Initial commit of ebook 78992 filesHEADmain

1 files changed, 7285 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/78992-0.txt b/78992-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a5e9d23
--- /dev/null
+++ b/78992-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,7285 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78992 ***
+
+
+                          [Cover Illustration]
+
+                            “A DAILY RATE.”
+
+                                   BY
+                         GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL
+
+                               AUTHOR OF
+            “A Chautauqua Idyl,” “In the Way,” “Lone Point,”
+                     “Katharine’s Yesterday,” etc.
+
+
+
+                            The UNION PRESS
+                             Philadelphia.
+                         •1122 CHESTNUT STREET•
+
+
+
+
+        [Copyright, 1900, by The American Sunday-School Union.]
+
+                              A Daily Rate
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+
+
+The world would not have looked quite so dreary to her perhaps, if it
+had not been her birthday. Somehow one persists in expecting something
+unusual to happen on a birthday, no matter how many times one has had
+nothing but disappointment.
+
+Not that Celia Murray was really expecting anything, even a letter, on
+this birthday, though she did stand shivering in the half light of the
+dim, forlorn front room that served as a parlor for Mrs. Morris’
+boarding-house, watching for the postman to reach their door. She did it
+merely because she wished to be near, to get the letter at
+once,—provided there was a letter,—and not that she really hoped for
+one.
+
+It was Saturday evening, and the close of a half holiday in the store in
+which she usually stood all day long as saleswoman. The unusual half day
+off was on account of some parade in the city. Celia had not spent her
+afternoon at the parade. Instead, she had been in her small, cold, back
+bedroom in the third story, attending to various worn garments which
+needed mending. They had been spread out on the bed in a row, and she
+had gone steadily down the line putting a few stitches here, a button
+there, and setting in a patch in another, counting every minute of
+daylight hoping to finish her work before it faded, for the gas in her
+room was dim, the burner being old and worn out. She tried to be gay
+over the work. She called it her “dress parade.” She knew it was the
+best way in which to accomplish as much as she wished to do.
+
+And now it was six o’clock, and she had turned down the wretched,
+flickering light in her room and descended to the parlor to watch for
+the postman.
+
+He was late to-night, probably on account of the parade. She leaned her
+forehead against the cold glass and looked out into the misty darkness.
+Everything was murky and smoky. The passers-by seemed tired and in a
+hurry. Some had their collars turned up. She wondered where they were
+all going, and whether there were pleasant homes awaiting them. She let
+her imagination picture the homes of some. There was a young working man
+hurrying along with breezy step and swinging dinner pail. He had not
+been to the parade. His parade was at home awaiting his coming,—a
+laughing baby, a tidy wife, and the house redolent of fried onions and
+sausage. She had passed houses often at night where these odors were
+streaming forth from quickly opened and closed doors. The young man
+would like it; it would be pleasant to him. And the thought brought no
+less cheer to the watching girl because to her this supper would not be
+in the least appetizing.
+
+There passed by a strong old German, a day laborer perhaps. She pictured
+the table full of noisy children of various ages, and the abundance of
+sauerkraut and cheese and coffee and other viands set out. Then came a
+stream of girls, some clerks like herself, and some mill girls. On other
+evenings they would present a different appearance, but many of them
+to-night were in holiday attire on account of the half holiday which had
+been generally given throughout the city. These girls, some of them, had
+homes of more or less attractiveness, and others, like herself, were
+domiciled in boarding-houses. She sat down on one of the hard haircloth
+chairs and looked around that parlor. In the dimness of the turned down
+gas, it appeared more forlorn than usual. The ingrain carpet had long
+ago lost any claims to respectability. It had a dragged out, sodden
+appearance, and in places there were unmistakable holes. These, it is
+true, had been twisted and turned about so as to come mostly under the
+tables and sofa, but they were generally visible to the casual observer.
+The parlor suite of haircloth, by reason of being much sat upon, had
+lost the spring of youth, and several of the chairs and one end of the
+sofa looked like fallen cake. There was an asthmatic cabinet organ at
+the end of the room which had been left by some departing boarder,
+(under compulsion) in lieu of his board. There were a few worn pieces of
+music scattered upon it. Celia knew that the piece now open on the top
+was that choice selection “The Cat came back,” which was a great
+favorite with a young railroad brakeman who had a metallic tenor voice
+and good lungs. He was one of the boarders and considered quite a singer
+in the house. There was a feeble attempt at the æsthetic in the form of
+a red, bedraggled chenille portière at the doorway, bordered with large
+pink cabbage roses. The mantel had a worn plush scarf embroidered in a
+style quite out of date and ugly in the extreme. On it stood a large
+glass case of wax flowers, several cheap vases, and a match safe. Over
+it hung a crayon portrait of the landlady’s departed husband, and
+another of herself adorned the opposite wall, both done in staring
+crayon work from tin types of ancient date, heavily and cheaply framed.
+These with a marriage certificate of the clasped-hand-and-orange-wreath
+order, framed in gilt, made up the adornments of the room.
+
+Celia sighed as she looked about and took it all in once more. It was a
+dreary place. She had been in it but a week. Would she ever get used to
+it? She did not curl her lip in scorn as many other girls would have
+done over that room and its furnishings. Neither did she feel that utter
+distaste that is akin to hatred. Instead was a kind of pity in her heart
+for it all, and for the poor lonely creatures who had no other place to
+call home. Where there is such pity, there is sometimes love not far
+away. She even rose, went to the doorway and looped the loose,
+discouraged folds of the chenille curtain in more graceful fashion.
+Somehow her fingers could not help doing so much toward making that room
+different.
+
+Then she sighed and went to the window again. She could see the belated
+postman now across the street. She watched him as he flitted back and
+forth, ringing this bell and that, and searching in the great leather
+bag for papers or packages. His breath showed white against the dark
+greyish-blue of the misty evening air. His grey uniform seemed to be a
+part of the mist. The yellow glare of the street-lamp touched the gilt
+buttons and made a bright spot of the letters on his cap as he paused a
+moment to study an address before coming to their door.
+
+Celia opened the door before he had time to ring and took the letters
+from his hand. There were not many. The boarders in that house had not
+many correspondents. She stepped into the parlor once more, and turned
+up the gas now for a moment to see if there were any for herself.
+Strange to say, there were two, rather thin and unpromising it is true,
+but they gave a little touch of the unusual to the dull day. She noticed
+that one bore a familiar postmark and was in her aunt’s handwriting. The
+other held the city mark and seemed to be from some firm of lawyers. She
+did not feel much curiosity concerning it. It was probably some
+circular. It did not look in the least interesting. She pushed them both
+quickly into her pocket as the front door opened letting in several
+noisy boarders. She did not wish to read her letters in public. They
+would keep till after supper. The bell was already ringing. It would not
+be worth while to go upstairs before she went to the dining-room.
+Experience taught her that the supper was at its very worst the minute
+after the bell rang. If one waited one must take the consequences, and
+“the consequences” were not desirable. The meals in that house were not
+too tempting at any time. Not that she cared much for her supper, she
+was too weary, but one must eat to live, and so she went to the
+dining-room.
+
+Out there the gas was turned to its highest. The coarse tablecloth was
+none of the cleanest. In fact, it reminded one of former breakfasts and
+dinners. The thick white dishes bore marks of hard usage. They were
+nicked and cracked. There were plates of heavy, sour-looking bread at
+either end of the table. The butter looked mussy and uninviting. The
+inevitable, scanty supply of prunes stood before the plate of the young
+German clerk, who was already in his chair helping himself to a liberal
+dish. The German clerk was fond of prunes, and always got to the table
+before any one else. Some of the others good-naturedly called him
+selfish, and frequently passed meaning remarks veiled in thin jokes
+concerning this habit of his; but if he understood he kept the matter to
+himself, and was apparently not thin-skinned.
+
+There was a stew for dinner that night. Celia dreaded stews since the
+night of her arrival when she had found a long curly hair on her plate
+in the gravy. There were such possibilities of utility in a stew. It was
+brought on in little thick white dishes, doled out in exact portions.
+There were great green fat pickles, suggesting copper in their pickling,
+and there was a plate of cheese and another of crackers. A girl brought
+each one a small spoonful of canned corn, but it was cold and scarcely
+cooked at all, and the kernels were large and whole. Celia having tasted
+it, pushed her dish back and did not touch it again. On the side table
+was a row of plates each containing a slim, thin piece of pale-crusted
+pie, its interior being dark and of an undefined character. Celia tried
+to eat. The dishes were not all clean. Her spoon had a sticky handle and
+so had her fork. The silver was all worn off the blade of her knife, and
+she could not help thinking that perhaps it was done by being constantly
+used to convey food to the mouth of the brakeman with the tenor voice.
+
+One by one the boarders drifted in. It was surprising how quickly they
+gathered after that bell rang. They knew what they had to depend upon in
+the way of bread and butter, and it was first come first served. Little
+Miss Burns sat across the table from Celia. She was thin and nervous and
+laughed a good deal in an excited way, as if everything were unusually
+funny, and she were in a constant state of embarrassing apology. There
+were tired little lines around her eyes, and her mouth still wore a baby
+droop, though she was well along in years. Celia noticed that she drank
+only a cup of tea and nibbled a cracker. She did not look well. It was
+plain the dinner was no more appetizing to her than to the young girl
+who had so recently come there to board. She ought to have some delicate
+thin slices of nicely browned toast and a cup of good tea with real
+cream in it, and a fresh egg poached just right, or a tiny cup of good
+strong beef bullion, Celia said to herself. She amused herself by
+thinking how she would like to slip out in the kitchen and get them for
+her, only—and she almost smiled at the thought—she would hardly find
+the necessary articles with which to make all that out in the Morris
+kitchen.
+
+Next to Miss Burns sat two young girls, clerks in a three-cent store.
+They carried a good deal of would-be style, and wore many bright rings
+on their grimy fingers, whose nails were never cleaned nor cut
+apparently—except by their teeth. These girls were rather pretty in a
+coarse way, and laughed and talked a good deal in loud tones with the
+tenor brakeman, whose name was Bob Yates, and with the other young men
+boarders. These young men were respectively a clerk in a department
+store, a student in the University, and a young teacher in the public
+schools. Celia noticed that neither the student nor the school-teacher
+ate heartily, and that the young dry goods salesman had a hollow cough.
+How nice it would be if they all could have a good dinner just for once,
+soup and roast beef, and good bread and vegetables, with a delicious
+old-fashioned apple dumpling smoking hot, such as her aunt Hannah could
+make. How she would enjoy giving it to them all. How she would like to
+eat some of it herself! She sighed as she pushed back her plate with a
+good half of the stew yet untouched, and felt that it was impossible to
+eat another mouthful of that. Then she felt ashamed to think she cared
+so much for mere eating, and tried to talk pleasantly to the little old
+lady beside her, who occupied a small dismal room on the third floor and
+seemed to stay in it most of the time. Celia had not yet found out her
+occupation nor her standing in society, but she noticed that she
+trembled when she tried to cut her meat, and she was shabbily clothed in
+rusty black that looked as if it had served its time out several times
+over.
+
+Mrs. Morris came into the dining-room when the pie was being served. She
+was large and worried-looking, and wore a soiled calico wrapper without
+a collar. Her hair had not been combed since morning and some locks had
+escaped in her neck and on her forehead and added to her generally
+dejected appearance. She sat down heavily and wearily at the head of the
+table, and added her spiritless voice to the conversation. She asked
+them all how they enjoyed the parade and declared it would have been
+enough parade for her if she could have “set down for a couple of
+hours.” Then she sighed and drank a cup of tea from her saucer, holding
+the saucer on the palm of her hand.
+
+It all looked hopelessly dreary to Celia. And here she expected to spend
+the home part of her life for several years at least, or if not here,
+yet in some place equally destitute of anything which constitutes a
+home.
+
+Except for her brief conversation with the old lady on her right and a
+few words to Miss Burns, she had spoken to no one during the meal, and
+as soon as she had excused herself from the pie and folded her napkin,
+she slipped upstairs to her room, for the thought of the two letters in
+her pocket seemed more inviting than the pie. She turned the gas to its
+highest though it did screech, that she might see to read her letters,
+and then she drew them forth. Her aunt Hannah’s came first. She tore the
+envelope. Only one sheet and not much written thereon. Aunt Hannah was
+well, but very busy, for Nettie’s children were all down with whooping
+cough and the baby had been quite sick, poor little thing, and she had
+no time to write. Hiram, Nettie’s husband, too, had been ill and laid up
+for a week, so aunt Hannah had been nursing night and day. She enclosed
+a little bookmark to remember Celia’s birthday. She wished she could
+send her something nice, but times were hard and Celia knew she had no
+money, so she must take it out in love.
+
+Hiram’s sickness and the doctor’s bills made things close for Nettie or
+she would have remembered the birthday, too, perhaps. Aunt Hannah felt
+that it was hard to have to be a burden on Nettie, now when the children
+were young and she and Hiram needed every cent he could earn, but what
+else could she do? She sent her love to her dear girl, however, and
+wanted her to read the verse on the little ribbon enclosed and perhaps
+it would do her good. She hoped Celia had a nice comfortable “homey”
+place to board and would write soon.
+
+That was all. The white ribbon bookmark was of satin and bore these
+words:
+
+“His allowance was a continual allowance . . . a daily rate. 2 Kings
+xxv. 30,” and beneath in smaller letters:
+
+           “Charge not thyself with the weight of a year,
+           Child of the Master, faithful and dear,
+           Choose not the cross for the coming week,
+           For that is more than he bids thee seek.
+           Bend not thine arms for to-morrow’s load,
+           Thou mayest leave that to thy gracious God,
+           Daily, only he says to thee,
+           ‘Take up thy cross and follow me.’”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Celia read the words over mechanically. She was not thinking so much of
+what they said, as she was of what her aunt had written, or rather of
+what she had not written, and what could be read between the lines, by
+means of her knowledge of that aunt and her surroundings. In other words
+Celia Murray was doing exactly what the words on the white ribbon told
+her not to do. She was charging herself “with the weight of a year.” She
+had picked up the cross of the coming months and was bending under it
+already.
+
+Her trouble was aunt Hannah. Oh, if she could but do something for her.
+She knew very well that that little sentence about being a burden on
+Nettie meant more than aunt Hannah would have her know. She knew that
+aunt Hannah would never feel herself a burden on her niece Nettie,—for
+whom she had slaved half her life, and was still slaving, unless
+something had been said or done to make her feel so; and Celia, who
+never had liked her cousin-in-law, Hiram, at any time, for more reasons
+than mere prejudice, knew pretty well who it was that had made good,
+faithful, untiring aunt Hannah feel that she was a burden.
+
+Celia’s eyes flashed, and she caught her hands in each other in a quick
+convulsive grasp. “Oh, if I could but do something to get aunt Hannah
+out of that and have her with me!” she exclaimed aloud. “But here am I
+with six dollars and a half a week; paying out four and a quarter for
+this miserable hole they call a home; my clothes wearing out just as
+fast as they can, and a possibility hanging over me that I may not suit
+and may be discharged at any time. How can I ever get ahead enough to do
+anything!”
+
+She sat there thinking over her life and aunt Hannah’s. Her own mother
+and Nettie’s mother had died within a year of each other. They were both
+aunt Hannah’s sisters. Mr. Murray did not long survive his wife, and
+Celia had gone to live with her cousins who were being mothered by aunt
+Hannah, then a young, strong, sweet woman. Her uncle, Mr. Harmon, had
+been a hard working, silent man, who had supplied the wants of his
+family as well as he could, but that had not always been luxuriously,
+for he had never been a successful man. The children had grown fast and
+required many things. There were five of his own and Celia, who had
+shared with the rest,—though never really getting her share, because of
+her readiness to give up and the others’ readiness to take what she gave
+up. Somehow the Harmon children had a streak of selfishness in them, and
+they always seemed willing that aunt Hannah and Celia should take a back
+seat whenever any one had to do so, which was nearly all the time. Celia
+never resented this for herself, even in her heart; but for aunt Hannah
+she often and often did so. That faithful woman spent the best years of
+her life, doing for her sister’s children as if they had been her own,
+and yet without the honor of being their mother, and feeling that the
+home was her own. She had never married, she was simply aunt Hannah, an
+excellent housekeeper, and the best substitute for a mother one could
+imagine. As the children grew up they brought all their burdens to aunt
+Hannah to bear, and when there were more than she could conveniently
+carry, they would broadly hint that it was Celia’s place to help her,
+for Celia was the outsider, the dependent, the moneyless one. It had
+fallen to her lot to tend the babies till they grew from being tended
+into boys, and then to follow after and pick up the things they left in
+disorder in their wake. It was she who altered the girls’ dresses to
+suit the style, and fashioned dainty hats from odds and ends, turning
+and pressing them over to make them as good as new for some special
+occasion. And then when it came her turn, it was she who had to stay at
+home, because she had nothing to wear, and no time to make it over, and
+nothing left to make over, because she had given it all to the others.
+
+Then had come the day,—not so many weeks ago: Celia remembered it as
+vividly as though it had happened but yesterday; she had gone over the
+details so many times they were burned upon her brain. And yet, how long
+the time really had been and how many changes had come! The boy came up
+from the office with a scared face to say that something had happened to
+Mr. Harmon, and then they had brought him home and the family all too
+soon learned that there was no use in trying to resuscitate him,—all
+hope had been over before he was taken from the office. Heart failure,
+they said! And instantly following upon this had come that other phrase,
+“financial failure,” and soon the orphans found they were penniless.
+This was not so bad for the orphans, for they were fully grown and the
+girls were both married. The three boys all had good positions and could
+support themselves. But what of aunt Hannah and Celia? Nettie and Hiram
+had taken aunt Hannah into their family, ill-disguising the fact that
+she was asked because of the help she could give in bringing up and
+caring for the children, but Celia had understood from the first that
+there was no place for her.
+
+She had been given a good education with the others, that is, a common
+school course followed by a couple of years in the High School. She had
+her two hands and her bright wits and nothing else. A neighbor had
+offered to use her influence with a friend of a friend of a partner in a
+city store, and the result was her position. She had learned since she
+came that it was a good one as such things went. She had regular hours
+for meals and occasional holidays, and her work was not heavy. She felt
+that she ought to be thankful. She had accepted it, of course, there was
+nothing else to be done, but she had looked at aunt Hannah with a heavy
+heart and she knew aunt Hannah felt it as keenly. They had been very
+close to each other, these two, who had been separated from the others,
+in a sense, and had burdens to bear. Perhaps their sense of loneliness
+in the world had made them cling the more to each other. Celia would
+have liked to be able to say “Aunt Hannah, come with me. I can take care
+of you now. You have cared for me all my life, now I will give you a
+home and rest.” Ah! if that could have been! Celia drew her breath
+quickly, and the tears came between the closed lids. She knew if she
+once allowed the tears full sway, they would not stay till they had
+swept all before them, and left her in no fit state to appear before
+those dreadful, inquisitive boarders, or perhaps even to sell ribbons in
+Dobson and Co.’s on Monday. No, she must not give way. She would read
+that other letter and take her mind from these things, for certain it
+was that she could do nothing more now than she had done, except to
+write aunt Hannah a cheering letter, which she could not do unless she
+grew cheerful herself.
+
+So she opened the other letter.
+
+It was from Rawley and Brown, a firm of lawyers on Fifth street,
+desiring to know if she was Celia Murray, daughter of Henry Dean Murray
+of so forth and so on, and if she was, would she please either write or
+call upon them at her earliest possible convenience, producing such
+evidences of her identity as she possessed.
+
+The girl laughed as she read it over again. “The idea!” she said,
+talking aloud to herself again as she had grown into the habit of doing
+since she was alone, just to feel as if she were talking to some one.
+“If they want to identify me, let them do so. I’m not asking anything of
+them. If I’m I, prove it! How very funny! What for, I wonder? There
+can’t be a fortune, I know, for father didn’t have a cent. I’m sure I’ve
+had that dinged into my ears times enough by Nettie, and even Uncle
+Joseph took pains to tell me that occasionally. Well, it is mysterious.”
+
+She got up and began to walk about the room singing to herself the old
+nursery rhyme:
+
+            “‘If it be me, as I suppose it be,
+            I’ve a little dog at home and he’ll know me;
+            If it be _I_, he’ll wag his little tail,
+            And if it be _not_ I, he’ll bark, and he’ll wail.’
+
+“Dear me!” said Celia, “I’m worse off than the poor old woman who fell
+asleep on the king’s highway. I haven’t even a little dog at home who’ll
+know me.” She sighed and sat down, picking up the white ribbon that had
+fallen to the floor. Then she read it over again carefully.
+
+“How like aunt Hannah that sounds!” she said to herself, as she read the
+poem slowly over, “‘Child of the Master, faithful and dear.’ I can hear
+aunt Hannah saying that to me. She was always one to hunt out beautiful
+things and say them to me as if they had been written all for my poor
+self. If aunt Hannah had ever had time, I believe she would have been a
+poet. She has it in her. How entirely I have been doing just exactly
+what this poem says I must not do: choosing my cross for the coming
+week. Yes, and bending my arm for to-morrow’s load. I have been thinking
+what a dreary Sunday I should have, and wondering how I could endure it
+all day long in this ugly, cold room. And I won’t stay down in that mean
+parlor and listen to their horrible singing. It wouldn’t be right
+anyway, for they have not the slightest idea of Sabbath keeping. Last
+Sunday was one hurrah all day long. I wonder what that verse at the top
+is—‘His allowance was a continual allowance.’ I declare I don’t
+remember to have ever read it before. But trust aunt Hannah to ferret
+out the unusual verses. I must look it up. Second Kings: who was it
+about, anyway? The twenty-fifth chapter. Oh! here it is!” She read:
+
+    “‘And it came to pass in the seven and thirtieth year of the
+    captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on
+    the seven and twentieth day of the month, that Evil-me-rodach
+    king of Babylon in the year that he began to reign did lift up
+    the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah out of prison;
+
+    And he spake kindly to him, and set his throne above the throne
+    of the kings that were with him in Babylon;
+
+    And changed his prison garments: and he did eat bread
+    continually before him all the days of his life.
+
+    And his allowance was a continual allowance given him of the
+    king, a daily rate for every day, all the days of his life.’”
+
+Celia paused and read the verses over again.
+
+She began to see why her aunt had sent it to her, and more than that why
+her heavenly Father had sent it to her. It was the same thought that was
+in the bit of a poem. God was taking care of her. He was a king and he
+was able to lift her head up out of prison, if this was a prison, and
+set her even on a throne, and change her prison garments, and more than
+that give her an allowance of grace to meet all the daily needs of her
+life. A continual allowance: she need never worry lest it should give
+out. It was “all the days of her life.” And aunt Hannah was his also. He
+would care for her in the same way. There was nothing to be done but to
+trust and do what he gave her to do. Perhaps it was unusually hard for
+her to do that. She had always been so accustomed to looking ahead and
+bearing burdens for others and planning for them. She recognized her
+fault and resolved to think more about it. Meantime, obviously the next
+duty for her to perform, and one by no means a cross, was for her to
+write a long cheery letter to aunt Hannah, who she could easily see was
+homesick for her already, though it was but a week since they had been
+separated. She gathered together her writing materials, drew her chair a
+little nearer the poor light, put on her heavy outdoor coat, for the
+room was chilly, though it was only the latter part of October, and
+began to write; thinking meanwhile that she could perhaps make a
+pleasant Sabbath afternoon for herself out of the study of Jehoiachin,
+who was so much a stranger to her that she had hardly remembered there
+was such a person spoken of in the Bible.
+
+The letter she wrote was long and cheerful. It abounded in pen pictures
+of the places and things she had seen, and it contained descriptions in
+detail of the different boarders. She tried not to tell the disagreeable
+things, for she knew aunt Hannah would be quick to understand how hard
+it all was for her to bear, and she would not lay a feather’s burden
+upon those dear hard-worked shoulders. So she detailed merry
+conversations, and made light of the poor fare, saying she had a very
+good and a very cheap place they all told her and she guessed they were
+right.
+
+She also drew upon her imagination and described the dear little home
+she was going to make for aunt Hannah to come and rest in and spend her
+later years, and she told her she was going to begin right away to save
+up for it. She made it all so real that the tears came to her eyes for
+very longing for it, and one dropped down on the paper and blotted a
+word. She hastily wiped it out, and then took a fresh page, for aunt
+Hannah’s eyes were keen. She would be quick to know what made that blot.
+She paused a minute with her pen in air ere she closed the letter.
+Should she, or should she not tell aunt Hannah of that letter from the
+lawyers? No, she would not until she saw whether it came to anything,
+and if so, what. It might only worry her aunt. There were worries enough
+at Hiram’s without her putting any more in the way. So she finished her
+letter, sealed and addressed it, and then ran down to put it in the box.
+
+As she returned from her errand into the misty outdoor world, and closed
+the door behind her shivering, glad she did not have to go out any more,
+she met the tall, lanky cook in untidy work dress and unkempt hair.
+Celia noticed instantly that it was curly hair and black, like the one
+she found in the stew the night she came. She was passing on upstairs
+but the cook put out her hand and stopped her.
+
+“Say,” she said in familiar tones, “I wish you’d jes’ step into Mis’
+Morris’ room and stay a spell. She’s ben took dreadful sick this
+evenin’, and I’ve ben with her off an’ on most all the time, an’ I’ve
+got pies yet to bake fer to-morrow, an’ I can’t spend no more time up
+there now. She ought to have some one, an’ the rest seems all to be gone
+out ’cept that ol’ lady up there, an’ she’s gone to bed by this time, I
+reckon.”
+
+Celia could do nothing but consent to go, of course, though the task
+looked anything but a pleasant one. Mrs. Morris had never struck her
+pleasantly. She enquired as to the sickness. The woman didn’t exactly
+know what was the matter. No, there had not been any physician sent for.
+“There wan’t no one to go in the first place, and, secondly, doctors is
+expensive things, take ’em anyway you will, medicine and all. Mrs.
+Morris can’t afford no doctors. She’s most killed with debt now.”
+
+Celia turned on the stairs, and followed the woman’s direction to find
+Mrs. Morris’ room. Over in her mind came those words she had read a
+little while ago.
+
+                   “Daily, only, he says to thee,
+                   ‘Take up thy cross and follow me.’”
+
+She smiled, and thought how soon the cross had come to her after she had
+laid down the wrong one of a week ahead, and tapped softly on Mrs.
+Morris’ door, lifting up her heart in a prayer that she might be shown
+how to do or say the right thing if action were required of her. Then
+she heard a strained voice, as of one in pain, call “Come in,” and she
+opened the door.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Mrs. Morris lay on her unmade bed, still in the soiled wrapper. Her
+expansive face was drawn in agony and she looked white and sick. She
+seemed surprised to see Celia, and supposed she had come to prefer a
+request for another towel, perhaps, or to make some complaint.
+
+“You’ll have to ask Maggie,” she said without waiting to hear what the
+girl had to say. “I can’t talk now, I’m suffering so. It’s just
+terrible. I never was so sick in me life.”
+
+“But I’ve come to see if I can’t help you,” explained Celia. “Maggie
+told me you were sick. Tell me what is the matter. Perhaps I can do
+something for you. I know about sickness and nursing.”
+
+“Oh, such awful pain!” said the woman, writhing in agony, “I suppose
+it’s something I’ve et. Though I never et a thing, all day long, but a
+little piece of pie at dinner to-night and me tea. Me nerves is all used
+up with worrying anyway, and me stomach won’t stand anything any more.”
+
+Celia asked a few practical questions, and then told her she would
+return in a minute. She found her way in haste to the kitchen, though
+she had never before penetrated to that realm of darkness—and dirt. She
+ordered Maggie peremptorily to bring her a large quantity of very hot
+water as soon as she could, and send somebody for a doctor. Then she
+went up to her own room and hastily gathered a bottle or two from her
+small store of medicines and a piece of an old blanket she had brought
+from home. She hesitated a moment. She ought to have another flannel.
+The woman was too sick to find anything, and she had said she did not
+know where there were any old flannels. It was necessary. She must take
+up this cross to save that poor woman from her suffering and perhaps
+save her life, for she was evidently very sick indeed. She waited no
+longer, but quickly took out her own clean flannel petticoat. It was
+nothing very fine, and was somewhat old, but it was a sacrifice to think
+of using any of her personal clothing down there in that dirty room, and
+for that woman who did not seem to be scrupulously clean herself.
+However, there was no help for it, and she hurried back as fast as she
+could. She gave the poor woman a little medicine which she thought might
+help her, and she knew could do no harm till the doctor could get there,
+and then plunging the cherished blanket into the hot water, she wrung it
+as dry as she could and quickly applied it to the seat of pain, covering
+it with the flannel skirt. She knew there was nothing like hot
+applications to relieve severe pain. She saw by the look of relief that
+passed over the sick woman’s face that the pain had relaxed to some
+extent. After a moment, Mrs. Morris said:
+
+“I don’t know as you’d a needed to send for a doctor, this might have
+helped me without him. I can’t bear to think of his bill. Bills’ll be
+the death of me yet, I’m afraid.”
+
+But a spasm of pain stopped her speech, and Celia hastened to repeat the
+applications.
+
+It was some time before the doctor arrived. The girl had to work fast
+and hard. It was evident when he came that he thought the patient a very
+sick woman. Mrs. Morris realized this, too. After the doctor was gone
+and Celia was left alone with her, she asked her if she supposed the
+doctor thought she was going to die.
+
+“Though I ain’t got much to live for, the land knows—nor to die for
+either for the matter of that.”
+
+“Oh you forget!” said Celia, reverently, aghast that one should speak in
+that tone of dying, “There is Jesus! Don’t you know him?”
+
+The woman looked at her as if she had spoken the name of some heathen
+deity, and then turned her head wearily.
+
+“No,” she said, “I don’t suppose I am a Christian. I never had any time.
+When I was a girl there was always plenty of fun, and I never thought
+about it, and after I got married there wasn’t time. I did tell the
+minister I would think about joining church the time of my daughter’s
+funeral, but I never did. I kind of wish I had now. One never is ready
+to die, I s’pose. But then living isn’t easy either, the land knows.”
+
+A grey ashen look overspread her face. Celia wondered if perhaps she
+might not be dying even now. She shuddered. It seemed so terrible for
+any one to die in that way. She had never been with a very sick person
+near to death, and she did not know the signs well enough to judge how
+much danger there might be of it. She felt however that she must say
+something. The woman must have some thread of hope, if she should be
+really dying. She came close to her and took her hand tenderly.
+
+“Dear Mrs. Morris! Don’t talk that way. Dying isn’t hard, I’m sure, if
+you have Jesus, and he’s always near and ready, if you will only take
+him now. I know he helps one to die, for I can remember my own dear
+mother, though I was but a little girl. She had a beautiful look on her
+face, when she bade me good-bye, and told me she was going to be with
+Jesus, and that I must always be a good girl and get ready to come to
+her. She looked very happy about it.”
+
+Mrs. Morris opened her eyes and gave her a searching look. Then she said
+in a voice half-way between a groan and a frightened shout:
+
+“Why do you talk like that? You don’t think I am dying, do you? Tell me,
+quick! Did the doctor say I was going to die? Why did he go away if that
+was so? Send for him quick!”
+
+Then the inexperienced young girl realized that she had made a mistake
+and been too much in earnest. There was danger that the woman might make
+herself much worse by such excitement. She must calm her. To talk to her
+thus would do no good. She must wait until a suitable season.
+
+“No, Mrs. Morris,” she said, rising and speaking calmly, “he did not say
+so, and I do not believe you are going to die. You must not get so
+excited, or you will make yourself worse. Here, take your medicine now,
+for it is time. I did not mean you to think I thought you were dying,
+and I’m sorry I spoke about my mother’s death, it was very foolish of
+me. Please forget it now. I only wanted to tell you how Jesus was
+standing near ready to be a comfort to you always, whether you lived or
+died. But now you ought to go to sleep. Would you like me to sing to
+you? Is the pain a little easier? The doctor said you must lie very
+quiet. Can I get you anything?”
+
+By degrees she calmed the woman again, and then sat down to watch and
+give her the medicine. There seemed to be no one whose business it was
+to relieve Celia. Maggie put her head in the door about midnight to say
+she was going to bed now and had left a fire, if any more hot water was
+needed. Celia sat there gradually taking in the fact that she was left
+to sit up all night with this sick woman, an utter stranger to her. It
+was scarcely what she would choose as a pleasant task. But she
+recognized it as the cross the Master had laid upon her with his own
+hand, and there was a sense of sweetness in performing this duty which
+she would not have had otherwise. It occurred to her that it was well
+this was Saturday night instead of some other, for she could ill afford
+to sit up and lose all her sleep when she had to stand at the counter
+all the next day. She smiled to herself in the dim light and thought
+this must be part of the Master’s plan, to fix it so that she could do
+this duty and her others also. This was all he asked her to do, just
+what she had strength for. He gave her the daily allowance of that. But
+what if she should have to sit up to-morrow night? “Daily, only, he says
+to thee,” and “Thou mayest leave that to thy gracious Lord,” came the
+answering words, for now she knew the little poem by heart. She went
+upstairs, hastily changed her dress for a loose wrapper, and secured her
+Bible and one or two articles which she thought might be useful in
+caring for the sick woman. When she came down again Mrs. Morris seemed
+to be asleep, and Celia settled herself by the dim light with her Bible.
+She felt that she needed some help and strength. She had not read long
+when Mrs. Morris said in a low voice, “Is that the Bible you’ve got?
+Read a little piece to me.”
+
+Celia hardly knew where to turn for the right words just now, but her
+Bible opened easily of itself to the twenty-third psalm and she read the
+words in a low, musical voice, praying the while that they might be sent
+of the Spirit to reach the sick woman’s heart. When she stopped reading
+Mrs. Morris seemed to be asleep again, and Celia settled herself in the
+least uncomfortable chair in the room, and began to think.
+
+But she had not long for this occupation, for this was to be a night of
+action. The terrible pain which for a time had been held by some
+powerful opiate the doctor had given when he first came in, returned in
+full force, and the patient soon was writhing in mortal agony once more.
+Celia was roused from her thoughts. She called Maggie and sent for hot
+water and the doctor again, and it was not until morning was beginning
+to stain the sky with crimson that she sat down to breathe and realize
+that Mrs. Morris was still alive. It seemed almost a miracle that she
+was, for the doctor had said when he arrived that there was doubt
+whether he could save her.
+
+Early in the morning Miss Burns came in to relieve her watch, and Celia
+snatched a little sleep, but she found on awaking that she was needed
+again. Mrs. Morris had asked for her. She went down to the breakfast
+table and found, what she had not supposed possible, that the breakfast
+was so much worse than former breakfasts, since the mistress was sick,
+that it was hardly possible to eat at all. It seemed that Mrs. Morris
+had made some difference in things, though Celia had thought the night
+before that they could not very well be much worse. She had yet to find
+that there were many grades below even this in boarding-houses.
+
+The Sabbath was not spent in studying Jehoiachin. It was full, but not
+with attending church services. She did not stay in her cold little
+room. She would have been glad to have been allowed to flee to that
+refuge. Instead, she made her headquarters in Mrs. Morris’ room and from
+there she began by degrees to order things about her, for Mrs. Morris
+seemed to have placed all her dependence upon her. It was she who
+answered the questions of Maggie about this thing and that, and who kept
+the entire list of boarders from coming in to talk to Mrs. Morris and
+commiserate her. She also cleared up the room and gave a touch of
+something like decent care to the sick woman and her surroundings. Once
+or twice the patient opened her eyes, looked around, seemed to see the
+subtle difference, and then closed them again. Celia could not tell
+whether it pleased her or whether she was indifferent. But it was not in
+Celia’s nature to stay in a room and not make those little changes of
+picking up a shoe and straightening a quilt and hanging clothing out of
+sight. She did it as a matter of course.
+
+Occasionally, when she had time to do so, she wondered what aunt Hannah
+would think if she could see her now, and she smiled to think that this
+was just what she seemed to have had to do all her life,—give up to
+help other people. Then she thought perhaps it was the most blessed
+thing that could happen to her.
+
+Occasionally there would come to her a remembrance of that letter from
+the lawyers, and she would wonder what it meant, and how she could
+possibly go to work to find out.
+
+Sunday evening she sat with her landlady for a couple of hours. The pain
+seemed to be a little easier, though she had spent an intensely trying
+day. She seemed worried and inclined to talk. Celia tried to soothe her
+and persuade her to get calm for sleeping, but it was of no use.
+
+“How can I sleep,” answered the woman impatiently, “with so many things
+to fret about? Here am I on me back for the land knows how long, and the
+doctor wanting me to go to the hospital. How can I go to the hospital?
+What will become of me house, and me business if I up and off that way?
+And then when I get well, if I ever do, what’s to become of me? Me house
+would be empty, or me goods sold for grocery debts and other things, and
+I should starve. I might as well take the chances of dying outright now
+as that. I know I’d die in the hospital anyway, fretting about things.
+That Maggie never could carry on things, even if I was only to be gone
+two days. She never remembers to salt anything. Those two girls from
+that three-cent store have been complaining about the soup to-day
+already. They say it was just like dish water. And that German fellow
+came and told me to-night, with me lying sick here, that he’d have to
+leave if things didn’t improve. He said I ought to get better help!
+Think of it! How am I going about to get help and me on me back not able
+to stir? I don’t much care if he does leave, he always ate more than all
+the rest of them put together. But land, if I should get well right away
+and keep on, I don’t see where I’m coming to. There’s bills everywhere,
+milk and meat and groceries and dry goods. I don’t know how I’m ever to
+pay ’em. It’ll be just go on and pay a little, and get deeper into debt,
+and pay a little of that and make more debt, till I come to the end
+sometime, and I s’pose it might as well be now as any time.”
+
+Poor Celia! She had no words ready for such trouble as this. Debt had
+always been to her an awful thing, a great sin, never to be committed.
+She never realized that there were people to whom to be in debt seemed
+the normal way of living from day to day. She tried to think of
+something comforting to say, for how could a woman get well with such a
+weight as this on her mind? It would do no good to quote verses of
+Scripture about taking no thought for the morrow, nor to quote that
+sweet poem of hers about not bearing next week’s crosses. The poor woman
+would not understand. She had not so lived in the past as to know how to
+claim the promise of being cared for. She would scarcely understand if
+Celia tried to tell her that if she would but cast her care now on Jesus
+he would help her in some way at once. This was what she longed to say,
+but her experience of the night before led her to fear saying anything
+which might excite the poor nervous woman.
+
+“How much money do you need to pay all your debts and set you straight
+again?” she asked, thinking a little opportunity to go over her troubles
+might quiet her.
+
+“Oh, I don’t know,” wailed the poor woman. “If I just had a thousand
+dollars, I’d sell out me business and go somewhere and get out of it.
+Things seem to be getting worse and worse.” She began to cry feebly, and
+Celia was at her wit’s end. Everything she said seemed to make matters
+worse. Suddenly she began to sing in a low soft voice,
+
+                     “Jesus, Saviour, pilot me,
+                     Over life’s tempestuous sea.”
+
+Her voice was sweet and pure, and the woman paused to listen while Celia
+sang on until she fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+Celia discovered that the firm of lawyers who had written her, had their
+office in a building not many blocks from Dobson and Co.’s store. She
+felt anxious to find out what they wanted of her, and so the next
+morning she obtained permission for a few minutes’ extra time at the
+lunch hour and hastened there.
+
+She reached the number at last, and searched the dirty sign board for
+the names “Rawley and Brown.” There it was almost the last one on the
+list, “Fourth floor, back.” She climbed up the four flights of stairs,
+for the elevator was out of order and arrived panting before the dingy
+office. When she entered the room, two elderly men sat at desks on which
+were piled many papers, and each was talking with a client who sat near
+his desk. They did not cease their talking with these men until Celia
+had stood for some moments by the door. Then the elder of the two looked
+over his glasses at her, and she ventured to say she was Miss Murray
+come in response to their letter. She was given a chair and asked to
+wait until Mr. Rawley was at leisure, and in the course of a few minutes
+both the clients had withdrawn, and she was left alone with the two
+lawyers. Over in the corner behind a screen, she could hear the click of
+a typewriter and see the top of a frizzy head which she knew must belong
+to the operator, probably the one who had written the letter to her.
+
+Mr. Rawley at last turned to her and began a list of questions. Celia
+answered everything she could, wondering when this mystery would be
+explained. As soon as she had finished telling Mr. Rawley the names of
+her different living relatives, he cleared his throat and looked at her
+sharply and yet thoughtfully:
+
+“Miss Murray,” said he, as if about to ask something very important,
+“did you ever hear your father speak of having a great uncle?”
+
+Celia paused to think a moment. She had been but ten years old when her
+father died. She could remember some conversations between her father
+and mother about relatives whom she had never seen. She searched her
+mind.
+
+“I’m not sure about the ‘_great_’ part of it. He might have been a great
+uncle, but I know there was one father called uncle Abner. He must have
+died long ago. He was a very old man then. I can remember father saying
+laughingly to mother one day that he would never see anybody prettier
+than she was, not if he lived to be as old as uncle Abner.”
+
+“A-ahem!” said Mr. Rawley, uncrossing his feet and recrossing them again
+and putting his two thumbs together as he looked at them seriously under
+his bushy eyebrows. “Yes. Ah! Well, and did that uncle have
+any—ah—heirs?”
+
+Celia wanted to laugh. She had already begun to plan how she would make
+aunt Hannah laugh by a letter she would write describing this interview
+with the lawyers, but she kept her face straight and answered steadily.
+
+“I do not know.”
+
+“Well, I must say, my dear young lady,” remarked Mr. Rawley, after a
+somewhat prolonged pause, “that your evidence is somewhat—that is to
+say,—inadequate. You could hardly expect us, with so little to go
+upon—that is to say, without more investigation, you could hardly
+expect us——”
+
+“You forget, sir,” said Celia, really laughing now, “that I have not the
+slightest idea what all this is about. I expect nothing. I came here to
+be informed.”
+
+The old lawyer gave her another searching look and then seemed to
+conclude that she was honest.
+
+“Well, young lady, I think I may safely tell you this much. There was
+property of Mr. Abner Murray’s, which naturally descended to his only
+son. This son had been in India for years. He did not return at his
+father’s death, and in fact his whereabouts was not definitely known,
+until a very short time ago, when positive information of his death
+without heirs was received. The property would then revert to Mr. Abner
+Murray’s next of kin, and his heirs. Mr. Abner Murray had a brother, who
+is supposedly your father’s father. If this should prove to be the case,
+through his death and your father’s, his only heir, you being the only
+living child of your father, the property would naturally fall to you.
+Do you follow me closely?”
+
+Celia looked at Mr. Rawley respectfully now and very gravely. The matter
+had taken on a different aspect. It was a complete surprise. She had not
+even in her wildest dreams allowed herself to hope for any such thing.
+Fortunes only fell to girls in books, not to flesh-and-blood, hard
+working, everyday girls.
+
+She looked at the lawyer in silence a minute and then she smiled gravely
+and said:
+
+“That would be very nice if it’s true. I wish it might be. And now I
+suppose you are done with me for the present, until you have
+investigated the truth of my statements.”
+
+Mr. Rawley seemed surprised that she took it so coolly and asked no more
+questions. She rose as if to go. The truth was she had caught a glimpse
+of the clock and she saw that she had barely time to reach her counter
+before the limit of her nooning would be over, and she had had no lunch.
+Her position might be forfeited if she exceeded her time. That was worth
+to her at present all the mythical fortunes that the future might hold
+for her. So, without more ado, she hurried away, and, not even stopping
+for a single bite to eat, laid aside her wraps and was in her place
+behind the counter when the minute hand pointed just one minute after
+the time allotted her.
+
+It was a very busy afternoon. She had not much time to think. Everybody
+seemed to want ribbons. “Perhaps I shall be in a position to buy some of
+these yards myself, instead of measuring them off for other people, some
+time, if that old Mr. Rawley ever finds out whether _I_ am _I_,” she
+thought to herself as she skillfully clipped off two yards of blue satin
+and three yards of pink taffeta.
+
+“Property!” he had said. What did property mean? Had great uncle Abner
+left an old house standing somewhere, which would be of no earthly use
+to anybody unless sold, and bring nothing then? Or perhaps it was some
+musty old library. She had no faith that there was much money. Such
+things did not run in their family. It would turn out to be very little.
