upon that same october evening, another little girl, near bertha’s age, sat by the window, looking out into the twilight. it was no dreary back-court, however, which met her eye, but a broad, well-paved street, lined with stately houses, and a quiet park, where the graceful willows drooping round the fountain still showed a tinge of green, and the elms and maples still looked gay in their autumn livery of crimson and gold.
and the scene within presented as strong a contrast to poor bertha’s surroundings as did the scene without. the cheerful parlor, with its rich curtains and soft carpet, its glowing grate and pleasant pictures and comfortable easy-chairs, was very unlike that dismal attic; but the gazer at the window[pg 30] seemed to give very little heed to its brightness. she, too, was looking up at the cloudy sky, and, with her pale little face and deep mourning-dress, made as sad a picture through the plate-glass window as did poor ragged bertha behind her smoky panes.
presently, however, as a footstep sounded along the pavement and up the steps, the pale, sad face lighted up and turned eagerly toward the door. a handsome, merrylooking, young gentleman came briskly in, shaking a tiny shower of rain-drops from his hair and dress. “were you counting the rain-drops, polly?” said he, “or looking for the moon?”
“no, cousin john; i was only thinking.”
“only thinking!” said cousin john, wheeling the most inviting easy-chair up in front of the glowing grate. “well, come here and sit with me, and, if you must stare at something, let it be at the fire: it is a much more agreeable object than that mizzly sky. and so you were thinking, polly? i hoped you were watching for me.”
“i was wishing for you, cousin john. but i wasn’t exactly watching, because i [pg 31]was thinking of them;”—and the child clasped her hands nervously, and turned her face up to him with a sorrowful look, which was sadder than tears.
a shadow came over the young man’s pleasant face; and he stooped and kissed her forehead, as he placed her on his knee. “you shouldn’t sit here alone in the twilight, polly,” said he; “it’s not good for you. where are the babies?”
“grandmamma does not like them to stay in the parlor, you know: they make such a litter; and she wants it tidy when you come home; and mrs. evans says i sha’n’t be always in the nursery.”
“grandmamma mustn’t sacrifice you to my old-bachelor notions, puss. i had rather stumble over a dozen hobby-horses than to find my little polly sitting here alone with such a dismal face.”
“i like it to be neat for you, too, cousin john,” said cousin john’s little polly, as he drew the kind caressing arm closer round her; “and i don’t think grandmamma would have made the rule; but the last time they were in here, jamie got the poker, and rode upon[pg 32] it all round the room. he called it his gee-gee. look, what a black mark he made in the carpet. nancy scrubbed it ever so long this morning, and it won’t come out; and the black was all over his new scarlet frock, too. then jeannie climbed on a chair, to get the dollies,—she thinks those marble busts are dollies,—and she fell and bumped her head. mrs. evans says it will be black and blue for a month. oh, how angry she was! she said they were spoiled. sylvie never said so; and sylvie let me stay with them as much as i liked. poor sylvie!”—and the child’s voice sank into a tone of sad complaint.
“mrs. evans is a bit of a tyrant, i know,” answered cousin john, cheerfully; “but she is very fond of the twins, and of their big sister too, i can tell you. but where’s grandmamma to-night?”
“aunt emily came and took her home to tea. she asked me, too; but, oh, cousin john, they do pity me so much, and ask so many questions about it,—all those old ladies,—that i can’t bear it. but she said you were to come, and i was to tell you the[pg 33] instant you came in, but i forgot. shall you go?”
“shall i, polly? i leave you to decide.”
“oh, cousin! will you? and may i tell you to stay? i want you so much: only i don’t wish to be selfish; and aunt emily said you and grandmamma were dreadfully moped with us children.”
“are we?” said cousin john, smiling. “i’m much obliged to aunt emily; i never should have guessed it without her help. i thought it was very nice to have a little polly to welcome me home every evening, and to be company for grandmamma all day; and i am sure the house was never so lively as it is since jemmy and jenny came. i should have said, now, if any one had asked me, that it was aunt emily’s tea-parties which moped us; but then, of course, she knows.”
“i don’t believe you are moped at all,” said polly, energetically; “you are always so bright and merry, or, when you are sad, it is not in a stupid way. i wonder at you sometimes, cousin john. you are just like me,—that is, i mean you have no father[pg 34] and mother; and you have not even the twins;—you have only grandma in all the world, and yet you seem so happy, while i can do nothing but cry.”
