Itwas four o’clock in the afternoon, and very tranquil and quiet at the Skiddy’s. A tidy, rosy-cheeked young woman sat rocking the deserted little Tommy to sleep, to the tune of “I’ve been roaming.” The hearth was neatly swept, the tin and pewter vessels hung, brightly polished, from their respective shelves. The Maltese cat lay winking in the middle of the floor, watching the play of a stray sunbeam, which had found its way over the shed and into the small window. Ruth and her children were quiet, as usual, in their gloomy back chamber. Mr. Skiddy, a few blocks off, sat perched on a high stool, in the counting-room of Messrs. Fogg & Co.
Noiselessly the front-door opened, and the veritable Mrs. Skiddy, followed by Johnny and Sammy, crept through the front entry and entered, unannounced, into the kitchen. The rosy-cheeked young woman looked atMrs. Skiddy, Mrs. Skiddy looked at her, and Tommy looked at both of them. Mrs. Skiddy then boxed the rosy-cheeked young woman’s ears, and snatching the bewildered baby from her grasp, ejected her, with lightning velocity, through the street-door, and turned the key. It was all the work of an instant. Sammy and Johnny were used to domestic whirlwinds, so they were not surprised into any little remarks or exclamations, but the cat, less philosophical, laid back her ears, and made for the ash-hole; while Mrs. Skiddy, seating herself in the rocking-chair, unhooked her traveling dress and reinstated the delighted Tommy into all his little infantile privileges.
Mr. Skiddy had now been a whole week a widower; time enough for a man in that condition to grow philosophical. In fact, Skiddy was content. He had tasted the sweets of liberty, and he liked them. The baby, poor little soul, tired of remonstrance, had given out from sheer weariness, and took resignedly as a little christian to his pewter porringer. Yes, Skiddy liked it; he could be an hour behind his time without dodging, on his return, a rattling storm of abuse and crockery; he could spend an evening out, without drawing a map of his travels before starting. On the afternoon in question he felt particularly felicitous; first, because he had dined off fried liver and potatoes, a dish which he particularly affected, and which, on that very account, he could seldomget in his own domicil; secondly, he was engaged to go that very evening with his old love, Nancy Spriggins, to see the “Panorama of Niagara;” and he had left orders with Betty to have tea half an hour earlier in consequence, and to be sure and iron and air his killing plaid vest by seven o’clock.
As the afternoon waned, Skiddy grew restless; he made wrong entries in the ledger; dipped his pen into the sand-box instead of the inkstand, and several times said “Yes, dear,” to his employer, Mr. Fogg, of Fogg Square.
Six o’clock came at last, and the emancipated Skiddy, turning his back on business, walked towards home, in peace with himself, and in love with Nancy Spriggins. On the way he stopped to purchase a bouquet of roses and geraniums with which to regale that damsel’s olfactories during the evening’s entertainment.
Striding through the front entry, like a man who felt himself to be master of his own house, Skiddy hastened to the kitchen to expedite tea. If he was not prepared for Mrs. Skiddy’s departure, still less was he prepared for her return, especially with that tell-tale bouquet in his hand. But, like all other hen-pecked husbands, on the back of the scape-goatCunning, he fled away from the uplifted lash.
“MydearMatilda,” exclaimed Skiddy, “my own wife, howcouldyou be so cruel? Every day since yourdeparture, hoping to find you here on my return from the store, I have purchased a bouquet like this to present you. My dear wife, let by-gonesbeby-gones; my love for you is imperishable.”
“V-e-r-ygood, Mr. Skiddy,” said his wife, accepting Nancy Spriggins’s bouquet, with a queenly nod; “and now let us have no more talk ofCalifornia, if you please, Mr. Skiddy.”
“Certainly not, my darling; I was a brute, a beast, a wretch, a Hottentot, a cannibal, a vampire—to distress you so. Dear little Tommy! how pleasant it seems to see him in your arms again.”
“Yes,” replied Mrs. Skiddy, “I was not five minutes in sending that red-faced German girl spinning through the front-door; I hope you have something decent for us to eat, Skiddy. Johnny and Sammy are pretty sharp-set; why don’t you come and speak to your father, boys!”
The young gentlemen thus summoned, slowly came forward, looking altogether undecided whether it was best to notice their father or not. A ginger-cake, however, and a slice of buttered bread, plentifully powdered with sugar, wonderfully assisted them in coming to a decision. As to Nancy Spriggins, poor soul, she pulled off her gloves, and pulled them on, that evening, and looked at her watch, and looked up street and down street, and declared, as “the clock told the hour for retiring,” thatman was a ——, a ——, in short, that woman was born to trouble, as the sparks are—to fly away.
Mrs. Skiddy resumed her household duties with as much coolness as if there had been no interregnum, and received the boarders at tea that night, just as if she had parted with them that day at dinner. Skiddy was apparently as devoted as ever; the uninitiated boarders opened their eyes in bewildered wonder; andtriumphsat inscribed on the arch of Mrs. Skiddy’s imposing Roman nose.
The domestic horizon still continued cloudless at the next morning’s breakfast. After the boarders had left the table, the market prices of beef, veal, pork, cutlets, chops, and steaks, were discussed as usual, the bill of fare for the day was drawn up by Mrs. Skiddy, and her obedient spouse departed to execute her market orders.
“Well, I hope you have been comfortable in my absence, Mrs. Hall,” said Mrs. Skiddy, after despatching her husband to market, as she seated herself in the chair nearest the door; “ha! ha! John and I may call it quits now. He is a very good fellow—John; except these little tantrums he gets into once in a while; the only way is, to put a stop to it at once, and let him see who is master. John never will set a river on fire; there’s no sort of use in his trying to take the reins—the man wasn’t born for it. I’m too sharp for him, that’s a fact. Ha! ha! poor Johnny! Imusttell you what a trick I played him about two years after our marriage.
