16. CHAPTER XVI.
HOW MR. SANSOUCY CHEATED THE WIND AND THE COLD.
The child had spent so much time in her different visits—
to the office of Mr. Sansoucy, to Mrs. Brown's, and to Miss
Incledon's—with the incident of the meeting with Lucia,
added—that when she left the house, with a hopeless sob,
the afternoon was drawing on, and the day rapidly giving
way, to night.
With dumb lips, but a despairing cry in her heart, she
placed her faint feet once more on the freezing pavement,
and tottered on again as before. All hope seemed to have
left her; in her bosom her weak heart seemed to fail and
die; a cloud passed before her eyes, and the passing flood
of wayfarers seemed to be a part of some great phantasmagoria,
which was playing there before her. Faint for
want of food, for she had scarcely touched anything in the
morning—given over nearly to utter despair, to think that
her uncle and little brother were suffering for want of fire,
and actual bread—her weak feet scarcely rose from the
pavement, her knees bent beneath her, and the cold pitiless
wind struck her to the heart, and laughed at her with
terrible laughter.
Tottering on thus, it seemed that every blast would strike
her to the earth; that every snow-drift would be her deathbed,
that every step would be her last in this world, on
the unpitying earth.
It is a hard thing to feel that life has no hopes, no illusions,
no romance—that the future may be nothing but
weariness—our days passed in a long routine of languid
sickness and regret. But oh! it is harder still to be a
fainting child, and to feel that society ignores you; to be
a poor child, with pain, and suffering, and hunger for the
whole dark future; to know that the hoarse dogs of winter
will soon tear you down, and hurl you on some bank
of snow to die, like an animal, of cold, and wretchedness,
and want. Let a poor writer utter from the depth of his
heart the irrepressible conviction that the state of things
which generates this evil is false and terrible, that society
is deeply culpable for permitting this blot upon her
escutcheon—that one day God will point to these dying
ones, and say, “They were my mother and my brethren,
and ye visited them not, nor aided them, nor took any pity
on them!” For if anything is true, this is true, that
raising up the fainting head of that dying unfortunate,
you hold upon your breast the brow of Him who died
upon the cross—that passing by upon the other side, you
pass by Him who said to Peter, “Feed my lambs.”
Society—a Christian society—let it always be repeated—
takes upon itself a frightful, an enormous responsibility,
in ignoring, in not relieving, all this suffering.
Fainter and fainter the child became as she walked on,
and the movement of her feet was rather mechanical than
otherwise—for she knew not whither she was going.
Colder and colder her heart began to feel, and every blast
of the chill and pitiless wind swept over her like a sharp
steel blade severing her flesh, and driving back to its
inmost retreat the subtle and failing principle of existence.
Still she tottered on, looking with dim, faint eyes upon
the objects around her. An irrepressible unmbness began
to invade her limbs, and she finally fell, rather than sat,
upon a door-step, sheltered from the wind by a projection
of the building.
She leaned her head upon her knees, and cowered thus
from the freezing wind, and tried to pray, as though she
felt that earth was passing from her. But her faculties
were confused, and she scarcely knew her situation. In
another hour she would have sunk from exhaustion, and
been “one more unfortunate” for the avid daily press—but
her end was not to be then.
She was suddenly aroused by a cheering and hopeful
voice, and a heavy hand was laid upon her shoulder—a
heavy and kindly hand.
“Why, my acquaintance of the other day!” exclaimed
Mr. Sansoucy, “miraculously turned up here at my
door-sill!”
And so indeed it was. By a sort of instinct Ellie had
felt that she ought to go and find if Mr. Sansoucy had
returned—and this instinct had guided her wandering
feet until she sank down at his door, too weak to ascend,
and forgetful of her errand.
“Why, you are not asleep, little one!—that is not possible!”
cried Mr. Sansoucy, drawing his cloak around him,
“why, you will freeze. Come up!”
With great difficulty, Ellie, only half aroused from her
death stupor, ascended the stairs; and inserting a key in
the lock of the door bearing the name, “E. Sansoucy,”
her conductor threw it open, and inducted her into his
sanctum.
There was a bright fire burning, and the apartment,
which seemed to be the antechamber to another, and a
larger one, was evidently the business office of an editor.
The floor was covered with journals, the table and chairs
with volumes, and pens, ink and paper—the latter yellow—lay
ready for use upon the table.
Mr. Sansoucy led Ellie to the fire, and more than once
her weak and wandering feet struck against volumes
hidden beneath journals upon the floor—volumes no doubt
written by cruel and unfeeling authors, who had tried to
trip up honest people's faith in truth, and failing, took
revenge by putting themselves thus, as stumbling blocks
in the pathway of a child. They finally reached the fire,
however, and Mr. Sansoucy, making Ellie sit in a low,
comfortable chair—which resembled an island in an ocean
of newspapers—said cheerfally and kindly, as he rubbed
her freezing hand:
“Here we are at last, little one, and you 'll get warm.”
The wind and cold were thus cheated of their prey.
