Nelly's failing energies than this convenient proverb, in the
unwholesome atmosphere she was breathing by night and day, as well as
in the quantity and quality of the food provided for her. Mrs.
Williams would have indignantly repelled the charge of starving Nelly,
but she forgot the requirements of a fast-growing girl. Everything
eatable was kept rigidly locked up,--that was a fundamental principle
of Mrs. Williams' housekeeping,--and Nelly's allowance was sometimes
so scanty, and at other times composed of such an uninviting
collection of scraps, that she often had not sufficient nourishment to
repair the waste of strength which she was continually undergoing. And
as she would rather suffer than ask more, her constitution was really
giving way for want of sufficient sustenance.
So two or three months passed, and she had not yet seen Lucy. She had
only, indeed, been two or three times at church, for Mrs. Williams
never seemed to remember that her little servant had an immortal soul
to be nourished, though it must be admitted that she was not much more
mindful of her own spiritual welfare. As for getting out on week-days,
except on her mistress's errands, Mrs. Williams seemed to consider
that quite out of the question; and, indeed, Nelly could not easily
have found leisure for half-an-hour's absence. One evening, at last,
when most of the boarders were dining out, Mrs. Williams graciously
acceded to Nelly's request to be allowed to go out for an hour; "but
don't stay a minute longer," she added. Nelly had carefully kept
Lucy's address, and gladly set off, as fast as she could walk, towards
the quarter of the city in which she knew it to be. She steered her
course pretty straight, but had walked for fully half-an-hour before
she reached the door, on the brass plate of which she read "B.
Brooke."
It was with a beating heart that she put the question, "Is Miss Lucy
Raymond at home?" to be answered in the negative by the servant, who
inwardly wondered what a girl so poorly dressed could want with Miss
Lucy. Waiting was out of the question,--she would be late enough in
getting back as it was,--so she sorrowfully turned away, without
leaving any message. It was a great disappointment, and, tired and
dispirited, she made her way back.
There was another reason, besides want of time, to prevent her making
a second attempt. The clothes with which she had been provided on
leaving Mill Bank Farm were almost worn out with the hard work she had
to do, and Mrs. Williams had as yet done nothing towards fulfilling
her promise of giving her necessary clothing, although Nelly's
tattered frock was worn beyond all possibility of repairing. Nelly was
conscious of the doubtful look with which she was regarded when she
asked for Lucy, and she shrank from again encountering it, and perhaps
bringing discredit on Miss Lucy in the eyes of her city friends by her
own disreputable appearance.
One afternoon in June--Mrs. Williams and her daughter being
out--Nelly, having a few minutes to spare, was standing at the open
door, listening to the plaintive strains of an organ-grinder who was
playing close by. His dark Italian face looked sad and careworn, and
the little girl beside him, evidently his daughter from the
resemblance between them, looked so pale and feeble, that it seemed as
if her little thin hands could scarcely support the tambourine she was
ringing in accompaniment to a little plaintive song. Nelly enjoyed the
performance exceedingly, but her admiration did not appear to be
shared by those whose applause was of more consequence, for not a
single penny found its way into the poor man's hat, either from the
inmates of the house or from the juvenile bystanders. His discouraged
air, and the sad, wistful eyes of the little girl, touched Nelly's
warm Irish heart, as he leaned on Mrs. Williams' doorsteps to rest
himself while he set down his organ, experience having taught him that
it was a useless waste of strength to play before that door.
Nelly, seeing how hot and tired he looked, impulsively asked the poor
man whether he would walk in and sit down, never stopping to think
whether she had a right to do so. He looked up, surprised at the
invitation, but thankfully accepted it, and Nelly brought two chairs
into the hall for him and the little girl. Then, as the only
entertainment she was able to supply, she filled two glasses with the
coldest water she could find, and shyly offered them to her guests.
"Ah, it is good," said the organ-grinder, when he had drained his
glass. "Many thanks," he added, in his foreign accent; and the little
girl looked up into Nelly's face with the sweetest, most expressive,
grateful smile.
