University of Virginia Library

11. CHAPTER XI.

Fully determined that if her brother had any cause of
complaint against her it should not go unatoned for, Rosalie's
first desire the next morning was to see him.

If he only knew!—she thought.

But he did not know—he could not guess that of all the
cares upon her heart his welfare was the chiefest,—that for
his sake she would have gone through any possible difficulty
or danger. Sometimes she half thought he did know it,—
that her love was appreciated if not quite returned; and
sometimes she did not know what to think.

In this mood she got up as early as the tardy daylight
would permit, and dressing herself softly that she might not
wake Hulda, stood leaning against the door-post with clasped
hands and a very grave, quiet face, waiting to hear him go
down. She was not sure but this was one of his mornings
for an early drill. The step came at last, and no sooner had
it fairly past her door than her light foot followed. Down
the stairs and into the breakfast-room—but he was not there.
Had she mistaken another step for his? He came behind

her at the moment, and with his lips upon her forehead inquired,
`What in the world she was after, at that time in the
morning?'

`O, I was after you—' she said, looking up at him and
then as quick down again; for something in his eyes had
brought her very heart welling up to her own.

`To ask me to beg your pardon for last night's offences?'
said Thornton, as he drew her to a seat by him on the
sofa.

`No indeed!'

`It is done unasked then, Alie. I should hate myself
for a month if I thought my words had grieved you half as
much as they did me. I suppose I need not ask whether I
am forgiven?'

He had no answer at all events.

`Hush—you are a foolish child,' Thornton said. `Why
Alie, what was it you took so much to heart?'

`Nothing—not that. But oh, Thornton,—I wish you
knew me a little better!'

`So do not I—I know you quite well enough now for
my own comfort. If I knew you any better I should probably
absent myself permanently, and leave the field clear
to some one who would take better care of you. As it is,
Alie, I choose to persuade myself that we can live on together.'

What a look she turned on him.

`Well now let us hear what you have to say, pretty one,'
said her brother admiringly. `What has your little head
been at work upon?'

`I was thinking—I was afraid that perhaps I had said
too much last night,—more than I ought—to you. If you
knew my feeling you would not blame me, but the words
might seem unkind; and I was very sorry. I will try not
to fail in that way again.'

`My dear little sister,' said Thornton laughing, `you
really are too absurd! To hear you make promises of
amendment is very like hearing you say that for the future
you intend to look pretty, or any such work of supererogation.
You—who never thought said or did anything but
goodness in your whole life.'

`Which proves how little you know me.'

`We will agree to have different opinions on that point.
At present you are my standard of perfection.'

`Ah but you have no right to take any such standard,
dear Thornton. Think what perfection is, and what the
Bible standard, before you apply either word to me.'

`I must be allowed to have my own ideas on the subject,
nevertheless,' said Thornton. `But Alie, you fairly
frightened me by getting up so early this morning. I didn't
know but you were going to pay your friend Mrs. Raynor a
visit.'

The implication raised so very slight a colour, that
Thornton's spirits improved at once.

`Alie!' called out Hulda's little voice from over the
balusters, `won't you please come? because Martha isn't
here, and I want to get up so much.'

`Run!' said Thornton laughing. `It is hard to take
care of two people, isn't it? Here you have been bestowing
your attentions upon me, leaving that child to get out of bed
alone at the risk of breaking her neck. I wonder, by the
way, what `getting up' is supposed to mean, in infant parlance.'

`And I wonder who gave you leave to come out and
stand on the cold oil-cloth, little one?' said Rosalie as she
ran up stairs and stooped down by the little night-gowned
and night-capped figure. Hulda's arms were quickly about
her sister's neck, and her little bare feet curled up in her

lap; and then she was lifted up and carried back into the
room.

`Who was that you were talking to?' said Hulda.

`Thornton.'

`Does he feel good natured this morning?'

`I did not ask him,' said Rosalie smiling. `Do you?'

`O yes,' said Hulda, `but then I didn't feel cross last
night. I think it's very disagreeable to have people cross.'

`Then you and I will try to be always pleasant. If
Thornton does not want the horses this morning, we will go
and see Miss Morsel.'

The horses were not wanted, and after breakfast they
set forth;—all but Hiram well pleased with the prospect.
He thought it was hardly worth while to risk an overturn in
a narrow street, for anything that street could contain. Not
that he had the least intention of being overturned, by the
by.

