should think not! Law! bless you, child, I have got quite beyond +troubling my poor brains with what other people thinks; and if I choose +to keep my daughter at home now that I can afford to do so, why shouldn't +I? It's a hard case, if, when a man's well off and comfortable, and +getting on better and better every day--it's a hard case, indeed, if he +can't keep his only child with him." + +This matter decided, Mary went up to her room; her father remained by the +fireside, looking at the glowing coals, and dreaming to his heart's +content. + +"If I go on prospering so," he thought, "why should I not take--in time, +of course--some smart young fellow to help me in the shop? It stands to +reason that customers like to be served quickly. Law, bless you! they +hate waiting," he added, thoughtfully, addressing the fire, and giving it +a poke, by way of comment, "the ladies always hate it. But, as I was +saying, why shouldn't I take some smart young man, and he, of course-- +why, I know what he'd do--why, he'd fall in love with Mary, of course-- +and why shouldn't he?" inquired Jones, warming with his subject "Was I +not a poor fellow once, and did I not marry my master's daughter?" + +Mr. Jones gave the fire another poke. In the burning coals he saw a +pleasing vision rise. He saw his shop full of customers; he served with +slow dignity, assisted by a "tight, brisk young fellow," busy as a bee, +active as a deer, for it was Saturday night, and the fair maids and +matrons of the vicinity were all impatient. Then from Saturday it was +Sunday; the shop was closed, the street was silent. Young Thomson was +brushing his coat in the yard and whistling; Mary was upstairs dressing; +another five minutes, and she comes down in straw bonnet lined with pink, +clean printed muslin frock, mousseline-de-laine shawl, brown boots and +blue parasol. The happy father saw them going off together with delighted +eyes and brimful heart Then other visions follow; one of a wedding +breakfast at which Mr. Jones sings a song, and another of half a dozen +grandchildren, all tugging at his skirts, whilst he solemnly rocks the +baby, and as solemnly informs the infant: "that he had done as much for +its mother once." + +Peace be with such dreams whenever they come to the poor man's hearth! + +A little surprised at not seeing Mary as usual on the following morning, +and thinking she might be unwell, Rachel Gray sent Jane to enquire. Jane +soon returned, her face brimful of news. + +"Well," said Rachel, "how is Mary?" + +"Law bless you Miss, Mary's well enough." + +"Why did she not come then?" + +"She does not like dress-making no more." + +And Jane sat down, and took up her work, and became deeply absorbed in a +sleeve trimming. Rachel reddened and looked pained. She liked Mary; the +pale, sickly child reminded her strongly of her own lost sister, and +though she could allow for the natural tartness with which Jane had no +doubt fulfilled her errand, yet she knew that Jane was true, and that as +she represented it, the matter must be. + +For a while she suspended her work, sadly wondering at the causeless +ingratitude of a child whom she had treated with uniform kindness and +indulgence, then she tried to dismiss the matter from her mind; but she +could not do so, and when dusk came round, her first act, as soon as she +laid by her work, was to slip out unperceived--for Mrs. Gray, highly +indignant with Mr. Jones and his daughter, would certainly have opposed +her--and go as far as the Teapot. + +Mr. Jones was serving a customer. He did not recognize Rachel as she +entered the shop, and hastily called out: + +"Mary--Mary come and serve the lady." + +"It's only me, Mr. Jones," timidly said Rachel. + +"Walk in, Miss Gray," he replied, slightly embarrassed, "walk in, you'll +find Mary in the back parlour, very glad to see you, Miss Gray." + +Much more sulky than glad looked Mary, but of this Rachel took no notice; +she sat down by the side of the young girl, and, as if nothing had +occurred, spoke of the Teapot and its prospects. To which discourse Mary +gave replies pertinaciously sullen. + +"Mary!" at length said Rachel, "why did you not come to work to day, were +you unwell?" + +This simple question obtaining no reply, Rachel repeated it; still Mary +remained silent, but when a third time Rachel gently said: "Mary what was +it ailed you?" + +Mary began to cry. + +"Well, well, what's the matter?" exclaimed her father looking in, "you +ain't been scolding my little Mary have you. Miss Gray?" + +"I!" said Rachel, "no, Mr. Jones, I only asked her why she did not come +this morning?" + +"Because I would not let her," he replied, almost sharply, "dress-making +don't agree with my Mary, Miss Gray, and you know I told you from the +first, that if her health wouldn't allow it, she was not to stay." + +And a customer calling him back to the shop, he left the parlour +threshold. Rachel rose. + +"Good-night, Mary," she gently said; "if you feel stronger, and more able +to work, you may come back to me." + +Mary did not reply. + +"Good-night, Mr. Jones," said Rachel, passing through the shop. + +"Good-night, Miss Gray," he replied, formally. "My best respects to Mrs. +Gray, if you please." + +When people have done an insolent and ungrateful thing, they generally +try to persuade themselves that it was a spirited, independent sort of +thing; and so now endeavoured to think Richard Jones and his daughter-- +but in vain. To both still came the thought: "Was this the return to make +to Rachel Gray for all her kindness?" + +The conscience of Mr. Jones, little used to such reflections, made him +feel extremely uneasy; and if that of Mary was not quite so sensitive, +the dull routine of the paternal home added much force to the conclusion +"that she had much better have stayed with Miss Gray." Mary was too +childish, and had ever been too much indulged to care for consistency. At +the close of a week, she therefore declared that she wished to go back to +Miss Gray, and did not know why her father had taken her away. + +"I--I--my dear!" said Richard Jones, confounded at the accusation, "you +said getting up early made your side ache." + +"So it did; but I could have got up late, and gone all the same, only you +wouldn't let me; you kept me here to mind the shop. I hate the shop. +Teapot and all!" added Mary, busting into tears. + +Jones hung down his head--then shook it + +"Oh! my little Mary--my little Mary!" he exclaimed, ruefully; and he +felt as if he could hare cried himself, to see the strange perversity of +this spoiled child, "who turned upon him," as he internally phrased it, +and actually upbraided him with his over-indulgence. + +A wiser father would never have thus indulged a pettish daughter, and +never have humbled himself as, to please his little Mary, Richard Jones +now did. That same day, he went round to Rachel Gray's; he had hoped that +she might be alone in the little parlour; but no, there sat, as if to +increase his mortification, Mrs. Gray, stiff and stern, and Jane smiling +grimly. Rachel alone was the same as usual. Jones scratched his head, +coughed, and looked foolish; but at length he came out with it: + +"Would Miss Gray take back his daughter, whose health a week's rest had +much improved--much improved," he added, looking at Rachel doubtfully. + +Mrs. Gray drew herself up to utter a stern "No," but for once the mild +Rachel checked and contradicted her mother, and said: + +"Yes, Mr. Jones, with great pleasure. You may send her to-day, if you +like. She has missed us, and we have missed her." + +"Thank you, Miss Gray--thank you," said Jones, hurriedly rising to +leave. + +"Give Mary my kind love," whispered Rachel, as she let him out. + +But Jones had not heard her. Very slowly, and with his hands in his +pockets, he walked down the street. He had not grown tired of Mary's +company; why had Mary grown tired of his? "It's natural, I suppose," he +thought, "it's natural;" and when he entered the shop, where Mary sat +sulking behind the counter, and he told her that she might go back to +Miss Gray's, and when he saw her face light up with pleasure, he forgot +that, though natural, it was not pleasant. + +"You may go to-day," he added, smiling. + +At once, Mary flew upstairs to her room. In less than five minutes, she +was down again, and merely nodding to her father as she passed through +the shop, off she went, with the light, happy step of youth. + +"It's natural," he thought again, "it's very natural," but he sighed. + +Mrs. Gray took in high dudgeon the consent her daughter had given to the +return of Mary Jones. She scarcely looked at that young lady the whole +day, and when she was gone, and Jane had retired to her little room, and +mother and daughter sat together, Rachel got a lecture. + +"You have no spirit," indignantly said Mrs. Gray. "What! after the little +hussy behaving so shamefully, you take her back for the asking!" + +"She is but a child," gently observed Rachel. + +"But her father ain't a child, is he?" + +Rachel smiled. + +"Indeed, mother, he is not much better," she replied. + +"I tell you, that you ain't got a bit of spirit," angrily resumed Mrs. +Gray. "The little imperent hussy! to think of playing her tricks here! +And do you think I'm agoing to stand that?" added Mrs. Gray, warming with +her subject; "no, that I ain't! See if I don't turn her out of doors +to-morrow morning." + +"Oh! mother, mother, do not!" cried Rachel, alarmed at the threat; "think +that she is but a child, after all. And, oh, mother!" she added with a +sigh, "have you never noticed how like she is to what our own little Jane +once was?" + +Mrs. Gray remained mute. She looked back in the past for the image of her +lost child. She saw a pale face, with blue eyes and fair hair, like +Mary's. Never before had the resemblance struck her; when it came, it +acted with overpowering force on a nature which, though rugged, and +stern, and embittered by age and sorrows, was neither cold nor forgetful. + +One solitary love, but ardent and impassioned, had Sarah Gray known, in +her life of three-score and ten--the love of a harsh, but devoted mother +for an only child. For that child's sake had its father, whom she had +married more for prudential reasons than for motives of affection, become +dear to her heart. He was the father of her Jane. For that child's sake, +had she, without repining, borne the burden of Rachel. Rachel was the +sister of her Jane. Never should Rachel want, whilst she had heart and +hands to work, and earn her a bit of bread. + +But when this much-loved child, after ripening to early youth, withered +and dropped from the tree of life; when she was laid to sleep in a +premature grave, all trace of the holy and beautiful tenderness which +gives its grace to womanhood, seemed to pass away from the bereaved +mother's heart. She became more harsh, more morose than she had ever +been, and had it been worth the world's while to note or record it, of +her too it might have been said, as it was of England's childless King, +"that from one sad day she smiled no more." And now, when she heard +Rachel, when in her mind she compared the living with the dead, strength, +pride, fortitude forsook her, her stern features worked, her aged bosom +heaved, passionate tears flowed down her wrinkled cheek. + +"Oh! my darling--my lost darling!" she cried, in broken accents, "would +I could have died for thee! would thou wert here to-day! would my old +bones filled thy young grave!" + +And she threw her apron over her face, and moaned with bitterness and +anguish. + +"Mother, dear mother, do not, pray do not!" cried Rachel, distressed and +alarmed at so unusual a burst of emotion. After a while, Mrs. Gray +unveiled her face. It was pale and agitated; but her tears had ceased. +For years they had not flowed, and until her dying day, they flowed no +more. + +"Rachel," she said, looking in her step-daughter's face, "I forgive you. +You have nearly broken my heart. Let Mary come, stay, and go; but talk to +me no more of the dead. Rachel, when my darling died," here her pale lips +quivered, "know that I rebelled against the Lord--know that I did not +give her up willingly, but only after such agony of mind and heart as a +mother goes through when she sees the child she has borne, reared, +cherished, fondled, lying a pale, cold bit of earth before her! And, +therefore, I say, talk no more to me about the dead, lest my rebellious +heart should rise again, and cry out to its Maker: 'Oh God! oh God! why +didst thou take her from me!'" + +Mrs. Gray rose to leave the room. On the threshold, she turned back to +say in a low, sad voice: + +"The child may come to-morrow, Rachel." + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +Mrs. Gray had never cared about Mary Jones; she had always thought her +what she was indeed--a sickly and peevish child. But now her heart +yearned towards the young girl, she herself would have been loth to +confess why. Mary took it as a matter of course, Jane wondered, Rachel +well knew what had wrought such a change; but she said nothing, and +watched silently. + +In softened tones, Mrs. Gray now addressed the young girl. If Rachel +ventured to chide Mary, though ever so slightly, her step-mother sharply +checked her. "Let the child alone," were her mildest words. As to Jane or +Mrs. Brown, they both soon learned that Mary Jones was not to be looked +at with impunity. Mrs. Gray wondered at them, she did, for teazing the +poor little thing. In short, Mary was exalted to the post of favourite to +the ruling powers, and she filled it with dignity and consequence. + +But the watchful eye of Rachel Gray noted other signs. She saw with +silent uneasiness, the fading eye, the faltering step, the weakness daily +increasing of her step-mother; and she felt with secret sorrow that she +was soon to lose this harsh, yet not unloving or unloved companion of her +quiet life. + +Mrs. Gray complained one day of feeling weak and ailing. She felt worse +the next day, and still worse on the third. And thus, day by day, she +slowly declined without hope of recovery. Mrs. Gray had a strong, though +narrow mind, and a courageous heart. She heard the doctor's sentence +calmly and firmly; and virtues which she had neglected in life, graced +and adorned her last hours and her dying bed. Meek and patient she bore +suffering and disease without repining or complaint, and granted herself +but one indulgence: the sight and presence of Mary. + +The young girl was kinder and more attentive to her old friend than might +have been expected from her pettish, indulged nature. She took a sort of +pride in keeping Mrs. Gray company, in seeing to Mrs. Gray, as she called +it Her little vanity was gratified in having the once redoubtable Mrs. +Gray now wholly in her hands, and in some sort a helpless dependent on +her good-will and kindness. It may be, too, that she found a not unworthy +satisfaction in feeling and proving to the little world around her, that +she also was a person of weight and consequence. + +But her childish kindness availed not. The time of Mrs. Gray had come; +she too was to depart from a world where toil and few joys, and some +heavy sorrows had been her portion. Mary and Rachel were alone with her +in that hour. + +Mary was busy about the room. Rachel sat by her mother's bed. Pale and +languid, Mrs. Gray turned to her step-daughter, and gathering her +remaining strength to speak, she said feebly: "My poor Rachel, I am +afraid I have often teazed and tormented you. It was all temper; but I +never meant it unkindly--never indeed. And then, you see, Rachel," she +added, true to her old spirit of patronizing and misunderstanding her +step-daughter, "Your not being exactly like others provoked me at times; +but I know it shouldn't--it wasn't fair to you, poor girl! for of course +you couldn't help it." + +And Rachel, true to her spirit of humble submission, only smiled, and +kissed her mother's wasted cheek, and said, meekly: "Do not think of it, +dear mother--do not; you were not to blame." + +And she did not murmur, even in her heart. She did not find it hard that +to the end she should be slighted, and held as one of little worth. + +A little while after this, Mrs. Gray spoke again. "Where is Mary?" she +said. + +"And here I am, Mrs. Gray," said Mary, coming up to her on the other side +of the bed. + +Mrs. Gray smiled, and stretched out her trembling hands, until they met +and clasped those of the young girl. Then, with her fading eyes fixed on +Mary's face, she said to Rachel: + +"Rachel, tell your father that I forgive him, will you?" + +"Yes, mother," replied Rachel, in a low tone. + +"Rachel," she said again, and her weak voice rose, "Rachel, you have been +a good and a faithful daughter to me--may the Lord bless you!" + +Tears streamed down Rachel's face on hearing those few words that paid +her for many a bitter hour; but her mother saw them not, still her look +sought Mary. + +"In Thy hands, Lord, I commend my spirit," she murmured, and with her +look still fastened on little Mary's pale face, she died. + +Sad and empty seemed the house to Rachel Gray when her mother was gone. +She missed her chiding voice, her step, heavy with age, her very +scolding, which long habit had made light to bear. + +The solitude and liberty once so dear and so hardly won, now became +painful and oppressive; but Rachel was not long troubled with either. + +We are told that "he whom He loveth He chasteneth;" and Rachel was not +unloved, for she, too, was to have her share of affliction. Spite her +sickly aspect, she enjoyed good health, and, therefore, when she rose one +morning, shortly after her mother's death, and felt unusually languid and +unwell, Rachel was more surprised than