“You must know he had to go away on business for Fogg & Co., to collect bills, or something of that sort. Well, he made a great fuss about it, as husbands who like to go away from home always do; and said he should ‘pine for the sight of me, and never know ahappy hour till he saw me again,’ and all that; and finally declared he would not go, without I would let him take my Daguerreotype. Of course, I knew that was all humbug; but I consented. The likeness was pronounced ‘good,’ and placedby mein his travelling trunk, when I packed his clothes. Well, he was gone a month, and when he came back, he told me (great fool) what a comfort my Daguerreotype was to him, and how he had looked at it twenty times a day, and kissed it as many more; whereupon I went to his trunk, and opening it, took out the case and showed it to him—without the plate, which I had taken care to slip out of the frame just before he started, and which he had never found out! That’s a specimen of John Skiddy!—and John Skiddy is a fair specimen of the rest of his sex, let me tell you, Mrs. Hall. Well, of course he looked sheepish enough; and now, whenever I want to take the nonsense out of him, all I have to do is to point to that Daguerreotype case, which I keep lying on the mantel on purpose. When a woman is married, Mrs. Hall, she must make up her mind either to manage, or to be managed;Iprefer to manage,” said the amiable Mrs. Skiddy; “and I flatter myself John understands it by this time. But, dear me, I can’t stand here prating to you all day. I must look round and see what mischief has been done in my absence, by that lazy-looking red-faced German girl,” and Mrs. Skiddy laughed heartily, as she related how shehad sent her spinning through the front door the night before.
Half the forenoon was occupied by Mrs. Skiddy in counting up spoons, forks, towels, and baby’s pinafores, to see if they had sustained loss or damage during her absence.
“Very odd dinner don’t come,” said she, consulting the kitchen clock; “it is high time that beef was on, roasting.”
Itwasodd—and odder still that Skiddy had not appeared to tell herwhythe dinner didn’t come. Mrs. Skiddy wasted no time in words about it. No; she seized her bonnet, and went immediately to Fogg & Co., to get some tidings of him; they were apparently quite as much at a loss as herself to account for Skiddy’s non-appearance. She was just departing, when one of the sub-clerks, whom the unfortunate Skiddy had once snubbed, whispered a word in her ear, the effect of which was instantaneous. Did she let the grass grow under her feet till she tracked Skiddy to “the wharf,” and boarded the “Sea-Gull,” bound for California, and brought the crestfallen man triumphantly back to his domicil, amid convulsions of laughter from the amused captain and his crew? No.
“There, now,” said his amiable spouse, untying her bonnet, “there’sanotherflash in the pan, Skiddy. Anybody who thinks to circumvent Matilda Maria Skiddy,must get up early in the morning, and find themselves too late at that. Now hold this child,” dumping the doomed baby into his lap, “while I comb my hair. Goodness knows you weren’t worth bringing back; but when I set out to have my own way, Mr. Skiddy, Mount Vesuvius shan’t stop me.”
Skiddy tended the baby without a remonstrance; he perfectly understood, that for a probationary time he should be put “on the limits,” the street-door being the boundary line. He heaved no sigh when his coat and hat, with the rest of his wearing apparel, were locked up, and the key buried in the depths of his wife’s pocket. He played with Tommy, and made card-houses for Sammy and Johnny, wound several tangled skeins of silk for “Maria Matilda,” mended a broken button on the closet door, replaced a missing knob on one of the bureau drawers, and appeared to be in as resigned and proper a frame of mind as such a perfidious wretch could be expected to be in.
Two or three weeks passed in this state of incarceration, during which the errand-boy of Fogg & Co. had been repeatedly informed by Mrs. Skiddy, that the doctor hoped Mr. Skiddy would soon be sufficiently convalescent to attend to business. As to Skiddy, he continued at intervals to shed crocodile tears over his past short-comings, or rather his short-goings! In consequence of this apparently submissive frame of mind, he, one finemorning, received total absolution from Mrs. Skiddy, and leave to go to the store; which Skiddy peremptorily declined, desiring, as he said, to test the sincerity of his repentance by a still longer period of probation.
“Don’t be a fool, Skiddy,” said Maria Matilda, pointing to the Daguerreotype case, and then crowding his beaver down over his eyes; “don’t be a fool. Make a B line for the store, now, and tell Fogg you’ve had an attack ofroom-a-tism;” and Maria Matilda laughed at her wretched pun.
Skiddy obeyed. No Uriah Heep could have out-done him in “’umbleness,” as he crept up the long street, until a friendly corner hid him from the lynx eyes of Maria Matilda. Then “Richard was himself again”! Drawing a long breath, our flying Mercury whizzed past the mile-stones, and, before sun-down of the same day, was under full sail for California.
Just one half hour our Napoleon in petticoats spent in reflection, after being satisfied that Skiddy was really “on the deep blue sea.” In one day she had cleared her house ofboarders, and reserving one room for herself and children, filled all the other apartments withlodgers; who paid her good prices, and taking their meals down town, made her no trouble beyond the care of their respective rooms.
About a year after a letter came from Skiddy. Hewas “disgusted” with ill-luck at gold-digging, and ill-luck everywhere else; he had been “burnt out,” and “robbed,” and everything else but murdered; and “’umbly” requested his dear Maria Matilda to send him the “passage-money to return home.”
Mrs. Skiddy’s picture should have been taken at that moment! My pen fails! Drawing from her pocket a purse well filled with her own honest earnings, she chinked its contents at some phantom shape discernible to her eyes alone; while through her set teeth hissed out, like ten thousand serpents, the word
“N—e—v—e—r!”
“Whatis it on the gate? Spell it, mother,” said Katy, looking wistfully through the iron fence at the terraced banks, smoothly-rolled gravel walks, plats of flowers, and grape-trellised arbors; “what is it on the gate, mother?”
“‘Insane Hospital,’ dear; a place for crazy people.”
“Want to walk round, ma’am?” asked the gate-keeper, as Katy poked her little head in; “can, if you like.” Little Katy’s eyes pleaded eloquently; flowers were to her another name for happiness, and Ruth passed in.
“I should like to live here, mamma,” said Katy.
Ruth shuddered, and pointed to a pale face pressed close against the grated window. Fair rose the building in its architectural proportions; the well-kept lawn was beautiful to the eye; but, alas! there was helpless age, whose only disease was too long a lease of life for greedy heirs. There, too, was the fragile wife, to whomlovewasbreath—being!—forgotten by the world and him in whose service her bloom had withered, insane—only in that her love had outlived his patience.
“Poor creatures!” exclaimed Ruth, as they peered out from one window after another. “Have you had many deaths here?” asked she of the gate-keeper.
“Some, ma’am. There is one corpse in the house now; a married lady, Mrs. Leon.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Ruth, “my friend Mary.”
“Died yesterday, ma’am; her husband left her here for her health, while he went to Europe.”
“Can I see the Superintendent,” asked Ruth; “I must speak to him.”
