 | CHAPTER XXXII.
EDITH BRINGS THE WANDERER HOME. What can she do? |  |
32. CHAPTER XXXII.
EDITH BRINGS THE WANDERER HOME.
MRS. LACEY and Arden, at last, in the stress
of their poverty, gave their consent that
Rose should go to the city, and try to find employment
in a store as a shop-girl. Mrs. Glibe, her
dressmaking friend, went with her, and though they
could obtain no situation the first day, one of Mrs.
Glibe's acquaintances directed Rose where she
could find a respectable boarding-house, from which,
as her home, she could continue her inquiries.
Leaving her there, Mrs. Glibe returned.
Rose, with a hope and courage not easily dampened,
continued her search the next, and for several
days following. The fall trade had not fairly commenced,
and there seemed no demand for more
help. She had thirty dollars with which to start
life, but a week of idleness took seven of this.
At last her fine appearance and sprightly manner
induced a proprietor of a large establishment to
put her in the place of a girl discharged that day,
with the wages of six dollars a week.
“We give but three or four, as a general thing, to
beginners,” he said.
Rose was grateful for the place, and yet almost
dismayed at the prospect before her. How could
dreams of city life were fast melting away before
the hard, and in some instances revolting, facts of
her experience. She could have obtained situations
in two or three instances at better wages, if she
had assented to conditions that sent her hastily
into the street with burning blushes and indignant
tears. She knew the great city was full of wickedness,
but this rude contact with it appalled her.
After finding what she had to live on she exchanged
her somewhat comfortable room, where she
could have a fire, for a cold, cheerless attic closet in
the same house. “As I learn the business, they will
give more,” she thought, and the idea of going back
home penniless, to be laughed at by Mrs. Glibe,
Miss Klip, and others, was almost as bitter a
prospect to her proud spirit as being a burden to
her impoverished family, and she resolved to submit
to every hardship rather than do it. By
taking the attic room she reduced her board to five
dollars a week.
“You can't get it for less, unless you go to a very
common sort of a place,” said her landlady. “My
house is respectable, and people must pay a little
for that.”
In view of this fact, Rose determined to stay, if
possible, for she was realizing more every day how
unsheltered and tempted she was.
Her fresh blonde face, her breezy manner, and
wind-shaken curls made many turn to look after her
the second time. Like some others of her sex,
Rose's position it was often shown by looks, manner,
and even words, that however she resented
them, followed and persecuted her.
As she grew to know her fellow-workers better,
her heart sickened in disgust at the conversation
and evident life of many of them, and they often
laughed at her greenness immoderately.
Alas! for the fancied superiority of these knowing
girls. They laughed at Rose because she was so
much more like what God meant a woman should
be than they. A weak-minded, shallow girl would
have succumbed to their ridicule, and soon have
become like them, but high-spirited Rose only despised
them, and gradually sought out and found
some companionship with those of the better sort in
the large store. But there seemed so much hollowness
and falsehood on every side that she hardly
knew whom to trust.
Poor Rose was quite sick of making a career for
herself alone in the city, and her money was getting
very low. Shop life was hard on clothes, and she was
compelled by the rules of the store to dress well,
and was only too fond of dress herself. So, instead
of getting money a-head, she at last was down to
her week's wages as support, and nothing was said
of their being raised, and she was advised to say nothing
about any increase. Then she had a week's sickness,
and this brought her in debt to her landlady.
Several times during her evening walks home
Rose noticed a dark face and two vivid black eyes,
the face vanished. It haunted her with its
suggestion of some one seen before.
She went back to her work too soon after her illness,
and had a relapse. Her respectable landlady
was a woman of system and rules. From long experience
she foresaw that her poor lodger would only
grow more and more deeply in her debt. Perhaps
we can hardly blame her. It was by no easy effort
that she made ends meet as it was. She had an application
for Rose's little room from one who gave
more prospect of being able to pay, so she quietly
told the poor girl to vacate. Rose pleaded to stay, but
the woman was inexorable, she had passed through
such scenes so often that they had become only
one of the disagreeable phases of her business.
“Why, child,” she said, “if I did not live up to
my rule in this respect, I'd soon be out of house and
home myself. You can leave your things here till
you find some other place.”