+But oh, what if it should be something worth while? What, for instance,
+if it should be a thousand dollars! What might she not do? Why, a
+thousand dollars would enable her to do some of the nice things she
+longed so to do. She could bring aunt Hannah here to the city, and set
+up a tiny home with her in it somewhere. With that much money to start
+on, they could surely make their living, she in the store and aunt
+Hannah at home sewing. It flashed across her mind that that was just the
+sum Mrs. Morris had wished for. She had said if she only had a thousand
+dollars she could pay her debts and have enough left to start on and get
+out of her uncomfortable life.
+
+How nice it would be if she, Celia, could have money enough to say, “I
+have the thousand dollars, Mrs. Morris, and I will give it to you. You
+may pay those people and go away to some more quiet, restful life.” Then
+how delightful it would be to take that poor miserable boarding-house
+and make it over. Make the boarders’ lives cheerful and pleasant, give
+them healthful food and clean, inviting rooms to live in! What a work
+that would be for a lifetime! If she ever did get rich, she believed she
+would do just that thing. Hunt up the most wretched boarding-house she
+could find and take it, boarders and all, and make it over. She believed
+she could do it with aunt Hannah’s help. Aunt Hannah could cook and
+plan, and she could execute and beautify. The thought pleased her so
+well that she carried it out into details, during the long walk back to
+her boarding-house that night. She even went so far as to think out what
+she would give them for dinner the first night, and how the dining-room
+should appear—and how their faces would look when they saw it all. What
+fun it would be! Miss Burns should have something every night that would
+tempt her appetite, and the poor old lady in the third story should be
+given the very tenderest cut in the whole steak, so she need not tremble
+so when she cut it. And there was that poor young school-teacher, he
+needed rich creamy milk. She had heard him decline the muddy coffee
+several times and once he asked if he might have a glass of milk, and
+Maggie had told him they were all out of milk.
+
+She debated whether she would retain her position in the store and
+decided that she would for a time, because that would give her a chance
+to carry out some plans without letting the boarders know who was at the
+bottom of it all. Things should not be changed much at first, except
+that everything should be made entirely clean and wholesome. Then
+gradually they would begin to beautify. Perhaps the others would help in
+it. Perhaps she could lure the young man from the dry goods store into
+spending an evening at home and helping her. She had a suspicion that he
+spent his evenings out, and remained late in places which did him no
+good, to say the least. It would do no harm for her to try to get
+acquainted with him and help him, even if she never got a fortune to
+enable her to raise her neighbors into better things. She would begin
+the reformation of young Mr. Knowles that very evening, if there came an
+opportunity. With these thoughts and plans in mind she completed her
+long walk in much shorter time than usual and with a lighter heart. It
+did her good to have an interest in life beyond the mere duties of the
+hour.
+
+She found Mrs. Morris in much the same state of depression as on the day
+before. The doctor had urged again that she go to the hospital for
+regular course of treatment. She was as determined as ever that she
+would not, or rather _could_ not do it. She wanted Celia to come and sit
+with her. She had taken a liking to her new boarder, and she did not
+hesitate to say so, and to declare that the others were an unfeeling set
+who bothered her and didn’t care if she was sick. Celia tried to cheer
+her up. She gave her a flower which one of the other workers in the
+store had given her, and told her she would come up after dinner was
+over. Then she went down to the table, and found Mr. Knowles seated
+before his plate looking cold and coughing. She wondered if her
+opportunity would come. His seat was at her left hand. They exchanged
+some remarks about the weather, and Celia told him he seemed to have a
+bad cold. He told her that was a chronic state with him, and then
+coughed again as he tried to laugh. She entered into his mock gaiety,
+and told him that if his mother were there she would tell him not to go
+out that evening, in such damp weather and with that cough.
+
+His face grew sober instantly, and he said very earnestly:
+
+“I suppose she would.”
+
+“Well, then, I suppose you’ll stay in, won’t you?” said the girl. “It
+isn’t right not to take care of yourself. The wind is very raw to-night.
+Your cough will be much worse to-morrow if you go out in it. You ought
+to stay in for your mother’s sake, you know.”
+
+It was a bow drawn at a venture. Celia stole a glance at him. He looked
+up at her quickly, his handsome, gay face sober and almost startled.
+
+“But mother isn’t here,” he said, his voice husky. “She died a year
+ago.”
+
+“But don’t you think mothers care for their sons even after they have
+gone to heaven? I believe they do. I believe in some way God lets them
+know when they are doing right. You ought to take care of yourself just
+the same, even if she is not here, for you know she would tell you to do
+it, now wouldn’t she?”
+
+“Yes, I know she would,” he answered, and then, after a minute’s pause,
+he added, “but it is so hard to stay in here. There is no place to sit
+and nothing to do all the evening. Mother used to have things
+different.”
+
+“It _is_ hard,” said Celia, sympathizingly, “and this is a dreary place.
+I’ve thought so myself, ever since I came. I wonder if you and I
+couldn’t make things a little pleasanter for us all, if we tried.”
+
+“How? I’m sure I never thought I could do anything in that line. How
+would you go about it?”
+
+“Well, I’m not just sure,” said Celia, thinking rapidly and bringing
+forth some of her half made plans to select one for this emergency. “But
+I think we ought to have a good light first. The gas is miserable.”
+
+“You’re right; it is that,” responded Mr. Knowles.
+
+“Didn’t I see a big lamp on the parlor table?”
+
+“Yes, I think there is a lamp there, but it smokes like an engine, and
+it gives a wicked flare of a light that stares at you enough to put your
+eyes out.”
+
+“Well, I wonder if we couldn’t do something to cure that lamp of
+smoking. I’m somewhat a doctor of lamps myself, having served a long
+apprenticeship at them, and I think if you’ll help me I’ll try. I have
+some lovely pink crepe paper upstairs that I got to make a shade for my
+room, but I’ll sacrifice that to the store if you can get me a new wick.
+What do you say? Shall we try it? I’m sure Mrs. Morris won’t object, for
+it will save gas, besides making things pleasanter for the boarders. I
+have a book I think you will enjoy, after the lamp is fixed for reading.
+If you are going to be a good boy and stay at home to-night I’ll bring
+it down.”
+
+The young man entered into the scheme enthusiastically. He was a very
+young man, not more than nineteen, or Celia would not have cared or
+dared to speak to him in this gay, half-commanding way. But she had been
+used to boys, and to winning them to do what she wished, and she won her
+way this time surely. The young man was only too glad to have something
+to keep him in, and his heart was still very tender toward his lost
+mother. Celia saw that he would not be hard to influence. She wished she
+were wise and able to help him. Her soul felt with oppression the need
+of all these other souls in this house with her, and she wished to be
+great and mighty to lift them up and help them. How strange it was that
+the way kept opening up before her for daily helping of others. She
+seemed to be the only Christian in this house full of people. What a
+weight of responsibility rested upon her if that was so. How she ought
+to pray to be guided that she might be wise as a serpent and harmless as
+a dove; that she might, if possible, bring each one of them to a
+knowledge of Jesus Christ. And what was _she_ to do all this? A mere
+weak girl, who was discouraged and homesick, and could not get enough
+money together to keep herself from need, perhaps, nor grace enough to
+keep her own heart from failing or her feet from falling. What was _she_
+to think of guiding others? How could she do all this work? She must
+shrink back from the thought. She could not do it. It was too much. Ah!
+She might leave all that to her gracious Lord. She had forgotten that.
+All he wanted her to do was to take the duty of the hour or the minute
+and do it for him. What matter whether there were results that showed or
+not so long as he was obeyed? When she slipped up to her room for that
+pink crepe paper she knelt down and asked that it and the book and the
+lamp and her little effort for the evening might be blessed. Then she
+went down to conquer that lamp.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V.
+
+
+“For the land sake! Yes,” said Mrs. Morris, turning wearily on her
+pillow, “do what you please with it. I wish it was a good one. I’d like
+to afford a real good one with a silk shade with lace on it, but I
+can’t. There’s lots ought to be done here, but there’s no use talking
+about it. I’m clean discouraged anyway. I wish I could sell out, bag and
+baggage, and go to the poorhouse.”
+
+“Oh, Mrs. Morris, don’t talk that way!” said Celia, brightly. “You’ll
+get well pretty soon. Don’t think about that now. We’ll try to keep
+things in order till you are able to see to them yourself. And meantime,
+I believe I can make that lamp work beautifully. I’ll come back by and
+by and report progress. Now eat that porridge. I know it can’t hurt you.
+The doctor told me it would be good for you. I made it myself, and it’s
+just such as aunt Hannah used to make for sick people. There’s nothing
+like twice boiled flour porridge. Is it seasoned right? There’s the
+salt.”
+
+Then she flitted downstairs to the lamp.
+
+Young Mr. Knowles was already on hand with the new wick he had purchased
+at the corner grocery, having carefully taken the measure of the burner.
+
+Celia with experienced hand soon had the lamp burning brightly. Frank
+Hartley, the University student, had been attracted by the unusual light
+and declared he would bring his books down to the parlor for a while. It
+was cold as a barn in his room anyway. He and Harry Knowles stood by
+watching with admiring eyes, as Celia’s fingers, now washed from the oil
+of the lamp, manipulated the pretty rose-colored paper into a shade, and
+when it was done, with a gathering string, a smoothing out on the edges
+and a pucker and twist here and there, and then a band and bow of the
+crepe paper, it all had looked so simple that they marveled at the
+beauty of the graceful fall of ruffles, like the petals of some lovely
+flower.
+
+She put the promised book in Harry Knowles’ hand, a paper-covered copy
+of “In His Steps,” and saying she would come down later to see what he
+thought of the story, she slipped away to Mrs. Morris’ room. She must
+get time to write to aunt Hannah some time to-night about her visit to
+the lawyers, for aunt Hannah might have some evidence which would serve
+her in good stead, but this duty to the sick woman came first. She
+turned her head as she left the room and saw the two young men settling
+themselves in evident comfort around the bright lamp. The
+school-teacher, George Osborn, came in the front door just then, and
+catching the rosy light from the room stepped in, looked around
+surprised, then hung up his hat and went in to stand a minute before the
+register to warm his hands. It was a touch of cheer he had not expected.
+Presently he went upstairs and brought down a pile of reports he must
+make out, and seated himself with the other two around that light.
+
+Celia upstairs was telling Mrs. Morris about the lamp, how well it
+burned, and giving a glowing account of the three young men seated
+around it. Mrs. Morris listened astonished.
+
+“Well, I’ve told them boys time an’ again that they ought to stay at
+home, but they never would before. It must be some sort of a spell
+you’ve worked on them. Of course, that teacher he stays up in his room a
+lot. But he’s trying to support his mother and put his brother through
+college, and you can’t expect much of him. He’ll just give himself up
+entirely to them and that’ll be the end of his life. There’s always some
+folks in this world have to be sacrificed to a few others. It’s the way
+things are. I’m one of those meself, though the land knows who’s the
+better for me being sacrificed. It does seem as if I had had to give up
+every blessed thing I ever tried for in me life. Just set down a while.
+I feel a little easier this evening and I’ve been a-doing a powerful lot
+of worrying all day. I haven’t a soul to advise me that knows anything.
+You seem to be made out of good stuff, and you’ve been real good to me,
+and I just wish you’d tell me what you think I ought to do.”
+
+Celia sat down. She wondered what could be coming next. It was strange
+to have her advice asked this way. Coming out into the world alone to
+earn one’s living places a great many responsibilities upon one
+sometimes. She felt very incapable of advising. She felt she had not
+wisdom to settle her own life, let alone another’s, and one so much
+older than herself, that it would seem as if experience ought to have
+taught her much. But she tried to be sympathetic, and told Mrs. Morris
+to tell her all about it, and she would do the best she could. In her
+heart she prayed the Father that she might have wisdom to answer wisely.
+
+“Well, you see it’s this way. I’m just deep down in debt. I told you
+that before. It’s been going on worse and worse every year, and every
+year I’d hope by the next to make the two ends meet somehow. But they
+never did. I’ve cut down and cut down. And then I got left two or three
+times by boarders going off without paying what they owed after I had
+trusted them a long time. There was that Mr. Perry now, he left that old
+rickety organ. It was well enough to have an organ for the boarders, but
+you see I couldn’t afford to have one. If I could have, I’d have bought
+a new one, you know. Well, things like that have happened time and
+again. Once a woman who recited pieces for a living came to the house.
+She had a lot of dirty satin clothes, and afterward she left quite
+suddenly and I never knew she was gone till a man came for her trunk. Of
+course I got the trunk for her board. She had been here two months and
+only paid one week’s board, kept putting me off and off. When I had that
+trunk sold at auction it brought me in just one dollar and sixty-two
+cents. What do you think of that? And she had the second story front
+alone too; and _airs_, why she’d have her breakfast sent up every
+morning about ten o’clock. She made me think she was a great woman.
+Well, I learned better. But it does seem as though I’ve had more trouble
+with folks. There was the time the woman was here with her little girl,
+and the child took scarlet fever and the Board of Health came in and
+sent everybody off, and scared them so ’twas a long time before I could
+get them back. Well, there’s been a plenty of other things just like
+that. You don’t wonder, do you, that I’m in debt? The worst of it is
+it’s been getting worse and worse. That Maggie just wastes everything
+she lays her hands on, and I don’t know’s I’d better myself any if I
+tried to get somebody else. There’s always changes and new things to
+buy. Now what would you do? You see it’s this way. I’ve got a sister out
+west that lives by herself in a little village. She’s a widow and she’s
+got enough to live on, and she’s written to me to come out and live with
+her, and she thinks I could get a little sewing now and then, and I
+could help her in her house. I can’t ask her for money, for I haven’t
+got the face to, having asked her once before. Besides, she’s not one to
+give out and out that way, even if she could afford to, which I guess
+she can’t, though she’d be willing and glad to give me a home with her.
+I’m too proud to borrow what I know I never could pay, and I won’t skip
+out here as some would and leave me debts behind me. I’m honest,
+whatever else I ain’t. Now what would you do? No, I don’t own this
+house; if I did I’d been bankrupt long ago with the repairs it needs,
+that I couldn’t get out of the landlord. But I took it for the rest of
+the year, and the lease don’t run out till April, so you see I’m in for
+that. It’s just the same old story. ‘A little more money to buy more
+land, to plant more corn, to feed more hogs, to get more money, to buy
+more land, to feed more hogs.’ Only, I always had a little less of
+everything each time. Now Miss Murray, what would you do if it was you?”
+
+“Haven’t you anything at all to pay with? No,”—she hesitated for a word
+and the one she had heard that day came to her—“Haven’t you any
+property of any sort? Nothing you could sell?”
+
+Celia was always practical. She wanted to know where she stood before
+she gave any advice. Mrs. Morris looked at her a moment in a dazed way,
+trying to think if there was anything at all.
+
+“No, not a thing except my husband’s watch and this old furniture. I
+suppose I might sell out me business, but nobody would buy it and I’d
+pity ’em, poor things, if they did.”
+
+She talked a long time with the woman, trying to find out about
+boarding-houses and how they were run. Before she was through she began
+to have some inkling of the reason why Mrs. Morris had failed in
+business and was so deeply in debt. She was only a girl, young and
+without experience, but she felt sure she could have avoided some of the
+mistakes which had been the cause of Mrs. Morris’ trouble. Finally, she
+said in answer to the twentieth “What would you do if you was me?”
+
+“Mrs. Morris, I don’t quite know till I have thought about it. I will
+think and tell you to-morrow, perhaps, or the next day. It seems to me
+though, that I would stop right now and not run on and get more deeply
+in debt. That cannot better matters. I think somebody might buy your
+things, and—some way might be found for you to pay your debts,—but, in
+the first place, you must get well, and we’ll do the very best we can to
+get on here till you are well enough to know what you will do. Now may I
+read to you just a few words? And then you ought to go to sleep. Just
+you rest your mind about all those things, and I promise you I will try
+to think of something that will help you.”
+
+She turned to the little Bible she had brought in with her and read a
+few verses in the fourteenth chapter of John “Let not your heart be
+troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me.”
+
+She was very tired when she reached her room that night. The letter she
+intended to write to aunt Hannah was still unwritten. The book she had
+taken from the public library to read was lying on her bureau untouched.
+She had been bearing the burdens of other people, and the day had been
+full of excitement and hard work. She threw herself on her bed, so
+nervously tired that she felt convulsive sobs rising in her throat. What
+had she done? She had promised to think up some way to help Mrs. Morris.
+Mrs. Morris was nothing to her, why should she take this upon herself?
+And yet she knew, as she asked herself these questions, that she had
+felt all along that God had as truly called her to help that poor woman
+as ever he had called her to sell ribbons for Dobson and Co., or to help
+aunt Hannah with the mending. She had not wanted to do it, either. It
+was very unpleasant work, indeed, in many ways, and had required
+sacrifices of which she had not dreamed when she began. There was the
+pretty lampshade she was planning to have. She had given that up for the
+general good of the house. Now, when she got the lamp she intended to
+buy at a cheap sale somewhere, she would have to wait till she could
+afford more paper and a frame for her shade. Well, never mind! She
+surely was repaid for that act, for those young men had enjoyed it. How
+much pleasure a little thing can give! How many things there were about
+that house which might be easily done to make things brighter and
+pleasanter, and how much she would enjoy doing them,—if aunt Hannah
+were only here! How nice it would be if she had some money and could buy
+Mrs. Morris out and help the poor thing to get off to her relatives, and
+then get to work and make that house cheerful and beautiful and a true
+home for its present inmates. How aunt Hannah would enjoy that work too!
+It was just such work as would fulfill that good woman’s highest dreams
+of a beautiful vocation in life.
+
+Suddenly Celia sat bolt upright on the hard little bed, and stared at
+the opposite wall with a thoughtful, and yet energetic expression on her
+face.
+
+“What if it should!” she said aloud. “What if there should be some
+money, say as much as a thousand dollars, and maybe a little over, for
+an allowance lest we might run behind. Wouldn’t that be grand! Oh, you
+dear old uncle Abner, if it proves true, and if you up in heaven can
+see, I hope you know how happy you’ll make several people. I’ll do it, I
+surely will! And aunt Hannah shall come and run the house and be the
+housekeeper, and maybe we can get old Molly, for I’m certain we never
+could do a thing with that Maggie, she’s so terribly dirty, and Molly
+would leave anywhere to be with aunt Hannah! There now, I’m talking just
+as if I was a ‘millionairess’ and could spend my millions. I ought not
+to have thought of this, for it will turn my head. I shall be so
+disappointed when Mr. Rawley tells me, to-morrow or next day, that I’m
+not myself, or that the property is some old hen house and a family cat,
+that I’m afraid I shall not be properly thankful for the cat. I wonder
+if it isn’t just as bad to take up the happy crosses for the coming year
+as the uncomfortable ones. I wonder how that is. I must think about it.
+Meanwhile, aunt Hannah must be written to, for Mr. Rawley wanted those
+marriage certificates she has, and somehow I feel quite happy.” She
+sprang from the bed and jumped around her room in such a lively fashion
+that Miss Burns who roomed below wondered what was the matter.
+
+Writing to her aunt sobered her down somewhat. She began to think of
+herself a little.
+
+“Celia Murray, do you know what you are doing?” This was what she heard
+whispered to her from behind. “You have come to the city to earn your
+living, and you have come here to board, not to nurse sick landladies,
+nor to become a guardian angel for stray young men, nor to exercise the
+virtue of benevolence. You must think of yourself, somewhat. How in the
+world will you ever be fit for your work if you spend so much time and
+energy on working for other people and staying up nights? Had you not
+better seek out another boarding-house? There must be plenty in this
+city, and probably if you looked about a little you might find one where
+you would have more conveniences and a better room and board. Leave Mrs.
+Morris to get along the best way she can. You are not responsible for
+her. She is a grown woman and ought to know enough to take care of
+herself. Anyway, she is only suffering the consequences of her
+foolishness. Better try to-morrow to find another boarding-house.”
+
+Yet, even as Celia heard these words spoken in a tempting voice, she
+knew she would not go. She was not made of that kind of stuff. Besides
+she was interested. Whatever her cross for the coming week was to be, it
+would not be one to her to remain here now and help work out God’s
+plans, if she might be permitted so to do.
+
+“And if it might only please my King to lift my head up out of prison
+and set me up where I might help others in this boarding-house, I would
+try to make as good a use of my liberty and my allowance as Jehoiachin
+did. I wonder what he did do with his allowance anyway. And it must have
+been such a pleasant thing to him to know, to fully understand that his
+allowance would not fail all the days of his life. I wonder if he got
+downhearted sometimes, and feared lest Evil-merodach might die and leave
+him in the lurch, or whether he might turn against him some day. Now
+with me it is so different. My King is all-powerful. What he has
+promised, _I know_ he will perform. I need never dread his dying, for he
+is everlasting. I can trust him perfectly to give me an allowance all
+the days of my life of whatever I need. And yet, daily and hourly I
+distrust, and fear and tremble, and dread lest I may be left hungry some
+day. What a strange contradiction, what an ungrateful, untrustful,
+unworthy child of the King I am.”
+
+Then she turned out her light and knelt to pray.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+It is said that Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his
+knees. It is probably true that he also hies him away to take counsel
+with his evil angels to see if they cannot by some means overtake that
+saint in his resolves and endeavors, and make him tremble, and perhaps
+fall. It certainly seemed to Celia the next morning as if everything had
+conspired to make her life hard.
+
+In the first place it was raining. A cold, steady drizzle, that bade
+fair to continue all day and for several days, if it did not turn into
+snow. The furnace, none too good at any time, was illy managed. Mrs.
+Morris usually regulated it herself, but Maggie made a poor hand at it.
+She chose this morning to forget to see to it at all until the fire had
+gone out. There was no time to build it up then, for she had breakfast
+to get for the boarders who must be off to their work at their appointed
+hours. Celia dressed quickly, for her room was so cold she was in a
+shiver. With her blue fingers she tried to turn the pages of her Bible
+to read a few words while she combed her hair, but finally gave it up
+she was so cold. She was sleepy, too, for she had lost much sleep of
+late, and it was hard to get up before it was fairly light and hurry
+around in the cold. Life looked very hard and dreary to her. She thought
+of aunt Hannah getting breakfast for Nettie’s family, and buttoning the
+children’s clothes between times. Somehow the thought of aunt Hannah
+weighed heavily upon her this morning. She could not get away from it.
+It brought a sob in her throat and a pain at her heart. Why did they
+have to separate? It was cruel that life was so. The tears came to her
+eyes. She jerked a snarl out and broke two teeth of her comb at the same
+time. This did not serve to help her temper. She did hate to use a comb
+with the teeth out and once out there was no putting them back. Neither
+could she afford a new comb for some time to come. She glanced at her
+plain little silver watch and saw it was later than she usually rose,
+and she hurried through her toilet as much as possible, and ran
+downstairs to the dining-room. The German stood at the dining-room door,
+an expression of belligerence on his face and his attitude one of
+displeasure. He filled up the door so completely that Celia was obliged
+to ask him to let her pass before he moved. She was indignant at him for
+this. She found herself likening him to one of the animals condemned in
+the Bible. It was unchristian of course, but Celia did not feel in a
+very sweet spirit this morning. She recalled what Mrs. Morris had said
+and wished the German would leave the house. He looked like a man whom
+it was impossible to please anyway. But she found the cause of his
+displeasure was that there was no breakfast forthcoming as yet. Mr.
+Knowles came down, greeted her pleasantly, looked at the empty table,
+and the clock, filled his pocket with some crackers on a plate there,
+and remarked that he guessed he would skip, that it was as much as his
+place was worth if he did not get to the store on time, and he would
+have to run all the way to the car to make it now, it was so late. Celia
+felt indignant that this young man was obliged to go to a hard day’s
+work unfed. But there was nothing to be done now, he must go. It was the
+hard fate of the wage-earner. He must be on time, if the house fell. She
+went to the kitchen door and peered in. Maggie was slamming about in a
+grand rage. The biscuits she was baking were not even beginning to brown
+yet, as Celia saw by a glimpse into the oven door when Maggie opened it
+and slammed it shut. There was some greasy-looking hash cooking slowly.
+It did not look as if it ever would be done at the present rate it was
+cooking. The stove looked sulky and the ashes were not yet taken up.
+
+“Maggie,” she said, “can I help you get something on the table? These
+people all have to go to work and so do I. If we can’t eat in five
+minutes we’ll have to go without.”
+
+“Well, then, go without!” said Maggie, rising in a towering passion.
+“I’m sure it won’t hurt you fine folks once in a while. I never hired
+out to do everything and I ain’t responsible. I’ll get the breakfast as
+soon as I can and not a bit sooner, and you can get out of my kitchen. I
+don’t want you bothering ’round. I get all flustered with so many folks
+coming after me. Go on out now, and wait till yer breakfast’s ready. And
+tell the rest I won’t cook any dinner fer ’em, if a soul comes in this
+kitchen again.”
+
+Celia retreated, indignant and outraged. To be spoken to in such a
+manner when she was but offering help was an insult. It was a
+peculiarity of hers that when she felt angry the tears would come to her
+eyes. They came now. It was exasperating. She went quickly to the window
+to hide them, and looked out in the dim little brick alley that ran
+between the houses and watched the rain drop all over the bricks. There
+was a blank brick wall of the next house opposite her, and a little
+further toward the front she could see a window and some one standing at
+it. She turned quickly away again. There was no refuge there. Taking in
+at a glance the table with its unbrushed crumbs, and the dishes of
+uncooked hash and underdone biscuits that Maggie was just bringing in,
+she resolved to follow the example of Mr. Knowles and take some
+crackers. Then seizing her hat and coat from the hall rack where she had
+put them, on coming downstairs, she started for the store. It was a
+long, cold walk and she got very wet, but she did not feel justified in
+spending the five cents which would have carried her there. In her
+present mood she had no faith in uncle Abner’s fortune. It would
+probably turn out to be some poor land somewhere which would never be
+worth a cent. That was the kind of inheritance which usually came to any
+one in their family, like the lot in a new town out west that was left
+to aunt Hannah by her eldest brother, where the city authorities
+compelled property holders to pave the streets and pay large taxes and
+where there were no purchasers. Such inheritances one was better off
+without. She felt very bitter in her heart. As she walked along in the
+rain, she remembered that she had forgotten to kneel by her bedside in
+prayer before she left her room that morning, it was so cold and late.
+She knew that must be the reason why she felt so cross and unreasonable,
+and she tried to pray as she walked along in the rain, but there were
+many things to distract her thoughts, and she had to watch carefully
+that she did not run into some one with her umbrella turned down in
+front of her to keep off the driving rain. She thought of aunt Hannah
+again, now probably washing the breakfast dishes, or doing some sewing
+or ironing, and she sighed and felt that earth was wet and cold and
+dreary. Half-way to the store, she encountered a little newsboy who
+followed by her side, and begged her to buy a paper. He looked hungry.
+His feet were out at the toes from his shoes, much too large. Celia had
+no money to buy a paper and she answered the boy in a decided negative
+that made him turn hopelessly away. It made her cross to see his need,
+when she had no power to help him. She realized how cross her voice had
+been and that vexed her. Then she blindly stepped into a mud puddle and
+splashed the water over the tops of her shoes. She shivered as she felt
+the dampness through the thin leather of her boot, and wondered what she
+would do when the inevitable sore throat, which always with her resulted
+from getting her feet wet, arrived. And so she hurried on, tugging after
+her the heavy cross which she had carefully made that morning for
+herself to carry, out of bits of her own and other people’s troubles,
+and letting it spoil the sweet peace God had sent her, and soil the
+clean heart he had washed from sin for her. It was too bad. Her guardian
+angel pitied her that she could so soon forget her high resolves, and
+her heavenly Father.
+
+Matters were no better when she reached the store. One of the girls who
+belonged at the ribbon counter with her was sick. Celia had to do her
+duty and the girl’s also. This might not have been so bad if she had
+been left to herself, but the head of that department, a young woman
+with a sour expression and disappointed eyes, was also out of temper,
+and did her ordering in an exceedingly disagreeable manner. She found a
+great deal of fault and kept demanding of Celia more than she could well
+accomplish in a given time. Celia had hoped it would not be a busy day
+on account of the rain, but on the contrary every woman in town seemed
+to be in need of ribbon and to have hit upon that particular rainy
+morning in which to shop, thinking doubtless that the others would stay
+at home and leave the store to her. When the noon hour came Celia was
+cut down to half time on account of the rush, and obliged to take a few
+precious minutes of that in putting up some ribbons left carelessly on
+the counter by another saleswoman who had gone to her luncheon leaving
+them there. To the young girl new to her work, and fresh from a home
+where every _necessary_ comfort at least had been hers, it was a long,
+hard day, and she looked forward with no hope of a let-up to the evening
+that was to follow. She grew crosser as the day began to wane, and she
+grew hungry, and then faint, and then lost both those feelings and
+settled down to a violent headache. It was then that a new cause for
+trouble loomed up before her imagination. What if she should get sick?
+Who would take care of her and how should she live? Aunt Hannah would
+have to come, and what an expense that would be!—No, aunt Hannah could
+not come. There was no money anywhere to pay her fare, or her board when
+she got there, and she was bound to stay with Nettie and Hiram as long
+as they were supporting her. She would have to get along without telling
+aunt Hannah. What would become of her? Oh, why of course, she would have
+to go to the hospital among strangers and be nursed, and perhaps die,
+and aunt Hannah never hear and then worry and worry and no one would
+tell her.
+
+It was just in the midst of these thoughts that there came the clear
+voice of the floor walker:
+
+“Miss Murray, will you step to the office a moment. There is a message
+there for you, a special delivery letter I believe.”
+
+With her heart throbbing violently at thought of the possibilities
+contained in a special delivery letter, she walked the length of the
+long store. Aunt Hannah must be sick and they had sent for her. Surely
+they would do that if aunt Hannah should be so ill she needed care, for
+Nettie would never care for her, she was no nurse and hated sick rooms.
+Besides, to be perfectly honest, Nettie would have enough to do in
+caring for her home and children. There was no hospital in the little
+town where Hiram lived, so he would, of course, rather pay her fare and
+keep her while she did the nursing than to hire some one to care for
+aunt Hannah. All this reasoning went clearly through her brain, as she
+walked swiftly in the direction of the office. It seemed as if the
+writing of her name on the receipt book was one of the longest actions
+she ever performed, and her hand trembled so when she retired to the
+little cloak room to read her letter that she could scarcely open the
+envelope, nor take in at first that the letter bore Rawley and Brown’s
+printed heading. And then she read just a few lines from them asking her
+to call once more upon them and as soon as possible. She went back to
+her place among the ribbons feeling almost angry with Rawley and Brown
+that they had frightened her so, and yet relieved that there was nothing
+the matter with aunt Hannah.
+
+It was nearly five o’clock, and the crowd of women who were doing rainy
+day shopping had gone home. The rain was pouring down harder than ever.
+The store was comparatively empty. Perhaps she might get away for a few
+moments now; she would ask. Permission was granted her, as she had had
+only half her noon hour, and she hurried up to the dark little office
+again.
+
+She found that she was not too late, for Mr. Rawley had not yet gone
+home, though he had his overcoat on as if about to depart. It appeared
+that he wished to ask a few more questions to establish certain facts.
+Celia answered them as best she could, and then as he seemed to be
+through with her, she asked timidly:
+
+“Would you be so kind as to tell me what this is all about, anyway? You
+said there was property. If it should turn out to be mine, what would it
+be? I suppose you do not mind giving me a general idea of that, do you?”
+
+He looked at her almost kindly under his shaggy brows. “Why no, child!”
+he said. “That’s perfectly proper, of course. Why, I haven’t the exact
+figures in my head, but it’s several thousands, well invested, and an
+old farm up in New York state that’s well rented. There would be enough
+to give a pretty good income every year you know, and if you left the
+investments as they are, it would be a continuous one, for they are not
+likely to fail or fall through. Then, too, there is a considerable
+accumulation owing to the doubt about the heir. I hope you’ll turn out
+to be that heir and I have no doubt you will. Good-afternoon.” Celia
+tripped down the dark old staircase as if it were covered with the
+softest carpet ever made. Several thousands! What wealth! What luxury!
+She had wished for one single thousand, and her Father had sent her not
+one, but many. For she began to believe now that the money was hers. All
+the evidence seemed to point that way. The lawyer seemed to be
+convinced, and it needed only the coming of a few documents in
+possession of her uncle Joseph’s old lawyer to corroborate what she had
+told him. She felt pretty sure that it was all true. And here she had
+been cross and growling all day, and worse than that, she had been
+carrying crosses not meant for her shoulders, and probably leaving
+undone the things God had laid out for her to do. What wickedness had
+been hers. Only last night she had knelt in earnest consecration, and
+now to-day she had fallen so low as almost to forget that she had a
+Father whose dear child she was, and who was caring for her. Could she
+not retrieve some of the lost day? She had but one hour left in the
+store. She would try what she could do. She smiled on the beggar child
+who stood looking wistfully in at the pretty things, in the store window
+as she passed in to her work. When she reached the ribbon counter again,
+she found the head of the department looking very tired, and complaining
+of a headache. There were other burdens besides her own she could bear.
+She might offer to do her work for her and let her rest, and she could
+bring her a glass of water. It was not her business to put up certain
+ribbons not in her own case, but she could do it for the other girl who
+was absent and save the head girl. As she made her fingers fly among the
+bright silks and satins, she wondered if there were more burdens for her
+to bear for others when she reached the boarding-house, and whether Mrs.
+Morris would be better to-night and able to sit up and direct things a
+little, and then there came to her mind the joyous thought that perhaps
+she was to have the means soon to make that house permanently better in
+some ways and help its inmates. How light her heart and her shoulders
+felt now that she had laid down that heavy self-imposed cross! It was
+wonderful! Oh, why could she not learn to trust her Master? The verse of
+a loved hymn came and hummed itself over in her mind.
+
+                 “Fearest sometimes that thy Father
+                           Hath forgot?
+                 When the clouds around thee gather,
+                           Doubt him not!
+                 Always hath the daylight broken—
+                 Always hath he comfort spoken—
+                   Better hath he been for years,
+                           Than thy fears.”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+Miss Hannah Grant sat in her room under the eaves darning little
+Johnnie’s stocking. Her hair was grey and rippled smoothly over her
+finely shaped head. Her sweet face wore a sad, far-away expression. It
+had grown habitual with her ever since she had come to live with her
+niece Nettie. Perhaps a close observer would see that the sadness was a
+shade deeper this afternoon. Her eyes were deep grey and seemed to go
+well with her hair. She gave one the impression of being able to see
+further with them than most people, and there was a luminousness about
+them that lit up her otherwise plain face, and made it truly beautiful.
+Her gown was plain and old and grey. She always wore grey dresses. They
+had been becoming long ago in the days when it mattered whether she wore
+becoming things, and now that she cared no more about the becomingness,
+she wore them for sweet association’s sake, and for the sake of one long
+gone who used to admire them when she wore them. She did not seem to
+know that they still suited her better than any other color, or absence
+of color, could have done.
+
+The hole was large and ill-shaped, for Johnnie was hard on his
+stockings, but she darned it patiently back and forth, and seemed to be
+thinking of something else. Once she laid it down and went to the closet
+for her little grey worsted shawl to throw around her shoulders, for the
+room was heated only by a drum from the stove downstairs and she felt
+chilly. She usually sat in the sitting-room in the afternoon to sew or
+mend, but there had been a reason for her coming up here to-day. She had
+settled herself as usual by the west window downstairs to get a good
+light on her work. She had a large peach basket full of stockings by her
+side, and her workbasket on the window. The baby, creeping about the
+floor, had upset the peach basket and scattered its contents around, and
+Nettie, coming down just then in a new red cashmere shirt waist she had
+finished the day before, had jerked him unceremoniously away from among
+the stockings and hastily bundled them all into the basket, shoving it
+behind aunt Hannah’s chair and out of her reach. As she did so, she
+remarked in a disagreeable tone that she wished aunt Hannah wouldn’t
+bring that old thing into the sitting-room. Couldn’t she bring a pair of
+stockings at a time, and not litter up the whole room? She was expecting
+Mrs. Morgan and her sister in with their embroidery and crocheting, and
+she did like to have things look a little nice. Aunt Hannah had meekly
+disposed of the stocking basket behind her ample apron, and there had
+been silence in the room for a few minutes. Then young Mrs. Bartlett
+remarked:
+
+“Aunt Hannah, I think you had better go and change your dress, if you
+are going to sit there. That old grey thing doesn’t look very well. I
+wish to goodness you had a black silk, or something, like other folks.
+You always waste your money on grey things when you have to buy
+anything. It’s a dreadfully gloomy color. It makes you look sallow, too,
+now you’re getting older.”
+
+Nettie had gone out in the kitchen then for a minute and returned just
+as aunt Hannah was starting upstairs with the darning basket.
+
+“Aunt Hannah!” she called, “take your shawl and bonnet up with you,
+won’t you? I s’pose you’d just as soon keep them up there, wouldn’t you?
+Hiram says he hates to see the hall rack cluttered up so.”
+
+Aunt Hannah put down the basket on the stairs, descended swiftly,
+gathered her shawl and bonnet and one or two other belongings of hers
+which were downstairs, in inconspicuous places, and carried them all
+upstairs. She was not in the habit of leaving her bonnet and shawl on
+the rack, and had only done so last night when she came in from prayer
+meeting, because she had buckwheat cakes to set before going to bed, and
+when that was done and she started to take them away, Nettie had asked
+her to carry a lamp and two comfortables up for her, and in doing so the
+shawl and bonnet had escaped her notice. It was a little thing, and she
+realized that the hall rack looked better without her shawl and bonnet,
+but somehow it was one of the many little things that gave her the
+feeling that she had no home. She had put them all meekly away and sat
+down in her little cold room near the drum to darn. She had done what
+she was asked to do with one exception. She did not change her dress and
+go down again. She saw that Nettie would like to have her out of the way
+for the afternoon, and she did not wish to remain where she was not
+wanted. She did not sigh as some women would have done. Instead, her
+eyes took on that far-away look. She was beginning to long so sorely for
+the open gates of her home above where she need never more feel that
+desolation of not belonging, and where she would meet loved ones, and
+above all her Father, face to face. Yet she knew her heavenly Father was
+with her, even in this home where she was treated as a burden, and she
+could be content to stay and do his bidding, only sometimes that great
+longing for the face to face view grew upon her till her heart ached
+with the desire to go.
+
+In her bureau drawer, safe hid in tissue paper in a white box smelling
+of rose leaves there were some letters, and an old daguerreotype. The
+picture was in an old-fashioned leather frame that closed with a little
+brass hook, and was lined with stamped purple velvet. The face inside
+was of a young man with sweet, serious eyes, a grave, handsome face,
+smoothly shaven, heavy, dark hair tossed back from a high white
+forehead, and the dress of the olden time—a high rolling collar and
+stock. The letters were from this man to Hannah Grant, written when he
+was in the theological seminary, and they contained bright glad plans
+for their future, Hannah’s and his. They might not have seemed bright to
+some women, for they were planning, so soon as he had finished his
+ministerial training, to go to the Foreign Mission field and work
+together for the Master they both loved better than anything else. And
+next to him they had loved each other. How bright her life had seemed to
+her then as she did her daily duties; sang about them; thought of the
+future and wrote her happy letters; and thanked the Lord daily that she
+was to be permitted to do his work in this honorable way. The time had
+gone by rapidly then, and the years of study had been completed.
+Hannah’s wedding day was set, her simple lovely wedding gown was
+finished, and it was grey. He loved grey. It had little touches of soft
+white about the throat and wrists, just enough to bring out the coloring
+of Hannah’s delicately cut face. And then,—suddenly there happened one
+of those mysteries of the kingdom which we shall understand by and by,
+and to which now we can only say “It is the Lord, let him do what
+seemeth him best,” and trust. The earnest young missionary was taken up
+higher, there to receive his reward. His bride, when she could rally
+from the shock of this sudden ending of her life joy, bowed to the will
+of him to whose keeping she had long ago given her will and her life,
+and was enabled to say with tears of triumph that like that man of God
+of old her beloved had “walked with God and was not, for God took him.”
+
+She had thought even then to go alone, and take the message of Jesus to
+those who knew him not, and bear her sorrow more easily by thinking she
+could do some of the work which they would have done together. But God
+opened another door for her and showed her plainly that he had called
+her to a duty at home, and so she took her saddened heart, her sweet
+face and her tender ways to her sister’s motherless little children and
+had lived there ever since. Sometimes now, when she thought how she was
+not wanted in this home, and yet could not go anywhere else by force of
+circumstances, she would take out that pictured face and wonder if James
+could know how she was being treated what he would think and feel about
+it, and think how he would guard her from the world and shield her if he
+were only here. And then she would be glad that he could not know, or
+that if he could, he was where he knew it would not any of it be for
+long, and that she would soon come home to be with Jesus and with him
+forevermore, and that time to him was only a brief space. It was at such
+times that her eyes would take on their far-away look.
+
+So she sat and worked and thought that afternoon. In due course of time
+the expected visitors arrived. The woman upstairs heard their voices,
+and presently they drew nearer to the stove in the sitting-room. Their
+talk could be quite distinctly heard now, but Hannah was absorbed in her
+own thoughts, and she paid no attention as they gossiped on about this
+one and that, with “You don’t say sos,” and “Well, I always thought as
+muchs,” and “Did-she-say thats,” until she heard Nettie say, “Yes, she
+will stay with us this winter anyway. No, it isn’t quite as pleasant as
+to be alone you know, but then what could we do? She had no home to go
+to. My husband wanted my cousin to come, too, though it was more than we
+really could afford to do to feed and clothe two more, but she was very
+ungrateful, and wanted to have her own way and see the world a little. I
+expect she’ll come back humbly enough when she’s been away a couple of
+weeks longer, and if she does I’m sure I don’t know what in the world we
+shall do with her. Oh yes, aunt Hannah helps me a little here and there,
+but you can’t ask much of people that are getting on in years. (Aunt
+Hannah was forty-nine.) My father always kept her in luxury as she was
+my mother’s only sister. Yes, people do get spoiled sometimes that way.
+But, dear me, all she can do wouldn’t make up for the outgo. Yes, she
+was a sort of acting housekeeper in our home after mother died, but you
+know no one can ever take a mother’s place. (Johnnie, shut that door and
+go away and stop your coaxing, or I’ll take you upstairs and give you a
+good spanking. No, you _can’t_ go down by the pond to play to-day.) No,
+I never had so much to do with her as the younger children. I was the
+elder daughter, you know.”
+
+Aunt Hannah quickly and noiselessly moved away from her position by the
+drum to the other side of the room. And this from the little girl she
+had so carefully mothered, and tended, and tried to train! And had
+loved, too, for Hannah Grant loved all that God loved and placed in her
+way. Ah, this was hard! And must she go on living here and knowing that
+she was not wanted, that she was a burden, and that lies—yes, actually
+lies, for there was no use trying to call them by a softer name—were
+being told to the people in the village about her? How could she? She
+could see just how it would go on from year to year. Hiram would come in
+cross at night and either ignore her altogether, or else contradict
+every word she spoke, and find fault with anything he knew she had done,
+in a surly, impersonal way, which he knew and she knew he meant for her.
+The children would grow up to disrespect her, as they were beginning to
+do already. And her dear Celia! She was toiling bravely far away from
+her! There was no prospect of anything better for years to come, perhaps
+never so long as she lived. She knelt down by her bed, and prayed for a
+long time. Then she arose quietly and went back to her window, a
+chastened look upon her face. This was not more than he had helped her
+to bear before. Indeed, it was not nearly so much. It was what Jesus had
+himself borne, being despised and rejected of men. She darned on till
+the room grew dark, and then she sat in the twilight and thought. She
+could not bring herself to go downstairs yet, not till she must to get
+supper. She thanked the Lord she had a room to herself where she might
+take refuge alone and think of him. It was seldom that aunt Hannah had
+had even this privilege in the daytime since she had come to live with
+Nettie, there was always so much to be done, and Nettie seemed to expect
+it to be done quickly.
+
+The company below had departed, but Miss Grant took no heed. She sat and
+watched the grey sky grow into night. There was no sunset. It had been a
+grey day. There was not even a point of light to make the sky lovely. It
+sank into darkness quietly, soberly, unnoticed and unlovely. She thought
+it was like herself. But then there had been some reason why God had not
+made a bright sunset to-night, and there surely was some reason why he
+had wanted her life grey instead of rose-colored. She sighed just a
+little, and now that the darkness had stolen softly upon her, she let a
+tear have its way down her cheek.
