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diff --git a/old/60418-0.txt b/old/60418-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 69e31e6..0000000 --- a/old/60418-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5291 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's New Bed-Time Stories, by Louise Chandler Moulton - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: New Bed-Time Stories - -Author: Louise Chandler Moulton - -Release Date: October 3, 2019 [EBook #60418] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW BED-TIME STORIES *** - - - - -Produced by Sonya Schermann, Nigel Blower and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - [Transcriber's Note - - _Italic words_ in the original have been enclosed in underscores in - this version. - - A few minor typographical errors have been silently corrected. - - A page number in the Contents was corrected from 77 to 79.] - - - - -[Illustration: Day after day Johnny watched.--PAGE 15.] - - - - - NEW - - BED-TIME STORIES. - - - BY - - LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON, - - AUTHOR OF “BED-TIME STORIES,” - “MORE BED-TIME STORIES,” - “SOME WOMEN’S HEARTS,” AND “POEMS.” - - - _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS._ - - - [Illustration] - - - BOSTON: - LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, - 1907 - - - - - _Copyright_, 1880, - BY LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON. - - - ALFRED MUDGE & SON, INC., PRINTERS, - BOSTON, MASS., U. S. A. - - - - -_TO MISTRESS BROWN-EYES._ - - - _At Christmas-tide, by Christmas fire, - You’ll read these tales of mine;-- - I see, above my story-book, - Your happy brown eyes shine._ - - _Dear eyes, that front the future time - So fearlessly to-day, - Oh, may from them some kindly Fate - Keep future tears away,_ - - _And give you all your heart desires, - My little English maid, - For whom, in this far-distant land, - My loving prayers are said!_ - - _I pray for Peace, since Peace is good, - For Love, since Love is best: - If prayers bring blessings, Brown-eyed Girl, - How much you will be blest!_ - - _L. C. M._ - - _August, 1880._ - - - - -CONTENTS. - - - PAGE - - “ALL A-GROWIN’ AND A-BLOWIN’” 5 - - MY VAGRANT 20 - - HELEN’S TEMPTATION 35 - - THE SURGEON OF THE DOLLS’ HOSPITAL 56 - - PRETTY MISS KATE 79 - - A BORROWED ROSEBUD 94 - - TOM’S THANKSGIVING 106 - - FINDING JACK 124 - - HER MOTHER’S DAUGHTER 139 - - MY QUARREL WITH RUTH 158 - - WAS IT HER MOTHER? 172 - - THE LADY FROM OVER THE WAY 186 - - HIS MOTHER’S BOY 200 - - DR. JOE’S VALENTINE 217 - - - - -NEW BED-TIME STORIES. - - - - -“ALL A-GROWIN’ AND A-BLOWIN’.” - - -It had been such a weary hunt for lodgings. Not that lodgings are -scarce in London. There are scores of streets, whole districts, indeed, -where the house that did not say “Apartments” in its window would be -the exception. - -But Miss Endell wanted to combine a great deal. She must be economical, -for her funds were running low; she must be near the British Museum, -for she wanted to consult many authorities for the book about “Noted -Irishwomen,” by which she hoped to retrieve her fortunes; she wanted -quiet, too, and reasonably pretty things about her. - -For a week she had spent most of her time in quest of the place where -she could settle herself comfortably for a few months. It was the gray -March weather. The mornings were dark, and the gloom of coming dusk -settled down early; and, during all the hours between, Miss Endell -had been busy in that weary work of which Dante speaks, “climbing the -stairs of others.” - -At last, after much consideration, she had decided to make a certain -flight of stairs her own. She had taken the drawing-room floor of No. -30 Guilford Street; and with a comfortable feeling of success she had -paid her bill at the Charing Cross Hotel, and driven to her new home. - -The drawing-room floor--that is to say, the suite of rooms up -one flight of stairs from the street--is the most important part -of a London lodging-house. Whoever is kept waiting, when “the -drawing-room”--as it is the fashion to designate the lodger who -occupies that apartment--rings, the ring must at once be “answered to.” -That floor rents for as much as all the rest of the house put together, -and is the chief dependence of anxious landladies. - -Miss Endell, accordingly, was received as a person of importance. Her -boxes were brought upstairs, and her landlady, Mrs. Stone, bustled -about cheerfully, helping her to arrange things. - -At last every thing was comfortably placed, and the tired new-comer -settled herself in a low chair in front of the glowing coal-fire, and -glanced around her. - -Mrs. Stone was still busy, wiping away imperceptible dust. The door was -open, and in the doorway was framed a singular face, that of a pale, -slender child, with a figure that looked too tall for the face, and -great eager eyes, with such a wistful, silent longing in them as Miss -Endell had never seen before. - -At the same moment Mrs. Stone also caught sight of the child, and cried -out a little crossly,-- - -“Go away, you plague! Didn’t I tell you as you wasn’t to ’ang round the -new lady, a-worritin’ her?” - -The child’s wistful face colored, and the tears sprang to the great, -sad eyes; but he was silently turning away, when Miss Endell herself -spoke. She was not specially fond of children; but she had a kind -heart, and something in the wan, pitiful face of the child touched it. - -“Don’t send him away, Mrs. Stone,” she said kindly. “Come in, my little -man, and tell me what your name is.” - -The child sidled in, timidly, but did not speak. - -“Don’t be afraid,” Miss Endell said. “What is your name?” - -“Bless you, ma’am, he _can’t_ speak!” said Mrs. Stone. - -“Can’t speak?” - -“No; he was born with something wrong. Laws, he can hear as well as -anybody, and he knows all you say to him; but there’s something the -matter. The last ‘drawing-room’ said that there was doctors, she was -sure, as could help him, but I haint any money to try experiments. - -“Johnny was my brother’s child. His father died before he was born, and -his mother lived just long enough to ’and over Johnny to me, and ask me -to take care of him. - -“I’ve done my best; but a lodging-house is a worrit. What with empty -rooms, and lodgers as didn’t pay, and hard times, I never got money -enough ahead to spend on doctors. - -“But you mustn’t have Johnny a-worritin’ round. You’d get sick o’ that. -The last ‘drawing-room’ said it made her that nervous to see him; and I -halways thought she went off partly for that.” - -“I will not let him trouble me, don’t be afraid; but let him sit down -here by the fire, and when I find he disturbs me I’ll send him away.” - -Mrs. Stone vanished, and Johnny took up his station on a stool in a -corner of the hearth-rug. - -Miss Endell busied herself with a book, but from time to time she -looked at the boy. His face was pale and wistful still, but a -half-smile, as sad as tears, was round his poor silent mouth, and he -was gazing at his new friend as if he would fix every line of her face -in his memory for ever. - -For a long hour he sat there; and then Mrs. Stone came to lay the cloth -for dinner, and sent him away to bed. - -The next morning he appeared again; and soon it grew to be his habit to -sit, almost all the day through, and watch Miss Endell at her tasks. -In spite of her absorption, he occupied a good many of her thoughts. - -Like him, she was an orphan; and she had few close and vital interests -in her life. She got to feel as if it belonged to her, in a certain -way, to look after this silent waif of humanity more lonely still than -herself. - -Often she took an hour from her work to read little tales to him, and -it was reward enough to see how his eyes brightened, and the color -came into his pale little face. She used to think that if her work -succeeded, Johnny should also be the better for it. As soon as the -first edition of “Noted Irishwomen” was sold, she would have the best -medical advice for him; and if there were such a thing as giving those -lips language, it should be done. - -“Should you _like_ to speak to me, Johnny?” she asked one day suddenly. - -The boy looked at her, for one moment, with eyes that seemed to grow -larger and larger. Then came a great rush of sobs and tears that shook -him so that Miss Endell was half-frightened at the effect of her own -words. She bent over and put her hand on his head. - -“Don’t, Johnny! Don’t, dear!” she said tenderly. - -I doubt if any one had ever called the poor little dumb boy “dear” -before, in all his eleven years of life. He looked up through his -tears, with a glad, strange smile, as if some wonderful, sweet thing -had befallen him; and then, in a sort of timid rapture, he kissed the -hem of Miss Endell’s gown, and the slippered foot that peeped out -beneath it. - -I think there is an instinct of motherhood in good women that comes -out toward all helpless creatures; and it awoke then in Miss Endell’s -heart. After that she and Johnny were almost inseparable. Often she -took him with her on her walks, and always when she worked he kept his -silent vigil on the hearth-rug. - -Miss Endell had one extravagance. She could not bear to be without -flowers. She did not care much for the cut and wired bouquets of the -florist, but she seldom came home from her walks without some handful -of wall-flowers, or a knot of violets or forget-me-nots. Now and then -she bought a tea-rose bud; and then Johnny always noticed how lovingly -she tended it--how she watched it bursting from bud to flower. - -He got to know that this strange, bright creature whom he idolized -loved flowers, and loved tea-roses best of all. A wild desire grew in -him to buy her tea-roses--not one, only, but a whole bunch. He spent -his days in thinking how it was to be done, and his nights in dreaming -about it. A penny was the largest sum he had ever possessed in his -life, and a penny will not buy one tea-rose, much less a bunch of them. - -One day Miss Endell took him with her when she went to see a friend. It -was a prosperous, good-natured, rich woman in whose house they found -themselves. “Go and see the pictures, Johnny,” Miss Endell said; and -Johnny wandered down the long room, quite out of ear-shot. - -Then she told his pathetic little story, and her friend’s careless yet -kind heart was touched. When it was time for Miss Endell to go, she -summoned Johnny; and then the lady they were visiting gave the boy a -half-crown, a whole shining, silver half-crown. - -Johnny clasped it to his heart in expressive pantomime, and lifted his -wistful, inquiring eyes. - -“Yes, it is all yours,” the lady said, in answer; “and don’t let any -one take it away from you.” - -Small danger, indeed, of that! The piece of silver meant but one thing -to Johnny,--tea-roses, unlimited tea-roses. - -The next day he was taken ill. He had a fever,--a low, slow fever. His -aunt was kind enough to him, but she had plenty to do, and Johnny would -have been lonely indeed but for Miss Endell. - -She had him brought each morning into her room, and kept him all day -lying on her sofa, giving him now a kind word, now a draught of cold -water, and then a few grapes, with the sun’s secret in them. - -One day Johnny drew something from his bosom, and put it into Miss -Endell’s hand. It was the silver half-crown. He made her understand, -by his expressive gestures, that she was to keep it for him; and she -dropped it into a drawer of her writing-desk. - -At last Johnny began to get well. June came, with all its summer sights -and sounds, and strength came with its softer winds to the poor little -waif. One day he stood before Miss Endell, and put out his hand. She -understood, and dropped the half-crown into it. He hid it, with a sort -of passion, in his bosom, and Miss Endell smiled. Did even this little -waif, then, care so much for money? - -As soon as he could stand, he took up his station on the balcony -outside the windows, and watched and watched. - -His friend thought only that the sights and sounds of the street amused -him. She was working on at the “Noted Irishwomen,” which was nearing -its conclusion, and it quite suited her that Johnny found the street so -interesting. - -As for the child, he was possessed by only one idea,--tea-roses. He -watched to see the hand-barrows come along, flower-laden and tempting. - -These same hand-barrows are a feature of London street life. They -are full of plants growing in pots, and also there are plenty of -cut flowers. The venders cry, as they pass along, “All a-growin’ and -a-blowin’!” and there is something exciting in the cry. It seems part -of the summer itself. - -Day after day, day after day, Johnny watched and watched. Flowers -enough went by,--geraniums glowing scarlet in the sun, azaleas, white -heath, violets,--only never any tea-roses. - -But at last, one morning, he heard the familiar cry, “_All a-growin’ -and a-blowin’!_” and lo! as if they had bloomed for his need, there -were tea-roses--whole loads of tea-roses! - -Miss Endell was busy, just then, with Lady Morgan. She never noticed -when the little silent figure left the window, and hurried downstairs. -Out into the street that little figure went, and on and on, in hot -pursuit of the flower-barrow, which by this time had quite the start of -him. - -Down one street, up another, he ran, and always with the silver -half-crown tightly clasped in the palm of his little hand. - -At last a customer detained the barrow; and Johnny hurried up to it, -panting and breathless. He put his hand out towards the tea-roses, and -then he held out his silver half-crown. - -The flower-seller looked at him curiously, “Why don’t you speak, young -’un?” he said. “Are you dumb? You want this ’alf-crown’s wuth o’ them -tea-roses?” - -Johnny nodded vehemently. - -The man took up a great handful of the pale sweet flowers, and thrust -them into the boy’s hands, taking in exchange the half-crown, and -putting it away in a sort of pouch, along with many silver mates. - -As for Johnny, there are in every life supreme moments, and his came -then. He held in his hand the flowers that Miss Endell loved, and he -was going to give them to her. - -All his life he had felt himself in every one’s way. She, only, had -made him welcome to her side. She had called him “dear,”--and now -there was something he could do for her. She had loved one tea-rose: -how much, then, would she love a whole handful of tea-roses! His heart -swelled with a great wave of pride and joy. - -He thought of nothing but his flowers,--how should he?--and he never -even heard or saw the butcher’s cart, tearing along at such a pace as -John Gilpin never dreamed of. And in a moment, something had pushed him -down,--something rolled and crunched over him,--and he knew nothing; -but he held the flowers tight through it all. - -“Why, it’s Mrs. Stone’s dumb Johnny!” said the butcher-boy, who had -got down from his cart by this time, and was addressing the quickly -assembled London crowd. “Gi ’e a hand, and lift un up into my cart, and -I’ll carry un home.” - -An awful inarticulate groan came from the poor child’s dumb lips as -they lifted him; but his hold on the tea-roses never loosened. - -They carried him home, and into the house. Mrs. Stone was shocked and -grieved; and she took her troubles noisily, as is the fashion of her -class. Miss Endell, still fagging away at Lady Morgan, heard cries and -shrieks, and dropped her pen and hastened downstairs. - -“He’s dead! Johnny’s dead!” cried Mrs. Stone and Miss Endell, white and -silent, drew near. - -But Johnny was not dead, though he was dying fast. The butcher-boy had -hurried off for a doctor and the three women, Mrs. Stone, her maid, and -her lodger, stood by helplessly. - -Suddenly Johnny’s wandering look rested on Miss Endell. A great sweet -smile of triumph curved his mouth, lighted his eyes, kindled all his -face. With one grand last effort, he put out the bunch of tea-roses, -and pressed them into her hand. - -And then, as if death had somehow been more merciful to him than life, -and had in some way loosed his poor bound tongue, he stammered out the -only words he had ever spoken--was ever to speak,-- - -“_For you!_” - -At length the doctor came and stood there, helpless like the rest, for -death was stronger than all his skill. The shock and the hurt together -had quenched the poor frail life that was ebbing so swiftly. - -Miss Endell bent and kissed the white quivering lips. As she did so, -the tea-roses she held touched the little face. - -Was it their subtile fragrance, or this kiss, or both together, which -seemed for one moment to recall the departing soul? - -He looked up; it was his last look, and it took in the sweet woman who -had been so gentle and so loving to him, and the flowers in her hand. - -His face kindled with a great joy. A hero might have looked like that -who had died for his country, or a man who had given his life joyfully -for child or wife. - -Johnny Stone had loved one creature well, and that creature had loved -tea-roses. What _could_ life have held so sweet as the death that found -him when he was striving to give her her heart’s desire? - - - - -MY VAGRANT. - - -We were in pursuit of Laura’s dressmaker, and had just rung the bell -at her door, when a little boy presented himself, and, standing on the -lower step, uplifted a pathetic pair of blue eyes, and a small tin -cup held in a little grimy hand. A large basket was on one arm; and -round his neck was one of those great printed placards, such as the -blind men wear who sit at the street corners. Laura’s purse was always -fuller than mine; and she was extracting a bit of scrip from it, while -I bent my near-sighted eyes on the boy’s label. Could it be that I read -aright? I looked again. No, I was not mistaken. It read, in great, -staring letters-- - - I HAVE LOST MY HUSBAND IN THE WAR. - -In the war! And those blue eyes had not opened, surely, till some time -after the war was ended! His husband! I was bewildered. I bent my gaze -on him sternly, and asked, as severely as I could,-- - -“Young man, can you read?” - -Laura was fumbling away at the unanswered door-bell. The boy looked as -if he wanted to run; but I put my hand on his arm. - -“Can you read?” I repeated gravely. I think he shook in his shabby -boots, for his voice was not quite steady as he answered,-- - -“Not much.” - -“Not much, I should think. Do you know what this thing says that you’ve -got round your neck?” - -“Does it say I’m blind?” he asked, with a little frightened quaver. - -“No, it says--but do you know what a husband is?” - -“Yes, he comes home drunk, and beats Mag and me awful.” - -“Did you ever know a boy of your age to have a husband?” - -The blue eyes grew so wide open that I wondered if they could ever -shut themselves up again; and Laura, who had turned round at my -question, looked as if she thought I had suddenly gone mad. The little -dressmaker had opened the door, and stood there waiting meekly, with -the handle in her hand. But my spirit was up, and I did not care for -either of them. I asked again, very impressively, as I thought, with a -pause after each word,-- - -“Did--you--ever--know--a--boy--of--your--age--to--have--a--husband?” - -“No, marm,” he gasped, “husbands belongs to women.” - -“Then what do you wear this thing for? It says that you have lost your -husband in the war.” - -The imp actually turned pale, and I almost pitied him. - -“Will they put me in prison?” he asked, an abject little whine coming -into his voice. “_Will_ they?” - -“Did you steal it?” - -“I didn’t to say steal it--I just _took_ it. I’d seen the rest put them -on when they went out begging, and this was old Meg’s. She wasn’t -going out to-day, and I thought no harm to borrow.” - -“Then you can’t read?” - -“Well, not to say read, marm. I think I could make out a word now and -then.” - -“Do you want to?” - -The face brightened a moment, and, with the curving lips and eager -eyes, was really that of a pretty boy. - -“Oh, if I could!” half sighed the quivering lips; and then the smile -went out, and left blank despair behind it. “It’s no use, marm; she -won’t let me.” - -“Who won’t? Your mother?” - -“No, Mag’s mother--old Meg. My mother’s dead, and I never had any -father that ever I heard of; and since mother died old Meg does for -me; and every day she sends me out to beg; and if I don’t get much she -whips Mag.” - -I was growing strangely interested. - -“Whips _Mag_, because _you_ don’t get much?” I said doubtfully. “What -for?” - -“I guess there’s a hard place on _me_, marm. She found that it didn’t -seem to hurt much, when she whipped _me_; and so one night Mag was -teasing her to stop, and she turned to and whipped Mag, and that made -me cry awful; and ever since, if I don’t get enough money, she whips -Mag.” - -“Are you sure you are telling me the truth?” - -I don’t know why I asked the question, for I saw honesty in those clear -eyes of his. He looked hurt. Yes, you may laugh if you want to, I’m -telling you just as it was--the boy looked as hurt as any of you would -if I doubted you. There came a sort of proud shame into his manner. He -clutched at the placard round his neck, as if he would tear it off, and -answered, sadly,-- - -“I s’pose I can’t expect anybody to believe me with this round my neck; -but, if you would go home with me, Mag could tell you, and you would -believe _her_.” - -By this time Laura had gone in, leaving me to finish my interview -alone. I reflected a moment. The other day I had heard Tom say -he wanted an errand boy. Why should he not have this one? Tom was -my brother. I knew just the difficulties he would make,--want of -reference, a street beggar, a regular rat of the gutter. I could -fancy just how he would talk. I knew, too, that I could overrule his -objections. That’s a power women have when a man loves them; whether -he be husband or brother or friend. I hated the thought of vice and -ignorance and poverty. What if I could save just one small boy from -their clutches? I said resolutely,-- - -“Will you go home with me, and have a comfortable home and good food -and honest work, and no one ever to beat you, and learn to read?” - -I had seen no assent in his eyes till I came to this last clause of my -sentence. Then he asked shrewdly,-- - -“Who’ll teach me? I can’t go to school and do my work, too.” - -“I will teach you. Will you go and work faithfully for my brother, and -learn to read?” - -“Won’t I, just?” - -“Well, then, let me speak to the lady who went in, and I’ll take you -home at once.” - -He shuffled uneasily. - -“If you please, marm, I can’t go till I’ve been back to Meg’s, and -carried her this board.” - -“But I’ll get a policeman to send a messenger with that. If you go, -perhaps she won’t let you come to me.” - -“Yes, marm, I shall come. But you wouldn’t believe me, sure, if I could -steal away, like, and never say good-by to Mag, and let her cry both -her eyes out thinking I’d been shut up, or somebody had killed me.” -And his own great blue eyes grew pathetic again over this picture of -sorrowful possibilities. - -“Well, you may go,” I said, half reluctantly, for the little vagabond -had inspired in me a singular interest. “You may go, and be sure you -come to-night or in the morning, to 70 Deerham Street, and ask for Miss -May.” - -He looked at me with a grave, resolved look. - -“I shall come,” he said; and in an instant he was gone. - -That night, after dinner, I told Tom. He was mocking, incredulous, -reluctant--just as I knew he would be. But it all ended in his -promising to try “My Vagrant,” if he ever came. - -Just as I had brought him to this pass, the bell rang, and I sprang to -the dining-room door. The dining-room was the front basement, and the -outside door was so near that I opened it myself. It was, indeed, my -vagrant. - -“I want Miss May,” he said, with the air which such a _gamin_ puts on -when he speaks to a servant,--an air which instantly subdued itself -into propriety when he heard my voice. - -I took him in to Tom; and I saw the blue eyes softened even the -prejudiced mind and worldly heart of Mr. Thomas May. He spoke very -kindly to the boy, and then sent him into the kitchen for his supper. - -“Where do you propose to keep this new acquisition?” he asked me, after -the blue-eyed was out of sight. - -“In this house, if you please. There is a little single bed all ready -for him in the attic, and I’ve arranged with cook to give him a bath -and then put him into some of the clothes her own boy left behind him -when he went away to sea. I mean to rescue this one soul from a starved -and miserable and wicked life, and I’m willing to take some pains; and -if you aren’t willing to do your part I’m ashamed of you.” - -Tom laughed, and called me his “fierce little woman,” his “angry -turtle-dove,” and half-a-dozen other names which he never gave me -except when he was in good humor, so I knew it was all right. - -Before three days were over Tom owned that my vagrant, as he persisted -in calling the boy (though we knew now that his name was Johnny True), -was the best errand boy he had ever employed. I myself taught him to -read, as I had promised, and brighter scholar never teacher had. In -four months he had progressed so fast that he could read almost any -thing. There had been a sort of feverish eagerness in his desire to -learn for which I was at a loss to account. Sometimes, coming home -from some party or opera, I would find him studying in the kitchen at -midnight. - -We grew fond of him, all of us. Cook said he was no trouble, and he -made it seem as if she had her own boy back again. He waited on Tom -with a sort of dog-like faithfulness; and, as for me, I believe that he -would have cut his hand off for me at any time. - -Yet one morning he got up and deliberately walked out of the house. -When his breakfast was ready cook called for him in vain, and in vain -she searched for him from attic to cellar. But before it was time -for Tom to go to business another boy came, a little older than my -vagrant,--a nice, respectable-looking boy,--and asked for Mr. May. He -came into the dining-room and stood there, cap in hand. - -“If you please, sir,” he said bashfully, “Johnny True wants to know if -you’ll be so good as to take me on in his place, considering that he -isn’t coming back any more, and I have done errands before, and got -good reference.” - -He had made his little speech in breathless haste, running all his -sentences together into one. - -Tom looked at him deliberately, and lit a cigar. - -“Johnny isn’t coming back, hey?” - -“No, sir.” - -“Where is Johnny gone?” - -“He didn’t tell me, if you please, but he said he should be hurt to -death if it troubled you to lose him, and he knew I could do as well as -he could.” - -I saw a refusal in Tom’s eyes, so I made haste to forestall it. - -“Do take him,” I said in a low tone to Tom, and then I said to the boy -that just now he had better go to the store, and Mr. May would see him -presently, when he came to business. - -Tom laughed, a half-amused, half-provoked laugh, when he went out, and -said,-- - -“Well, my dear, I don’t think your vagrant has proved to be such a -success that you need expect me to let him choose my next errand boy.” - -“I think, at least, that if he has sent you one as good as himself you -will have no fault to find,” I said hotly. But all the time there was -a sore place in my own heart, for I had thought that my vagrant would -have loved me too well to run away from me in this way. - -That night Tom said that the new errand boy was doing well, and he -had concluded to keep him on. I think Tom missed my vagrant; but not, -of course, so much as I missed my bright scholar--my grateful little -follower. - -Of course, the new boy lived in his own home, wherever that might be. I -did not concern myself about him, or feel any disposition to put him in -the little bed in the front attic. - -Two or three weeks passed and we heard no word from Johnny True. But at -last a rainy day came, and with it Johnny, asking for Miss May. - -“I guess he’s repented,” cook said, coming upstairs to tell me. I went -down to Johnny, resolved to be equal to the occasion--to meet him with -all the severity his ungrateful behavior deserved. But, somehow, the -wistful look in his blue eyes disarmed me. He was a little thin and -pale, too; and my heart began to soften even before he spoke. - -“I couldn’t stay away, ma’am,” he said, with the clear accent he had -caught so quickly from my brief teaching, “and not let you know why I -went.” - -“To let me know _when_ you went would have been more to the purpose,” I -answered, with what sternness I could command. “I had thought better of -you, Johnny, than that you were capable of running away.” - -“But you see, ma’am, I was afraid you would not let me go if I told -you.” - -“And why did you want to go? Were you not comfortable?” - -“Yes, ma’am--that was the worst of it.” - -“Why the worst of it? Have you any especial objection to be -comfortable?” - -Suddenly the blue eyes filled with tears, like a girl’s; and there was -a pitiful sob in the voice which answered me. - -“Oh, it hurt me so, when I was warm, and had a good supper, and -everybody’s kind word, to think of poor Mag there at home, cold and -hungry, and with old Meg beating her. I never should have come and left -her but for the learning to read. _She_ wanted me to come for that.” - -“So you could read to her?” - -“So I could _teach_ her, ma’am. You never in all your life saw anybody -so hungry to learn to read as Mag; and when I went home that first day -and told her all you said, and told her that after all I couldn’t go -and leave her there to take all the hard fare and hard words, she just -began to cry, and to tease me to go and learn to read, so I could teach -her, until I couldn’t stand it any longer, and I came.” - -“And how did she know she would ever see you again?” I asked. “It would -have been most natural, having learned what comfort was, to stay on -here and enjoy it.” - -“Mag _knew me_, ma’am,” said my vagrant, as proudly as a prince could -speak if his honor were called in question. “Mag knew what I was, and -I learned as fast as I could to get back to her--don’t you think so, -ma’am?” - -“You learned faster than any one else could; I know that,” I answered. -“But, Johnny, how could you bear to go back to begging again?” - -“I couldn’t bear it, ma’am, and I didn’t. I had money enough, that -Mr. Tom had given me, to buy myself a stock of papers. I’m a newsboy -now, and I teach Mag to read out of the papers I have left. And old Meg -knows better now than to beat Mag, and we are so much happier. It’s all -owing to you; and I came back to thank you,--but I never could forsake -Mag for long. I must stay with my own.” - -“But they are not your own.” - -“Mag is, ma’am.” - -He was as resolute to ally himself, for that girl’s sake, with poverty, -and, if need were, shame, as ever was a hero to live or die for the -land of his birth; and out in the rain, down the desolate street, I -watched my vagrant go away from me for ever. But I did not pity him. No -soul is to be pitied which has reached life’s crowning good,--the power -to love another better than itself. Nor do I know any curled darling of -fortune who seems to me happier than was my vagrant. - - - - -HELEN’S TEMPTATION. - - -The sun was almost setting, but its low light came in at the western -windows, and lit up a pale face lying upon the pillows, till it seemed -to the watchers beside the bed as if some glory from heaven had already -touched the brow of the dying. These watchers were only two,--a girl of -fourteen, rather tall of her age, with gray eyes that were almost green -sometimes, and dark hair, short like a boy’s, and curling all over her -head; and a middle-aged woman, who had tended this girl when a baby, -and was half friend, half servant, to the dying mother. - -Mrs. Ash had been lying all the day, almost in silence. Her husband had -brought her, a year before, to California, because she was stricken -with consumption, and he hoped the change from the harsh east winds of -New England to the balmy airs of the Pacific coast might restore her -to health. - -For a time the result had seemed to fulfil his hope; but, very -suddenly, he himself had been taken ill and died; and then the -half-baffled disease seized again on the mourning wife, who had now no -strength to repel its onset. - -I think she would fain have lived--even then, when all the joy seemed -gone from her life--for her daughter Helen’s sake; but she was too weak -to struggle, and so she lay there dying, quite aware of what was before -her. - -All day she had seemed to be thinking, thinking, and waiting till she -had settled something in her own mind before she spoke. At last, with -the sunset light upon her face, she beckoned to the woman, who bent -nearer. - -“As soon as all is over, Woods,” she said, as tranquilly as if she -were speaking of the most ordinary household arrangement, “you will -take Helen to my sister’s in Boston. You must make the journey by easy -stages, so as not to tire her too much. Fortunately she will not be -dependent. She has money enough, and she needs only care and love, -which my sister will give her, I know well. - -“I shall be glad if you can stay with her; but that must of course be -as Mrs. Mason will arrange. You will find when my affairs are settled -that you have been remembered. You will lay me by my husband’s side, -and then take Helen away. - -“All is arranged so that there can be no trouble, and now, if you -please, leave me a little while with my daughter.” - -The woman went out of the room, and then Mrs. Ash opened her arms, and -Helen crept into them and lay there silently, as if she were a baby -again whom her mother comforted. - -She was a strange compound, this Helen Ash, of impulsiveness and -self-control. She had an intense nature, and her temptations would grow -chiefly out of her tendency to concentrate all her heart on a single -object,--to seek whatever thing she wished for with an insistence which -would not be denied. - -This quality has its great advantages certainly, but it has its extreme -dangers. - -Helen had no brothers or sisters or special friends. She had loved only -her father and mother, but she had loved them with an almost excessive -devotion. - -When her father died she had borne up bravely, that she might comfort -and help her mother, and now she was bearing up still, that she might -not sadden that parting soul with the anguish of her own. - -As she lay there in her mother’s arms, her eyes were wide open and -tearless, but they were full of a desperate gloom sadder than tears. -She was almost as pale herself as was her mother. - -“Darling,” the mother said tenderly, “how can I bear to leave you all -alone? Promise me one thing only, to open your heart to new love. It -would be so like you to shut yourself up in your grief, and to fancy -you were loving me less if you let yourself care for your Aunt Helen. - -“She will love you for my sake, and she must be your second mother now. -We were dearer than most sisters to each other, and she is a wise and -good woman. - -“Her daughter, my namesake Laura, is just about your own age, and being -her mother’s daughter, she must be worth loving. Try to care for them, -my darling. The life which has no love in it is empty indeed. Will you -try?” - -“O mamma,” the girl cried, with a sudden, desperate sob, “I _will_ try -because you bid me! I _will_ try; but oh, how _can_ I love them? How -_can_ I bear to see another girl happy with her mother, and to know -that you will never be with me any more--never in all the world? If I -call all day and all night, you will never hear nor answer! O my own -mother, _must_ you leave me?” - -“My darling, yes. I would have lived for your sake if I could. You have -been my comfort always. Comfort me a little longer. Let me feel that in -all the future you will try to live nobly for my sake.” - -The last words had been spoken with an evident effort, and it seemed to -Helen that the cheek against which her own rested was already colder -than it was half an hour ago. - -She clung closer to the poor wasted form that was her whole world of -love, and closed her lips over the bitter cry that was rising to them; -and so the two lay, very, very quietly in that last embrace they were -ever to know. - -And the twilight gathered round them, and at last a young moon, hanging -low in the western sky, looked in and touched with its pale glory the -pale faces on the pillow. - -The mother stirred a little, and with a last effort clasped her child -closer, and said, in a voice like a sigh, faint and sweet and strange, -“Good-by, darling!” and then she seemed to sleep. - -Perhaps Helen slept, also. She never quite knew; but it was an hour -afterwards when Woods touched her shoulder, and said, with a kind -firmness in her tone,-- - -“You _must_ get up now, Miss Helen, and leave her to me. She went off -just as quiet as a lamb, poor dear, and if ever a face was peaceful and -happy, hers is now.” - -No one knew what the few days that followed were to Helen Ash. She shut -her lips, as her manner was, over her grief. She turned away, with her -great tearless eyes, from the two graves where her father and mother -lay side by side, and she helped, with a strange unnatural calmness, in -all the preparations for the long journey she was to take. - -When at last she reached her aunt’s home in Boston, this strained, -unnatural composure gave way a little. - -Her Aunt Helen looked so much like her mother that at first she thought -she could _not_ bear it. Then, when her aunt’s arms closed round her -almost as tenderly as her mother’s would have done, she shivered -a little, and burst into one wild passion of tears, which almost -instantly she checked. - -“I am to love you for _her_ sake,” she said. “Those were almost her -last words; and indeed, indeed, I will try, but I think I left my heart -all those miles away in her grave.” - -Mrs. Mason was, as her sister had said, a wise and good woman,--wise -enough not to attempt to force the love or the interest of her niece. -She contented herself with being exquisitely gentle and considerate -towards her, and with trying, in countless little ways, to make her -feel that she was at home. - -Laura Mason had looked forward to Helen’s coming with a feeling that at -last she was to find in her the sister she had longed for all her life, -but Helen’s cold and self-contained manner disappointed her. She felt -the atmosphere of Helen’s reserve almost as tangibly as if her orphan -cousin had pushed her away. - -The summer months passed, and scarcely brought them any nearer -together. Try as Helen might, she could not get over the sting of pain -when she saw this other girl happy in her mother’s love, or running -gayly to meet her father when he came home at night. _They_ had each -other, she used to say to herself, but _she_ had only her dead. She had -not even Woods to speak to, for Mrs. Mason had decided not to retain -her; and since there was no one to whom Helen ever spoke of the past, -she pondered it all the more in her heart. - -Things were a little better when school commenced in the autumn. Helen -and Laura were in the same classes, and that brought them somewhat -more together; still there was no real intimacy between them. - -In the spring there was to be a competitive examination, and a medal -was to be bestowed on the leading scholar in the class. By midwinter -it was quite evident that Helen and Laura led all the rest, and a real -spirit of rivalry grew up between the cousins which bade fair to become -a passion. - -Mrs. Mason looked on regretfully, adhering to her difficult policy of -non-interference. One day Helen heard Laura say to her mother,-- - -“Mamsie, dear, you know you have the key to that French method locked -up in your desk, for you taught us from it last summer. Won’t you be a -dear, and lend it to me for a little while? - -“If I only could have that to help me, I should be sure of success. -I would study just as hard. It would only be the difference between -knowing when one was right, and floundering on in an awful uncertainty.” - -Helen was behind the curtain of the library window, and evidently they -did not know of her presence. She waited for her aunt’s answer. If -Laura had the key, then, indeed, she would be sure of success. - -Mrs. Mason spoke in a sad voice, with a subtile little thrill of -reproach in it. - -“I did not think you would so much as wish, my dear, to do any thing -that was not quite open and straightforward. You know Mademoiselle does -not expect you to see the key. The very test of your power is that you -should work without its aid, and the examination will prove how far you -have succeeded.” - -“I suppose there’s no use in coaxing, when you say that. I do wish you -weren’t such an uncoaxable mamma.” - -“No, you don’t,--you only fancy that you wish it; but, in your inmost -soul, you would rather have me as I am,” Mrs. Mason answered; and Helen -heard the sound of a kiss, and felt, for the thousandth time, how -bitter it was that this other girl should have home and mother, while -she had only a far-off grave. - -But, at least, she would triumph in this school contest! If Laura came -off best there, it would be more than she _could_ bear. - -The weeks passed on, and the spring came. The deep old garden back -of the house--the garden Helen’s mother had played in when she was a -child--grew full of bird-songs and blossoms. - -There was a sweet laughter on the face of nature. The springs bubbled -with it; the flowers opened to the light; the sunshine poured down its -tender warmth, and the soft coo and call of the birds gave voice to the -general joy. - -But both Laura and Helen were too eager and too tired to be gay. They -only studied. They went to sleep with books under their pillows; they -woke with the first light, and began to study again. - -It was the very week of the examination, at last. Helen felt satisfied -with herself in all but her French. If _she_ could only have that key -for one little half-hour, she knew she would have no weak spot in her -armor. - -She brooded over the idea until the temptation possessed her like an -evil fate. In her passionate girl’s heart she said to herself that she -wanted to _die_ if Laura triumphed over her at school. Laura had every -thing else; why _should_ she have that, also? - -She had said at first, “If only it were _right_ to have the key!” Then -she said, “if only she could _chance_ on the key, somehow!” Then, “if -only she could get at her aunt’s desk and _find_ the key!” At last it -was,-- - -“I _will_ get at the key, somehow!” - -This last was the very morning before the examination. She rose from -her bed in the dainty blue-hung room her aunt had taken such pains to -make pretty for her, and went softly downstairs, in the young spring -morning. - -Her bare feet made no sound on the thick stair-carpet. She looked like -a little white-clad ghost that had forgotten to flee away at the first -cock-crowing, as an orthodox ghost ought; but no ghost ever had such -glowing cheeks, crimson with excitement, such great wide-opened gray -eyes with green depths in them. - -She held in her hand a large bunch of keys belonging to her mother. It -was just a chance whether one of them would fit her aunt’s desk. - -She fairly trembled with excitement. She had lost all thought of the -wrong she was doing--of the shame and meanness of this act, which must -be done in silence and mystery; she thought only of the triumph which -success would mean. - -She stood before the desk, and tried key after key with her shaking -fingers. - -At last one fitted. In a moment more the key to the French method was -in her hand. - -In desperate haste she compared her own work with it, and made -corrections here and there. - -She was so absorbed that she quite failed to see another white-clad -figure which had followed her noiselessly down the stairs, and stood in -the doorway long enough to see what she was doing, and then went away. - -Hurriedly Helen went through her evil task, and then stole back to bed, -with her glittering eyes and burning cheeks. - -Meantime Laura had gone, full of excitement, to her mother. Mr. Mason -was away on business, and Laura crept into the empty half of her -mother’s great bed. - -“Mamsie,” she said, “wake up quickly, and listen.” - -Patient Mrs. Mason rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, and turned over. -Then followed Laura’s breathless story. - -“Of course she’ll win, now,” Laura said, in conclusion, “unless I tell -Mademoiselle what she has done; and I suppose you wouldn’t like that, -would you, mamsie? - -“But it was her French that was the shakiest of any thing. Oh, _did_ -you ever see any thing quite so mean? Think of getting into your desk -with her keys, and then slying off all those corrections!” - -“Yes, I _do_ think,” Mrs. Mason answered, with almost a groan. - -“And she is Laura’s child--my poor Laura, who was honor and honesty -itself! - -“You don’t know, dear, what a bitter thing this is to me. Poor Laura! -what if she knows?” - -“But what shall we do, mamsie, dear? Are we just to keep still, and let -her win the medal, and let every one think she has beaten fairly, or -will you tell her what we know?” - -“Will you go away now,” Mrs. Mason said, “and come back again before -breakfast? I don’t want to say any thing until I am quite sure what it -is best to do.” - -When Laura came again, Mrs. Mason had settled upon her course of -action, or rather of inaction. - -“Don’t be vexed, girlie,” she said to Laura; “I know it will seem hard -to you to be beaten unfairly; but there are things of more consequence -even than that. The thing that seems to me most important, just now, -is to know what Helen’s character really is. If she is not utterly -unworthy of her mother, she will repent before the thing comes to an -end. If she does not, it will be time enough to think what to do next.” - -“And I must let her beat unfairly, and never say one word?” Laura -asked, with a little strain of rebellion in her voice. - -“Yes, if you are the obedient and generous Laura I like to believe -you.” - -“Mamsie, you have a flattering tongue, and you always get your way.” - -“And who is pretty sure always to admit, in the end, that it was the -best way?” asked Mrs. Mason, laughing. - -“Mamsie, you are getting spoiled. See if I say yours was the best way -this time!” - -French came on the first of the two examination-days. Laura and Helen -led their class. Laura did very well, but Helen acquitted herself -triumphantly, and sat down amid a little buzz of congratulations and -praises. - -But somehow the triumph left a bitter taste in her mouth. She did not -look at Laura, and even if she had she would not have understood the -scorn on Laura’s face, since she was quite unaware that her raid on her -aunt’s desk had been observed. - -Still she was not happy. She needed no scorn from outside, she had -already begun to feel such bitterness of self-contempt scorching her -soul. It seemed to her that up to this moment she had been as one under -an evil spell. - -She had thought of no single thing except her triumph over her -cousin--quite careless as to the means to this hotly desired end. Now -she began to realize how base those means had been, and to long to -exchange her success for any direst possible failure. - -Mrs. Mason was watching her, and when they started to go home, she -found an instant in which to whisper to Laura,-- - -“Be gentle to her, girlie; she will suffer enough to-night.” - -At supper Helen’s place was vacant. She sent word that her head ached -too much to come. - -Her aunt despatched to her room tea and strawberries and -bread-and-butter enough for the hungriest of girls, and then left her -to herself. - -The poor, lonesome, miserable girl lay upon her bed and thought. It was -not quite a year since she had lain in her mother’s arms and heard her -say,-- - -“Try to live nobly for my sake.” - -Those had been almost her mother’s last words; after them there was -only the low sigh, faint as if it came already from far-off worlds,-- - -“Good-by, darling.” - -The low sun-rays stole in softly, and touched her sad, pale face, and -then went away; and after a while some cold, far-off stars looked down -into the window, and saw the girl lying there still, fighting her -battle with herself. - -One thing her conscience told her,--that she must undo this wrong, at -whatever cost of shame. - -Once she started up, half-resolved to go to her aunt and tell her the -whole story, and seek her help and counsel. But she lay down again, -without the courage to confess her shame. - -Through the long night she scarcely slept; but before morning she -had resolved what to do. In public she had taken the wages of her -sin; in public she would make atonement, and eat the bitter bread of -humiliation. - -When she had once settled on her course of action, sleep touched her -weary eyes, and soothed her into a forgetfulness from which only the -breakfast-bell awoke her. - -That day every one noticed a singular calmness and resolve in her -manner. She passed the remaining examinations with thorough success, -yet with an evident lack of interest in their result which all save her -aunt were at a loss to understand. - -At last the time came for the awarding of the medal. There was a little -consultation among the examining committee, and then their chairman -rose, with the medal in his hand. - -“To Miss Helen Ash,” he began; but before he could proceed farther, -Miss Helen Ash herself interrupted him. - -Her face was as white as the dress she wore, and her eyes glittered -with some strange fire of resolve or courage; but her voice was -absolutely without a quiver of emotion in it, as steady and even as if -she were beyond hope or fear. - -“The medal does not belong to me,” she said. “My success was a -false success. I dishonestly found the key to the French method, -and corrected my mistakes by it, or I should have failed. The prize -belongs, of right, to my cousin, Laura Mason.” - -The chairman was a fussy little man, and was thoroughly discomposed -by this interruption. He had had his little speech all ready, but it -began with the name of Helen Ash, and he found it difficult to change -it at a moment’s notice. - -“Bless my heart!” he said quite unconsciously, and looking helplessly -around him, he repeated, “_Bless_ my heart!” - -“Miss Laura Mason,” suggested one of his brethren on the committee; and -thus reinforced, he began again,-- - -“Miss Laura Mason, I am very sorry--I mean I am very glad, to bestow on -you this medal, which you have fairly earned by your success.” - -And then he sat down, and his confusion was covered by a gentle little -clapping of hands. - -That night Mrs. Mason went to Helen in her own room, when the twilight -shadows were falling, and as she entered the door she said, “My -darling,” in a voice so like Helen’s mother’s that the girl’s very -heart sprang to meet it. - -“My darling, I know now that you are true enough and brave enough to be -my sister’s child.” - -But Helen shrank back into the darkness, and this time the voice was -broken with tears which faltered,-- - -“Is there any one who could know what I have done, and yet not despise -me?” - -“There is no one, dear, who dares to scorn the soul that repents and -atones.” - -And then loving arms held the poor lonesome girl close, and she knew -that she was no longer alone. She had found a new home--the home her -mother bade her seek--in the heart of that mother’s sister. - - - - -THE SURGEON OF THE DOLLS’ HOSPITAL. - - -It was nearly four years ago that I first noticed, in one of the quiet -side-streets in the West Central district of London, a sign over a door -on which I read:-- - -DOLLS’ HOSPITAL. - -Operations from 9 A.M., to 4 P.M. - -Whenever I passed through the street--and that was often, for it was a -short cut to Mudie’s,--the largest circulating library in the world,--I -used to notice this quaint sign, and wonder, laughingly, who was the -superintending physician to this place of healing for the numerous race -of dolls. - -I often thought I would go in and see the establishment; but one is -always busy in London, so, very likely, I should never have entered its -door but for a casualty at my own fireside. - -When I went downstairs one morning, I heard a sound of weeping, as -bitter as that of Rachel of old mourning for her children. The mourner -in this case was Mistress Brown-Eyes, as I was wont to call my friend’s -little girl. - -She was a pretty child, this little Milicent; but you forgot to think -about the rest of her face when you saw her wonderful eyes--soft and -clear, yet bright, and of the warmest, deepest, yet softest brown. -She had made her home in my heart, and so her grief, whatever it was, -appealed at once to my sympathies. - -“My darling,” I said, as I tried to draw away the little hands from -before the sorrowful face, “what can be the matter?” - -“Bella is dead!” and the sobs recommenced with fresh violence. - -Bella was the best-beloved of a somewhat large family of dolls,--a -pretty Parian creature, with blue eyes and fair hair. I had myself -lately assisted in making a trunk of clothes for Bella; and I grudged -sorely all my wasted labor, if she had come to an untimely end. - -I looked at the dear remains, stretched out sadly upon a chair. Bella -was evidently very dead indeed. Her pretty neck was broken, her fair, -foolish head lay quite severed from her silken-clad body. Suddenly -there flashed into my mind the thought of the dolls’ hospital. I spoke -cheerfully. - -“Brown-Eyes,” I said, “I think that Bella may recover. I am pretty sure -that her collar-bone is broken; but I have heard of people who got well -after breaking their collar-bones.” - -The child looked up, her eyes shining through tears, and said, with -that air of grave, old-fashioned propriety which was one of the most -amusing things about her,-- - -“It is a very serious accident. Do you think Bella _could_ recover?” - -“I hope she may; and I shall at once take her to the hospital.” - -“The hospital!” cried Mistress Brown-Eyes; “but that is where Mary Ann -went when she had a fever. She was gone six weeks. Will my Bella be -gone six weeks?” - -“I think not so long as one week, if she can be cured at all.” - -In five minutes more I was in the street, with Bella in a basket on my -arm. Her little mother had covered her carefully from the cold, though -it was already May; and I felt as if I were in a position of grave -responsibility as I hurried to the dolls’ hospital. - -A bell rang when I opened the door, and the oddest little person stood -before me. At first I thought it was a child masquerading in long -clothes; for she was not more than half the height of an ordinary woman. - -But, looking more closely, I saw the maturity of her face, and realized -that I stood in the presence of a grown-up dwarf, who might really have -been taken for Dickens’s Miss Mowcher, herself. - -She was dressed in a long, straight gown of rusty-looking black alpaca, -and her rusty-looking black hair was drawn straightly back from as -plain a face as one often sees. It was a kind, honest face, however, -and I liked the voice in which she asked how she could serve me. I -explained my errand. - -“Please to let me see the patient.” - -She spoke with as much gravity as if she had been the superintending -physician of the largest hospital in London. I unveiled poor Bella, and -the dwarf lifted her from the basket with grave tenderness. - -“Poor little beauty!” she said. “Yes’m, I think I can cure her.” - -“Will the operation take long?” I asked, humoring her fancy. - -“I should prefer that the patient should not be moved, ma’am, before -to-morrow.” - -“Very well; then I will leave her.” - -Just at that moment I heard a voice call, “Sally! Sally!” - -It was a well-trained, ladylike voice, but somewhat imperious. - -“Yes, Lady Jane, I’ll be there in a moment,” answered the dwarf, whom -I now knew to be Sally. Then a door opened, and the most beautiful -creature I ever saw stood in it, looking in. - -The hospital was a bare enough place. There was a great table covered -with dolls,--dolls with broken legs, dolls with punched heads, dolls -with one arm gone, hairless dolls, broken-backed dolls, dolls of every -kind, awaiting the ministrations of Sally; and dozens of other dolls -were there, too, whom those skilful fingers had already cured of their -wounds. - -There was a shelf, on which was ranged the pharmacy of this -hospital,--white cement, boxes of saw-dust, collections of legs and -arms, wigs, every thing, in short, that an afflicted doll could -possibly require. Then there were two or three wooden stools, and these -completed the furniture of the apartment. - -Standing in the doorway, Lady Jane looked as if she were a larger doll -than the rest,--a doll with a soul. She seemed a lady’s child, every -pretty inch of her. I should think she was about twelve years old. She -wore a blue dress, and a blue ribbon in the bright, fair hair that hung -all about her soft, pink-and-white face, out of which looked two great, -serious, inquiring blue eyes. - -“I will be through soon, Lady Jane,” Sally said quietly; and the girl -turned away, but not before I had taken in a complete picture of her -loveliness, and had noticed also a somewhat singular ornament she wore, -attached to a slender golden chain. It was so strange a vision to see -in this humble little shop that my curiosity got the better of me, and, -after the door had closed on Lady Jane, I asked, “Does she live here?” - -“Yes’m,” answered Sally proudly. “In a way, she is my child.” - -I hesitated to inquire further; but I think my eyes must have asked -some questions in spite of myself; for Sally said, after a moment,-- - -“You seem interested, ma’am, and I don’t mind telling you about her. -I saw Lady Jane first some eight years ago. A man had her who used to -go round with a hand-organ. She was such a pretty little creature that -everybody gave her money, and she was a great profit to Jacopo, for -that was his name. - -“It used to make my heart ache to see the little beauty trudging round -all day on her patient feet. When Jacopo spoke to her, I’ve seen her -turn pale; and she never used to smile except when she was holding out -her bit of a hat to people for money. She _had_ to smile then; it was -part of the business. - -“I was sixteen, and I was all alone in the world. I had a room to -myself, and I worked days in a toy-shop. I used to dress the dolls, -and I got very clever at mending them; but I hadn’t thought of the -hospital, then. - -“I lived in the same street with Jacopo, and I grew very fond of the -little lady, as the people in the street used to call Jane. Sometimes I -coaxed Jacopo to let her stay with me at night; but after three or four -times, he would not let her come again. I suppose he thought she would -get too fond of me. - -“Things went on that way for two years; then one night, in the middle -of the night, a boy came for me, and said Jacopo was dying and wanted -me to come. I knew it was something about Jane, and I hurried on my -clothes and went. - -“The child was asleep in one corner. She had been tramping all that -day, as usual, and she was too tired out for the noise in the room to -wake her. Jacopo looked very ill, and he could hardly summon strength -to speak to me. - -“‘The end has come sudden, Sally,’ he said, ‘the end to a bad life. But -I ain’t bad enough to want harm to happen to the little one when I am -gone. There will be plenty of folks after her, for she’s a profitable -little one to have; but if you want her, I’ll give her to you. You may -take her away to-night, if you will.’ - -“‘Indeed I will,’ I cried, ‘and thank you. While I can work, she shall -never want.’ - -“Jacopo had been fumbling under his pillow as he spoke; and when I said -I would take the child he handed me a curious locket. Maybe you noticed -it at her neck when she stood in the door? - -“He said, as nearly as I could understand, for it was getting hard work -for him to speak, that he had stolen the child, but he had always kept -this thing, which she had on her neck when he took her, and perhaps it -would help, some day, to find her people. - -“So I took her home. The next morning I heard that Jacopo was dead, -and the Lady Jane has been mine ever since.” - -“Have you always called her Lady Jane?” I asked. - -“Yes’m. There is a coronet on that locket she wears; and I know she -must be some great person’s daughter, she is so beautiful, and seems so -much like a real lady.” - -“And so you’ve struggled on and worked for her, and taken care of her -for six years, now?” - -“Yes’m, and I’ve thanked God every day that I’ve had her to take care -of. You see, ma’am, I’m not like other people; and it was a good -fortune I couldn’t look for to have a beautiful child like that given -into my arms, as you might say. It was all the difference between being -alone and with no one to care for, and having a home and an interest in -life like other women. - -“I gave up working in the shop when I took her, for I didn’t like to -leave her alone. I was a good workwoman, and they let me take work home -for awhile; then I opened the hospital, and I’ve done very well. Lady -Jane has been to school, and I don’t think if her true parents met -her, they would be ashamed of her.” - -“Do you ever think,” I said, “that they may meet her some time, and -then you would lose her for ever?” - -“Yes, indeed, I think about that, ma’am; and I make her keep the locket -in sight all the time, in hopes it might lead to something.” - -“In hopes!” I said, surprised. “You don’t want to part with her, do -you?” - -I was sorry, instantly, that I had asked the question, for her poor -face flushed, and the tears gathered in her eyes. - -“O ma’am,” she said, “if I stopped to think about myself, I suppose -I should rather die than lose her; but I _don’t_ think of any thing -but her. And how could I want her, a lady born, and beautiful as any -princess, to live always in a little room back of a dolls’ hospital? -Would it be right for me to want it? - -“No; I think God gave her to make a few of my years bright; and when -the time comes, she will go away to live her own life, and I shall -live out mine, remembering that she _was_ here, once; and harking back -till I can hear the sound of her voice again; or looking till I see her -bright head shine in the corner where she sits now.” - -Just then the bell rang, and other customers came into the hospital, -and I went away, promising to return for Bella on the morrow. - -I walked through the streets with a sense that I had been talking with -some one nobler than the rest of the world. Another than poor Sally -might have adopted Lady Jane, perhaps, tended her, loved her; but who -else would have been noble enough to love her, and yet be ready to lose -her for ever and live on in darkness quite satisfied if but the little -queen might come to her own again? - -I comforted Mistress Brown-Eyes with a promise of her “child’s” -recovery, and I went to a kettle-drum or two in the afternoon, and -dined out at night; but all the time, amidst whatever buzz of talk, I -was comparing the most generous persons I had ever known with the poor -dwarfed surgeon of the dolls’ hospital, and finding them all wanting. - -I went for Bella about four the next afternoon. I wanted to get to the -hospital late enough to see something of the little surgeon and her -beautiful ward. I purchased a bunch of roses on the way, for I meant to -please Sally by giving them to Lady Jane. - -I opened the door, and again, at the ringing of the bell, the quaint -little figure of the dwarf surgeon started up like Jack-in-the-box. - -“Is the patient recovered?” I asked. - -“The patient is quite well;” and the surgeon took down pretty Bella, -and proudly exhibited her. The white cement had done its work so -perfectly that the slender neck showed no signs of ever having been -broken. - -I paid the surgeon her modest fee, and then I said, “Here are some -roses I brought for Lady Jane.” - -Sally’s plain face beamed with pleasure. “It’s time to stop receiving -patients for to-day,” she said. “Won’t you walk into the sitting-room -and give the roses to Lady Jane, yourself?” - -I was well pleased to accept the invitation. The sitting-room was as -cosy as the hospital itself was barren of attraction. I really wondered -at the taste with which it was arranged. The hangings were blue, and -two or three low chairs were covered with the same color; and there -were pretty trifles here and there which made it seem like a lady’s -room. - -[Illustration: My roses were received with a cry of delight.--PAGE 69.] - -My roses were received with a cry of delight; and, while Lady Jane -put them in a delicate glass, Sally made me sit down in the most -comfortable chair, and then she asked her ward to sing to me. - -The girl had a wonderful voice, soft and clear and full. - -When she had done singing, Sally said, “I have thought sometimes that, -if no better fortune comes, Lady Jane can sing herself into good luck.” - -“_I_ count on something better than that,” the little lady cried -carelessly. “When I ‘come to my own,’ like the princesses in all the -fairy tales, I’ll send you my picture, Sally, and it will make you -less trouble than I do. It won’t wear out its gowns, nor want all the -strawberries for supper.” - -Sally didn’t answer; but two great tears gathered in her eyes, and -rolled down her cheeks. - -Lady Jane laughed--not unkindly, only childishly--and said, “Never -mind. Don’t cry yet. You’ll have time enough for that when it all comes -to pass. And you know you want it to happen; you always say so.” - -“Yes, yes, dear, I want it to happen,” Sally said hastily; “I couldn’t -want to shut you up here for ever, like a flower growing in a dungeon.” - -“A pretty, blue-hung dungeon, with nice soft chairs,” Lady Jane said -pleasantly; and then I got up to go. - -Had this beautiful girl any real heart behind her beauty? I wondered. -If the time ever came when Sally must give her up to some brighter -fate, would it cost the little lady herself one pang? Could she be -wholly insensible to all the devotion that had been lavished on her for -all these years? I could not tell; but she seemed to me too light a -thing for deep loving. - -I carried Bella home to Mistress Brown-Eyes, who received her with -great joy, and with a certain tender respect, such as we give to those -who have passed through perils. I stayed in London till “the season” -was over,--that is to say, till the end of July; and then, with the -last rose of summer in my buttonhole, I went over to the fair sea coast -of France. - -It was not until the next May that I found myself in London again; and -going to renew my subscription at Mudie’s, passed the dolls’ hospital. -I looked up at the quaint sign, and the fancy seized me to go in. - -I opened the door, and promptly as ever, the dwarf surgeon of the dolls -stood before me. It was nearly four o’clock, and the hospital was empty -of customers. Nothing in it was changed except the face of the surgeon. -Out of that always plain face a certain cheerful light had faded. It -looked now like a face accustomed to tears. I said,-- - -“Do you remember me, Dr. Sally?” - -A sort of frozen smile came to the poor trembling lips. - -“Oh, yes’m. You’re the lady that brought the rose-buds to Lady Jane.” - -“And is she well?” I asked. - -“I _think_ so, ma’am. Heaven knows I _hope_ so; but the old days when -I _knew_ are over. Won’t you come into the sitting-room, please?” - -I wanted nothing better for myself, and I felt that it might ease her -sad heart to break its silence; so I followed her into the familiar -room. It, at least, was unchanged. The blue hangings were there, and -the low easy-chairs, and the pretty trifles; and yet, somehow, the room -seemed cold, for the beauty which had gladdened it last year had gone -for ever. - -“Will you tell me what happened?” I asked; and I know the real sympathy -I felt must have sounded in my voice. - -“It wasn’t long after you were here,” she said, “a lady was driving by, -and she saw my sign. She sent her footman to the door to see if the -place was really what that said; and the next day she came in herself -and brought a whole load of broken toys. She said she wanted these -things put in order to take into the country, for they were favorite -playthings of her little girl’s. - -“I turned then and looked at the child who had come in with her mother. -I can never tell you how I felt. It was as though Lady Jane had gone -back six years. Just what my darling was when she came to me, this -little girl was now,--the very same blue eyes, and bright, fair hair, -and the pretty, pink-and-white face. - -“Just at that moment, Lady Jane came into the hospital, and when the -lady saw her, she stood and gazed as if she had seen a ghost. I looked -at the lady herself, and then I looked at Lady Jane, and then again -at the little girl; and true as you live, ma’am, I knew it was Lady -Jane’s mother and sister before ever a word was spoken. I felt my knees -shaking under me, and I held fast to the counter to keep from falling. -I couldn’t have spoken first, if my life had depended on it. - -“The lady looked, for what seemed to me a long time; and then she -walked up to my darling and touched the locket that she wore on her -neck. At last she turned to me and asked, with a little sternness in -her gentle voice, if I would tell her who this girl was, and how I came -by her. - -“So I told her the whole story, just as I had told it to you, and -before I had finished, she was crying as if her heart would break. -Down she went on her knees beside Lady Jane, and put her arms around -her, and cried,-- - -“‘O my darling, my love, I thought you were dead! I am your mother--oh, -believe me, my darling! Love me a little, a little,--after all these -years!’ - -“And just as properly as if she had gone through it all in her mind a -hundred times beforehand, Lady Jane answered,-- - -“‘I always expected you, mamma.’ - -“Somehow, the lady looked astonished. She grew quieter, and stood up, -holding Lady Jane’s hand. - -“‘You expected me?’ she said, inquiringly. - -“‘Yes, you know I _knew_ I had been stolen; and I used to think and -think, and fancy how my true mother would look, and what my right home -would be; and I always felt sure in my heart that you would come some -day. I didn’t know when or how it would be; but I expected you.’ - -“‘And when will you be ready to go with me?’ asked the mother. - -“‘When you please, mamma.’ - -“The lady hesitated, and turned to me. ‘I owe you so much,’ she said, -‘so much that I can never hope to pay it; and I do not like to grieve -you. But her father and I have been without Jane so long, _could_ you -spare her to me at once?’ - -“‘That must be as you and she say, ma’am,’ I answered, trying as hard -as I could to speak quietly. ‘I never have wanted any thing but that -she should be well off and happy so far, and won’t begin to stand in -her light now.’ - -“Then the lady turned to the little girl who had come in with her. -‘Ethel,’ she said, ‘this is your sister. She has been lost to us eight -years, but we will keep her always, now.’ And then, with more thanks -to me, she started to go away,--the stately, beautiful lady, with her -beautiful girls, one on each side of her. - -“They got to the door, and suddenly my darling turned,--O ma’am, it’s -the best thing in my whole life to remember that! Of her own accord she -turned and came back to me, and said she,-- - -“‘Don’t think, Sally, that I’m not sorry to say good-by. Of course I -can’t be sorry to find my own mamma and my right home, but I’m sorry to -leave _you_.’ - -“And then she put her arms round my neck and kissed me just as she had -done when I took her home that night from Jacopo’s, six years before; -and then she went away, and the sunshine, it seemed to me, went out of -the door with her, and has never come back since.” - -The poor little surgeon of the dolls stopped speaking, and cried very -quietly, as those cry who are not used to have their tears wiped away, -or their sorrows comforted. - -I wanted to say that Lady Jane seemed to me a heartless little piece, -who cared for nothing in the world but herself, and wasn’t worth -grieving for; but I felt there would be no comfort for her in thinking -that there had never been any thing worth having in her life. Far -better let her go on believing that for six years she had sheltered an -angel at her fireside. - -At last, when I saw her tears were ceasing to flow, I said, “And when -did you see her again?” - -“Oh, I have never seen her since that day. I think she pitied me too -much to come back and give me the sorrow of parting with her over -again. No, I have never seen her, but her mother sent me five hundred -pounds.” - -“And so she ought,” I said impulsively. “It was little enough for all -you had done.” - -Surgeon Sally looked at me with wonder, not unmixed with reproach, in -her eyes. - -“Do you think I wanted _that_?” she asked. “I had had my pay for all I -did, ten times over, in just having her here to look at and to love. -No; I sent the money back, and I think it must be that my darling -understood; for, two months afterwards, I received the only gift I -would have cared to have,--her portrait. Will you please to look round, -ma’am? It hangs behind you.” - -I looked round, and there she was, even lovelier than when I had seen -her first,--a bright, smiling creature, silken-clad, patrician to the -finger-tips. But it seemed to me that no heart of love looked out of -the fair, careless face. I thought I would rather be Surgeon Sally, -and know the sweetness of loving another better than myself. - -“She is very beautiful,” I said, as I turned away. - -“Yes; and sometimes I almost think I feel her lips, her bonny bright -lips, touch my face, as they did that last day, and hear her say, -‘Don’t think, Sally, that I’m not sorry.’ Oh, my lot isn’t hard, ma’am. -I might have lived my life through and never have known what it was to -have something all my own to love. God was good. - -“And after all, ma’am,” she added cheerfully, “there’s nothing happier -in the world than to give all the pleasure you can to somebody.” - -And I went away, feeling that the dwarf surgeon of the dolls’ hospital -had learned the true secret of life. - - - - -PRETTY MISS KATE. - - -Everybody called her “pretty Miss Kate.” It was an odd title, and she -had come by it in an odd way. A sort of half-witted nurse, whose one -supreme merit was her faithfulness, had tended Squire Oswald’s baby -daughter all through her early years; and she it was who had first -called the girl “pretty Miss Kate.” - -It was a small neighborhood where everybody knew everybody else; and, -by dint of much hearing this title, all the neighbors grew to use it. -And, indeed, at fifteen Kate Oswald deserved it. She was a tall, slight -girl, with a figure very graceful, and what people call stylish. - -She had blue eyes; not the meaningless blue of a French doll, but deep -and lustrous, like the tender hue of the summer sky. She had hair like -some Northland princess. It had not a tint of yellow in it, but it -was fine and fair, and so light as to be noticeable anywhere. Her skin -was exquisite, too, as skin needs must be to match such hair. When any -color came to the cheeks it was never crimson, but just the faintest -tint of the blush rose; her lips alone were of rich, vivid bloom. A -prettier creature, truly, seldom crosses this planet; and the few such -girls who have lived among us, and grown to womanhood, have made wild -work generally, using hearts for playthings; and, like other children, -breaking their toys now and then. But pretty Miss Kate was not at the -age yet for that sort of pastime, and her most ardent worshipper was -little Sally Green. - -There was a curious friendship between these two, if one may call that -friendship which is made up of blind worship on one side and gentle -pity and kindliness on the other. - -Squire Oswald owned the poor little house where Widow Green lived, and -whenever there was an unusual press of work at the great house above, -the family washing used to be sent down to Mrs. Green at the foot of -the hill. Many an hour the widow worked busily, fluting the delicate -ruffles and smoothing the soft muslins, out of which pretty Miss Kate -used to bloom as a flower does out of its calyx. And on these occasions -Sally used to carry the dainty washing home, and she nearly always -contrived to be permitted to take it up to Miss Kate’s room, herself. - -Nobody thought much about little Sally Green any way,--least of all did -any one suspect her of any romantic or heroic or poetical qualities. -And yet she had them all; and if you came to a question of soul and -mind, there was something in Sally which entitled her to rank with -the best. She was a plain, dark little thing, with a stubbed, solid, -squarely-built figure; with great black eyes, which nobody thought any -thing about in _her_, but which would have been enough for the whole -stock-in-trade of a fashionable belle; with masses of black hair that -she did not know what to do with; and with a skin somewhat sallow, but -smooth. No one ever thought how she looked, except, perhaps, pretty -Miss Kate. - -One day, when the child brought home the washing, Kate had been reading -aloud to a friend, and Sally had shown an evident inclination to -linger. At that time Kate was not more than fourteen, and the interest -or the admiration in Sally’s face struck her, and, moved by a girl’s -quick impulse, she had said,-- - -“Do you want to hear all of it, Sally? Wait, then, and I will read it -to you.” - -The poem was Mrs. Browning’s “Romance of the Swan’s Nest,” and it was -the first glimpse for Sally Green into the enchanted land of poetry -and fiction. Before that she had admired pretty Miss Kate, but now the -feeling grew to worship. - -Kate was not slow to perceive it, with that feminine instinct which -somehow scents out and delights in the honest admiration of high or -low, rich or poor. She grew very kind to little Sally. Many a book and -magazine she lent the child; and now and then she gave her a flower, a -bit of bright ribbon, or some little picture. To poor Sally Green these -trifles were as the gifts of a goddess, and no devotee ever treasured -relics from the shrine of his patron saint more tenderly than she -cherished any, even the slightest, token which was associated with the -beautiful young lady whom she adored with all her faithful, reverent, -imaginative heart. - -One June evening Sally had been working hard all day. She had washed -dishes, run her mother’s errands, got supper, and now her reward was to -come. - -“You may make yourself tidy,” her mother said, “and carry home that -basket of Miss Kate’s things to Squire Oswald’s.” - -Sally flew upstairs, and brushed back her black locks, and tied them -with a red ribbon Miss Kate had given her. She put on a clean dress, -and a little straw hat that last year had been Miss Kate’s own; and -really for such a stubbed, dark little thing, she looked very nicely. -She was thirteen--two years younger than her idol--and while Miss Kate -was tall, and looked older than her years, Sally looked even younger -than she was. Her heart beat as she hurried up the hill. She thought -of the fable of the mouse and the lion, which she had read in one of -the books Miss Kate had lent her. It made her think of herself and her -idol. Not that Miss Kate was like a lion at all,--no, she was like a -beautiful princess,--but she herself was such a poor, humble, helpless -little mouse; and yet there might be a time, if she only watched and -waited, when she, even she, could do pretty Miss Kate some good. And -if the time ever came, wouldn’t she _do_ it, just, at no matter _what_ -cost to herself? Poor little Sally! The time was on its way, and nearer -than she thought. - -She found Miss Kate in her own pretty room,--a room all blue and white -and silver, as befitted such a fair-haired beauty. The bedstead and -wardrobe were of polished chestnut, lightly and gracefully carved. -The carpet was pale gray, with impossible blue roses. The blue chintz -curtains were looped back with silver cords; there were silver frames, -with narrow blue edges, to the few graceful pictures; and on the mantel -were a clock and vases with silver ornaments. - -Pretty Miss Kate looked as if she had been dressed on purpose to stay -in that room. She wore a blue dress, and round her neck was a silver -necklace which her father had brought her last year from far-off Genoa. -Silver ornaments were in her little ears, and a silver clasp fastened -the belt at her waist. She welcomed Sally with a sweet graciousness, a -little conscious, perhaps, of the fact that she was Miss Oswald, and -Sally was Sally Green; but to the child her manner, like every thing -else about her, seemed perfection. - -“Sit down and stay a little, Sally,” she said, “I have something to -tell you. Do you remember what you heard me read that first time, when -your eyes got so big with listening, and I made you stay and hear it -all?” - -“Yes, indeed,” Sally cried eagerly. “I never forgot any thing I ever -heard you read. That first time it was ‘The Romance of the Swan’s -Nest.’” - -“Yes, you are right, and I know I was surprised to find how much you -cared about it. I began to be interested in you then, for you know I am -interested in you, don’t you, Sally?” - -Sally blushed with pleasure till her face glowed like the June roses in -Miss Kate’s silver vases, but she did not know what to say, and so, -very wisely, she did not say any thing. Miss Kate went on,-- - -“Well, that very same poem I am going to read, next Wednesday night, -at the evening exercises in the academy. The academy hall won’t hold -everybody, and so they are going to be admitted by tickets. Each of -us girls has a certain number to give away, and I have one for you. -I thought you would like to go and see me there among the rest in my -white gown, and hear me read the old verses again.” - -You would not have believed so small a thing could so have moved -anybody; but Sally’s face turned from red to white, and from white to -red again, and her big black eyes were as full of tears as an April -cloud is of rain-drops. - -“Do you mean it, truly?” she asked. - -“Yes, truly, child. Here is your ticket. Why, don’t cry, foolish girl. -It’s nothing. I wanted to be sure of one person there who would think -I read well, whether any one else did or not. And I’ve a gown for you, -too--that pink muslin, don’t you know, that I wore last year? I’ve -shot up right out of it, and it’s of no use to me, now, and mamma said -I might give it to you. This is Saturday; you can get it ready by -Wednesday, can’t you?” - -What a happy girl went home that night, just as the rosy June -sunset was fading away, and ran, bright and glad and full of joyful -expectation, into the Widow Green’s humble little house! Widow Green -wasn’t much of a woman, in the neighbors’ estimation. She was honest -and civil, and she washed well; but that was all they saw in her. Sally -saw much more. She saw a mother who always tried to make her happy; -who shared her enthusiasms, or at least sympathized with them; who was -never cross or jealous, or any thing but motherly. She was as pleased, -now, at the prospect of Sally’s pleasure as Sally herself was; and just -as proud of this attention from pretty Miss Kate. Together they made -over the pink muslin dress; and when Wednesday night came the widow -felt sure that her daughter was as well worth having, and as much to be -proud of, as any other mother’s daughter that would be at the academy. - -“You must go very early,” she said, “to get a good seat; and you need -not be afraid to go right up to the front. You’ve just as good right to -get close up there as anybody.” - -When Sally was going out, her mother called her back. - -“Here, dear,” she said, “just take the shawl. Do it to please me, for -there’s no knowing how cold it might be when you get out.” - -“The shawl” was an immense Rob Roy plaid,--a ridiculous wrap, truly, -for a June night; but summer shawls they had none, and Sally was too -dutiful, as well as too happy, not to want to please her mother even in -such a trifle. How differently two lives would have come out if she had -not taken it! - -She was the very first one to enter the academy. Dare she go and sit -in the front row so as to be close to pretty Miss Kate? Ordinarily she -would have shrunk into some far corner, for she was almost painfully -shy; but now something outside herself seemed to urge her on. She -would not take up much room,--this something whispered,--and nobody, -no, nobody at all, could love Miss Kate better than she did. So she -went into the very front row, close up to the little stage on which -the young performers were to appear,--a veritable stage, with real -foot-lights. - -Soon the people began to come in, and after a while the lights were -turned up, and the exercises commenced. There were dialogues and music, -and at last the master of ceremonies announced the reading of “The -Romance of the Swan’s Nest,” by Miss Kate Oswald. - -Other people had been interested in what went before, no doubt; but -to Sally Green the whole evening had been but a prelude to this one -triumphant moment for which she waited. - -Pretty Miss Kate came forward like a little queen,--tall and slight, -with her coronet of fair, braided hair, in which