So poor Rose, weak through her sickness, more
weak through terror, found herself out in the streets
of the great city, utterly penniless. She was so unfamiliar
with it that she did not know where to go,
nor to whom to apply. It was her purpose to find
a cheaper boarding-house. She went down toward
the meaner and poorer part of the city, and stopped
at the low stoop of a house where there was a sign:
“Rooms to let.”
She was about to enter, when a hand was laid
sharply on her arm, and some one said:
“Don't go there. Come with me, quick!”
“Who are you?” asked Rose, startled and trembling.
“One who can help you now, whatever I am,” was
the answer. “I know you well, and all about you.
You are Rose Lacey, and you did live in Pushton.
Come with me, quick, and I will take you to a
Christian lady whom you can trust. Come.”
Rose, in her trouble and perplexity, concluded to
follow her. They soon made their way to quite a
respectable street, and rang the bell at the door of a
plain, comfortable-appearing house.
A cheery, stout, middle-aged lady opened it.
She looked at Rose's new friend, and reproachfully
shook her finger at her, saying,
“Naughty Zell, why did you leave the Home?”
“Because I am possessed by a restless devil,” was
the strange answer. “Besides, I can do more good
in the streets than there. I have just saved her,”
(pointing to Rose, who at once surmised that this
was Zell Allen, though so changed she would not
have known her). “Now,” continued Zell, thrusting
some money into Rose's hand, “take this and
go home at once. Tell her, Mrs. Ranger, that this
city is no place for her.”
“If you have friends and a home to go to,
it's the very best thing you can do,” said the
lady.
“But my friends are poor,” sobbed Rose.
“No matter, go to them,” said Zell almost fiercely,
“I tell you there is no place for you here, unless
are known, scrub, delve, do anything rather than
stay here. Your big brother can and will take care
of you, though he does look so cross.”
“She is right, my child; you had better go at
once,” said the lady, decidedly.
“Who are you?” asked Rose of the latter
speaker, with some curiosity.
“I am a city missionary,” answered the lady
quietly, “and it is my business to help such poor
girls as you are. I say to you from full knowledge,
and in all sincerity, to go home is the very best
thing that you can do.”
“But why is there not a chance for a poor, well-meaning
girl to earn an honest living in this great
city?”
“Thousands are earning such a living, but there
is not one chance in a hundred for you.”
“Why?” asked Rose, hotly.
“Do you see all these houses? They are full
of people,” continued Mrs. Ranger, “and some of
them contain many families. In these families there
are thousands of girls who have a home, a shelter,
and protectors here in the city. They have society in
relatives and neighbors. They have no board to
pay, and fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters
helping support them. They put all their earnings
into a common fund, and it supports the
family. Such girls can afford, and will work for
two, three, four, and five dollars a week. All that
they earn makes the burden so much less on the
in idleness. Now, a homeless stranger in the city
must pay board, and therefore they can't compete
with those who live here. Wages are kept too low.
Not one in a hundred, situated as you are, can earn
enough to pay board and dress as they are required
to in the fashionable stores. Have you been
able?”
“No,” groaned Rose. “I am in debt to my
landlady now, and I had some money to start
with.”
“There it is,” said Mrs. Ranger, sadly, “the same
old story.”
“But these stores ought to pay more,” said Rose,
indignantly.
“They will only pay for labor, as for everything
else, the market price, and that averages but six
dollars a week, and more are working for from three
to five than for six. As I told you, there are
thousands of girls living in the city glad to get a
chance at any price.”
Rose gave a weary, discouraged sigh and said, “I
fear you are right, I must go home. Indeed, after
what has happened I hardly dare stay.
“Go,” said Zell, “as if you were leaving Sodom,
and don't look back.” Then she asked with a wistful,
hungry look, “Have you seen any of—?”
She stopped, she could not speak the names of her
kindred.
“Yes,” said Rose gently. (Yesterday she would
have stood coldly aloof from Zell. To-day she was
are well. They were all sick after—after you
went away. But they got well again, and (lowering
her voice) Edith prays for you night and day.”
“Oh, oh,” sobbed Zell, “this is torment, this is
to see the heaven I cannot enter,” and she dashed
away.
“Poor child,” said Mrs. Ranger, “there's an
angel in her yet if I only knew how to bring it out.
I may see her to-morrow, and I may not for weeks.