"Now," said the Italian, after having rested a little, "you love
music--is it not true?--or you would not be so kind to us. I will play
for you."
And, taking up his instrument, he played an air sweeter than any Nelly
had yet heard from him, and the little girl sang, in her liquid voice,
a little song, the words of which she could not understand, for they
were Italian.
"Now we must go," said the man. "Good-bye, my good girl; if I were
home in my country, I would do as much for you." And the father and
daughter pursued their weary way, Nelly's eyes following wistfully the
forms of those whom she regarded as friends already, for were they
not, like herself, poor, lonely strangers in a strange land?
Then she began to wonder whether she had done wrong in asking them to
come in. She knew instinctively that she could not have done it had
Mrs. Williams been at home. But yet she could not feel such a simple,
common act of kindness to have been wrong. No harm had been done to
anything belonging to her mistress; and the "cup of cold water," had
she not a right to offer it to those who needed it so much?
After that the organ-grinder and his child passed frequently through
that street, and whenever she could, Nelly would exchange a few kind
words with them, and the man would play for her, knowing well that she
had no pennies to offer in return; but at such times she used to wish
so much that she had a little money of her own.
The Italian would sometimes look at her tattered dress, and her face,
gradually growing thinner and paler, as if he thought her quite as
forlorn as himself; and once, when he heard her mistress call her in,
and scold her for "talking to such characters in the street," he shook
his head, and muttered something in his native tongue.
And so it came to pass that the poor Italian and his daughter became
Nelly's only friends in that great, busy city.
XII.
_Ambition._
"Tell me the same old story,
When you have cause to fear
That this world's empty glory
Is costing me too dear."
Lucy's interest in her studies, and the zeal with which she pursued
them, had had a wonderful effect in reconciling her to her new
circumstances. She could sometimes hardly believe that only a few
short months lay between her and her old life, now seeming so far back
in the distance. Her progress in study had been very rapid, as her
abilities were above the average, and her love of study was much
greater than was usual among her companions, most of whom looked upon
their school education chiefly as a matter of form, which it was
expected of them to go through before entering on the real object of
life, the entrance into "society," with its pleasures and excitements.
That it was intended to be a means of disciplining their minds for
better doing their future duties, enlarging their range of thought,
and opening to them new sources of interest and delight, had never
entered into their heads. Lucy indeed pursued her studies more for the
sake of the pleasure they afforded her at the time than with any
ulterior views, though she did feel the advantages placed in her way
to be a sacred trust, and, like all other privileges, to be accounted
for to Him who had bestowed them.
With her teachers, who found her a pupil after their own heart, she
was a much greater favourite than she was with some of her classmates,
who were so uncongenial, that she could not well enter into, or even
understand, the things which interested them. Nor could she always
refrain from showing her impatience of their frivolities, or her
contempt for the follies which so engrossed their minds; and this did
not, of course, tend to make her popular. This circumstance Lucy did
not care for so much even as she ought; for, though fond of
approbation, she cared only for the approbation of those she esteemed,
unlike her cousin Stella, who liked admiration from any source.
When the bright, balmy days of spring came, bringing with them
thoughts of green fields and budding trees, there sometimes came over
her longings almost irresistible for her old home, so full of rural
sights and sounds, in such contrast to the stiff, straight city
streets and houses, the dust and noise, and the squares planted with
trees, which to her eyes seemed like caged birds, as the only
reminders that there were such things in the world. These longings
usually came to her most strongly in the long spring evenings, in
whose lengthening light she used to rejoice at Ashleigh, as enabling
her to prolong her pleasant country rambles. Now she must either walk
up and down the hard pavements between never-ending rows of houses, or
sit at the window, wistfully watching the sunset light falling golden
on the opposite walls. Now and then she accompanied the others in a
long drive; but the distance which they had to traverse before they
reached anything like the country seemed to her interminable; and when
they did catch a glimpse of fields and woods, it seemed hard to have
so soon to turn back and lose sight of them again.
On her return from one of these drives, which had been protracted till
dusk, she was told that she had been inquired for by a girl very
poorly dressed, "almost like a beggar." She was puzzled at first, but
almost immediately it flashed across her that it must be Nelly Connor.
