HELEN MAKES KNOWN HER ENGAGEMENT.
It was again morning. Helen sat at the window, which was thrown wide
open to admit the pleasant breeze that rustled in and out like a
restless sprite, laden, not with rich odors and sweet perfumes from
green fields, but resonant with the noises of the crowded city streets.
There was an expression of doubt and perplexity in Helen’s face. She was
considering whether it would be possible to make known to her father her
engagement at the theatre, without, at the same time, revealing the
motive which had led her to seek it. She was assured that her father
would feel deeply pained if he knew the real state of the case, and she
dreaded that he might object to her keeping her engagement. While she
was hesitating, her father suddenly turned from his work and met her
glance.
“A penny for your thoughts, Helen,” he said, with unwonted playfulness.
“My thoughts!” and she blushed consciously. “I am afraid, papa, they are
not worth so much.”
“How cool and refreshing is the air!” mused Mr. Ford, as he stood for a
moment at the window. “Mark how beautifully the clouds are tinged with
the faintest flush of red. Well have the old poets spoken of morning as
‘rosy-fingered.’ Would you like to go out for a walk, Helen?”
Helen looked up at the clock. It lacked yet two hours of the time for
rehearsal. There would be plenty of time for a walk, which, with her
father, was never a long one.
“Perhaps I shall be able to say something about my engagement, on the
way,” she thought.
She silently got her bonnet, and, placing her hand in that of her
father, descended the stairs into the street. Here all was life and
activity. In the early morning of a pleasant day the streets of a great
city present a pleasant and cheerful aspect. Everything is full of stir
and bustle. Even the jaded dray-horse pricks up his ears, and shows some
signs of life. Boys and girls expend their superabundant activity in
bounding along the sidewalk, and even the man of business seems
lightened of a portion of his cares. There is a subtile electricity in
the air, which unconsciously affects the spirits of all, and lights up
many faces with vague hopefulness.
Helen yielded herself up to the influences of the morning, and a quiet
sense of happiness stole over her. She thought how beautiful in itself
is the gift of life, and how glad we ought to be for the bright
sunshine, and the clear, refreshing air, and the beautiful earth. The
conflicts of life were lost sight of. She forgot, in the exhilaration of
her spirits, that the days were sometimes dark, and the clouds leaden.
Her father seemed affected in a similar way. A faint flush crept to his
wan cheek, and his step became more elastic.
“How the difficulties and embarrassments of our daily lives fade away in
this glorious sunshine!” he said, musingly. “Sometimes I have had fears
that my discovery would never prove available; but to-day success seems
almost within my grasp. It would be a sin to doubt, when all Nature
whispers auguries of hope.”
“You must succeed, papa,” said Helen, cheerfully.
“So I feel now. I catch the inspiration of this cooling breeze. It
breathes new life into me. It gives me fresh courage to work, for the
end draws near.”
Mr. Ford relapsed into silence, and Helen walked quietly by his side,
occupied with her own thoughts. All at once she became sensible that she
had attracted the attention of a little knot of boys, who were
conversing together in a low tone, pointing first to her, and then to a
large placard posted conspicuously on the wall beside her.
“That’s she!” she heard pronounced in an audible voice. “I saw her last
night.”
Following the direction of their fingers, she started in surprise on
reading, in large capitals, her own name. It was the bill of the
evening’s entertainment in the theatre at which she was engaged. The
surprise was so unexpected, that she uttered a half-exclamation, which,
however, was sufficient to draw her father’s attention to the bill.
THE TALENTED YOUNG VOCALIST,
_MISS HELEN FORD_,
WILL MAKE HER SECOND APPEARANCE THIS EVENING IN A POPULAR SONG.
“It is very strange,” said Mr. Ford, stopping short as he read this
announcement; “some one having the same name with you, Helen?”
“No, papa,” said she, in a low voice.
“No?” repeated her father, in surprise. “Then you don’t see the name.”
“Will you promise not to be angry with me, papa, if I tell you all.”
“Angry! Am I often angry with you, Helen?”
“No, no! I did not mean that. But perhaps you will think I have done
wrong.”
“I am still in the dark, Helen.”
“Then,” said the young girl, hurriedly, and with flushed face, “that is
_my_ name. I am the Helen Ford whose name is on the bill.”
“You, Helen!” exclaimed her father, in undisguised amazement.
