 | Prismatics |  |
AUNT MIRANDA.
No matter what people might say of Aunt Miranda,
Rowley and I loved her, not in spite of, but because
of her fine stately ways, which were the natural result of
a nice feeling of honor, that suffering had only rendered
more delicate and sensitive. How often have we caught a
glimpse of her tall, upright figure in church, with asperity
written in sharp lines in every lineament, lurking, as it
were, in the angles of her stiff black silk dress, and plaiting
and pointing the little frill that circled her neck, and
thought how patient, good, and noble she really was, how
much better at heart than many around her, who were
considered kinder and more amiable, because they could
assume the thin, specious gloss of conventional courtesy
whenever it suited them.
There were great times when Christmas came, and
Rowley and I had to wait until the younger ones had gone
to bed, before we could steal around to Aunt Miranda's, to
bring her to the house, with the great basket full of dolls,
and jumping jacks, and tin horses, and cornucopias, and
ducks that would cry “quaack” and open their bills, when
you squeezed the patent bellows of white kid upon which
they stood. And then, if at any time in the year, would
the old lady put on one of those sweet smiles, which Rowley
and I thought the most heavenly we had ever seen, as
she filled the stockings of her favorites—little curly-headed
Bell, and sturdy Harry, and poor Peter; whom I believe
she loved best, because he had a lame foot which was incurable,
and the handsomest face of all.
Nor do Rowley and I forget how grand and formal she
was with strangers, and how she never unbent herself before
Margaret, her handmaid, who had lived with her for
thirty years and upward, and how Margaret loved her and
looked up to her; and how, when a man came one night
to see Margaret, what a sad face the old lady had until he
was gone; and how, when Margaret came up with a plate
full of apples for us boys, the old lady said, “Margaret,
never do you marry!” and how poor Margaret burst into
tears and said—“It was only a man from her father's which
and two girls.”
Rowley and I were cousins, but Aunt Miranda was his
aunt, not mine, nor did I ever call her by that name until
one Sunday afternoon, when Rowley took my hand in his,
and went up to her as she was sitting by the front window,
and said, with his eyes cast down, “Aunt Miranda, mayn't
he call you Aunt Miranda, too?” and the old lady brushed
away the glossy brown hair from his forehead, and kissed
it very softly, and then turned away and looked out of the
window again, and I have called her Aunt Miranda ever
since.
It was difficult for Rowley and me to realize that which
the old lady told us of at times; of her grand parties,
when she was young and gay, and her husband was one of
the richest and handsomest men of his time; of the costly
dresses she used to wear, and the jewels and rouge; and,
most difficult of all to imagine, of her card parties, when
she would sit up until near morning, playing for money,
and not incousiderable sums either, to please her husband,
who wished her to be as fashionable and brilliant as
himself.
Rowley and I used to think, at times, the old lady felt
some pride in recalling these scenes, when she was a blooming
wreck and ruin which followed; of her gallant and handsome
husband dying of the fever, a bankrupt; and of her
taking nearly all her own property to pay his debts (which
she need not have done), until the last creditor was satisfied;
and then Aunt Miranda was left with a slender pittance
and an only daughter to begin the world anew.
But of that daughter not a word had been spoken for
many a year. Rowley and I could just call to mind a face
possessed of such beauty as children remember like a
dream, and perhaps never find again in life; her name
was no more mentioned by Aunt Miranda, nor did Rowley
or I know any thing except that it was a mystery, not to
be breathed, at home or abroad, to others or ourselves.
We heard once of a Mrs. Dangerfeldt—that was all—
whether living or dead we did not know, and did not dare
to inquire.
One day, when Rowley was lying dangerously ill with
the quinsy sore-throat, I went to ask Aunt Miranda to
come and see him, for he loved to have her by his bedside.
The cellar door, in those days, was never fastened until
night, and as it was Sunday afternoon, I knew Margaret
was at church, so, without giving the old lady the trouble
of coming to the hall door, I opened the cellar softly and
lonely kitchen on Sunday afternoon, when the fires have
died out, and the cat sits, looking wicked and suspicious,
amid the cold ashes on the hearth. I know my footsteps
were as light as pussy's own when I passed through, for I
did not want to disturb the silence which reigned there,
and so, ascending the narrow stairs, I found myself in the
hall. The parlors were open—they too were vacant.
