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CHAPTER VIII

"Mercy on us! you don't expect me to sleep in that room, do you?" asked Timmins of Mrs. Markham, as they stopped before the door of the room where little Tibbie died.

"I wouldn't do it for a purse of gold. I know I should see her ghost; oh, it would be awful;" and Timmins put her hands before her face, as if the ghost were looming up in the depths of the dimly-lighted entry.

"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Markham; "how superstitious you are! I am going to sleep there with you."

"Are you? Well, that alters the case," and Mrs. Markham led the way, while Timmins followed her with distended eyes.

"I really can't help thinking she will come back," said Timmins, as Mrs. Markham extinguished the light and crept into bed. "I can't seem to get over it, about her dying all alone. How very thin she was. Did you ever think she was unhappy, Mrs. Markham?"

"I don't think any thing about it, Timmins. I go to bed for the purpose of sleeping;" and turning her back upon Timmins, she buried her frilled night-cap in the pillow.

"Don't cuddie up so close, Timmins," said Mrs. Markham, about ten minutes after; "you make me insufferably hot."

"Lor', ma'am, I can't help it; I can't see nothing, and you won't speak to me, and how am I going to know that you are there?"

"Guess at it," said Markham, giving another hitch away toward the wall, and soon her sonorous breathing announced her departure to the land of dreams.

"Goodness alive! if she ain't asleep," said Timmins; "what if Tibbie should come back? Oh dear! I am sure I am sorry enough I left her so. I'll put my head under the bed-clothes. No I won't – because if it is coming, Mrs. Markham must wake up, for I shan't be good for nothing; I never spoke to a ghost in my life."

"What's – that?" she whispered hoarsely, as, by the dim light of the street-lamp on the window-glass, she saw the door open slowly, and a little figure dressed in white, glide in. "Oh Lor' – oh Mrs. Markham – (griping that lady by the arm) – it's come! Hist – there – there – oh – oh, it's coming here," whispered Timmins, as Mrs. Markham, now thoroughly roused, trembled as violently as Timmins, and both made a shuddering plunge under the bed-clothes.

"You look out, Timmins?"

"No —you, Mrs. Markham!" and both night-caps were thrust carefully from under the sides of the raised sheets.

There was the little figure – it was no illusion – flitting, gliding about the room; now here, now more distant, and now, with its pale, wan face and outstretched arms, it approaches the bed. Timmins and Markham both jump shrieking from it through the door, and fall senseless upon the entry floor.

The wicked flee when none pursueth.

Poor innocent little Rose! Waked suddenly from her somnambulistic sleep, she stands gazing about her, the unconscious avenger of little Tibbie's sufferings, and her own.

CHAPTER IX

Years pass on. Some of the children have been bound out, others Death has more mercifully indentured into his own service. Rose has grown tall. Her step is slow and feeble, and her form has lost its roundness; but her eyes are beautiful from the light within, and her wee mouth has a grieved look which makes the beholder long to clasp her to his heart. Even the ugly charity-school bonnet which Markham has just tied under her chin, can not make her look ugly.

Dolly stands waiting to take her to Difftown; she has no bundle to pack up, she has no regrets at leaving the Asylum, she has no hope for the future, for she has looked into Dolly's face with her clear calm eyes, and read her doom.

"Rose, come and kiss me, darling, before you go," said Markham. "I always feel so melancholy," she added, in an aside, to Dolly, "at parting with these dear children. It is quite impossible not to feel a motherly interest and solicitude after being with them so long. Good-by, dear Rose – don't quite forget me."

Rose thought there was little fear of that, as she followed Dolly out of the house.

"A very nice woman, that Mrs. Markham," said Dolly, as they walked to the stable where she had left her horse and chaise, "a very nice woman."

Rose made no reply.

"I dare say though, you don't like her at all, do you?"

"No," said Rose.

"Why not, I should like to know?" asked Dolly, tartly.

"I had rather not tell, if you please," answered Rose.

The civil manner in which the refusal was couched irritated Dolly.

"You are as like your mother as two peas," said she, angrily; "you look just like her, and speak just like her."

"Do you think so?" asked the child, her whole face brightening.

"I don't know why you should look so pleased about it. Maria was a thriftless creature. No learning but book learning."

