"You would not say it was anything."
"She knows a little history," Mrs. Carpenter put in.
"Have you any acquaintance with Alexander of Macedon, Rotha?"
"The Great? asked Rotha.
"He is called so."
"Yes, I know about him."
"Think he deserved the title?"
"Yes, I suppose he did."
"What for?"
"He was such a clever man."
"Well, I have no doubt he was," Mr. Digby returned, keeping a perfectly grave face with some difficulty; "a clever man; but how did he shew it?"
Rotha paused, and a faint tinge, of excitement this time, rose again in her cheeks, and her eye waked up with the mental stir. "He had such grand plans," she answered.
"Ah? yes. Which do you mean?"
"For civilizing people; for bringing the different nations to know each other and be friends with each other; so that trade could be carried on, and knowledge and arts and civilization could spread to all; that his empire could be one great whole."
"On the whole you approve of Alexander. After all, what use was he to the world?"
"Why a good deal," said Rotha. "Don't you think so? His successors carried on his plans; at least some of them did; and the Greek language was spread through Asia, and the Jews encouraged to settle in Egyptian and Greek cities; and so the way was prepared for the spread of the gospel when it came."
"Mrs. Carpenter," said Mr. Digby, "your manner of teaching history is very satisfactory!"
"I have done what I could," said the mother, "but we had very few books to work with."
"We had none," said Rotha, "except Rollin's Ancient History, andPlutarch's Lives."
"One good book, well used, is worth a hundred under other circumstances.Then you do not know much of modern history, Rotha?"
"Nothing at all; except what mother has told me."
"How about grammar?"
"I have taught her grammar," said Mrs. Carpenter; "and geography. She knows both pretty well. But I found, with my work, I could not teach her arithmetic; and I had not a good book for it. Rotha can do nothing with numbers."
Mr. Digby gave the girl a simple question in mental arithmetic; and then another, and another. Rotha's brow grew intent; the colour in her cheeks brightened; she was grappling, it was plain, with the difficulties suggested to her, wrestling with them, conquering them, with the sort of zeal which conquers all difficulties not insurmountable.
"May I give Rotha lessons in Latin?" Mr. Digby asked, turning quietly toRotha's mother.
"Latin!" Mrs. Carpenter exclaimed, and her cheeks too flushed slightly.
"I should enjoy it. It is likely that important business will bring me frequently into this part of the city; so I could do it as well as not."
"But it would be so much trouble—unless you are fond of teaching—"
"I am fond of teaching—when I find somebody that can learn."
"You are very kind!—I should be very glad—Poor Rotha, I have been unable to do for her what I wished—"
"I think you have done admirably, from the slight specimen I have had.How much time can she give to study?"
"O she has time enough. She is much more idle than I like to have her."
"Then that is arranged. I am going to send you a few raw oysters, Mrs. Carpenter; and I wish you would eat them at all times of day, whenever you feel like it. I knew a very slender lady once, who grew to very ample proportions by following such a regimen. Try what they will do for you."
A grateful, silent look thanked him, and he took his departure. Rotha, who had been standing silent and cloudy, now burst forth.
"Mother!—I do not want him to teach me!"
"Why not, my child? I think he is very kind.'
"Kind! I don't want to be taught out of kindness; and Idon'twanthimto teach me, mother!"
"What's the matter?" for Rotha was flushed and fierce.
"I can learn without him. It is none of his business, whether I learn or not. And if I shouldn't say something just right, and he should find fault, I should be so angry I shouldn't know what to do!"
"You talk as if you were angry now."
"Well I am! Why did you say yes, mother?"
"Would you have had me say no?"
"Yes! I don't want to learn Latin anyhow. What's the use of my learningLatin? And of him,—O mother, mother!"
And Rotha burst into impatient and impotent tears.
"Why not of Mr. Digby?" said her mother soothingly.
"O he is so—I can't tell!—he's so uppish."
"He is notuppishat all. I am ashamed of you, Rotha."
"Well, nothing puts him out. He is just always the same; and he thinks everything must be as he says. I don't like him to come here teaching me."
"What folly is this? He is a gentleman, that's all. Do you dislike him for being a gentleman?"
"I'm not a lady"—sobbed Rotha.
"What has that to do with it?"
"Mother, I wish I could be a lady!"
"My child, Mr. Digby told you how."
"No, he didn't. He told mewhatit was; he didn't tell me how I could get all that."
"You can follow the Bible roles, at any rate, Rotha; and they go a good way."
"No, I can't, mother. I could if I were a Christian, I suppose; but I am not I can't 'honour all men'; I don't know how; and I can't prefer others before myself I prefer myself But if I could, that wouldn't make me a lady."
Mrs. Carpenter did not know what to do with this passion, the cause of which she was at a loss to understand. It was very real; Rotha sobbed; and her mother was at a loss how to comfort her. What dim, far-off recognition was this, of powers and possibilities in life—or in herself —of which the girl had hitherto no experience and no knowledge? It was quite just Mrs. Carpenter, herself refined and essentially lady-like, knew very well that her little girl was not growing up to be a lady; she had laid that off, along with several other subjects of care, as beyond her reach to deal with; but Rotha's appeal smote a tender spot in her heart, and she was puzzled how to answer her. Perhaps it was just as well that she took refuge in her usual silence and did not try any further.
As Mr. Digby was going through the little passage way to the front door, another door opened and Mrs. Marble's head was put out.
"Good morning!" she said. "You're a friend of those folks up stairs, aint you?"
"Yes, certainly."
"Well, what do you think of her?" she said, lowering her voice.
"I think you are a happy woman, to have such lodgers, Mrs. Marble."
"I guess I know as much as that," said the mantua-maker, with her pleasant, arch smile. "I meant something else.Ithink, she's a sick woman."
Mr. Digby did not commit himself.
"I'm worried to death about her," Mrs. Marble went on. "Her cough's bad, and it's growin' worse; and she aint fit to be workin' this minute. And what's goin' to become of her?"
"The Lord takes care of his children; and she is one."
"If there is such a thing!" said the mantua-maker, a quick tear dimming her eye. "But you see, I have my own work, and I can't leave it to do much for her; and she won't let me, neither; and I am thinkin' about it day and night. She aint fit to work, this minute. And there's the child; and they haven't a living soul to care for them, as I see, in all the world. They never have a letter, and they never get a visit, except your'n."