Then it was, while wondering at the solitude, I heard a
sound in the upper room, so unlike any thing I had ever
heard—not a cry of grief, or groan of pain—but a faint,
inarticulate moaning, so different from a human voice, and
yet so unlike that of an animal, that my very flesh crept
with terror. My pores seemed to drink in the sounds as I
stood there, dumb with indefinable dread, and some moments
elapsed before I could collect my thoughts. Then
it came to me that Aunt Miranda might be in a fit, or
something of the kind, and so, without waiting, I bounded
up the stairs and thrust open the door of her apartment.
There was a small black trunk upon the floor, open;
and scattered around it lay several dresses which had evidently
belonged to some little child. But oh, the piercing
lustre of those eyes which glared upon me as she rose from
her knees when I entered! That wild, terrible look, as if
the mystery which had been buried, as within a tomb, for
so many years! Her cap was thrust back from her high
forehead, and the thick black locks, mingled with gray,
appeared to writhe around her fingers like serpents, as she
came on; her lips working, but uttering no sound, until
her face was so close I could feel her hot breath upon my
cheek—and then stretching forth her fingers as if to clutch
me, her voice came forth in a fierce, passionate sob, and
she fell forward, and rolled over at my feet.
It was the most awful moment in my life, as I stood
there with clasped hands, looking upon the poor, senseless
form before me; instantly I heard a heavy step upon the
stairs; fortunately, it was the faithful Margaret who had
returned, and the blood rushed to my heart with such joy
when I saw her homely, good-natured face, that I well-nigh
swooned with the sudden revulsion.
Some time elapsed before I saw Aunt Miranda again.
It was at night, in my bedroom; a few sticks were smouldering,
and darting fitful gleams of light from the hearth,
upon the looped up curtains of the bed; flickering warmly
within the folds of chintz; and now and then bringing to
view a sickly array of small bottles on the mantel. Rowley
was sitting at the foot of the bed, and beside it, holding
angelic smile upon her face, which Rowley and I loved so
much, was Aunt Miranda. I had been delirious for some
weeks with the brain fever.
Rowley and I loved each other dearly. We had had
too many bickerings—too many little quarrels—too many
heartfelt reconciliations—for either of us not to know that.
So after we graduated (and Rowley had the valedictory),
we commenced the study of medicine together, with Dr.
Frisbee, and after that was over, put up our two narrow,
black tin signs, with gold letters, on a very white window
shutter, one under the other, in a secluded part of the
town, where practice was plenty, and patients were poor.
How many times Aunt Miranda came to visit us!
She seemed to know all that was going on among the poor
folks in our neighborhood, although she lived in a distant
part of the town; and if she did not abate one jot of her
dignity when with the poor, her efforts to relieve the sufferers
never flagged; there she was, by the bedside, with
the same smile Rowley and I loved so much (that angelic
smile), and often and often a fee was paid us out of her
own pocket, when our services had been more arduous than
usual. It was of no use to refuse it. Aunt Miranda had
an imperative way with her, so lofty, we did not dare to
was worth more to us than that of all the rest of our patients
put together.