alarmed. + +"La, Miss! how poorly you do look!" exclaimed Jane, laying down her work +with concern. + +"I do not feel very well," replied Rachel, calmly, "but I do not feel +very ill, either," she added, smiling. + +Her looks belied her words; vainly she endeavoured to work; by the united +entreaties of Jane and Mary, she was at length persuaded to go up to her +room. She laid down on her bed, and tried to sleep, but could not; she +thought of her step-mother, so harsh, yet so kind in her very harshness; +of her father, so cold and unloving; of her silent, lonely life, and its +narrow cares and narrow duties, above which smiled so heavenly a hope, +burning like a clear star above a dark and rugged valley; and with these +thoughts and feelings, heightening them to intensity, blended the heat +and languor of growing fever. + +When Mary came up to know if Rachel Gray wanted anything, she found her +so ill that she could scarcely answer her question. She grew rapidly +worse. The medical man who was called in, pronounced her disease a slow +fever, not dangerous, but wasting. + +"Then there is nothing for it but patience," resignedly said Rachel, "I +fear I shall be the cause of trouble to those around me, but the will of +God be done." + +"La, Miss! we'll take care of you," zealously said Jane, "shan't we, +Mary?" + +"Of course we will," as zealously replied the young girl. + +Rachel smiled at their earnestness; but their zeal was destined to be +thrown in the shade by that of a third individual. On the fourth day of +her illness, Rachel was awakened from a heavy sleep into which she had +fallen, by the sound of angry though subdued voices on the staircase. + +"I tell you 'taint a bit of use, and that you're not going to go up," +said the deep, emphatic tones of Jane. + +"Et je vous dis que je veux monter, moi!" obstinately exclaimed the +shrill French voice of Madame Rose. + +Jane, who was not patient, now apparently resorted to that last argument +of kings and nations, physical force, to remove the intruder, for there +was the sound of a scuffle on the staircase, but if she had strength on +her side, Madame Rose had agility, and though somewhat ruffled and out of +breath, she victoriously burst into Rachel's room. + +"Take care, Miss, take care," screamed Jane, rushing up after her, "the +French madwoman has got in, and I couldn't keep her out." + +"Don't be afraid, Jane," said Rachel, as the alarmed apprentice made her +appearance at the door, "I am very glad to see Madame Rose. I tell you +she will not hurt me, and that I am glad to see her," she added, as Jane +stared grimly at the intruder. + +She spoke so positively, that the apprentice retired, but not without +emphatically intimating that she should be within call if Miss Gray +wanted her. + +Rachel was too ill to speak much; but Madame Rose spared her the trouble +by taking that task on herself; indeed, she seemed willing to take a +great deal on herself, and listless as Rachel was, she perceived with +surprise that Madame Rose was in some measure taking possession of her +sick room. She inquired after Mimi. Madame Rose shook her head, produced +a square pocket-handkerchief, applied it to her eyes, then turned them +up, till the whites alone were visible; in short, she plainly intimated +that Mimi had gone to her last home; after which she promptly dried her +tears, and, partly by speech, partly by pantomime, she informed Rachel +that the apprentices were too busy sewing to be able to attend on her, +and that she--Madame Rose--would undertake that care. Rachel was too +ill and languid to resist; and Jane and Mary, though they resented the +intrusion of the foreigner, were unable to eject her, for, by possession, +which is acknowledged to be nine-tenths of the law, Madame Rose made her +claim good, until the enemy had abandoned all idea of resistance. + +And a devoted nurse she made, ever attentive, ever vigilant. For three +months did Rachel see, in her darkened room, the active little figure of +the Frenchwoman, either moving briskly about, or sitting erect in her +chair, knitting assiduously, occasionally relieved, it is true, by Jane +and Mary. She saw it when she lay in the trance of fever and pain, unable +to move or speak; in her few moments of languid relief, it was still +there, and it became so linked, in her mind, with her sick room, that, +when she awoke one day free from fever, the delightful sensation that +pain was gone from her, like the weary dream of a troubled night fled in +the morning, blended with a sense of surprise and annoyance at missing +the nod and the smile of Madame Rose. + +Rachel looked around her wondering, and in looking, she caught sight of +the portly and vulgar figure of Mrs. Brown; she saw her with some +surprise, for she knew that that lady entertained a strong horror of a +sick room. + +"It's only me!" said Mrs. Brown, nodding at her. "You are all right now, +my girl." + +"I feel much better, indeed," replied Rachel + +"Of course you do; the fever is all gone, otherwise you should not see me +here, I promise you," added Mrs. Brown, with another nod, and a knowing +wink. + +"And Madame Rose," said Rachel, "where is Madame Rose?" + +"Law! don't trouble your mind about her. Keep quiet, will you?" + +Mrs. Brown spoke impatiently. Rachel felt too weak to dispute her +authority, but when Jane came up, she again inquired after Madame Rose. +Jane drily said it was all right, and that Miss Gray was to keep quiet; +and more than this she would not say. + +The fever had left Rachel. She was now cured, and rapidly got better; but +still, she did not see Madame Rose, and was favoured with more of Mrs. +Brown's company than she liked. At length she one day positively exacted +an explanation from Jane, who reluctantly gave it. + +"Law bless you, Miss!" she said, '"tain't worth talking about. Mrs. Brown +can't abide the little Frenchwoman; and so, one day when she went out, +she locked the door, and wouldn't let Mary open it; and when Madame Rose +rang and rapped, Mrs. Brown put her head out of the window, and railed at +her, until she fairly scared her away from the place." + +"But what brought Mrs. Brown here?" asked Rachel, who had heard her with +much surprise. + +Jane looked embarrassed, but was spared the trouble of replying by the +voice of Mrs. Brown, who imperatively summoned her downstairs. She +immediately complied, and left Rachel alone. A mild sun shone in through +the open window on the sick girl; she had that day got up, for the first +time, and sat in a chair with a book on her knees. But she could not +read: she felt too happy, blest in that delightful sense of returning +health which long sickness renders so sweet. Her whole soul overflowed +with joy, thankfulness, and prayer, and for once the shadow of sad or +subduing thoughts fell not on her joy. + +"Well, my girl, and how are you to-day?" said the rough voice of Mrs. +Brown, who entered without the ceremony of knocking. + +Rachel quietly replied that she felt well--almost quite well. + +"Of course you do. I knew I'd bring you round," said Mrs. Brown. "La +bless you! all their coddling was just killing you. So I told Jane, all +along, but she wouldn't believe me. 'La bless you, girl!' I said to her, +'I do it willingly, but ifs only just a wasting of my money,' says I." + +"Your money, Mrs. Brown?" interrupted Rachel, with a start. + +"Why, of course, my money. Whose else? Didn't you know of it?" + +"Indeed, I did not," replied Rachel, confounded. + +"La! what a muff the girl is!" good-humouredly observed Mrs. Brown. "And +where did you think, stupid, that the money you have been nursed with +these three months came from? Why, from my pocket, of course; twenty +pound three-and-six, besides a quarter's rent, and another running on." + +Rachel was dismayed at the amount of the debt. When and how should she be +able to pay so large a sum? Still, rallying from her first feeling of +surprise and dismay, she attempted to express to Mrs. Brown her gratitude +for the assistance so generously yielded, and her hope of being able to +repay it some day; but Mrs. Brown would not hear her. + +"Nonsense, Rachel," she said, "I ain't a-done more than I ought to have +done for my cousin's step-daughter. And to whom should Jane, when she +wanted money, have come, but to me? And as to paying me, bless you! +there's no hurry, Rachel. I can afford, thank Heaven, to lend twenty +pound, and not miss it." + +This was kindness--such Rachel felt it to be; but, alas! she also felt +that these was on her, from that day, the badge of obligation and +servitude. She was still too weak to work; she had, dining her long +illness, lost the best part of her customers; until her full recovery, +she was, perforce, cast on Mrs. Brown for assistance, and, of all +persons, Mrs. Brown was the last not to take advantage of such a state of +things. Mrs. Brown came when she liked, said what she liked, and did what +she liked in Rachel's house. But, indeed, it was not Rachel's house--it +was Mrs. Brown's. Rachel was there on sufferance; the very bed on which +she slept was Mrs. Brown's; the very chair on which she sat was Mrs. +Brown's. So Mrs. Brown felt, and made every one feel, Rachel included. + +The effects of her rule were soon apparent. Every article of furniture +changed its place; every household nook was carefully examined and +improved, and every luckless individual who entertained a lingering +kindness for Rachel Gray, was affronted, and effectually banished from +the house, from irascible Madame Rose down to peaceful Mr. Jones. + +Rachel carried patience to a fault; through her whole life, she had been +taught to suffer and endure silently, and now, burdened with the sense of +her debt and obligation, she knew not how to resist the domestic tyranny +of this new tormentor. The easiest course was to submit. To Rachel it +seemed that such, in common gratitude, was her duty; and, accordingly, +she submitted. But this was a time of probation and trial: as such she +ever looked back to it, in after life. To Jane, her patience seemed +amazing, and scarcely commendable. + +"I wonder you can bear with the old creetur, that I do," she said, +emphatically. + +"Mrs. Brown means kindly," said Rachel, "and she has been a kind friend +to me, when I had no other friend. I may well hare a little patience." + +"A little patience!" echoed Jane, indignantly, "a little patience! when +she's always at you." + +But Rachel would hear no more on the subject. If she bore with Mrs. +Brown, it was not to murmur at her behind her back. Yet she was not so +insensible to what she endured, but that she felt it a positive relief +when Mrs. Brown went and paid one of her nieces a visit in the country, +and for a few weeks delivered the house of her presence. Internally, +Rachel accused herself of ingratitude because she felt glad. "It's very +wrong of me, I know," she remorsefully thought, "but I feel as if I could +not help it." + +Her health was now restored. She had found some work to do; with time she +knew she should be able to pay Mrs. Brown. Her mind recovered its +habitual tone; old thoughts, old feelings, laid by during the hour of +trial and sickness, but never forsaken, returned to her now, and time, as +it passed on, matured a great thought in her heart. + +"Who knows," she often asked herself, in her waking dreams, "who knows if +the hour is not come at last? My father cannot always turn his face from +me. Love me at once he cannot; but why should he not with time?" Yet it +was not at once that Rachel acted on these thoughts. Never since he had +received her so coldly, had she crossed her father's threshold; but +often, in the evening, she had walked up and down before his door, +looking at him through the shop window with sad and earnest eyes, never +seeking for more than that stolen glance, though still with the +persistency of a fond heart, she looked forward to a happier future. + +And thus she lingered until one morning, when she rose, nerved her heart, +and went out; calmly resolved to bear as others, to act. + +She went to her father's house. She found him sturdy and stern, planing +with the vigour of a man in the prime of life. His brow became clouded, +as he saw and recognized his daughter's pale face and shrinking figure. +Still he bade her come in, for she stood on the threshold timidly waiting +for a welcome; and his ungraciousness was limited to the cold question of +what had brought her. + +"I am come to see you, father," was her mild reply. And as to this Thomas +Gray said nothing, Rachel added: "My mother is dead." + +"I know it, and have known it these three months," he drily answered. + +"She died very happy," resumed Rachel, "and before she died, she desired +me to come and tell you that she sincerely forgave you all past +unkindness." + +A frown knit the rugged brow of Thomas Gray. His late wife had had a +sharp temper of her own; and perhaps he thought himself as much sinned +against as sinning. But he made no comment. + +"Father," said Rachel, speaking from her very heart, and looking +earnestly in his face, "may I come and live with you?" + +Thomas Gray looked steadily at his daughter, and did not reply. But +Rachel, resolved not to be easily disheartened, persisted none the less. +"Father," she resumed, and her voice faltered with the depth of her +emotion, "pray let me. I know you do not care much for me. I dare say you +are right, that I am not worth much; but still I might be useful to you. +A burden I certainly should not be; and in sickness, in age, I think, I +hope, father, you would like to have your daughter near you. + +"I am now your only child," she added, after a moment's pause; "the only +living thing of your blood, not one relative have I in this wide world; +and you, father, you too are alone. Let me come to live with you. Pray +let me! If my presence is irksome to you," added Rachel, gazing wistfully +in his face, as both hope and courage began to fail her, "I shall keep +out of the way. Indeed, indeed," she added with tears in her eyes, "I +shall." + +He had heard her out very quietly, and very quietly he replied: "Rachel, +what did I go to America for?" + +Rachel, rather bewildered with the question, faltered that she did not +know. + +"And what did I come to live here for?" he continued. + +Rachel did not answer; but there was a sad foreboding in her heart. + +"To be alone," he resumed; and he spoke with some sternness, "to be +alone." And he went back to his planing. + +With tears which he saw not, Rachel looked at the stern, selfish old man, +whom she called her father. The sentence which he had uttered, rung in +her heart; but she did not venture to dispute its justice. Her simple +pleading had been heard and rejected. More than she had said, she could +not say; and it did not occur to her to urge a second time the homely +eloquence which had so signally failed when first spoken. But she made +bold to prefer a timid and humble petition. "Might she come to see him?" + +"What for?" he bluntly asked. + +"To see how you are, father," replied poor Rachel. + +"How I am," he echoed, with a suspicious gathering of the brow, "and why +shouldn't I be well, just tell me that?" + +"It might please Providence to afflict you with sickness," began Rachel. + +"Sickness, sickness," he interrupted; indignantly, "I tell you, woman, I +never was sick in my life. Is there the sign of illness, or of disease +upon me?" + +"No, indeed, father, there is not." + +"And could you find a man of my age half so healthy, and so strong as I +am--just tell me that?" he rather defiantly asked. + +Poor Rachel was literal as truth. Instead of eluding a reply, she simply +said: "I have seen stronger men than you, father." + +"Oh I you have--have you!" he ejaculated eyeing her with very little +favour. + +And though Rachel was not unconscious of her offence, she added: "And +strong or weak, father, are we not all in the hands of God?" + +From beneath his bushy grey eyebrows, Thomas Gray looked askance at his +daughter; but love often rises to a fearlessness that makes it heroic, +and Rachel, not daunted, resumed: "Father," she said, earnestly, "you do +not want me now; I know and see it, but if ever you should--and that +time may come, pray, father, pray send for me." + +"Want you? and what should I want you for?" asked Thomas Gray. + +"I cannot tell, I do not know; but you might want me. Remember, that if +you do, you have but to send for me. I am willing, ever willing." + +He looked at her as she stood there before him, a pale, sallow, sickly +girl, then he laughed disdainfully, and impatiently motioned her away, as +if his temper were chafed at her continued presence. Rachel felt, indeed, +that her visit had been sufficiently long, and not wishing to close on +herself the possibility of return--for she had one of those quietly +pertinacious natures that never give up hope--she calmly bade her father +good-bye. Without looking at her, he muttered an unintelligible reply. +Rachel left the shop, and returned to her quiet street and solitary home. + +Yet solitary she did not find it. True, Jane was out on some errand or +other, but Mary was alone in the parlour. She sat with her work on her +lap, crying as if her heart would break. + +In vain she tried to hide or check her tears; Rachel saw Mary's grief, +and forgetting at once her own troubles, she kindly sat down by the young +girl, and asked what ailed her. + +At first, Mary would not speak, then suddenly she threw her arms around +Rachel's neck, and with a fresh burst of tears, she exclaimed: "Oh! dear, +dear Miss Gray! I am so miserable." + +"What for, child?" asked Rachel astonished. + +"He's gone--he's gone!" sobbed Mary. + +"Who is gone, my dear?" + +Mary hung down her head. But