+
+Downstairs Nettie was growing restless. Hiram came in a little earlier
+than usual with a sour look and asked how long it would be before
+supper. Nettie said it would not be long, and wondered why aunt Hannah
+did not come downstairs. Hiram remarked that if the old woman was
+getting lazy and taking on fine-lady airs they had better give her a
+warning, for he couldn’t support her for nothing. He threw a letter for
+her upon the table while Nettie was lighting the lamp. Nettie took it
+up, glanced at the writing, and then sent Johnnie up with it and told
+him to tell aunt Hannah his father had come and wanted his supper right
+away.
+
+“It’s from Celia again,” she said, in a contemptuous tone. “She wastes
+more money on postage. I don’t think it’s right to do that in her
+position. If she has any extra money she better save it up and help with
+supporting aunt Hannah. A great fat letter, too. I don’t see what she
+finds to write about. This is the third one this week. It’s perfectly
+absurd!”
+
+But aunt Hannah did not hear what they said, she was not sitting near
+the drum, and would not again, even if she was cold.
+
+Johnnie came down and reported that aunt Hannah had a light in her room
+and Nettie rattled the stove with all her might, and slammed the dishes
+around more than was necessary, but still aunt Hannah did not come, and
+finally Nettie began to get supper herself. She sent Johnnie up again
+pretty soon to tell aunt Hannah she wished she would come downstairs,
+that she needed her, and Johnnie came back and said aunt Hannah told him
+to tell mamma she would be down pretty soon, she could not come just
+now.
+
+“Well, really!” said Hiram, looking up from his paper, “seems to me she
+is putting on airs at a great rate. If I were you, Nettie, I would just
+sit down and wait till she comes. I wouldn’t get supper at all. If you
+haven’t the grit to tell her to come down now when you send for her,
+I’ll do it for you.”
+
+But Nettie rattled the stove and the dishes and managed to get supper
+ready pretty soon. She did not quite understand her aunt. This was a new
+development. Never in all the years she had known her and been cared for
+by her had aunt Hannah ever refused a request for help. It must be
+something serious. Was she sick? Nettie had some little heart left in
+her, and it irritated her to have her husband speak so of her relatives,
+so she bristled up at him, while she made the coffee.
+
+“You’ll not do any such thing, Hiram Bartlett. I guess she has a right
+to stay in her room once in a while. I’m sure I never knew her to do the
+like before in the whole of her life. If she was your aunt, you wouldn’t
+speak of her in that way. I think you ought to be a little grateful for
+the way she took care of you last week when you were so sick, and me
+with the baby sick, too. If she hadn’t been here I should have had my
+hands more than full. I don’t know what I should have done. Johnnie,
+make that baby stop crying! Lillie, pick that doll up off the floor! I
+keep walking over something of yours all the time. I s’pose Celia’s got
+into some trouble and aunt Hannah’s worried about her. I expected as
+much. That girl hadn’t experience enough of the world to go off to the
+city alone. Somebody ought to have taken her home to live. If one of the
+boys had been married she could have gone with them, but the boys are so
+selfish they never think of other people. If you had any sense of the
+fitness of things you’d have done it yourself.”
+
+They talked on in a wrangling way until supper was ready, but it was not
+until they had nearly finished the evening meal that the hall door
+opened and aunt Hannah walked in.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+Aunt Hannah had lighted her lamp a few minutes after the light of the
+day went out, to get a little comfort from her Bible before going
+downstairs to face her trials, for it must be confessed that aunt Hannah
+had not had a cross so heavy to bear in many a year, as it was for her
+to go downstairs that night and face Hiram and Nettie calmly after the
+words she had heard her niece speak. She had tried to think of all the
+comfort in the Bible as she sat in the twilight. She had a great store
+of the precious words to draw from, for her Bible had ever been her
+chief delight. She knew just where to turn in her memory for the right
+help and it came trooping forth.
+
+“Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I
+will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee
+with the right hand of my righteousness. . . . When thou passest through
+the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not
+overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be
+burned. . . . God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted
+above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to
+escape, that ye may be able to bear it. . . . Blessed is the man that
+endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of
+life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. . . . For I
+reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be
+compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. . . . All things
+work together for good to them that love God. . . . To be conformed to
+the image of his Son. . . . If God be for us, who can be against us?
+. . . Nay in all these things we are more than conquerors through him
+that loved us.”
+
+Then she lighted the lamp to search out another promise, for it seemed
+to her as if just to look upon the words would somehow help her. It was
+at that moment Johnnie brought up Celia’s letter. She opened it quickly,
+the anticipation of another trouble arising in her mind, for what might
+not have happened to Celia so far away in that great city alone, since
+the last letter she wrote?
+
+It was a thick letter and she read it slowly through, taking no thought
+of time because the matter it contained absorbed her mind completely,
+and when Johnnie came up the second time, she had something new to think
+about which demanded immediate attention and had claims prior to any
+downstairs. The letter read thus:
+
+    “DEAR AUNT HANNAH:
+
+    “Do you remember the words on the little bookmark you sent me
+    for my birthday? I know you do, for you have a way of hiding all
+    such words away in that wonderful memory of yours. You know the
+    heading was about an allowance, from the king, a continual
+    allowance. When I read it I knew just what you meant by sending
+    it to me. You wanted to remind me that my King had plenty of
+    extra strength to give me, and that he had promised to furnish
+    me with enough for every day of my life to bear that day’s
+    trials. It did help me, for I knew I was trying to bear some of
+    them all by myself, and that I often and often forget that I do
+    not have to take up next year’s crosses and worry about them.
+    But I remember, when I first read the words, I couldn’t help
+    longing deep down in my heart, that I could have a real earthly
+    allowance of money, just solid hard dirty money, coming in every
+    week, and every month, and every year, and enough to supply all
+    the actual needs so that I might live with you and work for you
+    and have you all to myself. Then I felt indeed that my head
+    would be lifted up out of prison forever—for I read the chapter
+    about Jehoiachin as you meant I should, you dear good
+    auntie—and it helped me too. You see I had been taking up a big
+    heavy cross for the year to come for you. I didn’t feel happy
+    about you there at Hiram’s, for in spite of me I cannot like
+    Hiram’s ways and I don’t believe you do. I know for one thing,
+    and a very small thing, that you hate tobacco smoke and have
+    never been used to it, and yet Hiram smokes all over the house
+    whenever he pleases, without even so much as caring whether it
+    is repulsive to you or not. In fact, I am wicked enough to
+    suspect that he might do it the more, just because you don’t
+    like it, to show you he is master of his own house. I am so
+    sorry I have to feel that way about my cousin-in-law, but I
+    can’t help it. There is this comfort about it, I don’t believe
+    Nettie minds, and as she is the one that has to be his wife and
+    go through life with him, it is a relief to think she doesn’t.
+    But there! That is all out of the way, and unchristian, and I
+    have been too much blessed to allow myself to say anything
+    unchristian about any one. Only I did want you to understand
+    that I appreciated how hard it was for you to cheerfully accept
+    Nettie’s proposal and go to live with her for a few years. I did
+    not say so then because I thought any words would only make it
+    harder to bear, and I know my own dear auntie’s old way of
+    always finding a thing easier to bear if she succeeds in making
+    other people think she is perfectly happy. That is just one way,
+    and the only way in which you ever are the least little bit
+    dishonest.
+
+    “But I must hurry on with my main theme which has not even been
+    hinted at yet. And I have a great deal to write, and must get it
+    in to-night, for I cannot bear to have you wait a minute longer
+    than is necessary to hear the good news.
+
+    “In the first place, you are not to stay at Nettie’s another
+    day—that is not unless you prefer to, of course—but you are to
+    pack up every scrap that belongs to you and take the first train
+    to Philadelphia, sending me a telegram (at my expense) to say
+    what train you start on. You must come to the Broad Street
+    station—have your trunks checked there too, and don’t leave any
+    of your things behind, for there is plenty of room to put all
+    your things here, and you are not to go back to Nettie’s unless
+    you go on a visit of pleasure.”
+
+Aunt Hannah glanced up to see if the little room with its old ingrain
+carpet and cheap furniture was still about her. She was almost
+breathless with the proposal of the letter. Things seemed to whirl
+around her. She wanted to get something to steady her before she read
+on. She saw the black side of the sheet-iron drum and remembered the
+afternoon, and a glance toward her open Bible showed her the lines “God
+is faithful . . . will with the temptation also make a way to escape,
+that ye may be able to bear it.” She drew a long breath and closed her
+eyes for a minute’s lifting of her heart to God. He was going to make
+the way to escape. She did not yet understand how it was to be done, but
+her faith caught at the fact that it was to be done. Then she went back
+to the letter.
+
+    “You are to give your checks to the porter on the car—and you
+    are to take a sleeper if you come at night, or a parlor car if
+    you choose to come in the daytime. I enclose your ticket.”
+
+Aunt Hannah noticed then that a small pink and white paper had fallen
+from the letter when she opened it, and slipped to the floor. She
+stooped and picked it up in a dazed way. Good for one trip to
+Philadelphia it certainly was. This was something tangible and brought
+her back to everyday life. She really was to go, for here was the
+ticket. She went on with the letter eagerly now.
+
+    “You are to have the porter carry your satchel into the station
+    for you, and I will meet you at the gate and take you home. Yes,
+    HOME, aunt Hannah, yours and mine, do you hear that? It isn’t
+    very pretty, nor inviting yet, but it is ours for a while, for
+    as long as we want it, and we shall fix it into a charming home.
+    And now you want to know how it all happened and what it means.
+
+    “Well, this morning I was sent for again to come to Rawley and
+    Brown’s office on very important business, and as they told me
+    it might keep me some time I asked for the day off at the store.
+    I couldn’t have had that, if I had not done double duty for the
+    last week in place of a girl who was sick. Mr. Dobson was very
+    nice and said certainly in such a case he would give me
+    permission. Of course, I suppose I’ll lose my pay for that day,
+    but it had to be done, and it doesn’t matter now anyway. Well,
+    Mr. Rawley hemmed and hawed a good deal, and finally told me
+    that everything was satisfactorily settled at last and that I
+    had been duly declared by the court to be uncle Abner’s heir,
+    without any question or doubt anywhere, and that he wished to go
+    over the papers with me and place the property in my hands.
+    There was some red tape to be gone through with which I needn’t
+    stop now to tell you about. It was all very interesting to me,
+    the number of times I had to sign my name, and all the
+    witnesses, and I felt just like a girl in a book, but I haven’t
+    time for that. There is better to come. It seems uncle Abner had
+    a farm where he lived after he got old, and his wife died and
+    his son went to India, and there was a young farmer and his
+    family who lived there and took care of him, and they have
+    rented the house ever since. They still live there. The farm is
+    pretty good, way up in New York somewhere I think, I didn’t pay
+    much attention to it. Then he owned an interest in a coal mine
+    near Scranton and a few government bonds, not many of those, but
+    the whole is well invested and brings in a nice little income
+    every year, sure, and I couldn’t help thinking of Jehoiachin
+    when Mr. Rawley was telling me about it. He said it was so well
+    invested that it was, as near as anything earthly could be,
+    sure, a continual ‘income as long as I lived’ if I kept things
+    in their present shape, for uncle Abner had been a very careful
+    man and always invested in pretty safe things with what little
+    he had. I didn’t tell him I considered it much instead of
+    little, though. It seems a fortune to me. I suppose I shall
+    learn better hereafter, but I am going to try to be very wise
+    with it anyway, with God’s help.
+
+    “Now you want to know how much it is, I know. Well, it amounts
+    to about nine hundred dollars a year at the lowest calculation,
+    besides several years of accumulated interest not invested yet.
+    Isn’t that riches? Why, you’ve often told me that not many
+    ministers and few missionaries get more than that. Now then, why
+    shouldn’t you and I be missionaries? I know it has been your
+    dear desire all your life, and I don’t know of anything that
+    would be grander work. And as we can’t go as foreign
+    missionaries just now, what if we should be home missionaries?
+    Of course, two lone women couldn’t take mortar and bricks and
+    build a church and preach, at least I shouldn’t like to try it,
+    though I’m not at all sure but I could do it. You know we always
+    thought, if we had the time and the material and the pattern,
+    you and I could do almost anything anybody else could if we
+    tried. Well, I began to think about a mission for us, and before
+    I had gotten half-way home to write to you it came to me just
+    what I would like to do. Why shouldn’t you and I make a real
+    home mission for ourselves right here in the city of
+    Philadelphia, by making a good home for a few people who have
+    none of their own? It seems to me there is as much gospel
+    sometimes in a good sweet loaf of bread such as you can make, as
+    there is in—well—_some_ sermons. Don’t you think so? Then we
+    could get a hold on the people who ate it, and get them to go to
+    the churches, and try to help them in their everyday lives. Why,
+    some of the young men here would stay at home evenings
+    occasionally, perhaps regularly, if they had a pleasant, warm,
+    light place to stay in. Instead of that they go out to the
+    saloons, perhaps. Anyway, auntie dear, they don’t look rested in
+    the morning when they come down to breakfast. And oh, what a
+    breakfast we did have this morning! It seems as though I never
+    can like hash again, though I always used to enjoy ours so much
+    at home when you made it. But hash in Mrs. Morris’
+    boarding-house is a very different dish indeed. When I got home
+    I went straight up to Mrs. Morris’ room. She has not gotten
+    entirely well from her severe sickness of a few weeks ago yet,
+    though she goes around and directs things, but she seems to be
+    so worried all the time. You know I told you how many bills she
+    has unpaid and how hard times have been for her. You wouldn’t
+    wonder a bit if you could be here and watch the way things go a
+    little while. She was lying on her bed when I went in and
+    looking as if she would like to cry, if she only were young
+    enough and had the energy. She told me right away that she was
+    in trouble again. She was a month behind in her rent, and the
+    agent had been around and said it must be paid in advance after
+    this and he couldn’t wait longer than till five o’clock. She
+    only pays twenty-five dollars a month, and with all her boarders
+    you might think she could pay it, but she doesn’t, that’s all.
+    While she was talking I began to revolve my plans very rapidly.
+    I didn’t want to act too rashly, for you know you always tell me
+    that is one of my great faults, but I knew if I did anything it
+    ought to be done very soon. Probably it would have been wiser to
+    have asked Mr. Rawley’s advice, and perhaps some of my
+    relatives, but I had an innate suspicion that I would not be
+    allowed to do it at all, if I asked. And why shouldn’t I? The
+    money is mine, and I am of age if I am not very experienced. I
+    knew you would like it, at least I felt very sure you would, and
+    if you and God like a thing I don’t care what all the rest of
+    the world think. So I asked Mrs. Morris a lot of questions, some
+    I had not asked her before. You see I had a whole two hundred
+    dollars in my pocketbook, Mr. Rawley had given me. He said it
+    was mine, and I might as well take it to begin on. So I took it.
+    I knew I would want to do a lot of things right away, and that
+    the first one would be to get you here at once, and to buy your
+    ticket. I was just aching to spend some money, for it was the
+    first time in my life I ever had much to spend. I asked Mrs.
+    Morris about her butcher’s bill, and her grocery bill, and
+    things and I found they were not so very big as she had made me
+    think at first. Then I asked her point blank how she would like
+    to let a woman come in here in her place for three months or so,
+    and take the boarding-house off her hands, paying the bills for
+    the present, and letting her pay them by and by, if she chose,
+    or if not, holding the furniture as collateral. She didn’t know
+    what I meant by collateral, but she soon understood, and said
+    she would be only too glad, only she never could find any woman
+    who would be so foolish. She said, too, that she was afraid if
+    she once got away she would never be willing to come back, but
+    just stay and leave the old furniture to make it right with her
+    debts, and she sighed and returned to her trouble and began to
+    cry. Then I couldn’t stand it any longer. I told her I thought I
+    knew the right one for her, and I would write to her at once and
+    attend to it all if she was sure she agreed to it. It did not
+    take her long to decide what she would do after she was fully
+    convinced that I meant what I said. She began to pack up her
+    clothes right away and to talk about what she would take with
+    her. She hasn’t much worth while, I guess. She will want those
+    horrid crayon portraits of her family and herself, I hope, and a
+    few other ornaments. But when we had gotten to this point, we
+    found it was five o’clock, and the door bell made Mrs. Morris
+    remember the rent agent. Sure enough, he had come, and Maggie
+    came up to call Mrs. Morris. She looked at me blankly as much as
+    to say: ‘What shall I do?’ She had forgotten all about him. I
+    thought just a minute and then I told her I had some money,
+    enough I thought to pay the agent and satisfy him, and I would
+    go down and see if I could make him behave till we got things
+    settled. Then I went downstairs and put on my most dignified
+    air. He bristled at me and demanded Mrs. Morris.
+
+    “‘Mrs. Morris is not well and is lying down,’ said I, ‘and I
+    have come down in her place. Is there anything I can do for
+    you?’
+
+    “‘Well, I’ve got to see her if she _is_ lying down,’ he said in
+    a loud voice, and he took a couple of steps toward the stairs as
+    if he would go up to her at once. ‘She’s got to pay her rent.
+    She’ll be put out if she don’t do it at once. This thing has
+    gone——’
+
+    “‘Oh,’ I said, ‘it isn’t in the least necessary for you to get
+    excited, if that is all. I can attend to the rent as well as any
+    thing else. Are you the agent?’
+
+    “‘Yes, I _am_,’ he said, ‘and I won’t have any more talk either.
+    I want my money.’
+
+    “I had my pocketbook in my hand, and I tried to freeze him with
+    a look as I opened it. When he saw me bring out a big roll of
+    bills he almost looked faint, he was so astonished.
+
+    “‘How much is it that is back?’ I asked.
+
+    “‘Two months and a half,’ he snarled.
+
+    “I began to count out the money, and then I remembered my own
+    experience with Rawley and Brown and thought I would give him a
+    little taste of it. I drew back and said ‘You are sure you are
+    the agent and fully entitled to receive this money? Can you give
+    me any credentials?’
+
+    “He was very much taken aback, and got red and embarrassed and
+    at last remembered that Mrs. Morris knew him. Then he grew angry
+    again and demanded to see her. I sent a message up to Mrs.
+    Morris that if she was able we would like to have her come down,
+    and she came. When it was finally all settled and the receipt
+    signed, I told the young man that he might tell the owner that
+    the rent hereafter would be paid in advance and on time, and
+    that there were a few repairs which needed immediate attention
+    and we would like to have him call at his earliest convenience.
+    He went away quite crestfallen, and I began to feel quite like a
+    householder. The only thing that troubles me is Mrs. Morris’
+    extreme gratitude, because, dear auntie, I’m afraid I haven’t
+    loved her as much as I ought to for Christ’s sake, and I
+    therefore can’t take to myself the credit she would give me. It
+    is all very selfish in me.
+
+    “Now the matter stands this way. If you possibly can come this
+    week, do so. Mrs. Morris will be ready to leave on your arrival.
+    She will go to her sister out West, and I doubt if she ever
+    returns. I have given her some money to go with. It isn’t always
+    you can buy a full fledged boarding-house, boarders and all so
+    cheap. I suppose some one would call it dear, but I am very
+    happy in my purchase. I shall keep my place in the store till
+    you come anyway, for I don’t care to have the boarders find out
+    my connection with the business, till they see some of the
+    changes I want to have made for the better. The only servant
+    here is worse than none. She is so dirty and saucy you never
+    could stand her. If you possibly can induce Molly to come with
+    you, bring her. I enclose a New York draft which I think will be
+    all the money you will want to bring her, and pay any little
+    bills till you get here. And now, dear auntie, I do hope and
+    pray you will say yes, and come at once, and not find any
+    ‘oughts and ought nots’ in the way, as you sometimes do. You see
+    I have gone ahead and burned my bridges behind me, because I
+    felt that you ‘ought’ whether you think so or not, for I mean to
+    take care of you now myself and you are working too hard there.
+    Here we will keep you in pink cotton and only let you direct. I
+    shall keep good servants, and if I don’t always make the two
+    ends meet why I shall have ‘a continual allowance’ given me of
+    my King to draw upon.
+
+             “Your loving, eager
+                 “CELIA.”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+There was a calmness and “upliftedness” about Miss Grant’s face as she
+entered the dining-room that the people about that table did not
+understand, and it rather angered them than otherwise. She walked
+quietly to her accustomed chair and sat down. Nobody spoke, but she had
+so far forgotten her afternoon’s troubles as to be oblivious of this.
+Hiram was trying to think of the most sarcastic thing he could say, and
+so failed to say anything, while Nettie in her various revulsions of
+feeling did not know how to begin. Aunt Hannah herself opened the
+conversation in the calmest, most self-contained tone possible, as if
+the question she asked was one she often asked of her nephew.
+
+“Hiram, can you tell me what time the through Philadelphia trains go?”
+
+Hiram raised his cold, black eyes to her face in astonishment, a moment,
+and stared at her as much as to say, “What possible concern of yours is
+that?” and then dropped them to his plate again and went on eating.
+After a suitable pause he said freezingly, “No.” Aunt Hannah tried
+again.
+
+“Isn’t there a time-table in the paper? Could you find out for me?”
+
+“I don’t know,” said Hiram, this time without looking up. “I suppose if
+it’s there you can find it as well as I can.”
+
+“What in the world do you want with the time-table, aunt Hannah?” asked
+Nettie, peevishly, with an undertone of anxiety in her voice. “There
+isn’t anything the matter with Celia, is there? I presume she has lost
+her place and is coming back on us. I always supposed that was the way
+her venture would turn out. She ought to have tried to get a place in
+the country for housework. It was all she was ever trained to do.
+Anybody might know she couldn’t get on in the city.”
+
+“Nothing is the matter with Celia, Nettie,” answered her aunt, “except
+that she has written me to come to Philadelphia. She has found something
+there for me to do, and I have decided that it will be best for me to go
+at once. I shall have to start to-morrow, if possible, because I am
+being waited for.”
+
+“You go to Philadelphia!” exclaimed Nettie dropping her fork. “The
+perfect idea! Has Celia gone crazy? Why aunt Hannah you couldn’t get
+along in the city. Why, you—you—wouldn’t know how to get anywhere. You
+don’t understand. Philadelphia is a large city and you couldn’t get
+across the street alone. And what could you do? You are not going to
+start in as a clerk in a store at your time of life, I hope. You would
+break down at once, and then we should have you both to care for, for I
+fully expect to have something happen to Celia soon, and then we should
+have you both to care for, and you know aunt Hannah, willing as we are,
+we are not able to do that.” Nettie paused for breath.
+
+Then Hiram turned his little black eyes on her and asked contemptuously,
+“And who is going to pay your fare on this pleasure excursion you are
+going to take? You certainly can’t expect me to do it. I think I’ve done
+all I’m called upon to do. I understood the bargain was that you were to
+work for your board here.”
+
+Hiram had never been so openly insolent before. If he had, Miss Grant
+would have left long ago, even though she had been obliged to walk the
+streets in search of work for her living. She turned her clear eyes upon
+him full, and said quietly with the strength of the grace the Father
+gave her from her communings with him:
+
+“Yes, Hiram, that was the bargain, and I certainly have worked. I
+consider that I have fully earned all that I have eaten, and the amount
+of shelter that has been given me. As for any further assistance, I
+think I have never yet asked it, and I hope I may never be obliged to do
+so. Celia has sent me money and a ticket,—and I shall not be obliged to
+ask any favors of any one.”
+
+“Celia sent you money!” Nettie fairly screamed it. “Where in the world
+did she get money?”
+
+“Yes, where did Celia get money?” asked Hiram, sharply. “It seems to me
+there’s something pretty shady about this business. Miss Celia’ll get
+into serious trouble which will bring no credit to her family, if she
+keeps on.”
+
+Aunt Hannah rose from her untasted supper, drew herself up to her full
+height and looked down upon Hiram Bartlett till he seemed to shrink
+beneath her glance. There comes a time when a strong sweet nature like
+Hannah Grant’s can be roused to such a pitch of righteous indignation
+that it will tower above other smaller natures and make them cower and
+cringe in their smallness and meanness. She had reached one of those
+places in her life. Nettie, as she watched her, thought to herself that
+aunt Hannah must have been almost handsome once when she was young.
+
+“Hiram,” said aunt Hannah, and her voice was quite controlled and
+steady, “don’t you ever dare to breathe such a thought as that again
+about that pure-souled girl. You know in your inmost soul that what you
+have said would be impossible. Some time, when you stand before God, you
+will be ashamed of those words, as you will be ashamed of a good many of
+your other words and actions.” That was all she said to him. She did not
+lose her temper, nor say anything which she did not feel she ought to
+say, or which she would have taken back afterward. Then she turned to
+Nettie and quietly said:
+
+“Celia has had a little estate left her from her father’s great uncle
+Abner. She is now quite independent as regards money, and she wishes to
+have me with her as soon as possible, and I intend to go to-morrow
+evening, if I can get ready.”
+
+She turned from the room then and went upstairs, but when she got there,
+instead of going to work at packing, she turned the key in the lock and
+knelt down by her bed, to pray first for Hiram, and second that God
+might overrule anything that she had said amiss.
+
+Meantime below stairs there was astonishment and confusion. Celia as a
+poor shop girl, and Celia with money were two very different people.
+Even Hiram felt that. He retired behind his paper till a suitable time
+had elapsed for his wife to talk out her anger, astonishment, and
+humiliation, and then he began to reflect that it would be a very
+convenient thing to have the management of Celia’s money, even though it
+was not much, for he was just beginning business for himself and every
+little helped in the matter of capital.
+
+“It would just serve you right, Hiram Bartlett, if Celia should turn out
+to be rich,” said his wife, angrily. “The way you have treated her and
+aunt Hannah ought to make you ashamed, but I don’t suppose it will. Now
+what am I to do I should like to know? Three children, and one a fretful
+baby, and all my housework to do all alone. If you had treated aunt
+Hannah nicely, she would have stayed anyway. Maybe Celia would have come
+here to live and taught the children. She is real good at teaching
+little children anything. I remember she used to be so patient with the
+boys at home. It would be awfully convenient to have somebody around
+with money.”
+
+In the course of the evening, while aunt Hannah swiftly gathered her
+possessions in array preparatory to packing, Nettie knocked at her door.
+She wanted to ask a great many questions, and she wanted to argue with
+aunt Hannah and show her the inadvisability and impossibility of her
+thinking of such a thing as going to Philadelphia to live with Celia,
+when her plain duty was here with Nettie and her family. When she saw
+she was making no headway, she tried to work on her aunt’s strong sense
+of duty, and finally cried, and told her she never thought she would be
+left by aunt Hannah in that way, with all those children and no help,
+that she always knew aunt Hannah cared more for Celia than for any of
+them, and that it was not fair when they had offered her a home and done
+everything for her, and she had come there with the understanding that
+she would stay several years anyway. It wasn’t fair to Hiram.
+
+When she had talked this way for some time, her aunt turned to her
+almost desperately. She did not want to say anything rash. But Nettie
+must be shown how inconsistent she was.
+
+“Nettie,” said she, just as calmly as she had talked to Hiram, “you know
+that you and Hiram never wanted either me or Celia with you. You know
+that you consider me in the way, and that I am only good to work. I
+don’t say anything against that, for that may be true, but you know that
+you grudge me my home here, and that you are giving out to your friends
+that you are doing a great deal to care for me in my helpless old age,
+and that I am a burden. You know yourself whether that is quite fair,
+and whether I have not worked as hard as any woman could for my board
+and lodging. But that is not to the point. You have a perfect right to
+think so about me. It may be all true, and I cannot stop you in saying
+such things to outsiders, but I have a right to say whether I will be
+taken and disposed of as if I was a piece of goods, and cared for as if
+I was a baby. I am not quite so infirm yet but that I can earn my living
+where I shall be more welcome. I thank the Lord that a way has been
+opened for me to go where I am wanted, but I must honestly tell you,
+Nettie, that I should have gone just the same if I had not known that
+you felt so, for I feel that my place is with Celia, if I can be with
+her. She is alone in the world. You have your husband and your children.
+She has nobody but me. I bear you no grudge, Nettie, and I think you
+will be happier with me away.” Then she went on packing and Nettie
+retreated to talk with her husband.
+
+The result was a proposition that they should coax Celia to come home
+and live with them, and Nettie said a few nice things which she hoped
+would patch up aunt Hannah’s feelings, but aunt Hannah was firm, and
+would not even delay to write to Celia. She went diligently on with her
+preparations.
+
+Gradually they settled down to the inevitable, and by the next noon had
+so far calmed down as to be able to ask some questions about the more
+definite details. Aunt Hannah had started out on an expedition very
+early in the morning without telling them where she was going, or
+without seeming to remember that there was breakfast to be gotten and
+cleared away. She seemed to be living by faith. She certainly ate
+nothing that morning. She visited a certain little house in a by-street
+where lived an old servant, Molly by name, who had declined the most
+earnest solicitations of Nettie to live with her at exceedingly small
+pay, and preferred to earn her living by doing fine ironing. She also
+visited the station, the telegraph office, the bank, and the
+expressman’s office, and then went back to her packing again. Later in
+the afternoon, she went out again and made a few calls, on the
+minister’s wife and the doctor’s wife and a few very dear friends,
+bidding them a quiet good-bye, for she wished to slip away without
+making any more talk than was necessary. But it was at the dinner-table
+that Celia’s whole plan was ferreted out by Nettie.
+
+“Celia has bought a boarding-house!” exclaimed Nettie. “What an absurd
+idea! What does she or you either know about keeping boarders? You’ll
+both let them run right over you. You’ll get in debt the very first
+week. Why, aunt Hannah, you have no right to encourage Celia in such a
+scheme. She’s too young, anyway, to be away off there in a city without
+a guardian. She ought to be here. Hiram could manage her money and make
+it double itself in time, and if she really has as much as you say, she
+has plenty to live quite comfortably without doing anything. You ought
+to tell her so.”
+
+But aunt Hannah did not seem to be intimidated by this. Nettie tried
+again.
+
+“And then think how plebeian it will be! It was bad enough to work in a
+store, but a boarding-house keeper, and for one who has money of her
+own. It is simply unheard-of. I shall be ashamed to death to have Mrs.
+Morgan know about it. I think I have had trouble enough without having
+to be ashamed of my family. Celia always did do queer things, anyway.
+Don’t you think it is very impractical, Hiram?”
+
+Nettie asked his opinion as if that would settle the matter for
+everybody concerned, and he answered in the same manner.
+
+“I certainly do think it is the most wild and impossible scheme I ever
+heard of, and one which ought not to be permitted. It will be the ruin
+of Celia’s property, and when that is all gone, and you and Celia are in
+trouble, I suppose I shall be called upon to help you out. Of course I
+shall do the best I can, but you must remember that I have not very much
+money to throw away on wild childish schemes.” He spoke with the air of
+a martyr, and aunt Hannah answered him cheerily. She had recovered her
+spirits since she had sent her telegram.
+
+“You needn’t worry, Hiram. I don’t believe either Celia or I will ever
+be in need of your help. But if we are, I don’t think we shall trouble
+you. You know they have a good many charitable institutions in the City
+of Brotherly Love, and we shall surely be well cared for if the
+improbable happens.” Then aunt Hannah placed her nicely prepared little
+coals of fire in the hands of her two grand nephews and her grand niece,
+and went smiling upstairs. The coals were tiny paper parcels each
+containing a bright five dollar gold piece. She had lain awake last
+night, worried about the sharp words she had felt obliged to speak, and
+the sentence Nettie had flung out about her leaving her without help,
+and she wanted to show that she bore no grudge for what they had said.
+Celia had sent her the money to spend as she thought best, and aunt
+Hannah knew her girl well enough to feel she would say this was a good
+way to spend it. Besides, she felt sure she could run a boarding-house
+successfully in a financial way, as well as some others, if she had the
+chance, so she might by and by have more five dollar gold pieces to do
+with as she chose. She was beginning to be very happy, as she packed and
+strapped the last trunk, and smoothed her hair and tied on her grey
+bonnet and grey veil. At the last Hiram and Nettie behaved quite well.
+Those five dollar gold pieces had gone a long way toward making the
+bereavement of aunt Hannah’s departure felt. Hiram took her satchel
+down, and Nettie walked beside her carrying her umbrella and wheeling
+the baby, while Johnnie and Lily trotted on ahead. There was an éclat
+and importance attached to a sudden and first-class departure such as
+aunt Hannah’s was turning out to be, which could not well be carelessly
+neglected. They made an interesting procession down the street. More
+than one neighbor looked out of her window, and a few knew that Miss
+Hannah was going away. But they had said good-bye, and only turned their
+heads the other way to wipe away a tear of regret, or sigh perhaps that
+their good friend was not to be near any more with her cheery face and
+her words of comfort. When it was observed by one or two that Molly
+Poppleton had also passed down the street accompanied by an old colored
+man wheeling her ancient trunk on a wheelbarrow, and carrying a
+good-sized bundle, several of the good women came to their gates to look
+down the street, and wait till Nettie returned to ask what it all meant.
+And Nettie enjoyed a triumphal march back to her home. “Yes, she’s gone,
+we shall miss her very much.” Her nose was red with being rubbed and her
+eyes had a suspicious redness about them. “No, Celia isn’t ill, but she
+couldn’t stand it any longer without aunt Hannah. You know Celia has had
+a fortune left her? Oh yes, she’ll have plenty now. Yes, aunt Hannah has
+to go and be her chaperon. I suppose she’ll quite come out in society
+now she has money enough to do about as she pleases. Oh yes, she’s very
+generous, she always was. She sent the children each handsome presents
+in gold. Yes, aunt Hannah has taken old Molly for a maid. She’ll be
+obliged to have a maid there, you know. Funny, isn’t it, that a woman
+who knows how to work should need a maid? I shouldn’t like it myself,
+but then one has to do as other people do.” Then Nettie went home and
+got supper and washed up her dishes and put her three babies to bed, and
+sat down wearily and wished for aunt Hannah.
+
+But aunt Hannah sat serenely in the sleeper, waiting for her berth to be
+made up, and thinking to herself that she also, like Jehoiachin, had had
+her head lifted up out of prison.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X.
+
+
+It was perhaps one of the happiest nights that aunt Hannah ever spent.
+She lay down in her bed in the sleeper and slept like a little child for
+a time, for she was as tired as a baby after her day and night of
+excitement, but in the early dawn she awoke and lay there listening to
+the regular cadence of the moving train. It was music to her. Her life
+had for years been a monotonous one, and every detail of the journey was
+a delight to her. The turning wheels seemed to sing a tune to her, “Now
+hath mine head been lifted up above mine enemies round about me.” She
+tried to turn that thought out of her mind as soon as she discovered its
+significance, for she did not like to think that even in her heart had
+hid a feeling that Hiram and Nettie were her enemies, but somehow the
+rejoicing stayed anyway.
+
+She began to look forward to the morning and the day that was to follow,
+the opening of her new life. What would it hold of good or of ill for
+her? Would there be trials? Yes, but there had been trials before. She
+would have “his strength to bear them, with his might her feet could be
+shod. She could find her resting-places in the promises of her God,” as
+she had done before. And it was such delightful work before her, a
+prospect of making over a home and making it pleasant. Aunt Hannah took
+rest, too, in the thought of experienced Molly Poppleton now reposing in
+the berth above her. She was going on a mission at last. How good God
+had been to her! He had tried her for a little while, but he was
+bringing her out into a large place. She could see that, even though she
+could not know the trials that were before her. Of course there were
+trials, she expected that, earth was full of them; but she did not need
+to carry them; Christ had borne them all for her long ago. She would
+trust and he would bring her safely through as he had done before and
+was doing now. Then her thoughts dwelt in sweet reflection upon her
+Saviour whom she loved so much, and she communed with him and promised
+to try to help every person who came within that house that she was to
+make pleasant for him and his children, and to try to live for him
+before them every day. And that crowded, rushing car became a holy
+place, because God met her there and blessed her.
+
+The train reached the Broad Street station at a very early hour. Celia
+was glad of that, for it gave her plenty of time to meet her aunt and go
+with her back to the house, without being late at the store. She had not
+had time to reflect yet as to whether she would give up her position.
+She was hardly ready to do so. It seemed to her that perhaps she might
+do more good if she retained it for the present, at least until she
+found some one else who needed it, and to whom she could give it with
+profit, both to that person and to her employers who had been very kind
+to her. Besides, she wished not to appear before the boarders yet as an
+active agent in the reforms of the house.
+
+At exactly half-past five she arrived at the Broad Street station. It
+was an early hour for her to be out alone, and it was still dark save
+for the electric lights which glared everywhere as if trying to keep off
+the day. But the train would come in at five minutes to six, and Celia
+had been too eager and too happy to sleep longer, so she paced up and
+down in the ladies’ room until the train was almost due, watching the
+people come and go and wondering about them all as she was wont to do.
+As the time drew near for the train she went out and stood behind the
+gates watching the trains moving back and forth. She began to say to
+herself, “Oh, what if she should not come? What if something has
+happened to the train? Or what if Nettie and Hiram have persuaded her at
+the last minute not to come? Or what if she missed her train? But no,
+she would have telegraphed. ‘Charge not thyself,’—dear me! How much I
+do that. I must stop worrying ahead about everything. Aunt Hannah must
+have seen that fault in me very glaringly. I never realized how much I
+do it.” And then the train whistled and rolled into the station, and the
+passengers began to alight, and stream into the gates, looking sleepy
+and cold. Celia stood there in the dim greyness of the cold, foggy
+morning and began to tremble with the excitement and joy of watching for
+aunt Hannah. Suddenly she saw the ample form of Molly Poppleton loom up
+behind the gilt-buttoned porter and she caught a glimpse of a little
+grey bonnet just behind and knew that aunt Hannah was come.
+
+She took them home in the street-car, and then escorted them up to her
+little third story back room. She had risen early and put it in order.
+Molly looked around in disdain.
+
+“Well, Miss Celia, you don’t have things as fine in the city as I
+expected,” she said. “The idea of their putting you up in such a room as
+this! Why, Miss Celia, it ain’t as good as the kitchen chamber at
+Cloverdale. I always heard a city was a dreadful place to live, but I
+never thought it was this bad. The wonder to me is anybody that don’t
+have to, stays in ’em. But we’ll have it _clean_ pretty soon anyway,
+don’t you worry.” And she stalked to the window and surveyed the narrow
+court below, where she surmised she would be obliged to dry her clothes.
+She sniffed to herself, but Celia could see her practical eye already
+planning how she would change the position of the ash bucket and the
+garbage pail. She gave a sigh of relief at the thought of Molly
+Poppleton’s ability, and turned to aunt Hannah, fairly smothering her in
+kisses. Then she put a hand on each soft, loved cheek, held her off at
+arm’s length and looked into her face.
+
+“Now, you dear, good auntie, tell me just what you think of me? Am I a
+wild, impractical girl, full of crazy schemes? Tell me right away.”
+
+“Well,” said aunt Hannah, a queer little twinkle in her eyes, “that’s
+what Hiram thinks.”
+
+“Oh, he does, does he? Well, I don’t really suppose it will matter much,
+do you? But I mustn’t stop now to talk. I have to be at that store in an
+hour, and it takes half of that to get there. We must talk business. Do
+you think you can get along to-day by yourself, with Molly? That is, I
+mean without my worthy advice and assistance? Of course I’ll be home at
+half-past six, and I’ll give in my resignation there if you think best,
+but I hardly like to do it quite so soon after Mrs. Green was so kind
+about getting it for me. It doesn’t seem quite fair to the firm either
+to stop now, after they have had all the trouble of teaching me. Mrs.
+Morris is to leave on the noon train. She is ready, except that her
+faith hasn’t been quite equal to believing that you were really coming
+to take her place. She told the boarders this morning that she was going
+away for her health, and that she had secured a woman to take her place
+for a while. She guessed they would like it just as well. She wasn’t
+sure when she should return. The German promptly gave notice that he
+should leave, and I am glad of it. Some of the others said that if
+things didn’t go better than they had been doing for a week they would
+have to follow his example, but I think they will change their minds
+when they see the difference. I amused myself going to market last
+evening. I bought a great big roast, one of the finest cuts, and some
+fine potatoes and apples and yeast and flour. I know Mrs. Morris’ flour
+isn’t good, for she can’t make anything out of it fit to eat. I also got
+some spinach and celery and sweet potatoes, canned tomatoes and a few
+other things. I want to have a regular treat the first night regardless
+of the cost. You can figure things down afterward, but I thought we’d
+have enough for once to make up for the days of starvation. That Maggie,
+down in the kitchen, is a slouch and a bear. She gets in a towering rage
+whenever you go near her. I have not said anything about her, except to
+ask what contract Mrs. Morris had with her. I find it is on a day to day
+basis, so you can do as you please. If you and Molly want her, and can
+get the right kind of help out of her, keep her. If not, get rid of her
+and we’ll find a second girl who knows how to do things right. Now,
+shall we go down and see Mrs. Morris? And are you sure you are equal to
+all this, and not too tired to begin to-day? I suppose Mrs. Morris would
+wait till you are rested, if you want her to.”
+
+But aunt Hannah smiled and said no, she was eager to begin. Then she
+took off her bonnet and smoothed her grey hair and went down.
+
+Mrs. Morris had on the inevitable old calico wrapper. Celia wondered if
+she meant to travel in it. Her hair had evidently not been combed that
+morning, only twisted in a knot. She seemed embarrassed by aunt Hannah
+in her trim grey traveling dress, and hardly knew on what footing to
+meet her.
+
+“For the land sake!” she exclaimed, wiping her hands, from custom
+perhaps, on the side of her wrapper before shaking hands. “So you’ve
+come! And you’re really willing to undertake it, and think you can
+succeed? I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. It’s a hard life! You look
+too good for such a life. They’re an awful torment, boarders are! Me
+heart has just been broke time an’ again with the troubles I’ve been
+through with them. I’ll show you all around, and if you feel you can’t
+do it, _yet_, I shouldn’t feel you was bound in any way to stick to your
+bargain. Miss Murray she seemed to be so sure, but I wouldn’t want you
+to be took at no disadvantage. You see I am afraid, if I get away, I
+shan’t want to come back again, and I don’t want to go off and feel I
+left you dissatisfied.”
+
+They went down to breakfast soon, and Celia saw her aunt seated before
+the uninviting meal. She felt sorry for her, and yet she thought she
+would enjoy the meal with the prospect of the one she would give the
+boarders later in the day. But she was scarcely prepared for the look of
+horror that gradually overspread the good woman’s face, as she tasted
+dish after dish and found them alike unpalatable. There was oatmeal that
+morning. It was thick and lumpy, and only half cooked. Besides the salt
+had been forgotten. There was pork and greasy fried potatoes, but they
+were both cold, and unseasoned. The coffee was weak and muddy. Celia
+swallowed a few bites. She felt that she could go hungry for one day.
+Then she said a soft good-bye to aunt Hannah, squeezing her hand under
+her napkin so the boarders would not see and slipped away.
+
+Aunt Hannah finished all she cared to of her meal and went back to Mrs.
+Morris. Molly Poppleton sat down to her breakfast in undisguised
+disgust. Nothing but the prospect of the power that was to be hers held
+her tongue from expressing her mind on the subject of good food decently
+cooked. She did not even pretend to eat much, and she looked at the
+slatternly form of Maggie as she lounged in to gather some plates, with
+animosity in her eye. She spent most of her time in the dining-room
+counting the fly specks and finger marks on the wall and windows. She
+made up her mind that she would get time for those windows somehow
+before dinner, if possible. If not, they should be done before another
+dawn of light and breakfast anyway.
+
+Meantime Mrs. Morris was showing aunt Hannah the house. This room
+brought so much a week, and that one only so much, and so on, and at
+each room she had a tale to tell of its various inmates during the years
+she had kept a boarding-house. Aunt Hannah listened quietly, mentally
+making notes of what she would and would not do. She saw, without
+seeming to do so, the worn furniture, the need of a patch on a carpet,
+or a turning of furniture to hide it, the need of a wardrobe, or bureau
+in some cases. She set down in her mind the number of window shades
+torn, or worn out or lacking, and thought how much some cheap muslin
+curtains would improve things. She felt like a rich fairy, as she went
+from room to room seeing its need, and knowing that she could wave a
+wand and change it all. Sometimes the bareness or the attempt at
+decoration by the boarder was pitiful. She paused a moment before a
+picture of a quiet sweet-faced woman, in a dark velvet frame on Harry
+Knowles’ bureau, and wondered who she was, and if the young man whom
+Mrs. Morris said roomed there was worthy of a mother with such a face as
+that. Then she went at Mrs. Morris’ request with her to her room and sat
+there during an hour of conversation, in which Mrs. Morris, with many
+sighs and tears, detailed her entire life and troubles for her benefit.