It was a dreary night in mid-winter (how well I remember
it), when Rowley and I met at the door of our office
after the usual rounds among the sick. It was late
too; the only light visible was a sort of luminous halo
which surrounded the cellar window of a baker, far up the
street, who was preparing bread for the morning. Lamps
there were none, but a moon was somewhere, which only
made the gloom palpable the snow did not fall, but swept
through the streets in horizontal lines, blinding and stinging
“like wasps' tails,” as the old watchman said around
the corner. While we stood there knocking the snow off
our feet, a large willow tree was blown down across the
road, and a white ghastly sheet dropt with a lond noise
from the roof of an adjoining house. Rowley and I were
glad to get by the office hearth, on which a few embers kept
a bright look-out among the ashes, and so laying on the
wood we soon had a cheerful hickory fire. Still the wind
growled and mumbled outside, with the dreary accompaniment
of creaking signs and groaning trees; sometimes it
lulled for a moment, only to return with appalling violence
—the house fairly rocked with it, and we could hear the
Tired as we were, we did not think of sleep, but sat as
men sometimes will in great storms, telling dismal stories, or
listening to the noises outside, or talking of the poor we had
visited, many of whom were ill provided with shelter against
such pitiless weather. So the time passed on beyond midnight;
the wind by and by went down, but the snow kept
falling softly and fast;—I thought I heard a noise—hush!—
a muffled sound like a watchman's club in the distance—then
another—then voices approaching, we heard heavy steps on
our stoop, and a loud knock at the door. Rowley and I sprang
to our feet in an instant, and putting back the bolt, saw three
men, watchmen, bearing a body; we assisted them in, they
laid him (it was a man) upon our bed, which stood partly
behind the office door; he was not dead, but very nearly so.
Upon examination, we found three wounds in the left
temple; the central one larger than the other two, but
none of them more than the eighth of an inch square, nor
much more than an inch apart—they were deep, however,
as we ascertained by the probe. The largest wept a little
blood with every pulsation; the man was insensible, but
his chest heaved strongly; we knew he could not live long,
in fact in the course of an hour his breathing grew fainter,
and fainter—stopped: he was dead.
The fatal blow had been given with a weapon so different
from any thing we could imagine, that we had a long
discussion as to the probabilities, as we sat there by the
body alone; for the watchmen had left us to see if they
could follow the track of the murderer. We talked on in
whispers: outside it grew into a dead calm, and now it
was almost daybreak.
“Hush!” said Rowley, “there is some one on the
stoop.”
We listened,—there was a faint tap on the window
shutter. Rowley threw open the office door, stepped into
the hall, and drew the bolt. “What do you want?”—
There was no answer, but I heard a step in the hall: a
man walked past him, and entered the office. As I said
before, the bed was partly hidden by the door, and as the
man walked directly towards me, he did not see that which
lay behind there, close to the wall, on the side opposite to
the fireplace.
He was a tall, and had been a muscular, man, but now
worn down with sickness, or famine, or both; a mass of
brown hair fell from beneath his cap, and mingled with his
bushy whiskers, which met under his throat; his clothes
were poor, miserably so; there was no sign of a shirt at his
neck, or around his broad, bony wrists; yet I did not
had a proud, defiant look, that was far from asking any
thing of the world—in fact, a man you might shrink
from, but could not despise.
“You are a physician?” he said, in a slightly broken
accent, German, I thought. I bowed. “And,” he continued,
placing his hand on his brow as if to recollect
something—“yes—let me see—if you will go—I will take
you there”—he uttered with a sharp emphasis—“myself.
Yet something may happen; it is food, warmth, shelter,
she requires, as well as medicines—take this, you, for fear
of accidents!” He displayed a roll of bills which he
held clutched in his left hand—“stay,” he added, and
taking one or two, which he thrust into an old ragged
pocket, offered the rest to me.
Just then, Rowley shut the office door. The man
turned suddenly—such a look as he gave that bed! There
it lay—the jaws bound up—the white cerements soaked
with blood from the temples, ghastlier, if possible, by
the dull flame of the office candle, and the uncertain
light from the fire. But recovering instantly, with a slight
bow to me, the man said, “Come, you may save a life—an
hour hence may be too late.”
I took my cloak. He opened the door without looking
my arm and whispered, “I suspect that man; had we not
better—”
“No,” I replied. “The dying woman first—that is
something the law takes no cognizance of.” So, wrapping
my cloak closely around me, I followed.
When I stepped out into the street, I was surprised at
the change; the moon was now shining brilliantly in the
heavens, and the hushed snow looked beautiful in her light.
Every roof, wall, and chimney threw down a flat, black
effigy of itself, in sharp, clearly defined shadow on that
white, sparkling ground. Here and there a tree spread its
delicate tracery against the sky; carts, piled up with snow,
stood hub-deep in snow; fences half-buried in snow; piles
of logs, with their black ends projecting from a pyramid of
snow; pumps, with beards of icicles, and crowns of snow;
snow everywhere, on everything, met the eye at every step.