Take the money she left with you, and here is some
more. It may help her to think that she helped
you. And now, my dear, let me see you safely on
your way home.”
That night the stage left Rose at the poor dilapidated
little farm-house, and in her mother's close
embrace she felt the blessedness of the home shelter,
however poor, and the protecting love of kindred,
however plain.
“Arden is away,” said the quiet woman of few
words. “He is only home twice a month. He has
a job of cutting and carting wood a good way from
here. We are so poor this winter he had to take
this chance. Your father is doing better. I hope
for him, though with fear and trembling.”
Then Rose told her mother her experience and
how she had been saved by Zell, and the poor
woman clasped her daughter to her breast again
and again, and with streaming eyes raised toward
heaven, poured out her gratitude to God.
“Rose,” said she with a shudder, “if I had not
not have found such friends in your time of need.
Oh, let us both pray for that poor lost one, that
she may be saved also.”
From this day forth Rose began to pray the true
prayer of pity, and then the true prayer of a personal
faith. The rude, evil world had shown her her
own and others' need, in a way that made her feel
that she wanted the Heavenly Father's care.
In other respects she took up her life for a time
where she had left it a few months before.
Edith was deeply moved at Rose's story, and
Zell's wild, wayward steps were followed by prayers,
as by a throng of reclaiming angels.
“I would go and bring her home in a moment, if
I only knew where to find her,” said Edith.
“Mrs. Ranger said she would write as soon as
there was any chance of your doing so,” said Rose.
About the middle of January a letter came to
Edith, as follows:
“Miss Edith Allen.—Your sister, Zell, is in
Bellevue Hospital, ward —. Come quickly; she
is very ill.”
Edith took the earliest train, and was soon following
an attendant, with eager steps, down the long
ward. They came to a dark-eyed girl that was
evidently dying, and she closed her eyes with a chill
of fear. A second glance showed that it was not
Zell, and a little farther on she saw the face of her
sister, but so changed. Oh, the havoc that sin and
wretchedness had made in that beautiful creature
unconscious muttering delirium, and Edith showered
kisses on the poor, parched lips; her tears fell like
rain on the thin, flushed face. Zell suddenly cried,
with the girlish voice of old,
“Hurrah, hurrah! books to the shades; no more
teachers and tyrants for me.”
She was living over the old life, with its old, fatal
tendencies.
Edith sat down, and sobbed as if her heart would
break. Unnoticed, a stout, elderly lady was regarding
her with eyes wet with sympathy. As Edith's
grief subsided somewhat she laid her hand on the
poor girl's shoulder, saying,
“My child, I feel very sorry for you. For some
reason I can't pass on and leave you alone in your
sorrow, though we are total strangers. Your trouble
gives you a sacred claim upon me. What can I do
for you?”
Edith looked up through her tears, and saw a
kind, motherly face, with a halo of gray curls
around it. With woman's intuition she trusted her
instantly, and, with another rush of tears, said,
“This is — my — poor lost—sister—I've—just
found her.”
“Ah!” said the lady significantly, “God pity
you both.”
“Were it not—for Him,” sobbed Edith, with her
hand upon her aching heart, “I believe—I would
die.”
The lady sat down by her, and took her hand,
better.”
Gradually and delicately she drew from Edith her
story, and her large heart yearned over the two
girls in the sincerest sympathy.
“I was not personally acquainted with your
father and mother, but I know well who they
were,” she said. “And now, my child, you cannot
remain here much longer; where are you going to
stay?”
“I haven't thought,” said Edith sadly.
“I have,” replied the lady heartily, “I am going
to take you home with me. We don't live very far
away, and you can come and see your sister as often
as you choose, within the limits of the rules.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Edith, deprecatingly, “I am
not fit—I have no claim.”
“My child,” said the lady gently, “don't you
remember what our Master said, `I was a stranger
and ye took me in.' Is He not fit to enter my
house? Has He no claim? In taking you home I
am taking Him home, and so will be happy and
honored in your presence. Moreover, my dear,
from what I have seen and heard, I am sure I shall
love you for your own sake.”
Edith looked at her through grateful tears, and
said, “It has seemed to me that Jesus has been
comforting me all the time through your lips.
How beautiful Christianity is, when it is lived out.
I will go to your house as if it were His.”