a shy, sweet rosebud -nestled. She wore a dress of white muslin, as light and fleecy as a -summer cloud, with a sash that might, as far as its hue went, have -been cut from the deep blue sky over which that summer cloud floated. -A little bunch of flowers was on her bosom, and other ornament she had -none. She looked like one of the pretty creatures, half angel and half -woman of fashion, which some of the modern French artists paint. - -As she stepped forward she was greeted with a burst of irrepressible -applause, and then the house was very still as she began to read. How -her soft eyes glowed, and the blushes burned on her dainty cheeks, when -she came to the lines:-- - - “Little Ellie in her smile - Chooseth: ‘I will have a lover, - Riding on a steed of steeds! - He shall love me without guile, - And to _him_ I will discover - That swan’s nest among the reeds. - - “‘And the steed shall be red-roan, - And the lover shall be noble, - With an eye that takes the breath, - And the lute he plays upon - Shall strike ladies into trouble, - As his sword strikes men to death.’” - -She had the whole audience for her lovers before she was through with -the poem, and the last verse was followed with a perfect storm of -applause. Was she not young and beautiful, with a voice as sweet as her -smile? And then she was Squire Oswald’s daughter, and he was the great -man of the village. - -She stepped off the stage; and then the applause recalled her, and she -came back, pink with pleasure. A bow, a smile, and then a step too near -the poorly protected foot-lights, and the fleecy white muslin dress was -a sheet of flame. - -How Sally Green sprang over those foot-lights she never knew; but there -she was, on the stage, and “the shawl” was wrapped round pretty Miss -Kate before any one else had done any thing but scream. Close, close, -close, Sally hugged its heavy woollen folds. She burned her own fingers -to the bone; but what cared she? The time of the poor little mouse had -come at last. - -And so pretty Miss Kate was saved, and not so much as a scar marred the -pink and white of her fair girl’s face. Her arms were burned rather -badly, but they would heal, and no permanent harm had come to her. - -Sally was burned much more severely, but she hardly felt the pain of it -in her joy that she had saved her idol, for whom she would have been so -willing even to die. They took her home very tenderly, and the first -words she said, as they led her inside her mother’s door, were,-- - -“Now, mother, I know what I took the shawl for!” - -I said how differently two lives would have ended if she had not -taken that shawl. Pretty Miss Kate’s would have burned out then and -there, no doubt; for if any one else were there with presence of -mind enough to have saved her, certainly there was no other wrap -there like “the shawl.” And then Sally might have grown up to the -humblest kind of toil, instead of being what she is to-day; for Squire -Oswald’s gratitude for his daughter’s saved life did not exhaust -itself in words. From that moment he charged himself with Sally -Green’s education, and gave her every advantage which his own daughter -received. And, truth to tell, Sally, with her wonderful temperament, -the wealth of poetry and devotion and hero-worship that was in her, -soon outstripped pretty Miss Kate in her progress. - -But no rivalry or jealousy ever came between them. As Sally had adored -Kate’s loveliness, so, in time, Kate came to do homage to Sally’s -genius; and the two were friends in the most complete sense of the -word. - - - - -A BORROWED ROSEBUD. - - -There was a pattering footfall on the piazza, and Miss Ellen Harding -went to look out. She saw a little figure standing there, among the -rosebuds,--not one of the neighbors’ children, but a bonny little -lassie, with curls of spun gold, and great, fearless brown eyes, and -cheeks and lips as bright as the red roses on the climbing rosebush -beside her. - -A little morsel, not more than five years old, she was; with a white -dress, and a broad scarlet sash, and a hat which she swung in her -fingers by its scarlet strings. She looked so bright and vivid, and she -was such an unexpected vision in that place, that it almost seemed as -if one of the poppies in the yard beyond had turned into a little girl, -and come up the steps. - -“Did you want me?” Miss Harding asked, going up to the tiny blossom of -a creature. - -“No, if you please.” - -“My father, then, Dr. Harding,--were you sent for him?” - -The child surveyed her, as if in gentle surprise at so much curiosity. - -“No,” she answered, after a moment. “I am Rosebud; and I don’t want -anybody. Jane told me to come here, and she would follow presently.” - -She said the words with a singular correctness and propriety, as if -they were a lesson which she had been taught. - -“And who is Jane?” Miss Harding asked. - -Evidently the process of training had gone no further. The child looked -puzzled and uncomfortable. - -“Jane?” she answered hesitatingly. “Why, she is Jane.” - -“Not your mamma?” - -“No,--just Jane.” - -“And what did Jane want here?” - -“She told me to come, and she would follow presently,” said the child, -saying her little lesson over again. - -Evidently there was nothing more to be got out of her; but Miss Harding -coaxed her to come into the cool parlor, and wait for Jane; and gave -her some strawberries and cream in a gayly painted china saucer, that -all children liked. Rosebud was no exception to the rest. When she had -finished her berries, she tapped on the saucer with her spoon. - -“I will have it for mine, while I stay,--may I?” she said. “Not to take -away, but just to call, you know.” - -“Surely,” said Miss Harding, more puzzled than ever. Had the sprite, -then, come to stay? Were there, by chance, fairies after all,--and -was this some changeling from out their ranks? She tried to entertain -her small guest; and she found her quite accessible to the charms -of pictures, and contented for an hour with a box of red and white -chessmen. Towards night her curiosity got the better of her courtesy; -and, looking from the window, she inquired,-- - -“I wonder where your Jane can be?” - -“Presently; Jane said presently,” answered the child, with quiet -composure, and returned to the chessmen. - -Miss Harding heard her father drive into the yard, and slipped out -to speak to him. She told her story, and the doctor gave a low, soft -whistle. It was a way he had when any thing surprised him. - -“It looks to me,” said he, “as if Jane, whoever she may be, intended to -make us a present of Miss Rosebud. Well, we must make the small person -comfortable to-night, and to-morrow we will see what to do with her.” - -The small person was easily made comfortable. She ate plenty of -bread-and-milk for her supper, and more strawberries; and when it was -over, she went round and stood beside the doctor. - -“I think you are a dood man,” she said, with the quaint gravity which -characterized all her utterances. “I should like to sit with you.” - -The doctor lifted her to his knee, and she laid her little golden head -against his coat. There was a soft place under that coat, as many a -sick and poor person in the town knew very well. I think the little -golden head hit the soft place. He stroked the shining curls very -tenderly. Then he asked,-- - -“What makes you think I’m a ‘dood’ man, Pussy-cat?” - -“My name is not Pussy-cat,--I am Rosebud,” she replied gravely; “and I -think you are dood because you look so, out of your eyes.” - -The little morsel spoke most of her words with singular clearness and -propriety. It was only when a “g” came in that she substituted a “d” -for it, and went on her way rejoicing. - -As the doctor held her, the soft place under his coat grew very soft -indeed. A little girl had been his last legacy from his dying wife; and -she had grown to be about as large as Rosebud, and then had gone home -to her mother. It almost seemed to him as if she had come back again; -and it was her head beneath which his heart was beating. He beckoned to -his daughter. - -“Have you some of Aggie’s things?” he asked. “This child must be made -comfortable, and she ought to go to bed soon.” - -“No,” the child said; “I’m doing to sit here till the moon comes. That -means ‘do to bed.’” - -“Yes, I have them,” Miss Harding answered. - -She had loved Aggie so well, that it seemed half sacrilege to put -her dead sister’s garments on this stranger child; and half it was a -pleasure that again she had a little girl to dress and cuddle. She went -out of the room. Soon she came running back, and called her father. - -“O, come here! I found this in the hall. It is a great basket full of -all sorts of clothes, and it is marked ‘For Rosebud.’ See,--here is -every thing a child needs.” - -The doctor had set the little girl down, but she was still clinging to -his hand. - -“I think,” he said, “that Jane has been here, and that she does not -mean to take away our Rosebud.” - -But the little one, still clinging to him, said,-- - -“I think it is not ‘presently’ yet,--Jane wouldn’t come till -‘presently.’” - -“Do you love Jane?” the doctor asked, looking down at the flower-like -face. - -“Jane is not mamma. She is only Jane,” was the answer. - -When the moon rose, the little girl went willingly to bed; and all -night long Miss Ellen Harding held her in her arms, as she used to hold -her little sister, before the angels took her. Since Aggie’s death, -people said Miss Ellen had grown cold and stiff and silent. She felt, -herself, as if she had been frozen; but the ice was melting, as she lay -there, feeling the soft, round little lump of breathing bliss in her -arms; and a tender flower of love was to spring up and bloom in that -heart that had grown hard and cold. - -There was no talk of sending Rosebud away, though some people wondered -much at the doctor, and even almost blamed him for keeping this child, -of whom he knew nothing. But he wanted her, and Miss Ellen wanted her; -and, indeed, she was the joy and life and blessing of the long-silent -household. - -She was by no means a perfect child. A well-mannered little creature -she was,--some lady had brought her up evidently,--but she was -self-willed and obstinate. When she had said, “I’m doing to do” such -and such a thing, it was hard to move her from her purpose; unless, -indeed, the doctor interposed, and to him she always yielded instantly. -But, just such as she was, they found her altogether charming. The -doctor never came home without something in his pocket to reward her -search; Miss Ellen was her bond-slave; and Mistress Mulloney in the -kitchen was ready to work her hands off for her. - -Often, when she had gone to bed, the doctor and Miss Ellen used to talk -over her strange coming. - -“We shall lose her some day,” the doctor would say, with a sigh. “No -one ever voluntarily abandoned such a child as that. She is only -trusted to our protection for a little while, and presently we shall -have to give her up.” - -“Should you be sorry, father,” Miss Ellen would inquire, “that we had -had her at all?” - -And the doctor would answer thoughtfully “No, for she has made me young -again. I will not grumble when the snows come because we have had -summer, and know how bright it is.” - -But the child lived with them as if she were going to live with them -for ever. If she had any memories of days before she came there, she -never alluded to them. After the first, she never mentioned Jane,--she -never spoke of a father or mother. But she was happy as the summer days -were long,--a glad, bright, winsome creature as ever was the delight of -any household. - -And so the days and the weeks and the months went on, and it was -October. And one day the bell rang, and Mistress Mulloney went to the -door, and in a moment came to the room where Miss Ellen was sitting, -with Rosebud playing beside her, and beckoned to her mistress. - -“It’s some one asking for the child,” she said. “Can’t we jist hide her -away? It’ll be hard for the doctor if she’s took.” - -“No; we must see who it is, and do what is right,” Miss Ellen answered; -but her lips trembled a little. She went into the hall, and there, at -the door, stood a woman, looking like a nursery-maid of the better sort. - -“I have come,” the stranger began; but Rosebud had caught the sound of -her voice, and came on the scene like a flash of light. - -“It is ‘presently!’” she cried; “and there, oh, _there_ is mamma!” -And down the path she flew, and into the very arms of a lady who was -waiting at a little distance. - -Miss Harding went down the steps. “You have come, I see, to claim our -Rosebud, and she is only too ready to be claimed. I thought we had made -her happy.” - -The child caught the slight accent of reproach in Miss Ellen’s voice, -and turned towards her. - -“You have been dood, oh, so very, very dood!” she said, “but _this_ is -mamma.” - -“I trusted my darling to you in a very strange way,” the lady began, -“but not, believe me, without knowing in whose hands I placed her. I -was in mortal terror, then, lest she should be taken from me, and I -dared not keep her until she had been legally made mine, and mine only. -But you have made me your debtor for life, and I shall try to show it -some day.” - -“But, at least, you will come in and wait until my father returns. He -loves Rosebud so dearly, that it would be a cruelty to take her away -until he has had time to bid her good-by.” - -“You are right,” the stranger answered courteously. “Jane, go with the -carriage to the hotel, and I will come or send for you when I want you.” - -In a few moments more the strange lady was seated in the doctor’s -parlor. Miss Harding saw now where Rosebud had got her bright, wilful -beauty. - -“I must explain,” the mother said, as she lifted her child upon her -lap. “I am Mrs. Matthewson. My husband is dead, and Rosebud has a -very, very large fortune of her own. Her uncles, who were to have the -management of her property, by her father’s will, claimed her also; -and I have had such a fight for her! They were unscrupulous men, and -I feared to keep Rosebud with me, lest by some means they should get -some hold on her. So I resolved to lend her to you for the summer; -and, indeed, I never can reward you for all your care of her.” - -“You can reward us only by not altogether taking her away from us. We -have learned to love her very dearly.” - -And, after a while, the doctor came home and heard all the story. -And it was a week before Mrs. Matthewson had the heart to take away -the child she had lent them. Then it was not long before the doctor -and Miss Ellen had to go to see Rosebud. And then, very soon, Mrs. -Matthewson had to bring her back again; and, really, so much going back -and forth was very troublesome; and they found it more convenient, -after a while, to join their households. - -Before Rosebud came, the doctor had thought himself an old man, though -he was only forty-five; but, as he said, Rosebud had made him young -again; and Rosebud’s mamma found it possible to love him very dearly. -But Miss Ellen always said it was Rosebud and nobody else whom her -father married, and that he had been in love with the borrowed blossom -from the first. - - - - -TOM’S THANKSGIVING. - - -“It was very provoking that seamstresses and such people would get -married, like the rest of the world,” Mrs. Greenough said, half in fun -and half in earnest. Her fall sewing was just coming on, and here was -Lizzie Brown, who had suited her so nicely, going off to be married; -and she had no resource but to advertise, and take whomsoever she could -get. No less than ten women had been there that day, and not one would -answer. - -“There comes Number Eleven; you will see,” she cried, as the bell rang. - -Kitty Greenough looked on with interest. Indeed, it was her gowns, -rather than her mother’s, that were most pressing. She was just -sixteen, and since last winter she had shot up suddenly, as girls at -that age so often do, and left all her clothes behind her. - -Mrs. Greenough was right,--it _was_ another seamstress; and Bridget -showed in a plain, sad-looking woman of about forty, with an air of -intense respectability. Mrs. Greenough explained what she wanted done, -and the woman said quietly that she was accustomed to such work,--would -Mrs. Greenough be so kind as to look at some recommendations? Whereupon -she handed out several lady-like looking notes, whose writers indorsed -the bearer, Mrs. Margaret Graham, as faithful and capable, used to -trimmings of all sorts, and quick to catch an idea. - -“Very well indeed,” Mrs. Greenough said, as she finished reading them; -“I could ask nothing better. Can you be ready to come at once?” - -“To-morrow, if you wish, madam,” was the answer; and then Mrs. Graham -went away. - -Kitty Greenough was an impulsive, imaginative girl; no subject was too -dull or too unpromising for her fancy to touch it. She made a story -for herself about every new person who came in her way. After Number -Eleven had gone down the stairs, Kitty laughed. - -“Isn’t she a sobersides, mamma? I don’t believe there’ll be any frisk -in my dresses at all if she trims them.” - -“There’ll be frisk enough in them if you wear them,” her mother -answered, smiling at the bright, saucy, winsome face of her one tall -daughter. - -Kitty was ready to turn the conversation. - -“What do you think she is, mamma,--wife or widow?” And then answering -her own question: “I think she’s married, and he’s sick, and she has to -take care of him. That solemn, still way she has comes of much staying -in a sick-room. She’s in the habit of keeping quiet, don’t you see? I -wish she were a little prettier; I think he would get well quicker.” - -“There’d be no plain, quiet people in your world if you made one,” her -mother said, smiling; “but you’d make a mistake to leave them out. You -would get tired even of the sun if it shone all the time.” - -The next day the new seamstress came, and a thoroughly good one she -proved; “better even than Lizzie,” Mrs. Greenough said, and this was -high praise. She sewed steadily, and never opened her lips except to -ask some question about her work. Even Kitty, who used to boast that -she could make a dumb man talk, had not audacity enough to intrude on -the reserve in which Mrs. Graham intrenched herself. - -“_He’s_ worse this morning,” whispered saucy Kitty to her mother; “and -she can do nothing but think about him and mind her gathers.” - -But, by the same token, “_he_” must have been worse every day, for -during the two weeks she sewed there Mrs. Graham never spoke of any -thing beyond her work. - -When Mrs. Greenough had paid her, the last night, she said,-- - -“Please give me your address, Mrs. Graham, for I may want to find you -again.” - -“17 Hudson Street, ma’am, up two flights of stairs; and if I’m not -there Tom always is.” - -“There, didn’t I tell you?” Kitty cried exultingly, after the woman had -gone. “Didn’t I tell you that he was sick? You see now,--‘Tom’s always -there.’” - -“Yes; but Tom may not be her husband, and I don’t think he is. He is -much more likely to be her child.” - -“Mrs. Greenough, I’m astonished at you. You say that to be -contradictious. Now, it is not nice to be contradictious; besides, she -wouldn’t look so quiet and sad if Tom were only her boy.” - -But weeks passed on, and nothing more was heard of Mrs. Graham, until, -at last, Thanksgiving Day was near at hand. Kitty was to have a new -dress, and Mrs. Greenough, who had undertaken to finish it, found that -she had not time. - -“Oh, let me go for Mrs. Graham, mamma,” cried Kitty eagerly. “Luke can -drive me down to Hudson Street, and then I shall see Tom.” - -Mrs. Greenough laughed and consented. In a few minutes Luke had brought -to the door the one-horse coupé, which had been the last year’s -Christmas gift of Mr. Greenough to his wife, and in which Miss Kitty -was always glad to make an excuse for going out. - -Arrived at 17 Hudson Street, she tripped up two flights of stairs, and -tapped on the door, on which was a printed card with the name of Mrs. -Graham. - -A voice, with a wonderful quality of musical sweetness in it, -answered,-- - -“Please to come in; I cannot open the door.” - -If that were “he,” he had a very singular voice for a man. - -“I guess mamma was right after all,” thought wilful Kitty. “It’s rather -curious how often mamma _is_ right, when I come to think of it.” - -She opened the door, and saw, not Mrs. Graham’s husband, nor yet her -son, but a girl, whose face looked as if she might be about Kitty’s own -age, whose shoulders and waist told the same story; but whose lower -limbs seemed curiously misshapen and shrunken--no larger, in fact, than -those of a mere child. The face was a pretty, winning face, not at all -sad. Short, thick brown hair curled round it, and big brown eyes, full -of good-humor, met Kitty’s curious glance. - -“_I_ am Tom,” the same musical voice--which made Kitty think of a -bird’s warble--said, in a tone of explanation. “I can’t get up to open -the door because, don’t you see, I can’t walk.” - -“And why--what--Tom”-- - -Kitty struggled desperately with the question she had begun to ask, and -Tom kindly helped her out. - -“Why am I Tom, do you mean, when it’s a boy’s name; or why can’t I -walk? I’m Tom because my father called me Tomasina, after his mother, -and we can’t afford such long names in this house; and I can’t walk -because I pulled a kettle of boiling water over on myself when I was -six years old, and the only wonder is that I’m alive at all. I was -left, you see, in a room by myself, while mother was busy somewhere -else, and when she heard me scream, and came to me, she pulled me out -from under the kettle, and saved the upper half of me all right.” - -“Oh, how dreadful!” Kitty cried, with the quick tears rushing to her -eyes. “It must have almost killed your mother.” - -“Yes; that’s what makes her so still and sober. She never laughs, but -she never frets either; and oh, how good she is to me!” - -Kitty glanced around the room, which seemed to her so bare. It was -spotlessly clean, and Tom’s chair was soft and comfortable--as indeed -a chair ought to be which must be sat in from morning till night. -Opposite to it were a few pictures on the wall,--engravings taken from -books and magazines, and given, probably, to Mrs. Graham by some of her -lady customers. Within easy reach was a little stand, on which stood a -rose-bush in a pot, and a basket full of bright-colored worsteds, while -a book or two lay beside them. - -“And do you never go out?” cried Kitty, forgetting her errand in her -sympathy--forgetting, too, that Luke and his impatient horse were -waiting below. - -“Not lately. Mother used to take me down into the street sometimes; but -I’ve grown too heavy for her now, and she can’t. But I’m not very dull, -even when she’s gone. You wouldn’t guess how many things I see from -my window; and then I make worsted mats and tidies, and mother sells -them; and then I sing.” - -Kitty stepped to the window to see what range of vision it offered, and -her eye fell on Luke. She recalled her business. - -“I came to see if I could get your mother to sew two or three days for -me this week.” - -Tom was alert and business-like at once. - -“Let me see,” she said, “to-day is Tuesday;” and she drew toward her a -little book, and looked it over. “To-morrow is engaged, but you could -have Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, if you want so much. Please write -your name against them.” - -Kitty pulled off her pretty gray glove, and wrote her name and address -with the little toy-pencil at the end of her chatelaine; and then she -turned to go, but it was Tom’s turn to question. - -“Please,” said the sweet, fresh voice, which seemed so like the clear -carol of a bird, “would you mind telling me how old you are? I’m -sixteen myself.” - -“And so am I sixteen,” said Kitty. - -“And you have a father and mother both, haven’t you?” - -“Yes, indeed,” said Kitty. - -“Oh, I’ve only mother, but she is good as two. Must you go now? And I -wonder if I shall ever see you again?” - -“Yes, you _will_ see me again,” answered Kitty cheerily; and then, -moved by a sudden impulse of her kind, frank young heart, she bent -over and touched her lips to the bright, bonny face of the poor girl -who must sit prisoner there for ever, and yet who kept this bright -cheerfulness all the time. - -“Oh mamma, I’ve had a lesson,” cried Kitty, bursting into her mother’s -room like a fresh wind, “and Tom has taught it to me; and he isn’t _he -_at all--she’s a girl just my age, and she can’t walk--not a step since -she was six years old.” - -And then Kitty told all the sad, tender little story, and got to crying -over it herself, and made her mother cry, too, before she was through. - -After dinner she sat half the evening in a brown study. Finally she -came out of it, and began talking in her usual impulsive manner. - -“Can’t we have them here to Thanksgiving, mamma? There’s not a single -pretty thing in that house except Tom herself, and the rose-bush; and -every thing did look so bare and clean and poverty-stricken; and I know -they’ll never afford a good dinner in the world. Oh, say yes, mamma, -dear! I know you’ll say yes, _because_ you’re such a dear, and you love -to make every one happy.” - -“Yes; but, first of all, I must love to make papa happy, must I not? -You know he never wants any company on Thanksgiving but grandpa and -grandma and Uncle John. I’m sure you would not like to spoil papa’s -old-fashioned Thanksgiving Day.” - -Kitty’s countenance fell. She saw the justice of her mother’s -remark, and there was no more to be said. She sat thinking over her -disappointment in a silence which her mother was the one to break. - -“But I’ve thought of a better thing, Puss,” said this wise mamma, who -was herself every bit as tender of heart as Kitty, and cared just as -much about making people happy. “No doubt Mrs. Graham and Tom would -just as much prefer being alone together as papa prefers to be alone -with his family; and how will it suit you if I have a nice dinner -prepared for them, and let you go and take it to them in the coupé? -Mrs. Graham is hardly the woman one could take such a liberty with; but -I’ll beg her to let you have the pleasure of sending dinner to Tom.” - -“Oh, you darling!” and Mrs. Greenough’s neck-ruffle suffered, and her -hair was in danger, as was apt to be the case when Kitty was overcome -with emotion, which could only find vent in a rapturous squeeze. - -Before bed-time Kitty had it all planned out. She was to go in the -coupé and take Bridget and the basket. Bridget was to mount guard by -the horse’s head while Luke went upstairs with Kitty and brought down -Tom for a drive; and while they were gone Bridget would take the basket -in, and see that every thing was right, and then go home. - -Mrs. Greenough consented to it all. I think she enjoyed the prospect -of Tom’s ride, herself, just as much as Kitty did. While Mrs. Graham -was sewing there she made the arrangement with her, approaching the -subject so delicately that the most sensitive of women could not be -hurt, and putting the acceptance of both drive and dinner in the light -of a personal favor to Kitty, who had taken such a fancy to Tom. - -The last afternoon of Mrs. Graham’s stay Kitty called her mother into -her room. Mrs. Greenough saw spread out upon the bed a thick, warm, -soft jacket, a woollen dress, a last year’s hat. - -“You know them by sight, don’t you, mother mine? They are the last -winter’s clothes that I grew away from, and have taken leave of. May -Tom have them?” - -“Yes, indeed, if you’ll undertake to give them to Tom’s mother.” - -Kitty had seldom undertaken a more embarrassing task. She stole into -the sewing-room with the things in her arms. - -“You’ll be sure, won’t you, Mrs. Graham, not to let Tom know she’s -going to ride until I get there, because I want to see how surprised -she’ll look?” - -“Yes, I’ll be sure, never fear.” - -“And, Mrs. Graham, here are my coat and hat and dress that I wore last -year, and I’ve grown away from them. Would you mind letting Tom wear -them?” - -“Would I mind?” A swift, hot rush of tears filled Mrs. Graham’s eyes, -which presently she wiped away, and somehow then the eyes looked -gladder than Kitty had ever seen them before. “Do you think I am so -weakly, wickedly proud as to be hurt because you take an interest in -my poor girl, and want to put a little happiness into her life,--that -still, sad life which she bears so patiently? God bless you, Miss -Kitty! and