Absorbed as I had been with the events of the night, I could
not help looking with admiration upon this beautiful scene,
which I had come upon so unexpectedly. So, walking on in
silence with my companion, we came close to a man before
I was aware. It was one of the watchmen, who had gone
to look after the track of the murderer.
“Ah, Doctor—another call, hey?”
“Yes.”
“Waal, we ain't got onto the right scent yet; Bobbins
and Towsey has gone down to the Coroner's; we tracked
him way up beyond the burying ground, and then we kind
o' think he must 'a doubled;” (either it was imagination,
or my companion drew closer to my side)—“but he
can't be fur off. Body down there yet?”—He pointed
toward the office.
“Yes.”
“All right, I hope—dead, I 'spect, hey?”
“Yes.”
“Good night.”
I had a feeling of relief when the watchman uttered
these last words, which I echoed with all my heart. We
passed the bakery, now paling its ineffectual fires, and
struck into a narrow cross-street. It grew darker, for a
cloud crossed the moon—we came to a blind alley or entry
—my companion went in, and I.
The snow had drifted into the alley some distance, but
I soon found myself upon bare boards, rotted in the
centre, forming a sort of gutter, in which my foot caught
more than once as we passed through. Then we came to
a narrow yard, with a high fence; we went up an outside
staircase, so old and flighty it trembled with every step;
which we were obliged to grope our way. I must confess,
I felt some trepidation to be alone with such a man, in
such a place. “Duty—courage!” I muttered. The
words went straight to my heart, and I was reassured:
we came to a door which my companion opened, and I
found myself in a little room.
The cloud had passed from the moon, and her light
shone full through the dormer window, casting the outlines
of the casement down upon the floor, which was partly
covered with snow that had blown through the broken
panes. A bed, if bed it could be called, was in one corner,
and as we entered, a figure sat up, and turned its face
toward us and the moonlight.
There have been moments in my life, (and such, I believe,
is the experience of many,) when what was before
me seemed the remembrance only of something seen before
—as if the same thing passed over twice—as if one had a
glimpse of pre-existence, identical with this, but referable
to life beyond the scope of memory; more vivid than any
dream, but more fleeting and mysterious.
Such a feeling I had, when that face turned toward us
and the moonlight. It was that of a woman. Long,
black elf-locks coiled around a face, wasted, it is true, but
still surprisingly beautiful. The brilliant hectic, which accompanies
eyes were large, and from the same cause, lustrous; she
gave a smile of recognition, it seemed, which showed a row
of white teeth, and suddenly turning, lifted a bundle from
the bed, which she rocked to and fro.
“It is our little one,” said the man, “wait here; I am
going for something to build a fire.” He turned, and then
I heard his heavy footsteps as he descended the outside
stairs. Frequent as had been my opportunities of seeing
the condition of the poor, nothing I had met with could
compare with the utter barrenness of that apartment. With
the exception of the bed, which lay upon the floor (a miserable
heap of ragged carpet), there was nothing to be
seen; neither table, nor chair, nor plate, nor cup, nor a
single article to cook with; the walls were black with
smoke and dirt, but there was no vestige of a fire; there
was nothing in the room, but the rags, the woman and
her child, and the snow. Yet to me it seemed a recollection
of something seen before.
The man returned now with short pieces of firewood
from the neighboring bakery, and a bright fire sparkled
upon the desolate hearth. Then he laid a loaf tenderly by
her side and said, “She has not tasted such as that for
weeks—but what shall we do, now, Doctor?”
A young physician has need of practice among the
enough in ordinary cases, to obtain a certain degree
of skill in examining the diagnosis of a peculiar complaint.
Sickness is, indeed, a sad visitant among those in comfortable
circumstances, but when it comes accompanied with
penury, cold, and famine; when the fever, or the pestilence,
stalks among the helpless indigent, it is indeed terrible.
Look at the records of the City Inspector, ye who
have abundant means, and believe me, it is a lesson better
worth learning than many a plethoric sermon you listen to
in your velvet-lined pew!