Rachel pressed her so kindly to speak, that +her heart opened, and with many a hesitating pause, and many a qualifying +comment, Mary Jones related to her kind-hearted listener a little story, +which, lest the reader should not prove so indulgent, or so patient as +Rachel Gray, we will relate in language plainer and more brief. + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +Time had worn on: nine months in all had passed away since the opening of +the Teapot. + +We must be quite frank: Mr. Jones had not always made the one pound ten a +week dear profit; and of course this affected all his calculations: the +ten per cent for increase of gain included. There had been weeks when he +had not realized more than one pound, others when he made ten shillings, +ay and there had been weeks when all he could do--if he did do so--was +to make both ends meet. It was odd; but it was so. Mr. Jones was at first +much startled; but, he soon learned to reconcile himself to it. + +"It stands to reason," he philosophically observed to Mary, "it's +business, you see, it's business." The words explained all. + +Another drawback was that the front room which was worth five shillings a +week, as his landlord had proved to Mr. Jones in their very first +conversation, and for which Mr. Jones had therefore allowed--on the +faith of his landlord's word--thirteen pounds a year in his accounts-- +never let at all. This was the first intimation Mr. Jones received of the +practical business truth, that it is necessary to allow for losses. + +He had almost given up all thoughts of letting this unfortunate room, and +indeed the bill had had time to turn shabby and yellow in the shop +window, when one morning a young man entered the shop and in a cool +deliberate tone said: "Room to let?" + +"Yes, Sir," replied Jones rather impressed by his brief manner. + +"Back or front?" + +"Front, Sir, front. Capital room, Sir!" + +"Terms?" + +"Five shillings a-week, Sir. A room worth six shillings, anywhere else. +Like to see it, Sir? Mary--Mary, dear, just mind the shop awhile, will +you?" + +Mary came grumbling at being disturbed, whilst her father hastened +upstairs before the stranger, and throwing the window open, showed him a +very dusty room, not over and above well furnished. + +"Capital room. Sir!" said Mr. Jones, winking shrewdly; "real Brussels +carpet; portrait of Her Majesty above the mantel-piece; and that bed, Sir +--just feel that bed, Sir," he added, giving it a vigorous poke, by way +of proving its softness; "very cheerful look-out, too; the railroad just +hard by--see all the trains passing." + +Without much minding these advantages, the stranger cast a quick look +round the room, then said in his curt way: "Take four shillings for it? +Yes. Well then, I'll come to-night." + +And without giving Mr. Jones time to reply, he walked downstairs, and +walked out through the shop. + +"Well, father, have you let the room?" asked Mary, when her father came +down, still bewildered by the young man's strange and abrupt manner. + +"Well, child," he replied, "I suppose I may say I have, for the young man +is coming to-night." + +"What's his name?" promptly asked Mary. + +"I'm blest if I know; he never told me, nor gave me time to ask." + +"But, father, you don't mean to say you let the room to him, without +knowing his name?" + +"But I didn't let the room to him," said Mr. Jones; "it was he took it." + +"Well, that's queer!" said Mary. + +"Queer! I call it more than queer!" exclaimed the grocer, now turning +indignant at the treatment he had received; "but he shan't sleep in it, +though, till I've got his references, I can tell him." + +The words were scarcely out of his mouth, when into the shop again walked +the stranger. + +"My name is Joseph Saunders," he said, briefly, "and if you want to know +more, apply to Mr. Smithson, number thirteen, in the alley hard by. He'll +give you all the particulars." + +Having delivered which piece of information, he once more vanished. Well, +there was nothing to say to this; and Mr. Jones, who had an inquisitive +temper, was preparing to dart off to Mr. Smithson's, who did indeed live +hard by, when Mr. Joseph Saunders once more appeared. + +"P'r'aps you'd like the first week," he said; and without waiting for a +reply, he laid four shillings down on the counter, and again disappeared +--this time to return no more. Mary was very much struck. + +"He looks quite superior," she said, "quite. Saunders--Joseph Saunders! +what a nice name." + +"That's all very well," replied her father, sweeping the four shillings +into the till, "but I must have a word or two to say with Mr. Smithson-- +for all that his name is Joseph Saunders." + +He took his hat, and walked out to seek Mr. Smithson, an old and stiff +dealer in earthenware, who lived within a stone's-throw of the Teapot. +The day was fine, and Mr. Smithson was airing his pans and dishes, and +setting them along the pavement, like traps for the feet of unwary +passengers. + +"Good-morning to you," began Jones, in a conciliating tone. + +"Good-morning!" replied, or rather, grunted Mr. Smithson, without taking +the trouble to look up. + +"I have just come round to inquire about a young man--his name is Joseph +Saunders. Do you know him?" + +"S'pose I do?" answered Mr. Smithson too cautious to commit himself. + +"Well then, s'pose you do--you can tell me something about him, can't +you?" + +"What for?" drily asked the earthenware dealer. + +"What for!" exclaimed Mr. Jones, beginning to lose his temper, "why, +because he's taken my front room, and I want to know what sort of a chap +he is, and because, too, he has referred me to you--that's what for." + +"Well, then," said Mr. Smithson, "I'll just tell you this: first, he'll +pay his rent; second, he'll give no trouble; third, that's all." + +With which Mr. Smithson, who had for a moment looked up, and paused in +his occupation, returned to his earthenware. + +"And what does he do?" asked Mr. Jones, not satisfied with this brief +account. + +"If you was to stay here from now till to-morrow morning," surlily +replied Mr. Smithson, "you'd know no more from me." + +Mr. Jones whistled, and walked off, with his hands in his pockets. He had +been guilty of the unpardonable sin of not purchasing a shilling's worth +of Mr. Smithson's goods since he had come to the neighbourhood, and of +course Mr. Smithson felt aggrieved. + +"Well, father," eagerly exclaimed Mary, as soon as she saw her father; +"who is he? What is he? What does he do? Is he married--" + +"Bless the girl!" interrupted Mr. Jones, "how am I to know all that? +He'll pay his rent, and he's respectable, and more don't concern us; and +it's time for you to go to Miss Gray, ain't it?" + +With which limited information Mary had, perforce, to remain satisfied. + +The new lodger proved to be what Mr. Jones graphically termed "a very +buttoned-up sort of chap;" a tall, dark, silent, and reserved man, who +paid his rent every week, went out early every morning, came home at ten +every night, and vanished every Sunday. + +We have already hinted that Mr. Jones had a spice of curiosity; this +mystery teazed him, and by dint of waylaying his guest both early and +late, he succeeded in ascertaining that he had recently left his +situation in a large house in the city, and that he was in search of +another. No more did Mr. Joseph Saunders choose to communicate; but this +was enough. + +For some time, the poor grocer had had a strong suspicion that he was not +a very good business man; that he wanted something; energy, daring, he +knew not what, but something he was sure it was. + +"Now," he thought, "if I could secure such a young fellow as that; it +would be a capital thing for me, and in time not a bad one for him. For +suppose, that he becomes a Co., and marries Mary, why the house is his, +that's all. Now I should like to know what man in the city will say to +him: 'Saunders, I'll make a Co. of you, and you shall have my daughter.'" + +Fully impressed with the importance of the proposal he had to make, Mr. +Jones accordingly walked up one morning to his lodger's room; and after a +gentle knock, obtained admittance. But scarcely had he entered the room, +scarcely cast a look around him, when his heart failed him, Joseph +Saunders was packing up. + +"Going, Sir?" faintly said Jones. + +"Why yes!" replied the young man, "I have found a situation, and so I am +off naturally. My week is up to-morrow, I believe, but not having given +notice, I shall pay for next, of course." + +He thrust his hand in his pocket as he spoke. Poor Mr. Jones was too much +hurt with his disappointment to care about the four shillings. + +"Pray don't mention it," he said hurriedly, "your time's up to-morrow, +and so there's an end of it all." Which words applied to the end of his +hopes, more than anything else. + +Mr. Saunders gave him a look of slight surprise, but said quietly: "No, +no, Mr. Jones, what's fair is fair. I gave no notice, and so here are +your four shillings." He laid them on the table as he spoke; and resumed +his packing. + +He forgot to ask what had brought Mr. Jones up to his room, and Mr. Jones +no longer anxious to tell him, pocketed his four shillings and withdrew +hastily, under pretence that he was wanted in the shop. + +Mr. Jones had not acted in all this without consulting his daughter; she +had tacitly approved his plans, and when he had imprudently allowed her +to see how he thought those plans likely to end by a matrimonial alliance +between herself and young Saunders, a faint blush had come over the poor +little thing's sallow face, and stooping to shun her father's kind eye, +she pretended to pick up a needle that had not fallen. And now she was +waiting, below, for it was early yet, and she had not gone to Miss Gray's +--she was waiting to know the result of her father's conference with Mr. +Saunders. No wonder that he came down somewhat slowly, and not a little +crest-fallen. All he said was: "He's got a new situation," and whistling +by way of showing his utter unconcern, he entered the shop, where a dirty +child with its chin resting on the counter, was waiting to be served. + +Mary too had had her dreams, innocent dreams, made up of the shadow of +love, and of the substance of girlish vanity. The poor child felt this +blow, the first her little life had known, and childishly began to cry. +Her eyes were red when she went to work, but she sat in shadow, and Jane, +who seldom honoured Miss Jones with her notice, saw nothing. Rachel Gray +was too much absorbed in her own thoughts to heed what passed around her. + +It was only on her return, that finding Mary in tears, she drew from her +the little tale of her hope and disappointment. It is not an easy task to +console, even the lightest sorrow, for it is not easy to feel sympathy. +Yet little as her grave mind, and earnest heart could understand the +troubles of Mary Jones, little as she could feel in reality for the +childish fancy to which they owed their birth, Rachel felt for the young +girl's grief, such as it was, and by sympathy and mild reasoning, she +soothed Mary, and sent her home partly consoled. + +Of course, Mr. Saunders was gone--he had left too without any adieu or +message. Mary's vanity was as much hurt as her heart. + +Mr. Jones was not habitually a man of keen perceptions, but love is ever +quick. It cut him to the heart to see his little Mary so woebegone. He +looked at her wistfully, tried to check a sigh, and said as brightly as +he could: + +"Cheer up, Mary; law bless you girl, well have lots of lodgers yet; and +as to that Saunders, I don't so much care about it, now he's gone. He was +a clever fellow, but he hadn't got no capital, and as to taking a Co. +without capital, why none but a good-natured easy fellow like me would +dream of such a thing now a days; but, as I said, we'll have lots of +lodgers--lots of lodgers." + +"We never had but that one all them nine months," said Mary with some +asperity. + +"They're all a coming," said her father gaily, "They're all a coming." + +And he said it in such droll fashion, and winked so knowingly that, do +what she could, Mary could not but laugh. + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +Mary was gone; Jane, had come in but to go up to her room. Rachel sat +alone in the little parlour, reading by candle-light. + +And did she read, indeed! Alas no! Her will fixed her eyes on the page, +but her mind received not the impressions it conveyed. The sentences were +vague and broken as images in a dream; the words had no meaning. +Outwardly, calm as ever did Rachel seem, but there was a strange sorrow-- +a strange tumult in her heart. + +That day the hope of years had been wrecked, that day she had offered +herself, and been finally rejected. In vain she said to herself: "I must +submit--it is the will of God, I must submit." A voice within her ever +seemed to say: "Father, Father why hast thou forsaken me!" until, at +length, Rachel felt as if she could bear no more. + +Sorrows endured in silence are ever doubly felt. The nature of Rachel +Gray was silent; she had never asked for sympathy; she had early been +taught to expect and accept in its stead, its bitter step-sister +Ridicule. Derided, laughed at, she had learned to dread that the look of +a human being should catch a glimpse of her sorrows. If her little +troubles were thus treated--how would her heavier griefs fare? + +And now no more than ever did Rachel trouble any with her burden. Why +should she? Who, what was she that others should care whether or not her +father loved her! That he did not sufficiently, condemned her to +solitude. The pitying eye of God might, indeed, look down upon her with +tenderness and love, but from her brethren Rachel expected nothing. + +And thus it was that, on this night, after consoling the idle sorrows of +an indulged child, Rachel, sitting in solitude, found the weight of her +own grief almost intolerable. Like all shy and nervous persons, she was +deeply excitable. Anger she knew not; but emotions as vehement, though +more pure, could trouble her heart. And now she was moved, and deeply +moved, by a sense of injustice and of wrong. Her father wronged her-- +perhaps he knew it not; but he wronged her. "God Almighty had not given +him a child, she felt, to treat it thus, with mingled dislike and +contempt Were there none to receive his slights and his scorn, but his +own daughter?" + +She rose, and walked up and down the room with some agitation. Then came +calmer and gentler thoughts, moving her heart until her tears flowed +freely. Had she not failed that day--had she not been too cold in her +entreaties, too easily daunted by the first rejection? Had she but +allowed her father to see the love, deep and fervent, which burned in his +daughter's heart--he would not, he could not so coldly have repelled and +cast her from him. + +"And why not try again?" murmured an inner voice; "the kingdom of Heaven +is taken by storm--and what is the kingdom of Heaven, but the realm of +love?" + +At first, this seemed a thought so wild, that Rachel drew back from it in +alarm, as from an abyss yawning at her feet. But even as our looks soon +become familiar with images of the wildest danger, so the thought +returned; and she shrank not back from it. Besides, what had she to lose? +Nothing! With a sort of despair, she resolved to go and seek Thomas Gray, +and attempt once more to move him. "If he rejects me now," she added, +inwardly, "I shall submit, and trouble him no more." + +The hour was not late; besides, in her present mood, the timid Rachel +felt above fear. She was soon dressed--soon on her road. This time +neither annoyance nor evil befell her. She passed like a shadow through +crowds, and like a shadow was unheeded. The night was dark and dreary; a +keen wind whistled along the streets--but for either cold or darkness +Rachel cared not. Her thoughts flowed full and free in her brain; for +once, she felt that she could speak; and a joyful presentiment in her +heart told her that she would, and should be heard--and not in vain. + +Absorbed in those thoughts, Rachel scarcely knew what speed she had made, +until, with the mechanical impulse of habit, she found herself stopping +before the second hand ironmonger's shop. Wakening as from a dream, and +smiling at herself, she went on. Rachel had expected to find the shop of +Thomas Gray closed, and himself absent; but the light that burned from +his dwelling, and shed its glow on the opposite houses, made her heart +beat with joy and hope. Timidly, she looked in through the glass panes; +the shop was vacant; her father was, no doubt, in the back parlour. +Rachel entered; the door-bell rang. She paused on the threshold, +expecting to see him appear from within, nerving herself to bear his cold +look, and severe aspect; but he came not He was either up-stairs, or in +some other part of the house, or next door with a neighbour. + +There was a chair in the shop; Rachel took it, sat down, and waited--how +long, she herself never knew; for seconds seemed hours, and all true +consciousness of time had left her. At length, she wondered; then she +feared--why was her father's house so silent and so deserted? She went +to the door, and looked down the street. It was still and lonely; every +house was shot up; and even from the neighbouring thoroughfare, all +sounds of motion and life seemed gone. + +Suddenly Rachel remembered the little public-house to which her father +had once sent her. She had often seen him going to it in the evening; +perhaps he was there now. In the shadow of the houses, she glided up to +the tavern door--it stood half open--she cautiously looked in; and +standing, as she did in the gloom of the street, she could