Ruth followed the gate-keeper up the ample steps into a wide hall, and from thence into a small parlor; after waiting what seemed to her an age of time, Mr. Tibbetts, the Superintendent, entered. He was a tall, handsome man, between forty and fifty, with a very imposing air and address.
“I am pained to learn,” said Ruth, “that a friend of mine, Mrs. Leon, lies dead here; can I see the body?”
“Are you a relative of that lady?” asked Mr. Tibbetts, with a keen glance at Ruth.
“No,” replied Ruth, “but she was very dear to me. The last time I saw her, not many months since, she was in tolerable health. Has she been long with you, Sir?”
“About two months,” replied Mr. Tibbetts; “she was hopelessly crazy, refused food entirely, so that we were obliged to force it. Her husband, who is an intimate friend of mine, left her under my care, and went to the Continent. A very fine man, Mr. Leon.”
Ruth did not feel inclined to respond to this remark, but repeated her request to see Mary.
“It is against the rules of our establishment to permit this to any but relatives,” said Mr. Tibbetts.
“I should esteem it a great favor if you would break through your rules in my case,” replied Ruth; “it will be a great consolation to me to have seen her once more;” and her voice faltered.
The appeal was made so gently, yet so firmly, that Mr. Tibbetts reluctantly yielded.
The matron of the establishment, Mrs. Bunce, (whose advent was heralded by the clinking of a huge bunch of keys at her waist,) soon after came in. Mrs. Bunce was gaunt, sallow and bony, with restless, yellowish, glaring black eyes, very much resembling those of a cat in the dark; her motions were quick, brisk, and angular; her voice loud, harsh, and wiry. Ruth felt an instantaneous aversion to her; which was not lessened by Mrs. Bunce asking, as they passed through the parlor-door:
“Fond of looking at corpses, ma’am? I’ve seen a great many in my day; I’ve laid out more’n twenty people, first and last, with my own hands. Relation of Mrs.Leon’s, perhaps?” said she, curiously peering under Ruth’s bonnet. “Ah, only a friend?”
“This way, if you please, ma’am;” and on they went, through one corridor, then another, the massive doors swinging heavily to on their hinges, and fastening behind them as they closed.
“Hark!” said Ruth, with a quick, terrified look, “what’s that?”
“Oh, nothing,” replied the matron, “only a crazy woman in that room yonder, screaming for her child. Her husband ran away from her and carried off her child with him, to spite her, and now she fancies every footstep she hears is his. Visitors always thinks she screams awful. She can’t harm you, ma’am,” said the matron, mistaking the cause of Ruth’s shudder, “for she is chained. She went to law about the child, and the law, you see, as it generally is, was on the man’s side; and it just upset her. She’s a sight of trouble to manage. If she was to catch sight of your little girl out there in the garden, she’d spring at her through them bars like a panther; but we don’t have to whip herveryoften.”
“Down here,” said the matron, taking the shuddering Ruth by the hand, and descending a flight of stone steps, into a dark passage-way. “Tired arn’t you?”
“Wait a bit, please,” said Ruth, leaning against the stone wall, for her limbs were trembling so violently that she could scarcely bear her weight.
“Now,” said she, (after a pause,) with a firmer voice and step.
“This way,” said Mrs. Bunce, advancing towards a rough deal box which stood on a table in a niche of the cellar, and setting a small lamp upon it; “she didn’t look no better than that, ma’am, for a long while before she died.”
Ruth gave one hurried glance at the corpse, and buried her face in her hands. Well might she fail to recognize in that emaciated form, those sunken eyes and hollow cheeks, the beautiful Mary Leon. Well might she shudder, as the gibbering screams of the maniacs over head echoed through the stillness of that cold, gloomy vault.
“Were you with her at the last?” asked Ruth of the matron, wiping away her tears.
“No,” replied she; “the afternoon she died she said, ‘I want to be alone,’ and, not thinking her near her end, I took my work and sat just outside the door. I looked in once, about half an hour after, but she lay quietly asleep, with her cheek in her hand,—so. By-and-bye I thought I would speak to her, so I went in, and saw her lying just as she did when I looked at her before. I spoke to her, but she did not answer me; she was dead, ma’am.”
O, how mournfully sounded in Ruth’s ears those plaintive words, “I want to be alone.” Poor Mary! aye, better even in death ‘alone,’ than gazed at by careless, hirelingeyes, since he who should have closed those drooping lids, had wearied of their faded light.
“Did she speak of no one?” asked Ruth; “mention no one?”
“No—yes; I recollect now that she said something about calling Ruth; I didn’t pay any attention, for they don’t know what they are saying, you know. She scribbled something, too, on a bit of paper; I found it under her pillow, when I laid her out. I shouldn’t wonder if it was in my pocket now; I haven’t thought of it since. Ah! here it is,” said Mrs. Bunce, as she handed the slip of paper to Ruth.
It ran thus:—“I am not crazy, Ruth, no, no—but I shall be; the air of this place stifles me; I grow weaker—weaker. I cannot die here; for the love of heaven, dear Ruth, come and take me away.”
“Only three mourners,—a woman and two little girls,” exclaimed a by-stander, as Ruth followed Mary Leon to her long home.
Thesudden change in Mrs. Skiddy’s matrimonial prospects necessitated Ruth to seek other quarters. With a view to still more rigid economy, she hired a room without board, in the lower part of the city.
Mrs. Waters, her new landlady, was one of that description of females, whose vision is bounded by a mop, scrubbing-brush, and dust-pan; who repudiate rainy washing days; whose hearth, Jowler, on the stormiest night, would never venture near without a special permit, and whose husband and children speak under their breath on baking and cleaning days. Mrs. Waters styled herself a female physician. She kept a sort of witch’s cauldron constantly boiling over the fire, in which seethed all sorts of “mints” and “yarbs,” and from which issued what she called a “potecary odor.” Mrs. Waters, when not engaged in stirring this cauldron, or in her various house-keeping duties, alternated her leisure in reading medicalbooks, attending medical lectures, and fondling a pet skull, which lay on the kitchen-dresser.
Various little boxes of brown-bread-looking pills ornamented the upper shelf, beside a row of little dropsical chunky junk bottles, whose labels would have puzzled the most erudite M. D. who ever received a diploma. Mrs. Waters felicitated herself on knowing how the outer and inner man of every son of Adam was put together, and considered the times decidedly “out of joint;” inasmuch that she, Mrs. Waters, had not been called upon by her country to fill some medical professorship.