The woman now lay on the floor, motionless, in a sort
of torpor, with her eyes partly open; it did not require
much penetration to discover the symptoms of that visitation
known as the malignant scarlet fever. It had been
vprevalent in our neighborhood, and the cases were unusually
fatal; so I told him, as I rested on my knees by the
bedside. He said nothing, but merely clasped his hands
and pressed them very hard over his eyes.
“Have you nothing,” said I, “to close up those broken
panes, and keep out this bitter cold?”
He took off his poor ragged coat, but I told him my
old cloak would be better, which he accepted thankfully,
and stuffed it into the apertures of the casement. In
of snow beneath the window. It was a piece of oak
stick about five feet long, and a few inches in width,
studded with nails driven through it, as if it had been a
cleat or batten, stripped from some old house or box; it
was also broken at one end. He laid it hastily upon the
fire, but it was so saturated with moisture it would not
burn. I knew not why, but I watched with intense interest
the flames idly curling around it.
“How old is this child?” I was looking at the wasted
features of his little girl.
“About four years; our boy was fifteen, he is dead;
I could almost say—thank God.”
“She has not the fever I perceive—if I may take her
with me, I am sure I will find for her a place of shelter.
(I thought of aunt Miranda's.) To move your wife now
would be fatal—we must make her comfortable here if possible.”
He bowed his head slightly. “You can—you will attend
to that, I hope,” he said. “If I am called away, you
have the money I gave you, which use as you think best.”
“Money? you gave me no money,” I replied; “you
offered it but I did not take it—do you not remember when
the office door shut, and you turned around so suddenly?”
The man stared at me with a wild unutterable look in
his eyes, which made me shrink back; he clutched his
breast convulsively with his hand, threw open the door, and
staggered out as if struck with a blow. Just then I heard
footsteps on the outside stairs; then a noise; voices; and
a scuffle. I ran out; two men, officers of police, had him
by the arms, but he was swaying them like reeds. Suddenly
one of his assailants slipped, and fell the whole length
of the stairs; in a moment he had lifted the other and
thrown him over the rails, down, perhaps twenty feet, into
the yard below; and then with a bound cleared it himself,
regained his feet, and dashed through the alley. I went
down to assist the policemen. One was stunned by the
fall down the stairs—in fact nearly dislocated his neck;
the other had sprained his ankle and could not walk.
“He's paddled, Jimmy,” said the man with the bad ankle.
Jimmy, who was sitting up on his end in the snow,
assented to the truth of the remark by a short grunt.
“That's the man, Doctor;” growled the policeman, as
I assisted him to rise; “he dropt a roll of bills in your
office, which belonged to dizeezed. Also we found his
pocket-book empty in the street, and a piece of batten,
with three nails, that fits the wownds. Where's that
Barker?” he continued. Barker hopped upon one leg to
up the stairs, took off the now partly-burnt oak stick
from the fire, and found the fractured end fitted exactly
the piece found by the officers. There was no doubt as to
who was the murderer.
It was now broad daylight. One of the officers took a
survey of the room—the woman still lay asleep; then he
assisted his limping companion through the alley; I was
again alone, but Rowley soon joined me. After a brief
recital of the events which had passed, I borrowed his
cloak, wrapped it around the little girl, and leaving him
with the patient, carried my light young burden toward
the house of Aunt Miranda.
Was it not strange that she, the proud, unbending
Aunt Miranda, was the only one of all my acquaintances,
with whom I could take such a liberty? In truth I felt
as if I had been commanded by her to do what I was doing.
Such a thing as her refusing to admit the faint, thin,
ghostly little unfortunate, with its manifold wants—carrying
in its veins, perhaps, a deadly pestilence, never entered
my mind. I was not mistaken; I remember now how
gently, and yet how grandly she took the slight load of
poverty in her arms—not holding it from, but pressing
it to her breast; how, an hour after, I found it wide awake,
dresses I imagined I had seen years before, on a certain
occasion, when my boy's heart seemed shrivelling up with
terror. I had told her the story of the man and his wife,
and asked her advice. She coincided with me that it
would not do to remove the sufferer, but added, “we can
make her room comfortable, I trust,” and then in a stiff,
precise sort of way—“Margaret and I will nurse the poor
creature by turns. Has she no friends, no family
connections here?” she asked, after a pause.