"Rent paid?" asked the gentleman low.
"Always! never miss. But I'm thinkin'—how do they live? That child's grown thin—she's like a piece o' wiggin'; she'll hold up when there's nothin' to her."
Mr. Digby could not help laughing.
"I thought, if you can't help, nobody can. What's to become of them if she gets worse? That child can't do for her."
"Thank you, Mrs. Marble; you are but touching what I have thought of myself. I will see what can be done."
"And don't be long about it," said the mantua-maker with a nod of her head as she closed the door.
Perhaps it was owing to Mrs. Marble's suggestions that Mr. Digby made his next visit the day but one next after; perhaps they were the cause that he did not come sooner! At any rate, in two days he came again; and brought with him not only a Latin grammar, but a paper of grapes for Mrs. Carpenter. At the grammar Rotha's soul rebelled; but what displeasure could stand against those beautiful grapes and the sight of her mother eating them? They were not very good, Mr. Digby said; he would bring better next time; though to the sick woman they were ambrosia, and to Rotha an unknown, most exquisite dainty. Seeing her delighted, wondering eyes, Mr. Digby with a smile broke off part of a bunch and gave to her.
"It shall not rob your mother," he said observing that she hesitated. "I will bring her some more."
Rotha tasted.
"O mother!" she exclaimed in ecstasy,—"I should think these would make you well right off!"
Mr. Digby opened the Latin grammar. I think he wanted an excuse for veiling his eyes just then. And Rotha, mollified, when she had finished her grapes, submitted patiently to receive her first lesson and to be told what her teacher expected her to do before he came again.
"By the way," said he as he was about going,—"have you any more room than you need, Mrs. Carpenter?"
"Room? no. We have this floor—" said Mrs. Carpenter bewilderedly.
"You have not one room that you could let? I know a very respectable person, an elderly woman, who I think would be comfortable here, if you would allow her to come. She could pay well for the accommodation."
"What would be 'well'?" said Mrs. Carpenter, looking up.
"According to the arrangement, of course. For a room without a fire, she would pay four dollars a month; with fire, I should say, twelve."
"That would be a great help to me," said Mrs. Carpenter, considering.
"I know the person, I have known her a great while. I think I can promise that she would not in any way annoy you."
"She brings her own furniture?"
"Of course."
After a little more turning the matter over in her mind, Mrs. Carpenter gave an unqualified assent to the proposal; and her visiter took his leave.
"Mother," said Rotha, "what room are you going to give her?"
"There is but one; our bed-room."
"Then where shall we sleep?"
"Here."
"Here! Where we do everything!—"
"It is not so pleasant; but it will pay our rent, Rotha. And I should like a little more warmth at night, now the weather is so severe."
"O mother, mother! We have got down to two rooms, and now we are come down to one!"
"Hush, my child. I am thankful."
"Thankful!"
"Yes, for the means to pay my rent."
"You might have had means to pay your rent, and kept your two rooms," said Rotha; thinking, like a great many other people, that she could improve upon Providence.
"How do you like Latin?"
"If you mean, how I likeSermo Sermonis, I don't like it at all. And it is just ridiculous for Mr. Digby to be giving me lessons."
The new lodger moved in the very next week. She was a portly, comfortable-looking, kindly-natured woman, whom Mrs. Carpenter liked from the first. She established herself quietly in her quarters and almost as soon began to shew herself neighbourly and helpful. One day Mrs. Carpenter's cough was particularly troublesome. Mrs. Cord came in and suggested a palliative which she had known often to work comfortingly. She procured it and prepared it herself, and then administered it, and begged permission to cook Mrs. Carpenter's dinner; and shook up the pillow at her back, and set the rocking chair at an inclined angle which gave support and relief. When she had done all she could, she went away; but she came in again as soon as there was fresh occasion for her services, and rendered them with a hearty good will which made them doubly acceptable, and with a ready skill and power of resources which would have roused in any sophisticated mind the suspicion that Mrs. Cord was a trained nurse. Mrs. Carpenter suspected no such thing; she only felt the blessed benefit, and told Mr. Digby what a boon the new lodger had become to her.
So the winter, the latter part of it, passed in rather more comfort to the invalid. She did not work quite so steadily, and in good truth she would have been unable; she was free of anxieties about debt, for the rent was sure; and of other things they bought only what they could pay for. The fare might so have been meagre sometimes; were it not that supplies seemed to come in, irregularly but opportunely, in such very pertinent and apt ways that all sorts of gaps in the housekeeping were filled up. Mr. Digby kept their larder stocked with oysters, for one thing. Then he would bring a bit of particularly nice salmon he had found; or fresh eggs that he got from an old woman down town near one of the ferries, whom he said he could trust. Or he brought some new tea for Mrs. Carpenter to try; sometimes a sweetbread, or a fresh lobster, from the market. Then it was remarkable how often Mr. Digby was tempted by the sight of game; and came with prairie chickens, quails, partridges and ducks, to tempt, as he said, Mrs. Carpenter's appetite. And at last he brought her wine. There had grown up between the two, by this time, a relation of great kindness and even affection. Ever since one day Mrs. Carpenter had been attacked by a terrible fit of coughing when he was there; and the young man had waited upon her and ministered to her in a way that Rotha had neither strength for nor skill, and also with a tenderness which she could not have surpassed. And Rotha could be tender where her mother was concerned. Ever since that day Mr. Digby had assumed, and been allowed, something like a son's place in the little family; and Mrs. Carpenter only smiled at him when he appeared with new tokens of his thoughtfulness and care.
Rotha did not accept him quite so easily. She was somewhat jealous of his favour and of the authority he exercised; for without making the fact in any way obtrusive, a fact it was, that Mr. Digby did what he pleased. It pleased Mrs. Carpenter too; it did not quite please Rotha.