In person Mrs. Waters was barber-pole-ish and ram-rod-y, and her taste in dress running mostly to stringy fabrics, assisted the bolster-y impression she created; her hands and wrists bore a strong resemblance to the yellow claws of defunct chickens, which children play “scare” with about Thanksgiving time; her feet were of turtle flatness, and her eyes—if you ever provoked a cat up to the bristling and scratching point, you may possibly form an idea of them.
Mrs. Waters condescended to allow Ruth to keep the quart of milk and loaf of bread, (which was to serve for her bill of fare for every day’s three meals,) on a swing shelf in a corner of the cellar. As Ruth’s room was at the top of the house, it was somewhat of a journey to travel up and down, and the weather was too warm tokeep it up stairs; to her dismay she soon found that the cellar-floor was generally more or less flooded with water, and the sudden change from the heated air of her attic to the dampness of the cellar, brought on a racking cough, which soon told upon her health. Upon the first symptom of it, Mrs. Waters seized a box of pills and hurried to her room, assuring her that it was “a sure cure, and only three shillings a box.”
“Thank you,” said Ruth; “but it is my rule never to take medicine unless—”
“Oh, oh,” said Mrs. Waters, bridling up; “I see—unless it is ordered by a physician, you were going to say; perhaps you don’t know thatIam a physician—none the worse for being a female. I have investigated things; I have dissected several cats, and sent in an analysis of them to the Medical Journal; it has never been published, owing, probably, to the editor being out of town. If you will take six of these pills every other night,” said the doctress, laying the box on the table, “it will cure your cough; it is only three shillings. I will take the money now, or charge it in your bill.”
“Three shillings!” Ruth was aghast; she might as well have asked her three dollars. If there was anything Ruth was afraid of, it was Mrs. Waters’ style of woman; a loaded cannon, or a regiment of dragoons, would have had few terrors in comparison. But the music must be faced; so, hoping to avoid treading on her landlady’s professionaltoes, Ruth said, “I think I’ll try first what dieting will do, Mrs. Waters.”
The door instantly banged to with a crash, as the owner and vender of the pills passed out. The next day Mrs. Waters drew off a little superfluous feminine bile, by announcing to Ruth, with a malignity worthy of her sex, “that she forgot to mention when she let her lodgings, that she should expect her to scour the stairs she traveled over, at least once a week.”
Itwas a sultry morning in July. Ruth had risen early, for her cough seemed more troublesome in a reclining posture. “I wonder what that noise can be?” said she to herself; whir—whir—whir, it went, all day long in the attic overhead. She knew that Mrs. Waters had one other lodger beside herself, an elderly gentleman by the name of Bond, who cooked his own food, and whom she often met on the stairs, coming up with a pitcher of water, or a few eggs in a paper bag, or a pie that he had bought of Mr. Flake, at the little black grocery-shop at the corner. On these occasions he always stepped aside, and with a deferential bow waited for Ruth to pass. He was a thin, spare man, slightly bent; his hair and whiskers curiously striped like a zebra, one lock being jet black, while the neighboring one was as distinct a white. His dress was plain, but very neat and tidy. He never seemed to have any business out-doors, as he stayed in his room allday, never leaving it at all till dark, when he paced up and down, with his hands behind him, before the house. “Whir—whir—whir.” It was early sunrise; but Ruth had heard that odd noise for two hours at least. Whatcouldit mean? Just then a carrier passed on the other side of the street with the morning papers, and slipped one under the crack of the house door opposite.
A thought! why could not Ruth write for the papers? How very odd it had never occurred to her before? Yes, write for the papers—why not? She remembered that while at boarding-school, an editor of a paper in the same town used often to come in and take down her compositions in short-hand as she read them aloud, and transfer them to the columns of his paper. She certainlyoughtto write better now than she did when an inexperienced girl. She would begin that very night; but where to make a beginning? who would publish her articles? how much would they pay her? to whom should she apply first? There was her brother Hyacinth, now the prosperous editor of the Irving Magazine; oh, if he would only employ her? Ruth was quite sure she could write as well as some of his correspondents, whom he had praised with no niggardly pen. She would prepare samples to send immediately, announcing her intention, and offering them for his acceptance. This means of support would be so congenial, so absorbing. At the needle one’s mind could still be brooding over sorrowful thoughts.
Ruth counted the days and hours impatiently, as she waited for an answer. Hyacinth surely would not refuseherwhen in almost every number of his magazine he was announcing some new contributor; or, ifhecould not employ herhimself, he surely would be brotherly enough to point out to her some one of the many avenues so accessible to a man of extensive newspaperial and literary acquaintance. She would so gladly support herself, so cheerfully toil day and night, if need be, could she only win an independence; and Ruth recalled with a sigh Katy’s last visit to her father, and then she rose and walked the floor in her impatience; and then, her restless spirit urging her on to her fate, she went again to the post office to see if there were no letter. How long the clerk made her wait! Yes, therewasa letter for her, and in her brother’s hand-writing too. Oh, how long since she had seen it!
Ruth heeded neither the jostling of office-boys, porters, or draymen, as she held out her eager hand for the letter. Thrusting it hastily in her pocket, she hurried in breathless haste back to her lodgings. The contents were as follows:
“I have looked over the pieces you sent me, Ruth. It is very evident that writing never can beyourforte; you have no talent that way. You may possibly be employed by some inferior newspapers, but be assured your articlesnever will be heard of out of your own little provincial city. For myself I have plenty of contributors, nor do I know of any of my literary acquaintances who would employ you. I would advise you, therefore, to seek someunobtrusiveemployment. Your brother,“Hyacinth Ellet.”
“I have looked over the pieces you sent me, Ruth. It is very evident that writing never can beyourforte; you have no talent that way. You may possibly be employed by some inferior newspapers, but be assured your articlesnever will be heard of out of your own little provincial city. For myself I have plenty of contributors, nor do I know of any of my literary acquaintances who would employ you. I would advise you, therefore, to seek someunobtrusiveemployment. Your brother,
“Hyacinth Ellet.”
A bitter smile struggled with the hot tear that fell upon Ruth’s cheek. “I have tried the unobtrusive employment,” said Ruth; “the wages are six cents a day, Hyacinth;” and again the bitter smile disfigured her gentle lip.
“No talent!”
“At another tribunal than his will I appeal.”
“Never be heard of out of my own little provincial city!” The cold, contemptuous tone stung her.
