"To each his sufferings: all are men
Condemn'd alike to groan;
The tender for another's pain,
The unfeeling for his own."
--GRAY.
The weather was delightful: because of Phil's return the children were
excused altogether from lessons and nearly every day was taken up with
picnics, riding, driving and boating excursions up and down the river.
They were never allowed to go alone on the water or behind any horse but
"Old Nan," an old slow moving creature that Phil said "could not be
persuaded or forced out of a quiet even trot that was little better than a
walk, for five consecutive minutes."
The mothers were generally of the party;--Lily continuing so much better
that Elsie could leave her, without anxiety, in the faithful care of her
old mammy--and always one or two trusty servants were taken along.
One day Philip got permission to take old Nan and the phaeton and drive
out with the two older girls, Gertrude and Elsie.
They were gone several hours and on their return, while still some miles
from home were overtaken by a heavy shower, from which they took refuge in
a small log-house standing a few yards back from the road.
It was a rude structure built in a wild spot among the rocks and trees,
and evidently the abode of pinching poverty; but everything was clean and
neat, and the occupants, an elderly woman reclining in a high-backed
wooden rocking-chair with her feet propped up on a rude bench, and a young
girl who sat sewing by a window overlooking the road, wore an air of
refinement, and spoke English more correctly and with a purer accent than
sometimes is heard in the abodes of wealth and fashion.
The door stood wide open and the moment Philip drew rein, the girl at the
window called to them to come in out of the wet, and directed the lad to
shelter his horse and phaeton underneath a shed at the side of the house.
Gertrude ran lightly in with a laugh and jest, Elsie following close at
her heels.
The girl rose and setting out two unpainted wooden chairs, invited them to
be seated, remarking as she resumed her work, that the shower had come up
very suddenly, but she hoped they were not wet.
"Not enough to hurt us," said Gertrude.
"Hardly at all, thank you," I said Elsie. "I hope our mammas will not be
alarmed about us, Gerty."
"I don't think they need be so long as there's no thunder and lightning,"
answered Gertrude. "Ah, see how it is pouring over yonder on the mountain,
Elsie!"
The pale face of the woman in the rocking-chair, evidently an invalid, had
grown still paler and her features worked with emotion.
"Child! child!" she cried, fixing her wild eyes on Elsie, "who--who are
you?"
"They're the young ladies from the Crags, mother," said the girl
soothingly.
"I know that, Sally," she answered peevishly, "but one's a visitor, and
the other one called her Elsie, she's just the age and very image
of--child, what is your family name?"
"Travilla, madam," the little girl replied, with a look of surprise.
"Oh, you're her daughter; yes, of course I might have known it. And so she
married him, her father's friend and so many years older."
The words were spoken as if to herself and she finished with a deep drawn
sigh.
This woman had loved Travilla--all unsuspected by him, for he was not a
conceited man--and there had been a time when she would have almost given
her hopes of heaven for a return of her affection.
"Is it my mother you mean? did you know her when she was a little girl?"
asked Elsie, rising and drawing near the woman's chair.
"Yes; if she was Elsie Dinsmore, and lived at Roselands--how many years
ago? let me see; it was a good many; long before I was married to John
Gibson."
"That was mamma's name and that was where she lived; with her grandpa,
while her papa was away in Europe so many years," returned the little
Elsie; then asked with eager interest, "But how did you happen to know
her? did you live near Roselands?"
"I lived there; but I was a person of no consequence; only a poor
governess," remarked the woman in a bitter tone; an expression of angry
discontent settling down upon her features.
"Are you Miss Day?" asked Elsie, retreating a step or two with a look as
if she had seen a serpent.
Her mother had seldom mentioned Miss Day to her, but from her Aunts
Adelaide and Lora she had heard of her many acts of cruelty and injustice
to the little motherless girl committed to her care.
"I was Miss Day; I'm Mrs. Gibson now. I was a little hard on your mother
sometimes, as I see you've been told; but I'd a great deal to bear; for
they were a proud, haughty family--those Dinsmores. I was not treated as
one of themselves, but as a sort of upper servant, though a lady by
birth, breeding and education," the woman remarked, her tone growing more
and more bitter as she proceeded.
"But was it right? was it just and generous to vent your anger upon a poor
little innocent girl who had no mother and no father there to defend her?"
asked the child, her soft eyes rilling with tears.
"Well maybe not; but it's the way people generally do. Your mother was a
good little thing, provokingly good sometimes; pretty too, and heiress,
they said, to an immense fortune. Is she rich still? or did she lose it
all by the war?"
"She did not lose it all, I know," said Elsie, "but how rich she is I do
not know; mamma and papa seldom talk of any but the true riches."
"Just like her, for all the world!" muttered the woman. Then aloud and
sneeringly, "Pray what do you mean by the true riches?"
"Those which can never be taken from us; treasure laid up in heaven where
neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and thieves break not through to
steal."
The sweet child voice ceased and silence reigned in the room for a moment,
while the splashing of the rain upon the roof could be distinctly heard.
Mrs. Gibson was the first to speak again. "Well I'd like to have that
kind, but I'd like wonderfully well to try the other a while first."
Elsie looked at the thin, sallow face with its hollow cheeks and sunken
eyes, and wished mamma were there to talk of Jesus to this poor woman, who
surely had but little time to prepare for another world.
"Is your mother at the Crags?" asked Mrs. Gibson turning to her again.
Elsie answered in the affirmative, adding that they had been there for
some time and would probably remain a week or two longer.
"Do you think she would be willing to come here to see me?" was the next
question, almost eagerly put.
"Mamma is very kind and I am sure she will come if you wish to see her,"
answered the child.
"Then tell her I do; tell her I, her old governess, am sick and poor and
in great trouble."
Tears rolled down her cheeks and for a moment her eyes rested upon her
daughter's face with an expression of keen anguish. "She's going blind,"
she whispered in Elsie's ear, drawing the child toward her, and nodding in
the direction of Sally, stitching away at the window.
"Blind! oh how dreadful!" exclaimed the little girl in low moved tones,
the tears springing to her eyes. "I wish she could go to Doctor Thomson."
"Doctor Thomson! who is he?"
"An oculist: he lives in Philadelphia. A friend of mamma's had something
growing over her eyes so that she was nearly blind, and he cut it off and
she can see now as well as anybody."
"I don't think that is the trouble with Sally's; though of course I can't
tell. But she's always had poor sight, and now that she has to support the
family with her needle, her eyes are nearly worn out."
Sally had been for several minutes making vain attempts to thread a
needle.