do so unseen. +The landlord sat dozing in the bar--not a soul was with him. Rachel +glanced at the clock above his head; it marked a quarter to twelve. +Dismayed and alarmed, she returned to her father's house. It so chanced, +that as she walked on the opposite side of the narrow street, a +circumstance that had before escaped her notice, now struck her. In the +room above the shop of Thomas Gray, there burned a light. She stopped +short, and looked at it with a beating heart. She felt sure her father +was there. + +Rachel re-entered the shop, and again sat down, resolved to be patient; +but her nervous restlessness soon became intolerable. Seized with an +indefinite fear, she rose, took the light, and entered the parlour: it +was vacant. Passing under a low door which she found ajar, she went up a +dark staircase. It ended with a narrow landing, and a solitary door; she +knocked, and got no reply; she tried it, it yielded to her hand, and +opened; but Rachel did not cross the threshold; she paused upon it, +awe-struck at the sight she saw. The room was a small one, poorly +famished, with a low and narrow bed, a table and a few chairs. On the +mantle-shelf burned a tallow light, dim and lurid for want of snuffing; +its dull glow fell on the motionless figure of Thomas Gray. He sat +straight and stiff in a wooden chair, with a hand resting on each arm. +His face was ghastly pale, and rigid as death; his eyes stared on the +blank wall before him, and seemed void of sight. + +"My father is dead," thought Rachel. She entered the room and went up to +him. But when she laid her hand on his arm, a slight convulsive motion +showed her that he still lived. Ay, he lived, of that living death, which +is worse than the true. Paralysis had fallen upon him without warning. +Like a thief in the night it had come; and in a few brief seconds it had +laid low the proud man's strength. Of that strength he had boasted in the +morning; twelve hours had not gone round--where was it now? + +Rachel did not lose her presence of mind. How she went out, found a +doctor, and brought him back, she never exactly knew; but she did it. + +The medical man looked at Thomas Gray, then at Rachel. + +"You are his daughter," he said, kindly. + +"Yes, sir, I am." + +"Well, then, my poor girl, I am very sorry for you--very sorry. Your +father may live years but I can hold out no prospect of recovery." + +"None, sir?" faltered Rachel, looking wistfully in his face. + +"Not the least. Better I should tell you so at once, than deceive you." + +But Rachel would not--could not believe him. The sentence was too hard, +too pitiless to be true. + +"Father, father! do you know me?" she cried. + +He stared vacantly in her face. Did he know her? Perhaps he did. Who can +tell how far the spirit lived in that dead body? But if know her he did, +gone was the time when he could hold intercourse with that long slighted, +and now bitterly avenged daughter. + +In vain she clung weeping around his neck, in vain she called on him to +reply. He merely looked at her in the same vacant way, and said +childishly, "Never mind." + +"But you know me--you know me, father!" said Rachel. + +Again, he looked at her vacantly, and still the only words he uttered +were, "Never mind." + +"His mind is gone for ever," said the doctor. + +Rachel did not answer. She clasped her hands, and looked with wistful +sadness on the old man's blank face. With a pang she felt and saw that +now, indeed, her dream was over--that never, never upon earth, should +she win that long hoped-for treasure--her father's love. + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +In the grey of the morning, Rachel brought her father to the humble +little home which he had voluntarily forsaken years before. + +Thomas Gray was not merely a paralyzed and helpless old man, he was also +destitute. Little more than what sufficed to cover his current expenses +did Rachel find in his dwelling; his furniture was old and worthless; and +the good-will of the business scarcely paid the arrears of rent. + +But the world rarely gives us credit for good motives. It was currently +reported that Thomas Gray was a wealthy man, and that if Rachel Gray did +not let him go to the workhouse, she knew why. "As if she couldn't let +him go, and keep his money too," indignantly exclaimed Jane, when she +heard this slander; and, as discretion was not Jane's virtue, she +repeated all to Rachel Gray. Poor Rachel coloured slightly. It seemed +strange, and somewhat hard too, that her conduct should be judged thus. +But the flush passed from her pale face, and the momentary emotion from +her heart. "Let the world think, and say what it likes," she thought, "I +need not, and I will not care." + +Not long after Rachel brought home her father, Jane left her. The time of +her apprenticeship was out; besides, she was going to marry. She showed +more emotion on their parting, than might have been expected from her. + +"God bless you. Miss Gray," she said several times; "God bless you--you +are a good one, whatever the world may think." + +The praise was qualified, and, perhaps, Rachel felt it to be so, for she +smiled; but she took it as Jane meant it--kindly. Amity and peace marked +their separation. + +Rachel now remained alone with her father and Mary. The young girl was +not observant. She saw but a quiet woman, and a helpless old man, with +grey hair, and stern features blank of meaning, who sat the whole day +long by the fire-side, waited on by his patient daughter. Sometimes, +indeed, when Rachel Gray attended on her father with more than usual +tenderness, when she lingered near his chair, looking wistfully in his +face, or with timid and tender hand gently smoothed away his whitened +hair from his rugged brow, sometimes, then, Mary looked and wondered, and +felt vaguely moved, but she was too childish to know why. + +And, indeed, the story of Rachel's life at this time cannot be told. It +was beautiful; but its beauty was not of earth, and to earthly glance +cannot be revealed. It lay, a divine secret, between her heart and God. + +This peace was not destined to last Rachel and her father sat alone one +morning in the parlour, when Mrs. Brown, who had found the street door +ajar, burst in without preliminary warning. She was scarlet, and looked +in a towering passion. + +"You audacious creatur," she screamed; "you audacious hussey, how dare +you bring that man in this house--in my house! How dare you?" + +"He is my father," said Rachel, confounded, both at the accusation, and +at the unexpected appearance of Mrs. Brown. + +The reply exasperated Mrs. Brown. She had never felt any extraordinary +friendship or affection for her deceased cousin; but she had always +entertained a very acute sense of her cousin's wrongs, and had +accordingly honoured Thomas Gray with no small share of hatred and +vituperation, and that Rachel should not feel as she did on the subject, +or should presume to remember that the sinner was her father, was, in +Mrs. Brown's eyes, an offence of the deepest dye. She gave her feelings +free vent. She was a vulgar woman, and had a flow of vulgar eloquence at +her command. She overwhelmed Rachel and Thomas Gray with sarcasm, scorn +and abuse, and Rachel answered not one word, but heard her out, still as +a statue, and pale as death. Mrs. Brown, too, was pale, but it was with +wrath. + +"Do you know," she added, trembling from head to foot with that passion, +"do you know that I could turn you out on the streets, you and your +beggarly father--do you know that?" + +Rachel did know it, and groaned inwardly. Mrs. Brown saw her agony, and +triumphed in the consciousness of her own power. But the very violence of +her anger had by this time exhausted it; she felt much calmer, and took a +more rational view of things. + +"I am a fool to mind what a simpleton like you does," observed Mrs. +Brown, with that disregard of politeness which was one of her attributes; +"for, being a simpleton, how can you but do the acts of a simpleton? As +to bringing your father here, you must have been mad to think of it; for, +if you can't support yourself, how can you support him? However, it's +lucky I'm come in time to set all to rights. What's his parish? +Marylebone, ain't it? I shall see the overseer this very day, and manage +that for you; and it's just as well," added Mrs. Brown, divesting herself +of bonnet and shawl, and proceeding to make herself at home, "that you +didn't meddle, in it--a pretty mess you'd have made of it, I'll be +bound. Well! and what do you stand dreaming there for? Make me a cup of +tea--will you? I am just ready to drop with it all." + +As a proof of her assertion, she sank on the chair next her, took out her +pocket-handkerchief, and began fanning herself. But, instead of complying +with Mrs. Brown's orders, Rachel Gray stood before that lady motionless +and pale. She looked her in the face steadily, and in a firm, clear +voice, she deliberately said: + +"Mrs. Brown, my father shall never, whilst I live, go to a workhouse." + +"What!" screamed Mrs. Brown. + +"I say," repeated Rachel, "that my father shall never, whilst God gives +his daughter life, go to a workhouse." + +Mrs. Brown was confounded--then she laughed derisively. + +"Nonsense, Rachel," she said, "nonsense. Why, I can turn you out, this +very instant." + +But the threat fell harmless, Rachel was strong in that hour; her cheek +had colour, her eye had light, her heart had courage. She looked at the +helpless old man, who had drawn this storm on her head, then at Mrs. +Brown, and calmly laying her hand on the shoulder of Thomas Gray, she +again looked in Mrs. Brown's face, and silently smiled. Her choice was +made--her resolve was taken. + +"Will you send him to the workhouse, or not?" imperatively cried Mrs. +Brown. + +"No," deliberately replied Rachel. + +"Oh! very well, ma'am, very well," echoed Mrs. Brown, laughing bitterly; +"please yourself--pray please yourself. So, that is my reward for saving +you from beggary, is it? Very well, ma'am; you and your father may pack +off together--that's all." + +"Be it so," rather solemnly replied Rachel, "be it so. What I leave in +this house will, I trust, cancel the debt I owe you. Father," she added, +stooping towards him, "lean on my shoulder, and get up. We must go." + +With apathy Thomas Gray had heard all that had passed, and with apathy, +he trembling rose, and complied with Rachel's intimation, and looking in +her face, he uttered his usual childish: "Never mind." + +But before they reached the door, Mrs. Brown, to the surprise and dismay +of Rachel, went into violent hysterics. She was an over-bearing and +ill-tempered woman, but her heart was not wholly unkind; and on seeing +that Rachel so readily took her at her word, she was overwhelmed with +mingled rage and shame. Hastily making her father sit down on the nearest +chair, Rachel ran to Mrs. Brown's assistance. A fit of weeping and bitter +reproaches followed the hysterics; and Rachel was convicted of being the +most ungrateful creature on the face of the earth. In vain Rachel +attempted a justification; Mrs. Brown drowned her in a torrent of speech, +and remained the most injured of women. + +The scene ended as such scenes ever end. There was a compromise; the +victim made every concession, and the triumphant tyrant gained more than +her point. In short, that her father might not want the shelter of a +roof, Rachel agreed to remain in the house, and Mrs. Brown kindly agreed +to come and live in it, and use Rachel as her servant and domestic slave, +by which Mrs. Brown, besides keeping her firm hold on Rachel--no slight +consideration with one who loved power beyond everything else--effected +a considerable saving in her income. + +"Oh! my father--my father!" thought Rachel, as she bent over his chair +that night, and tears, which he felt not, dropped on his gray hair, +"little do you know what I shall have to bear for your sake." + +She did not speak aloud, yet he seemed vaguely conscious that something +lay on her mind; for he shook his head, and uttered his eternal "Never +mind--never mind!" + +"And I will not mind--so help me God!" fervently answered Rachel aloud. + +And she did not mind; but, alas! what now was her fate? Ask it not. She +had made her sacrifice in the spirit of utter abnegation, and none need +count the cost which she never reckoned. + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +The same cloud of trouble and sorrow that now darkened the daily life of +Rachel Gray, soon gathered over her neighbours and friends. With boding +and pain, she watched the coming of a calamity, to them still invisible. + +Mr. Jones got up one morning, and felt exactly as usual. He took down his +shutters, and no presentiment warned him of the sight that was going to +greet his eyes. + +The Teapot stood at the corner of a street which had naturally another +corner facing it; that corner--let it be angle, if you like, critical +reader--had, from time immemorial, been in the possession of a brown, +tottering, untenanted house, whose broken parlour windows Mr. Jones had +always seen filled with, blank oak shutters, strong enough for security +and closing within. + +But now, to his dismay, he saw half-a-dozen workmen pulling down the +bottom of the house, and leaving the top untouched. His heart gave a +great thump in his bosom. "I'm a lost man," he thought, "they're making a +shop of it." + +And so they were, but what sort of a shop was it to be? That was the +question. Jones lost no time; he put down his shutter, thrust his hands +in his pocket--his usual resource when he wanted to look unconcerned-- +sauntered awhile down the street, talked to some children, and finally +came back to the workmen. + +"Pulling it down," he said, after looking at them for awhile, "an old +rubbishing concern--ain't it?" + +"Pulling it down!" echoed one of the workmen, giving him a contemptuous +look, "much you know about it." + +"Well, but what is it to be?" asked Jones, looking as simple as he could, +"stables?" + +"Stables! a shop, stupid!" + +"Oh! a shop! Ah! it's to be a shop, is it? And what sort of a shop-- +public-house? We want one." + +"Better ask Mr. Smithson; the house is his." + +"Oh! it's Mr. Smithson's, is it?" + +Jones walked away much relieved. + +Mr. Smithson had long talked of removing himself and his earthenware to +some larger tenement than that which he now occupied; a pleasant +neighbour he was not; but anything was better than the fear which had for +a moment seized the heart of Richard Jones. + +The workmen did not linger over their task, indeed, Mr. Smithson took +care that they should not. Night and morning, the whole day long, Jones +saw him after them; he watched him through the pots of Scotch marmelade +that decorated the front of his shop window, and internally admired the +indefatigable zeal Mr. Smithson displayed. Humbly, too, he contrasted it +with his own deficiencies in that respect "I ain't got no spirit; that's +the fact of it," confessed Mr. Jones in his own heart. + +In a comparatively short space of time, the bricklayers had done their +task; they were succeeded by the carpenters, who proved as zealous and as +active. And now fear and trembling once more seized the heart of Richard +Jones. What were those busy carpenters about? why were they fabricating +shelves and drawers? drawers of every size, some small, some large, just +such drawers as he had in his shop? He questioned one of their body: what +was to be sold in that shop--did he know? The man could not tell, but +rather fancied it was to be an oil and colour shop. Then it was not to be +Mr. Smithson's own? Oh, no, certainly! + +Jones walked away, a prey to the most tormenting anxiety. Was the man +right--was he wrong? had he spoken the truth? had he deceived him? Was +he, Jones, now that his business was really improving, was he threatened +with a rival? Or was this but a false alarm, the phantom of his fears? +what would he not have given to think so! His ease was the more +distressing, that he dared unburthen his mind to none, to Mary least of +any. She, poor little thing, far from sharing her father's fears, +rejoiced in the prospect of a new shop. + +"It'll make the street quite gay," she said to her father, "especially if +it's a linen-draper's. I wonder if they'll have pretty bonnets." + +She tried to obtain information on this interesting point, but failed +completely. Suspense is worse than the worst reality. Richard Jones lost +appetite and sleep. Slumber, when it came, was accompanied by such +fearful nightmare, that waking thoughts, though bitter, were not, at +least, so terrible. He could not forget the opposite shop; in the first +place, because he saw it every morning with his bodily eyes; in the +second, because it ever haunted that inward eye called by Wordsworth 'the +bliss of solitude.' How far it proved a bliss to Richard Jones, the +reader may imagine. + +All this time the shop had been progressing, and now bricklayer, +carpenter, glazier, and decorator haying done their work, it was +completed and ready for its tenant, who, however, seemed in no hurry to +appear. This proved the worst time for Richard Jones. To look at that +shop all the day long, and not to be able to make anything of it; to +wonder whether it were a friend or an enemy; whether it would give new +lustre to the street on which he had cast his fortunes, or blast those +fortunes in their very birth, was surely no ordinary trial. Well might he +grow thin, haggard, and worn. + +At length, the crisis came. At the close of November, a dread rumour +reached his ears. The shop was to be a grocer's shop, and it was to open +a week before Christmas. + +That same evening, Mary came home crying, and much