Yet in the matter of the lessons it was as much a fact as anywhere else. Mr. Digby had it quite his own way. To Mrs. Carpenter this 'way' seemed a marvel of kindness, and her gratitude was unbounded. A feeling which Rotha's heart did not at all share. She got her lessons, it is true; she did what was required of her; it soon amused Mrs. Carpenter to see with what punctilious care she did it; for in the abstract Rotha was not fond of application. She was one of those who love to walk in at the doors of knowledge, but do not at all enjoy forging the keys with which the locks must be opened. And forging keys was the work at which she was now kept busy. Rotha always knew her tasks, but she came to her recitations with a sort of reserved coldness, as if inwardly resenting or rebelling, which there is no doubt she did.
"Mr. Digby, what is the good of my knowing Latin?" she ventured to ask one day.
"You know a little about farming, do you not, Rotha?" was the counter question.
"More than a little bit, I guess."
"Do you? Then you know perhaps what is the use of ploughing the ground?"
"To make it soft. What ground are you ploughing with Latin, Mr. Digby?"
"The ground of your mind; to get it into working order."
This intimation incensed Rotha. She was too vexed to speak. All this trouble just to get her mind into working order?
"Is that all Latin is good for?" she asked at length.
"By no means. But if it were—that is no small benefit. Not only to get the ground in working order, but to develope the good qualities of it; as for instance, the power of concentration, the power of attention, the power of discernment."
"I can concentrate my attention when I have a mind to," said Rotha.
"That is well. I am going to give you something else to do which will practise you in that."
"What, Mr. Digby?" With all her impatience Rotha was careful to observe the forms of politeness with her teacher. He silently handed her an arithmetic.
"Oh!—" said the girl, drawing out the word"—I have done sums, Mr.Digby."
"How far?"
It turned out that Rotha's progress in that walk of learning had been limited to a very few steps. And even in those few steps, Mr. Digby's tests and questions gave her a half hour of sharp work; so sharp as to bar other thoughts for the time. Rotha shewed in this half hour uumistakeable capacity for the science of numbers; nevertheless, when her teacher went away leaving her a good lesson in arithmetic to study along with her Latin grammar, Rotha spoke herself dissatisfied.
"Am I to learn just whatever Mr. Digby chooses to give me?" she asked.
"I thought you liked learning, Rotha?"
"Yes, mother; so I do. I like learning well enough; I don't like him to say what I shall learn."
"Why not? Mr. Digby is very kind, Rotha!"
"He may mean it for kindness. I don't know what he means it for."
"It is nothing but pure goodness," said the mother with a grateful sigh.
"Well, is he to give me everything to learn that he takes into his head?"
"Rotha, a teacher could not be kinder or more patient than Mr. Digby is with you."
"I don't try his patience, mother."
It was true enough; she did not. She had often tried her mother's; with Mr. Digby Rotha was punctual, thorough, prompt and docile. Whether it were pride or a mingling of something better,—and Rotha did love learning,—she never gave occasion for a point of blame. It was not certainly that Mr. Digby was harsh or stern, or used a manner calculated to make anybody fear him; unless indeed it were the perfectness of good breeding which he always shewed, here in the poor sempstress's room, and in his lessons to the sempstress's child. Rotha had never seen the like in anybody before; and that more than ought else probably wrought in her such a practical awe of him. Mrs. Carpenter was even half amused to observe how Rotha unconsciously in his presence was adopting certain points of his manner; she was quiet; she moved with moderate steps; she spoke in low tones; she did not fly out in impatient or angular words or gestures, as was her way often enough at other times. Yet her mother knew, and wondered why, Rotha rebelled in secret against the whole thing. For herself, she was growing into a love for Mr. Digby which was almost like that of a mother for a son; as indeed his manner towards her was much like that of a son towards his mother. It was not the benefits conferred and received; it was a closer bond which drew them together, and a deeper relation. They looked into each other's faces, and saw there, each in the other, what each recognized as the signature of a handwriting that they loved; the stamp of a likeness that was to them both the fairest of all earthly things. Then came the good offices rendered and accepted; the frequent familiar intercourse; the purely human conditions of acquaintanceship and friendship; and it was no matter of surprise if by and by the care on the one part and the dependence on the other grew to be a thing most natural and most sweet.
So it came about, that by degrees the look of things changed in Mrs. Carpenter's small dwelling place. As the cold of the winter began to give way to the harshness of spring, and March winds blew high, the gaseous fumes from the little anthracite coal stove provoked Mrs. Carpenter's cough sadly. "She was coughing all day," Mrs. Cord told their friend in private; "whenever the wind blew and the gas came into the room." Mr. Digby took his measures. The little cooking stove was removed; a little disused grate behind it was opened; and presently a gentle fire of Liverpool coal was burning there. The atmosphere of the room as well as the physiognomy of it was entirely changed; and Mrs. Carpenter hung over the fire and spread out her hands to it with an expression of delight on her wasted face which it was touching to see. Mr. Digby saw it, and perhaps to divert the feeling which rose in him, began to find fault with something else.
"That's a very uncomfortable chair you are sitting in!" he said with a strong expression of disapproval.
"O it does very well indeed," answered Mrs. Carpenter. "I want nothing, I think, having this delightful fire."
"How do you rest when you are tired?"
"I lean back. Or I lie down sometimes."
"Humph! Beds are very well at night. I do not think they are at all satisfactory by day."
"Why what would you have?" said Mrs. Carpenter, smiling at him.
"I'll see."
It was the next day only after this that Rotha, having finished her work for her teacher and nothing else at the moment calling for attention, was standing at the window looking out into the narrow street. The region was poor, but not squalid; nevertheless it greatly stirred Rotha's disgust. If New York is ever specially disagreeable, it finds the occasion in a certain description of March weather; and this was such an occasion. It was very cold; the fire in the grate was well made up and burning beautifully and the room was pleasant enough; but outside there were gusts that were almost little whirlwinds coursing up and down every street, carrying with them columns and clouds of dust. The dust accordingly lay piled up on one side of the way, swept off from the rest of the street; not lying there peacefully, but caught up again from time to time, whirled through the air, shaken out upon everybody and everything in its way, and finally swept to one side and deposited again.
"It's the most horrid weather, mother, you can think of!" Rotha reported from her post of observation. "I shouldn't think anybody would be out; but I suppose they can't help it. A good many people are going about, anyhow. Some of them are so poorly dressed, mother! there was a woman went by just now, carrying a basket; I should say she had very little on indeed under her gown; the wind just took it and wrapped it round her, and she looked as slim as a post."