+Aunt Hannah’s quiet, respectful attention and sympathy led her on until
+she had unburdened all her heart. Then was the Christian woman’s
+opportunity, and she spoke the word in season to the other woman, that
+word which cannot fail to bear fruit in due time. Mrs. Morris, with her
+empty life and joyless spirit, while she received the words with tears
+and some gratitude, but gave no outward sign that they had more than
+touched the surface of her life, yet remembered what had been said to
+her, and as she sat in the train that afternoon, speeding far away from
+the scene of her disappointments and disheartening, her fare paid by one
+Christian, her house taken and managed by another whom she saw must be a
+true saint, pondered all these things in her heart.
+
+Mrs. Morris was gone, and aunt Hannah descended to the kitchen, bidding
+the impatient Molly Poppleton wait until she called her.
+
+Just before Mrs. Morris’ departure, she had informed the sullen-looking
+Maggie that Miss Grant was the woman who was to take her place. Maggie
+had responded with a significant look, which did not promise much for
+taking the new mistress into her favor. She met Miss Grant in the middle
+of the dining-room during her progress to the kitchen. Her hair was
+frowsy, her dress soiled and torn, and her arms akimbo. Altogether she
+would have furnished a formidable encounter to a woman who was not used
+to managing servants and holding the reins of her household well in her
+own hands.
+
+“I just came to see what you wanted fer dinner,” she announced. “There’s
+some things come from a new place where we never deal. I thought I’d let
+you know.”
+
+Aunt Hannah thought a minute. Then she said:
+
+“Yes, Maggie, I’ll be out in the kitchen soon to attend to dinner, but
+meantime it is only one o’clock and there is time enough to get this
+room in order first. I think you would better wash those windows.”
+
+Maggie stood aghast.
+
+“And what’s the matter with this room, I’d like to know?” she said in a
+loud, belligerent tone. “It’s just the same as it always is, and what’s
+good enough fer Mis’ Morris ought to be good enough fer you. Indeed I’ll
+wash no windows to-day. I’ve got me afternoon’s work all planned out.
+This room’ll be swep’ when I sets the table fer dinner, an’ that’s all
+it’ll get to-day. And you needn’t trouble your self about comin’ in the
+kitchen. I never likes to have the missus in the kitchen, it flusters
+me. I know me business and I ’tend to it, and I likes to have them as I
+live with attend to theirs. If you’ve got any orders, give ’em, and I’ll
+get dinner on time, you needn’t worry about that.”
+
+Maggie had backed up against the kitchen door, her arms still akimbo,
+and stood as if to defend the fortress of her dominion.
+
+Aunt Hannah waited till she had drawn down a crooked shade and rolled it
+straight again, pinning the torn edge, before she answered. Then she
+turned and calmly faced the irate Maggie.
+
+“I always manage my own kitchen, Maggie,” she said, in a quiet voice,
+“and I intend to do so still. I want this dining-room put in order
+first, before anything else is attended to. Get some cloths and hot
+water right away, please.”
+
+There was a dignity about aunt Hannah that was new in Maggie’s
+experience. She had been accustomed to intimidate Mrs. Morris by such
+conversation as she had just used, and she supposed she could do the
+same by her new mistress. She never expected to have it treated with
+such calm indifference. She was forced to her last resort.
+
+“I can’t stay in a house where things are managed that way. No lady goes
+into the kitchen. I know me business, and I don’t like to be interfered
+with. If you ain’t suited with me doing as I think best, I can find
+plenty of places.”
+
+“Oh, certainly, if you prefer,” said aunt Hannah, pulling down the other
+shade and fixing it neatly.
+
+“Well, if I do, I’ll go right away, and then what’ll you do?” burst out
+the astonished Maggie. “There’s all them boarders got to have their
+dinner. You can’t fool with boarders, you know. They’ll all leave you.”
+
+“I shall do very well,” answered aunt Hannah. “I brought one of my home
+servants with me, and I can get others very easily. If you choose to
+stay and do as I say I would like to have those windows washed at once,
+otherwise you may go.”
+
+Poor Maggie! She was crestfallen. This was new treatment. The mistresses
+she was used to had to cater to the desires of their servants. She did a
+great deal of work, and she preferred to do it her way. But aunt Hannah
+was firm. Molly at that moment, too impatient to begin to be able to
+wait any longer, put her head in at the door and asked if Miss Hannah
+was ready for her. She eyed the crestfallen Maggie with the superiority
+of a conqueror. That was enough. Maggie tossed her head and declared she
+would not do another stroke of work in that house, and demanded back
+pay. Miss Hannah settled up with her, and she departed, leaving Molly
+monarch of the kitchen and scornfully surveying her new realm.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+“It’s just a pigpen! That’s what it is!” declared Molly Poppleton,
+holding up her ample calico skirts and clean gingham apron in a gingerly
+way. “I don’t know where to begin. I didn’t suppose a human being
+_could_ be so dirty!” Then she plunged into work. The range got such a
+cleaning as it had not had in years. The ashes were cleaned out, and the
+soot removed from all its little doors and traps and openings. Molly was
+not used to a city range with all its numerous appliances, but she had
+very keen common sense and she used it. She knew dirt and ashes could
+not help a fire to burn, so she removed them. While she was about it,
+she gave it a good washing inside and out, for she found the oven
+encrusted with burned sugar and juice of some sort, and the top was
+covered with grease. Then, in the most scientific manner, she started a
+fire, and before very long it was glowing, and the water in the old tank
+was steaming hot.
+
+It appeared there really was no time for those dining-room windows that
+day, after all. With skirts tucked together and sleeves rolled high
+Molly generously used the hot water and soap in the kitchen. She
+unceremoniously took the old ragged cloths which must have been Maggie’s
+wiping towels for scrubbing rags, trusting to Miss Hannah’s sense of the
+fitness of things to provide others in some way. The kitchen table and
+shelves and windows and paint and sink were scrubbed, and even the
+floor, and then Molly stood back and surveyed the room now pervaded with
+a damp atmosphere redolent of soap.
+
+“There! I guess it’ll do fer over night, and the fust chance I get I’ll
+give it a good cleaning. I never saw the like in my life! How them poor
+boarders stood it eating out of a dirty hole like this I don’t see. Now,
+what’s to do? That sink was a caution! The water and dust was all in a
+mess underneath and the top was slimy! I wonder what that creature that
+called herself Maggie thought she was made for.”
+
+Meanwhile Miss Hannah had gone to her trunk and arrayed herself in an
+old grey gingham and a dark apron that enveloped her completely. She had
+discovered that they must begin at the very foundation before they could
+hope to do anything toward getting dinner. She investigated Celia’s
+stores and found they were ample for present needs. Celia’s training had
+not been for nothing. She knew by intuition that her aunt and Molly
+would enquire for soap and yeast and baking powder among the first
+things. She had thought of the little things that might not be in stock
+in Mrs. Morris’ kitchen and had a supply for the present. The stores in
+the pantry were not very full. There was a plate with a pile of sour
+white-looking pancakes, another with some lumpy oatmeal, a few boiled
+potatoes, a bowl of watery soup and two or three ends of baker’s loaves.
+Miss Hannah applied her nose to one of these and then laid it down again
+and said, “Bah!”
+
+After looking at the array a few minutes, she gathered them all into a
+pan and dumped them into the garbage pail. A heavy, lifeless pie on a
+higher shelf also met the same fate. Then she got the dish pan and some
+clean hot water and washed a few dishes for her immediate use. Having
+done this she prepared to set some bread. It was late in the day, but it
+would not take long, and it could rise while she was doing other things
+and be baked after the dinner was cooked. Then she could hurry up part
+of it by making it into pulled rolls so that they could be used for
+dinner. The bread done she started on a searching expedition for bread
+cloths and clean rags. She could not work without tools. In one of her
+trunks was a roll of old rags and linen; with Molly’s help she
+unstrapped the trunk and searched it out. It was a great satisfaction to
+have that bread covered with a clean cloth and feel that so much of her
+work was going on right. She decided that the dishes must all be washed.
+She and Molly both worked at this, Molly washing off the shelves while
+she wiped the dishes. By that time it was four o’clock.
+
+“It’s high time we was seeing about the dinner,” said Molly, as she
+thumped the last pile of plates upon the clean shelf. “What are you
+going to do for a tablecloth? That one in there ain’t fit, an’ there
+ain’t a clean one about the drawer anywhere. There’s a pile of dirty
+ones behind the door in the back stairway. I reckon I’ll have to wash
+one. As for napkins I should suppose they didn’t use ’em. I can’t find
+any.”
+
+Miss Hannah went on another hunt, and discovered more soiled tablecloths
+and a stack of soiled napkins. There was nothing for it but to wash
+some. Molly already had the washtub going and was working as if her life
+depended upon it. Well for Miss Hannah’s plans and Celia’s hopes that
+Molly was equal to emergencies, nay delighted in them, and that she was
+a swift worker. By the time Miss Hannah had the tablecloth and dishes
+off the table and the dining-room swept and dusted that linen was
+swinging in a brisk breeze in the back yard and the irons were growing
+hot on the range.
+
+“Five o’clock and the table not set yet!” commented Molly. She was
+working on time and the pleasure of the race depended upon her getting
+done before Miss Celia should arrive, and being able to ring that dinner
+bell exactly on time. “Well, I reckon we’ll get through somehow. You
+can’t turn a pigpen into a parlor in one day, you know. I declare, Miss
+Hannah, it was a pity to turn that girl loose on the community. We ought
+to have kept her by main force and taught her how to scrub, before we
+let her go. The things that wasn’t too filthy dirty to be burned or
+rusted is burned and rusted, and the things that had anything about them
+to get lost and broken has got that the matter with them. I reckon we’ll
+have a few things to buy ’fore we get fixed out for comfort.”
+
+But Molly was working swiftly all the while she talked. She had filled
+the little salts and peppers, and rubbed up the knives. The careful
+Celia had not forgotten bath brick nor silver polish, though there was
+very little that had any pretension to silver to clean. The dishes and
+table appointments were of the plainest. Many would have said it was
+impossible to make any difference in that table without spending a lot
+of money. Miss Hannah did not think so. She knew the subtle difference
+between order and disorder, and the startling contrast between
+cleanliness and dirt. Cleanliness was next to godliness and she was
+practicing that to-day. The godliness she hoped would follow hard after.
+While she pulled the little cushions of responsive velvety dough for the
+rolls, she prayed a rich blessing on that first meal in the house under
+her care. Then she let her mind wander for a moment to the home she had
+left which had been no more of a home to her than this was yet to its
+inmates. She wondered how they were getting on, and if the baby was
+well. The only drawback to the joy of leaving Nettie’s had been the
+baby. Aunt Hannah could not help loving babies, and enjoying the
+clinging of their soft dimpling arms about her neck and their apple
+blossom breath upon her cheek. The babies always loved aunt Hannah. It
+was only after they grew older and began to imitate the grown-up people
+that they began to be saucy, impertinent, and unloving. Even then,
+Johnnie and Lily had always come to aunt Hannah with a burn or a bump to
+be comforted, for somehow her motherly arms knew just how best to gather
+in the troubled little one and comfort it. But aunt Hannah had no time
+to think of duties past, and troubles. She gave the last little jerk to
+the puffy roll and tucked it in the pan to rise for the last time, and
+then hastened in to set that table. Molly had laid the crisp tablecloth
+which she had literally forced to dry quickly with her hot irons, on the
+table and was ironing away for dear life at the napkins. Molly and aunt
+Hannah had high ideals, brought from comfortable private homes, and they
+wished this house they had come to take care of to be a home in the best
+sense of the word. They worked faster now, for the clock was warning
+them that it was getting late. The roast beef well seared in the most
+scientific way was roasting away in the oven with a good supply of sweet
+and Irish potatoes on the grate below, grouped about a huge baked apple
+dumpling which Molly had hastily concocted, and Molly was straining the
+spinach and subjecting it to a rubbing through the colander, after which
+it went back on the stove to keep hot before its butter and last
+peppering were applied. She looked doubtfully at the water the spinach
+was cooked in and then with a daring glance at the clock rushed about to
+carry out another resolution, calling to Miss Hannah:
+
+“You ken put on the soup plates ef your a mine to. I’ve found I can make
+a taste of spinach soup with the water and some milk and flour and
+butter. It’ll make things seem nicer I guess for the first night, and
+don’t take a minute. That’ll give the rolls time to get a little browner
+before they’re needed, you know.” Then she began to sing at the top of
+her voice:
+
+                  “Am I a soldier of the cross,—”
+
+Molly Poppleton always sang at the top of her lungs when she had some
+important work to do or was in an unusual hurry with her work. It made
+her very happy to have a good deal of work, and hard work at that.
+
+Celia, opening the front door with her latchkey just then, heard the
+singing and rejoiced. There was the old Molly. She had not become
+discouraged and gone home, but was at work with heart and voice as in
+their old kitchen at home. She ran out into the dining-room to see how
+things were getting on before she went upstairs. But she stopped in the
+doorway astounded. Even her highest hopes had not realized the change
+there would be. What made it? Was it the shining tablecloth, or the
+glistening glasses, or the knives and forks laid straight, or what? A
+nice square cake of butter was in each butter-plate at the ends of the
+table. The salts were smoothed off and stamped with the bottom of the
+salt-cellars. The plates were in a pile at one end of the table instead
+of being upside down on the napkins at each place. Where were the plates
+of crackers and gingersnaps which had not failed to appear at every
+dinner since she had been boarding there? Where was the inevitable dish
+of prunes? Gone, and in its place a dish of translucent cranberry jelly
+which Molly had found time somehow to fix. It was all very wonderful.
+Even the gas had a clean globe on it. Celia wondered that so much had
+been accomplished in one short afternoon. She heard the door being
+opened from the outside and hurried into the kitchen, closing the
+dining-room door behind her first. This must burst upon them all at once
+when they entered the dining-room.
+
+Aunt Hannah was taking the brown balls from the roll pan and piling them
+on a plate, when she went into the kitchen, and she greeted her with:
+
+“Celia, go upstairs and wash your hands and then come down and fix the
+celery. Molly and I haven’t a second to do it, and it is time to ring
+that bell in five minutes. Have the boarders come yet?”
+
+Celia rushed away and was soon back, bearing aunt Hannah’s white apron
+and a brush to smooth her hair that she might not be delayed from coming
+to dinner on account of her appearance, and at last the dinner was ready
+and it was time to ring the bell. She put the two glasses of celery on
+the table, and handing Molly the bell went into the parlor. She did not
+wish anybody yet to know she had a right in the kitchen. She was just
+the ribbon girl from Dobson and Co.’s. There were things she wanted to
+accomplish first which could better be done that way, she thought.
+
+The bell rang and the boarders trooped down. The little old lady from
+upstairs was first and interrupted the advance of the others, for a
+moment. She walked into the dining-room followed by Miss Burns. Both
+stopped blinking in the doorway and staring around, before they slowly
+walked in a dazed way to their respective places. The two girls from the
+three-cent store became embarrassed, and stood back awkwardly against
+the wall staring undisguisedly. The three young men came after, Harry
+Knowles ahead.
+
+He drew a long whistle, and turning on his heel, started back into the
+hall again. “Whew! this is great!” he said as he went. “I’m going to
+wash my hands and comb my hair. I don’t fit in there.”
+
+Aunt Hannah with her grey hair and placid face and grey dress with its
+white apron presided well over that table. The dishes might be thick and
+the tablecloth coarse, but no dinner on any rich man’s table was ever
+cooked or served better, nor more thoroughly enjoyed. After they were
+seated Miss Burns began with her nervous little giggle:
+
+“Oh really, now, this is simply,—simply—simply _fine_, don’t you know.
+This is quite a change, isn’t it, dear?” and she looked across the table
+at Celia who was passing celery and handing soup plates as aunt Hannah
+ladled out the pale green tempting soup. Her guests ate of it in wonder.
+They were not acquainted with pureè of spinach. They wondered how it got
+colored, and what it was anyway, and the most of them ate every drop in
+their plates, some of them tilting the plates to accomplish it. The
+three-cent store girls and the university student asked for more and got
+it, and then Molly, her sleeves rolled decorously down and a white apron
+over her dark one, took out the soup and brought in the platter with
+that great brown perfectly cooked roast, and brought potatoes and
+spinach and hot plates, while aunt Hannah with experienced hand and keen
+knife, sharpened by herself, cut great juicy pink slices in generous
+plenty and filled the plates.
+
+They were a rather silent table that first night. They were embarrassed
+to a degree by their surroundings which were so familiar and yet so
+unfamiliar. And then the dinner was absorbing. It absorbed their
+thoughts and they absorbed it.
+
+When it came time for the dessert they sat back satisfied, and feeling
+that perhaps it were as well that the inevitable pie, which they always
+had for dessert, did not come to spoil this ideal repast. But they
+forgot such feelings when that great pudding was brought in, its crust
+browned to a nicety on the top, and light as feathers when it was cut,
+its luscious quarters of amber apples in the bottom, and a dressing of
+some sweet transparent syrup with just a dash of cinnamon.
+
+“I tell you what!” said Harry Knowles, leaning back in his chair to fold
+his napkin and talking in an aside to Celia, “that was the best dinner I
+have tasted since I left home. I feel as if I had been invited out,
+don’t you? I don’t know what it means, do you? She certainly can’t keep
+it up. I suppose she’s just standing treat for the first night, but I
+declare, if I could have meals like that, I’m not sure but I might be a
+different kind of a fellow and amount to something. How’s our lamp
+getting on? I thought of a way to fix the spring in that sofa the other
+night. I believe I’ll stay in and try it to-night.”
+
+Aunt Hannah, as they were leaving the table, apologized for not having
+put the rooms in order that day. She had only been in power, she said,
+since one o’clock, and there had not been time to do everything. She
+hoped to have things in better shape very soon if they would all be
+patient. Then the boarders went into the parlor to whisper with one
+another about that good dinner, and Celia slipped unseen out to the
+kitchen to exult and to help.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+Out in the street, not far from that boarding-house, two young men met.
+“How are you, Horace? Glad to see you, old fellow! You look as thin as a
+rail. What do they feed you on down in that miserable hole where you
+hide yourself? I say, Horace, you ought to have either a new
+boarding-place or a wife.”
+
+The other man laughed. “I’m hunting one,” he said, “that is, a new
+boarding-house, not a wife.”
+
+“Well, you may find the one while in search of the other, you know. They
+always used to say, when we were children, that if you lost a thing you
+never could find it till you lost something else and went to hunting
+that. Now you haven’t exactly lost a wife, you know, because you never
+had one. So that’s just as bad, but maybe you’ll find her. However, I
+fear that any one you’d find in hunting a boarding-house wouldn’t be
+worth her salt. That’s my experience. Say, old fellow, why don’t you
+come up our way and live? It isn’t much further, and you are a good
+walker. You could walk to that blessed church of yours, if you still
+hold to your puritanical ideas about not riding on the trolley on
+Sunday. Now there’s the place Royce boards; that would be first-rate,
+and I happen to know there’s a vacant room there now, second story
+front, fine sunny room, all conveniences and splendid board.”
+
+“But I can’t afford second story fronts, Roger; my salary has mostly to
+be paid by myself yet. You know we are building and the church is just
+struggling to live. It is all made up of poor people.”
+
+“Well, what in the world did you go down there for? You might have had a
+church in Germantown if you would have taken it, and you also had a
+chance out in West Philadelphia I heard. Why, you’ve friends enough to
+have got you hearings in several big churches down in the heart of the
+city where they pay big salaries. I’m sure I don’t see any virtue in
+your hiding your light under a bushel. For my part, I think you are as
+good, if not better, than any preacher I’ve heard in the city, if you
+only would consent to let go of a few high and impossible views you have
+about social equality. However, I suppose that’s neither here nor there.
+You’re here and the churches are there, and so it will continue to be, I
+presume, in spite of all I can say, and there’ll be nothing for me but
+to tend you in your last sickness and pay the funeral expenses, if you
+go on at this rate. I must see what I can do about getting our church to
+help that mission of yours, if you persist in your folly.”
+
+“I wish you would, Roger, for they need help, and a church in this
+neighborhood is much more needed than in the quarters you have
+mentioned, where there is a church of some sort every two blocks almost.
+But I must go on, for I have a meeting this evening, and I want to go to
+one more place before I go to church.”
+
+They parted, the young man Roger wishing the other would reconsider, and
+come higher up in town to board, and thus be near his friends. Then
+Horace Stafford went on his way, and having consulted a list of
+addresses in his notebook, in a moment more paused at a door and rang a
+bell and the door was opened by Celia.
+
+Now Celia was very happy over the successful dinner. She had lingered
+about the halls catching words that the boarders had dropped, and she
+knew that they were intensely pleased and surprised. When she was happy
+or excited a clear red color came into her cheeks and a brightness into
+her deep, grey-blue eyes which made her very beautiful. She was not
+always beautiful, although she was always pleasant to look at: certain
+conditions, however, had the power of making this charm bloom into
+beauty. To-night the color and the shine were there, and she seemed a
+charming picture to the young man who had spent the afternoon in calling
+at boarding-houses, and had begun to know just what to expect to see
+when the door opened. He was agreeably surprised, therefore, as he
+stepped into the hall and waited while Celia called aunt Hannah, for he
+had said he wanted to see Mrs. Morris, having been directed there for
+board. He glanced into the parlor and sighed. It was the same grade of
+parlor he had grown to expect, a dreary enough place, but he did not
+know what was the matter with it, and as he should have to spend very
+little time in it, it did not make great difference. He heard a low
+cultured voice upstairs saying: “Tell Molly I will send her some in a
+moment,” and then Miss Grant appeared before him.
+
+It is true she did not know much about taking new boarders, but she did
+the best she could. She told him there was one room left vacant that
+day, that it was not in order yet, but if he cared to see it, he might
+come upstairs and do so. He followed her to the room. It happened to be
+the second story front. It was not large, for economy of space had been
+exercised to a great degree in the building of that house, but it had a
+sunny exposure, and the young man knew by an uncomfortable experience in
+a dark room that that was a great advantage in a room. The bed did not
+look very soft nor inviting, and the two chairs in the room were rather
+dilapidated. The bureau was a cheap one with a rheumatic castor, which
+gave it a reeling appearance. The bed clothing was tumbled in a heap on
+the bed, as the German had left it. Altogether it was not just what one
+would call luxury. But it was so much better than some the weary man had
+seen that he ventured to ask timidly, “Could I have some sort of a table
+to write on?”
+
+Miss Hannah thought a moment and told him that she thought he could. He
+asked the price and it proved to be not much more than he was now
+paying. After a little reflection he said he would take it. Afterward,
+when he had gone downstairs to the parlor to wait for the supper which
+she had said he might have, in response to his question if it was too
+late for the evening meal, he wondered why he had done so. What power
+had been upon him upstairs to make him determine to cast his lot in
+here? It was not that room, even though it was a second story front, for
+that was very forlorn in the dim flickering gaslight, with the disorder
+of the German upon it. It was not the general look of the house, for
+that certainly was not attractive. And now as he sat in the dimness of
+the shadow of the front window, and watched some of the boarders at the
+further end of the room, he felt that same sense of desolation steal
+over him which he had felt in so many boarding-houses that afternoon. He
+could not hope to find many congenial spirits here. He sighed. It was
+hard not to have some pleasant friends about one who could talk of the
+things one knew and loved, when one came in at night after a hard day’s
+work. But as Miss Hannah came back through the hall and in that quiet
+sweet voice of hers that made one feel as if a benediction had been
+pronounced upon one, told him that he could come to the dining-room now,
+he followed her and knew that it was his landlady who had drawn him to
+select this as his temporary home. She seated him and poured his coffee,
+and then excused herself and left him. He looked about him after he was
+left alone, and had bowed his head a moment, more in supplication that
+the Lord would give him rest and strength for his work, than in
+thankfulness for his food, for he had learned that there were kinds of
+food which were as hard to eat as they were to digest. With pleased
+surprise he saw the tablecloth was clean and free from crumbs. The plate
+before him held food as appetizing as any he could remember in
+pleasanter homes than those he had occupied lately. Of course the
+potatoes had been heated over and were not so nice as when first served,
+but the meat was tender and juicy, and he ate it with a relish, for he
+was weary and had not had anything to really tempt his appetite for six
+weeks, that being the length of time since he had gone to his friend
+Roger’s, to dinner. Those delicious rolls and that coffee were enough in
+themselves to satisfy a hungry man, and he began to feel that he had not
+chosen his home amiss. Then the kitchen door opened, and Celia entered
+bringing a bounteous plate of apple dumpling covered with plenty of
+sauce. She put it down beside his place and began to remove the empty
+dishes, asking him if he would have anything more.
+
+[Illustration: “_I have had plenty and it has been so good._”]
+
+“Thank you,” he said, looking up and smiling, “I have had plenty and it
+has been so good. I have been boarding where they had miserable fare,
+and I did not know how hungry I was. This meal has tasted like my
+mother’s cooking.”
+
+Celia’s eyes danced as she said demurely she was very glad. As she went
+back to the kitchen with the dishes, she could not help thinking what
+handsome eyes that man had, and how they were lit up by his smile. He
+was tall and thin with an intellectual face which many persons would
+have called homely, but of the style which Celia always designated to
+herself and aunt Hannah as “homely handsome.”
+
+The new boarder went out after his meal was finished. He had told his
+landlady that he would bring his belongings when he returned later in
+the evening, and she had promised to have his room ready for him.
+
+Celia went upstairs to see if she could do anything. She was bubbling
+over with delight over the house and its inmates and all she wished to
+do. No child in a fairy tale ever had such delightful possibilities put
+into her hands, she thought, as had been given to her.
+
+“Now,” said aunt Hannah, “that room must be fixed for that man, for he
+will come back by and by, and what shall we do with it to make it more
+habitable? Poor fellow! He must have been hard put to it indeed for
+shelter to have taken it looking like that, or perhaps he doesn’t know
+any better. But it did look so desolate I couldn’t bear to take him to
+it.”
+
+“Yes, he does know better, aunt Hannah,” said Celia, laughing. “I know
+he does. He has a mother—and,” she added half ashamed, “he has a
+smile.”
+
+“Well, I’m glad he has that,” said Miss Hannah, pulling the bedclothes
+off in a gingerly way and extracting the German’s sheets and
+pillow-cases from the mass. “He’ll need it to keep cheerful in this room
+to-night, I think. Celia, I do wish I could get into my grandmother’s
+linen and blanket closet for a little while to-night. I should like to
+burn this quilt.” She held it out by her finger and thumb and examined
+it carefully.
+
+“Burn it, then,” said Celia solemnly. “Haven’t we got an allowance?
+We’ll buy another.” Then she went to work to try and make that room less
+dreary.
+
+When the bed was made up with the cleanest things aunt Hannah could
+find, the wash bowl and pitcher and soap dish immaculate, and two copies
+of those flaring chromos called “Wide Awake” and “Fast Asleep” framed in
+varnished coffee berries had been removed from the walls, there was not
+much more to do. It was too late to do more at the paint than to wipe it
+off with a damp cloth, and the floor needed only brushing up. Aunt
+Hannah found a kitchen table in Mrs. Morris’ room which had done duty
+for a dressing-table. She had Molly carry this upstairs for a
+writing-table, and sighed that there was no cover for it. Celia
+meditated a moment, and then went up to her own back-room and took the
+embroidered denim cover from her trunk which she had made for a
+Christmas present for aunt Hannah and brought it. It was a little
+sacrifice but the table needed it. It wasn’t too fine for use, and it
+would cause the bare room to look more habitable.
+
+“There, aunt Hannah,” she said, “I made it for you, but you may do what
+you like with it.”
+
+Then aunt Hannah took Celia’s face between her hands and kissed her and
+said, “My dear girl!” and put the pretty cover on the table.
+
+“I don’t know as I should have done that,” meditated Celia later, “if it
+hadn’t been for that smile and his speaking about his mother.”
+
+She looked around the room once more as she was about to leave it. Aunt
+Hannah had gone down to the kitchen to help Molly prepare for breakfast.
+Her eyes fell upon the two rickety chairs. She thought of Harry Knowles.
+A moment’s reflection, and she ran down to the parlor and beckoned him
+to come into the hall.
+
+“Harry,” said she, (they had already gotten well enough acquainted so
+that she could call him by his first name; she exercised that
+prerogative which a girl a little older than a young man likes to use
+and which the young man seems to be proud to have exercised sometimes.
+It was a pleasant brotherly and sisterly way to treat one another), “did
+you know there was a new boarder? I was passing the room just now. It
+looked awfully dreary before it was fixed up. The worst thing is the
+chairs. I wonder if you couldn’t bring up your hammer and fix them a
+little. It seems too bad for a new boarder to find things all run down
+on the first night he comes.”
+
+“All right, I’m with you, Miss Murray,” said Harry, interested at once.
+“I know how it feels myself. Besides that good dinner has given me a
+longing to do something for somebody else.”
+
+They went upstairs to the chairs, and as they went Harry said in a
+confiding tone, “Say, Miss Murray, I believe that Miss Grant is going to
+be great, don’t you? She seems kind of like a woman who knew how, don’t
+you know? Sometimes she makes me think of my mother just a little.”
+
+Celia smiled and said she thought so, and they went to work.
+
+It was after the room was all in order, and some delicious cakes set
+rising in the yellow bowl downstairs for the morning breakfast, set with
+buckwheat that smelled of the waving fields it came from. The lights
+were out and everything quiet and Celia, lying awake to think over all
+that had happened, suddenly became aware that her aunt Hannah was awake
+also. Upon questioning her she at last ferreted out the reason for her
+wakefulness.
+
+“Well, you see, Celia, I suppose I’m rather tired to-night, though I
+don’t feel it one bit, I’ve been so interested in it all. But somehow
+I’ve just begun to think that maybe I ought not to have let you
+undertake this scheme. It is all very nice and benevolent, but what if
+it shouldn’t succeed? If it should run behind and take a good deal of
+your money and you have to work hard for your living again, I should
+never get over blaming myself. Then too, I’m a little worried about that
+new man. I don’t know as I ought to have taken him into the house
+without knowing the first thing about him, and I’ve always heard a city
+was an awful place to get taken in. He may be a robber, or some dreadful
+kind of a man, though to be sure he didn’t look it. I must confess that
+I liked his looks very much, but you know, Celia dear, Satan sometimes
+appears as an angel of light. I have heard that gamblers are often
+mistaken for ministers. I know perfectly well that I am ‘green,’ as the
+boys used to say, and perhaps I have been deceived. He was very late
+getting in and he looked pale. It may be he is dissipated, though I
+cannot really think that.”
+
+“Now, auntie dear,” laughed Celia, putting her arms about her, “that
+isn’t a bit like you. You must be over-tired or you never would talk
+like that. Just remember your own words to me ‘Charge not thyself with
+the weight of a year’ and ‘Bend not thine arm for to-morrow’s load. Thou
+mayst leave that to thy gracious Lord.’ Don’t you fret one bit. What if
+he is a gambler or a robber? He can’t do us any harm. We’ve nothing to
+gamble and nothing to rob. Perhaps we’ll do him some good, and anyway I
+don’t believe he’s anything but good—he talked to me—that is he said
+he had a mother and she cooked like that, and then he smiled.”
+
+Then they both laughed and Miss Hannah kissed her niece and thanked her
+for the reminder that she need not bear burdens. After that they fell
+asleep.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+The minister was very weary when he went up to his new room that night,
+and he put down his satchel and looked around him hoping the bed would
+be more inviting than when last he saw it, though he had grown
+accustomed to sleeping soundly on any bed no matter how hard or uneven.
+He drew a long sigh of relief. It looked clean anyway. He turned down
+the covering and smoothed the sheets. They had no appearance of having
+been slept in before. He drew another sigh. That was one fear off his
+mind. He noticed next the table with its pretty cover. He was not
+accustomed to fancy work. He did not know whether this was done by hand
+or machinery. He only knew that it was a touch of beauty in his dreary
+room and he felt gladdened by it. He went over to the table and
+awkwardly felt of the material, passed his hand over the embroidery and
+smiled. He said to himself he would write to his mother about it and she
+would be pleased. Then he knelt down beside the table and bowed his head
+in prayer upon it asking that he might receive and give a blessing in
+that house where he had come to take up his abode, and that if possible,
+it might be such a place that he would feel it was right and best that
+he should remain for a time.
+
+About that same time Harry Knowles stood before the bureau in his room
+and looked at his mother’s picture. His face was grave and sad. He
+looked into the pictured eyes with a questioning longing as if he would
+have her with him again that he might ask her advice. He looked into her
+face till the tears started in his own eyes. He let them drop unheeded
+on the bureau and on the little velvet frame. She seemed to him to be
+looking into his life, and asking him what he had done with his time
+since she left him. At last he turned away his head and said aloud,
+“Well, I’m glad I didn’t go to-night anyway. I s’pose the boys’ll give
+me no end of chaff about backing out, but I’ve proved to myself that I
+can stay at home _once_ when I say so. I wish mother _was_ here. I’d
+tell her all about it, I believe, and promise her to start over again. I
+wonder if ’twould be any use! If a fellow only had some one to help
+him!” and he sighed and went to bed.
+
+It is not quite certain what time Molly Poppleton arose the next
+morning. Celia told her if she had only gotten up a very little earlier,
+she might have met herself going to bed. The range unused to such
+treatment brightened up early too, and was soon baking and boiling away
+to please the most fastidious cook. The oatmeal had been cooking slowly
+all night, and was getting ready to be a delicious porridge, such as is
+found in its perfection only in the land of Scotland. Molly had coaxed
+the milk by all the arts she knew, till it actually gave forth a thin
+yellow cream for the oatmeal. True, she scoffed at it and said it wasn’t
+as rich as skim milk in Cloverdale, but then the boarders were not used
+to Cloverdale milk, and they called this cream. She picked and shredded
+the codfish to a degree of fineness that would have made the departed
+Maggie stand in amaze at such a waste of labor, and then with all the
+skill of long experience, she mixed just the right proportion of
+potatoes for the most delectable codfish balls, when they should be
+browned to a crisp, that ever any one tasted.
+
+“Codfish balls are good, and anybody that doesn’t like ’em when they are
+made just right doesn’t know, that’s all. Besides one can’t have
+beefsteak every day and there’s plenty else to eat.” So said Molly.
+
+Then she tested the buckwheat cakes to be sure there was exactly the
+right amount of soda and enough milk to make them brown on both sides,
+and set the coffee where it would get its finishing-off, and rang the
+bell. Just one minute ahead of time that bell rang. Molly Poppleton did
+love to get ahead of time, even if it was but one minute.
+
+“I say,” said Harry Knowles, holding a golden-brown fish-ball up on his
+fork and admiring it, “if that is a fish-ball, then I never saw one
+before. It is a libel on that pretty thing to call it by that name, or
+else all the ones I ever tried to eat were very poor imitations.” Molly,
+coming in just then with a generous supply of hot buckwheats heard the
+remark, and her soul swelled with joy and pride, and thereafter Harry
+Knowles was her favorite of all the boarders unless it was the minister
+who grew into her good graces by another way not long after. He had come
+in just a moment before, and was enjoying his dish of oatmeal and
+wondering what made the difference between it and all the other oatmeal
+he had tried to eat in the weeks since he came to Philadelphia to live.
+Was it possible that he had at last found a place where things were
+really good to eat, or was he getting a good appetite from working so
+hard? He resolved, at any rate, to ask the cook, sometime when he was
+well enough acquainted, if he might take a dish of this to the old
+Scotch woman who was lying sick in an attic and longing for her dear
+home across the seas.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+That breakfast was a pleasant surprise to more than one of the boarders.
+The brakeman, coming in a little late from his all-night run, having
+taken his dinner the night before at the other end of his line, and
+therefore not being prepared for changes except the mere fact that Mrs.
+Morris had gone away, and some one else was to supply her place for a
+while, was dumbfounded. He drew his chair up to the table with his usual
+familiar assurance, and then looked around in almost embarrassment a
+moment. He was not quite sure what made him feel so. Was it the
+pleasant-faced, white-haired woman at the head of the table, who smiled
+a good-morning to him in a tone which was cordial and yet had a note in
+it that made him feel she was from another world than his own? Or was it
+the few flowers in the tiny vase in the centre of the table? Or? But he
+was unable to detail the rest of the changes, they seemed to him so
+subtle. He turned his attention to the breakfast which certainly was
+good. Maggie had improved, evidently.
+
+In short, those boarders went to their day’s work well fed and
+comfortable for the first time in many weeks, and were therefore better
+workers, and better human beings in every way, because they were not all
+day troubled by the demands and complaints of nature in consequence of
+what they had eaten, or what they had not eaten.
+
+Just as Celia was going out of the door, Miss Hannah, who had followed
+her, put her hand on her arm and drew her into the parlor for a moment.
+
+“Celia, dear,” she said, “we must have a talk to-night as soon after
+dinner as possible, and find out how this house is to be run and decide
+some questions. You know we cannot go ahead blindly and get into debt as
+Mrs. Morris did.”
+
+“I’ll risk you, auntie dear,” Celia said, as she kissed her behind the
+red chenille curtain. “But we’ll have our talk, and I’ll get home just
+as early as I can to help, if you need me. Then after dinner we’ll have
+a cozy time and do a lot of figuring. I’ve done some already. Good-bye.
+Don’t try to reform everything to-day, leave just a little for
+to-morrow. Do you want me to stop at some employment office and get
+another servant?”
+
+“No, not yet, dear. There’s too much to be done before we introduce any
+new elements, and besides we don’t know yet whether we can afford
+another servant. We mustn’t run behind, you know.”
+
+Then they parted with a smile of perfect understanding, and aunt Hannah
+went to her new duties with enthusiasm. There were a few things she
+meant to have radically different in some of her guests’ sleeping rooms
+before that day drew to a close, and there was much planning and
+marketing to do. Molly Poppleton was in her element in the kitchen. Miss
+Hannah could hear her voice singing above the clatter of pots and pans,
+
+                   “What though the spicy breezes
+                     Blow soft o’er Ceylon’s isle;
+                   Though every prospect pleases,
+                     And only man is vile;—”
+
+Molly was cleaning out the departed Maggie’s kettle closet under the
+back stairs, and stopped occasionally in her singing to express her mind
+as to some dirty corner and then went on—
+
+                   “In vain with lavish kindness
+                     The gifts of God are strewn;
+                   The heathen in his blindness,
+                     Bows down to wood and stone!”
+
+Aunt Hannah smiled as she went upstairs. She knew that the good-hearted
+Molly was mingling the theme of her song with her own thoughts about the
+dirty house and the need of the boarders and that she would work it all
+out by and by.
+
+                 “Shall we whose souls are lighted
+                   With wisdom from on high,—
+                 Shall we to men benighted,
+                   The lamp of life deny?”
+
+went on the singer, and Miss Hannah knew the hard working singer’s
+thought was that she would make a cheerful, clean house and good food,
+and give the rest of them a chance to try and help save the poor city
+heathen boarders, for Molly Poppleton looked upon all native city
+boarders as heathen in the truest sense of the word, and she had taken
+with joy the few words Miss Hannah had spoken to her about the mission
+they were going to try to start, the mission of making one bright little
+clean home spot for a few people who had hitherto been in discomfort.
+
+The dining-room windows were washed that morning, and several other
+windows, and Molly Poppleton sang a great many of Isaac Watts’ hymns
+through before she prepared lunch for herself and Miss Hannah. She did
+not remember when she had been so happy. Neither, indeed, did Miss
+Hannah.
+
+It had been the one great ambition of Hannah Grant’s life, since she had
+lost the love of her youth, and been made to see that hers was not to go
+on the great mission of salvation to the heathen of other nations, that
+she should have some spot which she could call her own, where she might
+exercise her powers of helping people. And now it seemed as though she
+was to have opportunity. She thanked her heavenly Father every hour,
+even for the dirt and desolation of the place, because he had given to
+her the sweet privilege of brightening a place that had hitherto been
+dark.
+
+It was after dinner. The minister was in his room writing to his mother,
+before he went out to a meeting at the mission. Down in the parlor the
+brakeman sat at the organ accompanying himself as he sang in stentorian
+voice the touching ballad of
+
+            “Granny’s only left to me her old armchair.”
+
+Celia smiled as she ran upstairs where her aunt was waiting for the
+conference.
+
+“Just listen, auntie dear, did you ever hear the like,” she said,
+putting her head in at the door, and the words of the chorus in decided
+nasal twang floated up the two flights of stairs:
+
+               “How they tittered, how they chaffed,
+               How my brothers and my sisters laughed,
+               When they heard the lawyers declare,
+               Granny’s only left to me her old armchair.”
+
+“Do you really think, aunt Hannah, that it’s any use to try to reach and
+help people who have that sort of taste in music, even if you try
+through their taste in buckwheat cakes?”
+
+Celia’s face was gay with laughter, but there was an undertone of
+trouble in it which Miss Hannah detected and understood.
+
+“Dearie, Christ died for him, even if he does seem to be too
+coarse-grained to understand the little refining influences you are
+trying to weave around him. Yes, of course it is worth while. You can’t
+expect him to turn into a person with the tastes of a Beethoven. You are
+not that yourself, remember, and it’s all in the scale of life. But I
+know what you mean, and I do think it’s worth while to try. You see if
+it wasn’t, God wouldn’t have put him just here for us to try on. You
+mustn’t expect the same result as you would from——”
+
+“From your new boarder, auntie? The gambler with the smile you mean?”
+Celia was laughing now, for both had seen with the morning light that
+whatever else their new boarder was, he was a man to be trusted.
+
+“Yes,” said aunt Hannah. “You mustn’t expect the same results from
+trying to help this man that you would the other, but you’ll find he
+will have a depth to his nature which you don’t suspect, if you look for
+it. Listen! He is singing something else. It may give you a clue.”
+
+Again the voice rang out deeply, pathetically and nasally,
+
+                 “Lost on the Lady Elgin,
+                   Slumbering to wake no more,
+                 Numbering about three hundred,—
+                   Who failed to reach the shore.”
+
+“Oh, auntie, I can’t stand another line,” said Celia rushing into the
+room and throwing herself on the bed in a paroxysm of laughter. “To have
+those awful words in that ludicrous song roared out in that dramatic way
+is too, _too_ funny. And he asked me if I would sing ‘Where is my
+wandering boy to-night?’ with him. How _could_ I?”
+
+“How, dear girl,” said aunt Hannah sitting down on the bed beside her,
+“perhaps that is just your chance. Sing ‘Where is my wandering boy
+to-night?’ with him some time. You may be able to help him to higher,
+more refining things in some way, even if he does continue to amuse you
+with his music. If you want to help all these people, you will have to
+do as Paul did and be all things to all men, that you may by all means
+save some.”
+
+Celia sobered down at once.
+
+“Yes, I know, aunt Hannah, but somehow I never could be that, unless I
+was interested in people. It troubles me sometimes, but this
+black-eyebrowed, smiling, conceited brakeman isn’t in the least
+attractive. Now that boy Harry Knowles is. I feel sorry for him. He
+misses his mother, and I’m afraid he goes with a wild set. I got him to
+fix some chairs last night and he seemed interested and stayed at home.
+But to-night he slipped out just before I came up, and looked the other
+way when I came down the hall, as if he didn’t want me to see him and
+ask him to stay in, at least I fancy that was the reason, because I’ve
+asked him to stay once or twice. It worries me to think he is going
+wrong, and I feel as if I could pray all night that God would save him.
+I can’t get away from that look in the eyes of his mother’s picture. He
+brought it down to the parlor one night and showed it to me. And he is
+so young, only just eighteen. Auntie, I want to do so much for the
+people, do you suppose God will let me do something at least?”
+
+“Dear child,” said aunt Hannah as she bent over and kissed her, “I feel
+sure he will, and he will hear your prayers and help you to work in the
+right way and to be interested in the uninteresting, too. And now get
+your pencil and paper and let’s go to work.”