"Please don't speak so of my mamma," and the tears stood in Rose's eyes.

"I shall speak just as I please of her," said Dolly; "she was my sister before she was your mother, by a long spell, and I don't know why I am bound to love her for that reason, when there was nothing to love in her."

"But there was," said Rose. "She was sweet, and gentle, and loving, and oh, Aunt Dolly, she was every thing to me," and the hot tears trickled through Rose's slender fingers.

"Fiddle-faddle! Now ain't you ashamed, you great baby, to be bawling here in the street, as if I was some terrible dragon making off with you? That's all the thanks I get for taking you out of the church-yard and putting you in that nice Orphan Asylum."

"If you had only left me in the church-yard," sobbed Rose.

Dolly was quite too angry to reply. The very bows on her bonnet trembled with rage.

After a pause, she turned round, and laying her hands on Rose's trembling shoulders, said,

"Now, look here, Rose Clark, now just take a fair and square look at me. I don't look much like your gentle mother, as you call her, do I?"

"No, no," sobbed Rose, with a fresh burst of tears.

"Well, I ain't like her in any thing. I ain't a-going to pet you, nor make of you, nor spoil you, as she did. You are bound out to me, and you have got your bread and butter to earn. I have no taste for cry-babies nor idlers, and if you don't work and mind too, the committee of the Orphan Asylum shall know the reason why; you may find worse quarters than my milliner's shop," and Dolly stopped, not that the subject, but her breath, was exhausted.

The morning was calm and serene, and the road through which Dolly's old horse plodded, very lovely. There had been heavy rains for days before, and now, as they left the city behind them, the sun shone out, and bright drops hung glistening on the trees, shrubs, and grass blades, and the spicy pines and way-side flowers sent forth their sweetest odors. The little birds, too, came out, pluming their wings for a sunny flight far – far into the clear blue ether, whither Rose longed to follow them.

Such a burst of song as they went!

It thrilled through every fibre of the child's frame.

Rose glanced at the frowning face beside her. There was no appreciation there. No, Dolly was thinking how much work she could get out of the feeble child by her side, the helpless orphan in whose veins her own blood flowed.

On they went – the old horse, and Dolly, and Rose.

Wreaths of mist rolled up from the valleys, crept along the hill-sides, and were eagerly drunk up by the sun's warm breath, leaving the earth fresh and fair as when it first came from the forming hand of God.

Cottages they passed, nestled among the trees, on whose happy thresholds children clambered on a mother's knee.

Churches too, whose glistening spires pointed to that Heaven where Rose longed to be at rest; and far, far away, the silver lake gleamed in the bright sunlight; oh, how gladly, on its peaceful bosom, would the child have floated away!

"For mercy's sake, what are you thinking about," asked Dolly, "with that curious look in your eyes, and the color coming and going in your face that way?"

"I was thinking," said the child, her eyes still fixed on the silver lake, "how beautiful God made the earth, and how sad it was there should be – "

"What now?" asked Dolly tartly.

"Any sorrow in it," said Rose.

"The earth is well enough, I s'pose," said Dolly. "I never looked at it much, and as to the rest of your remark, I hope you will remember it when you get home, and not plague my life out, when I want you to work. Let's see; you will have the shop to sweep out, the window shutters to take down and put up, night and morning, errands to run, sewing, washing, ironing, and scrubbing to do, dishes to wash, beside a few other little things.

"Of course you will have your own clothes to make and to mend, the sheets and towels to hem, and be learning meanwhile to wait on customers in the shop; I shan't trust you with the money-drawer till I know whether you are honest."

Rose's face became crimson, and she involuntarily moved further away from Dolly.

"None of that now," said that lady, "such airs won't go down with me. It is a pity if I can't speak to my own sister's child."

Rose thought this was the only light in which she was likely to view the relationship, but she was too wise to reply.

"There's no knowing," said Dolly, "what you may have learned among those children at the Asylum."

"You put me there, Aunt Dolly," said Rose.

"Of course I put you there, but did I tell you to learn all the bad things you saw?"

"You didn't tell me not; but I never would take what belonged to another."

"Shut up now – you are just like your mother ex – actly;" and Dolly stopped here, considering that she could go no further in the way of invective.