“None, I imagine; surely if she had they would have
some pity for her. Even the poorest might have spared
something for such an abject.”
“I think,” said the old lady, “I will go there now.
Margaret! my shawl and hat; bring the muff too;
it is bitter cold. Let the man stop shovelling the
snow from the walk; give him three blankets and a
pillow, and let him go with me. Do you go on before,”
she continued, looking at me; “you walk faster than I.”
Then she turned to the child with one of those angelic
smiles Rowley and I loved so much, and lifting it gently
from her lap, laid it in a warm little nest she had made for
it on the sofa. I gave her directions how to find the place,
and once more was on my way towards my patient.
When I reached the miserable street in which she lived,
I met Rowley. He told me he had procured an old black
wench to act as nurse; “but,” said he, “I fear it will be
of little avail; she has been delirious ever since you left,
and calls in the most piteous way for her child—her `Andy.'
From what I gather, she must have eloped, or something
of the kind, when very young. I never saw any thing
more touching than the way she stretches out her arms
and cries, `Forgive me, mother; forget and forgive, oh my
mother!' I believe too,” continued Rowley, “they were
not married at first, but a year or so after she ran away.
I had some broth made for her, which she ate but little of,
putting it aside and calling `Andy! Andy! here—my child,
my child!' ”
“Andy,” said I, “is a boy's name.”
“So it is,” answered Rowley; “I do not know how to
account for it, but she evidently meant the little girl, for
she kept feeling in the vacant place for her. Sometimes
she would upbraid her, and say, `You have learnt my lesson
by heart, you wicked Andy; but you are worse than I, for
you began younger.' I gave her an anodyne,” continued
Rowley, “but it has had little effect upon her—poor thing;
she cannot live, I fear.”
While we were talking, we saw coming up the street,
followed by the man with the basket and the blankets.
Although her dress was always plain, and never costly,
the old lady had such a way with her you could not mistake
her for a resident of that quarter; nor would you take her
to be a relative, or an acquaintance of the people there. You
felt at once she was on a mission of some kind; and yet
there was nothing about her of the benevolent lady who
might be vice-president of fifty auxiliary sewing societies,
and who, by personal inspection, kept a sharp look-out that
no impostor, in the disguise of a pauper, swallowed any
crumbs that fell from the tables of the humane association
for the relief of the meritorious indigent. There
was not a drop of haughty blood in her veins, nor the
slightest touch of condescension in her manner—with her,
it was one of two things, either real, heart-felt kindness, or
firm, inexorable pride.
When she came up, Rowley and I made her acquainted
with the present state of our patient, and of her anxiety
for the child we had spirited away. We also mentioned
the fact of her speaking of her own mother, and hinted at
the possibility of her having committed some unpardonable
act; such as an elopement without marriage, or the like,
by which she had disgraced her family. We did not go
passed over the face of Aunt Miranda. “Well, well,” she
said, rather sharply, “let us go on, let us go on, and see
what can be done for her—poor creature.”
I have read of officers, who, in the battle-field, preserved
the stiff, erect carriage of the parade ground, but
my doubt about the truth of the story never entirely disappeared
until I saw Aunt Miranda aseend that staircase.
We reached the room—“Shall I leave these here?” said
the man who brought the blankets.
“No—stay until I tell you to go,” replied Aunt Miranda.
He obeyed of course.
If the room looked dismal by moonlight and early
dawn, it was doubly so in the broad, open sunlight. The
walls, begrimed with smoke, and stained with water, that
had trickled from the roof, were full of cracks and crevices;
here and there large pieces of plaster had fallen, exposing
the laths; the floor, no longer hidden by the snow, was
spongy with age, and rotted away in some places, and the
miserable heap which served for a bed, was a sickening
bundle of mouldy rags and fragments of old carpet. “I
never saw such misery,” said Aunt Miranda, looking at me
and clasping her hands.