Then she turned and pressed a loving kiss on
words when the lady stooped down also, and kissed
the “woman which was a sinner.” She seized her
hand with both of hers and faltered,
“You don't despise and shrink from her, then?”
“Despise her! no,” said the noble woman. “I
have never been tempted as this poor child has.
God does not despise her. What am I?”
From that moment Edith could have kissed her
feet, and feeling that God had sent his angel to take
care of her, she followed the lady from the hospital.
A plain but elegantly-liveried carriage was waiting,
and they were driven rapidly to one of the stateliest
palaces on Fifth Avenue. As they crossed the
marble threshold, the lady turned and said,
“Pardon me, my dear, my name is Mrs. Hart.
This is your home now as truly as mine while you
are with us,” and Edith was shown to a room replete
with luxurious comfort, and told to rest till
the six o'clock dinner.
With some timidity and fear she came down to
meet the others. As she entered she saw a portly
man standing on the rug before the glowing grate,
with a shock of white hair, and a genial, kindly
face.
“My husband,” said Mrs. Hart, “this is our new
friend, Miss Edith Allen. You knew her father
well in business, I am sure.”
“Of course I did,” said the old gentleman, taking
Edith's hand in both of his, “and a fine business
man he was, too. You are welcome to our home,
to his wife with a quizzical look, and still keeping
hold of Edith's hand, “you didn't bring home an
`angel unawares' this time. I say, wife, you won't
be jealous if I take a kiss now, will you—a sort of
scriptural kiss, you know?” and he gave Edith a
hearty smack that broke the ice between them completely.
With a face like a peony, Edith said, earnestly,
“I am sure the real angels throng your home.”
“Hope they do,” said Mr. Hart, cheerily. “My
old lady there is the best one I have seen yet, but
I am ready for all the rest. Here comes some of
them,” he added, as his daughters entered, and to
each one he gave a hearty kiss, counting, “one,
two, three, four, five—now, `all present or accounted
for?'”
“Yes,” said his wife, laughing.
“Dinner, then,” and after the young ladies had
greeted Edith most cordially, he gave her his arm,
as if she had been a duchess, and escorted her to the
dining-room. After being seated, they bowed their
heads in quiet reverence, and the old man, with the
voice and manner of a child speaking to a father,
thanked God for his mercies, and invoked his
blessing.
The table-talk was genial and wholesome, with
now and then a sparkle of wit, or a broad gleam of
humor.
“My good wife there, Miss Edith,” said Mr. Hart,
with a twinkle in his eye, “is a very sly old lady.
discrimination, or else the world is growing so full
of interesting saints and sinners, that I am quite in
hopes of it. Every day she has a new story about
some very good person, or some very bad person
becoming good. If you go on this way much
longer, mother, the millennium will commence before
the Doctors of Divinity are ready for it.”
“My dear,” said Mrs. Hart, with a comic aside
to Edith, “my husband has never got over being a
boy. When he will become old enough to sober
down, I am sure I can't tell.”
“What have I to sober me, with all these happy
faces around, I would like to know?” was the
hearty retort. “I am having a better time every
day, and mean to go on so ad infinitum. You're
a good one to talk about sobering down, when you
laugh more than any of these youngsters.”
“Well,” said his wife, her substantial form quivering
with merriment, “it's because you make me.”
During the meal Edith had time to observe the
young ladies more closely. They were fine-looking,
and one or two of them really beautiful. Two of
them were in early girlhood yet, and there was not
a vestige of the vanity and affectation often seen
in those of their position. They evidently had
wide diversities of character, and faults, but there
was the simplicity and sincerity about them which
makes the difference between a chaste piece of
marble and a painted block of wood. She saw
about her a house as rich and costly in its appointments
was not so crowded or pronounced in its furnishing
and decoration. There were fewer pictures,
but finer ones; and in all matters of art, French
taste was not prominent, as had been the case in
her home.
The next day she sat by unconscious Zell as long
as was permitted, and wrote fully to Laura.
The dark-eyed girl that seemed dying the day
before was gone.
“Did she die?” she asked of an attendant.
“Yes.”
“What did they do with her?”
“Buried her in Potter's Field.”
Edith shuddered. “It would have been Zell's
end,” she thought, “if I hadn't found her, and she
died here alone.”