And now they were nearing the village. Rose thought it looked much prettier at a distance than near.

There was an ugly, dirty tavern in the main street, on whose gaudy sign-board was painted "The Rising Sun;" and on whose piazza were congregated knots of men, smoking, chewing, swearing, and bargaining, by turns; for it was cattle-fair Monday, and the whole population was astir.

Herds of cattle; sheep, cows, calves, oxen, and pigs, divided off into little crowded pens, stood bleating and lowing in the blazing sun, half dead with thirst, while their owners were chaffering about prices.

On the opposite side of the street were temporary booths, whose owners were making the most of the day by opening oysters, and uncorking bottles for the ravenous farmers; little boys stood by, greedily devouring the dregs of the glasses whenever they could dodge a boxed ear. A few sickly trees were planted here and there, at the sides of the road, which seemed to have dwindled away in disgust at their location. On a small patch of green, dignified by the name of the Park, an ill-assorted, heterogeneous company were drilling for 'lection, presenting arms, etc., in a manner that would have struck Napoleon dumb.

Dolly's house was on the further side of "the Park," a two story wooden tenement, of a bright red color, planted on a sand bank close to the road side, unornamented with a single green thing, if we may except some gawky boys who were eyeing the tin soldiers and peppermint candy in the milliner's window, and who had been attentively listening to the swearing cattle-dealers and picking up stray lobster-claws which good fortune had thrown in their way.

"That her?" whispered Daffodil (Dolly's factotum), pointing to Rose, as she assisted Dolly to alight. Dolly nodded.

"Why – she'd be a real beauty if she was only a little fatter, and didn't stoop, and her eyes weren't so big, and she wasn't so pale."

"I don't see any beauty," mumbled Dolly, "she looks exactly like her mother."

"O no – of course she isn't a beauty," said Daffy, retracting her involuntary mistake, "she don't favor you in the least Dolly; I said she would be pretty if – "

"Never mind your ifs now, I'm as hungry as a catamount, give me something to eat, and then I'll talk; some of that cold ham, and warm over some tea; goodness, how faint I am, that young one has tired me all out argufying – she's just like her mother – exactly."

"Shall I set a plate for her too?" asked Daffy.

"Of course not, till I get through; children always cram all before them, there wouldn't be a mortal thing left for me – let her wait till I have done. Rose – here! take off your bonnet, sit down and unpack those boxes, don't break the strings now, untie the knots carefully, the strings may do to use again, and don't litter up the shop floor, and don't – Lord-a-mercy, Daffy, if she ain't undone the wrong boxes, I knew she would."

"T-h-o-s-e," she thundered in Rose's ear, pulling her along to the right pile, and bending her over till her nose touched the boxes; "now see if you can see them, and don't make another mistake short of ten minutes," and Dolly threw off her bonnet and sat down to her tea.

Rose stooped down as she was bid, and commenced her task, but the excitement she had undergone, so different from the monotonous life she had led, the heat of the day, and her insufficient breakfast before starting, brought on a sudden vertigo, and as she stooped to execute her task, she fell forward upon the floor.

"Sick now, the very first day," exclaimed Dolly, turning to Daffy, "now ain't that enough to provoke any body? Her mother used to be just so, always fainting away at every thing; she's got to get cured of that trick; get up Rose!" and Dolly shook her roughly by the arm.

"I really think she can't," said Daffy, looking at her white lips and relaxed limbs.

Dolly seized a pitcher of water near, and dashed it with rather more force than was necessary in the child's face.

"That's warm water," said Daffy.

"How did I know that?" muttered Dolly, "bring some cold then;" and Dolly repeated the application, at a different temperature.

Rose shivered slightly, but did not open her eyes.

"She intends taking her own time to come to," said Dolly, "and I have something else to do, beside stand by to wait for it."

"But it won't do for her to lie here," said Daffy. "Suppose Mrs. John Meigs should come in after that new bonnet of hern? It don't look well."

Dolly appreciated that argument, and Daffy had permission to carry her out of sight, into a back sitting-room, on the same floor.