“only grandmamma! why, polly, i should not be so very poor in friends, even if you were right. grandma counts for a great deal with her johnny, i can tell you. but i thought myself richer than that. i thought i had you, my little cousin, and the twins. don’t you mean to give me any share in the twins?”
“oh, cousin john! i didn’t mean that!” cried the little girl, very earnestly. “i’m sure i love you better than anybody in the world,—at least now,—and jemmy and jenny are always calling for ‘cuddy.’ they never call papa or brother now; and nurse won’t let me put them in mind, because she says it does them no good and only makes me cry. oh no! i did not mean that. i meant people that belong to you,—people that you have a right to.”
“and i insist that i have a right to you, polly,” said the young gentleman, pressing polly very tight in his arms. “but i know[pg 35] what you mean, puss, and i won’t tease you any more. indeed, i have been wishing to talk with you a little about this for some time; and, now we have begun it, perhaps i had better say my say. i know very well how sad it is to be an orphan, and i have seen the time, at first, when, like you, i could do nothing but cry; so, i don’t mean to set myself up for an example; but, my little mary, there is one thing which you and i must both remember, and which ought to help us very much, and that is this: whatever our trials are, they are sent by one who knows much better than we do what is good for us, and for those we love; and whatever our blessings are, they come to us straight from his hand. if we believe this,—as i try to do, as i hope you also try to do,—it will make us afraid to murmur at the one, and ashamed to be unthankful for the other,—will it not?”
“perhaps so; i suppose it ought,” said mary, slowly; “but, oh, cousin john, it is so very hard. you are a man, and you are so very good you would be sure to feel just right; but i am only a little girl, and it is[pg 36] so very hard, so very different. you and grandma are very kind, but, oh, i want papa so much, and mamma, and ned! oh, cousin, you don’t know! it seems sometimes as if my heart would break!”—and the child leaned her head against her cousin’s shoulder, and wept as if her heart were really breaking.
the young man soothed her very tenderly, and waited patiently until her tears were dried; then he said, gently, “my darling must not think i mean to blame her, but only to help her bear her trouble better. i know it is sad, very sad, to lose so many dear friends at one blow; but polly must count up her blessings as well as her trials: she has not been left quite helpless and friendless, as so many poor children are, by this same fearful providence.”
“that is what nurse is always saying,” answered mary, a little impatiently; “but i can’t see that it makes my trial any easier. i’m sure it only makes me more wretched to think of other people being so miserable.”
“i suppose it does have that effect,” answered cousin john, thoughtfully, “unless[pg 37] one tries to help them. yes, polly, strange as it may seem, the only way to lighten our own burdens is by helping other people to bear theirs.”
there was not a shadow of vexation in his tone; and yet, somehow, mary could not help feeling that her cousin was not quite pleased with her,—perhaps because she was not quite pleased with herself. she was conscious of being unthankful for her remaining blessings; she knew she had felt inclined to murmur at her lot, and to indulge her grief without any regard to the comfort of those around her. but she felt she had great excuse,—as, indeed, she had, if any one can be said to have excuse for doing what is not quite right; for this little mary’s trials were no common ones.
i dare say my young readers have already guessed that mary was an orphan, but i hope they are not familiar enough with sorrow to have guessed in what a terrible form her bereavement came. perhaps some of you may remember, however, to have heard or read of the fearful pestilence at norfolk in virginia, a few years ago, when the yellow[pg 38] fever passed through the city and carried off its victims from every house. it was at norfolk that little mary’s parents lived; and it was this terrible disease which had robbed her, in a single week, of her father, her mother, her eldest brother, and sylvie, her faithful black nurse. poor little mary! well might she shudder and turn pale as she remembered that fearful day when she found herself alone with the twin babies, with only those strange doctors and nurses to care for them. well might she cling, too, to the dear cousin who had braved the pestilence to come to their relief.
the grandmother’s house was of course open to the orphans. they had already been with her two months when my story begins, and the twin babies had become quite wonted to their new nursery, grown very fond of “ganny,” as they called her, very familiar with “cuddy,” as they styled young dr. grey, and seemed to have adopted nurse evans into the place of their lost sylvie; but little mary was still, i am sorry to say, not only very sad but very discontented. she had taken up a sad complaining way, brooding over her grief, and refusing[pg 39] to be comforted; contrasting her grandmother’s quiet, sober ways with her mamma’s sweet brightness, and mrs. evans’s strictness with poor sylvie’s indulgence.