That evening Mrs. Hart, as they all sat in her
own private parlor, said to her daughters,
“Girls, away with you. I can't move a step
without stumbling over one of you. You are always
crowding into my sanctum, as if there was not an
inch of room for you anywhere else. Vanish. I
want to talk to Edith.”
“It's your own fault that we crowd in here,
mother,” said the eldest. “You are the loadstone
that draws us.”
“I'll get a lot of stones to throw at you and drive
you out with,” said the old lady, with mock severity.
The youngest daughter precipitated herself on
her mother's neck, exclaiming,
“Wouldn't that be fun, to see jolly old mother
throwing stones at us. She would wrap them in
eider-down first.”
“Scamper; the whole bevy of you,” said the old
lady, laughing; and Edith, with a sigh, contrasted
this “mother's room” with the one which she and
her sisters shunned as the place where their “teeth
set on edge.”
“My dear,” said Mrs. Hart, her face becoming
grave and troubled, “there is one thing in my
Christian work that discourages me. We reclaim
so few of the poor girls that have gone astray. I
understand, from Mrs. Ranger, that your sister was
at the Home, but that she left it. How can we accomplish
more? We do everything we can for
them.”
“I don't think earthly remedies can meet their
case,” said Edith, in a low tone.
“I agree with you,” said Mrs. Hart, earnestly,
“but we do give them religious instruction.”
“I don't think religious instruction is sufficient,”
Edith answered. “They need a Saviour.”
“But we do tell them about Jesus.”
“Not always in a way that they understand, I
fear,” said Edith, sadly. “I have heard people tell
about Him as they would about Socrates, or Moses,
or Paul. We don't need facts about Him so much
as Jesus Himself. In olden time people did not go
to their sick and troubled friends and tell them that
Jesus was in Capernaum, and that He was a great
deliverer. They brought the poor, helpless creatures
feet of a personal Saviour, and He helped them.
Do we do this? I have thought a great deal about
it,” continued Edith, “and it seems to me that
more associate the ideas of duty, restraint, and
almost impossible effort with Him, than the ideas
of help and sympathy. It was so with me, I know,
at first.”
“Perhaps you are right,” said Mrs. Hart thoughtfully.
“The poor creatures to whom I referred
seem more afraid of God than anything else.”
“And yet, of all that ever lived, Jesus was the most
tender toward them—the most ready to forgive and
save. Believe me, Mrs. Hart, there was more gospel
in the kiss you gave my sister—there was more of
Jesus Christ in it, than in all the sermons ever written,
and I am sure that if she had been conscious,
it would have saved her. They must, as it were,
feel the hand of love and power that lifted Peter
out of the engulfing waves. The idea of duty
and sturdy self-restraint is perhaps too much emphasized,
while they, poor things, are weak as water.
They are so `lost' that He must just `seek and
save' them, as he said—lift them up—keep them
up almost in spite of themselves. Saved—that is
the word, as the limp, helpless form is dragged out
of danger. On account of my sister I have
thought a good deal about this subject, and there
seems to me to be no remedy for this class, save in
the merciful, patient, personal Saviour. He had
wonderful power over them when he was on earth,
could make them understand Him.”
“I think few of us understand this personal
Saviour ourselves as we ought,” said Mrs. Hart,
somewhat unvailing her own experience. “The Romish
Church puts the Virgin, Saints, penances,
and I know not what, between the sinner and Jesus,
and we put catechisms, doctrines, and a great mass
of truth about them, between Him and us. I
doubt whether many of us, like the beloved disciple,
have leaned our heads on His heart of love, and felt
its throbs. Too much of the time He seems in
Heaven to me, not here.”
“I never had much religious instruction,” said
Edith, simply. “I found Him in the New Testament,
as people of old found Him in Palestine, and
I went to Him, just as I was, and He has been such
a Friend and Helper. He lets me sit at His feet
like Mary, and the words He spoke, seem said directly
to poor little me.”
Wistful tears came into Mrs. Hart's eyes, and she
kissed Edith, saying:
“I have been a Christian forty years, my child,
but you are nearer to Him than I am. Stay close
to His side. This talk has done more good than I
imagined possible.”
“If I seem nearer,” said Edith, gently, “isn't it,
perhaps, because I am weaker than you are? His
`sheep follow' him, but isn't there some place in the
Bible about His `carrying the lambs in His bosom'?