"Poor creature!" said Mrs. Carpenter.
"Mother, we never saw people like that in Medwayville."
"No."
"Why are they here, and not there?"
"You must ask Mr. Digby."
"I don't want to ask Mr. Digby!—There are two boys; ragged;—and barefooted. I don't know what they are out for; they have nothing to do; they are just playing round an ash-barrel. I should think they'd be at home."
"Such people's home is often worse than the streets."
"But you don't know how it blows to-day. I should think, mother," saidRotha slowly, "New York must want a great many good people in it."
"There are a great many good people in it."
"What are they doing, then?"
"Looking out for Number One, mostly," Mrs. Cord answered, who happened to be in the room.
"But it wants people rich enough to look out for Number One, and forNumber Two as well."
Mrs. Carpenter sighed. She knew there were more sides to the problem than the simple "one and two" which appeared to Rotha.
"There comes a coal cart, mother; that has to go, I suppose, for somebody wants it. I should hate to drive a coal cart! Mother, who wants it here? It is backing down upon our sidewalk."
"Mrs. Marble, I suppose."
"No, she don't; she has got her coal all in; and this isn't her coal at all; it is in big lumps some of it, like what came for the grate, and it isn't shiny like the stove coal. It must be for you, I guess."
Rotha ran down to see, and came back with the receipt for her mother to sign. Mrs. Carpenter signed with a trembling hand, and Rotha flew away again.
"It is a whole cart-load, mother," she said coming back.
"There is one good rich man in New York," said Mrs. Carpenter tremulously.
"Do you think he is rich?"
"I fancy so."
"He hasn't spent so very much on us, has he?" asked Rotha consideringly.
"It seems much to me. More than our share, I am afraid."
"Our share of what?"
"His kindness."
"Who has the other shares?"
"I cannot tell. Other people he knows, that are in need of it."
"Mother, we are not inneedof it, are we? We could get along without oysters, I suppose. But what I am thinking of is, if he gives other people as good a share of his time as he gives us, he cannot live at home much. WheredoesMr. Digby live, Mrs. Cord?"
"I don't know as I can say, Rotha. It is a hotel somewheres, I believe."
"I should not think anybody would live in a hotel," said Rotha, remembering her own and her mother's experience of the "North River." "Now here comes another cart the carts have to go in all sorts of times; but O how the dust blows about! This cart is carrying something—I can't see what it's all wrapped up."
"My dear Rotha," said her mother, "I am not interested to know what the carts in the street are doing. Are you?"
"This one is stopping, mother. It is stoppinghere!"
"Well, my dear, what if it is. It is no business of ours."
"The other cart was our business, though; how do you know, mother? It has stopped here, and the man is taking the thing off."
Mrs. Cord came to the window to look, and then went down stairs. Rotha, seeing that the object of her interest, whatever it were, had disappeared within doors, presently followed her. In the little bit of a hall below stood a large something which completely filled it up; and on one side and on the other, Mrs. Marble and Mrs. Cord were taking off the wrappings in which it was enfolded.
"Well, I declare!" said the former, when they had done. "Aint that elegant!"
"Just like him," said Mrs. Cord. "I guessed this was coming, or something like it."
"What is it?" asked Rotha.
"How much does a thing like that cost, now?" Mrs. Marble went on. "Oh see the dust on it! There's a half bushel or less. Here—wait till I get my brush.—How is it ever to go up stairs? that's what I'm lookin' at."
Help had to be called in; and meantime Rotha rushed up stairs and informed her mother that a chair was come for her that was like nothing she had ever seen in her life; "soft all over," as Rotha expressed it; "back and sides and all soft as a pillow, and yet harder than a pillow; like as if it were on springs everywhere;" which was no doubt the truth of the case. "It's like getting into a nest, mother; I sat down in it; there's no hard place anywhere; there's no wood to it, that you can see."
When a little later the chair made its appearance, and Mrs. Carpenter sank down into its springy depths, it is a pity that Mr. Digby could not have heard the low long-drawn 'Oh!—' of satisfaction and relief and wonder together, which came from her lips. Rotha stood and looked at her. Mrs. Carpenter was resting, in a very abandonment of rest; but in the abandonment of the moment shewing, as she did not use to shew it, the great enervation and prostration of her system. Her head, leaning back on the soft support it found, her hands laid exhaustedly on one side and on the other, the motionless pose of her whole person, struck Rotha with some strange new consciousness.
"Is it good?" she asked shortly.
"Very!" The word was almost a sigh.
"What makes you so weak to-day?"
"I am not weaker than usual."
"You don't always look like that."
"She's never had anything like that to rest in before," Mrs. Cord suggested. "A bed aint like one o' them chairs, for supportin' one everywhere alike. You let her rest, Rotha. Will you have an oyster, dear?"
Rotha sat down at the corner of the fireplace and stared at her mother; taking the oyster, and yet not relinquishing that air of helpless lassitude. She was not sewing either; and had not been sewing, Rotha remembered, except by snatches, for several days past. Rotha sat and gazed at her, an anxious shadow falling upon her features.
"You needn't look like that at her," said the good woman who was preparing Mrs. Carpenter's glass of wine; "she'll be rested now in a little, and feel nicely. She's been a wantin' this, or something o' this sort; but there aint nothing better than one o' them spring chairs, for resting your back and your head and every inch of you at once. Now she's got her oyster and somethin' else, and she'll pick up, you'll see."
"How good it is you came to live here," said the sick woman. "I do not know what we should do without you. You seem to understand just how everything ought to be done."
"Mother," said Rotha, "do you think I couldn't take care of you just as well? Didn't I, before Mrs. Cord came?"
"You haven't had quite so much experience, you see," put in the latter.
"Didn't I, mother?" the girl said passionately.
Mrs. Carpenter answered only by opening her arms; and Rotha coming into them, sat down lightly upon her mother's lap and hid her head on her bosom. A shadow of, she knew not what, had fallen across her, and she was very still. Mrs. Carpenter folded her arms close about her child; and so they sat for a good while. Mother and daughter, each had her own thoughts; but those of the one were dim and confused as ever thoughts could be. The other's were sharp and clear. Rotha had an uneasy sense that her mother's strength was not gaining but losing; an uneasy impatience of her lassitude and powerlessness, which yet she could not at all read. Mrs. Carpenter read it well.