if He doesn’t, it won’t be because I shall get tired of -asking Him.” - -“And you’ll not let her see the hat and jacket till I come, for fear -she’ll think something?” - -At last Mrs. Graham smiled--an actual smile. - -“How you do think of every thing! No, I’ll keep the hat and jacket out -of sight, and I’ll have the dress on her, all ready.” - -When Thanksgiving came Kitty scarcely remembered to put on the new -fineries that Mrs. Graham had finished with such loving care; scarcely -gave a thought to the family festivities at home, so eager was she -about Tom’s Thanksgiving. She was to go to Hudson Street just at noon, -so that Tom might have the benefit of the utmost warmth of which the -chill November day was capable. - -First she saw the dinner packed. There was a turkey, and -cranberry-sauce, and mince-pie, and plum-pudding, and a great cake -full of plums, too, and fruit and nuts, and then Mr. Greenough, who -had heard about the dinner with real interest, brought out a bottle of -particularly nice sherry, and said to his wife,-- - -“Put that in also. It will do those frozen-up souls good, once in the -year.” - -At last impatient Kitty was off. Bridget and the basket filled all the -spare space in the coupé, and when they reached Hudson Street, Luke -took the dinner and followed Kitty upstairs, while Bridget stood by -the horse’s head, according to the programme. He set the basket down -in the hall, where no one would be likely to notice it in opening the -door, and then he stood out of sight himself, while Kitty went in. - -There was Tom, in the warm crimson thibet,--a proud, happy-looking Tom -as you could find in Boston that Thanksgiving Day. - -“I have come to take you to ride,” cried eager Kitty. “Will you go?” - -It was worth ten ordinary Thanksgivings to see the look on Tom’s -face,--the joy and wonder, and then the doubt, as the breathless -question came,-- - -“How _will_ I get downstairs?” - -And then Luke was called in, and that mystery was solved. And then out -of a closet came the warm jacket, and the hat, with its gay feather; -and there were tears in Tom’s eyes, and smiles round her lips, and she -tried to say something, and broke down utterly. And then big, strong -Luke took her up as if she were a baby and marched downstairs with her, -while she heard Kitty say,--but it all seemed to her like a dream, and -Kitty’s voice like a voice in a dream,-- - -“I’m sorry there’s nothing pretty to see at this time of year. It was -so lovely out-doors six weeks ago.” - -Through Beach Street they went, and then through Boylston, and the -Common was beside them, with its tree-boughs traced against the -November sky, and the sun shone on the Frog Pond, and the dome of the -State House glittered goldenly, and there were merry people walking -about everywhere, with their Thanksgiving faces on; and at last Tom -breathed a long, deep breath which was almost a sob, and cried,-- - -“Did _you_ think there was nothing pretty to see to-day--_this_ day? -Why, I didn’t know there was such a world!” - -The clocks had struck twelve when they left Hudson Street; the bells -were ringing for one when they entered it again. Bridget was gone, but -a good-natured boy stood by the horse’s head, and Kitty ran lightly -upstairs, followed by Luke, with Tom in his arms. - -Kitty threw open the door, and there was a table spread with as good a -Thanksgiving dinner as the heart could desire, with Tom’s chair drawn -up beside it. Luke set his light burden down. - -Kitty waited to hear neither thanks nor exclamations. She saw Tom’s -brown eyes as they rested on the table, and that was enough. She bent -for one moment over the bright face,--the cheeks which the out-door -air had painted red as the rose that had just opened in honor of the -day,--and left on the young, sweet, wistful lips a kiss, and then -went silently down the stairs, leaving Tom and Tom’s mother to their -Thanksgiving. - - - - -FINDING JACK. - - -Conn turned over and rubbed her sleepy blue eyes. It seemed to her -that the world was coming to an end all at once, there was such a -Babel of noise about her. What was it? Had everybody gone mad? Then -her wits began to wake up. She remembered that it was Fourth of July. -That worst noise of all--why, that must be Jack’s pistol, which he had -been saving up money to buy all winter and all summer. And that other -sound--that must be torpedoes; and there was the old dog, Hero, barking -at them, and no wonder: it was enough to make any respectable dog bark. -Fire-crackers--ugh! Wasn’t the pistol bad enough, without all these -side shows? Just then Jack called out from the yard below,-- - -“Conn! Conn!” - -The girl’s name was Constantia Richmond; but she was too slight and -bonny for such a long name, and everybody called her Conn. - -She shook back her fair, soft curls, as golden as a baby’s still, -though Conn was fourteen, and, putting a little shawl over her -shoulders, peeped out of the open window--as pretty a little slip -of a girl as you would care to see--and looked down on the face, -half-boyish, half-manly, which was upturned to her. If Jack had been -her brother, perhaps she would have scolded at him; for Conn loved her -morning nap, and the general din had discomposed her, no doubt. But -Jack was only her cousin, and her second cousin, at that,--and it’s -curious what a difference that does make. Your brother’s your brother -all the days of his life; but your cousin is another affair, and far -less certain. So Conn said, quite gently,-- - -“What is it? Can I do any thing? But I’m sure I don’t want to help you -make any more noise. This has been--oh, really dreadful!” - -She spoke with a droll little fine-lady air, and put her pretty little -fingers to her pretty little ears. And Jack laughed; he had not begun -to think of her yet as a charming girl,--she was just Cousin Conn. - -“What!” he cried. “Not like noise on Fourth of July? Why, you don’t -deserve to have a country.” - -“I’m sure I wish I hadn’t,” said Conn, with a little dash of spirit. - -“Are you dressed?” cried the boy, nearly seventeen years old, but all a -boy still. - -“No.” - -“Well, just hurry, then, and come down. I’m off in half an hour with -the Brighton Blues, and I want you to see first how this pistol works.” - -High honor this, that she, a girl, should be invited to inspect the -wonderful pistol! - -Conn began to dress hurriedly. What should she put on? Her white dress -hung in the closet,--such a white dress as girls wore then,--all -delicate ruffles, and with a blue ribbon sash, as dainty-fine as -possible. She knew that was meant for afternoon, when Aunt Sarah would -have company. But might she not put it on now? Perhaps Jack wouldn’t be -here then, and she could be careful. So she slipped into the dainty -gown, and fastened hooks and buttons in nervous haste, and then looked -in the glass, as every other girl that ever lived would have done in -her place. - -It was a bright, fair face that she saw there--all pink and white, and -with those violet eyes over which the long lashes drooped, and that -soft, bright hair that lay in little rings and ripples round her white -forehead, and hung a wavy mass down to the slender waist which the blue -ribbon girdled. Conn was pleased, no doubt, with the sight she saw in -the mirror,--how could she help being? She tripped downstairs, and out -of the door. Jack whistled when he saw her. - -“What! all your fineries on at this time of day? What do you think -Mother Sarah will say to that?” - -The pretty pink flush deepened in the girl’s cheeks, and she answered -him almost as if she thought she had done something wrong,-- - -“I’ll be so careful, Jack. I won’t spoil it. By and by you’ll be gone; -and I wanted to look nice when I saw the new pistol.” - -This seemed extremely natural to Jack. The pistol was to him a matter -of such moment that no amount of demonstration in its honor would -have seemed too great. Viewed in this light, it really appeared quite -a meritorious act that Conn should have put on the white dress; and -he looked her over with that air of half-patronizing approval with -which boys are apt to regard the good looks of their sisters and their -cousins. - -Then he exhibited the pistol. It had--as a boy’s knife or gun or boat -always has--distinguishing and individual merits of its own. No other -pistol, though it were run in the same mould, could quite compare with -it, and it was by some sort of wonderful chance that he had become its -possessor. Conn wondered and admired with him to his heart’s content. -Then came breakfast, and then the marching of the Brighton Blues. This -was a company of boys in blue uniforms,--handsome, healthy, wide-awake -boys from fourteen to seventeen years old,--every one of them the pride -of mothers and sisters and cousins. They were to march into Boston, and -parade the streets, and dine at a restaurant, and see the fireworks -in the evening, and I don’t know what other wonderful things. - -[Illustration: Conn stood and watched them.--PAGE 129.] - -Jack was in the highest spirits. He was sure he and his pistol were a -necessary part of the day; and he sincerely pitied Conn, because she -was a girl and must stay at home. - - “‘_Bang, whang, whang_ goes the drum, _tootle-te-tootle_ the fife; - Oh! a day in the city square, there is no such pleasure in life!’” - -he quoted; and then he called back to her from the gate,-- - -“It’s too bad, Conn, that there’s no fun for you; but keep your courage -up, and I’ll bring you something.” - -And so they marched away, in the gay, glad morning sunshine, following -their band of music,--a boy’s band that was, too. - -Conn stood and watched them, with a wistful, longing look in her great -violet eyes, and the soft, bright color coming and going on her girlish -cheeks. At last she gathered a bunch of late red roses, and put them -in her bosom and went into the house. She sewed a little, and then -she tossed her work aside, for who cares to work on holidays? Then she -took up her new book; but the tale it told seemed dull and cold beside -the warm throbbing life of which the outside world was full. She wished -over and over that she were a boy, that she might have marched away -with the rest. Then she wondered if she could not go into town and see -them from somewhere in all their glory. Very little idea had she of a -Boston crowd on Fourth of July. She had been into town often enough, -with her aunt or her uncle, and walked through the quiet streets; and -she thought she should have little trouble in doing the same now. She -looked in her purse; she had not much money, but enough so that she -could ride if she got tired, and she would be sure to save some to come -home. She called her Aunt Sarah’s one servant, and made her promise to -keep the secret as long as she could, and then tell Aunt Sarah that she -had gone to Boston to find Jack and see him march with the rest. - -The girl was a good-natured creature, not bright enough to know that it -was her duty to interfere, and easily persuaded by Conn’s entreaties -and the bit of blue ribbon with which they were enforced. - -And so Conn started off, as the boys had done before her, and went on -her way. But she had no gay music to which to march, and for company -she had only her own thoughts, her own hopes. Still she marched bravely -on. - -There were plenty of other people going the same way; indeed it seemed -to Conn as if everybody must be going into Boston. Excitement upheld -her, and she trudged along, mile after mile, across the pleasant -mill-dam, and at last she reached Beacon Street. Her head had begun to -throb horribly by the time she got into town. It seemed to her that -all the world was whirling round and round, and she with it. But she -could not turn back then; indeed, she did not know how to find any -conveyance, and she knew her feet would not carry her much farther. -Surely, she _must_ see Jack soon. He had said they should march through -Beacon Street. She would ask some one. She had an idea that every one -must know about any thing so important as the Brighton Blues. At last -she got courage to speak to a kind-looking servant-maid in the midst -of a group on the steps of one of the Beacon-street houses. The girl -pitied her white face, so pale now, with all the pretty pink roses -faded from the tired young cheeks, and answered kindly. - -She did not know about the Brighton Blues, but she guessed all the -companies had been by there, or would come. Wouldn’t the young lady sit -down with them on the steps, and rest, and wait a little? - -And “the young lady” sat down. What could she do else, with the whole -world whirling, whirling, and her feet so strangely determined to whirl -out from under her? And then it grew dark, and when it came light again -there was a wet cloth on her hair, and she lay on a lounge in a cool -basement, and the kind girl who had cared for her told her that she -had fainted. And then she had some food and grew refreshed a little, -but was strangely confused yet, and with only one thought, to which -she held with all the strength of her will,--that she had come to see -Jack and must look for him till he came. So on the steps she stationed -herself, and the crowd surged by. Military companies, grown-up ones, -came and went with glitter of brave uniforms and joyful clamor of -music, and Conn watched, with all her soul in her eyes, but still no -Jack. - -It was mid-afternoon at last when suddenly she saw the familiar blue, -and marching down the street came the boyish ranks, following their -own band--tired enough, all of them, no doubt, but their courage kept -up by the music and the hope of fireworks by and by. Conn strained her -eyes. She did not mean to speak, but after a little, when the face she -longed for came in sight, something within her cried out with a sharp, -despairing cry, “Oh, Jack, Jack!” - -And Jack heard. Those who were watching saw one boy break from the long -blue line, and spring up the step where Conn sat, and seize in strong -hands the shoulders of a girl all in white, her face as white as her -gown, and some red roses, withered now, upon her breast. - -“Conn--Conn Richmond!” the boy cried, “what _does_ this mean?” - -“Don’t scold--oh, _don’t_ scold, Jack!” said the pitiful, quivering -lips. “I only came in to see you marching with the rest, and--I’m -tired.” - -“Yes,” said the girl who had befriended her, “and she fainted clean -away, and she’s more dead than alive now; and if you’ve a heart in your -bosom, you’ll let your play soldiering go, and take care of _her_.” - -And just then Jack realized, boy as he was, that he _had_ a heart in -his bosom, and that his Cousin Conn was the dearest and nearest thing -to that heart in the whole world. But he did not tell her so till long -years afterwards. Just now his chief interest was to get her home. No -more marching for him; and what were fireworks, or the supper the boys -were to take together, in comparison with this girl, who had cared so -much to see him in his holiday glory? - -He took her to an omnibus, which ran in those days to Brighton, and -by tea-time he had got her home. He found his mother frightened and -helpless, and too glad to get Conn back to think of scolding. - - * * * * * - -It was six years after that, that in the battle of Malvern Hill, July -1, 1862, Jack, a real soldier then, and no longer a boy playing at the -mimicry of war, was wounded; and next day the news came to the quiet -Brighton home. - -Conn had grown to be a young lady in the sweet grace of her twenty -summers, and she was her Aunt Sarah’s help and comfort. To these -two women came the news of Jack’s peril. The mother cried a little -helplessly; but there were no tears in Conn’s eyes. - -“Aunt Sarah,” she said quietly, “I am going to find Jack.” - -And that day she was off for the Peninsula. It was the Fourth of July -when she reached the hospital in which her Cousin Jack had been placed. -She asked about him, trembling; but the news, which reassured her, -was favorable. He was wounded, but not dangerously. It was a girlish -instinct, which every girl will understand, that made Conn put on a -fresh white gown before she used the permission she had received to -enter the hospital. She remembered--would Jack remember also?--that -other Fourth of July on which they had found each other, six years -before. As if nothing should be wanting of the old attire, she met, -as she passed along the street, a boy with flowers to sell,--for the -flowers bloomed, just as the careless birds sang, even amid the horrors -of those dreadful days,--and bought of him a bunch of late red roses, -and fastened them, as she had done that other day, upon her breast. - -The sun was low when she entered the hospital, and its last rays -kindled the hair, golden still as in the years long past, till it -looked like a saint’s aureole about her fair and tender face. She -walked on among the suffering, until, at last, before she knew that she -had come near the object of her search, she heard her name called, just -as _she_ had called Jack’s name six years before,-- - -“Oh, Conn, Conn!” - -And then she sank upon her knees beside a low bed, and two feeble arms -reached round her neck and drew her head down. - -“I was waiting for you, Conn. I knew you would come. I lay here -waiting till I should see you as you were that day long ago,--all in -white, and with red roses on your breast,--my one love in all the -world!” - -And the girl’s white face grew crimson with a swift, sweet joy, for -never before had such words blessed her. She did not speak; and Jack, -full of a man’s impatience, now that at last he had uttered the words -left unsaid so long, held her fast, and whispered,-- - -“Tell me, Conn, tell me that you _are_ mine, come life or death. Surely -you would not have sought me here if you had not meant it to be so! You -_are_ my Conn,--tell me so.” - -And I suppose Conn satisfied him, for two years after that she was -his wife, and last night he gave the old pistol of that first Fourth -of July to a young ten-year-old Jack Richmond to practise with for -this year’s Fourth; and pretty Mother Conn, as fair still as in her -girlhood, remonstrated, as gentle mothers will, with,-- - -“Oh Jack, surely he is too young for such a dangerous plaything.” - -Father Jack laughed as he lifted little Conn to his knee, and -answered,-- - -“Nonsense, sweetheart. He is a soldier’s boy, and a little -pistol-shooting won’t hurt him.” - -But how noisy it will be round that house on Fourth of July! - - - - -HER MOTHER’S DAUGHTER. - - -Syl Graham was an only child. Her name was Sylvia, but everybody called -her Syl, except that sometimes, half playfully and half chidingly, her -father called her Sylly. But that was a liberty no one else took,--and -for which Mr. Graham himself was not unlikely to pay in extra -indulgence. - -Syl was seventeen, and she had never known any trouble in all her -young, bright life. Her mother had died when she was two years old; and -this, which might easily have been the greatest of misfortunes,--though -Syl was too young to know it,--had been turned almost into a blessing -by the devotion of her father’s sister, Aunt Rachel, who came to take -care of the little one then, and had never left her since. - -Not the dead Mrs. Graham herself could have been more motherly or more -tender than Aunt Rachel; and the girl had grown up like a flower in a -shaded nook, on which no rough wind had ever been allowed to breathe. - -And a pretty flower she was; so her father thought when she ran into -the hall to meet him, as he came in from business at the close of the -short November day. - -The last rays of daylight just bronzed her chestnut hair. Her face was -delicately fair,--as the complexion that goes with such hair usually -is,--colorless save in the lips, which seemed as much brighter than -other lips as if they had added to their own color all that which was -absent from the fair, colorless cheeks. The brown eyes were dancing -with pleasant thoughts, the little, girlish figure was wonderfully -graceful, and Papa Graham looked down at this fair, sweet maiden with a -fond pride, which the sourest critic could hardly have had a heart to -condemn. - -“Are you cross?” she said laughingly, as she helped him off with his -overcoat. - -“Very,” he answered, with gravity. - -“I mean are you worse than usual? Will you be in the best humor now or -after dinner?” - -“After dinner, decidedly, if Aunt Rachel’s coffee is good.” - -Syl nodded her piquant little head. “I’ll wait, then.” - -The dinner was good enough to have tempted a less hungry man than Mr. -Graham, and the coffee was perfect. Papa’s dressing-gown and slippers -were ready, upstairs; and when he had sat down in the great, soft -easy-chair that awaited him, and his daughter had settled herself on -a stool at his feet, I think it would have been hard to find a more -contented-looking man in all New York. - -“Now I’m very sure you are as good as such a bear can be,” said saucy -Syl; “and now we’ll converse.” - -To “converse” was Syl’s pet phrase for the course of request, -reasoning, entreaty, by which Papa Graham was usually brought to accede -to all her wishes, however extravagant. He rested his hand now on her -shining chestnut braids, and thought how like she was to the young wife -he had loved so well, and lost so early. Then he said teasingly,-- - -“What is it, this time? A Paris doll, with a trunk and a bandbox; or a -hand-organ?” - -“For shame, papa! The doll was four years ago.” - -“All the more reason it must be worn out. Then it’s the hand-organ. But -I must draw the line somewhere,--you can’t have the monkey. If Punch -and Judy would do, though?” - -“Now, Father Lucius, you know I gave up the hand-organ two years ago, -and took a piano for my little upstairs room instead; and you know I’m -seventeen. Am I likely, at this age, to want monkeys, Punch and Judys, -and things?” - -“O, no! I forgot. Seventeen,--it must be a sewing-machine. You want to -make all your endless bibs and tuckers more easily. Well, I’ll consent.” - -Syl blushed. It was a sore point between her and Aunt Rachel that she -so seldom sewed for herself. Aunt Rachel had old-fashioned notions, and -believed in girls that made their own pretty things. - -“Now, papa, you are not good-humored at all. I had better have asked -you before dinner. You don’t even let me tell you what I want.” - -Papa sobered his face into a look of respectful attention, and waited -silently. But now Syl was not quite ready to speak. - -“Don’t you think pomegranate is a pretty color, papa?” - -“What is it like?” - -“O, it’s the deepest, richest, brightest, humanest red you ever saw.” - -“Why, I think it must be like your lips;” and he drew her to him, and -kissed the bright young mouth with a lazy content. - -“Perhaps it _is_ like my lips; then, surely it will look well _with_ -them.” - -“Where does this blossom of beauty grow?” - -“It grows at Stewart’s. It has been woven into a lovely, soft-falling -silk, at four dollars a yard. Twenty-five yards makes a gown, and eight -yards of velvet makes the trimming and the sleeveless jacket, and the -velvet is six dollars a yard. And then there is Madame Bodin, she -charges like a horrid old Jew,--forty dollars just to look at a gown; -and then there are the linings and buttons and things. Have you kept -account, papa, and added it all up in your head?” - -“I think it means about two hundred dollars. Isn’t that what you call -it, Sylly?” - -“Yes, if you please. It’ll be _worth_ that, won’t it, to have your -daughter look like a love, when all the people come on New Year’s Day?” - -“So that’s it,--that’s what this conspiracy against my peace and my -pocket has for its object,--that Miss Syl Graham may sit at the receipt -of callers on New Year’s Day, in a robe like a red, red rose. O Sylly, -Sylly!” - -Syl pouted a little, the most becoming pout in the world. - -“Well, I’m sure I thought you cared how I look. If you don’t, never -mind. My old black silk is still very neat and decent.” - -“September, October, November,--it’s nearly three months old, isn’t -it? What a well-behaved gown it must be to have kept neat and decent -so long! And as to the other, I’ll consider, and you can ask me again -when I come home to-morrow.” - -Syl knew what Papa Graham’s considers meant, and how they always ended. -She had gained her point, and she danced off and sang to the piano some -old Scotch airs that her father loved, because Syl’s mother used to -sing them; and Papa Graham listened dreamily to the music, while his -thoughts went back twenty years, to the first winter when he brought -his girl-bride home, only a year older, then, than Syl was now. He -remembered how the firelight used to shine on her fair, upturned face, -as she knelt beside him; how sweet her voice was; how pure and true and -fond her innocent young heart. And now Syl was all he had left of her. - -Should he lose Syl herself, soon? Would some bold wooer come and carry -her away, and leave him with only Aunt Rachel’s quiet figure and fading -face beside him for the rest of his life? - -Just then Syl might have asked him not in vain for any thing, even to -the half of his kingdom. - -Next morning Syl went into the sewing-room. A young girl just about -her own age was there--altering, sewing, making all the foolish little -fancies in which Syl’s heart delighted, though her idle fingers never -wrought at them. Out of pure kindness of heart Syl found her way into -the sewing-room very often when Mary Gordon was there. She knew her -presence carried pleasure with it, and often she used to take some -story or poem and read to the young listener, with the always busy -fingers, and the gentle, grateful face. - -But to-day she found the girl’s eyes very red as if with long weeping. -If Syl was selfish it was only because she never came in contact with -the pains and needs of others. She had “fed on the roses and lain among -the lilies of life,”--how was she to know the hurt of its stinging -nettles? But she could not have been the lovesome, charming girl she -was if she had had a nature hard and indifferent to the pains of others. - -To see Mary Gordon’s red eyes was enough. Instantly she drew the work -out of the fingers that trembled so; and then she set herself to draw -the secret sorrow out of the poor, trembling heart. - -It was the old story, so sadly common and yet so bitterly sad, of a -mother wasting away and fading out of life, and a daughter struggling -to take care of her, and breaking her heart because she could do so -little. - -“I’m used to all that,” the girl said sadly, “and I don’t let myself -cry for what I can’t help. But this morning I heard her say to herself, -as I was getting every thing ready for her, ‘O, the long, lonesome -day!’ She thought I did not hear her, for she never complains; but -somehow it broke me down. I keep thinking of her, suffering and weary -and all alone. But I can’t help that, either; and I must learn to be -contented in thinking that I do my best.” - -“But can’t you stay at home with her and work there?” cried Syl, all -eager sympathy and interest. - -“No, I can’t get work enough in that way. People want their altering -and fixing done in their own houses, and plain sewing pays so poorly. -Sometimes I’ve thought if I only had a machine, so I could get a great -deal done, I might manage but to hire one would eat up all my profits.” - -Syl thought a little silent while; and it was a pretty sight to see the -fair young face settle into such deep earnestness. - -“Well,” she said at length, “at least you shall stay at home with her -to-morrow; for all those ruffles can be done just as well there as -here, and you shall carry them home with you. And you’d better go early -this afternoon; there’ll be enough work to last you, and I can’t bear -to think of her waiting for you, and wanting you, so many long hours. -We’ll give her a little surprise.” - -Mary Gordon did not speak for a moment. I think she was getting her -voice steady, for when she did begin it trembled. - -“I _can’t_ thank you, Miss Syl,--it’s no use to try; but the strange -part is how you understand it all, when you’ve no mother yourself.” - -“Ah, but you see I have papa and auntie, and I just know.” - -That day, after Syl and Aunt Rachel had lunched together, Syl said, in -a coaxing little way she had,-- - -“Aunt Rachel, we never want to see the other half of that cold chicken -again, do we?” - -“Why, Syl--we”-- - -“Why, auntie, no--we never want to-morrow’s lunch furnished coldly -forth by this sad relic. And there’s a tumbler of jelly we don’t want, -either--and those rolls, and,--let me see, can sick people eat cake?” - -“Why, Syl Graham, what are you talking about! Who’s sick?” - -Syl grew sober. - -“I’m thinking about poor Mary Gordon’s mother, auntie. She’s sick, and -dying by inches; and Mary has to leave her all alone; and I’ve told her -she shall stay at home to-morrow and make my ruffles, and we’ll pay her -just the same as if she came here. And don’t you see that we must give -her her dinner to take home, since she can’t come here after it?” - -Aunt Rachel never said a word, but she got up and kissed Syl on each -cheek. Then she brought a basket, and into it went the cold chicken and -a cold tongue and jelly and buttered rolls and fruit, till even Syl -was satisfied; and she took the heavy basket and danced away with it to -the sewing-room, with a bright light in her dear brown eyes. - -“I think you’d best go now,” she said. “I can’t get your mother, -waiting there alone, out of my mind, and it’s spoiling my afternoon, -don’t you see? And because you mustn’t come here to dine to-morrow, you -must carry your dinner home with you; and Aunt Rachel put some fruit -and some jelly in the basket that maybe your mother will like.” - -That night, when Mr. Lucius Graham let himself into the hall with his -latch-key, his daughter heard him and went to meet him, as usual. But -she was very silent, and he missed his teasing, saucy, provoking Syl. - -“Why, daughter, are you in a dream?” he asked once during dinner; but -she only laughed and shook her head. She held her peace until she had -him at her mercy, in the great easy-chair, and she was on the stool -beside him, as her wont was. Then, suddenly, her question came. - -“Papa, do you think a pomegranate silk without velvet would be very -bad?” - -He was inclined to tease her, and began with “Hideous!” but then he saw -that her lips were fairly trembling, and her face full of eagerness, -and forbore. - -“How did you know you were to have the silk at all? But you know your -power over me. Here is your needful;” and he put into her hands ten -bright, new twenty-dollar bills. - -“O, thank you! and _do_ you think it would be bad without the velvet?” - -“Sylly, no; but why shouldn’t you have the velvet if you want it?” - -And then came the whole story of poor Mary Gordon, and--in such an -eager tone,-- - -“Don’t you see, with the money the velvet would cost, and a little -more, I could get her the sewing-machine; and Madame Bodin wouldn’t ask -so much to make the dress if it is plainer?” - -Mr. Graham was a rich man, and his first thought was to give her the -money for the machine, and let her have her pretty dress, as she had -fancied it, first. But a second thought restrained him. She was just -beginning to learn the joy and beauty of self-sacrifice. Should he -interfere? He kissed her with a half-solemn tenderness, and answered -her,-- - -“You shall do precisely as you please, my dear. The two hundred dollars -is yours. Use it _just_ as you like. I shall never inquire into its -fate again.” - -And then she went away--and was it her voice or that of some blessed -spirit that came to him, a moment after, from the shadowy corner where -the piano stood, singing an old middle-age hymn, about the city-- - - “Where all the glad life-music, - Now heard no longer here, - Shall come again to greet us, - As we are drawing near.” - -The next day, who so busy and happy as Syl--dragging Aunt Rachel from -one warehouse to another--it was in the days when sewing-machines were -costly--till she was quite sure she had found just the right machine; -and then ordering it sent, at three o’clock, no earlier, no later, to -Miss Gordon, No. 2 Crescent Place. - -At a quarter before three Syl went there herself. The pleasure of -witnessing Mary Gordon’s surprise was the thing she had promised -herself, in lieu of velvet on her gown. She found the poor room neat -and clean, and by no means without traces of comfort and refinement; -and Mrs. Gordon was a sweet and gentle woman, such as Mary’s mother -must have been to be in keeping with Mary. She chatted with them for a -few minutes, noticing the invalid’s short breath and frequent cough, -and Mary’s careful tenderness over her. - -“It’s too bad Mary can’t be at home all the time,” said Syl. - -“Yes; but then to have her to-day is such a blessing. If you knew how -we had enjoyed our day together, and our feast together, I know you -would feel paid for any inconvenience it cost you.” - -Just then an express wagon rumbled up to the door and the bell rang -loudly. Mary opened it at once, for their room was on the ground floor. - -“A sewing-machine for Miss Gordon,” said a somewhat gruff voice. - -“No, that cannot be. There is some mistake,” said Mary’s gentle tones. -And then Syl sprang forward, in a flutter of excitement, which would -have been pretty to see had there been anybody there to notice it. - -“I’m sure it’s all right. Bring it in, please; and Mary, you will tell -them where to put it, in the best light.” - -And in five minutes or less it was all in its place, and Mary was -looking, with eyes full of wonder, and something else beside wonder, at -Syl Graham. - -“It’s nothing,” said Syl hurriedly; “it’s only my New Year’s present to -you, a little in advance of time.” - -She had thought she should enjoy Mary’s surprise; but this was -something she had not looked for,--this utter breaking down, these -great wild sobs, as if the girl’s heart would break. And when she could -speak at length, she cried with a sort of passion,-- - -“O Miss Syl, I do believe you have saved my mother’s life! She will get -better--she must--now that I can stay here all the time and take care -of her.” - -Syl was glad to get out into the street. She felt something in her own -throat choking her. Just a few steps off she met Dr. Meade,--her own -doctor, as it chanced,--and it struck her that it would be a good thing -if he would go in to see Mrs. Gordon. So she asked him. - -“I’m going there,” he said. “I try to see her once every week.” - -“And will she live--can she?” - -The doctor answered, with half a sigh,-- - -“I’m afraid not. She needs more constant care, and more nourishing food -and other things. I wish I could help her more, but I can only give my -services, and I see so many such cases.” - -“But she would take things from you, and not be hurt?” - -“I should _make_ her if I had a full purse to go to.” - -“Well, then, here are forty dollars for her; and you are to get her -what she needs, and never let her know where it came from--will you?” - -“Yes, I will,” he answered earnestly. And then, after a moment, he -said,--“Syl Graham, you are your mother’s daughter. I can say no better -thing of you,--she was a good woman.” - -Syl had a hundred dollars left; but that wouldn’t compass the -pomegranate silk, and Syl had concluded now she did not want it. She -had had a glimpse of something better; and that hundred dollars would -make many a sad heart glad before spring. - -On New Year’s Day, Papa Graham was off all day making calls; and the -gas was already lighted when he went into his own house, and into his -own drawing-room. He saw a girl there with bands of bright chestnut -hair about her graceful young head; with shining eyes, and lips as -bright as the vivid crimson roses in her braided hair, and in the -bosom of her black silk gown. He looked at her with a fond pride and a -fonder love; and then he bent to kiss her,--for the room was empty of -guests just then. As he lifted his head and met Aunt Rachel’s eyes, it -happened that he said about the same words Dr. Meade had used before,-- - -“She is her mother’s daughter; I can say of her no better thing.” - - - - -MY QUARREL WITH RUTH. - - -I suppose if I had not loved Ruth Carson so much my resentment against -her would not have been so bitter. She was my first friend. She had no -sister, neither had I; and we used to think that no sisters could be -nearer to each other than we were. She had black eyes,--great, earnest, -beautiful eyes, with pride and tenderness both in them; sometimes one -and sometimes the other in the ascendant. I was yellow-haired and -blue-eyed, but we always wanted our gowns and hats alike, and coaxed -our mothers into indulging us. I don’t know whether Ruth suffered more -in appearance when the clear dark of her face was set in my pale blues, -or I, when her brilliant reds and orange turned me into a peony or a -sunflower; but we thought little about such effects in those days. If -Ruth got her new article of attire first, I must have one like it, -whether or no; and if I was first favored, she followed my example. - -It was thus in every thing. We studied from the same text-books, -keeping a nearly even pace Ruth was quicker than I at figures, so she -helped me there; and my eyes were better than her near-sighted ones at -finding towns, mountains, and fivers on the atlas, so we always did our -“map questions” together. Of course our play hours were always passed -in company, and one face was almost as familiar as the other in each of -our houses. “The twins,” people used to call us, for fun; and if ever -two girls were all and all to each other, we were. - -What did we quarrel about? It is a curious thing that I have forgotten -how it began. It was some little difference of opinion, such as seldom -occurred between us; and then, “what so wild as words are?” We said one -thing after another, until, finally, Ruth’s black eyes flashed, and she -cried out passionately,-- - -“I just about hate you, Sue Morrison!” - -Then my temper flamed. It was a different kind of temper from -Ruth’s,--slower to take fire, but much more sullen and resolute. I -loved her as I did my own life, but I hated her also, just then,--if -you can understand that contradiction. I looked at her, and I remember -I thought, even then, how handsome she was, with the red glow on her -cheeks, and her eyes so strangely bright. I could have kissed her for -love, or cursed her for hate; but the hate triumphed. Slowly I said,-- - -“Very well, Ruth Carson. I shall not trouble you any more. I shall -never speak to you again, until I see you lie a-dying.” - -I don’t know what made me put that last sentence in. I suppose I -thought, even then, that I could not have her go out of the world, -for good and all, without one tender word from me. When I spoke, Ruth -turned pale, and the light died in her eyes. I presume she did not -think I really meant what I said; but, at any rate, it startled her. -She did not answer. She just looked at me a moment. Then she turned -away, and, for the first time in years, she and I walked home, so far -as our roads lay the same way, on opposite sides of the street. - -“Where is Ruth?” my mother asked, when I went in. - -“Gone home, I believe,” was my only answer. - -It seemed to me that I could not tell even my mother of this -estrangement, which had changed in a day the whole current of my life. -Of course, as time went on, she saw that all was different between Ruth -and me; but, finding that I did not voluntarily tell her any thing, she -ceased even to mention Ruth in my presence. - -You cannot think how strange and solitary my new life seemed to me. For -the first time since I could remember I felt all alone. I don’t think -Ruth thought this unnatural state of things could last. The first day -after our quarrel she spoke to me, at school, half timidly. I looked at -her, and did not answer. She sighed, and turned away; and again, when -school was over, each of us went home alone on our separate path. - -Sometimes I would find a bunch of roses on my desk, for it was June -when our quarrel took place, and all the roses were in bloom. Then, -later, I would lift up the desk cover and come upon an early apple -or a peach; later still, a handful of chestnuts. I always let the -roses wither without touching them; and the fruit I gave away, as if -unconscious where it came from. Ruth would watch me and sigh; but after -that first morning she never spoke to me. I think my rebuff then hurt -her too much for her to be willing to risk receiving such another. What -a strange, new, sad thing it was to get our lessons, as we did now, all -alone! How the hateful figures tormented me, without Ruth’s quick brain -to help me unravel them! How puzzled she looked, as I saw her holding -the map close to her near-sighted eyes, trying to find the rivers and -lakes and mountains all by herself! - -It was a curious thing that after the first two or three days my -anger had passed away entirely. I held no longer the least bitterness -in my heart toward Ruth; and yet I felt that I must keep my word. I -looked upon my rash utterance as a vow, for which I had a sort of -superstitious reverence. Then, too, there was a queer, evil kind of -pride about me,--something that wouldn’t _let_ me speak to her when -I had said I wouldn’t,--wouldn’t _let_ me show her that I was sorry. -The teacher spoke to me about the trouble between me and Ruth, but he -might as well have spoken to a blank wall,--I did not even answer him. -Whether he said any thing to Ruth I do not know. - -In the late fall there was a vacation, which held over Thanksgiving. -I had an idea that my mother watched me curiously to see how I -would pass those weeks without Ruth. But I was resolute to show no -pain or loneliness. I made occupations for myself. I read; I worked -worsted; I crocheted; I copied out poems in my common-place book; I -was busy from morning till night. One thing I did not do,--I did not -take another friend in Ruth’s stead. Several of the girls had shown -themselves willing to fill the vacant place, but they soon found that -“No admittance here” was written over the door. I think they tried the -same experiment with Ruth, with the same result. At any rate, each of -us went on our solitary way, quite alone. Ruth had her own pride, too, -as well as I; and, after a little while, she would no more have spoken -to me than I to her; but she could not help those great, dark eyes -of hers resting on me sometimes with a wistful, inquiring look, that -almost brought the tears to mine. - -School commenced again the first of December. Ruth came, the first day, -in her new winter dress. It was a deep, rich red; and somehow she made -me think of the spicy little red roses of Burgundy, that used to grow -in my grandmother’s old-fashioned garden. My own new gown was blue. For -the first time in years, Ruth and I were dressed differently. We were -no longer “the twins.” I thought Ruth looked a little sad. She was very -grave. I never heard her laugh in these days. When it rained or snowed, -and we stayed at school through the noonings, instead of going home -for our dinner, neither of us would join in the games that made the -noontime merry. I suppose each was afraid of too directly encountering -the other. - -But when the good skating came, both of us used to be on the pond. The -whole school, teacher and all, would turn out on half holidays. Both -Ruth and I were among the best skaters in school My father had taught -us, two or three winters before, and we had had great pride in our -skill. We had always skated in company before; but now, as in every -thing else we did, we kept at a distance from each other. - -The pond used to be a pretty sight, on those crisp, keen winter -afternoons, all alive with boys and girls. A steep hill rose on one -side of it, crowned by a pine wood, green all the winter through. Great -fields of snow stretched far and away on the other side, and in the -midst was the sheet of ice, smooth as glass. Here was a scarlet hood, -and there a boy’s gay Scotch cap. Here some adventurer was cutting -fantastic capers; there a girl was struggling with her first skates, -and falling down at almost every step. I loved the pastime,--the -keen, clear air, the swift motion, the excitement. I loved to watch -Ruth, too, for by this time not only was all the bitterness gone from -my heart, but the old love was welling up, sweet and strong, though -nothing would have made me acknowledge it to myself. Wherever she -moved, my far-sighted eyes followed her; and, indeed, she was a pretty -sight, the prettiest there, in her bright scarlet skating dress, and -with her cheeks scarcely less scarlet, and her great eyes bright as -stars. - -There came a day, at last, when we promised ourselves an afternoon -of glorious skating. The ice was in excellent condition, the sky was -cloudless, the weather cold, indeed, but not piercing, and the air -exhilarating as wine. I ate my dinner hurriedly--there was no time to -lose out of such an afternoon. I rose from the table before the rest, -put on my warm jacket and my skating-cap, and was just leaving the -house when my father called after me. - -“Be very careful of the west side of the pond, Sue. They have been -cutting a good deal of ice there.” - -The whole school was out; only when I first got there I did not see -Ruth. The teacher repeated to us what my father had said, but I -remembered afterward that it was not till he had done speaking that -Ruth came in sight, looking, in her bright scarlet, like some tropical -bird astray under our pale northern skies. As usual she and I began -skating at some distance from each other, but gradually I drew nearer -and nearer to her. I had no reason for this. I did not mean to speak to -her, and the pride that held me from her was as untamed as ever. But -yet something for which I could not account drew me towards her. - -Did she see me, and wish to avoid me? I did not know; but suddenly she -began to skate swiftly away from me, and toward the dangerous west side -of the pond. I think I must have called, “Come back! come back!” but -if I did, she did not heed or hear. She was skating on, oh, so fast! I -looked around in despair--I was nearer to her than any one else was. I -shouted, with all my might, to Mr. Hunt, the teacher. I thought I saw -him turn at the sound of my voice, but I did not wait to be sure. I -just skated after Ruth. - -I never can tell you about that moment. All the love with which I -had loved her swept back over my heart like a great flood. Pride and -bitterness, what did they mean? I only knew that I had loved Ruth -Carson as I should never, never love any other friend; and that if she -died I wanted to die too, and be friends with her again in the next -world, if I could not here. I think I called to her, but the call was -wasted upon the wind which always bore my voice the other way. So Ruth -skated on and on, and I skated after her. Whether any one was coming -behind me I did not know. I never even looked over my shoulder. It -seemed to me that some mad wind of destiny was sweeping us both ahead. - -Suddenly there came a plash, the scarlet cap appeared a moment above -the ice, and then that went under, and there was no Ruth in sight, -anywhere. You cannot think how calm I was. I wonder at it now, looking -back over so many years, to that bright, sad, far-off winter day. -I succeeded in checking my own headlong speed, and, drawing near -cautiously to the spot where Ruth had gone down, I threw myself along -the ice. It was thick and strong, and had been cut into squares, so -it bore me up. I looked over the edge. Ruth was rising toward me. I -reached down and clutched her, I hardly know by what. At that moment I -felt my ankles grasped firmly by two strong hands, and then I knew that -I could save Ruth. I held her until some one helped me to pull her out, -and then I don’t know what came next. - -I waked up, long afterward, in my own bed, in my own room. I seemed to -myself to have been quite away from this world, on some long journey. -A consciousness of present things came back to me slowly. I recalled -with a shudder the hard, sharply cut ice, the water gurgling below, and -Ruth, _my_ Ruth, with her great black eyes and her bright, bonny face, -going down, down. I cried out,-- - -“Ruth! Ruth! where are you?” - -And then I turned my head, and there, beside me, she lay, my pretty -Ruth--mine again, after so long. - -“She clung to you so tightly we could not separate you,” I heard my -mother say; but all my being was absorbed in looking at Ruth. She was -white as death. I had said I would not speak to her again until I saw -her lie a-dying. _Was_ she dying now? I lifted myself on my elbow -to look at her. I held my own breath to see if any came from her -half-parted lips; and as I looked, her eyes unclosed, and she put her -arm up,--oh, so feebly!--and struggled to get it round my neck. I bent -over her, and one moment our lips clung together, in such a kiss as -neither of us had ever known before--a kiss snatched from death, and -full of peace and pardon, and the unutterable bliss of a restored love. -Then Ruth whispered,-- - -“Sue, I have been only half a girl since I lost you. I would rather -have died there, in the black water from which you saved me, than not -to find you again.” - -“I thought you _were_ dying, Ruth,” I whispered back, holding her -close; “and if you were, I meant to die too. I would have gone after -you into the water but what I would have had you back.” - -Then we were too weak to say any thing more. We just lay there, our -hands clasped closely, in an ineffable content. Our mothers came and -went about us; all sorts of tender cares were lavished on us of which -we took no heed. I knew only one thing,--that I had won back Ruth; -Ruth knew only one thing,--that once more she was by my side. - -That was our first and our last quarrel. I think no hasty word was ever -spoken between us afterward. The first one had cost us too dear. - - - - -WAS IT HER MOTHER? - - -Just a little voice, calling through the dark, “Mamma, O mamma!” and -then a low sound of stifled sobbing. - -Colonel Trevethick heard them both, and they smote him with a new sense -of loss and pain. He had scarcely thought of his little girl since his -wife died, five hours before,--died at the very instant when she was -kissing him good-by, taking with her into the far heavens the warm -breath of his human love. He had loved her as, perhaps, men seldom -love, from the first hour of their first meeting. - -“There is Maud Harrison,” some one had said; and he had turned to look, -and met the innocent gaze of two frank, gentle, very beautiful brown -eyes. “Brightest eyes that ever have shone,” he said to himself. Their -owner had other charms besides,--a fair and lovely face, round which -the ruffled hair made a soft, bright halo; a lithe, girlish figure; a -manner of unaffected cordiality, blent with a certain maidenly reserve, -and which seemed to him perfection. He loved her, then and there. His -wooing was short and his wedding hasty; but he had never repented his -haste, never known an unhappy hour from the moment he brought his wife -home, nine years ago, till these last few days, in which he had seen -that no love or care of his could withhold her from going away from him -to another home where he could not follow her,--the home where she had -gone now, far beyond his search. - -She was a good little creature, and she did not rebel even at the -summons to go out of her earthly Eden in search of the paradise of -God. She longed, indeed, to live, for she so loved her own, and she -could have resigned herself to die more willingly but for her husband’s -uncontrollable passion of woe. That very day she had said to him, as he -knelt beside her,-- - -“Do not grieve so, darling! I am not going so far but that I shall come -back to you every day. Something tells me that I shall be always near -you and Maudie. You cannot call, or she cry, but that I shall hear -you. I know that when she most needs, or you most want me, I shall be -close beside you.” - -And with that very last kiss, when her breath was failing, she had -whispered,-- - -“I shall not go so far as you think.” - -Now when he heard the low call of his little Maudie and her smothered -sobbing, he remembered the words of his dead wife. Did she, indeed, -hear Maudie cry, and was it possibly troubling her? He got up and went -into the little room where the child had slept alone ever since her -sixth birthday, a couple of months ago. He bent over her low bed, and -asked tenderly,-- - -“What is it, darling?” - -A tiny night-gowned figure lifted itself up and two little arms clung -round his neck. - -“Bessie put me to bed without taking me to mamma. Mamma did not kiss -me good-night, and I want she should,--oh, I _want_ she should! Bessie -wouldn’t carry me to see her; and I want you to. Bessie said mamma -never _would_ kiss me again but that isn’t true, is it? You know I’ve -heard mamma say Bessie wasn’t always ’sponsible.” - -Colonel Trevethick considered for a moment what he should say to -his child--how he could make her understand the great, sad, awful, -yet triumphant mystery which had come to pass that day under their -roof--the great loss, and the great hope that hallowed it. - -She was such a mere baby it seemed hard to choose his words. Must he -tell her that her mamma would never kiss her again? But how did he know -that? When the dear Lord promised the “all things” to those who loved -Him, did it not include the joining of broken threads, the up-springing -of dead hopes, the finding one’s own again, somewhere? He thought it -must; for what a word without meaning heaven would be to him if his own -Maud were not there! He temporized a little. - -“She cannot kiss you now, my darling, but you shall kiss her.” - -So he lifted the little white figure in his arms, holding it close, as -one who must be father and mother both together, now, and carried his -little one across the hall to the room, where her dead mother lay,--oh, -so fast asleep!