14. CHAPTER XIV.
HOW ELLIE MET WITH HER FRIEND LUCIA.
Ellie hastened on, wrapping her cold hands in her
thin apron, and bending down her head to avoid the
freezing wind which swept over the snow, and around the
corners, and flapped the shutters angrily.
She hastened on, and after a long walk, came to the
street described on the card. The address needed not to
be scanned again; it was engraved on her memory, and
she soon found herself at the house. She ascended a
flight of stairs, then another, and finally came to a door
upon which a plate with the name “E. Sansoucy,” was
affixed.
She knocked timidly, but no reply was given; and
unconsciously the child turned the knob; the door was
locked—Mr. Sansoucy was not within!
For a moment Ellie felt weak and faint, and a cloud
seemed to pass before her eyes, from which the name engraved
upon the plate gleamed pitilessly, as though every
letter were a goblin, and felt an irrepressible desire to laugh
at her and defy her. Her knees bent beneath her, and
sinking down upon the steps, she covered her face and
burst into tears of very weakness and despair.
Oh, to see her last hope pass from her—to be met thus
by an obstinate and pitiless fate—to feel that her struggles
were in vain, her hopes but ashes, her future and the future
of her uncle, delivered into the hands of those grim
jailors, Hunger and Despair! To feel that nothing was
now left—that there was no hope—that even God seemed
to have deserted her, and turned away his face! That
was the cruel pang which tore her heart—she could endure
all but that! Nothing was spared her, and under this
last blow, her heart bent down, faint and sick and ready
to abandon any further struggle.
The child remained thus for some moments silent and
motionless in the presence of her destiny—battling with
it, and crying out in her heart for some poor crumb of
comfort. With a sort of terror at her doubts she murmured
a passionate prayer, and rose up, wringing her hands
and sobbing.
Where should she go—what should she do? But one
hope was left—work from Mrs. Brown or Miss Incledon,
and speedy work; work, at which she might toil day and
night, wearing her fingers away, but accomplishing it.
She roused herself and set forward again with the resignation
of despair.
Mrs. Brown's shop was shut. As her eyes fell upon
the cold, cruel door, the child felt her throat contract; and
her breast shook. One hope alone was left then—Miss
Incledon, who possibly might have returned. She set
forward as rapidly as she could towards the house.
As she was going along thus, Ellie suddenly found herself
close to a young girl, who seemed to be wandering
forlornly about without any settled object. She was a
child of twelve or thirteen, with dark hair, dark eyes,
and the imperceptible tinge of brown which characterizes
the inhabitants of southern lands. Another glance told
that her extraction was Italian—for seldom do the women
of northern countries possess the large liquid eyes which
looked out, full of sadness, from the face of this child.
She was miserably clad, and had in her countenance a
species of dumb despair, which told a tale of want not to
be misunderstood.
“Oh, Lucia!” said Ellie, with a feeling of despairing
comfort at seeing a familiar and friendly face, “I am so
glad to see you, though you do not look well. Where are
you going?
“Nowhere,” said Lucia, in a voice of melancholy sweetness,
and with an Italian accent, “I was just wandering,
Ellie.”
And Lucia mechanically pressed the child's hand, and
walked on beside her.
“I was so sorry—so much grieved—to hear”—faltered
Ellie, endeavoring not to excite her companion's feelings,
“to hear of your loss, Lucia. Indeed, I was coming to
you, but—but—Uncle Joe is very sick.”
And Ellie suppressed a sob which threatened to drown
her voice.
“Yes,” said Lucia with a sort of mechanical movement
of her head, and without shedding any tears, or exhibiting
other signs of emotion, “Yes, I am alone now—alone in
the world.”
“Oh, not alone!” said Ellie, moved by the sad, sweet
face, “we are not alone! You have lost your earthly
father, but your Father in heaven remains!”
Lucia looked at her companion with a puzzled expression:
then with the same mechanical movement of her
head, said,
“You mean God?”
“Oh, yes!”
“I do not believe in God,” said the child, calmly.
“Not believe in him!”
“No!”
“Oh, Lucia!”