“But they shall be heard of;” and Ruth leaped to her feet. “Sooner than he dreams of, too. Icando it, Ifeelit, Iwilldo it,” and she closed her lips firmly; “but there will be a desperate struggle first,” and she clasped her hands over her heart as if it had already commenced; “there will be scant meals, and sleepless nights, and weary days, and a throbbing brow, and an aching heart; there will be the chilling tone, the rude repulse; there will be ten backward steps to one forward.Pridemust sleep! but—” and Ruth glanced at her children—“it shall bedone. They shallbe proud of their mother.Hyacinth shall yet be proud to claim his sister.”
“What is it, mamma?” asked Katy, looking wonderingly at the strange expression of her mother’s face.
“What is it, my darling?” and Ruth caught up the child with convulsive energy; “what is it? only that when you are a woman you shall remember this day, my little pet;” and as she kissed Katy’s upturned brow a bright spot burned on her cheek, and her eye glowed like a star.
“Doctor?” said Mrs. Hall, “put down that book, will you? I want to talk to you a bit; there you’ve sat these three hours, without stirring, except to brush the flies off your nose, and my tongue actually aches keeping still.”
“Sh-sh-sh,” said the doctor, running his forefinger along to guide his purblind eyes safely to the end of the paragraph. “Sh-sh. ‘It—is es-ti-ma-ted by Captain Smith—that—there—are—up’ards—of—ten—hundred—human—critters—in—the—Nor-West—sett-le-ment.’ Well—Mis. Hall—well—” said the doctor, laying a faded ribbon mark between the leaves of the book, and pushing his spectacles back on his forehead, “what’s to pay now? what do you want of me?”
“I’ve a great mind as ever I had to eat,” said the old lady, pettishly, “to knit twice round the heel of this stocking, before I answer you; what do you think I careabout Captain Smith? Travelers always lie; it is a part of their trade, and if they don’t it’s neither here nor there to me. I wish that book was in the Red Sea.”
“I thought you didn’t want itread,” retorted the irritating old doctor.
“Now I suppose you call that funny,” said the old lady. “I call it simply ridiculous for a man of your years to play on words in such a frivolous manner. What I was going to say was this,i. e.if I can get a chance to say it, ifyouhave given up all idea of getting Harry’s children,Ihaven’t, and now is the time to apply for Katy again; for, according to all accounts, Ruth is getting along poorly enough.”
“How did you hear?” asked the doctor.
“Why, my milliner, Miss Tiffkins, has a nephew who tends in a little grocery-shop near where Ruth boards, and he says that she buys a smaller loaf every time she comes to the store, and that the milkman told him that she only took a pint of milk a day of him now; then Katy has not been well, and what she did for doctors and medicines is best known to herself; she’s so independent that she never would complain if she had to eat paving stones. The best way to get the child will be to ask her here on a visit, and say we want to cure her up a little with country air. You understand? that will throw dust in Ruth’s eyes, and then we will take our own time about letting her go back you know. Miss Tiffkins says hernephew says that people who come into the grocery-shop are very curious to know who Ruth is; and old Mr. Flake, who keeps it, says that it wouldn’t hurt her any, if she is a lady, to stop and talk a little, like the rest of his customers; he says, too, that her children are as close-mouthed as their mother, for when he just asked Katy what business her father used to do, and what supported them now he was dead, and if they lived all the time on bread and milk, and a few such little questions, Katy answered, ‘Mamma does not allow me to talk to strangers,’ and went out of the shop, with her loaf of bread, as dignified as a little duchess.”
“Like mother, like child,” said the doctor; “proud and poor, proud and poor; that tells the whole story. Well, shall I write to Ruth, Mis. Hall, about Katy?”
“No,” said the old lady, “let me manage that; you will upset the whole business if you do. I’ve a plan in my head, and to-morrow, after breakfast, I’ll take the old chaise, and go in after Katy.”
In pursuance of this plan, the old lady, on the following day, climbed up into an old-fashioned chaise, and turned the steady old horse’s nose in the direction of the city; jerking at the reins, and clucking and gee-ing him up, after the usual awkward fashion of sexegenarian female drivers. Using Miss Tiffkin’s land-mark, the little black grocery-shop, for a guide-board, she soon discovered Ruth’s abode; and so well did she play her part in commiseratingRuth’s misfortunes, and Katy’s sickly appearance, that the widow’s kind heart was immediately tortured with the most unnecessary self-reproaches, which prepared the way for an acceptance of her invitation for Katy “for a week or two;” great promises, meanwhile, being held out to the child of “a little pony to ride,” and various other tempting lures of the same kind. Still little Katy hesitated, clinging tightly to her mother’s dress, and looking, with her clear, searching eyes, into her grandmother’s face, in a way that would have embarrassed a less artful manœuverer. The old lady understood the glance, and put it on file, to be attended to at her leisure; it being no part of her present errand to play the unamiable. Little Katy, finally won over, consented to make the visit, and the old chaise was again set in motion for home.
“Howd’ye do, Ruth?” asked Mr. Ellet, the next morning, as he ran against Ruth in the street; “glad you have taken my advice, and done a sensible thing at last.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” answered Ruth.
“Why, the doctor told me yesterday that you had given Katy up to them, to bring up; you would have done better if you had sent off Nettie too.”
“I have not ‘given Katy up,’” said Ruth, starting and blushing deeply; “and they could not have understood it so; she has only gone on a visit of a fortnight, to recruit a little.”
“Pooh—pooh!” replied Mr. Ellet. “The thing is quietly over with; now don’t make a fuss. The old folks expect to keep her. They wrote to me about it, and I approved of it. It’s the best thing all round; and, as I just said, it would have been better still if Nettie hadgone, too. Now don’t make a fool of yourself; you can go once in awhile, I suppose, to see the child.”
“Howcan I go?” asked Ruth, looking her father calmly in the face; “it costs fifty cents every trip, by railroad, and you know I have not the money.”
“That’s for you to decide,” answered the father coldly; “I can’t be bothered about such trifles. It is the way you always do, Ruth, whenever I see you; but it is time I was at my office. Don’t make a fool of yourself, now; mind what I tell you, and let well alone.”
“Father,” said Ruth; “father—”
“Can’t stop—can’t stop,” said Mr. Ellet, moving rapidly down street, to get out of his daughter’s way.
“Can it be possible,” thought Ruth, looking after him, “that he could connive at such duplicity? Was the old lady’s sympathy a mere stratagem to work upon my feelings? How unnecessarily I reproached myself with my supposed injustice to her? Cangoodpeople do such things? Is religion only a fable? No, no; ‘let God be true, and every man a liar.’”