She knew of a surety that her days were numbered; and not only so, but that the number of them was running out. Many cares she had not, in view of this fact; but one importunate, overwhelming, intolerable, were it not that the mother's faith was fixed where faith is never disappointed. Even so, she was human; and the question, what would be the fate of her little daughter when she herself was gone, pressed hard and pressed constantly, and found no solution. So the two were sitting, in each other's arms, mute and thoughtful, when Mr. Digby came in.
Rotha did not stir, and he came up to them, bent down by the side of the chair and took Mrs. Carpenter's hand. If he put the usual question, Mrs. Carpenter did not answer it; her eyes met his silently. There was a power of grateful love and also of grave foreboding in her quiet face; one of those looks which from an habitually self-contained spirit come with so much power on any one capable of understanding them. The young man's eyes fell from her to Rotha; the two faces were very near each other; and for the first time Rotha's defiance gave place to a little bit of liking. She had not seen her mother's look; but she had watched Mr. Digby's eyes as they answered it, in their ear nest, intent expression, and then as the eyes came to her she felt the warm ray of kindness and sympathy which beamed from them. A moment it was, but Rotha was Mr. Digby's opponent no more from that time.
"You seem to be having a pleasant rest," he remarked in his usual calm way. "I hope you have got all your work done for me?"
"I never do rest till my work is done," said the girl.
"That is a very good plan. Will you prove the fact on the present occasion?"
Rotha unwillingly left her place.
"Mr. Digby, what sort of a chair is this?"
"A spring chair."
"It is a very good thing."
"I am glad it meets your approbation."
"It meets mother's too. Do you see how she rests in it?"
"Does she rest?" asked the young man, rather of Mrs. Carpenter than of her daughter.
"All the body can," she answered with a faint smile.
"'Underneath are the everlasting arms'—" he said.
But that word caused a sudden gush of tears on the sick woman's part; she hid her face; and Mr. Digby called off Rotha at once to her recitations. He kept her very busy at them for some time; Latin and arithmetic and grammar came under review; and then he proceeded to put a pen in her hand and give her a dictation lesson; criticised her handwriting, set her a copy, and fully engrossed Rotha's eyes and mind.
"Mother," said Rotha, when their visiter was again gone and her copy was done and she had returned to her mother's side, "I never knew before to- day that Mr. Digby has handsome eyes."
"How did you find it out to-day?"
"I had a good look at them, and they looked at me so."
"How?"
"I don't know—as if they meant a good deal, and good. Don't you think he has handsome eyes, mother?"
"I always knew that. He is a very fine-looking man altogether."
"Is he? I suppose he is. Only he likes to have his own way."
"I wonder if somebody else doesn't, that I know?"
"That's the very thing, mother. If I didn't, I suppose I shouldn't care. But when Mr. Digby says anything, he always looks as if he expected it to be just so, and everybody to mind him."
Mrs. Carpenter could not help laughing, albeit she was by no means in a laughing mood. Her laugh was followed by a sigh.
"What makes you draw a long breath, mother?"
"I wish you could govern that temper of yours, my child."
"Why, mother? Haven't I as good a right to my own way as Mr. Digby, or anybody?"
"Few people can have their own way in the world; and a woman least of all."
"Why?"
"She generally has to mind the will of somebody else."
"But that isn't fair."
"It is the way things are."
"Mother, it may be the way with some people; butIhave got nobody to mind?"
"Your mother?—"
"O yes; but that isn't it. You are a woman. There is no man I must mind."
"If you ever grow up and marry somebody, there will be."
"I wouldnevermarry anybody I had to mind!" said the girl energetically.
"You are the very person that would do it," said the mother; putting her hand fondly upon Rotha's cheek. "My little daughter!—If only I knew that you were willing to obey the Lord Jesus Christ, I could be easy about you."
"And aren't, you easy about me?"
"No," said the mother sadly.
"Would you be easy if I was a Christian?"
Mrs. Carpenter nodded. There was a pause.
"I would like to be a Christian, mother, if it would make you feel easy; but—somehow—I don't want to."
"I know that."
"How do you know that?"
"Because you hold off. If you were once willing, the thing would be done."
There was silence again; till Rotha suddenly broke it by asking,
"Mother, can I help my will?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why! If I don't want to be a Christian, can I make myself want to?"
"That seems to me a foolish question," said her mother. "Suppose you do not want to do something I tell you to do; need that hinder your obeying?"
"But this is different."
"I do not see how it is different."
"What is being a Christian, then?"
"You know, Rotha."
"But tell me, mother. I don't know if I know."
"You ought to know. A Christian is one who loves and serves the LordJesus."
"And then he can't do what he has a mind to," said Rotha.
"Yes, he can; unless it is something wrong."
"Well, he can't dowhat he has a mind to;he must always be asking."
"That is not hard, if one loves the Lord."
"But I don't love him, mother."
"No," said Mrs. Carpenter sadly.
"Can I make myself love him?"
"No; but that is foolish talk."
"I don't see why it is foolish, I am sure. I wish I did love him, if it would make you feel better."
"I should not have a care left!" said Mrs. Carpenter, with a sort of breath of longing.
"Why not, mother?"
"Get the Bible and read the 121st psalm,—slowly."
Rotha obeyed.
"'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth'"—
"There! if you were one of the Lord's dear children, you would say that; that would be true of you. Now go on, and see what the Lord says to it; see what would follow."
Rotha went on.
"'He will not suffer thy foot to be moved; he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.'—Israel, mother."
"The true Israel are the Lord's true children, of any nation."
"Are they? Well—'The Lord is thy keeper; the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand; the sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil; he shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in, from this time forth, and even for evermore. Praise ye the Lord.'"
"Would anybody be well kept that was kept so?" Mrs. Carpenter broke forth, with the tears running down her face. "O my little Rotha! my little daughter! if I knew you in that care, how blessed I should be!"
The tears streamed, and Mrs. Carpenter in vain tried to wipe them dry.Rotha looked on, troubled, and a little conscience-stricken.
