The Old Homestead Part 42

The children were locked in each other's arms, weeping, each striving to comfort the other.

"Remember now, Isabel, say your prayers every night, the Lord's Prayer, and after that, Isabel, remember and ask G.o.d to bless me and make me, oh! so patient."

"Ah! but it will seem so lonesome all by myself, with no one to kneel by me. Mary, Mary, I wish they had left us together at the hospital, I long to get away from here!"

"No, you mustn't feel that way, Mary, because Mrs. Farnham is very good and very kind, to make you like her own child, and dress you up in all these pretty things."

"They are pretty!" replied Mary, examining her plaid silk dress through many tears, "but somehow I don't seem to feel a bit happier in them."

"But this lady is to be your mother, Isabel."

Poor Isabel burst into a fresh pa.s.sion of grief. "Oh! Mary, Mary, that is it. You know she isn't in the least like my mother, my own darling, darling mother."

"But she is in heaven," said Mary, in her sweet, deep voice, that always seemed so holy and true. "Now, dear Isabel, you will have two mothers, one here, another beyond the stars. That mother--oh, Isabel, I believe it as I do my own life--that mother comes to you always when you pray."

"Oh! then I will pray so often, Mary," cried the little girl, clasping her hands, "if that will bring her close to me."

Mary looked long and wistfully into that lovely face, with only such admiration as one bereft of all personal attractions can feel for beauty. Isabel clung closer to her, and wept more quietly.

"You will come and see me very often?" she whispered.

"Yes," sobbed Mary, "if they will let me."

"Where are they going to leave you?"

"I don't know, I haven't thought to ask till now."

"I hope it will be near, Mary; and then, you know, we will see each other every day," cried the child, brightening through her tears.

"But I am afraid Mrs. Farnham don't like me well enough. She may not allow it," answered Mary, with a meek smile.

"But _I_ will," persisted Isabel, flinging back her head, with an air that brought fresh tears into Mary's eyes.

"Isabel," she said gravely, and striving to suppress her grief, "don't--don't--Mrs. Farnham is your mother now."

"No, she isn't though. She frightens me to death with her kindness.

She don't love me a bit, only because my face is so pretty. I wish it wasn't, and then, perhaps, I could go with you."

"No, no, we needn't expect that, _I_ never did. It's only a wonder they took me at all. I'm Mr. Frederick's child, and you are hers. I'm quite sure if it hadn't been for him and Mr. Sharp, I should have been left in the Poor House all alone. The lady only looked at you from the first."

"I know it, don't you think I heard all she said about my eyes, my curls and my beautiful face, while you stood there with your mouth all of a tremble, and your eyes growing so large and bright under their tears--I knew that it was my pretty face, that was doing it all; and oh! just then, Mary, I hated it so much."

"It is a great thing to have a beautiful face, Isabel, a very great thing. You don't know what it is to see kind people turn away their eyes for fear of hurting your feelings by a look, and to hear rude, bad persons gibing at you. Isabel, dear, you wouldn't like that."

Mary said this in her usual sad, meek way, smiling so patiently as if every word were a tear wrung from her heart.

"Oh! Mary, but you are beautiful to me--n.o.body on earth looks so sweet and so good in my eyes, or ever will."

The two children embraced each other, and both wept freely as only children can weep. At length, Mary Fuller withdrew herself from Isabel's arms, lingering a moment to press fresh kisses among her curls.

"Now, Isabel, you must go. See, they are looking at us. Mrs. Farnham will be angry."

"Mary, I want to tell you something; I like the red-haired woman, cross as she is, a thousand times better than Mrs. Farnham. If she did shake me, it was for my good, I dare say."

"She was kind, at any rate, to let you come back," said Mary.

"To _let_ me? Why, Mary, she shook me up as mamma would a pillow, and shot me into the carriage so swift, it took my breath."

Mary smiled faintly, and Isabel began to laugh through her tears, as she scrambled out of the carriage again, Mary followed her with longing eyes. Something of maternal tenderness mingled with her love of that beautiful child; suffering had rendered her strangely precocious, and that prophetic spirit, which might have sprung from a mind too early stimulated, filled her whole being as with the love of a guardian angel.

"Oh, how lovely she is, how bright, how like a bird--if her father could only see her now, poor, poor Isabel! It is so hard for her to be with strange people; but I, who was so long prowling the streets like a little wild beast that everybody ran away from; yes, I ought to be content, and so grateful. But--but, I should like it _so_ much if they would only let me come and see her once in a while. It's _so_ hard, and _so_ lonesome without that."

Thus muttering sadly and sweetly to herself, the child sat with her little face buried in both hands, almost disconsolate.

She was aroused by a vigorous footstep and the cheering voice of Enoch Sharp. He did not appear to notice her tears, but took his seat, waving his hand to the group just turning to enter Mrs. Farnham's dwelling.

"There, there, wave your hand, little one. They're looking this way."

Mary leaned forward. Mrs. Farnham and the housekeeper had entered the hall, but Isabel took off her Leghorn flat and was waving it toward them. The pink ribbons and marabouts fluttered joyously in the air.

Mary could not see that those bright hazel eyes were dim with tears, but the position and free wave of the arms were full of buoyant joy.

She drew a deep breath, and choked back her tears. It seemed as if she were utterly deserted, then, utterly alone.

While Mary could feel and admire Isabel's beauty, her own lack of it had only been half felt; now her sun was gone, and she, poor moon, grew dreary in the unaided darkness. Up to this time Mary had hardly given a thought to the fate intended for herself. Always meek and lowly in her desires, feeling that any place was good enough for her, she was never selfishly anxious on her own account. Nor did she inquire now. While Enoch Sharp was striving to comfort her by caressing little cares, she only asked,

"Is it far from here that you are taking me sir?"

"No, child, it is not more than a mile--you can run over and see her any time before breakfast, if you like."

Mary did not answer, but her eyes began to sparkle, and bending her head softly down, as a meek child does in prayer, she covered Enoch Sharp's hands with soft, timid kisses, that went to the very core of his n.o.ble heart.

"Would you like to know where, and what, your home is to be, little one?" he said, smoothing her hair with one disengaged hand.

"If you please, but I am sure it will be very nice, so near her."

"Do you wish very much to be with her?"

"Indeed I do, and if they could send us word from heaven, I know her father and mother would say it was best."

"But there is no relationship between you," said he, willing to probe her frank soul to the bottom.

"Relationship, sir," answered the child, with the most touching smile that ever lighted human face, "oh, sir, haven't you seen how lovely she is? And I"--

The child paused and spread her little hands open, as much as to say, "and I! _could_ two creatures so opposite be of the same blood?"

"I think you more lovely by half than she is, my child," cried Enoch Sharp, drawing the hand, still warm with her grateful kisses, across his eyes; "good children are never ugly, you know."

The child looked at him wonderingly.

"You have seen a thunder-cloud," he said, answering the look, "how leaden and dismal it is of itself; but let the sun shine strike it and its edges are fringed with rosy gold, its ma.s.ses turn purple and warm crimson, it breaks apart and rainbows leap from its bosom, bridging the sky with light; do you understand, my child?"