PAUL FINDS A NEW HOME.
Once more the stage swung to at minister Prior's gate, and this time a
slender boy, with a beauty of countenance that made you hold your
breath, was lifted through the door, and set carefully down upon the
grass.
Mr. Prior, who had been dreaming over his sermon in the study, came out,
looking bland as a summer's morning, and was accosted by the driver:
"I say, minister, I always bring luck. Here is one of the nicest little
shavers that ever you saw. He wants to come to school, and I've told
him that you'll be a father to him, and as for Mrs. Prior--well, there's
no doing that lady justice."
Mr. Prior smiled pleasantly, and went up to Paul.
"He is indeed a fine boy."
"Thank you, monsieur," said Paul, taking a letter, which the doctor had
given him, from his pocket. "When you read this perhaps you tell more
sure if I can stay here."
Mr. Prior glanced over the letter, and smiled down with hospitable
kindness into Paul's anxious eyes.
"It would be difficult to answer no, even if we wished it," he said,
kindly; "an orphan and a stranger--it is from such I fancy that the
angels come to us unawares."
"You will not find me too much trouble," said Paul, smiling. "I study
English good deal--try always."
"French is your native language, I think?"
"Yes, monsieur!"
"Then we will soon find a lady who can talk with you; come, my little
man."
The minister led Paul into the house, speaking to him kindly enough,
although, in his shyness, he was always sadly at a loss what to say to
any child, and the boy looked so sorrowful at parting with his friend
that the clergyman was in doubt what manner of argument to employ by way
of consolation.
He gave the little fellow a seat in the parlor, and went away to find
Mrs. Prior, and inform her of the arrival of her new pupil. She hurried
in at once, and her motherly kindness soon made Paul, in a measure,
forget his loneliness and desolation.
Mrs. Mason and Rose had gone out to walk; so, for an hour or two, the
little woman gave the boy her undivided attention. He refused dinner,
saying they had dined on the road; but Mrs. Prior, out of the experience
of her schoolmistress days, had great faith in the unlimited powers of
children in the way of voraciousness, so she brought him all manner of
quaint shaped cakes and crullers, red apples and nuts, until Paul was
confused by the abundance, and sat with them on the handkerchief laid
across his lap, staring ruefully at the pile, and really not knowing
where to begin.
But what comforted Paul more than any thing was to hear himself
addressed in his native language, which Mrs. Prior spoke with a
sufficient degree of fluency.
"I have a little girl here," she said, "who will be a nice playmate for
you."
"Is she a pretty little girl?" Paul asked; for he possessed a keen
appreciation of beauty.
"Very pretty; her name is Rose, and she is nice and sweet, like her
name."
Paul was interested at once, and poured forth a flood of questions with
such volubility that it required all Mrs. Prior's knowledge of French to
follow him. When he learned that it was the very Rose that Tom Hutchins
had talked of so much, he felt at once that he had fallen among old
friends, and his face brightened till its singular beauty became a
marvel in the eyes of the minister's little wife.
Before Mrs. Mason and her daughter returned, Paul and his hostess had
become the best friends imaginable. He grew very confidential, made her
cry heartily with a few words which conveyed an account of his mother's
death, and she brightened at the story of his rescue at sea, and in her
gentle heart blessed the rough sailor of whom Paul spoke so lovingly. In
the glow of these benevolent feelings she determined to do every thing
in her power to make the child's residence in her family a happy episode
in his life.
When she heard Mrs. Mason and little Rose in the hall, Mrs. Prior went
out and asked them to come in.
"I want your daughter and my new charge to be good friends," she said,
pleasantly, to Mrs. Mason.
"I will see him before I give any answer, if you please," replied that
lady, who grew more haughty and insolent every day.
"His society could not fail to be of benefit to any child," returned
Mrs. Prior, annoyed, as often happened now, by the imperious manner of
her boarder. "He is the most perfect little gentleman I ever saw in my
life."
Mrs. Mason made an effort to look somewhat doubtful of Mrs. Prior's
judgment in such matters, but there was a certain dignity in the lady's
manner which checked further insolence.
Indeed, Mrs. Mason herself was wonderfully struck with the boy's
delicacy of features and refinement of manner, the moment she saw him.
Her curiosity was excited, and she asked innumerable questions, which
Paul answered evasively, for his childish instincts prejudiced him
against the beautiful woman at once.
But the little girl and he soon opened friendly relations, after the
first shyness, natural to children, had worn off. In the corner, where
Paul was taken to admire her dolls, all fast asleep, as good dolls
should be when visitors come on them unawares, she began to question him
at once. What child would not? He told her of his perilous sea life, and
of the beautiful country where he once lived, but there were scenes in
that life so dark and terrible that the boy's heart shrunk away from
them even in thought. To have mentioned them in childish play would have
proved beyond his power. Among these were the blows that had been dealt
on Jube, and all his miserable life in that brig.
Another subject which he never mentioned was the story of poor
Katharine. Mrs. Allen, shrinking from the idea that her daughter's
disgrace should be carried to her native town, had cautioned Paul never
to mention their names, and he obeyed her faithfully.
The doctor had obtained a letter from a clergyman in New Haven to Mr.
Prior, which the boy had brought as an introduction, and that was all
the information necessary.
Thus, though Paul and Rose became good friends, he never spoke of the
people or scenes which they knew in common.
When bedtime came, Paul went up to the pretty little room prepared for
him with considerable hesitation, as he had always had Jube near for
comfort and protection.
However, he was too manly for a single remonstrance, and when Mrs. Prior
kissed him good-night at the door, he knelt for his prayers, and
hastened to bed with all speed.
When he was safely in bed, and the warmth began to make him feel
somewhat less disconsolate, Mrs. Prior came to take away the candle,
through fear of imaginary accidents.
"Are you comfortable?" she asked, stopping to look at him, as he lay
with his classical head visible above the clothes.
"Very," Paul said.
"Sleep well, and try to be happy," she returned, giving him another
kiss, out of the tenderness of her heart.
"Thank you, madame," Paul said, touched, as he always was, by any
evidence of kindness. "I like you very much, very much."
Mrs. Prior was not half way down-stairs before Paul was quietly asleep.
Fatigue kept him from dwelling upon this new change. Indeed, he had
grown so accustomed to removals and strangers that he received them with
very different feelings from those which would formerly have troubled
him.