The street was narrow and the sleighing therein most
disagreeable. Irregular heaps of snow that had been thrown
from the side-walks stood up and shook hands across the
narrow track which the sleighs of the milkman, the woodman,
and the baker, had marked out for themselves. Nothing
wider than those humble vehicles had been that way,
and it was hard for anything wider to go,—the sleigh was
obliged to content itself with having one runner at a time on
smooth ground and the other on a snow-bank. Which
state of things did not at all content Hiram. Ugly the snowbanks
were, as well as inconvenient; for when gutters were
choked up the unfortunate snow did duty instead, and no
rigid enforcement of law prevailed in this district. Also the
pigs had been dilatory in seeking their breakfast; and that
which had been very white as it fell, was now agreeably
diversified with cinders, cabbage leaves, lemon peels, potato

parings, buckwheat cakes, oyster shells, and the like; according
as dinner, breakfast, or supper, had been the last
prominent meal in the different houses.

The house where Hiram at length paused, was distinguished
by less of a snow bank and what there was, cleaner.
No decorations lay there but dry Christmas greens—a wreath
and a festoon, all falling to pieces and sinking into the snow:
the hemlock leaves scattering about, and the cedar shrinking
and shrivelling up within itself.

`O Miss Morsel has thrown away her wreath!' said
Hulda.

`I don't know as you can get out, ma'am,' said Hiram,
while he lent careful aid to the undertaking. `The snow's
right deep. It's an astonishing promotion to a street when
the families keeps their carriage!'

But she got out nicely—as she did everything—and went
lightly up the steps and opened the unlocked door; its want
of fastening a sure sign that there was no family bond
within. The house was but what a botanist would call
`an involucre.' That might be guessed from the sickly
smell spread through the hall and passages,—one of those
compounds which will not bear resolving.

Two flights of stairs and a short entry brought the
visiters to Miss Morsel's door; where they had no sooner
knocked than it was opened. Miss Morsel indeed, having
watched the whole preliminaries from the first jingle of the
sleigh bells, and having got very warm with anxiety lest the
snow bank should prove insurmountable, was now equally
cold with standing at her own door; and she would certainly
have saved Rosalie the trouble of knocking had not elegant
propriety, to her mind, forbidden it. So she stood as close
to the door as she could get, and waited for her visiters to
demand entrance. It was given them with every demonstration
of joy.

The room looked comfortable, though with that strict,
severe sort of comfort where everything is fastened up and
fastened down, and must remain just so or it will not look
comfortable. A doll's dress, sewed to the doll and not
meant to be taken off.

Of the chintz curtains, Lydia Sharpe might have said
that they had “no folds in nature—nor drapery,”—and yet
they were curtains; and when they hung as they were bid,
you did not at first see how old they were. The rug did
not match the carpet but was a rug nevertheless; and of
the fire appendages it could not be said in the words of the
song,

they belonged only to Miss Morsel.

The bed was not visible. Whether Miss Morsel kept it
in the closet, and underwent severe bodily exercise to get it
out every night—or whether she gave it her company in the
closet, doth not appear. The chairs were rush-bottomed,
and begun to be cushioned; and a little pine box by the fire
held a supply of fuel—Rosalie was glad that she did not
know for how long.

A few things in the room however, bore token of more
outlay,—towards Miss Morsel's old mother her purse strings
were evidently lenient. Her chair was most carefully
cushioned—back, arms, and all; and the cover was of some
red stuff, and her footstool clad with the same. By the
window stood two or three geraniums in dark ruffled earthen
pots; while a little work table, placed with evident care and
tenderness, looked as if it and the books upon it were of no
Miss Morsel's choice.

`I don't suppose there's anybody else in the world could
have come here this morning!' said poor little Miss Morsel,

taking hold of both Rosalie's hands and looking up into her
face. `Because I have felt rather down-hearted you see; and
most people don't happen in when you feel so.'

`Then I have just come at the right time. How is your
mother to-day?'

`O pretty well,' said Miss Morsel,—`though it does seem
queer to call a person pretty that's got so little pretence to
it. I'll tell her you're here.' And the fact was announced
in no very measured voice.

`What's she come for?' was the old lady's first and most
distinct question.

`Why to see you, ma—to see you and me.'

`O no,' said Mrs. Morsel, `that's not it,—that couldn't
be it. No person comes to see you and me now.'

`What do you suppose she did come for, then?' said
Miss Morsel, who from policy or respect never argued with
her mother.

`Well—perhaps she did—' said the old woman doubtfully.
`Miss Clyde, hey. Ask her to sit down, Bettie.'

But Miss Clyde was in no haste to sit down. She went
to the window and looked at the plants; examined the state
of the chair cushions, and recommended that two or three
of them should be covered with some particularly bright
chintz which she had at home.