“Isthis ‘The Daily Type’ office?” asked Ruth of a printer’s boy, who was rushing down five steps at a time, with an empty pail in his hand.
“All you have to do is to ask, mem. You’ve got a tongue in your head, haven’t ye? women folks generally has,” said the little ruffian.
Ruth, obeying this civil invitation, knocked gently at the office door. A whir of machinery, and a bad odor of damp paper and cigar smoke, issued through the half-open crack.
“I shall have to walk in,” said Ruth, “they never will hear my feeble knock amid all this racket and bustle;” and pushing the door ajar, she found herself in the midst of a group of smokers, who, in slippered feet, and with heels higher than their heads, were whiffing and laughing, amid the pauses of conversation, most uproariously. Ruth’s face crimsoned as heels and cigars remained instatu quo, and her glance was met by a rude stare.
“I called to see if you would like a new contributor to your paper,” said Ruth; “if so, I will leave a few samples of my articles for your inspection.”
“What do you say, Bill?” said the person addressed; “drawer full as usual, I suppose, isn’t it? more chaff than wheat, too, I’ll swear; don’t want any, ma’am; come now, Jo, let’s hear the rest of that story; shut the door, ma’am, if you please.”
“Are you the editor of the ‘Parental Guide’?” said Ruth, to a thin, cadaverous-looking gentleman, in a white neck-cloth, and green spectacles, whose editorial sanctum was not far from the office she had just left.
“I am.”
“Do you employ contributors for your paper?”
“Sometimes.”
“Shall I leave you this MS. for your inspection, sir?”
“Just as you please.”
“Have you a copy of your paper here, sir, from which I could judge what style of articles you prefer?”
At this, the gentleman addressed raised his eyes for the first time, wheeled his editorial arm-chair round, facing Ruth, and peering over his green spectacles, remarked:
“Our paper, madam, is most em-phat-i-cal-ly a paper devoted to the interests of religion; no frivolous jests, no love-sick ditties, no fashionable sentimentalism, finds aplace in its columns. This is a serious world, madam, and it ill becomes those who are born to die, to go dancing through it. Josephus remarks that the Saviour of the world was never known to smile.Iseldom smile. Are you a religious woman, madam?”
“I endeavor to become so,” answered Ruth.
“V-e-r-ygood; what sect?”
“Presbyterian.”
At this the white neck-clothed gentleman moved back his chair: “Wrong, madam, all wrong; I was educated by the best of fathers, but he wasnota Presbyterian; his son is not a Presbyterian; his son’s paper sets its face like a flint against that heresy; no, madam, we shall have no occasion for your contributions; a hope built on a Presbyterian foundation, is built on the sand. Good morning, madam.”
Did Ruth despair? No! but the weary little feet which for so many hours had kept pace with hers, needed a reprieve. Little Nettie must go home, and Ruth must read the office signs as she went along, to prepare for new attempts on the morrow.
To-morrow? Would a brighter morrowevercome? Ruth thought of her children, and said again with a strong heart—it will; and taking little Netty upon her lap she divided with her their frugal supper—a scanty bowl of bread and milk.
Ruth could not but acknowledge to herself that she had thus far met with but poor encouragement, but she knew that to climb, she must begin at the lowest round of the ladder. It were useless to apply to a long-established leading paper for employment, unless endorsed by some influential name. Her brother had coolly, almost contemptuously, set her aside; and yet in the very last number of his Magazine, which accident threw in her way, he pleaded for public favor for a young actress, whom he said had been driven by fortune from the sheltered privacy of home, to earn her subsistence upon the stage, and whose earnest, strong-souled nature, he thought, should meet with a better welcome than mere curiosity. “Oh, why not one word for me?” thought Ruth; “and how can I ask of strangers a favor which a brother’s heart has so coldly refused?”
It was very disagreeable applying to the small papers, many of the editors of which, accustomed to dealing with hoydenish contributors, were incapable of comprehending that their manner towards Ruth had been marked by any want of that respectful courtesy due to a dignified woman. From all such contact Ruth shrank sensitively; their free-and-easy tone fell upon her ear so painfully, as often to bring the tears to her eyes. Oh, if Harry—but she must not think of him.
The next day Ruth wandered about the businessstreets, looking into office-entries, reading signs, and trying to gather from their “know-nothing” hieroglyphics, some light to illumine her darkened pathway. Day after day chronicled only repeated failures, and now, notwithstanding she had reduced their already meagre fare, her purse was nearly empty.
Itwas a warm, sultry Sabbath morning; not a breath of air played over the heated roofs of the great, swarming city. Ruth sat in her little, close attic, leaning her head upon her hand, weary, languid and dejected. Life seemed to her scarce worth the pains to keep its little flame flickering. A dull pain was in her temples, a heavy weight upon her heart. Other Sabbaths,happySabbaths, came up to her remembrance; earth looked so dark to her now, heaven so distant, God’s ways so inscrutable.
Hark to the Sabbath-bell!
Ruth took little Nettie by the hand, and led her slowly to church. Other families,unbrokenfamilies, passed her on their way; families whose sunny thresholds the destroying angel had never crossed. Oh why the joy to them, the pain to her? Sadly she entered the church, and took her accustomed seat amid the worshippers.The man of God opened the holy book. Sweet and clear fell upon Ruth’s troubled ear these blessed words: “There remaineth, therefore, a rest for the people of God.”
The bliss, the joy of heaven was pictured; life,—mysterious, crooked, unfathomable life, made clear to the eye of faith; sorrow, pain, suffering, ignominy even, made sweet for His sake, who suffered all for us.
Ruth weeps! weeps that her faith was for an instant o’erclouded; weeps that she shrank from breasting the foaming waves at the bidding of Him who said, “It is I, be not afraid.” And she, who came there fluttering with a broken wing, went away singing, soaring.
Oh man of God! pressed down with many cares, anxious and troubled, sowing but not reaping, fearing to bring in no sheaves for the harvest, be of good courage. The arrow shot at a venture may to thine eye fall aimless; but in the Book of Life shalt thou read many an answer to the wrestling prayer, heard in thy closet by God alone.
“Fineday, Mr. Ellet,” said a country clergyman to Ruth’s father, as he sat comfortably ensconced in his counting-room. “I don’t see but you look as young as you did when I saw you five years ago. Life has gone smoothly with you; you have been remarkably prospered in business, Mr. Ellet.”