agitated. Mrs. Brown, +with her usual kindness, had given information. + +"Oh, father!" she exclaimed, "Mrs. Brown says it's to be a grocer's +shop." + +"So I have heard to-day," he replied, a little gloomily. "Never mind, +child," he added, attempting to cheer up, and a rueful attempt it turned +out, "never mind, I dare-say there's room for two." + +He said it, but he knew it was not true; he knew there was room but for +one, and that if two came, why, either both must perish after a fierce +contest, or one survive and triumph over the ruin of the other's all. He +knew it, and groaned at the thought. + +"I wish you wouldn't father," said Mary, again beginning to cry. + +"Mary, my pet, I can't help it," said Jones, fairly giving way to +feelings too long repressed; "there aint room for two, that's the plain +truth of it, and if another grocer comes, why, he must ruin me, or I must +ruin him; and that aint pleasant to think of, is it?" + +Mary was not without spirit. + +"Father," she cried resolutely, "if it's to be, why, it's to be, and it +can't be helped; but I wouldn't give in without trying to get the upper +hand, that I wouldn't." + +Her father shook his head disconsolately. + +"Child," he said, "it's like setting an old horse against a mettlesome +young one. That new fellow has got every advantage. Look at his shop, +then look at mine; why, his is twice as big again. Look at his front-- +all plate glass; look at his counters--all polished oak!" + +"Well, and can't you get the shop--our shop--done up too?" ambitiously +asked Mary. "There's time yet." + +"Why yes, there is--but the money, Mary dear!" + +"Never mind the money." + +"No more I would, my pet, if I had got it; but you see, the one pound ten +a week hasn't kept up; and those things cost a precious deal." + +Mary reflected a while. "S'pose," she suggested, "you got in a fresh +stock of jams in glass jars, for the front window." + +"And what shall we do with the old?" + +"Eat them. And s'pose you add a few pots of pickles?" + +"Pickles!" echoed Jones, looking doubtful. + +"And s'pose," continued Mary, "you add macaroni, and sauces, and set up +as a superior grocer." + +Jones scratched his head. + +"Law, child!" he said, "this aint a stylish neighbourhood--and who'll +buy my macaroni and my sauces?" + +"Why no one, of course," superciliously replied Mary. "It's not to sell +them, you want them; it's for the look of the thing--to be a superior +grocer, you know." + +The words "superior grocer," gently tickled secret ambition. Mr. Richard +Jones seriously promised his daughter to think about it. + +Mary had other thoughts, which she did not communicate to her father; and +of these thoughts, the chief was to find out what had become of Mr. +Saunders, and return to the old plan of enticing him into partnership. +She was so full of this project, that, partly to get assistance, partly +to take a little consequence on herself, she imparted it, under the +strictest secrecy, to Rachel Gray; and at the close, she pretty clearly +hinted, that if Mr. Joseph Saunders behaved well, he might, in time, +aspire to the honour of her hand. + +Rachel heard her silently, and looked very uncomfortable. + +"My dear," she said, hesitatingly, "you must not think of anything of the +kind; indeed you must not." + +"And why shouldn't I?" tartly asked Mary, with a saucy toss of the head. + +"Because, my dear," said Rachel, gently and sadly, "Jane is going to +marry that Mr. Saunders, who ifs cousin to Mr. Smithson, who is putting +him in the new grocer's shop." + +For a moment, Mary remained stunned; then she burst into tears. + +"He's a mean, sneaking fellow! that's what he is!" she cried. + +"Oh, my dear--my dear!" gently said Rachel, "will you not take something +from the hand of God! We have all our lot to bear," she added, with a +half sigh. + +But gently though Rachel spoke, Mary looked more rebellious than +submissive. + +"He's a mean--" she began again; the entrance of Mrs. Brown interrupted +her. + +Mrs. Brown was in a very ill humour. At first, she had behaved pretty +decently to Rachel and her father; but of late, she had given free vent +to her natural disposition; and it was not, we have no need to say, an +amiable one. On the present occasion, she had, moreover, additional cause +for dissatisfaction. + +"And so," she exclaimed, slamming the door, and irefully addressing +Rachel, "and so your beggarly father has been and broke my china cup! Eh, +ma'am!" + +Rachel turned pale, on hearing of this new disaster. + +"Indeed, Mrs. Brown--" she began. + +"Don't Mrs. Brown me," was the indignant rejoinder. "I tell you, I have +never had a moment's peace, ease, and quiet, and never shall have--since +you and your beggarly father entered this house." + +For, by a strange perversion of ideas, Mrs. Brown persisted in asserting +and thinking that it was Rachel and her father who had entered the house, +and not she. And this, Rachel might have said; and she might have added +that to bear daily reproaches and insults, formed no part of her +agreement with Mrs. Brown. She might--but where would the use have been? +She was free to depart any day she liked; and since she preferred to +stay, why not bear it all patiently? And so she remained silent, whilst +Mrs. Brown scolded and railed; for, as she had said to Mary, "we have all +our lot to bear." + +The lesson was lost on the young girl. No sooner was Mrs. Brown's back +turned, than again Mary abused Mr. Saunders, Jane, Mr. Smithson and the +new shop collectively, until she could go home to her father's. He +already knew all, and gloomily exclaimed, "that it was no more than he +expected; that it was all of a piece; and that there was neither honesty, +gratitude, nor goodness left in this wicked world." + +From which comprehensive remark we can clearly see that Mr. Jones is +turning misanthropic. And yet the matter was very simple--an everyday +occurrence. Smithson had seen that he might find it profitable to cut the +ground under Jones's feet. Why should he not do it? Is not profit the +abject of commerce? and is not competition the fairest way of securing +profit? + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +The reader may easily imagine Jane and Joseph Saunders married. It was an +old engagement Imagine them, too, retained from their wedding tour to +Gravesend. It is evening; and on the next morning, "The two Teapots" is +to open. + +Richard Jones spent a sleepless night, and took down his shutters as soon +as a gray, dull light entered the street. It availed little; only a dirty +child came in for a pennyworth of brown sugar. It was half-past eight +when Saunders opened his shop; and just about that time a chill, +drizzling rain began to fall. + +The morning was miserable, and only a few wretched figures flitted about +the wet street. No one entered the "Teapot;" but then not a soul either +crossed the threshold of the rival shop. + +And thus the dull morning wore on until the church clock struck ten. A +sprinkling of customers then entered the shop of Richard Jones. They were +one and all mightily indignant at the impudence of the opposite shop in +coming there--a lady in a large, black, shabby straw bonnet in +particular. + +"Ay, ay, you may flare away--you may flare away," she added, knowingly +wagging her head at it, "you'll have none of my custom, I can tell you. +An ounce of your four shilling best, Mr. Jones, if you please?" + +"Coming, ma'am, di-rectly," was the prompt reply. . + +"I never heard anythink like it--never," observed another lady, with +solemn indignation. "Did the low fellow think we wanted his shop!" + +An indignant "no," was chorused around. + +Richard Jones's heart swelled, and his throat too. He was much moved. + +"Gentlemen," he began, "no, ladies, I mean--ladies, I have always done +my duty since I was a boy, and, with the help of God, I mean to do my +duty till I die." Pause and approving murmur. "And, ladies, I am no +speech-maker--all I say is this: God forgive that villain opposite! You +know the story. I'll not trouble you with repeating it. All I say is +this: ladies, if my customers'll stand by me, I'll stand by my customers +--I'll stand by my customers!" he repeated, looking round the shop with a +triumphant eye, and giving the counter a hearty thump with his fist; and, +poor fellow, you may be sure that he did mean to stand by his customers. + +The oration proved very successful; altogether, the day was successful. +The two Teapots remained vacant; the Teapot was thronged. All Jones's +liege subjects were anxious to prove their loyalty; and though, when the +gas was lit, Jones could discern a few dark figures within his rival's +shop, Jones did not care. He felt certain they were but some of the low +creatures from the alley, and be did not care. + +The second day resembled the first, and the third resembled the second. +Jones felt quite satisfied "that it was all right," until he cast up his +accounts at the end of the week. To his surprise, he found that his +expenditure was barely covered, and that, somehow or other, his gains had +considerably lessened. He reckoned over and over, and still he came to +the same result. "Well, 'taint of much consequence for one week," he +thought, a little impatiently, and he put the books by. + +"What's the matter, father?" asked Mary, looking up into his overcast +face. + +"What's the matter!" he echoed cheerfully; "why, the matter is, that you +are a saucy puss--that's what's the matter," and he chucked her chin, +and Mary laughed. + +But the next week's examination revealed a still deeper gap. Jones +scratched his head, and pulled a long face. It was not that he minded the +loss, for it was a trifling one after all; but be had a secret dread, and +it stood in the background of his thoughts, like a ghost in a dark room, +haunting him. Could it be--was it possible--that his customers were +playing him false--that they were deserting him--and he began to think +and think, and to remember, how many pennyworths of this, and of that, he +had sold to the children, and how few shillings worth he had sold to the +mothers. + +"Well, father, and how's this week?" asked Mary. + +Jones rubbed his chin, and looked at her fairly perplexed--his wit was +none of the brightest--as to how he might best elude the question. + +"How's this week," he echoed; "well, this week is like last week to be +sure. I wonder how that fellow Saunders is a getting on." + +"Law! father, don't mind him," said Mary. "He's low, that's what he is-- +he's low." + +Impossible for us to translate the scorn with which Miss Mary Jones +spoke. It impressed her father. "Spirited little thing," he thought, and +he drew her fondly towards him, and kissed her, and Mary fortunately +forgot her question. + +Week after week passed, and what had been a speck on the horizon, became +a dark and threatening cloud. Richard Jones could not shut his eyes to +the truth that his customers were deserting him. Even Mary perceived it, +and spoke uneasily on the subject, of which her father at once made +light. + +"It's business, child," he said, "and business is all ups and downs; I +have had the ups, and the downs I must have." Spite this philosophic +reflection, Mr. Jones could not help thinking he had rather more than his +share of the downs. He was embittered, too, by daily perceiving the +defection of some staunch customer. That lady in the large, shabby, black +straw bonnet, who had so spiritedly told "The two Teapots" to flare away +on the day of its opening, was one of the first who forsook the "Teapot" +for its rival. Many followed her perfidious example; but Mr. Jones did +not feel fairly cut up, until he one evening distinctly saw Rachel Gray +walk out of the opposite shop. The stab of Brutus was nothing to Caesar +in comparison with this blow to Richard Jones. + +And he was thinking it over the next morning, and stood behind his +counter breaking sugar rather gloomily, when Rachel herself appeared. Mr. +Jones received her very coldly. + +She asked for a pound of sugar. + +"And no tea?" he said, pointedly. + +"None to-day," quietly replied Rachel; but she saw that he knew all, and +she was too sincere to feign ignorance. "Mr. Jones," she said, somewhat +sadly, "I must go where I am told, and do as I am bid; but, indeed, why +do you not keep better tea?" + +"Better tea! better tea!" echoed Mr. Jones, in some indignation. + +"Yes," quietly said Rachel, "better tea." + +Mr. Jones smiled an injured smile, and rather sarcastically replied: + +"Miss Gray, if you prefer that feller's tea to mine, you're welcome to +leave your money to him, and not to me. 'Tain't because my daughter is +prenticed to you that I expect nothink from you, Miss. All I say is this: +don't go there at night, Miss Gray, and buy your tea, and then come here +in the morning and buy your sugar. That's not giving a man your custom, +you know it ain't. Don't do it; no offence meant, but I'm like you, Miss +Gray, plain spoken, you see." + +And he resumed the breaking of his sugar. + +"I prefer!" sadly said Rachel, "when you know, Mr. Jones, that I am no +one now, but must go by the will of another--indeed, you wrong me!" + +Jones knew he did; but misfortune makes men wilfully unjust. + +"Don't mention it," he interrupted, "ladies like new faces, and he's a +young fellow, and I am an old one, and so there's an end of it." + +Poor Rachel looked much pained. To be blamed by every one seemed her lot. + +"Indeed, Mr. Jones," she said, "I must do as Mrs. Brown bids me, and she +says your four shilling black is not equal to his four, and, indeed, Mr. +Jones, I am sorry to say, that others say so too." + +Mr. Jones did not reply one word; he fell into a brown study; at the +close of it he sighed, and looking up, said earnestly: + +"Miss Gray, let me have some of that tea, will you? and I'll see myself +what it's like." + +"Of course you will," said Rachel, brightening, "you shall have it +directly--directly, Mr. Jones." + +And without loss of time she hastened home, and almost immediately +appeared again, bringing him the tea herself, and earnestly declaring +that she was sure he had only to taste it, to set all right, to which +Jones answered not a word, but rather gloomily thanked her for the +trouble she had taken. When he was once more alone, he smelt the tea, +shook his head and frowned; then he put it away until evening came round, +when he gave it to Mary, and without further explanation, simply told her +that was the tea they were going to have this evening. Unconscious Mary +made the tea. + +"La! Father," she exclaimed, as she poured the boiling water upon it, +"what beautiful tea you've got; it's quite fragrant." + +"Is it?" he echoed, faintly, + +"Why, of course it is," she said, pettishly, "I am sure that fellow +opposite ain't got nothink like it." + +Richard Jones leaned his brow on his hand, and checked a groan. But when +the tea was drawn, when it was poured out, when he raised the cup to his +lips and tasted it, the man's courage forsook him; he put down the cup, +and cried like a child. + +"Father! father!" exclaimed Mary, frightened and bewildered. + +"Oh! my darling!" he cried, "we're ruined--we're lost!--that tea is +Joseph Saunders's tea; and he gives it for four shillings, and it's +better than my five. And I can't give it, nor I can't get it neither," he +added, despairingly; "for I have not got credit, and little cash; and I +buy dear, and dear I must sell, or starve!" + +Of this speech, all Mary understood, was that the tea she had been making +was tea from Mr. Saunders's shop. She deliberately rose, poured the +contents of the teapot on the ashes in the hearth; the contents of her +own teacup, then of her father's quickly followed; then she sat down, +folded her arms, and uttered a grim: "There! I only wish I could serve +him so," she added after a pause. + +But what Mary meant by this wish--to pour out Joseph Saunders like his +own tea, seems rather a fantastic image, even for hate--the present +writer does not venture to determine. + +"It's all over!" sadly said Jones; "we can't compete with him. I'll shut +up shop, and we'll go to some other neighbourhood, and live in our old +way. After all, I'll not be a richer nor a poorer man than before my +cousin left me the sixty pound." + +"You ain't got no spirit!" cried Mary, turning scarlet with anger. "Give +in to that fellow!