`I will send Tom down with it,' she said. `I think it
will please your mother.'

`There's a scarcity of the people that ever think of that,
now-a-days,' said Miss Morsel with a little sorrowful shake
of her head. `It's queer too, for if ever anybody wanted
pleasing she does. But haven't you got everything in the
world, at home! And after all, as I tell ma, there's no
store closet like one's own heart.'

`What's she going to send down?' said old Mrs. Morsel.

`Bettie, tell her she needn't send no more o' them fine shirts
—we don't take in sewing now.'

`She knew that before you did, ma,' replied her daughter.

`My eyes aint strong to do fine work now,' continued
Mrs. Morsel, drawing herself up, `and I like other work
better. So does Bettie. We don't do it no longer. Tell
her so.'

`It does really seem sometimes,' said the daughter in a
kind of aside, `as if ma'd forgot all the little English she
ever did know! You would really suppose that she'd never
been to school or studied grammar; and yet I daresay she
used to know the noun of multitude and all those rules quite
respectably for her age of society.'

`So that's what she come for?' said old Mrs. Morsel.
`I told you she wanted something. She must go to some
poor person,—we don't take in sewing.'

`How much patience do you suppose Job had?' said
Miss Morsel in the same undertone to Rosalie. `Because
sometimes I think he must have had so much more than me,
that it's hardly worth while to try. Never mind her, dear,
—just you sit down and tell me about the battles.'

`There's very little use in battles,' said the old woman.
`Folks said the Revolutionary War did the country a power
of good, but we didn't get none of it. I've heerd tell of a
great deal more than I ever was knowing to. We've been
good for nothing since.'

`It's a singular fact,' said Miss Morsel softly, `that if
pa hadn't been killed in the Revolutionary War, we shouldn't
have anything to live on now. Queer, isn't it?'

It was so queer, altogether, that Rosalie was somewhat
divided between the desire to laugh and the desire to cry.

`But now do tell me,' continued Miss Morsel, `you never
did tell me—how did you get the pension money? who did
the business?'

`O I spoke to a friend of mine about it,' said Rosalie.

`No wonder it got done, then,' said Miss Morsel, with a
loving look up at her guest. `I should think everybody
would do any thing, and glad. Ah it's a great help in the
world to be young, my dear,—and pretty—and rich! However,
we all have what is best for us.'

`I don't think bread and cheese is a healthy dinner,' said
Mrs. Morsel sourly. `Bettie will have it sometimes. And
she says it's best, and I say it aint.'

`Just think of her saying that!' said the daughter; evidently
distressed that her guest should hear it, but only from
the most generous and disinterested feeling. `To be sure
we do have it sometimes, but it's very good. I daresay
those poor men that are out fighting Tecumseh don't get a
bit better. But you said he was taken prisoner.'

`I thought,' said Rosalie softly, `I thought you were
taking better care of yourself,—you promised that you
would.'

`Take good enough care, my dear—oh yes, so I do; but
you see the thing is, ma's liable to be sick, of course—
any body is; and if she is to be sick I should like her to
have just what she's a mind to call for,—and the things
wouldn't be few nor far between, neither. And it's so easy
to take money out of the trunk when you've got it there
ready.'

`But let her have it now—she shall never miss it, nor you
either.'

`Yes, but I sha'n't let you do that,' said Miss Morsel,
dashing off the tears which those glistening eyes had called
up; `so don't talk about it or you'll upset me at once.
Everybody ought to live on his income,—and my income
comes in regularly, and when it don't I'll let you know.
There's Hulda gone to sleep this minute.'

`No I haven't,' said Hulda, looking up with a weary
little face. `What made you throw away your greens, Miss
Morsel?'

`Why they got dry and fell over the world, and made
such a muss as I couldn't stand—so I thought they might
come down. I reasoned in this way—if Christmas greens
put me out of patience they won't do me much good,—and
down they came. But I kept the laurel, because that isn't
crumbly; and it helps one to think that there are woods in
existence somewhere.'

`Why didn't you come before?' said the old woman
suddenly turning towards her visiter. `It's better than six
months since you were here.'

`O no, it is not so many weeks,' said Rosalie smiling.

`It isn't more than half so many,' said Miss Morsel.
`You forget, ma.'

`Old folks always does forget,' said Mrs. Morsel with a
somewhat piqued air. `Only if they do, it's a wonder to my
mind how young folks comes to know anything. They don't
know much. I say it's six months.'