dr. john was the only person who could soothe or divert her; for she chose to believe that he, an orphan himself, left from childhood to his grandmother’s care, was the only one who could fully sympathize with her great trouble. she was very fond of him; and now, though a little vexed at his seeming reproof, could not bear the thought of displeasing him: so, after a moment’s thought, she took his hand caressingly in both her own, and said, “i am so little, cousin john, and so silly, i don’t see how i could help other people any; but if you want me to, i’ll try,—only you must tell me how.”
“i’ll tell you how i learned what little i know about it, polly,” answered dr. grey, kindly. “when i first came here, it was with me, i suppose, very much as it is with you now. i pined for the dear ones i had lost, and found this great empty house very lonely and dreary. i thought no one had ever been so afflicted as i, and i indulged[pg 40] my grief without giving a thought to other people’s feelings, until, one night, grandma and i sat here in this very parlor. i was moping by the window, just as you were when i came in. i thought of that night when i saw you here, looking so doleful; and dear grandma sat by the fire with her knitting in her lap. she was not so old a woman as now by a good many years, but she seemed to me every whit as aged; and i confess i thought it something of a bore that there should be no younger people in the house. she had been trying hard to wile me into a little cheerful talk, but i was obstinate; so she had finally given it over, and sat there thinking, with her hands folded over the work in her lap. i don’t know what prompted me to peep out at her from my sullen nook in the window-seat, but i did, and i never shall forget the weary, sorrowful, jaded look upon that dear old face. perhaps you have seen it, polly; it has come back once or twice since you came. it came over me all at once then, that i was not the only sufferer; that, if i had lost my parents, dear grandma had lost her only son; if i was lonely in my orphan[pg 41] childhood, she must be still more so in her widowed age; and that i, who should have been her comfort, was adding to her trouble by my selfish grief. i can’t tell you how i felt, mary; but i remember i jumped from the window-seat, and sat down upon the footstool at grandma’s feet, and leaned my head against her knee. the kind old smile came back then, and i made a great vow to myself to keep it there. i have tried; i don’t know if i have succeeded always; but one thing i do know, polly: i have never felt myself quite desolate since that night. i have never wished for any one younger than grandma either; and i hope, i believe, i have filled, in some measure, the place of the son she then lost. but the dear old patient heart has got a fresh wound now, polly: she has lost a daughter now; another orphan grandchild is weeping in her home; and the old look of sadness and weariness has come back. i can’t banish it alone this time, polly. will you help me?”
“oh, i know what you mean!” cried mary, bursting into tears; “i know what you mean. i have seen the look. it was on her face to-night,[pg 42] when i would not go with her, and aunt emily would insist upon taking her away. but i did not mind it as you did. i never thought she could care so much for mamma; but i see now: if i had died, dear mamma would have been so sad, so sorry. yes, i will try, cousin john,—i will!”
“i knew you would, my darling; and, i am sure, grandma will be very happy in her little daughter.”
“her little daughter,” repeated polly, drying her eyes, and brightening up, as if that put the subject in a new light. “that is like being your little sister, isn’t it? i like that.”
“yes,” said dr. john, “my little sister,—grandma’s boy and girl. i like it too, polly, very much.”
“we’ll be ever so good, won’t we? but, cousin john, you’ve only told me about grandmamma, and you said there were others. how did you learn to help the others?”
“i haven’t done learning that yet, polly; so we can study together, and, if we have but the motive, i dare say we shall find a way to[pg 43] lighten the burden of many a weary fellow-traveller.”
“what is the motive, cousin john?”
dr. john made no answer to this question in words; but he took his grandmother’s great bible from the stand beside him, and turning over the leaves, put his finger on a passage, and held it up to the fire-light for polly to read. the child made out the words slowly by the flickering light: “inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me”; then looked up in his face and asked, in a frightened tone, “do you think he really meant that, cousin john?”
“we have his own word for it, polly,” answered dr. john; “and is not that motive enough? is there anything, anything, we should not be willing to do for him?”