--I'd have more spirit than that," she added with +mighty scorn. + +Her father attempted to remonstrate; but the wilful little thing would +not listen to facts or to reason. She was sure Saunders could not keep up +much longer--that she was. They had only to wait, and wear him out. + +Alas! it is very hard to tear out ambition and pride from the heart of +man, rich or poor. In an evil hour, Richard Jones yielded. + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +And now, alas! fairly began the Teapot's downward course. Every effort of +Richard Jones to rise, only made him sink the deeper. To use a worn out, +though expressive phrase, he stirred heaven and earth to get better tea; +but the spell to conjure it forth was wanting. Jones had very correctly +stated the case to his daughter--he had not credit; he had little or no +cash; what he purchased in small quantities, he bought dear; and he sold +as he bought. And thus, unable to compete with superior, capital and +energy, he declined day by day. + +But if he fell, it was not without a struggle. He turned desperate, and +resorted to a desperate expedient; he sold his goods at prime cost, and +left himself without profit. But Jones did not care; all he wanted was to +crush his opponent--that object accomplished, and he once more sole +master of the field, he could make his own price, and gradually retrieve +lost time, and heal the wounds received in the battle. + +Business requires a cool head; competition has its limits, beyond which +yawns the bottomless pit of ruin. Jones lost his temper, and with it his +judgment. Not satisfied with the faint change for the better, produced by +the first measure, he impatiently resolved "to settle that Saunders," by +a second and still bolder stroke. He filled his shop-windows with +placards, on which prices were marked, with notes of admiration. He +pressed into his service a dozen of little boys, whose sole business was +to slip bills under doors, and to throw them down areas, or to force them +into the hands of unconscious passengers; and he crowned an these arts by +selling under prime cost. + +The customers could not resist this tender appeal to their feelings; they +came back one and all--the Teapot once more was full--the two Teapots +was deserted; and Richard Jones was triumphant. + +We profess no particular regard for Joseph Saunders; but we cannot deny +that he played his cruel game skilfully and well. He did not bring down +his prices one farthing. Without emotion he saw his shop forsaken--he +knew his own strength; he knew, too, the weakness of his enemy. + +"Oh! It's that dodge you are after," he thought, thrusting his tongue in +his cheek. "Well, then, it has beggared many a man before you; and we +shall see how long you'll keep it up--that's all." + +And to whosoever liked to hear, Saunders declared that Mr. Jones was +selling at loss, and that he (Saunders) could not afford to do so; and +was sorry the old man would be so obstinate. "Where was the use, when he +could not go on?" + +Nothing did Jones more harm than this assertion, and the knowledge that +it was a literal truth; for though people worship cheapness, that goddess +of modern commerce, it is only on condition that she shall be a reality, +not a fiction; that she shall rest on the solid basis of gains, howsoever +small; not on the sand foundation of loss, that certain forerunner of +failure. Jones could not, of course, long keep up the plan of selling +under cost; he was obliged to give it up. With it, ceased his fallacious +and momentary prosperity. + +"I thought so," soliloquized Saunders. + +Reader, if you think that we mean to cast a stone at the great shop, you +are mistaken. We deal not with pitiless political economy, with its laws, +with their workings. The great shop must prosper; 'tis in the nature of +things; and the little shop must perish--'tis in their nature too. We +but lament this sad truth, that on God's earth, which God made for all, +there should be so little room for the poor man; for his pride, his +ambition, his desires, which he has in common with the rich man; we but +deplore what all, alas! know too well; that the crown of creation, a +soul, a man by God's Almighty mind, fashioned and called forth into +being, by Christ's priceless blood purchased and redeemed to Heaven, +should be a thing of so little worth--ay, so much, so very much less +worth than some money, in this strange world of ours. + +Few pitied Richard Jones in his fall. His little ambition was remembered +as a crime; for success had not crowned it. His little vanities were so +many deadly sins; for gold did not hide or excuse them. To the dregs, the +unhappy man drank the latter draught which rises to the lips of the +fallen, when they see the world deserting them to worship a rival. A +usurper had invaded his narrow realm, and crushed him; his little story +was a true page from that great book of History, which we need not read +to know how power decays, or to learn of man's fickleness, and fortune's +frowns. Alas! History, if we did but know it, lies around us, as mankind +lives in the meanest wretch we meet, and perchance despise. + +It is a bitter thing to behold our own ruin; it is a cruel thing to look +on powerless and despairing; and both now fell to the lot of Richard +Jones. He had ventured all, and lost all. He was doomed--he knew it; +every one knew it. But, alas! the cup of his woes was not full. + +Mary had always been delicate. One chill evening she took cold; a cough +settled on her chest; sometimes it seemed gone, then suddenly it returned +again. "She felt very well," she said; and, strange to say, her father +thought so too. Rachel was the first to see that something was wrong. + +"Mary," she said to her, one morning, "what ails you? Your breath seems +quite short." + +"La! bless you, Miss," replied Mary, in her patronizing way, "I am all +right." + +They were alone; Rachel looked at the young girl; her eyes glittered; her +cheeks were red with a hectic flush; her breathing was quick and +oppressive. The eyes of Rachel filled with tears; she thought of her +little dead sister in her grave. + +"Mary," she said, "do not work any more to-day--go home." + +Mary looked up in her face, and laughed--the gay laugh of an unconscious +child, fearless of death. + +"Why, Miss, you are crying!" she exclaimed, amazed. + +"Am I?" said Rachel, trying to smile, "never mind, Mary; go home--or, +rather, take this parcel to Mrs. Jameson, number three, Albert Terrace. +It is a fine day--the walk will do you good." + +Mary jumped up, charmed at the prospect. She tied her bonnet-strings +before the looking-glass, and hummed the tune of "Meet me by moonlight +alone." Mary was turned sixteen; and vague ideas of romance sometimes +fitted through her young brain. + +When she was fairly gone, Rachel rose, laid her work by, put on her +bonnet and shawl, and quietly slipped round to the Teapot: ostensibly, +she wanted to buy some tea: her real purpose was to call the attention of +Mr. Jones to his daughter's state. + +But, strange to say, Rachel Gray could not make him understand her; his +mind was full of the two Teapots; of the villany of that Saunders; of the +world's ingratitude; of his misfortunes and his wrongs. + +"I dare say Mary feels it too," put in Rachel. + +"Of course she does, Miss Gray--of course she does. The child has +feelings. And then you know, Miss Gray, if that fellow hadn't a come +there, why, you know, we were getting on as well as could be." + +"I notice that she coughs," said Rachel + +"Why, yes, poor child; she can't get rid of that cough--she's growing, +you see. And then, you see, that Saunders--" + +"And her breathing is so short," interrupted Rachel. + +"Sure to be, on account of the cough. And, as I was saying, that +Saunders--" + +"But, Mr. Jones, don't you think you had better see a doctor?" again +interrupted Rachel. + +"See a doctor!" exclaimed Jones, staring at her. "You don't mean to say +my child is ill, Miss Gray?" + +"I don't think she is quite well, Mr. Jones," replied Rachel, trembling +as she said so. + +He sank down on his seat behind the counter, pale as death. The obstinate +cough, the short breathing, the hectic flush, all rushed back to his +memory; unseen, unheeded, till then, they now told him one fearful story. +With trembling hand he wiped away the drops of cold perspiration from his +forehead. + +"The doctor must see her directly," he said, "directly. I'll go and look +for him, and you'll send her round. It's nothing--nothing at all, I am +sure; she's growing, you see. But still, it must be attended to, you know +--it must be attended to." + +A light laugh at the door interrupted him. He turned round, and saw Mary +looking in at him and Rachel Gray, through the glass windows; with +another laugh, she vanished. Rachel went to the door, and called her +back. + +"Mary, Mary, your father wants you." + +The young girl came in; and, for the first time, her father seemed to see +the bright red spot that burned on her cheek, the unnatural brilliancy of +her blue eyes, the painful shortness of her breath. A mist seemed to fall +from his eyes, and the dread truth to stand revealed before him; but he +did not speak, nor did Rachel; Mary looked at them both, wondering. + +"Well, what ails you two, that you stare at me so," she said, pertly. "I +am so hot," she added, after a while. "I think I shall stay at home, as +you said. Miss Gray." + +She went into the back parlour, and sat down on the first chair she found +at hand. Rachel Gray and her father followed her in. The poor child, who, +because she had felt no actual pain, had thought that she could not be +ill, now, for the first time, felt that she was so. + +"What ails you, dear?" softly asked Rachel, bending over her, as she saw +her gradually turning pale. + +"La! bless you. Miss Gray, I am quite well--only I feel so faint like." + +And even as she spoke, her head sank on the bosom of Rachel--she had +fainted. + +When Mary recovered to consciousness, she was lying on her bed, up +stairs. Rachel stood by her pillow. At the foot of her bed, Mary caught +sight of her father's face, ghastly pale. Between the two, she saw a +strange gentleman, a doctor, who felt her pulse, put a few questions to +her, wrote a prescription, and soon left. + +"I must go now," said Rachel, "but I shall come back this evening, and +bring my work." + +Jones did not heed her; he looked stupified and like one bereft of sense, +but Mary laughed and replied, "Oh! do Miss Gray, come and take tea with +us." + +Rachel promised that she would try, kissed her and left. With great +difficulty she obtained from Mrs. Brown the permission to return. + +They on whom the light of this world shone not, were rarely in the favour +of Mrs. Brown. And only on condition of being home early did she allow +Rachel to depart. Before leaving, she went up to her other's chair, he +was not now quite so helpless as at first, and did not require her +constant presence or assistance; though he still did not know her. + +"I shall try and not be too long away," said Rachel in a low voice. + +"Never mind," he muttered, shaking his head, "never mind." + +"There's a precious old fool for you!" said Mrs. Brown laughing coarsely. + +A flush of pain crossed Rachel's cheek, but to have replied, would have +been to draw down a storm on her head; she silently left the house. + +She found Mary feverish, restless, and full of projects. She would get up +early the next day, and make up for lost time. She remembered all the +work she had to do, and which she had unaccountably neglected. Her +father's shirts to mend, her own wardrobe to see to; the next room to +clean up, for a second lodger had never been found; in short, to hear +her, it seemed as if her life had only begun, and that this was the day +of its opening. In vain Rachel tried to check her soothingly; Mary talked +on and was so animated and so merry, that her father, who came up every +five minutes to see how she was, could not believe her to be so very ill +as Miss Gray thought, or the Doctor had hinted. Indeed, when at nine +Rachel left, and he let her down stairs, he seemed quite relieved. + +"The child's only growing," he said to Rachel, "only growing; a little +rest and a little medicine, and she'll be all right again." + +But scarcely was Rachel out of the door, when she burst into tears. "My +poor little Mary," she thought, "my poor little Mary!" + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +It was rather late when Rachel knocked timidly at the door, Mrs. Brown +opened to her, and there was a storm on her brow. + +"Well, ma'am," she began; "well, ma'am!" + +"Oh! pray do not--do not!" imploringly exclaimed Rachel, clasping her +hands. + +For her excessive patience had of late rendered Mrs. Brown's violent +temper wholly ungovernable. Irritated by the very meekness which met her +wrath, she had, with the instinct of aggression, found the only +vulnerable point of Rachel--her father. This was, indeed, the heel of +Achilles. All the shafts of the enemy's railing that fell harmless on the +childish old man, rebounded on his daughter with double force: deep and +keen they sank in her hearty and every one inflicted its wound. And thus +it was that Rachel had learned to look with terror to Mrs. Brown's wrath +--that she now shrank from it with fear and trembling, and implored for +mercy. + +But there is no arguing with ill-temper. Mrs. Brown would neither give +mercy, nor hear reason. Had she not lent twenty pound three and six to +Rachel? Was not Rachel beholden to her for food, shelter, chemist's bill, +and physician's fees? and should not, therefore, her will be Rachel's +law, and her pleasure be Rachel's pleasure? + +Poor Rachel, her patience was great, but now she felt as if it must fail; +as if she could not, even for the sake of a roof's shelter, endure more +from one to whom no tie of love or regard bound her--nothing but the +burdening sense of an obligation which she had not sought, and for which +she had already paid so dearly. She clasped her thin hands--she looked +with her mild brown eyes in the face of her tormentor, and her lips +quivered with the intensity of the feelings that moved her to reply, and +repel insult and contumely, and with the strength of will that kept her +silent. + +At length, Mrs. Brown grew tired, for her ill-temper had this quality-- +it was vehement, not slow and irritating, the infliction ceased--Rachel +remained alone. + +Mrs. Brown had taken possession of the room that had once been Rachel's. +Thomas Gray slept in the back parlour; and in order to remain within +reach of aid, Rachel slept on the floor of the front room. In this room +it was that Mrs. Brown had left her. Softly Rachel went and opened the +door of her father's room; it was dark and quiet; but in its stillness, +she heard his regular breathing--he slept, and little, did he know how +much that calm sleep of his cost his daughter. She closed the door, and +sat down in her own room; but she thought not of sleep; the tempter was +with her in that hour. Her heart was full of bitterness--full even to +overflowing. On a dark and dreary sea, her lot seemed cast; she saw not +the guiding star of faith over her head. She saw not before her the haven +of blessed peace. + +The words "Thy will be done," fell from her lips; they were not in her +heart. Nothing was there, nothing but wounded pride, resentment, and the +sense of unmerited wrong. + +In vain, thinking of her tyrant, Rachel said to herself, "I forgive that +woman--I forgive her freely." She felt that she did not; that anger +against this pitiless tormentor of her life smouldered in her heart like +the red coal living beneath pale ashes; and Rachel was startled, and +justly, to feel that so strange and unusual an emotion, anger against +another, had found place in her bosom, and that though she bade it go, it +stayed, and would not depart. + +To be gentle is not to be passionless. The spirit of Rachel had been +early subdued, too much subdued for her happiness; but it was too noble +ever to have been quenched. It still burned within her, a flame pure and +free, though invisible. But now, alas! the vapours of earthly passion +dimmed its brightness: and it was darkened with human wrath. + +Through such moments of temptation and trial all have passed; and then it +is, indeed, when we are not blinded by pride, that we feel our miserable +weakness, a weakness for which there is but one remedy, but then it is a +divine one--the strength of God. + +That strength Rachel now invoked. _De Profundis_, from the depths of her +sorrow she cried out to the Lord, not that her burden might grow less, +but that her strength to bear it, to endure and forgive, might increase +eyen with it And strength was granted unto her. It came, not at once, not +like the living waters that flowed from the arid rock, when the prophet +spoke, but slowly, like the heavenly manna that fell softly in the +silence of the night, and was gathered ere the sun rose above the desert. + +Rachel felt--oh, pure and blessed feeling!