She had often thought of her since she had come to the city, but could
not find her, owing to Bessie's omission to give her mistress's
address,--an omission which Bessie, not being a good correspondent,
and naturally supposing that Nelly would soon find her way to Lucy,
had not yet remedied. "Oh, I wish I had seen her!" exclaimed Lucy,
much to the surprise both of the servants and her cousins, who could
not understand how a girl of that description should come to be so
interesting to her as to cause so much disappointment at having missed
her, and at having no clue to her place of abode.
"I hope she will soon come again," was the reflection with which Lucy
consoled herself; and Stella explained to Sophy and Edwin: "It's a
little Irish _protegée_ of hers that she was crazy about at Ashleigh,
and she used to lecture me because I didn't think as much of her as
she did." Lucy laughed and tried to explain, but stopped, seeing that
her cousins took very little interest in the matter.
Lucy did not come much in contact with her uncle and aunt. The former
was much absorbed in business, and though a kind and indulgent parent,
especially to his favourite Stella, he interfered but little in home
matters. Mrs. Brooke, who had always been a rather negative character,
had long given up to her elder daughters any sway she had ever held,
and was almost entirely guided by their judgment, of which they
naturally took advantage to indulge to the utmost their own love of
gaiety. Balls and parties in winter, and in summer gay picnics and
driving parties without end, engrossed their time and thoughts, to the
exclusion of higher objects of interest. Ada was fond of embroidery,
and would betake herself to it when nothing better was going on; and
Sophy was sometimes persuaded to paint for a fancy sale one of the
illuminations, in doing which she evinced great talent. They were
generally quotations from the poets which she selected; and as Lucy
watched the taste with which Sophy blended and contrasted the rich
colouring, she would long for the same skilful hand, in order to
clothe in such glowing colours some of the favourite texts which shone
for her like beams of light from heaven.
But she had no talent for drawing; and though by diligent practice she
improved very much in playing and singing, she knew she should never
be able to do either like her cousin Sophy. How useful, she thought,
might she not be, if her heart were but actuated by love to Christ!
She felt she dared not speak to her on this subject, but she often
prayed to Him who can command the hearts of all, that He would touch
and renew that of her cousin Sophy.
Between Stella and Lucy, dissimilar as they were, there existed a
strong cousinly affection. Stella, with all her bantering ways, would
never now go so far as seriously to annoy her, generally taking her
side when she thought the others were too much for her. But though
Lucy tried earnestly to draw her cousin towards the knowledge of her
Saviour, all such attempts seemed to glance off her, like raindrops
from an oiled surface. She was quite satisfied with herself as she
was, and had not yet found out the insufficiency of the earthly
pleasures which at present satisfied her. She believed, of course, in
another world, and the need of a preparation for it, but she thought
there was plenty of time for that; and it had never entered within the
range of her comprehension that the change of heart, which is the
necessary preparation for a future life, is as necessary to living
either well or happily in the present. So that Lucy was constantly
feeling that, in the most important matters of all, there could be no
genuine sympathy between them.
Nor among her schoolmates was her longing for sympathy between them
more fully gratified. They were all actuated by the "spirit of this
world which passeth away," and avoided everything that could bring the
thought of another to their minds; so that she had not found one with
whom she could speak on the subjects most dear to her, or hold an
intercourse mutually helpful.
There was, indeed, one of her schoolmates, a Miss Eastwood, a boarder
at Mrs. Wilmot's, in whom, from her sweet, serious manner and
appearance, and from some other tokens, she thought she might have
found a congenial friend. But Miss Eastwood was a little older than
herself, and Lucy's natural shyness was increased by the impression
that she rather avoided her and Stella, probably from knowing that Mr.