"She does it remarkable, if she is making believe," soliloquized Daffy, as she laid Rose on the bed; "and she is pretty, too, I can say it now Dolly isn't round, pretty as a waxen doll, and not much heavier; she is not fit for hard work anyhow, with those bit-fingers. I shouldn't wonder if Dolly is too hard on the child, but I daren't say so. What can that little scar be on her left temple?" and Daffy lifted the curls to look at that indelible proof of Mrs. Markham's affection on Rose's initiation day.

"Well, she's a pretty cretur!" said Daffodil again, as she took one more glance at her from the half open door. "I couldn't find it in my heart to speak cross to the poor motherless thing; but it won't do for me to stay up here."

"Shall I make a cup of tea for Rose, agin she wakes up?" asked Daffy.

"Sick folks ought not to eat and drink," said Dolly, sarcastically; "no, of course not; clear away the table, and put things to rights here. Our Maria was always acting just so; if she didn't have her breakfast ready to put in her mouth the minute she got out of bed, she'd up and faint away; she'd faint if it was hot, and she'd faint if it was cold. She'd faint if she was glad, and faint if she was sorry. She was always a-fainting; I never fainted in my life."

"Sisters are different, you know;" said Daffy, polishing a tea-cup with a towel.

"I believe you," said Dolly. "It is lucky they are; I am glad I ain't such a miserable stick; but Rose has got to get out of that," added she.

"You don't really believe she, nor Maria, as you call her, could help it, do you?" asked Daffy.

"Help a fiddlestick," said Dolly, jerking down her pea-green paper window-curtain; "ridikilis!"

Daffy knew that word was Dolly's ultimatum, and pursued the subject no further.

CHAPTER X

"Aunt Dolly," said Rose, timidly, about a month after the events above related, "Aunt Dolly" – and here Rose stopped short.

"Out with it," said Dolly, "if you've got any thing to say. You make me as nervous as an eel, twisting that apron-string, and Aunt Dolly-ing such an eternity; if you have got any thing to say, out with it."

"May I go to the evening school?" asked Rose, "it is a free school."

"Well – you are not free to go, if it is; you know how to read and write, and I have taught you how to make change pretty well, that is all you need for my purposes."

"But I should like to learn other things, Aunt Dolly."

"What other things, I'd like to know? that's your mother all over. She never was content without a book at the end of her nose. She couldn't have earned her living to have saved her life, if she hadn't got married."

"It was partly to earn my living I wanted to learn, Aunt Dolly; perhaps I could be a teacher."

"Too grand to trim caps and bonnets like your Aunt Dolly, I suppose," added she, sneeringly; "it is quite beneath a charity orphan, I suppose."

"No," said Rose; "but I should like to teach, better."

"Well, you won't do it; never – no time. So there's all there is to that: now take that ribbon and make the bows to old Mrs. Griffin's cap – the idea of wanting to be a school-teacher when you have it at your fingers' ends to twist up a ribbon so easy – it is ridikilis. Did Miss Snow come here last night, after I went out, for her bonnet?"

"Yes," answered Rose.

"Did you tell her that it was all finished but the cap frill?" asked Dolly.

"No; because I knew that it was not yet begun, and I could not tell a – a – "

"Lie! I suppose," screamed Dolly, putting her face very close to Rose's, as if to defy her to say the obnoxious word; "is that it."

"Yes," said Rose, courageously.

"Good girl – good girl" said Dolly; "shall have a medal, so it shall;" and cutting a large oval out of a bit of pasteboard, and passing a twine string through it, she hung it round her neck – "Good little Rosy-Posy – just like its conscientious mamma."

"I wish I were half as good as my mamma," said Rose, with a trembling voice.

"I suppose you think that Aunt Dolly is a great sinner!" said that lady.

"We are all great sinners, are we not?" answered Rose.

"All but little Rosy Posy;" sneered Dolly, "she is perfect, only needs a pair of wings to take her straight up to heaven."

"Many a true word is spoken in jest," muttered Daffy, as she waxed the end of a bit of sewing silk, behind the counter.

CHAPTER XI

Mr. Clifton, the minister of Difftown village was one of those few clergymen who possessed of decided talent was yet content to labor in an humble sphere. Many of his brother clergymen had left their country parishes to become stars in cities. Some, unspoiled by the breath of applause, had laid their honors meekly at the Saviour's feet; others, inflated with pride and self-conceit, preached soft things to those who built them palaces of ease, and healed the hurt of the daughter of God's people slightly.