"Mother," she began, "don't he take care of anybody except Christians?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Carpenter; "he takes care of the children of Christians; and so I have faith that he will take care of you; but it is not just so. If you will not come to him now, he may take painful ways to bring you; if you will not trust him now, he may cut away everything else you trust to, till you flee to him for help. But I wish you would take the easier way."
"But can I help my will?" said Rotha again, holding fast to that tough argument. "What can I do?"
"I cannot tell. You had better ask Mr. Digby. I am not able for any more questions just now."
"Mother. I'll bring you your milk," said Rotha, rather glad of a diversion. "Mother, do you think Mr. Digby can answer all sorts of questions?"
"Better than I can."
She brought her mother the glass of milk and the biscuit and sat watching her while she took them. She noticed the thin hands, the exhausted look, the weary attitude, the pale face. What state of things was this? Her mother eating biscuit and oysters got with another person's money; doing no work, or next to none; living in lodgings, but apparently without the prospect of earning the means to pay her rent; too feeble to do much but rest in that spring chair.
"Mother," Rotha began, with a lurking, unrecognized feeling of anxiety—"I wish you would make haste and get well!"
Mrs. Carpenter was eating biscuit, and made no reply.
"Don't you think youarea little better?"
"Not exactly to-day."
"Whatwoulddo you good?"
"Nothing that you could give me, darling. I am very comfortable. I wonder to see myself so supplied with everything I can possibly want. Look at this chair! It is almost better than all the rest."
"That and the fire."
"Yes; the blessed fire! It is so good!"
"But I wish you'd get well, mother!" Rotha said with a half sigh.
Mrs. Carpenter made no answer.
"I don't see how we are going to do, if you don't get well soon," Rotha went on with a kind of impatient uneasiness. "What shall we do for money, mother? there's the rent and everything."
"You forget what you have just been reading, my child. Do you think the words mean nothing?—'The Lord is thy keeper; the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.'"
"But that don't pay rent," said Rotha.
"You think the Lord can do great things, and cannot do little things. I can trust him for all."
"Then why cannot you trust him for me?"
"I do."
"Then why are you troubled?"
"Because here your self-will comes in; and you may have to go through hard times before it is broken."
"Broken? My self-will broken?"
"Yes."
"I do not want to be a creature without a will. I do not like such creatures."
"You must talk to Mr. Digby, Rotha. I am too tired."
"I won't tire you any more, mother dear! But I don't see why I should talk to Mr. Digby."
And for a few moments Rotha was silent. Then she broke out again.
"Mother, don't you think if you could get back to Medwayville you would be well again?"
"I shall never go back to Medwayville," the sick woman said faintly.
"But if you could get into the country somewhere? out of this horrid dust and these mean little streets. O mother, think of the great fields of grass, and the trees, and the flowers!"
"Darling, I am very well here. Suppose you take the poker and punch that lump of coal, so that it may blaze up a little."
Rotha punched the lump of coal, and sat watching the brilliant jets of flame that leapt from it, sending a gentle illumination all through the room; revolving in her mind whether it might be possible by and by to get her mother among the sights and sounds of the country again.
As the spring advanced however, though the desirableness of such a move might be more apparent, the difficulty of it as evidently increased. The close, stifling air of the city, when the warm days came, was hard to bear for the sick woman, and hard in two ways for Rotha. But Mrs. Carpenter's strength failed more and more. There was no question now of her sewing; she did not attempt it. She sat all day in her spring easy chair, by the window or before the fire as the day happened to be, now and then turning over the leaves of her Bible which always lay open before her. And now Mr. Digby when he came would often take the book and read to her; and even talks of some length would grow up out of the reading; talks that seemed delightful to both the parties concerned, though Rotha could not understand much of it. Little by little the room had entirely changed its character, and no longer seemed to be a part of Mrs. Marble's domain. A fluffy rug lay under Mrs. Carpenter's feet; a pretty lamp stood on the table; a screen of Japanese manufacture, endlessly interesting to Rotha, stood between the weary eyes and the fire, when there was a fire; and Mrs. Carpenter herself was enveloped in a warm, soft fleecy shawl. As the warm weather came on indeed, this had to give place to something lighter. Then Mr. Digby brought fruit; early fruit, and foreign fruit; then a little India tea caddy of very nice tea stood on the table; tea such as in all her life Mrs. Carpenter had never drunk till now. She had long ceased to make any objection to whatever Mr. Digby pleased to do; taking it all as simply and as graciously as a child. Much more than her own child. However, Rotha was mollified towards their benefactor from that day above mentioned; and if she looked on wonderingly, and even a little jealously, at his unresisted assuming of the direction of their affairs, she no more openly rebelled.
Mr. Digby, it may be remarked, kept her so persistently busy, that she had small time to disturb herself with any sort of speculations. Lessons were lively. History was added to Latin and arithmetic; Rotha had a good deal to read, and troublesome sums to manage; and finally every remnant of spare leisure was filled up by a demand for writing. Mr. Digby did not frighten her by talking of compositions, but he desired her to prepare now an abstract of the history of the crusades, now of the Stuart dynasty, now of the American revolution; and now again of the rise of the art of printing, or the use and manufacture of gunpowder.
Studying out these subjects, pondering them, writing and writing over her sketches, Rotha was both very busy and very happy; and then the handing over her papers to Mr. Digby, and his reading them, and his strictures upon them, were a matter of intense interest and delight; for though Rotha trembled with excitement she was still more thrilled with pleasure. For she was just at the age when the mind begins to open to a rapturous consciousness of its powers, and at the same time of the wonderful riches of the fields open to the exercise of them. In her happy ignorance, in her blessed inexperience, Rotha did not see what the days were doing with her mother; and if occasionally a flash of unwelcome perception would invade her mind, with the unbounded presumption of her young years she shut her eyes and refused to believe in it. But all the while Mrs. Carpenter was growing feebler and wasting to more of a shadow. Rotha still comforted herself that she had "a nice colour in her cheeks."