I think we shall find at last that He was nearer to
was around us all the time.”
In a sudden, strong impulse, Mrs. Hart embraced
Edith, and, looking upward, exclaimed:
“Truly `Thou hast hid these things from the
wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto
babes.' As my husband said, I am entertaining a
good angel.”
The physician gave Edith great encouragement
about Zell, and told her that in about two weeks he
thought she might be moved. The fever was taking
a light form.
One evening, after listening to some superb music
from Annie, the second daughter, between whom
and Edith quite an affinity seemed to develop itself,
the latter said:
“How finely you play. I think you are wonderful
for an amateur.”
“I am not an amateur,” replied Annie, laughing.
“Music is my profession.”
“I don't understand,” said Edith.
“Father has made me to study music as a science,”
explained Annie. “I could teach it to-morrow.
All of us girls are to have a profession. Ella,
my eldest sister, is studying drawing and painting.
Here is a portfolio of her sketches.”
Even Edith's unskilled eyes could see that she
had made great proficiency.
“Ella could teach drawing and coloring at once,”
continued Annie, “for she has studied the rules and
principles very carefully, and given great attention
help her paint a few show pictures. But I know
very little about it, for I haven't much taste that
way. Father has us educated according to our
tastes; that is, if we show a little talent for any one
thing, he has us try to perfect ourselves in that one
thing. Julia is the linguist, and can jabber French
and German like a native. Father also insisted on
our being taught the common English branches very
thoroughly, and he says he could get us situations
to teach within a month, if it were necessary.”
Edith sighed deeply as she thought how superficial
their education had been, but she said rather
slyly to Annie, “But you are engaged. I think
your husband will veto the music-teaching.”
“Oh, well,” said Annie, laughing, “Walter may
fail, or get sick, or something may happen. So you
see we wouldn't have to go to the poor-house.
Besides, there's a sort of satisfaction in knowing
one thing pretty well. But the half is not told you,
and I suppose you will think father and mother
queer people; indeed most of our friends do. For
mother has had a milliner come to the house, and a
dressmaker, and a hair-dresser, and whatever we
have any knack at she has made us learn well,
some one thing, and some another. Wouldn't I
like to dress your long hair,” continued the light-hearted
girl, “I would make you so bewitching
that you would break a dozen hearts in one evening.
Then mother has taught us how to make bread
and cake and preserves, and cook, and Ella and I
and keeping account of the living expenses. The
rest of the girls are at school yet. Mother says she
is not going to palm off any frauds in her daughters
when they get married; and if we only turn out
half as good as she is, our husbands will be lucky
men, if I do say it; and if all of us don't get any,
we can take care of ourselves. Father has been
holding you up as an example of what a girl can do
if she has to make her own way in the world.”
And the sprightly, but sensible, girl would have
rattled on indefinitely, had not Edith fled to her
room in an uncontrollable rush of sorrow over the
sad, sad, “It might have been.”
One afternoon Annie came into Edith's room,
saying, “I am going to dress your hair—Yes I will.
now don't say a word, I want to. We expect two
or three friends in—one you'll be glad to see. No,
I won't tell you who it is. It's a surprise.” And
she flew at Edith's head, pulled out the hair-pins,
and went to work with a dexterity and rapidity that
did credit to her training. In a little while she had
crowned Edith with nature's most exquisite coronet.
A cloud of care seemed to rest on Mr. Hart's
brow as they entered the dining-room, but he banished
it instantly, and with the quaint stately gallantry
of the old school, pretended to be deeply
smitten with Edith's loveliness. And so lovely she
appeared that their eyes continually returned, and
rested admiringly on her, till at last the blushing
girl remonstrated,
“You all keep looking at me so that I feel as if
I were the dessert, and you were going to eat me up
pretty soon.”
“I speak for the biggest bite,” cried Mr. Hart,
and they laughed at her and petted her so that she
said:
“I feel as if I had known you all ten years.”
But ever and anon, Edith saw traces of the cloud
of care that she had noticed at first. And so did
Mrs. Hart, for she said:
“You have been a little anxious about business
lately. Is there anything new?”
“No,” said Mr. Hart, who, in contrast to Mr.