The poor old blear-eyed wench, who was rocking herself
and offered it to Aunt Miranda. The old lady took it with
the tips of her fingers, gave it a shake or two, and sat
down in her lofty way beside the bed. The woman, lying
with her face partly covered, partly turned to the wall, was
muttering something to herself. At last we could make
out these words:—
“The cunning minx when she looked up at me with her
bright, wicked eyes, learned that secret then. She drew
it from me as I suckled her at the breast; drew it from me
when a babe—I learned it, and she learned it. But she
began earlier than I. Why not? The son did so. But
he died in my arms, poor boy, when his race was run. But
Andy I shall see no more. Never, never. That's a lesson
for mothers. Your boys are always your boys, but your
girls are other men's. My mother! my mother! my
mother! Let her pull up the green grass from my grave,
and trample on it, yet I will love her better than my
daughter loves me. Yes, yes. The sun dies and the day
dies, but we keep close to the men we love. Let him beat
me—let me scoop the crust from the swill of our neighbors,
yet we love on. He stole me in the snow, and we'll die in
the snow. There are the bells and the Bays round the
corner; off only for a frolic and a dance—but we never
for her daughter—waiting—waiting. There she sits now,
mother, mother, mother! He had a sweet voice once; oh
the songs—the songs that won my heart!” Here she sat
up erect in the bed, and turned her brilliant eyes full upon
Aunt Miranda.
I had been watching that gothic countenance during
the monologue of the poor creature, wrapped in her rags.
I had noticed the gradations which passed over it—first of
patient complaisance, then of pity, then of absorbed interest.
But when those large bright eyes flashed upon Aunt
Miranda, she started with such an instant, terrible look of
recognition—with the history of a whole life of sorrow, as
it were, written on her face in a moment, that it was absolutely
appalling. I read it at once. The mystery had
unfolded itself before me. That inexorable spirit; those
lineaments, saving the slight tremulous motion of the chin,
rigid as sculptured stone; those fixed dilated eyes, were
those of the mother, who, without seeking for, had found,
after seventeen years, in yonder squalid heap, her daughter,
her only child, once her pride, her hope—now, what?
“Do not hurt me,” said the poor creature, shrinking
from her, “I will not harm you for the world.”
I saw the tremulous motion from the chin spread itself
her eyes, her pride was unequal to this trial. The foundation
gave way, then the superstructure fell—was submerged
for ever, and above it rose the beautiful rainbow of consolation.
She took the squalor, the misery, the pestilence, the
poor wreek of a life in her arms, and sanctified it with a
mother's pity, and a mother's blessing.
I felt at this time an uncommon moistening of the eyelids;
and the man with the blankets managed to drop his
basket, with a view probably of relieving his mind. As
for the poor wench, she was in a corner, and a paroxysm of
tears.
To tell how our patient recovered, how little Miranda,
or “Andy,” as we called her, budded and bloomed into
womanhood; how the body of Dangerfeldt was found in
the river, near the Dry Dock, that fatal morning, would, I
fear, not add much to my story. But Aunt Miranda grew
in grace, her pride was gone, she became the meekest of
the meek; only upon two occasions, in after life, did she
remind me of her former self: one was that of the marriage
of Margaret, her handmaid, to the man with the
four children (who had lost his wife, by the way); and
the other was, when a sharp, prying, inquisitive little
woman asked her, in a free and easy sort of way, “if the
accident, or something of the kind, when he came to
his end?”
One day, a wet and stormy one I remember, the 24th
of December, Aunt Miranda had bought a large turkey, of
a huckster, in the market. She always bargained for
every thing—paid what she agreed to pay—and kept herself
comfortably within the limits of her income. So she knew
always exactly the state of her finances, which she kept
not in a book, but in a long ash-colored silk purse. When
she came home she found the man had paid her two cents
too much. So back to market goes Aunt Miranda, in a
very nervous state, for fear the man might be off before
she got there. Fortunately the man was there, to whom
she returned the money belonging to him, but unfortunately
she took a cold, from which she never recovered.
It was more like the living, than the dead face, of Aunt
Miranda, that which lay in the coffin, with the smile upon
the face, Rowley and I loved so much—that angelic
smile!
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