+
+Celia sprang up and soon they were hard at work.
+
+“What I want to do is this, aunt Hannah,” said Celia. “I want to make
+this as pleasant a home for us all, as it can be made on the money that
+we all pay in for our board. You and I will pay ours too, you know, that
+is if it can’t be run without that, and then we’ll just have things as
+nice as we can on that. If we need anything extra, why you and I can
+count that a gift, you know, from our allowance. But to be strictly
+honest as a boarding-house, and not a charitable institution, we ought
+to run it on what is paid in, oughtn’t we? I would like to prove that a
+boarding-house can be comfortable as well as cheap. Do you think it can
+be done?”
+
+“I do,” said the elder woman, thoughtfully. “I have done some careful
+thinking myself, and I think it can. I shall enjoy trying, anyway.”
+
+“And auntie, there’s another thing; this allowance of mine is half yours
+you know. I won’t have it any other way. You and I have nine hundred
+dollars a year to live on, besides what is now in the bank in cash, and
+we can do what we please with it, give it away if we want to. If we can
+make this house pay our board, then we will have the rest to live on.
+But if we can’t, we’ll run the house up to the full extent of what we
+can afford to put into it, for a few months at least, just to give these
+poor souls a taste of something like home. I would rather do that than
+give my money somewhere else, for I think they all need it. Do you
+think, auntie, we have enough money to start on to hope to make things
+go nicely at the beginning? Nine hundred dollars a year seems to me a
+great deal of money, but people say that money doesn’t go far in the
+city.”
+
+Celia’s brow was clouded as she spoke.
+
+“There goes my girl down into her cellar of despair over a thought,”
+said aunt Hannah, leaning over to smooth the pucker out of her niece’s
+brow. “I wish you would get just a little more trust in your heavenly
+Father, that he will take care of the work he has put into your hands,
+and see that it prospers in spite of your worries. Now tell me
+everything you know about this house and the way it is run.”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+Aunt Hannah and Celia had finished the last puzzling question, added up
+the final row of figures, and were peacefully sleeping in their beds.
+All the lights in the house were out, when there was heard a loud noise
+at the street door, as if some one was thrown, or threw himself, several
+times heavily against it. This was followed by voices talking loud and
+excitedly, and then in more muffled tones. The door knob was turned and
+rattled, and a latchkey clicked and half turned in the lock as if
+handled by clumsy or unacquainted fingers.
+
+The minister heard the noise first, as his room was over the front of
+the house, and rising he opened his window and tried to speak and quiet
+the disturbance, but he received only curses for his interference, and
+he thought he recognized in one of the midnight revelers the form of one
+of the boarders. Closing his window, he dressed as rapidly as possible,
+that he might go down if his assistance was needed. By the time he was
+half-way down the stairs, however, and was just striking a match, the
+fumbling latchkey at last turned, and the door burst open, literally
+tumbling into the hall three young men just at Horace Stafford’s feet.
+Miss Grant and Celia, though they slept on the third floor, were near
+the stair landing and had at last heard the noise. They had slipped on
+wrappers and slippers and stood at the head of the stairs just above Mr.
+Stafford, as he struck the light.
+
+“What does this mean?” said aunt Hannah, in as stern a voice as she
+could muster, with Celia, bewildered and trembling, clinging to her arm
+and begging her to come back.
+
+But there was too much disturbance below for her to be heard, and she
+and Celia could but stand and watch.
+
+The new boarder seemed to know what to do in the present emergency. He
+promptly lighted the gas, turning it up to its full strength, and then
+extricated the three young men, who seemed to be in a helplessly tangled
+condition on the floor at his feet. Two of them were promptly withdrawn
+from the hall by their comrades outside, and the one left stood
+miserably against the wall and looked about him.
+
+It was hard to recognize in this dirty, rough fellow with bloodshot eyes
+and white face, the gay, bright young man who always looked so neat, and
+whom everybody liked and called “Harry.”
+
+“Oh, auntie, that is Harry Knowles,” said Celia, in horrified tones, and
+then the young man looked up.
+
+“Hulloa, Celia,” he called, in a pitifully gay voice, “is that you? Yes,
+I’m here all right, only I’ve been out on a lark and the lark’s gone to
+my head. Come down, and talk to a fellow a while, just fer a change, you
+know.”
+
+Celia shrank back in dismay, as she saw the poor fellow stagger toward
+the stairs and heard him say, “Can’t you get down? Well, I’ll come up
+and get you. Awful shaky stairs, I know, but I’ll manage ’em yet, don’t
+you be afraid.”
+
+And then a strong hand grasped his arm and a clear, commanding voice
+said,
+
+“Stand right where you are! Don’t stir a step, and don’t speak another
+word to those ladies.” Then the minister turned to the frightened women
+and said in low tones,
+
+“Don’t be afraid, go to your rooms and I will take care of him.”
+
+Harry had sat stupidly down on the stairs saying meekly,
+
+“All right, cap’n, jes’s you say. You’re boss, an’ I’m sleepy.”
+
+Miss Hannah took assurance from the calm face and powerful frame of her
+new boarder and led Celia away, while the minister carefully and even
+tenderly helped the young man to his room and took care of him as if he
+had been his own brother.
+
+Miss Hannah had her hands full with Celia. The young girl had thrown
+herself on the bed in a violent fit of weeping, and it required all her
+aunt’s persuasive powers to quiet her and try to soothe her to sleep.
+Celia had not been accustomed to young men who drank. Her cousins had
+been steady, whatever else they might not have been. She had never seen
+a man come home at night drunk, and she had never been spoken to by one.
+
+The familiar tone and the vacant, silly stare with which the young man
+had looked up at her had given her a shock she could not forget.
+Whenever she tried to be quiet and sit up and listen to aunt Hannah, she
+would shudder again at the thought of the scene she had just witnessed.
+By and by, when she was calmer she wailed out,
+
+“Now we shall have to give up the whole thing, auntie. We can’t have
+people getting drunk,” and she shuddered again.
+
+“Now, child! Don’t get into your cellar of despair again. It’s like some
+people’s cyclone cellars out West, always there ready for you, and you
+fly down the stairs at sign of the first little cloud that appears in
+your sky. Can’t you remember we have a heavenly Father who is looking
+out for us? Get a little more trust, dear. No, of course we shall not
+have to give up, just for one boarder who has gone wrong. We are not
+obliged to keep him, you know, if he makes a disturbance. But I’d not be
+the first one to turn him out without another trial. What are we here
+for but to try to help such as he? Maybe he never was really drunk
+before. He is young and doesn’t look to be bad. He’ll be sorry enough
+for it all to-morrow, I’m sure, or I’ve mistaken the face of that
+picture of his mother on his bureau. A boy who has had a mother like
+that can’t go wrong all at once. We’ll do what we can for him. You have
+some work to do for him, dear, and you must try and forget to-night for
+Christ’s sake!”
+
+“Oh, aunt Hannah!” groaned Celia, “how can I ever speak to him again,
+after his talking that way to me, and calling me by my name, too, as if
+I was a little girl? The idea of his taking the liberty of speaking that
+way. Oh, I feel as if I never could try to help anybody again.”
+
+“Now, Celia!” said aunt Hannah, speaking rather sharply for her, “you
+must _not_ talk that way. That wasn’t Harry Knowles that spoke to you
+to-night. It was a demon that he had swallowed that had taken entire
+possession, and put out for a time the light of reason in him. You told
+me yourself that he has always been respectful, and he’s nothing but a
+boy in years, much younger than you. And Celia, he is very dear to your
+Saviour.”
+
+Aunt Hannah’s heart had gone out to the poor motherless boy, and she
+longed to save him from the awful destruction that she saw yawning in
+front of the path he was treading. Celia knew her aunt was right, and by
+degrees she regained her composure, and began to mount up into the first
+story at least of her faith, and believe that everything was not gone to
+destruction yet. However, she went to the store the next morning with a
+heavy heart. She had so great a horror of drunkards and drunkenness, and
+so strong a belief in the power of appetite, that she felt little or no
+hope of trying to save any one from the awful end of a drunkard, who had
+once commenced to tread that downward path. She went about all day,
+feeling as deep sadness as if she had witnessed the terrible death of
+some friend.
+
+Miss Hannah had spent a long time in prayer that night, after she heard
+once more the regular breathing of Celia, and knew she was asleep. She
+asked God’s grace to help her do what was best for this poor homeless
+boy, and if it might be that he would honor her with bearing the message
+of salvation to his soul, she would give God all the glory. Her soul
+longed for the soul of the boy whose feet were astray, and she was
+filled with a kind of divine compassion for him, such as Jesus would
+have us feel, such as he felt, for those for whom he died.
+
+The minister, meantime, had put the poor boy to bed. He was docile
+enough, and almost grateful in a maudlin sort of way, for the help given
+him, and he sank at once into a deep sleep. Horace Stafford turned the
+gas low, and established himself by the bedside for some time, until he
+felt certain that there was nothing else the matter with the slumberer.
+Then he knelt beside the boy, and asked God’s mercy for him and went to
+his own room.
+
+It was not until far into the afternoon that the sleeper roused. Horace
+Stafford had found out by judicious questioning, and without revealing
+his condition to the other boarders (who fortunately had none of them
+heard the disturbance in the night), where the young man worked. He had
+then gone himself to the store, and asked for the head of the firm,
+giving his own card and explaining that the young salesman was ill, and
+unable to come to work that day. The head of the firm had been very
+kind. He had recognized the name of the minister as well as that of the
+mission chapel which he mentioned in introducing himself, thinking the
+word of a minister might go further toward excusing the absence of the
+young man, and asked kindly how the work was getting on. He said he had
+meant to send in a contribution to that work, but had let it slip by
+without attention, and he handed the minister a crisp ten dollar bill.
+Then he promised to see that young Knowles’ place for the day was
+supplied, and asked to be notified if the illness should prove serious,
+and there was anything he could do for him. He said he liked the young
+man, though of course he knew but little of him, but he feared he had
+not good health, as he looked frail. When Horace Stafford left the
+store, he had a better opinion of employers than he had been led to hold
+from some reading he had been doing lately.
+
+When Harry Knowles awoke that afternoon, he was conscious first of his
+physical condition. His head ached miserably, and he could not bear to
+stir. His throat burned as with fire, and all things seemed full of a
+ghastly horror. He opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was his
+mother’s picture. It stood on the bureau opposite his bed. Miss Hannah
+had been softly going about the room that morning, putting things to
+rights, and putting a touch of home here and there where she could do it
+in a few minutes. She had wiped the dust from the velvet and polished
+the glass of the frame with a damp cloth, and the clear sweet eyes of
+Harry’s mother looked straight into his, so full of love and compassion
+and motherly tenderness, that Harry felt it all and suddenly realized
+his present condition and what had caused it. He could not bear his
+mother’s tender love. She seemed to be looking through into his very
+soul. He closed his eyes to shut hers out. As he did so, all his
+experiences of last night came swiftly and stood before him one by one,
+and passed before his mother’s eyes too. He seemed to know at every
+instant what she would be feeling about it all. He recalled his resolve
+to stay in, and how the boys called for him before he had settled down
+to doing anything, and asked him to just come out for a while; how they
+had coaxed him away from his resolves, and interested him in their plans
+for the evening. They had planned an evening at the theatre and a supper
+afterward, and they made him feel that he was being considered mean not
+to join in and help with the expenses, since they had taken his coming
+as a matter of course, and ordered a seat and a plate for him. They
+joked him unmercifully, and said they believed he had been going to
+Sunday-school again, and had promised his nice little teacher that he
+would be good. They called him a “dear little fellow,” and said they
+wouldn’t bother him any more, he should have a stick of pink and white
+candy so he should, and one of them actually bought it and presented it
+to him. He had knocked it into the street, and declared he had no
+intention of not joining them and bearing his share of the expense, and
+then they all seemed glad and turned his mind to enjoyment. “We didn’t
+really believe you were getting to be a sissy boy,” they said. His
+conscience had had no time to reproach him. They had not mentioned going
+in to any of their favorite haunts for a game—that game which he had
+begun to fear on account of the way it reduced his always scanty funds.
+They only seemed bent on having an innocent good time. Oh, they had
+known well how to get him into the thing. They knew they could touch
+something that he called his sense of honor, when they said he had left
+them in a tight place, as they had ordered supper for him, and if he
+didn’t pay for it they would have to do it. And they took him to a play
+that was _very_ funny. He enjoyed fun. There were one or two things
+toward the end that had brought a warm flush to his cheeks at the time,
+because he couldn’t help thinking how ashamed his mother would be to
+know he was listening to and laughing at such things. But he wouldn’t
+have had the fellows know that for anything. He had gone to that supper
+and been as jolly as any of them after it. But he had resolved, when he
+gave it to them, that he would not drink. That had been the great reason
+why he had tried to decline. When people offered him drink, he could
+always hear his mother’s voice saying, “Harry dear, mother hopes you
+will always have courage to say no, if you are ever asked to drink wine
+or any strong drink.” He tried to make it right with his conscience when
+he turned to go with the boys, by saying that he would not drink a drop.
+He knew they would ask him, and it would be uncomfortable to refuse, but
+he had done it heretofore, and he would do it to-night. After to-night,
+he would try to gradually drift away from that set. It would not do to
+break off all of a sudden, but he would try to do it gradually. Of
+course he could. Had he not stayed at home that evening when Miss Murray
+fixed the lamp, and then again last night? Both of these times he had
+promised to go with the boys. He felt strong with the sense of having
+conquered once before. He did not remember a Bible verse then that his
+mother used often to quote to him, “Let him that thinketh he standeth
+take heed lest he fall,” he only told himself that he had proved to
+himself that he was fully able to break off going with those boys
+whenever he chose, and therefore he had a right to go with them for a
+little innocent fun just once more.
+
+Ah, but he did not know even now, as he lay here in his bed with shame
+in his heart, and the tears of repentance overflowing his eyes and
+trickling between the tightly closed lashes, that Satan had leagued
+against him last night, and that those boys had vowed to conquer his
+foolish protests once and for all, and get him gloriously drunk. Once
+let him break down that silly shame, they said, and he would be a jolly
+good fellow, for Harry was bright and quick-witted. Why they wanted to
+do it is not quite certain. Perhaps some of them were fiendish enough to
+want to drag him down as low as themselves, just for very love of
+deviltry. Others, perhaps, felt rebuked by his shrinking back at daring
+things which were proposed, and still others, older in their sin, liked
+him for his gay words and witty sayings, and were resolved to make of
+him a thoroughly good bad-fellow whom they could enjoy. Their experience
+had taught them that when one such once goes astray, he will dare more
+than some who never had any scruples.
+
+Harry only knew that they had passed some cider first. They declared
+they had ordered it for his sake as they knew his temperance principles,
+and they laughed and nudged one another as it was passed and winked, and
+Harry felt goaded to do almost anything to prove that he was just as
+good, or as bad, as they were.
+
+Now Harry was not fond of sweet cider. The few times he had tasted it,
+it had seemed insipid to him. He knew, indeed, that there were some
+people who went so far as to object to cider drinking. In a general way,
+he knew that there was a difference between sweet and hard cider, and it
+would have been well for him that night, if he had been possessed of a
+few decided opinions on the subject himself. He hesitated and then took
+some, but his hesitation was noticed and the boys had asked him if he
+were afraid of that too. He had flushed crimson and declared that he was
+not, and they had unmercifully passed his glass for more, and watched to
+see if he drank that. Then something else had been brought on, Harry did
+not just know what, whether wine or beer or something else. The cider
+had been by no means sweet and must have gone to his head. When they
+passed by his chair with the wine glasses, he had caught the whispered
+words and laughs of his companions over him, and turning quick without a
+thought for anything than to prove his—what?—cowardice? he ordered the
+waiter to give him some. A tremendous cheer had arisen from the boys, so
+loud it almost brought him to his senses. He drank that glass and
+another, and then he felt a feverish desire to swallow more, and they
+filled his glass again and again, he not asking or caring what it
+contained. That was the story. He did not know now, or stop to ask
+himself how he got here, to what he called home. He supposed it was in
+the same shameful way that some of the others were taken sometimes, the
+way that had hitherto been a strong barrier in the way of his joining in
+their drinking festivities. Whether any one saw or knew, he did not dare
+to ask. He only knew that he lay here, and that his mother’s eyes were
+over there, and that God always seemed to be near his mother, and that
+he did not dare to open his eyes again. He heard the soft movement of a
+woman’s dress, and a light step. It seemed like his mother’s. He could
+almost think as he lay here that this was his home once more, and his
+mother was nursing him from some dreadful illness. Only this bed was so
+hard. Oh, the shame and horror if this had happened at his dear old home
+with his mother in it. It would have killed her. He groaned aloud, and
+then he heard that soft step again and wondered. Was he dead? Was this
+the—where? the judgment seat—perhaps? For his mother surely was there
+and God! Oh!——
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+Some one stood beside him and put a large cool hand on his aching brow,
+and a woman’s voice, gentle and low, said “Drink this.”
+
+Then, although his very being was filled with disgust at the thought of
+eating or drinking anything, he let himself be raised from the pillow
+and swallow down the hot steaming coffee that was held for him. Miss
+Hannah gave his pillows a shake, and he settled back again with his eyes
+closed. He did not care for the coffee; he wondered that he could have
+drunk it, and yet he knew by the aroma of it that it was unlike any
+coffee he had ever drank in that house before, and there gradually crept
+over him a sense of relief from the drinking of it. It was not that the
+throbbing in his temples was any less, but perhaps he felt a little
+better able to bear it. Miss Hannah brought a clean linen cloth and a
+large soft towel, and washed his hot face and hands, just as his mother
+used to do when he was sick, and gently smoothed his tumbled hair. He
+did not look at her. His eyes were closed tight, and he was trying with
+all his might to force back the hot tears that were surely burning their
+way out beneath his lashes. The tears came and Miss Hannah saw them. She
+stooped and kissed him softly on his forehead and said in that gentle
+pitying voice again, “Poor boy!” and then she slipped away and left him
+alone.
+
+If Hiram Bartlett had been there he would have said that aunt Hannah was
+encouraging drunkenness by giving the young man so much attention; that
+pity was not what such a fellow needed, he ought to be soundly thrashed.
+He would get an idea that it was a fine thing to come home drunk, if he
+were petted and taken care of for it. But Hiram Bartlett was not there,
+and aunt Hannah was glad. She did what she felt in her inmost soul Jesus
+Christ would have her do, if she could hear his voice telling her.
+
+When she slipped away and left Harry alone, it was to tap lightly on the
+minister’s door and tell him Harry was awake.
+
+It was not the first time that day she had been to the minister’s room.
+She had resolved in the watches of the night that she would discover for
+herself what sort of a man was the stranger whom she had taken in the
+first night she came. He seemed to be all right, and he had helped nobly
+in this emergency. Now, if he only were a Christian, how much help he
+might be with this young man. She thought she knew a way to discover for
+herself without asking him, so instead of letting Molly “do his room”
+the next morning, she attended to that hall herself. She knew, if he
+were a Christian, she would be likely to find evidence of it somewhere
+about his room. It therefore gave her much pleasure and some surprise,
+when she found on entering to make the bed, not only the Bible in full
+view, but also a number of what appeared to be theological books. She
+glanced them over. There was a row of old familiar ones, in rusty
+bindings, “Barnes’ Notes” and a few kindred commentaries standing
+against the wall, on the floor. There was a soap box beside them
+containing other volumes yet unpacked, not many, but at the top lay two
+of F. B. Meyer’s, and Andrew Murray’s “With Christ in the School of
+Prayer.” These were dear favorites and friends of hers, and she began to
+hope that perhaps she was entertaining a minister. This hope was
+confirmed a few minutes afterward when the postman came and brought
+several letters for the Rev. Horace Stafford. She made his bed and set
+in order that room with a light in her face then, for was she not
+serving one of her Master’s high messengers? When Mr. Stafford came in
+later, she had a short conference about young Mr. Knowles, and they
+agreed that he should go to the store, and after the young man awoke he
+should have a little talk with him.
+
+Harry lay still for some minutes reviewing his miserable existence, and
+going over the last few months of mistakes and sins. Suddenly it
+occurred to him that it must be late and he ought to get up and go to
+his work. With a moan, he turned over and tried to get out of bed, but
+he was dizzy and sick, and he had to sit still and cover his eyes. He
+was not yet so used to dissipation that he could rise and go about like
+any one else the next day, and the dissipation had been deeper than he
+knew. What mixed or drugged glasses were given him, after he began to
+drink, he did not remember. Therefore, he could scarcely account for the
+effect they had had.
+
+Just then there came a knock at his door and Mr. Stafford entered. He
+had been listening for some sound, and was ready. He wanted to help the
+boy when he should fully come to his senses and realize his condition,
+and keep him, perhaps, from rushing out to drink again. Of course, he
+knew nothing about Harry’s past life, but he judged from his appearance
+and from what little he could learn of his character that this was
+probably a first experience, or if not the first, that at least he was
+not yet a hardened sinner.
+
+“Do you feel any better?” asked Mr. Stafford, in a pleasant, everyday
+tone, such as he would use for any illness of any one.
+
+Harry looked up, his bloodshot eyes and white face making a pitiful
+picture of wretchedness.
+
+“I feel worse than I ever felt in my life before,” he answered, all the
+bright gaiety with which he was usually bubbling over, gone entirely out
+of his voice.
+
+“Better lie down again,” said his visitor. “You are hardly able to get
+up yet.”
+
+“But I must get up,” said Harry in a despairing tone. “What time is it?
+It must be late. I’ll get fired if I’m not on time. They’re terribly
+particular down there.”
+
+“Never mind the time. You’re not to go to the store to-day,” answered
+the other quietly, in a tone that seemed used to commanding obedience.
+
+“Why not!” asked Harry sharply, looking at Mr. Stafford with sudden
+apprehension in his eyes. “Have they found out and sent me my walking
+papers already? What time is it? How long have I been here? Let me up.
+But it’s no use if they’ve found out. I’m done for. I might as well go
+to destruction first as last,” and he sank back with a groan and turned
+his face to the wall.
+
+“Listen, my boy,” said the young minister bending over him and placing a
+kindly hand on his shoulder. “Don’t say that. You are not going to
+destruction. We won’t let you. And you need not feel like that. You have
+not been dismissed. Your place is waiting for you when you are able to
+go back. The firm knows nothing but that you are too ill to be at your
+work to-day. It is afternoon, and you have slept all day. You are to lie
+still now until you are perfectly able to get up, and I am going to take
+care of you. Is there anything you would like to have?”
+
+Harry turned over and opened his eyes in astonishment.
+
+“How do you know I’m not to be dismissed? Has any one been there?”
+
+“Yes, I was there this morning and had a good long talk with Mr.
+Prescott. He seemed very sympathetic and asked me to send him word, if
+you were not better to-morrow.”
+
+Harry closed his eyes and swallowed hard. He was almost overcome by the
+kindness that had been shown him. Suddenly, he remembered dimly the
+scene of the night before.
+
+“Say,” said he, huskily, “where was I, that is—how, what did I—do? Who
+was down there last night when I came in? How did I get here?”
+
+“I brought you up here,” answered Mr. Stafford, quietly, in a
+matter-of-fact tone. “Miss Grant was present.” He thought it as well
+that Harry should not know that Celia had been there; it could do no
+good and would only add to his embarrassment. “You have slept ever
+since,” he finished briefly.
+
+“Were the boarders around? Do they know?”
+
+“No.”
+
+There was silence a moment. Harry was trying to recall some faint
+memory. At last he spoke.
+
+“Didn’t I,—Wasn’t Miss Murray there too? Did I talk nonsense to her?”
+
+The minister turned about and faced the young man and said truthfully,
+“Yes, she was there, and you didn’t speak very respectfully to her, I
+must own.”
+
+Harry groaned again. “Oh, she’s been very kind to me,” he moaned. Then
+after a pause. “But yet they didn’t turn me out of the house. If they
+had turned me out I could have stood it, but I can’t stand being treated
+this way. I haven’t been treated kindly since mother died.” Then his
+weakened nerves gave way and he cried, as if he had been a girl.
+
+Horace Stafford let him cry for a few minutes. He thought it might do
+him good. He had no mind to minimize the offence. It was grave and
+serious and must be realized.
+
+Presently he began to talk in low, grave tones, and the young man on the
+bed ceased moaning and showed that he was listening. When he was
+quieter, Mr. Stafford drew from him as much of the story of the evening
+before as he could remember. He talked with him long and seriously about
+life and the true meaning of it, about the wonderful trust that God gave
+each one, when he put him upon the earth and gave him the responsibility
+of doing the best he was capable of. He drew him on to speak of his
+mother and his boyhood life. He did not talk too long. This man who was
+a fisher of men had been gifted with rare tact. He seemed to know just
+what to say and when to say it and, what is sometimes much more
+important, he knew when to keep still. He gave just the right note of
+warning to the young man before him, but he knew enough of human nature
+to see at once that here was true repentance, and deep humiliation, and
+that that lesson did not need to be further impressed this time. What he
+needed now was kindly sympathy and help to get upon his feet again.
+
+Harry, in a pause, reverted to Celia. What should he do? He never could
+look her in the face again, and she had been so kind to him.
+
+“Tell her so,” said Mr. Stafford, promptly, as if it were the easiest
+thing in the world to do. “Just beg her pardon as manfully as you can,
+and then look out that you are never so placed that you will do so
+again.”
+
+The slender frame of the young man on the bed shook involuntarily as he
+said fiercely, “I should hope not.”
+
+There came Miss Grant’s light tap at the door, and a dainty tray was
+handed in. Harry thought to himself that he could not eat, that he never
+could eat again, but when the tray was placed in front of him, and Mr.
+Stafford said in his quiet, commanding voice, “Now eat every bit of
+that,” he found that he could.
+
+Miss Grant knew by instinct just what to prepare for the invalid. Not
+dainties, and jellies and confectionery. Just a small, thin, white china
+bowl of very strong soup, containing much nutrition in small compass and
+sending forth an odor most delicious; some thin beautifully toasted
+slices of bread, a ball of sweet butter and more of that black aromatic
+coffee. The minister mentally decided that aunt Hannah must be an expert
+in the culinary art. So many kind women would have brought forth sour
+bread, muddy coffee and a piece of dyspeptic pudding or pie or cake, or
+perhaps tried more solid substantial foods where there was no appetite.
+He noted also the fineness of the napkin with which the tray was
+covered, the thin transparency of the china bowl, and that the spoon was
+apparently solid silver, old and thin as if it were an heirloom, but
+bright and unmistakably of aristocratic origin and pleasant withal to
+use. He noticed these things because they had been a part of his former
+existence before he had given his life up to saving souls, and because
+since he came to live in boarding-houses, he had sometimes missed their
+absence in a vague, undefined way. He had not known that he cared about
+these little accessories of a refined life, but he was conscious that he
+recognized a friendly look in that spoon and bowl and fine linen. He did
+not know that these things were among the very few bits of home that
+Miss Grant had brought with her, and that she had carefully hunted them
+out of a trunk that had not yet been unpacked, because she felt that
+perhaps these dishes might help in the work of saving that soul.
+
+Nor was she wrong. Harry knew silver when he saw it. This lunch seemed
+like one his mother would have prepared for him.
+
+“Now, sir,” said Mr. Stafford, as he lighted the gas and prepared to be
+cheerful while the young man ate his supper, “you must forget everything
+about this for a while, and just eat your supper and enjoy it.” He
+laughed pleasantly, and Harry looked up with a wan smile and thanked him
+in his heart for lifting the heavy burden for a few minutes. Mr.
+Stafford could talk, even if Harry just then could not, and he showed
+that he had no trouble in summoning to his command just the right thing
+at the right time. He began to tell in detail the story of a young man
+in whom he was interested, who had a wife and young family dependent
+upon his efforts, and who was out of work, and unable to find a
+position. He had spent some time that day trying to find him work,
+unsuccessfully, and he told his various efforts describing the different
+employers so well, that once Harry forgot his own troubles and was
+beguiled into a laugh.
+
+Celia, passing the door just then, heard them laughing and one more
+little wrinkle crept into her white brow of care. She thought Mr.
+Stafford must be a queer minister to laugh with a young man who had
+recently committed so grave an offence against the laws of God and of
+society. Poor Celia, she had had a hard day, what with doing her own
+work, and carrying on her heart the thought of Harry Knowles drunk. It
+was not that she cared more for that boy than she would have done for
+any other, but it was the shock to her faith in human nature to find one
+whom she had believed to be at least tolerably good and interesting,
+suddenly appear in the condition in which he had been. Young people are
+often prone to look upon their faith in human nature as something akin
+to their faith in God, something holy and religious, which if broken
+outrages their belief almost in the kindness of their God. Perhaps this
+is the reason that sometimes, sweet honest souls have to pass through
+the fiery trial of believing in, even to loving, some human brother or
+sister, only to find them utterly false. Such need to learn the lesson
+of quaint George Herbert, that
+
+                      “Even the greatest griefs
+                      May be reliefs,
+          Could he but take them right, and in their ways.
+                      Happy is he whose heart
+                      Hath found the art
+          To turn his double pains to double praise.”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+“It’s my opinion,” said Molly Poppleton, standing with her arms akimbo
+and facing Miss Grant as she entered the kitchen one morning shortly
+after breakfast, “that them three-cent girls need ‘tendin’ to.” She set
+her lips firmly and then returned to the polishing of her range.
+
+Miss Hannah went on with her work. She was rubbing pumpkin through a
+colander and reducing it to the velvety texture she always required in
+her pies. She waited calmly for Molly to go on with her reasons, as she
+knew she would soon. Molly finished the oven door and stood up again.
+
+“Yes, they need ‘tendin’ to bad. If you’d just go up to their room once
+you’d find out. There’s a stack of paper novils in their closet knee
+deep, an’ there’s pictures round that room of women from the-_ay_-tres,
+without much clo’es on, that are perfickly scand’lous. Besides, they’ve
+got a picture of them two took in a tin type down to Atlantic City with
+bathing suits on, an’ two young fellers along side of ’em without much
+on but a little underclo’es. They are grinning fit to kill, and look
+real silly. No decent girls would have a picture took like that, let
+alone keep it round in sight afterward.”
+
+“Well, Molly, you know all girls have not been brought up alike,” said
+Miss Hannah, as she measured out the cinnamon and ginger. “Molly, bring
+me the big yellow bowl and the molasses jug.”
+
+“I should hope not,” said Molly, as she put the jug down on the table
+with a thump, and went back to her range. “Not like them, anyway. You
+don’t know all. They have any amount of little pink and blue tickets
+lying round droppin’ out of pockets and the like, an’ I give that one
+they call Mamie one I picked up in the hall, thinkin’ it was something
+valuable, an’ she laughed an’ said it was no good, just an old
+the-_ay_-tre ticket, been used. ‘My land!’ says I, not being able to
+keep still. ‘If all them round your room is the-_ay_-tre tickets, you
+must’ve been an awful lot!’ Then she giggled an’ got red an’ says, ‘Yes,
+most every night now,’ an’ the other one, the one they call Carrie, she
+spoke up, and says she, ‘Yes, she’s got plenty of gentlemen friends,
+Molly, an’ so have I,’ an’ then they both laughed and went out. Now I
+s’pose it ain’t none of my business, but I must say them girls ought to
+be back with their mothers. They can’t be over fifteen a day, or sixteen
+anyway. They ought to be in bed every night by nine o’clock. They ain’t
+fit to sit at the same table with Miss Celia with their bangs and their
+dirty teeth and black finger nails. The fact is I’d like to give ’em
+both a good bath anyway.”
+
+Molly slammed out of the kitchen and Miss Hannah heard her sweeping the
+dining-room with all her might and main.
+
+She went on measuring her milk and beating her eggs, and fashioning the
+flaky crust in the pie pans, and thinking. The fact was she had been
+troubled about those two girls herself. She felt that they needed a
+great deal of help and so far she had been utterly unable to approach
+them. They seemed shy and uncomfortable when she came near them, and had
+grown silent at the table, too, unless the tenor brakeman was present.
+Then the three carried on a bantering conversation in suppressed tones,
+with half glances toward the others. Miss Grant wondered what it was
+that there always seemed to be some people about her whose hearts she
+could not reach. It was just so with Nettie, she never could make any
+headway in training that child. As a little girl, she had been sullen
+and silent when she was remonstrated with by her aunt for any fault, and
+as a young woman she had been impertinent and cold for days after any
+attempt on the part of aunt Hannah to change her plans. With Hiram too,
+aunt Hannah had felt the same repellent influence and she wondered why
+it was, though she had prayerfully and conscientiously longed to be to
+these people what God wanted her to be, that she did not seem able to
+reach their hearts in any way. Now these two girls weighed heavily upon
+her. She had watched them for days and had determined to make some move
+pretty soon. She felt sure there was need of help for them, and urgent
+need, far beyond what Molly had bluntly expressed. And while aunt Hannah
+weighed and measured and baked and thought, she was making in her mind a
+plan for the salvation of Mamie Williams and Carrie Simmons.
+
+She had noticed Mamie several times lately when Celia came to the table,
+and she knew that she watched Celia intently and admired her afar, at
+least she admired her in so far as outward adornments were concerned.
+Even during the few weeks since aunt Hannah had come to Philadelphia,
+she had noticed the gradual change in Mamie’s dress, from gay and fussy
+and frivolous, to a style somewhat more subdued and neat. She had
+reduced the baggy bunches of frizzy hair that used to project over her
+forehead and loop far down over her ears, till they were more like
+Celia’s graceful braids with a stray curl slipping out here and there.
+She still wore her many colored finger rings, but there were other
+little changes about her that showed she was to a certain extent making
+Celia a model just now. Aunt Hannah’s brow cleared. She thought she knew
+a way to Mamie’s heart and perhaps through hers to Carrie’s. Celia had
+an influence and she could help. But how to bring that about in the
+wisest way, that was aunt Hannah’s puzzle, for Celia was very much
+disgusted with the actions of the two “three-centers” as she called
+them. She never noticed them in any way, and her dignified bearing at
+the table was always meant to be a rebuke to them. Celia did not like
+those two girls, and while she was willing that their lives should be
+made more comfortable by their sharing in the good food that aunt Hannah
+now provided for Mrs. Morris’ old boarders, still Celia would not have
+felt badly to have had them leave that their places might be occupied by
+more interesting people.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+Celia was getting to be a sort of a puzzle anyway. She did not enter
+into some things as her aunt had supposed she would. Instead she held
+aloof, and seemed troubled about something. She did not even make
+friends with the young minister, in whom aunt Hannah saw growing
+possibilities of a valued friendship for them all. He and she had talked
+together on themes of mutual interest, and he had shown that he was a
+man of culture and education. Aunt Hannah was not a match-maker, and did
+not immediately think of every young man in the light of a possible
+husband for her dear Celia, but she did have ambitions that Celia might
+have friends who would be helpful in every way to her, both spiritually
+and mentally, and she felt that such a friendship, though it were
+nothing more than occasional converse on some literary theme, would be
+excellent for the young girl whose ambitions and abilities were so far
+beyond her opportunities. But Celia only smiled, and remained quiet and
+distant, and told aunt Hannah that the young minister belonged to her,
+and she must not expect her niece to take him on faith. Nevertheless,
+she knew that no movement or word of Mr. Stafford’s at the table escaped
+Celia. It was evident that she was measuring him.
+
+Celia had not entered very heartily into the plans made for Harry
+Knowles. She had done what she was told, it was true, but she had not
+made plans herself. She seemed to have received a set-back on the night
+when Harry came home drunk. There had been much to do in the evenings,
+however, and her aunt had not had time to have a good long talk with
+her. She felt that it ought to come at once. She put the pies in the
+oven, closed the oven door carefully, and glancing at the clock went to
+her own room to kneel as was her custom in perplexity and lay her
+trouble all at her Master’s feet. Then she came back to her work about
+the house with calm brow and untroubled heart, feeling sure the way
+would be opened and words given her, if she must speak. She would have
+made a good model for a study of a saint as she stood beside the
+moulding board soon after and patted the smooth, light loaves into shape
+for their last rising, bending her sweet, thoughtful face to her work,
+her mind busy with the problems of souls, while she worked with her
+hands to feed their bodies.
+
+It was like a revelation of what God can do in a human soul through
+sorrow, to look at Hannah Grant and think of her past life with its
+buried and risen joys.
+
+        “Methinks we do as fretful children do,
+        Leaning their faces on the window pane
+        To sigh the glass dim with their own breath’s stain,
+        And shut the sky and landscape from their view.
+        And thus, alas! since God, the Maker, drew
+        A mystic separation ’twixt those twain,
+        The life beyond us, and our souls in pain,
+        We miss the prospect which we’re called unto
+        By grief we’re fools to use. Be still and strong,
+        O man, my brother! hold thy sobbing breath,
+        And keep thy soul’s large window pure from wrong,
+        That so, as life’s appointment issueth,
+        Thy vision may be clear to watch along
+        The sunset consummation-lights of death.”
+
+“Auntie, who is the youth in the parlor so redolent of Hoyt’s German
+cologne and cigarette smoke?” asked Celia, gaily, coming into her aunt’s
+room just after dinner that night. “You opened the door for him, you
+ought to know. I do hope he is not a new boarder, for I’m morally
+certain he wouldn’t be any help, and I think we have enough heathen to
+work for at present, don’t you? How don’t tell me you called me up to
+ask my permission to take in that oily-looking youth, aunt Hannah.”
+
+Aunt Hannah laughed and then grew grave.
+
+“No, dear, not that,” she said, and then she drew the little rocker
+close beside her own and said “Sit down, dear, I want to talk to you.”
+
+“Why, aunt Hannah, what have I been doing that’s naughty?” asked Celia,
+pretending to be scared. “This sounds like old times,” but she settled
+herself comfortably and nestled her head lovingly on her aunt’s
+shoulder.
+
+“Well then, first of all, Celia, why do you act so strangely sometimes,
+and what is the matter with Mr. Stafford? You and he ought to be
+friends, and he could help much in the work you planned we should do
+together. You seem to me to have lost your interest in the house and
+everything in it, and I do not understand it. There is much that you
+could do and ought to do at once, and you do not seem to care to go
+about it.”
+
+“Why, aunt Hannah, what has the minister to do with it all? I am afraid
+you are mistaken in him as a helper. In fact I know you are. I had just
+come home that night—the night after Harry had been drinking, you
+know,—and was passing the door, and I heard Mr. Stafford’s laugh, and
+then I heard Harry laugh, too, and I couldn’t help hearing that Mr.
+Stafford was telling a funny story to Harry as I went on up the hall.
+Now just think of that after what had happened. A pretty minister he is,
+I think. He ought to have been preaching a sermon.”
+
+“Celia! Take care how you judge without knowing. You cannot tell what
+may have been the pointed moral of the funny story, and you do not know
+but the Lord could use a laugh just then to help that young man better
+than anything else, and he doubtless put it into the heart of his
+servant to know that. I believe that man has rare tact in winning souls.
+Be very careful, and be very slow ever to criticise the actions of a
+minister. His office brings him nearer to God than most men.”
+
+Celia’s cheeks flushed a little. She was slightly annoyed to have her
+aunt speak in that way, but she respected the elder woman’s opinion too
+much to resent the words or refuse the lesson. After a moment she said:
+
+“Well, aunt Hannah, maybe I have been wrong, I’ll try to be good.” In
+her heart Celia had another reason for her dignified coldness toward the
+minister. She had recognized, after a few days, that he was a man of
+unusual education and refinement. She immediately began to wonder
+whether or not he looked down upon her, a saleswoman in a store, a poor
+girl, who had to earn her own living. She settled it in her mind that he
+probably did in a certain undefined way, though he probably did not
+confess such things to himself as that might have conflicted with
+certain Christian theories he felt himself bound to abide by. She told
+herself that he should see that she never expected anything in the way
+of courtesy even from him, and that she was one girl in the world, who
+was not ready to fling herself forward for companionship with any
+desirable young man that should chance to be thrown in her neighborhood.
+She had been still further strengthened in her determination by a little
+occurrence one evening a few days before this talk with her aunt.
+
+The minister had gone to prayer meeting, having been busily engaged in
+his room all day, so that aunt Hannah had not been able to finish
+certain dusting and setting to rights there as thoroughly as she
+desired. The evening had found her hands full of some kitchen work, and
+she had requested Celia to slip up there when the halls were quiet,
+while the occupant of the room was in meeting and finish the dusting.
+Celia had been glad to help. She had turned the gas up and gone to work
+in earnest, glancing interestedly at the rows of books over the little
+table against the wall, and wishing she had opportunity to look them
+over, but she would not put so much as a hand upon them except to do her
+necessary work, in the absence of their owner. When she came to the
+bureau she had to move some things to wipe the dust off beneath them. A
+Bible was lying there open before a painted miniature of a most lovely
+young woman. The pictured face was so beautiful that she could not but
+look at it again as she carefully wiped the dust from the velvet and
+gold of its case. The blue eyes and golden hair and the sweet
+intellectual face stayed in her memory, and from the fact that the
+miniature stood open before his Bible, she judged it was of some one
+quite near and dear. Celia did not reason it out in words, but she
+thought it well that she should maintain a maidenly dignity. However, as
+her aunt talked, she saw that she had carried this feeling to an absurd
+extremity. What was it to her what the young man thought, or how many
+velvet-framed girls he carried in his pocket next his heart? She was in
+the same house with him and must treat him with Christian courtesy, and
+she need not necessarily make herself prominent before his eyes either.
+She would try to do differently. He should henceforth be as one of the
+other boarders to her.
+
+“What else, auntie?” she asked, after a minute of thought, looking up.
+
+“Harry, next,” said her aunt. “You ought to interest him in something
+occasionally, as you once told me you did in a lamp. He is having a very
+hard struggle to keep away from those companions who are after him every
+day now, Mr. Stafford says. He does all he can for him, but you know his
+meetings occupy so many evenings that he can do very little and he
+hasn’t thought it wise to try to take him to church yet. You know he’s
+nothing but a boy. He wants to be interested in something.”
+
+“Yes,” said Celia, “I know. I’ll try. But, auntie, I can’t forget how he
+looked that night,” and she shuddered. “But I’ll try to get up something
+to help and that right away. Now what else? You always save the worst
+dose till the last, I know you of old. Which is it? Miss Burns or the
+tenor brakeman? Or—O _auntie_, now it _isn’t_ those three-centers!
+Don’t tell me to try to do something for them, for I can’t,” and the
+girl put up her hands in mock horror.
+
+Miss Grant detailed to her what she knew of them, including an account
+of Molly’s moralizing on the subject, and Celia laughed, and then grew
+grave.
+
+There came a call to the kitchen for Miss Grant then and she left Celia
+thinking. When she returned a few minutes later she was greeted with
+“Aunt Hannah, are those boards still in the cellar? Are they of any use
+there? Because if they are not I’m going to make a cozy corner in the
+parlor if you don’t object. I’ve thought of a beautiful way. Harry will
+help, I’m sure. He sat in the parlor looking glum when I came up. Do you
+suppose I must get the three-centers to help? Would they come, do you
+think? And say, by the way, auntie, who did you say that oily youth in
+the parlor was?”
+
+“His name, he said, was Mr. Clarence Jones and he asked for Miss
+Simmons. I called her and I think she went out with him, for I don’t see
+either of them about. I don’t know whether Mamie Williams is in her room
+or not. I think it would be a good plan to see. By all means make as
+many cozy corners as you please, dear, and the boards are of no use to
+me.”
+
+Celia departed to find her helpers, and Miss Hannah locked the door and
+prayed for them before she went about darning some tablecloths.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+“Now, Harry, where are you going?” said Celia, with dismay in her voice,
+as she ran down the stairs and saw that young man with his overcoat on
+and his hat in his hand just opening the front door.
+
+He started and looked guilty as she spoke. In truth, he had been sitting
+in the parlor for an hour trying to keep himself in the house, and away
+from an especially alluring evening the boys had held out as bait; and
+one, too, which seemed, from their account of it, to be perfectly
+harmless.
+
+He hesitated and stammered out:
+
+“Nowhere, I guess,” and then laughed and sat down in the hall chair. “Is
+there anything I can do for you, Miss Murray? The fact is I don’t quite
+know what to do with myself to-night, for some reason.”