--with a look like a smile frozen upon her fair, sweet -face. He held Maudie down by the pillow on which her mother’s head -rested, but that did not satisfy her. - -“Put me on the bed, please, papa. I get on the bed every night and kiss -her, since she’s been ill.” - -So he let her have her will; and for a moment she nestled close to the -still dead heart, which had always beaten for her so warmly. Then she -lifted up her head. - -“Mamma is very cold,” she said, “and she does not stir. Can she hear -what I say?” - -Again something invisible seemed to warn him against taking away from -the child her mother. He answered very gently and slowly,-- - -“She’s dead, my darling,--what we call dead. _I_ do not understand -it--no one understands it; but it comes, one day, to everybody, and it -is God’s will. Your mamma cannot speak to us any more, and soon she -will be gone out of our sight; but she truly believed that she would -always be able to see your face and hear your voice, as when she was -here.” - -“She _is_ here. Won’t she be here always?” the little girl asked, -growing cold with the shadow of an awful fear. - -“No, dear, she will not be here long. In a few days this dear white -face will be put away, underneath the grass and the flowers; but the -real mamma, who loves little Maudie, will not be buried up. She will be -somewhere, I truly believe, where she can see and hear her little girl.” - -For a moment the child slid again from his arms, and nestled close -against the cold breast, kissed the unmoving lips. Then she said,-- - -“Good-by, this mamma, who can’t see; and good-night, other mamma, that -hears Maudie.” - -Colonel Trevethick marvelled. Had he, indeed, succeeded in making this -little creature understand; or had some one whom he could not see -spoken to her words of sweet mother-wisdom? - -He carried her then, and laid her in her little bed, and went back to -his own loneliness; but half an hour afterward he heard the small voice -calling. “Papa, papa!” and again he went to her, and the little arms -came up around his neck, and held him fast. - -“Can’t I go too, papa? If you ask God, won’t He let me? Because I do so -love my mamma.” - -That afternoon Colonel Trevethick had felt as if he had nothing at all -left in this world; but now he realized how much emptier still his home -might be if he lost out of it this child who was so like her mother. - -“Mamma would not want you to come,” he said passionately. “_She_ has -all heaven, and _I_ only you,--only you, little Maudie, in all the -world. Mamma wants you to stay with me.” - -After that she was quite quiet; and when he looked in at her, an hour -later, she was sound asleep, with one little hand like a crushed white -rose under the red rose of her flushed cheek. - -She never asked for her mother after that night; but her father was -sure that she never forgot her. She was the strangest, gravest little -creature. She never made any noise, even at her play; and she never did -any of the things for which her mother had been used to reprove her. -The trouble was that she was too perfect; there was something unnatural -about it which frightened Colonel Trevethick. He would have been glad -if she had been naughty, sometimes, like other children. He longed -to have her tease him, to see in her some spirit of naughtiness or -contradiction; but he saw none. She grew tall quite fast, but she was -very thin,--a little white wraith of a creature, who looked as if she -had been made out of snow, and might melt away as soon. - -It was a good thing for Colonel Trevethick, no doubt, that he had her -to tend, and to be anxious about. It kept him from surrendering himself -to his own grief. - -Nearly two years went on, and all the time the little girl grew more -and more frail; until, at last, when she had just passed her eighth -birthday, she was taken very ill. Her illness seemed a sort of low, -nervous fever, and she grew daily more feeble. A skilful nurse came to -share with Bessie the task of tending her, and her father was seldom -far away. Half the day he would be sitting in her room, and half a -dozen times in the night he would steal in to watch her breathing. - -One afternoon, as he sat by her bed, she looked up at him with a sad, -tender look, too old for her years,--but then all her words and ways -were too old for her years. - -“Papa,” she said, “I would get well if I could, to please you. I -_should_ get well, I know, if I had mamma to nurse me. Don’t you know -how she used, if my head ached, to put her hand on it and make it stop?” - -A sudden mist of tears came between his eyes and the little white face -looking up at him. She had not spoken before of her mother for so many -months, and yet how well she remembered! Instantly his wife’s words, -that last day, came back to his memory. She had said, “I know that when -Maudie needs me most, or you most want me, I shall be there beside you.” - -_Was_ she there now? Could she breathe upon the little wasting life -some merciful dew of healing? or was she, perhaps, by her very love and -longing, drawing the child home to herself? - -That night Bessie was to sit up until one o’clock, and then to call the -nurse. As for Colonel Trevethick, he would be in and out, as usual. - -He went to bed, and fell into sleep and a dream. His own Maud was -beside him as he saw her first, then as his bride, his wife, then with -Baby Maudie on her breast; just as of old he seemed to have her with -him again,--his pride, his darling, the one woman he had ever loved. - -He woke at last. Had his dream, then, lasted the night through? Was -this red ray that touched his face the first hint of the rising sun? He -sprang up quickly. The whole night had indeed passed, and he had not -seen Maudie. He hurried into a dressing-gown and went to her room. He -expected to find the nurse there, but, instead, Bessie sat beside the -table just where he had left her the night before, but sound asleep. -Evidently she must have been asleep for hours, and had not called the -nurse, who had slept in her turn: they were all tired enough, Heaven -knows. But, meantime, what of Maudie? What harm had come to her, alone, -unattended? - -He drew aside the curtain of her little bed and looked in. Surely this -was not the Maud he had left the night before, so pale and worn upon -her pillows? A face looked up at him bright as the new day. A soft, -healthy color was in the cheeks, and the moist lips were crimson. - -“I knew I should be well if _she_ tended me,” a voice cried, gayer and -gladder than he had heard from her lips in two years. - -What _did_ the child mean? Had she gone mad? He controlled himself, and -asked,-- - -“Who tended you, my child? I found Bessie sound asleep.” - -“Yes; mamma made her sleep, and you, and nurse. She sent all of you the -dreams you like best; and all night long she sat here beside my bed, -with her hand on my head, just as she used to put it long ago. She was -all in white, and her hair fell about her shoulders, and her eyes were -very, very bright, and her lips, when she kissed me, seemed somehow to -melt away.” - -“So you, too, dreamed about mamma, darling?” - -“No, indeed, papa, I did not dream. Mamma sat there all night long, -with her hand upon my head. Sometimes I slept, but more often I woke up -to look at her; and all the time she sat there, and did not tire, until -the first sunshine came in at the windows; and then she kissed me and -went away. I did not see her go. Perhaps I shut my eyes a moment. Then -I looked and she was gone, and then I heard you coming in. She said she -was with me every day, but she couldn’t have come to me like _this_, -except because I needed her so very, very much. And she wanted to make -me well, because you would grieve for me if I came to her; and I was to -be very good, and tend you and make you comfortable; and I must laugh -and must make you laugh, for laughter was good, and the reason I got -ill was because I had been sorry so long, and had not laughed at all. -And I was _not_ to be sorry after _her_ any more, because she was very -happy, and nothing grieved her except when she saw you and me mourning -for her, and not knowing that she was waiting close beside us.” - -“_Was_ it her mother? Can it _be_ it was the child’s mother?” the -father cried, uttering his thought aloud unconsciously. - -“Of course it was mamma; and she has made me well. See if Dr. Dale does -not tell you I am well.” - -Two hours afterward Dr. Dale came. He stood for a few moments beside -the little bed. He looked in the child’s glad eyes, he counted the -throbs of her pulse, he made her put out her healthy little tongue. -Then he turned to her father. - -“Trevethick,” he said, “can you swear that this is the same little girl -I left here last night? If the days of miracles were not gone by, I -should say that one had been wrought here. I left, I thought, a very -sick little person, about whom I was anxious enough, certainly, to make -this my first call this morning; and I find my small patient so well -that I shall only keep her in bed a day or two longer, for form’s sake.” - -“Perhaps it _is_ a miracle,” Colonel Trevethick said, smiling. But he -did not explain. There are some experiences too marvellous for belief -and too sacred for doubt or question, and that was one of them. - -Two days afterward little Maudie went down to tea. She wore a fresh -white gown, with lovely blue ribbons, and looked as much like a little -angel in festal attire as a human child can be expected to look. But -she did not take her usual seat. She sat down, instead, behind the -tea-pot, where Bessie usually stood to pour out the tea. - -“Hadn’t Bessie better do that?” papa asked, as he saw the little hand -close round the handle of the tea-pot. - -But Maud laughed, and shook her head. - -“No, I don’t think Bessie is ’sponsible,” she said; “and mamma said I -was to live just on purpose to do every thing for papa.” - -And again Colonel Trevethick asked, but this time silently,-- - -“Was it--_could_ it have been the child’s mother?” - - - - -THE LADY FROM OVER THE WAY. - - -It was the twilight of Christmas evening,--that twilight which always -seems so early, since nobody is ever quite ready for it. The pale -gray of the winter’s sky was scarcely flushed by the low-lying sunset -clouds, though sometimes you could catch a gleam of their scant -brightness as you turned westward. - -The streets of New York were crowded, as usual, but everybody seemed -even more than usually in a hurry. The air was intensely cold, and -nipped the noses of those who were late with their Christmas shopping; -but, in spite of it, men and women still jostled each other upon the -sidewalk, or stopped to look at the tempting displays of holiday goods -in the shops. Everybody, it seemed, had some small person at home who -must be made happy to-morrow. - -From the window of a large but rusty-looking house on one of the -avenues, two children looked down at the throng below, as they had been -looking all day. They were in the fourth story of the house, and they -could not see into the street very distinctly, but still the movement -and the bustle interested them, and their mother was thankful that they -had it to watch. - -She herself was sewing, catching the last glint of the sunset light -for her work, as she had the first ray of the dawning. She had been a -beautiful, high-bred woman; indeed, she was so still, though there was -no one to note the unconscious elegance of her gestures or the graceful -lines of her curving figure and bent head. She was very thin now, and -very poorly clad, but a stranger would have felt that she was a lady, -and wondered how she came in the fourth story of this house,--a great -house, which had been handsome, too, in its day, but which was now -let out to innumerable lodgers, mostly of the decent sort of honest, -hard-working, half-starved poor people. Not with such neighbors had -Mrs. Vanderheyden’s lot been formerly cast, nor for such uses as this -had the old house itself been designed. It had been a stately mansion -in its time, belonging to the estate of a good old Knickerbocker -family, which was quite run out now. But there was one great comfort in -this house: it had been so well built that its thick walls shut out all -alien noises effectually, and made solitude possible even in a tenement -house. Perhaps Mrs. Vanderheyden had thought of this when she chose her -abode there. - -There was something in the faded grandeur of the old mansion that -harmonized with the lingering grace of her own faded beauty. Its lofty -walls were wainscoted with carved oak, almost black with time; and any -imaginative person would have been likely to people it with the ghosts -of the beautiful girls whose room no doubt this was in the old days. -There, between those windows, hung, perhaps, their great, gleaming -mirror, and into it they looked, all smiles and blushes and beauty, -when they were ready for their first ball. But Mrs. Vanderheyden’s two -little girls did not think of the other girls who might have lived -there once. They were too young for that, and too hungry. Ethel, the -elder, was only ten; and shy little Annie, beside her, scarcely seven. -They saw a sight, however, from the window at which they stood, that -interested them more than any vision of the past would have done. - -The avenue on which they lived was in a transition state. Trade had -come into it and lodging-houses had vulgarized it, and yet there were -some of the rich old residents who still clung to the houses in which -their fathers and mothers had lived and died. There was one such -directly opposite; and to look into the parlor over the way, and see -there all the warmth and brightness and beauty of which they themselves -were deprived, had been one of the chief enjoyments of the little -Vanderheydens ever since they had been in the house. They were all that -Mrs. Vanderheyden had left, these two girls. Wealth was gone, friends -were gone, father and father’s home, husband and husband’s home--hope -itself was gone; but she was not quite alone while she had these two -for whom to struggle--to live or to die, as Heaven would. It was for -their sakes that she had worked from dawning till nightfall, though she -had felt all the time what seemed to her a mortal sickness stealing -over her. Their breakfast and dinner had been only bread, of which she -herself had scarcely tasted; but to-morrow would be Christmas, and -it should go hard with her but she would give them better fare then. -A dozen times during the day one or the other little voice had asked -anxiously,-- - -“Shall we surely, surely, have dinner to-morrow, because it is -Christmas Day?” - -And she had answered,-- - -“Please Heaven, you surely shall. My work is almost done;” and then -she had stitched away more resolutely than ever on the child’s frock -she was elaborately embroidering. The children meanwhile were feeding -upon hope, and watching a scene in the house over the way, where, as -they thought, all that any human creature could possibly hope for had -already been given. Busy preparations had been made in that other -house for Christmas. There was a great Christmas-tree in one corner, -all full of little tapers, and a large, fair, gentle-looking woman had -been engaged much of the afternoon in arranging gifts upon it. Now, -with the twilight, a boy and girl had come in and were watching the -lighting up of the Christmas-tree. - -“It’s so good of them not to pull the curtains down,” Ethel said, with -a sigh of delight. “It’s almost as good as being there--almost.” - -“I do suppose that’s the very grandest house in all New York,” little -Annie said, in a tone of awe and admiration. - -“Nonsense! You only think that because you are so little,” answered -Ethel, from the height of her three years more of experience. “_You_ -forget, but _I_ can remember. We had a finer house ourselves, before -poor papa died. There are plenty of them, only we’re so poor we don’t -see them.” - -“Oh, it’s good to be that little girl!” cried Annie. “See how pretty -her dress is, and how her hair curls; and she’ll have lots of presents -off that Christmas-tree.” - -“So should we, if we had papa,” Ethel answered gravely. “Mamma, when we -get up to heaven, do you think papa will know we’re his little girls?” - -“I’m sure he will,” Mrs. Vanderheyden answered; and then she rose -wearily. “It’s all done,” she said, as she shook out the lovely little -robe into which she had wrought so many patient stitches. “I cannot -carry it home just yet, I am so tired; I must lie down first; but you -shall have a good dinner to-morrow, my darlings.” - -The children had seen her very tired before, and they didn’t think -much about it when she groped her way to a bed in the corner and lay -down, drawing the scant bed-clothes up over her. They stood at the -window still, and watched the merry children opposite, until at last a -servant came and pulled down the curtains and shut away from them the -Christmas-tree, with all its gleaming lights, and the boy and girl, who -were dancing round it to some gay tune which their mother played. - -Then Ethel and Annie began to realize that they were cold and hungry -and the room was dark. Ethel lit a candle. The fire was nearly out, -but she would not make another till morning. - -“I won’t wake up mamma,” she said, with the premature thoughtfulness -that characterized her; “she’s so tired. We’ll just have supper, and -then I’ll hear you say ‘Our Father,’ and we’ll get to bed, and in the -morning it will be Christmas.” - -Some vague promise of good was in the very word: Ethel did not know -what would come, but surely Christmas would not be like other days. -“Supper” was the rest of the bread. And then the two little creatures -knelt down together and said their well-known prayers, and I think -“Our Father” heard, for their sleep was just as sweet as if they had -been in the warm, soft nest of the children over the way, tucked in -with eider down. Through the long evening hours they slept,--through -the solemn midnight, when the clear, cold Christmas stars looked down, -just as they had looked centuries ago when the King of Glory, Himself a -little child, lay asleep in an humble manger in Judea. Nothing troubled -their quiet slumber until the sunshine of the Christmas morning broke -through their dingy windows, and the day had begun. - -“It must be ever so late,” said Ethel, rubbing her sleepy eyes, “and -mamma isn’t awake yet. But she was so tired. You lie still, Annie, and -I’ll build the fire, and when she wakes up she’ll find it all done.” - -Very patiently the poor little half-frozen fingers struggled with the -scant kindlings and the coal that seemed determined never to light; but -they succeeded at last, and the room began to grow a little warm. Then -she dressed Annie, and then it began to seem very late indeed, and she -wondered if mamma would never wake up. She went to the bedside and, -bending over, kissed her mother gently, then started back with a sudden -alarm. - -“Why, Annie, she’s so cold--almost like poor papa--only you can’t -remember--just before they took him away.” - -“No, she can’t be like papa,” Annie said stoutly, “for he was dead, and -mamma is asleep.” - -“Yes, she’s asleep,” said the elder sister firmly. “We must wait till -she wakes up. We’ll look over the way, and then, maybe, it won’t seem -so long.” - -But over the way was brighter than ever this Christmas morning. The -curtains had been looped back once more, the table glittered with -lovely gifts, and presently the little girl who lived there came to the -windows. She looked up at them--they were sure of it; but they could -not have guessed what she said, as she turned away, and spoke to her -mother. - -“O mamma,” cried the sweet young voice, “won’t you come and see these -two poor little girls? They stood there all day yesterday and last -night; and now see how sad they look. I can’t eat my Christmas candies -or play with my Christmas things while they look so pale and lonesome. -Won’t you go over and see them, mamma dear?” - -Mrs. Rosenburgh was a woman of warm and earnest sympathies when once -they were aroused. When she was a girl she too had had quick impulses -like her child’s; but she had grown selfish, perhaps, as she grew -older, or maybe only careless; for the quick sympathies were there -still, as you could see, now that her little girl had touched them. - -“To be sure I will,” she answered at once. “Poor little things! I wish -we could make merry Christmas for all New York; but since we can’t, -at least we won’t have faces white with want looking in at our very -windows.” - -So the watching, wondering children saw the large, fair lady wrap -herself in a heavy shawl and tie a hood over her head, and then come -out and cross the street and enter their house. - -“What if she saw us, and what if she is coming here!” Ethel said -breathlessly. - -Then they listened as if their hearts were in their ears. They heard -feet upon the stairs and then a gentle tap, and the lady from over the -way stood in their room. - -“I saw you at the window,” she said, “and came over to wish you a merry -Christmas. How is this? Are you all alone?” - -“No, ma’am, mamma is in the bed there; but she was very tired -yesterday, and she hasn’t waked up.” - -An awful terror seized Mrs. Rosenburgh. Had this woman died of want and -weariness, in sight of her own windows? She stepped to the bedside, and -drew away the clothes gently from the face of the sleeper. She looked a -moment on that fair, faded face, and then she grew white as death. - -“Children,” she asked, “what are your names?” - -“I am Ethel Vanderheyden,” the oldest girl answered, “and she is Annie.” - -“And your mother--was she Ethel Carlisle once?” - -“Yes, ma’am, before she married papa.” - -“And your little sister is Annie?” - -“Yes; she was named for mamma’s best friend, one she hadn’t seen for a -long, long time.” - -Meanwhile Mrs. Rosenburgh had knelt by the bedside. She had lifted the -low-lying head upon her arm, and drawn a bottle of pungent salts from -her pocket, and she was crying as if her heart would break, while the -children looked wondering on. - -“O Ethel, my own old Ethel, _wake_ up!” And then she dropped her cheek, -all wet with tears, against the white, cold cheek, that was so still. - -Oh, was it the warm tears, or the voice that sounded from far away out -of the past, or only the strong odor that roused the poor soul from -that long, heavy sleep of exhaustion that had so nearly been the sleep -of death? I do not know, but I know the eyes did open, and beheld the -tender face bending above them. And then, like a little child, the -children heard their mother cry,-- - -“O Annie, Annie, have I been dreaming all this time?” - -And then there were explanations, and the story of the long years -since Annie Bryant and Ethel Carlisle were girls together was told. -But the best of it all, the children thought, was when the lady from -over the way took them home with her, and told them the boy and girl -there should be their brother and sister, and they should live there -henceforth; for she, who had found again her best friend, would never -more let her struggle with want alone. - -And so the children had gifts and dinner, and a merry, merry Christmas -in the bright, warm, crimson-hung room, which had seemed to them -such a paradise of delights when they looked down into it from their -fourth-story window through the falling shadows of Christmas Eve. - - - - -HIS MOTHER’S BOY. - - -The days were growing very dark for George Graham. He had not known -at first what it meant that black specks should so dance between him -and the page he tried to read, that his eyes should ache so much, -that all things should seem so strangely dim about him. It would have -been better, no doubt, had he stopped work as soon as he felt these -symptoms; but how could he? This was his last term at school, and if he -passed his examination creditably, especially if he thoroughly mastered -the bookkeeping he was trying so hard to conquer, he was to have a -place in Deacon Solomon Grant’s store, with wages that would not only -take care of himself, but greatly help his mother. - -His mother was a widow, and George’s love for her was a sort of passion -of devotion. When he could scarcely talk, the first two words he put -together were, “Pretty mamma,” and ever since then she had been the -first and fairest of created beings to him. He was very fond of Susie -Hale, but Susie was only a nice girl,--a dear, sweet, good girl, such -as any fellow would like; but his mother was the elect lady to whom -were due his love, his care, his uttermost duty. - -Mrs. Graham was the kind of woman for a son to be romantic about. She -was only seventeen when George was born; and now, when he was sixteen -and she was thirty-three, she was, so he thought, more beautiful than -ever. She had been a pretty, rather helpless little creature all her -life,--one of those women toward whom every man feels the instinct of -protection. George’s father had felt it always, and had never allowed -care to come near his dainty darling. His one great agony, as he lay -dying, was that he must leave her almost unprovided for. That was when -George was thirteen, and the boy would never forget how his father had -called him to his bedside, and charged him to take care of his mother. - -“You are old enough to be her staff, even now,” the dying man had said, -clinging to his boy’s hand. “You can be good to her in a thousand ways, -save her a thousand cares, and in a few years more you can work for -her, and keep her comfortably, as I have done.” - -George never forgot this trust for one moment. The plans he made in -life were all for his mother’s sake--his future was to be spent in her -service. He wanted to come out of school at the time of his father’s -death, and try by all manner of little industries to help take care -of the household, but his mother was too wise to permit this. She -developed a strength of mind and of body for which no one who saw her -pink-and-white prettiness,--the prettiness of a girl still, despite all -her years of married life,--would have given her credit. - -She saw clearly that if her boy’s education stopped at thirteen, he -would be held in check all his life by his own ignorance--he must be -drudge always, and never master. So she made him go to school three -years longer. - -How she lived and kept up her refined little home puzzled all -lookers-on, and indeed she hardly knew herself. She lived simply; she -was busy from morning till night. She sewed for one neighbor, she -helped another through some season of sickness, she taught a naughty -child who had worn out its welcome at school, but who could not wear -out Mrs. Graham’s sweet patience,--and all these things helped. It is -true, it was very often hard work to compass the simple necessaries of -life, but she struggled on bravely. - -When George was sixteen he should come out of school, well trained, she -hoped, for a business man, and then things would be so much easier. -With this hope in view, she never repined. She kept her strength of -soul and her sweetness of temper, her fresh beauty and her fresh heart. -She kept, too, her boy’s adoration,--an adoration which was, as I said, -the romance of his life. - -When the days began to grow so dark for George Graham, it was of his -mother that he thought. So far he had no ambitions, no hopes, that -were not centred in her. What if this growing shadow about him was to -increase until all was dark, until dense night shut him in,--a night -through whose blackness no star of hope could shine? What if he must -be no help to his mother, but only a burden on her for ever, a burden -lasting through heaven only knew how many helpless years? - -He rebelled against such a fate madly. He stretched out his hands -toward heaven, he lifted the dumb prayer of his darkening eyes, but no -help came. - -Dimmer and dimmer grew the world about him, more and more desperate the -gloom of his hopeless heart. His scholarship had been so fine that his -teacher hesitated to reprove his now continual failures; and George -said nothing of the increasing darkness around him,--nothing to his -mother, for he felt that it would break her heart; nothing to teacher -or school-mates, for it seemed to him his grief would be nothing to -them. But one afternoon the crisis came. - -His recitation had been an utter failure, and, at last, his teacher -spoke in severe terms of the neglect which had become habitual. No -one who was present that day--not even the smallest child--will ever -forget the look of despair that swept over George Graham’s face, or the -gesture of helpless anguish with which he stretched out his hands, as -if to seek among them all some friend, as he cried,-- - -“God help me, sir! I have been going blind; and now I cannot see one -figure in my book--I can hardly see your face.” - -There was a silence after this, through which came no sound but the -audible beating of George Graham’s tortured heart. Then the master sent -away the others, for school hours were nearly over, and tried his best -to comfort his stricken pupil. It might not be so bad as he feared, an -oculist might help him, perhaps it was only temporary. - -To all these well-meant consolations George listened in a sort of -dreary silence. The words of the teacher entered his ears, but they did -not reach his heart or kindle his hope. - -As soon as he could, he went away. He did not go straight home. -How could he face his mother and tell her what he _must_ tell her -now,--what she would be sure to hear from others, if not from him? He -kept thinking how she would take it. Would not all the light go out of -her face? Maybe she would faint away, as he remembered she had done -when his father died. - -He sat down on a bank, a little removed from the road-side, a bank -which overhung a swift and deep, yet narrow stream. - -An awful temptation came over him,--such a temptation as, thank Heaven! -comes to few boys of sixteen, with the young, glad life running riot -in their veins. He thought, what if he should die, then and there? It -seemed to him the one desirable thing. To be sure, to die would be to -leave his mother to fight her battle of life alone; but also it would -relieve her from the heavy burden he must needs be to her if he lived. -The river rushing down there below invited him with its murmur. Should -he seek refuge there, and let his mother hear that he was dead, before -she heard that he was blind? He bent forward over the stream. Then he -drew back, for a longing came over him to go home first, and see his -mother just once more; and then an exceeding bitter cry burst from his -lips,-- - -“_See_ her! What am I talking about? Do I not know I shall _never_ see -her again?” - -And a girl’s voice, soft and cooing and tender,--an utterly unexpected -voice,--answered him,-- - -“Yes, you _will_ see her again. Surely you will see her again.” - -The boy turned his face toward the sound. - -“How did you come here, Susie Hale?” he asked. - -“Don’t be angry, George,” the gentle voice entreated. “I waited for -you. I could not go home till I had told you how sorry I was, and tried -to comfort you.” - -“Comfort me!” There was a sort of scornful bitterness in the cry. “How -_can_ I be comforted? Do you think what it will be never to see the -green earth or the blue sky, or any dear face any more, for ever and -ever?” - -“But you