Brooke's was a thoroughly worldly family, and supposing that Lucy must
be like her cousins in this respect. Miss Eastwood in this was acting
conscientiously; yet such a determined avoidance of those who appear
to be worldly in their principles of action, though founded on the
desire of keeping out of temptation, sometimes leads to great
mistakes. Real Christian sympathy may sometimes be found where from
circumstances there may seem to be least appearance of it; and even
where it does not exist, influence for good might be exerted over
those whom distrust must necessarily repel. He who sat with publicans
and sinners, while He enjoins His followers to be "not of the world,"
even as He was not of the world, cannot surely desire them to avoid
all opportunities, naturally occurring, of coming in contact with
those who may not be like-minded; and if Christians would always show
their true colours uncompromisingly, while coming near to others, as
God's providence opens opportunity, they would both do more good and
find sympathy and fellowship oftener than they expect.
Of all the inmates of her uncle's house, little Amy was the one in
whom Lucy found the greatest congeniality. Her readings to her, and
her teaching about Jesus, seemed to have satisfied a craving of the
child's little heart, and she drank in the truths which Lucy tried to
explain to her, with the eagerness of one who had been thirsting for
the living water. Indeed she needed very little explanation; it
seemed as if the Spirit of God was her teacher, instructing her in
things that might have seemed too deep for so young a child to
grasp,--though indeed there may be less difference than we often
imagine between the mind of a child and that of the wisest man, as
regards their power of comprehending truths that are too infinitely
profound for the greatest human intellect to fathom.
Amy had from her infancy been so delicate, that she had been in a
great measure confined to the nursery all her life; and not being
nearly so winning and attractive as Stella, she had never been so
great a favourite with her brothers and sisters, who, never having
taken the trouble of drawing her out, considered her rather
uninteresting. The death of a fine little boy, a little older than
Amy, had strangely had the effect upon her mother of making her turn
away, almost with a feeling of impatience, from the unattractive,
ailing child that had been spared, while her noble little boy, so full
of beauty and promise, had been taken. Amy had been left almost
entirely to her nurse, who had taught her some of the simple prayers
and hymns that she herself had learned at Sunday school, though she
had not spoken to her of Jesus, as Lucy had done. The story of His
love fell upon a heart that was unconsciously yearning for a fuller
measure of affection than it had ever received from human sources; and
the love which it excited in return, for Him whom the child seemed at
once to recognise as an ever near and present friend, became the most
powerful influence of her life. She never wearied of hearing about
Him, of asking questions about Him, particularly about His childhood,
which often threw light, in her young teacher's mind, upon things
which she had not considered before. The child's intense interest,
too, and the simplicity of her childish faith, were no small help to
Lucy, in the midst of much that might have drawn her heart and mind
away from her first love. For there were many temptations in her
way,--temptations which sometimes overcame her. Even her zeal in her
studies often unduly absorbed her mind, tempting her to leave the
fag-end of time and strength for prayer and the reading of God's word,
and her natural ambition often led her into unchristian feelings and
tempers. Then, when humbled and discouraged, and doubtful whether she
really was a child of God at all, some simple, loving remark of Amy's
would drive away the clouds, and she would come again, in penitence
and faith, to drink of the living water which alone can quench human
thirst.
Sometimes the spiritual beauty of her little cousin's expression, and
her growing ripeness for a better country, would awaken a feeling of
regret that Amy was not more like other children, lest indeed she
might be ripening for an early removal. Yet the thought would recur:
"Amy is not fit for the roughness of the world; why should I wish her
stay upon it, instead of going home to rest in her Saviour's bosom?"
Fred had paid a short visit to his sister as soon as his college
vacation commenced, but he had made an engagement for the summer as a
tutor, and he was obliged to hasten away to his duties before Lucy had
said half of what she wished to say, or asked his advice on half the
subjects on which she had been longing for it. However, short as his
visit was, it was very useful as well as very pleasant, reviving old
thoughts and habits of feeling which were in danger of falling into
the background, and stimulating her to follow the example of a brother
who was so stedfastly bent on following his Lord.