It came to be the latter end of June. Windows were open; what would have been delicious summer air came in laden with the mingled odours of street mud and street dust, garbage, the scents of butcher stalls and grocery shops, and far worse, the indefinable atmospheric tokens of poor living and uncleanness. Now and then a whiff of more energy brought a reminder not quite perverted of the places where flowers grow and cows pasture and birds sing. It only served to make the next breath more heavy and disappointing. Mrs. Carpenter sat by the window to get all the freshness she could; albeit with the air came also the sounds from without; the creak or the rattle of wheels on the pavement, the undistinguishable words of a rough voice here and there, the shrill cry of the strawberry seller, the confused, mixed, inarticulate din of the great city all around. A sultry heaviness seemed to rest upon everything, disheartening and depressing to anybody whose physical powers were not strong or his nerves not well strung for the work and struggle of life. There was a pump over the way; and from time to time the creak of its handle was to be heard, and then the helpless drip and splash of the last runnings of the water falling into the gutter, after the applicant had gone away with his or her pail. It mocked Mrs. Carpenter's ear with the recollection of running brooks, and of a certain cool deep well into which the bucket used to go down from the end of a long pole and come up sparkling with drops of the clear water.——
"Well, how do you do?" said the alert voice of Mrs. Marble by her side."Sort o' close, aint it?"
"Rather."
"The city aint a place for Christians to live in, when it gets to this time; anyhow, not for Christians that aint good and strong. I'd like to put you out to pasture somewheres."
"She won't go," said Rotha longingly.
"I am, very comfortable here," said the invalid faintly.
"Comfortable! well, I feel as if you ought to be top of a mountain somewheres; out o' this.I'dlike to; but I guess I'm a fixtur. Mr. Digby I'd find ways and means, I'll engage," she said, eyeing the sick woman with kindly interest and concern, who however only shook her head.
"Could you eat your strawberries?" she asked presently.
"A few of them. They were very nice."
"I never see such berries. They must have been raised somewhere in Gulliver's Brobdignay; and Gulliver don't send 'em round in these parts. I thought, maybe you'd pay 'em the compliment to eat 'em; but when appetite's gone, it's no use to have big strawberries. That's what I thought a breath of hilly air somewheres would do for you."
And Mrs. Marble presently went away, shaking her head, just as Mr. Digby came in; exchanging a look with him as she passed. Mr. Digby came up to the window, and greeted Mrs. Carpenter with the gentle affectionate reverence he always shewed her.
"No stronger to-day?" said he.
"She won't go into the country, Mr. Digby," said Rotha.
"You may go and get a walk at least, my child," Mrs. Carpenter said. "Ask Mrs. Cord to be so kind as to take you. Now while Mr. Digby is here, I shall not be alone. Can you stay half an hour?" she asked him suddenly.
He gave ready assent; and Rotha, weary of her cooped-up life, eagerly sought Mrs. Cord and went off for her walk. Mrs. Carpenter and Mr. Digby were left alone.
"I amnotstronger," the former began as the house door closed. "I am losing strength, I think, every day. I wanted to speak to you; and it had better be done at once."
She paused, and he waited. The trickle of the water from the pump came to her ear again, stirring memories oddly.
"You asked me the other day, whether I had no friends in the city. I told you I had not. I told you the truth, but not the whole truth. Before Rotha I could not say all I wished. I have a sister living in New York."
"A sister!" Mr. Digby echoed the word in great surprise. "She knows of your being here?"
"She does not."
"Surely she ought to know."
"No, I think not. I told you the truth the other day. I have not a friend, here or elsewhere. Not what you call a friend. Only you."
"But yoursister?How is that possible?"
Mrs. Carpenter sighed. "I had better tell you all about it, and then you will know how to understand me. Perhaps. I can hardly understand it myself."
There was a pause again. The sick woman was evidently looking back in thought over days and years and the visions of what had been in them. Her gentle, quiet eyes had grown intent, and over her brows there was a fold in her forehead that Mr. Digby had never seen there before. But there was no trembling of the mouth. That was steady and grave and firm.
"There were two of us," she said at last. "My father had but us two, how long it is ago!—"
She was silent again with her thoughts, and Mr. Digby again waited. It was a patient face he was looking at; a gentle face; not a face that spoke of any experience that could be called bitter, yet the patient lines told of something endured or something resigned; it might be both. The last two years of experience, with a sister in the same city, must needs furnish occasion. But Mrs. Carpenter's brow was quiet, except for that one fold in it. Yet she seemed to have forgotten what she had meant to say, and only after a while pulled herself up, as it were, and began again.
"It is not so long as it seems, I suppose, for I am not very old; but it seems long. We two were girls together at home, and my father was living; and I knew nothing about the world."
"Was that here? in New York?" Mr. Digby asked, by way of helping her on.
"O no. I knew nothing about New York. I had never been here. No; our home was not far from Tanfield; up in this state, near the Connecticut border. We lived a little out of the town, and had a nice place. My father was very well off indeed. I wanted for nothing in those days." She sighed.
"The world is a strange place, Mr. Digby! I cannot comprehend, even now, how things should have gone as they did. We lived as happy as anybody; until a gentleman, a young lawyer of New York, began to make visits at our house. He paid particular attention to me at first; but it was of no use; I had learned to know Mr. Carpenter, and nobody else could be anything to me. He was a thriving lawyer; a rising young man, people said; and my father would have had me marry him; but I could not. So then he courted my sister. O the splash of that water from the pump over there! it keeps me thinking to-day of the well behind our house—where it stood on a smooth green plat of grass—and of the trickle of the water from the buckets as they were drawn up. Just because the day is so warm, I think of those buckets of well water. The well was sixty feet deep, and the water was clear and cold and beautiful—I never saw such water anywhere else; and when the bucket came slowly up, with the moss on its sides glittering with the wet, there was refreshment in the very look of it. Tanfield seems to me a hundred thousand miles away from Jane Street; and those times about a thousand years ago. I wonder, how will all our life seem when we look back upon it from the other side?"
"Very much as objects seen under a microscope, I fancy."
"Do you? Why?"
"In the clear understanding of details, and in the new perception of the relative bearing and importance of parts."
"Yes, I suppose so. Things are very mixed and confused as we see them here. Take what I am telling you, for instance; it is incredible, only that it is true."
"You have not told me much yet," said her friend gently.
"No. The gentleman I spoke of, the lawyer, he married my sister. And then, when I would have married Mr. Carpenter, my sister set herself against it, and she talked over my father into her views, and they both opposed it all they could."