`You won't mind her, dear,' said Miss Morsel in a low
voice,—`because she's had a good many sticks in her way,
and somehow she likes to take 'em all. It's only a little
cup of crossness she's got to pour out, and then she'll be
done for a while. She used to have just what she wanted
once, you know, and somehow it makes one good natured to
be comfortable. But we are comfortable now, very,—if you
have everything, you can't wish. I've nothing to complain
of. I never wanted to complain since what you told me once
—do you remember? how “when the children of Israel
murmured, it displeased the Lord.” I've thought of it a
great many times.'

`It would be easy not to murmur if we thought more of

the promised land and less of the wilderness,' said Rosalie
with a half-checked sigh.

`Yes dear. And I'm glad for my part to recollect that
this isn't the promised land;—so in that point of view, you
see, bread and cheese is quite wholesome.'

`Can you leave your mother for a while?' said Rosalie,
`I want you to go and take a sleigh ride. I came on purpose.'

`Did you really?' said Miss Morsel,—`then I'll go;
though I don't think I could if you hadn't come on purpose.
Just like you! I wonder who else would want to parade me
up and down Broadway! and not in a close carriage, either.
O yes—I can leave her,—Seraphina Wells 'll come in and
sit here—ma likes Seraphina,—don't you ma? don't you like
Seraphina Wells?'

`Not much—' said the old lady. `She aint much but a
giddy-go-round. No, I don't like her.'

`Just hear that, now!' said Miss Morsel. `But she does
like her, for all. Well I'll get ready dear, as soon as I can.
But I don't know whether I ought to go—I felt so down this
morning.'

`That's the very reason why you should go,' said Rosalie
smiling. `It will cheer you up.'

`O the snow is beautiful!' said Hulda.

`Snows aint much now-a-days,' said old Mrs. Morsel rubbing
her hand back and forth over her knee. `They aint
like the snows in my time. They wouldn't hardly ha' been
called a flurry of snow in my time.'

`Did you ever!' said Miss Morsel, pausing on her way
to the closet. `I shouldn't wonder if she'd say the people
were worse then too.'

`How do you feel to-day, Mrs. Morsel?' said Rosalie,
coming close to her chair.

`How should I feel?' said the old woman pettishly, but
with more energy than she had before spoken. `How would
you feel if you was shut up in this chair with nobody to
speak to, and no home nor nothing? The folks that has the
world thinks it's easy to do without it. I tell you it isn't,—
it's hard. It's a bad world, but I want it.'

`There is a better world,' said Rosalie gently,—`do you
want that?'

`Suppose I want both?' said Mrs. Morsel in the same
tone. `What then?'

`Then make sure of the best first. “They that seek the
Lord shall not want any good thing.'”

`Ay—that's what you say,' replied Mrs. Morsel, rubbing
her hand back and forth. `That's what you say. I should
like to see you try it once! Easy work to learn Bible verses
and say 'em!'

`Yes, it is much easier than to follow them,' said Rosalie,
—`I know that. But then you believe the Bible words,
whether I obey them or not; and isn't it pleasant to think
of heaven when we have a poor home on earth? and to remember
that if not one friend ever comes to see us, yet that
the angels of God are ever about his children, and that the
Lord Jesus has promised to be always with those that serve
him?'

The old woman's hand moved yet, but it was with a
nervous, unsteady action, and her face in vain tried to maintain
its cold dissatisfied look. Rosalie had stooped down
and laid her hand upon the arm of the chair while she was
speaking; and now one of the old shrivelled hands was laid
tremblingly upon hers.

`That's true—that about the angels,' she said in a shaking
voice, `but I'm not one of them they should come to.
What did you come here for?'

`Yes I'll go—' said Miss Morsel, coming back with her
bonnet on. `It is queer, isn't it? but I never can hear
sleigh bells without wanting to run after 'em. I often think
there must be a little perverseness tucked away in some corner
of my existence.'

`Things always is tucked away in corners,' said old Mrs.
Morsel, sinking back into her chair and her old manner at
once. `Corners aint no other use in a house.'

`That aint much use, to my mind,' said Miss Morsel.
`However, I'm going ma, so goodbye.'

She went—and to use her own expression “was cheered
up higher than ever.”

Leaving poor friends and poor circumstances behind, the
sleigh now glided on to the other extreme of the city, as of
life; and before a large house in State Street Hiram once
more drew up. The door was quickly opened, and merely
inquiring if Miss Arnet was at home, Rosalie sought the
young lady up-stairs. There she sat in her dressing-room,
ensconced in wrapper and cushions,—a book in her hand,
her hair in the hands of her maid. Book and maid were at
once dismissed; and seating Rosalie among the cushions,
Miss Arnet stood before her to talk and arrange her hair at
the same time.

