A dull, drizzling rain spattered perseveringly against Ruth's windows,
making her little dark room tenfold gloomier and darker than ever.
Little Nettie had exhausted her slender stock of toys, and creeping up
to her mother's side, laid her head wearily in her lap.
"Wait just a moment, Nettie, till mamma finishes this page," said Ruth,
dipping her pen again in the old stone inkstand.
The child crept back again to the window, and watched the little pools
of water in the streets, as the rain-drops dimpled them, and saw, for
the hundredth time, the grocer's boy carrying home a brown-paper parcel
for some customers, and eating something from it as he went along; and
listened to the milkman, who thumped so loudly on the back gates, and
seemed always in such a tearing hurry; and saw the baker open the lid
of his boxes, and let the steam escape from the smoking hot cakes and
pies. Nettie wished she could have some of them, but she had long since
learned _only to wish_; and then she saw the two little sisters who
went by to school every morning, and who were now cuddling, laughingly
together, under a great big umbrella, which the naughty wind was trying
to turn inside out, and to get away from them; and then Nettie thought
of Katy, and wished she had Katy to play with her, when mamma wrote such
a long, long time; and then little Nettie drew such a heavy sigh, that
Ruth dashed down her pen, and taking her in her arms and kissing her,
told her about,
"Mistress McShuttle,
Who lived in a coal-scuttle,
Along with her dog and her cat,
What she did there, I can't tell,
But I know very well,
That none of the party were fat."
And then she narrated the exciting adventures of "The Wise Men of
Gotham," who went to sea in that rudderless bowl, and suffered
shipwreck and "total _lass_ of life," as the newsboys (God bless their
rough-and-ready faces) call it; and then little Nettie's snowy lids
drooped over her violet eyes, and she was far away in the land of
dreams, where there are no little hungry girls, or tired, scribbling
mammas.
Ruth laid the child gently on her little bed, and resumed her pen; but
the spell was broken, and "careful and troubled about many things" she
laid it down again, and her thoughts ran riot.
Pushing aside her papers, she discovered two unopened letters which Mr.
Lescom had handed her, and which she had in the hurry of finishing her
next article, quite forgotten. Breaking the seal of the first, she read
as follows:
"TO 'FLOY.'
"I am rough old man, Miss, and not used to writing or talking to
ladies. I don't know who you are, and I don't ask; but I take 'The
Standard,' and I like your pieces. I have a family of bouncing
girls and boys; and when we've all done work, we get round the fire
of an evening, while one of us reads your pieces aloud. It may not
make much difference to you what an old man thinks, but I tell you
those pieces have got the real stuff in 'em, and so I told my son
John the other night; and _he_ says, and _I_ say, and neighbor
Smith, who comes in to hear 'em, says, that you ought to make a
book of them, so that your readers may keep them. You can put me
down for three copies, to begin with; and if every subscriber to
'The Standard' feels as I do, you might make a plum by the
operation. Suppose, now, you think of it?
"N. B.--John says, maybe you'll be offended at my writing to you,
but I say you've got too much common sense.
"Yours to command,
"JOHN STOKES."
"Well, well," said Ruth, laughing, "that's a thought that never entered
this busy head of mine, John Stokes. _I_ publish a book? Why, John, are
you aware that those articles were written for bread and butter, not
fame; and tossed to the printer before the ink was dry, or I had time
for a second reading? And yet, perhaps, there is more freshness about
them than there would have been, had I leisure to have pruned and
polished them--who knows? I'll put your suggestion on file, friend
Stokes, to be turned over at my leisure. It strikes me, though, that it
will keep awhile. Thank you, honest John. It is just such readers as you
whom I like to secure. Well, what have we here?" and Ruth broke the seal
of the second letter. It was in a delicate, beautiful, female hand; just
such an one as you, dear Reader, might trace, whose sweet, soft eyes,
and long, drooping tresses, are now bending over this page. It said:
"DEAR 'FLOY':
"For you _are_ 'dear' to me, dear as a sister on whose loving
breast I have leaned, though I never saw your face. I know not
whether you are young and fair, or old and wrinkled, but I know
that your heart is fresh, and guileless, and warm as childhood's;
and that every week your printed words come to me, in my sick
chamber, like the ministrations of some gentle friend, sometimes
stirring to its very depths the fountain of tears, sometimes, by
odd and quaint conceits, provoking the mirthful smile. But 'Floy,'
I love you best in your serious moods; for as earth recedes, and
eternity draws near, it is the real and tangible, my soul yearns
after. And sure I am, 'Floy,' that I am not mistaken in thinking
that we both lean on the same Rock of Ages; both discern, through
the mists and clouds of time, the Sun of Righteousness. I shall
never see you, 'Floy,' on earth;--mysterious voices, audible only
to the dying ear, are calling me away; and yet, before I go, I
would send you this token of my love, for all the sweet and
soul-strengthening words you have unconsciously sent to my sick
chamber, to wing the weary, waiting hours. We shall _meet_, 'Floy';
but it will be where 'tears are wiped away.'
"God bless you, my unknown sister.
"MARY R. ----."
Ruth's head bowed low upon the table, and her lips moved; but He to whom
the secrets of all hearts are known, alone heard that grateful prayer.