--that her heart was free +from bitterness and gall; that she could forgive the offender, to seventy +times seven; that she could pray for her--not with the lip-prayer of the +self-righteous Pharisee, but with the heartfelt orisons of the poor, +sinning, and penitent publican; and again and again, and until the tears +flowed down her cheek, she blessed God, the sole Giver of so mighty and +superhuman a grace. + +And well it was for Rachel Gray, that she forgave her enemy that night. +Well it was, indeed, that the next sun beheld not her wrath. Before that +sun rose, the poor, erring woman had given in her account of every deed, +and every word uttered in the heat of anger:--Mrs. Brown had gone to her +room strong and well. She was found dead and cold in her bed the next +morning. + +A coroner's inquest was held, and a verdict of "sudden death" recorded. +And a will, too, was found in a tea-caddy, by which Mrs. Brown formally +bequeathed all her property to Rachel Gray, "as a proof," said the will, +"of her admiration and respect." + +On hearing the words, Rachel burst into tears. + +"Thank God! That I forgave her!" she exclaimed, "thank God!" + +Well indeed might she thank the Divine bestower of all forgiveness. The +legacy was not after all a large one. Mrs. Brown's annuity died with her; +she left little more money than buried her decently; the ground lease of +the house in which she had originally resided was almost out, and the +bequest was in reality limited to the present abode of Rachel; but +invaluable to her indeed, was the shelter of that humble home, now her +own for ever. + +And when all was over; when the grave had closed on one, who not being at +peace herself, could not give peace to others, when Rachel and her father +remained alone in the little house, now hushed and silenced from all rude +and jarring sounds, safe from all tyrannical interference, Rachel felt, +with secret thankfulness, that if her lot was not happy, according to +human weakness, it was blest with peace and quiet, and all the good that +from them spring. If a cloud still lingered over it, it was only because, +looking at her father, she remembered the unfulfilled desire of her +heart; and if on days otherwise now marked with peace, there sometimes +fell the darkness of a passing shadow, it was only when she saw and felt +too keenly the sorrows of others. + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +Richard Jones still hoped: "Mary was so young!" He would hope. But it was +not to be; he had but tasted the cup of his sorrows; to the dregs was he +to drink it; the earthly idol on which he had set his heart was to be +snatched from him; he was to waken one day to the bitter knowledge: +"there is no hope!" + +How he felt we know not, and cannot tell: none have a right to describe +that grief save they who have passed through it; we dare not unveil the +father's heart: we deal but with the external aspect of things, and sad +and bitter enough it was. + +In a silent shop, where the sugar seemed to shrink away in the casks, +where the tea-chests looked hollow, where dust gathered on the counter, +on the shelves, in the corners, everywhere; where all looked blasted and +withered by the deadly upas tree opposite, you might have seen a haggard +man who stood there day after day, waiting for customers that came not, +and who from behind his shop windows drearily watched the opposite shop, +always full; thriving, fattening on his ruin; or who, sadder sight to his +eyes and heart, looked at the little back parlour, where on her sick bed +his dying daughter lay. + +Mary, as her illness drew towards its close, became fanciful, she +insisted on having her bed brought down to the back parlour, and would +leave her door open, "in order to mind the shop," she said. If anything +could hasten her father's ruin, this did it: the few customers whom he +had left, gradually dropped off, scared away by that sick girl, looking +at them with her eager, glittering eyes. + +He sat by her one evening in a sad and very bitter mood. She was ill, +very ill, and for three days not a soul had crossed the threshold of his +shop. His love and his ambition were passing away together from his life. + +"Father," querulously said Mary, "why did you shut the shop so early?" +For since her illness the young girl's mind was always running on the +shop. + +"Where's the use of leaving it open?" huskily answered Jones, "unless +it's to see them all going to the two Teapots opposite." + +"Well, but I wish you had not," she resumed, "it looks so dull and so +dark." + +It is very likely that to please her, Richard Jones would have gone and +taken the shutters down; but for a knock at the private door. + +"There's Miss Gray," said Mary, her face lighting. + +Richard Jones went and opened it; it was Rachel Gray. The light of the +candle which he held fell full on his face; Rachel was struck with its +haggard expression. + +"You do not look well, Mr. Jones," she said. + +"Don't I, Miss Gray," he replied, with a dreary smile, "well, that's a +wonder! Look here!" he added, leading her into the shop where his tallow +candle shed but a dim, dull light, "look here," he continued, raising it +high, and turning it round so that it cast its faint gleam over the whole +place, "look here; there's a shop for you, Miss Gray. How long ago is it +since you, and your mother, and Mary and I we settled that shop? Look at +it now, I say--look at it now. Look here!" and he thrust the light down +a cask, "empty! Look there!" and he raised the lid of a tea-chest, +"empty! Do you wish to try the drawers? Oh! they are all labelled, but +what's in 'em. Miss Gray? nothing! It's well the customers have left off +coming; for I couldn't serve them; couldn't accommodate them, I am sorry +to say," and he laughed very bitterly. "I was happy when I came here," he +resumed, "I had hope; I thought there was an opening; I thought there was +room for me. I set up this shop; I did it all up myself, as you know-- +every inch of it; I painted it; I put the fixtures in; I drove every nail +in with my own hand, and what's been the upshot of it all, Miss Gray?" + +Rachel raised her soft brown eyes to his: + +"It is the will of God," she said, "and God knows best, for He is good." + +Richard Jones looked at her and smiled almost sternly, for suffering +gives dignity to the meanest, and no man, when he feels deeply, is the +same man as when his feelings are unstirred. + +"Miss Gray," he said, "I have worked from my youth--slaved some would +say; I hoped to make out something for myself and my child, and it was +more of her than of myself I thought I wronged none; I did my best; a +rich man steps in, and I am bewared--and you tell me God is good--mind, +I don't say he aint--but is he good to me?" + +Rachel Gray shook with nervous emotion from head to foot She was pained-- +she was distressed at the question. Still more distressed because her +mind was so bewildered, because her ideas were in such strange tumult, +that with the most ardent wish to speak, she could not. As when in a +dream we struggle to move and cannot, our will being fettered by the +slumber of the body, so Rachel felt then, so alas! for her torment she +felt almost always; conscious of truths sublime, beautiful and consoling, +but unable to express them in speech. + +"God is good," she said again, clinging to that truth as to her anchor of +safety. + +Again Richard Jones smiled. + +"And my child, Miss Gray," he said, lowering his voice so that his words +could not reach the next room, "going by inches before my very eyes; yet +I must look on and not go mad. I must be beggared, and I must bear it; I +must become childless, and I must bear it. And the wicked thrive, and the +wicked's children outlive them, for God is good to them, Miss Gray." + +The eyes of Rachel filled with tears; her brow became clouded. + +"Ah! Mr. Jones," she said, "do not complain; you have loved your child." + +"What are you keeping Miss Gray there for?" pettishly said the voice of +Mary, "I want her." + +"And here I am, dear," said Rachel, going in to her, "I am come to sit a +while with you; for I am sure your poor father wants rest, does he not?" + +"I don't want any one to sit with me," impatiently replied Mary, "I am +not so ill as all that." + +"But do you sleep at night?" + +"No, I can't--I am so feverish." + +"Well, then, we sit up with you to keep you company," said her father. + +This explanation apparently satisfied Mary, who began to talk of other +things. She knew not she was dying; whence should the knowledge have come +to a mere child like her. None had told her the truth. And she was +passing away into eternity, unconscious--her heart, her thoughts, her +soul full of the shadows of life. + +Rachel saw and knew it, and it grieved her. She remembered her little +sister's happy and smiling death-bed, and from her heart she prayed that +a similar blessing might crown the last hours of little Mary; that she +might go to her God like a child to her father. + +And when Richard Jones, after sitting up with them until twelve, went +upstairs to rest awhile, and Rachel heard Mary talk of her recovery, and +of projects and hopes, vain to her as a dream, she could not help feeling +that it was her duty to speak. They were alone, "yes, now," thought +Rachel, "now is the time to speak." + +Oh! hard and bitter task: to tell the young of death; the hoping that +they must not hope; to tell those who would so fondly delay and linger in +this valley, that they must depart for the land that is so near, and that +seems so far. Rachel knew not how to begin. Mary opened the subject. + +"I shall be glad when I am well again," she said, "I am tired of this +little room; it seems so dull when I see the sun shine in the street, +don't it, Miss Gray?" + +"I dare say it does: you remind me of a little story I once read; shall I +tell it to you?" + +"Oh! yes you may," carelessly replied Mary, yawning slightly; she thought +Miss Gray prosy at times. + +"It is not a long story," said Rachel timidly, "and here it is; a king +was once hunting alone in a wood, when he heard a very beautiful voice +singing very sweetly; he went on and saw a poor leper." + +"What's a leper?" interrupted Mary. + +"Don't you remember the lepers in the Gospel, who were made clean by our +Saviour? they were poor things, who had a bad and loathsome complaint, +and this man, whom the king heard singing, was one; and the king could +not help saying to him, 'how can you sing when you seem in so wretched a +condition?' But the leper replied, 'it is because I am in this state that +I sing, for as my body decays, I know that the hour of my deliverance +draws nigh, that I shall leave this miserable world, and go to my Lord +and my God.'" + +Mary looked at Rachel surprised at the impressive and earnest tone with +which she spoke. + +"Well but, Miss Gray," she said, at length, "what is there like me in +this story; I am not a leper, am I?" + +"We are all lepers," gently said Rachel, "for we are all sinners, and sin +is to the soul what leprosy is to the body; it defiles it, and we all +should be glad to die; for Christ has conquered death, and with death sin +ends, and our true life, the life in God begins." + +Mary raised herself on one elbow. She looked at Rachel fixedly, +earnestly; "Miss Gray," she said; "what do you mean?" + +Rachel did not reply--she could not. + +"Why do you tell me all these things?" continued Mary. + +And still Rachel could not speak. + +"Miss Gray," said Mary, "am _I_ going to die?" She looked wistfully in +Rachel's face, and the beseeching tone of her young childish voice seemed +to pierce Rachel's heart; but she had began; could not, she dared not go +back. She rose, she clasped her hands, she trembled from head to foot, +tears streamed down her cheek; her voice faltered so that she could +scarcely speak, but she mastered it, clear and distinct the words came +out. "Mary, we must all obey the will of God; we came into this world at +His will, at His will we must leave it." + +"And must I leave it, Miss Gray?" asked Mary, persisting in her +questioning like a child. + +Rachel stooped over her; the fast tears poured from her face on Mary's +pale brow, "yes, my darling," she said softly, "yes, you must leave this +miserable earth of trouble and sorrow, and go to God your friend and your +father." + +The weakest, the frailest creatures often rise to heroic courage. This +fretful, pettish child heard her sentence with some wonder, but +apparently without sorrow. + +"Don't cry, Miss Gray," she said, "_I_ don't cry; but do you know, it +seems so odd that I should die, doesn't it now?" + +Rachel did not reply, nor did she attempt it; her very heart was wrung. +Mary guessed, or saw it. + +"I wish you would not fret," she said, "I wish you would not. Miss Gray. +_I_ don't, you see." + +"Ay," thought Rachel, "you do not, my poor child, for what do you know of +death?" And a little while after this, Mary, who felt heavy, fell asleep +with her hand in that of Rachel Gray. + + +CHAPTER XX. + + +Three days had passed. + +The morning was gray and dull. He had sat up all night by Mary; for +Rachel, exhausted with fatigue, had been unable to come. Poor little +Mary, her hour was nigh; she knew it, and her young heart grieved for her +father, so soon to be childless. She thought of herself too; she looked +over the whole of her young life, and she saw its transgressions and its +sins with a sorrow free from faithless dismay; for Rachel had said to +her: "Shall we dare to limit for ourselves, or for others, the unfathomed +mercy of God?" + +"Father," she suddenly said, "I want to speak to you." + +"What is it, my darling?" he asked, bending over her fondly. She looked +up in his face, her cheeks flushed with a deeper hectic, her glassy eyes +lit with a brighter light. + +"Father," she said, "I have been a naughty child, have I not?" + +"No--no, my little pet, never, indeed, never." + +"I know I have been naughty, father; I 'have been,' oh! so cross at +times; but, father, I could not help it--at least, it seemed as if I +could not--my back ached so, and indeed," she added, clasping her hands, +"I am very sorry, father, very sorry." + +He stooped still nearer to her; he laid his cheek on her pillow; he +kissed her hot brow, little Mary half smiled. + +"You forgive me, don't you?" she murmured faintly. + +"Forgive you! my pet--my darling." + +"Yes, pray do," she said. + +She could scarcely speak now; there was a film on her eyes, too. He saw +it gathering fast, very fast. Suddenly she seemed to revive like a dying +flame. Again she addressed him. + +"Father!" she said, "why don't you take down the shutters?" + +And with singular earnestness she fixed her eyes on his. Take down the +shutters? The question seemed a stab sent through his very heart. Yet he +mastered himself, and replied: "'Tis early yet; 'tis very early, my +darling." + +"No 'taint," she said, in her old pettish way, and then she murmured in a +low and humbled tone: "Ah! I forget--I forget. I did not mean to be +cross again. Indeed I did not, father, so pray forgive me." + +"Don't think of it, my pet. Do you wish for anything?" + +"Nothing, father, but that you would take down the shutters." + +He tried to speak--he could not; only a few broken sounds gasped on his +lips for utterance. + +"Because you see," she continued with strange earnestness, "the customers +will all be coming and wondering if they see the shop shut; and they will +think me worse, and so--and so--" + +She could not finish the sentence, but she tried to do so. + +"And so you see, father." Again the words died away. Her father raised +his head; he looked at her; he saw her growing very white. Again he bent, +and softly whispered: "My darling, did you say your prayers this +morning?" + +An expression of surprise stole over the child's wan face. + +"I had forgotten," she replied, faintly, "I shall say them now." She +folded her thin hands, her lips moved. "Our father who art in heaven," +she said, and she began a prayer that was never finished upon earth. + +The dread moment had come. The angel of death stood in that hushed room; +swiftly and gently he fulfilled his errand, then departed, leaving all in +silence, breathless and deep. + +He knew it was all over. He rose; he closed the eyes, composed the +slender limbs, then he sat down by his dead child, a desolate man--a +heart-broken father. How long he sat thus he knew not; a knock at the +door at length roused him. Mechanically he rose and went and opened. He +saw a man who at once stepped in and closed the door, and before the man +spoke, Jones knew his errand. + +"It's all right," he said, "I know, the landlord could scarcely help it; +come in." + +The bailiff was a bluff, hearty-looking man; he gave Jones a sound slap +on the shoulder. + +"You are a trump! that's what you are," he said, with a big oath. + +Jones did not answer, but showed his guest into the back parlour. + +"Halloo! what's that?" cried the bailiff, attempting to raise the +bed-curtain. + +"Don't," said Jones, in a husky voice. + +Then the man saw what it was, and he exclaimed quite ruefully: "I am very +sorry--I am very sorry." + +"You can't help it," meekly said Jones, "you must do your duty." + +"Why that's what I always say," cried the bailiff with a second oath, +rather bigger than the first, "a man must do his duty, mustn't he?" and a +third oath slipped out. + +"Don't swear, pray don't!" said Jones. + +"And if I do, may I be--" here the swearing bailiff paused aghast at what +he was going to add. "I can't help myself like," he said, rather +ruefully, "it's second natur, you see, second natur. But I'll try and not +do it--I'll try." + +And speaking quite softly, spite of his swearing propensities, he looked +wistfully at Jones; but the childless father's face remained a blank. + +"Make yourself at home," he said in a subdued voice. "I think you'll find +all you want in that cupboard, at least 'tis all I have." + +And he resumed his place by the dead. + +"All I want, and all you have," muttered the bailiff with his head in the +cupboard. "Then faith, my poor fellow, 'tain't much." + +The day was chill and very dreary; the bailiff smoked his pipe by the low +smouldering fire, and yawned over a dirty old newspaper. Two hours had +passed thus when Jones said to him: "You don't want for anything, do +you?" + +"Why no," musingly replied the bailiff, taking out his pipe, and looking +up from his paper, "thank you, I can't say I want for anything, but what +have you to say to a glass of grog, eh?" + +He rather brightened himself at the idea. + +"I'll send for anything you like," drearily replied Jones, and it was +plain he had not understood as relating to himself the kindly meant +proposal. + +The bailiff rather stiffly said, he wanted nothing. + +"Well then," resumed Jones, slipping off his shoes, "I'll leave you for +awhile." + +"Why, where are you going?" cried the other staring. + +"There," said Jones, and raising the curtain, he crept in to his dead +darling. + +The curtain shrouded him in; he was alone--alone with his child and his +grief. A little child he had cradled her in his arms; many a time had she +slept in that fond embrace, to her both a protection and a caress. And +now! He looked at the little pale face that had fallen asleep in prayer; +he saw it lying on its pillow in death-like stillness; and if he +repressed the groan that rose to his lips the deeper was his anguish. + +Oh, passion! eloquent pages have been wasted on thy woes; volumes have +been written to tell mankind of thy delights and thy torments. To no +other tale will youth bend its greedy ear, of no other feelings will man +acknowledge the power to charm his spirit and his heart. And here was one +who knew thee not in name or in truth, and