Mr. Clifton feared the test. Appreciation is as dear to the sanctified as the unsanctified heart. It were pleasant to see the heart's dear ones, fitted by nature to enjoy the refinements of life, in full possession of them; it were pleasant to have daily intercourse with the large circle of the gifted who congregate in cities – but what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Mr. Clifton felt that with his ardent social and impulsive temperament, his quiet village parish, with its home endearments, was most favorable to his growth in grace; and so, turning a deaf ear to the Syren voices which would have called him away, he cheerfully broke the bread of life, year after year, to his humble flock.

It was Sabbath evening – Mr. Clifton lay upon the sofa, suffering under one of those torturing head-aches which excessive mental excitement was sure to bring on. He loved his calling – it was not mere lip service for him to expound the word of God, and teach its sacred truths – the humblest among his people knew this; the tremor in his voice, the moisture in his eye, told their own eloquent tale. There must have been something to enchain those whose active limbs, never still during the other days of the week from dawn till dark, could sit on those narrow seats and never droop with uneasiness or sleep.

But the physical reaction was too apt to come to the delicately strung frame; and with closed eyelids, Mr. Clifton lay upon the sofa in the parlor of the little parsonage, while his wife bent over him, bathing his aching temples.

The parsonage parlor! how difficult to furnish it to suit every carping eye, for there were those, even in Mr. Clifton's parish, as in all others, whom his blameless life and welling sympathies could neither appease nor conciliate.

The parsonage parlor! The father of Mary Clifton would gladly have filled it with luxuries for his only daughter; but Mary shook her little head, and planted her little foot firmly on the plain Kidderminster carpet, and sat down contentedly in the bamboo rocking-chair, and hung the pretty pictures her girlhood had cherished in a spare room up-stairs, and looked round upon the bare walls of the parlor without a murmur of dissatisfaction.

Flowers she still clung to. The parsonage parlor was never without them. They were on the breakfast and tea-table – sometimes but a single blossom, for Mary had little time to cull them – sometimes only a green branch or sprig, whose wondrously beautiful leaves, shaded with the nicest skill, had given her a thrill of pleasure – sometimes a bunch of simple clover – sometimes a tuft of moss, or a waving corn tassel, mixed with spears of oats and grass-blades.

Mr. Clifton loved Mary all the better that she loved these things; and when she came to him with her blue eye beaming, and her cheek flushed with pleasure, and held up to him some tiny floral treasure, whose beauty no eye less spiritual than her's could have discerned, and pointed out its delicate tinting, he thanked God her heart could be made happy by such pure, innocent, and simple pleasures.

But it was at such times as I have alluded to, when Mr. Clifton sank under his pastoral duties, that Mary's love shone forth the brightest. On the Sabbath eve of which we speak, his eyes were closed, but he heard the rustle of her dress and her light foot-fall on the carpet. He felt her fragrant breath upon his cheek, and the touch of her soft fingers charming the fever from his temples. Gradually it crept away, yielding to her magnetic touch, and the smile came back to her husband's lip, and the beam to his languid eye. And now the healing cup of tea was prepared, and the little stand with its tray set before him, and Mary herself sweetened it, more with the smile on her lip and the love-beam in her eye than with the big lump of sugar she dropped into it; and as her husband drained the cup and laid his head back again upon the cushions, he thanked God, as many a convalescent has done, for the untold wealth of love which sickness may draw forth.

"Did you see that sweet child, George, in Dolly Smith's pew to-day?" asked Mary. "Her little face quite fascinated me. It was as sad as it was sweet. I fancied the child must have known sorrow; perhaps be motherless," and Mary kissed her own little blue-eyed baby. "You know, George, things sometimes come to me like a revelation. I am sure that child's heart is sore. When you read the hymn I saw the tears standing in her eyes, but then your voice is so musical, George, it might have been from excess of pleasure."

"Foolish little wife," said her husband; "as if every body saw me through your eyes, and heard me with your partial ears."

"Well, be that as it may," said Mary, "I want you to call at Dolly's and see that child; get her into my Sabbath-school class if you can, and if she has a sorrow, we will try to lighten it."