+
+Celia’s heart filled with pity for the poor lonely fellow and with
+remorse that she had not sooner attempted to do something to cheer him
+up.
+
+“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said, earnestly, with a true ring to her voice
+which he recognized at once. “But if you are lonesome and really have
+nothing pressing to do, why take off your coat and come and help me
+carry out a scheme. I’m going to make a cozy corner in the parlor. In
+fact, I think I’ll make two, one in the bay window and one over there by
+the organ. Will you help? You’re such a good carpenter, you know, and
+this parlor does look so bare and desolate.”
+
+“All right, I’m with you,” answered the young man, taking off his
+overcoat with alacrity. “Only tell me what to do. I don’t know the first
+thing about cozy corners, but if you know as much as you did about
+lamps, I’ll be willing to say they’ll be a success. Let’s have a
+half-dozen of ’em if you say so. Now what’ll I do first?”
+
+“Bring that lamp and come down into the cellar. Wait, I don’t know
+whether you can do it alone, they are pretty heavy and there are a good
+many. Perhaps Mr. Hartley or Mr. Osborn would help a minute in bringing
+up the boards. I’ll show you what we want first, and then you can pick
+out the right boards. You see I want a good firm seat here in the bay
+window to fill the whole place to the edge of the window frames either
+side, just a foot from the floor, so, and then I want another over here,
+to reach from here to here, so wide, and the same height from the floor.
+Here is my tape measure. Now you can pick out your lumber.” Celia moved
+about the dull uninteresting parlor, furnishing it with gesture and
+imagination, till the young carpenter was quite interested. He called
+the two young men upstairs, who came willingly and helped for a few
+minutes showing not a little interest and curiosity in the undertaking.
+They all lingered with advice and offers to help, and when Celia had
+seen the carpentry work well started, she ran upstairs and knocked at
+the door of the two young girls.
+
+“Come in,” drawled the voice of some one chewing, and after a moment’s
+hesitation she entered.
+
+Mamie Williams lay across the foot of the bed, the two pillows and a
+comforter under her head, the gas turned as high as it would go, and a
+paper-covered volume in her hand. She was chewing gum. When she saw that
+it was Celia who had entered, her tone of indifference changed to one of
+pleased surprise. She sat up quickly and hid her book beneath the
+pillows. Then she put her hand up to straighten her hair.
+
+“Why, is it you!” she exclaimed, and Celia knew that her aunt’s
+conjecture that she was admired by this girl was true, from the evident
+pleasure the visit gave. This unbent Celia still more, and she tried to
+be winning. When Celia tried she was very winning indeed.
+
+“We are having some fun downstairs fixing up that old barn of a parlor,”
+she explained, still standing by the door, though her hostess had
+slipped from the bed and cleared a chair from a pile of clothing thrown
+upon it. “I thought maybe you would like to help. Is your friend here?”
+
+“No, she ain’t, she’s gone out with a gentleman friend,” said Mamie,
+with a conscious giggle. “It’s a wonder you found me in. I’m mostly out
+when she is. Sit down, can’t you? I’m real glad you come up, I was
+lonesome. The book I had wasn’t any account either. What did you say you
+was doing?”
+
+Celia essayed to explain and succeeded in interesting Mamie to the
+extent that she hunted out her thimble from a mass of ribbons and
+collars tumbled into a bureau drawer, and went downstairs to see what
+was going on, though she confessed she was not much used to doing things
+like that.
+
+They went to work in good earnest. Celia had some printed burlap, which
+she had brought home from the store one night to make curtains for an
+improvised clothespress, in her room. It was cheap and there was plenty
+of it. The clothespress could wait. Those cozy corners must be finished
+to-night, at least as far as possible. She gave the tick of the cushions
+to Mamie to run the seams, while she applied herself to sewing the
+burlap cover for it. Meanwhile, the hammering and sawing and directing
+went forward, and by half-past nine when Mr. Stafford opened the front
+door and came in there were two very solid looking rough wooden shelves
+a foot from the floor, in the parlor, one occupying the entire bay
+window space in the front of the room, the other one being at the
+further end of the room. To the sides of this Harry Knowles was just
+nailing some more boards to serve as ends, under the supervision of the
+other two young men, while Celia and Mamie were upon their knees in
+front of the bay window tacking the dark blue burlap printed in a
+heraldic design, in a pleated valance. A nearly completed cushion lay
+beside them on the floor, but not tied as yet. Mr. Stafford, attracted
+by the unusual noises, entered the room and stood behind them looking at
+the work a moment. Then, as Celia turned from the valance and attempted
+to thread a large needle with a cord and then vainly endeavored to pull
+its short proportions through the thick cushion, which had been stuffed
+with excelsior and a layer of cotton on the top, he said quietly:
+
+“You need an upholsterer’s needle for that, Miss Murray. I think I have
+one upstairs that we used in fixing up the pulpit chairs at the mission.
+I’ll go and get it.”
+
+Celia was pleased that he entered into the work and thanked him. As he
+turned toward Harry, he said, “Knowles, why don’t you put springs in? It
+would be twice as comfortable.”
+
+“Springs!” said Harry jumping up and facing round. “Do you expect us to
+turn into upholsterers the first night?” and he laughed good-naturedly.
+
+“No, but indeed it isn’t a difficult job,” explained the minister, “you
+just have to tie them down firmly. I’ll show you if you don’t mind
+running out with me to that little upholsterer’s around the corner. I
+think it’s open yet. It was when I came by. The people live over the
+store and they don’t shut up shop early.”
+
+“By all means, let us have springs,” answered Celia to Harry’s look of
+enquiry, “I didn’t look for such luxury as that, but we will take what
+grandeur we can get.” Her cheeks had grown red with excitement, and her
+eyes were shining. The minister, as he turned to go on his
+self-appointed errand, was reminded of the first evening he had come to
+that house. Harry and Mr. Stafford were soon back with several sets of
+springs and the three young men, with Celia demurely in the background,
+took a lesson in putting in springs, which they found to be not such a
+very difficult matter after all. The minister had not forgotten to get
+some small dark blue cotton upholstery buttons when he was out, and
+Mamie and Celia soon learned how to use the queer double pointed needle
+and tie the cushion with the little buttons. Altogether it looked very
+pretty, and quite like real upholsterer’s work when it was finished.
+
+In spite of the proverbial “many hands” and “light work,” it was nearly
+eleven o’clock when the two seats were finished, and a light frame work
+over the seat in the back end of the parlor erected. Miss Hannah had
+come down to send them all to bed, but found them in a state of childish
+enthusiasm to see their work completed. Celia had remembered that she
+had upstairs two or three pieces of plain and printed denim and some
+turkey red calico. Mounted on the stepladder beside the canopy frame,
+she deftly draped the rough wood, being materially assisted by Mr.
+Stafford who seemed to understand what she wanted to do, and to be able
+to drape a graceful fold of cloth, if he _was_ only a man, and that a
+minister. He, by way of contribution, brought down a Chinese sword made
+of coins which the Chinese use as a talisman, for the purpose of
+frightening away evil spirits, and hung it above the drapery. This
+roused the others to emulate his example. The university student thought
+he knew where he could get a couple of Arabic spears to help out that
+canopy drapery, and Harry Knowles declared he would hunt around and find
+one of those dull old filigree bull’s-eye lanterns that hang by long
+chains from the centre. Mamie said her contribution should be a couple
+of sofa pillows, and Celia promised to make some more. Miss Burns,
+coming in just then looking weary and worn, brightened as she came into
+the parlor and exclaimed over the new furnishings, “They are
+simply,—now—simply—_fine_—aren’t they, Miss Grant? Indeed they
+_are_! What _wonderful_ taste and _skill_ has been exhibited here! I
+declare it is _simply marvelous_! _Simply fine!_ Indeed—_indeed_—it
+is!” she giggled wearily. She asked permission to contribute a pillow
+also.
+
+“Now we need a low bookcase running along that wall and turning that
+corner,” said the minister, as they turned to go to their rooms. “Can’t
+you manage that, Knowles?” and Celia’s eyes sparkled over the idea. The
+minister evidently understood esthetics anyway. The bookcase would be a
+great addition. She went upstairs so excited over her new work she could
+hardly sleep. She had almost forgotten her three-cent protégée, till
+Mamie squeezed her hand over the stair railing and said, “Good-night,
+Miss Murray, I’ve enjoyed myself ever so much. And say, would you mind
+coming into my room a few minutes to-morrow night? I want to ask you
+some questions very particular.”
+
+Celia promised readily enough, though the prospect was not a pleasant
+one, but she had made up her mind to try to help this girl, so she might
+as well accept the situation and the opportunity together.
+
+But aunt Hannah sat up that night till nearly one o’clock, and looked
+over the stair railing till she heard the night key click, and saw the
+befeathered hat of Carrie Simmons as she came airily in.
+
+“Poor child!” murmured the watcher, as she turned out the hall light and
+went to bed, “something must be done! Out till one o’clock and with that
+kind of a young man!”
+
+The next morning she noticed that Carrie had dark rings under her eyes,
+and was developing thin, sharp lines about her nose and mouth, which did
+not add beauty to her pert, weak face.
+
+The next evening as Celia started for Mamie Williams’ room, Carrie
+having again departed with the aforementioned youth, aunt Hannah called
+her. “Celia dear, two things,” she said, with her hand on Celia’s arm.
+“Don’t forget to pray before you go, and if you get a chance mention
+soap and water. Don’t forget that cleanliness is next to godliness.
+Perhaps in this case it comes first.” Celia laughed and said, “All
+right, auntie,” and went back to her room to take the first advice
+given.
+
+Reinforced by a turning of her heart to her heavenly Father for
+guidance, she went to her unpleasant task, her mind more than half full
+of the new bookcase and some other plans she had for the adornment of
+the parlor. The minister seemed to have taken Harry Knowles away with
+him immediately after dinner, so she had no one to help her carry out
+any parlor schemes just at present, and she could not help being
+disappointed that she must turn aside to another piece of work.
+
+Mamie was evidently expecting her this time. She had given the room some
+semblance of a clearing up: that is, she had picked up Carrie’s old
+store dress from the floor where she left it, and tumbled everything
+that was out of place on the bureau and table into a drawer, for the
+confusion of some future hour of need.
+
+She seemed to be in earnest, and plunged at once into her subject when
+she had seated Celia.
+
+“Say, I thought maybe you wouldn’t mind telling me how you do it. You
+see I thought you wasn’t any more pretty than I, and you haven’t got
+expensive clo’es, but you manage somehow to look awful stylish and
+pretty in spite of it. I know it takes a knack, but don’t you think I
+could learn? I’ve been trying ever since you came here to do my hair the
+way you do, but I can’t make it act right. I thought maybe you wouldn’t
+mind doing it a few times for me, to get me started, and perhaps you
+could tell me what the difference is between you and me. I know it ain’t
+very polite to ask you things like this, but I thought you was so kind
+last night asking me to help that I’d just be bold and ask you. You
+ain’t mad, are you?”
+
+Celia ignored the doubtful compliments and tried to smile, albeit her
+very soul shrank within her. What, handle the coarse greasy hair of that
+girl who seemed actually dirty to her? How could she? Surely the Lord
+did not require that sacrifice. Why had she undertaken this task anyway?
+It was _dreadful_. She half rose from her chair, as she began to foresee
+the magnitude of the possible proportions of this proposition. What
+might she not be asked to do? Then she remembered whose she was and whom
+she served, and sank back again in her chair, putting up a petition for
+help to her heavenly Father.
+
+                              “What is prayer?
+                      ’Tis the telegraphic cord,
+                      Holding converse with the Lord;
+                      ’Tis the key of promise given
+                      Turning in the lock of heaven.”
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+“Do you think I’m too homely to fix up?” anxiously asked Mamie, as her
+visitor did not at once respond.
+
+“Oh no, indeed!” said Celia laughing, “I was only trying to think how to
+answer you, and it’s so funny for you to want to copy me. I have never
+tried to be ‘pretty’ as you call it. I only tried to be clean and neat,
+and have things look as nice as I could without spending much money. But
+now that you’ve asked me, if you really want to know how you could
+improve your appearance, in my eyes at least, I’ll try to tell you a few
+things. What is it that troubles you most? We’ll begin with that.”
+
+“Oh my sakes!” giggled Mamie. “There’s so many things. Well, my hands
+and my feet. They’re so big, and in the way. My hands are red and rough
+and bony, and my face is always breaking out in little ugly black
+pimples, and my hair won’t get into any shape I want it to, and my teeth
+aren’t pretty, and then of course my clothes, and I just _wish_ I could
+walk across a room like you,” she finished with a sigh.
+
+Celia laughed and began,
+
+“Your hands,” she said, “let me see them.” She turned up the gas and
+surveyed them critically a moment, while Mamie waited in breathless
+anxiety comparing her red, beringed fingers to Celia’s small white ones.
+
+“Well, if I were you I would take all those rings off first,” said
+Celia, decidedly. “They look gaudy and out of place, except perhaps on a
+woman in society, and even then I should prefer to see just one or two
+at a time, and not a whole jewelry store at once.”
+
+Mamie looked disappointed. She drew them off slowly. “I thought they
+were pretty,” she said, the least bit of dismay in her voice. “Don’t you
+like any rings?”
+
+“Not for young girls,—unless they mean something. Have you any that
+have tender associations?”
+
+“Some,” simpered Mamie looking conscious.
+
+Celia ignored or did not understand this answer. “Which one?” she asked.
+“Did your mother, or father, or brother, or sister give it to you?”
+
+Mamie blushed. “Well, yes, I have got one ma give me, but it isn’t any
+of them. It’s a little plain gold thing, looks kind of out of style now.
+I don’t wear it any more.”
+
+“I’d wear that one,” said the oracle, “and put the others all away.
+You’re too young to have rings given you to wear by strangers. Now about
+training those hands, I can give you some little exercises that they
+gave me when I was taking music lessons, which I think help the hands to
+be graceful. First, if I were you, I would go into the bathroom and give
+them a good washing in hot soap suds, finishing off with cold water.
+That will make them more pliable. Have you a nail brush? You ought to
+have one. There is nothing like it for making the nails look rosy. I
+suppose you find great trouble in keeping them clean, working all day,
+don’t you? I do. But a nail brush makes the work much easier. I would
+cut the nails more in this shape if I were you, see?” and Celia held out
+one seashell tipped hand to be inspected.
+
+When the hands were duly scrubbed, Celia gave her a short lesson in
+Delsarte, an exercise for each joint of the finger and hand. Mamie’s
+eyes sparkled and she proved herself an apt pupil. “Now,” said Celia,
+“practice that, but be sure you never do it where any one can see you.
+It will have its effect on your movements in time, but never practice in
+public. Don’t think about your hands. That’s the best way to do. If they
+are clean they will take care of themselves, and the more you think
+about them and think how awkward they are, the more awkward they become.
+Did you never try making people stop staring at you by looking hard at
+their feet in the street cars? Well, try it some time. It is very funny.
+I have been annoyed once or twice by somebody staring at me till I was
+very uncomfortable. I remembered what I had read somewhere, and looked
+down at their feet as if I was very much interested in them. They very
+soon took their eyes from me and began to draw their feet back out of
+sight and to fidget around and wonder what was the matter with their
+shoes.”
+
+Mamie laughed and looked at her new teacher with admiration. She began
+to think she had made a mistake in saying Celia was not pretty.
+
+“Now the complexion,” began Celia again in a business-like tone. “Your
+general health will affect that. You ought not to eat much fat or sweets
+for one thing, and you ought to bathe all over every day and rub your
+skin till it’s all in a glow. That will make a great difference in the
+complexion. How often do you bathe?”
+
+“Oh my!” gasped Mamie, “I do hate to take a bath. Why, ma used always to
+scrub us children all around oncet a week, and I s’pose I’d ought to
+keep that up, but sometimes I do skip a week, it’s so dreadful cold in
+the morning.”
+
+“Well, if I were you I would bathe every day, for a while anyway. You
+don’t know what a lot of good it will do you, and after a while you will
+get to love it. Once a week you ought to have a thorough wash with warm
+water and plenty of soap, and finish off with a cold dash, and a good
+hard rub, and then every morning take a sponge off in cool water and a
+good rubbing. That you will find will make your complexion very
+different. Then I would give the face some treatment of hot and cold
+water. Wash it in water just as hot as you can stand it every morning
+and then in very cold. That will make your cheeks have some color, too,
+I think. As for your teeth, let me see them. Oh, Mamie, it’s too bad to
+let such nice even teeth get into such a condition. They are hopelessly
+black, and you can’t get them white yourself. Do you brush them every
+day, after every meal?”
+
+“My land, no!” exclaimed Mamie. “What an awful nuisance that would be! I
+never had a tooth brush but once, and then Carrie used it to scrub the
+ink off her fingers when she was going to the theatre.”
+
+Celia could scarcely repress the exclamation of disgust that rose to her
+lips on this announcement, but Mamie was luckily too interested in her
+own words to hear.
+
+“Don’t you think I could ever do anything with my teeth?”
+
+“Why yes, you must go to a dentist at once and have them attended to.
+They need a good cleaning, and while you are there you ought to have him
+go over your teeth and put them in first-class order. It doesn’t pay to
+let your teeth go before you are a woman yet. He will tell you how to
+take care of them. You ought not to eat much candy or to chew gum. That
+injures the teeth.”
+
+“Oh!” said Mamie, in a sort of despair. “You don’t have much fun, do
+you, if you try to do all them things? But I don’t mind, for I do want
+to look pretty, an’ I’m willin’ for it all, if it’ll do any good.”
+
+Celia’s pulses quickened, for she thought if this girl would do so much
+for the outward adorning, perhaps she might be able some time to
+persuade her to do as much for the beautiful inward adorning of a meek
+and quiet spirit which is in the sight of God of great price.
+
+“Then your hair,” went on Celia, “needs to be washed often. I would wash
+it first with powdered borax in the water. It isn’t good to use borax
+often, for it makes the hair so brittle it breaks, but it will take out
+the extra oil now, and that is what you need. Then it will need to be
+thoroughly rinsed, and dried and combed. After that you can do almost
+anything you want to with it. I’ll let you watch me do mine once, and
+then you will see how it is done. That is the best way to learn. And
+then about your dress, why that is a long subject. You will need to take
+a lot of time for that. You’ll have to decide things one at a time. One
+rule I go by, in buying. I never buy a thing that is in the very extreme
+of fashion, because for one reason it will look queer very soon, and for
+another it is sure to be poor material, or else it is very expensive. It
+is always best to get good material. The plainer things are the better,
+you can be sure, as a general rule. Then you ought to study your
+complexion and eyes and buy things to become you. You will excuse me, if
+I mention the necktie you have on. I don’t think you ought ever to wear
+that color. Cerise may be becoming to some people with dark eyes and a
+very clear complexion, but it ought not to be worn by blue-eyed people
+with light brown hair. Dark blue would be more becoming to you. Then
+too, I think a necktie is an unbecoming thing on you, anyway. You would
+look much better in a close, round collar.”
+
+Mamie looked down at her cherished silk scarf, to be able to buy which
+she had gone without new stockings for some time. Her mind was something
+akin to the maiden’s about whom our grandmothers used to tell, who said:
+“I ken wear my palm-leaf and go bare-footed, but I _must_ have a buzzom
+pin.”
+
+Celia’s zeal was perhaps on the eve of getting the better of her wisdom.
+She was growing interested in making over this girl as her aunt was
+interested in making over Mrs. Morris’ boarding-house, and she forgot
+that there were probably a long line of prejudices to be overcome before
+the girl would be willing to walk in the way laid out for her, even
+though she had asked to be directed in that path. It would look thorny
+to her at first.
+
+“Mamie,” she said, seeing the downcast expression on the young girl’s
+face, “don’t get discouraged with all these new things. You can’t do
+every one of them right at first, but, do you know, I think it makes a
+great difference when people try to be and look the best that is in
+them. You must not think you are a homely looking girl. You are not. You
+were meant to be a pretty one, and I think you can make yourself look
+ever so much prettier, I do indeed. Now I wonder if you would be willing
+to do something just to please me.”
+
+“Why of course I would!” said Mamie, readily enough and brightening up
+at the encouraging words. “What is it? You’ve been awful kind to me and
+I sha’n’t forget it, Miss Murray,” she added.
+
+“Well then, it is this. You see out in Cloverdale, where I used to live,
+I belonged to a little society of girls. We were each pledged to read
+one verse of the Bible every day, and to pray every day, and when some
+of us left the home and the society, we each promised to try and get up
+another band where we were going, even if we could get but one other
+person to join it. Now I was wondering if you wouldn’t join it to start
+my new circle? We called ourselves the Bible Band. I believe there are a
+good many such bands all over the country. We have this little gold
+badge. Isn’t it pretty?” and Celia held out a tiny scarf pin with a
+pendant gold heart, on which were the letters engraved B. B. “If you
+will join us, I’ll give you this pin of mine, and I can send and get
+another.”
+
+Mamie grew interested as soon as she saw the pin. Jewelry of all sorts
+was attractive to her. It would be quite delightful to appear in the
+store with a new pin on, engraved with mysterious letters, and let the
+girls and the young men there try to guess what they meant. Of course
+she didn’t need to tell them if she didn’t want to. She asked again what
+would be required of her, though Mamie belonged to the class, from which
+are derived so many untrue members of the Christian Endeavor societies,
+and, sad to say, also of the church; that class who are eager and
+willing to join anything, and care very little what obligations they
+thus take upon themselves; as little as they care when they break these
+solemn vows. To such, indeed, might apply the many and various arguments
+against pledge taking, not because pledge taking is bad, but because the
+pledgers themselves are not made to understand the solemnity of the
+pledge they take. Mamie cared very little what pledge she took, so long
+as the performing of it might be done in private and at her own
+discretion. She did not stop to think long, but accepted the pledge card
+and donned the pin with pride, thanking Celia.
+
+“Though I ain’t much of a hand at prayin’, Miss Murray, I never could
+think of anything to say when I was a little girl, and ma used to make
+us say our prayers every Saturday night. I guess I could learn a prayer
+and say the same one every time, if that would do. You write me out one,
+can’t you? ’Course I’ll do it to please you, you’ve been so good to me,
+and I’m awfully obliged for this pin. It’s a beauty, and won’t I have
+fun to-morrow at the store with it? Say, I don’t mind telling you why I
+want all this fixin’ up to be pretty, you know. You won’t tell Carrie,
+will you? I wouldn’t have her know, for the first you’d see her settin’
+up to the same thing. Why, you see it’s this way. There’s a new boss to
+our store. The head of the firm’s going out to Chicago, and he’s put
+this feller, Mr. Adams, Harold Adams his name is, in at the head. He’s
+only just nineteen or twenty, though he made them think he was
+twenty-one, but he’s dreadful smart. His father’s been at the head of a
+three-cent store in Baltimore for a long time, and he kind of growed up
+in the business. He’s handsome, too, and everybody likes him, and the
+girls will just stand on their heads to please him, and you see he’s
+been payin’ me attention for four weeks now, takin’ me to theatres, and
+gettin’ me flowers and candy, and all the other girls was hoppin’ mad.
+They’ve just done everything they could to get him to look at them, but
+he never did till there come a new girl to the china teacup counter. She
+has gold hair and I believe she paints her cheeks, and she’s awful
+stylish, and has the littlest mite of a waist, and he’s just gone clean
+crazy over her. He’s nice to me yet, but she gets half the flowers now,
+and I want to get him back. You see, I don’t mind telling you I’m in
+love with him myself, and of course I ain’t willin’ to just give him up
+without tryin’, so I made up my mind if I could get to be good lookin’
+an’ stylish, maybe I could do something.”
+
+Before Celia had time to collect her thoughts, and say something in
+response to this startling disclosure, there came a hurried knock at the
+door, and Molly Poppleton’s strong voice demanded, “Is Miss Celia there?
+Miss Hannah, she wants her right away bad. That old lady upstairs’s got
+a fainting spell. She says to come right away.”
+
+Celia dropped everything and ran. She wondered afterward if the heavenly
+Father arranged that call to her for just that moment on purpose to
+prevent her saying anything to Mamie, for she felt sure if she had
+spoken then she would have expressed her mind in what might have proved,
+for the sake of her influence on the girl, the wrong words.
+
+                  “Blind unbelief is sure to err,
+                    And scan his work in vain;
+                  God is his own interpreter,
+                    And he will make it plain.”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+Old Mrs. Belden was made comfortable at last. It appeared that she had
+worked too hard for the last three weeks, sitting up far into the night
+to finish an order. She was a knitter of fancy hoods, sacques, socks and
+mittens. Miss Hannah, while she ministered to her, heard a feeble
+account of the poor soul’s life. Her husband and her children were all
+dead, except one boy who was a sailor, and who, perhaps, might be dead,
+too, for she had not heard from him for over four years. She resorted to
+the only thing she knew how to do to earn her living, and it had been
+pretty hard work sometimes, though, perhaps, no harder than many another
+woman had to do. She was very thankful for the good food which had come
+in with the advent of Miss Grant. She murmured her gratitude in an
+apologetic way for everything that was done for her, and said she did
+not see why they made so much trouble, they might just as well have let
+her slip quietly away, if it had been the Lord’s will. Her life wasn’t
+worth much anyway, and she was only making a lot of trouble that would
+all have to be done over again pretty soon, maybe. Miss Hannah and Celia
+had looked about the room and resolved that there should be more
+comforts there before another night, and when she was at last ready for
+sleep, and they felt sure that all she needed to restore her to her
+usual health was a good rest, they left her, with a promise from Molly
+Poppleton, whose room was next to Mrs. Belden’s, that she would sleep
+with one ear open and step in occasionally to see that she was all right
+and give her anything she needed.
+
+Celia sat down on the bed and rested her forehead on the footboard,
+after she and her aunt had gone to their room for the night.
+
+“Aunt Hannah,” she said, “I’m just discouraged. There are so many things
+to worry about in the world I don’t see how I can keep from it.”
+
+“Celia! Celia!” said aunt Hannah, laying her hand on the brown head bent
+on the footboard, “is my little girl questioning the wisdom of God? You
+sound like a little child, to-night, who thinks his parents cruel that
+they will not give him fire to play with. Remember that God knows all,
+and that he does all for good. It may be that old lady needs just the
+kind of thing she is going through now to fit her for heaven. I do not
+know whether she is getting ready for heaven or not. Maybe God had to
+call her to himself by taking all her dear ones first, or maybe she is
+set to be a help to some one else,—perhaps you. Does my little girl
+doubt him because she cannot see and understand? Oh, Celia! You will
+grieve him.”
+
+“Well, auntie, I did not quite mean all that, of course, only I am so
+tired and disheartened. I meant to try to plan a grill work for the
+parlor to-night, and I couldn’t find Harry at all. I am afraid he has
+gone out again with those dreadful fellows. What is the use in trying to
+do anything with setbacks all the time?”
+
+“But your heavenly Father had another plan for you to-night, and the
+parlor can wait, you know. As for Harry, I think he is safe in his room
+by this time. He went out with the minister, and while you were up with
+Mrs. Belden they came in with a lot of boards and screws and a saw and
+hammer and a pot of varnish, and they went to work in good earnest. The
+other young men went down and helped, and in the morning I think you
+will find something new in the parlor. Didn’t you smell new varnish?
+They asked for you before they began, but I told them how you were
+occupied and said I was sure you would want them to go ahead and not
+wait for you.”
+
+Celia sat up and smiled through her tears.
+
+“Did they really, auntie? How nice! What did they make? A bookcase? I am
+sure it must have been that, for Mr. Stafford spoke of it, and asked me
+if I did not like the low kind running around the room. I am so glad.
+And Harry stayed in! I was afraid he was with those awful young men
+again.”
+
+She brushed away the tears and began to take down her hair, when she
+remembered another discouragement.
+
+“Oh, aunt Hannah,” she said, “but you don’t know what an utter failure
+my three-cent enterprise was,” and she gave a detailed account of her
+interview with Mamie Williams.
+
+Miss Grant listened intently, sometimes laughing with Celia, and
+sometimes looking grave over possibilities of danger for the girl, which
+perhaps the younger woman hardly understood. When she had finished, Miss
+Grant’s face was very serious.
+
+“Celia, dear, you have made a good beginning. Your first trial was by no
+means a failure, and I do not believe you half understand in what great
+need of help that young girl stands. She has revealed volumes in her few
+frank sentences. Be careful that you keep her confidence, and ask to be
+guided in what you shall say, that you may be both wise as a serpent and
+harmless as a dove. That is one of the greatest gifts God gives to his
+workers, and it needs to be carefully watched and tended daily to keep
+it fit for work,—that mixture of wisdom and gentleness.”
+
+“But, auntie,” said Celia, doubtfully, “do you believe I can ever
+accomplish anything? What is the good of getting such a girl to read a
+verse every day in the Bible? As likely as not, she will choose one
+among the minor prophets, which won’t mean anything to her, and as for
+praying, she said she did not know how. What good will it do her to
+pray, ‘Now I lay me down to sleep’ for instance, every night, not
+meaning a word of it, nor scarcely knowing what she is saying?”
+
+“Remember, Celia, it is his work. You have not to do with the end of it,
+nor are any results in your hand. Don’t you know he says, ‘Ye have not
+chosen me, but _I_ have chosen _you_, and ordained you, that ye should
+go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should _remain_: that
+whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.’
+After I read that verse I always feel comforted to do the work without
+seeing the results, knowing that God has planned all that out from the
+beginning, and all I have to do is to execute the little part of the
+plan which he has entrusted to my hand. As for saying that such a girl
+will not get any good out of the Bible, you talk as if you did not
+believe in the Holy Spirit, Celia. Will he not guide her to the right
+words that will help her? And do you not remember that the Bible says
+about itself, that it is written so plainly that ‘he who runs may read’
+and that the way of life is made so plain that the ‘wayfaring man,
+though a fool, need not err therein’? Then even if her heart and her
+lips do not know how to pray, if she truly tries to kneel and present
+herself every day before her Maker, don’t you believe he can find ways
+and means to speak to her heart and teach her lips the right phrases? It
+is a great thing to have a habit of prayer, even though your heart is
+not always in it, for you at least bring your body to the trysting-place
+with God, and give him a little chance to call to the inattentive heart.
+Don’t you know how Daniel had a habit three times a day of praying with
+his face toward Jerusalem?”
+
+“Oh yes, aunt Hannah, I see it all. You always have a Bible verse ready
+for every one of my doubts and murmurs. I wish I had the Bible all
+labeled and put away in the cabinets of my brain the way you have, ready
+to put my hand on the verse I need at the right time,” interrupted
+Celia, laughing, and putting her arms around aunt Hannah’s neck to kiss
+her. “Come now, it’s late and you look tired. I’ll be good and go to bed
+without fretting any more, and to-morrow I’ll try to think up more ways
+of helping that feather-headed girl.”
+
+Meantime, up in the third story room of the “three-cent” girls, quiet
+and darkness reigned. Miss Simmons had come in a few moments before,
+tired and cross. Her mind was wrought up by a play she had just
+witnessed, and she had been quarreling with her escort about something
+which she did not deign to explain to her roommate, so they had gone to
+bed at last without the usual giggling confidences, and Mamie lay there
+in the darkness thinking over her evening and the advice given her, and
+wondering what the adorable Mr. Harold Adams would think of the changes
+in her when she had been fully made over to suit her new guide. Suddenly
+she sat straight up in bed with a jerk, which threw the clothes off Miss
+Simmons’ shoulders, and exclaimed:
+
+“My land alive! If I didn’t forget the very first night,” and with that
+she flung herself out of bed, and striking a match, relit the gas.
+
+“What in the world is the matter with you, Mame?” said Miss Simmons,
+pulling the bed clothes up angrily. “I was fast asleep and you woke me
+up! Turn that gas out and come back to bed! Come! We won’t be fit to get
+up in the morning, if you keep rampaging round all night.”
+
+But Mamie imperturbably proceeded with what she was doing. She tumbled
+two great piles of paper-covered books over in the closet, searched
+among a motley collection of boxes, old hats and odds and ends on the
+closet shelf, and then began hunting in the bottom of her trunk. It was
+some minutes before she succeeded in finding what she wanted, and by
+that time Miss Simmons was asleep. Mamie drew forth from an entanglement
+of soiled ribbons and worn-out garments a small, fine-print red Bible
+with an old-fashioned gilt clasp. It was stained on one side and
+blistered as if a tumbler of water had been left standing wet upon it.
+Mamie remained seated on the floor beside her trunk while she turned
+over the leaves rapidly, intent upon keeping the letter of her promise
+in as short a time as possible, for the furnace fire was low for the
+night and she was beginning to feel cold. She opened near the beginning
+of the book and chanced upon a list of long, hard names which she could
+not pronounce. Perhaps her conscience would have been eased as well by a
+verse there as anywhere, but it was too much trouble for her
+unaccustomed mind to pronounce the words to herself, so she opened again
+at random toward the end, and letting her eye run down the page in
+search of something attractive and brief, she was caught by this verse:
+
+“And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean
+and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.”
+
+“Well now, ain’t that funny!” she said to herself, as she paused to read
+it over before she turned out the gas again. “That seems kind of like
+her talk. Dressed in fine linen! It would be kind of nice and pretty,
+and real stylish, too, if it was tailor-made. I saw a girl on Chestnut
+street last summer in a tailor-made white linen that was awful pretty.
+It sort of rustled as if there was silk underneath, and her hair was all
+gold and fluffy under a big white hat with chiffon on it. She looked
+real elegant. It would take an awful lot of washing though, to keep her
+in fine linen ‘clean and white.’”
+
+She glanced at the verse again with her hand outstretched to turn out
+the gas, and read it over once more, and then got into bed. “For the
+fine linen is the righteousness of the saints! Well, it does seem a sort
+o’ saint-like dress, now that’s so, and come to think of it, Miss
+Murray, she’s got a sort of a saint face. I knew it was something kind
+o’ strikin’, and I couldn’t think what, ’cause you wouldn’t exactly call
+her pretty, and yet she ain’t the other thing, and some folks—most
+folks maybe—would like it better than to have her pretty. Maybe it’s
+because she’s got the righteousness this talks about. She does look like
+a saint, that’s certain. Anyway, she will when she’s as old as Miss
+Grant. Miss Grant, now, she’s a saint sure! And she would look nice in a
+fine linen dress all white, too. I wish she’d put one on some time, so I
+could see. How funny it is to have the Bible talk about dress. I
+supposed the Bible thought clo’es was wicked. I’m sure the Sunday-school
+teachers always say you mustn’t think about ’em. Well, that’s a pretty
+verse anyhow. I wonder who it was that had that fine linen dress granted
+to her, and if she wore it all the time, that is, clean ones every day,
+all fresh and crisp! My! I wish ’twas me! Wouldn’t I be happy though! I
+guess this reading’s going to be real interesting, maybe. I never
+thought there could be any verse in it like that. Most things I’ve read
+before was about sinning and dying and heaven, and scarey things like
+that. Anyhow, I’ve kept my promise. Why, no I haven’t, either!” she
+exclaimed aloud, and suddenly bounced out of bed again, to the detriment
+of her bed-fellow’s temper.
+
+She knelt down beside the bed, and her thoughts paused a brief moment,
+while she tried to put her mind in praying frame. She tried to think how
+to pray aright. She wanted to feel the satisfaction of having performed
+this duty that she had felt in her Bible reading. She must ask for
+something. She was conscious of a vague wish in her heart that she were
+good enough and had friends great enough that this that she had read of
+might be granted to her, to be arrayed in spotless, neat apparel,
+beautiful, and given by the love of some one who cared for her above
+others. How to put such a thought into fitting phrase, or even if this
+were done, whether it would be a proper wish to express in prayer she
+did not know. At last she whispered, “Oh God—” and paused, and waited
+and tried to collect some better words, and then murmured again, “Oh
+God—” and then—“Amen.”
+
+When she lay down to rest again, it was with a sense of awe upon her
+which would not let her sleep for some time. She had been near to the
+great God, and touched as it were the hem of his garment, with curious
+perfunctory fingers, like a child who had been dared to do a certain
+thing, and coming, curious, unthinking, heedless, had touched and
+suddenly felt the power and greatness and beauty of that which he had
+touched, and had stolen away ashamed.
+
+Altogether Mamie Williams was not as satisfied with her first effort at
+prayer as she had been with her Bible reading. But yet in heaven it was
+recorded, “Behold, she prayeth!”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+The next day was Sunday.
+
+Celia had wakened early, in spite of the fact that she was up late the
+night before. She lay thinking over the changes that had come into her
+life, and wondering how things were going to work out. Somehow there
+seemed a cloud over what she had been trying to do. She had not
+accomplished much with Harry. She had kept him in the house a few
+evenings, it is true, and interested him in a few good books, but
+nothing really to much purpose after all. To be safe from all the
+temptations that beset his path every day, he needed to be anchored on
+the Rock of Christ. She did not feel that she knew how to help him in
+that way, he was such a gay, bright fellow, so ready to laugh. She
+thought of the minister and the influence he seemed to have over the
+young man, and felt half indignant at him for not exercising it in a
+religious way, instead of merely a personal one, and then she realized
+that she knew nothing at all about what influences he was using, and
+ought not to judge him. For aught she knew, he had spoken to him many
+times. How unjust she had been! Then she remembered what her aunt had
+told her about the improvements made last evening in the parlor, and
+jumped up to dress and run down to see them. Aunt Hannah had already
+completed her toilet and gone down to the kitchen to help Molly
+Poppleton, and to direct the new waitress who had been in the house but
+three days.
+
+Celia was delighted with the bookcase. Somebody had an artistic eye and
+constructive ability. The bookcase was exactly the right height, and
+filled the long bare wall on one side of the room beautifully. It was
+finished with a neat molding of natural wood, and the whole nicely
+oiled. There were a few books piled on the floor beside it, waiting till
+the shelves should be perfectly dry to receive them, evidently
+contributions to the new case. She stooped to read their titles, and was
+astonished and pleased to find among them several new books by best
+authors, which she had been longing to read, but had as yet not seen.
+They were nearly all in new bindings as if fresh from the bookstore,
+though one or two had the name written inside in fine, strong
+handwriting “Horace L. Stafford.”
+
+Celia drew back, a slight flush creeping over her face. She was grateful
+for the books thus loaned or donated. The newcomer was evidently bound
+to be helpful, and seemed to know how to do it. Now if they could have a
+few games under the lighted lamp on the table, perhaps some of the young
+people might be kept in evenings. Would such things reach Mamie Williams
+and her friend, she wondered? And she sighed and feared that Mamie was
+too much interested in other things to be reached so simply. She
+remembered that Mamie had been reading the other night. Perhaps some of
+these delightful stories would reach her. There were one or two
+religious books, small and daintily bound, which looked attractive.
+Celia picked them up and turned the pages, her expressive face kindling
+with a thought she read here and there. Then she went to the small cozy
+corner by the organ and sat down. She looked about her at the few
+changes they had made, and remembered the night when she had looked
+around on that parlor waiting for the postman. How much difference a few
+little things had made! She could see other changes that might be made
+to improve matters, and she resolved to try them as soon as possible.
+Then she sat down at the organ. She had never tried that whining
+instrument, since she had been in the house. It had pained her some
+times to hear it groaning and wheezing under the bold touch of the tenor
+brakeman as he ground out an accompaniment to some of his solos. Celia
+did not like a cabinet organ. She longed for a piano, but there was no
+piano, and here was this organ. What could be made of it? Perhaps it
+might be tuned and answer for singing occasionally. Certainly, if it was
+to stay there and be used, it would conduce to her own comfort to have
+it put in order. She touched the keys softly to see how bad it was, and
+went on playing chords gently. She was not a finished musician, but she
+had learned to play a little for the home pleasure, and now
+instinctively her fingers sought out some of the old favorite tunes.
+
+                   “Safely through another week,
+                     God has brought us on our way,
+                   Let us now a blessing seek,
+                     Waiting in his courts to-day.”
+
+Her conscience pricked her, as the words rang themselves over in her
+mind. She had not been going to church very regularly since she came to
+the city. She had wandered around from one church to another, feeling
+forlorn and lonely at all, not going often enough to one place to become
+noticed as a stranger and welcomed, even if the people had had the
+disposition to welcome her. Since aunt Hannah had been there, she had
+made an excuse to stay at home with her if she was not able to go out,
+and at such times when her aunt could go, she had taken her to the
+different churches near by in rotation, that she might choose where they
+should go. The elder lady had not as yet made any choice, nor, indeed,
+had she expressed her mind concerning the places of worship they had
+visited. Celia thought of it now, and wished their dear old church from
+Cloverdale could be transplanted bodily. It was so desolate to go among
+strangers and not have any place or work in the church home. She sighed
+and made up her mind that she must go more regularly and perhaps offer
+to take a class in Sunday-school or something of the sort. Of course it
+was not right to live this way; but her heart was not in her resolve.
+She played on, not realizing what tune she had started till she began to
+hum the words in a low sweet voice:
+
+              “The day of rest once more comes round,
+                A day to all believers dear;
+              The silver trumpets seem to sound,
+                That call the tribes of Israel near;
+                      Ye people all,
+                      Obey the call,
+              And in Jehovah’s courts appear——”
+
+She broke off suddenly and played a few stray chords. She knew that the
+next verse began:
+
+                  “Obedient to thy summons, Lord,
+                    We to thy sanctuary come;”
+
+It was strange that all the words were on that subject. She would choose
+something else. She thought a moment, her fingers lingering on the keys.
+Then she began to sing:
+
+            “Father in thy mysterious presence kneeling,
+              Fain would our souls feel all thy kindling love;
+            For we are weak, and need some deep revealing
+              Of trust, and strength, and calmness from above.”
+
+She felt the beauty of the words and the depth of meaning, and sang with
+her heart, each word as a prayer. Her voice grew fuller and sweeter as
+she went on.
+
+      “Lord! we have wandered forth through doubt and sorrow,
+        And thou hast made each step an onward one;
+      And we will ever trust each unknown morrow;
+        Thou wilt sustain us till its work is done.”
+
+She had not heard the step upon the stairs and did not know that some
+one entered the parlor and sat down on the divan near by, until, as she
+commenced the third verse, a rich, sweet tenor, full of cultivation and
+feeling, joined with her in the words:
+
+          “Now, Father! now in thy dear presence kneeling,
+            Our spirits yearn to feel thy kindling love;
+          Now make us strong; we need thy deep revealing
+            Of trust, and strength, and calmness from above.”
+
+Celia’s voice trembled at first, but the stronger one sustained the tune
+and she kept on, the pink color stealing up her cheeks and to the tips
+of her ears. If the other singer saw her embarrassment, he did not
+notice it. When the last note died slowly away and Celia was wondering
+what she should do and how she should get away from the room, he said
+quite in a matter-of-fact voice, as if he and she were accustomed to
+singing together early on Sabbath mornings: “Will you play ‘Lead Kindly
+Light,’ please?” And she had played on, glad that she knew it well
+enough to do so, and they sang together.
+
+“Thank you!” he said simply, when the last verse was finished. “That has
+helped me for the work that I have to do to-day. In fact that song
+always helps me. Do you, sometimes, come to a place where you want to
+look ahead and see whether things are coming out as you wish? Isn’t it
+blessed to think he leads the way, and makes the gloom for our sakes
+that we shall not fear for what is to come, while perhaps if we could
+look and see the blessings—in disguise—sometimes we might turn and
+flee. You belong to him, do you not, Miss Murray? I thought I could not
+be mistaken. I want to thank you for this pleasant bit of morning
+praise. It has been like home.”
+
+Celia had raised her eyes in one swift glad glance of recognition of
+their kindred discipleship, when he asked her if she was a Christian,
+and had answered, low and earnestly, “Yes, I do,” feeling in her heart
+how very wrong she had been in calling this man unspiritual. Her heart
+longed to reach that high plane of trustful living where he seemed to
+move. She lifted her eyes again and timidly asked:
+
+“Do you think it is possible for every one to feel that perfect
+assurance where they cannot see the way? I wish I knew how to trust that
+way and not worry over things.”
+
+“It is hard sometimes, isn’t it, to just lay down the burdens at the
+Father’s feet and realize that we need not carry them? But isn’t it
+strange that it is hard?” And he looked at her with that peculiarly
+bright smile which she had noticed the first night he came to the house.