`Where have you been? and what has made you do so
unwonted a thing as to come here?'

`Truly, the simple desire to see you,' said Rosalie.

`The pleasantest reason in the world—and the rarest.
What did that woman do with my comb! Poor little Hulda,
you look tired to death. Where have you been whisked to
this morning?'

`O we've been sleigh riding with Miss Morsel,' said
Hulda with a look that bore out Miss Arnet's words.

Marion lifted up eyes and hands, which were by this
time disengaged.

`You poor child! there wouldn't be the least atom of me
left after such an experience. Here,' she continued, picking
up Hulda and depositing her upon the sofa, `won't that make
you forget Miss Morsel? Don't pull down my hair, pet, in
the intensity of your gratitude. Are my sofa cushions
nice?'

`Very nice!' said Hulda smiling.

`Then lie still there and go to sleep—I sha'n't let Rosalie
go for one good hour.'

`But why don't you come to see us as you used to?' said
Hulda, when she had at last taken her arms from Miss
Arnet's neck. `I asked Thornton the other day, and he
said—'

`What did he say?' inquired Marion.

`I don't believe I know,' said Hulda, `it was so many
queer words. He said he couldn't undertake—to account
for young ladies' freaks.—Yes, that was it, because I said it
over and over for fear I should forget it.'

Marion sprang up, and crossing the room to where
Rosalie sat she said in a kind of indignant undertone,

`Is that the way I am understood? Is that what he
thinks of me?'

`No—' was the quiet and sad reply.

Miss Arnet knelt down by her side, and leaning her
elbows on the chair arm went on in the same vehement
way,

`Then what does he mean by saying so? It is cruel to
say what he does not think!—it is unjust!'

`He is neither to you, Marion. He is only cruel and
unjust to himself.'

`Then what does this mean?' she repeated, but more
quietly.

`It means only that he is not happy,' said his sister sorrowfully.
`You do not wonder at that?'

Marion's head drooped lower and rested upon her hands.

`What can I do?' she said at length. `I will never
subject myself to the miseries I have seen in my own uncle's
family. Rosalie! he has ruined himself—he has ruined
them,—in mind, character, and estate; and when he came
here one night and said he had been playing with Thornton—'

For a minute the room was absolutely still, and the
figures there might have been statues.

`I told Thornton at once,' said Miss Arnet raising her
head, `that unless he would promise me never to play for
money again, I would have no more to do with him than
with the rest of the world. And he would not give the
promise—said he would not be dictated to by any woman—
as if it was not more for his sake than my own, after all!

`Do you blame me?' she said, after another pause.

`No.'

But the word was spoken with such evident pain, that
Miss Arnet put her arms about Rosalie and tried every
word of soothing she could think of.

`I am very, very wrong to go this all over to you again!
—you have enough of your own to bear. Only it is such a
relief to speak out. Alie! what is the matter? you art not
well—you are perfectly white.'

`Yes, quite well,' Rosalie said. But the bitterness of
the thoughts and feelings that had been at work could no
longer be kept in. Speak out Rosalie never did, now;
but the sorrow that for a few moments held her in its
strong grasp, told of heart sickness such as Marion could
hardly comprehend. She was almost as much frightened as
grieved.

`I don't know where my common sense went to this
morning,' she said, when Rosalie had once looked up and

given the assurance that there was nothing new the matter.
`It is a perfect shame for me to lean upon you—little frail
thing that you are,—and younger than I am to begin with.
I should think you would hate me Rosalie, for bringing this
upon you.'

`My dear child, you have not brought it.'

`Well, but don't call me child,' said Miss Arnet, trying
to take down her cousin's hands, `because it's really absurd
for me to look up to you,—I shall not do it any more, if I
can help it. For the future, Alie, you may lean upon me.
But indeed I have hard work sometimes. Mamma you
know takes different ground—says I have behaved shockingly,
and she has no patience with me. And it is not a
light thing to see such a change in a friend one has always
had.'

His sister knew that! But she sat up now, and pushing
the hair back off her face with an expression of quiet
patience, she said gently,

`I do not blame you, dear—I could not have advised
you to do otherwise than you have done.'

`Perhaps it will all turn out well yet,' said Marion
looking at her anxiously. `Perhaps he will change his
mind.'

`It may be that God will change it—' said his sister,
though the calm words trembled a little,—and Miss Arnet
knew then why she looked up to her. `The grace of God
which bringeth salvation hath done harder things than that.'
And as her face once more rested on her hands, Rosalie
added,

“`Let thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, according as we
hope in thee!'”

No more was said; and after a few moments Hulda was
aroused and they went home.