will see them,” she said gently. “I did not mean that you -must be reconciled to give up hope. I mean that you must take heart, -and try to be cured. I have known people who could not see at all to be -helped, and why not you? At least, you must try.” - -An evil mood was upon George Graham, and he answered harshly,-- - -“Where is the money to come from, if you please? It has been all mother -could do just to live and she has struggled on, in the expectation of -my being able soon to help her. She has no money for experiments. There -is nothing for it but for me to rest a dead weight upon her hands, -or--die.” - -He said the last word with a sort of gasp. Susie Hale shivered. She -drew closer to him. She looked into his poor, tortured face, with her -dark and tender eyes, and said very quietly,-- - -“You believe in God, George Graham, and you will not defy Him. If He -means you to bear this you will bear it like a man, and not try to get -rid of the burden. But I do not believe He does mean you to bear it; -and I will not believe it till every means has been tried for your -cure. Just now, it seems to me, you ought to go home. Would you like -your mother to hear this first from some one else?” - -He rose slowly. - -“You are right,” he said, “and you are a good girl. Good-by, Susie.” - -She did not try to go with him; she followed him only with her eyes. -She was contented if she could but send him home in safety to his -mother. - -His mother met him at the gate. When she took his hand in hers the poor -fellow felt that she knew all. She was very quiet and self-controlled. - -“Your teacher has been here,” she said, “and he has told me. My -darling, why have you sat in the darkness, and shut your mother out -from any share in your trouble?” - -“Oh, I couldn’t tell you, mother!” he sobbed, with his head upon her -breast, at last,--“I couldn’t, I thought it would break your heart.” - -“Ah! that was because you did not know. If you should die and leave me -alone in the world, _that_, indeed, would break my heart; but while -I have you beside me, nothing can make me altogether miserable, and -nothing must make you so. There is help somewhere, and we will find it, -please God; or, if not, we will bear what others have borne, and find a -way to lighten the darkness.” - -Meantime, Susie Hale had gone home full of an absorbing purpose. -Somehow money must and should be raised to try what a skilful oculist -could do for George Graham. - -Susie was the orphan niece of Deacon Solomon Grant, in whose store -a place was awaiting George. She knew that she had a modest little -fortune of her own, but it was all in her uncle’s hands, and without -his consent she could not dispose even of her slender income. But -would he not be persuaded to let her have enough of her own money -to accomplish her desire? She asked him, using her utmost power of -persuasion to touch his heart, but he refused with peremptory decision. -He wouldn’t mind contributing moderately to a fund for young Graham’s -help--he would not even mind letting her have five or ten dollars of -her own for that purpose--but beyond that the duty of one neighbor did -not go. And Deacon Solomon shut his lips together as tightly as he -buttoned up his pocket. - -Susie had in the world one treasure,--a diamond ring which had been her -mother’s, with a stone white and clear as a dew-drop. This must, she -knew, be worth three or four hundred dollars. It was her very own. She -had meant to keep it all her life for her mother’s sake, but surely -this great need of George Graham’s justified her in parting with it. - -She had one friend in Boston,--an old teacher,--in whose good faith and -judicious management she felt implicit confidence, and to him she sent -her mother’s ring, with a request that he would sell it as speedily -and on as good terms as possible, and remit her the price of it in -bank-notes, not in a check, and keep for ever the secret that she had -disposed of it. - -It was a week after George Graham had given up hope, when a most -unexpected hope came to him. A neighbor, going by from the post-office, -handed in at the door a letter addressed to him. Mrs. Graham opened -it, for George’s vision had failed with every day, and his eyes were -utterly useless now. - -“George,” she cried, after a moment, in an eager, trembling voice, -“here are three one-hundred dollar bills, and this is the letter that -comes with them:-- - -“‘This money is from a true friend of George Graham’s, and is to be -applied to taking him to an oculist, in the hope that his sight may -be restored. The giver withholds his name, both because he desires -no thanks, and because he wishes to make the return of the money -impossible.’ - -“It is from Heaven, itself!” the mother cried. “George, we will start -for Boston to-morrow. I feel in my soul that you are to be cured.” - -The next day a mother and her blind son sought rooms at a quiet -boarding-house, of which they had found the number in the advertisement -column of a city paper, and the day after that they were among the -earliest patients of Doctor Annesley. The first examination of George’s -eyes was unpromising enough. They would be worse before they were -better; an operation might or might not restore sight to them, but the -time for it had not yet come. Meanwhile the doctor wanted to see him -daily. - -Those were weary days and weeks that followed, both before the -operation and afterward, when the poor eyes were carefully bandaged -from the light, and mother and son sat day after day in the dark -together, wondering, wondering, wondering what the result would be. -It was curious that the mother was always hopeful, and the son always -despairing. At last it almost irritated him to hear her speak of hope -to him; and one day he turned on her with the first burst of passionate -impatience she had ever experienced from him. - -“Mother,” he said, “for the love of Heaven do not talk to me as if it -was a sure thing that I am going to see again. I _want_ to think it -doubtful, almost impossible. If you should make me expect a sure cure, -and then it shouldn’t come, don’t you see that I should go mad? I think -I should dash my head against the wall. I can only _live_ by expecting -nothing.” - -After that the mother held her peace; but whenever she went out of -that darkened room those who saw her marvelled at the light of joy in -her eyes, the bloom of hope upon her cheeks. At last the time came--the -bandage was removed. There was just one wild cry, “Mother, I see you!” -and then George Graham lay at the doctor’s feet, swooning and helpless -in his great joy. - -It was weeks yet before he went home again, but the good news preceded -him. The mother wrote it to Deacon Grant, who had agreed still to -keep the place in his store open, while awaiting the result of this -experiment. - -The deacon read the letter in full family conclave, with the slow -deliberation of a man unused to correspondence. He little knew how his -niece longed to snatch the paper from his hand and read it for herself; -nor did he heed the tears that swam in her dark eyes. - -Deliberately he smoothed out the letter, and folded it. Deliberately he -took off his spectacles, and wiped them, and put them on again. Then -he said, with the half pompous, half solemn manner which became his -position,-- - -“Well, well, I’m ready always to rejoice with those that rejoice; and -I’m sure I’m thankful that the Widow Graham hasn’t got to struggle with -so much trouble as it looked as if Providence was laying on her; but -wherever she got that money the Lord knows.” - -Another letter came, afterward, to tell when the widow and her son were -to return, and to ask Deacon Grant, in whose keeping the key of their -house had been left, to put it in their door on that day as he was -passing by to the store. - -It was Susie who walked over with the key, early in the afternoon, -carrying with her a basket of dainties for the travellers’ supper, from -Mrs. Grant, a woman who knew how to be a good neighbor, and to make -life pleasant with cheap kindnesses. Susie’s black eyes danced, and her -heart sang within her as she set the table in the little parlor and -lighted a fire in the kitchen stove, ready to make a fresh cup of tea -whenever the widow and her son should arrive. Then she dusted every -thing; and then she gathered some of the flowers of September,--for -already the summer was over,--and put them in the vases on the mantel, -and on the widow’s little round sewing-table. - -And at last the travellers came, as at last every thing does come, if -we wait long enough for it. They had expected to find an empty house; -they found instead, warmth and brightness and good cheer and Susie -Hale. - - - - -DR. JOE’S VALENTINE. - - -There were half-a-dozen of the girls together,--pretty creatures, in -the very first season of their long dresses,--the eldest not quite -sixteen. They were all braids and puffs and fluffy curls, all loops and -ruffles and ribbons, all smiles and dimples. It was the Saturday before -Valentine’s Day, in a certain year of grace, of which I will not give -you the precise date, but less than ten years ago, and more than five. -Of the half-dozen girls, two are busy teachers now, two are married, -one is playing mother to her brother’s little brood of orphan children, -and the sixth, not less happy than the rest, has gone on to “the next -country,” where they tell us she will never grow old, never be sick or -sorry any more,--happy Bertha, whom, surely, God loved. - -But, that day in February, none of them thought much about the future: -the present was enough, with its fun and frolic, its wealth of all the -pleasures which girlhood holds dear. The six were passing the long -day together. Two of them were sisters and belonged in one house, and -the rest had come there to be with them; for they were all going to -make valentines. They had made funny ones and foolish ones, tender -ones, with just a little dash of satire in them, poetic ones and prosy -ones; and at last it was dinner-time, a feast of all the things that -school-girls love, and these were hungry girls. At least they were all -hungry girls but Nelly Hunt, and she scarcely ate any dinner at all, -she was so busy thinking. She was Bertha’s sister, and this was her -home and Bertha’s, and it was to the girls’ own room that the little -party went back again, after they had eaten and praised Mrs. Hunt’s -dinner. - -“What are you thinking about, Nell?” Bertha asked, sitting on the arm -of Nelly’s chair. - -“These valentines,” Nelly answered slowly. - -“Well, surely they need not make you sober,--they are absurd enough.” - -“Yes, and it’s just because they are so absurd that they make me sober. -I was wondering why we couldn’t just as well have said something to -help somebody--to make somebody think--to do some good.” - -“Nelly’s heroics!” cried Kate Greene flippantly. “Miss Hunt as a moral -reformer!” - -Nelly blushed from her pretty ears to the roots of her sunny hair; but -her eyes shone clear, and there was a ring of earnestness in her voice -as she answered,-- - -“You can laugh if you will, but I mean what I say, and I’m going to try -an experiment. I will write one boy a valentine, such as I think a girl -ought to write, and I’ll send it.” - -“So you shall,” Bertha said gently,--Bertha always was peacemaker,--“and -we’ll all go away and see mamma and the baby while you write it. When -it’s done you must call us.” - -“Yes, and you must show it to us,” cried Kate Greene, as she went away; -“that’s only fair. We promised this morning to show each other all we -sent, and we sha’n’t let you off.” - -And then the five fluttered away like a flock of birds, and Nelly was -quite alone. - -Her task was harder than she had imagined. It is only the old, perhaps, -who are sage in counsel by nature. At any rate, to give good advice -did not come naturally to pretty Nelly. But she had an idea of what -she wanted to say, and at last she got it said. She had written and -rewritten it, and finally concluded that she could do no better, and -then copied it out into her neatest handwriting before she called the -others. It was a little stiff, to be sure, and preachy and high-flown, -but it sounded like a lofty effort and a complete success to the -listening girls. This was what it said:-- - -“MY VALENTINE,--You will have plenty of fine speeches and praises, -and, perhaps, of fun and fancy from others, so I shall not give you -those,--I who have but one interest in you, namely, that you should be -the best boy and the best man which it is possible for you to become. -If you are selfish, if you are indolent, if you are mean, you will -never be happy in your own society, until you have sunk so low that -you don’t know the difference between goodness and badness. But if you -set out to be a gentleman and a man of honor and a faithful worker, you -will do good deeds and live a happy life, and be worthy the everlasting -esteem of - - YOUR VALENTINE.” - -[Illustration: Nelly Reading her Valentine.--PAGE 220.] - -Nelly read it with rising color and a little quiver about her mouth, -which Bertha understood; but she read it with firm voice and careful, -deliberate accent. - -“Then,” she said, when she had finished, “I shall burn up all the rest -of my valentines, and send only this one; for it is what I mean, in -earnest, and, as old Aunty Smoke says, ‘Ef it don’t do no good, it -can’t do no harm.’” - -“To whom shall you send it, dear?” Bertha asked gently, a little -subdued by Nelly’s epistolary success. - -“I hadn’t made up my mind,” Nelly answered thoughtfully; “they all need -it.” - -“O, send it to Joe, my cousin Joe,” cried Kitty Greene. “He is staying -with us, and _he_ needs it--bad enough. If ever a boy was full of his -pranks, Joe is, and if ever a boy tormented a girl’s life out, Joe does -mine.” - -A color clear and bright as flame glowed on Nelly Hunt’s cheeks. Had -she had dark-eyed Joe in her mind all the while? She only answered very -quietly,-- - -“I don’t mind. I had just as lief send it to Joe. That is, I’ll send it -to him if you’ll promise, on your sacred honor, never in any way to let -him know who wrote it.” - -“Oh, I will--true as I live and breathe I’ll never tell him, and never -let him guess, if I can help it.” - -“And all you girls?” Nelly asked, with the pretty pink glow deepening -in her cheeks. “Will you all promise?” - -And they all promised; for there was a sort of honest earnestness in -Nelly’s nature to which they found it natural to yield. - -So the valentine was directed in Nelly’s most neat and proper manner to -“Mr. Joe Greene,” and was dropped into the post-office with the rest of -the valentines the girls had written that day. - -On the fifteenth the six girls were all together at school, comparing -notes and exchanging confidences. But Kitty Greene drew Nelly aside, -and said, while they walked up and down the hall together, their arms -around each other as girls will,-- - -“I saw Joe get it, Nelly.” - -Nelly’s pretty cheeks glowed and her eyes shone like stars, but she -asked no questions. Indeed, they were scarcely necessary, for Kitty was -eager enough to tell her story. - -“He got it, don’t you think, along with half-a-dozen others, and he -read them all before he came to this one. I knew this, you know, by -the shape of the envelope. When he came to it I saw him read it all -through, and then I saw him go back and read it again. I heard him say -to himself,-- - -“‘That’s an honest letter from some little saint.’ - -“Then he came up to me and held it toward me, while I pretended to be -very busy with my valentines. Then he asked,-- - -“‘Do you know that handwriting, Kit?’ - -“I felt like an awful little liar, but I had promised you. I stretched -out my hand for it, and said carelessly,-- - -“‘Why, ain’t it Sue’s?’ - -“Sue is his sister, you know. So he thought I did not know who it came -from, and he changed his mind, and put it into his pocket, and went -off. When I teased him afterward to let me see it, he said,-- - -“‘No; there are some things a fellow would be a cad to show.’ - -“So I saw it hit home, and well it might. It was a tremendous letter, -Nelly.” - -And Kitty ended with a hug and a kiss, and a look of that loyal -admiration which a girl can give another girl now and then. - -When the spring came Joe Greene went away from Chester, and did not -come back there any more. No doubt Nelly Hunt would have forgotten his -very existence but for the valentine, which she could not forget. She -used to blush, as she grew older, to think how “bumptious” it was, as -she used to call it to herself. What was _she_, that she should have -undertaken to preach a sermon to that boy? What if he remembered it -only to think how presuming it was, and to laugh at it? But, luckily, -he did not know from whom it came; and with that thought she cooled her -blushes. - -Nelly was twenty when Joe Greene came back to Chester again. And now -he came as a physician, just through his studies, and anxious to build -up a practice. Soon his fame grew. His patients were among the poor at -first, and he cured them; and then richer people heard of it, and sent -for him. But, while he took all the patients that came, he never gave -up his practice among those who most needed him. His praise was in all -their mouths. There had never been any doctor like this one. - -Nelly was Miss Hunt now, for Bertha had gone away from her into the -other, unknown country, and Nelly’s grief had made her gentle heart yet -more gentle, and her helpful spirit yet more helpful. - -Toward night, one summer day, she had gone to see an old woman who -had been her nurse once, and had found her very ill,--quite too ill -to be left alone, and certainly in need of a physician. So Nelly tore -a leaf from her memorandum-book and wrote on it a few lines, begging -Dr. Greene to come at once, and then called to the first passer-by and -entreated him to take it to the doctor. - -It was scarcely half an hour before Dr. Greene came in, quietly and -gravely. He attended to his patient with that careful consideration -which made all those poor souls whom he visited adore him. Then he -turned to Nelly. - -“Who will stay with her to-night?” he asked; “for, indeed, she hardly -ought to be left alone.” - -“I shall stay,” was the quiet answer. - -“Then come to the door with me, please, and let me give you your -directions.” - -Nelly followed, and stood there, in the soft summer dusk,--a pretty -picture, with the wild-rose flush dawning in her cheeks, and a new -light kindling her eyes. She listened carefully to all his injunctions, -and then turned as if to go. But he put out a hand to detain her. - -“How very much I owe to you!” he said. - -“_You_, how?” And a deep, deep crimson dyed Nelly’s face and throat. In -that moment she thought of her “bumptious” valentine, which had not -crossed her mind before for a long time. - -He looked at her with a smile in his eyes, but with a face that -preserved all its respectful gravity. He took a red leather case out -of his pocket, and from the case he took the very old valentine which -Nelly remembered so well. Then he produced the brief note she had -written that afternoon; and still there was light enough left in the -day to see them by, as he held them side by side. - -“Your hand has matured somewhat since this valentine was written,” he -remarked quietly; “but some of these letters I should know anywhere. No -one could deceive me.” - -“I did not suppose you had kept that foolish thing,” Nelly said, with a -pitiful little quiver in her voice, as if she were just on the point of -bursting into tears. “I am so ashamed!” - -Dr. Joe looked at her a moment, as she stood there in the waning -light,--a lovely, graceful girl from whom any man might be proud to win -even a passing interest. So this was the woman, the thought of whom -he had carried in his heart for years! If he had ever done any good -thing, he was paid for it in the satisfaction of that hour. - -“Are you sorry,” he asked slowly, “that you have helped one man to be -his best self? Those words of yours were to me like the voice of my -inmost soul. Since then this paper has never left me, nor have I ever -ceased to strive to be worthy of the esteem of my unknown ‘valentine.’ -If ever I have been generous instead of selfish, brave instead of -cowardly, strong instead of weak, it has been because I have remembered -the words written here, and meant to live in their spirit. Are you -sorry for that? or do you grudge me the dear pleasure of thanking you?” - -“No, I’m not sorry, nor do I grudge you any thing; but it was a girl’s -freak, and I am not worthy of so much praise and honor.” - -“It was a good girl’s good intention,” he said almost solemnly. “Let us -be thankful that it succeeded.” - -Nelly went back to the bedside of the old woman with a fluttering -heart. How strange it seemed to think this sick woman was old enough -to have outlived all anxieties except those about her pains and her -supper! Had not she been young once? and had no one ever looked at her -as Dr. Joe looked? - -The next morning he came again. His medicine, a night’s sleep, Nelly’s -care,--something seemed to have given the poor old patient a fresh -lease of life. There was no need that Nelly should stay with her any -more; but she went to see her daily, and it was curious how often Dr. -Joe’s visits happened at the same time. - -One night the doctor had left his horse at home, and he and Nelly -walked away together. They talked about the lingering sunset and the -soft south wind and even the old woman; for Nelly, woman-like, was -struggling desperately to keep Dr. Joe from saying what she desperately -wanted to hear. But, at last, it came,--a half-blunt, half-awkward -speech, yet with Dr. Joe’s honest heart in it,-- - -“I’ve lived all these years just to earn your esteem, and now I find I -don’t care a thing about that unless I can also win your love.” - -I think Nelly’s answer must have satisfied him, for she is Mrs. -Joseph Greene now; and that valentine--worn and old, but choicely -framed--always hangs over the doctor’s study table. - -[Illustration] - - * * * * * - - - - -_Bright; Lively, and Enjoyable_ - -“Jolly Good Times” Series - -_By Mary P. Wells Smith_ - - JOLLY GOOD TIMES; or, CHILD LIFE ON A FARM. - JOLLY GOOD TIMES AT SCHOOL; also, SOME TIMES NOT SO JOLLY. - THE BROWNS. - THEIR CANOE TRIP. - JOLLY GOOD TIMES AT HACKMATACK. - MORE GOOD TIMES AT HACKMATACK. - JOLLY GOOD TIMES TO-DAY. - A JOLLY GOOD SUMMER. - -[Illustration] - -_With Illustrations, 12 mo, cloth, gilt, $1.25 per volume. The set of -eight volumes, uniformly bound in cloth, gilt, in a box, $10.00._ - -Of these stories the Boston “Transcript” says: “Few series of juvenile -books appeal more strongly to children than the ‘Jolly Good Times’ -Series, written by Mary P. Wells Smith. The naturalness of the stories, -their brightness, their truth to boy and girl life and character, and -the skill with which the author manages incident and dialogue, have -given them deserved popularity.” - -It is Mrs. Smith’s happy ability to take the incidents of -child-life,--such a life as any child of bright mind and sweet -character, blessed with the surroundings of a good home, might -have,--and to record them with such faithfulness to the child’s -character, and yet with such charm in the narrative, as to make them -engagingly interesting to other children.--_Gazette and Courier_, -Greenfield, Mass. - - - - -The Young Puritans Series - -_By Mary P. Wells Smith_ - -_Author of “The Jolly Good Times” Series_ - - THE YOUNG PURITANS OF OLD HADLEY. - THE YOUNG PURITANS IN KING PHILIP’S WAR. - THE YOUNG PURITANS IN CAPTIVITY. - THE YOUNG AND OLD PURITANS OF HATFIELD. - -_Cloth, 12mo, Illustrated, each, $1.25._ - -Mrs. Smith deserves very hearty commendation for the admirable pictures -of Puritan life which are drawn with a skilful hand in this book. She -has chosen a representative Puritan village as the scene, and the -period of very early settlement of western Massachusetts for her story, -a village which retains many of its early features to this day. Mrs. -Smith knows the people of whom she writes thoroughly, and holds them -in high and loving esteem. Even the most prejudiced reader can hardly -close this book without seeing in these genuine Puritan people a phase -of human life at once fine in its courage, its endurance of terrible -hardships, and not unbeautiful in its childlike acceptance of God’s -dealings and its daily hunger and thirst after righteousness.--_The -Churchman._ - - -THE YOUNG PURITANS OF OLD HADLEY. 12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. $1.25. - -A capital colonial story.--_Congregationalist_, Boston. - -She catches the very spirit of Puritan life.--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._ - -The work has historic value as well as unique interest.--LILIAN -WHITING, _in Chicago Inter-Ocean_. - -An excellent book for school libraries.--_Literary News_, New York. - -The adventures of the boys while hunting, the trapping of wolves -and panthers, which infested the forests in those early days, the -encounters with the Indians, friendly and otherwise, are incidents -which make up a book which will fascinate all young readers.--_San -Francisco Bulletin._ - -The author has studied her subject carefully; and the pictures of this -life, extinct, yet still blood of our blood and bone of our bone, have -unusual interest.--_Chicago Dial._ - -Mrs. Smith has proven that she can write as simple and natural a story -of child-life when the scene is laid two hundred and fifty years ago -as when she chooses to describe country life in the New England of the -present century.--_Christian Register._ - - -THE YOUNG PURITANS IN KING PHILIP’S WAR. Illustrated by L. J. BRIDGMAN. -12mo. Cloth. $1.25. - -From a letter written the author by Bishop F. D. Huntington, Syracuse, -N. Y.: “Have read all the pages through, every word,--finding the -whole volume readable, entertaining, and satisfactory. Of course I -feel rather competent to say that, in the phraseology, the territorial -descriptions, the geography, the account of customs, language, family -habits, natural phenomena, you are singularly correct, accurate, and -felicitous.” - -Mrs. Smith seems to have caught the very breath and echo of those old -days, and she makes one seem not to be merely reading of those Puritans -and their constant struggles with their savage neighbors, but to be -actually beholding them.--_Jersey City Evening Journal._ - -The history of the seventeenth century in New England would gain new -life when read in the light of such books.--_Christian Endeavor Herald._ - - -THE YOUNG PURITANS IN CAPTIVITY. Illustrated by JESSIE WILLCOX SMITH. -12mo. Cloth. $1.25. - -Nothing could be more interesting than the period of which this story -treats, and the author has handled the subject in a manner that is -highly creditable. The reader will be for the nonce a Puritan, and will -follow the adventures of three children taken captive by the Indians, -feeling that he is a participant in the scenes so well portrayed. He -will sleep in the Indians’ wigwam and breathe the odor of the pines. -He will paddle a canoe upon the broad waters of the Connecticut, when -New England was but a wilderness, and get an insight into Indian nature -which he probably never had before.--_Sacramento Bee._ - -She shows the same power of graphic description, the same faithful use -of the best available material, and the same logical way of putting it -into shape.--_Commercial Advertiser, N. Y._ - -Mrs. Smith has made history live again in her life-like narrative. The -children of to-day may well learn something of the sterner virtues in -reading this story of the endurance and fortitude of children of two -centuries ago.--_Springfield Republican._ - - -THE YOUNG AND OLD PURITANS OF HATFIELD. Illustrated by BERTHA C. DAY. -12mo. $1.25. - - - LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., Publishers, - 254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON. - - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's New Bed-Time Stories, by Louise Chandler Moulton - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW BED-TIME STORIES *** - -***** This file should be named 60418-0.txt or 60418-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/4/1/60418/ - -Produced by Sonya Schermann, Nigel Blower and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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. 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