“How can I!” said the child, with a sort of momentary
fire in her dark eyes, which, however, soon disappeared, as
she went on speaking, “I have thought a great deal about
a God, and I have tried to believe that there was one, who
would love me, Ellie. But I do not believe there is—no
there is not—I do not believe it,” she added, calmly, again.
Ellie looked at her friend for some moments with mute
grief, as though she had wholly forgotten her own troubles
in presence of this distressing incredulity.
“Oh, Lucia!” she said, “you make me feel so badly
by your unbelief. I have enough to distress me already,
and you ought not to add to it. Not believe in God!”
said the child, with a sort of incredulous pity, “oh,
Lucia! how unhappy you must be!”
“I am!” said the child. “I am very unhappy.”
“Oh! but trust in God!”
“I cannot.”
“But try, Lucia! pray for faith, and submission, and
pardon—pray to Him, and He will not turn away!”
“How can I? I do not believe in him,” added the
child, obstinately. “If there is a God, he has made me
wretched!” she cried, with despairing energy. “All that
I love in the world is gone. I am sick of life!”
A hectic flush covered the wan cheek, and the child was
silent. Ellie had this new burthen to bear, and only those
with the warm feelings which the child possessed can comprehend
the pain she felt at hearing all that she clung to
and leaned upon, thus set at defiance and rejected.
“Oh, Lucia! Lucia! how unhappy you make me!”
she cried, “how my heart bleeds for you! How miserable
you must be not to put any trust in God, or the Saviour
who died for us. You are wretched, you say, and that
makes you doubt God. But oh! it is wrong!—it is
wrong! This world is not a place for happiness only, but
God means we should be tried. Our faith would be
nothing if we were always happy, and in the last words
Jesus said to his disciples, he told them that they should
suffer all sorts of misfortunes. Oh, pain, and sickness,
and misery, are not driven away by God, for they often
make us better. Jesus suffered all these, and died for us
on the cross;—and after all this, you say God has no love
for us!”
The child's face was beautiful as she uttered these
words, and such was the kindness and earnest tenderness
of her voice, that the frozen heart began to melt, and the
child Lucia's despair to give way to tears—that blessed
rain, which waters the dry and brittle heart, and keeps it
from breaking with its load of anguish.
“God loved us so that he gave his only son for us,”
said Ellie, earnestly, “and Jesus suffered more than we
can ever suffer. But he did not doubt God; he said,
`Father, thy will be done,' even when he was drinking the
bitter cup of agony, the bible says. He suffered pain and
sorrow—he was beaten, and bruised, and crucified. He
came to save us, poor, sick-hearted ones, and he loved us
so dearly that he gave his life for us. Oh, he will never
desert us if we trust in Him!”
“If I could only believe it!—if I could only believe
it!” murmured the child, bending down her head.
“Pray to him, Lucia, and you will—indeed you will.
He offers his love to all—He tells all that will, to come
and take the water of life freely—no matter how poor, and
wicked, and unhappy they are. It is offered to all; and
if you are poor, and hungry, and sick, he will love and
pity you all the more.”
The child's head drooped lower, and the frozen heart
began to beat. There was such tenderness in Ellie's voice
that it penetrated the crust of misery and despair, and
shone in the poor bruised heart like a heavenly light.
Ellie saw that her friend was not so unhappy, and said:
“Do not think so any more, Lucia, please. Indeed it
is wrong—oh, indeed it is! It is not the grand and the
happy only who are called—it is the poor and miserable
too; and they have more need of God's protection. I am
not saying what I do not believe—for oh! Lucia, I am
not happy—that is, I have so much to make me unhappy.
Uncle Joe is sick, and we have nothing to eat, and I do
not know what is to become of us,” faltered Ellie, “but I
trust in God. I know that he will not desert me—oh,
no! no! He will never desert me, if I put my faith and
trust in Him! Oh, Lucia!” added the child, putting her
arm tenderly round her companion's neck and crying, “do
not think He will desert us because we are poor and
unhappy! He came to suffer for us—for me and you—
and he has promised never to desert us if we love him and
give him our hearts, and be his little children!”
And Ellie leaned her head upon the child's shoulder,
and sobbed and cried, and in her heart prayed for her.