Allen, talked business to his family, “things are
only growing a little worse. There have been one
or two bad failures to-day. The worst of it all is,
there seems a general lack of confidence. No one
knows what is going to happen. One feels as if in
a thunder-shower. The lightning may strike him,
and it may fall somewhere else. But don't worry,
good mother, I am as safe as a man can be. I have
only got a million in my safe ready for an emergency.”
The wife knew just where her husband stood that
night.
At nine o'clock, Edith was talking earnestly with
Mrs. Ranger, whom she had expressed a wish to
see. There were a few other people present of the
very highest social standing, and intimate friends of
the family, for her kind entertainers would not expose
her to any strange and unsympathetic eyes.
mischief and match-making, gloating over the pleasure
she expected to give Edith.
The bell rang, and a moment later she marshalled
in Gus Elliott, as handsome and exquisitely dressed
as ever. He was as much in the dark as to whom
he should see as Edith. Some one had told Annie
of his former devotedness to Edith, and so she innocently
meant to do both a kindness. Having a
slight acquaintance with Elliott, as a general society
man, she invited him this evening to “meet an old
friend.” He gladly accepted, feeling it a great
honor to visit at the Hart's.
He saw Edith a moment before she observed him,
and had time to note her exquisite beauty. But
he turned pale with fear and anxiety in regard to
his reception.
Then she raised her eyes and saw him. The
blood rushed in a hot torrent to her face, and then
left it in extreme pallor. Gus advanced with all the
ease and grace that he could command under the
circumstances, and held out his hand. “She cannot
refer to the past here before them all,” he
thought.
But Edith rose slowly, and fixed her large eyes,
that glowed like coals of fire, sternly upon him, and
put her hand behind her back.
All held their breath in awe-struck expectation.
She seemed to see only him and the past, and to
forget all the rest.
“No, sir,” she said, in a low, deep voice, that
might in pity, if you were in the depths of poverty
and trouble, as I have been, but not here and thus.
Do you know where my sister is?”
“No,” faltered Gus, his knees trembling under him.
“She is in Bellevue Hospital. A poor girl was
carried from thence to Potter's Field a day or two
since. She might have been if I had not found
her. And,” continued Edith, with her face darkening
like night, and her tone deepening till it sent a
thrill of dread to the hearts of all present, “in
Potter's Field I might now have been if I had listened
to you.”
Gus trembled before her in a way that plainly
confirmed her words.
With a grand dignity she turned to Mrs. Hart,
saying, “Please excuse my absence; I cannot
breathe the same air with him,” and she was about
to sweep from the parlor like an incensed goddess,
when Mr. Hart sprang up, his eyes blazing with
anger, and putting his arm around Edith, said
sternly:
“I would shield this dear girl as my own daughter.
Leave this house, and never cross my threshold
again.”
Gus slunk away without a word. As the guilty
will be at last, he was “speechless.” So, in a moment,
when least expecting it, he fell from his
heaven, which was society; for the news of his
baseness spread like wildfire, and within a week
every respectable door was closed against him.
Is it cynical to say that the well-known and widely-honored
Mr. Hart, in closing his door, had influence
as well as Gus's sin, in leading some to close
their's? Motives in society are a little mixed,
sometimes.
Mr. Hart went down town the next morning, a
little anxious, it is true, on general principles, but
not in the least apprehensive of any disaster. “I
may have to pay out a few hundred thousand,” he
thought, “but that won't trouble me.”
But the bolt of financial suspicion was directed
toward him; how, he could not tell. Within half
an hour after opening, checks for twelve hundred
thousand were presented at his counter. He telegraphed
to his wife, “A run upon me.” Later,
“Danger!” Then came the words to the up-town
palace, “Have suspended!” In the afternoon,
“The storm will sweep me bare, but courage, God,
and our right hands, will make a place and a way
for us.”
The business community sympathized deeply with
Mr. Hart. Hard, cool men of Wall street came in,
and, with eyes moist with sympathy, wrung his
hand. He stood up through the wild tumult, calm,
dignified, heroic, because conscious of rectitude.
“The shrinkage in securities will be great, I fear,”
he said, “but I think my assets will cover all liabilities.
We will give up everything.”
When he came up home in the evening, he looked
worn, and much older than in the morning, but his
wife and daughters seemed to envelop him in an
strong, cheerful, hopeful, that they infused their
courage into him. Annie ran to the piano, and
played as if inspired, saying to her father:
“Let every note tell you that we can take care
of ourselves, and you and mother too, if necessary.”
