SUSY FOSTER.
Don’t know Susy Foster? bless me! I thought every body knew Susy. Did you never meet her trudging to school, with her satchel and her luncheon? did you never look at her and wonder how people could ever call Susy Foster “homely?” Did you never notice how many different shades of color her eyes would take while you were talking to her? and how the blood would come and go on her pale cheek? Did you never notice her stoop to pick up a cane for some old man, whose limbs were so stiff, that it was difficult to do it for himself? Did you never see her help some younger child safely across the muddy, crowded street? Did you never see her give away her scanty luncheon to some little girl who had eaten no breakfast? Did you never see her walkroundan ant hill on the sidewalk, instead of walkingoverit? Did you never see her in school recess, helping some child, whose wits were not as quick as her own, to do a puzzling sum in arithmetic, or teachher some long word in geography? Did you never see her thoughtfully tie up a little schoolmate’s shoe, for fear the loose string would trip her on the sidewalk? or untie a knot in her bonnet-strings, or pin her cloak together for her when the button came off? Did you never see her put her arm round a little child, who was crying because her school-fellows had made fun of a big patch on her gown? Did you never hear her sing when school was over, “I want to be an angel?” and did tears never dim your eyes, that a little thing like her, who was only a poor little errand-girl, apprenticed to Miss Snip, the milliner, and who never knew what it was to be loved by father, or mother, brother or sister, should be so much kinder to every body, and so much better than yourself, who had all these and many more blessings? Susy Foster homely? I never saw her little brown head, but there seemed to me to be a halo round it, such as one sees on pictures of the infant Jesus. Susy Foster homely? She is not homely, now. The bright sun, as it slants across the village green, goes down upon the little childish group who come tripping out of the old school-house, but Susy is not among them, her seat in school is vacant, her satchel lies idly on the shelf. Miss Snip still scolds and frets, but Susy does not hear her; the spider weaves his busy webupon the wall in Susy’s garret, but there are no little curious lonely eyes to watch him. The old blind man at the street corner, stands leaning on his staff, listening till he is weary, for Susy’s pleasant voice. He did not see the poor’s hearse, as it rumbled past him with little Susy in it; but some day the film will fall from his sightless eyes—not here—and hewillsee Susy, and many like her, of whom the earth was not worthy.