+“One would think that we would be only too glad to get rid of the burden
+and the worry, when he, so strong and willing offers to take it. Perhaps
+that is one reason why I like that hymn. It seems to help me to remember
+whose I am and who is my Saviour. I am prone to forget when I think, for
+instance, of some dear one whom I see fading day by day and know cannot
+be long upon this earth, that the night ever will be gone
+
+            “‘And with the morn, those angel faces smile
+            Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile!’”
+
+A deep sadness had settled over his face, as he looked up to her and
+repeated the lines of the hymn they had just sung, and her heart was
+filled with pity for some sorrow she felt he was bearing. Instinctively
+she remembered the sweet beautiful face in the velvet case, and while he
+seemed set apart and sacred in her thought of his sorrow, she let a
+shade of her old dignity creep back into her voice, which had fallen
+from it for a few moments. The breakfast bell had sounded, and the
+boarders were coming downstairs. With one accord the two rose and went
+toward the dining-room, feeling that they did not care to have the quiet
+confidences of the few moments they had spent together intruded upon or
+misunderstood. Celia thanked Mr. Stafford for his words a little
+stiffly, as one, as a matter of form, might thank any strange minister
+for a good sermon, and perhaps the young man wondered a little at her
+seemingly variable moods.
+
+It was after breakfast, and the church bells were sending their various
+calls to worship through the clear cold air of the city. Celia stood
+ready dressed for church, waiting for her aunt in the front hall. Miss
+Grant had been called back by Molly Poppleton, just as they were
+starting out of the door, and Celia tapped her foot impatiently on the
+hall oilcloth and wished aunt Hannah would hurry. Not that she was
+anxious to go to church, but she wanted to get the duty done with and
+come back, for Mr. Stafford had slipped a most inviting little book into
+her hand, as he passed her in the upper hall after breakfast, saying
+“Have you read Daniel Quorm? If not, it will interest you, perhaps. It
+is along the line of our talk this morning, and it has helped me to
+trust him where I couldn’t trace him.”
+
+She had read a few pages while aunt Hannah tied her bonnet and put on
+her gloves, and had already grown deeply interested in the quaint
+phrases of Daniel in his story of his little maid. She wanted to get
+back to it. She stilled her conscience when it pricked her for not
+caring to go to church, by telling it that the book would probably do
+her more good than a sermon in a strange church, but her conscience was
+too well trained to let her forget that God had promised to meet her in
+the church.
+
+Some one was standing in the shadow of the parlor curtains, Celia did
+not know who. She thought that perhaps it was the brakeman. He had
+returned the night before, and was off duty for the day. She unfastened
+the door and breathed in the clear sunny air with delight, then glanced
+up the stairs to see if aunt Hannah was coming. But just then came Miss
+Grant’s voice, as she leaned over the stair railing, and Celia saw that
+her gloves were off and her bonnet untied again.
+
+“Celia, don’t wait for me. I am not going this morning. I have made up
+my mind my duty is with Mrs. Belden. She is feeling very despondent. Go
+on without me. Isn’t there some one else you can go with?” she asked, as
+she saw the look of dismay on Celia’s face and heard her exclaim, “Oh
+auntie!”
+
+Then the figure that had been standing in the shadow of the window
+curtain in the parlor moved forward and Harry Knowles stepped out.
+
+“Miss Murray, would _I_ do?” he asked humbly, “or—would you rather not
+go with me?” There was a hesitancy and shamefacedness about him which
+was not like his usual manner, and he seemed anxious to have her accept.
+While Celia hesitated, Miss Grant said:—“Why, yes, Celia, that is very
+nice. You and Mr. Knowles go together. I am so glad he is going,” and
+then slipped away from the stairs pleased in her heart, both for Celia’s
+sake that she would not be alone, and for the young man that he was
+willing to go to the house of the Lord.
+
+As Celia turned to go with him, she reflected that she had been wishing
+he would go to church, or wishing she might say some word to help him,
+and now he had himself opened the way by inviting her to go. She felt
+reproached, that she had never invited him before. But Harry seemed
+uncomfortable, and when he had closed the door, he stopped on the upper
+step and asked again, “You are sure you are willing to go with me? You
+aren’t afraid or anything?” and Celia looked up in surprise, and saw the
+earnest, eager, shamed face and said, “Why surely, Harry, I am willing.
+Why should I be afraid?”
+
+“Well, I thought,—I was afraid you—after that night—you know—” he
+said, growing red and grinding his heel into the stone on which he
+stood, “I can’t forgive myself, Miss Murray, that’s all, and I thought
+you didn’t like me asking you.” He looked up bravely through his
+embarrassment with his sorry, boyish eyes asking forgiveness.
+
+“Harry,” said Celia turning her clear, honest gaze full upon him, “I was
+truly glad, and was only being ashamed myself because _I_ had not asked
+_you_ before, for I have been wishing you would go to church, and—I
+have been praying for you.”
+
+She spoke the words low and embarrassedly, for she was not used to
+talking much about such things to strangers, but the young man’s eyes
+filled with moisture, and he said, “Thank you,” in such hearty tones
+that she knew he meant it. Then he added, “So is the minister, and maybe
+I’ll amount to something, after all.”
+
+Celia was surprised to find that she suddenly felt a sense of
+satisfaction in what he had told her about the minister. She did not
+understand all her feelings to-day. She must sit down and analyze them
+when she reached home.
+
+“But where are we to go, Harry?” she asked, pausing on the sidewalk a
+moment. “Have you any choice? I have not put my letter into any church
+yet, though I ought to have done so before this.”
+
+She tried to remember in her mind which of the churches she had attended
+would be the most likely to help the young man, but could not remember
+any of them definitely, and concluded that since she had been in the
+city she had taken her body to the church and left her soul at home, or
+wandering in fields of other thoughts than those presented for her
+deliberation at the sanctuary.
+
+Harry’s face grew eager again.
+
+“Well, then, that’s nice. Maybe you wouldn’t mind going to hear Mr.
+Stafford, because I’ve half promised him that I would come there this
+morning, you see.”
+
+“Oh, of course we will,” said Celia, wondering why it was she had never
+thought to go and hear him before, and why it was that the thought of
+hearing him preach had suddenly become so pleasant.
+
+She wondered again as she listened to his opening prayer. Every word
+seemed to be prayed for her, and to fit her needs exactly, and she
+pulled herself up sharply when she found that she was actually imagining
+that he remembered their talk before breakfast, and was praying thus for
+her. The hymn just before the sermon was wonderful, and again she
+reprimanded herself severely, for thinking he looked at her while he
+read that last verse, so perfectly did it appeal to her need. He read it
+exquisitely and tenderly, and as he reached the last line he looked at
+her again, and it gave her a strange pleasure to feel those words spoken
+so to her, even as if the Father himself had sent her an especial
+message that morning, and by a noble messenger.
+
+                “Take, my soul, thy full salvation!
+                  Rise from sin, and fear, and care.
+                Joy to find in every station
+                  Something still to do or dare.
+                Think what Spirit dwells within thee.
+                  Think what Father’s smiles are thine!
+                Think what Saviour died to win thee!
+                  Child of heaven, shouldst thou repine?”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+That Sabbath afternoon was one of deep thought and soul searching to
+Celia. The sermon she had heard, the hymns she had sung, the prayer she
+had listened to, the book she had partly read, all seemed to bring her
+the one thought, that of the possibility of a life beyond anything she
+had known heretofore, a life whose every breath was trust, and whose joy
+was unalloyed because there was no care in it to break the deep, sweet
+peace. The longing for some change of this sort in her own heart did not
+take her interest from the work she had just begun around her. Instead
+it seemed to deepen her interest in all in the house, and to make her
+heart throb anew with love to her Saviour.
+
+With the little book in her hand which Mr. Stafford had loaned her she
+passed through the hall that afternoon on some errand for her aunt, and
+returning saw Harry Knowles hovering restlessly about the parlor. It
+came to her that perhaps she might say something to help him, but what
+could it be? She felt hardly ready yet without more thought and
+preparation. She might do more harm than good. Following an impulse she
+offered him the book to read awhile, and then went back to her room,
+half sorry that she had deprived herself of the pleasure of finishing
+it. However, she had read enough to remember, and there lay her Bible.
+She took it up and read. Somehow the words seemed to fit all the other
+circumstances of the day, and to help her on to the one great desire
+that was growing deeper in her heart, that she might forget to fret and
+worry and learn to trust Jesus entirely for all that was to come. She
+read a chapter and part of another. The words seemed especially fresh
+and new to her. She began to wonder if she had been giving her whole
+mind to her Bible reading of late. Then suddenly from out the printed
+page there came a command. It was not so very marked, not more than
+other verses she had read, and yet it seemed to her to have a special
+significance for her, and to remind her that there was a young girl of
+nearly her own age upstairs, over whom she had been shown her own
+influence, who was perhaps needing help from her at this very moment.
+She felt that she must go, though she could scarcely tell why, and she
+laid aside her Bible and knelt to ask God’s help before she went.
+
+As she knocked at Mamie Williams’ door she wondered at herself for
+coming, and how she was to explain her visit. She decided that if any
+one answered she would say she had come to ask them to go out to church
+with her that evening, though she had hardly made up her mind before
+that to go herself. She felt much embarrassed at herself in that one
+minute after she had knocked, and heartily wished herself back in her
+own room. But she had not long to wait. The door was thrown open after a
+moment of what sounded like scuffling inside, by Mamie herself, this
+time without gum in her mouth, but with rather red cheeks and her hair
+floating in wet strings down her back over a towel. Her face and hands
+were a brilliant, tender pink, giving strong evidence of the severe
+scrubbing Celia had recommended the night before. She instantly
+recognized what it meant, and her heart sank that at her advice this
+girl was spending her Sunday afternoon in such a way. Perhaps the angels
+knew that by making herself sweet and clean, she was coming nearer to
+the kingdom of God than she had ever yet been.
+
+The other roommate occupied a comfortable lounging spot on the bed. Her
+hair was tumbled and her dress loosened, and in her hand was a paper
+covered book. Celia had opportunity afterward to observe that it was the
+same one that Miss Williams had been reading the day before.
+
+Miss Simmons did not rise from the bed, but she greeted the intruder
+with a languid surprise, and withal a show of pleasure that made Celia
+feel she was not unwelcome, and told her to sit down. She was munching
+cheap candy from a box which lay beside her on the bed, and she held it
+out at once to the guest saying:
+
+“Sit down. Have some candy, do. I had it give to me last night.” This
+with a significant giggle interpolated into her natural drawl. Then
+looking at her roommate, she said, apologetically,
+
+“You must excuse Mamie. She’s took an awful fit of cleanin’ up. I don’t
+know what she’s getting ready for, but she’s made herself a sight. Her
+nose’s as red’s a beet. Did you want something or did you just come in
+to kill time?”
+
+Celia accepted the chair, declining the candy as graciously as possible,
+saying she seldom ate it, and made known her request that they would go
+with her that evening to meeting. She bethought herself of the service
+she had attended that morning, and that possibly it might interest these
+two to go and hear the minister who lived under the same roof with them,
+and urged that as an incentive, describing the pleasant room, the good
+singing, and perfect friendliness she had met, with an enthusiasm that
+surprised herself.
+
+“I can’t go,” said Miss Simmons, promptly, “I’m expecting company.”
+There was the same conscious drawing in of the breath when she said
+this, evidently meant to express a certain and especial kind of company,
+that Celia had noticed in Mamie’s talk the night before. It made her
+heart sink with the utter uselessness of trying to work against such
+odds, till she remembered her new half-formed resolves, not to look
+ahead for results, but to do the work trusting the rest to God.
+
+Mamie’s cheeks had grown redder, if that was possible. She was sitting
+on the edge of a chair with the hair brush in her hand. She seemed a
+trifle shy.
+
+“It’s awful nice of you to ask us,” she said, “but I don’t know but
+perhaps I’m going to have company, too. It wouldn’t do to be away,
+though I ain’t just positive, you know.”
+
+“Couldn’t you bring them along?” said Celia, promptly, as if it would be
+the most natural thing in the world to do, though her heart misgave her
+at the idea of taking the oily youth she had seen in the parlor waiting
+for Miss Simmons not long before.
+
+“Oh, no indeed!” snickered Miss Simmons, “he wouldn’t go a step. He
+ain’t that kind. And besides he’d be mad, for he said he might be going
+to bring another fellow along he wants me specially to meet. He wants to
+see me very perticular to-night anyway, so I couldn’t think of going
+out,” and Miss Simmons retired behind her book.
+
+Mamie had meantime been puzzling over the problem of how to please
+herself and her new object of adoration at the same time, and seemed to
+have arrived at a solution.
+
+“I don’t know but I _might_ go after all,” she said, slowly, looking
+down at the toe of her shoe. “Say, Carrie, if he should come would you
+be sure and tell him I had gone out with somebody _else_?—you could
+tell him it was a _very special_ friend who had invited me, you know,
+and he would think it was another fellah. That might have a good effect
+on him, you know. I believe I’ll try it this time anyway. I’ll go, Miss
+Murray, if you want it so much. It’s a good thing to get people jealous
+once in a while, don’t you think? Say, was that you down in the parlor
+singing this morning early? It was awful sweet! Who else was there? It
+didn’t sound quite like Mr. Yates, but I didn’t know any of the others
+sang. It wasn’t Harry Knowles, was it? He’s too young for you any way.
+You don’t say it was the minister! My! He’s awful talented, ain’t he?
+Wouldn’t it be romantic if it should turn out you was to marry him some
+time? Did you ever know him before? I’ve heard of stories like that lots
+of times.”
+
+Celia’s cheeks rivaled Mamie’s in hue, and her anger had risen rapidly.
+She did not dare trust herself to rebuke this girl, for her desire to do
+her good was still strong. She quickly looked about for a turn to the
+conversation.
+
+“Are you fond of singing? Then come downstairs and let us sing now. I
+think some of the others are down there. We can have a very pleasant
+time, I’m sure. I have some Gospel song books. Put up your hair and
+come.” She walked to the door trying to steady her fluttered nerves, and
+still that queer beating of her heart, half indignation, half something
+else which she did not understand, and which she did not wish to
+countenance.
+
+“My land!” said Mamie, beaming, “I’d come in a minute, only what’ll I do
+with my hair? It’s about dry, but it’ll take me an hour to do it all up
+after washing, it’s so tangled and slippery. Perhaps you will fix it for
+me. Do, that’ll be nice. Then you can show me how to do it like yours.”
+
+Celia was dismayed. She would scarcely have chosen Sunday afternoon for
+a lesson in hair-dressing, but how could she refuse on that score, as
+the request had been put in answer to one of her own? To handle another
+person’s hair at any time was to her a sore trial. She shrank from
+contact with any one except her nearest and dearest. But how was she to
+refuse? How was she to get an influence over Mamie if she let her see
+she was unwilling to do what she asked of her? For a minute her
+repugnance of the coarse girl, with her coarse hair, red face and loud,
+grating words was so intense that she almost yielded to her desire to
+turn and flee from the room and shake the dust from her feet, and tell
+her aunt Hannah to take her away from the horrible boarders and never
+let her see any of them again. Then she gained control of herself, and
+though her cheeks were still red at memory of the careless words of the
+girl, she consented to undertake the hair; and even the deeply absorbed
+Carrie on the bed, who had been furtively watching the stranger during
+all, never suspected what a trial she had quietly taken upon herself.
+
+Having undertaken the task, she did it well. She had a naturally
+artistic eye and hand and there was some pleasure, after the dislike had
+been overcome, in making Mamie’s hair look as she had often thought it
+ought to look. Quickly and deftly she twisted it, smoothed it here and
+there, and fastened it firmly, and after it was accomplished Mamie stood
+and surveyed herself.
+
+“It looks awful plain,” she said, hesitatingly, “and it makes me seem
+queer, ’cause I ain’t used to it, but I guess I like it. Don’t you,
+Carrie?”
+
+“It looks real stylish,” answered that young woman, enviously, mentally
+resolving to try her own that way as soon as the others had left the
+room.
+
+Celia went to wash her hands, with a heavy heart. She must certainly
+have mistaken that voice which she thought called her to go to that
+room. What had she accomplished but teaching the fashions this
+afternoon? How was she ever to know whether a thing was a duty or not?
+She went down to the parlor with her singing books, and found Mamie
+there before her looking pretty and a trifle shy in consciousness of her
+new coiffure. She was talking to the tenor brakeman who was evidently
+lost in admiration of her charms. She went at once to the organ and
+started the singing, but she found that the brakeman’s tenor was not
+quite so pleasant as that which had blended with her own voice earlier
+in the day. The other boarders heard the music, and one by one dropped
+in, all joining in the words when they were familiar until even Miss
+Burns was there. Mr. Stafford had come in also. The minister joined in
+the singing, though he sat in a shaded corner of the room for the most
+part and sang softly, as if he were weary. Celia found that her thoughts
+kept wandering to him and wondering what was the matter, and she grew
+exceedingly annoyed over this fact, as she remembered Mamie Williams’
+careless words a little while before. She was glad when the tea bell
+rang and called them from the organ.
+
+The church party was larger than she had expected. Mamie had wheedled
+Mr. Yates into being one of the number. She was the kind of girl who
+always wants a young man along when she goes anywhere. The other three
+young men joined the group also, perhaps at Harry’s solicitation, or it
+might be out of interest in the minister who had been singing with them.
+
+They were starting out of the door. Aunt Hannah was behind with Harry
+Knowles. Miss Burns had volunteered to stay with Mrs. Belden during the
+evening. Celia stepped down to the pavement beside Mamie and walked on.
+
+“Say, he’s awful nice. I like him. I wish he _would_ marry you, ’cause I
+like you both,” said romantic Mamie, in a confidential whisper.
+
+“What do you mean? Who?” said Celia, startled, and having a vague idea
+of the tenor brakeman.
+
+“Why, Mr. Stafford, the minister!” said the other girl.
+
+“You must never say anything like that again,” she said, in a suddenly
+chilling tone which almost froze Mamie’s eager enthusiasm for a minute.
+“It is utterly absurd and ridiculous.”
+
+She wished afterward that she could have turned it off with a laugh, and
+let the girl see that she had no notion of any such thing, without
+making such a tragic thing of it, but indeed she had felt so annoyed at
+the second bold intimacy of the girl, which seemed to her like the
+handling and mixing up of sacred things by clumsy hands untaught and
+unknowing what they did, that she had almost stopped in her walk and
+gone back to the house. However, she managed to steady her voice and her
+steps and keep on.
+
+“Why?” asked Mamie, half timidly, “don’t you like him?”
+
+“Certainly, I don’t dislike him. But neither of us have any idea of any
+such thing. It is very annoying to have it suggested. He is simply a
+boarder.” She said it freezingly.
+
+“Oh,” said Mamie, in a frightened tone, “I didn’t mean any harm. I just
+thought it would be nice, that was all.” After that she dropped behind
+with Bob Yates who had come up, and Celia walked with aunt Hannah and
+Harry Knowles.
+
+“She’s an awful queer girl in some ways,” confided Mamie to her escort a
+few minutes later. “I just said she and the minister would make a nice
+match, and she got just as mad as a hornet. My! She scared me so I
+didn’t know but I’d cry!” and then she giggled in a way Bob Yates much
+admired.
+
+Celia sat in the meeting too much annoyed to rally her spirits and enjoy
+what was going on. She scarcely heard the hymns or realized the sermon.
+The voice of the minister, cultured, earnest, tender, loving toward his
+people, awakened in her the knowledge that she was more interested in
+this man than she wanted to be. She did not wish to hear his voice and
+like it, and his sermon she knew she would enjoy and therefore tormented
+herself with her annoyance, so that she did not hear it, and saw between
+the lines in her hymn book, ever and anon, a sweet pictured face in a
+velvet frame. She called herself a fool, and wondered that there was
+anything about a man whom she had so short a time ago not even heard of,
+to make her feel so uncomfortable. Then she turned to watch Mamie’s
+face, and her heart sank again as she reflected how useless it had been
+to try to do anything for her. True, her hair was becoming and neatly
+arranged, and the black eyes of the young man beside her were admiringly
+turned toward her occasionally, but perhaps that was only another source
+of harm to the poor girl. After all Celia’s resolves, her day seemed to
+be ending most miserably.
+
+How could she know that at that very moment the young girl beside her
+was listening to the minister with undisguised amaze, as he read the
+words of his text, “And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in
+fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of
+saints.” She did not know about the hurried getting out of bed to read
+the promised verse the night before, nor how the verse itself had
+impressed itself upon the young girl’s mind, perhaps the more because it
+was about dress, the one great theme of all themes of interest to her
+mind,—unless perhaps one might except those of love, courtship and
+marriage. If Celia had been told all this, it might only have
+discouraged her the more that the Bible itself meant no more to Mamie
+than a fashion book might have done, and so it was a wise thing that
+Celia could not see and know until all God’s plan was worked out to the
+finish, and she was given eyes perfected through his teaching to
+understand the whys and wherefores.
+
+The sermon which followed was simplicity itself. If Celia had not been
+so taken up with her own uneasy heart, she would have recognized the
+skill of the preacher, as he plainly and simply drew the meaning from
+what might have otherwise been to many minds before him an empty and
+meaningless passage. Even the feather-brained Mamie was able to
+understand and to carry away with her the few facts she had wished to
+know when she first read the words, together with their deep spiritual
+meaning. She had felt a pang of disappointment when she heard that this
+incomparable person, this child of luxury here spoken of, was the
+church, Christ’s bride, and she told herself, half enviously that she
+had nothing to do with the verse at all, of course. But, immediately,
+the preacher made it plain to every one in the house that he and she
+individually did belong, ought to belong, by right were, members of that
+church for whom Christ died, and that it was only through their own
+wills that they deliberately put themselves outside its pale, that
+really, to every one present, it had been granted as a privilege, and it
+was their own fault that they did not accept and wear it. He spoke at
+length of the difficulty of keeping such garments white and pure in the
+midst of a world of work and constant contact with that which would
+soil, how only the children of the rich could afford to dress in a color
+which would so easily soil, and how only those who could go and have
+such garments washed in the blood of the Lamb could keep them pure and
+white. Then he talked about that righteousness of the saints until even
+Bob Yates dropped his eyes from the earnest, eloquent face of the
+speaker, and began to look into his own heart and wish that he might
+some way be different, and Mamie’s cheeks glowed and her heart beat
+fast. She had forgotten, for the time, Mr. Harold Adams, and even the
+admiring glances of her escort to church that night. She even forgot the
+new arrangement of her hair, and ceased to feel the back of her head, to
+discover how perchance it might be affecting those who looked upon her
+from the rear. She resolved, in some way, to discover for herself how
+she might wear this fine linen, and when the closing hymn was announced,
+she stood up with the others, and sang in a loud voice the words,
+meaning them in her heart more than any words she had ever sung before.
+She felt a strange, sweet thrill of longing, new and faint, but real, as
+the hymn went on.
+
+             “O Jesus Christ the righteous! live in me,
+             That, when in glory I thy face shall see,
+             Within the Father’s house, my glorious dress
+             May be the garment of thy righteousness.”
+
+Mamie felt for the first time in her life that night, that she had
+really a strong determination to go to heaven when she died. The white
+linen could be worn then, if not before. The minister had said it might
+be worn now also. Well, perhaps——
+
+Her heart was softened, and on the way home she confided the coincidence
+of her verse the night before and the minister’s text to Mr. Yates, who
+was deeply interested and impressed. Celia would have been surprised,
+perhaps, if she could have heard the brakeman telling Mamie at the door
+that she had helped him, that he wanted to be better than he had been
+and he was glad she was that kind of a girl.
+
+As for Celia, the minister himself had walked home with her. She hoped
+that Mamie had not seen, and her cheeks burned red and her embarrassment
+did not lessen during the entire walk. He asked her to help him in his
+Sunday-school work, and she accepted the class he offered her, after
+much hesitation, but she was stiff and unlike herself, and aunt Hannah
+wondered greatly why Celia seemed so cold and uninterested in things.
+She sighed as she went about preparing for the night, and wished that
+Celia’s mother had lived; nobody could understand a girl like her own
+mother, she thought. Then she knelt as she always did, and laid her care
+at her Master’s feet, and rested with an unburdened heart for the next
+day’s work.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+One morning, about eleven o’clock, Molly Poppleton was up in the
+third-story hall attending to the rooms on that floor. The chambermaid
+was not well, and Molly had been put back in her work a good deal, so
+that it was late and she was in a hurry. She thumped the water pitchers
+down hard, slammed the doors, and punched the pillows into shape with
+extra vigor on this account, but, suddenly, in the midst of making up
+the University student’s bed, she came to a sharp halt and straightened
+up to listen. She was not mistaken. She certainly had heard sounds of
+distress. They grew clearer now as she went to the hall door, and she
+quickly located them. They were low, half-suppressed sobs, following
+quickly upon one another, as though the weeper were in deep distress.
+After listening, she marched down the hall, and without more ceremony
+threw open the door of a room. There lay Mamie Williams across the foot
+of her unmade bed crying bitterly and shaking with sobs. Molly Poppleton
+was at all times a straightforward maiden, and she believed in coming to
+the point at once; it was the way she had been brought up. So, without
+apology for intruding into the young girl’s trouble, she demanded what
+was the matter.
+
+Mamie raised her head long enough to show a red nose and blurred eyes,
+and to see who had come in without knocking. Then she went on crying
+harder than ever.
+
+Molly shut the door with a slam and said:
+
+“For mercy’s sake, do tell me what’s the matter? Are you hurt? Do you
+want a doctor? Or are some of your friends dead?”
+
+Mamie shook her head and finally controlled herself sufficiently to sob
+out:
+
+“No, M-m-molly. It’s my heart! It’s broke!”
+
+“Oh, well, if that’s all, you’ll get over it! They always do! I’ve been
+there myself, and I know that state don’t last long. You better get up
+and wash your face while I make the bed.” And Molly proceeded
+energetically to throw open the windows and shake up the pillows.
+
+“Oh Molly! You don’t know. You never was crossed in love!” wailed the
+miserable girl, without stirring, and then she sobbed the harder.
+
+Molly turned irately from the bureau where she had begun to dust.
+
+“Crossed in fiddlesticks!” she said, sharply. “You’ll find you ain’t
+near so hard hurt as you think for. And as for me, I’ve had my chances
+in my time like other girls, and plenty of ’em at that, an’ I perferred
+to live single. It’s much more independent. It’s my opinion you ain’t
+old enough to be away from home anyway. You better go back to your ma if
+you’ve got one.”
+
+But as this only set Miss Mamie to crying the harder, the perplexed
+Molly marched down to find Miss Grant and report the case.
+
+“Miss Grant, you’re needed up there in that three-center room. That
+silly thing is actin’ like a fool over some poor sickly fellow, that
+couldn’t support her ef she got him, I s’pose. She says she’s been
+crossed in love an’ her heart’s broke, an’ she’s cryin’ fer dear life.
+It’s my opinion she better be crossed with a good spankin’, an’ I
+wouldn’t feel sorry to be the one to give it to her neither.”
+
+But the latter part of this sentiment was lost upon her hearer who had
+already started with swift steps for the third story.
+
+A moment later Mamie felt a cool hand on her hot forehead, and Miss
+Grant stooped down and took her in her arms and kissed her. She was so
+surprised to be kissed, that she stopped crying for a minute. Then the
+sympathy of the eyes that met hers started her tears afresh, and she
+buried her head in the motherly arms held out to her and cried like a
+hurt child who had found a comforter. After she had cried a few minutes
+and been soothed by the woman who seemed to have the gift of soothing
+from above, as others have a gift for music or painting, she was able to
+tell her poor little sad, commonplace story.
+
+“It was Mr. Harold Adams at the store. And he was awful handsome. The
+girls all thought so. I fell in love with him the first time I saw him.
+Yes ma’am, he was the head clerk there, all this winter he had charge.
+The owner went to Hew York and left him here to run the business. He was
+awful smart, they said. He used to pay me lots of attention at first,
+and he’s told me many a time he loved me better than any one else”—here
+she broke into fresh sobs—“and it was only when that ugly girl with
+bleached hair and a pretty face came, he got to going with her, and now
+I’d planned a way to look nicer than her and get him back, and he’s been
+real nice to me for a whole week—she was away—they all said she was
+sick, but now it turns out she was getting ready to be married, and he’s
+to be sent to have full charge of a three-cent store up in Ohio, and
+they say she’s going along. The girls had it all ready to tell me this
+morning when I went in to the store, and they just couldn’t laugh enough
+at me, till I nearly sank through the floor. They was always jealous of
+me. First one twitted me an’ then another, till I got so mad and felt so
+bad I just come home. He’s a goin’ to marry her, they say, an’ it’s all
+been no use after all, an’ oh, my heart’s just broke!”
+
+It is commonly supposed that women who do not marry and have no children
+cannot enter into the feelings of young people, and are not able to
+sympathize with them. But God had somehow given this woman a sweet
+insight into natures in distress, which helped her to be able to give
+comfort wherever she went, to say the right word and do the right
+action. She bent down now and kissed the tear-wet face.
+
+“You’re awful kind,” moaned poor Mamie. “But you don’t know how it is
+yourself. You ain’t never been crossed in love.”
+
+A shadow of the passing of a great dark cloud, tipped with brilliant
+light, went across Miss Grant’s face, leaving the reflection of the
+light there, ere she spoke again.
+
+“Listen! Mamie,” she said, and her voice was very sweet and tender, and
+her eyes looked soft and dewy, as though she saw things beyond the range
+of human vision, “I want to tell you a story all about myself.”
+
+Yes, she actually went back to those dear, bright days so long ago, when
+she had found a kindred spirit and had lived in a sweet elysium of hope,
+and dreamed those rose-colored visions of youth. Some women would have
+counted it a desecration to the memory of her dead hopes and sacred love
+before the eyes of a vulgar girl who wept over a man a hundredfold more
+vulgar; would have thought it an evidence of lack of good taste and
+delicacy to do so. Not so this woman. Had she not sent swift petitions
+to the throne as she came up the stairs asking for guidance? She felt in
+her heart that this story of hers, which had never before passed her
+lips to mortal ear, told here, might help this poor, friendless,
+untaught girl: might, perhaps, lead her to see life in a different way,
+and to begin to try to live it for the God above, instead of for her own
+selfish pleasure. And she knew the man she had loved, who had been in
+heaven these years, well enough to be certain he would be glad also to
+have her tell the story, if it could in any wise help a soul to find
+comfort. And so she told it, simply and eloquently. She even let herself
+dwell on the tender passages, the little things that make such a story
+beautiful in the eyes of a girl. She spoke about the flowers he had sent
+her, the pretty, simple gowns she had worn that he admired, and the
+ribbon he stooped and kissed, as it floated from her throat, that last
+time he parted from her, saying she would soon be with him now to stay;
+and how she treasured it yet.
+
+Before she was half-way through the story, Mamie had dried her eyes and
+sat up on the bed, her face expressing intense interest. She had
+forgotten her own troubles in the trouble of another. Her tears, which
+were dried on her own sorrows soon flowed silently for Miss Grant. She
+wondered at that peaceful face, which shone bright even through the mist
+that would gather in her eyes, as she told of the dark days when her
+hopes were taken from her, and of the time when she wandered about
+forlorn, until the Lord spoke to her and comforted her. When the story
+was finished, Mamie found she could look up and talk. She seemed to have
+risen above her recent grief. There was a longing for something in her
+heart, she scarcely knew what.
+
+“I always thought it would be an awful thing to be an old maid,” she
+said, bluntly, “but if I could look like you, and be like you, I
+wouldn’t mind it—not much!” There was a look of admiration on her face.
+It was not much encouragement, but Miss Grant was not one who let her
+work depend upon results. She went steadily on talking, cheering,
+advising, drawing out the girl, until she had a pretty thorough
+understanding of what her life had been hitherto. She did not wonder
+that the heart seemed broken, nor that what seemed to the poor girl to
+be the life love had been freely given to an unworthy object. What
+better had been set before the girl? She had been untaught and unguided.
+Before she left her, Mamie had confided to her the story of her Bible
+reading and of all her thoughts about the garments of fine linen, and
+this missionary of the Most High had sifted out from the chaff of
+foolish talk and worldly longings the grain of earnest desire after
+better things and found joy, the joy of encouragement in it. She even
+knelt beside the girl with her arm about her waist, and prayed for her
+as Mamie had never heard herself prayed for before, and then, instead of
+sending her back to the atmosphere of selfish strivings and silly
+thoughts of what should be noble things, she advised her to stay away
+from the three-cent store, at least for that day, and come down in the
+kitchen, as she had some work for her there which might take her mind
+off her trouble for a little while.
+
+It is true that Molly sniffed when she saw her come into the kitchen
+with her red eyes washed and a white apron on, but Miss Grant wisely
+sent Molly to work in another part of the house, and herself carefully
+inducted the awkward novice into the mysteries of making some most
+delectable cake, to be used in the celebration of Miss Burns’ birthday
+that evening. It spoke well for Miss Grant’s ability to read human
+nature, that she chose cake to teach Mamie. If it had been a lesson in
+bread-making or how to cook potatoes, it is doubtful if the girl would
+have been interested. Cake, now, somehow, seemed “sort of stylish,” and
+belonged to the festive side of eating; therefore she enjoyed learning
+how to make it nicely, and she came to the dinner-table that evening
+beaming with satisfaction over the cake which she had iced and decorated
+with smilax and candles herself. She told them all that she made the
+cake, and it received much praise, especially from Bob Yates, who asked
+for a second piece and said some low words of commendation that brought
+a smile and a bright flush into the girl’s face, just as Molly passed
+the ice cream which was also a part of the evening’s celebration.
+
+“H’m!” said that worthy woman coming out into the kitchen the better to
+converse with herself, “I thought so! She’s got over it sooner than most
+of ’em. It generally takes over night at least just to let the glue dry,
+but she must have used some lightnin’ stuff. Her heart ain’t more’n skin
+deep anyway.”
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+The days that followed were filled with new things for Mamie Williams.
+However shallow her hurt had been it was deep enough to make her shrink
+decidedly from returning to the store. The young man whose charms had
+fascinated her was not yet gone, and Miss Simmons brought word from day
+to day that there had been delay in sending him away. The yellow haired
+girl seemed to have returned to her place behind the candy counter.
+After this report had gone on for about a week, Mamie suddenly
+manifested a desire to return to her position, with the expressed hope
+that she might still win her lover back, but Miss Hannah, feeling that
+this might be the turning point in her life, had a long talk with her,
+the result of which was that she appeared in the kitchen an hour after,
+with red eyes, a meek air and a clean gingham apron and made herself
+generally useful. Molly, who had kept herself informed of the state of
+the case nodded approval and announced to Miss Grant at the first
+opportunity that she didn’t know but that girl had some chance of
+growing a little sense after all.
+
+It is doubtful whether Mamie’s resolution would have outlasted the next
+day, however, had not several things occurred to strengthen what Miss
+Grant had said to her during that long earnest talk. The first was the
+announcement that the charming Mr. Harold Adams had departed from the
+city to parts unknown, taking with him a goodly portion of the profits
+of the three-cent business, which he had, by a careful system of
+bookkeeping, been laying up for himself against this day. Neither had
+the yellow-haired girl shared in his booty. She seemed to be as happy as
+ever, and as the days went by was reported to be “making up” to the new
+head of the business, who had come to straighten out affairs.
+
+Mamie, on the announcement of this news, betook herself to her room for
+a whole morning, where she cried and was angry alternately, and from
+whence she came out a wiser and a meeker maiden, quite ready to do what
+Miss Grant should ask of her, and to look for another position. But that
+lady was in no haste to urge the girl to apply for another position.
+Life in such a store, as Mamie would be likely in her present stage of
+development, to get into, was too dangerous and risky a thing for the
+unformed girl, who seemed to be hesitating on the brink of better
+things. After careful thought, and much discussion with Celia, Miss
+Grant told Mamie that she would like it very much, if she would be
+willing to help her for two or three weeks, with upstairs work, sweeping
+and table setting, until she could find another second girl who suited
+her. She told her she would give her what she had been paying to the
+second girl who had just left, and that she would of course have her
+board, so that she might be able to look about her leisurely for the
+right place, and still lose nothing by being out of work. Mamie, after a
+struggle with her pride, and reiterating many times to her roommate that
+she only did this for a few days as a favor to Miss Grant, finally
+accepted, and was somewhat surprised that she was not scoffed at by Miss
+Simmons for “doing housework,” which to the minds of both girls had
+always been menial service quite beneath them.
+
+But it turned out that Miss Simmons had other things to think of than
+Mamie Williams’ affairs. It was scarcely three weeks after Mamie had
+left the three-cent store, when it was discovered that the said Miss
+Simmons had “eloped” with the friend of the oily youth who had been
+visiting her. Just what she had eloped from, as she had no friends or
+kindred in the city who seemed in the least interested in her welfare,
+it was perhaps hard to make out, but she left a note in Mamie’s Sunday
+dress pocket stating that she had eloped, and bidding an affectionate
+farewell. It was no more than was to have been expected, Miss Grant
+thought afterward, as she turned over pile after pile of romantic,
+third-class, sensational novels in the closet, after the departure of
+the young girl, but she sighed and brushed away a tear, that she had not
+been permitted to help this girl also. She had by this time some hopes
+of Mamie. The affair of Miss Simmons, she feared, might perhaps upset
+her, and excite her desire for some romance herself, but happily it
+worked the other way, rather frightening her, and making her cling close
+to Miss Grant, asking her advice daily and almost hourly. This effect
+became still more salutary when it was learned some days after that the
+young man with whom Miss Simmons had eloped had already a wife in
+another state. During the passage of these events Mamie cried a good
+deal, but there was growing in her face the shadow of a sweet
+womanliness which gave promise of what might be in the future if all
+things went well. She had not even the brakeman to brighten this hard
+time for her, for he had been sent out West on some special work by one
+of the heads of the road, and would not return for a month. Mamie
+learned to efface herself somewhat, and gradually seemed to be
+cultivating some of Celia’s quietness and repose of manner. Celia, on
+her part, was much interested in the girl. She kept her in mind daily,
+and was always trying to help her, and praying for her.
+
+“I’m not sure, auntie, after all, but she may develop enough to become a
+ribbon girl some time,” she said one night, when Mamie had left them.
+
+Aunt Hannah smiled dreamily. She was beginning to have much hope of her
+young protégée herself.
+
+“Yes,” she said, with her far-away look in her eyes, “she may be fit for
+the white linen dress some day. Who knows?”
+
+“You mean the tailor-made one?” asked Cecil, mischievously.
+
+“The heavenly-made one, anyway, dear. She told me to-night that she was
+beginning to feel as if she really prayed like other people now.”
+
+There were other influences at work also. Mr. Stafford was holding
+meetings every night in the new chapel, and the boarders had as a family
+adopted that church as their own. It was becoming a regular thing now
+for every one who was able, to attend service morning and evening on
+Sunday, and several of them had dropped in to the special meetings. Miss
+Hannah, Celia, and Mamie Williams had been there every night. Harry
+Knowles had joined the choir, and his friends rejoiced that at last all
+his evenings were securely filled for him. His face was bright and
+interested. He was enthusiastic in sounding the praises of Mr. Stafford,
+and ready to do anything to help in the church work, though as yet he
+did not seem to have made any move to number himself among the
+Christians. Celia was deeply interested in a class of big boys who were
+most of them beginning to attend the services. She kept herself in the
+background with them as much as possible. No one could say of her that
+she was trying to get the attention of the minister. She tried with all
+her might to keep away from him, insomuch, sometimes, that he noticed it
+and was puzzled and troubled. He sometimes sat with his eyes shaded by
+his hand up in his room when he was weary with his work, and thought
+about it. Did she dislike him? Or was there some one else who so filled
+her life that she had no desire to have other friends? More and more her
+sweet, womanly face, and her pleasant ways were making their impression
+upon his mind. He began to confess it to himself by and by, and he
+thought of what his friend Roger Houston had said about finding a wife
+that night he had met him in search of a boarding-place. His heart told
+him that there was more possibility of such a thing happening than he
+would care to confess to his friend just yet. In fact, Mr. Houston had
+visited Mr. Stafford several times, and once had remained to dinner with
+him, since which time he had unreservedly gone over in favor of the new
+boarding-house, declaring that the cooking was as good as they had at
+his own home, though perhaps not quite so stylishly served. He had
+laughed, it is true, at Bob Yates, who that evening favored the house
+with one of his high-keyed solos, while Roger and Mr. Stafford tried to
+talk in the latter’s room directly over the organ; and he had mimicked
+Miss Burns’ laugh—for he was a born mimic—and had denominated Mamie
+Williams and Carrie Simmons as “giggling kids,” but he admired Miss
+Grant, and declared Celia to be artistic in the extreme. He kept talking
+about her after they came upstairs. He was an artist by profession, and
+he begged his friend to ask her to sit as a model for him, and was
+surprised at the prompt way the suggestion was squelched. He asked if
+Celia’s character was as fine as her face, and pondered much afterward
+over the slow thoughtful answer of his host, “Yes, I think it is.” He
+was so possessed of the idea of catching Celia’s expression on canvas
+for a picture he had it in mind to paint, that he asked again as he was
+leaving, “And you don’t think you can ask that girl to sit for me,
+Horace? I like that style of face awfully, and I don’t know just where
+else to turn for it.”
+
+“I don’t think there _is_ another face anywhere just like hers,”
+answered the minister slowly again.
+
+“Now look here, Horace, you talk as if you were personally interested in
+her. Don’t go so far as that, I beg of you. You ought to marry a rich
+girl, for you never will allow yourself to get money any other way,
+unless you fall dead in love with it. Well, I suppose I may ask her
+myself. It won’t hurt my feelings, if she does refuse, you know. Where
+can I find her?”
+
+A firm line came around the minister’s mouth, as he said, decidedly,
+
+“I would rather you would not do that, Roger. She is not that kind of a
+girl.”
+
+Afterward, the young artist remembered his friend’s face, and whistled
+on his way home as he thought it over.
+
+But though Mr. Stafford had watched Celia for several months now, had
+seen her under varying and trying circumstances sometimes; had shown her
+little attentions, which were the outcome of a frank talk he had within
+himself, wherein he confessed a deep interest in her, she still held
+aloof from him. Miss Grant had given up trying to make it out. Celia was
+too deep for her.
+
+Meantime Bob Yates came home from the West. He had been working hard and
+was glad to get back again. He had been promoted to an engineer’s
+position, and was off duty every evening now. He seemed much struck with
+the change in Mamie Williams. Miss Grant noticed it the first evening at
+dinner. There was a deference about his manner when he addressed her
+that was new. She noticed also its reflex influence on Mamie. Had she
+taken a lesson from Celia’s reserve, or were the influences of prayer
+and daily life about her, and her new hopes and resolves making the
+change? Miss Grant wondered. Mamie flushed a little, but she drooped her
+eyes modestly, and was quite unobtrusive during the entire meal, a thing
+so unlike the old Mamie Williams that the contrast was marked. Bob Yates
+admired it evidently, for he cast many glances across the table at her,
+and his own loud, jolly voice seemed somewhat toned down, in harmony.
+
+Celia passed through the hall behind them after dinner and heard Mamie
+shyly declining an invitation to the theatre. “I’d like awful well to
+go, but we all go to meetin’ every night now,” she was saying. “I
+promised in the meeting last night I’d bring somebody along to-night and
+I don’t just like to break my promise. Mebbe you’d just as soon go to
+meetin’ as the theatre to-night, then I’d have somebody to take to keep
+my promise with. The minister’s awful good, and the singin’ is fine.
+They’d like your voice in the choir, I know.”
+
+And so Bob Yates willingly gave up the theatre to go to meeting. He was
+not greatly concerned where he took his amusement. The theatre had no
+especial attraction for him, but he had thought of it because Mamie had
+once told him she would rather go to the theatre than anywhere else in
+the world. In fact, the prospect of a “good sing” was rather more
+enticing in itself than sitting still and listening to the singing of
+other people.
+
+That night the minister was very much in earnest. He preached a soul
+searching sermon. Some of Celia’s boys arose, when at the close of the
+sermon the invitation was given for all who would like to belong to
+Christ to stand with those who were Christians during the singing of a
+hymn. Mamie sat quite still, her cheeks pink and her eyes downcast
+during the singing of the first verse and part of the second. She held
+one side of the hymn book with Bob Yates and her hand trembled a little.