"Did they give any reasons for their opposition?"
"O yes. Mr. Carpenter was only a farmer, they said; not my equal, and not very well off. I am sure in all real qualities he was much my superior; but just in the matter of society it was more or less true. He did not mix in society much, and did not care for it; but he had education and cultivation a great deal more than many that do; he had read and he had thought, and he could talk too, and well, to one or two alone. But they wanted me to marry a rich man. I think half the trouble in the world comes about money."
"'The love of money is the root of all evil,' the Bible says."
"I believe it. There was nothing else to be said against Mr. Carpenter, but that he had not money; if he had had it, nobody would have found out that he wanted cultivation, or anything else. But he was a poor man. And when I married him, my father cut me off from all share in the inheritance of his property."
"It all fell to your sister?"
"Yes. All. The place, the old place, and all. She had everything."
"And kept it."
"O yes. Of course. She is a rich woman. Her husband has prospered in his business; and they areverywell off now. They have only one child, too."
Mrs. Carpenter was silent, and Mr. Digby paused a minute or two before he spoke again.
"Still, my dear friend, do you not think your sister would shew herself your sister, if she knew where you are and how you are? Do you not think it would be right and kind to let her know?"
Mrs. Carpenter shook her head. "No," she said, "it would be no comfort to me; and you are mistaken if you think it would be any satisfaction to her. She is a rich woman. She keeps her carriage, and she has her liveried servants, and she lives in style. She would not like to come here to see me."
"I cannot conceive it," said Mr. Digby. "I think you must unconsciously be doing her wrong."
"I tried her," said Mrs. Carpenter. "I will not try her again. When my husband got into difficulties, and his health was giving way, and he was driven a little too hard, I wrote to my sister in New York to ask her to give us some help; knowing that she was abundantly able to do it, without hurting herself. She sent me for answer—" Mrs. Carpenter stopped; the words seemed to choke her; her lip quivered; and when she began to speak again her voice was a little hoarse.
"She wrote me, that if my husbanddied, she would have no objection to my going back to the old place, and getting along there as well as I could; Rotha and I."
One or two sore, sorrowful tears forced their way out of the speaker's eyes; but she said no more. And Mr. Digby did not know what further to counsel, and was also silent. The silence lasted some little time, while a strawberry seller was making the street ring with her cries of "Straw….berr_ees_," and the hot air wafted in the odours from near and far, and the water trickled from the pump nose again. At last Mrs. Carpenter began again, with some difficulty and effort; not bodily however, but mental.
"You have been so exceedingly kind to me, to us, Mr. Digby, I—"
"Hush," he said. "Do not speak of that. You have done far more for me than I ever can do for you?"
"I? No. I have done nothing."
"You saved my father's life."
"Your father's life? You are under some mistake. I never knew a Mr. Digby till I knew you I never even heard the name."
"You knew a Mr. Southwode," said he smiling.
"Southwode? Southwode! The English gentleman! But you are not his son?"
"I am his son. I am Digby-Southwode. I took my mother's name for certain business reasons."
"And you are his son! How wonderful! That strange gentleman's son!—But I did not do so much for your father, Mr. Southwode. You have doneeverythingfor me."
"I wish I could do more," said he shortly.
"I am ashamed to ask,—and yet, I was going to ask you to do something more—a last service—for me. It is too much to ask."
"I am sure it is not that," he said with great gentleness. "Let me know what you wish."
Mrs. Carpenter hesitated. "Rotha does not know,"—she said then. "She has no idea—"
"Of what?"
"She has no idea that I am going to leave her."
"I am afraid that is true."
"And it will be soon Mr. Digby."
"Perhaps not; but what is it you wish of me?"
"Tell her—" whispered Mrs. Carpenter.
The young man might feel startled, or possibly an inevitable strong objection to the service demanded of him. He made no answer; and Mrs. Carpenter soon went on.
"It is wrong to ask it, and yet whom shall I ask? I would not have her learn it from any of the people in the house; though they are kind, they are not discreet; and Rotha would in any case come straight to me; and I—cannot bear it. She is a passionate child; violent in her feelings and in the expression of them. I have been thinking about it day and night lately, and Icannotget my courage up to face the first storm of her distress. My poor child! she is not very fitted to go through the world alone."
"What are your plans for her?"
"I am unable to form any."
"But you must tell me what steps you wish me to take in her behalf—if there is no one whom you could better trust."
"There is no one whom I can trust at all. Except only my Father in heaven. I trust him, or I should die before my time. I thought my heartwouldbreak, a while ago; now I have got over that. Do you know He has said, 'Leave thy fatherless children to me'?"
Yet now the mother's tears were falling like rain.
"I will do the very best I can," said the young man at her side; "but I wish you would give me some hints, or directions, at least."
"How can I? There lie but two things before me;—that Mrs. Cord should bring her up and make a sempstress of her; or that Mrs. Marble should teach her to be a mantua-maker; and I am so foolish, I cannot bear the thought of either thing; even if they would do it, which I do not know."
"Make your mind easy. She shall be neither the one thing nor the other.Rotha has far too good abilities for that. I will not give her to Mrs.Cord's or Mrs. Marble's oversight. But whatwouldyou wish?"
"I do not know. I must leave you to judge. You can judge much better than I. I have no knowledge of the world, or of what is possible. Mrs. Marble tells me there are free schools here—"
"Of course she shall go to school. I will see that she does. And I will see that she is under some woman's care who can take proper care of her. Do not let yourself be troubled on that score. I promise you, you need not. I will take as good care of her as if she were a little sister of my own."
There was silence at first, the silence of a heart too full to find words. Mrs. Carpenter sat with her head a little bowed.
"You will lose nothing by it," she said huskily after a few minutes."There is a promise somewhere—"
But with that she broke down and cried.
"I don't know what you will do with her!" she said; "nor what anybody will do with her, except her mother. She is a wayward child; passionate; strong, and also weak, on the side of her affections. She has never learned yet to submit her will, though for love she is capable of great devotion. She has shewed it to me this past winter."
"Is there any other sort of devotion that is worth much?" asked the young man.
"Duty?—"
"Surely the devotion of love is better."
"Yes—. But duty ought to be recognized for what it is."