The words were prophetic. The strain had been
too great on Mr. Hart. That night he had a stroke
of paralysis and became helpless. But he had
trained his daughters to be the very reverse of helpless,
and they did take care of him with the most
devoted love and skilled practical energy, making
the weak, brief remnant of his life not a burden, but
a peaceful evening after a glorious day. They all,
except the youngest, soon found employment, for
they brought superior skill and knowledge to the
labor market, and such are ever in demand. Annie
soon married happily, and her younger sisters eventually
followed her example, but Ella, the eldest, remained
single; and, though she never became eminent
as an artist, did become a very useful and
respected teacher of art, as studied in our schools as
a refining accomplishment.
To return to Edith, she felt for her kind friends
almost as much as if she were one of the family.
“Do not feel that you must go away because of
what has happened,” said Mrs. Hart. “I am glad
to have you with us, for you do us all good. Indeed,
you seem one of us. Stay as long as you can, dear,
and God help us both to bear our burdens.”
“Dear, `heavy-laden' Mrs. Hart,” said Edith,
Him.”
“Bless you, child, I am sure He sent you to me.”
As Edith entered the ward that day, the attendant
said, “She's herself, Miss, at last.”
Edith stole noiselessly to Zell's cot; she was sleeping.
Edith sat down silently and watched for her
waking. At last she opened her eyes and glanced
fearfully around. Then she saw Edith, and instantly
shrank and cowered as if expecting a blow.
“Zell,” said Edith, taking the poor, thin hand,
“O Zell, don't you know me?”
“What are you going to do with me,” asked
Zell, in a voice full of dread.
“Take you to my home—take you to my heart
—take you deeper into my love than ever before.”
“Edith,” said Zell, almost cowering before her
words as if they hurt her, “I am not fit to go
home.”
“O Zell, darling,” said Edith, tenderly, “God's
love does not keep a debit and credit account with
us, neither should we with each other. Can't you
see that I love you?” and she showered kisses on
her sister's now pallid face.
But Zell acted as if they were a source of pain
to her, and she muttered, “You don't know, you
can't know. Don't speak of God to me, I fear Him
unspeakably.”
“I do know all,” said Edith, earnestly, “and I
love you more fondly than ever I did before, and
God knows and loves you more still.”
“I tell you you don't know,” said Zell, almost
fiercely. “You can't know. If you did, you would
spit on me and leave me for ever. God knows, and
he has doomed me to hell, Edith,” she added, in a
hoarse whisper. “I killed him—you know who;
and I promised that after I got old and ugly I
would come and torment him for ever. I must keep
my promise.”
Edith wept bitterly. This was worse than delirium.
She saw that her sister's nature was so
bruised and perverted, so warped that it almost
amounted to insanity. She slowly rallied back into
physical strength, but her hectic cheek and slight
cough indicated the commencement of consumption.
Her mind remained in the same unnatural
condition, and she kept saying to Edith, “You
don't know anything about it all. You can't
know.” She would not see Mrs. Hart, and only
agreed to go home with Edith on condition that
no one should see or speak with her outside the
family.
At last the day of departure came. Mrs. Hart
said: “You shall take her to the depot in my carriage.
It will be among its last and best uses.”
Edith kissed her kind friend good-bye, saying,
“God will send his chariot for you some day, and
though you must leave this, your beautiful home, if
you could only have a glimpse into the Mansion
preparing for you up there, anticipation would
almost banish all thoughts of present loss.”
“Well, dear,” said Mrs. Hart, with a gleam of
door, for I shall want to see you often through all
eternity.”
Then Edith knelt before Mr. Hart's chair, and the
old man's helpless hands were lifted upon her head,
and he looked to heaven for the blessing he could
not speak.
“Our ways diverge now, but they will all meet
again. Home is near to you,” she whispered in his
ear as she kissed him good-bye.
The old glad light shone in his eyes, the old
cheery smile flitted across his lips, and thus she left
him who had been the great, rich banker, serene,
happy, and rich in a faith that could not be lost in
any financial storm, or destroyed by disease, or enfeebled
by age, she left him waiting as a little child
to go home.
| CHAPTER XXXII.
EDITH BRINGS THE WANDERER HOME. What can she do? | |