+He was singing with his usual fervor the deep, heart-stirring words, but
+Mamie did not sing. Just as the second verse was nearly finished, she
+suddenly rose with a jerk and an embarrassed countenance, leaving the
+singing book in the hands of the man by her side. He looked up
+astonished, and went on singing, but not quite so loud as before, and
+his words seemed to be getting mixed up. He fidgeted on his chair, and
+when they began to sing the next verse, he arose also and stood beside
+Mamie, offering her again the book. She took it, looking down, her heart
+fluttering gladly that he had arisen too, and kept her company, and so
+they stood until the benediction was pronounced.
+
+“Say,” said Mamie, softly, when they had walked half of the way home in
+an embarrassed silence, “what did you mean by that? Did you mean what
+the minister said? What made you do it?”
+
+“Mean it? ’Course I did!” answered Bob, heartily. “My mother used to be
+a good woman, an’ I’ve always meant to turn that way some time myself.
+The first time I ever heard Mr. Stafford, I made out he was more’n
+half-way right, an’ to-night I thought so again. I don’t know as I
+should ’a’ said so out’n out fer folks to see, ef you hadn’t, but I
+calculated I wanted to be on that side ef you was, so I stood up. Why?”
+
+“Well, I didn’t know,” said Mamie, embarrassedly, “I was afraid mebbe
+you just did it out o’ politeness. But I’m real glad you meant it.”
+
+“Are you? Sure?” He looked at her searchingly by the light of the next
+street lamp, and then added, “Well, I don’t mind tellin’ you ’twas you
+that did it. That what you said about wearin’ a white dress got me to
+thinkin’. You seem most’s if you was wearin’ it yourself since I come
+home. I didn’t know but ’twas my ’magination, but when I see you get up
+in meetin’, I knew it was that there white dress in the Bible you was
+wearin’. I mostly made up my mind while I was out to Ohio, I wanted to
+be fit to walk along side o’ you.”
+
+Mamie’s heart fairly stood still with a joy she had not known before and
+only half understood. It was the joy of having helped another immortal
+soul to find the Light.
+
+“I’m only just startin’ myself,” she murmured low. “I ain’t half fit for
+that white dress yet, but I’m goin’ to try, an’ I’m awful glad you think
+I helped you.”
+
+“Well, then, let’s start out together, and mebbe we can help each
+other,” he said, and she murmured with downcast eyes, “All right,” as he
+grasped her hand in a hearty clasp, and then helped her up the steps
+into the house.
+
+Other young men had, on occasion, clasped Mamie’s hand in more or less
+hearty grasp on the way home from places of amusement, but no hand ever
+touched in her the chord of such true, healthful, honest friendship, and
+purpose to do right. She felt as though she had been uplifted in some
+way and yet she knew not how nor why.
+
+A little later Harry Knowles sat in Miss Grant’s little private
+sitting-room, his head leaning on his hand, his whole attitude
+indicative of deep thought.
+
+“I tell you, Miss Grant,” he had been saying, “it was that three-cent
+girl. When I saw her stand up there all by herself, right in the middle
+of a hymn, too, when no one else was rising, it made me ashamed. Here
+was I who had been brought up to pray and read the Bible and know how to
+be good, and had a good mother, sitting still; and that girl, who never
+had any bringing up to amount to much I guess, _coming_, right away as
+soon as she was asked. I can’t stand it any longer, and I wanted to talk
+to somebody about it, so I came to you. I knew you would help me, and it
+would seem some like having mother to tell it to. I’ve made up my mind
+to be a Christian. Yes, I’ll tell the minister by and by, but I wanted
+to talk to you first, and he was busy anyway. But I don’t know as I’d
+ever have done it, if it hadn’t been for Mamie Williams to-night.”
+
+Verily the mysteries of influence in this world are great, and past
+understanding, and we cannot tell if our actions may not affect the
+eternal welfare of some one whom we have never seen.
+
+Certainly, Mamie Williams, as she sat reading her Bible that night, did
+not dream that she had helped to bring Harry Knowles to Christ.
+
+               “Hast thou not garnered many fruits
+         Of other’s sowing, whom thou knowest not?
+         Canst tell how many struggles, sufferings, tears,
+         All unrecorded, unremembered all,
+         Have gone to build up what thou hast of good?”
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+Celia Murray had gone to her room and locked the door. It was just after
+church, and aunt Hannah was busy in the kitchen. It was the only time
+during the day when she might hope to have entire possession
+undisturbed, of the room which she shared with her aunt. She could not
+remember a time in her life before, when she would have cared whether
+her aunt came in upon her, or came to the door and found it locked, or
+not, but this time she did. She wanted to be entirely alone and face her
+own heart.
+
+The winter had passed by on rapid feet, and they were well on into the
+spring. The meetings which had been held in the little chapel had
+continued for several weeks, and during that time Harry Knowles and
+Mamie Williams and Bob Yates had professed publicly their faith in Jesus
+Christ. The University student had taken his church letter out of its
+hiding-place in his trunk and put it into Mr. Stafford’s church, and the
+school-teacher had sent to his far-away home for his and both were
+working hard for the salvation of others. Family worship had been
+established daily in the boarding-house, not in the morning, because the
+coming and going of the boarders was at such different hours that it
+would scarcely have been possible to get them all together, but in the
+early evening, just after the six o’clock dinner, while they still sat
+about the table. No one was obliged to stay, but all chose to, unless
+called away by something urgent. Mr. Stafford conducted it, and read a
+very few verses and prayed. Once or twice, when he had been absent for a
+day, Miss Grant had read part of a chapter, and asked Harry Knowles
+once, and once the brakeman to pray, and they had each done so;
+stumblingly and with few words, it is true, but Miss Hannah had been
+glad and gone about her daily work feeling joy at the place in which the
+Lord had set her.
+
+They had grown to be a very pleasant family, in spite of the various
+elements of character and up-bringing which they represented. They
+talked about their abiding-place as HOME, and each one felt it to be
+that in the true sense of the word. Miss Grant had taken care to observe
+each birthday with some little unusual festivity in the way of eatables,
+and at Christmas and other holidays they made merry enough to forget,
+most of them, that they were away from their own kindred.
+
+Mr. Stafford had grown to be a part of the household so fully that it
+would have brought dismay to each one if there had been a thought of his
+leaving. Even Celia had unbent, and he and she had become good comrades
+in a way, though there was always a dignified barrier which Celia kept
+up, which prevented his showing her any of the ordinary attentions which
+young men like to show to the young women whom they admire. Having
+quieted her conscience by keeping up this wall of conventionality and
+excusing herself from anything of a social nature which he offered her,
+she shut her eyes to consequences and enjoyed his presence in the house.
+How could she do otherwise? She read the books he loaned her, and
+conversed about them with him afterward, and she visited the poor and
+sick for him sometimes and took them little delicacies. There had been
+times, it is true, when it troubled her that she let herself enjoy his
+society as much as she did, but she had been learning during the winter
+months to put this aside and think no more about it. Occasionally she
+prayed to be delivered from a trouble which she sometimes saw hovering
+like a shadowy cloud over her own life, and looking at aunt Hannah
+resolved to trust the Lord to make her what he would have her to be,
+even if it must be in spite of sorrow, as he had done with her aunt. But
+now a time had come when Celia must face her heart and understand
+herself. If it was to be that she must come out of the ordeal bowed in
+spirit, then she must face it and accept it, but she must understand
+herself now.
+
+It had come to a sudden crisis in this way.
+
+Mr. Stafford had been away for nearly two weeks. A telegram had come to
+him, when Miss Grant was out. Molly had taken it up to him and a little
+while afterward had been surprised to see him standing in the kitchen
+door, his grip and umbrella in hand, and a drawn, anxious look upon his
+face. He told Molly to tell Miss Grant he had been called away by
+tidings of sudden illness and did not know how long he would be gone.
+They had heard nothing from him until Saturday evening of that week,
+when his friend Roger Houston had called to get some church notices from
+Mr. Stafford’s room to hand to the minister who was to supply the pulpit
+the next day.
+
+It was Celia who opened the door for him and showed him to the second
+story front room. With a possible view to prosecuting his petition that
+she would give him a sitting some time, he lingered a moment.
+
+“It is very sad indeed,” he remarked to Celia, as though she knew all
+about the matter. “You knew there was no hope of her life? Oh, haven’t
+you heard? Well, I suppose Stafford has had his hands too full of other
+things to think of writing. He gave me no particulars, only said all
+hope was gone and she could linger but a few days longer at most. He
+asked me to get this man to preach, and arrange everything for him. It
+will be very hard for him, he depended upon her so much. There was a
+peculiarly close relationship between them. He never missed writing to
+her regularly and some of her letters were wonderful. He read bits of
+them to me once or twice. She was a wonderful character. He will miss
+her immeasurably.”
+
+Then Mr. Houston looked up from the papers he had selected from the
+minister’s table, to the face of the girl who stood silent in the
+doorway. He was wondering whether he dared venture to ask her to let him
+sketch her face some time, but when he looked at her he remembered his
+friend’s words, “She is not that kind of a girl,” and concluded that his
+friend had been right, and it would be better not to ask her this time.
+He wondered what it was about her that made it seem impossible for him
+to speak to her about it, as he would to many another pretty girl just
+as nice and refined as she was. He fancied as he looked again that she
+was white about the mouth, but, of course, that must have been all his
+fancy.
+
+It was not until late the next Saturday night, after all the house had
+retired, that Horace Stafford returned to Philadelphia, and letting
+himself quietly in with his latchkey, went to his room. They did not
+know he had returned the next morning at breakfast time, for one and
+another were wondering who would preach, and saying they wished their
+own minister was back, that they did not know whether they cared to go
+to church or not, and all those other things people will say when they
+love a minister, just as if he was their God, that they went to church
+to worship him, and when he was absent they had no object for worship.
+He had called to Molly, as she passed through the hall early in the
+morning, and asked her for a cup of coffee, and told her not to mind if
+he did not come to breakfast, as he needed all his time for preparation,
+having been away so long. He had gone to church early, while those who
+were going out were dressing, so that it was not until she was seated in
+church and saw the little study door open, and the minister walk out and
+into the pulpit, that Celia knew that Horace Stafford was back with them
+again.
+
+She had gone through many changes of feeling since the night when Roger
+Houston had spoken those few commonplace words to her. She had not asked
+him then what he meant, nor who it was who was lying so low, who was so
+dear to Mr. Stafford. Instinctively she knew. It was the young woman of
+the pictured face, so sweet and lovely, within that velvet frame.
+Something had arisen in her throat while she listened, that froze the
+words she would have spoken, an expression of sympathy for him, and her
+heart was filled with conflicting emotions. She had dreaded Mr.
+Stafford’s return. It was as if she had had her convictions verified
+now, and knowing his heart was engaged she wished to put him entirely
+from her thoughts. It seemed impossible though, for constantly the
+surmises would come up among the boarders, why Mr. Stafford was away,
+when he would return, etc. She obliged herself to repeat a few of Mr.
+Houston’s sentences, a very few it is true, so few that the boarders
+were left in doubt as to whether the one who was lying so low and
+keeping the minister away was man, woman or child, and when Miss Burns
+asked if she knew whether it was one of the family, his mother, perhaps,
+Celia answered briefly, “He did not say,” and then wondered if she had
+done wrong in not telling what she was so certain of, though she
+silenced her conscience by saying that Mr. Stafford might not care to
+have them know he was engaged at all. Then Celia had tried to fill the
+week with earnest hard work. She had succeeded in persuading Dobson &
+Co. to let her induct Mamie Williams into the ribbon business, with a
+view to possibly succeeding her sometime in the future, and she found
+that she was able to keep busy. Mamie was a tractable enough pupil, and
+growing quick to appreciate the fine distinctions in manner and actions
+which Celia strove to inculcate. But there was still room for
+improvement, and Celia worked early and late at her chosen task,
+moulding the young woman’s character as carefully and eagerly as though
+she had been an artist making a model for some marvelous statue.
+
+“When you get her done, Celia dear, I’m afraid she will be too good for
+the engineer, and I can see he wants her,” said Miss Hannah, with a
+quiet smile.
+
+“Well, that’s all right, auntie dear,” said Celia, with a thoughtful
+sigh. “He’ll make her a good husband, and I don’t believe she’ll be too
+good for him. It seems to me her influence on him has been wonderful. He
+seems to change as fast as she does. I never would have dreamed it last
+fall.”
+
+“I thought so, dear. Do you remember the talk we had about him some time
+ago? There is more good in most people than we suspect. You have to live
+with them awhile to find it out,” said Miss Grant.
+
+“You mean _you_ have to live with them, auntie, and _I_ have to live
+with _you_ to find out about them. I never would have found all these
+boarders out in the world, if you hadn’t been here with your ‘saint’s
+eyes’ to read them.”
+
+Miss Hannah smiled, but she watched Celia furtively and wished that she
+could read _her_, and understand what made the little cloud which seemed
+to settle down upon her usually bright girl and make her heavy hearted
+these days.
+
+But to go back to church. Celia’s heart throbbed painfully when she saw
+the minister walk into the pulpit. She knew by his face that his dear
+one was dead. It was not that his face wore a look of bitter grief, it
+was rather one of chastened exaltation. He preached a sermon about
+heaven that morning that seemed as though it had been written by one who
+had recently been very near to the portals, seen them open and caught
+glimpses of friends, and of Jesus within. Celia forgot her heart throbs
+and listened, forgetting, too, for the time who was preaching, in the
+absorption of the words he spoke. She had had a struggle to keep back
+the tears during the closing hymn, when they sang;
+
+           “And with the morn those angels’ faces smile,
+           Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.”
+
+She knew why Mr. Stafford had selected it. He sat during the singing
+with shaded brow and bowed head. Celia could not sing. She felt as if
+she were choking. She turned as soon as the benediction was pronounced
+and the solemn hush following it broken, to hide her tears by searching
+for her umbrella which had rolled beneath the seat. When she rose again
+and turned around, the minister was standing in the aisle beside her. He
+put out his hand and clasped hers, and a light of joy lit up his face
+which looked pale and worn, as he said, “I am so glad to see you again.”
+
+They were commonplace words. He might have used them to any member of
+his congregation; yes, and with the same tone and look too, perhaps, she
+told herself as she hurried excitedly homeward, but they sent a thrill
+of mingled joy and sorrow through the young girl which she did not
+understand and could not control. One minute she was fiercely glad, and
+the next minute she was plunged in a whirl of shame and despair that it
+had affected her so. And now she was locked into her room. She took off
+her hat and coat and sat down, but she could not think. She could only
+feel the joy, and the certainty that it was not hers. She tried to face
+herself and shame herself with saying plainly to her heart, “Celia
+Murray, you have fallen in love with Mr. Stafford. Yes, and you did it
+when you knew he belonged to another woman. Yes, you knew it well
+enough, though you wanted to pretend that maybe it was not so, because
+no one had told you so. But now you love him and he _does not love you_!
+He has just buried his heart, and you know you would not consider him
+the noble gentleman you think he is, if he should forget that love that
+was ‘so peculiarly close in its relationship.’ And you love him in the
+face of that! Aren’t you ashamed! He does not love you, and he never
+will, and you must not _let_ him, and oh—_what_ shall I do?”——
+
+The poor girl threw herself upon her knees and begged for forgiveness
+and help. She felt she had done wrong to let her heart grow interested
+so easily. She tried to remember some of God’s gracious promises for
+help, and to remember that he would bear her trouble for her, but her
+head seemed in a whirl of excitement and she could not think
+connectedly. She heard the dinner bell ring, and she rose and bathed her
+face, but decided she would not go down. She wanted to be by herself.
+Molly came up pretty soon and asked what was the matter. She told Molly
+to tell aunt Hannah she had a headache, and would not come down now, and
+then she bathed her throbbing temples and lay down to try and grow calm
+before aunt Hannah should come as she felt sure she would.
+
+Wise aunt Hannah! She knew something was amiss! She had not watched her
+girl in vain. She had seen the start and the change of color when the
+minister came into the pulpit and again when he took her hand; she had
+seen other things during the months which had passed. Just what the
+trouble was she did not understand, and she would not ask Celia yet. If
+Celia needed counsel, she felt certain she would confide in her sooner
+or later. In the meantime she could pray.
+
+Miss Hannah did not go up to her room for some time. Instead, she
+arranged a dainty tray with a tempting little lunch and a fragrant cup
+of tea. Under the corner of the napkin she had slipped a little note
+which was merely a scrap of poetry with the penciled words above it,
+“Dear child;” written hastily. It read:
+
+    “Dear child:
+
+              “‘God’s plans for thee are graciously unfolding,
+                And leaf by leaf they blossom perfectly,
+              As yon fair rose from its soft enfolding,
+                In marvelous beauty opens fragrantly.
+              Oh, wait in patience for thy dear Lord’s coming,
+                For sure deliverance he’ll bring to thee;
+              Then, how thou shalt rejoice at the fair dawning
+                Of that sweet morn which ends thy long captivity.’”
+
+Then she laid beside it a lovely rosebud which Harry Knowles had brought
+her the night before, and sent the tray up by Molly. She herself went to
+the third story, and read to Mrs. Belden nearly all the afternoon.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+Celia aroused herself from her unhappiness in time to hurry to her
+Sunday-school class. She purposely went late that she might not be
+obliged to walk with any one, and she intended to hurry home before any
+of the others from their house had left the chapel, but it so happened
+that one of her scholars had a sad tale to tell her of trouble and need,
+and she was obliged to linger and get the particulars. There was an
+address to be taken down and several items of information she would need
+in helping him to find work. When this was done and she glanced
+hurriedly round to see if the others were gone, she saw that one of her
+boys was lingering with an embarrassed expression, half smiling, half
+doubtful, as though he might wish to speak a word with her. Something
+told her that this heart was ready for a quiet personal word and here
+was the time. The other boarders were gone, the minister with hat in
+hand was standing by the front door talking with a man. He was evidently
+about to go also. There were one or two groups in earnest conversation,
+a teacher with two of her class, three women in a corner, and a young
+man and a young girl talking. “Ben,” she said, “can you sit down and
+talk with me a few minutes?”
+
+The hunger for souls was awakened within the young teacher. Her own
+heart’s unrest and sadness made her long to plunge into some other
+interest. She put her whole soul into the words she spoke, and the young
+man listened intently. There was no doubt but that she had reached his
+heart and that he was on the point of yielding to the Holy Spirit. Celia
+prayed as she talked and forgot herself, forgot everything but her
+desire for this soul’s salvation. She listened to his hesitating, low
+words in answer to her earnestly put questions with bated breath. She
+could almost hear her own heart beat while she waited for his final
+decision, as he sat minute after minute thoughtfully looking down at the
+toe of his rough, unblackened shoe and trying to fit it between two
+nails in the floor, where the boards were somewhat worn away by the many
+feet that tramped over them.
+
+The decision was made at last, and the boy, with a furtive glance around
+him, drew his coat sleeve hurriedly across his eyes as he strode out of
+the room after having murmured an incoherent good-bye.
+
+Celia stooped to pick up her rubbers which lay under the seat, and then
+looked about the deserted room. The sexton was doing something to a
+refractory window, which refused to go up and down right. He was used to
+busying himself while lingerers kept the church open. Celia thought
+everybody else was gone, till, as she neared the door, the minister
+arose from one of the back seats and came toward her.
+
+“Would you mind sitting down a few minutes longer?” he said. “I want to
+tell you something, and it seems to me that I can tell it better here
+than anywhere else.”
+
+Celia felt her heart throbbing and her knees suddenly grew weak, so that
+she sat down more because she felt she could not stand without tottering
+than because Mr. Stafford had asked her to do so. The day had been an
+exciting one for her, and her emotions had been stirred to their depths
+by the wonderful talk she had just had with the boy Ben. What could be
+coming now? She could not understand, and yet she felt in some way that
+it would have to do with the things which had been hurting her so all
+day, and would probably hurt her more. She passed her hand across her
+forehead wearily, and tried to brace herself to bear whatever might be
+said. Perhaps he would ask for sympathy in his sorrow, and how could she
+give it? She sent up a swift prayer for help.
+
+Mr. Stafford must have seen the weary expression and the piteous baffled
+look in her face, for a troubled one came over his own, as he took his
+seat in a chair near her, and asked, anxiously,
+
+“Are you too tired just now? Perhaps I ought to wait. I know you have
+been working hard, and your work is telling, too, I could see by that
+boy’s face as he went out, that he will be a different fellow from this
+time forth. Now, if you would rather go right home, please say so.”
+
+But there was a note in his voice of longing to be heard now, that made
+Celia push aside her desire to slip out of it on the plea of weariness
+and assert, a little coolly perhaps, that she could hear him now just as
+well as to wait.
+
+Her manner made his heart sink, but he began what he had to say with a
+frank, “Well, then I’ll try not to keep you long.
+
+“Miss Celia,” it was the first time he had ever called her that, though
+several of the other boarders had adopted it from hearing Molly
+Poppleton address her in that way, “I do not know whether or not you
+know that I have been passing through deep waters during the past week;
+I have been by the deathbed and then by the grave of one who was very
+dear to me. I felt as though I wanted to tell you about her, not only
+because I need the sympathy which I know you can give, but because she
+knew all about you and your work, and was deeply interested in you.”
+
+If Mr. Stafford had not been looking down and struggling to control his
+voice, so that it would be steady and without the deep emotion he felt,
+he would have noticed that Celia’s face grew swiftly white. It was worse
+then than she had feared. Not only was she asked to give sympathy, but
+this other woman had known all about her. They had talked her over
+together. Why this should seem so dreadful to the girl she could not
+quite understand, but at the time it seemed more than she could bear. It
+was well Mr. Stafford did not pause for a reply, for Celia would have
+been incapable of giving any just then.
+
+“She had been ill for a long time,” he went on, his voice breaking a
+little, “we knew she could not stay with us much longer, and yet, you
+will understand that it was hard to part with her.”
+
+He told in a few words of her beautiful life of sweet patience and
+cheerfulness in the face of pain that had endured for years, till Celia
+felt ashamed of her selfish jealousy, and longed to shut herself away
+from sight that she might cry in quiet. The great tears filled her eyes
+and fell unheeded on her hands. She felt herself the meanest and
+smallest of mortals, and this other one beautiful and good and bright
+enough to be, as she was, with the angels. And yet her heart was very
+miserable. She longed to speak a word of sympathy, but knew that she
+could not, and blamed herself for it.
+
+“I want to show you her face,” he said, putting his hand in his breast
+pocket and bringing out a little velvet case, which Celia knew even
+through her blinding tears. He opened and placed it in her hands, the
+lovely face with its velvet-blue eyes looking into hers, as he said,
+“She was my only sister, you know, and she was _so good_ to me.” Then
+the strong man bowed his head on his hand and covered his eyes.
+
+He did not see Celia start, as he said this, but he heard the difference
+in her startled exclamation,
+
+“Your sister? Why! I thought!”—and then she stopped, and when he looked
+up, as he did at once, her face had changed from white to rosy red.
+
+He looked at her face, lovely behind its tears and blushes, and read the
+dawning sympathy, and was glad, even in his sorrow.
+
+“You thought what,—may I know?”
+
+“Why, I—” said Celia, embarrassed and hesitating, blushing deeply,
+“I—I did not know you had only one sister!” she finished, desperately.
+
+“But what was it you thought? May I not know?” he asked again, with a
+searching look at her face.
+
+“No,” said Celia, dropping her eyes to the picture, and trying to hide
+her embarrassment by wiping away the tears with her handkerchief.
+
+“Then may I tell you and you will say whether I am right?” asked the
+minister, a daring light coming into his eyes. “You thought that she was
+some one even nearer, and dearer than a sister?”
+
+He looked at her long and earnestly and seemed to be satisfied with the
+answer of her mute, drooped face.
+
+“Oh, Celia, did you not know that you were the only one who ever had or
+would occupy that place in my heart? Have you not seen that I love you?
+Don’t you know it? and don’t you care, just a little, Celia?”
+
+The front chapel door stood open, and the afternoon spring sunshine was
+flickering fitfully across the floor. They could see the people on the
+street passing, loitering and talking, some looking curiously in as they
+passed, but none seeming to notice them. Celia felt it all as she sat
+dumb in the midst of a whirl of joy and sorrow and shame, and she knew
+not what else. She could not answer. She could not look up. The
+minister’s eyes were upon her, and she felt what the look in them would
+be, and knew she could not bear the joy of seeing it. The silence was
+long and could fairly be heard. The sexton who was growing hungry, came
+back from the little alcove where the primary class was held and where
+he had been straightening the chairs for the evening service and
+distributing hymn books. He drew quite near to them now, and slammed
+books and put down windows significantly. Celia, feeling that she must
+say something, murmured low, still with downcast eyes, “How should I
+know it?”
+
+The minister laughed and then grew grave. “That is true,” he said, “I
+never could tell you, because you would not let me. But _she_ knew it,
+and she was glad of it, and loved you, and left her blessing for you.”
+Then he turned suddenly to the sexton, a new tone in his voice. There
+was something about Celia that no longer discouraged him.
+
+“Thomas,” he said, “I am going now. Will you kindly see if I left my
+Bible in the primary room?”
+
+Thomas went with alacrity to search the primary room.
+
+The minister watched the sexton until he had disappeared, and then he
+stooped swiftly and picked up Celia’s gloves which had fallen unheeded
+to the floor. As he handed them to her he reverently touched his lips to
+one of her little, cold, ungloved hands. She lifted her face for a
+moment, and in that moment he got his answer from her eyes.
+
+The sexton was coming back without the Bible, which the minister
+suddenly discovered to have been lying on the floor under his chair all
+the time, and the two stood decorously apart, Celia trying to keep her
+cheeks from growing redder, as she walked to the open door and looked
+out into the glad spring sunshine, gladder than any sunshine her eyes
+had ever looked upon before.
+
+Some little child, perhaps, had dropped a flower upon the steps, and as
+she stood waiting for the minister, she saw it. It was then she
+remembered the rose on her lunch tray and its sweet message of hope
+
+          “God’s plans for thee are graciously unfolding,
+          And leaf by leaf they blossom perfectly.”
+
+Her heart thrilled over the joy that this had come true, while she
+realized that her happiness was yet only in the bud, and she could see
+the promise of the day-by-day opening of it for her. Oh, why had she
+been doubting? Why could she not trust him perfectly? She lifted her
+heart in one swift breath of penitence and thanksgiving. She felt in
+that first gush of joy that she would never doubt her Lord again.
+
+Then she turned to walk down the glorified street and gaze on the
+familiar surroundings under a halo of joy.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+It was noon and it was June, and there was to be a wedding in Mrs.
+Morris’ boarding-house that was. It was not _the_ wedding, that is the
+wedding nearest and dearest to aunt Hannah’s heart; _that_ was to be
+later, and in the new chapel, and about it most of the boarders had not
+even heard, as yet. Later, when they knew, the bridegroom of the first
+wedding said it was a pity they had not fixed things up sooner, so they
+could have had a double wedding; that would have been “real nice,” and
+Celia and Horace Stafford had looked meaningly at one another, and never
+hinted that such an arrangement would have been other than entirely
+satisfactory to them, provided “things had been fixed up” in time. They
+had their little quiet laugh over it, of course, and kept their secret.
+
+Meantime, the present wedding was a source of deep interest to every
+member of the household. Each one contributed something to the general
+plans. The parlor, that used to be so dismal was itself in bridal array.
+The organ at the further end was literally smothered in palms. The palms
+and flowers were Mr. Roger Houston’s contribution. He was not a boarder,
+but he had become a frequent visitor at the house, and seemed to be as
+much interested as any one in the event. But the arrangement of the
+palms was Celia’s, and Celia was to sit behind them and play the wedding
+march in the softest, sweetest tones she could coax from the old organ.
+They made a lovely background for the bride and groom, and they
+completely hid the organ and the player. Under the mantelpiece and above
+it, where used to hang the crayoned visage of the deceased Mr. Morris,
+were more palms; and the imitation-marble mantelpiece, which Celia
+always said looked as mottled as though it were made of slices of
+Bologna sausage, was covered with a bank of lovely roses, white and pink
+and yellow and crimson. If the wedding had been Celia’s, she would have
+preferred to have the roses all white, but the bride in this case was
+extravagantly fond of color, and had declared herself in favor of “lots
+of roses all colors” so longingly, that Roger Houston said “Let’s please
+her for once if she wants _green_ roses, even if the white would be
+better taste, Miss Murray. It’s her first wedding, you know, and after
+all a rose is a rose.”
+
+But the colors were arranged with Celia’s own skill, and no two colors
+dared but harmonize.
+
+Out in the dining-room the long white table was dressed in trailing
+vines of smilax, and roses; and the largest and most orthodox wedding
+cake that could be procured occupied the place of honor. All about it
+were evidences of Molly Poppleton’s art, and everything spoke of
+readiness for the ceremony to begin.
+
+Up in her room the bride was being arrayed. The dress was a simple white
+muslin plainly made, but she was to wear a veil. It would perhaps have
+been more sensible to have worn a traveling dress, as she was to go away
+at once, but Mamie (for of course you know the bride was Mamie Williams,
+and the groom Bob Yates) had always cried and said she shouldn’t feel
+that she was really married if she didn’t wear white, when Miss Grant
+counseled economy and good sense. Seeing her heart so set they did not
+try to persuade her, but managed to change her purpose of purchasing a
+flimsy white silk which would never be of any use to her afterward, and
+persuaded her to take instead this simple white lawn. She had demurred,
+but finally consented. She was never wholly reconciled to the change,
+however, but was somewhat consoled by the fact that it was white and she
+was to have a veil.
+
+Celia herself dressed her hair and arranged the soft folds of the veil,
+and kissed her, and told aunt Hannah afterward that Mamie Williams was
+really lovely in her pretty array. Miss Hannah thought so too as she
+came up to give the girl a few last words, as her mother might have
+done, perhaps, had she been there. She found Mamie standing by her
+bureau with her open Bible before her. Miss Grant did not know that the
+white vision of herself in the glass had prompted her to turn to that
+first Bible verse of hers and read it over again, “And to her was
+granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white; for
+the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints.” Nor could she know
+that the softened, glorified look on her face came from the thought in
+her heart that now, perhaps, even she might one day wear that pure
+heavenly dress of clean white linen, the garment of Christ’s own
+righteousness.
+
+Bob Yates had saved up a nice little sum, and now there was waiting for
+them, not many blocks away, a new, neat house of four or five rooms, as
+daintily furnished as a bird’s nest. There Mamie was to put in practice
+the culinary arts she had learned from Miss Grant and Molly Poppleton,
+and to entertain her friends, and some of the young girls with whom she
+had grown intimate during her time of selling ribbons with Dobson and
+Co., for she had attained to that and taken Celia’s place, and now in
+turn was to give it up to a young girl from the minister’s Sunday-school
+class.
+
+And they were to take a real wedding trip, too, like all the girls in
+the stories Mamie had read, in the days when she used to fancy Mr.
+Harold Adams held the key for her of all such delights. They were going
+to Atlantic City to a hotel for a whole delightful week, and then they
+were going to see Mamie’s mother, and all her little brothers and
+sisters, and her gruff, hard-working father. After that Bob Yates would
+take his bride to visit his married brother and sister out in
+Indiana—the far West, Mamie called it—and then they would come back to
+their little house and their new furniture, and their dear church and
+their respective Sunday-school classes. It was all very beautiful, and
+Mamie felt very happy and all the boarders felt happy for her. She went
+back in memory to the time when Mrs. Morris was there, and felt, rather
+than thought, how different her life was now, and in fact how different
+everything was, and thanked God for the change. She thought of Carrie
+Simmons with a pang, and wished that she could have done something for
+her. Perhaps, if Miss Grant had come sooner Carrie might have been
+saved. Mamie had so far forgotten her old pride that she actually felt a
+little glad that Carrie could not look in from all her own sorrow and
+misfortune and shame and misery, in which she had heard she dwelt, and
+see her own joy and happy surroundings.
+
+Miss Grant had gone down to the kitchen to watch things while Molly
+Poppleton got on her best gown for the ceremony, and everything was
+progressing toward the last exciting minute, when the doorbell rang. The
+second girl who was setting chairs in the dining-room in the best
+possible way to economize room, went quietly to the door, her neat blue
+and white striped gingham and white waitress-apron and cap making a
+decided contrast to the slatternly Maggie who used to answer the door in
+Mrs. Morris’ time.
+
+The large oldish-looking woman, and the tall, grizzled man, unmistakably
+a farmer, who stood together on the step stared at the girl when the
+door was opened, in undisguised amazement.
+
+“Why!” said the woman at last, looking up at the number over the door as
+if mistaken in her whereabouts, “isn’t this,—at least—isn’t this a
+boarding-house?”
+
+“Yes, it is,” responded the maid, “won’t you walk in? Miss Grant is busy
+just now, that is she will be in a minute, but I guess she can see you
+first. Did you want to get board?”
+
+She had ushered them into the bedecked parlor, which happened at the
+moment to be entirely uninhabited, as the boarders were all in their
+rooms donning their gala attire.
+
+But she saw that they had evidently not heard her question, so telling
+them to be seated, she went for Miss Grant.
+
+The strangers, however, did not sit down. Instead, they stood staring
+around.
+
+“For the land sake!” ejaculated the woman at last, looking around her
+more and more bewildered.
+
+“Wal, it’s pretty nice, ’pon honor, M’ria, I wonder now you ever give it
+up fer an ole fellow like me,” and he looked at her quizzically.
+
+But the look was lost this time. She was taking in the familiar pattern
+of the carpet, which somehow looked strangely bright, and noting all
+things new and old about the room.
+
+Then came Miss Grant with her soft grey cashmere, made more lovely by
+the cloud of white tulle she wore about her neck, which seemed to blend
+so tenderly with the creamy white of her hair.
+
+She stood a moment looking doubtfully at the visitors, seeing something
+familiar about the woman’s face, but for an instant not recognizing her.
+
+“Miss Grant, don’t you know me? I’m Mrs. Morris—leastways that used to
+be me name. I’m Mrs. Sparks now. I married out there in Ohio, and I’m
+real comfortably fixed. He”—nodding her head toward the man—“has a
+farm and a nice house, and owns several houses in the town besides. But
+I couldn’t rest comfortably noways, a-thinkin’ of you an’ the hole I
+left you in, an’ at last me husband found out what was the matter, an’
+he just brought me on to see how you was gettin’ along, and to say he’d
+help you out of it, if you got badly stuck and pay some of the bills I
+left behind me, but when we got here everything looked so kind of
+different, somehow I couldn’t think ’twas me own house. You don’t look
+as if you was hard up. What’s the meanin’ of it all ennyway, an’ what’s
+goin’ on? Are you expectin’ company?”
+
+Miss Grant’s face shone with welcome and her greeting was cordial, even
+in the midst of this busy time.
+
+“We’re going to have a wedding in half an hour,” she said, “and you’re
+just in time. They will both be delighted to have you here for they are
+two of your old boarders. And you can relieve your mind about me, for
+I’m not in any hole at all, and coming here was the best thing that ever
+happened to me in some ways. I’m grateful to you for giving me a full
+fledged boarding-house. I find every month that I am getting on a little
+more financially. It isn’t great riches, but it is sure.”
+
+“A wedding! For the land sake!” said Mrs. Morris-Sparks, sententiously.
+
+After Miss Grant had excused herself in haste, to answer a call from
+Molly, the guest called after her.
+
+“It must be that nice niece of yours, Miss Murray, but I didn’t never
+think she’d take Bob Yates, she used to be so awful stiff with him, but
+land alive, you never can tell!”
+
+Miss Grant smiled to herself as she hurried down the hall. She would not
+explain now, as the visitor would soon see for herself.
+
+That evening, after all the guests were gone, and the bridal pair had
+departed, Miss Grant took Mrs. Morris-Sparks, and slipping out the front
+door, let her in by a latchkey to the adjoining house which had for
+months been closed, with a “For Rent” sign in the window. This however
+had disappeared. She carefully locked the door behind her, and turning
+up the gas, pointed out the place where wide double doors had been
+roughly drafted on the wall between the two houses. She also enlarged
+upon some other improvements, among them a wide bay window to be added
+in both first and second stories of the front of the house. Then she
+took her upstairs, and showed a suite of rooms beautifully furnished,
+and told the story of how the minister had bought this house and
+furnished these rooms for himself and Celia, and that the houses were to
+be connected, and the remainder of the room used to enlarge the
+boarding-house, in which scheme their hearts were deeply interested. She
+told her, too, how with careful looking to the little details she had
+been enabled not only to make both ends meet, but to have a trifle over,
+and how she hoped in the coming year with the enlargements and her
+present experience actually to make it a paying business.
+
+And Mrs. Morris-Sparks looked and listened, and shook her head, but all
+she could say was, “For the land sake! Who would ’a’ thought it!”
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+Hiram and Nettie Bartlett had been talking a good deal lately about
+running down to Philadelphia to see aunt Hannah and Celia. Hiram was
+feeling that a little ready money in his business would enable him to
+get through a hard time which he saw ahead. Nettie was missing aunt
+Hannah dreadfully, as the hot days grew longer. They had decided that it
+would be a good thing to forget and forgive, and open their home and as
+much of their hearts as was necessary to their relatives. Aunt Hannah
+would manage the kitchen, and Celia would manage the children, and Hiram
+would manage Celia’s money. Having decided matters thus, and made some
+changes in the arrangements of the rooms, to suit the new order of
+things, they began to feel very sure that it was to be. Of course aunt
+Hannah and Celia were thoroughly tired of living in a boarding-house by
+this time, and would welcome the change, and they had but to speak the
+word and they would fly back to Cloverdale. But before they came, it
+would be a pleasant change to take the children to Philadelphia for a
+visit.
+
+No sooner had they decided this than Nettie wrote to aunt Hannah.
+
+The letter reached Philadelphia in the midst of plans for Celia’s
+wedding. They read it together, Celia and aunt Hannah, and looked at one
+another in dismay. Somehow, in the joy of the life they were living,
+they had forgotten to write Nettie anything about Celia’s proposed
+marriage. Perhaps it was but natural, as Nettie very seldom answered
+aunt Hannah’s long letters, which had been written at regular intervals
+at first, until she began to feel that they were not desired. But now
+they both felt that Nettie must be invited.
+
+Celia summoned all the cousinly feeling she had ever possessed for
+Nettie, and wrote her a nice letter, putting into it a little touch of
+her sweet girlish joy over the happiness that had come to her. She
+finished with a cordial invitation to them all to come on, though the
+addition to the family at this time would be extremely inconvenient.
+
+Celia did fret a little over their coming. Hiram would be disagreeable
+and Nettie would want to manage everything, and the children would be
+always about when they were not wanted.
+
+She was sitting one evening thinking about it, with brow knit in
+troubled thought, when Mr. Stafford came in. He watched her a moment,
+and then taking both his hands he placed them over her ruffled brow and
+smoothed the wrinkles out. Then he bent and kissed her forehead fondly.
+
+“What is the matter, dearest?” he said. “I mean to make it my business
+always to keep that troubled look away from your dear face.”
+
+“Oh, Horace! How can I help it? I have tried and tried, but I do not
+seem to be able to conquer the habit. Indeed, I am ashamed of it. Can
+you not tell me how I can conquer it?”
+
+“Only by casting all your care upon him, who careth for you. Listen,
+Celia, have you ever heard this?
+
+           “‘Wherefore should we do ourselves this wrong,
+           Or others, that we are not always strong;
+           That we are ever overborne with care,
+             That we should ever weak or heartless be,
+           Anxious or troubled, when with us is prayer,
+             And joy and strength and courage are with thee?’”
+
+Then Celia opened her heart to him and told him the story of her winter,
+beginning with her birthday and the little bookmark aunt Hannah had
+sent.
+
+“And I thought then, Horace,” she went on, “after that money came to me,
+my ‘daily rate’ for ‘all the days of my life,’ that I would never doubt
+any more because I had money, and with that I would be able to relieve
+most of the other anxieties. But I found it wasn’t so. I began to fret
+about other things, and then after I got money, I wanted love, and now I
+have that, I find I’m still fretting.”
+
+“It’s because you don’t remember that it’s ‘for every day,’ dear, and
+that means for every need of every day. You trust for one set of things,
+but you think you have to worry along and look out for another set. Here
+is a quaint old poem I came across the other day that I cut out and put
+in my pocketbook to read to you some time. It fits in right here, let me
+read it,
+
+              “‘I have a never-failing bank,
+                My more than golden store;
+              No earthly bank is half so rich,
+                How, then, can I be poor?
+
+              “‘’Tis when my stock is spent and gone,
+                And I not worth a groat;
+              I’m glad to hasten to my bank,
+                And beg a little note.
+
+              “‘Sometimes my banker smiling says,
+                Why don’t you oftener come?
+              And when you draw a little note,
+                Why not a larger sum?
+
+              “‘Why live so niggardly and poor,
+                My bank contains a plenty;
+              Why come and take a one-pound note,
+                When you can have a twenty?
+
+              “‘Nay, twenty thousand ten times told
+                Is but a trifling sum,
+              To what my Father has laid up
+                For me in God the Son.
+
+              “‘Since, then, my banker is so rich,
+                I have no need to borrow,
+              But live upon my notes to-day,
+                And draw again to-morrow.’”
+
+Nettie Bartlett settled herself for the homeward trip from Philadelphia
+with a discontented look. She slapped Johnnie when he went to get a
+drink—which he did the first fifteen minutes of the journey—because he
+stepped on her toes. She jerked the baby up who was endeavoring to pick
+a piece of orange peel out of a pool of tobacco juice on the floor, and
+then settled into her discontented silence again. She was thinking about
+the fall sewing and house cleaning, and the endless darning and baking
+and cleaning, with no aunt Hannah to fall back upon. Occasionally, she
+reflected upon the bride’s pretty dress, or had visions of Celia in her
+cloud-like veil looking up with happy eyes into her husband’s face, and
+a half jealous feeling shot through her heart. She knew how Celia felt,
+or thought she did. She had felt so herself, but of course all such
+nonsense was passed. She looked gloomily across at Hiram, who was
+staring stolidly out of the window, with his inevitable newspaper lying
+across his knees. Then she curled her lip and told herself that Celia
+would soon have the sentiment taken out of her by the prose of everyday
+life.
+
+“You made a great mistake by not cultivating that
+minister-cousin-in-law, Nettie,” remarked Hiram, snappily. “I talked to
+him every chance I got, but it takes women and compliments and that sort
+of thing to work on men, and especially ministers, I guess. You ought to
+have invited them to our house for part of their wedding trip. I’m dead
+certain he’s rich. Did you see all that furniture he’s fixed out for
+Celia? He’ll spoil her the first thing off.”
+
+“You made a great mistake yourself, when you let aunt Hannah, and Celia,
+too, go away from our house, and you can’t ever undo it. Yes, I saw the
+furniture, but his mother sent it, for Celia said so. We might have had
+a few blessings, and our children would have been brought up right, if
+aunt Hannah had been with us. She always brings a blessing wherever she
+goes, and we’ve had nothing but ill-luck since she left us,” and Nettie
+put her handkerchief to her eyes and wept while the train sped rapidly
+through the darkness.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+Some weeks later, Celia seated in the pleasant study of the suite of
+rooms which were her new home, and yet her old home, engaged in the
+delightful task of classifying and placing in a cabinet the various
+clippings which her minister husband had gathered about him during his
+bachelor years, came upon this poem. She paused to read it and smiled
+with a little echo of the peace it spoke in her heart, and bent her head
+to thank her Father it was true.
+
+              “The child leans on its parent’s breast,
+              Leaves there its cares and is at rest;
+              The bird sits singing by his nest,
+                  And tells aloud
+              His trust in God, and so is blest
+                  ’Neath every cloud.
+              He has no store, he sows no seed;
+              Yet sings aloud, and doth not heed;
+              By flowing stream or grassy mead,
+                  He sings to shame
+              Men, who forget, in fear of need,
+                  A Father’s name.
+              The heart that trusts forever sings,
+              And feels as light as it had wings;
+              A well of peace within it springs;
+                  Come good or ill,
+              Whate’er to-day, to-morrow brings,
+                  It is his will.”
+
+
+
+
+                           TRANSCRIBER NOTES
+
+Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple
+spellings occur, majority use has been employed.
+
+Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors
+occur.
+
+          [The end of _A Daily Rate_ by Grace Livingston Hill]
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78992 ***