As the time for the summer examinations at Mrs. Wilmot's drew near,
Lucy, bent on carrying off two or three of the prizes, redoubled her
application to her studies; but she allowed her desire to accomplish
her object to carry her too far. All her thoughts, all her time, were
so engrossed by it, that she had none to spare for anything else. She
would not join her cousins in any of their innocent recreations, and
became impatient and irritable when she met with claims upon her time
that could not be set aside. Even the Lord's day at last began to seem
an interruption to the work in which she was so eager. Her too intense
application began to affect her health: she was growing so nervous,
that Stella would sometimes declare that she was changing her
identity, and could not be the same Lucy Raymond as of old. Lucy could
indeed feel the change in herself, and this only increased the
irritation, instead of leading her to remove the cause, by moderating
the ambition which was leading her to a blameable excess in what would
otherwise have been praiseworthy diligence. But just at that time the
coveted prizes seemed to throw everything else into the shade, and she
had no watchful, judicious friend, to point out, in timely warning,
the snare into which she was falling.
Even little Amy, for the first time, occasionally found herself
impatiently put aside, and her requests to be read to met with, "Not
now, Amy; I haven't time. Don't tease me now, like a good child;" and
would steal away, with a surprised look in her soft eyes, wondering
how it could be that Cousin Lucy should not have time to read to her
about Jesus.
One of the prizes on which Lucy had most set her heart was that to be
given for History, one of her favourite studies. In ancient and
classical history she had been very thoroughly grounded by her father,
and had nothing to fear, most of the principal events being familiar
to her as household words. But her knowledge of modern history was not
so extensive, and she had a great deal of hard study before she could
feel at all at ease in competing with her classmates, some of whom
were considerably older than herself, and had given most of their
attention to modern history, the division in which the greater number
of questions were asked.
Lucy had studied with so much diligence, and her daily recitations
were always so good, that she had great hopes of taking the first
prize; and her master, with whom she was a great favourite, did not
conceal his expectation of her success. Just the day before the
examination, when looking over the list of subjects for revision, she
found, to her dismay, that she had unaccountably overlooked one of
those prescribed. It was quite too late to hope to repair the omission
satisfactorily, but she hastily procured the proper book, and set to
work at once, to try to gain such a general knowledge of the subject
as would enable her to reply to the questions that were certain to be
asked upon it. But her overtasked mind refused to grasp the words that
swam before her eyes; and a headache, which had been annoying her for
days, became so severe, that she was obliged to shut the book and
throw herself on the bed, her oppressed mind relieving itself in a
burst of tears.
While she was still crying, Amy came in, and, going up to her, stroked
her cheek with her loving little hands. "Are you hurt, Cousin Lucy?"
she asked wonderingly; and as her cousin shook her head, she asked in
a lower tone, "Were you naughty, Cousin Lucy?"--these being to her the
only conceivable causes for sorrow.
"Yes, Amy, I've been naughty!" exclaimed Lucy impetuously. She saw now
how wrong she had been in allowing herself to be so led away by her
ambition, as to have sacrificed to it all else, even her habit of
watching in faith for
"The service that Thy love appoints."
Numerous instances rushed upon her mind, in which she had turned aside
from opportunities of usefulness, of showing kindness and forbearance
to others; she had been letting her oil run out, and her lamp burnt
faint and dim, and all that she might gain this petty prize, which she
was likely to lose after all! Had she not, in yielding to her peculiar
temptation, allowed herself to become as worldly as those whom in her
heart she had been condemning?
Amy's gentle voice came to awaken more soothing thoughts. "But why do
you cry so, Lucy?" she said. "Won't Jesus forgive you, and make you
good?"
Lucy's "bread upon the waters" had come back to her in spiritual
comfort, just when she most needed it. She put her arms round her
little monitor, and, as she kissed her, her thoughts formed an earnest
prayer that her Lord would indeed forgive her, and help her to begin
again, wiser for her experience, and strong in looking to Him for
strength.
The quiet hours which her headache enforced were of great service to
her, in giving her time for thought and resolution. When at last she
rose, and arranged her hair to go down-stairs, her heart had grown so
much lighter and calmer, that she felt more like herself than she had
done for months, and she could now leave the matter of the prizes,
without undue anxiety, with Him who knew what was best for her, and
who, she was sure, would not refuse her any good thing.