yet who drank to the dregs, +and to the last bitterness his cup of sorrow. Oh! miserable and unpoetic +griefs of the prosaic poor. Where are ye, elements of power and pathos of +our modern epic: the novel? A wretched shop that will not take, a sickly +child that dies! Ay, and were the picture but drawn by an abler hand, +know proud reader, if proud thou art, that thy very heart could bleed, +that thy very soul would be wrung to read this page from a poor man's +story. + +And so he lay by his dead, swelling with a tearless agony, a nameless and +twofold desolation. Gaze not on that grief--eye of man: thou art +powerless to pity, for thou art powerless to understand. + +"Only think!" said a neighbour to Mrs. Smith, "Mr. Jones's shutters have +been closed the whole day. I can't think what the matter is." + +"Can't you," replied Mrs. Smith laughing, "why, woman, the shop is shut." + +Ay, the shop was shut. The shop which Richard Jones had opened with so +much pride--the shop which he had ever linked with his child, closed on +the day of her death, and never reopened. He did not care. His little +ambition was wrecked; his little pride was broken; his little cruise of +love had been poured forth upon the earth by God's own hand; it was empty +and dry; arid sand and dust had drunk up its once sweet waters. + +What a man without ambition, pride, and lore may be, he had become in the +one day that bereaved him. + +Pity not him, reader; his tale is told; pity him whose bitter story of +hope and disappointment but begins as I write, and as you read. For +mortal hand has not sounded the bitter depth of such woes. In them live +the true tragic passions that else seem to have passed from the earth; +passions that could rouse the meekest to revenge and wrath, if daily dew +from heaven fell not on poor parched hearts, as nightly it comes down +from the skies above, on thirsting earth. + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + +A time may come when the London churchyard shall be remembered as a thing +that has been and is no more; but now who knows it not? Who need describe +the serried gravestones that mark the resting places in this sad field of +death; who need tell how they stare at busy passers by through their iron +grating--how they look ghastly, like the guest of the Egyptian feast, +dead in the midst of tumult and riotous life. + +Dreary are they when the sun shines on them, and their rank weeds, the +sun which those beneath feel not, but more dreary by far when the +drizzling rain pours down the dark church walls and filters into the +sodden earth. And in such a place, and on such a day did they make the +grave of Mary Jones. + +Two mourners stood by: a woman and a man. When all was over, when earth +had closed over the grave and its contents, the man sat down on a +neighbouring gravestone, and looked at that red mound which held his all, +with a dreary stolid gaze of misery and woe. + +Rachel bent over him, and gently laid her hand on his shoulder. + +"Mr. Jones, you must come!" she said. + +He made no reply, he did not rise, and when she took his hand to lead him +away, he yielded without resistance. She took him to her own house. +Kindly and tenderly she led him, like a little child, and a child he +seemed to have become, helpless, inert--without will, without power. + +His own home was a wreck, the prey of creditors, who found but little +there, yet sufficient, for their claims were few, to save him from +disgrace. Rachel Gray gave him the room where his child once had slept, +where he had come in to look at her in her sleep, and fondly bent over +her pillow: he burst into tears as he entered it; and those tears +relieved him, and did him good. + +At the end of two days he rallied from his torpor; he awoke, he +remembered he was a man born to work, to earn his daily bread, and bear +the burden of life. + +He went out one morning, and looked for employment. Something he found to +do; but what it was he told not Rachel. When she gently asked, he shook +his head and smiled bitterly. + +"It don't matter. Miss Gray," he said; "it don't matter." + +No doubt it was some miserable, poorly paid task. Yet he only spoke the +truth, when he said it mattered little. He lived and laboured, like +thousands; but he cared not for to-day, and thought not of to-morrow; the +Time of Promise and of Hope had for ever departed. What though he should +feel want, so long as he could pay his weekly rent to Rachel Gray, he +cared not. There is an end to all things; and as for his old age, should +he grow old, had he not the parish and the workhouse? And so Richard +Jones could drag on through life, of all hopes, save the heavenly hope, +forsaken. + +But Heaven chose to chastise and humble still further, this already +chastised and sorely humbled man. He fell ill, and remained for weeks on +his sick bed, a burden cast on the slender means of Rachel Gray. In vain +he begged and prayed to be sent to the workhouse or some hospital; Rachel +would not hear of it. She kept him, she attended on him with all the +devotedness of a daughter; between him and her father she divided her +time. Earnestly Jones prayed for death: the boon was not granted; he +recovered. + +They sat together and alone one evening in the quiet little parlour-- +alone, for Thomas Gray was no one, when there came a knock at the door, +and the visitor admitted by Rachel, proved to be Joseph Saunders. + +"Mr. Jones is within," hesitatingly said Rachel + +"And I just want to speak to him," briefly replied Saunders, "so that's +lucky." + +He walked into the parlour as he spoke; Rachel followed, wondering what +was to be the issue. On seeing his enemy, poor Jones reddened slightly +but the flush soon died away, and in a meek, subdued voice, he was the +first to say "good evening." + +"Sorry to hear you have been ill," said Saunders sitting down, "but you +are coming round, ain't you?" + +"I am much better," was the quiet reply. + +"Got anything to do?" bluntly asked Saunders. + +"Nothing as yet," answered Jones with a subdued groan, for he thought of +Rachel, so poor herself, and the burden he was to her. + +"Well then, Mr. Jones; just listen to me!" said Saunders, drawing his +chair near, "I know you have a grudge against me." + +"You have ruined me," said Jones. + +"Pshaw, man, 'twas all fair, all in the way of business," exclaimed +Saunders a little impatiently. + +"You have ruined me," said Jones again; "but I forgive you, I have long +ago forgiven you, and the shadow of a grudge against you, or living man, +I have not, thank God!" + +"That's all right enough," emphatically said Saunders; "still, Mr. Jones, +you say I have ruined you. It isn't the first time either that you have +said so, and with some people, I may as well tell you it has injured me." + +"I am sorry if it has," meekly said Jones. + +"And I don't care a button," frankly declared Saunders, "but as I was +saying, that's your belief, your impression; and to be sure it's true +enough in one sense, but then, Mr. Jones, you should not look at your +side of the question only. Mr. Smithson meant to set up a grocer's shop +long before you opened yours; he spoke to me about it, and if I had only +agreed then, it was done; you came, to be sure, but what of that? the +street was as free to us as to you; that I lodged in your house was an +accident; I did not know when I took your room that I should supplant you +some day. I did not know Smithson had still kept that idea in his head, +and that finding no situation I should be glad to consent at last. Well, +I did consent, and I did compete with you, and knocked you over, as it +were, but Mr. Jones, would not another have done it? And was it not all +honourable, fair play?" + +"Well, I suppose it was," sadly replied Jones, "and since it was a +settled thing that I was to be a ruined man, I suppose I ought not to +care who did it." + +"Come, that's talking sense," said Saunders, with a nod of approbation, +"and now, Mr. Jones, we'll come to business, for I need not tell you nor +Miss Gray either, that I did not come in here to rip up old sores. You +must know that the young fellow who used to serve in my shop has taken +himself off, he's going to Australia, he says, but that's neither here +nor there; I have a regard for you, Mr. Jones, and having injured you +without malice, I should like to do you a good turn of my own free will; +and then there's my wife, who was quite cut up when she heard you had +lost your little daughter, and who has such a regard for Miss Gray, but +that's neither here nor there; the long and short of it is, will you +serve in my shop, and have a good berth and moderate wages, and perhaps +an increase if the business prospers?" + +Poor Richard Jones! This was the end of all his dreams, his schemes, his +anger, his threatened revenge! And yet, strange to say, he felt it very +little. Every strong and living feeling lay buried in a grave. His soul +was as a thing dead within him; his pride had crumbled into dust, as Mary +would have said: his spirit was gone. + +The humiliation of accepting Joseph Saunders proposal,--and, however +strange, it was certainly well and kindly meant--Richard Jones did not +consider. He looked at the advantages, and found them manifest; there lay +the means of paying Rachel, of covering his few debts, and of securing to +his wearied life the last and dearly-bought boon of repose. Awhile he +reflected, then said aloud: "I shall be very glad of it, lam very much +obliged to you, Mr. Saunders." + +"Well, then, it's done," said Mr. Saunders, rising, "good night, Jones, +cheer up, old fellow. Good night, Miss Gray; Jane sends her love, you +know. Sorry the old gentleman's no better." And away he departed, very +well satisfied with the success of his errand. + +"Oh! Mr. Jones!" exclaimed Rachel, when she returned to the parlour. + +"Don't mention it," he said with a faint smile, "I don't mind it, Miss +Gray." + +"But could you not have stayed here?" she asked. + +"And be a burden upon you I that's what I have done too long, Miss Gray." + +"But until you found employment elsewhere, you might have remained." + +"His house is as good as any; his bread is not more bitter than +another's," replied Jones, in a subdued voice, "besides, now that my Mary +is gone, what need I care, Miss Gray?" And as he saw that her eyes were +dim, he added: "You need not pity me, Miss Gray, the bitterness of my +trouble is, and has long been over. My Mary is not dead for me. She is, +and ever will be, living for her old father, until the day of meeting. +And whilst I am waiting for that day, you do not think I care about what +befalls me." + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + +Once more Rachel was alone. Once more solitude and the silence of the +quiet street, shrouded her in. + +A new life now began for Rachel Gray. Like a plant long bent by adverse +winds, she slowly recovered elasticity of spirit, and lightness of heart. +What she might have been, but for the gloom of her youth, Rachel never +was; but as the dark cloud, which had long hung over her, rolled away, as +she could move, speak, eat, and think unquestioned in her little home, a +gleam of sunshine, pale but pure, shone over her life with that late-won +liberty. Her speech became more free, her smile was more frequent, her +whole manner more open and cheerful. + +Rachel lived, however, both by taste and by long habit, in great +retirement, and saw but few people. Indeed, almost her only visitors were +Richard Jones and Madame Rose. The little Frenchwoman now and then +dropped in, looked piteously at Thomas Gray, shrugged her shoulders, +nodded, winked, and did everything to make herself understood, but talk +English; and Rachel listened to her, and laughed gaily at the strange +speech and strange ways of her little friend. + +Richard Jones was a still more frequent visitor. He came to receive, not +to give sympathy. The society of Rachel Gray was to him a want of his +life, for to her alone he could talk of Mary; he spoke and she listened, +and in listening gave the best and truest consolation. Now and then, not +often, for Rachel felt and knew that such language frequently repeated +wearies the ear of weak humanity, she ventured to soothe his grief with +such ailments as she could think of. And her favorite one, one which she +often applied to herself and her own troubles was: "We receive blessings +from the hand of God, shall we not also take sorrow when it pleases Him +to inflict it?" + +"Very true. Miss Gray, very true," humbly assented Richard Jones. + +Of his present position he never spoke, unless when questioned by Rachel, +and when he did so, it was to say that "Saunders and his wife were very +kind to him, very kind. And I am quite happy, Miss Gray," he would add, +"quite happy." + +And thus like a hidden stream flowed on the life of Rachel Gray, silent, +peaceful and very still. It slept in the shadow of the old grey street, +in the quiet shelter of a quiet home, within the narrow circle of plain +duties. Prayer, Love, Meditation and Thought graced it daily. It was +humble and lowly in the eyes of man; beautiful and lovely in the sight of +God. + +And thus quiet and happy years had passed away, and nothing had arrested +their monotonous flow. + +It was evening, Rachel and her father were alone in the little parlour. +Thomas Gray was still a childish old man, bereft of knowledge and of +sense. Yet now, as Rachel helped him to his chair, and settled him in it, +something, a sort of light seemed to her to pass athwart the old man's +face, and linger in his dull eyes. + +"Father!" she cried, "do you know me?" + +In speech he answered not, but it seemed to her that in his look she read +conscious kindness. She pressed his hand, and it appeared to press hers +in return; she laid her cheek to his, and it did not seem lifeless or +cold. Then, again she withdrew from him and said: + +"Father, do you know me?" + +He looked at her searchingly and was long silent: at length he spoke, and +in a low but distinct voice, said: "Rachel." + +In a transport of joy, Rachel sank at his feet and sobbing clasped her +arms around him. + +"Never mind, Rachel," he said, "never mind." + +"Father, father," she cried, "you know me, say you know me." + +But she asked too much, it was but a dawn of intelligence that had +returned; never was the full day to shine upon earth. + +"Never mind, Rachel," he said again, "never mind." + +But though the first ardour of her hopes was damped, her joy was +exquisite and deep. Her father knew her, he had uttered her name with +kindness, in his feeble and imperfect and childish way, he loved her! +What more then was needed by one who like the humble lover recorded by +the Italian poet, had ever + + "Desired much, hoped little, nothing asked." + + +Somewhat late that same evening, Richard Jones knocked at Rachel's door. +As she opened to him the light she held shone on her face, and though he +was not an observant man, he was struck with her aspect. There was a +flush on her cheek, a light in her eyes, a smile on her lips, a radiance +and a joy in Rachel's face which Richard Jones had never seen there +before. He looked at her inquiringly, but she only smiled and showed him +in. + +And now, reader, one last picture before we part. + +It is evening, as you know, and three are sitting in the little parlour +of Rachel Gray. An autumn evening it is, somewhat chill with a bright +fire burning in the grate, and lighting up with flickering flame the +brown furniture and narrow room. And of these three who sit there, one is +a grey, childish old man in an arm-chair; another, a man who is not old, +but whose hair has turned prematurely white with trouble and sorrow; the +third is a meek, thoughtful woman with a book on her knees, who sits +silently brooding over the words her lips have uttered; for she has been +reading how the Lord gives and how the Lord takes away, and how we yet +must bless the name of the Lord. + +The good seed of these words has not been shed on a barren soil. As +Richard Jones sits and dreams of his lost darling, he also dreams of +their joyful meeting some day on the happier shore, and perhaps now that +time has passed over his loss and that its first bitterness has faded +away, perhaps he confesses with humble and chastened heart, that meet and +just was the doom which snatched from him his earthly idol, and, for a +while, took away the too dearly loved treasure of his heart. + +And Rachel Gray, too, has her thoughts. As she looks at her father, and +whilst thankful for what she has obtained, as she yet longs, perhaps, for +the full gift she never can possess; if her heart feels a pang, if +repining it questions and says: "Oh! why have I not too a father to love +and know me, not imperfectly, but fully--completely," a sweet and secret +voice replies: "You had set your heart on human love, and because you had +set your heart upon it, it was not granted to you. Complain not, murmur +not, Rachel, if thou hast not thy father upon earth, remember that thou +hast thy Father in Heaven!" + +THE END. + + + +PRINTED BY BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RACHEL GRAY*** + + +******* This file should be named 36160.txt or 36160.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/6/1/6/36160 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://www.gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: +http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/36160.zip b/36160.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d3f19ea --- /dev/null +++ b/36160.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a0bd9d3 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #36160 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36160) |