“Yes, yes,” said the old gentleman, who was inordinately fond of talking of himself; “yes, yes, I may say that, though I came into Massachusetts a-foot, with a loaf of bread and a sixpence, and now,—well, not to boast, I own this house, and the land attached, beside my country-seat, and have a nice little sum stowed away in the bank for a rainy day; yes, Providence has smiled on my enterprise; my affairs are, as you say, in averyprosperous condition. I hope religion flourishes in your church, brother Clark.”
“Dead—dead—dead, as the valley of dry bones,” replied Mr. Clark with a groan. “I have been trying to ‘get up a revival;’ but Satan reigns—Satan reigns, andthe right arm of the church seems paralysed. Sometimes I think the stumbling-block is the avaricious and money-grabbing spirit of its professors.”
“Very likely,” answered Mr. Ellet; “there is a great deal too much of that in the church. I alluded to it myself, in my remarks at the last church-meeting. I called it the accursed thing, the Achan in the camp, the Jonah which was to hazard the Lord’s Bethel, and I humbly hope my remarks were blessed. I understand from the last Monthly Concert, brother Clark, that there are good accounts from the Sandwich Islands; twenty heathen admitted to the church in one day; good news that.”
“Yes,” groaned brother Clark, to whose blurred vision the Sun of Righteousness was always clouded; “yes, but think how many more are still, and always will be, worshipping idols; think how long it takes a missionary to acquire a knowledge of the language; and think how many, just as they become perfected in it, die of the climate, or are killed by the natives, leaving their helpless young families to burden the ‘American Board.’ Very sad, brother Ellet; sometimes, when I think of all this outlay of money and human lives, and so little accomplished, I—” (here a succession of protracted sneezes prevented Mr. Clark from finishing the sentence.)
“Yes,” replied Mr. Ellet, coming to the rescue; “but if onlyoneheathen had been saved, there would be joy forever in heaven. He who saveth a soul from death, youknow, hideth a multitude of sins. I think I spoke a word in season, the other day, which has resulted in one admission, at least, to our church.”
“It is to be hoped the new member will prove steadfast,” said the well-meaning but hypochondriac brother Clark, with another groan. “Many a hopeful convert goes back to the world, and the last state of that soul is worse than the first. Dreadful, dreadful. I am heartsick, brother Ellet.”
“Come,” said Ruth’s father, tapping him on the shoulder; “dinner is ready, will you sit down with us? First salmon of the season, green peas, boiled fowl, oysters,&c.; your country parishioners don’t feed you that way, I suppose.”
“N—o,” said brother Clark, “no; there is no verse in the whole Bible truer, or more dishonored in the observance, than this, ‘The laborer is worthy of his hire.’ I’ll stay to dinner, brother Ellet. You have, I bless God, a warm heart and a liberal one; your praise is in all the churches.”
A self satisfied smile played round the lips of Ruth’s father, at this tribute to his superior sanctity; and, seating himself at the well-spread table, he uttered an unusually lengthy grace.
“Some more supper, please, Mamma,” vainly pleaded little Nettie.
Ruthhad found employment. Ruth’s MSS. had been accepted at the office of “The Standard.” Yes, an article of hers was to be published in the very next issue. The remuneration was not what Ruth had hoped, but it was at least abeginning, a stepping-stone. What a pity that Mr. Lescom’s (the editor’s) rule was, not to pay a contributor, even after a piece was accepted, until it was printed—and Ruth so short of funds. Could she hold out to work so hard, and fare so rigidly? for often there was only a crust left at night; but, God be thanked, she should nowearnthat crust! It was a pity that oil was so dear, too, because most of her writing must be done at night, when Nettie’s little prattling voice was hushed, and her innumerable little wants forgotten in sleep. Yes, itwasa pity that good oil was so dear, for the cheaper kind crusted so soon on the wick, and Ruth’s eyes, from excessive weeping, had become quite tender, and often very painful. Then it would be so mortifying should amistake occur in one of her articles. She must write very legibly, for type-setters were sometimes sad bunglers, making people accountable for words that would set Worcester’s or Webster’s hair on end; but, poor things,theyworked hard too—they hadtheirsorrows, thinking, long into the still night, as they scattered the types, more of their dependent wives and children, than of the orthography of a word, or the rhetoric of a sentence.
Scratch—scratch—scratch, went Ruth’s pen; the dim lamp flickering in the night breeze, while the deep breathing of the little sleepers was the watchword,On!to her throbbing brow and weary fingers. One o’clock—two o’clock—three o’clock—the lamp burns low in the socket. Ruth lays down her pen, and pushing back the hair from her forehead, leans faint and exhausted against the window-sill, that the cool night-air may fan her heated temples. How impressive the stillness! Ruth can almost hear her own heart beat. She looks upward, and the watchful stars seem to her like the eyes of gentle friends. No, God wouldnotforsake her! A sweet peace steals into her troubled heart, and the overtasked lids droop heavily over the weary eyes.
Ruth sleeps.
Daylight! Morningsosoon? All night Ruth has leaned with her head on the window-sill, and now shewakes unrefreshed from the constrained posture; but she has no time to heedthat, for little Nettie lies moaning in her bed with pain; she lifts the little creature in her lap, rocks her gently, and kisses her cheek; but still little Nettie moans. Ruth goes to the drawer and looks in her small purse (Harry’s gift); it is empty! then she clasps her hands and looks again at little Nettie. Must Nettie die for want of care? Oh, if Mr. Lescom wouldonlyadvance her the money for the contributions he had accepted, but he said so decidedly that “it was a rule heneverdeparted from;” and there were yet five long days before the next paper would be out. Five days! what might not happen to Nettie in five days? There was her cousin, Mrs. Millet, but she had muffled her furniture in linen wrappers, and gone to the springs with her family, for the summer months; there was her father, but had he not said “Remember, if youwillburden yourself with your children, you must not look to me for help.” Kissing little Nettie’s cheek she lays her gently on the bed, whispering in a husky voice, “only a few moments, Nettie; mamma will be back soon.” She closes the door upon the sick child, and stands with her hand upon her bewildered brow, thinking.
“I beg your pardon, madam; the entry is so very dark I did not see you,” said Mr. Bond; “you are as early a riser as myself.”
“My child is sick,” answered Ruth, tremulously; “I was just going out for medicine.”
“If you approve of Homœopathy,” said Mr. Bond, “and will trust me to prescribe, there will be no necessity for your putting yourself to that trouble; I always treat myself homœopathically in sickness, and happen to have a small supply of those medicines by me.”