“Yes, papa. I have been wanting to tell you all this morning; but I
hardly knew how.”
“I don’t understand. Have you ever sung there?”
“Last night, for the first time.”
Helen proceeded to give her father a circumstantial account of her
interview with the manager, her repulse at first, and her subsequent
engagement. She added that she had hesitated to tell him, lest he should
object to her accepting it. She next spoke of her first appearance upon
the stage,—how at first she was terrified at sight of the crowded
audience, but had succeeded in overcoming her timidity, and lost all
consciousness of her trying position in the enjoyment of singing.
“You have forgotten one thing, Helen,” said her father, gravely. “You
have not told me what first gave you the idea of singing in public.”
“It was Martha,” said Helen, in some embarrassment, foreseeing what was
coming. “One day I sang in her room, and she was so well pleased, that
she told me I might one day become a public singer.”
“And that was all, Helen?”
“What else should there be, papa?” she answered, evasively.
“Indeed, I do not know. I thought it might be because you supposed we
were poor, and wished to earn some money. But you see, Helen, there is
no need of that;” and he drew out his pocket-book, and displayed to the
child’s astonished gaze the roll of bills which Mr. Sharp had insisted
on loaning him the day previous.
“Indeed, papa, I had no idea you were so rich.”
“A kind friend lent me this money yesterday.”
“Who was it, papa?”
“You remember a man who came to see us a fortnight since,—a tall man
with a white hat?”
“Yes, papa.”
“He lent me the money.”
“Did you ask him, papa?”
“No; it was his own generous offer.”
“But suppose he should want you to pay it by and by, and you did not
have the money?” suggested Helen, uneasily.
“There is no fear on that score. He desires to assist me with my
invention, and suggested, very properly, that with improved materials my
progress would become more rapid. Once let me succeed, and I shall be
able to repay the loan, if it were twice as large. He will never think
of asking me for it before. He is a very generous-hearted man, Helen,
and he only called it a loan because he knew that I should be unwilling
to accept a gift.”
Helen could not gainsay her father’s words. She could not conceive of
any evil purpose on the part of Mr. Sharp; yet, somehow, an
unaccountable sense of anxiety and apprehension of coming evil, in
connection with this loan, would force itself upon her mind.
“Perhaps,” said Mr. Ford, with a sudden thought, “you may need something
that I can buy you,—some article of dress, or perhaps you may require an
additional sum for the purchase of our daily necessaries. I am so much
occupied in other ways that I do not always think of these things.”
“No, papa,” said Helen, hurriedly. “I do not need anything.”
Then, yielding to an uncontrollable impulse, she exclaimed, “Dear papa,
do not use any of this money. Pray, return it to this man, and tell him
you do not need it.”
“But it will be very useful to me, Helen. Besides, it would be a very
uncivil way of meeting such a generous offer. You are a foolish child.
What has put this fancy into your head?”
“I don’t know,” said Helen, slowly; “but I feel as if this money may do
us some harm.”
“What possible harm can come of it?” asked Mr. Ford, surprised at the
child’s earnestness.
“I do not like to think that you are in anybody’s power, papa.”
“We are all in the power of God, my child.”
“I did not mean that, papa.”
“And He is abundantly able to shield us from evil. Is it not so, Helen?”
Helen was silenced, but not wholly convinced. This was the more
remarkable, since nothing was more foreign to her nature than to cherish
distrust of any living thing. Even now, her feeling was rather an
instinctive foreboding than any clearly-defined suspicion. The presence
of Mr. Sharp, polite and affable as he appeared, had not impressed her
pleasantly,—why, she could not tell. Oftentimes children are truer in
their instinctive perception of character than their elders. It is
fortunate that, in the absence of that knowledge which experience alone
can give, they should be provided with this safeguard against the evil
designs of those who might injure them.
Nine o’clock pealed from the lofty steeple of Trinity. Helen heard the
strokes as one by one they rang out upon the air, and she was warned of
the near approach of the hour for rehearsal.
“It is nearly time for rehearsal,” she said, looking up in her father’s
face. “Shall I go?”
“Do you really wish to go, Helen?”
“I really wish it, papa.”
“Then I will not interfere to prevent you. I have so much confidence in
you, my child, that I am willing to trust you where others might suffer
harm.”
The father and child parted. One returned to his humble lodging in the
fourth story back; the other wended her way to the theatre.