Ruth’s natural independence revolted at the idea of receiving a favor from a stranger.
“Perhaps you disapprove of Homœopathy,” said Mr. Bond, mistaking the cause of her momentary hesitation; “it works like a charm with children; but if you prefer not to try it, allow me to go out and procure you whatever you desire in the way of medicine; you will not then be obliged to leave your child.”
Here was another dilemma—whatshouldRuth do? Why, clearly accept his first offer; there was an air of goodness and sincerity about him, which, added to his years, seemed to invite her confidence.
Mr. Bond stepped in, looked at Nettie, and felt her pulse. “Ah, little one, we will soon have you better,” said he, as he left the room to obtain his little package of medicines.
“Thank you,” said Ruth, with a grateful smile, as he administered to Nettie some infinitesimal pills.
“Not in the least,” said Mr. Bond. “I learned two years since to doctor myself in this way, and I have oftenhad the pleasure of relieving others in emergencies like this, from my little Homœopathic stores. You will find that your little girl will soon fall into a sweet sleep, and awake much relieved; if you are careful with her, she will, I think, need nothing more in the way of medicine, or if she should, my advice is quite at your service;” and, taking his pitcher of water in his hand, he bowed respectfully, and wished Ruth good morning.
Who was he? what was he? Whir—whir—there was the noise again! That he was a man of refined and courteous manners, was very certain. Ruth felt glad he was so much her senior; he seemed so like what Ruth had sometimes dreamed a kind father might be, that it lessened the weight of the obligation. Already little Nettie had ceased moaning; her little lids began to droop, and her skin, which had been hot and feverish, became moist and cool. “May God reward him, whoever he may be,” said Ruth. “Surely itisblessed totrust!”
Itwas four o’clock of a hot August afternoon. The sun had crept round to the front piazza of the doctor’s cottage. No friendly trees warded off his burning rays, for the doctor “liked a prospect;”i. e.he liked to sit at the window and count the different trains which whizzed past in the course of the day; the number of wagons, and gigs, and carriages, that rolled lazily up the hill; to see the village engine, the “Cataract,” drawn out on the green for its weekly ablutions, and to count the bundles of shingles that it took to roof over Squire Ruggles’ new barn. No drooping vines, therefore, or creepers, intruded between him and this pleasant “prospect.” The doctor was an utilitarian; he could see “no use” in such things, save to rot timber and harbor vermin. So a wondrous glare of white paint, (carefully renewed every spring,) blinded the traveler whose misfortune it was topass the road by the doctor’s house. As I said, it was now four o’clock. The twelve o’clock dinner was long since over. The Irish girl had rinsed out her dish-towels, hung them out the back door to dry, and gone down to the village store to buy some new ribbons advertised as selling at an “immense sacrifice” by the disinterested village shopkeeper.
Let us peep into the doctor’s sitting room; the air of this room is close and stifled, for the windows must be tightly closed, lest some audacious fly should make his mark on the old lady’s immaculate walls. A centre table stands in the middle of the floor, with a copy of “The Religious Pilot,” last year’s Almanac, A Directory, and “The remarkable Escape of Eliza Cook, who was partially scalped by the Indians.” On one side of the room hangs a piece of framed needle-work, by the virgin fingers of the old lady, representing an unhappy female, weeping over a very high and very perpendicular tombstone, which is hieroglyphiced over with untranslateable characters in red worsted, while a few herbs, not mentioned by botanists, are struggling for existence at its base. A friendly willow-tree, of a most extraordinary shade of blue green, droops in sympathy over the afflicted female, while a nondescript looking bird, resembling a dropsical bull-frog, suspends his song and one leg, in the foreground. It was principally to preservethis chef-d’œuvre of art, that the windows were hermetically sealed to the entrance of vagrant flies.
The old doctor, with his spectacles awry and his hands drooping listlessly at his side, snored from the depths of his arm-chair, while opposite him the old lady, peering out from behind a very stiffly-starched cap border, was “seaming,” “widening,” and “narrowing,” with a precision and perseverance most painful to witness. Outside, the bee hummed, the robin twittered, the shining leaves of the village trees danced and whispered to the shifting clouds; the free, glad breeze swept the tall meadow-grass, and the village children, as free and fetterless, danced and shouted at their sports; but there sat little Katy, with her hands crossed in her lap, as shehadsat for many an hour, listening to the never-ceasing click of her grandmother’s needles, and the sonorous breathings of the doctor’s rubicund nose. Sometimes she moved uneasily in her chair, but the old lady’s uplifted finger would immediately remind her that “little girls must be seen and not heard.” It was a great thing for Katy when a mouse scratched on the wainscot, or her grandmother’s ball rolled out of her lap, giving her a chance to stretch her little cramped limbs. And now the village bell began to toll, with a low, booming, funereal sound, sending a cold shudder through the child’s nervous and excited frame. What ifhermother should die way off in the city? What if she shouldalwayslive in this terrible way at hergrandmother’s? with nobody to love her, or kiss her, or pat her little head kindly, and say, “Katy, dear;” and again the bell boomed out its mournful sound, and little Katy, unable longer to bear the torturing thoughts it called up, sobbed aloud.
It was all in vain, that the frowning old lady held up her warning finger; the flood-gates were opened, and Katy could not have stopped her tears had her life depended on it.
Hark! a knock at the door! a strange footstep!
“Mother!” shrieked the child hysterically, “mother!” and flew into Ruth’s sheltering arms.
“Whatshallwe do, doctor?” asked the old lady, the day after Ruth’s visit. “I trusted to her not being able to get the money to come out here, and her father, I knew, wouldn’t give it to her, and now here she has walked the whole distance, with Nettie in her arms, except a lift a wagoner or two gave her on the road; and I verily believe she would have done it, had it been twice the distance it is. I never shall be able to bring up that child according to my notions, whilesheis round. I’d forbid her the house, (she deserves it,) only that it won’t sound well if she tells of it. And to think of that ungrateful little thing’s flying into her mother’s arms as if she was in the last extremity, after all we have done for her. I don’t suppose Ruth would have left her with us, asit is, if she had the bread to put in her mouth. She might as well give her up, though, first as last, for she never will be able to support her.”
“She’s fit for nothing but a parlor ornament,” said the doctor, “never was. No more business talent in Ruth Ellet, than there is in that chany image of yours on the mantle-tree, Mis. Hall. That tells the whole story.”